Ken Salazar

Mr. SALAZAR

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, it is with a heavy heart that I rise today to honor the life and heroic service of SSG Kenneth W. Mayne. Staff Sergeant Mayne, a member of the 4th Infantry Division, was killed in a neighborhood outside of Baghdad on September 4, 2008, when a roadside bomb struck his vehicle. He was 29 years old. A graduate of Arvada West High School in Colorado, Staff Sergeant Mayne enlisted in the Army in 1997 at the age of 18. According to his mother, Michelle, he immediately took to the discipline and dedication to duty that defines the life of an American soldier. He chose to make service to country his career. He was first deployed to Iraq in 2003 with the 101st Airborne, and spent a year there in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Later, Staff Sergeant Mayne transferred to the 4th Infantry Division in Fort Hood, TX, because the division was scheduled to be moved to Fort Carson, CO, following its deployment to Iraq in March 2008. He loved Colorado and wanted to go home to be close to his family. Following his discharge, he intended to become a history teacher. Those who knew Kenneth described him as brave, as dedicated to his men, and as possessing a great empathy for the children of Iraq. During his patrols in Sadr City, one of the poorest and most volatile neighborhoods in the country, Kenneth distributed toys, soccer balls, and coloring books to Iraqi children that his mother had sent from home. Concerned about their health, he worked with his men to get fresh water into local schools and to clean up sewage so that children had a clean place to play. He believed in the work he was doing because he could see the difference he was making in people's lives. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that, ``to share often and much . . . to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.'' For all the Iraqi children who are better off, for all the neighborhoods that are safer, for all those whose image of America has been transformed, Staff Sergeant Mayne has succeeded. Staff Sergeant Mayne embodied an America that reaches out to those in need, an America brimming with kindness and compassion, an America that ``shares often and much.'' For all this, and for his tireless service to his country, Sergeant Mayne has the eternal gratitude of his nation. To Kenneth's mother Michelle, his father, his stepfather Dan, his sisters Christina and Jennifer, his brother Danny, and all his friends and family, I cannot imagine the sorrow you must be feeling. I hope that, in time, the pain of your loss is assuaged by your pride in Kenneth's service to his country and by your knowledge that his country will never forget him. We are humbled by his service and his sacrifice.

Mr. SALAZAR

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, on this day of commemoration, 7 years after the attack here on American soil, I think it is very important and proper for all of us here in the Senate and all across America to stop and reflect on the great peace and security we have in America; the fact that there are so many policemen and first responders and others who make sure America remains safe. And to be sure, today it is important for us to remember those who gave their lives on 9/11--those who died in the field in Pennsylvania, and those who died at the Pentagon and in New York City. It is also important, as we reflect on 9/11 and the events of, now, 7 years ago, to recognize the more than half a million men and women who wear the uniform of a firefighter or a law enforcement officer in our Nation. These men and women who are out there on the front lines of law enforcement really are the ones who keep America safe day and night, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We are able to live in the security of our homes, our communities, and counties in large part because we have more than half a million men and women who are out there every day making sure the laws of the Nation are upheld. So today, as we commemorate that horrific tragedy of 7 years ago, it is important that we commemorate the lives of those who gave their lives that day and the lives of the families of those who died and were hurt that day. It also is important for us to recognize the great sacrifice and contribution of the men and women of law enforcement of America as well as the firefighters and first responders of our great country.

Mr. SALAZAR

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I wish today to make a statement celebrating the 90th birthday of Dr. Maurice Albertson, a Colorado citizen whose compassion for his fellow human beings is evident in his every accomplishment. Dr. Albertson has dedicated his career to enhancing the quality of life of people all over the world. The success he has had in reaching this goal is not just a matter of personal pride, but of global triumph. It is with great pleasure that I wish him a happy birthday. Dr. Albertson began his career as a professor of civil engineering at Colorado State University in 1947. He is responsible for the development of CSU's large and prestigious water resources management program and was named as director of the Colorado State University Research Foundation. Dr. Albertson's accomplishments outside of the university are even more impressive. At the request of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, he established a graduate school of engineering in Bangkok, Thailand. Known today as the Asian Institute of Technology, Dr. Albertson's creation still thrives. Dr. Albertson and two colleagues, Ed and Miriam Shinn, convened an international conference at CSU on the subject of sustainable village- based development in the developing world. The conference was attended by over 350 persons from 34 nations. Following the conference, Dr. Albertson and the Shinns founded Village Earth, an international nongovernmental organization that provides training to communities and organizations in the methods of sustainable participatory development. To date, Village Earth has helped hundreds of people in 15 countries to lift themselves out of poverty. And perhaps most impressively, Dr. Albertson played a pivotal role in the formation of the Peace Corps. In 1960, Dr. Albertson and his team won a contract from the U.S. State Department to undertake a congressional study of the feasibility of creating a Point Four International Youth Corps. The following year, Dr. Albertson coauthored New Frontiers for American Youth: Perspective on the Peace Corps with Pauline Birky and Andrew Rice. This work was embraced by Sergeant Shriver and the Kennedy administration as the concept paper for creation of the Peace Corps. Dr. Albertson continued to work closely with the Kennedy administration in launching the Peace Corps, which has benefited countless volunteers and residents of developing countries worldwide. Dr. Albertson has served as a consultant to the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and many other agencies dealing with development issues. He has been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Colorado Governor's Award of Merit for Science and Technology, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Colorado State University in 2006 in recognition of his exceptional contributions to industry and developing nations. From such an extensive list of achievements, it is abundantly clear that Dr. Albertson has had an industrious and meaningful 90 years. Dr. Albertson, I am inspired by the life that you have led. Our State and our Nation are blessed to have you as a citizen. I wish you a very happy birthday.

