to discussing is to reduce the size of the largest financial institutions so when you find yourself in a collapse or bailout situation you can say that is okay, you go to bankruptcy, you are more like cit than set demand over the past we 6 months. ..

>> if the gentleman would yield. >> i certainly would. >> i can't get the gentleman to say what he proposes. >> well, i'm asking -- >> the only disagreement is i can't understand what you're talking about. i've asked you to tell me what it is you want to do. >> i want to reduce the size of some of the -- >> but without the glass-steagall, are you proposing -- you made it public, what would the gentleman do to restore it? >> well, mr. johnson, please, help me here. >> let me make a suggestion. perhaps the chairman would consider a graduated capital requirement so this is not the 0, 1, 2, but a capital employment that increases quite sharply because we know the system risk when the amount that's taken on when these big guys fail is e nor enormous. yes, when i said disproportionate increase in capital, that's what i meant.

>> how big is the disincentive to size. >> i don't think you want to go back to any kind of regional criteria. if you remember back historically, we had vicious regional economic cycles in large part because of unit banking. i mean, because the bank was stuck to its region and exacerbated the downturn in those regions. and so we had very severe regional economic cycles in large part because of the unit banking system that we had. so i think that would be very counterproductive. >> thank you. >> i completely agree with that point. i would also just note that in the crisis what you saw is that institutions that had a lot of exposure to subprime did very badly, some of those were stand-alone investment banks like lehman, some of them were more or less stand-alone commercial banks like countrywide, some were combined investment and commercial banks like citigroup. so i don't think that that's a

strong piece of evidence that we need to reestablish glass-steagall. >> okay, thank you. and i yield back. >> well, i'm going to just take time out -- the gentleman raised it. i, frankly, didn't recognize my views as he characterized them. my conversation with him he has said i'd like to do it. i still don't understand what the proposal is. yes, in terms of capital crimes i very much agree, but the gentleman hasn't given me any idea with which i could disagree. >> the gentleman's working on it, and that's why he was asking the panel for some assistance, and if i can't come up with an answer that sty satisfies you, then i can't -- >> well, characterizing it as disagreement is sort of puzzling. >> if the gentleman would yield, i did put forward an idea not based on whether you're mixing investment banking with insurance and the glass-steagall idea, but just a dollar limit. you can't have debts to americans -- >> well, i agree, but that's not the specific point. the gentleman from colorado was specifically referencing

glass-steagall. part of this hearing is to get out on the table vague ideas. is it too big to fail? one of the arguments has been did we -- >> would the gentleman yield? >> -- bring back glass-steagall. if that's what people want, i'll discuss it. >> mine is certainly like a glass-steagall. i don't believe -- i think that the investment banking community is all about risk, and i think they should be allowed to do whatever derivatives they want to do, you know, subject to disclosing to their investors in an open fashion, and they're over in this part of the investment, or in the financial community. and the banking system which i believe is like a public utility which is why we pumped in $700 billion because we had to keep the lights on, and we intervened in substantial way through the fed, that's -- in my opinion -- what we had to do last fall which was a radicalizing moment for me. so i just believe that they

really look at the world differently -- >> i understand that, but does the gentleman, first of all, that doesn't account for aig. aig was not a bank. aig was doing derivatives, and the federal reserve intervened without us. people should remember that the federal reserve with the approval of treasury came to us and announced that they were intervening. it wasn't part of the t.a.r.p. initially, they just did that on their own. mr. paulson said it wasn't necessary, but it wasn't because they were a bank. my other point is you say that, we've been talking about this for months, and i still don't know what it is you are propoising. >> i'm proposing, one, to limit the amount of deposits a single institution can take -- >> that's not what we were talking about. >> i'm talking about size and product mix. >> i understand. >> so i'm also saying that insurance companies cannot be part -- insurance companies, stock trading companies and banks should be separate as they were under glass-steagall. i believe that the roosevelt

administration did the right thing when its first act was glass-steagall to separate -- >> are you proposing that we reimpose glass glass-steagall? that's the first i'd heard of you proposing that as a solution. >> that's the best way i can articulate what it is i believe. with that, i yield back. >> gentleman from indiana. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we've been talking about too big to fail, and there's another area and that is too big of an effect on the entire market. and, mr. sandy, i want to ask you, and i read your statement. we talked about emerging market investors did little or no research of their own in that the credit could not, this could not have occurred without someone providing the credit. but didn't the aaa ratings given by moody, isn't that how the credit flowed was if you give me aaa, the credit will come from that? and so we had a large investor

who talked to us and said if the credit rating agencies had not done that, this never would have started in the first place. >> well, let me just reiterate, i'm an employee of the moody's organization, but these are my own personal -- >> no, i understand. >> and i think there's plenty of blame to go around in that chain of securitization. from the lender to the investment bank to the rating agency to the investor. all of them were culpable, all of them made mistakes, all of them were wrong, so i don't -- and if you read through the entire statement, i go through that -- >> right. and i did. and i guess what i'm asking is we've been talking about solutions to this. >> yes. >> and so with the credit rating agencies the question is what keeps moody's from being in the same position with their aaa ratings again? >> right. >> and that's what we've been looking at. and we've talked about cutting

the cord or the apparent conflict of interest of the person who is asking you to rate these, these securities being the same one who pays the fees. and there's been a couple of things offered, and i guess i wanted to get your opinion. >> sure. >> is it something that like they do in the legal world when you go to file a case that the organization, the judge is pulled out of a hat so you can't pick your judge. and so is this, in effect, a number of these organizations are put in a hat and that you can't say i want moody's because they'll give me a aaa? >> right. and i think that, in my own personal view, is worth an experiment. i don't know if that works better or not, but i think it probably is an idea that is worth some experimentation. there are a number of things, though, that i think should be done. i think the reliance on ratings

in regulatory requirements is inappropriate. right now if you're in a money market fund, it can say i can only invest in securities with a rating of above a certain amount. regulators are outsourcing their function to the rating agencies, and they shouldn't do that. i think the sec as the regulator of the rating agencies should be more active in monitoring and evaluating what the rating agencies are doing much like banking regulators do with major commercial banks. they look at the model, they say, does this make sense and should we be doing this? i think it should be required that the data the agencies use in the ratings should be vetted in some way. one of the biggest problems in my view was that the rating agencies would say you give me the data, i don't reunderwrite the loan, i take it as given, and then i rate. that's not what we do, and that's the way it's been since

we started our business 100 years ago, but that makes no sense to me. there should be a third party firm that vets the data, samples the data, make sure it's okay. so i think all these things could be, should be implemented and tried. but let me say one thing, and this is no-win for me, right, because you're not going to believe me anyway -- >> no, that's not true. i've read your book and everything. [laughter] >> but bottom line, i don't believe that this conflict of interest -- and there is one -- is fundamentally why they screwed up, why they made a mistake in the ratings. i don't believe that. i think it's these other issues that we've discussed. and i don't think -- i would experiment with the approach you just articulated, but fundamentally, you're going to have conflicts no matter what you do and no matter how you design it, and it's a matter of managing the conflicts as best you can at the end of the day. >> one of the other things the investor, this fella talked

about was -- and he talked to all of us -- was maybe what we ought to do just throw a couple of cents on every trade and have in effect a quasipublic rating system so that, you know, we don't have to speculate on the opinion of moody's or that they be part of, in effect almost become like a public utility that it's too important getting this right to our economy, to the global economy. we had the fed chairman in today who said if we had let this get out of hand, the whole global economy would have collapsed. and so much of it was tied in to these incorrect ratings given by moody's and others. >> let me just two things. one, i think a fee, a transaction fee is a good way to raise revenue. the only problem is you've got to do it globally. >> right. >> you can't just do it here -- >> then you're noncompetitive. >> right. >> what we're trying to do is we're throwing out ideas of how

we can fix this, and anything from any of you -- >> well, a good way to raise revenue to self-finance too big to fail, right? because wages generate revenue, you put it in the fund, but you can't do it unless it's a global process. >> mr. johnson wanted to say something. >> and i think, you know, there's am implicit assumption here which is that we'll get it right next time. the politics will be better. >> >> and that's why i said why can we assume we'll do it any better? >> i'm not opposed to these ideas, but fundamentally we'll get them wrong again. we've just not changed the nature of human society and human judgment and the politics of the most powerful people in the system. so the ratings system will get it wrong also, and you should plan something that can withstand the failure of that. may be a good idea to tweak it, but the only way i think to do that is make sure when things

fail they're not so big relative to the economy. >> i want to close this out, but we need to make progress in reaching consensus such as with the tier i companies. i think it is overwhelmingly likely that we will repeal all statutory mandates to rely on rating agencies, and that we will instruct the regulatory agencies to examine theirs. so that is one way to deal with it. and that one i can guarantee you will be in the final bill, that all those -- there are two forms. in some cases people aren't allowed to do certain things unless they get a certain rating, and in other cases people can invest in entities. we are combing the statutes now. there's an agreement that was independently come up with in the republican plan and our plan, that will happen. i thank -- >> mr. chairman? >> sure. >> i thought we were going to do another round. wonder if i could have one minute then? >> sure. >> i would just say that we're trying to minimize the belief on wall street that particular

companies have somehow a federal guarantee. the best way to do that is to have no bailout authority vested in treasury unless and until some future statute is passed. t.a.r.p. will expyre, and then wall street would have to recognize it would be very difficult under any circumstances to pass t.a.r.p. again. the way to maximize the belief on wall street that those companies that they identify as systemically important are going to get a federal bailout and, therefore, are entitled to lower-cost capital is to vest in treasury the right to bail out companies. and the fact that the management of that company might lose its job is of little interest to the counterparties. what we're trying to do is make sure that the cost of capital does not reflect the belief that there may be a bailout of the institution, and whether management comes or goes doesn't

really matter -- >> would the gentleman yield? >> i yield. >> would the gentleman identify for me. is it in the resolving authority? where do you find this bailout authority? >> the bailout authority, i think, was well summarized by -- >> i'm asking where you found it in the administration's position, because i think you've overstated significantly. where are they asking for money to be able to -- >> i don't have -- they don't ask for an appropriation. i don't have a copy of the proposal. i do have mr. mahoney's testimony and my statements are fully consistent with the second page of his testimony. >> well, you have the reference? what is it that you think constitutes bailout authority? >> well, i think it is the -- there's a statement that in the special resolution procedure there are all these authorities given to spend money. now, the white paper doesn't say where the money comes from. i believe there -- >> the question wouldn't be where it came from, but where it

went to. is the authorization to bail out creditors? >> the authorization is to recapitalize, to purchase assets from, to make loans to, and that would go directly from, from treasury into -- >> my understanding is but it was more analogous to the bankruptcy situation where you were not paying off old debts, but trying to get things moving forward. >> if that's all that is being talked about, then that's great. but i certainly didn't read it that way. >> in the white paper. >> that's right. >> yeah. of course, that's not our impression from treasury, but again, that will be our decision. the hearing is adjourned. oh, i apologize. the property casualty insurance association asked that we submit a statement, and any member who wishes to submit any information including any of the witnesses,

without objection, the record will be open. [inaudible conversations] >> we're taking you live now to a forum on improving u.s. relations with the arab world with the directer of the al-jazeera satellite tv network. hosted by the new america foundation in washington, this is live coverage on c-span2. >> over new america foundation's web site. i've been hopeful of having

wadah khanfar in our program series for quite a long time. he is one of the most interesting journalists that's been covering the middle east in sort of new and direct ways. and before i even get into the question of al-jazeera and al-jazeera's growth, its growth in the u.s. market. recently al-jazeera english has gone 24-hour, 24/7 on important cable networks around the united states, but it's one of these phenomenons where you've seen emerge in a rapidly short period of time a major global sprawling news network. i was just recently in israel, recently in athens, greece, and you see al-jazeera everywhere. and i think at the time when i became interested before the iraq war, the u.s. government would commend al-jazeera as the sort of growth of civil society and great of expression in the region, but then you began to notice as well that a lot of governments were uncomfortable with al-jazeera whether it was

saudi arabia, israel, what later became the united states, and to some degree i do think it is the role of think tanks and proadvantage tours and journalism writers to eventually bite the hand that feeds them. you've got to walk a balance between reporting, dealing with things coming in, and i've been fascinated and impressed by the growth. and i'm one of the people in the united states who has long been supportive of al-jazeera's activities around the world and in the united states and had been disturbed by the discrimination that has been written about in terms of giving access to al-jazeera and others. but let me tell you a few things about wadah khanfar. wadah khanfar is managing directer of the al-jazeera network. in doha he was, interestingly, head of the baghdad bureau in 2003. luckily not in the office when it was bombed. there was a controversy at one point where george bush in a

discussion with tony blair allegedly joked about and talked about bombing thal ya al-jazeers office, and i at the time was fascinated by the revelations of this and wrote quite a bit about it. mr. khanfar wrote a great piece saying, mr. bush, why are you trying to bomb me or along those lines. some of you who follow our activities will remember the man who was active in this and who was in london. the u.s. government talk at any level, joking or not joking, about bombing a news bureau of the arab world's largest news network. so we're at a new point. wadah khanfar has been trying to come to the united states every once in a while and has had visa challenges ever since this piece in the guardian. and, luckily, i think the obama administration is pushing reset with al-jazeera, pushing reset

with wadah khanfar, he's here in washington, and we have a rare and useful opportunity to hear from him about how running the al-jazeera network matters, why it matters, where it's going and how he looks as an analyst and as a newsman as well as many of the challenges that exist in the middle east today. so it's a great pleasure for me to introduce wadah khanfar. i look forward to his presentation and then we'll have a discussion. so, please, welcome wadah khanfar. [applause] >> >> thank you very much for this introduction. normally people say this is the directer general of the most controversial channel in the world, you know? so luckily, you have not introduced me like that. actually, i don't know why the controversy. and looking back atal al-jazeera which started in 19 # 6 -- 1996. from 1996 until 2001, al-jazeera was regarded as the foremost of freedom of expression and democracy, and we were

celebrated actually by many circuits including the american administration at that time. in 2001 things have changed dramatically and immediately because al-jazeera had the only bureau in afghanistan when the events of september took place, and al-jazeera continued to report, the same professional standards that existed before 2001 actually were post-september, but we were faced at that moment in time by great criticism in many western sectors and many governments including mr. rumsfeld who in many of his press conferences mentioned al-jazeera. you know, we tried to correct, we tried to write to him and to send messages that al-jazeera never, never shown any, any frame of big gotting. he continued to talk about

al-jazeera. al-jazeera has never, ever broadcast anything -- [inaudible] and always used to play major role in defending journalists, especially those who have been kidnapped and tried to introduce something on the screen that might lead to their release. and we talk very open and frank situation and position on issues related to kidnapping and especially civilians and journalists. anyway, that's not the point. the point is during the last eight years from 2001, now we are in 2009, i would like just to look back and say media failed people in general. i think a lot of news channels, broadcasting corporations and journalists did follow the official line on issues related to the middle east, iraq and

afghanistan in particular. a lot of people were overwhelmed by patriotic feeling, and for a while they brushed professional standards aside, and they started, you know, defending official policies of government. i understand that journalists are great and brave when it comes to issues related to domestic politics, but on foreign politics a lot of news corporations followed the same line that spokesmen and women and that military and politicians actually introduced regarding the middle east. and, therefore, we were in front of new type, huge one where journalists who like to take a side, where journalists are introducing the news with analysts and commentary that undermines balance and objectivity. al-jazeera did not do that. we continued with the same philosophy and professional

standards that we had before 2001. the opinion and the other opinion. the opinion and the other within was the motto that al-jazeera launched in 2006, in 1996. the other opinion is important for us to listen to not because we like to sympathize with, not because we would like to defend, but because once we listen to the other opinion, i will be able to better judge the situation. i cannot understand the sociopolitical, you know, dynamics in the middle east if i only listen to those who i like or those who stand pro, you know, certain kind of policies. it will make wrong judgment if i only listen to one kind of thought, you know? and this is why, i think, a lot of mistakes regarding iraq and afghanistan, political decisions that were made in washington emerged from the fact that people wanted only to listen to one voice, that they didn't want

to listen to variety of voices, they didn't want to accept diversity within the middle east. because what we see today was actually spoken about eight years ago, but it didn't reach here because most of the western media didn't want these voices to appear on the screens. and it will appear. it will be as a marginal condemned kind of analysis, you know? so this is why we resorted to much more simplified understanding. we reduced the complexity of history for thousands of years in iraq into a slogan, removing saddam hussein, englishing democracy. and -- establishing democracy. if you question it, you are not with us, you are against us. so there was some kind of atmosphere actually that led to regard al-jazeera as something from the other camp, you know?

against us. and we are hearing, started to hear from washington and from london and from many other governments in the part of the alliance, we started hearing them talking about al-jazeera as the cause for destabilization in iraq and inciting violence in iraq. what happened to us actually when we were in baghdad? i was the bureau chief. one of our correspondents was killed. few were injured. twenty were detained in guantanamo, in -- were detained in abu ghraib prison. some of them were tortured. we did speak about the torturing that was taking place in abu ghraib long time before any other western media spoke about it. it was not taken seriously even by journalists because they thought, you know, these guys are just propagating certain kind of propaganda against the

americans. it was not at all. our journalists were tortured in abu ghraib, and until today the bombing of our office in baghdad and in kabul, we did not receive any result of any investigation or any apology as if the matter did not happen, and it continued as, you know, something normal. of course, for our audience and for our journalists and for the entire arab world, it was not normal because people were killed. i think i don't know if you have witnessed that, but the amount of sympathy, anger and frustration that day was unbelievable, you know? why i'm saying so, i'm saying so because i'm not saying, you know, we are the only people who got it right, but we tried our best to act as journalists, not politicians. we did not want to take sides. in a moment of time when everyone was asked to take sides, and if you don't take side, it means that you are against the good people, and you are pro the evil people.

i think we did not look at ourselves as judges of who was good and who was bad. we wanted to analyze, to understand, to report. we were not given that opportunity, but we continued with all this kind of difficulties, and today i stand in front of you and say that most of the issues that we reported about in iraq and afghanistan during the last eight years i can say and i argue that nothing was proven wrong since then. and i think a lot of people from the fallujah when we argued that there are certain weapons used, you know, and that was the night later on we discovered it was right. the killing of civilians in afghanistan, now everyone talks about. the torture in abu ghraib, everyone talks about it. we were the first to raise these issues. we are not anti-american, and i'm sorry to say so because, unfortunately, a lot of people would like to see al-jazeera

takes anti-american light. i don't think the arabs or muslims are anti-american. i think the arabs and the muslims love the american venues, they love the ideas that this country stood for: democracy, freedom of expression, liberty, all these kind of issues. we love it. al-jazeera itself was a result of a western technique. when we started in 1996, 70 of our journalists and editors who actually founded al-jazeera came from bbc originally. the last four interviews in al-jazeera arabic came from bbc. so we did express this philosophy, and we're supposed to be part of this thinking and these values that all of us love and appreciate. so i don't think people are anti-american in the region, i think that people were anti anti certain policies and structures that were implemented without proper consideration.

beside that, i don't think that really there is american sentiment when it comes to the ideals of the values and the people in the united states of america. and that was what al-jazeera was trying to do. yes, we have a lot of anger and frustration. our region is going through huge trust formation. we are hosting eight zones and hot spots, the most complicated in the world. ..

