Craig Thomas

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 at 9:30 a.m. to hold a hearing on Nominations.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 at 9:30 a.m. to hold a business meeting.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, June 15, 2005, at 10 a.m. for a hearing titled, ``Is the Federal Government Doing Enough to Secure Chemical Facilities and Is More Authority Needed?''

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet Wednesday, June 15, 2005 from 3 p.m.-5 p.m. in Hart 216 for the purpose of conducting a hearing.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, June 15, 2005, at 2:30 p.m. to consider the nominations of Linda M. Springer to be Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Laura A. Cordero to be Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, and Noel Anketell Kramer to be Associate Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Wednesday, June 15, 2005, at 9:30 a.m. in Room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct an oversight hearing on Youth Suicide Prevention. Those wishing additional information may contact the Indian Affairs Committee on 224- 2251.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session on Wednesday, June 15, 2005, at 10 a.m., to hear testimony on ``The Future of Medicaid: Strategies for Strengthening American's Vital Safety Net''.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on National Ocean Policy Study be authorized to meet on Wednesday, June 15, 2005, at 9:30 a.m., on Coral Reef Ballast Water, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 15, 2005 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a briefing.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions meet in executive session during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 at 9:50 a.m. in SD-430.

Mr. THOMAS

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

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I am delighted that we are now into the debate and soon the passage of our energy bill. This is a bill we have worked on for several years. It is a bill that is an energy policy for this country. It looks ahead through the years and tries to get an idea of what our needs are going to be and how we fill those needs. It is something we really need. Certainly, everyone recognizes increasingly the profound effect it has on our lives. Look outside at the thousands of cars. All of them are running on gasoline, of course. Look at electricity. We take it for granted. We turn the lights on, and we do not think of where it comes from or how it got there. Air-conditioning is the same. We have noticed that a lot the last few days. Think of what it would be like if we did not have air-conditioning. We would probably be on recess, and I would go back to Wyoming. All of our technology now is tied to computers. We do not think much about it. This is an opportunity for us to give some analysis to how we provide this and, of course, costs. We do pay some attention to the costs. We have talked about this for years, and we have had bills on the Senate floor. In the last session, we had bills passed in the Senate and in the House. We went to a conference in which they were put together. We came back to the Senate floor, and over a couple of smaller or singular items, we lost. So we have not had a comprehensive energy bill. We rely increasingly on foreign resources, some 60 percent or so on foreign oil. Unfortunately, that is continuing to grow. At the same time it grows for us, the demand grows in other countries. Even though there is some increased production, we see a smaller amount coming, and we see the prices continue to go up. We have greater demand. One of the things that has to be in a policy is a decision about efficient use and conservation so that not only do we talk about supply but we talk about how we can more efficiently use the resources we do have. We think quite a bit about renewables. We think, Oh, my gosh, we do not need to use oil all the time, there must be a lot of other things. Indeed, there are. The fact is that they are in the future. They are yet in need of a great deal of research, and right now, if we take out hydro, which is a renewable, about 3 percent of our power is provided by renewable energy resources. I am optimistic that over time that can certainly be larger, but right now it is a very small part of the overall mix. We have natural gas prices which have reenergized the effort, and we should pay attention to clean coal. Over the years, it has been easier, frankly, and somewhat less expensive to build generating plants that are fueled by gas, and so that is what has happened. We have smaller plants closer to the market, so we do not have to worry about the transmission as much, when the fact is that our greatest fossil resource for the future is coal. Coal is the largest generator of electricity, but we can use gas for many more things than we can coal. With coal there are some challenges. One challenge is to be able to generate electricity and still take care of the clean air and environmental problems that go with that. So we want to emphasize that need for making clean coal technologies. Hydrogen is an energy that can come from coal as well. In fact, there are plants now being planned that will make synthetic diesel out of coal. So, again, that is an alternative source from where we are now. We have some alternatives. We are importing a good deal of liquefied natural gas, which is also more expensive and has created, some controversy about the necessary facilities to have dockings for those kinds of things. All of these are very difficult issues. I have been on the committee a good long time and have enjoyed it very much and