Mr. SALAZAR

Mr. SALAZAR. Madam President, reserving the right to object, the purpose of the amendment is laudable. For those of us who work on the Energy Committee, including the Senators from Montana, we recognize that coal is to the United States what oil is to Saudi Arabia. There are ways in which we can advance the usage of coal, including coal gasification and carbon sequestration which we all support. But the proposal put on the table is not something that would get that kind of bipartisan support. I object.

Mr. SALAZAR. Will the Republican leader yield for a question?

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, will the Senator from New Hampshire yield for a question?

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would remind the Republican leader that even the oil companies--Chevron Oil-- have said we do not even know whether the technology is out there to be able to develop oil shale. At the earliest, it is 2015, 2016 when we will know that. We had the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Interior, and in his testimony before the Energy Committee, he said the same thing. So the consequences of moving forward with the legislative proposals propounded here by the Republican leader essentially would do nothing more than to lock up millions of acres of land and millions of barrels of reserves to oil companies that already are getting the highest record profits of any company in the history of the world. That includes companies such as Shell, which reported a 33-percent increase in its second-quarter profit on Thursday, Exxon, and all the rest of the oil companies. So if this is about giving the national public resources away to the oil companies, then I would say we should support the Republican leader's unanimous consent. But it is not about that, it is about creating a new energy frontier for America. Therefore, I object.

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, if we were moving forward with a package of energy legislation that would address the fundamental national security, economic security, and environmental security issues we are facing, and this were part of that kind of package, this might be very well worthy of consideration, including some of the triggers that have been mentioned. But it is clear to me this is another one of the tactics that essentially is wanting to get this Senate and this Congress to the point where we simply are not going to be able to get to a bipartisan energy package, and so I object.

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, it is clear the Republican leader wants to move forward with the opening of places in the Outer Continental Shelf. I would say, on the Democratic side, there are a number of us who supported opening places in the Outer Continent Shelf, including additional significant acreage in the Gulf of Mexico, the 8 million acres that were part of the lease sale 181. We also know there are hundreds of millions of acres in Alaska that are not in a moratoria area, on which we support exploration and inventory of those places. What we are doing here with those triggers being proposed by the Republican leader again is not getting to real solutions that deal with the energy crisis we have and not coming together in a bipartisan way to move forward to have a package of energy legislation that would work for America. I object.

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will object again, it is a phantom solution, and therefore I do object.

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, reserving the right to object for the same reasons we stated earlier, this again is creating a phantom solution to the reality of the energy crisis and the energy crisis we face as a Nation, and therefore I object.

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the reality is the Democrats have been in favor of drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf in places such as the gulf coast, including votes we took here on a bipartisan basis 2 years ago. The reality is the Republican proposal here will not do anything in terms of addressing the gas price issue which we are facing here today because it will not be effective in bringing down the price of gas. I object.

Mr. SALAZAR. Madam President, I wish to make a few comments to clarify some of the colloquy that went on and what I consider to be some of the distortions that were spread. First, there is a misconception that the minority side is trying to spread: that Democrats are against drilling. If you go to my State of Colorado, you will find tens of thousands of natural gas wells and oil wells that are producing. If you look at the votes we have taken in this Chamber, there are many of us who have said we need to go and drill, and we need to explore, whether it is off the gulf coast or whether it is in other areas. So for them to try to use the brand that we are against the use of our conventional fuels and resources is simply wrong. I wish to comment on two or three specific matters. First, on the opening of the Outer Continental Shelf, it is true the President has said he wants to lift the moratoria. It is true Senator McCain has said it would have some kind of a psychological effect, perhaps, on the market. The fact is, there are some of us who say we ought to at least have an inventory of what is out there on the OCS. But no matter how you cut it, the Department of Energy and the Energy Information Administration has said we are not going to be producing anything out there for 7 to 10 years. So it is not going to have an impact on gasoline now. That raises the question: What is the real motivation of these amendments and these agendas on the Republican side? It is a stalling tactic to keep gas on the minds of people through the month of August so they play it for their own political advantage. I think the American people expect better of us. I think the American people expect us to come up with real solutions and not phantom solutions. Solutions that have been proposed here are, by and large, phantom solutions. There can be no greater phantom solution, frankly, than what we have seen countless times over the last 2 weeks: the assertion by my wonderful friends on the other side who have said that somehow out of this shale rock--which is shale; it is not tar; it is not sand; it is shale; it is rock--that somehow we are going to be able to develop 2 trillion barrels of oil out of that rock. Well, it has been tried for about 100 years. Nobody has figured it out. Even the oil companies are saying they cannot figure it out right now. We, contrary to the assertions made by my good friend from New Hampshire, opened the opportunity for oil and gas companies to go in and see whether the technology could be developed. So we have a robust research and development program that is taking a look at whether oil shale can be commercially developed in my State of Colorado, where 80 percent of the reserves are located. So I would hope, as we move forward in what is one of the most important issues in the crucible of our times, that we look to the future to find real solutions that are so important for us on energy because, at the end of the day, what will drive us to that new energy world is the importance of national security, economic opportunity here at home, and the environmental security of our planet. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. SALAZAR

Mr. SALAZAR. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order, following the remarks of Senator Arlen Specter.

