car, but the increased mileage on the new car you buy only has to be a mile or two miles a gallon, which is virtually nothing. it has virtually no impact. so the philosophy of the bill itself is flawed. but the real problem with this bill, besides the fact that it's in a piece of legislation that it shouldn't be in, is the fact that it is totally unpaid for. it's $1 billion of new costs put on our children's shoulders. it's $1 billion of new spending put on the federal debt. we already know that the federal debt isn't sustainable. almost every day we are hearing international purchases of our debt, whether it be china or whether it be russia or whether it be international economists or economists of the united states saying that the american debt situation has gotten out of control. and that we are at risk as a

nation of having a situation where our -- the cost of our debt will go up dramatically because we are putting so much debt on the books. under the president's budget the deficit of this government will be $1 trillion a year on average for the next 10 years. we will be running deficits of 4% to 5% of gross national product. we will run deficits that will be 80%. we will have a debt that will equal 80% of the gross national product. just within the next three years, we'll have a debt that's 60% of the gross national product. and at the end of ten years, it will be 80%. what does that mean? that means we will have a debt and a deficit situation that will lead us down the road of having a government we can't afford and that our children can't afford. ironically, as i've said before on this floor, our debt is

getting so out of control and our deficits are getting so high and so out of control that if we as a nation tried to enter the european union, which is a group of industrialized countries which has rules as to what a country can do in the area of debt and deficits for solvery reasons, we -- for solvency reasons, we couldn't get in because their rule says the deficits can't exceed 3% and your debt to g.d.p. ratio can't exceed 60%. latvia or lithuania or some other nation might be able to get into the european union but we couldn't. our debt is an incredibly serious problem for us as a nation and for our children. and the irony here is that the bill that was air dropped into the defense bill designed to pay for the troops in the field came on the same day, the exact same day that the president of the united states and the

leadership, the democratic leadership of the congress, met down at the white house to announce that they were going to reinstitute the pay-go rules. what are the pay-go rules? the pay-go rules require that when you spend a dollar, you pay for it. when you create a new program, you pay for it. the president came out and with great fanfare said the democratic leadership of this government, which leads the government, the president and the leadership of the congress are going to put in place pay-go rules. and all future spending will be subject to pay-go rules with a few exceptions that he listed, which were pretty big exceptions. but he didn't list this bill that spends a billion dollars and is not paid for. after that he press conference, which occurred around 1 12:30 in the afternoon, the house of representatives passed the pay-go -- passed the cash for

clunker bill which spent a billion dollars and which wasn't paid for. that bill added a billion dollars of new debt to our national debt, debt which will be paid by these young people up here who are pages today when they get jobs. what excuse do we have as a government for passing a bill to purchase cars today and send that bill to our children and our grandchildren as part of the debt which we're passing on to them? it's inexcusable. it would be easy enough to pay for this bill. there are enumerable places in this government which is spending trillions of dollars a year to find a billion dollars to pay for this bill if it was a priority. clearly if the president and the democratic leadership are going to call on us to follow pay-go rules, we should follow them, or at least for a day. you know, they couldn't even get

through a day without violating the rules they just said they were going to follow. a billion dollars of new spending which is unpaid for. so whether you agree with the policy of this bill or not, this cash for clunker bill, the issue is that it spends a billion dollars, it doesn't pay for it and adds that to the national debt, and the national debt's out of control. and the american people know it's out of control, and it's inexcusable that this congress can't discipline itself. so i've made a point of order. it doesn't bring down this bill. it doesn't harm our ability to fund the troops in the field. no, i've made a point of order under a new point of order that was put in place at the beginning of this congress by the democratic leadership of this congress and the democratic body. in fact, ironically, most republicans didn't vote for this new rule because it was part of a package of rules, some of which foreclosed our rights. but this rule was a good rule. this rule was put in place by a

bill entitled "the honest readership and open government act." "the honest leadership and open government act." and its primary sponsor was senator reid, and its second sponsor was senator durbin, senator schumer, and senator stabenow. and the bill was structured for the purposes of not allowing what happened with this defense bill, which is people air-drop into it special interest legislation, unpaid for, in this case. it's called rule 44. i believe it's section 8. and it says essentially in a conference, you cannot put in new language which was not part of that conference and which is targeted, direct spending for the purposes of benefiting some defined group. in this case, for the purposes