>> and i wish the day will come without having a headline in algeria news that there is no on our side bombing in no attack and there is no killing, there is no frustration. because unfortunately this is a daily basis we are seeing these kind of issues. and we as journalists cannot brush it aside and hide it and say it is magnificent. it is not magnificent. and still continue to have we had a lot of difficulties in these kind of issues. how are we moving ahead? where are we going from now? mr. obama, did a great speech

and he did end of the great speech in cairo. and the amount of response was overwhelming in the arab world. people fall for the first time they have a choice. they have new vision in front of them. before, they used to have no choice. they were asked either to take a side with me or against me. and now they have someone who is, franca, would like to hear your voice is. who would like to extend a hand. we are not anti-muslims. we're not anti-arabs. that was magnificent, beautiful. following the opinion, that created a window of opportunity for dialogue. of course, there are people who would argue that this is magnificent speech, but in reality nothing has changed. some others will defend and say,

you know, let us wait and see. you cannot demand from the man to change things overnight as this is a complicated change that will take place. but at least there is a debate of discussion. what does that mean for us? it means that there is an opportunity of healing, not only the relationship between the united states of america and the arab, but also healing the wounds from inside, inside. during the last eight years we have seen rising conflict, between hamas, we have seen domestic problems in darfur or. we have seen rising tension in yemen. we have seen war in somalia. people are killing each other in pakistan. all of that is happening. it is not between the muslims and the americans here it is

within. the crisis is now actually fragmenting. is deepening to an extent that we are in need for a time of the. we are in need for sorting out these problems to see what is left, otherwise day after day we are seeing casualties. and that would be very difficult and complicated to deal with if we do not open new chapter of relationship between the americans administration and the muslim world. so there is a need for us also, and a lot of people who have been harmed by these kind of difference are not americans. we know that we don't want to continue living our lives and our children's lives in the shadow of killing and civil wars and conflicts. that is not the choice for a human being eventually has to

live his life and look forward to a much more peaceful life for his children. media can play a major role of bridging the gap. but what kind of media? media that takes cooperation. media that can simplify think, refuse it, check point and a list of slogans. media that understands the social and cultural societies. media that knows the history, because history in the arab world is very important. it is a huge issue. it is a very big. it is not something that has happened in the past. we can forget about. it continues to, you know, create new ideas, creates an atmosphere of thinking for all of us. and unfortunately, more and more journalists are bent on the

media to understand the competent conflict that has taken place over the last thousand years. the next day they are on experts, analysts of the great conflicts that have been taking place for centuries. that is not the choice for media to be informative and to be excellent and understanding for the audience. we are not empowering people. we are giving people some data, fragmented ones that do not really create talents, you know. it doesn't create a local, you know, understanding. the middle east, i look at the news. and i have been watching news during the last few days here. if you look at the middle east as the blackbox, people are killing people. everything is going wrong. you know, if i were an american i would say i don't care about.

these guys are crazy. i think they are humans. they are not aliens. they would also love to live their lives, you know, like americans would like to live their lives ear we are like anyone else. we have children. we have a life. we would like to go back and enjoy our life and enjoy peace, but there are issues that are happening. and unfortunately, the important factor is very important. the fragmentation that is taking place in the region was a result of many things, but the most important one was intervention without consideration to the interest of the people themselves. so that is something that should be looked at. it is not because we are crazy and make suicide bombing. it is not. it is because there are -- we are very complicated situation. since the first world war, this

region did not see. it did not. supported by the west sometimes for certain metal interest. these regimes were undermined people do not see that the other is presented. they see them as puppets rather than leaders who have vision. so therefore much more balanced paradigm thinking. they would like to see something that would preserve them. this is why pro-arab nationalism emerged and islamic movement merge and a lot of people emerge that kind of feeling that is a collective mind in the region. after the collapse of the empire we are now having fiftysomething states. and that keeps changing, you know, because sometimes there is

separation. journalist should look at it carefully. to continue covering the region the way that we are covering, we are not serving the audience, neither are we serving political leadership or analysts. we are giving them or misleading and sometimes. it may be wrong decisions. i wonder if we really cover the middle east as we are to cover a. would we have a liberal system? what we as journalists be able to introduce knowledge about what is happening that could really lead to something that might not have created this kind of violence? that we have to go through all the discovery at this moment in time in iraq and afghanistan. have journalists really been open to other avenues and indifferent to all kind of

society factors and try to introduce understanding. we do not do that. this is why became partners with politicians. i do not accept politicians to lead the way for journalists. that is wrong. that has never been. during the last eight years it is the case. politicians have drove in the editorial lines for a lot of us, and that should cease to exist actually and we should start fresh. there is the possibility that we have in front of our audience. anyway, al-jazeera today we are lucky that people can see us here in washington, because we are available. and for years now, we are here. you know, a lot of rumors were created about al-jazeera. i think now people can see for themselves or judge for themselves. we demand for the people to see al-jazeera and judges. judge us.

it is on the screen. go watch it and see if what algeria's broadcasting something that you really has knowledge and give you with proper understanding. that choice, i did it for everyone. thank you very much. [applause] of course, my microphone is not working. >> thank you so much for your outline and stimulating comments. time magazine, another publication that radially said you are one of the great arab leaders envision in the region, and i am interested in just posting this first question to

you. when i am on al-jazeera shows i am often compared with clerics or scholars or other people from the region, you know, i do do see a different world views. there is a lot of doubt about the united states, even while there is fascination about obama there is doubt about his ability to achieve things. so as a leader, with visions in the region, what advice would you give up a barack obama, u.s. government, with what it's objectors are around the region to try to overcome some of those doubts? what are the measuring sticks, the benchmarks that your world needs to see to take the united states more seriously? >> i think i warn against the micro involvement in the region. i have seen that people are trying to revisit the policy, the strategy. they are just beating about things, not the overall. i think the region is important for american, for many reasons. one of them we have rising powers now in the world, and the

americans have to understand who could they deal with. the problem is if we were put in use just enhancing the data without looking at the overall picture, we might even be looking at things that we would not achieve much. people have, you know, they really appreciate the speech or the speeches. a lot of things have happened here. it was really something great. however, that might not continue forever because people have left to see something underground. we don't want to be caught again and semantics. on issues that are lesser to palestine, palestine and iraq. we need something important and something with substance. and that's what i would say at this. >> right now i was just over discussing at a conference in europe israel palestine issues and settlements being a large

part. i would be interest did in any thoughts you have on settlement. but one of the things that seems to be clear is that many, not all, but many arab muslims don't believe the united states is a fair broker, and less they see israel pay a cost or if they see some negative for israel. and likewise, israel in terms of talking about the very term pro-israel almost requires there to be a zero-sum loss for air of interest. did you see, does the network promote the notion, or do you see developing anywhere in the arab world a notion that you can have a win-win solution that is not based upon one side getting a tilt from the united states and ultimately leads to a cost to the other? this is one of the biggest issues that perplexes me. >> we can take the issue, we can forever argue about the issue of settlement and then we can be

caught in details. how many meters they extended, how many houses were built, so on and so forth are without looking at the big picture. the big picture says who are we, but the palestinians is not out of this process. if you take the amount of suffering and the amount of economic crisis, and the fragmentation of the west bank and the siege on gaza, these are not give a magnificent picture about what a peaceful situation should be. i think, you know, people are negotiating for how many years now. things are not getting much better. there is not delivery, number one. second, people do not feel that this course is actually moving towards something that could really be materialized, as if the process itself has become the package, not the piece cookware talking about the process. the process should continue.

the process for what? the process for us to lead. that something solid does not exist. people have lack of vision in describing what exactly is the process should lead to, as if politics. politicians are not brave enough to confront this cause so they would like to pastime just to fragmenting and speaking about what it is, and that is a problem. yes, i argue to people in the region, including that most would argue that we did something that could be workable, something that could be beautiful. everyone wants a balance of power. the most extremist through the region would see the news and understand that things are changing. and they do change. sometimes we look at those as aliens who do not understand anything and they are just one way or another. i think that is wrong.

al-jazeera has been doing for the last, you know, 13 years in introducing all opinions, and i think the politicians should look at all openings, with everyone, speaking to everyone. all people who are influential should be, you know, included in discussion. that will be to something, but if you feel that people are excluded, i don't think that there would be part of any peace process. >> thank. let me open the floor. >> thank you very much for your presentation. did you meet or would you meet with any american officials, and if so who and why? and second part,. >> i didn't plant that. >> focuses about algeria played in the identity, the feeling of being arab.

any political movement in history to contend a single air, do you agree and if so was it the intention of al-jazeera? >> my visit was to speak at this form and choose the add some others as well. intercommunicate with our colleagues on the broadcast. as you know, we have the biggest broadcast an air of an english. and also to speak to some officials, some journalists. yes, we have of course certain meetings. and we are arranging some meetings. regarding al-jazeera, we have never put our services as a politic movement. we have never thought of ourselves as a movement that we have thought of ourselves as a journalist. would like to tractors based on universally accepted practice, you know, provision of

standards. however, if i interpret what you are saying, just to be clear, it was not us who demanded that position. it was not algeria that were to be the voice of the arabs. it happen that there was vacuum, this trust between the public and governments. and people who are looking for something to symbolically represent them, maybe they come to algeria as the voice of, you know, independent of government that really could do something. so the vacuum led to the status that al-jazeera is enjoying as the entity who is coherent. people who watch the headlines, and that may lead to certain priorities as well in their minds, understand the region. but we have never really

introduced ourselves as players within the region. we want to act only as journalists thank you. >> sorry? [inaudible] >> we have many officials in the white house, and we hope very soon to see some. >> i will be blogging about it later in the week. this gentleman right here in the microphone, please. >> i am a political analyst. in the arab american community, and american muslim community. short comment, any question. i am here is the press on your hand to say you are filling a void, a needed void onward, onward. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> my question is we are community is concerned these days about something that the

american administration seeking peace in the middle east seems to be promoting, which is normalizing a relations between or asking for normalizing relations between arab countries and israel. where the arab initiative is to do that after israel abide by relinquishing. your information and opinion. thank you. >> again, as i said, you know, i'm afraid that people will concentrate on the issue. and people had hope and they still have some hope that what is happening in washington will lead to a change. and this is an opportunity and will not be for ever, you know, deliver is important on these issues. so far, what we are seeing, there is no, i would say a lot of people and journalists at

least in al-jazeera would argue that they don't see very much of change, you know. what we see is magnificent discourse, but without action. and we are going through same stories we have been living through the last 30 or 40 years regarding the peace process. regarding the naturalization issue of israel, in my opinion that will never materialize that might change the region. >> right here in the middle. >> i want to know what the reaction has been to your reporting on iran and whether there's any type of plans to have al-jazeera. [inaudible] >> first of all, we didn't report the elections of the iran as many other networks for both

arabic and english news. >> will you put under the same restrictions? >> and eventually, immediately after the elections finished that same day, our reporters were asked to confirmed, and of course we continue to report through our field which has iranians working in iraq. unfortunately, i would say the story we still face on the story in iran. agile, images that were sent to judicious and we were not allowed. and that was a problem. and we did like many others. on twitter on covering images. however, we have an excellent network within iraq from various groups covering the information that we may not be a good tool, that is regarding iran.

in principle, al-jazeera actually is brainstorming the idea of expansion in general. i mean, we would likely have al-jazeera english now, but we would like in the future maybe to concentrate on certain other languages and mainly in the region, but i cannot say that we have a definite decision on that issue. >> i wonder first how, you know, i follow al-jazeera very closely. i think you are very biased in reporting about when it comes to iran and syria, and hezbollah. you are pro than. you don't have even a second opinion allowed to appear on the issue. most of the time you are dished. >> let's get to the question.

>> second, why this bias? why do you take all over the world to opinions except when it comes to these three issues? secondly, how can you sustain yourselves if, you know, you are establishment is zero, you have only the advertising, how can you sustain yourself? >> interesting questions. >> number one, the issue of iran. up i of course, disagree with you. that is not true entirely. we have taken very clear coverage on the issue of iran. we monitored minute by minute. if you would like to say we are biased to other networks that cover the story of iraq, it is up to. but when it comes to us, when we have conservatives, we have to balance them at the same time on the same news politick. five minutes, five minutes. that is an establishment that we follow.

unfortunately, others do that. some people did, they have taken again on the issue of iran, i have seen some kind of coverage in other media where people have, you know, just supporting one way of thinking. we cannot afford to do so. that would be a departure from our norm. the gardens of what we think of conservatives, for example. we have a choice. our relationship with iran was never a relationship between a tv relationship. twice, the first time al-jazeera was close because we did report about the only coverage of the arab minority, or the people that iranians in the south was in al-jazeera. and a huge protest against al-jazeera. and then the second time it happened when we did start reporting about certain kind of

conflicts in the inner society. and again, our deal was close in the 96 for one year. so our relationship with iranian government is not the most smooth but that did not lead us to take a stance against the iranian process, pro-muslim with more coverage. some people will judge us because they want us to take the same whereby okay, we are pro-muslim reformist. that is not the way we do things. when it comes to other issues like syria, our relationship with syria has never been the most smoothest and there will be many times we were a month to tv stations that gave coverage inside syria and outside you. just two weeks ago, he was classified as the arch enemy and he was on our tv for one hour. and many other leaders -- [inaudible]

>> i don't imagine any leader from the syrian opposition or any human abuse, that was not covered by al-jazeera. again, as i said we do not play a role of being the campaigners for certain opposition groups in order to wage war against the government that that is not our position. that is not what the cantu and will report about the good but they cannot ask us to be the campaigners against the region. >> i happened to notice what al-jazeera anchorman was arrested in syria. and so, you know. but in any case, yes. right here. no, i'm sorry. we have rules. [inaudible] >> okay. >> is not a secret al-jazeera was sponsored and funded by government, you know. but, you know, my choice i would

say that we are not very keen that commercializing al-jazeera. especially news channel. why? advertising in the region is controlled by government. they will not put ads on al-jazeera and as we have good relationship with government. we have to be friendly with all arab governments in the region. and that would be the end of al-jazeera as we know it. so therefore, we do not accept to be, you know, fully to put commercial standards. the agreement that we have has been respected for the last 13 years. it does not dictate the policy of al-jazeera. qatar has benefited from us because it has hosted al-jazeera and al jara is also in the connection because it really made that are obvious on the international and region scene, but that does not mean that

al-jazeera took a line or to be the spokesperson of their politics. that is not the tool. if it wasn't true we would have never been accepted by the arab audience as the resource because many other channels in the region were established with billions of dollars, much more than what they spent on al-jazeera but they could not really match al-jazeera and its political and popular because they always continue to be the mouth of certain governments. that was a red line that we did not support. clas. .

my question is, at the moment do you have foreign journalists working on your staff? foreign journalists -- and which countries are they from? and what is the editorial policy regarding their coverage of the news? >> fang kia. >> we have actually the most diverse newsroom. we have about 53 nationalities working for our newsroom. from a vague arab world and all

over the world, from america and britain, from latin america, asia, wherever you go, our recruitment policy is to look at the journalists themselves regardless of nationality, religion, culture, whatever the case because and by the way such kind of diversity in a newsroom is difficult to streamline in a certain direction. if there is a conspiracy established that would like to impose to bring all these people, diversity in al-jazeera is actually an assurance in that we are independent because every journalists that joins al-jazeera was never pressured at all and we have people from all walks of life with us. never never dictated to them how they should be otherwise we would have been. >> the gentleman with his hand

up. i'm blinded by the allies like plant -- can pricier but that's the right guy. >> i have a question, you mentioned in that based on al-jazeera coverage you don't want to your children to grow up in the shadow of guns and if you want everyone to have a peaceful future and things like this, but i was al-jazeera and i see things like the birth of celebration for the terrace from lebanon end uncertain -- similar glorifications of this type of thing and that i wanted to know how you can balance that with what she said today. >> thank you very much. issues related to the concept of terrorism and principles, we have difficulty understanding or dealing with maybe there are certain issues regarding terrorism has not been clarified percolate especially the

definition of who is a terraced into is not. this is why the policy of al-jazeera since the beginning was not to use the word terrorism unless it is qualified, the so-called terrorists. so-called terrorism. if we would like to take certain standards in describing who is a terrorist and is not we will be judges so via our arrive describing things as it is, we do say terrorist movement and we say the name of the movement. we don't say terrorists, we said the name of the leader and a group they are leading simply. so if you come to the region, the issue of terrorism is littoral. a lot of people who remains for some people may not think there are terrorists and they will go into huge arguments. we as a media argumentative not think we should go into that discussion, we describe the story as it is without getting

involved in giving judgment. is politically and i feel much better to distance ourselves from men's and by the way we are not in the only network for media organization in the world that seized from -- stops using the word terrorists so there are relative stories that we can cover and could look sometimes like the issues of promoting or not promoting. we were accused of promoting some of the day's end that was not the truth, we did cover some of the speeches as we cover every other incidents and newsworthy issue that happened in the region based on certain professional standards. and we think that it is our duty to do so. a lot of people argued especially in the west that once you are promoting the terrace ideas and so forth, we thought it is not true. professional standards say that there is evidence when someone's

basic is news and recover its but that does not mean we support and sometimes in did a brief have this kind of discourse because it would be followed by analysis have followed by a lot of discussion and a lot of people would have been doubtful about the issues we are teaching people to be rational in stories like that and speeches like that and allow them to have some kind of time to complete think about this so-called terrorist or that so-called terrorist. >> this gentleman here. >> thank you, center for american progress. though the obama administration has recently engaged with the syrians and brushed the possibility of engaging with the iranians its stance on an engagement with hamas has pretty much mirrored that of the prison administration. do you think the time to engage has come and is this intangibles of the arab public sphere is looking for?

and if you could time in as well tim and thank you, i like to say in journal i feel and that's wish to speak to all. i will give due from al-jazeera, when we started in 1996 arab media did not oppose the israeli as and took a stand because they think that hosting them is normalization and al-jazeera was the first tv stations to allow them on the screen including officials, military and including analysts. we were condemned at that time because this is not practical, we were going against the arabs. when i stand in electro in cairo orç any other cabinet in the ab world as a media issue dow be confronted with issues. i think as a journalist and someone who has been in this reason that we need to talk to everyone. simply, and i think in order to

talk to everyone you need also to think of them as someone who could a all unchanged and people do change. when you put someone on the screen regardless of how extremis is a, when you put them on the screen he behaves this way end of this course becomes more modern and general and i have in my mind is something that i say all is that the camel has in effect on extremists and many other people because it leads them to be a little more rational in their thinking because they are not to breezing in their corners for their converse. they're reaching for the public and to sound a little more reasonable soul is talking to the people and allowing them to speak is important. in media and in politics. >> since you ask me to make a quick comments, i am probably quite publicly aligned him with

brent scowcroft and the number of other people, carla hills, even a paul volcker and others have not called for the united states necessarily to buy latter linkage with hamas right away but to end the isolation of hamas and the penalties and other allies of the french come to mind in particular. my view is in the political terrain in the region want to allow one not to enjoy deal with this sort of -- it doesn't mean you abuse bad behavior's but not to have engaged and to me doesn't make sense in terms of driving our policy for the so i do believe in ending the isolation of a hamas. of me say one thing about the obama administration, the folks that matter in making these are struggling over this themselves and a lot is going on right now this week as we speak. some have come from the center of american progress, folks want to try to make others have

illegitimacy and looking like winners because they have been so undermined whether israeli governments or the u.s. and various points, the legitimacy and credibility has been undermined so they're trying to show the negotiations in moderate players can be winners and deliver positive public as to their people. my problem is in the current environment i call that the two much too late strategy. and fundamentally it depends upon it you not taking into account at all was has happened and of the bush administration and how that group collapsed in terms of legitimacy in the eyes of their people so i don't know dealing with hamas is not a quick fix anything by not finding a way to look at its probably continues the incrementalism and inertia that has been preventing any sort of leave for the and i believe there is no incremental his way to sell many contending issues and you've got to begin in a very nixonian way, began

imagining things to change the way prominent facial forces take us and that requires statistically it's something is the same pride impossible today but you've got to begin thinking about a different vision so i am definitely in danger. this gentleman here. i also want to ask, fox news, cnn, bbc, all have moved into the blogger arena and i am a blotter and you see anderson cooper has his blogging and other people, are you guys excited -- i should know this but i haven't seen is on al-jazeera inglis sides, are you promoting bloggers, do you have the al-jazeera routers that are bloggers? how does blogging fit into your media awareness? >> actually new media in particular for us is an opportunity and al-jazeera it is known in the region that is a tv station that defends the brokers because most of them come from

difficult racemes, some were arrested and some of the blogs were deleted and so on. always we hold them for that and encourage this and we have a lot of the most active use of the new media and the region and encouraged a lot of this. there is a free web sites that al-jazeera supported from the beginning call the al-jazeera talk, regarded now as the most popular blogging side in the arab world and is open for journalists and the public a man. it is not associated with al-jazeera because what is written there is not necessarily a representation of al-jazeera, it is for people to say they want to say but it is definitely an opportunity for al-jazeera. al-jazeera talk to, bill in itself has a website by the way one of the most popular in the arab world and al-jazeera inglis, we are in a process now of delivering our blogging within those sites so very soon

we are going to have integrated in al-jazeera english. >> thank you. >> i wanted to ask if a source of the anti shia movements in the al-jazeera and especially in iraq and who love and on, what is the source? is your policy? second part of a question regarding the saudi relationship, you talked about the opinions and the fact that you don't receive instructions from the politicians but everybody knows and arab media and not sure about the americans falling the saudis relations, you don't support saudia arabia, you don't derive any critics. your coverage actually is given much softer than the saudi press is also where is that sort of come from?

