Ron Wyden

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. I am happy to yield to my colleague for a question and then continue discussing my amendment.

Mr. WYDEN. Through the Chair, I ask unanimous consent to have Senator McCain propound his question, and when I have responded, I would be able to reclaim the floor.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I think it is going to be a long day because I intend to stay here and make the case for this outrageous rip-off being eliminated. This is an extraordinary waste of taxpayer money. Colleagues know I always try to work in a bipartisan way. I always want to expedite the business of the Senate. The last time the Senate looked at energy, after midnight, in the middle of the night, there was an effort to sweeten this program and add more cost to taxpayers that cannot be justified. As I understand it, I may have misspoken on this point; the total amount of the supplemental bill is $100 billion. The cost of litigation over this program, if successful, could be $80 billion. The General Accounting Office estimates that at a minimum, the Government is going to be out $20 billion. My amendment alone could pay a significant portion of what is needed to cover this emergency spending legislation. The Government is here talking about an emergency spending bill because there isn't the money in order to pay for these essential programs. Yet at a time when we have an emergency spending bill and we don't have the money in order to take care of needs, the Government keeps ladling out billions of dollars. All I want to do is prevent what we saw last year in the Energy bill. We are now going to do it differently. We are going to stay here, and we are going to stay at this discussion until the Senate votes up or down as to whether we want to keep sweetening a program with billions and billions of dollars at a time when there is no commonsense reason for this particular program. I have come to admire the Senator from Arizona. We serve together on the Commerce Committee. I particularly appreciate his tenaciousness. He has taught me an awful lot about it. Frankly, that is what is needed. Somebody has to stay here and stay at this until we drain this swamp. To continually shovel out billions and billions of dollars, when the President of the United States has said we don't need these incentives when oil is over $50 a barrel, I don't see how anybody can argue for the continuation of this program in its current form. I said I am not going to chuck the program in the trash can. All I am going to say is, you get royalty relief if the price of oil goes down or we need royalty relief to avoid disruptions. That is a straightforward proposition. It certainly ensures that we go back to what was originally contemplated. Even the authors of this program, people such as our former colleague Senator Bennett Johnston, are scratching their heads and saying: This program is completely out of control. It makes no sense in its current form. I don't see how you can argue something that at its outset was designed to promote production when prices were cheap. By the way, a lot of the sponsors of this legislation always said this program was cost free. I was amazed to hear that.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the pending amendment which I offered last night and discussed briefly with the distinguished chairman of the committee, Senator Cochran, is before the Senate at this time. It deals with the most expensive and the most needless giveaway that taxpayers ladle out to the oil industry. It is something called royalty relief. I will take a few minutes to explain to the Senate how this works. The oil companies are supposed to pay royalties to the Federal Government when they extract oil from Federal lands. In order to stimulate production when the price of oil was cheap, the Federal Government reduced the amount of royalty payments the companies had to make, certainly a logical argument for doing something such as that when we are not getting the production we need. When prices are cheap and we do not have incentives, then there is an argument for some kind of royalty relief. But now that the price of oil has soared to over $70 a barrel, the discounted royalty payments amount to a needless subsidy of billions and billions of dollars. Now, to his credit, the President has essentially said, look, we do not need this huge array of incentives for the oil industry when the price is over $50 a barrel. Now we are looking at $70 a barrel. So a program that one could argue on behalf of when the price of oil was cheap has lost all its rationale at this critical time when we, of course, are seeing record prices, record profits, and now record royalty subsidies to the companies, as well. What we have before the Senate is truly a bizarre situation. The Senate is working on a supplemental spending program that is designated as emergency spending because our Government does not have the money to pay for it. Yet the Senate is still willing to distribute, needlessly, billions of dollars of taxpayer money. This program, by the General Accounting Office, is designed to lose at a minimum $20 billion. There is litigation underway with the oil companies surrounding this program. If that litigation is successful, it is possible this program will cost our Government $80 billion; $80 billion then becomes twice the amount that the distinguished Senator from Mississippi has in the legislation that is considered emergency spending. Experts in and out of Government have said recently this subsidy makes absolutely no sense. For example, from the other body of the Congress, Congressman Richard Pombo, the chairman of the natural resources committee, is not a person that anyone would call anti-oil in his views about Government. This is what Congressman Pombo, the chairman of the natural resources committee, had to say a little bit ago about royalty relief: There is no need for an incentive. They have a market incentive to produce at $70 a barrel. Michael Coney, a lawyer for Shell Oil--again, not a place one would normally look to hear anti-oil rhetoric espoused, said that under the current environment, we don't need royalty relief. Even the original author of this program, the very respected former colleague Senator Bennett Johnston of Louisiana, essentially the person who put this whole thing together, thinks this program is out of whack. Senator Johnston said: The one thing I can tell you is this is not what we intended. So I come to the Senate today with a simple proposition. My proposition is, royalty relief can only be obtained if it is needed to avert a supply disruption or prices drop and there is no incentive for people to produce in the United States. The distinguished Senator in the chair, Senator Coburn, knows a great deal about the oil business. I want to make sure there are incentives for production. But the President of the United States, to his credit, has said you don't need incentives when oil is over $50 a barrel. It is at $70 today. (Mr. McCain assumed the Chair.)

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak on my amendment, which is the pending business, after the Senator from Pennsylvania offers his amendment, which I am told is going to take around 5 minutes or thereabouts. I propound a unanimous consent request we go back to my pending amendment and I be recognized next to speak on it after the Senator from Pennsylvania has had a chance to offer his amendment and speak for about 5 minutes.

Mr. WYDEN. Parliamentary inquiry: What is the pending business?