certainly appreciate the leadership we are getting from our chairman and also our Democrat ranking member to work toward these things, but I hope that we do look out long term. We are not going to solve these problems next week or next month. We have to look out a little ways and say, all right, what are our needs, how are we going to meet those needs, and what do we have to do in the long term to get there. I hope this is a roadmap for the future. That is what it has been. For over 4 years now, the President and the Vice President have been working. My colleagues will recall they had an energy task force which became a little controversial for unknown reasons, really, but that was one of the first items this administration talked about, and properly so. One of the controversies was that both of these gentlemen had been in the energy business, but all that did was give them more knowledge about it. Since that time, we have experienced higher prices and low prices, and now we are back to higher prices. We have experienced blackouts, which, of course, are a possibility at any time. There are some things we can do in terms of generation. There have been no electric generation plants built in a number of years, and we are right up to capacity, and the same way with refineries. In fact, some say we can get more oil shipped in from other places and refined here, but we do not have the refining capacity. So those are some of the things we need to talk about. I emphasize again to my colleagues that we need a balanced program. I know we all get involved in different aspects of it as it impacts our communities and our States, but the fact is, when it is all over, we need to deal with alternatives, we need to deal with efficiency, we need to deal with conservation, we need to deal with domestic production, and we need to deal with research for alternatives and renewables. All of those things have to go together. Then we get into the electric business. We have to talk about transmission and about a lot of things. It is not an easy subject. When a subject is brought to the Senate floor that has that many aspects, many of which affect States and communities differently--for instance, offshore drilling. Well, in Wyoming, we are not too interested in offshore drilling as it affects us. We are interested in it in that it is the largest resource we have for the future. So we have to deal with different facts in different places. We have a chance now to pass a balanced and comprehensive bill. I am, obviously, very interested in this issue, partly because I am on the committee but more importantly because it is very important for our country. I come from a State that has incredible natural resources. They mean very much to us economically, but more than anything we are a resource for the whole country. We have probably more coal than any other State. We have low sulfur coal. We have coal that burns relatively cleaner than most. We need to continue to make it even more so. We have oil. Some of the earliest oilfields in the West were in Wyoming, and they continue to produce. We are finding new ways to try to recapture oil that we have not been able to bring out of the Earth. We can do that. We have had a whole new growth of natural gas called methane gas. It is engulfed in water under the ground in the relatively shallow wells. We have uranium. We had uranium mines active a number of years ago, and then we kind of got away from nuclear powerplants. Now there is a new opportunity to go back into that area and some real advantages to that, particularly in terms of clean air and climate control. Nuclear powerplants, we kind of think, well, that is a funny thing. We do not know much about them. I think 40 percent of the energy in Illinois is produced now with nuclear plants. We are concerned about the waste areas, such as the Yucca Mountain issue out in Nevada. The fact is, however, that there are opportunities to do things better there. We can look again at France. France uses almost all nuclear power. They have a system of recycling uranium so they do not have the waste the way we do. So there are opportunities to do that. We also have quite a bit of wind, and so we can capture wind energy as well. These are the kinds of things we must do. We must modernize conservation such as with cars--and we are doing that, but it takes a while--so we get better mileage. We are finding household equipment that better utilizes energy and electricity. We have to modernize our infrastructure. This is a tough one, too. One of the issues most of us like to talk about is mine-mouth generation for coal-powered electricity but yet generated at the mine. One has to get it to the marketplace, and that takes very efficient transmission, more transmission than we have now. So these are some of the things we need to do. At the same time we work with more production and different kinds of production with research, we need to protect the environment. We have issues in the West. Half of our State, nearly 85 percent of Nevada is Federal lands. So we have to have a program that allows for multiple use of public lands so that we can continue to use them for grazing, fishing, and wildlife, and at the same time in careful ways we can have production of energy as well. This bill sets some direction in terms of research and incentives. We are beginning to do what we have not done before that may not be as efficient initially economically, but if we can provide some tax credits, we can provide some sort of assistance, then it will become efficient, and then we can back out of that. The way businesses are initiated into new things is to provide some incentive. These are all things most of us would agree to, and the opportunity to pass