Passage of H. R. 6

Floor Speech

PASSAGE OF H.R. 6 -- (Senate - June 22, 2007)

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, thank you for recognizing me. Also I want to thank the majority leader for his kind words. He and I work very closely together, spend more time together than we ever imagined as we embarked on this journey, now in leadership, to try to serve the people of this Nation.

I want to say a word about my friend from Nevada. Senator Harry Reid is misunderstood by many Americans. Because he is soft spoken, and not as assertive as some politicians are, there are many on the outside who question his leadership capacity. No one on the inside questions it. He is the most highly respected leader I have ever had the good fortune to work with. It is based on the fact that he is inclusive, he is honest, outspoken, and stands by those who are willing to work harder to achieve our agenda.

Last night was a perfect illustration of this. The Energy bill was just a dream, a theory, for so long. The question was, could we put together a bipartisan coalition. We had to find a level of compromise and a level of cooperation or we did not have a chance. It was not easy to try to put into law, for the first time in over 20 years, a new national goal for fuel efficiency of our cars and trucks. It changed a lot of things and was viewed as threatening by many people.

My wife and I have made a point of doing our very best to buy American cars. We are loyal to the American automobile industry. With very few exceptions we have tried to make sure our purchases were on behalf of American workers. It was painful last night to be engaged in a debate where my good friends in the automobile industry, not just management--but I guess I have to be totally open with you, I am closer to those who work the lines, in Belvidere, IL and Bloomington, the United Auto Worker employees. I know these men and women. These are good people. They are hard-working people. They take pride in what they do.

They have been disappointed. I have as well. But our automobile industry in this country has been falling farther and farther behind. Just a few months ago, the CEOs, the major corporate officers of the Big Three came, just a few feet away, and met with the leadership in Congress. I had a chance to ask a question of the CEOs of Ford and General Motors and Chrysler. I asked a pretty hard question, but it was one that has been bothering me.

I said to them at the time: You know, I am one of your most loyal customers. I have owned cars and trucks from each of your companies and plan on continuing to try to buy your products in the future. But I am troubled because of the simple fact--I asked them--I said: Have any of you ever heard of a magazine called ``Consumer Reports''?

There was this kind of embarrassed silence in the room. I said: Well, I want you to explain something to me. Why, for the last 20 years, have American cars consistently shown poorer performance results than imported cars? Why have foreign cars, particularly from Japan, over the last 20 years consistently shown better performance results, better trade-in value? Why? What has been happening out there? We have the best engineering schools in the world. We started this industry, at least on a mass volume basis. Why is there such a difference in quality?

There was this pained silence while they waited for one of them to respond. Finally, one of the CEOs said: Well, we are getting better.

I said: I hope you are.

But the bottom line is, this industry now has been challenged. If the bill we passed last night is passed in the House of Representatives and becomes law, they will face a challenge. I, for one, believe they can rise to this challenge. I honestly do. It is going to call for a different mindset among the management at the highest levels in our automobile companies. It is going to call for the same spirit of can-do approach we have seen on the assembly lines from the workers. I think they can rise to this challenge.

I think America wants them to. I want to buy a car made in this country by American workers that is of the highest quality, that I can take pride in driving, knowing it is not only a good bargain for my family, but also a good deal for the environment.

That, I think, is what most Americans want to do. Now, that means there is going to have to be some new thinking. It means a lot of people in the boardrooms of those major companies are going to have to sit down and rethink their game plan.

I met with the man who is about to become the leader of Chrysler Corporation. He was talking about the fact that his private equity bought Chrysler because of their patriotic feelings. They do not want this great American car manufacturer to go away.

Well, I know if you are in business, sentimentality takes you so far. At some point you have to produce a profitable product. I think there is a profitability product built into the Energy bill we talked about last night. I believe if there is a conscious effort by our automobile manufacturers, they can meet these fuel efficiency standards we have included in our bill.

They can convince a lot of skeptical Americans it is time to come back home, to start buying these American cars. Now, it will be a painful process. There will be winners and losers. But, ultimately, I have confidence in this country, in the companies that work in this country, and in the workers of this country. When they come together, they can achieve great things.

Last night we set down a challenge to them: Change what you are selling in America. Make it a better product. Make it a more efficient product. Make it a product that is going to help us deal with global warming and climate change.