from the top premier or --? >> is adjusting u.s. and that we have a t i sentiments, exactly so we are up to indicia erebus. and then i can listen to a lot of things and what is interesting about al-jazeera it has created so much diversity of opinion about itself that we are not i think we have been criticized by all kinds of people. you said that we are anti shia and arabic world, not in the iraq. you say that we are proa shia and pro -- >> it looks like you are doing your job. >> of course, i say that but we are not and a lot of people working in our news from our shia and a lot are associated through shia and i myself when i was in baghdad i did not actually know who was shia and

sunni and later i was educated. when he decided to have a the sectarian government's council we started discovering who is sunni and shia. the issue of saudi arabia, in the past is not allow us to cover within the saudi arabia said the only source we have at that time was opposition people in certain places right now at this time we are allowed to cover within saudi arabia. with a relationship it is enhancing and at least now we are borrowing through actual reporting in saudi arabia and this is what the region should do. if they do not allow us to report from there opportunity is sometimes are not balanced because of the lack of of their voice. we have never stopped the saudis

from reporting. it was their choice not to deal with us and it is their choice to be discreet. at this moment in time the iraqis do not agree, the iraqi government has taken a stand against al-jazeera and not allowing themselves to appear on al-jazeera but we are continuing to be one of the most mass coverage in the rack. we may have many official leaders but not because we would like to introduce many opposition leaders because of the other side is not allowing us to have a view. we are not allowed to cover within iraq because of the government's of a al-jazeera. >> in the very back. >> a.m. media. what pressure has been put on a al-jazeera for is coverage in images of death, collateral damage and suffering and since is beginning has al-jazeera

changed its editorial policy or practice in that regard to? >> in covering violence. >> in 2000, 2004 and july 2004 al-jazeera launched its code of ethics and conduct which was a few months of deliberation, and that was launched actually in a forum hosted more than 150 journalists. we do have very clear rules on issues related to a graphic scenes. we do not for example show close shots of fragmented the limbs and bodies and so on and so forth. and we do have also the standards of reporting complex in order not to go far against our own sensitive audience, however, we also do show images

of war and destruction and people who die. maybe these are not to gross shaw's, we do not want to pick up certain images with who was unfortunately sometimes things have been aired one of our reporting was live on air and we were confronted by certain images that were deleted immediately after the first time it was shown live. the philosophy of al-jazeera, you should it show what destruction is all about otherwise you will cover up the ideas of war, but when you show it to show it with stability so you don't go ace jimmy to the other side. >> this gentleman. >> you are doing a great job, we are live on the show. >> i wondered if you comment on the film control room, do think it is a fair portrayal of al-jazeera, did you participate in making it obviously and carry

-- cover you're tehran? >> we did not participate in is, of course, during the war. and has introduced certain aspects that was seen by foreign journalists who came to al-jazeera and some of the people at that time saw al-jazeera as something flat box, they don't understand, they imagine journalists with long beards and the anchor woman with has cars trying to support polygamy and unfortunately that was an image because if you listen to what would have to say about us it was difficult to imagine a newsroom of people like every other news from doing business like any other news from so control room had that perspective about al-jazeera and, naturally and is spent a good time in the news from projecting that. do i feel that it does represent al-jazeera as the philosophy or journalism? i am not sure but i can say it

does introduce something different and, the state's of evidence that had been at that time. >> i have a question about whether you have reached out to schools, high schools, colleges and if so, other teachers who want to show your sine watching a particular show or a particular issue or is the resistance and that you are showing? and they need to learn was how the government wants them to learn and not be confused by fax? connects you meet in the states? >> in arab countries. >> the reach out, to have relationships with the schools, department of education i guess or individual schools where -- i guess i'm asking multiple questions -- reaching out and whether a wear? >> actually i was a al-jazeera definitely space to i audience

from every source of age however also al-jazeera launched association with the foundation, al-jazeera children, which is supposed to targets children and introduce educational programs to them. the foundation and al-jazeera participated in forming and founding the children and we do try to prove projects we have in mind to speak merely to people especially children and youth either through the screen and by the way al-jazeera is not one channel. by the end of this year we will have 14 channels so we have it channels from sports to life and other channels as well that are under construction at this point in time so, yes, we do targets

this sector of the audience through certain kinds of programs and opportunities. >> [inaudible] >> the community and i think we don't have a specialty channel, but we do engaged them in discussion about prices and education in the arab world and the problems that are facing, and have some kind of discussion that but i cannot say we have specialized directed channelling toward a this education. >> let me ask, head of the bureau in washington is here and i'm lucky enough to be on the al-jazeera english section and sometimes i'm on al-jazeera arabic and it's interesting because you walk around in an arab airport and people sit on to that guy, but i have noticed your al-jazeera arabic content is largely completely separate from al-jazeera inglis contents. what are the pluses and minuses

of that and do i have the right to present? >> actually we do have a al-jazeera error by targeting the audience in particular where ever they are in the world and talk to them all over the world. arabic and english is speaking to english-speaking people and i understand that the arab world prior to use of the news would be different because eventually the issues are related to their life and some of the regards al-jazeera as religious because do have certain needs especially because of the lack also of the other challenges and our country and controlling government challenges, however, we decided from the beginning that al-jazeera arabic and al-jazeera inglis would have the same reporting, but we would not have a one, news from the. and the priorities for al-jazeera arabic would be different from al-jazeera english and the same rules as

same understanding of journalism and we have intensive discussion of ways between the two teams, we have one share the institution and most of our of yours talk to each other not only integrated with a two other but again we do not have a al-jazeera english as translation of it al-jazeera arabic and i think that is much more wise to have because in al-jazeera english at this moment has succeeded in two of the three years to do something different and to conquer new territories. we have audience in every 140 million households all over the world and from south africa to rush of we have gained a lot of popularity in the audience to make thank you. yes, sir. >> hi, two quick questions. number one, & sp1 it yemen just got into some hot water with

somebody from reporting in the south continue to elaborate a little bit on where those threats came from and what is going on there? and number two, in terms of u.s. media either printing on television who do think is the most successful in reporting on the middle east? with u.s. news outlet either printing our television is the most of cecil and reporting on the middle east? >> you are putting me in trouble. first of all, in yemen unfortunately we have faced difficulty with the government, so the opposition and fortunately our reporters or attacks in the south from some angry mobs and they were demanding that they go immediately and that led to some kind of attack against them and one of our journalists was injured. on the other hand, we have received threats from the government's because they feel that what we brought to bear

from al-jazeera is inciting violence in the south so we have it pressure from both parties. of course, of the people in general are much more friendly than the government's but at that particular incident you are referring to it was actually found some angry people who attacked al-jazeera and a letter from the government and they came out demanding some presenting other ruling party demanding from the parliament to issue a decision to close down al-jazeera. >> is that still pending? >> now we are continuing and so far we are still working with a lot of restraint, said, it is not really our correspondents and people go to the country and go where they like. some of the images are confiscated and some of these are not allowed to be broadcast so we still to face problems in yemen, but to go back to the second question.

i cannot be -- i cannot pick one particular blogging, is difficult and actually a few other blogging sites i feel, a lot of people are really brilliant and they are reporting the malaise in particular not certain kinds of thinking. and also i look at somebody who is -- of course cnn is available and we look at it in new york times as well as so we have a different sources in the state's chemical new take this loss question from the gentleman i see through the lights. other. >> their? >> thank you, foreign service institute. two related questions, one is whether you like it or not you are part of a their of the cold

war that is happening right now where there is a lot of the images on difference signs. eight you are understood to be on the insides and i don't sense you intensity, but what is your feeling about that? related to another question, are you going to have pepsi and coke or you need is other or do feel like it is a real fight for of the fall of the era populace? >> absolutely wonderful question. >> to start with, we have adopted the reporting about the middle east, we are a tv station that has made me cover the the dynamics of this society on figures of governments and people who have already been in that tough position. we have never had a friendly

relationship with governments, however, we have with people so that was sometimes we are accused we are populists and i say we are not. i argue with politics in the middle east have not been in press conferences and happening in meeting rooms. without understanding that people -- the fabric of this society and without embedding yourself to the public and listening carefully to what everybody has to say, meeting with the people and allowing them to spring from various walks of life, i think we cannot reflect middle east and i did play. some others would prefer to be more on the side of what government say and what governments do because of fortunately it is not actually supporting governments. government officials of al-jazeera but we do see ourselves and tv station that is focusing on the center or is just repeating what politicians are talking about with certain

governments. this is al-jazeera and i don't want to talk about anyone else. >> before i bring this to a close, and ask you a question, is to adjourn at work in your achievements and successes, what would you say is the biggest deficits, the thing that al-jazeera is in getting right quite read that you and your management of the network i really apply yourselves to the as you thank you got to overcome? >> two major challenges we have pointed out in our strategy, the first one is to reach out to more youth and this is what we are attempting to do very soon. i think what everyone is talking about politics and complex the new generation adulate our youth, they would like to see something different and sometimes politics of the surname so this is number one and the second issue is more

interactive and integrating new media and reaching out to certain forms of the gobi hon these names so we would like to include that as well in our programming segments. >> and just want to say i am thrilled the u.s. government finally came to its senses and guys in the visa to come here. i will be blogging later in the week and i did my own and with what i'm allowed to share about the important meetings that wadah khanfar and his teams are having in the u.s. government, is one of them to have access and not have access and is very clear and i can say this without you having to say is that looking at the itinerary whether the meetings go well or not there are good meetings and it seems to me that at least the obama administration is trying to push resets and we will see what happens here it is a great pleasure and privilege to have in washington. you're a speaking of foreign relations letter in new york but thank you so much, thank you.

[applause] [inaudible conversations] how is c-span funded? >> publicly. >> donations. >> government can i c-span gets its funding through the taxes. >> federal funding. >> if public funding think. >> i don't know. >> how c-span bunning? america's cable companies to raise c-span as a public service, a private business and is to say, no government mandate, no government money. >> now virginia governor and democratic national committee

chairman tim kaine speaking to the college democrats of america at their annual convention. this is about 40 minutes. >> [applause] >> good morning everyone. let's get fired up and! i hope everyone is enjoying this amazing 50th, 50th convention. i want to welcome everyone to washington dc. i am the president of howard university's college democrats. last year at this time i in turn it with the dnc booker, and today i am honored to introduce the man that exemplifies the public service. preserving and strives for excellence. this year's initiatives service is something that this man is no stranger to. he began his career of public service when he took a year of law schools to volunteer with

missionaries in honduras. there he was a principle to a small catholic school for teenagers. upon graduating from harvard his service continued when he practiced law in richmond for 17 years representing people who have been denied housing opportunities. he is the one nearest president setting cases and was recognized by local, state, and national organizations for his fair housing advocacy. during his tenure as governor of virginia has been recognized as the most business friendly stake in america that top performance a government in america, and the state where a child is most likely to have a successful life. virginia has one of the highest median incomes and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation. he has dedicated the last year of his administration to a renewed it rich in initiative which will focus on reducing greenhouse gases, but sensing the environment and developing clean energy and real college in

virginia. he has held bridge in the democrats' gains to u.s. and the seas, a majority of virginia's congressional delegation and control of the state senate's. he is a husband, a father, has three teenagers, a role model and inspiration to students, lawyers and politicians everywhere. and i am sure he will be an inspiration to all of you. please join me in welcoming the 70th and avenue of the commonwealth of virginia and the dnc chairman, governor cane. [applause] >> well, this is wonderful. the only problem is i can't really see the way they've got this set up a and kind of looking at ounce since i can see i am assuming this crowd is

about a 5,000 people, is that pretty much what we have from all that noise and excitement and enthusiasm? is great to be here with us cda ledger in a meeting and i want to thank him for her nice introduction and thank everyone associated for inviting me to come and share with you. i have been looking -- thank you, that's great, i like that. i have been reading a little about the program the last few days and i know there's been committed to service, there's been all kinds of policy dialogue as well as political training in the really is wonderful to see from all over the u.s. had a chance to visit with a officers for a few minutes. so is great to come and have a chance to share a vision, to thank you for your work and to talk about what's to come here because we're in the midst of an assortment of our making. assortment are making and will be held accountable for what we do to turn into a transformative moments so if you things before i began. i want to now as tears again and offer her a nice introduction, i

wanted now was being funded gw campus presidents. wyatt to give him a round of applause if you will? [applause] i am trying to stay in his good graces because my son will be a sop more at gw next year's summit son who was a freshman last year to the gw young democrats were very heavily working on the obama campaign especially canvassing in the northern virginia never is easy to get by public transit from here. he has really enjoy gw and am happy that stephen is here with us. katie and alex, in your officers who are doing a great job, katie from texas and alan from glenallen so i know they're doing great. [applause] both are real dynamos with cda but also have done great work on campaigns and the respective states. we have to interns' who have

been working at the dnc this summer with the cda operation, we are here with janice and erica hoover tried to pull this together. give them a round of applause. [applause] tw students cory who is kind of our hosts, thank you. [applause] great job, i met him earlier, and then i also understand that frank and osher imad buzzy is also worked on the technical side of a boy in this together so are you here, frank? give him a round of applause anyway. [applause] so those are some think is a particular but i will thank all of. you work so very hard this past november and it was a to a transformative election. it is one of the two or three most of friends and his our presidential elections and nation's history. i don't know yet that we fully grasp how historic it is, we read in the middle of it and in the trenches. ever turn for the president and 15 saves but especially in my

own state trying to get the alleged for those of virginia behind the democrats for the first time since 1964 and so we were aware of how to sort it was but i felt fine myself kind of startled and thinking about the amazing amount of work we did. and some of the work was done by cda and young democrats, by new voters, young voters. is really amazing record numbers, we saw this in virginia and all over the country. i know how deeply the president feels committed to the young people of america who supported his campaign numbers. if you look at the number of young people that voter youth turned out in 2008 was such a spike above what it had been in previous years but will make sure it's not a spy compared to subsequent years and keep you think daysman inactivity high but i will begin just by saying how much the president's and the whole white house team and how much we of the dnc appreciate over to have done here to let me tell me about me, when i was a

civil rights lawyer for 17 years. i started off public-service work as a missionary in honduras when and law school here and never thought i would be in politics. if you tell me i would be in politics and law school i would have sent your crazy and if you listen and be chairman of the democratic party i was a what are you smoking? [laughter] i was really into helping others and did that as a civil rights lawyer but then one day i got mad at my city councilman in 1993, my city council in richmond working as a civil rights lawyer at thought was a racially divided in a committed to rise five the rank and file as a lever to get a pretty well but our leadership is divided. so i was i naive 35 rights lawyer and i thought i can help people work together and that is how i get into its. to try to help folks out so here i am six elections in nearly 16 years later still doing is entering in this great and the dnc. i was the risk that official outside illinois to support president thomas campaign.

i had done to me the president when he was senator obama, he had been senator format five months and came to virginia just across the river in arlington, i don't know if any have been to the ballroom where is a great place for conserves and dances across the river. he came there to do a fund-raiser his office had riss out and said i know you are running for governor and has some staffers and i came over. the night before the fund-raiser i got a copy of his book dreams from my father which i have not reso i want to have something to talk about so i sped to read and skipping all the adverbs and adjectives and reading as quickly as i can and i realized that he and i have some things in, and so when i'm as senator obama that day of the fund-raiser as and rebel for things in common -- he said what are those and i said we are both part of law school graduates. now, you're the editor of the law review and i went to a lot of red sox games, but our diplomas are looking exactly the

same. [applause] article must look exactly the same. so second thing we have in common is we're both civil rights lawyers, he did voting rights in chicago and at the fair housing and risk and for 17 years and the third thing is this government's of time abroad and here his time in indonesia and my time in honduras we were both very pivotal experiences in the way we our lives after mayor and but as of the most imprinting in common is this -- when you give a speech and you said your dad is from kenya and your mom is from kansas, my mom and my paternal grandparents are from the same time in town that your mom and grandparents are from, eldorado, kansas. i don't know if we have anyone from kansas in the house? it is on the kansas oklahoma border so when we realized our mothers and grandparents from the same town is struck up a good time and i came to appreciate his talents, thought his house would be the right mix for the country with the country meeting in 2008 and backed his

campaign. campaign in 15 states and help bridge an electoral votes go blue for the first time since 64 and then admit what was a critical strategic mistake. a month after the presidential election i wrote him a letter, i said howard dean has announced he is not going to run for dnc chair. howard is probably the most successful dnc chairman in history if you look at who is in office when he came in, who is in office when he left four years later at every level set of federal across the country, to use it shoes to fill and here's a person who will pick a person to do that job. i made an extremely persuasive case about this person than the president has david platts, 10 days later and said that's a good person, but the presence that you have to do this job. [laughter] so i was not at all persuasive and the save and to do this job and i said but i am governor, is a challenging time to the governor and i wrestling in the last year of the single for your term i got plenty to do of the president reached out and really

shares what it was thought he wanted to see the dnc do. i have not been a washington die, not been involved in national politics, i've been deeply involved in state politics and the president's phrase, but as i heard the this and he had for the dnc and for our party generally i got very excited and i said yes because you are supposed to say yes to the president but i suggest with enthusiasm because as we talk about the dnc to do i realize this is going to be really exciting. so what did the dnc did? it is doing three things right now and those three things are too kind of a naked to this president and this moment, and so let me just be quick and tell you about them here first, the number one presidential success, that is our number one goal. the i have a different job than howard dean had. he was the loyal opposition, he did not have the white house so he had to be the loyal opposition and build up the party but i have a different job

about the success of the president's. the world is a successful american presidency right now. [applause] and our nation needs it and a successful presidency makes it easier for anybody running as a democrat in any of us in any community and a challenge presidency as a enough of history creates a hundred or lease a cross when for democrats saw the first goal that we have as presidential success so we have organized a round of presidential success to be the political arm of the white house and that is what we do at the dnc. i tell the staffer as you walk into that building every day, you ask yourself what can i do my corner of the world to help the president succeed today and i think you'll all agree that in the toughest economy since the 1930's what we have seen in this president has been this season of a very transformative presidency. let me give a couple highlights that matter a lot to me. health insurance for poor kids.

