Public Opinion
Floor Speech
PUBLIC OPINION -- (Senate - May 12, 2008)
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, so far, the 110th Congress has failed to address some of the biggest problems confronting our Nation today. While some may be content to simply point the finger of blame, I think it is time for the Senate to take a long, hard look in the mirror.
I was struck by a poll I read which I would like to share with my colleagues dated April 9, 2008. This is a Rasmussen poll which said that just 13 percent of likely voters believe Congress is doing a good or excellent job--13 percent. The respondents to the poll were also asked whether they thought Congress had passed in the last year any legislation that was designed to make their life a little bit easier. Incredibly, only 12 percent of these likely voters said Congress had passed any legislation to improve life in America during the last year. Fifty-nine percent said we had not. Fifty-nine percent of the respondents said Congress had not passed any legislation in the last year that had made their life better.
This is quite an indictment. Frankly, I think we are going to have a chance tomorrow morning to demonstrate that either these respondents to this poll had gotten it all wrong or we are going to prove them exactly right, depending on the vote we have tomorrow morning on this important energy legislation I want to talk about in a moment. But first I wish to offer some suggestions on why it is that Congress is so poorly thought of by the American voter. Frankly, I think there are a number of examples. I have four examples of inexplicable delays in how Congress has failed to take care of the Nation's business.
First of all, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Certainly, one of the most important jobs of the Federal Government is to make sure the American people are safe and secure. Our national security is job No. 1 for the Federal Government.
Over a year ago, our intelligence community alerted us to the fact that an outdated foreign intelligence surveillance system was causing our intelligence gatherers to operate essentially blind to new threats. Despite this urgent plea from the intelligence community, the Speaker of the House has denied an opportunity for the House of Representatives to vote on a bipartisan piece of legislation that came out of the Senate. In fact, this authority has expired for new threats some 87 days ago. Without the critical reform to our foreign intelligence surveillance system, we will not have access to time-critical information that will help protect not only our troops who are deployed around the world but also the American people at home as well. It is just a crying shame that the House leadership would have delayed passage of this important legislation. Again, legislation that was bipartisan and voted out of the Senate is now bogged down and blocked because the Speaker of the House has denied an opportunity for this important legislation to come up.
There is another example, unfortunately, justifying the American public's low opinion of the Congress, and this has to do with the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. We have been waiting 538 days--that is the second number on the chart, 538 days--for Congress to consider the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. After more than a year of trying to negotiate with Congress, President Bush finally submitted this important legislation for fast-track approval. But in a stunning display of just how far Speaker Pelosi is willing to go to delay this important agreement, she opted to rewrite the rules of the House of Representatives in order to avoid having to vote on the bill within the expedited timeline of our trade promotion authority.
This act would have ensured that farmers in my State, the State of Texas, as well as manufacturers and small businesses--it would have provided them a duty-free entry into the markets of the nation of Colombia in South America. Right now, those goods and services bear a tariff of up to 80 percent on their products, notwithstanding that my State of Texas, last year, sold $2.3 billion worth of goods and produce to the nation of Colombia and the people in Colombia. It is one of our best trading partners in South America. So why should our American goods and produce be discriminated against because of these high tariffs? Well, we had a way to solve that 538 days ago, but the Speaker of the House of Representatives has simply refused to allow the House to vote on it.
Recently, American businesses crossed the $1 billion mark in money lost to tariffs in Colombia as a result of the refusal to consider this important legislation. That is $1 billion that could have been saved and invested in our economy, and it is opportunities lost to small businesses and large businesses in America--such as farmers--to sell their goods and produce in Colombia without a tariff.
Well, it is also important because Colombia is one of our very best allies in South America in the fight against
the drug cartels and terrorist organizations. Just last week, Colombia extradited a reputed drug kingpin, Luis Hernando Gomez Bustamante, to America. This man is believed to head an organization responsible for 60 percent of the cocaine in America. He is finally now in custody pending trial in America, thanks to the Colombian Government. We need to support Colombia and President Uribe in their fight against men such as Luis Gomez Bustamante who are bringing deadly drugs to our streets. But, instead of the kind of cooperation and reinforcement and appreciation you would expect one friend to show another friend, our friends in Colombia have gotten nothing but a stiff arm from the Congress in a refusal to act on important legislation that would benefit them and would benefit us and would tell the world what it means to be a friend of the United States: beneficial trading relationships that are to the mutual benefit of the trading partners. But that was 538 days ago, with no action, and the clock is still ticking.
Mr. President, 683 days is another important example of mismanagement of the opportunity we have been given to serve the interests of the American people. It was 683 days ago that Peter Keisler was first nominated for a judicial appointment by the President of the United States. Unfortunately, he is not the only nominee who continues to languish while the majority continues to drag its feet in providing an opportunity for an up-or-down vote for these judicial nominees.
