Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I compliment Senator McConnell, Senator Dodd, Senator Bond, and Senator Schumer on their hard work on this election reform bill. I would also like to thank them for adding what I think is a very important provision to this bill. The bill mandates that States implement a computerized statewide voter registration list, creating a central database that will allow State and local election officials continuous access to ensure that new registered voters are added and that individuals whose names should be removed from the list are removed. This computerized list will prove to be an important tool in ensuring that only registered eligible voters be allowed to vote. In creating this interactive computerized list, though, it is important that only those officials who are authorized be granted access to this list. In furtherance of this goal, my amendment directs State and local election officials to establish and maintain reasonable procedures to protect the security and integrity of the computerized list. As interactive computer programs become more prevalent and more personal information is transmitted and stored via such programs, we must constantly seek to protect personal information secure from theft. In our effect to create a system that allows for easier maintenance of voter rolls, we must make sure that we don't make available information that will allow computer hackers to manipulate voter rolls as well as access our bank accounts, charge accounts or other personal information. This amendment seeks to strengthen the security and confidentiality of information displayed via the interactive computerized list. The amendment's purpose is to keep the interactive list secure. It is not meant to limit information to the public that is otherwise available. Again, I thank Senators Dodd and McConnell for their hard work on this bill.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Reserving the right to object--and I may not object--I just need another second to see what we are doing. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Still reserving the right to object, I ask my friend and colleague, if I understand his request, it is to take up the House- passed bill and the substitute and pass without further amendment the Dodd-Sarbanes-Schumer substitute; is that correct?

Mr. NICKLES. He is saying let's take up the House-passed bill. The request I was going to make, and I ask my colleague if he would agree with this, is let's take the House-passed bill and let's have an amendment on each side, one amendment, an amendment, whichever--maybe it is the Dodd-Sarbanes-Schumer amendment. I believe the amendment I was hoping our side would offer would be the Dodd-Gramm amendment. I ask my colleague, would he modify his request to allow one amendment offered to the House substitute, one proposed by the majority leader, and one proposed by the minority leader, and make that small modification?

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I object to the Senator's request. I ask unanimous consent--this is going to be a very slight modification--that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 252, at the majority leader's call, at his time of choosing; that we can consider Calendar No. 252, H.R. 3210, the Terrorism Risk Protection Act, and that two amendments be in order, one by the majority leader and one by the minority leader; that time agreements be entered into; that the Senate consider both amendments, and then the remainder of the Senator's request--that after the amendments are dealt with, the bill be read the third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements thereon appear in the Record at the appropriate place.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I thank my good friend from Nevada. I hope we can work this out. I am happy to meet with him. I think our objectives are similar. We would like to pass the legislation dealing with terrorism risk protection. We realize there is a serious problem. Just to say we are going to take the House-passed language and pass an amendment that Senators Dodd, Sarbanes, and Schumer have agreed to leaves out Senator Gramm, who also came up with the agreement that I believe Senators Dodd and Sarbanes had agreed to earlier. I hope we can come up with something. You pick the underlying bill, and maybe the underlying bill would be the Dodd-Sarbanes-Schumer proposal, but give us an amendment and let's vote. We can come up with fairly short time constraints--at least on this side; hopefully, we can on both sides--and we can pass something and get to conference. The House-passed bill is significantly different, as my colleague knows. We have to work out the differences with the House. I think this is important legislation and it needs to pass, as the Senator from Nevada mentioned. It needs to pass quickly. Hopefully, bipartisan leadership in the Senate can orchestrate a procedure where we can get this done in the very near future. I thank my colleague. