John Thune

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today I honor Wilfred Kadlec, who served in the Pacific theater of World War II with the U.S. Navy. On this Memorial Day, I would like to commend him for his brave actions and devoted service to our country. Like many of his generation, Kadlec responded honorably to the call of duty in the Second World War. Kadlec served his country bravely as a Petty Officer, Second Class, on the USS Radford and the USS Klondike. Kadlec's sacrifice is evident as he received the Purple Heart among many other medals during his service in the U.S. Navy. Kadlec continued to serve his local and veterans' communities long after his military service ended in 1946. He served as an officer on the Liberty Township board for over 60 years. Also, he is a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3179 of Faulkton, SD, and the American Legion Post 259 of Roscoe, SD. Kadlec is one example of the great generation that carried our Nation through its most difficult times. We are indebted to their sacrifice and their willingness to fight for the American people and way of life. Again, I would like to thank Wilfred for his service as we remember all those who have protected freedom around the world and have made sacrifices to keep America safe on this Memorial Day.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Georgia and the Senator from Iowa, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, for their extraordinary leadership on this bill and for the imposing staff work that was involved in bringing this to conclusion. At long last we are going to have a farm bill. This farm bill is important for a lot of reasons. I don't have time to get into all the details of why I think this bill is important, but it does preserve a strong safety net. It does provide a permanent disaster title, which is something many of us have sought to achieve for some time, and fought long and hard for. It has conservation provisions that increase funding for certain conservation programs. On balance, this is a farm bill that is reflective of all the needs, the desires, the priorities of the Members--not only of the Agriculture Committee but also of this Congress. I think it will move agriculture forward in a positive direction. I congratulate the leaders on the committee and those who have been involved all through this process for their hard work in bringing us to where we are today. I want to make one point, though, because I think if there is anything in this bill as important as any of it, it is the energy title in this farm bill. The reason for that is we have an energy crisis in this country. You cannot go anywhere in my State of South Dakota, I daresay anywhere in this country, without hearing people talk about the high cost of gasoline. There is one thing we have done that is positive in terms of reducing the cost of oil, reducing the cost of gasoline in this country, and that is biofuels, bioenergy. There is a lot of debate. I want to set one thing straight for the record because there has been a lot of criticism lately of corn-based ethanol and we talk about this whole food versus fuel debate going on in the country today. So people know what the facts are, here are the facts. In 2002, the United States grew 9 billion bushels of corn. Of that, we turned 1.1 billion bushels into 3 billion gallons of ethanol. In 2007, farmers grew 13.1 billion bushels of corn and turned 3 billion bushels of it into 8 billion gallons of ethanol, leaving 10.1 billion bushels for food, more than the 7.9 billion bushels in 2002. If you do the math, despite a nearly threefold increase--growth--in the corn ethanol industry, the net corn food and feed product of the United States increased 34 percent since 2002. Even though we dramatically increased the amount of ethanol we are producing in this country, we still, because of the great hard work of our farmers in this country and the productivity and increases in technology, produced dramatically more corn, so much so that we have 34 percent more corn in 2007 than we did in 2002, notwithstanding the threefold increase in renewable fuels. I say all that to set the record straight because there is a real debate going on in this country about whether ethanol is to be blamed for higher food prices. Frankly, oil has way more to do with the cost of food and everything else we purchase in this country than does ethanol. But that is not enough. We can do a lot more. The reason the energy title in this bill is so important is because it moves us in a new direction. The next generation of biofuels is what we call cellulosic ethanol, made from biomass, made from wood chips, made from corncobs, made from switchgrasses and other types of grasses that are grown in abundance on the prairies of South Dakota and other places across this country. We have an enormous opportunity here to not shrink the amount of biofuels we have in this country, but to grow the amount of biofuels because it is the one thing that is keeping gas prices under control. According to an analysis that was done by Merrill Lynch that was reported upon in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks back, if it were not for ethanol, gas prices and oil prices in this country would be 15 percent higher than they are today. That is about 50 cents a gallon for gasoline. We do not need less volume of biofuels, we need more volume of biofuels. That is why the energy title in this farm bill is so important, because it provides important incentives for the next generation of biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, to encourage farmers to grow energy-dedicated crops that can be converted into cellulosic ethanol. As we transition from corn-based ethanol to cellulosic ethanol, we have an incredible opportunity for this country to become less dependent upon foreign sources of energy, to grow our domestic supply of energy in this country in a way that is environmentally clean, in a way that helps support the economy of the United States of America and does not ship billions and billions of dollars every single year outside the United States to purchase imported oil. This is an important farm bill for a lot of reasons, but the energy title is critical and I hope my colleagues here in the Senate, if for no other reason, will support it because of its energy provisions. I see my time has expired, so I yield the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I wish to congratulate the Senator from New Mexico for his comprehensive energy bill which he introduced. It is a solution we need to take a hard look at, perhaps moving to it sometime in the not too distant future here in the Senate. I think his bill starts the debate. Unfortunately, he has tried over and over and over again to start the debate here in the Senate. The legislation he introduced--and I am a cosponsor of that bill last week--is comprehensive in that it addresses the supply issue. We can't address America's high energy costs absent addressing the issue of supply. We are sending, as was already noted, $1.6 billion every single day outside the United States and, in some cases, to countries that would do us harm, in order to meet our demand for energy here at home. The Senator from New Mexico has put forward a solution which is broad based and which addresses the supply issue by making available some of the reserves we have in this country on the North Slope of Alaska, on the Outer Continental Shelf, and he addresses the need for additional refinery capacity. We haven't built a refinery in 30 years, since 1976. He also addresses some of the new technologies such as coal to liquid, which was talked about earlier. I should say he changes a definition that was modified very late in the Energy bill debate last year that precludes forest waste residues from being a source of cellulosic ethanol because in many respects, the future of renewable energy in this country is transitioning from corn- based ethanol to cellulosic ethanol. We have enormous biomass available in this country in forests in the form of switchgrass that can be grown in abundance on the prairies in this country and other forms of biomass that can be available and can be converted into cellulosic ethanol. So his solution is to create additional supply--the supply of fuels but also the capacity of refineries--in order to be able to process more of those natural resources into refined gasoline. If we don't do that, we are going to continue to send billions and billions and billions of dollars every single year to countries outside the United States which, in many cases, use those very dollars to turn around and fund terrorist organizations that attack Americans, that to the tune of about almost $500 billion. Half a trillion dollars last year left the United States in order to meet the demand we have for energy here at home. I congratulate the Senator from New Mexico and hope we can get a debate going here in the Senate that