Mr. SALAZAR

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, Senators should expect the first vote of the day to begin tomorrow around 11 a.m. That vote will be on the motion to proceed to the media shield bill. If cloture is not invoked, Senators should be prepared for a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the tax extenders bill, S. 3335.

Mr. SALAZAR

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow, July 30; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 2035, the media shield legislation. I further ask that the hour prior to the cloture vote be equally divided and controlled by the two leaders or their designees, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, with the final 20 minutes under the control of the two leaders, with the majority leader controlling the final 10 minutes prior to the vote and with 10 minutes of majority time under the control of Senator Leahy; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed.

Mr. SALAZAR

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, oil shale is oil that is trapped in rock. It is different from the tar sands of Canada today where you can easily, through the technologies that have been developed, create and produce millions of barrels of oil. It is different than oil sands which exist in other places around the world. Oil shale is shale. It is rock. It is hydrocarbon that is locked up in that rock, and 100 years of trying and billions of dollars for research and development to try to figure out how to take the hydrocarbon out of that rock has not gone anywhere. Yet that does not mean we should all shut the door to the potential of developing oil shale. And someday we may. In fact, I was one of the people who helped put together the 2005 Energy Policy Act that created a research and development program, which is well underway in my State of Colorado, to determine whether we can develop this oil shale in the ground. But we have a number of questions which have not yet been answered. So it is not a panacea for anybody to come over here to the floor of the Senate today and say that oil shale--somehow we are going to wave a magic wand and all of a sudden that is going to deal with the pain at the pump today. It simply is not because we do not yet know how to take the hydrocarbon out of this rock. The oil companies themselves--Chevron Oil--said this not so long ago, on March 20 of 2008. Chevron, an oil company most people are familiar with, Chevron and what it does, said: Chevron believes that a full-scale commercial leasing program should not be made at this time without clear demonstration of commercial technologies. That was Chevron in March of this year. Last week, notwithstanding what the industry is saying about oil shale, the Department of the Interior decided that it would move forward and that it would attempt to develop the oil shale through a commercial leasing program. Even within those comments of the Department of the Interior, the BLM said on July 22, 2008--this is the agency of our Federal Government that is going to be responsible for developing commercial oil shale: It is not presently known how much surface water will be needed to support future development of an oil shale industry. Depending on a need, there could be a noticeable reduction in local agricultural production and use. We do not know whether it is 100,000 acre feet or 200,000 acre feet or 1 million acre feet. We simply do not know. Finally, the BLM also said on that same day: The lack of a domestic oil shale industry makes it speculative to project the demand for oil shale leases, the technical capability to develop the resource, and the economics of producing shale oil. I conclude by simply saying that as we look at energy solutions for this very difficult challenge America faces today, let's focus on real solutions. Let's not focus on phantom solutions. One of the real solutions we will be voting on tomorrow will be the energy provisions of the tax extender bill that will embrace a new energy frontier with what is the cornerstone of energy independence that says alternative fuels are one of the ways in which we will get to that energy independence.