I think most American families are on board for that agenda. That is why I think the passage of this was so important. We never would have passed this energy bill late last night were it not for a bipartisan effort. We had many Republicans who crossed the aisle to join us. I think ultimately 17 or 18 came over to join the Democrats in the key procedural vote that moved this forward. Then the final vote was 65 to 27; there were even more.

We could have never achieved this goal of a new energy bill were it not for bipartisan cooperation, if Republicans had not come forward.

For some, it wasn't easy. When the Republican Senate leader, Mr. McConnell of Kentucky, stood up last night late in the debate and said: I want this debate to end, I want this bill to be defeated, I am going to vote no on the cloture motion--I heard him make that announcement--I was stunned. This is a bill which the administration believes has good elements relative to fuel economy. Yet the Republican leader stood on the floor and said: I am going to try to stop this bill. He did not prevail because 17 or 18 of his colleagues thought it was more important that the bill move forward. I salute them. It took extraordinary courage for them to do what they did.

There was another element in the Energy bill which is important to me because of my midwestern roots and because of my determination to see America shake its dependence on foreign oil. I am sick and tired of the United States hat in hand begging for oil from countries overseas. Many of these nations we turn to for oil don't share our values. In fact, some of them are on the wrong side in the war on terrorism. To think that every time you swipe that credit card through the gasoline pump or put the money on the counter, a portion of that is going to a nation which is funding terrorism is an outrage. It has to end. To think that time and again our brave soldiers, men and women in uniform, are drawn into conflicts in the Middle East because of oil is unacceptable. I don't want my grandchildren to face that. I want America to be as close to energy independent as possible. How do we reach that goal? Homegrown fuel, homegrown energy. We grow it in my State every year, a new crop of corn. With that new crop of corn, more ethanol, more alcohol fuels, and more biodiesel come from the soybean fields. That means we have less of a need to import oil.

Last night, in this bill, we raised to a much higher level our national goals when it comes to alcohol fuels, renewable fuels. It means a growing industry in my part of the world, in the Midwest, in Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, where ethanol plants are being built. These plants use local production of agriculture, corn by and large, and turn it into alcohol. The construction workers are building the plants, good-paying jobs. There are people at the plants making sure they are producing ethanol. They are shipping products in trucks driven by Americans to put in the cars driven by Americans. I feel good about this. We are moving in the right direction.

This bill made a significant commitment to strengthen the market for alcohol fuels. I was disappointed that my biodiesel program was not included. I wish it had been. I am not giving up. We have a farm bill coming up. We will have several other opportunities. I think biodiesel is great. It uses soybeans and other oilseeds to produce a vegetable oil added to diesel fuel so that we don't see that huge plume of black smoke coming out of the tailpipes of diesel trucks and cars, so there is less pollution. More homegrown energy is a good thing for the country. I want to include it as part of the energy picture.

This was a hard debate over the last 2 weeks. I am sorry it took 2 weeks. We wasted more time on the floor. I am sure the people who have C-SPAN on their cable often turn to it and say: What in the world is going on in the Senate? It doesn't look like there is any movement. Is anybody alive down there? The floor looks empty except for the handsome and beautiful staff we have here who are on television during the day. Many times there are periods when there is no activity. Time is wasted. There was time wasted on this bill. Time and again, the Republican minority forced us to wait 30 hours, file a motion, wait another 30 hours.

We have a lot to do. I think we owe it to the American people to roll up our sleeves and get it done. We need more bipartisan cooperation. We need to put an end to these endless motions and procedural delays. Let's get down to business. Wouldn't the American people cheer us if we said: Let's pass the 9/11 recommendations and turn them into law to make America safer; let's do something immediately about No Child Left Behind to send money to the schools so they can hire the very best teachers and produce students who are ready to compete in the 21st century. Wouldn't the American people cheer us if, instead of being lost in some procedural morass day after weary day, we came up with a way to help working families pay for college education expenses for their children so they don't end up graduating deep in debt and unable to take the jobs they had their hearts set on?

There are so many things we need to do. With a little cooperation from the other side of the aisle and a better approach, we can say to our Republican friends: You are entitled under the rules of the Senate to produce amendments, to ask for a vote, to ask for debate. But at some point, it has to come to an end. At some point, we have to move forward.

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