addresses the supply issue. I am all for conservation measures. There are some conservation measures as well, and there are lots of steps we can be taking. Last year as part of the Energy bill, we created the first change in a long time--something like 20 years--in fuel efficiency standards. That is something we need to be pursuing as well. But at the end of the day, our appetite for energy in this country and the world's appetite for energy is not going away. In fact, the Department of Energy estimates that even with intensive conservation efforts in place, maintaining our economic growth through the year 2025 will require a 36-percent increase in energy supply, including a 39-percent increase in oil consumption. Sixty percent of our oil is currently imported. So as demand rises and domestic supply is not increased, we are subject to prices that are set by foreign countries, including, as I mentioned, some hostile regimes. Senator Domenici has put forward several ideas in his plan that are not new. Some of them have been debated previously, some of them blocked by bipartisan politics. But I hope that $3.50, $4-a-gallon gasoline will change some of that. In my State of South Dakota, the average price of gasoline today is $3.60. Oil, of course, traded at an all-time high of $122 per barrel. Diesel is $4.18 a gallon. As the farmers in my State continue another planting season, they are faced with those diesel fuel costs that are substantially higher than previous years. They are faced with higher fertilizer costs because natural gas prices have gone up. This is a crisis that reaches into the pocketbooks of every American. I was talking in my State of South Dakota this week with someone in the tourism business who was saying the numbers this year are already down 11 percent from the previous year. I think that is a sign of more to come in terms of the economic hardship that is going to be imposed on the economy all across this country. My State of South Dakota, because it is so energy dependent as a result of tourism and agriculture and some of the industries that are very energy intensive, is particularly hard hit. Since I was first elected to Congress over 10 years ago, we voted on opening a small section of ANWR at least five times. Most recently, in the 2006 Defense appropriations bill, we had that vote. It is important to note at that time the Senate Democrats blocked oil and gas exploration in ANWR oil was trading for just over $50 a barrel. Well, now it is at $122 a barrel, and at that time it was argued it would take at least 10 years to develop the resources in ANWR. But I think it is high time we began the process of authorizing that exploration and production. We have up to 16 billion barrels of oil, we are told, up there, or a million barrels of oil each day that could be coming into our pipeline in this country and taking pressure off of gas prices. So I hope the fact that today the high price of gasoline is impacting more and more consumers across this country, more and more small business owners, more and more families, we will see a change in the mindset that will enable us to move forward with legislation such as that introduced by my colleague from New Mexico that will get at the heart of this problem. The problem is we don't have enough supply to keep up with the demand either at home or around the world, but at a minimum, we ought to be coming up with those solutions that are domestic, that are home grown, and by that I mean the oil reserves we have here in the United States or off our shores, the infinite amounts of coal we have that can be converted into fuels, the enormous potential we have out there for renewable energy such as ethanol made not only from corn but from other sources of biomass, and that we take steps to add refinery capacity. It is absolutely critical, in my mind and in my view, that we start moving in this direction. I heard a report earlier today that some projections are that oil prices could get up to somewhere around $200 a barrel. I can't imagine that happening or what the impact would be on our economy, but it is never too late to do the right thing, and we need to move quickly now and decisively on an energy policy that will increase our supply, our domestic supply, take pressure off of oil prices and prices at the pump that American consumers are dealing with every single day. I congratulate again the Senator from New Mexico for his bill. I am happy to be a cosponsor of it. I hope we are able to get a vote on it, and I hope we can do something once and for all about high gas prices and bring some relief to the American consumer. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, what is the pending business?

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to call up amendment No. 4731 which I filed earlier today with my colleague from South Dakota, Senator Tim Johnson.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I have an amendment which I understand the manager for the majority will object to me calling up, but I would like to make some remarks about it, if I might, at this time.

Mr. THUNE. I thank the chairman, the Senator from Connecticut, for those words. Let me, if I might, make a couple of remarks with regard to the amendment and again suggest that if at all possible, we could figure out a way to make it a part of this Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act. I think it is very fitting on this bill. There are some jurisdictional issues that have been raised. But what I would like to point out is that this is a bill which obviously has a lot of important content and legislation that needs to be acted upon by the Congress, by the Senate. The amendment that Senator Johnson and I have offered is directly relevant to the bill because it seeks to reduce the potential impact of FEMA's revised flood map for residents of Sioux Falls, SD, which is the largest city in my State. Above all, this amendment allows the City of Sioux Falls to have the ability to advance the funds associated with the Big Sioux Flood Control Project which was authorized by the Congress in 1996. Keep in mind, roughly 20 years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determined that the original flood control project in Sioux Falls was ineffective due to two significant flood events that occurred in 1957 and in 1969. The city and the Federal Government have been working since 2000 to raise the height of the levees and to construct a dam. However, without the authority contained in this amendment, the completion of the Big Sioux Flood Control Project will languish until the Federal Government's remaining share of the project is appropriated. Effectively, with roughly $21 million in remaining Federal costs and the fact that the average funding provided by Congress over the past 7 years has been about $2 million per year, the city is at the mercy of the Federal Government to complete this important project. If these flood protection improvements are not made, roughly $750 million in property damage could result in homes and businesses in a major flood event. Adding to the urgency for completing this important flood control project is the fact that following Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency proposed modifications to the city's 100- year flood plain, just as FEMA has done in other communities across the country, to ensure that homeowners are aware of potential flood risks. As a result of FEMA's proposed flood plain modifications in Sioux Falls, until the Army Corps certifies completion of its project, roughly 1,600 homeowners and businesses will be required to purchase flood insurance. The quickest way to eliminate or reduce the need for flood insurance for the 1,600 homeowners and businesses is to complete construction of the Big Sioux Flood Control Project as soon as possible. While the city has expressed a willingness to advance fund the Federal Government's remaining portion of the project, this would require Congress to act in a couple of ways. One is to allow the Army Corps to accept advance funding from the city for the Federal Government's portion of the project; second, to authorize the Army Corps to reimburse the city through future appropriations from the Federal Government's portion of the project. This straightforward amendment doesn't add any costs to the Federal Government. In fact, allowing the city to advance fund the remainder of the project would actually reduce the Federal Government's overall cost because the project would be completed in a much shorter timeframe. Such authorities have been extended to other Federal flood control projects in the past. Senator Johnson and I are simply seeking additional flexibility that will allow the city to expedite construction of the Big Sioux Flood Control Project. I believe the city's willingness to advance fund this flood control project underscores their commitment to finishing this much needed project. I look forward to working with the bill managers to try to get this amendment voted on, to get it included in the underlying bill as we work to reform our Nation's flood insurance program. I hope we can work through this jurisdictional issue because this is an issue of timing. There is another WRDA bill that may come down the road, but the last one took 7 years to get on the floor of the Senate. I don't believe the next one will take that long. In any case, the city of Sioux Falls--the largest community in my State--is looking at 11 years to complete this project. As soon as FEMA designates this flood plain, 1,600 homeowners will be faced with an insurance bill. All the city is trying to do is take the initiative to complete this project in a more timely way by advance funding it and then allowing the Federal Government, through the Corps, to reimburse through what would be annual appropriations, which could take perhaps 11 or more years to get. I think this is a commonsense, practical solution. The city has stepped forward on this. I hope we can include it in this bill before we get to final passage. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank the Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today, I wish to recognize Renee Latterell, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past several months. Renee is a graduate of Central High School in Aberdeen, SD, and of North Dakota State University, where she majored in Spanish and international studies. She is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of her internship experience. I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Renee for all of the fine work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today I recognize Jonathan Abdnor, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all of the hard work he has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past several months. Jonathan is a graduate of Prospect High School in Mount Prospect, IL. Currently he is attending the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, where he is majoring in news editorial journalism. He is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of his internship experience. I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Jonathan for all of the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize Sam Griffin, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all of the hard work he has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past several months. Sam is a graduate of Jefferson Senior High School in Alexandria, MN. Currently he is attending American University, where he is majoring in Political Science. He is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of his internship experience. I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Sam for all of the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today, I wish to recognize David Stevens, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all of the hard work he has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past several months. David is a graduate of O'Gorman High School in Sioux Falls, SD, and the University of South Dakota. In the fall he will attend the Sanford School of Medicine at the University of South Dakota. He is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of his internship experience. I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to David for all of the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I am pleased to submit a resolution today with my colleague, Senator Wyden OR, designating the month of May as ``National Physical Fitness and Sports Month'' and the first week of May as ``National Physical Education and Sports Week.'' Developing healthy habits is important for all of us, as children, young adults, and as we grow older. Current and past Presidents have recognized the month of May, the beginning of spring, as ``Physical Fitness and Sports Month'' for over 20 years. Around South Dakota and across the country, local YMCAs, afterschool programs, and other organizations take time during the month of May to recognize the need to get fit, stay active, and look at new ways to promote physical activity. This year, I am pleased we are able to recognize the importance of physical fitness through the Senate. As we talk more about health care reform and the uninsured, it is important to remember that each of us has a responsibility concerning our own care and to educate our children on the importance of staying healthy. Too often I hear from constituencies, such as school groups and health care providers, that childhood obesity and diabetes are on the rise--and it is not just affecting our health, but also our pocketbooks. According to my State and the Centers for Disease Control, more than 50,000 South Dakotans have diabetes and projections show that number will continue to increase. Diabetes of course can cause severe complications and takes a tremendous toll on our society. The disease is associated with significant personal and social costs due to impaired health and quality of life. Heart disease is another significant and often related illness to diabetes that effects millions of Americans and costs Medicare and Medicaid, and therefore taxpayers, millions each year. In South Dakota, approximately 1,743 deaths--24.8 percent of all deaths--in 2006 were caused by cardiovascular diseases, including stroke. Now much of the burden of heart disease is due to smoking--and that is another problem we will continue to tackle through education at the state and local levels. But it is also helpful to know that both heart disease and type 2 diabetes are largely preventable. Also, obesity and inactivity are two of the major risk factors associated with these diseases---which means a healthy diet and regular physical activity at all ages can go a long way toward improving our quality of life and reducing our health care bills. For adults, it is recommended that minimum physical activity consist of moderate activity for 30 minutes, 5 days a week, or more vigorous activity for 20 minutes, 3 days a week. My daughters and I happen to have a passion for running, which is particularly popular this time of year in South Dakota. The month of May is also a time to recognize the importance of sports to our State and to our schools. Getting involved in your local school team--high school or college--or in other local teams is a great way to stay motivated and focused through school and to develop healthy habits that will last for many years. It is also a tremendously important part of community life in South Dakota. I am proud that this resolution has been endorsed by YMCA of the USA, AAHPERD--American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation & Dance--the American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, and the National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today we debate the FAA reauthorization, and it is a debate that probably should have been joined a long time ago. This is a piece of legislation that has been kicking around here for a long time. I serve on the Senate Commerce Committee. I know both the House and the Senate reported bills out many months ago. We are finally now getting a bill on to the floor for debate. It is important we do this. This is legislation that is critical to the infrastructure that supports our aviation industry, which is a critical industry to America's competitiveness, and if we look at what is happening in the airlines these days, obviously, we need to do everything we can to make sure we have a viable and effective aviation industry and commercial airlines are able to operate and provide the services to travelers who need to get, every single day, to places both here at home and around the world to conduct business and to recreate. In the course of this debate, I cannot help but be struck by the fact that I do not see there is anything we can do in the FAA reauthorization that addresses what fundamentally is probably plaguing the airline industry more than anything else, and that is the high cost of energy. I am looking at some information, graphs, some data. We can look at this graph for January of 2004 and see where the cost of crude oil and the cost of fuel for the airlines, for the aviation industry, was then and where it is today. Follow the red line, the way it tracks up. That spikes up. That is almost a straight vertical line. If we take another graph which shows what the consumption of fuels is in the airline industry, the green line--you probably, Mr. President, cannot see this; it is too far away, but the green line shows consumption has been fairly static in terms of the amount of fuel that is used. But if we look at the expense or the cost of the fuel, it has increased at a sharp and dramatic rate. My point very simply is that we cannot affect, I do not think, in a very substantial way, what is plaguing and ailing the airline industry and a lot of other industries in this country absent addressing the fundamental cost