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, Senator Stevens from Alaska, for his statement dealing with the threat--and maybe the threat implemented today--by Saddam Hussein of Iraq, saying he is going to have an oil embargo against the United States. I think Senator Stevens mentioned we imported 263 million barrels of oil from Iraq last year--maybe 273 million barrels. Right now, it is over a million barrels per day. That is a significant amount. I heard commentators say today that we don't import that much. I don't know whose figures they are looking at, but a million barrels per day is a lot. Selectively, right now, we are importing 60 percent of our Nation's oil needs. You need to compare that to the shortages we had in 1973 and 1979. In 1973, I believe we were importing about 34 percent. In 1979, it was about 44 percent. And we had embargoes because of conflicts in the Middle East. As a result, we had significant curtailments in the United States. They embargoed exports coming from the Middle East. We had shortages in the United States, and we had gas lines. I don't quite agree with Senator Stevens that we are going to have gas lines this week, but if the embargo were expanded and lasted for a significant period of time, we could have significant shortages. I think you will see price escalation. How significant it will be depends on how many other countries get involved. He mentioned there might be strikes in Venezuela. That will compound the problem. If you take away a couple million barrels of oil, you are going to see prices go way up, and you may see shortages in the not-too-distant future. Gasoline prices will be going up in the summertime. You can see demand going up and you can see shortages. So I think the Senator from Alaska is very timely in saying we need to do what we can to help make sure that Saddam Hussein doesn't have too big of a grip on the U.S. economy. One of the things we definitely can do is increase exploration and production in Alaska. Senator Stevens mentioned that in Prudhoe Bay, which used to produce about 2 million barrels per day, now is producing less than a million. We need to supplement that. When it was 2 million barrels per day, it was 25 percent of our domestic production. Now it is less than an eighth. We need to really have that increase, and we can do that in an environmentally safe and sound manner by production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We are going to have a vote on that this week. I also agree 100 percent with Senator Stevens when he said that while talking about national security, people should not filibuster. Let's find out where the votes are. Are we going to vote to increase domestic production or are we going to allow Saddam Hussein to be able to suffocate the world economy, and certainly the economy of the United States? Are we going to give him that kind of leverage and power or will we do what we can to minimize it? I encourage my colleagues to take a fresh look at ANWR--at this 2,000 acres from which we are talking about producing. It is an area similar in land size to the State of South Carolina. That is a 2,000-acre footprint, similar to the size of Dulles Airport or the Oklahoma City Airport; it is not that large of an area. If you haven't visited the coastal region of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it is not the prettiest area, and work can be done in a way that will protect and preserve the native wildlife species, including the caribou. If you have been to Prudhoe Bay, you found that the caribou love the Alaska pipeline; you saw a lot of caribou hanging around the pipeline. So certainly it can be done in a way to protect the wildlife and the environment, and it will also help alleviate some of the energy shortages we may experience in the not-too-distant future. We are very vulnerable. We are importing 60 percent of our oil needs today. We need to reduce that or it will be 70 percent in another 10 years. We need to open exploration in ANWR. I hope my colleagues will not filibuster. I hope my colleagues will say: Let's debate it and let's vote on it. This is a national security issue. We cannot have national security without having energy security, and we do not have energy security today. My compliments to the administration for giving us a national energy plan for the first time in decades. They presented an energy plan, the House has passed one, and the Senate has not been able to do one. We did not even have a markup on this bill in the Senate Energy Committee. I have been on that committee for 22 years. I did not get to offer one amendment to this bill. This is the bill. It is 590 pages. It did not have ANWR in it. Why? Because we were not able to offer an ANWR amendment because we were told not to mark it up. This bill came from Senator Daschle and Senator Bingaman, and they laid it on our desks. It changed substantially from the previous bill. ANWR was not in it. We had the votes in committee, quite frankly, to put ANWR in the bill. People would try to take ANWR out, but I do not think they have the votes to take it out. I believe that is the reason Senator Daschle told Senator Bingaman not to mark up a bill. We now have to try to put an ANWR amendment in the bill, and some of my colleagues say: We have to filibuster. I think they are wrong to do that. Senator Stevens is right, we need national security and we cannot have national security unless we have energy security. In light of the fact Saddam Hussein is now talking about and may be implementing an oil embargo against the United States, I urge my colleagues to do what we can to protect our national security with energy security, and that includes exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Stevens), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Thurmond), and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Shelby) is necessarily absent. I further announce that the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) is absent on official business. I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Arizona for his comments. I echo those remarks, particularly in regard to the litmus test our colleague from New York was talking about. That is not the way we have confirmed judges in the last 20 years I have been here. I hope we are not going to come up with ideological litmus tests. If