quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: mr. president, i would ask that the quorum call be dispensed with.

the presiding officer: the senate is not in a quorum call. but the senator is recognized. mr. sessions: i thank the chair. over the past several months, law enforcement officers across our country have been shot, shot at, killed without provocation too often simply because they wear a badge. violent crime and murders have increased across the country at almost alarming rates in some areas. drug use and overdoses are occurring dramatically increasing. it is against this backdrop that we are considering a bill, or will be, to cut prison sentences for drug traffickers and even other violent criminals, including those currently in federal prisons, reducing their sentences. so we need to be asking about this carefully and with real

caution. because as a prosecutor for a number of years, i know that there are reasons we have people in jail. one is that just deserts. when somebody assaults another person, breaks into their house and robs them, uses weapons to rob a person of a thing of value, steals their automobile, murders, rapes and those kind of things, they have to have a certain punishment or there's no real justice in the world. just desserts is a legitimate reason to have punishment. it's not all economics. it's not all whether they might or might not commit another crime. but if you commit a serious crime, you should do some time for it. it's just -- another one is incapacitation. this is too little appreciated. but when you take a person who's

committing crimes -- and many of them commit many crimes -- a study in california of their state prison system was a huge number of those criminals admitted committing as many as 170 crimes a year. you say, that's not possible but people would break into two or three cars a night, break in businesses, break in coke machines, break in other things and causing all kinds of time from work, costs to repair, disrupting lives, making people change the very nature of their business affairs because they're afraid of being robbed or burglarized. and so those are things that occur. rehabilitation is a factor. the whole original idea was that in prison -- call it a penitentiary where they do penance and hopefully decide to change their lives in the future. so i would point out that those are the things that we need to be aware of when we're talking about sentences and what's

appropriate, particularly in a time of rising crime. people want congress to represent their best interest and how to protect them. people to do the right thing. they want their children to be able to play in the streets and walk around the block and see their friends and not be afraid of some drug dealer or some gang member. and too often that's not possible in america. it got better. but it's not -- but it's getting worse and we need to be aware of that as we consider legislation to improve our criminal justice system. according to the drug enforcement administration, the amount of heroin seized at the southwest border has increased nearly 300% from 2008-2013 and i suspect the numbers, it appears, are still going up.

and heroin overdose deaths have increased 45%. that's huge. we went through a period of decline in all of this. it took 20 years. i was there. i worked with a coalition for a drug-free mobile, a partnership for youth. they volunteered hours, hours. teachers, school systems gave they are time and effort of the and we went interest a period when 50% of high school seniors in 1980, according to the university of michigan study, admitted to using an illegal drug to less than 25%. it was cut by half. how many young people's lives stayed on track? how many people's lives were not led astray, destroyed by drug addiction as a result of that significant decline in drug use? and i really think it's -- needs to be said that the president should never have said smoking

marijuana is like smoking cigarettes. oh, i wish i hadn't done it. that's the kind of message that people hear, and now we have states legalizing it and they're already talking about re-criminalizing it. it's a mistake. we've seen that experiment before. lives are at stake here. the new head of the drug enforcement administration told me recently that 120 people a day are dying of drug overdose in america. how many of them have serious brain injury as a result of those overdoses? how many families -- our presiding officer, dr. cassidy, has been around emergency rooms. how many people are taken to emergency rooms, and at what great cost to our community? how many lives are disrupted? how many children and broken homes? how many people have had to legal their home because one

spouse or the other had spent all family money on drugs to support a habit? how many children have been abandoned, went to bed without food, because of addiction in that family? these are serious matters. we made tremendous progress. the murder rate in america dropped by over 50% in the last -- since 1980, when ronald reagan said, "just say no." and start add war on came. -- and started a war on crime and he appointed me as united states attorney in alabama. i no he what we did. an-- i know what we dthe federae way, tough sentencing, eliminating parole -, targeting that states and local governments followed. it's just tranli tragic to me tt we're making the same mistakes that we made in the 1960's and 1970's. according to new data, 4.3

million people abuse or are dependent on marijuana. marijuana is stronger today, several times stronger than the marijuana of the 1960's and it does impact people adversely. the american medical association has issued a report unequiv fiscal -- unequivocal on this about the danger and ramifications of the use of marijuana. according to the 2014 monitoring the future study, since 2007 lifetime, past year, past month, and daily drug use among eighth, tenth, and 12th graders have all increased. meanwhile, the congress, the president, the supreme court and the united states sentencing commission all have taken steps to lessen punishment for and altogether stop the enforcement of laws that we passed over the years that led to this decline.

they've been eliminated and weakened. and i've supported one of the big ones in congress. i worked with senator durbin and we passed a bill that i think was justified and would not have done anything other than make the system better, in my opinion, and fairer. but now we need to ask ourselv ourselves, what do we do next, if anything? in 2005, the supreme court ruled that the sentencing guidelines that were enacted by congress were not mandatory. this was a huge thing. so in the early 180's we passed-- --so in the early 1980's we passed the sentencing gietd sen- guidelines and depending on the severity of the crime and what aggravating factors were at work, you got more or less time. aggravatinaggravateing factors d

mitigating factors. it ended this idea that if you went to one gunnel, you got one sentence and you go to another, you get 15 years in jail. so i think that's to be noted. this is a very significant reduction as a practical matter in the amount of crime -- time that a person would serve because of the -- eliminating the mandatory requirement of the sentencing guidelines. then in 2010 -- this is a bill i worked on, the fair sentencing arctic which reduced the disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine and made other changes that in many ways reduced sentences overall. it reduced sentenced and it was designed because minority groups, particularly african-american community, the

drug of choice too often was cocaine and that had much higher sentences and it seemed to be an unfair thing, and we fixed that. -- to a large degree. it eliminated the mandatory five-year minimum sentence, mandatory five years without parole for possession of crack cocaine. i didn't think that was legitimate and congress agreed, and we eliminated that requirement. it was being gotten around and not many times were people being sentenced for simple possession of a small amount of cocaine, but that was changed. and the sentencing commission then implemented an amendment to the sentencing guidelines that applied this retroactively. so people that had been sentenced under the previous procedures had those procedures reversed and then they got out of jail early. a lot of people did.