issue of energy independence. If we look at where we are as a nation today and where we were 30 years ago, not much has changed. I remember as someone growing up during the oil embargoes and what we were experiencing in the late 1970s and a real concern at the time about our dependence, overdependence, dangerous dependence on foreign sources of energy. At that time it was 55, 60 percent. Here we are 30 years later and we are more than ever dependent on foreign sources of energy. Mr. President, 60 to 65 percent of our petroleum comes from outside the United States. We have very little control over the supply. The only way we fix that, the only way we can impact energy costs in this country in a meaningful way is to increase supply. We can talk a lot about a lot of issues with regard to this problem, this challenge we face as a country. There are some things we can do to impact the demand side, too, and we did that in the Energy bill last year. We increased for the first time in a very long time fuel economy standards so now automobiles are going to be built to standards that will require more miles per gallon than they currently get. That will help control, to some degree, the demand side. Obviously, I think individual consumers in this country, drivers in this country, are going to begin to take steps to reduce the amount of fuel they consume because it is impacting so adversely their pocketbooks on a daily basis. But there is not anything we can do totally on the demand side to get us out of this mess we are in. We have to do some things to impact supply. I can't help but think that if we had taken some of these steps years ago, back in 1995 or thereabouts when President Clinton vetoed legislation that would have allowed oil exploration on the North Slope of Alaska--at the time it was argued, oh, it will take 5 to 10 years for us to develop this resource and when we do, it will not be that much anyway. It is only 1 million or 1\1/2\ million barrels a day, and that is not that significant in the overall scheme of things. Here we are 10 years later. If we had done that then, this would be fully developed, we would have the barrels of oil on a daily basis, the daily equivalent of what we get from Saudi Arabia, available to meet our demand in this country. It has probably been, since that time, half a dozen times we voted on that. In the House of Representatives, I don't know how many votes we had over there that would have allowed authorized exploration for oil on the North Slope of Alaska. We have had that vote in the Senate, since I have been here, on at least one occasion, maybe two times, where we were a couple votes short of reaching that magic 60-vote threshold that would allow us to move forward and explore some of these opportunities that we have to grow our supply, our domestic supply of energy. Because he had listened to this debate for some time--I have been in the Congress, now, for the better part of 10 years and always was interested when the debate would come to the floor of the House or the Senate and you would hear both sides come to the floor and make their arguments--I actually went up to Alaska and visited the section 1002 area where it is proposed we develop this oil resource. We landed in Barrow, AK, in February, a couple years ago. It was 38 below. We visited a couple of the existing sites at Prudhoe Bay and then we went over to section 1002, which is the vast area we are talking about for development. What struck me is we are talking about a 2,000-acre footprint that would be used to access the oil below the surface, and with modern technology, you can actually get to those reserves below the surface with horizontal or directional drilling, with a minimal footprint on the surface, and it would be done during certain parts of the year where it wouldn't impact wildlife or anything. Incidentally, there were caribou everywhere. Anybody who is worried about the caribou on the North Slope of Alaska, they have nothing to worry about because, if anything, it has been increased since the activity that has taken place up there. But this particular area is a very isolated, remote area on the North Slope of Alaska. The estimates run from somewhere between 6 billion and 16 billion barrels of oil beneath the surface or, as I said, the daily equivalent of about 1.5 million barrels a day, which is comparable to what we get from Saudi Arabia. To put it in perspective, a 2,000-acre footprint, for those who come from my part of the country who have an agricultural background, that is the equivalent of three sections of farm ground. That in an area of some 19.2 million acres in what they call ANWR, this refuge area. But if you look at the State of Alaska in its totality, Alaska, believe it or not, is 7.5 times the size of the State of South Dakota. You could put South Dakota geographically into Alaska 7.5 times. That is how vast this area is up there. It is part of our country, part of an area that has enormous resources below the surface that could be very meaningful in terms of addressing America's energy needs. When you visit that area, you cannot help but be struck with, No. 1, how supportive the governmental leadership is in that area--the Governor, the State legislature, in many respects most of the local citizens. There are always those who are opposed to this type of development. We heard from them as well. But overwhelmingly, the majority of people in that area want to see this development. Here we are again facing a crisis as we head into the summer driving season, travel season, vacation season. Families are looking, making plans. In my State of South Dakota, farmers are getting into the field, and they are having to deal with the input costs associated with high fuel costs, diesel costs. This is an economic issue that affects literally every American but particularly those middle-income Americans and those who this summer are looking at making plans to travel. They are going to be facing $3.50 gasoline, perhaps higher than that. Who knows how high that is going to go? My point very simply is we should have been taking these steps many years ago. We are now paying a price for inaction on the part of this Congress when it comes to the things we can do to add to supply in this country, to make sure we are taking full advantage of the domestic resources we have right here at home so we do not have to continue to allow other countries around the world to hold us over a barrel when it comes to our energy needs. The other thing we ought to have been doing--again this is something that is long overdue--is developing more refinery capacity. We are pretty much maxed out. We have not built a new refinery since 1976. They will tell you they have added or expanded existing refineries, and all that is true, but at the end of the day we have not done very much in terms of addressing the refinery shortage we have in this country either. So when it comes to raw resources such as the oil, petroleum resources below the surface on the North Slope of Alaska, when it comes to the ability to refine that into gasoline, we have some deficiencies that are of our own making. I regret the fact that we were not able to find the votes in this body to do these types of things many years ago, when today it would make a big difference in the challenge we face. The other issue, the other point I will make--because I think it gets back at this issue of how doing some of these things, although at the time they may have seemed to be not that substantial, could make a difference at the margin--is what has happened with renewable energy in this country. We are now generating about 7.5, almost 8 billion gallons of renewable fuel or ethanol in America today. One would think perhaps, when you use 140 billion gallons of gasoline on an annual basis, that that is not that big of a dent. But there was a study done by Merrill Lynch, it was reported in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks back, that were it not for ethanol, the price per barrel of oil and the price per gallon of gasoline would actually be 15 percent higher than it is today. So even though it is 7.5 billion gallons out of a 140-billion- gallon annual demand for gasoline, it is affecting the price because it is impacting supply in a positive way. In the same way, if we had opened the North Slope of Alaska when we had an opportunity to do so, we would have that 1\1/2\ million barrels a day coming into this country, which also would significantly impact the supply in a way that would begin to bring down prices. The only way we are going to bring downward pressure on prices is to increase supply. That is why I have been such a big advocate for renewable energy. We are at 7.5 billion gallons today. The Energy bill that passed last year calls for 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel by the year 2022. I think we can reach that. We are not going to reach it with corn-based ethanol. We have to diversify the production