of passing the cash for clunker bill. you can't put it in. that's what the rule says. and why was it created? because too often around here, this type of mismanagement of our finances occurs. people go into a conference, they know that they've got a train that's going to leave the station -- in this case, everybody around here wants to support our troops in the field and we know we're going to fund them -- and so they put in the conference all sofort all sortsf extraneous things which are inappropriate to that bill. and it became pandemic around here that this was happening. and so the democratic leadership, much to their cred credit, passed the honest leadership and open government act. and in that act, they put in rule 44, section 8, which said exactly what happened with this language shouldn't happen. exactly what happened with this language shouldn't happen. and i congratulate the chairman of the committee, senator inouye, because he has resisted

aggressively allowing this type of action to occur. but in this case, the house of representatives gave him no options, and they put the language in over, i presume, some debate. so this amendment, this motion will knock out this language. it doesn't defeat the bill. the bill can still stand, sent back to the house and passed. take about another couple hours maybe at the most to pass it. and if people to want bring back the cash for clunker bill, they can do that. they can do it as a free-standing bill, and hopefully they can do it by paying for it, because that's the way it should be done. because there's another rule around here it violates which is the pay-go rule. so this amendment, this motion to waive is going to be the first test of this congress on two very critical issues. well, three really. first, are we going to do

something about the debt of this nation? are we going to start paying for new programs which we know are politically attractive -- every auto dealer in america wants this language included in this bill -- but are we going to pay for it, as we should. secondly, are we going to live by the rules that were put in place by the democratic leadership under the honest leadership and open government snact andact? and thirdly, are we going to live by the statement made by the president of the united states, surrounded by the democratic leadership of this gross the day this bill was paid, that pay-go will be the new way that we enforce fiscal discipline around sneer three major issue -- around here? three major issues will be addressed by this vote. members who vote to waive this rule will be voting to pass a billion dollars of debt on to our children on top of the trillions that we're already pouting their back. they will be voting to waive a rule that was put in by the democratic leadership for the furpz of avoid -- for the purposes of avoiding this type

of action, this act type of action, and -- exact type of exparksz they wily will be voting to overthe pay-go rules which they have wrapped themselves in as a way to discipline this place. so i would happy to people would not go this route, that they would not vote to approve this point of order, that they would sustain this point of order and fund to appropriate the troops. but not aced a billion-dollar program that is extraneous to the troop funding to this package. and i yield the floor. and, mr. president, at the appropriate time, i yield to senator grassley such time as he may desire. mr. inouye: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. mr. inouye: mr. president, i rise in support of the conference agreement on the bill h.r. 2346, the supplemental appropriations bill. the compromise agreement which

has been worked out in a full and open conferences between the two houses represents the hard work of our conferees. as has long been the tradition of the appropriations committee, the compromise package before the senate reflects the deliberations of our 12 subcommittees. each subcommittee has items in this measure and i'm pleased to note that all of our subcommittees were able to reach agreement with their house counterparts. the house has agreed -- as such, the bill before us represents a balanced compromise between the issues and funding recommended by the house and by the senate. as in any compromise, neither body nor individual member received everything he or she sought. the house has agreed support funding for the international monetary fund and the senate has agreed compromise language on

how we deal with the detainees at guantanamo. but it is a fair compromise which i believe all members should support. at $105.9 billion, the conference agreement is $14.6 billion above the amount recommended by the senate. however, it is important to point out to my senate colleagues that nearly half of this increase represents additional funding for swine f flu. this funding was included in response to a budget amendment submitted by the administration following senate passage of this bill. the managers of our committees and subcommittees have responded to the additional need for swine flu resources by providing more than $7 billion in funding, of which nearly $6 billion is contingent upon the administration submitting

additional requests for funds. we have been advised that funding may be required this summer to prepare for an outbreak next fall in the united states if the virus mutates over the next few months. and, mr. president, if that occurs, the american public can be assured that we will be rea ready. i can also promise my colleagues that our labor-h.h.s. subcommittee will be monitoring the flu virus and closely watching the administration's efforts to respond to this potential crisis. regarding the remaining increase above the senate bill, the conference agreement funding levels are between amounts recommended by the two bodies. the bill includes the funding level sought by the house for the department of state and splits the difference in the amount recommended by both bodies for defense and military

construction. one provision of note that was deleted from the measure relates to the public release of photographs of detainees. the senate agreed to drop this provision only after the president sent a letter to chairman obey and myself assuring us that he would not release the photographs in question. while many of us support the intent of this amendment, it was clear that included the amendment would jeopardize passage of the bille in the house. that result would not have been an acceptable outcome. mr. president, this is a fair compromise and one which is worthy of support by every member of this body. i understand that there may be one or two other items that are not -- not all members agree with but i would remind my colleagues that this is a must-pass bill.

