Energy Policy Act of 2003-Conference Report-Continued

ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2003-CONFERENCE REPORT-CONTINUED

Ms. CANTWELL. We are now going to go back to the Energy bill. I know many of my colleagues have already been on the floor today discussing the conference report that is before us. While I think my colleagues have done a good job of outlining some of the most egregious parts of this legislation, because it certainly is shocking legislation, the point I would like to make in the next few minutes is about how we got to this process and how America is very disappointed in what we have come up with as far as a conference report.

It should be no surprise to people here when they find out that this bill has basically been drafted in secret without a bipartisan effort, without a lot of daylight shown on the details of the legislation until just this weekend. Now many people are curiously reading through various aspects of the legislation trying to understand all the giveaways, all the subsidies, and whether it could possibly mesh into any kind of comprehensive energy policy. I think the bill is a disaster as it relates to moving us off our foreign dependence and coming up with a concrete energy policy. It should be no surprise, when this energy policy legislation started with a task force meeting with the Vice President in which no input was given, no open session as to what was being discussed.

That a bill is brought here to the House and Senate that ultimately included a conference report drafted in secret makes it very difficult for us to have good legislation. But don't take my word for that because I do want to discuss the policy ramifications. Let's talk about what America is saying.

In the last 24 hours, we have had a variety of people around the country, particularly in the press, look at this legislation and actually make editorial comment on it. When I woke up this morning and saw the stack of editorials that are before us on each Member's desk, I was shocked to read the detail and comments from newspapers all over the country. That is good news because it means America is watching this energy policy, that those of us in the Northwest who have suffered from Enron market manipulation are not the only ones watching, that those in New York who have suffered through blackouts are not the only ones watching, that people all across America are.

In fact, the question is, Are we better off having to pass this Energy bill or are we better off without it?

I will take from what the Great Falls Tribune said:

Once again, let this energy bill die.

Why would somebody say that? Some of my colleagues are trying to say this Energy bill actually has a concrete policy. According to the Great Falls Tribune: We are as certain today as we have been for a of couple years that no Energy bill is a better option than the bills being hashed around in the marble halls of Washington, DC.

Other newspapers have said this bill should be a "do not pass go."

The Minneapolis Star Tribune, again an independent newspaper organization, that probably, if it took a close look at this bill, saw there were some projects that the State of Minnesota could benefit from. Yet they say the Energy bill is a fine target for filibuster. A newspaper organization in a State that actually has energy projects in this bill thinks we should filibuster this bill:

The energy bill unveiled over the weekend is wrong headed policy prepared in a high handed way, fitted with perhaps enough gifts to selected opponents to buy its passage. It's an abusive approach to lawmaking, egregious enough to deserve-indeed, to invite-a filibuster.

That is from a State that has energy projects in it. So this is a national energy policy, which some, such as colleagues on the other side, like to talk about. According to the Houston Chronicle, in a State that would benefit in the millions of dollars from different subsidies and sweetheart deals in this legislation, they say:

Fix the Flaws.

A bill setting out a national energy policy should encourage conservation, investment and new technology; increase available energy; make the distribution system more reliable; and reduce pollution from burning fuel. The energy bill unshrouded Monday by congressional Republicans is, at best, half of a loaf that has been dropped repeatedly in the dirt.

Some people say this was a process, it went through committee hearings and through all sorts of hearings, and we had discussions on the floor. I remind my colleagues that we got to this point on July 31 of this year where we could not agree on an energy bill. I personally thought we should hold the bill up at that time and send it back and basically make the point that it wasn't going to be a successful product, hoping my colleagues would go back to the drawing board and get more bipartisan legislation.

What happened was, we got so desperate, we passed last year's Senate bill and many of us said: We know what will happen. They are going to take last year's Senate bill and dump it and overreach in the conference because it will be controlled by the Republicans, not in a bipartisan policymaking fashion, but they are going to overreach. A lot of people say this has been written by the energy lobbyists.

The Philadelphia Inquirer said:

The Energy Bill: Lobbyists Gone Wild.