of ethanol in this country with other forms of biomass, whether that is by woodchips out of our forests, whether it is by switchgrass, which we have an abundance of on the prairies of South Dakota--but there are a lot of opportunities for what we call the next generation, for cellulosics, to meet the demands for energy in this country. I think we should be moving full steam ahead when it comes to support for renewables so we can lessen the demand on foreign energy and we can become more energy efficient here at home and develop the supplies of fuel we have. That being said, even if we get to 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels, we still will be way short of what we need. We are going to need a mix of fuels. We are going to rely on some of those traditional sources of fuel such as petroleum. Coal-to-liquid holds great promise in terms of being able to be used as a fuel, and coal is something we have in infinite amounts. We ought to be developing these types of resources. I think we also ought to be allowing States that want to, particularly some States in the upper Midwest, where ethanol is produced, to go to higher blends. We are at 10 percent ethanol today. There are States I think would like to go to higher blends. We ought to allow them, particularly when the studies are concluded by the Department of Energy and the EPA, which are determining the impact on drivability, materials compatibility, emissions--all those sorts of things. When they come back, which I believe they will, and conclusively determine that going to higher blends would not in any way adversely impact any of those metrics I mentioned, we ought to be moving to higher blends of ethanol because I think that also will help take pressure off oil prices as we continue to use more and more renewable energy. These are all parts of a solution. We need supply. But we have not taken the necessary steps to add to supply. If not now, I don't know when. When we get prices such as we are seeing, and the impact that is having on transportation industries such as aviation, such as trucking, such as agriculture, these are impacts on our economy that are only going to bring great economic strain to many industries and a loss of jobs. We can do something about it. We ought to be doing something about it. We need to now authorize, even though we have had many opportunities to do it in the past--we ought to do it on the North Slope of Alaska and offshore and other places where we have these reserves. We ought to allow refineries to be built. We tried to get legislation through that would allow refineries to be built on BRAC bases; in other words, bases that were closed through the BRAC process, and it was blocked by the Democrats on the Environment and Public Works Committee. Even when it came to the renewable fuel standard last year, that passed through the Senate and House and ultimately was signed into law, there is a deficiency there as well which has come to light now and a change that was made at the very 11th hour by the Speaker of the House that prevents biomass, residual types of biomass such as slash piles that are generated in our national forests, to be used to make cellulosic ethanol. That makes absolutely no sense. We have waste products in our forests that add to fuel loads that create fire hazards. All we are simply saying is these types of products could be used to make next-generation biofuels and help grow our supply of renewable energy, and that was stripped out, at the 11th hour, by the House in the conference. That is very unfortunate because it is steps such as that, it is steps such as blocking legislation that would allow for expedited permitting of refineries on BRAC bases, it is things such as blocking a vote on opening the North Slope of Alaska to oil exploration--those are the types of things that are stopping us. Those are the types of steps and maneuvers in the Senate and the House that are stopping us from adding to the supply of energy so we can do something about it, so we can impact, in a meaningful and positive way, the high prices that are affecting consumers across this country. I wish to make one observation as well with regard to renewable energy because ethanol has come under a lot of criticism of late, much of it I think inspired by opponents of ethanol, such as oil companies. People are talking about the high cost of food, and food prices have gone up in this country. But if you think about it, the amount of corn that goes into a box of corn flakes, for example, it is about a nickel. If you think about what impacts the cost of the things we buy at the grocery store, transportation has a profound impact on the cost because you have transportation, you have packaging, processing--all those things which are very energy intensive. So when you have high energy prices, high fuel prices such as we are facing today, that has more to do with the costs of food than the cost for a bushel of corn is ever going to have, when it comes to corn flakes or when it comes to popcorn or many of the other things that are being mentioned now by some of these groups opposing ethanol. I also would point out what I mentioned earlier and that is that were it not for ethanol--this again was reported upon by the Wall Street Journal a few weeks back, a study done by Merrill Lynch--oil prices, per-barrel oil prices and per-gallon gasoline prices would be about 15 percent higher. Couple that with the fact that a high commodity price means the Federal taxpayers under our farm programs are not making payments to producers to the tune of a savings of about $8 billion last year, according to the USDA, and there are lots of impacts that are not being mentioned by those who are specifically singling out ethanol and criticizing ethanol for the increase and runup in food costs. Add to that or couple that with this piece of data that comes out of the USDA, that $8 billion in savings in taxpayer payments would be made under farm programs that were not made, that didn't go out this last year because of high product prices. That is a substantial savings to the taxpayers of this country. Again, couple that with the fact that ethanol has contributed 15 percent reduction in the overall costs of fuel in this country, ethanol is having the impact we hoped it would by increasing supply and taking pressure off the price at the pump in this country. High fuel costs, high food costs, all these things are impacting consumers across this country. We cannot solve that problem. We cannot solve the problem of the airlines until we do something to develop our domestic resources right here at home. We have some supplies, some reserves underground even in places that previously had not been contemplated as a source of energy, in places such as the Dakotas where we are now finding there are some reserves down there, that with prices being what they are may be economically recoverable. We should be doing everything we can to develop domestic resources, whether it is on the North Slope of Alaska, whether it is offshore, whether it is in the Dakotas, in the form of oil below the surface, or corn that grows above the surface that is renewable that we can use every single year. We need to be developing resources right here at home that will lessen our dependence upon foreign sources of energy and do something to take the pressure off these high gas prices we are seeing today that are affecting every single American. I hope we will pass a comprehensive energy bill, one that includes increasing our supply, one that finally, once and for all, will allow us to get to that 6 to 16 billion barrels of oil beneath the surface on the North Slope of Alaska, which is widely supported by the political leadership in Alaska, the local citizenry there, that increases the amount of renewable energy we use in this country by allowing States that choose to increase and go to higher blends, perhaps to 20 percent or 30 percent ethanol. These are all things we could and should be doing today--allowing refineries to be built on bases that have been closed, and allowing for expedited permitting when it comes to constructing those refineries. These are all things that ought to be part of this energy solution. I think people are going to hold this Congress accountable if we do not take steps in that direction. My hope would be that before we move out of here before the next break--we have got a break coming up in a couple of weeks--we will take some action that will do something meaningful to lower energy prices for people in this country, increase our supply to build new refineries, to support the increased use of renewables. Those are all things that will happen and provide solutions and meaningful relief to the hard-working people in this country who are now faced with much higher gasoline prices. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, today I recognize Shannon Renae Vaux, an intern in my Aberdeen, SD office, for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past several months. Shannon is a graduate of Central High School in Aberdeen, SD. Currently she is attending Northern State University, where she is majoring in biology. She is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of her internship experience. I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Shannon for all of the fine work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, today I recognize Catherine Alm, an intern in my Sioux Falls, SD office, for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past several months. Catherine is a graduate of Eastview High School in Apple Valley, MN. Currently she is attending Augustana College, where she is majoring in government and spanish. She is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of her internship experience. I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Catherine for all of the fine work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Mr. THUNE