it resulted in early release of thousands of offenders. and in august of 2013, in a dramatic event, too little appreciated, attorney general eric holder ordered federal prosecutors not to chacialg certain drug offenders with mandatory minimums, regardless of the quantity of drugs involved. this is really directing the prosecutors not to follow the law. under the law, if you have a certain amount of drug use, you're supposed to serve at least a minimum mandatory sentence. this is different from the guidelines. it is a flat statutory requirement, and attorney general holder reversed previous attorney generals' memoranda which directed the prosecutors should charge the main offense, and they should be subject to

the main penalty. that further declined the number of people convicted and the amount of time they served. then the administration has declined to enforce federal drug laws regarding marijuana in colorado, washington, and oregon. it's still a federal offense to deal in marijuana in the united states, and so even though a state doesn't have that law, the federal government does. they said, well, if you don't enforce it, we won't enforce it. another relaxation of federal law. then according to the administrative office of u.s. courts, prosecutions for drug trafficking -- the number of people actually tried and prosecuted of drug trafficking under the primary drug law 21 u.s. code section 841 -- have declined 16% since 2009, since president obama took office, and

prosecutions under 21 united states code section 960, smuggling -- international smuggling act -- have declined by 30% over that time period. we haven't had that kind of reductions in drugs being imported into the united states. we don't have fewer drug distribution networks, probably more frankly in the last several years. those prosecutions shouldn't be declining. we didn't reduce the number of prosecutors working in the united states attorneys' offices. then in march of last year, attorney general holder ordered federal prosecutors to refrain from objecting to defendants' requests in court for sentencing for shorter sentences. he said, don't to be their requests for shorter sentences. less than a month later, the sentencing commission voted to reduce sentences for an

estimated 70% of federal drug traffic offenders, including those who possessed a firearm, committed a violent crime, or had a prior conviction, decreasing their sentence an average of 11 months, almost a year. an estimated 6,000 will be released from federal prison beginning november 1, and about 40,000 will be eligible for early release in the coming years. president obama has commuted sentences of 89 federal drug offenders, including crack cocaine distributors, some convicted of dealing more than 10 pounds of crack, which is hundreds of thousands of dollars in value. while others were convicted of possession of a firearm during an -- in relation to a drug offense. so one of the things my office always did was it was sure to

prosecute drug dealers that use guns while they were doing their nefarious crimes. and i think it had an impact on the murder rate in america. fewer dangerous drug dealers were carrying guns on a regular basis because they knew if they got caught, they'd be taken to federal court and be held another five years without parole on top of their drug offense. for carrying a gun while they're doing their criminal activity. so the president has announced that he plans to continue to grant clemency to federal drug offenders through the end of his presidency. are we talking about thousands more? all of this has led the federal prison population to fall. so you've heard it said that we've got this growing -- ever-growing number of people in the federal prison and it's somehow wrong, it's about

200,000 prison. it's down now. that we've got this increase and we've got to do something, we've got too many people in jail. and we should talk about that, and it's okay to talk about it. but we've got to be careful. what i would say to you and what is too little appreciated, colleagues, is that we have already seen dramatic reductions in sentences in the last several years, far unlike what was done in the 1970's and in the 1980's and 1990's. so, prison population has now started dropping. it's reached the lowest level since 2005 -- that's ten years ago -- according to the bureau of prisons, the population,

prison population of 205,000 has increased over the past two years. 5,300 in fiscal year 2014, last year, and they project the population to further dropped by 14,987 between fy15 and 16. that's another 15,000 decline. and this is particularly due as a result of current activities including the retroactive sentencing guidelines change in their words. and admissions to federal prisons have declined every year since 2011. so the number of people being admitted to the prison is going down, driven, i suspect by the prosecutorial policies set by attorney general holder. they will continue to decline given the president's policy of

directing prosecutors not to charge certain criminal offenses. it's a very serious matter. we need to be careful as we analyze legislation today. crime is already rising at an alarming rate, so much so that it prompted an emergency meeting of the major cities' chief of police association in august. "the new york times" recently reported that murders have increased sharply in many cities across the country since last year, including atlanta, up 32%. these are murders. up 32%. baltimore up 56% in baltimore, nearby. chicago up 20%. houston up 44%. los angeles up 11%. new york up 9%. milwaukee up 76%. minneapolis up 50%. new orleans up 22%.

philadelphia up 4%, dallas up 17%. and washington, d.c. -- where we are -- up 47%. murders. and it's going to -- this trend, in my opinion, will continue. property crimes have also risen sharply throughout the country and even in small cities such as abilene, carson city, portland, and binghamton, new york. so i'm afraid we're watching a repeat of history. a couple of generations ago we had an indeterminate sentencing system with no mandatory guidelines or required minimum sentences. virtually identical defendants received totally different sentences depending on the judge and many serious defendants received little or no incarceration. nationwide crime wave ensued. it was a revolving door.