them is now. The House has passed their energy bill, and when we pass ours, we will go to the conference committee and work out some differences. There are some differences, and there will be differences here. There are different ideas about what we do on world climate activities, Kyoto. I have been to several of the Kyoto meetings, and over the whole world there are different ideas. I seek to remind folks when I go there that we are not putting on some of the regulations that some countries are. We want our economy to continue, and at the same time we are spending more in research for clean air and on the global situation than the whole rest of the world put together. What really is important is to find new ways to be able to maintain the economy, manufacturing and production, and do it in such a way that it does protect the economy. National security, of course, is obviously a real part of this. As we become more dependent on foreign countries' resources, there is some question about our security. We are getting 62 percent of our oil from outside of the United States. Fortunately, much of that comes from Canada, so that is a little less concerning. But we are at the hands of Venezuela and lots of other places if we are not able to be a little more dependent on ourselves. Energy independence depends on the things I have talked about: conservation, efficiency, and new sources of energy. The global energy demand is changing as well. Certain places, such as China, are using a great deal more energy than they did just a few years ago. So the demand for coal has changed where they are importing the kinds of things they were not importing before. India, the whole Asian picture is changing. So these are some of the things that I believe we need to take a look at. We need to be realistic about it. Sometimes we get in sort of a fantasy that we can do all of this with renewables and we do not need to worry about oil and coal. Frankly, at least for the foreseeable future, that is not the case. We are getting about 3 percent of our energy from renewables at this point. We will get more. But, nevertheless, we have to also continue to improve and make sure we have those kinds of sources of energy that we now can depend on. I am particularly involved and interested in the electricity portion of it. We need to encourage investment in generation as the demand increases--and it does, constantly. Look around our cities. Even in our rural areas, there is an increasing demand. Everything we do demands more energy. We need to generate the energy. It becomes difficult, of course, particularly on private lands and some Federal lands, to get efficient transmission. We think there are some possibilities of getting more efficient so the same transmission lines can carry a great deal more of a load than they have in the past. When we get into multiple kinds of ownership, we get controversy about how you have access to the lines and all those things, but we can work those out. That is partly what we are doing. I again congratulate the leadership on this committee for getting us where we are. I am committed to doing whatever I can to get it through because I think it is so important. I believe we have a good bill, a comprehensive bill, a bill that deals with all the aspects of the future. It helps create jobs and maintain the economy--which is, of course, one of the key things--and to keep this country self-reliant and not dependent on the rest of the world. I hope we can move forward to deal with the issues, to talk about them. It is all right to have different views. But I hope we don't get into objecting and holding up things just because we have a point of view. Offshore drilling, already there is some debate about it. We are willing to give the States a lot of their own decisionmaking with regard to offshore. We are not going to tell them what to do. We can make this work. I hope we can move forward and get this job done. Let's get it done. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that the following hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources: The hearing will be held on Tuesday, June 28, 2005, at 10 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the following bills: S. 206, a bill to designate the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail, and for other purposes; S. 556, a bill to direct the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to jointly conduct a study of certain land adjacent to the Walnut Canyon National Monument in the State of Arizona; S. 588, a bill to amend the National Trails System Act to direct the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to jointly conduct a study on the feasibility of designating the Arizona Trail as a national scenic trail or a national historic trail; and S. 955, a bill to direct the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a special resource study to determine the suitability and feasibility of including in the National Park System certain sites in Williamson County, Tennessee, relating to the Battle of Franklin. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send two copies of their testimony to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, SD-364, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510-6150. For further information, please contact Tom Lillie at (202) 224-5161 or Brian Carlstrom at (202) 224-6293.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that the hearing originally scheduled before the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for Tuesday, June 14th 2005, at 10 a.m. has been postponed and will be rescheduled for a later date. For further information, please contact Tom Lillie at (202) 224-5161 or Brian Carlstrom at (202) 224-6293.

