Military Commission Legislation Statement
September 28, 2006
Mr. President, I am proud to be sponsoring this amendment with the senior senator from West Virginia. He's absolutely right that Congress has abrogated its oversight responsibilities, and one way to reverse that troubling trend is to adopt a sunset provision in this bill. We did that in the Patriot Act, and that allowed us to make important revisions to the bill that reflected our experience about what worked and didn't work during the previous 5 years. We should do that again with this important piece of legislation.
But I want to take a few minutes to speak more broadly about the bill before us.
I may have only been in this body for a short while, but I am not naive to the political considerations that go along with many of the decisions we make here. I realize that soon, we will adjourn for the fall, and the campaigning will begin in earnest. And there will be 30-second attack ads and negative mail pieces, and we will be criticized as caring more about the rights of terrorists than the protection of Americans. And I know that the vote before us was specifically designed and timed to add more fuel to that fire.
And yet, while I know all of this, I'm still disappointed. Because what we're doing here today - a debate over the fundamental human rights of the accused - should be bigger than politics. This is serious.
If this was a debate with obvious ideological differences - heartfelt convictions that couldn't be settled by compromise - I would understand. But it's not.
All of us - Democrats and Republicans - want to do whatever it takes to track down terrorists and bring them to justice as swiftly as possible. All of us want to give our President every tool necessary to do this. And all of us were willing to do that in this bill. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to the American people.
In the five years that the President's system of military tribunals has existed, not one terrorist has been tried. Not one has been convicted. And in the end, the Supreme Court of the United found the whole thing unconstitutional, which is why we're here today.
We could have fixed all of this in a way that allows us to detain and interrogate and try suspected terrorists while still protecting the accidentally accused from spending their lives locked away in Guantanamo Bay. Easily. This was not an either-or question.
Instead of allowing this President - or any President - to decide what does and does not constitute torture, we could have left the definition up to our own laws and to the Geneva Conventions, as we would have if we passed the bill that the Armed Services committee originally offered.
Instead of detainees arriving at Guantanamo and facing a Combatant Status Review Tribunal that allows them no real chance to prove their innocence with evidence or a lawyer, we could have developed a real military system of justice that would sort out the suspected terrorists from the accidentally accused.
And instead of not just suspending, but eliminating, the right of habeas corpus - the seven century-old right of individuals to challenge the terms of their own detention, we could have given the accused one chance - one single chance - to ask the government why they are being held and what they are being charged with.
But politics won today. Politics won. The Administration got its vote, and now it will have its victory lap, and now they will be able to go out on the campaign trail and tell the American people that they were the ones who were tough on the terrorists.
And yet, we have a bill that gives the terrorist mastermind of 9/11 his day in court, but not the innocent people we may have accidentally rounded up and mistaken for terrorists - people who may stay in prison for the rest of their lives.
And yet, we have a report authored by sixteen of our own government's intelligence agencies, a previous draft of which described, and I quote, "...actions by the United States government that were determined to have stoked the jihad movement, like the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay..."
And yet, we have Al Qaeda and the Taliban regrouping in Afghanistan while we look the other way. We have a war in Iraq that our own government's intelligence says is serving as Al Qaeda's best recruitment tool. And we have recommendations from the bipartisan 9/11 commission that we still refuse to implement five years after the fact.
The problem with this bill is not that it's too tough on terrorists. The problem with this bill is that it's sloppy. And the reason it's sloppy is because we rushed it to serve political purposes instead of taking the time to do the job right.
I've heard, for example, the argument that it should be military courts, and not federal judges, who should make decisions on these detainees. I actually agree with that. The problem is that the structure of the military proceedings has been poorly thought through. Indeed, the regulations that are supposed to be governing administrative hearings for these detainees, which should have been issued months ago, still haven't been issued. Instead, we have rushed through a bill that stands a good chance of being challenged once again in the Supreme Court.
This is not how a serious Administration would approach the problem of terrorism. I know the President came here today and was insisting that this is supposed to be our primary concern. He's absolutely right it should be our primary concern - which is why we should be approaching this with a somberness and seriousness that this Administration has not displayed with this legislation.
Now, let me be clear - for those who plot terror against the United States, I hope God has mercy on their soul, because I certainly do not. And for those who our government suspects of terror, I support whatever tools are necessary to try them and uncover their plot.
But we also know that some have been detained who have no connection to terror whatsoever. We've already had reports from the CIA and various generals over the last few years saying that many of the detainees at Guantanamo shouldn't have been there - as one U.S. commander of Guantanamo told the Wall Street Journal, "Sometimes, we just didn't get the right folks." And we all know about the recent case of the Canadian man who was suspected of terrorist connections, detained in New York, sent to Syria, and tortured, only to find out later that it was all a case of mistaken identity and poor information.