Today, as our colleagues from North Carolina have already pointed out, is the 300th day since Judge Robert Conrad's nomination came to the Senate, and he has not even been given the courtesy of a committee hearing--300 days after his nomination came to the Senate.
So far this year, the Senate has approved a total of one circuit court judge--just one. That by any standard is abysmal. While we continue to delay the confirmation of judges, there are 46 judicial vacancies in the Federal judiciary, 13 of which are considered judicial emergencies. And what does Congress do? What does the Senate do? Well, not much, almost nothing to deal with the judicial emergencies and these vacancies and to provide an up-or-down vote on these nominees.
The American people depend on fully functioning courts to find justice. The Senate's failure to do its constitutional duty to confirm or at least to allow a vote on qualified nominees for these vacancies has a very real impact on communities, on businesses, on the residents of the areas in which those courts have jurisdiction, and crime victims to have access to justice. But having no judge who can sit and hear the case is essentially like locking and chaining the front door to the courthouse.
Finally, how long will it be before the majority makes good on its promise that Speaker Pelosi made 749 days ago? It was 749 days ago when she promised the American people that if the Democrats were given the majority, they would have a commonsense solution to rising gas prices. Well, last week, after waiting more than 2 years, Democrats did unveil a plan. The irony is that it has become all too commonplace to find that these energy plans do not have one drop of additional energy but, rather, they recommend, really, more of the same--more taxation, more litigation, more investigations--but not one single drop of additional energy, not one single watt of new energy.
While oil and gas prices have hit record highs virtually every day--today hitting $3.72 a gallon--on January 4, 2007, when Speaker Pelosi and our friends on the Democratic side took charge of both the House and the Senate, that price of a gallon of gas was $2.33. Now it is $3.72. That is about a $1,400-per-family increase in the cost of living. And Congress continues to do next to nothing to deal with it, notwithstanding the promise Speaker Pelosi made some 749 days ago.
Well, the irony is that we have heard, in the plan that has been made by some on the other side of the aisle, that all we need to do is to raise taxes on the domestic oil producers and that will somehow find a way to solve our lack of oil and gasoline. Unfortunately, some of these ideas have been tried before and found to be total and abject failures. For example, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, this same tax idea was tried back during the Jimmy Carter administration. If you are too young to remember what happened during the Carter administration, there were shortfalls in the supply of gasoline, resulting in interminable lines waiting at gas stations. As a result, the Congressional Research Service said that domestic production--that is America's energy production--fell by roughly 5 percent, resulting in an overall increase in the dependence on imported oil from foreign sources. Is that what our friends on the other side of the aisle want, an increase in our dependence on imported oil? Well, I would think not. So why would they come up with these tested and failed schemes to increase our reliance on imported oil?
I noticed the distinguished Democratic chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, Senator Bingaman from New Mexico, has expressed it in words that perhaps I think are prophetic when he says this windfall profits tax is very arbitrary and bad policy.
Now, while this plan would help further line the pockets of OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and anti-American foreign leaders such as Hugo Chavez, this bill would also authorize the American Government to sue OPEC to demand that they increase oil production.
Now, we ought to think about that one a minute. OPEC, after all, is composed of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Indonesia, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. What our friends on the other side of the aisle have proposed is we file a lawsuit against Iran and Venezuela and tell them to turn the spigot all the way open. What that would do, of course, assuming it were possible, is it would mean that we were even more dependent on imported oil from our enemies such as Iran and Venezuela--not less. This would only make us more dependent on OPEC--not less.
Now, I believe there is a better solution, and that better solution is to take advantage of the natural resources God has given this great country of ours, one with which we have been supremely blessed. If, in fact, our friends on the other side of the aisle would allow us to pass the Domenici energy amendment--the American Energy Production Act--it would have the potential of producing as much as 3 million additional barrels of oil a day from American natural resources. This bill would open domestic resources such as shale oil in the Arctic and offshore deposits to domestic energy producers. It would immediately send a message to the speculators and commodity investors that there is going to be an additional amount of oil available in the future, up to 3 million barrels a day, and I believe have an immediate downward effect on the price of oil--a barrel of oil which, of course, is 70 percent of the cost of gasoline.
One thing is for sure: By taxing and penalizing our own domestic producers, that is not a solution, and we need to do everything we can in our power to lower prices and not to play additional games by trotting out tired and failed efforts of the past to try to bring down prices. We know the law of supply and demand is one Congress cannot repeal, so that is why we ought to pass the Domenici amendment tomorrow.
I yield the floor.
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