They say:

After all, there's something for everyone here. Everyone, that is, with enough dough to finance a lobbyist's next pair of Gucci [shoes].

It is amazing that so many newspapers have so much on the ball and took time in their editorial pages in the last couple of days to shine the bright light on this policy that has been drafted in the dark and not in a bipartisan fashion.

The Chicago Tribune said:

Energy Legislation on the Fly.

If those problems don't sink the bill, the process by which the Republican majority cobbled it together certainly ought to. Democrats literally were locked out of the final negotiations, and now Congress-and the public-have about 48 hours to digest and evaluate the contents of this mammoth document. This is no way to craft sensible national energy policy.

That was the Chicago Tribune.

My colleague, Senator Durbin from Illinois, has been out here talking about the MTBE provisions and how those who might be affected by that and the public might become deep pockets on what really is the responsibility of individual businesses. But I think he should be very proud that his hometown newspaper is trying to educate people all over Illinois who might think, gee, what is wrong with this bill? Probably ethanol provisions are in it, and it ought to be a good bill. They are actually doing the work to show that this is quite controversial.

Another newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, wrote something pretty humorous:

Indigestion Before the Holidays.

The Old Testament is only slightly longer and is a lot more readable. . . .

We should take our time with this bill.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press is obviously pointing to what Members would refer to as pork-lined elements:

Energy Bill Lavishes Billions to Drill . . .

I don't think that is what we thought the future energy policy of America would be-lavishing billions to drill. We thought we were going to have an energy policy that was about innovation, technology, about moving forward on conservation, and about alternative fuels. Not that we didn't think we were going to continue to use some fossil fuels, but we didn't think we would lavish billions on them.

We also heard from USA Today. At a time when we have ballooning deficits, what is this bill doing to help us get on the right track? They said:

Costly Local Giveaways Overload Energy Plan.

The Nation can't afford an energy program that drives up the Federal deficit without addressing critical problems.

Part of this is not addressing critical problems. There are many aspects of this earlier legislation draft that I think could have gone a long way toward getting us on track with jobs, along with the Alaskan natural gas pipeline, that probably are not going to come about now, which could have gotten us further ahead on a hydrogen fuel economy and would have established U.S. leadership in that new technology. Yet that was left out of the bill.

The Wall Street Journal, which I think has followed the energy debate very closely, was shocked to find out in the last couple of days:

The fact that it's being midwifed by Republicans, who claim to be free marketers, arguably makes it worse. By claiming credit for passing this "comprehensive" energy reform, Republicans are now taking political ownership of whatever blackouts and energy shortages ensue. Good luck.

Why is that? That is the Wall Street Journal, and it is basically putting these issues that have happened in America already-energy blackouts and shortages-on the other side of the aisle, on their lap, and saying this policy isn't going to work.

I have to say, as a former businessperson, we have had a lot of debate about standard market design and regional transmission organizations. I want to see free markets work. But free markets work when there is transparency and when there are rules in place. This legislation does very little to provide for transparency in the market. I think that, along with many of the other items of oversubsidization and special interest initiatives in this legislation, is what drew the Wall Street Journal to say it is not a good piece of legislation.

What else do people say?

The Concord Monitor basically said this is:

Abuse of Power: The Federal Energy Bill is Ultimately Worse Than No Bill At All.

That is what America is starting to understand-that this policy is worse than no bill at all. It is a disappointment that we are at this stage of the ball game, and I have to say as a member of the Energy Committee for the last almost 3 years, before joining the committee, I talked to colleagues and former members about joining that committee. People pointed out to me that it had been almost 10 years since the last time we had an energy bill pass out of that committee. Who knew whether we would have an energy policy in the future? I think it is safe to say, with this product in front of us, we bit off more than we could chew by cobbling together a bill that is not really centered around the future energy policy but is specific giveaways to individuals so that they will buy in on support of this legislation. But it is worse than I could have imagined, and certainly doing nothing is better than this legislation.

What about the blackouts? I know some of my colleagues would like to say this is legislation that is going to move us forward in this area. I can tell you what the Providence Journal said:

Energy Gridlock.