Mr. THOMAS

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

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

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I know it has been a busy day and we are very much involved, of course, in moving forward with the judge arrangement, as we should be. I spent a week in my home State. I guess we always come back with different ideas. I spent the whole time talking with people and having town meetings and those kinds of things, and in certainly a little different atmosphere. People see a great deal in the news media about what is happening here, but, of course, what they get is what the media is intending for them to get, and somehow it is a little bit different. So frankly, people are a little impatient that we are not moving forward as much as we might. Certainly, we are working hard here, but the fact is, we have not moved to many different issues. I believe many of us want to do so. I think we have spent an awful lot of time on internal kinds of issues that do not mean a lot to people out in the country. I understand that. I realize the way things are done here is important to us, such as changing procedures and all those things. But folks are talking about energy, folks are interested in a highway bill, people are interested in health and the cost of health care, such as what you do in rural areas with health care. There are a lot of these things that are so very important to people on the ground, and here we are continuing to talk about how we are going to vote on judges. So they get a little impatient. I understand that. So I hope we are in the process of doing something about that. There is also a great deal of concern, of course, in Government spending and the deficit. I certainly share that concern. I have been more and more concerned about it as time has gone by. We have Social Security before us, about which we need to continue to do something. Interestingly enough, the issue that came up most often when I was home in Wyoming is the idea of illegal aliens and illegal immigration and the great concern about that. I share that concern. Most people here do. Of course, we are seeking to do something. But perhaps we need to focus on some of those issues a little more. I particularly will talk a little bit about spending and about the deficit. I think that is one of our most important issues. In relation to that, it seems to me we need to get some sort of an idea of what we think the role of the Federal Government is. We have kind of gotten in the position that for anything that is wanted by anyone, why, let's get the Federal Government to do it. Then we have somebody here on the Hill who will introduce a bill to do that, and perhaps it has very little relationship to what we normally think is the role of the Federal Government. I think most people would agree with the notion we want to limit the size of the Federal Government, that we, in fact, want Government to be as close to the people as can be, and that the things that can be done at the State level and the county level, the city level, should be done there, the things that can be done in the private sector should be done there. I would hope we could come up with some kind of general idea, an evaluation, of what we think the role of the Federal Government specifically should be. The other thing I will comment on a little bit is having some kind of a system for evaluating programs. We have programs we put into place when there is a need. Hopefully, there is a need for them. I think it is also apparent that over a period of time that need may change. But yet, once a program is in place and people are involved, they build a constituency around it. It stays in place without a good look at it to see whether it still belongs there. These are some of the issues of concern. I think the first step toward reducing the $400 billion deficit is eliminating waste. Of course, what is waste to one person may not be waste to another. But there has to be, again, some definition as to how important things are relative to our goals and to assess programs that stay in place because they are there or that are not managed as well as they might be. I think we have some responsibility to try to ensure that we take a look at that issue. There are serious problems facing our Nation today, of course. The President's budget that he put out proposes eliminating 150 inefficient and ineffective Government programs. You can imagine what that is going to mean to people who are involved. ``Something in my town? Something in my State? We are not going to mess around with that.'' There needs to be some kind of a relatively nonpolitical idea as to how you do that and what the purposes are. Of course, I see some of that right now in the military changes that obviously need to be made. They are difficult to make. So I hope the administration will pursue this idea of setting up some kind of a program--and I am here to support it--that evaluates those programs that are in place to see if, indeed, they are still as important as they were in the beginning. We have to even go further than that, of course, to curb runaway spending. I think we can consolidate a number of the duplicative programs that are out there and save money and make it more efficient in their services. There are organizations that could manage a number of programs, each of which now has its own bureaucracy, and to put them together to make it efficient. I know you will always have people who say: Well, you are taking away jobs. That is not the purpose of programs. The purpose of programs is to deliver a service, and to do it in a way that is as efficient as it can be. Of course, there are programs that should be eliminated. They have accomplished what they were there for. We need to have a system. I hope and I am interested in helping to put together a program that would do that. There is probably some merit in having a termination to a program so that after 5 or 10 years, it has to be reevaluated to be extended. That is one way of doing it. I don't know if it is the only way. That is something we are going to do, and I would like to do some of that. The role of the Federal Government, again, if you talk in generalities, if you talk to people in terms of philosophy, most would say, we want to keep the Federal Government small. How many times do you hear people saying: Keep the Federal Government out of my life? Yet at the same time we have