people were arrested. they were released on bail. they came to court. the case got continued. it got continued again. it got continued again. the witnesses disappeared. they had a plea bargain. they got a little bit of time. and they served less than a third of the time they got. that was happening. people said, oh, prison makes them worse. remember those arguments? well, in 1980, one out of four households in the united states had suffered a rape, a robbery, burglary, assault, larceny, or auto theft in the previous year. crime was increasing at double digits per year in the 1960's and 1970's, and we did not respond to it. so then the united states congress passed legislation that imposed mandatory minimum sentences on criminals convicted of the most serious federal crimes and drug crimes to ensure

that these perpetrators served at least a fixed amount of time in prison. and every drug dealer knew it and came to know it, that if they were caught, they were going to serve real time, and they were not going to talk their way out of it. so the antidrug abuse act was passed. the career criminal act that had mandatory 15-year penalties, career criminals carrying guns doing a serious crime were hammered. and it targeted career criminals, the kind of people who kill people to carry out their crimes. and drug trafficking penalties were strong. so congress also established the sentencing guidelines. it required judges to sentence within certain ranges and calculate factors and create objectivity so that one poor

person got the same sentence as some rich person with a high-paid lawyer. the rationale was it remains threefold: to deter offenders from engaging in further criminal behavior. to ensure that a meaning period of time elapsed for the offender to become rehabilitated. and to incapacitate the offender from harming law-abiding citizens. how many people do you know that would rape someone? how many people do you know that are likely to take a gun and would murder somebody? the more of those that are in jail serving time, the less people are going to get murdered it's mathematics, and that's really what happened since 1980 with the increasing number of people incarcerated. this idea worked. according to the f.b.i. statistics, the rate of violent

crime, murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, was reduced by more than 50% from 1991 to 2013. that's when these sentences were beginning to be understood and impactful. property crimes, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle they have the dropped by a similar measure. over time prison sentences applied means that less crimes and fewer innocent people are dollarized -- burglarized, raped or murder and the size of our population in prison has been driven down by at least 25%. professor magdalisi of ohio state university testified before the senate judiciary committee that criminal justice research shows -- quote -- "releasing 1% of the current

federal prison population would result in approximately 32,850 additional murders, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, thefts, auto thefts and incidents of arson." close quote. we've had more than 1% reduction already. as a great criminalologist and professor james q. wilson said -- quote -- "a high risk of punishment reduces crime. it just does." whether you're talking about the classroom or on the football field, if the flag is thrown somebody clips, they quit clipping. if it's not thrown, you'll still see it. so in 2011, the supreme court uphold a lower court ruling in brown vs. platta that california was required to reduce its

prison population to ease overcrowding. in dissent in that case, justice alley -- alito recalled a prison release program in california in the 1990's. although efforts were made to release only those prisoners least likely to commit violent crimes, that attempt was spectacularly unsuccessful. during an 18-month period the philadelphia police arrested thousands of prisoners for committing 9,732 new crimes. those defendants were charged with 79 murders, 90 rapes, 1,113 assaults, 959 robberies, 701 burglaries, 2,748 thefts, not to mention thousands of drug offenses." close quote. i wish it weren't so.

i wish we could have these programs. and i've seen them since my time in law enforcement in 1975 as a young prosecutor. and year after year people have come forward with plans that sound so good, and they had been tried before that. but they worked not nearly as well as people promote. trust me, if there was any quick fix, it would already have been done all over of america. people don't -- states don't want to spend money on prisons. but the truth is that people who tend to be criminals tend to continue to be criminals p and commit crimes. and we ignore too often the pain, the destruction, the damage it does to innocent people who are afraid to have their children out and go through the turmoil of being a crime victim. now is not the time to move too

fast to further reduce penalties without careful thought. before we rush to judgment about undoing federal sentencing laws, we must consider the results of what has already happened, how much reduction we've seen. we have a responsibility to the public to examine every aspect of the legislation that may be coming forward, be introduced in committee which could greatly impact the everyday lives of americans for years to come. and to that end, we must have a good hearing on it. we need to study what experts have told us, what history tells us about crime. it would be so wonderful if we could do a drug treatment program and people would not commit crime again. it would be so wonderful if we could have an in-prison educational program that people could take and somehow have a significant reduction of crime rates.

and all kinds of ideas have been tried over the years, and some of them, i think, make a benefit. some of them have some benefit. but none of them have produced dramatic alterations in the rate of recidivism, a repeat criminal act. and one study a number of years ago concluded that when a person comes out of prison, they make a decision. it's an individual personal decision about whether they are going to continue in criminal activity or not. some of them make it because the prison was a bad place, and they don't want to go back. some of them make it because they had experience. some of them make it because they took advantage of an online or education course and decided they're going to do something better for their lives. but it's an individual decision, and we've nonprofit found it possible to somehow impact the

psyche of people in prison so that they -- so that we can consistently reduce the likelihood that they return to crime. we have to understand that. if somebody's got a plan that shows me that, i'd like to see it. i hope there is such, and i will support it if there is. mr. president, i thank the chair for allowing me to share these thoughts. we had a very important time in criminal justice, and we need to get right. i thank the chair and yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i want to speak for a moment today about something that is incredibly important to families all across michigan and all across the country. what we have talked about in terms of the importance of having a middle class in this country, folks who are working hard all their lives, who get a good wage, who paid into a

pension and expect it to be there, those fundamentals are falling apart for way too many people. and specifically i want to speak about what's happening regarding pensions and pension protections in this country. you know, i think all of us would agree that a pension is a promise. and it's earned. a pension is earned over a lifetime of hard work. and it's the foundation of retirement security for tens of millions of american workers who have a pension and for their families. there's no question that a number of pension funds in our countries are suffering due largely to factors that they cannot control, such as what happened with the wall street financial crisis that took billions of dollars. and that wasn't the fault of any of the workers involved, or the