Unfortunately, Congress seems intent on passing a bill that does nothing to make our energy supply cleaner, safer, or more affordable, and certainly does nothing to prevent a major failure. We hope that it won't take another huge blackout for Congress to see the light.

That was written in the last week or so.

I have a lot to complain about here because my predecessor-we had a blackout in the Northwest prior to New York's, and my predecessor, former Senator Slade Gorton, actually proposed reliability standards and a process for moving forward so that the industry was accountable for energy supply and standards that would prevent us from having blackouts.

What happened? His legislation actually passed out of the Senate and got held hostage in the House because the industry wanted more deregulation before they were going to put reliability standards in place. How is that responsible?

Now we are moving forward on an energy bill that basically, at best, as it relates to FERC and its jurisdiction and responsibility, is confusing and muddling. We do nothing about the market manipulation issue of Enron in this legislation.

While I would like to believe the reliability standards will help in some ways, I don't know, given the overall aspects of the bill, that they are going to be as helpful as we need them to be. Why should we have to be told that you have to swallow the whole energy policy that is bad for America just to get reliability standards so people in New York or Ohio or Michigan can be sure their lights will turn on at night? That is a ridiculous policy. This body should have passed reliability standards as a stand-alone bill when Slade Gorton proposed it, and it should have passed it as soon as we came back after the August recess.

I am amazed again at how many newspapers across the country are writing about this bill. We talk about, obviously, some of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act issues, and I will get to those in a minute.

The Fresno Bee calls this legislation "political wheezing."

They say:

The valley representatives in Congress have put a particular stake in this fight. The problems of air pollution, especially diesel particulate matter, are worse here than anywhere else, and we must do everything we can to address this.

What about the Ventura County Star newspaper talking about the obviously bad coastal oil and gas language? Every year on the west coast there is a battle that goes on. Basically, we have had for 20-some years now a moratorium on drilling off the coast of Washington, Oregon, and California. While that is an Executive order moratorium, we always have to worry that some interest or some group is going to try to lift that moratorium. It happens every year, and every year in an appropriations bill Congress continues to say: We want a moratorium on drilling off our coast of Washington, Oregon, and California.

Why do we have to drill there? We have marine sanctuaries. We have terrific problems with tanker traffic and a variety of other issues. We have had spills off the coast of Washington that have caused incredible damage. Why do we have to worry now about legislation that makes that issue more cloudy by saying you could give the Secretary the power to expedite and approve a process on this? What did the Ventura County Star say?

They said:

Instead of trying to continually slip in language that harms the Nation's coast lines, puts thousands of communities at risk of an economic and environmental disaster, Congress should be focused on the public's welfare, the environment, and the rights of States to protect their residents.

This bill undermines those rights. It undermines States rights, it undermines the rights of individuals, and it will leave our shorelines less protected.

What did the Nashville Tennessean say? It said:

An energy bill without savings has no steam. The President and his allies have built an energy policy on their convenience-

On their convenience.

When they are willing to build on conservation, then they'll have an energy policy that will work for all Americans.

Makes sense, doesn't it? The bottom line is, this bill is what some people are saying. It is about Hooters and polluters. It is about special interests. It is not about a conservation policy that is good for America, and it does very little to get us off our dependence on foreign oil. America deserves better.

If our generation has been smart enough to put a man on the Moon, our generation can be smart enough to get off our dependence on foreign oil, but we in this body have to do our job. We have to draft an energy policy that has a vision, that has a focus, that has the right incentives and ask America to step up and help with this process.

I wish to continue with a few other charts. The Orlando Sentinel agrees with what I have just articulated and that is a concern about this Energy bill and where the focus is for tax breaks.

The Orlando Sentinel said:

Start over: The energy bill before Congress is worse than what exists.

Why do they say that? They articulate:

Two-thirds of the tax breaks will go to the oil and natural gas and coal industries, helping to perpetuate this country's dependence on fossil fuels.

A lot of people hear about these tax breaks and think we are talking about new technology, either smart metering, wind energy, or something-even clean coal. But the clean coal percentages of the dollars spent on tax incentives in this bill are very minor as well. So we are spending money on subsidies, but we are spending them in the wrong direction.