In the future, people like this may never have a chance to prove their innocence. They may remain locked away forever.
And the sad part about all of this is that this betrayal of American values is unnecessary. We could've drafted a bipartisan, well-structured bill that provided adequate due process through the military courts, had an effective review process that would've prevented frivolous lawsuits being filed and kept lawyers from clogging our courts, but upheld the basic ideals that have made this country great.
Instead, what we have is a flawed document that in fact betrays the best instincts of some of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle - those who worked in a bipartisan fashion in the Armed Services Committee to craft a bill that we could have been proud of. And they essentially got steamrolled by this Administration and by the imperatives of November 7th.
That is not how we should be doing business in the U.S. Senate, and that's not how we should be prosecuting this war on terrorism. When we're sloppy and cut corners, we are undermining those very virtues of America that will lead us to success in winning this war. At bare minimum, I hope we can at least pass this provision so that cooler heads can prevail after the silly season of politics is over. Thank you.
Floor Statement on the Habeas Corpus Amendment
September 27, 2006
Mr. President, I would like to address the habeas corpus amendment that is on the floor and that we just heard a lengthy debate about between Senator Specter and Senator Warner.
A few years ago, I gave a speech in Boston that people talk about from time to time. In that speech, I spoke about why I love this country, why I love America, and what I believe sets this country apart from so many other nations in so many areas. I said:
That is the true genius of America--a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. .....
Without hearing a sudden knock on the door. I bring this up because what is at stake in this bill, and in the amendment that is currently being debated, is the right, in some sense, for people who hear that knock on the door and are placed in detention because the Government suspects them of terrorist activity to effectively challenge their detention by our Government.
Now, under the existing rules of the Detainee Treatment Act, court review of anyone's detention is severely restricted. Fortunately, the Supreme Court in Hamdan ensured that some meaningful review would take place. But in the absence of Senator Specter's amendment that is currently pending, we will essentially be going back to the same situation as if the Supreme Court had never ruled in Hamdan, a situation in which detainees effectively have no access to anything other than the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, or the CSRT.
Now, I think it is important for all of us to understand exactly the procedures that are currently provided for under the CSRT. I have actually read a few of the transcripts of proceedings under the CSRT. And I can tell you that oftentimes they provide detainees no meaningful recourse if the Government has the wrong guy.
Essentially, reading these transcripts, they proceed as follows: The Government says: You are a member of the Taliban. And the detainee will say: No, I'm not. And then the Government will not ask for proof from the detainee that he is not. There is no evidence that the detainee can offer to rebut the Government's charge.
The Government then moves on and says: And on such and such a date, you perpetrated such and such terrorist crime. And the detainee says: No, I didn't. You have the wrong guy. But again, he has no capacity to place into evidence anything that would rebut the Government's charge. And there is no effort to find out whether or not what he is saying is true.
And it proceeds like that until effectively the Government says, OK, that is the end of the tribunal, and he goes back to detention. Even if there is evidence that he was not involved in any terrorist activity, he may not have any mechanism to introduce that evidence into the hearing.
Now, the vast majority of the folks in Guantanamo, I suspect, are there for a reason. There are a lot of dangerous people. Particularly dangerous are people like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Ironically, those are the guys who are going to get real military procedures because they are going to be charged by the Government. But detainees who have not committed war crimes--or where the Government's case is not strong--may not have any recourse whatsoever.
The bottom line is this: Current procedures under the CSRT are such that a perfectly innocent individual could be held and could not rebut the Government's case and has no way of proving his innocence.
I would like somebody in this Chamber, somebody in this Government, to tell me why this is necessary. I do not want to hear that this is a new world and we face a new kind of enemy. I know that. I know that every time I think about my two little girls and worry for their safety--when I wonder if I really can tuck them in at night and know that they are safe from harm. I have as big of a stake as anybody on the other side of the aisle and anybody in this administration in capturing terrorists and incapacitating them. I would gladly take up arms myself against any terrorist threat to make sure my family is protected.
But as a parent, I can also imagine the terror I would feel if one of my family members were rounded up in the middle of the night and sent to Guantanamo without even getting one chance to ask why they were being held and being able to prove their innocence.
This is not just an entirely fictional scenario, by the way. We have already had reports by the CIA and various generals over the last few years saying that many of the detainees at Guantanamo should not have been there. As one U.S. commander of Guantanamo told the Wall Street Journal:
Sometimes, we just didn't get the right folks.
We all know about the recent case of the Canadian man who was suspected of terrorist connections, detained in New York, sent to Syria--through a rendition agreement--tortured, only to find out later it was all a case of mistaken identity and poor information.