businesses, for that matter, who found themselves going out of business because of what happened during that financial crisis. but this took a huge toll on middle-class families. we have focused on homes, the loss of homes which was a disaster. but a second disaster is now beginning to be felt, and that is the question of pensions and loss of pension benefits. workers are now at risk of losing their pensions because of cuts that are beginning to be announced. this already includes 30,000 workers in michigan. 30,000 workers in michigan. and i understand the dilemma that the pension funds are facing. their funding is in critical status. they are becoming increasingly

solvent over time. and i appreciate the tough decisions they're having to make, but you know what? they shouldn't have to be making those decisions if protecting pensions was a priority for congress. this is a matter of whether or not we're going to continue to have middle class in this country, and frankly, it's an issue of fairness for the people that have paid in their whole lives and expect as they come to retirement age or they're already retired, they expect as a matter of fairness that their funds are going to be available for them, and they should be. one of the things that is so outrageous, i think, today when we look at the lack of fairness around priorities in this country, is that we see companies taking advantage of tax loopholes to move jobs overseas and avoid paying taxes. i have a bill called bring jobs home act which simply closes one

of those loopholes which says if you're going to move, at least you shouldn't be able to write off the cost of the move. the workers losing their jobs, taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for the cost of the move. we've not been able to even close that loophole. so we see tens of millions of dollars, billions of dollars going overseas sometimes because companies stay here, they just on paper move overseas. so they're still breathing the air, drinking the water, driving on roads, but on paper, they've moved so they don't have to pay taxes and we have another gigantic tax loophole. so on the one hand, while we see the system rigged over and over again for the wealthy and the well connected, they pay less in taxes, they have hardworking citizens, whether they're truck drivers or teachers or police officers or men and women in uniform or people all across our

country who are paying into pension systems, and we have not been able to get the support to fully fund those systems, to fully fund the pbgc, the pension guaranty fund, so there is an issue around pensions that people will know that their pensions will be protected going forward. mr. president, i believe it's up to us in congress to put in place the resources necessary to help protect the financial security of workers and retirees and their families. this is a matter of priorities. there are ways for us to do this by closing tax loopholes for special interests, for the wealthy, for folks who want to avoid paying their taxes in a wide variety of ways. take those dollars and make sure we shore up pension protection

in this country. pretty basic. people are counting on us to take action to do that. we need to fully commit to make sure every worker gets the pension benefits they need, they deserve and most importantly that they have earned. that's why i'm cosponsoring important legislation that senator sanders has put forward. there are a number of us that are cosponsoring this. let me just mention a few of the cosponsors. we have a number of different people. senator baldwin, senator brown, franken, senator jack reed and others. i know my colleague, senator peters, cares deeply about this as well. there are a number of us that are coming together on legislation that would prevent the proposed cuts to workers'

earned pension benefits. this bill would set our priorities straight by closing the tax loopholes, many of which i've talked about, to make sure that we have the resources to put back into protecting workers' pensions. it would also make sure that workers and retirees and the -- in the central state pension fund system, the largest pension fund facing severe and growing financial difficulties, would be able to receive the full benefits they have earned. again, let me say the full benefits they have earned. it's -- it's outrageous to me to think that a promise as basic as a pension, a lifetime of work paying into a pension, and that that pension would not be there and that we would not as a

congress consider a priority to do everything possible to protect pensions that people have earned. i'm going to keep doing everything i can, looking for ways to stop these cuts to the earned pension benefits. it is a basic issue of financial security. we have legislation if passed right away would make a big difference. we need to get that bill passed so that we can put in place the pension protections and send a message to people across our country that we get it, that we understand what's at stake for so many families. a pension is a promise that needs to be kept. we have a way to do that and legislation before this body -- in legislation before this body, and i hope that the leadership -- that the republican leadership will view it as a priority to take it up so that we can get this passed

as soon as possible. thank you, mr. president. i would yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk shall call the roll. quorum call:

mr. carper: mr. president? i understand we're in a quorum call. i would ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. carpet: mr. president, i've come to the floor -- i don't come to the floor every day, but every day that i come here, you're presiding. either i'm coming here more often than i thought or you're presiding more than most people do or maybe you just drew the short straw.

at the end of the day, i enjoy having these conversations with you, even when most of my colleagues have packed up and headed for places near and far, mostly far. i have a couple charts here today i'd like for us to go over. the first one is i like these bar graphs. this is an interesting one. it sort of ranks from -- from right over here, this is -- great britain, great britain. we have great britain over here on this axis right here. we have information about who has -- the relative amount of fuel taxes that the countries have. and great britain, they are the world champs, they have the biggest fuel taxes of anybody and they have had for quite a while. over here, all the way over here is the u.s.a., and there's an

outfit called the o.e.c. which i want to say is the organization of economic cooperation and development. it has not 41 nations. maybe it has about 38 or so. 37, 38. and -- but they are arrayed right here. russia, india, and what's that last one? brazil. brazil. but anyway, this gives you some sense of how different nations pay for their transportation infrastructure. a bunch of nations like great britain, they use their fuel taxes to also help balance the budget. but great britain's here. we've got these other -- other countries. here is luxembourg, spain, argentina. yet all the way down here, who is that right there? that is brazil. they are off the charts. they must not have any fuel

taxes to pay for their transportation infrastructure. and we're pretty close to them. we're right here with the u.s. and we're right between canada and mexico, mexico. so i wanted to show us that to give people a sense of people think boy, we charge a lot of money for gasoline tax and diesel tax. well, as it turns out, not so much. some people think we spend a lot of money of the federal budget for foreign aid. a lot of times in my town hall meetings, i say well, people complain about we spend way too much money for foreign aid. i say well, what percentage of the budget do you think actually goes for foreign aid? people say 20%, 25%. the answer is 1%. so that's a perception. i think the perception is here that we charge really high fuel taxes compared to the rest of the world. no. we have among the very lowest fuel taxes, when you combine state and local of all the developed nations of the world. let's see what's next here.