What does America say when you ask them about this? What do they say when you say: Gee, here's the choice. The question to them is, Do you support giving subsidies to oil and natural gas companies and giving tax incentives. Basically, when you read a description of this, the majority of voters in this country, 55 percent of them, think Congress would be better off if we didn't pass this legislation. A majority of Americans are already saying they are not interested in this legislation.

This bill is about as bad as it gets. Obviously, I am encouraging my colleagues to vote no. As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said:

Put backroom energy bill out of country's misery.

It goes on to urge, when Members of Congress have the chance, "Members of Congress who remain committed to a more rational energy policy . . . shouldn't hesitate to reject it.

I have just read for my colleagues, not my thoughts, but the thoughts of newspapers around the country. Why did I do that? I am sure my colleagues can read. I know they have busy schedules today. I know they have these editorials on their desks. I spent time to do that because I want them to know that America is watching, and America expects us to stand up and do the right thing. This bill that we have had very little time to really understand, and basically on this side of the aisle have been shut out of the process as it relates to the conference report, are trying to respond in very short order to say that this bill is a mistake. I want my colleagues to know that the rest of America is watching.

Some of these issues my colleagues have gone over before, but I want to articulate a few of my objections to this legislation because I think it is important for America to understand the various aspects of this legislation.

First, there are a variety of environmental laws that are basically undermined by this legislation: the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Outer Continental Shelf public lands issues. I ask myself: Why is it that we have to undermine current environmental law to have a national energy policy? I have sat on the Energy Committee in various hearings about public lands, about energy companies, about getting more supply. I have not heard an industry show up and testify that they have to do something about the Clean Water Act, but this legislation does undermine the Clean Water Act. It exempts all construction activities at oil and gas drilling sites from the coverage of runoff requirements under the Clean Water Act.

Is that what America wants? Is America so desperate for new oil and gas drilling sites that they say the runoff at those sites are something from which those particular industries should get an exemption? Everybody else who is a developer in America has to deal with runoff. It is not an easy problem.

We set a priority. We said we wanted clean water in America and so we set standards. So why would we let new oil and gas construction out of that?

We, obviously, care about clean air. Why do we have to have an energy policy that basically changes clean air attainment levels that we have already set in policy just to get new energy construction? Is that what the Congress thinks the message ought to be? Obviously, this legislation is a rewrite of existing law and it postpones ozone attainment standards across the country. This is a matter that was never considered in the House and Senate bill and that has now been inserted into the conference report. That is what one gets out of a secret process. They get bad legislation as it relates to some of our strongest environmental laws.

Now, why does a national energy policy have to step on safe drinking water? Are we in such desperate straits to get energy supply that we are willing to say there can be an exemption from safe drinking water? The provisions in this act basically remove an oil and gas extraction technique from regulation of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Hydraulic fractioning is a process by which water, sand, and toxic chemicals are injected into rock so the oil and natural gas that they contain can be extracted. So if we do that in some large body of water within my State of Washington, somehow that company that is involved in that technique does not have to meet the regulations under the Safe Drinking Water Act?

Somebody who is going to explore for that kind of oil and gas, is it so important for us to have that that somehow we are going to say they do not have to meet safe drinking water standards? I do not understand that.

I already articulated a little bit our concerns about public lands. Since when does an energy policy for America, that ought to be focused on a hydrogen fuel economy, about energy efficiency, about fuel efficiency, a whole variety of things, have to have an assault on public lands?

When drilling on those public lands, one has to pay a royalty. Oh, but under this bill now less is paid because we are forgiving some of those royalties. Why? Because we want to incentivize more oil and gas drilling on public land.

Why? If we look at the research that shows where the availability of oil and gas is, it basically shows on most public lands it is uneconomical; it is hard to reach. One cannot get that far on the access to public lands to make it even efficient. So why now further incentivize it by saying we are going to make them pay less in royalties?

The other thing is it creates this new entity-I do not know what one would want to call it. I do not know if it is the Cheney committee. I do not know what it is, but somewhere in the White House this legislation says now there will be an organization that plays a policy role on expediting oil and gas drilling and making sure that if it is about waiving access to public lands, this group will help get the job done. I do not understand why we have to go through that process of dealing with our public lands to make energy policy work in America.