president bush vetoed in the schip bill twice which was health insurance for poor kids, within two weeks after coming in this bill had been passed by the congress and signed by the presidents. 11 million children in this country or of low income children have health ventures to wouldn't have had as if that had not happened and for us to our governors for about health care issues usually important. equal pay for women. the league lead better pay at which had been a stream of congress and people for a long time i kept getting tripped up in court or congress has been passed, and now women are guaranteed by lawç equal pay fr equal work, it was way overdue but that has been done in his the rearview mirror and is a lot. [applause] here is one that i love that's hardly got any notice because there have been some of the issues. the president's program and a sorry tale with environmentalists and the auto industry to a dramatically increased the cafe standards for vehicles so they would beç lowr

emission and use less oil going for it and that was one that got announced one day is celebrated for five minutes and on to the next issue. that is a huge environmental win good to the economy and good for our workers and the president has done that here we have shown we are turning in the face of the world. this is in some ways one of the ones that matters khosa may having spent time abroad, having lost frankly our relations with the world get torn even nations that we are friends with. it is so good to see america back in america back understanding festering is a function of three things: military strength absolutely. i have some training to be every officer and i believe deeply that military strength is private but we also have to have diplomatic strength which we have let atrophy and most of for and we have to have the strength of the moral example. president obama is restoring strengthen the balance way that will make rendition not only strong but an example for other nations so i could give others, obviously in virginia i will

tell you i'm wrestling with a tough budget. the recovery and that the president pass and sign with congress that went into place in february meant that as i was completing my say budget i did not have to lay off an additional 7,000 say workers. i had to lay off people because of the economy has been tough, --. [applause] but that meant that teachers, public safety professionals and others who were serving people in a tough time are not out hitting the bread line try to find work in the toughest job market in the last 25 years because of theç stimulus packae and now with about a billion dollars of the stimulus of virginia already invested infrastructure projects years in construction companies and others put people back to work happening in virginia and all over the place. so the first goal of the dnc presidential success is due to imports, we see the trees from the seeds of an amazing presidency and is challenging time of national emergency and so we will keep pushing the dnc to continue to make president

obama's tenure as every bit as noble as his election was notable. seconds the dnc is grass-roots politics and this is a fun one, the one that is fun. and this is the one that made me say yes with enthusiasm to the president. i was a solarize lawyer and, this from a grassroots angle. i was a local official and city councilman and mayor. you didn't have to raise money to win in local office. you have to knock on every person store and saw my first year i hardly raise anything. i knock on every person's door and my sister to get elected city council and mayor and so i like grassroots politics. wasn't it a great thing we think about it of all the great things about the obama campaign was and did a great thing that big donors for fine, but the donations of small donors really mattered. campaign it professionals and staffers were great, but even then the hour or two a week volunteers had a place and they

really matter to. phd's have people with a policy ideas were fine, but regular people with their own ideas really mattered. that was something about this campaign that i know you were wrapped up in as a community, that everybody has something to offer, that it wasn't a big democracy of 350 million people where people's voices weren't important but you really mattered. and so what we have decided is at the dnc and the party nationally going for that we want to do the same thing, the communal sense that everybody has a role to play and we want to organize and not just around an election on a day for a great candidate but we want to organize it around policy wins and organize around changing the health care system in this country to bring costs down for families and businesses and make sure that all can find coverage. we want to organize around tackling climate change and a better energy future for this country so that we can be leaders in the world an

alternative energy into the right thing by the economy and the environment in doing so. we want to organize people around and education system that is again in the best in the world. president nab knows this, 20 years ago the united states was the undisputed leader in the world in a percentage of our population getting college degrees. and there wasn't a close second to appear now eight our nine nations have passed us and another 10 or 15 are on a path to pass because we have been flat so it back to do something different if we want to reclaim best in the world so that's what's organizing for america is about. organizing for america, the largest apartment at the dnc is the department said did not exist when i walk to the door to six months ago and is now the largest and what organizing for america is doing is we are putting grassroots organizers and every states in 38 states and 50 states within the next month to and we are charging these organizers together with our colleagues at the dnc office in richmond to energize and

engaged american citizens around policy. to make these big things happen, to help the president and chief credit campaigned on, to find these past foreign on issues traded inertia in washington for such a long time. and this is a very exciting. as i travel around the country everywhere i go and talk to zero fas, activists, neighborhood activists ordering neighborhood campuses or house party is where public service events around health care, and i find this to be a very compelling model piven is an experiment and not been done at the dnc or our enzi before. it's the basis of thing can we run a grass-roots movement out of an inside the beltway group like dnc and it may be audacious but not as a guy like barack obama thinking he can be president of the united states. we can do this and if we do its just as a the way this campaign was conducted in this grassroots manage his campaigning, which

contains policy and the way policy is done by giving regular american citizens a voice and a confidence and then have a voice in making that. is so that is cool to. build up a grass-roots movements cannot energize and the millions of americans active in the campaign, keep people engaged as volunteers, a key people in case as donors into an organized around much as people in the lives and been around and a. stains in taking the nation foreign and i cannot be more excited about this. howard dean was a great cheer for the dnc because he came up with something that was remarkable. he said we are going to be a regional party and have to be a 56 party, the strategy was chairman dean spectacular innovation, smart and simple and put in place and the results were. this is like the next up beyond, the way i think of it is howard dean took a survey 56 strategy and on gratuitous and every neighbor his strategy and that is what we're going to do and i

think it will be good on the policy side in every duets' it will also have a great benefit for all our candidates in the running election so one thing i would encourage you all to do is going back to your communities tier colleges but also places where you live if you don't live in the same commodity rates go to school, engage with organizing for america where you are, organizing for america is suing advancing camasses and town halls and things all over the country every weekend. there will be the ofa tab there were you are. get engaged in it, be part of the move to make social change and that is the second goal. make a social james grassroots. the third goal is to the one you would be familiar with the goal of every dnc chair and that is for this paper is to make them strong. so at the end of the day we will not be measured how well things are going inside the dnc office in south capitol street, is meant to be housed on the 50 state parties are so just as chairman dean was working with and investing in saves friday so are we and we're working that in a collaborative web, ofa working

in tandem with this a party is investing dollars, best practices and that is the third goal. so that is with the dnc does, basically three things -- presidential success, grassroots politics, as the. development. those other three goals and let me now talk to you about the thing we are most focus on right now which is health care and health insurers reform. i had an opportunity yesterday which i have every year that i have taken probably for the last five or six years to go to one of the most amazing evidence that i've ever been two. in a community in southwest virginia in appalachia, kind of completely at the end end of the state, a couple of catholic nuns this woman insisted bernie had a beetle she started driving around community to community to dispense pharmaceuticals and health care supplies in a horribly underserved part of our commonwealth of part of our nation. she started this 50 or 20 years call this a very self wagon.

the bill became a bus and then the bus became a winnebago and then people started to hear about sister bernie and the same aires "healthwatch" again. a few years ago a group of doctors and physicians and dentists and students set up a can basically on a weekend of the virginia kentucky fair grounds right down on the virginia kentucky border and they just that we are going to provide free medical care or dental care to people who don't have health lacks is in this portrait of a policeman and i didn't know what they would see. it would be a free weekend and see how many we serve. this thing has now grown probably 10 years in in terms of itsç current location there at the fairgrounds, it has grown to the point where there is now thousands of people from seniors to infants who don't have health insurance who don't have coverage, who are in very difficult health and a drive from all over the east coast of the united states to come in the most powerful and greatest nation in the world to camp for

a few days in this parking lot and then wait in line in the hot sun for hours so that they can get their teeth pulled the have never been able to see done this, don't have dental care so extraction maybe all they can get or get a mammogram or get tested for cancer or get work done on their vision, maybe get a pair of eyeglasses for the first time in their life and i went down to it yesterday this weekend and i sat at the registration desk and was interviewing people as they were coming in from started to come to camp on tuesday. by the time i was there two or three hours into a i was already up to talking to the people who are 900 and on and they had been there for at least 1218 hours before they got in. at the same time it is one of the most inspirational things i have ever seen because of the passion of the volunteers but is also one of the most challenging things i've ever seen because we are a better nation than the. and every industrialized nation in the world has a health care

system that provides some basic level of health and health care to all other citizens. they are not better than us, they're not smarter than us, they are not more compassionate than thus. we can do this. every president since harry truman has said ricans a major health care reform. and yet it has not happened. and has not happened. and hasn't happened because frankly the system is set up in such a way that was basically inside the beltway kind of like the way it is but folks outside the beltway, the 47 million americans who don't have health insurance as somebody who do have health insurance but can figure out how to negotiate to get treatment for cancer for the copays of the deductibles, we know we can do better. so this is what we are working very hard about in the dnc right now, working with a passion not just about elections, working with a passion about results. that is the only reason to do this thing. elections are great but there remains and not an end, the end

is a results -- >> release the last few minutes of this program to take you live to capitol hill as in the u.s. senate convenes. on the agenda fiscal years 2000 spending on the energy department and water infrastructure programs. the second half a dozen appropriations bills, the house has passed 11 of those measures with a last one defense department's spending casual on wednesday. out now live senate coverage on c-span 2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray.

eternal and merciful god, in the midst of our labors, we're grateful for this time to talk to you and to be refreshed by your presence. at a time when vast issues are at stake, remind our lawmakers of the great traditions in which we stand. empower them to rise to the greatness of vision and soul that energized the founders of this land. may they embrace and support the great causes that will mold the future into the pattern of your desire and design.

use our senators to heal and rebuild our world. in the darkness of our time, may their lives be your candles to illuminate our nation and world. we pray in your loving name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c, july 27, 2009. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing

rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable mark r. warner, a senator from the commonwealth of virginia, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: robert c. byrd, president pro tempore. mr. reid: mr. president, following the leader remarks, there will be a period of morning business for up to one hour. at 3:00 p.m., the senate will proceed to the consideration of the energy and water appropriations bill, which will be managed by senator dorgan. there will be no roll call votes today during the session. there should be votes tomorrow morning prior to the caucus luncheons. mr. president, there are many who suffer from our broken health care system, and many who will benefit when we fix it. counted among those are increasing numbers of americans who go to work every day in small businesses. the vast majority of jobs in america today are not with the huge companies but with small businesses. owners and employees alike of

small businesses are getting a raw deal. they're paying more for their health insurance, if they have it at all. small businesses in big businesses and smalltowns across the country play a role in the sculpting of how the future will look. they are the visionaries who help create jobs and cultivate ideas. we in turn must help nurture these businesses. we should be making it easier for them to grow and succeed. if we keep the status quo, if we do not act, we'll be making it harder. the white house's counsel of economic advisors has found that when a small business buys the same health insurance plan as a big business, the small business pays significantly more per worker. the consequence of this inequity is very clear: a small business owner who has to pay more to keep his or her employees covered has to cut corners somewhere else. maybe they pay their employees lower wages or salaries.

maybe they have to use more of their profits to pay for health care and have less to spend on research and development to help their ideas become realities. maybe they need to buy new equipment and invest in new technologies but can't because of the cost of health care. maybe they lay off more hard-working americans than they ordinarily would and what if the expense they choose to sacrifice is health care itself? that happens so often. almost 100% of small businesses, those are more than 2 employees, offer health benefits. but fewer of half the businesses with nine or fewer employees can afford to do the same. that number is shrinking. if we reform health care we'll level the playing field. we'll give employees more choices and better plans from which to choose. we'll give owners tax deduction credits they they can afford to cover their workers. we'll make it easier for existing small businesses to succeed. we'll make it easier for more entrepreneurs to start their new

companies. and we'll make it easier for more americans to afford and work and stay healthy at the same time all in this small business atmosphere. reforming health care and doing it the right way is not just a health issue; it's also an economic issue. that's why we'll continue in the coming weeks and months to reform health care in a way that protects what works and fixes what doesn't. that's why we're committed to getting this right, not just getting it done by an arbitrary deadline. while we work on health care, we'll also tackle other priorities on our plate. over the next two weeks we're imping to complete -- we're going to complete at least two appropriations bills and invest our nations in programs that will help our economy grow. this week we'll pass the energy and water appropriations bill and start the very important agricultural appropriations bill. both of these bills are important. the energy and water appropriations bill will help

develop safe, homegrown energy sources that reduce our reliance on oil. the agriculture appropriations bill which invests significantly in nutrition programs, food and drug safety, international food aid is important. we also need to keep existing successful programs alive so they can continue to succeed. these include highway trust fund, unemployment trust fund, federal housing authority, and the benefits for the postal service. all these we need to take care of before we leave here. we're not look to expand a single one of the programs i just talked about. we merely must keep them running. we'll also revisit the travel promotion act, a solid, important, bipartisan bill that will create tens of thousands of new jobs, cut our deficit by almost half a billion and help our economy recover. it will confirm president presit obama's outstanding nominee for

the supreme court, sonia sotomayor. with the cooperation of both the democrats and republicans, and with the commitment to crafting productive policy, we can finish this work and finish this work period strongly. and i'm confident that we will. the presiding officer: under the previous order, leadership is reserved. there will be a period of morning business until 3:00 p.m. with senators permitted to speak up to 10 minutes each. the presidin mr. reid: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

mr. kyl: mr. chairman, i ask unanimous consent that further proceedings your honor the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kyl: and that i be allowed to speak in morning business for up to 20 minutes. thank you, mr. president. what i'd like to talk about today is a suability that probably more than any -- a subject that probably more an any other is on the minds of any

other and probably the number-one item on the agenda of us in the house and senate, namely what we do about the escalating cost of the health care in america and the need for all americans to have access to coverage. those two questions are animate ago debate which has really captured the time of the house and senate and as we have found more and more and as i found out this weekend when i was back in my home state, the attention of our constituents. let me begin by saying i think that's a good thing. there was a question about whether or not the congress would actually pass legislation on the house floor or the senate floor before the beginning of the august recess. and most of us on this side of the aisle felt that it would be beneficial if we could go back home and take the month of august when we're supposed to be home visiting with our constituents to have some town hall meetings and the in other fora engage them in a

conversation about what they think the best ideas are because at the end of the day, legislation this important that's going to affect every single american needs to be well-understood by them and we need, as their representatives, to get their input on what they think is a good idea. the reality is that very few, if any, members of either the house or the senate have read the major bills yet, let alone be able to post them on the internet so the american people can see them or get them in some kind of hard copy for other people to understand, evaluate and then discuss them with the american people. anything this important cannot be done quickly. it's got to be done right. and the first principle is people need to understand what it is. i have found -- and i confess, first of all, i have not read the three house bills, nor have i read the "help" committee bill, the health, education,

labor, and pensions bill. i have read a great deal of what has come out of the finance committee but there is no bill put together in the finance committee yet. and the thing that strikes me is the complexity and degree of government takeover involved. i can't begin in the brief period of time that i have here to describe all of the different ways in which the government would take over the key decisions about health insurance and health care in america if these bills were to pass. they are replete with references to the most minute things about people's health that the government will then be taking over. there are major, major decisions being made here. we don't know the ramifications of them all. among other things, the cost. one thing we're learning is that ideas that members have about reducing coasts don't translate into actual cost reductions, because the congressional budget office, which is the entity that

we have charged with the obligation of telling us how much these things cost, has come back with estimates that are very low in terms of savings and very high in terms of cost to the point that, for example, in the main bill in the house of representatives, the deficit is increased by $240 billion. and in the bill that has come through the "help" committee in the senate, the deficit has increased by $600 billion. nor has the c.b.o. been able to find much savings. i think it was just last friday that they examined the latest idea to come from the white house, namely, to put a group in charge that used to be called medpac, but it would have a different name now. and they would be in charge of identifying what coverage for federal programs there was and how much would be reimbursed to the providers. and unless congress, both houses

affirmatively voted to reject those recommendations, they would automatically go into effect. well, apart from the obvious concerns about that, c.b.o. came back and said it will only save perhaps $2 billion over ten years, which is a drop in the bucket when given the over $1 trillion cost of the legislation in the house. and when it's fully implemented, $2 trillion cost to the senate bill. so i mention this simply to point out the order of magnitude issue that we have facing up here. a hugely complex subject, huge amounts of money to be spent, big increases in the deficit, lots of new taxes proposed to help pay for it, and ramifications that will affect all of us in terms of the health care that we are entitled to receive. because of the amount of government involvement in both

what insurance can and cannot cover as well as what the government programs like medicare can and cannot cover, every american will be affected in terms of the health care that our physician says that our family or we need, but which the government says we -- not necessarily can we receive from our physician. in other words, putting the government in between the patient and the physician. that will result in delay and denial of care, outright rationing of health care. and this is something that's also of concern to the american people. when we take $500 billion and propose -- in proposed cuts out of medicare, at the same time we're adding a brand-new group of baby-boom generation retirees, there can be only one result: a cut in health care for seniors.

so seniors also have a right to be concerned. young people have a right to be concerned when we say that in order to reduce the cost of insurance for the sickest people, we're going to put everybody in the same pool basically, and they will all get the same basic insurance premium or at least within a dictated range. the sticker shock for younger people in america is going to be incredible. they're going to see their premiums increase. so, for many people the cost of health care is not going to go down. it's going to go up. and very few people believe that we can actually reduce the cost of something by putting the government in charge of it. the final thing that people are really concerned about after the cost of it, the increase in deficits, the increased taxes to pay for it, the fact that it will result in delay and denial of care, is the fact that it will not enable people to keep what they have. this is one of the reasons that the president has said so many times if you like your

insurance, you get to keep it. mr. president, the president is wrong when he says that. he hasn't read the bills. and on this, i'll take just a little bit of time here because he is wrong on two counts. first of all, the statement comes with significant conditions. and, second, it comes with an spraoeurgs date. there are two primary -- expireation date. there are two primary reasons why it is not true that if you like your insurance you can keep it. according to a fox news survey, # 1% of -- 91% of americans say they have health insurance. 84% of them rate their insurance as either good or excellent. this is why the president makes the comment if you like it, you get to keep it because most americans have it and they like it and want to keep it, and they don't want to sacrifice theirs to satisfy some of the problems of our system.

but the promise, as i said, is not true. first of all, what the president and our democratic colleagues want is what they call a public option. it's a government-run insurance company. to compete with other insurance companies. now, to the extent that a lot of americans don't particularly like insurance companies -- and i must confess there are some things that insurance companies do that i don't like -- it's easy to put them out there as a target and say, as the president has said, we need somebody to keep them honest. well, let's examine that for a moment. do we need to have a government-run business in every business in america in order to keep the privately run businesses honest? in the first place, the health insurance industry is the most regulated -- or one of the most regulated industries in america. every state regulates health care, or the health insurance that is issued in their state. they don't need to be kept honest by a competitor from the government.

in the second place, having the regulator, the government, also be ao -- a competitor has its object kwrus limitations. it won't be long before the other competitors are put out of business. i think most people who look at this say that's exactly what will hafplt it also represents a point of view that i find very troubling. i know that the government has taken over our biggest automobile manufacturers. it has gotten into the business of insurance, other insurance. it has gotten into the business of banking. it's gotten into the business of student loans. in fact, it now has a monopoly in that. but i can't believe that the american people want there to be a government business to compete with private businesses in other elements of our economy. that is socialism, and i don't think the administration really wants to do that. certainly the american people don't want to. so why would you have a government competitor in the private market?

for one reason only. and most people who are honest about this acknowledge that it's in order to have the government take over health care. it's called single-payer. there's a group in america that wants single-payer very bad hreufplt members of congress -- badly. members of congress said we can't get there in one giant step. it's going to take two steps. first we'll create a powerful government-run insurance company to compete with private business and put them out of business, and then we'll have one insurance company for all america. it will be a government company and talent won't be any private companies at least to speak of. it is a two-step process. that is the agenda of those who want a government-run insurance company. there is no other reason to have one. wewe don't need one more competitor. they sell thousands of different kinds of insurance policies. we don't need one more

competitor. honesty is not the issue. you've got a highly-regulated industry by the states and by the federal government. the only reason to have it is to put the private companies out of the business. lewin and associates, which is a highly respected, nonpartisan health care think tank says that within a couple of years you'll have 119 million people on the government-run insurance plan. 88 million of which were previously insured by private business. in other words, 88 million people will lose their coverage because it's much cheaper to have the government-run plan take care of them than for their employer to continue to do so. and as much as their employer likes the employees, if it is substantially cheaper to provide health care to them by paying the fine that the bills have -- $750 per employee, 8% of the

payroll tax. there are different fines in here. but it's still cheaper for the business to pay the fine than it is to pay the health care that they're currently providing. so, 88 million people, sorry, even if you like your health care, you don't get to keep it, according to lewin and associates. and i think their estimates is, if anything, conservative. there is a second reason why if you like your insurance, you're not going to be able to keep it. those who are not insured by larger businesses, the ones i've just been talking about, but by small businesses or are self-insured, there is an expiration date on this promise. after five years you don't get to keep it and probably sooner than that. because if there's a change on your policy or if the insurance company enrolls anybody else in it, then automatically it loses its protected or grandfathered status and is now under the regulatory regime that's established by these bills. and that regulatory regime will

totally change what that insurance coverage is. they dictate what's covered, what isn't covered, what the premiums are, what the companies can make and a whole host of other things. so even though you may like your insurance, you're not going to get to keep it because no plan is static. that is to say it never enrolls any more people and never changes any of its terms. if either of those things happen on the house bill, you lose your insurance. it is not true if you like your insurance, you get to keep it. and that's the final reason people are concerned. they are concerned about the huge cost of this $1 trillion, $2 trillion. they're concerned about the deficit, the increase in the deficit, even with more tax increases. these numbers are not mine. these are from the congressional budget office, nonpartisan, which is in business to tell us how much these things cost. so these are facts, not opinions. it is my opinion that based upon the language of these bills, we will lose the ability to

determine with our doctor what health care we get. and, secondly, even if you like your health insurance, you're not going to be able to keep it for the reasons i just mentioned. mr. president, may i just inquire how much time is remaining? the presiding officer: 5 minutes, 40 seconds. mr. kyl: thank you very much. the american people are becoming concerned about this as well. the more they hear about it, the more they don't like what they're hearing. i really resent those who say we have to do this quickly or it might not happen at all. it's a lot like the stimulus. we were told we had to do it quickly. nobody read that bill. it was over 1,000 pages, and it had a lot of stinkers in it. it had pork barrel spending. it made a lot of promises it couldn't keep. going to cap unemployment at 8%. it is on its way to 10%. it hasn't created the jobs and

it is not going to and it is going to cost us over $1 trillion. fooled once, maybe it's your fault. fooled twice, it's my fault. the american people say they're aren't going to be fooled twice. we're going to read it. we want you, the senators and representatives to read it. when you do, you'll find a lot of things in there you're surprised about and you don't like. the american people are beginning to answer polling questions on this and i wanted to share some of the data. a majority, this is from the fox poll i cited earlier, say slow it down. we'd rather have it slowed down and done right than done quickly. they're afraid it will raise taxes and cost. by 2-1 they believe it will affect the care they currently receive. by the way, they're right. 91% have insurance. 84% rate it as good or excellent. 53% according to a russ must is en poll. these polls are recent.