this is a good chart. it says how much do we pay in fuel taxes? this is the cost of regular gasoline right here. august, 2015, about a month and a half ago. this one over here is the diesel fuel about august of this year, a month and a half ago. and the retail price here at this time, august on average across the country is about about $2.64 for gasoline and retail price for diesel just about the same, about $2.60 a gallon. it's interesting to see how much of $2.64 for regular gas. i'll say in delaware, i fill up for gas. last week at a local wawa and paid about $2.11 per gallon. there are a bunch of stations, probably a thousand or more, several thousand stations across the country last week where people paid less than two bucks a gallon. but this was the average. you have a couple states here, a

couple big states where the prices are higher, california among them. but anyway, what makes up the price of gas at $2.64. this is back in august. about 40% of that cost was attributable to crude oil, the cost of crude oil. about another 25% of that $2.64 is attributable to refining costs. another almost 20%, 19% actually, could be -- was for the cost of distribution, for distributing and marketing. and you add all that you will -- add all that up, and it adds up to about 83% of the cost of gasoline was crude oil, refining and distribution. taxes were about 17%. and again, when you look at our taxes in this country, state and local, we have among the lowest in the developed world, among the lowest. we just saw that in our first chart. the numbers over here on diesel are pretty much the same. 40% of the cost of the diesel when you fill up tanks, the car

uses diesel or trucks. about 18% for refining. another 22%. about 80% of the cost for a gallon of diesel fuel a month and a half, two months ago was, again, crude oil, cost of crude, cost of refining, cost of distribution and marketing. let's see what's on our next chart. this chart says gasoline prices are going down nationwide. well, are they or not? let's look. average price of gas october 5, 2015. what is today? today is the 8th, my sister's birthday. three days before that birthday, october 5, gas nationwide about about $2.32 a gallon. now, from last year, it's down about a dollar from last year. east coast, price of gas where i come from in delaware, average

price of gas -- actually i bought gas last week at wawa for $2.11. the average price up and down the east coast is $2.17 a gallon and that's down by over a dollar from a year ago. new england, price is just about the same as the northeast, $2.23 a gallon. central atlantic, pretty much where virginia and maryland and maybe north and south carolina, central atlantic, $2.22 a gallon. these are all down by over a dollar a gallon from last year. lower atlantic, pretty much the same. midwest, a little bit more. gulf close states, very close to two bucks, $2.03 a gallon, down by roughly a dollar. get out to the rocky mountain states, as us move further to the west, prices go up a little bit. rocky mountain states, $2.47, down by a dollar. west coast about $2.79. that's down almost a dollar. and finally pacific northwest,

about $2.50 a gallon, down by, again, a dollar. down by a dollar. so prices are down by i would say probably about a third, by about a third across the country. please. i like this. i like this poster. mr. president, and for folks who can't read it, a couple guys sitting in the gas station. the passenger says to the driver,, "hey, i just found some loose change in the cup holder." and the driver says, "awesome, fill 'er up." but we're we're not quite there but we're getting a little bit more for the loose change we find. let's look at the next chart, mr. president, and see what it shows us. it shows us the global price of oil continues to drop. again, keep in mind, about 40% the cost of gas, 40% of cost of diesel at the pump is attributable to the price at the

wellhead. here's global -- this is the price of crude oil over two years. 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. here we are, this is starting about the middle of 2014 and just a precipitous drop, some recovery and then another precipitous drop. now, the -- and this is even better. shows the price of crude over the last six months. big drop starting about in -- really about june. in june. and you see what we have down here, about mid-$40's. $40 per barrel. now, that's history. the question is, looking forward, what can we expect prices to look like? i don't have a magic ball or anything else. but i do know this, the world in which we live is awash in oil and the united states has been a big contributor to that because of what we're bringing up out of the ground, on the land and in

the seas beside us, beside our country. but there's another country that is the -- i think number four in the world in terms of their strategic reserves compared to the rest of the world and it's a country that's not been pumping a lot of late but it's a country that has the ability to pump a lot of oil and that country is iran. and today, this month, next month, they can pump maybe a hundred thousand barrels a day, maybe 200,000 barrels a day. but if they abide by the agreement that we struck with iran, the brits, the french, the germans, the russians, the chinese and us, if the iranians keep their agreement, which is designed to ensure they don't end up with a nuclear weapon, if they keep that agreement and the sanctions are lifted, they will be able probably starting more next year than this, they'll

begin to pump more oil out of the ground. they have a lot of it to pump. and they have a big reason to want to pump a lot of it, because as bad as our transportation infrastructure is, theirs is a whole lot worse, a whole locality worse. and they -- a whole lot worse. and they need to generate the money and one of the ways they're going to do it is to pump a lot of oil. so looking forward, can we say the price of gasoline is going to go down, is it going to stay the same? i would just say this. one of the big factors for us to consider is the fourth biggest oil reserve country in the world is going to start pumping a lot of oil and that's going to come on to a world market of oil where we're, frankly, awash in oil. and it's not going to drive the price up, i can assure you. it may keep it steady or actually drive it down further. all right, let's take a look at the next chart.