I think there are many other things we should be doing. Let's talk about a few other things, because I know that I have colleagues who want to chime in on this, but I have to mention a few other things that I was shocked to find in this legislation.

As a Member who spent many hours on the electricity title, I do not understand why this bill has to have an exemption for Texas. Why does the State of Texas get out of compliance with the electricity title as it relates to electricity market rules, market transparency rules that are so important to making markets work, basically protecting the consumer? Texas gets protected from the cost shifting that happens in transmission construction, but the rest of us in the country do not get to be protected.

Now, I wanted to bring this issue up when we were debating this bill in July but we decided, because there was so much turmoil, to take this out and to basically go back to the Senate Democratic bill passed from the previous year just to try to get something going. As I said earlier, now we know what the end result was: A bill in secret in conference that has all sorts of things in it, including this exemption for Texas.

In the electricity title, after what we have seen in California with deregulation, as we have seen with various market manipulation activities, we want better rules. We want transparency. We want things to work and to have individual utilities held accountable, but we are going to exempt Texas. Some of the people have said, well, Texas is not tied to the rest of the country so for some reason Texas should be exempt from this.

Here is the facility right here. This facility does interstate and intrastate commerce and is connected, and if this electricity title is good enough for Washington, good enough for New York, and good enough for Ohio, it ought to be good enough for Texas, too. They should not have an exemption in this bill.

What about the sweetheart deals in this legislation? I could go on actually forever about the sweetheart deals in this legislation. My favorites are the $1.1 billion for a new nuclear facility in Idaho. Not that this Senator has an out and out opposition to nuclear facilities. We have some in Washington State. I spend a good deal of my time talking about Hanford cleanup and the billions of dollars taxpayers have spent on trying to clean up nuclear waste. But why are we going to spend $1.1 billion for a new nuclear facility in Idaho to see if nuclear power can produce hydrogen? There are thousands of ways to produce hydrogen. You do not have to have a new nuclear facility to do it.

My other favorite little part of the sweetheart deal is basically a process in the bill in which DOE can help pay for and finance the transmission hookups that might end up being used for a coal company in Texas.

My colleagues might say, well, geez, if someone has new power and they want to put it on the transmission grid in my State they get in line. If they have capacity and they want to be added to the grid, they come to the Bonneville Power Administration and work with them about how they are going to add capacity to the grid, but they do not have DOE coming in and basically saying they will help them get connected and get capacity to the grid.

That is just part of the aspects of this legislation, the many sweetheart deals. I am sure many of my colleagues are going to go through this and talk in more detail about some of this legislation, but this energy policy, more than anything else, is a missed opportunity. Instead of incentivizing the right programs, we are spending $23.5 billion in tax incentives where only a small percentage of them go to the renewables, conservation, and energy efficiency that America thought it was investing in when it heard about this energy policy.

The whole provision that we talked about dealing with hydrogen fuel, which was an investment in goals and basically a process for us to get to a hydrogen economy, have been thrown out of the legislation. The only thing that remains is sort of a small incentive for that.

What about creating the clean energy economy of the future in which we thought we could estimate a creation of 750,000 jobs in America over the next 10 years by focusing on these energy efficiencies? Well, if they are spending $23.5 billion and only have 32 percent going to that, those 750,000 jobs are never going to be created in America.

I know my colleague from New York wants to speak, and I know I have other colleagues who want to speak, so I will try to wrap up, but I feel disappointed for the policy opportunity that is being missed. America wants to know what this legislation is about. They want to know where we are going with energy policy. This policy could be far more reaching in response, not just to the crises that we have had in Washington, California, and Oregon, and not just to the policies of blackouts or the fact that these institutions, the House and the Senate, have not passed a reliability standard that would give people in New York and other places in the country the kind of security they need. We are missing a big opportunity to be leaders in energy policy in the world. You might hear some people say we are going to get this national grid. It is not about a national grid. I guarantee we are not going to build a national grid and ship power from Seattle to Miami Beach, and anybody who tells you that they are going to does not understand energy policy. A national grid is not about shipping power all the way across the country. We are entering an era of distributed power. That means you produce power closer to the source and to the individuals who want to have it.