In this war, where terrorists can plot undetected from within our borders, it is absolutely vital that our law enforcement agencies are able to detain and interrogate whoever they believe to be a suspect,
and so it is understandable that mistakes will be made and identities will be confused. I don't blame the Government for that. This is an extraordinarily difficult war we are prosecuting against terrorists. There are going to be situations in which we cast too wide a net and capture the wrong person.
But what is avoidable is refusing to ever allow our legal system to correct these mistakes. By giving suspects a chance--even one chance--to challenge the terms of their detention in court, to have a judge confirm that the Government has detained the right person for the right suspicions, we could solve this problem without harming our efforts in the war on terror one bit.
Let me respond to a couple of points that have been made on the other side. You will hear opponents of this amendment say it will give all kinds of rights to terrorist masterminds, such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. But that is not true. The irony of the underlying bill as it is written is that someone like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is going to get basically a full military trial, with all of the bells and whistles. He will have counsel, he will be able to present evidence, and he will be able to rebut the Government's case. The feeling is that he is guilty of a war crime and to do otherwise might violate some of our agreements under the Geneva Conventions. I think that is good, that we are going to provide him with some procedure and process. I think we will convict him, and I think he will be brought to justice. I think justice will be carried out in his case.
But that won't be true for the detainees who are never charged with a terrorist crime, who have not committed a war crime. Under this bill, people who may have been simply at the wrong place at the wrong time--and there may be just a few--will never get a chance to appeal their detention. So, essentially, the weaker the Government's case is against you, the fewer rights you have. Senator Specter's amendment would fix that, while still ensuring that terrorists like Mohammed are swiftly brought to justice.
You are also going to hear a lot about how lawyers are going to file all kinds of frivolous lawsuits on behalf of detainees if habeas corpus is in place. This is a cynical argument because I think we could get overwhelming support in this Chamber right now for a measure that would restrict habeas to a one-shot appeal that would be limited solely to whether someone was legally detained or not. I am not interested in allowing folks at Guantanamo to complain about whether their cell is too small or whether the food they get is sufficiently edible or to their tastes. That is not what this is about. We can craft a habeas bill that says the only question before the court is whether there is sufficient evidence to find that this person is truly an unlawful enemy combatant and belongs in this detention center. We can restrict it to that. And although I have seen some of those amendments floating around, those were not amendments that were admitted during this debate. It is a problem that is easily addressed. It is not a reason for us to wholesale eliminate habeas corpus.
Finally, you will hear some Senators argue that if habeas is allowed, it renders the CSRT process irrelevant because the courts will embark on de novo review, meaning they will completely retry these cases, take new evidence. So whatever findings were made in the CSRT are not really relevant because the court is essentially going to start all over again.
I actually think some of these Senators are right on this point. I believe we could actually set up a system in which a military tribunal is sufficient to make a determination as to whether someone is an enemy combatant and would not require the sort of traditional habeas corpus that is called for as a consequence of this amendment, where the court's role is simply to see whether proper procedures were met. The problem is that the way the CSRT is currently designed is so insufficient that we can anticipate the Supreme Court overturning this underlying bill,
once again, in the absence of habeas corpus review.
I have had conversations with some of the sponsors of the underlying bill who say they agree that we have to beef up the CSRT procedures. Well, if we are going to revisit the CSRT procedures to make them stronger and make sure they comport with basic due process, why not leave habeas corpus in place until we have actually fixed it up to our satisfaction? Why rush through it 2 days before we are supposed to adjourn? Because some on the other side of the aisle want to go campaign on the issue of who is tougher on terrorism and national security.
Since 9/11, Americans have been asked to give up certain conveniences and civil liberties--long waits in airport security lines, random questioning because of a foreign-sounding last name--so that the Government can defeat terrorism wherever it may exist. It is a tough balance to strike. I think we have to acknowledge that whoever was in power right now, whoever was in the White House, whichever party was in control, that we would have to do some balancing between civil liberties and our need for security and to get tough on those who would do us harm.
Most of us have been willing to make some sacrifices because we know that, in the end, it helps to make us safer. But restricting somebody's right to challenge their imprisonment indefinitely is not going to make us safer. In fact, recent evidence shows it is probably making us less safe.
In Sunday's New York Times, it was reported that previous drafts of the recently released National Intelligence Estimate, a report of 16 different Government intelligence agencies, describe:
..... actions by the United States Government that were determined to have stoked the jihad movement, like the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. .....
This is not just unhelpful in our fight against terror, it is unnecessary. We don't need to imprison innocent people to win this war. For people who are guilty, we have the procedures in place to lock them up. That is who we are as a people. We do things right, and we do things fair.
