George Voinovich

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 2009 with Senator Lieberman and Senator Carper. When I came to the Senate in 1999, I introduced the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999 with Senators Lieberman, Thompson and Durbin because as a former mayor and governor, I had seen first-hand the problems and complications that existed in the federal grant making process. Congress enacted our legislation to improve the effectiveness and performance of Federal financial assistance programs, simplify Federal financial assistance application and reporting requirements, improve the delivery of services to the public and coordinate the delivery of those services, and progress was made under the law, which is commonly known as ``P.L. 106-107.'' A 2005 Government Accountability Office, GAO, report noted that ``[m]ore than 5 years after passage of P.L. 106- 107, cross-agency work groups have made some progress in streamlining aspects of the early phases of the grants life cycle and in some specific aspects of overall grants management . . . .'' However, GAO also noted that work remained to be done and in 2006 suggested that Congress consider reauthorizing the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999, which expired in 2007. I believe that Congress should heed GAO's advice and reauthorize this important law, so last year I introduced S. 3341 with Senator Lieberman to reauthorize the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act and make improvements to that Act based on the 2005 and 2006 recommendations of GAO. The bill passed the Senate in September 2008. Today we are reintroducing that legislation, which requires the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, to improve the grants.gov website or develop another public website that allows grant applicants to search and apply for grants, report on the use of grants, and provide required certifications and assurances for grants. I believe such a website will enhance the transparency required by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act that Congress enacted in 2007. The bill also requires the Director of OMB to develop a strategic plan for an end-to-end electronic capability for non-Federal entities to manage the Federal financial assistance they receive and requires each Federal agency to plan actions to implement that strategic plan. Each federal agency would be required to report to OMB on progress made in achieving its objectives under the OMB strategic plan, and the Director of OMB would be required to report to Congress biennially on progress made in implementing the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act. In 1999 I said the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act was an important step toward detangling the web of duplicative Federal grants available to States, localities and community organizations. Last year I said that while some progress was made under that law to detangle the web, work remained to be done. I hope that Congress will quickly reauthorize this law so that OMB and Federal agencies continue their efforts to simplify and streamline the Federal grant process. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 2009 with Senator Lieberman and Senator Carper. When I came to the Senate in 1999, I introduced the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999 with Senators Lieberman, Thompson and Durbin because as a former mayor and governor, I had seen first-hand the problems and complications that existed in the federal grant making process. Congress enacted our legislation to improve the effectiveness and performance of Federal financial assistance programs, simplify Federal financial assistance application and reporting requirements, improve the delivery of services to the public and coordinate the delivery of those services, and progress was made under the law, which is commonly known as ``P.L. 106-107.'' A 2005 Government Accountability Office, GAO, report noted that ``[m]ore than 5 years after passage of P.L. 106- 107, cross-agency work groups have made some progress in streamlining aspects of the early phases of the grants life cycle and in some specific aspects of overall grants management . . . .'' However, GAO also noted that work remained to be done and in 2006 suggested that Congress consider reauthorizing the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999, which expired in 2007. I believe that Congress should heed GAO's advice and reauthorize this important law, so last year I introduced S. 3341 with Senator Lieberman to reauthorize the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act and make improvements to that Act based on the 2005 and 2006 recommendations of GAO. The bill passed the Senate in September 2008. Today we are reintroducing that legislation, which requires the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, to improve the grants.gov website or develop another public website that allows grant applicants to search and apply for grants, report on the use of grants, and provide required certifications and assurances for grants. I believe such a website will enhance the transparency required by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act that Congress enacted in 2007. The bill also requires the Director of OMB to develop a strategic plan for an end-to-end electronic capability for non-Federal entities to manage the Federal financial assistance they receive and requires each Federal agency to plan actions to implement that strategic plan. Each federal agency would be required to report to OMB on progress made in achieving its objectives under the OMB strategic plan, and the Director of OMB would be required to report to Congress biennially on progress made in implementing the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act. In 1999 I said the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act was an important step toward detangling the web of duplicative Federal grants available to States, localities and community organizations. Last year I said that while some progress was made under that law to detangle the web, work remained to be done. I hope that Congress will quickly reauthorize this law so that OMB and Federal agencies continue their efforts to simplify and streamline the Federal grant process. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. I am more than happy to do that as long as I have a guarantee that after 7 minutes, I have a chance to offer my voice about the amendment.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of the Hutchison substitute amendment. Before I discuss the merits of the Hutchison amendment, I wish to thank Senator Mikulski for her commitment to debate this legislation in a constructive manner. As Senator Mikulski said, we can disagree, without being disagreeable. I thank the Democratic leader, the Senator from Nevada and the minority leader, the Senator from Kentucky, for agreeing that we will make our best efforts to return to the tradition here in the Senate of debating bills and allowing amendments to be offered, and returning things to the point where I think it will enhance the reputation of this great body in terms of the body that is looking in on us. I hope this is the beginning of a new era here. I think the more we can work together, the better they are going to feel about the future of our country. I would also like to thank my colleague, Senator Hutchison, who I know is extremely busy in her role as ranking member of the Commerce Committee. Her efforts to draft a solution are commendable. Senator Hutchison is in a strong position to speak on issues arising from both her substitute amendment and Senator Mikulski's underlying legislation. As Senator Hutchison said in her opening remarks, as a young lawyer coming out of law school, she experienced the nefarious consequences of gender discrimination. In addition, I think her experience as a small business owner and the general counsel of a bank provides Senator Hutchison with the unique perspective to understand the problems with Senator Mikulski's legislation. There is one thing on which we all agree: Gender and other forms of discrimination are wrong, illegal, and they should not be tolerated. This debate should not be about whether one party condones illegal discrimination; rather, this debate must focus on how to strike the right balance to address the situation in which a person is subject to an individual act of discrimination but through no fault of their own has no way to know about it. As I mentioned during my retirement announcement last week, one of the reasons I decided to retire in 2 years was the desire to spend more time with my family. I am the proud father of a daughter, Betsy, who graduated as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. When she was growing up, I said: Honey, the sky is the limit for whatever you want to do. In addition to my daughter Betsy, I have seven grandchildren, and six of them are girls. I have said the same thing to them: The sky is the limit. My oldest granddaughter, Mary Faith, is 12 years old. One of these days, she is going to be out in that business world. I want Betsy, Mary Faith, and all my grandchildren, to have the opportunity to reach their full potential based on their God-given talents, and not be constrained by outdated prejudices. Based on the debate so far, I believe there is a good deal of agreement between Members who support Senator Hutchison and Members who support Senator Mikulski's legislation. For example, we agree that discrimination based on gender is illegal and wrong. We also agree that the dynamics of the modern workplace may make instances of such discrimination difficult to detect if the discrimination is reflected in pay decisions. Unlike when someone is denied a job, a promotion, or is terminated, paycheck discrimination may not be obvious. The source of our disagreement is how to find a solution to address this specific issue. Before I address the specifics of why I support Senator Hutchison's amendment over Senator Mikulski's legislation, I believe there are some misconceptions about the Supreme Court's Ledbetter v. Goodyear decision. Advocates of the Ledbetter legislation have continued to state that passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act will restore the law to what it was before the Supreme Court's decision. This is misleading. In its Ledbetter decision, the Supreme Court clarified a faulty interpretation of its early decision in Bazemore v. Friday. The Supreme Court did not change the underlying statute of limitations in title VII. I think it is helpful to understand what the Court did in distinguishing these two cases. The Court's Bazemore decision held that if an employer's pay structure is facially discriminatory, that is, the pay structure sets different compensation on criteria like race or gender, then the paycheck is the last act of illegal conduct from which the 180-day filing period begins. The Court, rightfully in my opinion, distinguished this from the situation in Ms. Ledbetter's lawsuit. With Ms. Ledbetter's lawsuit there was not a discriminatory pay structure in place, but rather allegations of specific acts of discrimination. The Court found those discrete acts occurred outside the 180-day filing period. I think that is an important distinction Members should understand. Still, as some of my colleagues pointed out during this debate, specific and discrete acts of wage-based discrimination may be very difficult to detect within the 180-day filing period provided under title VII. This could lead to situations in which an employer escapes liability simply because the person did not know that a discriminatory act took place. In such a situation, the 180-day filing rule appears to reward bad behavior and harm the person facing the illegal discrimination. I agree with Senator Mikulski that under this situation a strict 180-day filing rule is unfair. As one of my colleagues supporting the Ledbetter legislation pointed out, the Supreme Court, in TRW v. Adelaide and in an opinion authored by Justice Ginsburg, interpreted a statute of limitations arising under the Fair Credit Reporting Act as starting ``from the date on which the liability arises.'' Understanding this could unduly penalize victims of identity theft, Congress enacted a fix as part of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act of 2003. This fix extended the relevant statute of limitations based on the ``discovery by the plaintiff'' of the impermissible conduct. Unfortunately, this is not the approach the Ledbetter legislation takes. Rather, it would adopt a rule allowing for the filing of lawsuits 180 days after the last paycheck issued by the employer that was affected by a discriminatory act, even if it was a single act that occurred many years ago. Thus, the Ledbetter legislation could allow for the filing of lawsuits long after someone knew they were subject to a discriminatory act, effectively eliminating the statue of limitations from title VII in many cases. As the Supreme Court noted in its Ledbetter decision, statutes of limitations serve an important policy of repose in our justice system. Under American legal principles, it has long been public policy that a person should not be called into court to defend claims that are based on conduct long past. As many of my colleagues who have practiced law know, it can be very difficult to mount a defense in cases in which the underlying conduct occurred long ago because witnesses are difficult to locate, memories fade, and records are not maintained. In Ms. Ledbetter's case, the supervisor accused of the misconduct died by the time of the trial. Yet under the approach taken by the Ledbetter legislation, defendants could potentially find themselves facing lawsuits that are years, if not decades, old. Because she recognizes that paycheck discrimination may not be obvious in the modern workplace and that a bad actor should not benefit from hiding such discrimination, Senator Hutchison crafted a sensible compromise. Under the Hutchison amendment, a person could bring a claim under title VII within 180 days after obtaining knowledge or information that the person is the victim of discriminatory conduct. In other words, you don't start the 180-day statute of limitations until the person knows or has reasonable suspicion that she is subject to a discriminatory wage. But once you know you have been discriminated against, then it is your obligation to bring that to the attention of the EEOC and start the process to obtain relief. By allowing a person to bring a claim from 180 days after the discriminatory conduct is discovered, Senator Hutchison's amendment stops bad actors from benefiting, and addresses many of the concerns many of my colleagues raised. Unfortunately, the Ledbetter legislation would swing the pendulum completely in the opposite direction and create an open-ended legal liability that could expose businesses, the very entities we need to help us lift our economy out of this recession, to expensive new legal liabilities. While this may not be good for insurance companies who write policies and trial lawyers who bring lawsuits, I do not believe the legislation is sound public policy. Finally, I want to address a related issue before I yield the floor. Besides disagreeing on the solution to the issues created by the Ledbetter decision, Senator Mikulski's legislation did not go through the HELP Committee during this Congress. While I understand the HELP Committee held one hearing on the Ledbetter bill during the 110th, this hearing occurred before Senator Hutchison introduced her legislation, which is now before us as the pending amendment. As a result, the Senate is left without the wisdom of having testimony and information comparing the different approaches. While I understand sometimes it is necessary to bypass committees, the Senate has started to bypass the committee process too frequently. So often, as a result of that committee process, compromises can be worked out so once the bill is out of committee in many instances you can get a UC and get that legislation passed, or at least people have had a chance to talk about it in terms of some compromise. So I am glad to be involved in this debate, but I believe the Senate and our Nation would be better served if the Senate got back into the habit of taking up legislation after it has gone through the relevant committee. In fact, I believe if these two legislative proposals had been discussed in the HELP Committee, the committee might have crafted a compromise bill that had the support of most, if not all, of my colleagues. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation, the Harmonizing America's Energy, Economy, Environment, and National Security Act, that I believe can lead our Nation out of the current energy crisis. Much of the Nation's attention has understandably been focused on the financial turmoil taking place on Wall Street. Since the very beginning, I have been hard at work in addressing the financial crisis and I will be supporting the economic stabilization bill when the Senate votes tonight. But I will vote with a heavy heart, for I have spent my entire career focusing on eliminating debt at the local, State and Federal level. While deciding to vote for a package of this magnitude feels like being punched in the gut, the thought of what would happen to average Americans if we did nothing is much more painful. I am, however, very pleased to see that any profit we may make off this deal will be used to pay down the national debt. This is affecting not only Wall Street but Main Street and my street. Ohioans depend on credit to buy a home, drive to work and send their children to school. If this doesn't pass, the possible ramifications are staggering. Imagine if you can, businesses laying off staff or closing completely because they can't make payroll; retirement funds that have already taken a dramatic hit being reduced to nothing; parents unable to get a loan to pay for child's college tuition; families unable to get credit for a car or a house; cities unable to float bonds to build hospitals or schools; and home prices continuing to plummet. We must act Mr. President. We must set aside our differences and our ideologies and do what is right. But our work cannot stop here. We must make a full-court press to stabilize the housing market and secure our energy supplies. While we have been debating and acting on the financial crisis, our energy crisis has not only continued, but in many ways grown worse. It remains an issue that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later, and if our economy is to quickly recover, a comprehensive energy policy will need to be part of the equation. I have heard loud and clear from thousands of Ohioans how this energy crisis is directly affecting them and their loved ones. They are expecting that we work together in bipartisan fashion to craft legislation that will address our Nation's long-term energy requirements. Take for example, the severe fuel supply disruption created by our shortsighted offshore drilling policy and hurricanes Ike and Gustav. Both hurricanes followed paths that paved straight through the heart of our Nation's offshore oil production and home to the bulk of our refining capacity. Due to the frequency of gulf hurricanes, many oil experts have pointed to this as a reason we need to open additional areas of the Outer Continental Shelf outside of the Gulf of Mexico. With 25 percent of our oil production currently taking place within the Gulf of Mexico, gulf hurricanes frequently lead to wild price spikes in the gasoline market as oil rigs and refineries are taken off line to avoid damage and loss of life. According to the Energy Information Agency, Ike and Gustav lead to a 25 percent drop in our domestic oil production compared to this time last year, from 5.1 billion barrels a day to 3.8 billion barrels per day. The loss in refining capacity cut our gasoline inventories to levels we have not seen since 1967, resulting in widespread fuel shortages that left many in the Southeast driving from gas station to gas station, desperate to find fuel for their cars. Much of the reason why these supply disruptions have not spread across the country is that we have reached out and imported large quantities of gasoline from overseas. Some of which has undoubtedly come from countries like Venezuela, that do not have our best interests at heart. This situation is cause for concern in its own right, but is also underscored by the current financial crisis and the fact that this is no longer a question about the price of oil. Energy security is a matter of national security. We have clearly ignored our financial situation for far too long. The national debt stands at $9.6 trillion, almost double the $5.4 trillion debt that existed when the senator came to the Senate in 1999. By the end of 2009, the national debt is expected to have grown to $10.5 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office said the Federal Government will finish the fiscal year with a near-record deficit of $407 billion. These numbers do not include borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund which would put the overall number close to $600 billion and $700 billion by next year. We cannot overlook our ballooning national debt. Today, 51 percent of the privately-owned national debt is held by foreign creditors--mostly foreign central banks. Foreign creditors provided more than 70 percent of the funds that the U.S. has borrowed since 2001, according to the Department of Treasury. And who are these creditors? According to the Treasury Department, the three largest foreign holders of U.S. debt are China, Japan, and OPEC Nations. This is insane and it has to stop. We cannot afford to allow the countries that control our oil and our debt to control our future. Americans are hurting from our addiction to oil, I'm not sure they fully realize the extent our national security, and indeed our very way of life, is threatened by our reliance on foreign oil. Every year we send billions of dollars overseas for oil to pad the coffers of many Nations that wish our demise. In fact, in 2007, we spent more than $327 billion to import oil, and 60 percent of that, or nearly $200 billion, went to the oil-exporting OPEC nations. In 2008, the amount we will spend to import oil is expected to double to more than $600 billion, $360 billion of which will come from OPEC. Let's take a moment to put those import figures into context. When compared to our FY2008 budget for our Nation's defense, which was more than $693 billion, the $600 billion we will spend to import oil in 2008 is nearly equal to our entire defense budget. There is no question that our dependence on foreign oil has serious national security implications. In addition to funding our enemies--as I just explained--we cannot ignore the fact that much of our oil comes from and travels through the most volatile regions of the world. A couple of years ago, I attended a series of war games hosted by the National Defense University. I saw firsthand how our country's economy could be brought to its knees if somebody cut off our oil. In 2006, Hillard Huntington, Executive Director of Stanford University's Energy Modeling Forum testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and based on his modeling, ``the odds of a foreign oil disruption happening over the next 10 years are slightly higher [than] 80 percent.'' He went on to testify that if global production were reduced by merely 2.1 percent due to some event, that it would have a more serious effect on oil prices and the economy than hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Let us take a moment to think of our Nation like a business. Our feedstock is oil, and our of competitors control the cost of our oil. We have debt, but our competitors also control our debt. What's to keep our competitors from raising prices, calling in our debt and running us out of business? I hope this scenario scares you as much as it scares me. But also keep in mind, that as Congress sat here and twiddle its thumbs over simply expanding domestic drilling within our own borders, Russia and China were actively and aggressively laying claim to energy resources around the globe. Russia, the world's second biggest oil exporter, has its sights on a large section of the Arctic seafloor that is believed to contain billion of barrels of fuel equivalent. The country has also made moves to control a larger portion of the world's natural gas reserves. Russia, which has significant reserves of natural gas, is considering the creation of a natural gas cartel similar to OPEC. Venezuela and Iran have expressed interest. Russia has proven it has no qualms with using energy as a weapon. In 1990, Russia tried to suppress independence movements in the Baltics by cutting energy supplies. In all, Russia has used energy as a tool to further their foreign policy goals on no less than six countries. Energy is believed to be one of the driving reasons for Russia's military action in the independent nation of Georgia. China as well is moving ahead in securing its energy future. In Africa, China is handing out loans and funding expansive infrastructure projects in an effort to lay claim to lucrative oil reserves. With the help of Chinese investment, Angola recently passed Nigeria to become the largest petroleum producer on the continent. I am going to be brutally honest with you folks, the future of our country is in jeopardy. We cannot continue to transfer our wealth overseas to this degree without expecting serious consequences. Rather than addressing these national security concerns we have been living the life of Riley, and allowed the environmental movement to run wild. Congress let them get away with. We let them get away with it Mr. President. Why? Because oil was cheap and so Congress felt no urgency to act. Well, oil is not cheap anymore. While detrimental to our economy and competitiveness, the high price of oil finally spurred some of my colleagues into action and I am proud that Congress has taken some steps to address the energy crisis. The recently passed fiscal year 2009 Continuing Resolution removed the moratoria on oil exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf and moratorium on regulations for the development of oil shale. Reserves in the Outer Continental Shelf are believed to equal 8.5 billion barrels of oil, and undiscovered resources could equal ten times that. There are currently 800 billion barrels of technically recoverable reserves locked up in our Nation's oil shale. This is three times larger than the total proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. The Senate has also passed a tax extenders package that includes many incentives to develop advanced alternative energies that will lead our country to a future free of oil. Included in the package were popular tax credits for the wind and solar industry that have helped foster strong emerging industries in my home State of Ohio. Congress needs to continue to act. I believe the Harmonizing America's Energy, Economy, Environment, and National Security Act is the vehicle for a bipartisan effort to develop a meaningful comprehensive energy plan. Addressing this crisis requires nothing less than a Second Declaration of Independence--to move us away from foreign sources of energy in the near term and away from oil in the long term. As you know, oil is not easily found nor substituted, and it will remain an integral component to our economy in the short-term. But we must make investments today that will help us achieve our goal tomorrow. To do this I believe we must find more, use less, and conserve what we have. In order to find more and stabilize our Nation's energy supply, my legislation would encourage the development of oil resources within the Outer Continental Shelf and with regards to our oil shale reserves. It would also open ANWR to responsible development, where it is believed that there is over 10 billion barrels of oil. While these resources will not physically come online for a number of years, moves to expand development will send a clear signal to the market that we are serious about meeting our future energy demands and begin to drive down the cost of oil because investors will know that gas won't be worth as much in the future and will therefore sell it off today--lowering the cost immediately. And while we must increase our production of fossil fuels to relieve costs and reestablish our independence in the short term, in the long term we must reduce our demand for oil. With that goal in mind, it is essential that we explore alternative means to meet our Nation's energy needs. It is long past time for our government to provide the spark to rekindle our Nation's creativity and innovation. Following Russia's launch of Sputnik, President Kennedy challenged our country to be the first in the world to land a man on the moon. We must now undertake a similar Apollo-like project to establish clean, reliable and domestically abundant energy alternatives and in turn usher in a new era of American freedom and independence. My legislation would help to fund such a project by setting aside a portion of the federal revenues raised through lease revenues in the Outer Continental Shelf and ANWR to be used for the development of advanced alternative energies, like wind, solar, fuel cells, advanced batteries, and advanced biofuels. It would also set aside funds to be explicitly to boost funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program and to pay down our national debt. The bill will also repeal Section 526, a provision that places our domestic coal-to-liquid industry in jeopardy. We have the largest coal reserves in the world, and at current rates of consumption, U.S. coal deposits will last for more than 240 years. Coal can provide significant new supplies of affordable synthetic fuels for transportation. A lot of Americans don't understand that many country's get their oil from coal. In fact, South Africa gets nearly 70 percent of their oil from coal. But we are beginning to make advances here. In fact, Baard Energy is planning a CTL and biomass facility in SE Ohio that will produce 53,000 BPD of jet and diesel fuel, and other liquid production from coal and biomass feedstocks. Last but not least, as we look to increase our supply and spark new innovation, we must also be more responsible with the energy we currently use. My legislation would fund the development of new conservation technologies and practices and would help to disseminate these across the country. Americans today demand action and they demand we come together in a bipartisan fashion to solve our energy crisis. For 10 years I have been a member of the Environmental and Public Works Committee and for 10 years I have tried to coax Congress into harmonizing our energy, economy and the environment. Congress has refused and now the chickens have come home to roost. I believe that the best message we can send to OPEC, those investing in the oil market, and indeed the entire world, is that we get it. We must demonstrate that we are going to find more by going after every drop of oil that we can responsibly drill and that we are going to use less by undertaking a new Apollo project to make the U.S. the most oil independent nation in the world. I envision an America ten years from now where we have enough oil to take care of our needs. I imagine an America that is the least reliant country in the world on oil, an America where our economy is not threatened by our reliance on foreign energy sources. It will be an America that has created hundreds of thousands of jobs through the responsible development of our Nation's resources and the through the creation of new industries in the field of alternative energy. Wouldn't it be great for our children and grandchildren to one day celebrate the time America put aside its differences and came together to reaffirm its independence a second time and rekindled the American spirit of self reliance, innovation and creativity to usher in new era of prosperity? Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation, the Harmonizing America's Energy, Economy, Environment, and National Security Act, that I believe can lead our Nation out of the current energy crisis. Much of the Nation's attention has understandably been focused on the financial turmoil taking place on Wall Street. Since the very beginning, I have been hard at work in addressing the financial crisis and I will be supporting the economic stabilization bill when the Senate votes tonight. But I will vote with a heavy heart, for I have spent my entire career focusing on eliminating debt at the local, State and Federal level. While deciding to vote for a package of this magnitude feels like being punched in the gut, the thought of what would happen to average Americans if we did nothing is much more painful. I am, however, very pleased to see that any profit we may make off this deal will be used to pay down the national debt. This is affecting not only Wall Street but Main Street and my street. Ohioans depend on credit to buy a home, drive to work and send their children to school. If this doesn't pass, the possible ramifications are staggering. Imagine if you can, businesses laying off staff or closing completely because they can't make payroll; retirement funds that have already taken a dramatic hit being reduced to nothing; parents unable to get a loan to pay for child's college tuition; families unable to get credit for a car or a house; cities unable to float bonds to build hospitals or schools; and home prices continuing to plummet. We must act Mr. President. We must set aside our differences and our ideologies and do what is right. But our work cannot stop here. We must make a full-court press to stabilize the housing market and secure our energy supplies. While we have been debating and acting on the financial crisis, our energy crisis has not only continued, but in many ways grown worse. It remains an issue that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later, and if our economy is to quickly recover, a comprehensive energy policy will need to be part of the equation. I have heard loud and clear from thousands of Ohioans how this energy crisis is directly affecting them and their loved ones. They are expecting that we work together in bipartisan fashion to craft legislation that will address our Nation's long-term energy requirements. Take for example, the severe fuel supply disruption created by our shortsighted offshore drilling policy and hurricanes Ike and Gustav. Both hurricanes followed paths that paved straight through the heart of our Nation's offshore oil production and home to the bulk of our refining capacity. Due to the frequency of gulf hurricanes, many oil experts have pointed to this as a reason we need to open additional areas of the Outer Continental Shelf outside of the Gulf of Mexico. With 25 percent of our oil production currently taking place within the Gulf of Mexico, gulf hurricanes frequently lead to wild price spikes in the gasoline market as oil rigs and refineries are taken off line to avoid damage and loss of life. According to the Energy Information Agency, Ike and Gustav lead to a 25 percent drop in our domestic oil production compared to this time last year, from 5.1 billion barrels a day to 3.8 billion barrels per day. The loss in refining capacity cut our gasoline inventories to levels we have not seen since 1967, resulting in widespread fuel shortages that left many in the Southeast driving from gas station to gas station, desperate to find fuel for their cars. Much of the reason why these supply disruptions have not spread across the country is that we have reached out and imported large quantities of gasoline from overseas. Some of which has undoubtedly come from countries like Venezuela, that do not have our best interests at heart. This situation is cause for concern in its own right, but is also underscored by the current financial crisis and the fact that this is no longer a question about the price of oil. Energy security is a matter of national security. We have clearly ignored our financial situation for far too long. The national debt stands at $9.6 trillion, almost double the $5.4 trillion debt that existed when the senator came to the Senate in 1999. By the end of 2009, the national debt is expected to have grown to $10.5 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office said the Federal Government will finish the fiscal year with a near-record deficit of $407 billion. These numbers do not include borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund which would put the overall number close to $600 billion and $700 billion by next year. We cannot overlook our ballooning national debt. Today, 51 percent of the privately-owned national debt is held by foreign creditors--mostly foreign central banks. Foreign creditors provided more than 70 percent of the funds that the U.S. has borrowed since 2001, according to the Department of Treasury. And who are these creditors? According to the Treasury Department, the three largest foreign holders of U.S. debt are China, Japan, and OPEC Nations. This is insane and it has to stop. We cannot afford to allow the countries that control our oil and our debt to control our future. Americans are hurting from our addiction to oil, I'm not sure they fully realize the extent our national security, and indeed our very way of life, is threatened by our reliance on foreign oil. Every year we send billions of dollars overseas for oil to pad the coffers of many Nations that wish our demise. In fact, in 2007, we spent more than $327 billion to import oil, and 60 percent of that, or nearly $200 billion, went to the oil-exporting OPEC nations. In 2008, the amount we will spend to import oil is expected to double to more than $600 billion, $360 billion of which will come from OPEC. Let's take a moment to put those import figures into context. When compared to our FY2008 budget for our Nation's defense, which was more than $693 billion, the $600 billion we will spend to import oil in 2008 is nearly equal to our entire defense budget. There is no question that our dependence on foreign oil has serious national security implications. In addition to funding our enemies--as I just explained--we cannot ignore the fact that much of our oil comes from and travels through the most volatile regions of the world. A couple of years ago, I attended a series of war games hosted by the National Defense University. I saw firsthand how our country's economy could be brought to its knees if somebody cut off our oil. In 2006, Hillard Huntington, Executive Director of Stanford University's Energy Modeling Forum testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and based on his modeling, ``the odds of a foreign oil disruption happening over the next 10 years are slightly higher [than] 80 percent.'' He went on to testify that if global production were reduced by merely 2.1 percent due to some event, that it would have a more serious effect on oil prices and the economy than hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Let us take a moment to think of our Nation like a business. Our feedstock is oil, and our of competitors control the cost of our oil. We have debt, but our competitors also control our debt. What's to keep our competitors from raising prices, calling in our debt and running us out of business? I hope this scenario scares you as much as it scares me. But also keep in mind, that as Congress sat here and twiddle its thumbs over simply expanding domestic drilling within our own borders, Russia and China were actively and aggressively laying claim to energy resources around the globe. Russia, the world's second biggest oil exporter, has its sights on a large section of the Arctic seafloor that is believed to contain billion of barrels of fuel equivalent. The country has also made moves to control a larger portion of the world's natural gas reserves. Russia, which has significant reserves of natural gas, is considering the creation of a natural gas cartel similar to OPEC. Venezuela and Iran have expressed interest. Russia has proven it has no qualms with using energy as a weapon. In 1990, Russia tried to suppress independence movements in the Baltics by cutting energy supplies. In all, Russia has used energy as a tool to further their foreign policy goals on no less than six countries. Energy is believed to be one of the driving reasons for Russia's military action in the independent nation of Georgia. China as well is moving ahead in securing its energy future. In Africa, China is handing out loans and funding expansive infrastructure projects in an effort to lay claim to lucrative oil reserves. With the help of Chinese investment, Angola recently passed Nigeria to become the largest petroleum producer on the continent. I am going to be brutally honest with you folks, the future of our country is in jeopardy. We cannot continue to transfer our wealth overseas to this degree without expecting serious consequences. Rather than addressing these national security concerns we have been living the life of Riley, and allowed the environmental movement to run wild. Congress let them get away with. We let them get away with it Mr. President. Why? Because oil was cheap and so Congress felt no urgency to act. Well, oil is not cheap anymore. While detrimental to our economy and competitiveness, the high price of oil finally spurred some of my colleagues into action and I am proud that Congress has taken some steps to address the energy crisis. The recently passed fiscal year 2009 Continuing Resolution removed the moratoria on oil exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf and moratorium on regulations for the development of oil shale. Reserves in the Outer Continental Shelf are believed to equal 8.5 billion barrels of oil, and undiscovered resources could equal ten times that. There are currently 800 billion barrels of technically recoverable reserves locked up in our Nation's oil shale. This is three times larger than the total proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. The Senate has also passed a tax extenders package that includes many incentives to develop advanced alternative energies that will lead our country to a future free of oil. Included in the package were popular tax credits for the wind and solar industry that have helped foster strong emerging industries in my home State of Ohio. Congress needs to continue to act. I believe the Harmonizing America's Energy, Economy, Environment, and National Security Act is the vehicle for a bipartisan effort to develop a meaningful comprehensive energy plan. Addressing this crisis requires nothing less than a Second Declaration of Independence--to move us away from foreign sources of energy in the near term and away from oil in the long term. As you know, oil is not easily found nor substituted, and it will remain an integral component to our economy in the short-term. But we must make investments today that will help us achieve our goal tomorrow. To do this I believe we must find more, use less, and conserve what we have. In order to find more and stabilize our Nation's energy supply, my legislation would encourage the development of oil resources within the Outer Continental Shelf and with regards to our oil shale reserves. It would also open ANWR to responsible development, where it is believed that there is over 10 billion barrels of oil. While these resources will not physically come online for a number of years, moves to expand development will send a clear signal to the market that we are serious about meeting our future energy demands and begin to drive down the cost of oil because investors will know that gas won't be worth as much in the future and will therefore sell it off today--lowering the cost immediately. And while we must increase our production of fossil fuels to relieve costs and reestablish our independence in the short term, in the long term we must reduce our demand for oil. With that goal in mind, it is essential that we explore alternative means to meet our Nation's energy needs. It is long past time for our government to provide the spark to rekindle our Nation's creativity and innovation. Following Russia's launch of Sputnik, President Kennedy challenged our country to be the first in the world to land a man on the moon. We must now undertake a similar Apollo-like project to establish clean, reliable and domestically abundant energy alternatives and in turn usher in a new era of American freedom and independence. My legislation would help to fund such a project by setting aside a portion of the federal revenues raised through lease revenues in the Outer Continental Shelf and ANWR to be used for the development of advanced alternative energies, like wind, solar, fuel cells, advanced batteries, and advanced biofuels. It would also set aside funds to be explicitly to boost funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program and to pay down our national debt. The bill will also repeal Section 526, a provision that places our domestic coal-to-liquid industry in jeopardy. We have the largest coal reserves in the world, and at current rates of consumption, U.S. coal deposits will last for more than 240 years. Coal can provide significant new supplies of affordable synthetic fuels for transportation. A lot of Americans don't understand that many country's get their oil from coal. In fact, South Africa gets nearly 70 percent of their oil from coal. But we are beginning to make advances here. In fact, Baard Energy is planning a CTL and biomass facility in SE Ohio that will produce 53,000 BPD of jet and diesel fuel, and other liquid production from coal and biomass feedstocks. Last but not least, as we look to increase our supply and spark new innovation, we must also be more responsible with the energy we currently use. My legislation would fund the development of new conservation technologies and practices and would help to disseminate these across the country. Americans today demand action and they demand we come together in a bipartisan fashion to solve our energy crisis. For 10 years I have been a member of the Environmental and Public Works Committee and for 10 years I have tried to coax Congress into harmonizing our energy, economy and the environment. Congress has refused and now the chickens have come home to roost. I believe that the best message we can send to OPEC, those investing in the oil market, and indeed the entire world, is that we get it. We must demonstrate that we are going to find more by going after every drop of oil that we can responsibly drill and that we are going to use less by undertaking a new Apollo project to make the U.S. the most oil independent nation in the world. I envision an America ten years from now where we have enough oil to take care of our needs. I imagine an America that is the least reliant country in the world on oil, an America where our economy is not threatened by our reliance on foreign energy sources. It will be an America that has created hundreds of thousands of jobs through the responsible development of our Nation's resources and the through the creation of new industries in the field of alternative energy. Wouldn't it be great for our children and grandchildren to one day celebrate the time America put aside its differences and came together to reaffirm its independence a second time and rekindled the American spirit of self reliance, innovation and creativity to usher in new era of prosperity? Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues, Senators Specter, Leahy, Bayh, and others in strong support of S. 3325, the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008, PRO IP Act, which was just approved unanimously by the Senate today. First, I would ike to express my appreciation to Senator Specter and Senator Leahy for the excellent job they have done in ensuring that the Senate passed this important piece of legislation before we complete our business for the year. I would like to thank Senator Bayh. I have partnered with Senator Bayh on this issue for the past 3 years. We first introduced intellectual property enforcement legislation in the first session o the 109th Congress. I believe it is safe to say that we are both pleased that the concepts contained in our legislation have become a part of the PRO-IP Act. I think it is important to point out that the PRO-IP Act has strong bipartisan support in the Senate. When we pass legislation in a bipartisan manner, it reveals the best of the Senate. For over 4 years, I have been talking about the need for our Government to improve its efforts to protect our Nation's intellectual property from what I have referred to as the Pirates of the 21st Century. At a time when American businesses face some of the fiercest competition ever, our Government cannot ignore the growing threat of intellectual property theft to companies, workers, and consumers. Intellectual property theft is no longer an issue limited to knockoff hand bags and pirated DVDs and CDs. Today, almost every product made is subject to being counterfeited. The problem of intellectual property theft impacts businesses--big and small. Genuine products manufactured in the United States are competing with phony products, which are sold both here and abroad. At a time when so many American businesses and workers are in dire straits, our Nation can no longer turn a blind eye to this problem. The economic impact of intellectual property theft is overwhelming. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, intellectual property theft is costing American businesses an estimated $250 billion each year and has cost an estimated 750,000 jobs. The chamber estimates that if counterfeit auto parts sales were eliminated, the U.S. auto industry could hire up to 200,000 additional workers. In my home State of Ohio, 200,000 additional auto industry jobs would make a tremendous impact in reversing the loss of manufacturing jobs. The costs of intellectual property theft are not limited to lost jobs and revenues. There are significant health and safety ramifications. For example, during a hearing I held in July 2006, the general counsel from Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems LLC, Bendix, which is headquartered in Elyria, OH, testified that counterfeit air brakes used in tractor-trailers are so authentic looking that some of these counterfeit products are returned to Bendix via its warranty claims process. Bendix is so concerned about the safety implications of this problem that it is spending $1 million annually on IP protection and enforcement activities--that is $1 million that this one company is not able to spend each year on other things such as research and development or worker training. Moreover, given the proliferation of counterfeit goods into areas such as pharmaceuticals and auto parts, it is only a matter of time before our Nation sees the dire health and safety consequences arising from this problem. The passage of the PRO-IP Act is an important step to building upon the efforts that have begun under the National Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Coordination Council and STOP! initiative. The PRO-IP Act will provide increased resources for Department of Justice programs to combat intellectual property theft and provide coordination and strategic planning of Federal efforts against counterfeiting and piracy. I am particularly pleased that the PRO-IP Act will create a White House-led coordinator. I believe that the most effective intellectual property enforcement coordination requires White House leadership. As a result, I believe the efforts underway in each Department and agency will have improved effectiveness by placing the new IP enforcement coordinator within the Executive Office of the President. The coordinator will have both the visibility and the access to provide a most effective executive branch voice on IP enforcement. Finally, while I am pleased that the Senate completed its work on passing intellectual property enforcement legislation, I know that my job is not finished. I will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure that Congress provides effective oversight over the various agencies and departments charged with enforcing and protecting intellectual property rights and that these entities have the resources necessary to get the job done.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, today I honor and congratulate an outstanding community member, distinguished veteran of World War II and Baseball Hall of Famer who played for my hometown team, the Cleveland Indians, on his upcoming 90th birthday on November 3. Bob Feller, also known as ``Rapid Robert,'' was born in 1918, and grew up in humble beginnings during the Great Depression on a farm outside Van Meter, IA. There he learned the importance of hard work, leadership and civic responsibility from his father Bill, who worked the family farm, and his mother Lena, who was a nurse and a school teacher. While doing chores around the farm--including milking the cows and taking the hogs to market--Bob dreamed of becoming a Major League Baseball player. With the encouragement of his parents--especially his father, who had been a semi-pro pitcher--Bob honed his skills and worked to achieve his dream. Bob and his father spent countless hours playing pitch and catch on the mound and a backstop his father had built between the barn and the house. When it was too cold to throw outside in the winter, they moved practice sessions into the barn. As he grew, Bob's pitching speed increased, and by the time he was in grade school he was regularly beating high schoolers. Word of his curveball and strong arm quickly spread, and sports fans across the country began to take notice of the kid with the ``Heater from Van Meter.'' As interest in Bob's pitching grew, Bob's father expanded the pitching mound and backstop into a full field with bleachers and a concession stand. A team was formed with Bob as pitcher and his father managing. Hundreds of people traveled to each game at the farm to pay 35 cents to watch young Bob dominate batters with his signature high windup kick and blazing fastball. Bob began the first of his 18 seasons with the Cleveland Indians after his junior year of high school when he signed with the team and jumped straight to the big leagues. In his first Major League start, he backed up the hype and added to his legend by striking out 15 in a four-to-one win over the St. Louis Browns. At age 17, the win made him the youngest Major League pitcher to win a game--a record that still stands today. After his rookie season, Bob returned to Iowa for his senior year of high school, and the eyes of the Nation followed him there. In fact, NBC covered his graduation live on national radio. Back in Cleveland after graduation, Bob went on to establish himself as the premier pitcher in Major League Baseball, as he led the league in strikeouts in 1938, won 24 games in 1939 and, in 1940, threw the only Opening Day no-hitter in major league history. That year he also won a league best 27 games with an ERA of 2.61 and 261 strikeouts to win the pitcher's Triple Crown. Despite being at the height of his career, Bob traded his cleats and baseball cap for a Navy uniform without a second thought after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. Putting his country first, he signed up just 2 days after the attack, making him the first major leaguer to enlist in the military to fight in World War II. In the Navy, Bob was assigned to the battleship U.S.S. Alabama, where he led an anti-aircraft gun crew and attained the rank of Chief Petty Officer. During missions in the Atlantic and the Pacific, he fought admirably along with his fellow shipmates in notable battles in the waters off New Guinea, Guam and the Philippines. Though Bob earned 5 campaign ribbons and 8 battle stars, he'll quickly tell you that he is most proud that the Alabama never lost a man to the enemy in battle. While on the Alabama, Bob stayed in shape by leading exercise classes twice a day, and playing on the ship's baseball team; but his dedication to his mission and his shipmates was unquestioned. In fact, Bob declined an invitation by Admiral Nimitz to leave the war zone and fly to Honolulu to pitch in the Army-Navy World Series game, telling the admiral that he had more important things to do. Bob missed all of the next 3 seasons--and nearly all of the 1945 season--but he never had any regrets. His wife Anne says, ``For all that Bob accomplished in baseball, and all that baseball means to him, I still think Bob's more proud about his service in the Navy.'' When the war was won, Bob returned to baseball. For many athletes, 3 years off would be a difficult challenge to overcome, but not for Bob. He returned to the Indians for the 1946 season and had arguably the best season of his career, as he won 26 games, pitched a no-hitter, two-one hitters and struck out 348. After the 1946 season, Bob played a major role in the desegregation of baseball. In a series of exhibitions played across the country organized by Bob and his good friend Satchel Paige, the Bob Feller All- Stars matched up against the Satchel Paige All-Stars from the Negro Leagues. These games offered a great amount of national exposure, smoothing the path for Jackie Robinson and other African Americans who would later enter Major League Baseball. Bob retired after the 1956 season as one of Cleveland's all-time great players. Throughout his career he won 20 or more games in a season 6 times, pitched 3 no-hitters, was an integral part of the 1948 Indians team that won the World Series and played in the All Star Game eight times. He still stands as Cleveland's all-time leader in shutouts, innings pitched, wins and strikeouts. In 1962, Bob's achievements were recognized when he was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, becoming the first pitcher to enter the Hall in his first year of eligibility since charter member Walter Johnson. More important than all of the records Bob holds are the lives he has touched and the people he has inspired with his amazing gift. Like so many other boys growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, Bob Feller was one of my heroes. Getting to know Bob and observe his down-home humility, enthusiasm for life and baseball and, more importantly, his commitment to his country, has been a great joy for me during my time as mayor of Cleveland, Governor and now Senator for Ohio. I will never forget being on the mound with Bob and President Clinton on opening day of the inaugural season for Jacobs Field in 1994, and I still treasure the baseball he signed for me that day. Since retiring from baseball, Bob has continued to touch countless lives, as he has devoted himself to serving the community with the same passion and work ethic that made him one of the best pitchers in baseball history. He is well known for always taking time to sign autographs and visit with fans and has dedicated countless hours to a number of causes. Today he proudly lists the Salvation Army, the Cleveland Indians Charities, the Little League of Gates Mills and the U.S.S. Alabama Foundation among his favorite charities. Bob also remains very active in the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association and the Bob Feller Museum in Van Meter, IA. Cleveland will be forever indebted to Bob for his contributions and I am proud he still fondly calls the area home. In fact, he currently lives with his beautiful wife Anne in nearby Gates Mills, where he remains in close touch with his three sons and grandson. Despite all that he has accomplished, Bob remains the hard-working, down-to-earth, patriotic and compassionate farm boy from Van Meter. When asked once if he could relive any one of the many great moments of his life, Bob answered without hesitation, ``Playing catch with my dad between the red barn and the house.'' On behalf of a grateful Nation, I would like to congratulate Bob Feller on his upcoming 90th birthday, and thank him for his service to his country, his dedication to the community and for sharing his love of baseball and the Cleveland Indians with so many. He is truly a role model that all of us should strive to emulate. I wish him continued health and happiness.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about one of the top issues facing our Nation: the high cost of energy and how it relates to our national security. There has been much controversy on Capitol Hill regarding the reason why prices have climbed. My colleagues have introduced various pieces of legislation that attempt to address our energy security. I am hearing loud and clear from thousands of Ohioans how this crisis is directly affecting them and their loved ones. Ohioans are demanding that the Senate have a lengthy and open debate on the issue of high energy costs. They are expecting that we work together in a bipartisan fashion to craft legislation that will address our Nation's long-term energy requirements and set us down a path towards energy independence. Their urgency is underscored by the fact that this is no longer just a question about the price of oil but also about national security. Americans are hurting from our addiction to oil, but I am not sure they fully realize the extent our national security; and indeed our very way of life, is threatened by our reliance on foreign oil. Every year we send hundreds of billions of dollars overseas for oil to pad the coffers of many nations that do not have our best interests at heart, and to some like Venezuela, whose leader has threatened to cut off oil. In fact, in 2007, we spent more than $327 billion to import oil, and 60 percent of that, or nearly $200 billion, went to the oil-exporting OPEC nations. In 2008, the amount we will spend to import oil is expected to double to more than $600 billion, $360 billion of which will come from OPEC. Let's take a moment to put those import figures into context. When compared to our Fiscal Year 2008 budget for our Nation's defense, which was more than $693 billion, the $600 billion we will spend to import oil in 2008 is nearly equal to our entire defense budget. There is no question that our dependence on foreign oil has serious national security implications. In addition to funding our enemies--as I just explained--we cannot ignore the fact that much of our oil comes from and travels through the most volatile regions of the world. A couple of years ago I attended a series of war games hosted by the National Defense University. I saw firsthand how our country's economy could be brought to its knees if somebody wanted to cut off our oil. In 2006, Hillard Huntington, executive director of Stanford University's Energy Modeling Forum testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and stated that based on his modeling, ``the odds of a foreign oil disruption happening over the next 10 years are slightly higher [than] 80 percent.'' He went on to testify that if global production were reduced by merely 2.1 percent due to some event, it would have a more serious effect on oil prices and the economy than hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And our dependence on foreign oil is even more troubling when you consider our Nation's financial situation. The national debt stands at $9.3 trillion, almost double the $5.4 trillion debt that existed when I came to the Senate in 1999. By the end of 2009, the national debt is expected to have grown to $10.5 trillion. In July, the Office of Management and Budget projected a $389 billion budget deficit for 2008. And this week even worse numbers came from the Congressional Budget Office. CBO said the Federal Government will finish the fiscal year with a near-record deficit of $407 billion. These numbers, however, do not include borrowing from the Social Security trust fund and other trust funds to the tune of $184 billion. So the real operating deficit is actually projected at $591 billion-- almost three times the $219 billion deficit projected at the start of 2008. We cannot overlook our ballooning national debt. Today 51 percent of the privately owned national debt is held by foreign creditors--mostly foreign central banks. That is up from just 6 years ago. Foreign creditors provided more than 70 percent of the funds that the U.S. has borrowed since 2001, according to the Department of Treasury. And who are these creditors? According to the Treasury Department, the three largest foreign holders of U.S. debt are China, Japan, and OPEC nations. With the debt skyrocketing to 10.5 trillion in fiscal year 2009 and the plight of our financial markets we can expect an even greater involvement by these countries in purchasing our debt. This is insane and it has to stop. We can not afford to allow the countries that control our oil and our debt to control our future. It is time that we took our future into our own hands. Let's take a moment to think of our Nation like a business. Our feedstock is oil, and our competitors control the supply and price of our oil. We have debt, but our competitors also control our debt. What's to keep our competitors from raising prices, calling in our debt and running us out of business? I imagine that many have yet to hear of this, but it has been rumored that countries like China, with large financial holdings in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, pressured Secretary Paulson to bail out the corporations, by threatening to reduce their security holdings. This is a very real example of how not only our foreign policies, but even domestic policies can be stymied due to reckless fiscal policy. I hope it