the ras is -- the rasmussen poll is last week. they want us to deal with the deficit first. that is another one of the things the polls saeufplt on this idea of a p-b plan, they owe -- this idea of a public plan, they oppose it 36-5. the president's job peformance has gone under 50%. people disapprove rather than approve 51%-49%. if he keeps pushing things like this, that approval rate will continue to decline. what have some people said about these bills. stph* represents at the mayo clinic say it won't create affordable care for patients. it will increase costs. the congressional budget office, in looking at the house bill said it won't reduce the

trajectory of federal health care spending. it will increase the budget deficit by $239 billion. incidentally, that assumes that taxes will be raised by the amount of $583 billion. incidentally, if anyone wants to check what i said about if you like your insurance, you get to keep it, check the university of pennsylvania an tphepbburg public policy web site. they have a web site called factcheck.org. this is an nonpartisan organization. they contradict the fact, the notion that if you like your insurance, you get to keep it. the last thing i want to say today is this: it's not enough for us to say what is wrong with the bills that are before us. there are a lot of great ideas that republicans an democrats have put forth that aren't in these bills and, unfortunately, a lot of amendments were offered in the "help" committee, for example, to try inject some of

these republican ideas into the bill and they were all defeated, every one of them. in fact, when he was a senator, president obama voted against several of these ideas. let me give you a little flavor of what some of these ideas are. to illustrate the fact that there a ton of good -- a ton of good ideas on how to access health care and it doesn't require us to scrap the subpoena that we have -- the system that we have now and have a huge government regulation an huge government takeover of health care that results in huge expenses and dictating what care we can get and can't there are solutions that go right to the specific problem. for example, you never hear the president talk about medical malpractice reform, some call it jackpot justice. there are a lot of things out there because of what physicians have to practice, we could save

over $100 billion a year, if we had some modest reforms in the lawsuit liability area. two very prominent arizona physicians were in my office this morning. and both of them talked at length about the specific situation that require the practice of defensive medicine because of the fact that maybe one out of 10,000 people who come before them may have something go wrong, a lawsuit's filed. they have to, therefore, go to excess lengths to protect themselves by ordering all kinds of tests, calling in specialists, and doing other things that cost a lot of money. not because they are necessarily need or provide better cakes but simply to protect -- better care, but simply to protect against the lawsuit. annual president obamaups o of $200,000 is -- annual premiums of $200,000 is not

uncommon. the president doesn't even mention liability reform. let's start with that. the interstate sale of insurance. this is a great idea. why do they always vote it down? because if you actually let insurance in the health field be sold like home insurance, liability insurance, car insurance, you can buy a state farm car insurance policy in virtually every state and it doesn't matter where you move to, you're still covered. why can't you do that with health care? they don't want you to do it with health care because they want the government to control it instead of allowing the private companies to sell it around the country. if they could do that, they could reduce premiums and provide greater access. it is one of the bills that the president voted against. why not let small business compete the way big business does? basically you allow all of the small businesses in your town and the rotary club and whoever

to associate together to create a bigger risk pool. if you're a small business owner and you have 30 employees and one gets really sick, your premiums will skyrocket the next year. by making a 3,000 risk pool rather than 30rbgs your premiums come -- 30, your premiums go down. greater port ability by giving individuals greater tax deductions. the president voted against that in the senate. expanding savings account to save the money -- use the money to buy health insurance to pay the president obamaups. again, the president voted against -- again, the president voted against that when he was in the senate. they were voted down in these bills. here's another one. require insurance company to share the claims data. one big business told me they couldn't compete their business and get a lower cost because

their health care insurer wouldn't give them the claims data. that ought to belong to the company, not the insurer. we could make that requirement. and another thing, it is the last thing that i will mention. we need to encourage less first dollar coverage much our automobile insurance would be more expensive if it insisted that we have to cover every tire that we buy and every battery he we replace. with health insurance we may complain if there is a deductible of $50. it is very likely to have a deductible of $1,000 on an automobile. these are some of the comments i have about the reaction that my constituents are having to the bills that have been processed out there. the fact that they want to slow it down and look at it very carefully because they're concerned about the cost of it, the increase in the federal deficit. the increased taxes that will

result, the government takeover, the net result will be that our health care will be rationed. we'll have delay and denial of care and we won't be able to keep the insurance that most of us have and like of the those are legitimate concerns. and they shouldn't be answered by simply saying, well, we have to hurry up and get this done. no, we don't. we have to let the american people evaluate it and have them tell us what they want to be done. they have spoken, as i said, in some of the polling. it is important, therefore, if we priech our duties the -- approach our duties the way that we're supposed to here, by carefully considering what our constituents want, asking whether we can solve some of the specific problems with, for example, some of the good ideas, that are all good republican ideas, rather than throwing out the baby with the bathwater. tossing over what we know works for most people most of the time just because it doesn't work for

everybody all the time in exchange for a government takeover. it is a bad bargain. i urge my colleagues in the last week or two that we have here before the august recess to start planning for opportunities to visit with constituents over the august recess. get the information together so we can present it to them and they can tell us what they think about all of these ideas. i suspect at the end of the day, they will tell us they don't want a government take over. just fix what needs to be fixed and leave the rest of it that works alone. thank you, mr. president. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. a senator: mr. president, first, let me say that the points that were made by my friend from arizona, are very significant and he really saved the best for the last. we hear so many people saying, well, the republican party doesn't have any answers. there are real reforms out there that we have tried and they have worked. the health savings accounts, we tried that on a pilot project

basis. it was tremendously successful. health insurance or health coverage and health services are the only thing in this country that there's no individual decision that could be made that would encourage us to save what we're spending. there's no other product or service that is out there that doesn't have some kind of a -- of a competition. i think it's only natural. if i have an insurance policy that covers all of these things and you find out that you -- you have a problem rather than to worry about what it's going to cost, what kind of treatment to get, just go out and get it all. it doesn't cost you anything. that's one of the problems you have. the health savings accounts have been very successful. fact that we have none of this stuff in this discussion that they've had on the socializing medicine in america have they talked about the -- the medical liability.

-- malpractice. i think the senator from arizona did a good idea talking about the amounts. imagine a doctor having to pay $200,000 up front b bore he can do anything in an entire year. who pace it? it's not the doctor -- pace it? it's not the interest. it's everybody -- it's not the doctor it's everybody he's. we have a system right now that has worked very well. let me inquire of the president, are we in morning business now? the presiding officer: yes. mr. inhofe: i ask to be recognized for such time as i shall consume. that's not the reason -- i have three sub jebts that i -- subjects that i think we need to talk about during the august recess. the senator from arizona has touched on the health care issue that's out there. and i know this. i don't think that arizona or virginia are all that different than my state of oklahoma. that's all people talk about when i go back. they want to know, are we really

going to do this? are we really going to have a government bureaucrat standing between me and my health provider. those are huge issues that i never thought we would deal with in this country. but we are. what i would like, though, to pursue -- i get very upset when i hear people saying on the other side of the aisle, well, we've got to do something to stop our dependency on the middle east for our ability to run this machine called america. here's a group of people that they don't want to drill, they don't want gas, they don't want nuclear, they don't want coal, they don't want -- all of these things. if you don't want all of those, how do you keep the machine going? the answer is you can't. we look wristfully at the day that will -- wistfully at the day when one day solar or renewables will take care of all of our needs. that is 40 or 50 years from now. in the mean time we have to produce the energy to run this

insurance called america. and one of the things that's a little bit technical and -- but i think it's -- since it's looming out there, it's something that needs to be talked about and, of course, i'm very sensitive to this issue being from oklahoma. that is an oil state we produce oil. i looked at one of our systems that we used that is -- is used to get the most oil and gas out of a well. and at this point i would yield for the leader and then i will continue my discussion. the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: i want to thank my friend from oklahoma. i'll be brief. i know this interrupts his remarks. i appreciate the opportunity to work in my comments. thank you so much. mr. president, the american people do, indeed, want health care reform. and they want us to take the time we need to get it right.

as i've said repeatedly and as an increasing number of senators and congressmen from both sides of the aisle are also now saying the last thing americans want is for congress to rush through a flawed bill that would make our health care system even worse so politicians can have something to brag about. the -- the republicans and some democrats now acknowledge that getting health care right is more important than rushing through some slip shod plan that no one has looked at and calling it reform. last week the president said he wants to get health care reform right and that the most important thing is that members of congress continue to work together on the difficult issues in this debate. and one senior democrat said last week -- quote -- "it's better to get a product based on quality and thoughtfulness than just trying to get something

through." i absolutely agree and so do all republicans. we're encouraged to hear our friends on the other side acknowledge that health care reform is too big, too important, and too personal an issue to rush. in the coming weeks congress should work to achieve real reforms that actually address the problems in our health care system without tampering with things that americans around the world like about our health care system and can no longer find in their own countries. the american people want health care that is more affordable and easier to obtain. what they don't want is a government takeover of health care that costs trillions of dollars, adds to 0 our unsustainable national debt, forces them off of health insurance they already have, leaves them paying more for worse care than they now receive and leads to the same kind of denial, delay and rationing of care that we see in other

countries. one thing democrats and republicans should be able to work together on and practical ideas the american people support such as reforming malpractice law and getting rid of junk lawsuits against doctors and hospitals, promoting wellness and prevention programs that encourage people to make healthy choices like quitting smoking and fighting obesity. encouraging more robust competition in the private insurance market. addressing the needs of small business through ideas that won't kill jobs in the middle of a recession. and leveling the playing field when it comes to taxes. right now, for example, if your employer offers health insurance, he gets a tax benefit for providing it. if he doesn't and you have to buy it yourself, you don't get the same benefit that the employer does. in my view that isn't fair. we should change it and make it fair. these are commonsense ideas that will enable republicans and the increasingly vocal block of

skeptical democrats to meet in the middle on a reform that all of us want. and that all americans could embrace. the president has already acknowledged that both democratic bills working their way through congress aren't where they need to be. in fact, by the president's own standard that any health care reform must not increase the national debt and must reduce long-term health care costs, he wouldn't even be able to sign either of these bills we've seen so far. according to the director of the congressional budget office, both bills would lead to an increase in ove in overall heale costs. and just this weekend, c.b.o. says there's a high probability that one of the administration's central proposals for reducing long-term costs wouldn't lead to any savings in the near future and would generate only modest savings in the future. moreover, even if this proposal did generate any savings, they would likely be dwarfed by the new spending and deficits in the

democratic bills we've seen. it's like charging a new cadillac to the family credit card and getting excited about saving a few dollars on the cupholder. on top of that, the c.b.o. says that both bills would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt. simply put, these bill are moving in the wrong direction and would make the problems in our health care system even worse than they are today. so it's clear that we need to hit the restart button and begin working on real reform that would address the problems in our health care system. americans want the two parties to work together on something as important and as personal as health care reform. embracing the ideas i've mentioned and finding responsible ways to pay for reform are a really good place to start. mr. president, i yield the floor and thank again my colleague from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the

senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: first of all, i -- i thank the minority leader for his comments. they said before he came in that there's no issue that's more meaningful to our people in oklahoma than health care. and the route that we're going now, i think there's an awareness. if you look at the polling data that was given by the senator from arizona, people are now aware that this is not the way we should go. and we do have good ideas on this side of the aisle in terms of health saving accounts, medical malpractice, small business, getting together and resolving this problem. mr. president, the surprise to a lot of people is what we can do in the oil and gas business when we're concerned right now about the -- the problem that we have, our dependence upon foreign countries for our ability to run this machine called america. that we actually could resolve that problem. i mean, we could produce enough oil and gas and all the other resources that i mentioned

earlier so that we wouldn't have to be dependent upon the federal -- upon the middle east for anything. now, increasin increase attentin given to haw derail i can fracturing -- hydraulic fracturing, a key production that has been aiding the u.s. in oil and gas in more than a million wells and aids in production for over 35 million wells a year. hydraulic fracturing is a system that forces water down into the system to release oil and gas coming up. in fact, there are two things right now that open up our potential. one is horizontal drilling and the other is hydraulic fracturing. now, it's a 60-year-old technique. it's been responsible for 7 billion barrels of oil and 700 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. the national petroleum council reports that 60% to 0% of all wells in -- 60% to 0% of all wells in the next ten years -- now, most of these are gas wells -- in the next ten years will require

hydraulic fracturing to remain productive and profitable. the first use of hydraulic fracturing was near duncan, oklahoma, in my state, oklahoma, that was way back in 149. since that time, companies such as oklahoma's devon and cheese peek have performed -- have perfected the practice. very simply, it is the temporary injection of mostly water with sand, nigh nitrogen, carbon dioe and other additives to fracture and prop open the ground formations to improve the flow of oil and gas through the rock fors and increase oil -- rock forock pores. we're really talking about putting in the water and sand that would already there. hydraulic fracturing is used for both oil and gas production but i'd like to focus mostly on natural gas. i have kind of the good news and the bad news but first let me tell you the good news. the potential gas committee at

the colorado school of mines reported in june that the united states has one -- it's kind of hard to talk about figures like this. it's 1,836 trillion cubic feet or 1.8 qua expwawd quad rillionf recoverable natural gas. this is the highest total ever reported by this organization in the last 44 years. when the united states department of energy's proven reserves are added to the total, the u.s. future gas -- natural gas supply is over 2,000 trillion cubic feet. at today's rate of use, that's enough natural gas to meet demand for the next 100 years. only 1 trillion kook i can feet of natural -- cubic feet of natural gas can heat 15 million homes for a year or fuel 12 million natural gas-powered vehicles for a year.

t. boone picickens is often quod in this chamber. he characterized the reserves this way. 2 quadrillion feet of gas are equivalent to saudi arabia's total petroleum reserves. i guess what we're saying is people complain that we are buying, importing from the middle east oil and gas and then they find out that we have it all right here. we don't have to do that. if the argument there is, well, we don't want to use oil and gas because we think it pollutes, which it doesn't, but if that's their argument, then why are we willing to import it from saudi arabia and other countries in the middle east? we can produce it right here in the united states. much of the increases noted in the new report comes from estimates of shale gas found in formations throughout the united states. in fact, shale gas accounts for a third of america's total gas reserves. again, we're talking about natural gas, very low in fossil fuels, something that burns very cleanly, very inexpensive and

certainly, as you can see by this chart, very abundant, the united states department of energy reports that by 2011, most new reserves growth will come from nonconventional shale gas reservoirs. the american petroleum institute forecasts that unconventional gas production, such as that from coalbed methane, or c.b.m., and shale will increase from 42% of the total u.s. gas production to 64% in 2020. however, shale resources are largely only economically and technologically available due to chai hydraulic fracturing. that technique of forcing the -- the -- the gas out of the ground. the good news does not only involve oil and gas reserves, it all means good news for jobs. for example, the 10,000 wells producing in the 14-county north texas barnett shale -- the barnett shale is a

characteristic in the northern part of texas -- in 14 counties, they're responsible for 110,000 jobs, $4.5 billion in royalty payments. that's the people who own the land, that's a property rights issue, and they account for 8% of the personal income, 9% of employment, and over $10 billion in increased economic activity in north texas. iin haynesville shale in louisiana, it's created 32,000 jobs, $2.4 billion in business sales, $3.9 billion in salaries, $3.2 billion in royalty payments. again, this is the economy that we're talking about. so we're talking about two separate issues, one is making us independent and the other is to do something for the economy. and this happens at the same time. people look at these things and they say, why in the world is it that the democrats in this chamber won't allow us to drill offshore, won't allow to get into the shale production in the western united states and yet they complain about the fact that we are importing our oil and gas from -- from the middle

east. the ipaa reports that the marcellius shale in pennsylvania and new york contains 516 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which is enough to satisfy the u.s. demand for more than 35 years. just in two states, pennsylvania and new york. enough to satisfy our needs for the next 35 years. a 2008 report on the marcellius shale attributes production in the marcellius to two key methods, and one is hydraulic fracturing. again, it's the system they use to make sure that we are able to retrieve and to produce this shale. oil and gas development employs more than 26,000 and continued development in the marcellius shale is forecast to create over 100,000 jobs. these jobs pay more than $20,000 above the average annual salary in pennsylvania. so there you have it. new york and pennsylvania, two states where they do have problems, economic problems, and

this is a way to produce 100,000 new jobs, and those jobs average $20,000 a year more than the average job in pennsylvania and in new york. the wharton school of business and the university of arkansas recently completed an economic forecast of the fayetteville shale. it estimates a business and capital investment in the area of $22 billion, the creation of 11,000 jobs, the -- and new state revenues of more than $2 billion by 2012. now, we're talking about in that case, just in the state of arkansas. in my state of oklahoma, we have the woodford shale, which is pictured here and extends through southwest -- southwest oklahoma. in oklahoma, exploration for natural gas accounts for 80% of the state's energy production and over 50,000 people are directly employed by the oil and gas industry. one of seven jobs in oklahoma is directly or indirectly supported

by the crude oil and natural gas industry because we rank in the nation for natural gas production and fifth in crude oil. oklahoma received $1.3 billion in taxes directly from oil and gas production in 2009. in fact, oil and gas accounts for 25% of all taxes paid in our -- in my state of oklahoma. these reserves mean domestic energy production and jobs, but now i have bad news. another reason hydraulic fracturing has received increasing steanings because some members -- attention is because some members of congress want to subject it to new federal regulation; specifically, the safe drinking water act, by claiming the practice endangers drinking water sources. this congress, house members from colorado and new york and senate members from pennsylvania and new york have introduced legislation imposing new federal regulations. some of these members claim that

allowing the practice is a loophole in the federal law in that it's free of regulation. last congress, at a house hearing, the current chairman of the house energy and commerce committee claimed about hydraulic fracturing, he said -- quote -- "oil and gas companies can pump hundreds of thousands of gallons of fluid containing any number of toxic chemicals into sources of drinking water with little or no accountability." mr. president, this is completely false. in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. as the former chair and current rank member of the senate -- ranking member of the senate environment and public works committee, i have a long history of working on environmental and energy issues, and i can tell you, new federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing would be a disaster. the safe drink water act was enacted -- the safe drinking water act was enacted in 1974. it was enacted to establish drinking water standards and to control permanent disposal of waste by underground injection. by 1974, hydraulic fracturing

had been in commercial operation for 25 years. this law was not designed nor intended to regulate the practice and the legislative history demands that. in 1974, the conference report states that none of the acts underground injection provisions are to -- quote -- "needlessly interfere with oil and gas production." that was in the flaw 1974. and -- law in 1974. and in 1980, the amendments were probably the most significant until 2005 for clarifying the application for oil and gas operations. the 1980 amendments created a new section, that was section 1425, to allow states to regulate underground injection from two types oil and gas operations known as injection wells and disposal wells. however, given the chance to additionally address hydraulic fracturing, congress declined. in 2005 in the energy bill,

congress specifically clarified the act as not -- is not intended to apply to hydraulic fracturing. so everything all the way up from -- from 1950 all the way up to the present time, was saying that the -- the act was not intended to apply to hydraulic fracturing. there are a myriad of federal statutes, such as the federal workplace rules, the emergency planning and community right-to-know act, the toxic substances control act, among others which regulate the storage and disposal and transporting, handling and reporting of chemical use. federal law requires disclosure of any release to the environment. those statutes overlay state laws which also include extensive rules permitting oil and gas drilling and production. no state has been required to regulate hydraulic fracturing under the safe drinking water act with the exception of alabama. the 11 teth circuit court in

alabama, the 11th circuit court issued an opinion in 1997 ignoring legislative history. oil and gas industry practices and the clean text of the law, finding that alabama should subject hydraulic fracturing in coal bed methane production to the safe drinking water act. however, hydraulic fracturing has not been subjected to the safe drinking water act. it is not correctly governed by the act. president obama's energy czar agrees with me. in 1995 as e.p.a. administrator -- during the clinton administration -- carol browner wrote in response to litigation that federal regulation is not necessary for hydraulic fracturing. she correctly made the point that the practice was closely regulated by the states and e.p.a. is not legally required to regulate hydraulic fracturing. the most important thing she further wrote that "there is no

evidence that the hydraulic fracturing at issue has resulted in any contamination or endangerment of underground sources of drinking water." this is carol browner, the current energy czar, serving in the white house. following the 1997 litigation in alabama, i introduced legislation in 1999 with senator sessions and again in 2005, clarifying that hydraulic fracturing is not correctly regulated by this act. in march of 2002, the senate spoke on this issue voting 78-21 on senator bingaman's amendment which i cosponsored to study "the known and potential affects on underground drinking sources of hydraulic fracturing." that amendment ultimately did not become law. but in june of 2004, the u.s. environment protection acknowledge gave us the answer with the lengthy report issued which e.p.a. began in late 2000

to determine if underground drinking water sources have been or are endangered from the use of hydraulic fracturing from coal bed methane production. the e.p.a. study of coal bed methane wells is particularly important because the c.b.m. wells are shallower and closer to the underground drinking water sources than other conventional or unconventional oil and gas production. in other words the other production is down much deeper than that used, which uses the technique of hydraulic fracturing. these are deep wells. most fractured wells, they are hundreds of thousands of feet deep. in this 2004 report, e.p.a. conducted a review of all 11 major coal basins across the country and of 200 peer reviewed publications reviewing 105 comments in the federal register and required information from