Mr. WYDEN. Not long ago when the oil company executives came before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I went down the line and asked them if they needed the various tax breaks. To a person, they all said no. So now we are seeing a bit of discussion about whether all of these tax breaks are needed by people in the oil business. It is one thing to talk about new initiatives--and we will be debating a variety of additional approaches, windfall profits taxes and the like--and it is quite another to be spending billions and billions of dollars out the door when those subsidy payments defy common sense, defy essentially what the President of the United States said, that we ought to get out of the subsidy business when oil is over $50 a barrel. That is what I am proposing in this particular amendment. What it comes down to is the U.S. Government ought to stop adding sweetener to the Royalty Relief Program. At every opportunity over the last few years--and I see the distinguished Senator in the chair has zeroed in on wasteful programs, to his credit, for a long time--at every opportunity we have seen this program sweetened and sweetened and sweetened, all at the taxpayers' expense. To give the Senate an idea of how out of control this particular program is, as I understand it, the previous Secretary of the Interior, Secretary Norton, actually went out and sweetened up the old contracts to provide even more royalty relief at a time when prices, again, were way above the threshold that the President of the United States has indicated we should not be offering subsidies to. This is an important debate in this whole question of tax breaks and windfall profits tax and the like. It is clearly going to spark a lot of debate and differences of opinion among colleagues. This, in my view, is not even a close call. When Congressman Pombo from the other body, the chair of the natural resources committee, says we did not need this incentive, when we have people from Shell Oil saying we do not need the Royalty Relief Program, when we have the original author of the program, our former colleague Senator Bennett Johnston, saying this is not what he intended, I sure hope that is a wakeup call to the Senate. This is not a close call. We are going to see, according to the General Accounting Office, a minimum of $20 billion head out the door as a result of this program. By the way, it was sweetened up also in the energy conference last year. In fact, it was done almost in the dead of night because nobody could make a case for sweetening up this program anymore in broad daylight. So essentially, with virtually no debate, even last year, in the Energy bill, after the previous Secretary of the Interior, Secretary Norton, had kept adding to the program, the Congress continued to enrich this program and needlessly offered these subsidies. Mr. President, I think a little bit of history is in order. Certainly, back in the middle 1990s--this program is, essentially, one that is a decade old--you could make an argument for the Government being involved in an incentives effort. Certainly, when the price of energy was low and we needed opportunities to incentivize production, so be it. That was a case where some targeted efforts on the part of Government to stimulate production could make some sense. The Government is now out of the targeting business. For example, there are no limits on who gets royalty relief. The President of the United States did not say: Oh, we ought to draw distinctions between people who get these various subsidies. The President of the United States said: We don't need Government subsidies when the price of oil is over $50 a barrel. So what happened, essentially, after the program got off the ground in the early 1990s is folks who were supposed to be watchdogging the program did not do their job. They did not pay attention to it. So there was an original threshold for this program of about $34. The price of oil today is $70-plus a barrel. They were talking, in the middle 1990s, about $34 being the threshold level for the subsidy. But what happened is, during the Clinton administration, some folks in the Government agency, the minerals program, who were supposed to be watchdogging this program just missed it. Some have described it as a bureaucratic blunder. However you want to call it, the reality is, Government, in the middle 1990s, was not doing right by the taxpayers. The Government should have been watchdogging this program. They should have seen there would be an effort by some in the oil industry to enrich themselves and use the taxpayer to essentially create an incentive that was unjustifiable and inexplicable, if you looked at what we are seeing today. Yet the money just kept pouring out the doors. So what we have is a brandnew subsidy--new because it was added during the energy legislation, at a time when the price of oil was already above $55 per barrel. Certainly, the industry cannot make a claim they need this kind of incentive, as they have said in the past. They have been drilling, and drilling without this particular incentive. In fact, we have seen, fortunately, some increase in drilling and production over the past 2 years without this particular incentive. There is no doubt in my mind, if you look at the record prices and if you look at the record profits, the drilling is going to continue if and when the amendment I have before the Senate is adopted. I wish to emphasize, this legislation does give the Bush administration a significant amount of discretion in terms of operating the Royalty Relief Program. If the President, if the Secretary of the Interior, for example, determines that an absence of royalty relief would cause a disruption in oil supply, they set it aside, go back to the Royalty Relief Program. If the price of oil were to drop precipitously again, once more, you can provide oil royalty relief. But when the companies make record profits, when they charge record prices, it seems to me they do not need these record amounts of subsidies. So the supplemental we are on the floor debating now involves $35 billion. The amendment I hope to have adopted today would pick up a significant portion of the costs of the supplemental that have been designated as emergency spending. If the litigation that is now taking place surrounding this program is successful--and I do not think anyone can divine the results of that litigation--it is possible the Government will be out $80 billion for this particular program. That is twice the amount--twice the amount--of the money this legislation involves. Now, colleagues--and I see a number of Senators on the floor--this is the granddaddy of all the oil subsidies. This is the biggest and this is the most unjustifiable of all the breaks. By the way, we have had good ideas coming from colleagues. And probably the best single idea--and the distinguished Senator from Arizona has had an interest in these issues for some time--the Senator from Wyoming has said, to his credit, he wants to target the tax incentives for oil drilling to get more out of existing wells. There is a lot of evidence that perhaps a third of the oil that is in these existing wells is being left behind because we have never retooled the tax laws to get more from existing wells. So there are good ideas, Mr. President and colleagues, and Senator Thomas from Wyoming deserves credit for one of the best. But I will tell you, there are some real turkeys out there. And one of them is this existing program which provides royalty relief where there is no case to do so. This is an out-of-control program. This is a program which has lost its historical moorings. It made sense in 1995, when the price of oil was cheap, but it sure does not make any sense today. When I asked the executives who came before the Energy Committee recently--the CEOs of ExxonMobil, Chevron, Texaco, ConocoPhillips, BP, and Shell--I asked them specifically if they needed these new incentives. All of them said they did not. So I am offering this amendment today that prohibits the Department of Energy from providing any additional royalty relief so long as the price of oil is above $55 per barrel. That is the price at which the President said oil companies do not need incentives to explore. The amendment, as I have indicated, provides an exception in cases where royalty relief is needed to avoid supply disruptions because of hurricanes or other natural disasters or if the price of oil were to fall. But with oil selling for more than $70 a barrel--way above the price for which the President said incentives were not needed--Congress ought to stop giving away more taxpayer money for unnecessary subsidies. We ought to prohibit further royalty relief, use this money to pay down the deficit, as the distinguished Senator from Arizona has suggested on this floor on more than one occasion, and save our citizens' hard-earned tax dollars for more worthy uses. Consumers of this country are already paying more at work. They are paying more at home and as they drive everywhere in between. It seems to me we certainly ought to give them a break in their personal energy bills before we continue the operation of a program that the General Accounting Office has said will cost taxpayers a minimum of $20 billion and could end up costing taxpayers $80 billion, if the litigation over this program is successful. Mr. President, I see other colleagues on the floor. I have not had anybody come to the floor and say they are going to oppose my amendment. If no one does--and I am not going to yield quite at this point--I am anxious--and the chairman of the committee, Senator Cochran, has been very gracious in his discussions with me. I am anxious to go to a vote. I know the Senator from Mississippi treats all Members fairly, and I have told him I am ready to go to an up-or-down vote on my amendment and get the Senate on record as making sure we save this money which is being needlessly frittered away. No one has come to the floor of the Senate to say they object to the amendment. The amendment is very straightforward. It says we are not going to have royalty relief unless the President says we have to have it to avoid a disruption or the price of oil falls. This is a program which does not make sense. We ought to save the money. I, at this point, would like to propound a request to the distinguished chair of the committee. I would be prepared to allow the Senate to move on to other business if we could agree upon a time when there could be an up-or-down vote on my amendment. Would the distinguished chairman of the committee, the Senator from Mississippi, give me his thoughts? And can we enter into an agreement so you can move ahead with the important work you are doing and we can lock in a time for a vote on my amendment?