Two days ago, every Member of this body received a letter, signed by 35 U.S. diplomats, many of whom served under Republican Presidents. They urged us to reconsider eliminating the rights of habeas corpus from this bill, saying:
To deny habeas corpus to our detainees can be seen as a prescription for how the captured members of our own military, diplomatic, and NGO personnel stationed abroad may be treated. ..... The Congress has every duty to insure their protection, and to avoid anything which will be taken as a justification, even by the most disturbed minds, that arbitrary arrest is the acceptable norm of the day in the relations between nations, and that judicial inquiry is an antique, trivial and dispensable luxury.
The world is watching what we do today in America. They will know what we do here today, and they will treat all of us accordingly in the future--our soldiers, our diplomats, our journalists, anybody who travels beyond these borders. I hope we remember this as we go forward. I sincerely hope we can protect what has been called the ``great writ''--a writ that has been in place in the Anglo-American legal system for over 700 years.
Mr. President, this should not be a difficult vote. I hope we pass this amendment because I think it is the only way to make sure this underlying bill preserves all the great traditions of our legal system and our way of life.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I would like to address the habeas corpus amendment that is on the floor and that we just heard a lengthy debate about between Senator Specter and Senator Warner.
A few years ago, I gave a speech in Boston that people talk about from time to time. In that speech, I spoke about why I love this country, why I love America, and what I believe sets this country apart from so many other nations in so many areas. I said:
That is the true genius of America--a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. .....
Without hearing a sudden knock on the door. I bring this up because what is at stake in this bill, and in the amendment that is currently being debated, is the right, in some sense, for people who hear that knock on the door and are placed in detention because the Government suspects them of terrorist activity to effectively challenge their detention by our Government.
Now, under the existing rules of the Detainee Treatment Act, court review of anyone's detention is severely restricted. Fortunately, the Supreme Court in Hamdan ensured that some meaningful review would take place. But in the absence of Senator Specter's amendment that is currently pending, we will essentially be going back to the same situation as if the Supreme Court had never ruled in Hamdan, a situation in which detainees effectively have no access to anything other than the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, or the CSRT.
Now, I think it is important for all of us to understand exactly the procedures that are currently provided for under the CSRT. I have actually read a few of the transcripts of proceedings under the CSRT. And I can tell you that oftentimes they provide detainees no meaningful recourse if the Government has the wrong guy.
Essentially, reading these transcripts, they proceed as follows: The Government says: You are a member of the Taliban. And the detainee will say: No, I'm not. And then the Government will not ask for proof from the detainee that he is not. There is no evidence that the detainee can offer to rebut the Government's charge.
The Government then moves on and says: And on such and such a date, you perpetrated such and such terrorist crime. And the detainee says: No, I didn't. You have the wrong guy. But again, he has no capacity to place into evidence anything that would rebut the Government's charge. And there is no effort to find out whether or not what he is saying is true.
And it proceeds like that until effectively the Government says, OK, that is the end of the tribunal, and he goes back to detention. Even if there is evidence that he was not involved in any terrorist activity, he may not have any mechanism to introduce that evidence into the hearing.
Now, the vast majority of the folks in Guantanamo, I suspect, are there for a reason. There are a lot of dangerous people. Particularly dangerous are people like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Ironically, those are the guys who are going to get real military procedures because they are going to be charged by the Government. But detainees who have not committed war crimes--or where the Government's case is not strong--may not have any recourse whatsoever.
The bottom line is this: Current procedures under the CSRT are such that a perfectly innocent individual could be held and could not rebut the Government's case and has no way of proving his innocence.
I would like somebody in this Chamber, somebody in this Government, to tell me why this is necessary. I do not want to hear that this is a new world and we face a new kind of enemy. I know that. I know that every time I think about my two little girls and worry for their safety--when I wonder if I really can tuck them in at night and know that they are safe from harm. I have as big of a stake as anybody on the other side of the aisle and anybody in this administration in capturing terrorists and incapacitating them. I would gladly take up arms myself against any terrorist threat to make sure my family is protected.
But as a parent, I can also imagine the terror I would feel if one of my family members were rounded up in the middle of the night and sent to Guantanamo without even getting one chance to ask why they were being held and being able to prove their innocence.
This is not just an entirely fictional scenario, by the way. We have already had reports by the CIA and various generals over the last few years saying that many of the detainees at Guantanamo should not have been there. As one U.S. commander of Guantanamo told the Wall Street Journal:
Sometimes, we just didn't get the right folks.
We all know about the recent case of the Canadian man who was suspected of terrorist connections, detained in New York, sent to Syria--through a rendition agreement--tortured, only to find out later it was all a case of mistaken identity and poor information.
In this war, where terrorists can plot undetected from within our borders, it is absolutely vital that our law enforcement agencies are able to detain and interrogate whoever they believe to be a suspect,
and so it is understandable that mistakes will be made and identities will be confused. I don't blame the Government for that. This is an extraordinarily difficult war we are prosecuting against terrorists. There are going to be situations in which we cast too wide a net and capture the wrong person.
