Craig Thomas

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read the third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. THOMAS

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. THOMAS. I understand the order of business is the energy bill.

Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Chair. As I have said before, energy is terribly important to all of us. It is particularly important to those of us who come from producer States. But perhaps if you come from a part of the country where there is no production and the cost continues to go up, you are even more concerned. In New England, that is pretty much the case. In any event, we do have a problem in energy and we have to find solutions. We have two very different points of view in terms of what our needs are and how we meet them. Many wonder, of course, why gas and diesel prices are so high. Heating oil will be very expensive. I come from a production State, and it wasn't long ago that oil in our oil fields was bringing less than $10 a barrel. Now, of course, in the world price, we are up in the thirties. Part of that, of course--I think the major part--is that we have relatively little impact on the price. We have allowed ourselves, over a period of time, to become dependent upon importation of oil. We have not had, in my view, an energy policy. We have had 8 years of an administration that really has not wanted to deal with the idea of having a policy in terms of where we are going. I have become more and more convinced--it is not a brand new idea, but I think it doesn't often get applied--that we have to set policies and goals for where we need to be over a period of time. And then, as we work toward that, we can measure the various things we do with respect to attaining that goal. If our goal is--and I think it should be--that we become less dependent upon imported oil, then we have to make some arrangements to be there. That has not been the case. This administration, on the other hand, has basically gone the other way and has indicated that we ought to reduce our domestic production. In fact, our consumption requirements have gone up substantially over the last couple of years--about 14 percent. During the same period of time, domestic production has gone down approximately 17 percent. In 1990, U.S. jobs in exploring and producing oil and gas were about 400,000 or 500,000 people. In 1999, the number of people doing the same thing was about 293,000--a 27-percent decline. Why is this? Part of it is because we haven't really had this goal of how we were going to meet our energy demands and then measure some of the things that have brought us to where we are. On the contrary, the policy pursued from this administration has been one that has made domestic production even more difficult than it was in the beginning-- and more difficult than it needs to be, as a matter of fact. So I guess you can talk about releasing oil from our strategic storage. I don't make as big a thing out of it as some, but that is not a long-term answer. It is a relatively small amount of oil compared to our usage--about a day and a half's usage--and it is not going to make a big difference in terms and no difference to where we are in being able to have domestic production in the future. I set that aside. I only warn that that can't be offered as a solution to the energy problem. That seems to be about all this administration is prepared to do. On the contrary, going back over some time, in 1993 the first Btu tax increased the cost of a gallon of gas about 8 cents. The compromise was about 3 cents, with the Vice President casting the deciding vote. Now, of course, the effort is to manipulate the price of the storage oil, but it won't do that. As I said, it is only about 1 and a half day's supply. We find our refineries now producing at about 95-percent capacity, partly because of some of the restrictions placed on these facilities. Some have gone out of business, and practically none has been built. We find natural gas, of course, becoming increasingly important. Fifty percent of U.S. homes and 56 million people rely on natural gas for heating. It provides 15 percent of our power. It will provide more in that this administration has also moved basically against the use of coal, which is our largest producer of electric energy, instead of finding ways to make coal more acceptable. The coal industry has been working hard on that. We have low-sulfur coal in my State. This administration has pushed against that, and we have therefore had less use than we had before. So what do we do? I think certainly there are a number of things we can do. There does need to be a policy. A policy is being talked about by George Bush, which is supported generally here in the Senate--that would be No. 1--to help low-income households with their energy bills and put some more money in as a short-term solution to help with the low-income energy assistance program. We can do that. We can direct a portion of all the gas royalty payments to that program and offset some of the costs over time. We are always going to have the need, it seems to me, regardless of the price, for low-income assistance. We can do that. And we can establish a Northeast management home heating reserve to make sure home heating is available for the Northeast. We should use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve only in times of real crises--not price, but crises such as the wars of several years ago. We need to make energy security a priority of U.S. foreign policy. We can do a great deal with