that is the case, we are changing the entire confirmation process. I hope my colleagues will step back and think: We may have a change in leadership in the Senate. Are we going to change the policies of confirmation of judges as dramatically as proposed by the Senator from New York? I hope not. It would be a serious mistake. We need to change and improve the way we handle judicial nominations, particularly circuit court nominations. I compliment Senator Leahy, who has moved through several district court nominations. President Bush has nominated 62 for the district court. We have confirmed 35. That is 56 percent of President Bush's district court nominations. We have been moving through on those fairly quickly. I extend my compliments. We have made good progress. The real problem has been on circuit court nominations. For whatever reason, the Senate has not worked there. The Judiciary Committee has not worked. We have confirmed 7 out of 29. Unfortunately, Judge Pickering was defeated last week. So we have now dealt with 8 out of 29. Twenty-four percent of President Bush's circuit court nominees have been confirmed. That means three-fourths have not been confirmed. In fact, most of those individuals have not even had a hearing. Eight individuals who were nominated in May of last year have not even had a hearing. They are outstanding individuals, as you may see while I talk about some of their qualifications. My point is, we should treat judges fairly, whether Democrats are in control of the Senate or Republicans are in control and whether a Democrat or Republican is in the White House. I looked back at the last three Presidents. On circuit court nominees, Ronald Reagan had 95 percent of his circuit court nominees confirmed in his first 2 years, 19 out of 20. President Bush had 22 out of 23 confirmed; again, 95 percent. President Clinton, 19 out of 22 circuit court nominees were confirmed in his first 2 years. But yet President Bush to date only has 7 out of 29. A majority of the remaining, 20 in fact, have not even had a hearing. That is not right. Many of those individuals were nominated almost a year ago. There is no good reason they have not had a hearing. We need to move forward. Some of these individuals are as well- qualified as anybody you will find anywhere in the country. To think they were nominated in May of last year and haven't even scheduled a hearing makes you wonder what is going on. It is not like we haven't tried. I know every Republican Senator has written a letter to Senator Daschle and Senator Leahy saying: We want hearings on some of these individuals. But we haven't been successful. I think we need to treat these nominees fairly, regardless of who is in power, Democrats or Republicans, regardless of who is in the White House. I am embarrassed for the Senate when we have something such as this, only 7 out of 29, and 20 of 29 haven't even had a hearing. That is not right. You have individuals such as John Roberts who is nominated for the circuit court of appeals for the District of Columbia. He graduated from Harvard College, summa cum laude, in 1976; received his law degree magna cum laude in 1979 from Harvard Law School. He is managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. He has presented arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court 35 times. An individual in the private sector has argued before the Supreme Court 35 times. He is nominated to be on the district court for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. I think he is entitled to a hearing. He is a well-qualified attorney. We have Democrats and Republicans alike testifying he would be an outstanding circuit court judge. Miguel Estrada, also nominated to be on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a partner in the DC law office of Gibson, Dunn. He has argued 15 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. It just so happens he has a very interesting personal history. He emigrated from Honduras. He got his JD degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, and he is also editor of the Harvard Law Review. He has a bachelor's degree magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia College in New York. These two individuals, two of the most accomplished nominees anywhere in the country, have yet to have a hearing. Yet they were nominated in May. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee has told me on a couple of occasions we will have a hearing for Miguel Estrada. We are still waiting. I think we have waited long enough. I could go through each of these individuals. Terrence Boyle, I remember him when he worked in the Senate. He presently is chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. He has achieved an outstanding record in that. I had hoped we would have a hearing for Judge Boyle. Michael McConnell, nominated for the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, he happens to be a presidential professor at the University of Utah College of Law and is supported by my friend and colleague, former chairman of the Judiciary Committee. This fact alone says he ought to have a hearing. What happened to the tradition in the Senate where we respect individual Senators, members of the committee and members of leadership? I am still aghast at what happened last week. I cannot imagine what we did last week. Never before in my tenure in the Senate would we defeat a Republican leader's nominee. We wouldn't defeat a Democratic leader's nominee. It is just not done. We wouldn't defeat the nominee of the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee or even hold them up because of tradition, the fact that we want to work together. I haven't seen