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that, notwithstanding the adjournment of the Senate, the Record remain open this evening until 8:45 p.m. in order for Senator Frist or his designee to submit a statement relating to a notice of the suspension of the rules relative to the supplemental bill.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am going to propound a unanimous consent request for wrap-up momentarily. I will also note, as I have been speaking on this amendment to forego some royalty relief for oil companies, that when we go back in at approximately 10 o'clock, I will continue a discussion regarding this amendment and hopefully have a chance to hear from colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

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

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the oil companies are supposed to pay royalties to the Federal Government when they extract oil from Federal lands. Now, in order to stimulate production of oil in our country, the Federal Government over the last decade has been discounting these royalty fees. These discounts now amount to billions of dollars. It appears that the royalty relief that is given to the oil companies is now the granddaddy of all of the subsidies. We have been talking considerably on the floor of this body over the last few days about tax breaks for oil companies. The President, it seems to me, to his credit, over the last few days has indicated that he understands that these tax breaks are no longer needed. I was very pleased to see that because when the energy executives came to the committee, I literally went down the row and asked them if they continued to need all of these tax breaks. They don't, but Congress has continued to ladle them out. But on top of these record profits, record prices, and record tax breaks, there is now record amounts of royalty relief granted to the oil companies as well. Now that the prices have shot up, I don't see how anybody can justify this multibillion-dollar subsidy. The point of this amendment is to say that we are going to get rid of these special oil company discounts, the special breaks that amount to billions of dollars, unless the price of oil comes down, or unless the Bush administration indicates that royalty relief is necessary to avoid supply disruption. Mr. President, it is astounding that there is a tremendous chorus now of support, saying that royalty relief is needed. Yet nobody seems to be doing anything concrete to roll back these unnecessary subsidies. For example, to show the bipartisan interest in this, not long ago, a distinguished member of the other body who chairs the resources committee, Richard Pombo, said in a newspaper interview that there is no need for this particular incentive. That is not the head of some consumer group; that is the distinguished chairman of the resources committee, Mr. Pombo, from California. He has said there is no need for this kind of royalty relief. Mr. Michael Coney, a lawyer for the Shell Oil Company, said the same thing. He basically said that in this kind of climate you cannot make a case for this particular kind of multibillion-dollar subsidy. The architect of the program, our former colleague, Senator Bennett Johnston, has said that what has taken place with respect to the royalty relief program isn't anything close to what he had in mind when he developed this program. So what you have is a Democratic Member of the Senate saying let's roll back these subsidies unless the Bush administration certifies they are needed to avoid disruption or unless the price goes down, and let's do it because there is a bipartisan consensus that this Royalty Relief Program is completely out of whack. By the way, Mr. President, I know you have had great interest in the effort to target these subsidies. You and I have talked about it on a number of occasions. Consistently what we find is the way these multibillion-dollar subsidies find their way on to our tax rolls and Government programs is on a bipartisan basis somebody messes up. Somebody isn't watchdogging the way these dollars fly out the door, and that was certainly the case with the Clinton administration. Previously, there had been a particular provision in the Royalty Relief Program that said when the oil prices shot up, when they went above a certain level--then it was considered about $34 a barrel--the companies would have to, once again, start paying these royalties. But the Clinton administration just wasn't watching the store, wasn't watchdogging this program as they should have, and so they didn't put that particular clause--the clause that protects the taxpayers--into a number of these royalty relief agreements. What has happened is we just had a litigation derby with scores and scores of lawsuits. Now the General Accountability Office estimates that at a minimum, the Federal Government is going to be out $20 billion. This is the biggest subsidy of them all, and given all of the litigation that has taken place, this subsidy could go up and up. Under the Energy bill signed into law last summer, the oil companies were given new subsidies in the form of reduced royalty fees for the oil and gas they extract from Federal land, including offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. This particular new subsidy was signed into law when the companies were already reporting these extraordinary profits. We were already seeing the consumer taking a shellacking at the gas pump. It would have been the ideal time for the U.S. Congress to do what colleagues such as Congressman Pombo in the other body are talking about, lawyers for the Shell Oil companies tell the newspapers, what I and others and a bipartisan group who have been interested in this have said for a long time: It doesn't pass the smell test to be dispensing billions and billions of dollars of royalty relief to the oil companies on top of everything else they already receive from the taxpayers' wallet. So what I hope we will be able to do here is roll back this new subsidy. By the way, the program was useful back when prices were low. For example, it significantly helped in the Gulf of Mexico at a time when prices were low. That is not the case now. As our colleague in the other body, Mr. Pombo, notes, they sure don't need any incentives when the marketplace is providing all the incentives anybody could possibly ask for. Government subsidies, sure, when the price is low, when we have to stimulate production, when our economy needs a shot in the arm. But billions of dollars of royalty relief for oil companies in this kind of time? I don't get it, and tomorrow I hope a majority of the Senate will share my view and will share the view of other colleagues who have taken a good look at this particular program. It seems to me this is a time when the Congress ought to say: Let's look carefully at all of these various subsidies and breaks. As the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma has said, let's shine some light on it, let's take a sharp pencil out and really make some concrete judgments about what is in the taxpayers' interest. At a time when consumers are already paying more at work, they are paying more at home, they are paying more when they drive everywhere in between, we ought to be giving them a break in their personal energy bills before we give breaks to the oil companies on the amounts they owe for drilling on our Nation's lands. With oil selling for more than $70 a barrel, $15 a barrel higher than the price that the President said incentives were not needed, Congress should not be giving away more taxpayer money for more unnecessary subsidies that benefit profitable energy interests. Let me highlight that particular point and explain why it is so pivotal in this discussion for royalty relief for oil companies. The President of the United States said that he doesn't see the case for additional incentives and Government benefits to encourage production when oil is over $55 a barrel. Now we are talking about oil at $70 a barrel. We are talking about billions of dollars of new payments to the companies at a time when the General Accountability Office says the minimum tab will be $20 billion. And all I am saying to the Senate tonight is I want to cut off those payments unless one of two things happens: If the price of oil comes down, you bet, let's go back and say we need some incentives for production. If the President of the United States, the Secretary of the Interior, the people who are in the administration who know a lot about the oil business say that we have to have these multibillion-dollar discounts in order to encourage production, my amendment doesn't apply. In effect, the President of the United States can say we have to have the Royalty Relief Program in order to get the oil industry moving again in our country. But with prices high and no argument for these breaks, not on the basis of my judgment but on the basis of what the President has said in the past, I want to cut off these particular breaks. I hope my colleagues will want to save our taxpayers money and promote fiscal responsibility. This is a program which is completely out of control. This is a program which has lost its moorings. You cannot defend this, in my view, in front of any group of our citizens. That is why a variety of leaders and individuals in the private sector, many of them coming from the oil industry itself, have said there is no logical argument for royalty relief at this particular time. Certainly there are going to be some who will say it is never enough. There is litigation going on now where some companies are in court trying to secure additional information. I am looking at a recent article in the press authored by Edmund L. Andrews headlined: ``General Accounting Office Sees Loss in Oil Royalties of at Least $20 Billion.'' We know that the Government Accountability Office isn't an organization with any ax to grind. They are our nonpartisan investigators. Those are the people who take out the sharp pencil and are given the job of actually looking to see if taxpayer money is being used wisely. They have essentially said recently--this year, just months ago--that billions of dollars are going to be wasted with this Royalty Relief Program. The Interior Department has indicated that they know they are going to lose billions of dollars in royalty payments. I don't see anybody saying that the price of oil is going to fall precipitously anytime soon. If it does, the President and the Department of Energy can essentially waive my amendment. We explicitly say that if the price of oil goes down, if there are any national security questions, any disruptions that threaten supply, the amendment can be set aside. It is time to rein in these costs that are going through the stratosphere. The Royalty Relief Program is the granddaddy of all subsidies. I hope tomorrow, when the Senate has an opportunity to vote, we will say that we ought to prohibit further royalty relief, unless prices go down or we face a disruption, and save our citizens' hard- earned tax dollars for more worthy causes. Mr. President, I hope my colleagues will support this amendment. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. I withdraw my reservation.

Mr. WYDEN. Reserving the right to object--and I have no intention to object--my understanding was that I was going to be able to offer an amendment to the bill. I want to make sure that that amendment will be able to go first prior to morning business.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The distinguished Senator from Kentucky is on his way. He wishes to present wrap-up, and then I have an amendment to offer.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I would very much like to work on an energy policy in a bipartisan way. I think we all understand that the only way to get anything important done in Washington, DC, is to work in a bipartisan way. Unfortunately, the same Bush administration that so tragically bungled the response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has now bungled its way to $3-a- gallon gasoline. And in particular, I am concerned that all of the evidence showed that this spring we would have these problems. The administration, for example, has given Congress a variety of reports about how post-Katrina we would have evidence of a supply problem. With respect to the changeover from MTBE to ethanol, all the evidence was available many months ago. The Wall Street Journal was warning about it--that there would be huge logistical problems for service stations and others to make that changeover. We know that ethanol--and the Senator from Illinois has been one of the leaders in this effort--is going to play an important role in America's gasoline future. Given that, this should have been an all- hands-on-deck approach at the administration trying to watchdog the transition from MTBE to ethanol. This is an administration with enormous expertise in the oil area. For all practical purposes, this is an administration that is almost marinated in oil. One official after another has a history and a background in this sector. Yet where was the Department of Energy? Where was the Environmental Protection Agency? Where was the Commodity Futures Trading Commission at a key time in our country's energy future? With all the problems overseas--Nigeria, Venezuela, and Iraq producing a tiny fraction of what they were able to produce before the war--we knew that this was going to be a difficult time this spring. I talked to a gasoline station owner last night. I pulled up and was faced with the prospect of $3.25 a gallon. That station owner said: Nobody gave us any information at all about how to proceed in this significant switchover from MTBE to ethanol. They have to clean their tanks. There are tremendous logistical problems and a different role for transportation with respect to trucks and rails versus pipelines. Normally, you would have taken a much longer period of time to make this changeover. That wasn't done. So the administration should have been there working with the service station owners and the oil companies and a variety of parties to try to minimize the problems when you are having this massive transition in the energy area. So we are going to see instances where people try to exploit the situation. I hope we can get the Federal Trade Commission off the dime and finally go out and take the steps to protect the public from this exploitation. It was known a year ago that this was a time when we would have a perfect energy storm. We knew we were going to have the equivalent of what amounts to a level 5 hurricane in the gasoline market. Yet the folks in the administration sat on their hands. It did not have to be that way. I want to work in a bipartisan way to turn this around. Unfortunately, the same kind of bumbling and bungling approach that was taken in responding to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has driven our gasoline prices over $3 a gallon. We ought to come together. I recommended yesterday in a lengthy speech a variety of steps we could take in the short term--for example, helping the States to make this transition to ethanol easier. We can do it in a bipartisan way. If it were not for the bungling of this administration over the last year and its failure to take the steps that could have prevented much of what we have seen, we would not have to come to this point. That is unfortunate. The American people have been gratuitously hammered again. It didn't have to be. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the same Bush administration that so tragically bungled the response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has now bungled its way to $3 per gallon gasoline. Unless you were a hermit living in a cave last summer, you couldn't have missed how miserably the administration has failed in its approach to natural disasters. Now it is clear to anyone who fills up at a gas pump that this administration is also failing in its approach to energy. In both cases the administration had advanced notice that a major problem was imminent and in both cases the administration failed to take action to head off the problem before it became a major crisis for the American people. For Hurricane Katrina, disaster experts had testing that predicted in the spring what could happen, but the administration ignored the warnings of its own experts as major hurricanes were heading toward the gulf coast. If anything, the administration's failure to take action to prevent gas shortages and price spikes is even more indefensible because they had more advanced warning and greater certainty that the problem was coming. The Bush administration knew last summer--almost 9 months ago--that gasoline shortages and price spikes would hit hard this spring. If ever there was a time to be watchful about oil markets, it has been during the past months as markets have gyrated virtually nonstop with one international crisis after another. Nigeria has lost a quarter of its output, Iraq's oil production has fallen below prewar levels to its lowest point in a decade, Iran says something warlike about its nuclear program, and oil prices shoot up $10 per barrel, and today Venezuela announced that it will move toward nationalizing its oil industry and will cut output, which should put even more pressure on supply and demand. Yet even with all of this turmoil in world oil markets, the key watchdogs at the Energy Department, at the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are all absent without leave. No one is home minding the store when it comes to our oil and gasoline markets. Never before has there been an administration with so much expertise in the oil industry. The President and the Vice President of course know a great deal about the oil sector. The Secretary of State was a director of Chevron and actually has an oil tanker named after her. The list goes on and on. But none of this expertise seems to be being used to help consumers at the gas pump. The administration's recent inaction in the face of soaring prices is only the latest in a long line of failures. In what is a virtual rite of spring, gas prices typically spike as refineries shut down for maintenance to switch over to summertime gasoline blends. That has happened each of the last several years, and in each instance the administration has done nothing to help consumers at the pump. But this year the administration had good reason to know that a ``perfect energy storm'' would hit the consumer this spring, and it was clear that spikes would be even worse than prior years. For example, the Wall Street Journal reported on August 12, 2005: A provision in the massive energy bill that cleared Congress last week is likely to shrink the nation's gasoline supplies next spring and could boost prices 8 cents a gallon or more. The Wall Street Journal went on to describe the likely impact of eliminating the requirement to use cleaner burning additives in gasoline, saying: United States gasoline production would fall short of usual levels by about 158,000 barrels a day--the equivalent of losing output from four major refineries. The Wall Street Journal quoted an official from Valero Energy Corporation, the Nation's largest refiner, who said: The price of gasoline ``will definitely go up,'' estimating the potential rise at 8 cents per gallon. Because of the new regulations for gasoline, there would not only be reduced supply but also lots of new hassles in supplying fuel at the local level. Gasoline additives would no longer be added at the refinery and transported in pipelines. Instead, ethanol would have to be shipped separately and blended locally, creating new challenges and new logistical hurdles for getting the fuel to America's gasoline stations. With all of this disruption and all of these new challenges to address, it was clear to the oil industry that the energy equivalent of another category 5 hurricane would be hitting gasoline consumers around this time of the year. It should have been clear to the Bush administration as well. But following the same game plan they have used for last year's hurricanes, the administration waited until after the storm hit to respond. In fact, gasoline consumers are still waiting for help at the pump. The two major hurricanes that hit the gulf coast last summer only made this spring's supply situation worse because those storms shut down a number of refineries and reduced oil and gas supplies. Coming in the wake of these storms, the impact of the new gas rules would only tighten further what was already a tight market for gasoline, and it should have been clear to the watchdogs in the Bush administration for months and months. The record is clear as to what the facts were that the administration had some time ago. First, if the administration had read its own report, it would have known that gulf coast oil and gasoline production would not be fully restored by this spring. Congress knows this because the administration sends weekly reports to the Congress with updates on the situation. Yet again the administration failed to take any action to head off the problem before consumers got hit again. If the administration had read its own report, it also would have known that the impact of the new gasoline rule would be substantial, equivalent to 2 percent of the Nation's gasoline supply overall, and 10 percent of the supplies in areas with smog problems. This information has been in Energy Department reports as well. Once again, there was no response from the administration. Finally, if the administration had read its own reports and publications, the administration would have known that finding alternatives to replace these supplies would not be easy. In fact, a study by the U.S. Department of Energy estimated that it would take 4 years for refiners to find substitutes for the most commonly used gasoline additive known as MTBE. In fact, the new rules are likely to be a double whammy for consumers. They tighten not only domestic supplies but also the availability of imports that were so crucial for supplying U.S. consumers following last year's hurricanes. That means the impacts will be similar to last year's hurricanes. But the same solution to address the problem won't be available this year. As the president of Petroleum Industry Research Institute pointed out last summer, in the past the United States has imported gasoline from Europe to deal with this particular issue and prevent shortages. But at this point we may not be able to do that since European refiners use MTBE. When you add it all up, the administration's record of bungling on gas supply and prices is extraordinary. They have known since last summer that there would be a big problem for consumers this spring. They knew that the problem had gotten even bigger since the hurricanes last fall. They knew it was going to take a long time to solve the problem and that what was done last fall to increase supply after the hurricanes might not be an option this spring. But yet with all of the advance warnings and red lights flashing, the administration still sat on its hands. At a minimum, the administration should have convened the National Petroleum Council to seek advice and counsel on what options might be available to help consumers at our gasoline stations this spring. But as we have seen all too often, the administration doesn't look to outside advice, and even more rarely does it listen to it. And there is little reason to believe the major oil companies, which have such a voice in American politics, would urge the administration to take any kind of significant step to help the consumers. So what can be done now that predicted gasoline shortages and price spikes are upon us? What could we have prevented or certainly out of this time period helped to minimize the harm that consumers are facing? Those steps weren't taken, and the challenge is to put in place the best possible steps now to try to ameliorate a very bad situation that could have been minimized. First, the administration should grant waivers of requirements to use ethanol in gasoline in areas where it is contributing to shortages or price spikes at the gas pump. Section 1501 of last year's Energy bill provides the administration with this authority in cases where there is inadequate supply or where the mandate would severely harm the economy. Both of these criteria have already been met in a number of areas on the west coast and elsewhere in our country. For example, my home State of Oregon isn't required to have ethanol in our