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

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I rise to speak today on an issue that is on the forefront of most Americans' minds this week, and that is the issue of tax day. Yesterday was the filing deadline, April 15, which comes around every year, and for most Americans it is greeted with a great deal of trepidation and anxiety. April 15 represents the annual call of Uncle Sam, the tax collector, knocking on the doors of hard-working taxpayers, and it highlights the real tax burden that is placed on American families. This year, Americans will work 74 days to pay their Federal taxes, 74 days to pay their Federal tax burden alone. In order to pay State and local taxes, Americans will work an average of 39 additional days. What that means is that the typical hard-working, taxpaying, law-abiding American in this country will have to work an average of 113 days to pay taxes in 2008. If we look at a calendar, that pretty much takes care of the months of January, February, March, and April, up to the 23rd of this month. If you think about it, every American is still working this year to pay the tax man. They have not gotten to that point in the tax year when everything they make can then be dedicated to the expenses they have for their families, for their children's education, for retirement, for fuel costs--all the things we deal with in our daily lives. We are still at a point on the calendar where none of what we make can be applied to those necessities of life because we are still at a point on the calendar where everything we earn and make in this country is dedicated to paying the tax man. Literally 113 days of the calendar year of this year up until April 23, which will be next week, is dedicated to pay the tax man. What does that mean? Another perspective: If you put it into an 8- hour work day, taxpayers are going to work 1 hour and 37 minutes every single day to pay Federal taxes, and an additional 51 minutes to pay State and local taxes. Put that into perspective. All other categories of consumer spending pale in comparison to the annual tax burden. In fact, Americans only need to work 60 days to pay for annual housing costs, 50 days for health and medical care, 35 days to pay for their annual costs, and 29 days to pay for transportation. So the expenses most people deal with in their every-day lives, whether, again, that is the cost of housing, health care, food, or transportation--all are basic necessities--pale in comparison to the number of days the American taxpayer works every single year to pay their tax burden. That is a pretty remarkable chart, I think you would have to say, when you look at the tax burden and the number of days you have to pay relative to the things we spend the rest of our money on. This year, the statistics are probably better, if you can imagine that, than they were a few years ago. In 2000, before the historic tax cuts took effect, taxpayers had to work an all-time high of 123 days to pay their tax burden. We have gone from 123 days down to 113 days. In that same year 2000, a record 33.6 percent of the Nation's income was dedicated to paying taxes. After the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, Americans were able to work an average of two fewer weeks to meet their Federal tax burden. That is why we find the average American working 113 days to meet their tax liability as opposed to 123 days a few short years ago. That is attributable to the tax relief that was enacted in 2001 and 2003. Aside from paying taxes, filling out tax returns is a burden in and of itself. We have a Tax Code that is out of control, out of date, and is imploding under its own weight. The U.S. Tax Code spans over 54,000 pages. Some of the current provisions of the code were created 40 years ago. Each year individuals, families, and businesses spend needless hours poring over IRS forms and regulations trying to make sense of the endless exercise of filing taxes. In fact, in total, taxpayers dedicate over 6 billion hours to file their taxes and spend over $140 billion a year in compliance costs. I read a story a couple of days ago that those who still fill out their own tax returns take an average of 34 hours to do so. That is almost a week. That is a workweek almost for most people to comply or fill out the tax return--for those who still fill out their own tax returns. Bear in mind that a lot of Americans have gotten to the point where it is so complex, burdensome, and complicated they turn it over to a tax preparer. For those who still fill out their tax returns, 34 hours is the average they spend in complying with the Tax Code in this country. Ironically, the complexity and uncertainty of filing taxes is only amplified by congressional action. Since 1986, we have made--I say we, the Congress--have made 15,000 changes to our Tax Code, or approximately 2 every single day. Many of these changes focus on 1- or 2-year extensions of expiring provisions. For example, last year, Congress was unable to extend the alternative minimum tax until the IRS had published its 2007 tax return forms. Because of this delay, 13.5 million taxpayers had to wait until February 11 to file forms relative to the alternative minimum tax. Only Congress can create a complex tax provision, such as the alternative minimum tax, and actually make it more complicated by extending it after the IRS publication deadline. Unfortunately, the congressional leadership is simply either oblivious or unsympathetic to the tax burden on American families. Last month, the Senate Democrats called for the largest tax increase in American history. Under the Democratic budget, the reduced individual tax rates are set to expire in 20 months. As millions of Americans have now finished coping with this year's April 15 deadline, I think it is important to point out that this deadline is going to be even more painful under the Democratic budget that passed the Senate earlier this year. If the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are not extended, on January 1, 2011, the 10-percent tax bracket will expire, the tax bracket that was put into effect that impacts low-income earners, lowers their tax liability and took literally millions of American taxpayers completely off the tax rolls. The 25-percent tax bracket that currently applies to earners in that tax rate bracket is going to go up to 28 percent. The 28- percent tax rate will increase to 31 percent. The 33-percent tax rate will increase to 36 percent. And the 35-percent tax rate will increase to 39.9 percent. On top of the increased tax rates that will happen on January 1, 2010, unless we take steps to extend and prevent those tax cuts from expiring, the increased child tax credit will expire as well. Families with children are going to see their tax burden increase substantially when the $1,000 tax credit is reduced to $500 after the year 2010. Additionally, the marriage penalty is reinstated. The 3l million filers who report dividend income and the 26 million filers who report capital gains income also will see their taxes on their investments go up. Finally, the death tax will be reinstated at pre-2001 levels of $1 million. In other words, you can exempt $1 million worth of your income, the wealth you acquired over the years, from the death tax liability. If we think about how that impacts small businesses, farmers, and ranchers--and I can share that as someone who lives in a rural State where we have a lot of farm and ranch families. We have a lot of people with lots of assets, lots of land, lots of equipment, but they are very cash poor. When you take $1 million anymore, with land values being what they are in a place such as even my State of South Dakota, you are going to have an awful lot of people who are going to be hit very hard by the death tax when it becomes reinstated at a $1 million-level exemption. Attach to that a maximum statutory rate of 55 percent--which, incidentally, is one of the highest