But what is avoidable is refusing to ever allow our legal system to correct these mistakes. By giving suspects a chance--even one chance--to challenge the terms of their detention in court, to have a judge confirm that the Government has detained the right person for the right suspicions, we could solve this problem without harming our efforts in the war on terror one bit.
Let me respond to a couple of points that have been made on the other side. You will hear opponents of this amendment say it will give all kinds of rights to terrorist masterminds, such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. But that is not true. The irony of the underlying bill as it is written is that someone like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is going to get basically a full military trial, with all of the bells and whistles. He will have counsel, he will be able to present evidence, and he will be able to rebut the Government's case. The feeling is that he is guilty of a war crime and to do otherwise might violate some of our agreements under the Geneva Conventions. I think that is good, that we are going to provide him with some procedure and process. I think we will convict him, and I think he will be brought to justice. I think justice will be carried out in his case.
But that won't be true for the detainees who are never charged with a terrorist crime, who have not committed a war crime. Under this bill, people who may have been simply at the wrong place at the wrong time--and there may be just a few--will never get a chance to appeal their detention. So, essentially, the weaker the Government's case is against you, the fewer rights you have. Senator Specter's amendment would fix that, while still ensuring that terrorists like Mohammed are swiftly brought to justice.
You are also going to hear a lot about how lawyers are going to file all kinds of frivolous lawsuits on behalf of detainees if habeas corpus is in place. This is a cynical argument because I think we could get overwhelming support in this Chamber right now for a measure that would restrict habeas to a one-shot appeal that would be limited solely to whether someone was legally detained or not. I am not interested in allowing folks at Guantanamo to complain about whether their cell is too small or whether the food they get is sufficiently edible or to their tastes. That is not what this is about. We can craft a habeas bill that says the only question before the court is whether there is sufficient evidence to find that this person is truly an unlawful enemy combatant and belongs in this detention center. We can restrict it to that. And although I have seen some of those amendments floating around, those were not amendments that were admitted during this debate. It is a problem that is easily addressed. It is not a reason for us to wholesale eliminate habeas corpus.
Finally, you will hear some Senators argue that if habeas is allowed, it renders the CSRT process irrelevant because the courts will embark on de novo review, meaning they will completely retry these cases, take new evidence. So whatever findings were made in the CSRT are not really relevant because the court is essentially going to start all over again.
I actually think some of these Senators are right on this point. I believe we could actually set up a system in which a military tribunal is sufficient to make a determination as to whether someone is an enemy combatant and would not require the sort of traditional habeas corpus that is called for as a consequence of this amendment, where the court's role is simply to see whether proper procedures were met. The problem is that the way the CSRT is currently designed is so insufficient that we can anticipate the Supreme Court overturning this underlying bill,
once again, in the absence of habeas corpus review.
I have had conversations with some of the sponsors of the underlying bill who say they agree that we have to beef up the CSRT procedures. Well, if we are going to revisit the CSRT procedures to make them stronger and make sure they comport with basic due process, why not leave habeas corpus in place until we have actually fixed it up to our satisfaction? Why rush through it 2 days before we are supposed to adjourn? Because some on the other side of the aisle want to go campaign on the issue of who is tougher on terrorism and national security.
Since 9/11, Americans have been asked to give up certain conveniences and civil liberties--long waits in airport security lines, random questioning because of a foreign-sounding last name--so that the Government can defeat terrorism wherever it may exist. It is a tough balance to strike. I think we have to acknowledge that whoever was in power right now, whoever was in the White House, whichever party was in control, that we would have to do some balancing between civil liberties and our need for security and to get tough on those who would do us harm.
Most of us have been willing to make some sacrifices because we know that, in the end, it helps to make us safer. But restricting somebody's right to challenge their imprisonment indefinitely is not going to make us safer. In fact, recent evidence shows it is probably making us less safe.
In Sunday's New York Times, it was reported that previous drafts of the recently released National Intelligence Estimate, a report of 16 different Government intelligence agencies, describe:
..... actions by the United States Government that were determined to have stoked the jihad movement, like the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. .....
This is not just unhelpful in our fight against terror, it is unnecessary. We don't need to imprison innocent people to win this war. For people who are guilty, we have the procedures in place to lock them up. That is who we are as a people. We do things right, and we do things fair.
Two days ago, every Member of this body received a letter, signed by 35 U.S. diplomats, many of whom served under Republican Presidents. They urged us to reconsider eliminating the rights of habeas corpus from this bill, saying:
To deny habeas corpus to our detainees can be seen as a prescription for how the captured members of our own military, diplomatic, and NGO personnel stationed abroad may be treated. ..... The Congress has every duty to insure their protection, and to avoid anything which will be taken as a justification, even by the most disturbed minds, that arbitrary arrest is the acceptable norm of the day in the relations between nations, and that judicial inquiry is an antique, trivial and dispensable luxury.