What do you do now that you have hydrogen fuel cells? You have new forms of energy that can connect to the grid. What do you do to make that a reality? First of all, you obviously provide the right transparency and stabilization of the system and give oversight to an entity that hopefully does its job. Obviously FERC, in a lot of instances, has failed to do its job. But you create these decentralized energy plans in which individuals can connect their power source and their generation to the grid and have it delivered in that region. That is the most economical delivery of energy. That is the future.

This bill does not invest in that. It does not invest in net metering, which would basically have a framework for people to understand how to get their power source onto the grid. It doesn't invest in an interconnecting standard by which everybody could start understanding how they could connect to the grid. It doesn't even set standards for some of these new technologies that everybody wants to be part of developing. There should not only be a national standard for the United States on how to build a hydrogen economy, it ought to be an international standard so the United States can be a leader in job creation in that new economy. But that is not in this bill.

As bad as this legislation is, and it is bad, my colleagues should make no mistake; this bill should not pass. But the tragedy is that America is not grabbing its future opportunity to both get off of its dependence on foreign oil and also to invest in an energy economy that will produce jobs and have America lead the way in new energy technology. Let's not embarrass America by passing this bad legislation that undermines environmental laws, that puts the tax incentives in the wrong way, runs the deficit up without giving us a return on jobs, that basically does little to address the market manipulation and blackout situations that happened in the past and, as I am sure my colleague from New York will talk about, really sticks some Americans with the deep pocket expenses of cleaning up waste.

Let's not pass this legislation. Let's listen to America. Let's listen to what those newspapers are saying because they are the first shot at this legislation and they understand. Let's go back to work, even if it means next year. Let's go back to work and let's put an Energy bill together that America can be proud of. Let's make it a goal of our generation that we are going to get off our foreign dependence, but we are going to do it the right way-the Members of this body will work together to get that legislation done.

I yield the floor to my colleague.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I will not take all 10 minutes. I know we have other colleagues in the Chamber. I wish to make one final point.

I thank the Senator from Illinois for continuing his talk about this issue as it impacts his State and national policy which we are all trying to fight. But many of my colleagues know that on one provision in the Energy bill relating to Enron, we really tried to make a point. In fact, 57 Members of this body passed an amendment, albeit on the Agriculture appropriations bill because we couldn't get it on the Energy bill when we recessed in August, which basically said we think market manipulation has taken place and something needs to be done about it.

In fact, at that time I argued that in this legislation we ought to have a prohibition on the types of market manipulation that actually happened with Enron and include that in the Energy bill. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle drafted language that basically prohibited one of the Enron abuses but not all of the Enron abuses. But in a separate piece of legislation, we got 57 of my colleagues-a majority of Senators-to say, Let's say that market manipulation on contracts was wrong.

That language still exists in a conference committee on Agriculture appropriations. That language is sitting there hoping we will get it out of conference, even though the industry is lobbying against it. Yes, that is right. The remnants of Enron are lobbying against it.

What do we do? In this conference report, we basically change current Federal law and say those contracts shouldn't stand. We go one step further in the Federal Power Act and say manipulated contracts are not in the public's interest.

This legislation should be defeated alone on the fact that it continues the Enron price gouging. We as a body failed to stand up to that kind of activity. We can say all we want about the reforms we have with the SEC, all the reforms we had on auditing, but in our energy policy we have done nothing to be the policemen on the street. These energy companies, under this legislation, are still going to run free to continue to manipulate market. Not only that, we are putting in this bill that it is OK to do so.

I urge my colleagues: Please, in the next 24 hours review this legislation carefully. It has so many issues that are the wrong direction for our country.

I urge my colleagues to stand up to the special interests that have promulgated this bill and say no to the conference report.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

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

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE EXTENSION

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I know we are still under consideration of the Energy conference report and many Members have been to the floor talking about the prescription drug conference report as well.

