If I could respond to that, to some extent, it is a chicken- and-egg proposition. You have to have an authorization before you can have an appropriation. And the administration merely has the benefit of both. It can put something in the…

The first is to put a deadline in there that they have to shoot for rather than just, in effect, saying, ``well, whenever you can,'' because that will probably result in delay. Second, we have to fund the programs adequately. The Senator…

I am sorry. It was my understanding that the Senator from West Virginia raised a question about three of the deadlines in the bill, and on two of the three there is no good answer. I will give the best answer I can. On the first one, I…

Our thinking in putting those deadlines in was to try to give them something to shoot for so we could at least get them going to try to get it done as soon as possible.

Today one of my staff members is leaving my employment to go to the Department of Labor. It is our loss and Secretary Chao's gain. He has worked with me since 1994. Most staff members do not stay around that long. His name is Tom…

Senator Feinstein, and I have been working on issues relating to terrorism from the time I first came to the Senate. We have been either chairman or ranking member, respectively, of the committee ever since that time. I can think of few…

This amendment is one last attempt to preserve some semblance of ability by the States to protect their electric consumers in the event the costs of this Federal mandate program should be too great and allows, therefore, the Governor to…

the only way a Governor could waive the provisions with respect to his State would be if he found that the renewable portfolio standard would adversely affect consumers in his State. So he would have to find it is adversely affecting the…

let me give you the 10 reasons we should support the Kyl amendment. No. 1, the Bingaman amendment is the command-economy amendment, a 10- percent mandate, and the Kyl amendment is for State choice. No. 2, the Bingaman amendment is very…

No, it is not right. In fact, many of the people or companies that sell to power retail do not produce with renewable sources today. They have to buy credits. The assumption is based upon the value of the credits as set forth in the…

the cost number that it used was the one in your bill, in your amendment, the amendment of the Senator from New Mexico, which is that you can buy this from the Department of Energy at 3 cents per kilowatt hour.

what those two letters say is that the Kyl amendment should be adopted and the Bingaman amendment should lose. They are echoing the sentiments of a lot of other groups both in the private and public sectors. I have put in the Record some…

I asked the question of the staff people, who have read and reread and reread the underlying bill and the Bingaman amendment, if there was any limitation on from where the credits came. And they told me they could find none. There is no…

That is really the basis for the Kyl-Miller amendment: to allow the States to determine what is in their best interest. I note that in more than 90 utilities across the country there is already a green pricing policy, what they call green…

I have laid down an amendment to the underlying Bingaman amendment, which I think sets up a classic choice for our colleagues. We have been selling this energy bill and especially the electricity section of it as promoting competition, the…

the Bush administration is currently involved in negotiations to settle a dispute regarding the importation of Canadian softwood lumber. Softwood lumber is essential for building quality, affordable homes in the United States. Its price…

The underlying bill has a premise, which is that it is a good thing for the U.S. Government to foster the increased production of electricity through so-called renewable energy sources. Now, current law does that through a series of…

I share that sadness tonight because I think a very fine man has been ill treated. Some of my colleagues have said the process was fair. And I don't argue that the process was unfair. But what I argue was unfair was the characterization of…

On January 28, I addressed the reasons why I believe the President is correct to move this nation forward in the deployment of a national missile defense. I pointed out then that the threat is too great not to proceed when the technical…

It authorizes--it does not mandate--that Social Security numbers may be used by States to validate voter registration. This would provide that ability. It can prevent duplication and fraud. This would simply add to that list of items…

obviously, we will listen to those concerns. I need to go back and mention one thing I mentioned when I introduced it earlier. There is a long list of things for which the law permits us to use Social Security numbers precisely because the…

The language does do it, especially with the second-degree amendment that has been accepted that the Senator from Kentucky offered. This amendment allows what 11 States currently are allowed to do and 7 actually do do, which is to use…

It would be our intention to ensure that is the case, with only one caveat. The seven States that currently do this legally, I am not sure exactly what their laws say, and it is not our intention here to deal with those one way or the…

If the Senator understood me to say a State could mandate this as the only method of identification, that is not correct. If I said that, I certainly did not mean to say it. It is not correct. Let me again read the language because it is…

I point out there are cases--in fact, one case in the Virginia system was invalidated because it did not provide adequate protection in the use of these Social Security numbers. Clearly, our authorization of this does not put a stamp of…