The world is watching what we do today in America. They will know what we do here today, and they will treat all of us accordingly in the future--our soldiers, our diplomats, our journalists, anybody who travels beyond these borders. I hope we remember this as we go forward. I sincerely hope we can protect what has been called the ``great writ''--a writ that has been in place in the Anglo-American legal system for over 700 years.
Mr. President, this should not be a difficult vote. I hope we pass this amendment because I think it is the only way to make sure this underlying bill preserves all the great traditions of our legal system and our way of life.
I yield the floor.
Energy Independence: A Call for Leadership
September 20, 2006
Now that summer's over and gas prices have finally come down a bit, there's a temptation to put any discussion about energy on the back burner until the next crisis arises. Gone are the days when the President would make sweeping pronouncements in his State of the Union about America's addiction to oil - today there is far more political mileage out of questioning Democrats' commitment to fighting terror than by affirming America's commitment to energy independence.
But as the President may or may not have learned by now, simply ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away. Because while headlines about price gouging and gas lines have temporarily faded from the news, new headlines have emerged that should have us every bit as concerned about the addiction we just can't seem to shake.
In just the last week, two in particular caught my eye.
One is from the Detroit Free Press, and it talks about how Ford Motor Company plans to cut 30,000 hourly jobs, 14,000 salaried jobs, and close sixteen plants by 2012.
Now, there are plenty of reasons for Ford's financial troubles, but one of the most glaring has been their inability to compete with foreign counterparts by transitioning to the fuel-efficient and hybrid vehicles that represent the future of the auto industry.
200,000 of these hybrids are driving around China today, a country that already has a higher fuel economy than we do. Over in Japan, Toyota is doubling production of the popular Prius to sell 100,000 in the U.S. this year. But at Ford, there are plans to make only 20,000 Escape Hybrids in 2006, and GM's brand won't be on the market until 2007. Meanwhile, the waiting lists for a hybrid car in this country get longer by the day.
These foreign auto companies are out-innovating and out-competing us, and if we do nothing to help U.S. carmakers, tens of thousands more jobs and billions in business will be heading overseas in the months to come.
Unfortunately, job losses and foreign competition are just the half of it. Because the second headline that caught my eye was in Saturday's New York Times, and it read, "Suicide Attacks Foiled at 2 Oil Sites in Yemen."
This news is disturbing, but not surprising. For years, Al Qaeda has been trying to attack Middle Eastern oil refineries as a way to wreak havoc on the U.S. economy. Osama bin Laden himself has said, "Focus your operations on oil, especially in Iraq and the Gulf area, since this will cause them to die off [on their own]." In the past, even minor attacks have caused global prices to jump $2 per barrel in a single day. And a former CIA agent tells us that if terrorists ever succeeded in destroying an entire oil complex, it could take enough oil off the market to cause financial catastrophe in America.
More than anything else, headlines like these represent a realization that goes far beyond the temporary rise and fall of gas prices. It's a realization that for all of our economic dominance - for all of our military might - the Achilles heel of the most powerful country on Earth is the oil we cannot live without.
The President knows this. That thousands of autoworkers are losing their jobs. That we spend $18 million on foreign oil ever hour. That our climate is changing and global temperatures are rising.
And yet, for someone who talks tough about defending America, actually solving our energy crisis seems to factor pretty low on the President's agenda.
And that's because as much as George Bush might want to defend America, he also needs to defend his vision of government - and that's a government that can't, won't, and shouldn't solve great national challenges like our energy dependence.
That's why the President's funding for renewable fuels is at the same level it was the day he took office. That's why his budget funds less then half of the energy bill he himself signed into law. That's why billions of tax dollars that could've been used to fund energy research went to the record-profiting oil companies instead.
And that's why it's time to stand up for a new vision of government this November.
You see, it's this timidity - this smallness - in our politics that's holding us back right now. The idea that some problems are just too big to handle, and if you just ignore them, sooner or later, they'll go away.
But that's not where the American people are. They still believe in an America where anything's possible - they just don't think their leaders do. They still dream big dreams - they just sense their leaders have forgotten how.
There's a reason that some have compared the quest for energy independence to the Manhattan Project or the Apollo moon landing. Like those historic efforts, moving away from an oil economy is a major challenge that will require a sustained national commitment.
During World War II, we had an entire country working around the clock to produce enough planes and tanks to beat the Axis powers. In the middle of the Cold War, we built a national highway system so we had a quick way to transport military equipment across the country. When we wanted to beat the Russians into space, we poured millions into a national education initiative that graduated thousands of new scientists and engineers.