the respect in this institution, and that disappoints me. We have to have respect for individual Members. We haven't shown that respect, certainly when it comes to circuit court nominees. I could go on. There are eight outstanding individuals. President Bush is to be complimented on nominating several superb individuals. These people are well accomplished leaders in the legal profession. They deserve a hearing. One is Priscilla Owen, nominated for the Fifth Circuit. She has worked in Texas. She got her B.A. cum laude from Baylor University and graduated cum laude from Baylor Law School in 1977. I could go on and on. Mr. President, these individuals, men and women, minorities, are entitled to have a hearing. There are two resolutions that we have--The Republican resolution says they shall have a hearing by May--in other words, within a year of being nominated. The Democrat resolution says they will be handled expeditiously. I urge my colleagues to support both of them, and I hope they will be handled expeditiously and I hope all will have hearings by May. Let's treat these outstanding individuals like the Presidential nominees they are, with the respect of the office of the President in making these nominations. These individuals I have alluded to are to the circuit court. Some people have acted like this is district court in my State and the tradition of the Senate is I have a veto over anybody in the circuit court. That is not the tradition of the Senate. It is that individual Senators have a great deal of influence and advice and consent for nominations in their own State for district court, but not circuit court. Circuit court applies to many States. I am embarrassed for the Senate for the fact that we have 8 vacancies on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals--8 out of 16. Half of the court is vacant because 1 or 2 Senators are not happy about something that happened maybe years ago, so we are going to penalize all the States that are involved in the Sixth Circuit. That is wrong. We are holding up 7 nominees right now, who have yet to have a hearing, who have been nominated by President Bush to fill vacancies in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. That is wrong. It is wrong for the President and wrong for the system of justice. So it needs to be remedied. I urge my colleagues, before people start--the press has been asking me what kind of retribution there is going to be. I don't want that ``that is the way you treated our judge, so we are going to treat your judge that way.'' I don't want to play that game. I want to treat nominees with respect and do it whether we are in the majority in the Senate or in the minority, or whether the President is in my party or not. I want to treat these nominees with respect and give them the courtesy of a hearing, without undue delay, and maintain the tradition of the Senate, where each President has been getting 90-some percent of their nominees. Granted, I understand the statistics game. Well, in President Clinton's last year, he didn't get very many. The tradition of the Senate is that nominees are not usually considered in great numbers in the last year of their term. Then if they are reelected, they get more. But for President Clinton, we confirmed 377 of his judges, second only to Ronald Reagan, for whom we confirmed 382 judges. So both of them got a lot of judges confirmed. Those are lifetime appointments. That is pretty good. President Clinton got 129 in his first 2 years and almost 250 in his last several years. Now, both had a lot of judges confirmed. If you look at Bill Clinton, he got 90 percent of his judges in the first 2 years, including 2 Supreme Court nominees. President Bush 1 got 93 percent of his confirmed in his first 2 years, and Ronald Reagan got 98 percent of his judges confirmed in the first 2 years. The tradition of the Senate is that we do confirm circuit and district judges pretty rapidly in a President's first 2 or 3 years-- maybe not quite so fast in the fourth year. Fair enough. This President hasn't been treated fairly, in my opinion, when it comes to circuit court nominees. I urge colleagues, instead of playing retribution and looking back at President Clinton's last year, let's do this right and treat everybody with respect--individual Senators as well as the nominees. I think if we do so, the Senate will be elevated. I think the treatment of some of these judges, including Judge Pickering, the Senate was not elevated; I think it was demeaning to the Senate. And the way we have treated these 20 circuit court nominees has been demeaning to the Senate. I hate to see that happen to a person who served in this institution and loves it. One of the most important things we can do in the Senate is the confirmation of lifetime appointments to the Federal bench. We need to do it right and this year, at least on the circuit court nominees, we have not been doing it right. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi) and the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Stevens) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi) and the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Stevens) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Spector), the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Stevens), and the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Thurmond), are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield to make sure we are both on the same wavelength?

Mr. NICKLES. Any incremental new hydro would count as renewable. I concur.

Mr. NICKLES. Would the Senator agree with me, in your definition of 10 percent renewables, existing hydro is not counted in that definition?