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor this evening to speak in support of S. 3335, which is the Jobs, Energy, Families and Disaster Relief Act on which this Chamber will have an opportunity to vote tomorrow morning. It is a real, honest solution to how we move forward on a variety of challenges that face the Nation today, including the huge challenge of energy which we know we face. This has been debated for the last several weeks here on the floor of the Senate. It is my sincere hope we will be able to join in a strong bipartisan vote in support of this legislation, which was crafted in the Finance Committee under the leadership of Senator Baucus. Through his leadership, this legislation that we will vote on tomorrow morning will create the opportunity for us to demonstrate to the American people we can, in fact, find solutions to some of the major problems that are facing us as a nation today. I want to focus, first of all, on the energy tax extenders that are included in this legislation. This legislation will help us as we address the energy challenges of the Nation by making sure what we do is to open the door to one of the cornerstones of alternative fuels and energy independence that we need for America. It will provide extension of the production tax credit, to the investment tax credit, for an industry and for markets that need certainty, and that certainty can only be provided by giving the long- term extensions that are created in this legislation. A ``no'' vote on this legislation tomorrow is a disastrous effect to an industry that is still in a nascent position, an industry that has a horizon where within a few years we can start making some very dramatic impacts to the energy needs of America. Projections by the experts show that a failure to extend the solar and wind tax incentives alone will result in the withdrawal of nearly $19 billion in capital investments and the loss of more than 116,000 jobs in 2009. That is 116,000 jobs in 2009. At this point, we look at the pillars of the American economy, and they are shaky. Last Saturday, it took a Saturday session, but we were able, here in the Senate, with a very strong bipartisan vote, to help put one of those pillars of the American economy on a pathway where we will be able to strengthen that pillar. That has to do with the housing crisis that America has been facing. Tomorrow morning we have another opportunity to address another one of those pillars that is somewhat shaky, in fact, very shaky, and causing a lot of pain to the American consumers and to American national security; that is, the issue of energy which is addressed in the tax extender package that we will be voting on tomorrow morning. When we think about the fact that people are concerned about the economy, they are concerned about their jobs, they are concerned about the pain at the pump, the fact that we have an opportunity to do something about it tomorrow morning, hopefully, will result in the kind of resounding bipartisan vote that we saw on the housing package on Saturday in this Chamber. All people have to think about is the fact that we need to move forward with a new energy future; the fact that if we do not pass this energy legislation, just on the energy piece of this legislation, 116,000 jobs will be lost in 2009. So a ``no'' vote on this legislation is essentially saying no to 116,000 jobs that would be created through the renewable energy world, including through wind energy, which is included within this legislation. I want to make sure that everybody understands, my colleagues in the Senate, and I know that the Presiding Officer, a distinguished member of the Energy Committee, very much understands this reality; that is, we are not talking about the theoretical or pie-in-the-sky kind of stuff, things that may happen in the year 2050 or in the year 3000. This is a picture of a small farm with small wind microturbines that are actually producing enough electricity to be able to power the entire farm operation. In many retail shopping centers around the country, you see these kind of small wind turbines that are creating most of the wind power necessary to power those shopping centers across America. Wind power is here in a very real way, as is solar, as is our opportunity to harness the power of biofuels. Let me say in my home State of Colorado in the brief time that I have been in Washington, DC, I have seen what we have been able to do. In 2004, in the State election when I was elected to come to the Senate, I was one of the supporters of the renewable portfolio standard that created the vision that we would produce 10 percent of our energy from renewable energy resources by the year 2015. As a result of the passage of that legislation, and as a result of the work that the Congress did in 2005 with the Energy Policy Act and other legislation that we have passed to create incentives for renewable energy, we are making a major difference in my State of Colorado. Wind power alone today accounts for over 1,000 megawatts of power being produced in my small State of Colorado and 1,000 megawatts of power is about the equivalent of three coal-fired powerplants. The wind industry tells us we are just beginning. For those who have heard and listened to the highly publicized visit of T. Boone Pickens to the Congress in the last week, you know what he says about wind and how he is investing in wind because we know we can harness the power of the wind. It is not some theoretical committee possibility. We are doing it in Colorado, we are doing it on farms and ranches across the State, and we are even doing it in the cities and in the shopping centers across the State. But it is more than wind. It also is about solar energy. A few years ago there was no solar energy being created in our State. Yet, today, a few years later, we have a solar powerplant in my native San Luis Valley that is producing about 10 megawatts of power. Our military has been leading in many ways in creating a new energy future for America. Now Fort Carson has a solar powerplant which is providing a significant amount of power to our men and women in uniform at Fort Carson. And at Denver International Airport we are about ready to plug in what will be a new solar powerplant. In Colorado and across the Nation we have shown that we can harness the power of the wind, that we can harness the power of the Sun, that we can harness the power of biofuels. Those programs are all what is at stake when we vote on the cloture motion on the so-called extender package. What we have done is we said wind energy is important for America, so we are going to have an extension that will allow the wind energy industry to make plans for the future. We have said biofuels and hydropower and biomass are important. In this tax extender package we have said that we will provide the tax credits or the tax incentives that are necessary for the next 3 years. We have said that solar has huge potential and we should put in an 8-year tax credit for solar in the United States. Again, this is not theoretical work that we are doing, this is real work. Places in Arizona, for example, are looking at the construction through the Arizona Public Service Company of a 400-megawatt powerplant. In my own State we are looking at the possibility of expanding our 10-megawatt powerplant in the San Luis Valley up to 100 megawatts of power. So if we can put these kinds of incentives in place with a 2016 horizon, we are going to make a dramatic difference in terms of how we provide energy to our Nation. So I am hopeful that as we move forward we will be able to have a strong bipartisan vote in support of this energy legislation. Oil Shale I wanted to address one issue that the other side has come to the floor often and talked about for the last 2 weeks; that is, the issue of oil shale. I think as we deal with this energy crisis that we find ourselves in today we need to be honest and straightforward and truthful with the American people. And that means one of the things we ought to require of ourselves as public servants is that we ought not to be about phantom solutions. We ought not be about propounding phantom solutions that we know are not true because for some reason they become politically expedient for someone running for political office. We need to be truthful with the American people. One of those phantoms that has been talked about for hours endlessly on the floor of the Senate has to do with the potential of oil shale where I have seen many of my colleagues with their charts coming out of the cloakroom across the aisle, saying there are some 2 trillion barrels of oil that are locked up in the oil shale of the Rockies; 80 percent of that on the western slopes of Colorado. So because it is in my State, I have taken it upon myself to know about oil shale, to study the booms and busts that have come with oil shale for at least 100 years. I would only say that we are a long ways from developing oil shale and creating gas or diesel out of oil shale or other kinds of fuel that we can actually use in America. The technology simply is not there. Oil shale is shale. It is oil that is locked up in rock. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I have an additional 4 minutes to complete my statement.