frightens you as much as it frightens me. It certainly has dramatic effects in the present, but portend what it does for our children and grandchildren futures which we continue to mortgage with the irresponsible use of their credit card. But also keep in mind, that as we sit here and twiddle our thumbs over simply expanding domestic drilling within our own borders, Russia and China are actively and aggressively laying claim to energy resources around the globe. Russia, the world's second biggest oil exporter, is trying to lay claim to large section of the Arctic seafloor that is believed to contain billion of barrels of fuel equivalent. The country has also made moves to control a larger portion of the world's natural gas reserves. Russia, which has significant reserves of natural gas, is considering the creation of a natural gas cartel similar to OPEC. Venezuela and Iran have expressed interest. Russia has proven it has no qualms with using energy as a weapon. In 1990, Russia tried to suppress independence movements in the Baltics by cutting energy supplies. In all, Russia has used energy as a tool to further their foreign policy goals on no less than six countries over the last 15 years. And energy is believed to be one of the driving reasons for Russia's military action in the independent nation of Georgia, through which passes a critical oil pipeline. China as well is moving ahead in securing its energy future. In Africa, China is handing out loans and funding expansive infrastructure projects in an effort to lay claim to lucrative oil reserves. With the help of Chinese investment, Angola recently passed Nigeria to become the largest petroleum producer on the continent. Can you imagine these countries scratching their heads in disbelief when they see the U.S. with the largest energy reserves in the world debating to drill or not drill? My friends, we have allowed the environmental lobby to run wild. As a result, we have had a tail wagging the dog environmental policy which has ignored our energy, economy and national security interest. And why did Congress let them get away with it? Because oil was cheap and some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were afraid of the 30 second commercials that would be run against them if they didn't toe the environmental line. Now the chickens have come home to roost. Ask any Ohioan about the high price of gasoline. They will give you an ear full. Many of them have told me about how both the price of gasoline and the price of natural gas are affecting them where it hurts, right in the pocketbook and in their quality of life. These are the middle class Americans, the elderly and the poor that my friends on the other side of the isle keep talking about. Addressing this crisis requires nothing less than a Second Declaration of Independence--to move us away from foreign sources of energy in the near term and away from oil itself in the long term. To do this I believe we must find more, use less, and conserve what we have. As T. Boone Pickens said, ``we need to do it all.'' In order to find more and stabilize our Nation's energy supply we must enact policies to increase responsible development of our abundant American resources. The fact of the matter is that when you take into account our untapped oil shale reserves, we have more oil resources than any other part of the world. The Department of Energy estimates that America's total oil shale resources could exceed 2 trillion barrels of oil equivalent, and there are currently 800 billion barrels of proven reserves. This is three times larger than the total proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Further, the majority of conventional resources are locked up due to shortsighted congressional moratoria. Eighty-five percent of our offshore acreage and 65 percent of our onshore acreage is off limits. I was very embarrassed when our President went over to Saudi Arabia, just a few months ago, with hat in hand to beg for them to increase oil production. And last month I spoke with oilman T. Boone Pickens, who was recently in Saudi Arabia. He said they asked him, ``Why is your country asking us for oil, why aren't you exploring your own?'' The Saudis couldn't have been more right. Rather than begging foreign countries for their oil, we need to be utilizing our own. That means opening up areas like the Outer Continental Shelf and ANWR for oil exploration. And that means capitalizing on our vast reserves of coal, oil shale, and tar sands. While we must increase our production of fossil fuels to relieve costs and reestablish our independence in the short term, in the long term we must reduce our demand for oil. And with that goal in mind, it is essential that we explore alternative means to meet our Nation's energy needs. It is long past time for our government to provide the spark to rekindle our Nation's creativity and innovation. Following Russia's launch of Sputnik, President Kennedy challenged our country in 10 years to be the first in the world to land a man on the Moon. And it was Neil Armstrong, an Ohioan, who did it. If we can put a man on the Moon, there is no reason why we cannot be the first country in the world to not have to rely predominantly on oil for our transportation needs. It is time we undertook a similar Apollo-like project to establish clean, reliable and domestically abundant energy alternatives and in turn usher in a new era of American freedom and independence. And through this new Apollo program, we must encourage further advances in biofuels, electric-hybrid plug-in vehicles and fuel cells. One of the best shots we have in significantly reducing our reliance on foreign oil is plug-in hybrid vehicles. If half our fleet of 240 million vehicles were converted to electric-hybrids, we could reduce our oil imports by 4 to 5 million BPD. Just doing this could cut our reliance on foreign oil by 40 percent. Americans today demand action. And they demand we come together in a bipartisan fashion to solve this crisis. I commend my colleagues in the ``Group of 10'' on their efforts to find sensible solutions to this crisis. While their bill is not perfect, it would be my hope that we can continue to work together to move our country towards energy independence. Regardless of what one thinks of the specifics of the bipartisan proposal, this is the way we should be trying to get things done around here--Senators of good will from both parties coming together, with everyone willing to give up a little of what they want in order to move the country forward. My greatest frustration in the Senate is the partisanship and game playing. We must end the gridlock and put the people's business first. I honestly believe that the best message we can send to OPEC, those investing in the oil market, and indeed the entire world, is that we are mad as heck and won't take it anymore. We must demonstrate that we are going to find more by going after every drop of oil that we can responsibly drill and that we are going to use less by undertaking a new Apollo program, and continue to conserve and become more energy efficient. I envision an America where in 10 years we have enough oil to take care of our needs. I imagine an America that is the least reliant nation in the world on oil. An America where our economy is not threatened, an America that has created thousands of jobs by finding more and developing technologies that use less. It will be an America that has gone from the bottom of the barrel to the top. Who's national security is without threat because we have removed the potential of energy being used as a ``weapon'' against us by those who do not share our values? We must put aside our differences and come together to reaffirm our Nation's independence for a second time. We can usher in a new era of prosperity and a guarantee that in the new global economy we will maintain our position as the greatest military and economic power in the world. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. VOINOVICH

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

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 17 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise to today in support of S.J. Res. 45, the Great Lakes--St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact. During the course of adoption of the Compact by the respective State legislatures, an issue arose concerning the intent and interpretation of section 4.11.2 of the Compact's Decision-Making Standard relating to the scale and scope of impacts that would be deemed sufficiently significant such to preclude approval of a withdrawal proposal. It is my understanding that the intent of the drafters of the Compact is expressed in a memorandum prepared by Dr. Sam Speck, Chair of the Council of Great Lakes Governors Annex 2001 Working Group, dated December 5, 2005, and I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Record.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 2008 with Senator Lieberman. In 1999, I introduced the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999 with Senators Lieberman, Thompson and Durbin. My good friend from Ohio, Congressman Portman, introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives, and working together we were able to enact that legislation to improve the effectiveness and performance of Federal financial assistance programs, simplify Federal financial assistance application and reporting requirements, improve the delivery of services to the public and coordinate the delivery of such services. Progress was made under the provisions of the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999, commonly known as ``PL 106-107.'' A 2005 Government Accountability Office, GAO, report noted that ``[m]ore than 5 years after passage of P.L. 106-107, cross-agency work groups have made some progress in streamlining aspects of the early phases of the grants life cycle and in some specific aspects of overall grants management . . .'' However, GAO noted that work remained to be done, and in 2006 suggested that Congress consider reauthorizing the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999. The Act expired in November, and I believe Congress should heed GAO's advice and reauthorize this important law. The bill I am introducing today with Senator Lieberman reauthorizes the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act and makes improvements to that Act based on the 2005 and 2006 recommendations of GAO. The bill requires the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, to develop a public Web site that allows grant applicants to search and apply for grants, report on the use of grants, and provide required certifications and assurances for grants. I believe such a Web site will enhance the transparency required by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act that Congress enacted last year. The bill also requires the Director of OMB to develop a strategic plan for an end-to-end electronic capability that allows non-Federal entities to manage Federal financial assistance and requires each Federal agency to plan actions to implement that strategic plan. Each Federal agency would be required to report to OMB on progress made in achieving its objectives under the OMB strategic plan, and the Director of OMB would be required to report to Congress biennially on progress made in implementing the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act. In 1999 I said the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act was an important step toward detangling the web of duplicative Federal grants available to States, localities and community organizations. While some progress has been made to detangle that web, work remains to be done, and I hope that Congress will quickly reauthorize this law so that OMB and Federal agencies continue those efforts. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 2008 with Senator Lieberman. In 1999, I introduced the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999 with Senators Lieberman, Thompson and Durbin. My good friend from Ohio, Congressman Portman, introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives, and working together we were able to enact that legislation to improve the effectiveness and performance of Federal financial assistance programs, simplify Federal financial assistance application and reporting requirements, improve the delivery of services to the public and coordinate the delivery of such services. Progress was made under the provisions of the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999, commonly known as ``PL 106-107.'' A 2005 Government Accountability Office, GAO, report noted that ``[m]ore than 5 years after passage of P.L. 106-107, cross-agency work groups have made some progress in streamlining aspects of the early phases of the grants life cycle and in some specific aspects of overall grants management . . .'' However, GAO noted that work remained to be done, and in 2006 suggested that Congress consider reauthorizing the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999. The Act expired in November, and I believe Congress should heed GAO's advice and reauthorize this important law. The bill I am introducing today with Senator Lieberman reauthorizes the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act and makes improvements to that Act based on the 2005 and 2006 recommendations of GAO. The bill requires the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, to develop a public Web site that allows grant applicants to search and apply for grants, report on the use of grants, and provide required certifications and assurances for grants. I believe such a Web site will enhance the transparency required by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act that Congress enacted last year. The bill also requires the Director of OMB to develop a strategic plan for an end-to-end electronic capability that allows non-Federal entities to manage Federal financial assistance and requires each Federal agency to plan actions to implement that strategic plan. Each Federal agency would be required to report to OMB on progress made in achieving its objectives under the OMB strategic plan, and the Director of OMB would be required to report to Congress biennially on progress made in implementing the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act. In 1999 I said the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act was an important step toward detangling the web of duplicative Federal grants available to States, localities and community organizations. While some progress has been made to detangle that web, work remains to be done, and I hope that Congress will quickly reauthorize this law so that OMB and Federal agencies continue those efforts. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the need to harmonize our energy, environment, and economic policies. In the midst of summer it is hard to think about our Nation's winter heating needs, but experts say we are at a pace for skyrocketing energy prices this winter that will place even further financial strain on the budgets of too many Americans. The chickens have come home to roost. For 27 years the Federal Government has helped disadvantaged Americans with their heating costs through the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. It is one of the programs I supported while I was mayor and then as Governor of Ohio. Last year in my State alone, LIHEAP assisted some 387,000 Ohio households earning less than 175 percent of poverty on about $37,500 for a family of four. Furthermore, over 188,000 Ohio households were served by the Emergency Winter Crisis Program. This program provides a one-time payment for eligible households whose home heating sources have been disconnected, threatened with disconnection, or have less than a 10-day supply of bulk fuel. The fact that so many Ohioans have utilized these programs demonstrates a need for help. Congress has not sat idle. Since I came to the Senate in 1999, Congress has increased LIHEAP funding from $1.1 to $2 billion in 2008. That is an 80-percent increase. In 2006, Congress provided $2.5 billion for LIHEAP, a 32-percent increase above the previous year's appropriations. I have consistently supported these increases, but I have become frustrated that despite the new money in the program, fewer families are getting real help on their heating bills. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service reports that despite the increase in the number of households eligible for LIHEAP assistance, climbing energy prices have reduced the number of families actually receiving help. From 1983 to 2005, the percentage of eligible families receiving aid decreased from 31 percent to 15 percent. The increased funding simply is not keeping up with the rising cost of heating fuel. Our dollars are not going so far. The Ohio Department of Development tells me they are expecting the same rapid increases in costs this coming winter. Natural gas is the best example of what has happened in my State and perhaps in the State of the Presiding Officer. The prices for consumers like me went from $3 an mcf in 2000 to $11 per mcf today. In fact, prices for this June-July are nearly double what they were during the same period last year. And it isn't getting any better. I understand that the Vectren Natural Gas Utility Company in the Dayton area, is so alarmed about the expected spike in the price of natural gas this winter it is warning customers now to prepare for rates to increase by as much as 50 percent. This would devastate a lot of Ohioans living on fixed incomes who already have tight budgets. Unfortunately, Ohioans are not alone. There is a growing number of families across this country who will need help this coming winter. I understand the need for the safety net LIHEAP provides and support its funding at reasonable levels, but when I look at the numbers, it becomes clear that appropriating more and more money for LIHEAP is not the answer. The real reason some folks will be having such a hard time this winter making ends meet is our Nation has no energy strategy. For example, large-scale fuel switching from coal to gas began with the implementation of the 1990 Clean Air Act. These requirements continue to be phased in and have become increasingly stringent. One can see a clear correlation between regulation and the increasing cost of natural gas. More utilities are turning from coal to gas. A major contributor to these skyrocketing energy prices is environmental policies that discourage our use of abundant domestic energy supplies and a failure to harmonize our country's energy, environmental, economic, and national security policies. This has resulted in substantial unintended costs in the form of increased fuel, food, electricity prices and lost jobs, and has contributed to the almost doubling of the LIHEAP program. Sadly, this is not a new problem. We have know for years that we need a comprehensive energy strategy, and I have been calling for one since I came to the Senate. But it took us 5 years and 6 weeks of floor debate for Congress to Pass the 2005 Energy Policy Act--a bill that took only limited strides forward. And while the bill encouraged improved national energy efficiency, boosted research and development funding for advanced energy technologies and promoted increased use of biofuels. It didn't go far enough toward increasing our domestic energy supply, which has been hamstrung by moratoria on exploration that would have given us increased oil and natural gas. We have to make real investments today that will help us achieve our goal tomorrow. If our goal is to help those who are less fortunate with their heating bills, then we should be treating the disease rather than the symptoms. We must increase our supply, reduce our demand through alternative energies, and conserve what we have. We must be also careful to avoid--I like to refer to them as smokescreens that cloud our paths to real solutions. The debate here in Washington over oil speculation is something that is part of this what I call smokescreen. It is causing us to not face up to the situation where we have to increase the supply if we expect to deal with the problems in oil and in natural gas here in the United States. I firmly believe that we find ourselves in this situation today because of a tail wagging the dog environmental policy. This has paralyzed Congress and polarized us in such a way that we have been unable to find common ground on the most important issue currently facing our nation. But let's keep in mind that our situation could be much worse. This June, amidst what at the time were record high gas and energy prices, a bill was brought to the floor to attempt to address climate change. While finding a solution to climate change is a goal I share, this bill was a bureaucratic and economic disaster, creating over forty new government agencies and spending programs--constituting a $6.7 trillion dollar tax increase on American families. This bill would have sent ripple effects through the economy. Indeed, it was estimated that the State of Ohio would loose 139,000 jobs by 2020 as a result of the legislation. And with Ohio consumers paying as much as 29 percent more for gasoline, 50 percent more for natural gas and 80 percent more for electricity, disposable household income could be reduced $1,928 per year by 2020 and $3,522 per year by 2050. Fortunately, this legislation was defeated. But if we continue to ignore the economic impacts of our country's environmental policies, we will further erode our competitive position in the world marketplace, all the while increasing costs for those among us who are least able to pay. Few would argue that the economic consequences of those regressive policies fall hardest on the most vulnerable of our population--the poor and elderly. And that is what brings us to this LIHEAP debate. I agree the program plays a key role in helping our neediest brothers and sisters with the high cost of heating their homes this winter. However, it is disconcerting to me that many of my colleagues who support the increase in LIHEAP, as I have, have also supported environmental policies that have encouraged the use of natural gas, and at the same time prevented the exploration for new natural gas deposits. Most of us understand that when you drive up the demand for gas and limit the supply, prices will go up. Yet, unfortunately those that support these short-sighted environmental polices ignore the impact rising prices have on all of us, particularly the middle class, the elderly, and poor. Some of the people back in my State say: What do they think we all are, rich? What is worse, as the Band-Aid we use to temporarily treat the symptoms of rising energy prices gets bigger--in this case almost doubling the funding for LIHEAP, as I mentioned over what was appropriated this year--we are adding to our growing national debt. We cannot continue to live in the United States of Denial, borrowing money for programs and passing the cost, including interest, onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. Instead, those demanding more LIHEAP should also be required to vote on increasing our energy supply or at least give the Senate an up-or- down vote on lifting the ban on exploration of the Outer Continental Shelf. The Mineral Management Service estimates that the undiscovered technically recoverable resources contained in the OCS, Outer Continental Shelf, could equal 420 trillion cubic feet. This is 40 percent of the total natural gas estimated to be contained in the undiscovered fields in the total United States. So I think we owe it to our children, we owe to it our grandchildren to take care of our larger energy problem and get to its root. Moving forward, we must ensure our environmental policies are not considered in a vacuum. They should be complimentary to--not in opposition to--our country's energy and economic needs.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. I probably won't use it. I would like to not have it cut off. That has happened too many times here.

Mr. VOINOVICH. Madam President, I rise to speak today about one of the top issues facing our Nation: the skyrocketing price of gasoline, something both the majority and minority leader have been talking about. Throughout our Nation's history, our strength and identity have been marked by moments that demanded great action in the face of grave threats. We saw this in 1776 when our Founding Fathers declared their independence from the oppressive hand of a mighty empire, and again in 1961 when President Kennedy responded to the growing strength of the Soviet Union and their successful launch of Sputnik by announcing the Apollo Project to put a man on the Moon in 10 years. In 2008 we are faced with a grave threat. Today, across America, people are hurting. If you are looking for the root of their pain, you don't have to look any further than their home energy bill or their local gas station. It is not just our people who are in grave danger, it is our Nation as well. While I know Americans are hurting from our addiction to oil, I am not sure they fully realize the extent our national security--and, indeed, our very way of life--is threatened by our reliance on foreign oil. Every year we send billions of dollars overseas for oil to pad the coffers of many nations that do not have our best interests at heart, and some such as Venezuela, whose leader has threatened to cut off the oil. In fact, in 2007, we spent more than $327 billion to import oil, and 60 percent of that--or nearly $200 billion--went to oil-exporting OPEC nations. In 2008, the amount we will spend to import oil is expected to double to more than $600 billion. Now, let's put that into perspective. In 2008 we are going to spend $693 billion on our defense, and now we are sending $600 billion overseas to some folks who don't like us. There is no question that our dependence on foreign oil has serious national security implications, and we don't talk about it enough. In addition to funding our enemies, as I explained, we cannot ignore the fact that much of our oil comes from and travels through the most volatile regions of the world. A couple of years ago I attended a series of war games hosted by the National Defense University. I saw firsthand how our country's economy could be brought to its knees if somebody wanted to cut off our oil. In 2006, Hilliard Huntington, executive director of Stanford University's Energy Modeling Forum, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that based on his model: The odds of a foreign oil disruption happening over the next 10 years are slightly higher than 80 percent. Eighty percent. He went on to testify that if global production were reduced by merely 2.1 percent due to some event, it would have a more serious effect on oil prices and the economy than Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Our dependence on foreign oil is made even more troubling when you consider our Nation's financial situation. Today, 51 percent of the privately owned national debt is held by foreign creditors--mostly foreign central banks. That is up from 6 years ago. Foreign creditors provided more than 70 percent of the funds that the United States has borrowed since 2001, according to the Department of the Treasury. Who are those creditors? The three largest are China, Japan, and the OPEC nations. This is insane. It has to stop. We cannot afford to allow the countries that control our oil and our debt to control our future. Think about that. The same people who have us right where they want us in terms of oil now almost have us right where they want us in terms of our debt. If they want to put the two together, they can strike a lethal blow to our economy and to the American people. I am going to be brutally honest with folks. The future of our country I think is in jeopardy. We cannot continue to transfer our wealth overseas to this degree without expecting serious consequences. Rather than addressing these national security concerns, we have been living the life of Riley and have allowed the environmental movement to run wild. They have gone and sued every which way to Sunday and all the while ignored our energy, economic, and national security interests. We have let them get away with it. We have let them get away with it because oil was cheap and so Congress felt no urgency to act. I have to tell you something. Oil is not cheap anymore. For 10 years, I have been a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and for 10 years I have tried to coax the committee into harmonizing our energy economy, environment, and security. The committee has refused to do it. Now, as I predicted, the chickens have come home to roost. Americans, today, demand action and that we come together in a bipartisan fashion to solve this crisis. I am glad we finally have come to an agreement to move forward and debate this issue on the floor. I hope we can continue to work together to address the wide range of amendments that I believe could improve this bill. I have to say, I didn't follow all of what our leaders were talking about, in terms of how this is going to be handled. I wish to let people know I have been involved in the debate on energy since I have been in the Senate. First, in 2003, we were on the floor for 6 weeks and didn't get anything done. Then we came back in 2004 and spent a great deal of time, and nothing happened. Then we came back in 2005, with the Energy Policy Act, and spent 10 days on the floor and 19 rollcalls and 57 amendments. I believe the American people want their Senators to debate this issue on the floor of the Senate, give us the right to make amendments, and let's vote up or down on them; let's go at it and have a robust debate. Hopefully, after it is over, some consensus will come back, as we did in 2005 and 2007, so people will feel we have, for the first time, stopped bickering and tried to address our attention to something that will make a difference in their lives. As you know, oil is not easily found or substituted. It will remain an integral component to our economy in the shortrun. We must make investments today that will help us achieve our goals of tomorrow. I believe this is what we must do: Find more and use less. We must increase our supply, reduce our demand through alternative energies, and conserve what we have. We must carefully avoid the smoke-screens that cloud our path to real solutions. Some people are saying the speculation bill is a smokescreen. There is legitimate debate about that issue, but that is not the only issue we should be debating. Some smart people are saying that, including Robert Samuelson, who recently wrote: Speculator-bashing is another exercise in scapegoating and grandstanding. Paul Krugman wrote in an op-ed: The hyperventilation over oil-market speculation is distracting us from the real issues. That same issue also came up with Boone Pickens. I was at the hearing he attended in the committee. I think we can all agree this is a complicated issue, with many moving parts. That is why we have to look at the issue comprehensively and find solutions to combat this crisis from all angles. In the end, we must not forget the bottom line is about supply and demand. Let's talk about supply. In order to stabilize our Nation's energy supply, we must enact policies to increase the development of domestic fuels. While these resources will not physically come online for a number of years, moves to expand development will send a clear signal to the market that we are serious about meeting our future energy demands and immediately begin to drive down the cost of oil because investors will know that gas will not be worth as much in the future and will therefore sell it off today, lowering the cost immediately. The fact of the matter is we have more energy resources than any other area of the world. I chaired a committee a couple weeks ago and it was amazing to me. They showed a chart. We have more oil reserves than any other place in the world. Most of that is in the shale oil out in the Western United States. Some say it is too expensive to get, over $100--we are not sure yet. Boone Pickens testified and said that in 10 years, if we don't do so, the cost of oil could be $300 a barrel. The fact is we have to understand that the majority of our oil resources are locked up. Eighty-five percent of our offshore acreage and 65 percent of our onshore acreage is off the table. It is interesting. I have been saying that if the President goes over to see King Abdallah and says: Give me some more oil, the King should say: Why should I give you my oil? The supply is almost the same as the demand and demand is growing. Why don't you go home, Mr. President, and use the oil that you have in the United States of America? Why don't you drill in the Outer Continental Shelf and move east in the Gulf of Mexico? You have