If we hope to strengthen our security and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, we can offer no less of a commitment to energy independence.
With technology we have on the shelves right now and fuels we can grow right here in America, by 2025 we can reduce our oil imports by over 7.5. million barrels per day - an amount greater than all the oil we are expected to import from the entire Middle East.
We start by producing cars that use less oil. The auto industry has not been asked to raise fuel economy standards in seventeen years, and lately we've just stopped asking them to.
Today, we have no choice. Starting in 2008, if we raised CAF'E standards a modest 3% a year over the next twelve years, by 2020 passenger vehicles would average 40.5 mpg and light trucks would average 32.6 mpg. This is by no means a dramatic increase - five years ago, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that raising CAF'E to 33 mpg for passenger cars could easily be done without compromising passenger safety.
Not only would this reduce America's oil consumption, but it would increase profits for the auto industry. Yesterday a University of Michigan report came out that said if the Big Three automakers took proactive steps to increase the fuel-efficiency of their vehicles, they would stand to gain up to $2 billion more in profits per year. But if they continue on their current path, they could stand to lose up to $3.6 billion in profits.
Of course, auto executives are right when they say that transitioning to these more fuel-efficient automobiles would be costly at a time of sagging profits and stiff competition, and that's precisely why the federal government shouldn't let the industry face these costs on their own.
We should strike a grand bargain with the Big Three automakers where the government picks up part of the tab for their retiree health care costs - a tab that ran almost $6.7 billion just last year - in exchange for the car companies using that savings to invest in more fuel-efficient cars.
Beyond raising CAFE, however, it's time we replace oil altogether as America's fuel of choice. This doesn't just mean singing the praises of ethanol and hoping that it finds its way into our fuel supply on its own. It means taking major steps now to put a national biofuel infrastructure in place.
Already, some cars on the road have the flexible-fuel tanks necessary for them to run on E85, a cheaper, cleaner blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. But millions upon millions of cars still don't have these tanks.
It's time for them to install those tanks in every single car they make, and it's time for the government to cover this small cost, which currently runs at just $100 per car. We should also make sure that from now on, every single automobile the government purchases is a flex-fuel vehicle.
It's also a time to start making E85 fueling stations more available to the public. Currently, only 681 out of 170,000 fueling stations in America offer E85 pumps. This is not acceptable. Every American should have the choice to fill up their car with E85 at any fueling station. And oil companies should stop standing in the way and join us in making this happen. If the big oil companies would devote just 1% of their first quarter profits this year to install E85 pumps, more than 7,000 service stations would be able to serve E85 to hungry motorists.
Finally, we should reduce the risk of investing in renewable fuels by providing loan guarantees and venture capital to those entrepreneurs with the best plans to develop and sell biofuels. And we should create a market for renewable fuels by ramping up the renewable fuel standard and creating an alternative diesel standard in this country that together would blend 65 billion gallons of renewable fuels into the petroleum supply each year.
In the days and months after September 11th, Americans were waiting to be called to something bigger than themselves. Just like their parents and grandparents of the Greatest Generation, they were willing to serve and defend their country - not only on the fields of war, but on the homefront too.
This is our chance to step up and serve. For decades, we have heard President after President call for energy independence in this country, but for decades, we have fallen short. Well it's time to call on ourselves. We shouldn't wait for the next time gas hits $3 a gallon - and we shouldn't accept any more headlines that talk about a dying auto industry or a terrorist plot to use oil as a weapon against America. We should act - and we should act now.
Now is the time for serious leadership to get us started down the path of energy independence. Now is the time for this call to arms. I hope some of the ideas I've laid out today can serve as a basis for this call, but I also hope that members of both parties and all levels of government can come together in the near future to launch this serious quest for energy independence. Thank you.
Now that summer's over and gas prices have finally come down a bit, there's a temptation to put any discussion about energy on the back burner until the next crisis arises. Gone are the days when the President would make sweeping pronouncements in his State of the Union about America's addiction to oil - today there is far more political mileage out of questioning Democrats' commitment to fighting terror than by affirming America's commitment to energy independence.
But as the President may or may not have learned by now, simply ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away. Because while headlines about price gouging and gas lines have temporarily faded from the news, new headlines have emerged that should have us every bit as concerned about the addiction we just can't seem to shake.
In just the last week, two in particular caught my eye.
One is from the Detroit Free Press, and it talks about how Ford Motor Company plans to cut 30,000 hourly jobs, 14,000 salaried jobs, and close sixteen plants by 2012.
Now, there are plenty of reasons for Ford's financial troubles, but one of the most glaring has been their inability to compete with foreign counterparts by transitioning to the fuel-efficient and hybrid vehicles that represent the future of the auto industry.