created this kind of culture where whenever anything is needed or wanted, mostly money, then let's get the Federal Government to do it. If we step back and take a look at it and say: Wait a minute, is this the kind of thing the Federal Government should be involved in or is this something that could be done more efficiently by a government closer to the people, I believe we ought to do that. Some lawmakers here believe the Government is the solution to all of society's ills. I don't agree with that. I don't believe that. Our role in the Federal Government is a limited role. Our role is to provide opportunities, not to provide programs for everything. Ronald Reagan said: Government is not the solution to our problem. Government often is the problem. That is true. That doesn't mean there isn't a role. There is a role, an important role. But we need to help define that somehow. That vision of limited government has, to a large extent, been lost. We need to debate. We need to have some discussion, some idea as to what that role is. Unfortunately, sometimes the politics of government are are you going to do everything for everybody because it is good politics. Politics is not our only goal here. Our goal is to limit government, to provide services, to provide them efficiently, and to evaluate them as time goes by. Unfortunately, when a program gets put into place, it becomes institutionalized. It is there often without sufficient change. It is a real challenge. Something we need to do is to develop a plan, a consistent and organized plan to evaluate programs, to determine whether they are outdated, to determine whether they are still necessary, to determine if they could be done in a little different way to be more efficient and more effective. Clearly the Federal Government does have a role. It has a role in many matters. So our challenge is to determine what the roles are and then to set it up so that we are as efficient as can be. I know I am talking in generalities, but I believe these are some things that are basic to some of the ideas we ought to be talking about and evaluating. I sense that doesn't happen very much. We sort of are challenged to see how many programs we can get going. We seem to be challenged to see how much money we can spend. I appreciate what the administration is seeking to do to try and reduce some of the spending. That is very difficult. You can see what kind of reaction you get cutting back on programs or changing them. Our budget group is working on doing some of that. We need to be more involved in that. As I mentioned, evaluating programs is something we should do. We have a constitutional obligation to appropriate hard-earned tax dollars in the most efficient manner we possibly can. New government programs get institutionalized. They go on forever. So I think there are some things we could do that would be important, and that we should. There will be some proposals coming from OMB. I intend to seek to help put them into place if we can and have a system that deals with efficiency, a system that deals with identifying what the proper role of the various levels of government is. We will hear the States saying: We need more money. That is probably true. But nevertheless, we ought to have some other definitions besides where the money will go. I hope we have one where we can review some things. I know these are general ideas. I have not gotten into the specifics. But from time to time, I think we have to look at ourselves and say: How do we deal with some of these issues? Clearly, everyone would agree we have to do something about spending. We have to do something about the deficit. We have to look at the future as to how we are going to make this thing work. You can take a look at Social Security. In about 10 years, we will have to take trillions of dollars out of the general fund to put them back where they belong in the Social Security fund. That is going to be very difficult. It is a tremendous amount of money. But that is what we have done, of course, and it is reasonable because that money has to be drawing interest and it is drawing interest. But those things are going to be more and more difficult. We are seeking to try and review and renew the Tax Code so it can be simpler and more efficient and hopefully provide better opportunities for the economy to grow and have incentives for growing by being able to put that money into developing jobs as opposed to coming into the Federal Government. These are real challenges, but they are worthwhile: the challenge of evaluating government programs to see if they are still important, to see if they are still being done the way they were designed to meet the needs they were designed to meet when they were first there, to do something about the idea of controlling spending and the size of the Federal Government so that doesn't continue to expand into every area that is open. We ought to take a look at all the programs that are in place, that we are talking about putting in place, all the bills that are brought in here, and see what a wide breadth of subjects we talk about. Some you could make a pretty good case are not within the area of normal recognition of Federal Government activity. I hope the role of the Federal Government is something we could talk about. We ought to talk about it with the State leadership and get a little clearer idea of how we define these things and get some kind of a measurement against these roles. There are lots of challenges. I will be happy when we can move on through this judicial debate. It is very important, but we should not be spending all this much time on it in terms of how we do these things and get on with the things that have an impact on what we are doing out in the country. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that the following hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources: The hearing will be held on Tuesday, June 14th 2005, at 10:00 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the following bills: S. 206, a bill to designate the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail, and for other purposes; S. 556, a bill to direct the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to jointly conduct a study of certain land adjacent to the Walnut Canyon National Monument in the State of Arizona; S. 588, a bill to amend the National Trails System Act to direct the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to jointly conduct a study on the feasibility of designating the Arizona Trail as a national scenic trail or a national historic trail; and S. 955, a bill to direct the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a special resource study to determine the suitability and feasibility of including in the National Park System certain sites in Williamson County, Tennessee, relating to the Battle of Franklin. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send two copies of their testimony to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, SD-364 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510-6150. For further information, please contact Tom Lillie at (202) 224-5161 or Brian Carlstrom at (202) 224-6293.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I will not take long. I know there is lots for us to do, but I wanted to come over to the floor and express my support for the movement and the passage of the highway bill. I, first of all, wish to thank the chairman and the ranking member for the work they have done. Having been on that committee in years past, I know how difficult a task it is and what a great job they have done. We have been now some 5 or 6 years waiting to do what we really need to do, clearly need to do. All of us have highway problems. All of us have need for an infrastructure. It is certainly one of the things that creates more jobs than almost anything we could possibly have. And the transportation system is something we clearly need for the future. So I guess I am a little disappointed that it has taken as long as it has for us to move forward. But now we do have an opportunity to do that, and certainly it is the time to do it. This bill has been reviewed by almost everybody in the place. We don't need to spend a lot more time talking about it. Certainly, there will be some amendments. However, the House has passed a similar bill. I think we should stick to the highway funding as it was set up in the budget, frankly, but that is an issue that will be resolved in time. So I just hope we can pass it here. I think these decisions as to how the money is used should be made in the States, and we do not want a bunch of decisions made here as to the details of transportation. I will not take more time, but I do want to say that it is discouraging and frustrating for us to take this long to move forward. We have so many things out there we need to be doing. The Energy bill is just as important as this, perhaps even more. We have laid it aside and continue to wait. We need to be looking at the future both in the highway bill and energy as to where we are going to be in 10 or 15 years and make some policy decisions with respect thereto. One of the real problems, of course, with highway funding is that all, practically all of the work that is done on highways is done by contracting with our various State departments that handle highways. When you do contracting, you have to have knowledge of the time ahead as to what your financing is going to be because contracting is done in the future. So I hope we can get on with this bill. I think we need to be talking about budgets. That is one of the things that is very important to us. Energy is very important to us. I think we need to get over this idea of stalling. I noticed the minority leader has said we are talking about breaking the rules. We are not breaking the rules. We are going to change the rules so that we can move forward. I think it is time to stop the chatter about that as well and move on to something that we can do. So we need a bill. Extensions are no longer acceptable. Our State DOTs cannot wait long periods of time. Our construction time in Wyoming, for example, is very short during the summer. So, Mr. President, I again thank the managers of this bill for moving forward. Let's get it done. I thank the Chair.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments today to recognize a very special milestone that will take place in my home State in the coming days. On June 18, 2005, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1881 in Cheyenne, WY will celebrate its 75th anniversary. In 1930, veterans Harry Leon and Earnest Lissner founded VFW Post 1881. With 69 members and 7 honorary members, the first meeting was conducted in a private home in Cheyenne. After a series of moves and 32 years later, VFW Post 1881 established and built its permanent facility at 2816 East 7th Street in 1962. Since its founding, Post 1881 has grown in membership and has become a lasting positive fixture in the community. The veterans of the Post are a strong pillar of family support for the Active-Duty, Reserve and Guard personnel of F.E. Warren Air Force Base and the State of Wyoming. The members of VFW Post 1881 remain dedicated to our older and ailing veterans with a large contingency of volunteers who visit patients in the VA Medical Center in Cheyenne and Veterans Homes in Buffalo, Wyoming and Scottsbluff, NE. They are strong supporters of the Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, and through private fundraising efforts have built two outstanding softball fields for the Cheyenne Thunder Girls Softball Association. As an exclusive project of the Post, these dedicated veterans offer new American flags to local businesses and individuals at no cost to replace frayed and damaged flags, while properly disposing of the exchanged flags. The Post's Ladies Auxiliary carries on numerous projects benefiting the environment and the community, and independently raises funds for homeless and hospitalized veterans. So it is a distinct honor to come before the Senate and congratulate the veterans of VFW Post 1881 on their 75th Anniversary. I thank them for their dedicated service to their fellow veterans and community and wish them continued success for many more years to come.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I thank the chairman.