Mr. SALAZAR

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, let me first say to my colleague from Florida that he is very correct in making the statement that the only way you solve big problems around here is if you work together. That has happened in the past. It certainly has happened here in the Senate in the last several years, as we have worked on energy legislation. The passage of the 2005 act was an example of Republicans and Democrats coming together and passing what was one of the most significant pieces of energy legislation in recent times. The passage of the 2006 legislation, which the Senator from Florida supported, which opened lease sale 181 and 8 million acres of the gulf coast for exploration, is another example of that bipartisanship. This last year, passage of the Energy Efficiency Act, signed by the President in December, was also another example of Republicans and Democrats working together to reach for higher efficiency with new CAFE standards that have been long neglected and doing other things to move forward with alternative fuels and trying to create an energy future for America that works. Those pieces of legislation all came together because of the willingness of Democrats and Republicans to move forward on the energy agenda. I hope we can find the same kind of bipartisan spirit in moving ahead now on the next chapter to try to address the pain Americans are feeling at the pump. I appreciate his comments and his wisdom in this area. I come to the floor to speak in support of the housing bill which we are now debating in the postcloture timeframe. Housing is an incredibly important part of the American economy. Housing is, in fact, a cornerstone of the American economy. Many of the economic ills which the United States is feeling today, frankly, have been brought about because of the housing crisis we are seeing today. Since housing prices peaked in the summer of 2006, our Nation has seen some very sharp declines in home values. We have seen a staggering decrease in the number of home starts and home sales, and we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of foreclosures nationwide. For most people across America, and certainly in my State of Colorado, when you drive down a neighborhood and you see there are signs, where there were very few of these signs 2 years ago--but now the signs are not only sprouting up everywhere with houses that are for sale, but you also see price-reduced signs--we know we have a tremendous glut in the housing market, in part, caused by the number of homes we have in foreclosure. So a picture of this kind of a sign that you see in front of a home is a picture that tells a story about a family who has lost their home or is losing most of their equity in their home, as they try to sell it at some reduced price. It is a pain that is being felt all across the country, and it is certainly being felt in my State of Colorado. In the State of Colorado, this is what has happened with respect to foreclosure filings over the last 4 years. In the year 2003, the whole State of Colorado saw about 10,000 foreclosures that year. Now in 2007, we are seeing a foreclosure number that is almost 50,000 homes being foreclosed upon in the State of Colorado. You can see the dramatic increase in the number of homes that have been foreclosed upon in my State of Colorado. Mr. President, 1 in 45 households in the State of Colorado has filed for foreclosure. This is not a problem which is circumscribed in some way only to those tens of thousands--hundreds and hundreds of thousands--of Americans who are facing foreclosure. It is also a problem that affects the entire American population that is in home ownership because as houses have been foreclosed upon, as the housing market has faced such a huge glut in terms of the large inventory that is out there in the market, it has had a dramatic impact also on the values of the homes in the neighborhoods. In Colorado, as we look ahead at 2008 and 2009, we know there are about 50,000 more homes that will be foreclosed upon in 2008 and 2009, as adjustable rate mortgages adjust upward and families will no longer be able to afford to pay the higher mortgage rates. But what also happens as that occurs is the surrounding homes will suffer declines in values. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, it is expected that about 750,000 homes in the State of Colorado will see a decline in their value. So it is a problem which does start with the foreclosure market and the financial markets that we have seen, but it spreads out into all of America that is in home ownership, including most of the home ownership in my State of Colorado. Mr. President, 748,000 homes--almost 750,000 homes--represent almost half of the homes in the State of Colorado that are going to see a significant decline in value. So it is a major problem we face. I am thankful for the leadership of the chairman of the Banking Committee, Senator Dodd, as well as the ranking member, Senator Shelby, and all of those who have worked to put this housing package together. As a member of the Finance Committee, I am honored to have had a small part in putting together parts of this bill working with Senator Baucus, the chairman of the committee, and Senator Grassley, the ranking member of the committee. I think it is instructive that this legislation appears to have the kind of broad bipartisan support we ought to have when we are addressing the major problems that face America today. Certainly, I am hopeful by the time we get to about this time tomorrow we will have had a housing bill that will help the people of America. This legislation contains numerous provisions that will help us address this cornerstone of our economy. First of all, the bill provides targeted relief to families and communities that are affected by foreclosure. The legislation will reverse the downward trend in home values and sales and get the housing market back on track. The housing bill contains help for homeowners, for homebuilders, and for home buyers. It creates a tax incentive to reinvigorate the housing market by providing a refundable first-time home buyer credit of 10 percent of the purchase of a home--up to $8,000--for homes that are purchased between April of this year and April of 2009. That $8,000 tax credit will create major incentives for new homeowners to buy homes and help us get rid of the glut we currently have in the market. In addition, the legislation provides tax relief for families that are facing high property taxes. It is the kind of middle-class tax relief we ought to be working on more in this country. This tax relief will provide nonitemizing taxpayers the opportunity to deduct their property taxes from the taxes they currently pay. In addition, the housing bill will increase the availability of stable home financing, and it will do so by allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Authority greater flexibility in terms of the kinds of mortgages they can purchase and insure. That will have the direct consequence of increasing the availability of stable credit. In addition, an amendment in the Finance Committee that was sponsored by Senator Kerry will add $11 billion in the use of tax-exempt mortgage revenue bonds. That will provide low-interest financing and refinancing assistance to low- and moderate-income home buyers. That is an important component of this legislation. The housing bill also contains help for families and communities affected by foreclosure. It does so in a variety of ways. One way is it will provide $150 million for credit counseling. In the State of Colorado, we have developed a foreclosure assistance hotline. It has helped tens of thousands of families since the beginning of this program a few months ago. What we have found through foreclosure counseling in the State of Colorado is that 80 percent of families who contact the foreclosure hotline ultimately end up renegotiating their loan terms at their bank and are able to stay in their home. So it is a very successful program, and the $150 million that is included in this legislation for mortgage foreclosure counseling assistance will be very helpful in keeping people in their homes. The legislation also helps communities which have been, in many cases, devastated by the number of foreclosures, and it will do so by adding $3.9 billion for the Community Development Block Grant Program, which will help communities purchase and rehabilitate foreclosed homes. It is also important there are protections against future foreclosures by requiring mortgage companies to have stronger disclosure requirements, all in the name of truth in lending, so home buyers know what it is they are getting into prior to the time they are signing on the dotted line of very extensive documents. I am proud of this bill. This housing bill sends a strong signal to the families and businesses of America that we care about one of the cornerstones of our economy in America today. It sends a strong signal to the financial markets that we in Congress can work together, Democrats and Republicans, to address one of the toughest economic issues our country has seen. Indeed, the housing crisis we are looking at today is probably the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression. That is why it requires strong medicine to cure the problem. The legislation we have in front of us will do exactly that. In conclusion, this legislation represents months of hard work and bipartisan cooperation to address this key cornerstone of our economy. Congress should pass this legislation here, hopefully in the next 24 hours, and send it to the President for his immediate signature, so the legislation can start providing the cure that is so needed for America today. Mr. President, I thank you for listening and I yield the floor.