rigs down there right now. Yet with 4,000 of them during Katrina, there wasn't any oil spill during that period of time. I understand you have some shale oil out in the West--800 billion barrels of oil--that is available, and perhaps even 2 trillion, in terms of reserves. You have lots of coal, and you could use that to create oil. You have some friends in Canada who have 185 billion barrels of oil in the tar sands, and someone in your Congress has made it almost impossible to bring the tar sands down from Canada, who are friends, neighbors, and they share your values. It is interesting; when we talked to Pickens about this, he said: When I was in Saudi Arabia and talked to these guys, you know what they said to me? Go after your own oil. You know, once your oil is gone, that is a great resource. Go after yours. In a nutshell, I think that we need to go on and do the very best we can, in an environmentally sound way, to get at the oil we have available to us as a country. I was thinking about this. If, in 10 years, we had this shale oil out in the West, and it proved to be what everybody says it can be, instead of us being at the bottom of the barrel, we would be at the top. We might not have to use it, but we would be able to look out around the world and say: You know what, folks, we have a lot of oil. What you did to us, we could do to you if we wanted to. But that is not the real answer. The real answer is what I call the second declaration of independence. In the second declaration of independence, we would basically say we are going to be oil independent. Tell your kids and grandchildren that. We are going to do it like President Kennedy did. Remember when the Russians sent Sputnik up and we didn't like it? President Kennedy said to the American people that we are going to get this done in 10 years. By golly, we saw a man from Ohio land on the Moon. I know this: We have wonderful, smart people in this country. One of the ideas I have, in terms of an amendment, would be that if we did exploration or we lifted the moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf exploration, what we would do is take the lease money and put it into the research we are going to have to do on batteries, which I think, ultimately, are the ones, because you don't need an infrastructure with fuel cells, and even with Boone Pickens' oil or natural gas, you have to have a pump there. But with a plug-in vehicle, all you do is come home at night and stick it in the plug and you are all set. You don't have to worry about whether the gas station will have a pump to take care of it. The fact is we need more money to do this. The Department of Energy has good programs, but they don't have the money to take care of it. We can say to the American people--on those leases, by the way, we have $9 billion this year, and that is a lot of money--we are going to let you go out and explore, and you are going to pay us for these leases. By the way, we are going to take that money and use it so we can become oil independent in this country. That sounds, probably, idealistic. But the fact is we have to do something creative around here. We know we don't have a lot of money. The national debt is $9.4 trillion. But somehow we have to come together and say we are going to do two things: go after what we have available to us, and we are going to do everything we can to be independent from relying upon foreign sources of oil. We recognize this is not just a problem of high gasoline costs; this is a problem about the national security of the United States of America. This is more than just, well, $4 a gallon. Two years ago, I went over to that National Defense war games. I walked out of there, and I was concerned about what could happen to our country if somebody decided they are going to shut off our oil. The problem today is, if you look at the demand for oil and the supply, it is about equal. Boone Pickens said that in his testimony. We have the supply about where the demand is and demand is going up and the supply isn't there. So one of the things we have to do as a country is let's do more with our own. Let's find more. We can tell the American people it will not happen overnight, but we are going to do this so that down the road we are not going to be at someone's beck and call or at their mercy. In addition, it is going to allow us to stop sending money overseas to countries that don't like us. Can you imagine that we get 11 percent of our oil from Venezuela and Chavez down there, who is talking about cutting off the oil and trying to get the South American countries to all organize against the United States of America? This is a big deal. It is finding more, using less. It is also doing everything we can do for conservation. These are simple things. I have a 2000 Ford station wagon. It has a little dial there that I can tell how many miles I get per gallon. I have to tell you, in the last 6 months, I have been paying a lot more attention to that. I have found that if I drive at about 57 miles per hour, I can get 2 to 3 more miles per gallon. I don't get there as fast, but I am saving on gas. My daughter Betsy-- every time she needed something, she would jump in the car and go out and get it. Now she makes a list, and they only go out once. My son Peter now works 10 hours a day for 4 days a week instead of 5 days. That saves gas. There is a lot that we as Americans can do to cut back on the amount of oil we are now using. I think it is time we all work together, in a bipartisan fashion, and harmonize our energy, our environmental needs, our economy, and national security. Can you imagine how the American people would rejoice if they saw Republicans and Democrats come together and say we are going to work this out on their behalf? Our numbers are pretty bad. I can tell you--and I am sure the Chair understands this--I am out in Ohio all the time. Do you know what I hear? Why can't you stop the bickering? Why are you so much more interested in partisan politics? Some have heard me say this before. I was mayor of Cleveland, working with 21 Democrats. I had to work with the most powerful Democratic leader they ever had in the city. We decided to work together on a bipartisan basis. Then I went down to Columbus as Governor, with the most powerful speaker ever, Vernal Riffe, whom they built and named a building for. They put up a bust of him there that I had to genuflect to before I got to my office. We decided to work together and not talk about our differences. We decided to find the things that would bring us together. Let's go to the environmental groups, let's go to the people interested in the economy, let's go to the people who are interested in energy, let's go to the people who are interested in our national security and say: You know what, we have a symbiotic relationship, you environmentalists, you people over here; let's work together, let's do something special, let's restore people's faith in our system in that we are capable, Republicans and Democrats, Americans, to come together and really do something significant for not only ourselves today but, more importantly, for my children, and more important than that, posterity--my seven grandchildren. I yield the floor.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Madam President, I rise today to speak about an issue that weighs heavily on the minds of every Ohioan--the skyrocketing cost of gasoline. There have been many elaborate theories bandied about on the floor of the Senate in the last month as to why gasoline is so expensive. We have heard that investors are driving up the cost of oil by 20 to 30 percent. But businessman Warren Buffett has said ``it's not speculation, it's supply and demand.'' And Paul Krugman wrote in an op- ed, ``the hyperventilation over oil market speculation is distracting us from the real issues.'' Madam President, I will insert for the Record an article which appeared in the July 7-14 Newsweek edition by Robert Samuelson titled ``Let's Shoot the Speculators!'' The quote I want to make as part of my speech is: Gosh, if only it were that simple. Speculator-bashing is another exercise in scapegoating and grandstanding. Leading politicians either don't understand what's happening or don't want to acknowledge their complicity. There have also been calls to increase production in the 68 million nonproducing acres that are already leased. Some of my colleagues are claiming that hundreds of small, medium, and large oil companies are colluding to not drill on their current leases because they want to restrict the supply so they can increase profits. At the same time, those same colleagues accuse the industry of wanting to open ANWR and the OCS to more drilling to increase profits by increasing supply. That makes absolutely no sense. I think we can all agree this is a complicated issue with moving parts. Congress cannot afford to address the factors contributing to the high gas prices individually as we are doing today. We must look at the pieces comprehensively and find solutions to combat this crisis from all angles, and we have to act now. Over the past months, I have heard loudly and clearly from thousands of Ohioans how this crisis is directly affecting them and their loved ones. In fact, this past July 4 recess I was talking with folks about high gas prices. They are frustrated and angry--frustrated at the high cost of gasoline and angry that Congress wasn't getting off its you know what to do anything about it. They told me about how the price of gasoline is affecting them where it hurts--right in their pocketbook. It is affecting vacation plans for those families who planned to take long trips this summer. It is affecting people who have to drive long distances for a living. And it is particularly affecting people who live on the financial edge. The truth is, with the high cost of natural gas, and the high cost of gasoline and food, the standard of living of millions of Americans is being impacted substantially. Other Ohioans have written to me, and one letter I think about quite often was from Mary Keener, who works at the James Cancer Center in Columbus. She wrote to my office to tell me about her concerns for patients living in Ohio's Appalachian region. She says: Patients call our office and say: ``I know I need this cancer treatment to live, but I can't afford to buy the gas to get it. Can you help me?'' Every day, more and more Ohioans contact me and it is becoming clear that they get it. They realize we need to increase our oil supply and develop a comprehensive energy strategy. Sadly, this crisis could have been averted. We have known for years that we need a comprehensive energy strategy, and I have been calling for one since I came to the Senate in 1999. In 2002, after the Senate failed to pass the provision that would have opened ANWR and dramatically increased our domestic energy production, I said: As we go down the road, I think those that voted against this amendment will regret their vote when we face the sticker shock at the gas pump and the eventual impact that continued dependency on foreign oil will have on our national security, economy, and our foreign trade deficit. Since that vote, gas prices have increased more than 200 percent. Meanwhile, it took 5 years and 6 weeks of floor debate for Congress to pass the 2005 Energy Policy Act, a bill that only provided limited strides forward. And while the bill took modest steps to improve national energy efficiency, boost research and development funding for advanced energy technologies, and promote increased use of biofuels, it did not go far enough toward increasing our domestic energy supply. For years, the gap in the United States between demand and domestic supply has been widening. In fact, U.S. oil production has steadily declined since 1970, when it was nearly 10 million barrels per day, to 5.1 barrels in 2007. So with less domestic resources available, we have been forced to seek energy abroad. In 1973, the United States imported 6 million barrels of oil per day, or 34 percent of our total supply. By 2006, net oil imports were 12.4 million barrels per day, or 60 percent of our total liquid fuel use. This chart gives you an idea of what has happened. Our domestic oil production has gone down and our need for imported oil has gone up. You can see the gap that exists. And the only way we are going to make any progress is to reduce that gap that is so pronounced today. While Americans understand we need to increase the supply of oil, I am not sure they fully realize to what extent our life is threatened by our reliance on foreign sources of oil. Every year we send billions of dollars overseas for oil to pad the coffers of many nations that don't have our best interest at heart, such as Venezuela, whose leader has threatened to cut oil off to the United States. In fact, in 2007, we spent more than $327 billion to import oil. Sixty percent of this, or nearly $200 billion, went to the oil exporting OPEC nations. In 2008, the amount we will spend to import oil is expected to double to more than $600 billion, $360 billion of which is going to go to the OPEC nations. Let's take a moment to put those figures into context, when compared to our fiscal year 2008 budget for our national defense, which was more than $693 billion. The $600 billion we will spend to import oil in 2008 is nearly equal--it is nearly equal--to the entire defense budget of the United States. Our dependence on foreign oil has serious national security implications. In addition to funding our enemies, as I explained, we cannot ignore the fact that much of our oil comes from and travels through the most volatile regions of the world. A couple of years ago I attended a series of war games hosted by the National Defense University. I saw firsthand how our country's economy could be brought to its knees if somebody wanted to cut off our oil, as was done in 1973. Do you know that 80 percent of the global oil routes flow through unstable countries, such as Iran? Over 40 percent of the world's oil travels through the Strait of Hormuz. Just to give an idea, this graph reflects where we are getting our oil. Here is Venezuela--Chavez, the dictator down there who is working against our interests constantly in South America. He is no friend of ours. The Middle East. We know what we have over in this unstable part of the world. Our concern about Iran is also impacting on the price of oil, because people are not certain what is going to happen in terms of Iran. Our dependence on foreign oil is even more troubling when you consider our Nation's financial situation. The decline of the dollar has had a direct effect on increasing prices of gasoline. In fact, many experts say we are paying substantially more to export oil today because of the weak dollar. We cannot overlook our national debt. Today, 51 percent of the privately owned national debt is held by foreign creditors, mostly foreign central banks. That is up from 6 years ago. Foreign creditors provided more than 70 percent of the funds the United States has borrowed since 2001, according to the Department of the Treasury. Who are these creditors? According to the Treasury Department, the three largest holders of U.S. debt are China, Japan, and OPEC. This is insane. It has to stop. We cannot afford to allow at this time countries that control our oil and our debt to control the future of the United States of America. We need to enact an energy policy that broadens our base of energy resources to create stability, maintain reasonable prices, and protect our Nation's security. It must be a policy that will keep energy affordable, and it must be a policy that will not cripple the engines of commerce that fund the research that will yield environmental protection technologies for the future. We need a second Declaration of Independence to move us away from foreign sources of energy in the near term and away from oil in the long term. This is not going to be easy. As you know, oil is not easily found nor substituted, and it will remain an integral part of our economy in the short term. But we must make investments today that will help us achieve our goal tomorrow. To do this, I believe we must increase our supply, reduce our demand through alternative energies, and conserve what we already have. We are trying to get folks to understand that if we want relief from high gas costs, we must begin to make investments today that will help us achieve our goal tomorrow. We