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I come to the Senate to urge we move forward with our highway bill. We have worked on this for a very long time. I was on the committee 6 years ago when we passed the original bill. We have not passed it the last couple of years but have simply extended it. I hope we can move forward. There are a number of issues before the Senate that have immediate impact. One of them is this highway bill, as well as the Energy bill. There are other conversations going on, disputes about a number of issues, but overall we are here to do some work. This is something that is most important. Six extensions is six too many. We need a highway bill. One of the problems is all of our highway departments, as they work on highways, use contractors. Therefore, they need to make contracts ahead of time. They have to know what funds are available. So it is even more important for this particular activity to know what the funding is going to be over time than it is in any other agency of the Government. Our State DOTs cannot make long-term plans unless they have some idea of what the funding is going to be. So projects are delayed in Wyoming, as I am sure they are in other States. One of our problems, of course, is we have a short construction season. So it is particularly important we be able to plan ahead and know when the construction is going to happen. Federal funds account for nearly 70 percent of Wyoming's Department of Transportation highway construction budget. Even though we are relatively low in population, we have a large State and, therefore, lots of highways, and so on. The long-term reauthorization of the bill, of course, will create jobs. Contractors have to have the assurance necessary to commit themselves to equipment and hiring people. It has been said that $1 billion invested in Federal highways equals 47,500 jobs. We are talking about, in this bill, $280, $290 billion over time, so think of the number of jobs that are involved. Of course, it also creates jobs in related industries, such as those for engineers and those involved with stone, concrete, and fuel, and so on. So there are so many reasons we should move forward with this bill. It deals with transportation, jobs, standard of living, quality of life. All these things are touched in this bill. Yet we seem to be awfully slow in moving it. I am hopeful that as much time as has been spent on this bill in the committees, in the House, and so on, that we will be able to move forward and not have a whole series of amendments that seek to change everything. We have already been through that. We passed a bill in the Senate last year that was substantially higher. But because of the administration, because of the ability to raise funds, it has to be lower. So it is there for a reason. This idea that somehow we can change it again, I am sorry, but there is some realism in terms of funding, regardless of what the program is. These programs, of course, are to come from gas taxes and the highway system. So I think it is very important. I happen to be chairman of the Parks Subcommittee. This bill is very important for park roads. They currently receive about $165 million per year. This bill will change that. So it will be about $1.4 billion over 5 years. Of course, the highways are an essential element, particularly in the large parks we have in the West. They do not have the State things, and so on. So it is very important. I am not going to take a lot of time, but I wanted to try to emphasize how important this bill is to most of us, and how important it is to get this bill done, and also how much effort has gone into the bill to bring it to this point, and to discourage anyone from trying to make too many changes in this bill because it has already been reviewed. It has already been bargained. Concessions have already been made. So we are ready to move forward. Quite frankly, it seems to me like that is what we ought to be doing. So I urge everyone to give some thought to this bill. If they have ideas, let's talk about them, but let's get this job done. Let's get it out. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that the Subcommittee on National Parks has scheduled a hearing to review the National Park Service's funding needs for administration and management of the national park system. The hearing will be held on Tuesday May 10, 2005, at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send two copies of their testimony to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, SD-364 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC. For further information, please contact Tom Lillie at (202) 224-5161 or Brian Carlstrom at (202) 224-6293. committee on indian affairs

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 3 minutes.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, one of the things that all of us enjoy a great deal and are very proud of are our national parks. I call attention to this week, which is National Parks week, April 18 to 24. It is the time when we can recognize all of those wonderful places that have been set aside. We will have a number of events take place this week to commemorate our national parks. Famed western author Wallace Stegner once said: National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic--they reflect us at our best rather than our worst. Our uniquely American idea began with the creation of Yellowstone Park, the world's first national park, in 1872. I am very proud to say that this park is in Wyoming, my home State. As a matter of fact, I grew up 25 miles out of the gates of Yellowstone Park, and I certainly believe it is one of the great parks we have. Since that time, of course, we have adopted more. We have exported and adopted worldwide this idea of parks, something of which we can be very proud. America's gift to the world is the theme of our National Parks Week this year, a very fitting theme. Each year, more than 260 million people from all over the world visit our 388 national park units in our national park system. Collectively, of course, these sites reflect our heritage. We have an amazing array of resources, whether it is Teton Park, the Everglades of Florida, or Alaska, and the Service includes natural resources, cultural resources, historic sites commemorating events, significant people and places in our history, and memorials to fallen defenders of our Nation. Visitors to the parks enjoy these through the services provided by employees and, increasingly, the park volunteers and partners. I am amazed at the number of people who volunteer to not only show people around the parks but to do much of the work there. I recognize and thank these employees, these volunteers, the partners who work in organizations that support the foundations of our parks. I certainly suggest to all of you that you give some thought this week to our national parks. As the chairman of the subcommittee, I will work to continue to assure the national parks meet the standard of our world today.