Canada and Mexico. It seems we ought to be able to exercise a little more influence with the Middle East. Certainly, we have had a lot to do with those countries in the past--being helpful there. I think we can make more of an impact in Venezuela than we have. I think we can support meetings of the G-8 energy ministers, or their equivalent, more often. Maybe most importantly, we have lots of resources domestically, and instead of making them more difficult to reach, we ought to make it easier. I come from a State that is 50-percent owned by the Federal Government. Of course, there are places such as Yellowstone Park and Teton Park where you are never going to do minerals and should not. Much of that land is Bureau of Land Management land that is not set aside for any particular purpose. It was there when the homestead stopped and was simply residual and became public land. It is more multiple use. We can protect the environment and continue to use it-- whether it is for hiking, hunting, grazing, or whether indeed for mineral exploration and production, as we now do. This administration has made it difficult to do that. We can improve the regulatory process. I not only serve on the Energy Committee, but on the Environment and Public Works Committee. Constantly we are faced with new regulations that make it more difficult, particularly for small refineries, to live within the rules. Many times they just give it up and close those. We can change that. It depends on what we want to do with the policy. It depends on our goals and what we want to do with domestic production and whether or not these kinds of things contribute to the attainment of those goals. It is pretty clear that they don't. I think we can find ways to establish clear rules to have some nuclear plants that are safe, so they indeed can operate. They are very efficient. We talk about the environment. They are friendly to the environment. We need to do something. Of course, if we are going to do that, as they do in France and the Scandinavian countries, we can recycle the waste, or at least after a number of years we can have a waste storage at Yucca Mountain, NV. This administration has resisted that entirely, as have many Members on the other side of the aisle. So these are all things that could be done and are being talked about. We are talking about breaching dams. I think everybody wants to look for alternative sources. We ought to use wind and solar. But the fact is that those really generate now about 2 percent of the total usage that we have. Maybe they will do more one of these days. I hope they do. We have some of that in my State as well. As a matter of fact, my business built a building about 20 years ago, and we fixed it up with solar power. I have to admit it didn't work very well. It works better now, and we can continue to make it work better, but it is not the short-term answer to our energy problems. We can do something with ANWR. I have gone up to the North Slope of Alaska. You can see how they do the very careful extraction. You have to get the caribou out of the way. But you can see what is going on. That can be done. I am confident it can be done. Those are some of the things that are suggested and which I think ought to have real consideration. It is difficult sometimes to try to reconcile environmental issues. I don't know of anyone who doesn't want to do that. Environmental protection has to be considered, but it doesn't mean you have to do away with access. Quite frankly, one of the real problems we have in some States is how to use open spaces. We are doing something in my State about protecting the environment and protecting public land. Too many people say you just shouldn't use it for anything at all. When some States, such as Nevada and others, are up as high as 85 percent in Federal ownership, I can tell you it is impossible to have an economy in those States and take that attitude. On the other hand, I am persuaded that we can have reasonable kinds of programs that allow multiple use and at the same time protect the future use of those lands. It seems to me those are the kinds of things we ought to be doing. It is very difficult. It is certainly easy to set energy policy back, particularly when the price has gone up as it has. I think all of us remember a year or so ago when the price at the gas pump was down as low as 86 cents a gallon. Now in my State it is as high as $1.60. You think about it a lot more when it is $1.60 than when it is 86 cents. We didn't complain much about the producers then. But now we are pretty critical. We need a policy. That is the opportunity we have in this Congress--to really establish some of the byways and roadways to help us achieve a reduction on our dependency on foreign oil. We need to move toward changes in consumption and in the way we travel. I have no objection to that. The fact is, that is going to take time. The economy, the prosperity, and the security of this country depends a great deal on an ample and available energy source. It requires an energy policy. It requires the administration to step up to the plate and work with this Congress to continue to work to establish an energy policy. That is our task. That is our challenge. I think it is a necessary movement in order to continue to have freedom and economic prosperity. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I want to go back a little bit to one of the issues that is before us that has to do with energy and energy policy. Certainly, we are faced at the moment with some real difficulties in terms of winter use of heating oil. There are differences of view as to what we do with the strategic storage. I understand that. But aside from that, I think in one way or another we certainly need to help those people who will need help this winter in terms of price and in terms of availability. We had a hearing yesterday with the Secretary of Energy. Quite frankly, I didn't get any feel for where we are going in the long term. What we have done here, of course, over the last number of years with the fact that this administration has had an energy policy--some have accused them of having no policy; I suggest there has been a policy--is to basically not do anything to encourage, and, in fact, discourage, domestic production. The result of that, of course, has been that since 1992, U.S. oil production is down 17 percent and consumption is up 14 percent. We have had a reduction since 1990 in U.S. jobs producing and exploring for oil. At that point, we had over 400,000 workers. Now to do the same thing, the number is down 27 percent. We have had a policy that despite the increased use of energy, which is not to be unexpected in this kind of a prosperous time, we have sought to reduce exploration, and we have become more dependent on foreign oil. We are now nearly 57-percent dependent on OPEC for providing our energy sources. There are a number of things we could be doing that would certainly help alleviate that problem. One is access to public lands in the West. Of course, in Wyoming 50 percent of the land belongs to the Federal Government. In some States, it is as much as 85 percent. As we make it more difficult for our oil exploration and production to show up on Federal lands with multiple use, then we see that production go down. As we put more and more regulations on refiners and have reformulated gasoline, it makes it more difficult. Older refineries have to go out of business. We then find it more difficult to be able to process the oil that we indeed have which is there to be used. We also, of course, have an opportunity in many ways to produce energy. We could have a very healthy nuclear energy system if we could go ahead and move forward with storage out at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. We have not been able to do that. We could certainly use more low-sulfur coal. But we continue to put regulations on the production of those things. One of the things that seemed fairly clear yesterday was that the Department of Energy has relatively little to do with energy policy, even if they choose to. The policy is being made by the Environmental Policy Council in the White House. It is being made by EPA. It is being made by these other kinds of regulatory agencies. Obviously, all of us want to continue to work to have clean air. Air is much cleaner than it was. I think what we need to recognize is one of the things that came out again yesterday. Vice President Gore announced some time ago that there would be no more drilling. That is the kind of policy that has been developed. What we ought to be doing is taking a longer look at where we are going with energy and have some idea of what we will do over the years. It is one thing to be able to work in the next 2 or 3 months and argue about how you do that. But the real issue is where we are in the next year and the year after in those areas where energy is such an important part of our economy. I am hopeful that the outcome of what we have here with this current dilemma with respect to energy will result in a real, honest-to- goodness debate, discussion, and decision with respect to long-term energy policy and increased access to public lands for potential oil and gas in the Rocky Mountains, offshore, and in Alaska, and at the same time develop techniques where we can do it and also take care of the environment. It is not a choice between the two things. We should develop tax incentives to try to encourage increases in oil and gas production, particularly in stripper wells. In old production wells, it really hasn't been economic to do that. We can do some things with respect, of course, to research. We have been working now for a couple of years on a mineral management group to be able to clarify how those charges are made, and we have been unable to do that over a period of time. There are a number of things: The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, we now have in my State a real activity going on with methane gas production--gas production that we need now under the Clean Water Act. Some Senators are pushing against insertions of fracture used to help with that production. These things are all, of course, inconsistent with some kind of policy which will, indeed, move us forward in terms of energy development. Refineries are already up to 95 percent of capacity or more. So to actually take oil out of the reserve, if there isn't a refinery capacity, makes it very difficult. Everyone recognizes the difficulty in the Northeast, the major user of oil for heating in the wintertime. That has traditionally been important. We do need to do some things there. We need to provide more fuel. We need also, I am sure, to do something about low-income users. There are a number of things we need to do. I hope we don't totally get involved in making this a political issue. Rather than trying now to point out what everyone has done or hasn't done, we ought to say, all right, here is where we are; now what do we do? How much can we do to develop domestic production? What are the best ways to do that? How can we move in that direction? How soon can we move forward with that?