Mr. SALAZAR. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. SALAZAR

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to speak about the myth about oil shale and what some people have been talking about on the floor of the Senate and around the country is a quick fix to the oil challenges we face in America today, a quick fix to the high prices of gas and diesel we are paying across the country, and offering oil shale as the panacea that will cure that problem. The fact is that is not the case. Those who are propounding that view of our future energy world, in my view, are false prophets because they are not telling the American people the truth about oil shale. I am concerned and involved with this issue because of the fact that 80 percent of the oil shale reserves are located in my State of Colorado. We are not at a point in time where the technology has been developed for us to move forward in the development of oil shale. So anyone who says this is a panacea to the oil challenges we face in America today is simply wrong. The oil companies themselves have said we are not ready to move forward with a commercial oil shale leasing program at this point in time. Chevron, one of the largest oil companies in the world, had the following to say: Chevron believes that a full-scale commercial leasing program should not proceed at this time without clear demonstration of commercial technologies. That was March 20, 2008. That is what Chevron is saying. Yet notwithstanding what Chevron says about oil shale and development of oil shale technology, we have the Department of the Interior, the White House, and the Bureau of Land Management saying we have to move full speed ahead and rush forward with the issuing of these oil shale regulations which essentially will lock up close to 1 million acres of lands across the West, most of that in my State of Colorado, and doing it without knowing whether we have the technology to develop oil shale. I suggest to my colleagues that as we engage in this debate concerning the high price of gas and our addiction to foreign oil that we come together in a bipartisan way and focus on solutions that ultimately will get rid of the addiction we have to foreign oil and that we embark on a Manhattan-type project that will actually get us to the point where we can finally claim we have set America free. There is broad bipartisan agreement on real solutions that we know work. In fact, in the Energy Committee, on which the Presiding Officer has been such a distinguished and effective member, we know we have come up with solutions that we need to continue to push and push further. If we think back to what we did in 2005, 2006, and 2007 to increase supply, we have also done a lot to diminish the demand for oil in the United States of America. The CAFE standards alone, which we passed and which the President signed into law last December 2007, will save the United States about 1.2 million barrels of oil per day. We use about 20 million barrels of oil per day in America. The CAFE standards we have put in place will save us 1.2 million barrels per day. That was accomplished in a bipartisan spirit, Republicans and Democrats working together in this Congress. With respect to biofuels, an agenda which also is neither a Democratic nor Republican agenda, we have a law now in place that will embrace a new energy frontier that includes biofuels. It is not only ethanol, it is cellulosic ethanol and other forms of biofuels we can use. We know when we do the estimates of how much oil we will save by use of biofuels, we will be able to save up to 1.6 million barrels a day that we will not have to import from the Middle East and other countries that have the world's oil reserves. There are things we have done that we know, in fact, will work. This morning in the Energy Committee, we had a hearing on some of the things that can work. We had a memorandum prepared by the staff of the Energy Committee in which they reviewed some of what we have already done, starting with the 2005 act. They included the following: Section 701, use of alternative fuels by dual-fueled flex vehicles. That is the Flex Fuel Program. Review of the fuel/hybrid vehicle commercialization initiative; advanced vehicles; fuel cell transit bus demonstration; clean schoolbus program; diesel truck retrofit and fleet modernization program; fuel cell schoolbuses; railroad efficiency; reduction of engine idling. Each of those is a different section in the 2005 Energy Policy Act which passed under the leadership of Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman, and with many of us on both sides of the aisle a part of crafting it. It goes on. Ultra-efficient engine technology for aircraft; enforcement of the fuel economy standards; Federal procurement of stationary, portable, and micro fuel cells; diesel emissions reduction authorizations; renewable content of gasoline, and on and on. There are major provisions enacted into law which are good policy which will help start getting us off this addiction we have to foreign oil. We continued in that fashion in 2006 when, again, a bipartisan group of Senators came together and decided to open part of the gulf coast with lease sale 181. That opened about 8 million acres for exploration and production in the gulf coast, a place where we know we have some of the largest reserves that are under the control of the United States. We have been pushing programs that embrace a new energy frontier, as well as trying to put more production online here for the United States of America. It is very important to think about what happened not so long ago, at the end of last year with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. We passed a series of programs that are intended to help us get to energy independence. Chief among them was CAFE standards which were so long in coming and which had been neglected for such a long time. Those CAFE standards, when implemented, will save, as I said earlier, over 1 million barrels of oil a day that we will not have to import from other countries. Those are the kinds of efforts on which we can come together. We can find a new way for America that will deal with the inescapable forces of our time that call us to move forward in an imperative way toward energy independence. Those inescapable forces that are with us today are the national security of the United States of America, the environmental security of our globe, and the economic opportunity which we can create at home with a new energy agenda. That is the kind of program we ought to be getting to today and this week as we try to move forward with energy legislation in the Senate. But there are those who would say, again, it is all about oil shale, that what we ought to do is go ahead and open the OCS, including those areas where there are moratoria. They say we ought to go ahead