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

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I see my friend and colleague from New Mexico. I have mentioned in two or three speeches my displeasure about how this bill was brought to the floor. I will not repeat that speech again. But this bill presented to us is the third iteration. It is a 590-page bill with a renewables section. I was preparing to debate the renewables section. Now I find the renewables section has been amended two or three times. I am looking at the renewables section. I ask my colleague from New Mexico to correct me if I am wrong. The mandate requiring utilities and retail electric suppliers to produce 10 percent of their electric power from renewable sources does not include public power. Is that correct?

Mr. NICKLES. If the Senator will yield a little bit further, in the original bill, public power was included in the renewable mandate. Is that correct?

Mr. NICKLES. I thank my colleague for the clarification. Mr. President, this is an important statement for my colleagues in the Northwest. It is an important exemption. I have heard many people on the floor of the Senate say: Well, renewables don't cost anything. If renewables don't cost anything, why do we exempt Bonneville Power? Why do we exempt the city of Los Angeles? Why do we exempt TVA, the Tennessee Valley Authority? Why do we exempt public entities, period, if this is so good for the private sector? People say it does not cost anything, and renewables are so beneficial to the general well-being of a national energy policy. Why are we exempting such a large portion--rural co-ops, public powers, large municipalities? I fail to see the wisdom in it. It may well be that if we did it, those public entities would be screaming because we would be increasing their costs. I hope everybody understands, I support the Kyl amendment because it will not cost nearly as much as the underlying Bingaman proposal, not the one that is in the bill but the one that has now been offered before the Senate. I have tried to calculate how much it costs. Costs happen to be important. I hope everybody realizes, if we do not adopt the Kyl amendment, or something close to it, we will be--by this act of Congress, by the Bingaman amendment, by the renewables mandate-- increasing utility costs, electricity bills all across the country. I say that because we may well do it. I want people to know there is going to be a cost involved. You don't put on a mandate on that says you have to have 10 percent of your power come out of what is classified as a renewable, an incremental renewable, with a new cost--and that power may cost two or three times as much as the marketplace power costs--and then pretend it does not cost anything. How much does it cost? I did some calculation of a utility in my State, Oklahoma Gas & Electric. We calculated how much energy they produce. We calculated the cost of compliance assuming they did not have wind power, and so on, so they would have to purchase it. In the bill, the replacement cost they could get from the Government would be for these credits which would be 3 cents per kilowatt hour. So if you calculate that, for Oklahoma Gas & Electric, the largest utility in my State, it would cost them $62 million--not an insignificant cost. It is an increase in the cost to a utility in Oklahoma of about 5 percent; in fact, that would be for most of the utilities in the country. Let's see if I have one from Minnesota. You are looking at a cost increase of about 5 percent. You might say, how did you calculate that? I will give you a thumbnail sketch. You mandate that 10 percent of the cost must be in renewables. The most efficient of the incremental renewables is wind energy. For wind energy, the cost will be at least 3 cents per kilowatt hour, plus there is a tax credit of 1.7 cents per kilowatt hour. So the total is 4.7 cents. Guess what. The market wholesale cost of electricity right now is 2.2, 2.3 cents. You are talking about an increase; you are talking about a cost to both the taxpayers and the consumers of 4.7 cents, just to start. So you are talking about something twice as much as the cost of electricity in the country, and you are saying 10 percent of it has to be in the renewables. If you take just 10 percent of the power costs--and it says the energy consumed or the energy produced must be more expensive or twice as expensive--you have increased their cost by at least 5 percent. I do not know if people around here are really cognizant, but the more I learn about this renewable section, the more I am flabbergasted of how people are thinking they are going to vote for it and not increase costs. It is an enormous cost increase--enormous, in the billions of dollars. It is billions of dollars that transfer from basically fossil fuel plants to certain areas or certain companies that produce so-called credits or they can buy the credits from the Government. If they can buy the credits from the Government, the Government has a big new fundraiser in this, a big tax increase that utility payers are going to be paying. I make mention of two or three issues. The original Bingaman amendment that was in this section did not exclude public power. It did not exclude the city of Los Angeles, which, incidentally, has a powerplant and consumption as big as Oklahoma Gas & Electric--pretty good size--and they are exempt. Oklahoma Gas & Electric is not exempt, but the city of Los Angeles is. I heard the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer, say, yes, these renewables