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Subcommittee on Research, Nutrition and General Legislation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 27, 2000. The purpose of this hearing will be to review U.S. Department of Agriculture Financial Management issues.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, September 27, 2000 at 9:30 a.m. in room 485 of the Russell Senate Building to conduct a hearing on S. 2052, the Indian Tribal Development Consolidated Funding Act of 2000, to be followed immediately by a business meeting to markup S. 1840, the California Indian Land Transfer Act; S. 2665, to establish a streamlined process to enable the Navajo Nation to lease trust lands without having to obtain the approval of the Secretary of the Interior of individual leases, except leases for exploration, development, or extraction of any mineral resources; S. 2917, the Santo Domingo Pueblo Claims Settlement Act of 2000, H.R. 4643, the Torrez- Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Claims Settlement Act; S. 2688, the Native American Languages Act Amendments Act of 2000; S. 2580, the Indian School Construction Act; S. 3031, to make certain technical corrections in laws relating to Native Americans; S. 2920, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Improvement Act of 2000; S. 2526, to amend the Indian Health Care Improvement Act to revise and extend such Act; and H.R. 1460, to amend the Ysleta Sur and Alabama and Coushatta Indian tribes of Texas restoration Act, and for other purposes.

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 Wednesday, September 27, 2000 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing on intelligence matters.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, September 27, 2000, at 9:30 a.m. The hearing will take place in Dirksen Room 226.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Clean Air, Wetlands, Private Property, and Nuclear Safety be authorized to meet Wednesday, September 27, at 2:15 p.m., Hearing Room (SD-406), to receive testimony from State and local governments on the reauthorization of the Clean Air Act.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Wednesday, September 27, 2000, at 9:30 a.m. on motion picture CEO's.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 27, 2000, at 9:30 a.m., in open session to receive testimony on the status of U.S. military readiness.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, September 27, 2000 at 9:30 a.m. for a business meeting to consider pending Committee business.

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, September 27, 2000 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a hearing.

Mr. THOMAS

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

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I want to suggest something that is very exciting for those of us in Wyoming and, I think, all over the country. I will start with a headline off of the Internet: ``American Stops Russian's 13-year Streak.'' It says: ``I cannot believe I actually won,'' said the 286-pound Rulon Gardner, and he was not alone. He wasn't expected to win. He is a wrestler from Star Valley, WY, weighing 286 pounds. This was really an incredible thing. Listen to this: Just how invincible was the Russian Icon he beat? Alexander Karelin had not lost a match in international competition in 14 years. Only one point had been scored against him by an opponent in 10 years. He'd won gold in the past three Olympics. The American who wrestled him in Atlanta in 1996, respected silver medalist Matt Ghaffari, faced him 22 times over his career and lost every time. He is a huge guy and has done this great, great job of wrestling throughout the years. In fact, it seemed so certain he would win again that the Olympic Committee president was there to present him with the medal. Sure enough, that did not happen. The unthinkable happened, in fact, and our man scored a point. Gardner scored a point early on and maintained that point, and now he is the gold medal winner in heavyweight wrestling at the world Olympics. He grew up the youngest of nine in Afton, WY, population 1,400. He went to college and wrestled there. Before wrestling, he also played a little football. But he has been wrestling for some time and had a chance to go to the Olympics this year. This is the first Olympic gold for a U.S. wrestler since 1984. We are especially proud in Wyoming to have had a number of athletes in the Olympics. But we are really so proud of this one in particular, who, as of yesterday, had the gold medal in heavyweight wrestling. I couldn't resist the opportunity to recognize that. Thank you, Mr. President. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to proceed as in morning business counted against the time on our side.

Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Chair.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we are supposed to vote here at 4:30, so I want to take a few minutes while we have a little time to talk about an issue that is very important to me and, I think, very important to many people in this country that has to do with rural health care. I am cochairman of the Rural Health Care Caucus in the Senate. We are faced with a number of issues, of course, in health care for everyone. But one of the issues we always have to work at is the notion that when you have low population areas, rural areas, then the provision of health care and delivery of health care is different than it is in urban areas, than it is in city areas. So, from time to time, we have to make some different kinds of adjustments. That is what our Rural Health Care Caucus seeks to do. It is also interesting that although Wyoming is certainly one of the rural States, almost every State has rural areas. Even New York, which we never think of that way, has, I think, a higher percentage of people who live in cities than any other State; so, therefore, they have rural areas as well. I want to take a minute to bring to the attention of the Senate what I consider to be current inequities in the Medicare program that do not address the unique and different needs of rural Medicare providers and beneficiaries in my State and across the country. Rural health care beneficiaries--those who utilize the program--tend to be poorer, tend to have more chronic illnesses than their urban counterparts. There is generally a higher proportion of seniors in rural areas. Rural providers generally serve a higher proportion of Medicare patients and therefore, of course, are impacted and are highly susceptible to changes and reductions in Medicare reimbursements for the services they provide. It is because of these unique circumstances that rural providers and beneficiaries are working now to put into whatever package we come up with, as this Congress comes to a close, that which strengthens Medicare. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 asked for some reductions. Unfortunately, HCFA, the agency that handles the disbursements for Medicare, reduced those payments a great deal more than asked for by Congress. It had been provided at one time to bring them up again. There is an effort being made to have a sort of payback arrangement from the BBA this year as well. So there are a number of specific provisions I hope will be considered that do pertain to rural areas and are specifically pertinent to rural Medicare providers. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 reduced the annual inflation --the market basket it was called--update that hospitals usually received in order to make the payments even with inflation. In fiscal years 2001 and 2002, hospitals were slated to receive a market basket which would have been the inflation minus 1.1 percent as an update. Unfortunately, studies demonstrate that because of the reductions, many rural hospitals have margins now that hover below that. So we are really interested in that. This market basket payback does reflect what the increased inflationary costs are. I think that is terribly important as we move forward. We need to revise the disproportionate share hospital payment formula. A majority of those hospitals serve large numbers of seniors who are in low-income brackets and receive little or no Medicare payments because of the differential qualifications for rural and urban hospitals. Rural and sole community hospitals must meet a higher threshold of criteria of 45 percent and 30 percent than their urban counterparts. So here again is a certain amount of unfairness in these kinds of payments and distributions. So we are asking that the committee apply the threshold of the 15 percent of having these kinds of patients, to make it fair and equitable--which is currently what it is in urban hospitals--rather than the 30 percent. The wage index: Here again we have the formula that applies to most hospitals. The local wage index is considered to be about 70 percent of the total cost. However, that is not true in rural hospitals, where it is more like 50 or 60 percent. So when that adjustment is made, our hospitals in the rural areas have lower wages and, therefore, are unfairly penalized. So we are asking that each of them be assessed on what their average percentage really is. Rural home health agencies are not able to spread out their fixed costs. They are not able to generally include the costs of the excessive traveling that takes place in rural areas. That needs to be changed. Medicare-dependent hospitals: We find that this program was established in 1989 to provide special protections to rural hospitals that serve a high proportion of Medicare patients. They used the old figures that were there. We need to do something about that. So there are a number of areas in rural health care that need to be justified, and hopefully can be justified, as we move forward toward the kind of changes that ought to be made to bring this balanced budget business back into play and to be fair. All we are asking for is fairness as we compare the different kinds of hospitals. We found some time ago that the payments made in Florida were much larger than payments made for the same kind of services in Wyoming. Now there is some adjustment in terms of cost, and so on, but not nearly the kind of adjustment that showed up in the payments. We have made some improvements on that. I think it is something we have to continue to look at as we revise the criteria. Last year, we also established a critical access hospital arrangement for small communities that could not sustain a hospital with all the full requirements that are necessary in an urban hospital, so their hospitals could be listed so they could be paid for their services under Medicare. We do have community access hospitals which basically are clinics. People can take care of emergencies knowing, if it is a serious illness or a serious accident, they can be moved to another location, but the community access hospitals can provide the emergency care that is needed and can be paid for it out of Medicare. That is simply a very reasonable, sensible, fair, and equitable thing that needed to be changed and was. I am pleased about that. I am looking for ways to increase the program which entices providers to come to rural areas where they could pay off part of their educational expenses by serving in areas of low population in the United States. That is just one of the things, as we complete this session, that needs to be done. I hope it will be done. And as that happens, I am very anxious that the uniqueness of our rural communities be recognized and that we have fairness based on that. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I object.

Mr. THOMAS. I object. We have a time agreement and I think we ought to stick with it.

Mr. THOMAS. If the time has been divided on both sides and if the Senator wants to use some of his associate's time, I have no objection.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I want to again say that we have divided this time, and I expect to live within the divisions that we have agreed to and, therefore, we will try to do that.

Mr. THOMAS. Certainly, it works both ways. We have divided the time, and that is the way it is.