and take the 1 trillion barrels or 800 billion barrels of oil that are locked up in the rock of the West. And they say we ought to do that to deal with the current problem we have. I am one of those people who is pro-production, and we do have a lot of production that comes from my State. In fact, in the last 5 years, the production of oil and natural gas in my State has increased more than twofold, so we are adding significantly to the pipelines that produce energy for our Nation. But oil shale is not the answer. Chevron said they do not believe we are ready for commercial regulations for oil shale. They were joined by some of the major newspapers in both Colorado and Utah, Colorado being the place where most of the oil reserves are. The Denver Post said: Developing oil shale has been a dream since the early 20th century. But careful planning is needed to make sure the dream doesn't turn into a nightmare. In recent days, some politicians loudly demanded the immediate leasing of massive oil shale reserves in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah as a way to swiftly lower gasoline prices. The Denver Post says: The idea is ludicrous, and goes directly against the advice of the very energy companies that are actively researching how to tap the enormous but economically elusive oil shale reserves. They were not alone. The Grand Junction Sentinel, which covers 20 counties, had the following to say: The notion that the one-year moratorium on commercial leasing approved by Congress last year is somehow a barrier to commercial development is nonsense. If anything, that moratorium should be extended. One might say that is what the oil companies said and one might say that is what the editorial boards of Colorado said, where 80 percent of the oil shale reserves are located. What do the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management have to say with respect to how we move forward with oil shale development? Yesterday, the Bureau of Land Management and the Secretary of the Department of the Interior said we are going to go ahead and issue regulations that will allow the full-scale commercialization and development of oil shale in the West. What is included in the report that the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management issued? In their own words, this is what the BLM said yesterday in issuing the report on commercial regulations: Currently, there is no oil shale industry and the oil shale extractive technology is still in its rudimentary stages. It ``is still in its rudimentary stages.'' It baffles my mind why it is that the Bush administration and the Department of the Interior would want to move forward as fast as they can to get this done before the election and a new administration. Why would they want to do that? Why would they want to do that given their own findings in the Department of the Interior? That is not all they said. They continued in their own report concerning commercial oil shale regulations to say the following: The lack of a domestic oil shale industry makes it speculative to project the demand for oil shale leases, the technical capability to develop the resource, and the economics of producing shale oil. So with that kind of a statement, how is it that the Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, can be in a place where they can issue finalized regulations for the leasing of oil shale for commercial production? The BLM, again in its own words--this is not an editorial board, it is not even one of the oil companies, this is the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management in its own findings saying: It is not presently known how much surface water will be needed to support future development of an oil shale industry. Depending on the need, there could be a noticeable reduction in local agricultural production and use. I wish to make a comment about that. I spent good part of my life dealing with the water issues of the West--the water issues of Colorado, the interstate compacts that deal with the allocation of water in the West--and there is no question that for those of us who come from the arid West, we recognize that water is the lifeblood of our communities. Without water, communities die. They dry up and they go away. We are a water- short State. We don't know how much water will be used in the development of the oil shale of western Colorado. The BLM says we don't know how much water will be used in the development of oil shale in western Colorado. So how, without knowing this very crucial fact, can the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management be ready to move forward with a full-scale commercial leasing program for oil shale? It makes no sense in the world. That is not all they say. They continue with some other comments. Again, this is the Bureau of Land Management, July 22, 2008. That was yesterday, by the way, when the BLM went ahead and issued its proposed regulations. In the documents, July 22, 2008, the BLM says: We have no reasonable way to generate meaningful scenarios to quantify the potential impacts for an industry that does not exist or technologies that have not been deployed. This is not the Denver Post or the Rocky Mountain News or the Grand Junction Sentinel or even the likes of the Salt Lake City Tribune. These are not the words of the Chevron Oil company. These are the words of the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management. Yet notwithstanding these realities, we have a number of people who are telling us to rush headlong and develop the shale of the West. If you look at that shale, what you will find is rock. It is solid rock. That is why, for nearly 100 years, people have been trying to figure out how they can extract the oil from that rock. It is a lot more difficult than it seems. That is why this sense that oil shale development is something that can help deal with the gasoline prices we are facing today is simply a falsehood. I would hope, as we move forward with the debate over our energy future in this country, we can address real solutions--the problem with speculation, which experts tell us accounts for 20 to 50 percent of the price we are now paying for a barrel of oil. We can address the issue of speculation that is included in legislation the Republicans have offered in their amendment and the legislation Senator Reid has on the floor, and there are other proposals we can also include in an energy package, including being much more aggressive in those issues we have included in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, as well as in the 2007 Energy Act we passed. So I hope as we move forward, we will offer real solutions, not false solutions. I believe we have a bipartisan basis from which we can develop that way forward in the Senate. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. SALAZAR