this is a chart that focuses on what we're investing as a nation in our transportation systems, our roads, our highways, our bridges. and the -- we're looking at actually some numbers have been provided by -- this one right here is provided by an outfit called the american society of civil engineers. these are people who make a living by building infrastructure and helping design and figure out what we should build and how we should build it. and it's not just transportation but it's all kinds of infrastructure. but it certainly includes transportation. they actually grade how we're doing on transportation in this country, roads, highways, bridges. and i think the last time i saw the grade they gave us was a d-plus. d-plus. the only say i can say about that is it's not a d-minus. but it hasn't been a c or c-minus for a long time. certainly hasn't been a b for a lot longer. one of the things that happens

is when you have a system where your investments are about a d-plus -- "d" as in dog -- is we end up spending a lot of time in traffic just sitting there. texas a&m, every year they come up with a -- actually a study that says how much time we spend in traffic. just pretty much sitting there, barely moving, barely moving. and the average across the country for the average driver, 42 hours a year. think about that. that's pretty much almost like two days just kind of sitting there. maybe moving a little bit but not much. and then for the bigger cities like washington, d.c., like, you know, houston, texas, or dallas or denver, l.a., the number's more like 282 hours per year. 82 hours per year. that's almost four days just like sitting there in traffic waiting to move. in your car, truck or van or your big truck, diesel, rig, whatever. okay. the american society of civil engineers, they say our

investment needs are about -- this is about $228 billion. is that per year? that is per year. that is a lot of money. that is a lot of money. and that would -- if we were pumping that kind of money into our roads, highways and bridges or transit systems, we wouldn't have a d-plus anymore, we would have a b-plus. b as in "bravo" as opposed to "d" for dog. now, over the -- the u.s. department of transportation, they've said that -- their sort of like imagine i object number here is $171 billion per year. they're talking about $171 billion per year. and they say that is just enough to begin to improve our transportation system. instead of continue to see it be degraded, put in about

$171 billion that we would see it just enough to begin to groove our transportation system. now -- improve or transportation system. now, over here -- again, these are civil engineers. they're small people, outbuilding roads. this is the u.s. department of transportation. one says we need to be putting in about $228 billion a year. the u.s. department of transportation, about $170 billion a year. and our current highway trust fund out of our trust funding is $50 billion a year. $50 billion a year. it's not even 20%, maybe not even 25% of what the engineers who build these systems are telling us and it's not even a third of what the department of transportation says we ought to be doing so we can begin, just begin, to improve our transportation system. what this chart says to me is we're going nowhere fast and we're way -- woefully underfunding and if we want to get better, if we want to reduce the amount of time we're just sitting, moving nowhere, we want

to reduce the amount of money that we're spending to fix our -- change our tires, replace our tires or have our front ends aligned and other repairs on our vehicles, that adds up to about on average 350 bucks and $500 per driver. that's what we're spending now. so let's see what's next. ah, the u.s. highway trust fund is running out due to political gridlock. and i'll read this, it says, "where the highway ends." and let me just say, we've had over the last, i don't know, five, six, seven, eight, years, we've had any number of blue-ribbon commissions that have been commissioned. we commission them in the transportation bill we passed a number of -- maybe six years ago. we said, all these smart people, we want you guys to go off and figure out how we ought to pay for transportation. and they came back and said,

well, here's what we think a big part of it ought to be user fees. you know, some for tolling and some for, like, actually figuring how many miles we're traveling but for the most part it should be user fees. and a big part of that should be easier fees for the amount of gas we buy and the amount of diesel fuel we buy because that generally ensures that folks who are using our roads, highways, bridges are actually paying for them. paying for them. and so there's not really been a lot of question among people a lot smarter than me and even smarter than my colleagues, most of them, at least, the folks who are most knowledgeable about this, here's the way we ought to pay for it. and it should be a user fee approach. so the reason why we're not doing that is because of political courage and i'll say just not an overabundance of that, maybe a lack of it. all right. let's see what's next.

traffic relief act. tax relief and trust fund for infrastructure certainty act of 2015. that is a mouthful. and that is legislation introduced by a fella from illinois, a fella named durbin. and a fella from delaware, that would be me. dick durbin and i came here to -- i was a naval guy -- navy guy for many years before, ended up as treasure of delaware, congressman for awhile and now here. dick came here in 1982. we were both elected in 1982 to the house. and we found out on the first day of the job, sworn in january 3, 1983, the social security trust fund was about to run out of money. i mine, like entirely. but we're not going to talk about in 1983 reducing social security benefits by 5% or 10% or 20%. by the end of 1983, we're going to run out of money and we couldn't pay anything for social security benefits. unfortunately in 1982, some

really smart people, blue-ribbon panel, chaired by alan greenspan. and they said here's how we ought to pay for it. a lot of democrats and a lot of republicans, all of us together said that makes sense, we're going to do. combination of reduction of benefits and additional revenue revenues. got the job done. social security is not set forever but it's lasted for another 30, 40 years. and we need to do some more to fix it. but that is the kind of resolve that we need, bipartisan resolve. the legislation that senator durbin and i have introduced in this instance -- oh, maybe a month, a little over a month ago -- would raise about $220 billion for the highway trust fund over 10 years and that's on top of an amount of money that we're already going to spend anyway over the next 10 years. you know what? i would that would be like, another maybe $400 billion roughly, $450 billion, $350 billion, about $350 billion.