500 local and county agencies in states where c.b.m. production occurs and interviewed 50 local and state government agencies, industry representatives and 40 citizens groups which allege drinking water contamination from high drol unanimous consent fracturing. after completing the four-year study, four year study, the e.p.a., concluded that "the injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into c.b.m. wells poses little or no threat to underground sources of drinking water and does not justify additional study at this time." e.p.a. planned to study contamination in a two-phase study and following the findings the e.p.a. did not initiate the second face study and it was so strong they didn't do the next study. this is very strong statement: "in fact, in high drol unanimous consent fracturings, 60 year history there has not been a single documentation of any kind

of contamination. mr. president, that's 60 years as early as 1998 the groundwater protection council conducted the first survey of the 25 states in which hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas occurs for any complaints of underground contamination. the survey reported no instance of contamination from the practice in 2002 and the iogcc representing 37 states conducting their own survey making the same findings. on june 12, the oklahoma corporation commission addressed the issue of hydraulic fracturing again in correspondence with these 37 states and the corporation commission wrote that it has been regulating oil and gas drilling and production for 90 years which has included tens of thousands of hydraulic fracturing operations over the past 60 years. the commission wrote "you ask whether there has been a

verified instance of harm to groundwater in our state from the practice of hydraulic fracturing. the answer is no." states have been regulated oil and gas exploration and production for years. the department of energy and groundwater protection council release add report titled "state oil and natural gas regulation designed to protect water resources," and it describes state regulations which require multiple barriers, casings, and says meant reenforcement for protection. fracturing involves removing thousands of gallons of water from the well which includes the fracturing fluids. when the fluids are returned to the surface, regulations require that they are treated, stored, and isolated from groundwater zones and the processes work to significantly reduce, risk -- reduce risk to the groundwater. the d.o.e. and groundwater

protection group report ultimately concluded that federal regulations on fracturing would be "costly, due politickivandwould be ineffectie they would be far removed from field operations." the report also concluded that -- and i quote -that-- and i quy alternative to fracturing in reservoirs with low permeability is to drill more wells." if we cannot get the wells to produce shale you have to produce a lot of shale mirroring the e.p.a.'s 2004 report of high drol unanimous consent fracturing and c.m.b. production and e.p.a. noted that fracturing involves the removing of thousands of gallons of groundwater. this removal includes the fracturing fluids and the

possibility that fracturing chemicals affect groundwater. e.p.a. also concluded that the rock where hydraulic fracturing is used is a barrier to any remnant of fracturing chemicals moving out of the rock formation as has been proven. in 1980 amendments to the safe water drinking act congress acknowledged "32 states that regulate underground injection related to production of oil and gas believe they have programs already in place to meet the requirements of this act and states should be able to continue the programs with additional federal requirements." now, we need to recognize in considering additional federal regulation we are experimenting with disaster. in january the d.o.e. released a report by the advanced resources international which evaluated the economic and energy supply affects on oil and gas

exploration and production under a series of new regulatory scenarios. one scenario evaluated affects from new federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing according to the report, and the large effort costs for new unconventional gas wells would be from any new federal regulations on hydraulic fracturing. the report concludes "these costs would amount to an additional $100,000 per well the first year alone." you know who will pay for that and it will be passed on to us and the report includes that increasing federal regulations on hydraulic fracturing reduces unconventional gas production by 50% over the next 25 years. even more recently, the american petroleum institute released a report in june which only evaluated the effect of increased regulations and the effect of eliminating the practice of hydraulic fracturing altogether and the report

determined although duplicate regulations the number of oil and natural gas wells drops by 20% in five years if the hydraulic fracturing is eliminated new oil and gas wells drop by 79% and 45% less domestic production, a disaster to impose new federal regulations. they're talking about doing that now. they talked about it a few years ago. all reports have discouraged that from happening. i'm not alone in this opinion. colorado governor recognizes the value of practice and the denver business journal and the governor characterized the bill, governor ritter "imposing new regulations on hydraulic fracturing as a new and potentially intrusive regulatory program." a colorado newspaper reported a number of colorado counties have adopted resolutions against the pending federal bills and states are passing their own

resolutions opposing new federal regulation by hydraulic fracturing. for example, in march, the north dakota legislature passed a concurrent resolution, i say to the senator from north dakota, to not subject hydraulic fracturing to needless and new federal regulation. north dakota is home of the balkan shale where oil wells are reported to be producing thousands of barrels a day. mr. president, america has a tremendous natural gas reserves. the exploration and production of the reserves using hydraulic fracturing have been regulated by the states and conducted safely for 60 years. the oil and gas industry contributes billions in revenues each year and billions in salaries and royalty payments. the oil and gas industry employs six million in the united states. when the united states is approaching 10% unemployment and we want energy security, and independence from foreign energy, why would we want to go out of our way to restrict an

environmentally and economically sound means to extract our own resources? a means that has demonstrated effectively for the safety for 60 years. the oil potential in anwr would produce 10 billion barrels or 15 years' worth of imports from saudi arabia. the rand corporation has reported that the new potential production in just utah and colorado and wyoming would be around a trillion barrels of oil, three times saudi arabia's oil reserves and more oil than we are currently importing from the entire middle east but the democrats won't let us produce. we are currently the only country in the world that doesn't develop its own resources. in fact, the president's budget imposes $31 billion in new taxes on oil and gas development. we must not impose any new -- the presiding officer: morning business period is closed. mr. inhofe: let me finish this last sentence if it's all right. we must not impose new burdens.

this is a procedure that is necessary for us. to put ourselves in a situation where we become energy independent and i encourage all of my colleagues to look very carefully at the one thing that is going to give us that independence and that is this procedure called hydraulic fracturing. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order the senate will proceed to consideration of h.r. 3183, the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 3183, an act making appropriations for energy and water development and so forth and for other purposes. mr. dorgan: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. dorg mr. president, i calmr. doa substitute am. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: mr. dorgan proposes an amendment numbered 1813. mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent further reading be dispensed. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. dorgan: mr. president, i

ask unanimous consent barry gaffey, a detailee, have full access of floor privileges during the consideration of this bill. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: mr. president, this is the energy and water development appropriations subcommittee bill that i bring to the floor this week with my colleague, senator bennett, from utah. and i am chairman of the subcommittee. senator bennett is the ranking member. we have worked on the bill for some long while. on july 9, 2009, by a vote of 30-0, the committee recommended the bill, as amended, be reported to the senate. that is, the full appropriations committee has recommended this bill, on a bipartisan basis, without objection, 30-0. i want to thank both chairman inouye and vice chairman cochran for their support for this bill. i especially want to thank senator bennett for his work

with me in developing the legislation. let me, perhaps, as i begin, rather than end, thank the staff of the subcommittee scott omallia on the minority, doug clap and molly barakman and many staff on both side that have worked very hard putting legislation of this type together. it is not easy. i think working with limited resources at a time when we have relatively difficult circumstances to try to deal with the federal budget deficits and other issues, we've put a bill together that is, has garnered bipartisan support. the allocation for this bill is just under $34.3 billion. with scorekeeping adjustments it comes down to about $33.75 billion. and the total funding for our bill is 1.8% less than the

president's budget request and just 1.4% over the year 2009 regular energy and water bill. that means there is a very modest increase for the programs in this legislation. let me say generally this legislation deals with the energy programs across this country. and the water programs across the country. energy and water are very important to this country's long-term future t has to do with jobs and with the economic health of our country, having an adequate energy supply, dealing with the energy challenges we face of being overly dependent on foreign oil, also requiring us to do something about the issue of climate change. we are dealing with energy accounts in this bill that are very important for the country. and so we've tried to make judgments about them that we think move this country in the right direction. and try to make us less dependent on foreign sources of oil. and that means that we have in

this legislation actually expanded drilling, and the determination to try to find additional supply here in this country. fossil energy is going to continue to be used in the future. that means oil and natural gas and coal. but we are going to use them differently. this legislation includes opportunities to do a range of things that i believe will be in the country's best interest. working with senator bennett, we know that the legislation dealing with energy and water would command substantially greater resources. we have far more water projects under way in this country than we can possibly fund in the short term. i think we have something close to $60 billion of unfunded water projects. the corps of engineers and particularly the bureau of reclamation for especially western america are engaged in funding most of these projects. and then on the energy side, the

accounts dealing with efficiency and reliability in a wide range of n.r.c energy accounts -- fosl energy, renewable energy accounts -- all of those accounts understand and recognize that th that we we dot have unlimited funds. my colleague was speaking as i came to the chamber and i agree with most all of that which he described with respect to hydraulic fracturing. he's describing something that affecthataffects our ability toa domestic supply of energy. my colleague should know that we have had now from both the previous president and this president recommendations that we zero out the research and development in oil and gas development. i have restored the funding --

or my colleague and i have restored the funding for that. and one of the reasons we have done that is our country leads the world, for example, in unconventional and deep-well drilling. and we need to retain that advantage. we need to produce more here at home. we need to do it in the right way, but we have added the funding back, as i catted both the previous administration and this administration decided not to do any of the research and development funding in drilling. but the kind of description of the shale formations that senator inhofe talked about earlier, five and 10 years ago we couldn't drill there. that energy was not access to believe this country because we didn't have the technology and the capability. my colleague described the bakken shale in north dakota. let me describe why it is important to have the research and development funding.

the bakken shale is 10,000 feet underground. to drill for that 100-foot-thick seam, they have divided it into thirds. the top third, middle third and bottom third. they go down two miles with one drilling rig 10,000 feet down searching for the middle third of a seam of shale that is 100-foot schic thick. they go down two miles, a large curvetion and out two miles following the middle third of a seam 1 hundred of-foot thick called the bakken shaism i just asked the geological survey to do an assessment of what is recoverable in the bakken shale. they came back with their estimate after a two-year study and said there is 2.3 billion barrels of oil using today's technology. it is the largest assessment of

recoverable oil ever made in the history of our country sms that was last year. now, none of that was available a decade ago. it was there but it wasn't available to us. how do we get that oil? when they drill down with a drilling rig -- and it takes about 35 days to drill at that lig, dlairig, drill that hole, n they fracture it under high pressure -- hydraulic fracturing, they call it -- and then they tear down that rig and move it aways away and drill another hole another 35 days. the hydraulic fracturing allows that rock formation to be fractured. they pulling up oil in some cases 2,000 barrels a day. the key to that having done the research and development so we lead the world in the ability to do that kind of very sophisticated exploration, and i would put that funding in this bill and have always had it in this legislation, and that's

what's opened up this unbelievable opportunity, and the second half of it as my colleague described, is not something that we're doing in this bill, but the hydraulic fracturing and the ability to continue hydraulic fracturing and my colleague has said it correctly: decade after drktsd i thin decas found any evidence that there is any contamination with hydraulic fracturing. i am describe one small part of what senator bennett and i have done with respect to increasing our supply of domestic oil and gas. we also want to encourage the development of renewable energy. we have done a lot of things in this legislation to do that. we want to encourage the ability to use our most abundant resources such as coal, but we must use it differently. that means fur going to have a lower carbon future, you have to decarbonize the use of coal. so we need to make substantial

investments to be able to decarbonize the use of coal. i think we can do that. some say, let's give up on that. i say, let's find a way to use our most abundant source, by decarbonizing, to protect our planet. but we're doing a lot of things in this legislation that i think move this country in the right direction for a better and a more secure energy future. when i talk about energy and say that nearly 70% of our oil now comes from outside of our country, i think most people would look at that and say, well, that makes us vulnerable. that's a energy security issue, and national security issue. if god forbid, someday, some way, someone shuts off the supply of foreign oil to our country, this economy would be flat on its back. i think everyone -- the previous administration, this administration -- believes we must be less dependent on foreign energy.

the other thing that's important to understand is, although about 70% of our oil comes from outside of our country, nearly 70% of the oil is used in our transportation fleet. so we're doing things in this legislation that move us towards a different kind of transportation fleet, an electric-drive fleet, for example. if we're using 70% of our oil for transportation in this country, how do we make us less dependent on foreign oil? well, convert, move to something else. and, mr. president, we have funding in this legislation, and we had funding in the economic recovery program for battery technologies, for a whole series of things that help accelerate the movement towards an electronic transportation system. all of these things are things that we can do, and it's just a mast establishing public policy that encourages it. and public policy that is supportive of the direction that

we want to go. mr. president, i'm going to be describing in some detail some of the accounts. i've just talked about the energy piece of this. we have an office of electricity, fossil energy, energy efficiency and renewable energy, small little things that people don't think much about. energy efficiency -- almost everything we use these days -- a refrigerator, a dishwasher, air conditioner, all of the appliances -- are much, much, much more efficient than they've ever been. i carl some years ago -- i recall some years ago when i was pushing something called a seer-13 standard for air conditioners. you would have thought we were trying to bankrupt the country by insisting on a much higher standard for efficiency for air concerns. we've gotten to the seer-13 and

beyond now. we have pushed standards so when you put a new refrigerator in your kitchen these day, it uses so much less electricity because it is so much more efficient. now, i recognize someone told me, we're putting these unbelievably efficient refrigerators in kitchens and then they take the old refrigerator in the garage and store beer and sowed davment i recognize we need to get rid of those old refrigerators. but it is people's right to move it to the garage p. we are funding issues towards energy efficiency and the kind of things that develop standards and so on to make all of these things that we use every single day more efficient. very, very important. when we get up in the morning, we flick a switch and the light goes on. we -- those of us who are male, we turn on an electric raiser and never think much about what makes it go. we plug it into a wall.

we go down and put something in the toaster and the bread toasts because there's electricity. we put a key in the automobile and we drive off to work. and as dr. chu say, 2,000 years ago, normally when you go look for food someplace 2,000 years ago you'd drive one horse. you'd get on one horse and go look for something to eat. now, of course, we get in modern conveniences and take 240 horses to go to the 7-lecheeleven grocy store. but we are required now to be smarter and use energy in a different way. and what we have tried to do in a wide range of accounts -- and my colleague, senator bennett , and i, will begin describing some in between presentations. we are trying to change the way we use energy, develop a more

abundant supply of energy, change the way our vehicle fleet is powered, just a wide range of issues. one issue with respect to the transportation fleet is moving towards a hydrogen and fuel cell fiewvment i think a future beyond electric-drive. hydrogen is everywhere. it is ubiquitous. i think a hydrogen fuel cell future is something that our children and grandchildren will likely see realized and will be very important to this country. the administration, in its submission to the congress, decided that it would zero out 189 existing contracts on hydrogen fuel cell studies. we included the money again because we don't think that's wise to do. i mean, i agree that in the short term we're going to move towards an electric-drive transportation system. but i believe in the longer term we need to continue the research towards hydrogen and fuel cells and we dlawd money. now, let me turn -- and we

included that money. now, let me turn for aphor a moment -- i will come back to some energy things after senator bennett talks about this bill. i want to talk about water because this bill is about energy and water. as all of us know, water is the subject of great controversy. it is very important. almost everything that relates to development and jobs in this country relates to accessible water. we have issues dealing with the corps of engineers and the interior department and bureau of reclamation with respect to water, about storing water, not having enough water, about having too much water, about dredging in ports and channels so that commerce can occur on the water. we've got a lot of issues. and as i indicated earlier, we have far more water projects than we can possibly fund. senator bennett and i decided that we simply could not fund what are called "new starts" in

construction and investigations this year. we hope to do that next year, but we couldn't do it this year. we just didn't have the money. we think it is far better to continue funding and try to get completed some of the projects under way and then proceed with new starts next year. we had i think, 92 requests for new starts, new project starts. we have a $60 billion backlog and 92 requests, some of which came from the president, and we just felt like we could not do it. i wish we could, but we -- we just could not do it. i also want to make a point that there are in this legislation especially legislative directed proposals -- that is, the congress itself directs certain funding. now, the president sent us a

proposal particularly on water projects, but energy projects as well, especially water projects. he requested earmark funding -- in other words, the president says, all right. here's what i want you to have for water and here's my presidential earmarks on how i believe you should spend the water money. and some of them made a lot of sense. some of them did not. senator bennett and i also included in this legislation perhaps more than other legislations, legislative-directed funding on the amount of money we believe should go to projects. because, frankly, i think perhaps more than the corps of engineers, the bureau, office of management and budget or the white house, i think members of congress have a much better idea of what are the water needs and water issues in which projects will benefit their states and the state's commerce. and so this subcommittee, going

back many, many decades, has had a tradition of legislative-directed funding towards the highest priorities, particularly in water projects. that makes a lot of sense to me. i assume we may well have some folks come and decide that some of them don't have merit. i mean, that's important to discuss the individual programs or the individual legislative-directed amounts. we'll do that when necessary. but i did want to just say again we received a lot of recommendations from the president for earmarking the funding for various projects, and we've included most of those, many of those, and we've included some as well that were recommended by the members of congress on the projects in almost all cases that were already well underway. i have other things to discuss, but let me call at this point -- let me yield the floor because i know my colleague, senator bennett, would want to describe some of this bill as well.

let me close by saying it is a pleasure to work with senator bennett on these issues. these represent investments in our country. when you build water projects, when you invest in the energy future and do the kinds of things we're doing in this bill, this represents investments in the country's future that will provide very substantial dividends for the country in the long term. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. bennett: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. bennett: mr. president, i appreciate the remarks of my chairman, senator dorgan, and even more, i appreciate the hard work that he's put in and the level of cooperation between the two of us and between our two staffs is, as he has described it, this is a truly bipartisan effort aimed at trying to solve the problems that we face. and one demonstration of the fact is that we have in a bipartisan fashion come in a with a number significantly

below that which the president requested. if it had been a single partisan effort, i'm assuming that it would have been responsive entirely to the president's request. as senator dorgan has indicated, we have a number of member-directed items of spending. and when people say, where do you get the money for that, the answer is we have canceled the president's directed orders of spending. and i agree with senator dorgan that members in these areas are closer to the people, closer to the problems and understand them a little better than the folks downtown. now, i recommend passage of the bill to my colleagues and am delighted with the prospect that it's highly likely that this will be done prior to october 1, the start of the fiscal year. that is a goal that has not been achieved in decades. and it's a further tribute to the leadership of senator dorgan

that we're on that path. as i've said, mr. president, the bill provides $643 million below the president's request -- this is the number that senator dorgan cited, the $34.271 billion. but it is $776 million above current-year levels. one of the things we did that helped us come in below the president's request was focus on the fact that the stimulus package that passed earlier this year put a great deal of money into these accounts. we didn't want to ignore the fact that they had that money from the stimulus bill in coming up with our own figures. now, the committee, as senator dorgan has said, has said no new starts for the corps of

engineers. i repeat that and reemphasize that because many of the complaints that i think we're going to get on the floor about member-directed spending are for projects in the corps of engineers, and they will say, well, you are calling for earmarks -- to use the dreaded word "for this project and that project. because we have no new starts, every project we're calling for is an ongoing project, so that if we were to canceling it, it would undoubtedly ending up costing more money rather than would be saved if the earmark were to be struck down. in the bureau of reclamation we are $55 million below fy 2009 levels. the request is $55 million below fy 2009 levels. the committee provides an additional $110 million to the

bureau. and as senator dorgan has said, this is because of the tremendous backlog of underfunded projects. and let us take a sober lesson from what happens when we do not proceed with the proper maintenance in this area. in my own state of utah, a privately owned irrigation canal broke and flooded the community of logan, utah, and prapblgically in the process took the lives of two young children and their mother who were overwhelmed as a result of this. this is a reminder to us that we have a responsibility to keep this funding going because the human cost can be significant. these types of accidents are only avoidable if we're vigilant in maintaining the infrastructure and making the appropriate investments. now, with respect to the department of energy, the committee recommends $27.4 billion for the department of

energy, which is $1 billion below the president's request. again, a demonstration of the fact that we are attempting to be good stewards and that we are paying attention to the fact that the department of energy was already the beneficiary of over $45 billion in supplemental and stimulus funding in fy 2009. not all that will be spent in this fiscal year, so that that's a little bit of an overstatement of how much they will have to offset. but looking at the amount they had from the stimulus package, we felt we were appropriate in coming in $1 billion below the president's request. now, we do recommend an additional $100 million for nuclear power 2010 in order to complete this project. the bill restores $50 million funding for integrated university program and research and reactor facilities account that support nuclear engineering and research and training that was eliminated from the budget

request. i do that partly because i believe in it. i join with senator dorgan in doing it. and also, because in my new assignment, i'm taking the place of senator domenici, and he will come back and haunt us both if we're not appropriately supportive of nuclear power. his great work in that area is something that i think we should carry on. there are other issues that the senator from north dakota has already mentioned that i will not touch on as we go along, because i don't want to be redundant. we do provide an increase in funding for the office of science, $127 million over the current year levels. i think that's essential to sustain investment in the important scientific facilities that we have throughout the country. let's talk about cleanup. there are many members in the senate from states that support a strong environmental cleanup program, and the request

proposed reducing cleanup funding by over $200 million from current-year levels, well, we believe that the faster we can move on cleanup, the cheaper it willl be over the long term because contractors are out of work now, they're anxious to get back to work, and they will make low bids. and to take advantage of that situation, we recommend $350 million in additional funding for both defense and non-defense cleanups. again, there is such an activity going on in my state, and i know that moving ahead and having the funding available now will save us a significant amount long term. so funding has been added for cleanup activities at d.o.e. facilities located in south carolina, idaho, washington, new york, illinois, kentucky, and new mexico. and california. the committee's also restored

critical funding in our national security sites which was reduced in the president's budget request. an additional $83 million is added to the weapons account to invest in critical infrastructure and science facilities. now, mr. president, we are attempting to highlight what i consider to be the failure of this administration to address fully the spent nuclear fuel and defense waste inventory of this country. consistent with the president's request, a minimum level of funding has been provided to sustain the n.r.c. license review process of the yucca mountain project. and the secretary of energy has determined he will convene a blue-ribbon panel of advisors to recommend other disposal options. but while the administration is considering these options, ratepayers across the country are required to pay $800 million annually to the nuclear waste fund to address spent fuel solutions.