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

Mr. SALAZAR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak as in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. SALAZAR. Madam President, I think it is very appropriate for the Members of this Chamber today to be talking to an issue which is near and dear and extremely important to the people of America, and that is how much we are paying for gas and the importance of energy independence for our Nation. It is an issue I know the Presiding Officer has worked on very long and hard, including her efforts in writing the 2005 Energy Policy Act, as well as her efforts in opening lease sale 181 on the gulf coast. I know how heartfelt the Presiding Officer also feels, as a Senator from Louisiana, in terms of having the domestic production that comes out of the gulf coast being a significant part of the portfolio that fills the supply lines for the United States of America. So I am hopeful that as we turn the page from the legislation we were on today to move forward and try to address the high price of gas in America, we look at the issue before us with open eyes and try to figure out ways of getting to the real answers and solutions to the problem of the energy crisis we face in America today. I think it is important as we do so to constantly remind ourselves of what is at stake today and what makes 2008 different, perhaps, from where we were in the 1970s. We all know then it was President Richard Nixon who came before the Nation and said: OPEC has been formed and, therefore, we as a nation need to move forward to energy independence. Then, not too many years later, we had President Jimmy Carter saying we needed to embrace energy independence, with the moral imperative of war. In those days, in the 1970s, we were importing about 30 percent of our oil from foreign countries. What happened through the 1980s and what happened through the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s? America slept. America slept. The result was, in March of last year we were importing 67 percent of our oil from foreign countries. As the Presiding Officer, in her role as a Senator from Louisiana, so eloquently stated, we have become hostage to those interests of the globe that have the world's oil reserves, and we in the United States end up funding both sides of the war on terror. It is important that we break our addiction to foreign oil and that we take on the national security issues of the United States in a bold and aggressive way and that we do that immediately. I believe what changed from the 1970s to today is the issues that drive us, and first and foremost is national security. We need to make sure we are not held at the end of a noose by the OPEC countries and held by those countries that hold most of the global reserves of oil. Secondly, we need to be cognizant of the fact that global warming is a reality. The days of the debate are over. Science tells us that we have to do something about global warming to make sure we protect our planet. Third, if we do this right and embrace a new energy future for America, we can create a host of economic opportunities for the United States. In my State of Colorado, I have seen what has happened since 2004 when we passed a renewable portfolio standard, and we have gone from a point where we had almost no alternative energy, where we were not harnessing the power of the wind--we had almost zero energy being produced from the wind--to the point today where we are producing over 1,000 megawatts of power from wind. That is about the equivalent of the power generated from three coal-fired powerplants. We were nowhere in terms of biofuels and ethanol. Yet because of policies we have passed in this Congress, today we have ethanol plants that have sprouted up across the eastern plains, giving a new potential and meaning for that part of rural America which has been so forgotten. So there are economic opportunities that also drive this agenda that we are on. I hope as we enter into this debate tomorrow, and perhaps in the week ahead, we join together to try to set America free. When I look at how we are going to do that, in terms of our overdependence on foreign oil, it seems to me there are a number of things that we can do to get rid of that overdependence on foreign oil and, at the same time, make sure we are trying to do everything we can within our power to provide some relief to the consumers of America, to the American citizens who are suffering every day when they fill up their cars at the pump. The farmers, who are filling up their John Deere tractors, are having to pay $1,000 every time they fill up the tractor or the combine; or the trucker, who is having to spend over $1,000--in fact, $5,000 for the big semitrucks--every time they have to fill their truck with diesel. I hope we embrace this and that we can be smart about it. I would offer four concepts, in general. First, I think there is a way in which we can produce more oil. We can do it in many areas, including from the Alaska petroleum reserve. There are a number of other places where we can embrace the production of more oil for America. Secondly, we need to stay the course in terms of pushing forward an aggressive agenda on alternative fuels. More can be done, including how we incentivize the production of biofuels. Third is that we continue to look forward to ways of using what we have more efficiently through conservation measures that we know can stretch out our supplies in a much more significant way, where we have not done what we should have been doing in the last 30 years. Fourth is research and the development of new technology. We now know the hybrid plug-ins and the new batteries that are being developed can help us create a national fleet that can be much more productive in terms of how we ultimately use this very scarce resource that we call petroleum and gasoline. So I hope we can, in fact, come together in a bipartisan fashion to put together a package that will make sense. I will make a quick comment about oil shale. Oil shale is a very important resource for our Nation. It is a resource that we understand in Colorado has been there for a long time, since the 1920s when it was predicted that oil shale essentially was going to be the panacea to all of the oil needs of the entire world. I recognize that most of the trillion or so barrels of oil that have been calculated to exist in the reserves of oil shale are actually beneath the lands of my State, beneath the lands of the western slope, one of the most beautiful places and congressional districts in the entire United States of America. So I believe we are already on a pathway to try to develop the technology to make sure that oil shale provides an opportunity for America in the future. That is why the research and development leases, which the Department of Interior issued under the authority we have provided to them, have been issued. That is why companies have invested to figure out whether the technology is there to be able to develop oil from the shale in place. That is why they are looking at what the requirements are going to be in terms of electricity that will be required in order to be able to heat the oil shale in place. That is why they are trying to figure out if this technology works, how much water it will take to develop this oil from the shale. So I think we have developed a thoughtful way forward, and I am hopeful we can support the thoughtful way forward that we have already developed. A few months ago, in the Energy Committee, the Assistant Secretary testified before the committee. I had questions that I directed to him about oil shale, where he thinks it might be going. He said to me in the line of questioning that, at the end of the day, there is no way we will be producing oil from shale until, the earliest, 2015. That was his testimony, 2015. I have a letter I have talked about before on the floor of the Senate from Chevron that also said the same thing--that it is a long way off. So I hope as we move forward on the debate about our energy future, we can be bold and aggressive and that we can provide relief as soon as we can to the citizens of America who are hurting so much, and that we can also take the long-term view in terms of what we need to do to set America free. As we look at the potential solutions, we need to look at them in a realistic way in terms of the technology we have available to us and the limitations that we also face as Americans. I thank the Chair for serving as the Presiding Officer and allowing me to make these comments. I yield the floor.