gas to meet air quality standards. We also have little in-State ethanol production. So ethanol has to be transported into Oregon, largely from the Midwest, for blending into our gas supply. Waiving the requirement to have ethanol in Oregon gas would also free up supplies for other parts of the country. That reduces demand. And by simple supply and demand, that could serve to reduce prices around the country. It would also help to bring down the cost of gasoline in Oregon by eliminating the transportation costs of shipping ethanol from the Midwest. Second, the administration should take steps to go after those who are speculating right now in our country's oil markets. In the press, for example, speculation is continually cited as a factor in the high oil and gasoline prices. For example, in last week's Wall Street Journal, there was a report: Crude oil closed above $70 a barrel for the first time, highlighting a phenomenon reshaping the petroleum world: Investment flows into oil futures are supplanting nitty- gritty supply and demand data as prime drivers of prices. Last fall, former ExxonMobil chairman, Lee Raymond, the $600 million man, testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that speculation in oil markets was inflating prices by $20 per barrel. That inflated oil price, in return, raises gasoline prices at the pump by 50 cents a gallon. Yet the administration has done little to investigate speculation or to stop this activity. To the contrary, on this question of speculation in the oil sector, I questioned the Bush administration's witness from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission last September. I asked specifically what the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was doing to investigate reports of oil traders making extraordinary profits immediately following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. My question was about reports that there are traders who made so much money that week that they won't have to punch a ticket for the rest of the year. Here is what the witness representing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said from the Bush administration: Granted, a number of them made money, and that is how they do their job, that they earn a return from providing this service. So the CFTC's response to reports of traders taking advantage of the worst natural disaster in our country's history to make extraordinary profits is: Well, they were just doing their jobs. If that is the market at work, clearly it is not working for the American people who saw gasoline prices shoot up above $3 per gallon after last year's hurricanes and again this spring. The regulators of oil and gas markets need to rein in speculation, not defend it. Another step that could help address speculation would be to have greater transparency in our oil markets. For example, pension funds and other institutional investors are buying oil as part of their investment portfolio, and this has created additional pressure on supply and prices. Institutional money managers now hold between $100 billion and $120 billion in commodities investments, at least double the amount 3 years ago, and up from $6 billion in 1999. More transparency about these transactions would help both the American consumer and the investors by reducing volatility while stabilizing prices. Finally, for the long term, Congress should repeal oil tax breaks, breaks the industry executives told me when I questioned them in an open hearing they did not even need. Those unneeded oil tax breaks should be replaced with incentives to use biofuels that can replace supply lost from eliminating MTBE from gasoline. These actions would address the immediate supply and price problems that the administration has failed to address since last summer. It will give the biofuels market incentives to do more research and increase production of cleaner alternatives to replace MTBE in the gasoline supply. My guess is, and I am happy to see my friend who has an enormous amount of expertise on this issue in the Senate. Over the next few weeks, we will hear a lot of debate about price gouging and exploitation. There is no question in my mind that there are certainly people trying to exploit the situation and trying to take advantage of these extraordinary circumstances we see in our energy markets. A significant part of these problems such as the change from MTBE to ethanol, problems that we knew about a year ago, that the Wall Street Journal was reporting on, could have been minimized if those folks in the Bush administration, at the Department of Energy, at the Environmental Protection Agency, at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, if they had been on deck doing their job to stand up for the American people, these problems would not be so serious today. Yet the same people who bungled the response to those hurricanes last summer are bungling America on its way up to $3-per-gallon gasoline. I don't think that ought to be acceptable to any Senator. On a bipartisan basis we can force those watchdogs in the Bush administration to get back to the post and stand up for the public. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by Senators Snowe, Collins and Cantwell in introducing the ``Bicycle Commuters Benefit Act of 2006''. I know that I am speaking for many people in this country who want to do something concrete about our Nation's dependence on oil and gas. They do not think our national energy policy is doing enough. They are eager to do things that make them feel like they can take responsibility for overcoming their dependence on oil and gas. As gas prices continue to climb this spring and summer, more and more people are going to be looking for something that they can do to free themselves from this dependency. The bill I am introducing today gives Americans more incentive to give up the cars and trucks that they drive to and from work everyday and get on their bicycles instead. According to recent Census reports, more than 500,000 people throughout the United States commute to work by bicycle. They are freeing themselves from sitting in traffic. They are saving energy and overcoming their dependence on oil and gas. They are getting exercise; avoiding obesity and helping us keep our air clean and safe to breathe. Yet they are commuting by bicycle at their own expense. Their fellow employees who take mass transit to and from work have an incentive created in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century that enables their employers to pay for their bus or subway ride. This incentive is great for mass transit commuters but it discourages people from riding their bikes to and from their jobs. The Bicycle Commuters Benefits Act of 2006 will eliminate this discrimination against bicycle commuters. The bill extends the fringe benefit that employers can offer their employees for commuting by public transit, to those who ride their bicycles to and from their jobs. Our bill amends the tax code so that public and private employers can offer their employees a monthly benefit payment that will help them cover the costs of riding their bikes, instead of driving and parking their cars where they work. The bill also provides employers the flexibility to set their own level of benefit payment up to a specified cap amount. That way, employers and their employees can decide how much of an incentive they need to stop driving and start riding their bikes. Those who currently ride the bus and/or subway to work would also gain an extra incentive to ride their bikes. Employers can deduct the cost of their benefit payments from their taxable income. This reduces the taxes that they pay to the Federal Government. And, in turn, employees will receive anywhere from $40-$100 per month as a non-taxable benefit, to help them pay for the costs of riding their bikes. I think that this is a fair and modest proposal that will reward employees who ride their bikes to and from their jobs. Our Senate bill matches HR 807 that was introduced during the first session of the 109th Congress by my fellow Oregonian, Congressman Earl Blumenauer. He has 47 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle and every part of the United States eager to offer bicycle commuters the same incentive that I want to give commuters who take mass transit. In addition, our bill is supported by many regional and national bicycling organizations such as Cycle Oregon, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, the League of American Bicyclists, the Washington Area Bicyclist Association and hundreds of Capitol Hill employees who commute by bike to work every day. When you think about it and you look around our cities, the taxpayers have paid for millions of dollars of bike trails in all of America's urban areas and major job markets. Now, bicycle commuters will have an extra incentive to use them to commute to and from their jobs. One week from today, we will start celebrating May as ``National Bike-to- Work'' month. I can't think of any better way to commemorate this special month than by introducing this legislation. I look forward to working with our colleagues to see this legislation pass. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by Senators Snowe, Collins and Cantwell in introducing the ``Bicycle Commuters Benefit Act of 2006''. I know that I am speaking for many people in this country who want to do something concrete about our Nation's dependence on oil and gas. They do not think our national energy policy is doing enough. They are eager to do things that make them feel like they can take responsibility for overcoming their dependence on oil and gas. As gas prices continue to climb this spring and summer, more and more people are going to be looking for something that they can do to free themselves from this dependency. The bill I am introducing today gives Americans more incentive to give up the cars and trucks that they drive to and from work everyday and get on their bicycles instead. According to recent Census reports, more than 500,000 people throughout the United States commute to work by bicycle. They are freeing themselves from sitting in traffic. They are saving energy and overcoming their dependence on oil and gas. They are getting exercise; avoiding obesity and helping us keep our air clean and safe to breathe. Yet they are commuting by bicycle at their own expense. Their fellow employees who take mass transit to and from work have an incentive created in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century that enables their employers to pay for their bus or subway ride. This incentive is great for mass transit commuters but it discourages people from riding their bikes to and from their jobs. The Bicycle Commuters Benefits Act of 2006 will eliminate this discrimination against bicycle commuters. The bill extends the fringe benefit that employers can offer their employees for commuting by public transit, to those who ride their bicycles to and from their jobs. Our bill amends the tax code so that public and private employers can offer their employees a monthly benefit payment that will help them cover the costs of riding their bikes, instead of driving and parking their cars where they work. The bill also provides employers the flexibility to set their own level of benefit payment up to a specified cap amount. That way, employers and their employees can decide how much of an incentive they need to stop driving and start riding their bikes. Those who currently ride the bus and/or subway to work would also gain an extra incentive to ride their bikes. Employers can deduct the cost of their benefit payments from their taxable income. This reduces the taxes that they pay to the Federal Government. And, in turn, employees will receive anywhere from $40-$100 per month as a non-taxable benefit, to help them pay for the costs of riding their bikes. I think that this is a fair and modest proposal that will reward employees who ride their bikes to and from their jobs. Our Senate bill matches HR 807 that was introduced during the first session of the 109th Congress by my fellow Oregonian, Congressman Earl Blumenauer. He has 47 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle and every part of the United States eager to offer bicycle commuters the same incentive that I want to give commuters who take mass transit. In addition, our bill is supported by many regional and national bicycling organizations such as Cycle Oregon, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, the League of American Bicyclists, the Washington Area Bicyclist Association and hundreds of Capitol Hill employees who commute by bike to work every day. When you think about it and you look around our cities, the taxpayers have paid for millions of dollars of bike trails in all of America's urban areas and major job markets. Now, bicycle commuters will have an extra incentive to use them to commute to and from their jobs. One week from today, we will start celebrating May as ``National Bike-to- Work'' month. I can't think of any better way to commemorate this special month than by introducing this legislation. I look forward to working with our colleagues to see this legislation pass. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise to offer a simple proposition: Congress should act like a coequal branch of Government and vote on whether to keep American troops in Iraq for at least 3 more years. Late last month, the President told the American people that it is his intent to keep American soldiers in Iraq through the end of his term in office. He has never before made such a sweeping commitment. When the Senate voted in October of 2002 to send troops to Iraq, few Americans believed then that the U.S. military would be in Iraq in 2006, let alone 2009 or beyond. Based on what the Bush administration said then, Americans would be justified in thinking that by now Iraq would be free and democratic. Based on what the Bush administration said then, Americans would be justified in thinking that by now Iraq would be stable and self-supporting. Based on what the Bush administration said then, Americans would be justified in thinking that by now the vast majority of U.S. forces, if not all of them, would be safely back home. Unfortunately, the rosy forecast put out by the White House and the Pentagon in 2002 perished in the harsh reality of Iraq. The failure to plan for the post-war period has thus far created less security for the world, greater heartache for Iraq, and extraordinary costs for America. As of today, neither the American people nor the Congress knows how the President intends to get American troops out of Iraq. Instead, virtually every day, the administration offers a new theory for how discouraging events on the ground in Iraq are actually positive signs. Here is what is indisputable: 2,348 American soldiers are dead, 17,469 are injured, and 262 billion taxpayer dollars have been spent. If our troops remain in Iraq for at least 3 more years, how many more will die, how many more will be injured? How many more hundreds of billions of dollars will it cost? By all accounts, the insurgency remains strong and is constantly attacking and killing American soldiers, Iraqi soldiers, and Iraqi civilians. Every day there is another bombing, another brutal image on the TV that reflects the chaos that passes for an average day in Iraq. Sectarian violence is rampant. The ethnic strife is so grave that Shiites and Sunnis living in mixed neighborhoods are fleeing for the safety of ethnic enclaves. In recent months, there have been more and more groups of bodies found--hands bound, shot in the back of the head or beheaded--and many Iraqis have come to believe that their own Iraqi Interior Ministry is participating in these death squad-style killings. According to Ambassador Khalilzad, the ``potential is there'' for all-out civil war. That, my friends, is an understatement. As former Prime Minister Allawi concedes, a low-level civil war is already being waged in Iraq. The so-called ``enduring bases'' that the Pentagon has built in Iraq certainly create the appearance that the Bush administration intends for the United States to occupy Iraq indefinitely, unnecessarily fostering ill-will among the Iraqi population and throughout the Arab world. Oil production, household fuel availability, and electricity production are lower than they were 2 years