death tax rates in the world. So literally you are going to have for people now who worked their whole lives--small businesses, farmers, ranchers--to accumulate some things to pass on to the next generation, all but $1 million of that would be taxed at a rate as high as 55 percent. Think about the impact that is going to have on family farm and ranch operations in this country and many of our small businesses, which is where most of the jobs in the country are generated. In total, the average family is going to see their taxes increase by roughly $2,300 per year. That is enough to buy several months of groceries or several months worth of health care. It does not have to be this difficult. Congress can work in a bipartisan manner to fix our broken Tax Code and to ease the tax burden for families and small businesses. Commissions have been convened, hearings have been held, studies have been published, and yet another tax day has passed without comprehensive tax reform. Streamlining our Tax Code will strengthen our economy, it will improve the competitiveness of our businesses, and it will greatly ease the tax burden for all American families. The problem is not that Washington taxes too little. The problem is that Washington spends too much. The American people, when they start spending virtually a third of their year to pay the tax burden that is imposed on them at the Federal level, the State level, and the local level, we are asking way too much and imposing way too much a burden on the working men and women in this country and those small businesses that are creating the jobs and those who are trying to pass on those operations to the next generation so we can keep family farms, ranches, and small businesses in the family, contributing, creating jobs, and paying taxes. With a confiscatory death tax, which will happen if we do not take steps to extend the tax cuts, we are going to see a lot of those farms, ranchers, and small businesses go by the wayside. I hope the sentiment in this body, the Senate, and the House of Representatives will change to the point that we recognize the importance of extending the tax relief that was enacted in 2001 and 2003 so we do not see these steep increases in income rates and return of the marriage penalty and a decrease in the per-child tax credit, dividend, and capital gains income being taxed at much higher rates, and the death tax being reinstated. If we are successful in extending those tax cuts, I think we will see an economy that, although experiencing an economic downturn right now, will improve, will start to grow again and create jobs. If we allow these tax cuts to expire, I think it is ``Katy, bar the door'' in terms of the adverse economic consequences and impact it will have on this economy and on the working men and women of this country and the entrepreneurs who make it work. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today I honor the University of South Dakota Coyotes women's basketball team on their second place finish in the 2008 NCAA Division II Tournament. This was USD's first trip to the National Championship game. The USD women's basketball team has a long history of success, including three NCC Conference Championships from 1982 to 1985, as well as eight appearances in the NCAA Division II National Tournament. South Dakota, which concluded the season with a 33 and 2 overall record, won the North Central Conference with a 12 and 0 record. This was USD's final season in Division II athletics and it was undoubtedly one of the best in school history. Certainly, this historic season would not have been possible without the players themselves. The members of the 2007-2008 University of South Dakota women's basketball team are as follows: Natalie Carda, Shannon Daly, Michelle Dirks, Anne Doshier, Kelli Fargen, Amber Hegge, Jeana Hoffman, Jenna Hoffman, Kara Iverson, Jasmine Mosley, Amy Robinette, Ashley Robinette, Annie Roche, Kendra Schomer, Bridget Yoerger, Maggie Youngberg. Although this accomplishment was truly a team effort, I would like to pay special recognition to their coach Chad Lavin, who will be retiring after 14 years with the USD women's basketball team. Coach Lavin is USD's career wins leader with 271. Lavin's coaching success has not gone unnoticed as he has been named the NCC Coach of the Year four different times and has been selected as the Russell Athletic/WBCA North Central Regional Coach of the Year for the 2007-2008 season. The coaches and student athletes of USD's women's basketball team should be very proud of all of their remarkable achievements this season. On behalf of the State of South Dakota, I am pleased to say congratulations to the Coyotes on this impressive season.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. I ask I be allowed to speak in morning business.

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

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments today to talk about an important topic affecting individuals and families from all across the country, and that is the rising cost of health care. It is an issue that affects every individual, every family's pocketbook. It is an issue that is affecting our small businesses across the country as they try to keep up with the rising cost of health care. I thank my colleague from Louisiana, Senator Vitter, who last week spearheaded a discussion along with seven of my Senate colleagues on the conservative principles of health care reform. This is a discussion we plan to highlight over the next several weeks and which we will continue to focus on in the future. I had the privilege of visiting a number of hospitals around South Dakota over the March work period, to hear from providers on issues of concern to them and to discuss health care reform. I was primarily focused on small hospitals, critical access hospitals, providers that deliver health care services in very rural and remote areas of this country. My State of South Dakota has lots of land and not a big population base. Yet people's expectation out there is they will have access to high-quality health care. As I visited these hospitals and health care providers as I visited my State over the March work period, I heard lots of different messages, and one of them was we have to figure out a way to keep up with these rising costs. Fortunately, for many of the smaller hospitals in the rural areas that are critical access hospitals, they are able to get cost-based reimbursement, and that is something I think has led to the survival of lots of health care providers that otherwise would have had to close their doors. It is important the American people hear the message of choice and affordability championed by many Republicans in the health care debate. Unfortunately, we are up against an opposing message, which is one of a quick fix or universal plan that Washington will decide for everyone. This message too often sticks in the minds of the media, with health care trade associations, and with many of our constituents. The goal of universal coverage, or allowing every person in America the opportunity to afford health care insurance, is an important goal. How we work toward this goal is where the debate lies. That is where a Clinton or Obama health care plan differs strikingly from that offered by our colleague from Arizona, Senator John McCain. I would like to focus today on one of the most basic principles which should guide all our health care reform proposals we debate in the coming years and that is to reject this movement toward more Government-run health insurance. Instead, we ought to make long-lasting reforms to both our tax system and the insurance market to increase access to privately owned health care coverage. That is private insurance you, the individual, can choose and you can keep from job to job. What we have today is already a mixture of Government-run insurance, including Medicare, which provides coverage to over 40 million seniors, and Medicaid, a program available to the poor and the disabled, and private insurance, usually offered through medium or large employers. Only about 7 percent of the population in this country actually purchase their insurance on their own directly from an insurance company. In lots of ways, the way people access health insurance today is very limiting when you consider the Government or your employer does not choose other important services in your life, such as the food you eat or the car or the home you buy. Rising health care costs are also a huge problem, not only for those who have private insurance but also for our Government programs. The Medicare trustees now report that into the future, the trust funds have over $36 trillion in long-term unfunded obligations. By that I mean benefits that are promised but not paid for, which amounts--if you can belief this--to 2\1/2\ times the size of the entire U.S. economy. Let me repeat that, $36 trillion in long-term unfunded liabilities or 2\1/ 2\ times the entire