you add that to $220 billion and that gives us $570 billion. does this get us from a d-plus or an a or a-minus or b-plus, no, it doesn't. but it moves the needle in the direction it needs to go. i -- it provides for $90 billion to fully fund highways and transit programs. fully fund them. and about $130 billion for new investments and repairs and upgrades. and we need to do those new investments and we certainly need to do the repairs and the upgrades. let me just close with this. i want to thank senator durbin for joining me in this effort. people vote for us to come here and make tough decisions. people expect us to work together. people expect us to get things done. people especially expect us to do things that help strengthen

the economic recovery which is underway, to make it more robust going forward in the future. and we can do that. we can do that. it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how. a lot of smart people on these blue-ribbon commissions have been telling us for years the way do it is to move toward tolling, move eventually towards some kind of vehicles miles where we pay some sort of fee. the others have said the two other ideas aren't fully realized. we're not going to be there for probably 10, 20 years. in the meantime we have all this work that he ha needs to be dond paid for. the best way to do it is to ensure that those of us using the roads, highways, pay for that. we've been using the gas tax, diesel taxes to pay for that. i'm not a big coffee drinker, but i stopped by a carryout we

have downstairs in the basement here. you can go get a sandwich, soup or something, yogurt and they also sell coffee. sometimes when we're in session late at night, not been doing that lately. but when we're in session late, they sell a lot of coffee. the smallest from $1.70. the largest cups are maybe $3, something like that. if you go to starbucks, you pay a lot more than that. you pay as much as $5eu78 a told at -- as $5, i'm told, at starbucks. it was a little more than $2 today for a middle-size cup of coffee. it is a turns out, if we actually raise the user fee, the gas tax, and the diesel tax, for 4 cents a year which is what dick durbin and i called for, 4 cents a year for four years, and the federal gas tax has been 18

cents -- since 1983 it's been 18 cents. i.tcents it's not worth 18 cents anymore. the diesel tax is about 23 cents. iit is not worth 23 cents anymore. it has been worth that since 1993. in the meantime, the price of cement up, steel up, the major way we pay -- principally pay for roads, highways, bridges, and transit is frankly greatly diminished in value, in value. if we were to actually raise, as the senator and i were suggesting, the price of these user fees, gas tax, diesel tax by 4 cents a year, that would add 16 cents to the price of gasoline. and for the average driver, that turns out to be on a weekly basis -- it works out to just about the price of a cup of

coffee. just about the price of a cup of coffee. here's a question i would ask: i think if we asked most drivers in this country of ours today when they're sitting in traffic trying to get someplace, whether here in the mid-atlantic ratherp in the northeast or the west coast or other places, if you asked them, would you be willing to four years from now being paying the amount of money equal to the price of a cup of coffee in order to spend a lot less time in traffic going nowhere or running into potholes that destroy your tires and your front-end alignment, would you be willing to pay on a weekly basis the amount of money you spend on a cup of coffee, my guess most people would say, that doesn't seem like a bad deal. and you know what, they'd be right, because it is not a bad deal. and what we have to do is close with this: many a from delaware, people

here from all over the country and represent their states. in 12 of the 50 states in the last two years, 2013-2014, those states -- mostly red states with republican governors and republican legislatures -- guess what they've done? they've raised their user fees. they have a raised their user fees. they've raised them in some cases by a penny or nickel or more over a couple of years. and then last november in those 12 states, they had elections. they had elections and the interesting story -- the state legislators who voted to raise the user fees to actually pay for the road, bridges in those states guess what happened when they ran for reelection? they got reelected. amazing. they showed political courage. they did the hard thing.

95% of them, republicans, who were running for reelection laugh november in those state where they raised the users fees, they got real estate elected. you know who didn't get reelected in some of those states? the legislators who voted against raising us user fuse. how about the democrats? the democrats in the states where they raised user fees to pay for transportation investments, almost 90% of them won their primary last november, they won the general election, they got reelected, too. they did better than the legislators who voted against those increases. how about that? so i like to say, mr. president -- mr. president, i like to quote thomas jefferson from time to time, and jefferson used to say, if people know the truth, they won't make a mistake. and i'd like to think the same thing is true here. if my colleagues and i know the truth, we won't make a mistake either. people think it is political suicide to vote to raise these

user fees. you can't get reelected by doing the right thing. and you know what? you can. you can. and there's a lost evidence to show that -- a lot of evidence to show that it can happen. and i'll close with the words of -- not of jefferson but of mark twain, who said a lot of things -- a lot of funny things. one of the things that i think is especially appropriate here, mark twain said, in the end, tell the truth. you will confound your critics and amaze your friends. and the truth is, we need to make these investments. and the other truth is, this is not political suicide. at the end of the day, we're actually going to get, i think, more often than not rewarded for doing the hard thing and the right thing. and my hope is that we'll do that, and i will continue to make that case. last -- one more great quote, mr. president. and wayne gretsky -- i don't

know if they play much hockey down your way. but wayne gretsky said a lost memorable things in his life. he used to say -- people say, mr. gretsky, why are you such a good hockey player? he would say, i go where the puck will be, not where the puck is. think about that. i go where the puck will be, not where the puck is. and wayne gretsky also said, he said, i miss 100% of the shots -- talking about taking a shot on goal. he said, i miss 100% of the shots that i never take. think about that. i miss 100% of the shots i never take. well, i'm convinced this is a shot worth take. and i'm going to push very hard to make sure that somebody is here -- and dick durbin -- my guess is, some others, too, as we go along -- will encourage

folks to join us in this effort. this is a just cause. mr. president, i. i don't see anybody else who's waiting in line to speak, so with that, i make -- i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: and the clerk should call the roll. quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent a this the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that following leader remarks on tuesday october 20, the senate proceed to executive

session to consider the following nomination, calendar number 139, that the time until is 1:00 a.m. be equally divided for debate on the nomination in the usual form, that upon the use or yielding back of time, the senate vote without intervening action or debate on the nomination, that following disposition of the nomination, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nomination, that any statements related to the nomination be printed in the record, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action, and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i now ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination, calendar number 210, stephen heather, that the senate vote without intervening action or debate on the nomination, that following disposition of the nomination, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or

debate. that no further motions be in order to the nomination, that any statements related to the nomination be printed in the record, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action, and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, department of defense, stephen c. heather of new york, to be an assistant secretary of defense. the presiding officer: without objection. if there is no further debate on the nomination, all knows in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the nomination is confirmed. the president shall be notified of the senate's action and the senate will resume legislative session.