Before we adjourn, whatever date that is, sometime in the very near future, hopefully before the Thanksgiving holiday, it is imperative that this body take a stance and pass the unemployment benefit extension before we go home.

We are in the same position we were in virtually a year ago. What has changed? The economy might have gotten slightly better but not really much better. We have a .4 percent improvement in the unemployment rate. We in Washington State are still just above 7 percent in unemployment.

The reason we do the unemployment benefit extension program at the Federal level is to help States, which includes those that have been hardest hit by unemployment, get some extra weeks of unemployment benefits. It has been a successful program in the times of downturns of our economy. During the first Bush and Clinton administrations, when our economy was not doing so well, we basically extended Federal unemployment benefits for a total of 30 months. At that time, the benefits were at the Federal level, 20 additional weeks.

We are at this point in time now where we have extended the Federal program in this recession for about 22 months. Yet while we have seen a slight economic improvement, as I said, .4 percent, I believe it is not enough to continue the improvements we would like to see in our economy.

In an economic downturn, make no mistake about it, working Americans would rather have a paycheck than an unemployment check. But giving people an unemployment check in times of tough economic situations helps our economy overall. Every $1 spent on unemployment benefits generates $2.15 of stimulus. That is mortgage payments paid, health care bills that are met, a continuation of the economy at the most stable level we can have when we are not seeing job increases.

It is vitally important, before we adjourn-we have spent all this time debating judges and there was a good debate on both sides-we get back to some of the basic issues that need to be accomplished before we adjourn. Certainly unemployment benefits, I believe, should be that priority.

What is going to happen in December if we adjourn sometime next week-this program expires at the end of December. What is likely, if that happens, is we will see 90,000 people at the national level fall off this benefit program and as many as 2 million people in the first several months of the year could be without unemployment benefits.

Like many of my colleagues, I hope the economy improves. But I don't think we are seeing an indication it will improve that rapidly that soon. To leave these people without benefits at a time when we could be stimulating the economy is irresponsible.

For Washington State, the numbers are similar. We have about 200,000 people in Washington State who will exhaust their benefits in the first 6 months of 2004. I would rather those people be receiving some benefits and having the certainty of receiving those benefits now, even if it is a shorter extension period.

The challenge we ran into last December as we bantered back and forth-and, actually, the Senate did the right thing in the eleventh hour by passing the unemployment benefit extension; the House decided not to act on it. What happened was we left many Americans without certainty of the unemployment benefits.

Some of my colleagues believe nothing happened, that when we got back in January we reconstituted that program and people did not lose a thing. That is not true. I know constituents who made alternative plans, not knowing whether Congress had the intention of extending the unemployment benefit program. There was not the certainty. I had constituents who took money out of pension programs with 30 percent penalties, basically trading off their long-term investment for short-term return because they did not think we were going to extend benefits.

We ought to give working Americans some certainty that as this economy continues to struggle, we are going to be there with unemployment benefits.

My colleague from Nevada has cited several times that many Members of Congress voted to terminate this program. In the 1990s, after we had the 30 months of an extension of employment benefits by both the Bush and Clinton administrations, and after we had a 1.2 percent improvement in the unemployment rate, yes, we curtailed that program. However, we are doing less now, less under more severe economic conditions, than the first President Bush and President Clinton did during that time period. They went for 30 months. They had a Federal program that was 20 weeks instead of the 13 we have now, and they only curtailed the program once they saw a better return to the economy.

I encourage my colleagues to put this bill on the priority list for the next several days. Let's figure out a way to give unemployed Americans some certainty as they face the holiday season. Let's give those millions of people who are going to be impacted by not having this Federal program continued some relief and know we will be also holding up our economy. Let's not say to people that this Congress went ahead and passed tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans, did a variety of things that may have been targeted tax credits, but failed to extend to hard-working Americans the unemployment benefit program into which they have paid.

UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session and the Finance Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 1853, a bill to extend unemployment insurance; that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; the bill be read the third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. On behalf of the majority leader, in my capacity as a Senator from Minnesota, I object.

Ms. CANTWELL. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

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

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.