the funding in this bill is critical to the defense department in continuing to support our servicemen and women fighting in iraq and afghanistan. i would point out t because this bill, we will shortly run out of funds to pay our service members and to ensure funds are available to support all the forces, not just those serving in southwest asia. i wish to thank my vice chairman for his counsel and support as we have worked through several difficult issues. we have forged this agreement together and i would note that there were 30 senate conferees on this measure and 27 signed the conference agreement. finally i wish to thank all our subcommittee chair and ranking member for their staffs and their hard work. this conference agreement with not have been possible without

their help. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: last week, there was a disturbing occurrence on the other side of the capitol that i believe needs to be brought to the attention of my colleagues in the senate on tuesday june 9. the subcommittee on energy and environment of the house energy and commerce committee held a hearing on allowance allocation policies in the waxman-markey climate change bill. one of the witnesses who volunteered to testify before the subcommittee was david solkal chairman of mid-america holdings company based in my state of iowa in the capital city of des moines. we're all very well aware that there are very divergent opinions on the so-called cap

and trade program advocated by chairman waxman and subcommittee chairman markey. hearing witnesses are typically invited to share different positions and offer different perspectives on prospective policies. that was the case with the mid-america c.e.o. his company supports the cap on emission reductions in the bill but strongly opposes the trading component. in his testimony, he made clear his position that the trading mechanism in the waxman-markey bill, will impose huge costs on customers. the costs will come in two ways: first, to pay for emission allowances which will not reduce greenhouse gas emission and then for the construction of low- and zero-carbon power planted to reduce emissions so in those two

ways customers pay. he indicated mid-america's customers would see an increase in electricity rates of somewheres between 12% at the low end and 28% at the high end under this climate bill now before the other body. it appears that chairman markey did not appreciate the criticism leveled at his bill by mr. solkal. during the hearing, a letter was sent by chairman markey's office to the federal energy regulatory commission requesting information about mid-america's investments and other activities since the 2005 repeal of the public utilities holding company act, short term is pucha. and they requested a reply from ferc within two days. "in order to better inform the subcommittee deliberations on this matter."

but the 2005 repeal of pucha has absolutely nothing to do with chairman markey's climate change bill. it appears it's more than a coincidence that chairman markey was firing off a six-page america while the c.e.o. was making critical comments on his bill before the committee. this appears to be blatant use power to intimidate a witness whose opinions differ from the chairman. it has recently been reported that chairman markey was unaware that the letter was being sent at the time. and i would accept his position on that. once the letter was brought to his attention, chairman markey realized how inappropriate it was and subsequently said, sent another letter to ferc clarifying his inquiry. this seems to indicate that there are unnamed committee staff who are trying to intimidate and prevent

detractors from speaking against the climate bill. these type of strong-armed tactics should not be tolerated. what lengths are proponents willing to go in they're willing to intimidate people that disagree with them? are they so unsure of their own position that they've resorted to apparent retribution to sire lens their critic -- to silence their critics? frighcritics? quite frankly those in the senate should be skeptical of legislation that is advanced with such zeal that witnesses are being threatened with intimidation if they oppose it, whether that's by staff writing a letter or any other way. policy making is a very complicated process. it's one that depends on the honest and forthright input of outside experts and stakeholders to give information. obviously, not to twist arms.

after this incident, it seems the process going on in the house of representatives is not open and fair to those who are critical of waxman-markey bill. we owe it to the american public to restore this process to a more dignified level and assure all witnesses before congress that they will be treated fairly and with respect regardless of whether they agree or disagree with the chairman and or staff. mr. chairman, i ask unanimous consent my remarks be placed in the record in what is called morning business. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. grassley: i now yield the floor. mr. akaka: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. akaka: i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be suspended. i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. akaka: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum be equally divided between two parties. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so without objection, so ordered. mr. akaka: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

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