are great. If they are so great, why don't they apply to the city of Los Angeles? Why doesn't it apply to Bonneville? Why doesn't it apply to TVA? Why doesn't it apply to municipalities? Why doesn't it apply to co-ops? There is support from co-ops. They don't want to have their cost go up. Certainly, we don't want to mandate that the municipalities have their cost go up. We don't want the cost to go up for public power. We will exempt them and maybe buy some votes. But who are we going to sock it to? Oh, we will sock it to anybody else that happens to be a privately owned utility. We will sock it to them. There may be one or two that might benefit. Maybe they will produce enough of the credits so they can sell them, so they can sell the electricity. They can get tax credits of 1.7 percent. And they can get the credit from other utilities that do not have enough credits to meet their 10-percent mandate. They get three times the value of electricity from the Government. They will get almost a 200-percent rate of return from the Government, and they get to sell the electricity. That is a pretty good deal for a couple utilities. But for consumers, they get a bill. Some people say it does not make any difference because this is hidden. This is not going to come as a tax in the form of Congress issuing a tax increase. We are not doing that. We are telling the utilities: You go do it. We are mandating that you do it. And you bill your customers, who happen to be our constituents. We ought to rename this section, ``Renewable Section of Congress Increasing Electricity Prices,'' because that is what it is. It is a Btu tax. It is a tax increase. It is a utility rate increase, pure and simple. You cannot mandate that 10 percent of the marginal power has to be increased from certain renewable sources. It is very interesting to note, a renewable source is not hydro under the definition in the bill. They left out hydro, which is as renewable as any. Oh, it is left out. Why? I don't know why, but it was left out. It is renewable, but we are just not going to define it, so it is left out. The more you find out about this amendment, the proposal by my colleague from New Mexico, the less sustainable it is. I wish to mention a few companies--we have gotten this from the Energy Information Administration, Department of Energy--and with how much energy they produce, and with the 10-percent renewable requirement, and assuming they have to purchase the offset, the credits, how much will it cost: the Public Service Utility of New Hampshire, $21 million--a pretty good hit--Kansas City Power & Light, $16 million; Kansas Gas & Electric, $27 million; Nevada Power Company, $50 million; Sierra Pacific Power Company, $24 million; Arizona Public Service Company, $67 million; Tucson Electric, $24 million; Pacific Gas & Electric, $216 million. Guess what. Pacific Gas & Electric was having a hard time staying out of bankruptcy. They actually filed for bankruptcy. We are going to put on a mandate that they have to spend $216 million. We are exempting Bonneville but not exempting Pacific Gas & Electric. Maybe they have offsets to reduce that. Maybe they have enough wind energy to do it, but I doubt it. Georgia Power, $223 million. I could go on and on. My point being, I do not think this amendment has been well thought out. I do not think we have had a hearing on this proposal. The proposal deals with billions and billions of dollars of increases in electricity costs. Some people are saying, oh, let's just have a renewable standard of 20 percent, 10 percent. Oh, it is all doable. We have to have renewables. I believe in renewables. I want to have renewables. And I want to encourage wind power and encourage other alternative sources of energy. But I just don't know that we want to pass a law that says you must have 10 percent of your power from this source defined as a renewable, and, oh, we forgot to include hydro, and we don't care how much it costs. That is really the impact of this amendment. Consumers beware. I compliment Senator Kyl because I think he has come up with an affordable substitute, one that encourages alternative sources but does not mandate it, does not dictate that your electricity prices will be increasing by 5 or 10 percent, which I believe is the case in the underlying amendment. Senator Kyl's amendment treats all utilities fairly. The amendment proposed by my colleague from New Mexico socks it to some utilities but it exempts a bunch of other utilities. Why should California be exempt and Texas and Oklahoma not be exempt? That doesn't quite seem right to me. Why is the Northwest exempt? Why is Bonneville exempt and the privately owned utilities are not? They already have lower utility rates in many cases because they have Federal hydropower, which is pretty cheap. It was built a long time ago. So they already have low rates, and we are going to exempt them. But the other rates, no, you are stuck. We are going to sock it to you. I just question the wisdom of that. I hope my colleagues will look at this long and seriously. Seldom do we have an amendment that will have such a significant impact of billions of dollars, and seldom do we have as many colleagues kind of absentee as far as knowing what the impact of this amendment would be on their constituents. I would like for people to pause and think. I will be happy to share information that the Energy Department has provided us on what this might cost your utilities and what your utilities will have to pass on to the constituents. It won't cost the utilities money. They