U.S. economy. This is money somebody has to pay, and it is an added burden on future generations and on our economy. Left unchecked, the Federal Government will be forced to cut benefits or substantially increase taxes. If there is one thing that should be obvious to all of us, it is that a system such as traditional Medicare or Medicaid is not sustainable financially. There are no natural incentives under these programs to control costs. It is not just the cost of these programs that presents a problem. While over 40 million seniors have Medicare coverage, most beneficiaries also have some form of supplemental coverage, or other insurance, that wraps around because traditional Medicare is not enough. In 2004, only 9.3 percent of Medicare beneficiaries relied solely on the traditional fee-for-service program, and over 60 percent had some form of private supplemental coverage. Also, for many providers in my State of South Dakota, Medicare's prices and regulations do not account for the challenges patients and providers face in rural areas. Once again, one size fits all, Government-run health insurance is neither financially sustainable nor is it even sufficient for those it is meant to help. For the next several weeks, the Senator from Louisiana, myself, and Senators DeMint, Burr, Coburn, Martinez, Isakson, and Corker will be talking about the alternatives that are out there to our current rules and regulations and how we can achieve affordable coverage for all Americans through expanding access to private insurance. While some of my colleagues in this body would like to expand Medicare to cover everyone to achieve the goal of universal coverage, or to expand Medicaid and SCHIP to cover many more Americans, I strongly oppose the expansion of Government insurance at the expense of choice, quality, and affordability. Frankly, I want much more for my constituents back home in South Dakota and others across the country. I don't want the next President to push through a health care plan that will put more families on Government insurance, simply so we can say we have provided coverage. As we were having the SCHIP debate last year, this point came up. Expanding SCHIP, which is essentially Medicaid in my State and in most other States, to families making as much as $80,000 per year, would have made it harder to attract good physicians to South Dakota, something we struggle with constantly in rural States. At a time when as many as 50 percent of physicians nationwide are limiting or dropping Medicaid patients because it simply does not cover their costs, why would we want to expand this program even further? There is a better way. In my State, most of the uninsured are employees of small businesses. These are individuals capable of owning their own insurance, but it is simply not affordable or is not offered through their place of employment. What Senator McCain has proposed-- and even one Senator from the other party, Senator Wyden from Oregon-- is to reform the tax incentives in place now that only benefit large employers, CEOs and their employees, in purchasing health insurance, and level the playing field for everyone else. This can be accomplished by eliminating the tax benefit employers receive when offering insurance to their employees, which equals more than $200 billion over 1 year, and instead taking that money and offering it in the form of a tax credit or standard tax deduction to every American toward the purchase of health insurance. With a tax credit proposal, we would be able to give every American a credit--$2,000 for an individual or $4,500 or $5,000 for a family-- which is advanceable and refundable toward the purchase of insurance. You could still choose to get your insurance through your employer or keep it, if that is the best option for you. But for anyone else, they would also have a substantial tax benefit to be able to choose their own plan that fits their needs and which is not tied to their employer. This would allow individuals and families to keep their insurance when moving from job to job. By giving all Americans the option of a tax credit, we would empower millions of families who normally could not afford to buy insurance on their own to do so on the individual market, putting millions of consumers in the driver's seat, demanding more personalized, convenient, and affordable insurance plans. Right now, it is simply not possible for families or individuals in most States to afford their own insurance plan. But by redirecting this tax incentive and creating a more vibrant market, quality insurance plans will become more affordable and more accessible. This will drive down the cost of insurance for everyone. Finally, by giving individuals a tax credit toward the purchase of insurance, we allow people to choose their own health insurance and the type of plan they desire. They could choose the plan that fits their needs, rather than having their employer do it for them. In many cases, their employer is only going to offer a very limited number of options--perhaps doesn't know the health care needs from one person in the plan to the next. More people will know what they are purchasing and will know what their premiums are going toward each and every single month, making us all better consumers of health care services. Now, more than ever, words and phases such as Washington bureaucracy, Government-run health care, wage garnishment, and mandates describe the direction many in this Congress wish to take. I believe that is the wrong direction, and I will continue to support health care reforms which expand choices and which give people more freedom to access the health care that is right for them. This is a debate that needs to be joined in the days and weeks and months ahead. My hope is it will get underway this year. My expectation is anything done this year will probably be very incremental because I think the big, bold decisions that need to be made regarding America's health care system will probably, regrettably, get punted into next year, after the Presidential election. But the debate needs to begin. What I and my colleagues I mentioned have decided is, we need to start that dialog now. We need to get the American people engaged in this debate in a way that allows them to see what the options are, what the alternatives are, what their choices are. I believe a majority of constituents in my State of South Dakota, and I would daresay across this country, will chose a system that is based in the market, that gives them more choices, more alternatives, that creates competition--a competitive model, and, yes, that covers more Americans who, today, do not have access to health insurance. I believe that is a goal that is achievable. I believe the debate needs to start now. I also believe that whoever the next President of the United States is, needs to work together with this Congress, we need to work together as Democrats and Republicans on a health care plan that is based on these very simple principles. It is the principles that have served this country and this American economy so well for so many years--freedom, choice, competition, quality--that ought to be the model for the health care of the future. I look forward to continuing this discussion throughout the coming months. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today I recognize Black Hills State University as they celebrate their 125th anniversary. Throughout the past 125 years, Black Hills State University, BHSU, has served the State of South Dakota by providing a quality educational experience. BHSU's commitment to education began in 1883 when the school was founded as the Dakota Territorial Normal School. With only 40 students and a 2-year budget of $2,000, BHSU began its journey in becoming a premier educational institution in South Dakota. The school underwent a name change in 1941 and became the Black Hills Teacher's College. In the early 1940s, the rise of World War II resulted in a nationwide decline in university enrollment. In response, BHSU chipped in and hosted the training operations for Air Corp Cadets for the Manpower Commission to assist the war effort. After the war, the school rebounded and enrollment increased rapidly with the help of the G.I. Bill of Rights and BHSU's addition of graduate courses to its university catalogue. Black Hills State University received its present name in 1964, and since, has continued to thrive in the South Dakota educational community. Now with three different colleges, an excellent academic environment, and many athletic opportunities, I am confident that BHSU will continue to serve the Spearfish community and the State of South Dakota for the next 125 years. It gives me great pleasure to rise with the students, faculty, and alumni of Black Hills State University on this milestone anniversary and wish them continued success in the years to come.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, what is the unanimous consent agreement?