c.b.o. estimates that by the end of the year the unspent balance in this trust fund will be $23.8 billion. the committee has included language directing the secretary to conduct an evaluation of the sufficiency of the fund and suspend the annual collection from ratepayers until he's had his strategy to address the question of spent fuel inventory. another problem that has arisen that we have dealt with has to do with the funding of pensions. we provided the secretary the authority to transfer funding within the department to mitigate the impact to specific programs. the environmental cleanup mission has been hardest hit by pension shortfalls. the committee has not included any of the proposed budget gimmicks included in the request, and we have rejected a new tax on uranium fuel to pay for the cleanup. with that, mr. president, i

think i've covered the highlights of this. i'm sure there is more that the chairman will talk about. i will listen to what he has to say. if there's any pet project that i think needs to be highlighted that he misses, i will rise to my feet again. but i want to summarize that the committee has not included funding for new starts for either members of this body or for the president. the funding is dedicated to completion of ongoing projects. and we have reduced the amount of member-directed spending by 8% from previous years as we hear the complaints that some people have with respect to that process. we've worked hard to rebalance the administration's request to ensure that investment in water infrastructure is sufficient. we recognize that we could not accommodate all the needs across the country so we focused on the effort on ongoing projects and foregoing new starts.

i believe the budget strikes an appropriate balance, and i recommend its adoption to the senate. mr. inouye: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. mr. inouye: mr. president, today the senate begins consideration of the third appropriations bill for fiscal year 2010. the bill before the senate provides funding for the department of energy, the army corps of engineers, and for related agencies. the funding in the bill total $33.75 billion. this is nearly $650 million lower than the administration requested. as we begin our debate on this measure, i want to thank and urge my colleagues not to delay action on this measure. the senate will only be in session for two more weeks, mr. president, prior to the august recess. the appropriations committee has

reported seven bills which have already passed the house and are waiting senate action. we need to get this bill passed so that we can begin to move on other appropriations measures that are ready for consideration. passing appropriations bills and providing the funding essential to run our federal government is one of the most important duties of this congress. the senate needs to act expeditiously so that we can meet our constitutional responsibilities and provide for the general welfare and common defense. mr. president, all senators should have an interest in seeing that this bill is passed. it provides critical funding for our nation's waterways, for safeguarding our nuclear power industry, and for programs to improve energy usage,

conservation and discovery. i know very little controversy associated with this measure. i would ask my -- any member who is interested in amending this bill to come to the floor today to offer such amendments. mr. president, i'm extremely grateful to chairman dorgan and to vice chairman bennett for their hard work. the committee strongly endorsed the recommendations in this measure, and, mr. president, we passed the measure unanimously. i believe this bill deserves the support of all of my colleagues and i urge all members of the senates to work with the managers to obtain this quick passage. i thank you very much, sir. mr. dorgan: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: mr. president, a couple of additional points. number one, the administration's

budget to the congress did recommend an increase in the corps of engineers funding for water issues. and i think they should be complimented for that. that's a step forward. we've seen relatively flat and underfunded budgets for the corps of engineers in recent years, and i think it's encouraging. we added to it, of course. but i think the investment that is needed in the major water projects in this country is very, very important. so i appreciate the administration's decision to increase at long last the recommendations there. second, my colleague, senator bennett, mentioned yucca mountain. i suspect that will be mentioned more than once during this discussion in the next day or so. i want to say that we are going to see the building of some additional nuclear power plants in this country. and the reason is pretty obvious, that nuclear power

plants do not contribute co2, and, therefore, do not contribute to the warming of the planet. and we just are seeing additional activity, companies preparing for license applications that are in process right now. and senator bennett described the issue of yucca. i do want to make a point about that because i think it's important. i didn't come to the congress with a strong feeling about building additional nuclear power plants. but i have, with my colleague, increased funding for loan guarantees for nuclear power plants, because i come down to the side of doing everything and doing it the best that we can to try to address this country's energy challenges and they are very significant. and doing everything means building some additional nuclear power plants. this president, president obama barak obama -- barak obama,

campaigned against yucca. it is not a surprise that he would at this juncture take the position that yucca is not the permanent place for repository storage. i would say that the administration has recognized that not proceeding with yucca doesn't mean that you don't need an intellectual framework for nuclear waste. they have committed themselves to that. the development of an alternative framework to address the issue of waste. you have to do that, because in order to build plants, you have to establish what i believe is called waste confidence. so i'm convinced that the administration is doing the right thing in the sense that they said we don't want to go with yucca. but they're doing the right thing by saying, but, there has to be an alternative. we're committed to find that alternative and developing that alternative with the blue ribbon commission. i also want to mention our

national laboratories. this bill funds our national science laboratories as well as the weapons laboratories. and these laboratories, i believe, are the ground jewels of our country's research capability. we used to have the bell labs and we had laboratories that were world known, world class that didn't have anything comparable in the world. the bell labs, largely, don't exist at this point. so much of our capability in science and research and technology exists in these science labs that we fund in this bill. and i'm determined to find ways -- and we tried to this time -- to make certain that those best an brightest, ph.d.'s and scientists and engineers that are working on the future of tomorrow and our new technologies of tomorrow at our national laboratories have some feeling of security about their future. the last thing that we should want is to see the roller

coaster approach to jobs at our national laboratories and our science labs. we had a hearing some while ago in our subcommittee on the issue of -- how do we continue to use coal in our future? that leads to the question of carbon capture and sequestration. i held hearing in our subcommittee on carbon capture and beneficial use. someone in our laboratories, a woman from a national laboratory came and talked about what they're working on. frankly, it's breathtaking. we have this giant problem in using coal. but it is not an insurmountable problem. she talked about the work they're doing with respect to concentrated solar power to be used in a heat engine to take co2 on one side of the engine and water in on the other side of the engine, they fracture the molecules an through thermal

chemical reaction of some type that i don't understand they create methane gas from the air. well, i don't know exactly where all of this goes. i do know this: that deep in our laboratories, there are some of the brightest people working on these issues. and we will, i believe, solve some very vexing and challenging issues through research. and when i look at what we're doing in those areas, the issue, for example, of energy efficiency and renewable energy, the accounts, hydrogen, which i described, fuel-cell technology, biomass, solar energy, wind energy, geothermal, vehicle technology, building technology, industrial technology, just to same some. weatherization, state energy programs, advanced battery

manufacturing. all of these issues are issues that are investing in the country's future and that will no doubt -- no doubt in my mind unlock the mysteries of science to give us the capability to do things that we did not dream possible. and that opens up the opportunity to new forms and new sources of energy and will allow us to move away from this unbelievable dependence on foreign oil, allow us to move toward different constructs in efficiency of buildings, efficiency of appliances, new vehicles that are much, much mormore efficient. that solves a number of things, allowing us to produce more energy, more renewable energy, more fossil energy, but also allowing us to conserve more. we waste energy. i didn't mention in the area of electricity, the -- and it goes with conservation, the issue of smart-grid technology. and i think we will in the

future see substantial amounts of smart metering in homes that allow people who change very substantially the way they use electricity in their homes. now they have not had up until this point that capability, but the capability because of the research that's going on and the demonstration program, some of which we're funding will exist all across this country in the future. that will too invest in us on foreign oil. all of this plays a role in what we're trying to do. we have in the electric delivery and energy reliability portion of our bill, we have clean energy transmission an reliability, smart grid, i just described, cybersecurity for energy security systems. you know, a wide range of investments in all of these areas that i think will make this a better country and advance our energy and water interests. so, mr. president, let me make a point of order -- i yield the floor and make a point of order that a quorum is not present. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call: mr. dorgan: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: i ask consent that the quorum call be vacated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: mr. president, i wanted to rise to make a statement in honor of and memory of william proctor jones. william proctor jones died three weeks ago, july 7th, the day before we actually wrote this and marked this bill up in subcommittee. the reason i think it's appropriate to mention proctor jones today is he was a long, long time staff director of this subcommittee and his death is a great sorrow for our members and our staff who worked with him and his life was a great blessing for this country. he first came to work in the

united states senate in april of 1961. and he went to work for his home state senator then senator richard russell of georgia. proctor moved to the appropriations committee in 1970 and worked there 27 years until 199. and since -- 1997. since 1973, proctor served as a staff director of the energy and water subcommittee. so for decades, as this bill was brought to the floor of the senate, proctor jones was here sitting on the floor knowing that he played a significant role in putting together the investments this country was making in the critical areas of energy and water. proctor became a very close adviser and very close personal friend of senate bennett johnston. and for those of us who knew proctor and relied upon him, he he defined, i think, the very

best in what is the term public servant. he was tireless of his work. he was a master of the budget and the appropriations process and an expert in many policy fields that this subcommittee has dealt with over the years. and i think his service made this country a much better place, and i just wanted to make note that this country moves forward because a lot of people do a lot of good things in common cause to make judgments about what will strengthen america. it is often the case that those of us who are elected and who serve have our names on a piece of legislation or our names on a report of a subcommittee like this. but it is also often the case that some very, very key people who have devoted their life to public service played a major role in making good legislation happen. william proctor jones is one of those. and so today as we take up the piece of legislation from a

subcommittee that he spent decades working on i, today, want to hon hoist memory and thank he and his family in this time of sorrow, thank proctor jones for all of the work that he did for our country. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. bennett: i want to rise and associate myself and those of all of the minority members with the comments that the chairman has made about proctor jones. i didn't have the opportunity to work with him as closely as others have, but the legacy that the chairman has described is genuine and real and all of us in the senate, regardless of party, wish to acknowledge that. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. dorgan: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be dispensed. .the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. dorgan: the senator from utah and i would ask senators who have amendments to this piece of legislation if they would like to come now we would very much like to have amendments offered. certainly, the majority leader has wanted to bring appropriations bills to the floor of the senate. the chairman of the appropriations committee described appropriately a few minutes ago the respose of trying to get these appropriations bills completed. so working through the full committee we're winding our way through. now, senator reid is bringing them to the floor and i deeply appreciate his determination to do that. it's a marked departure from what we were able to do previously. we would like to get individual appropriations bills done, get them to conference, have a conference with the house, get

them to the president for signature. that's the way the congress is supposed to work. it's the way appropriations bills are supposed to be done. we have, we will have amendments, i'm sure, and i was just told someone offered something like -- or has prepared nearly 20 amendments and -- but, look, they ought to have that opportunity. and the past couple of years they didn't have that opportunity. and that's what senator reid is doing now, to say, bring these to the floor. give people an opportunity to take a look at what the appropriations committee has done. if they disagree, come to the floor with amendments, have a discussion, vote on the amendments. that's exactly what we should do. now, it is a problem, however that we don't have unlimited time and my hope is, i think it is senator bennett's home we can have people come over, offer amendments and we can finish this bill in the next couple of days. it would be great to finish it late tomorrow night or perhaps wednesday at the latest but in order to do that we with need

some cooperation and we very much would ask people to tell us what their amendments are, come over and file amendments, come and debate the amendments. the point is, we are here and ready and we very much want to get this piece of legislation completed. i have described in some respects the urgency of our energy policies in this country. well, the fact is, passing this legislation and doing so now will give us the opportunity early in the fiscal year to have the department of energy and the administration develop energy strategy based on these investments. for the first time in a long, long time, we'll know where we're headed. i've always felt we ought to be saying, look, here is where america is headed on energy. here is what we will do on renewable energy. here is what we will do on carbon capture and storage. you can invest in it, count on it, believe in it because this is america's policy developed through the authorization committees and no small part developed in what we fund in the

department of energy. exactly the same is true with respect to water policy. let me make this point, as well: in the middle of a very deep recession and this country had an economy that fell off a cliff the first part of october last year, and we still are in a deep recession, in the middle of a very deep recession, a piece of legislation that is going to provide the funding october 1 to proceed ahead building and creating the water projects and other things puts people to work. it invests in the country's economy in a way that puts people to work and provides jobs. that is very important. so for a lot of reasons, again, the majority leader has -- somebody i commend for bringing this to the floor; we just need, we will hope for some cooperation. we want amendments. if they want to bring amendments to the floor, we want them today originning in the morning. and senator bennett and i would like to work with our colleagues to try to review amendments, work with them and perhaps they have some ideas that we didn't think of and we can add to this

bill by consent or others, perhaps. and perhaps we can debate and have a vote. so we want to make that moan to our colleagues and we're looking forward to completing this bill in the early part or at least no later than midweek. madam president, i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. inhofe: i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be dispensed. .the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. inhofe: madam president, i want to spend a little time on a bill that will be one of the three major interests we will have during the recess. but one of them have i feel very strongly about and that is what is happening right now in guantanamo bay, some refer to as gitmo. i have some very strong feelings

about that. i don't know why our president has this obsession that he's going to turn loose or bring these detainees, the terrorist detainees, back to the united states. if you do that, either to try them or to bring them back here, they become magnets for terrorist activity. we've detained about 800back wrack and taliban combatants at gitmo. we have to understand that a combatant is different from what you normally -- we are not talking about criminals here. we're not talking even about people who represent countries but talking about terrorist combatants. to date, over 540 have been transferred or released leaving approximately 230 at gitmo. here's the problem. if i were making this talk as i was a in ago i would say we have, we had about 280 detainees at gitmo.

the problem is you can't get rid of them by asking some country to take them because the countries won't do it. you don't want to bring them back to the united states because, as i said, that becomes a magnet. so our president has been, one by one, trying to bring these back, putting them in our system for trial here in the united states. it's important to understand that the rules of evidence are different if you are in a military tribunal. you can dispose of these people but you can -- here say evidence is not permissible in the courts in the united states. so it would not fit in our federal system. but to -- we have now ordered some facilities closed or president obama has ordered guantanamo facility be closed. he has recently given an extension to that. in 2007 the senate voted 94-3 on a nonbinding resolution to block detainees from being transferred to the united states and it said

-- quote -- "detain heeees whost gitmo should not be transferred stateside into facilities in american communities and neighborhoods." that's very specific. i had the amendment to do that on the defense authorization bill only last week. and i was unable to, quite frankly -- it was mocke blockede democratic majority. in may 20, 2009, the senate voted 90-6, my language and senator inouye, bipartisan amendment to prohibit funding for the transfer of gitmo detainees to the united states. we are saying can you not bring them here, can you not try them over here and, now, thirdly, you can -- we're not going to pay for relocation of these people. unfortunately, the supplemental appropriations conference report deleted that provision. that was the provision that passed 90-6 authored by me,

inhofe, and senator inouye, the senior senator from hawaii. but they took it out. and so that means it's not there right now for trial. but the law does block funding for permanently transferred detainees from gitmo to the united states for the 2009 budget year which ended september 30. last week, the house of representatives -- the house appropriations committee will vote this week on language containing -- contained this a managers' amendment proposed by representative jerl jerry lewisf california permitting spending money to move prisoners to united states. the senate democrats blocked an attempt to consider an amendment that would have permanently prevented detainees from being transferred to gitmo. that was my amendment. that was a defense authorization

bill amendment. and when president barack obama took office there was one free bed at supermax prison in colorado with a typically long waiting throis move high-security prisoners into the supermax. now, to understand what this is, the supermax prison is one with the very highest level of security, a place where they might argue that you could put a terrorist there and that terrorist, regardless of how serious he was, is one that would be secure. now, the problem -- what they're over looking is if they are locating in the united states, they become a mag pet for terrorism. i know -- they become a magnet for terrorism. i know president obama proposed some 17 sites in america where we could put these gitmo detainees. one of those happened to be in ft. sill in my state of oklahoma. i went down to ft. sill to look@our prison facility down there. there is a master sergeant -- no, no, i'm sorry.

sergeant major carter was her name, she was in charge of the prison. and that prison was set up as a normal military prison. but not -- certainly not suitable for detainees, not suitable for terrorists. it happens that sergeant major carter -- you can call her and ask her about this -- she had two tours at gitmo and she said, why in the world are you guys in washington and this president trying to close gitmo? it's an asset that we need. it is a place where they cane secure. it is a place where they have treated them humanly over the years. well, anyway, the -- so when you look at the -- what we have here, there are no places that are -- that are appropriate for that. when the assistant attorney general david cris said at the same hearing at the house armed services committee that both civilian federal jails and military prisons are being considered for potential future incarceration for prisoners facing criminal prosecution, military tribunals, or long-term

detention without trial, more than 50 have been cleared for release and an administration task force is sorting through the remaining 229 prisoners to derl their fates -- now, what we're saying is, we've already pick the low-hanging fruit. we've already taken care of the -- of those individuals who either a country won't take back or you can find someplace to put them. but the remainder are the real tough guys, the bad guys that we don't want in our society. government lawyers in both the obama and the bush administration have said that an unspecified number of detainees should continue to be held without trial, stating that some of the evidence against them would be classified or thin and the government fears that these most dangerous detainees could be released, should they be given their day in court. that's their dmai court in the united states. if you look at the facility that they have down there, it's made for this type of detainee. it's one that will allow the security of evidence so that it

doesn't threaten other people and it's something that cannot take place in this country. johnson also said that the barack obama has not yet determined where it will hold newly captured al qaeda and taliban prisoners for extending -- for extended detention after guatemala prison closes, if it should close. of course, my effort is to keep it open. so far the only guatemala detainee brought to face trial in the united states criminal court is ahmed galiani, the tanzanian who we sent to new york -- who faces charges in conjunction with the two bombings -- remember the two bombings at tanzania and kenya? and federal prosecutors said last friday that they no longer plan to hold mohammed jawad who thraw grenade at a u.s. convoy in 2002. a signal that the barac obama administration intends to bring

him to federal court. last week the democratic members in the house and the senate said that michigan prisons set to close because of the state budget crunch could take the high-profile prisoners from gitmo, saving -- or creating jobs lost in the auto industry. now, let's stop and think that one through. these are elected representatives in the state of michigan, the two senators and representative shupak, i think it is, who are suggesting that we could put those prisoners, those high-level, high-security terrorist detainees in prisons in michigan and that would cause them to have to go through there and provide jobs to update the prisons. let's stop and think that one through. why not just go ahead and do something with the individuals that are there, leaving them where they are right now, and

get into a public works program where at least they can be spending that money on roads and highways let me do this. i've almost given up -- in fact i did give up on trying to put the language in the senate foreign relations -- senate armed services defense reauthorization bill to preclude the president from putting these individuals into the united states. there's only one vehicle left. that's my senate bill 370 -- 370. it is a one-page bill. i have 22 cosponsors. it merely says that we cannot pay to transfer any of these detainees to the united states, and we are not going to be able to try them here. so it is "the" final answer to this thing. and at this time he'd just ask unanimous consent that senate bill -- i'd just ask unanimous consent that senate bill 370 be brought up for immediate consideration. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. dorgan: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota.