will charge that added, mandated cost from this Senate to their customers. So the utilities won't pay it. I have mentioned a few of these. MidAmerican Energy Company faces 44.6 million dollars in increased utility prices. They will only transfer these costs to their customers. The truth is, a lot of those customers are going to be companies that maybe are struggling to survive, that maybe are having a hard time creating jobs. And we are going to increase their utility prices by 5 or 10 percent. Some companies, some corporations, commissions, maybe the Texas Railroad Commission will say: We really don't want this to happen to the residential consumers, so we will just have the increase and sock it to the big users. There won't be as much political fallout. There might be a loss of jobs in the process. Maybe they will make it apply equitably to residential consumers as well. They will have a big increase. Then people will go ballistic. People will say: Wait a minute, where did this mandate come from? It came from Congress in the year 2002. We didn't see it in our bill until 2004, or maybe we didn't see it fully implemented until 2008. It passed in the year 2002 because somebody thought it was a good idea. I think my colleague from Arizona has the right idea. I hope our colleagues will support it. I hope they will start looking at the underlying cost that is in this so-called Bingaman amendment. I hope they will look at the cost of that amendment and say: Isn't there a better way, a more affordable way? Should we not include hydro in renewables? Shouldn't we include public power? If we are going to mandate it on all private power, should we not include public power as well? If we are going to have a universal energy policy, why would we exempt rural electric co-ops? Why would we exempt municipalities, enormously large public power such as Bonneville and TVA? It is a mistake. I urge my colleagues to support the Kyl substitute to the Bingaman amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield? I am talking about wholesale cost which is the replacement cost where if you have incremental renewables going into the system, they are paid the wholesale cost, not the retail cost.

Mr. NICKLES. That is correct.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I know my colleague from Virginia has been patient. I rise to make a couple points. The wholesale power cost, which my colleague alluded to, was 4.-some cents. The spot market on wholesale power cost in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey and Maryland exchange was 2.1 cents to 3 cents from January to March. And Palo Verde is 2.2 cents to 4.3 cents between January and March. Those are current prices that I just wanted to mention. If a utility, for whatever reason, doesn't have 10 percent renewable--and most all utilities don't; there might be one or two, but most of them don't---- they are either going to have to reduce it or buy it. If they have to buy it, the cost is up to 3 cents. There is also a 1.7-cent tax credit. That equals 4.7 cents. That is still 100 percent more than what the marketplace is providing in the examples my colleague and friend from New Mexico mentioned. But I am just saying the spot price in some big areas in the country is 2 cents to 3 cents. You are talking about a rate of return for this incremental power of over 100 percent more than market price today. That is expensive. That will greatly increase costs, and somebody will have to pay for it. Ultimately, electric consumers will pay for it. They need to know that before we pass this amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, we are concluding a great debate that has lasted for years. I compliment the primary sponsors of this legislation, Senators McCain and Feingold, for their tenacity, perseverance, and stubbornness in making this event happen. They have been very committed to their cause, and I compliment them for that. I like to see my colleagues and friends who have very strong beliefs work to enact legislation to implement those beliefs. They have done that today. They will be successful today. I congratulate them and compliment them. I also compliment my friend from Kentucky, Senator McConnell, as well as Senator Gramm, for their tenacity in opposing this particular legislation. I happen to agree with them on the substance of the issue. It is great to see a deliberative body, a body that is able to have friendships that are very strong and opinions that are very strong, express itself and do so in the form of debate and with significant discussion. We have done that. We have done it, frankly, over the course not just of this legislative session, but over 2 or 3 years. Looking at the substance of this legislation, we have had a great debate. We have had good leadership. We have had very dedicated individuals who have committed a great portion of their legislative career either promoting or opposing this legislation. It has been good for the body. It has been a good debate on strong issues--strong issues because we are dealing with the Constitution. When we are sworn to take the office of a U.S. Senator, we are sworn to uphold the Constitution. It is not done lightly. It is done by every Member of the Senate. The Constitution says that Congress shall make no law respecting establishment of religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech. Our forefathers believed so strongly about this particular section, it is the first amendment. If you read the papers at the time, some of our forefathers thought that wasn't necessary; it was