ago. Iraqis have electricity half of each day. About 32 percent of Iraqis are unemployed. The list of problems that plague Iraq goes on and on. Supporters of the war tout the Iraqi forces that are standing up and taking responsibility for security. Yet it has been reported that not a single Iraqi security force battalion can operate without U.S. assistance. The Iraqi police force is plagued by absenteeism and militia infiltration. The level of incompetence is high enough that U.S. forces are reluctant to hand over their best weapons to the Iraqis. You will also hear supporters of the war point to the three elections as proof of progress. Yes, there have been elections. But as the current impasse makes clear, elections are just the beginning. And while those elected have been deliberating for the past 3 months, unable to reach consensus over the makeup of the new Iraqi Government, insurgents have been exploiting the power vacuum to kill, to maim, and to instill terror and fear. Supporters of the war will also point to our reconstruction efforts. But billions of reconstruction dollars have been misused, misspent, or lost by American contractors, like Halliburton, and Iraqi ministries, including the Ministry of Oil. While in Iraq recently, as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I sat down with representatives of the Oil Ministry to discuss the issue of graft. After I repeatedly pointed to independent analyses documenting the serious corruption problems within the Iraqi oil sector, the Iraqi officials finally acknowledged that there were ``small'' problems with graft in this sector. Considering that oil accounts for more than 90 percent of the country's revenues, this ought to be extremely disturbing to Congress and people all across America. Just as the President made the case to go to war, he owes it to Congress and the American people to come to Congress and lay out his plan and his budget for achieving a lasting peace in Iraq. Congress owes it to the American people and the institution to vote. If the President refuses to come to Congress in the coming weeks with his plan and his budget to win the peace in Iraq, Congress owes it to the American people to vote up or down on whether to keep American troops in Iraq for at least 3 more years. The President's case for winning the peace in Iraq should address these concerns: First, how the President can help make the Iraqis self-reliant so that they can defeat the deadly insurgency. Second, how the President intends to help Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish leaders break the political impasse so that they can form a unity government. Third, how the President intends to pull the Iraqi people back from the brink of all-out civil war and the specter of another Rwanda or Darfur. Fourth, how the President intends to help rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure and ensure that Iraqis have access to basic services like electricity and clean water. And fifth, how the President intends to bring the troops home from Iraq. If need be, to be sensitive to national security matters, I would not be averse to the Senate moving into Executive Session to consider portions of the President's plan and his budget for securing the peace in Iraq. I simply ask the President to come to Congress and describe his plan and his budget specifically, and let Congress consider its potential to succeed before the Congress, with its silence, consents to 3 more years of very costly involvement in Iraq. The vote I call for today, if held, won't be about cutting-and- running. It won't be about who comes up with the best spin. It will be about holding the President and Congress accountable. The vote will hold the President accountable for presenting a plan and a budget for securing the peace. And the vote will hold Congress accountable by making it finally act like a co-equal branch of government. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I, too, thank the Senator from West Virginia for his courtesy. I ask unanimous consent to speak this afternoon for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, because we are going to work together cooperatively to turn this around in the next 30 days, I withdraw my unanimous consent request at this time and express my appreciation to chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Roberts.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I want to express my appreciation to the chairman of the Intelligence Committee for his willingness to work with me and for the suggestions and discussions that we have had. I would like to suggest that we bring this issue to the inspector general immediately and ask the inspector general to release this report within 30 days. If the Senator agrees to bring this issue to the inspector general immediately so that staff can begin working with the inspector general's office over the upcoming 2-week recess, and the chairman and I can review their progress when we return, then I would be willing to withdraw my unanimous consent request that this report be made public immediately at this time.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress convened a bipartisan, bicameral joint inquiry into the activities of the intelligence community before and after the attacks. I had the opportunity to serve on the joint inquiry and I am proud of the work that was accomplished there. In December of 2002, a report was issued in which we stated that the inspector general of the CIA should ``conduct investigations and reviews as necessary to determine whether and to what extent personnel at all levels should be held accountable for any omission, commission, or failure to meet professional standards in regards to the identification, prevention, or disruption of terrorist attacks.'' The report went on to state that the Director of the CIA should take appropriate action in response to the inspector general's review. The CIA Inspector General completed his report in June 2005. I was surprised that the report took so long to complete, but I am impressed with its quality. After the report of the 9/11 Commission and the joint inquiry itself, it is one of the most thorough examinations of the intelligence community activity before September 11. It provides a unique perspective and makes a number of findings that in my view should be available to the American people as part of the historical record. It also makes a number of recommendations that should be carefully considered. The public has a right to see these recommendations consistent with the protection of our national security. The American people should be able to read the report and decide for themselves whether the recommendations of the CIA inspector general have been carried out in a satisfactory manner. Both the chairman and the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee have supported the release of this report. As Chairman Roberts has put it, ``The deaths of nearly 3,000 citizens on September 11, 2001, gives the American people a strong interest in knowing what the [inspector general] found and whether those whose performance was lacking will be held accountable.'' Despite the chairman's request, the CIA has decided not to act on the inspector general's recommendations at all. Not to act at all. It is important to note that the inspector general did not recommend that certain individuals be held accountable. The inspector general merely recommended that the action or inaction of certain individuals be examined to determine whether they should be held accountable. CIA Director Porter Goss has refused to allow even this initial examination. Two months ago I wrote to the Director of the CIA, Mr. Goss, asking this report be declassified and released as soon as possible. I notified Director Goss if I did not see any progress within 60 days I would take action to release this report to the public. It has been over 60 days and still the CIA has not responded. In the interest of making this report public and available to the American people, I ask now unanimous consent the Senate direct the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to make this report available to the American people as soon as possible.