talked a lot in recent weeks about finding more and using less. If we had accomplished this 10 years ago, I would not be here talking about the high price of gasoline and the suffering of Ohioans in my State. In order to stabilize our Nation's energy supply, we must enact policies to increase development of domestic oil. While these resources will not physically come on line for a number of years--and people better understand it--moves to expand the development will send a clear signal to the market that we are serious about meeting our future energy demands and immediately begin to drive down the cost of oil because our investors will know that gas will not be worth as much in the future, and therefore they will sell it off today. It will have an impact on the price. The fact is, we have more energy resources in the United States than any other country in the world. We are the No. 3 oil producer in the world, but the majority of our oil resources are locked up. Madam President, 85 percent of our offshore acreage and 65 percent of our onshore acreage is off limits. I was embarrassed that we have gone to Saudi Arabia with our hat in our hand to beg them to increase oil production. Rather than begging the Saudi Government, we need to be utilizing our own resources. The other day I said if I were King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia, I would say to President Bush: Mr. President, why do you come to me asking for more of our oil when you have great resources in your country? You want to use all of our resources. In Alaska you have more than 10 billion barrels of oil. You had a chance to open ANWR to responsible environmentally friendly oil exploration in 1995, but President Clinton vetoed it. Your country could be producing an extra 1 million barrels of oil today, an increase of 20 percent over your current production. Did you know that Prudhoe Bay, located west of ANWR, has cleanly delivered billions of barrels of crude oil since the 1970s, providing a strong example of the drilling that can be done safely with minimal environmental impact with today's technology and environmental safeguards. You could also give your States the option of drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf. These reserves are believed to equal 8.5 billion barrels of oil, and undiscovered resources could equal 10 times that. That is 85 billion barrels of oil. But a moratorium currently prohibits access to the OCS. By the way, I commend President Bush for lifting the executive moratorium. I will just keep talking for King Abdallah. I know some of your environmentalists are concerned, but it is my understanding that there has not been a significant oilspill on the gulf coast for nearly 30 years, and in 2005 Hurricane Katrina passed overhead nearly 4,000 rigs without causing a significant spill. You could make use of your vast reserves of oil shale. There are currently 800 billion barrels of oil, technically recoverable reserves, in the United States. That is three times larger than the total proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Think of that, three times as much. The Rand Corporation noted that: If oil shale could be used to meet a quarter of United States' demand, 800 billion barrels would last for more than 400 years. Again, you passed a moratorium that prohibits access to these reserves--regulations even to go in there. Your friend up north, Canada, has some of the largest tar sand reserves in the world. A Congressman named Waxman passed a provision that jeopardizes access to those resources. Don't forget coal. You have 250 years of coal in the United States, more than any other nation in the world. You are being prevented from using coal to liquid. As a matter of fact, in the State of Ohio, Baard Energy is planning a coal-to-liquid and biomass facility that will produce 53,000 barrels a day of jet and diesel fuel and other production from coal and biomass feedstocks. Advances in carbon capture sequestration technology would lower the greenhouse gas emissions, but again, because of Congressman Waxman, your coal-to-liquid industry has slowed the Air Force's plans to run their entire fleet on synthetic fuel by 2016. We ought to realize this. How did the Germans stay in the war effort when they had no oil? They took the coal they had, they converted it to oil, and that is how they kept their war machine going. It seems to me we ought to at least give recognition to the fact that we should make sure that our defense has all of the resources it needs in terms of oil. I think we have to get real. We say to all these other countries that we want them to use their reserves, increase their supply. Frankly, they should say: Why don't you do it yourself? Why don't you do it? The other thing we have to do is we have to use less. It is long past time for our Government to provide the spark to rekindle our Nation's creativity and innovation. Following Russia's launch of Sputnik, President Kennedy challenged us and said we are going to put a man on the Moon in 10 years, and we did it. By golly, if we could put a man on the Moon in 10 years, we can figure out how we can become the country that uses oil the least in the world. We do need a new Apollo project to encourage further advances in ethanol to cut consumption and the development of more efficient, hybrid electric and plug-in vehicles. I hope my grandchildren will be using plug-in vehicles. They will not be using any oil at all in terms of their transportation. If half our fleet of 240 million vehicles were converted to electric hybrids, we could reduce our oil imports by 4 to 5 million barrels a day. Last week I chaired an energy forum and had the opportunity to hear from David Vieu, president of A123 Systems, which company is developing American-made battery technology. He explained that this technology is already commercially viable. We are making some headway. We have to make up our minds that we are going to get the job done. We have to let the world know. Can you imagine what we could do? Let the world know we are going to go after every drop we have available, in terms of our supply, and we are going to do everything we can to reduce our demand. We are going to do everything we can to conserve what we have. I believe that will send the fear of God through those individuals, and we will see an impact on the cost of oil in this country, even though it is going to happen in the future. Do you know what is funny. These folks are betting that we will not do what we ought to do because they have watched us. They have watched us. They have seen that we have not used our resources. They have watched us and seen that we have not used the best technology to reduce our demand for oil. They have watched us as we have not conserved as we should have been doing during the last number of years. I think the chickens have come home to roost. High gas prices are hurting Americans. The problem we have had in this country is, we haven't had an energy policy, but we have not harmonized our environment, our energy, our economy, and our national security. I am confident we can come together on a bipartisan basis and work something out so the American people understand that the Senate and Congress have come together on an issue that is of crisis proportion to our fellow Americans, and that we care more about them and our country's future than we do about bickering with each other. I go home all the time, and people just say: the reason your numbers are so bad is because we think you guys, men and women, are more interested in partisan politics and bickering than you are in getting together and getting the job done. I have to say, from my perspective, it is very frustrating. I was the mayor of Cleveland, an 8-to-1 Democratic city; 21 councilmen and the most powerful council president. We worked together. We figured out how to move the city of Cleveland ahead for 10 years. I became the Governor of Ohio, and Vern Rife was the speaker of the house 24 years, the most powerful Democratic speaker we had. After he discovered I was Governor after 6 months--it took a while--Vern and I sat down and said: You know what. Let's work together and move Ohio ahead. I think it is time we got together and said: Republicans and Democrats, let's move America ahead. Wouldn't it be great for our children and grandchildren to one day celebrate the time America put aside its differences and came together to reaffirm its independence a second time and rekindled the American spirit of self reliance, innovation, and creativity to usher in a new era of prosperity? Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Newsweek article by Robert Samuelson be printed in the Record.

Mr. VOINOVICH. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, ordinarily I don't come over and speak in morning business. As so with many Members of the Senate, I could be at three places at the same time and justify each one of them. I came today because of the fact that our colleagues and the citizens of this country need to know there are many instances where both Republicans and Democrats can come together and get something done. I have been very fortunate over the years to know the Presiding Officer, a former Governor, to know Governor Carper, now Senator Carper. We worked together in the National Governors Association. I think sometimes we were more effective as Governors getting things done than as Members of the Senate. The fact is, we came together a couple of years ago and realized that one of the most significant sources of pollution, in terms of particulate matter, were emissions from diesel engines. As Senator Carper pointed out, we now have new vehicles on the road that are much cleaner than anything we have seen before. We also knew there were some 11 million on- and off-road vehicles that would be around a long time and that if we were going to make significant improvement in reducing emissions from diesel engines, we needed a new program. We got together and supported the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act, a bipartisan bill. We must have had 25 or 30 sponsors, over 150 groups supported it. That was the fastest bill I have ever seen passed around here. I think we had it done in 45 days. The program today is currently supported by over 250 environmental, industry, and public interest groups. When DERA was announced, the EPA estimated the 5-year program, $200 million per year, would achieve $10 billion in health benefits. Senator Carper has done a very good job of talking about how these particulates are harmful. As a matter of fact, I am going to check into a program that is being funded by the EPA in Cincinnati, where they are measuring the impact of diesel engines on infants in urban areas. Preliminary information I have received indicates it is a very serious problem. Anything we can do to deal with reducing these emissions is significant. In addition, we talk about doing something about pollution. This legislation, if fully funded, will result in the most significant reductions of particulates of any program in the country. It will help communities, such as mine in Ohio and others around the country, to meet new requirements that have come out for ozone and particulate matter. The need for this program from fiscal year 2003 to 2005 was great, but EPA was only able to fund 25 percent of the applications under the Clean School Bus Program. A lot of school buses need to have this kind of technology. Without it, they are carting kids around, and when they stop, the stuff is being poured out. It is very significant. Over that period, from 2003 to 2005, only a third of Ohio's applications were funded, 5 out of 15, but broad support for DERA is changing this situation. People are starting to realize this is a neat program. It is really working. For fiscal year 2008, DERA was funded at almost $50 million. The House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee has acted to increase DERA funding to $65 million for 2009. The thing that is neat about this is that we look at supporting programs. I always asked the question, as I am sure the Presiding Officer did when he was Governor and Senator Carper when he was Governor: How much more money do you leverage with the money you are spending? In other words, the State puts money in, and how many other people are willing to kick in and make a difference? In this program, we have 50 States participating. In order for the States to participate, they have to create their own State-level programs. States can get more Federal funding by adding State dollars. So if the State matches the Federal allocation dollar for dollar, it will receive an additional 50-percent allocation. This is a real incentive for States to get involved. When we first put this program together, we thought, for every dollar we put out, we would leverage another $3 from State and local government. Also, the private sector is really interested in this program. My State has taken a leadership role in that effort. A coalition of groups have come together in Ohio to use the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program, the CMAQ Program, as we know it, to fund diesel retrofits. CMAQ provides State and local governments funding for transportation projects to help meet air quality requirements, and the funds are apportioned to State transportation agencies based on population and air quality programs in the region. Still more money is needed. Enforcement settlements have been a good source of funding for diesel retrofits. For example, from 2001 to 2006, EPA entered into diesel emission reduction Supplemental Environmental Projects valued at $45 million. In 2007, an enforcement settlement with AEP, American Electric Power, a company in my State, included approximately $21 million for diesel retrofits. In other words, companies that have been fined have been able to take the money they have been fined and put it into this fabulous program that reduces diesel emissions. Last July, though, the EPA issued a policy that eliminated the use of this money to finance diesel retrofits. It is hard to believe. This policy was based on the Agency's interpretation of the Miscellaneous Receipts Act and prohibits the Agency from accepting SEPs that fund activities for which the Agency received funds through appropriations, a lot of gobbledygook. EPA's inability to enter into diesel emission reduction SEPs has eliminated an important tool for environmental protection. What this bill basically says is, we are going to amend the Miscellaneous Receipts Act and say that in addition to the money we appropriate for this program, they can also use SEP money for this program. Everyone believes this is a very meritorious action we are taking. It will increase substantially the amount of money that is made available. I am hopeful that in the next several years, we will see one of the most robust programs in the world underway with the diesel emissions program. We pass stuff around here, we debate it, but so often nothing happens. Here is a perfect case of where Republicans and Democrats have worked together on something that means something. It is going to help. It is the kind of program I can go back to Ohio and say, when they are complaining about the ozone and the particulate and what are you doing to help us: We have the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act that is going to make a difference for you and your community. Hopefully, working together, as I mentioned, we will see some significant reductions in emissions and significant improvement in public health, particularly for our children. Again, I publicly acknowledge the great partnership Senator Carper and I have had. There are so many things we work on. When we finally get to them, such as the Clean Air Act we had a couple years ago, we just missed making it happen. But on this one, we did make it happen. I am hopeful that Senator Carper and I, working in the Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee, will be able to collaborate on other significant legislation that will make a real difference for our country. I yield the floor.

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I think it is much more than that. If you look at the numbers I used in my presentation, it is much greater than that in terms of the public health benefits that are derived as a result of the program.

Mr. VOINOVICH

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, are we in morning business?