mr. dorgan: reserving the right to object -- and i will object -- the senator from oklahoma knows that such unanimous consent request cannot be entertained at this point. he has not consulted with the majority leader, who is in charge with scheduling legislative matters to come to the floor of the senate. so on behalf of the majority leader, i object. mr. inhofe: okay. i would only respond -- the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. inhofe: i would only respond to my good friend from north dakota -- in fact, just recently we were talking about how in agreement we were on things, the potential we have to explore in the united states. i have talked to the leadership to try to bring this up and hav- and have not been able to do t you get to the point where you are frustrated. two-thirds of the american people want to set something in place to keep these terrorists from coming into the united states and all i ask is to get my bill up. i'll try to do that in the future. i would like to ask the manager of the bill on the floor, the

minority leader, if he desires to have the floor for the purpose of consideration of the bill? well apparently not. mr. dorgan: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: the senator from oklahoma had asked to speak in morning business. senator bennett and i have no objection to that. we are waiting for amendments to be offered. if someone would come and offer an amendment, we would hope the senator would relinquish the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: i assure the senator when someone comes down with an amendment, i will cease and yield to them. in the meantime, there is another subject i would like to talk about because i have been doing this now for 10 years every week. it is safe to say that at 3:09 a.m. on june 26, most of america was asleep, and while they slept, democratic leaders in the house were creating a nightmare. in the early morning hours, speaker pell lowcy and her

deputies were pushing the largest tax increase in american history. in the dead of night with no one watching they engaged in full-scale arm twisting, backroom dealing to garner support for a massive bill few, if any, had actually read or understood. you have to keep in mind, there are about 400 pages to this bill that weren't printed until 3:00 in the morning -- of the morning that the bill was voted. and when america woke, they found that they were talking about green jobs and new clean, green energy economy. they spoke about energy independence. all of it sounded so appealing. yet none of it was true. that's because waxman-markey is full of bureaucracy and big government programs. waxman-mark economy is to quote john dingell, a tax and a great big one, on small businesses, families, and consumers. i don't blame the democrats for

selling cap and trade as something it's not. this is a political imperative for them because the american people now know what cap and trade is, and they don't like it. i -- according to independent political analyst charlie cook, many democrats getting back to washington from the independence day recess reported getting an earful from their constituents over the energy tax hike. further, cook netsed, and i'll quoting him now, "the perception is that this is a huge tax increase at a time when people cannot afford one. hence, democrats whether they support the bill or not, are getting battered, increasing their blood pressure." this is going to be an issue that we are going to be talking about. i've been on the environment and public works committee since i came to the sno senate in 1994. i was the chairman of that committee back when the kyoto treaty was considered. and at that time, like everyone else, i assumed that mandated

gases, co2, methane were causing global warming. now people are careful to say climate change, not global warming, since we're in the ninth year after cooling period. but at the same time i assumed that was true. that's all anybody talked about. until the wharton school did a study and they said -- the question was posed, if the united states were to pass and ratify the kyoto treaty and live by its emissions requirements, how much would it cost the range was between $300 billion and $380 billion a year. it was at that point that i decided to look at the science behind that and see if the science was there. we're talking about 10 years ago. after looking and studying it, we found scientists after scientist was coming out of the closet and saying this thing was started by the united nations, the intergovernmental panel on climate change. and the reports that they give are not reports from scientists. they are reports that are for

policy-makers. and consequently, on my web site -- the web site is inhof inhofe.senate.gov. i've listed over 700 scientists who were on the other side of this issue. and they are now on the side saying, wait a minute. this is something that is -- it is not real and it certainly is not worth the largest tax increase in history. i remember when vice president al gore was in office, the clinton-gore administration. they at that time had decided that they wanted to come out with a report in order to sell the idea of ratifying the kyoto committee -- or conference that they would come up with a report to say how much good could be done, how much the temperature could be lowered over a 50-yearr period time if all developed countries -- all developed nations -- ratified and lived by the emissions requirements, how much it would reduce the temperature p.

the results -- and the name was tom quigley, a foremost scientist at that time. he said it would reduce the temperature over a 50-year period by .07 of one degree celsius in 50 years. that's not even measurable. i would like to inquire, is the senator from florida -- were you going to speak as if in morning business or on this bill? morning business? i will be here a while then, i would mention. so anyway, what i would suggest doing is going back and looking at what has happened since the kyoto was considered. we had the -- in 2005, we had the mccain-lieberman bill. the mccain-lieberman bill, which is very similar to the kyoto treaty. it was cap and trade, very similar to the warner-lieberman bill. and very similar to what we're looking at today, the cap-and-trade bill that's known as the waxman-markey bill.

they're slings the same thing. that is, cap and trade, a very sophisticated way to try to regulate the greenhouse gases or primarily co2. i would suggest that many of the people who were talking about doing this in the very beginning were people who said that they were concerned about it, saying well why don't you just pass a tax on co2? i'd say, if you want to get rid of co2 and be honest and strait food, go ahead and -- straightforward, go ahead and pass a tax. as it turned out, they didn't want to do that. because that way people would know how much they're being taxed. if you have a cap and trade, they can -- that's government picking winners and losers and you might be able to make people think that they're actually not getting a tax increase. i would like to quote a few of the people who have weighed in on this issue. if you don't believe what i am

saying about cap and trade, listen to some of the past quotes from members of the obama administration and other proponents of cap and trade. they speak for themselves. this is what obama had said -- president obama -- prior to the time he was president. he said under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket. because i'm capping greenhouse gases, coal, power plants, natural gas, you name it, whatever the plans were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retro fit their operations. that will cost money. they will pass that money on to consumers. john dingell, "nobody in this country realized that cap-and-trade is a tax and a great big one." charlie rangel said not too long ago: he said, "speaking on cap-and-trade," representative rangel said, "whether you call it a tax, everyone agrees that it's going to increase the cost to the consumer." then peter orszag, who is the

former c.b.o. director and is current white house o.m.b. director. he said "under cap-and-trade program, firms would not ultimately bear most of the cost of their allowances but would pass them along to their customers in the form of higher prices." now, this is the appointed white house o.b.m. director, peter orszag, saying firms would not ultimately bear most of the cost. those would be passed on to the customers. such price increases would stem from the restriction on emissions and would occur regardless of whether the government sold emission allowances or gave them away. this is still peter orszag that i am quoting. indeed the price increases would be essential to the success of a cap-and-trade program because they would be the most important mechanism through which businesses and households would be encouraged to make investments and behavioral changes that reduce co2

emissions. peter orszag said further, he said, the government could either raise $100 by selling allowances and then give that amount in cash to particular businesses and individuals or it could simply give $100 worth of allowances to those businesses and individuals who could immediately and easily transform the allowances into cash through the secondary market. he said further, if you didn't auction the co2 permits, it would represent the largest corporate welfare program that has ever been enacted in the history of the united states. all of the evidence is that what would occur is that corporate profits would increase by approximately the value of the permits. and further, although the direct economic effects of cap-and-trade program described in the previous section would fall disproportionately on some industries, on some regions of the country and on low-income

households. we had several people come and testify before the senate environment and public works committee that came in, and you saw the most notorious one, the one who is the most outspoken, two weeks ago that was representing the united states black chamber of commerce. and he was testifying how regressive this cap-and-trade tax would be. and if you stop and think about it, sure, it's true. if you raise necessarily, as they have to do under the house-passed waxman-markey cap-and-trade bill, if you raise the cost, it's going to be the cost of energy. and so you have poor families on fixed incomes who still have to heat their homes in the winter. so the percentage of their expendable income that they use in heating their home would be far greater. so it's regressive. that's why he got so emotional when he was here in talking about the, what the cost would be to the poor people of

america. doug elmendorf, director of the congressional budget office, in his testimony, said "some of the effects of a co2 cap would be similar to those of raising such taxes. the higher prices caused by the cap would reduce real wages and real returns on capital, which would be like raising marginal tax rates on those sources of income." all these people are experts. these are people who work in the government. they work in -- most of them in the obama administration. and they, they are very much, very sensitive to the fact that this would be the largest tax increase in the history on the american people. you know, i think during the recess, if we ever get to the recess, which is supposed to take place a week from friday, that we'll be in a position to talk about three major issues right now. we've already talked on the floor about the efforts to pass some kind of a government-operated health system. i've talked about the gitmo, the closing of gitmo, which i think

would be -- there is no justification for it whatsoever. but the other one is this largest tax increase in the history of this country. in an interview with michael jackson, the auto nation's c.e.o., he said "we need more expensive gasoline to change consumer behavior." mr. jackson says "otherwise americans will continue to favor big vehicles, not matter what kind of fuel economy standards the government imposes on automakers, $4 he added," he added, "it's a good start." these are people who actually do want to increase the cost of fuel for a, an agenda that is not an agenda that is going to help the environment. alan malal li, ford motor company chief executive said "until the consumer is involved, we're not going to make progress in reducing the amount of oil the united states consumes." so on and on. we have people in, and i plan to

spend some time on the floor talking about the problems with this thing, because my fear is if you don't do anything, we're going to end up passing the largest tax increase in the history of america. and when you look at even the secretary of energy, he said coal is my worst nightmare. he said somehow we have to figure out how to reduce the price of gasoline to the levels of europe. this is stephen chu, secretary of energy for the obama administration. he said what the american family does not want to spay an increasing fraction of their budget for energy costs. he said further, he said a cap-and-trade bill will likely increase the cost of electricity -- this is the secretary of energy under president obama -- will likely increase the cost of electricity. these costs will be passed on to consumers. but the issue is how does it actually -- how do we interact

in terms with the rest of the world? if other countries don't impose a cost on carbon, then we would be at a disadvantage. we should look at considering duties that would offset that cost. then, of course, the chairman of our committee, senator boxer, said the biggest priority is to soften the blow on our trade-sensitive industries and our consumers. i just want you to know that that is the goal. well, i'm glad that she's saying that's a goal, because i think that is her feeling. we had senator mccaskill weighing in. i kind of agree with some of the things she said. we need to be a leader in the world, but we don't want to be a sucker. that's a pretty good statement. and if we go too far with this, all we're going to do is chase more jobs to china and india, where they have been putting up coal-fire plants every ten minutes. that's senator mccaskill from missouri. and she is a democrat, and yet she has very strong feelings

that this will do nothing more than chase off our jobs to foreign countries. she mentions china and india. in china today, they're cranking out two new coal-fire plants every week. let me just do this: i'm going to -- three weeks ago in our committee, environment and public works, i want to commend the director of the environmental protection agency, lisa jackson. this is on the record, live on tv. i said if we pass the markey bill, if we pass the waxman-markey bill as it is written right now, as it came over from the house, and it went on and were signed into law by the president, what would be the result of that in terms of reducing the amount of co2 into the atmosphere? she thought for a minute, and then she said something that really surprised me. and i was very pleased to hear

it. she said it wouldn't reduce emissions at all. in other words, even if we pass this largest tax increase on the people in the history of this country, if we pass it, we still are going to not reduce the amount of co2 that goes into the atmosphere. in fact, you can argue, and it has been argued that it would increase it because it would chase the manufacturing jobs, they are estimating some 9.5% of the manufacturing jobs would be sent to other countries -- to china and other countries where they have no emission restrictions. and that would have a net increase of co2. with that, i see there are several of my colleagues coming to the floor here. in deference to them, i will yield the floor. before i yield the floor, let me make one last request, and that is, because i want to do this, i have been concerned, and i don't know whether the senator from florida was here when we were talking about gitmo. but i was very frustrated when

we were unable to get the -- my amendment on the defense authorization bill that would have the effect of keeping gitmo open. and so the only thing left for me right now is senate bill 370. and so let me just ask unanimous consent that we -- that we bring up senate bill 370 for the purpose of its consideration. the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: on behalf of senator dorgan, the chairman of the -- on behalf of the majority leader, senator reid, i object. mr. inhofe: i yield the floor. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. nelson: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: madam president, i ask consent that i might speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. nelson: madam president, most people know that tourism is

certainly a vital part of my state's economy, and i know that many of our florida cities, just like so many cities elsewhere around the country, offer some of the finest and most competitive prices on hotels and conference facilities. and so you can imagine that i was absolutely flooredhen i found out that some federal agencies are blacklisting florida cities and other cities in the country for travel and conferences because they are looked at as a vacation or resort destination. the hotel industry in florida is

already reeling where it is facing a significant decline because of the recession. orlando hotels are filling only about 64% of their rooms, and that is a drop of 8% from last year. and so you can imagine that i was stunned when i found out in a "wall street journal" article last week that they had listed orlando and las vegas as cities mentioned in e-mails from the department of agriculture and the department of justice as a no-go-to destination. well, what they ought to be looking is what is the most

effective cost for the government to go if it's going to an out-of-town location from wherever that particular agency is to have a conference. and when you compare, for example -- and i could be talking about any city in florida and many other cities in this country, but let me take, for example, orlando. when you compare the cost of a hotel room in orlando during the season with the cost of a hotel room, let's say, in washington, d.c. during the season, you will find that the orlando hotels on the average are $100 less per night than the other city in that comparison. and, likewise, if you look at

the cost of air fare as a destination, you will find that a round-trip air fare to a place like orlando is considerably less. but some agencies in the federal government, because orlando is looked upon as a resort or vacation destination, have gotten so sensitized to the fact that we saw the wall street bigwigs going haywire with all their perks and all of their extra emoluments that they want to avoid the perception of going to a resort destination. now, i wish it hapbt come to this -- i wish it hadn't come to this, but i've had to draft

legislation to make it illegal for the federal government agencies to design travel policies that blacklist certain u.s. cities simply because they're looked as a destination city for a lot of tourism. talk about a double whammy in tough economic times. when we've seen tourism and business travel dropping like a rock, look, it's one thing to avoid nonessential trips for the government to save taxpayers' money, but it's taking it a little far when it's another thing that if it's legitimate travel and you then avoid certain cities just because they are where they are. my senate colleague, senator

martinez, is helping me with this and work together we ought to able to put an end to any such practice. and i certainly hope, madam president, that it's not going to take me having to push this through legislation. i'm asking the head of the department of justice, the attorney general, and the head of the department of agriculture, the secretary agriculture, if they will dig down into the bowels of their organizations and rout out this kind of narrow thinking that is going on and expressed in those e-mails as reported by "the wall street journal" last wednesday. madam president, i yield the floor.

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: tomorrow the senate judiciary committee will vote on the nomination of judge sonia sotomayor to serve as an aassociate justice of the united states supreme court. i think the nominee and the members of the committee, including our democratic colleagues an chairman leahy for their efforts throughout the process. i appreciate judge sotomayor's kind words to us and the kindness and respect she said she was shown. she is a good person with experience. the kind of experience one desires in a nominee and her personal story is certainly inspiring. however, based on her record as a judge and her judicial philosophy, i have concluded that she should not be confirm

through our -- to our nation's highest court. while differences in style and backgrounds are to be welcomed on the court, no one should sit on the supreme court or any court who is not committed to setting aside their personal opinions and biases when they render opinions and who is not committed faithfully to following the law whether or not they like the law or not. impartiality is the ideal of american law. judges take an oath to pursue it and the american people rightly expect. it judge sotomayor's speeches and ex-judicial writings represent a dramatic -- represent dramatic expressions of an activist view of judging that is contrary to that ideal. judge sotomayor made speech after speech year after year setting forth a fully formed judicial philosophy that conflicts with the great

american tradition of blind justice and fidelity to the law as written. these speeches also contradict, i have to say, the oath that judges take to -- quote -- "do equal right to the poor and the rich." close quote and to do so impartially. "without respect to persons" and under the law and the constitution, not above them, but judges are subordinate to our constitution and laws. this ideal is a high one, indeed, and requires a firm, personal commitment to the objective of truth and the belief and meaning of words. now, it has been suggested repeatedly that judge sotomayor's words and speeches are being taken out of context. and that just -- that requires analysis. i have read her speeches in the

entirety. her words are not taken out of context. in fact, when one reads the entire speech and speeches, the context makes them worse and not better. my criticism also should not be considered as a personal attack on her as a person, because she is a fine person. and because there are a number of intellectuals, judges and legal writers, who believe in just such a new way of judging. it is quite fashionable among some, those who think they are more realistic, than naive american citizens, judges, and lawyers than they believe delude themselves when they believe a judge can find new facts and apply them fairly written in an objective way. most have heard of judge sotomayor's speeches, which are clearly outside the mainstream and she has repeatedly said,

among other things, judges must judge when -- quote -- "opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate." close quote. she accepts that who she is will affect -- quote -- "the facts i choose to see as a judge." close quote. it is her belief that -- quote -- "a wise latino woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male." close quote. and that there is -- quote -- "no neutrality in judging" just -- quote -- "a series of perspectives." and she said that the appellate court is where policies are made. these matters have been discussed in some detail by my colleagues and at the hearing. her testimony at the hearing was that these speeches do not reflect her philosophy of

judging. it's hard for me to accept that her words expressed over a decade in these speeches do not reflect what she actually believes. indeed, it's an odd position in which to find one's self to be at a hearing and say you don't believe what you've been saying in -- over the years. but judge sotomayor has asked and her supporters have asked that we look at her judicial record, which proves that her supporters say she is unbias and shows that she does not allow personal politics and views to be influence her decisions. they cited over 3,000 cases that she has decided, most without controversy. and they have gone to some length to discuss and defend the process by which she decides cases. indeed, in her opening statement judge sotomayor explained --

quote -- "that the process of judging is enhanced when the arguments and concerns of the parties to the litigation are understood and acknowledged." close quote. the that is by the judge in the opinion. she did follow this style in many cases that came before her going into detail an even being criticized by some in "the washington post" article for -- quote -- "uncommon detail that risks overstepping the bounds of an appellate judge." but there is more to the story. most cases before the courts of appeal are fact based and routine and do not raise the kind of serious constitutional issues that the supreme court hears and decides on a regular basis. i have reviewed carefully three cases, two decided in the last year, and one three years ago, that are the kinds of cases the supreme court deals with regularly.

unfortunately judge sotomayor's handling of these cases was not good. they show, first of all, an apparent lack of recognition of the importance of the issues raised in these three cases. in each case the decisions were extremely short, lacking any real legal analysis. these three cases also reached erroneous conclusions. they ignored the plain words of the constitution and they provide, i have to say, a direct look at how the nominee will decide many important cases that come to the supreme court -- that will come before court if she is confirmed. the case of ricci v. d destaff

fano, it was brought by 18 firefighters, but the exam was thrown out by the city of new haven because the city thought not enough of one group passed. the test for passing was, therefore, thrown out, not because it was an unfair test. indeed, the supreme court, when the case got there, found that -- quote -- "there was no genuine dispute that the examinations were job related and consistent with business necessity." instead the city threw out the test because it didn't -- the city did not like the racial results. thus the city discriminated against the firefighters who passed the exam because of their race. so this case is a sensitive case, it's an important case, and we need to analyze it

carefully. and it's noteworthy because the court failed to adhere to the simple, but plain words of the constitution. in ricci judge sotomayor's opinion violated the plain constitutional command that no one shall be denied -- quote -- "the equal protections of the law" close quote because of their race. additionally the case is subject to criticism in the manner in which it was handled. and i want it talk about that a minute. judge sotomayor did not deal with this important constitutional issue -- a very important constitutional issue in a thorough, open, and honest way, without justification, in violation of the rules of the second circuit, judge sotomayor and the panel initially dismissed the case by summary order. that is, without published opinion, without adopting the trial court's opinion below.

no opinion, no explanation. the effect of this summary order was to deal with the case in a way that would not require the opinion to be published or even circulated among the other judges on the circuit. this was not justified. the circuit court ruled states that summary orders are only appropriate where a -- quote -- "decision is unanimous and each judge of the panel -- each judge of the panel believes that no jur iis prudential purpose would be served by the matter. end quote. this is a huge supreme court matter. and it almost slipped by. but by chance other judges on the second circuit apparently found out about it through news accounts and began to ask about this case.

-- case that seemed to be of significant import that had been decided that they didn't know about. so this resulted in a request by one or more judges -- quite unusual when you're dealing with a simple summary order -- to rehear the case before the entire circuit of all of the judges. it created a notable dustup. the result was a split court with half of the judges asking for a rehearing of the case, half against -- against rehearing it with the deciding vote not to hear the case, not to reconsider any of the precedent that may have existed being cast by judge sotomayor, herself. so by a-6 -- 7-6 vote it was not reheard in the circuit. but opinions were heard on this matter in effect, this was a vote to avoid the complete

analysis that this case cried out for from the beginning. it was only during this challenge that judge sotomayor's panel agreed to decide the case then by a -- by an unsigned opinion, which at least then adopted for the first time the lower court's opinion. which, frankly, i don't think was a very fine opinion for this kind of important case. but that was the opinion that she adopted. still, the firefighters didn't give up hope. they then sought a review before the supreme court and against long odds, as any kind of petition is, the supreme court agreed to hear their plea he. the supreme court found -- plea. the supreme court found the hearing erroneous, they rendered a judgment in favor of the firefighters. they held that what the city of new haven did, which the sotomayor court had approved, was simply wrong. and at the