almost a given. Others said: No, we need to make sure we have the fundamental freedoms of religion, speech and assembly. Let's make it the first amendment, even though it is self-evident. So they did. This was the first amendment to the Constitution. Now we are going to be telling some groups: Wait a minute you can influence ads or have involvement in campaigns, but if you want to say Senator Gramm from Texas is the best Senator ever, you have to do that in a particular way. Well, you can only do that with certain kinds of money, but not other kinds. Maybe you think he is the worst Senator and you want to run an ad that says that. Some groups are going to have a hard time doing that. They are going to have to abide by a host of new legalities. We are infringing on free speech, in my opinion; though that will ultimately be contested in court. I happen to have faith and confidence in the judicial branch. It will be a very interesting argument before the Supreme Court, and I have no doubt that my colleagues from Arizona, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Texas, and perhaps from Oklahoma, will witness that argument before the Supreme Court. It may be one of the most exciting and interesting hours of debate before the highest court in the land. I look forward to that. I won't dwell on it much further. I think the bill has a constitutional problem. I think we are, in some ways, infringing and impeding free speech. I want to talk about a few other components in the legislation. In some ways, I think the bill was improved from the way it left the Senate. When this bill left the Senate, it had a provision that said politicians get lower broadcasting rates--the so-called Torricelli amendment. I opposed that amendment vigorously, but I lost on the floor of the Senate. I am pleased to say the provision was removed in the House. I didn't think we should pass campaign reform, act as if we are doing great things, then have people find out that politicians get preferential rates over others. I find the bill faulty when it says we are going to ban soft money, but with an effective date that is after the next election. If we are going to do it, shouldn't it be immediate? Now you are going to see a little splurge of spending, with groups trying to raise all the soft money they can. I also find the bill to be faulty from the standpoint that it will limit soft money going to local parties, but not soft money and other funding going to interest groups that will certainly try to influence elections. My guess is that we will hamper or reduce the influence and effectiveness of national parties. However, now you will soon have a lot of special interest groups that will grow in their influence, that will raise a lot more money, that will enhance their get-out-the-vote efforts, et cetera. So you are going to have a multiplication of special interest groups, where their power will grow, where they will be outside the national party effort, but they will be independent--maybe--and they will be very much trying to influence elections. So instead of having, more or less, two major political parties, you may have a multitude of special interest groups with a lot of money trying to influence elections. We will have to see. I think you can win elections if you have the best candidates, no matter what the rules are. So it is in the interest of both parties to recruit the best candidates, and may the best candidates win. One other comment where the bill falls short, and where I tried to fix this on the floor and was not successful. Unfortunately, we didn't make sure that all political contributions were voluntary. It bothers me to think we are going to have campaign reform and still have millions of Americans who are compelled to contribute to campaigns against their will, with which they don't agree, which they are opposed to; that is still the law of the land. It should not be, but it is. We could have fixed it and we did not. So to have, in this day and age, people who are compelled to contribute to organizations who make contributions to political parties against their will, I think is wrong. And then to say, yes, they can file for a refund, and maybe get some of it back eventually, after the election, after the money has been used for the purpose with which they disagree, is not a satisfactory solution. Nobody should be compelled to contribute unless they agree to it in advance, including any political cause with which they disagree. They should not be compelled to contribute to an organization or political party unless they agree with it. We didn't fix that in this legislation, unfortunately. I hoped we could pass legislation that I could be supportive of and which would meet the constitutional test. I don't believe this particular bill does. I don't think this bill is the end of the world, as some have indicated. We will let the courts decide whether or not it is constitutional. The bill has some positive provisions. I think indexing or updating the hard money amount, allowing individuals to contribute more is a positive change. So I compliment our colleagues for that. It has some other sections dealing with running against a millionaire candidate, and so on. I think those are good sections as well. So it is not all wrong. I do hate to pass anything that would curb an individual's or group's ability to participate in the election process. Regretfully, I will be voting against this bill--again, with no angst or anxiety against the proponent. I compliment them for their efforts and their success today. I yield the floor.