mr. mcconnell: mr. president you i now ask unanimous consent that the rules committee be discharged from further consideration of s. con. res. 21 and the senate proceed to its consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate concurrent resolution 21 authorizing use of emancipation hall in the capitol visitors center for a ceremony to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the 13th amendment. the presiding officer: without objection the committee is discharged and the senate shall proceed to the measure. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that a booker amendment which is at the desk be agreed to, the concurrent resolution as amended be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: thout objection. mr. mcconnell: now, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. res. 285. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 285 commemorating the life and

plirvements of robert -- accomplishments of robert edward simon jr. the presiding officer: without objection the senate shall proceed to the measure. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. res. 286. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 286 designating the week beginning on october 11, 2015 as national wildlife refuge week. the presiding officer: without objection the senate shall proceed to the measure. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to s. res. 278. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 265

s. res. 278 welcoming the president of the republic of korea on her official visit to the united states and celebrating the united states republic of korea relationship and for other purposes. the presiding officer: without objection the senate shall proceed to the measure. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, i understand there are two bills at the desk. i understand there are two bills at the desk and i ask for their reading en bloc. the presiding officer: the clerk shall read the titles of the bill for the first time. the clerk: 1 -- 2165, s. 2159, to extend the land and water conservation fund. mr. mcconnell: i ask for a second reading and object to my own request all en bloc.

the presiding officer: objection is heard. the bills will receive their next -- their second reading on the next legislative day. mr. mcconnell: now, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it adjourn until 10:00 a.m. friday october 9 for a pro forma session only with no business being conducted. further when the senate adjourns on friday, october 9, it next convene for a pro forma session only with no business conducted on the following dates and times: tuesday october 13, 10:30 a.m. friday october 16, 10:00. when the senate adjourns on friday, october 16 it next convene at 4:00 p.m., monday october 19. following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour deemed expired the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. finally following leader remarks the senate resume consideration

of the motion to proceed to s. 2146. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: if there is further business to come before the senate i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> wait a minute. wait a minute. [inaudible conversations] >> come on over, guys. come on up. come on up. all right. listen, we have been going through this campaign talking to a lot of members, but the one thing i've always said, turn this

majority we are servant. we should put this complex 1st. there is something to be said that we need a fresh face. the one thing i found talking to everybody, if we are going to uniteunited be strong we need a new face to help do that. so nothing more than that. i feel good about the decision. ii feel great to have my family here, my colleagues. i think we are only going to be stronger. we fought hard, andhard, and this will be the best step for them. >> you would run for the speakership. why change at noon? >> we had our conference. there are calls into the district. i don't want making the vote for speaker a tough one. how want to go to the floor with 220 votes. the best thing for our party

now, if we are going to strong we have to be 100 percent united. you know what, let's put the conference 1st. >> we have been talking with a number of members who have been thinking about this throughout the week trying to see if we can get there. there. i just think it's best to have a new face. [inaudible question] >> well, that was not helpful. i could have said it much better, but this benghazi committee was only created for one purpose, to find the truth on behalf of the families for the four dead americans. i should not be a distraction from that. >> thank you very much, guys >> the letter that was put

up by congressman john. >> no. come on. >> the conference should be able to decide. thank you all very much. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> and my cluelessmike lillis writing in the hill this afternoon that representative daniel webster who is vying to replace outgoing speaker john weiner is claiming an early victory today in the wake of representative kevin mccarthy's move to step out of the speakership race. webster emphasized that it -- he does not consider himself a knew favorite, nor does she have a sense of whether the shakeup boost his chances in the contest. mccarthy's surprising decision to pull his name rather than face off against conservative critics webster said is a victory fora

victory for those who thought weiner, mccarthy, and other gop leaders adopted a top-downa top-down approach that excluded rank-and-file members. again that from the help. news swirling that the current speaker of the house and others are pressuring house ways and means committee chair paul ryan of wisconsin to run for speaker. he has said in the past he does not want to run for speaker. the two republican conference officially's still in the race for the speakership, daniel webster and jason jj fits also spoke to reporters after today's gop conference meeting. >> there are two candidates. all of a sudden it was three. now there are two again. there may be more. but it does not change.

>> get together. >> a unifieda unified conference. >> that is a big issue. what we started working on. and then some rules changes which were yesterday. those arethose are some key things. lots of members would like to see us modify in some ways the rules and then use them. right now we don't use our rules. werules. we circumvent them every day which is the problem. >> usually it is about. >> but you are still in. >> i am. >> if elected speaker would you? >> do what? >> here, you may have misunderstood.

the speaker empowers a member to be successful. a power base system, the speaker and others make all the decisions. that is not my prerogative. i want to make member successful. >> the majority of the conference. >> it is not my job. it is the vote of the people of our conference. that is where we are. if we go with a principal -based system, you can see a lot of people coalescing together. in many cases there are bills offered and so forth that all of the other side would like to do in some cases, and it doesn't matter which, they would just like to affect a change or get a chance to. if they lose their happy, but if they don't get a

chance at all the process shuts them out. >> how many votes do you think you have? >> i don't know. >> do you feel like you are the favorite now? >> no, i don't. because i just think there are other factors here, and it will be hard to determine how that will play out. >> i would like to be favorably. >> he knows. on principle. exactly what i should do. >> putting your name and. >> i don't know. i don't think so.

no matter who got elected, no matter what. you have to step up and say. if we do, there are great things that happened. we were able to get the jump on the senate, not allow together to have the upper hand. all we have to do is maintain those principles and take of the most important issues 1st. when you roll out the appropriations bill, it's a lot of pressure. if we don't.

>> why do you think he so abruptly dropped out? >> we were together in the discussion we had.