200,000 of these hybrids are driving around China today, a country that already has a higher fuel economy than we do. Over in Japan, Toyota is doubling production of the popular Prius to sell 100,000 in the U.S. this year. But at Ford, there are plans to make only 20,000 Escape Hybrids in 2006, and GM's brand won't be on the market until 2007. Meanwhile, the waiting lists for a hybrid car in this country get longer by the day.
These foreign auto companies are out-innovating and out-competing us, and if we do nothing to help U.S. carmakers, tens of thousands more jobs and billions in business will be heading overseas in the months to come.
Unfortunately, job losses and foreign competition are just the half of it. Because the second headline that caught my eye was in Saturday's New York Times, and it read, "Suicide Attacks Foiled at 2 Oil Sites in Yemen."
This news is disturbing, but not surprising. For years, Al Qaeda has been trying to attack Middle Eastern oil refineries as a way to wreak havoc on the U.S. economy. Osama bin Laden himself has said, "Focus your operations on oil, especially in Iraq and the Gulf area, since this will cause them to die off [on their own]." In the past, even minor attacks have caused global prices to jump $2 per barrel in a single day. And a former CIA agent tells us that if terrorists ever succeeded in destroying an entire oil complex, it could take enough oil off the market to cause financial catastrophe in America.
More than anything else, headlines like these represent a realization that goes far beyond the temporary rise and fall of gas prices. It's a realization that for all of our economic dominance - for all of our military might - the Achilles heel of the most powerful country on Earth is the oil we cannot live without.
The President knows this. That thousands of autoworkers are losing their jobs. That we spend $18 million on foreign oil ever hour. That our climate is changing and global temperatures are rising.
And yet, for someone who talks tough about defending America, actually solving our energy crisis seems to factor pretty low on the President's agenda.
And that's because as much as George Bush might want to defend America, he also needs to defend his vision of government - and that's a government that can't, won't, and shouldn't solve great national challenges like our energy dependence.
That's why the President's funding for renewable fuels is at the same level it was the day he took office. That's why his budget funds less then half of the energy bill he himself signed into law. That's why billions of tax dollars that could've been used to fund energy research went to the record-profiting oil companies instead.
And that's why it's time to stand up for a new vision of government this November.
You see, it's this timidity - this smallness - in our politics that's holding us back right now. The idea that some problems are just too big to handle, and if you just ignore them, sooner or later, they'll go away.
But that's not where the American people are. They still believe in an America where anything's possible - they just don't think their leaders do. They still dream big dreams - they just sense their leaders have forgotten how.
There's a reason that some have compared the quest for energy independence to the Manhattan Project or the Apollo moon landing. Like those historic efforts, moving away from an oil economy is a major challenge that will require a sustained national commitment.
During World War II, we had an entire country working around the clock to produce enough planes and tanks to beat the Axis powers. In the middle of the Cold War, we built a national highway system so we had a quick way to transport military equipment across the country. When we wanted to beat the Russians into space, we poured millions into a national education initiative that graduated thousands of new scientists and engineers.
If we hope to strengthen our security and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, we can offer no less of a commitment to energy independence.
With technology we have on the shelves right now and fuels we can grow right here in America, by 2025 we can reduce our oil imports by over 7.5. million barrels per day - an amount greater than all the oil we are expected to import from the entire Middle East.
We start by producing cars that use less oil. The auto industry has not been asked to raise fuel economy standards in seventeen years, and lately we've just stopped asking them to.
Today, we have no choice. Starting in 2008, if we raised CAF'E standards a modest 3% a year over the next twelve years, by 2020 passenger vehicles would average 40.5 mpg and light trucks would average 32.6 mpg. This is by no means a dramatic increase - five years ago, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that raising CAF'E to 33 mpg for passenger cars could easily be done without compromising passenger safety.
Not only would this reduce America's oil consumption, but it would increase profits for the auto industry. Yesterday a University of Michigan report came out that said if the Big Three automakers took proactive steps to increase the fuel-efficiency of their vehicles, they would stand to gain up to $2 billion more in profits per year. But if they continue on their current path, they could stand to lose up to $3.6 billion in profits.
Of course, auto executives are right when they say that transitioning to these more fuel-efficient automobiles would be costly at a time of sagging profits and stiff competition, and that's precisely why the federal government shouldn't let the industry face these costs on their own.
We should strike a grand bargain with the Big Three automakers where the government picks up part of the tab for their retiree health care costs - a tab that ran almost $6.7 billion just last year - in exchange for the car companies using that savings to invest in more fuel-efficient cars.
Beyond raising CAFE, however, it's time we replace oil altogether as America's fuel of choice. This doesn't just mean singing the praises of ethanol and hoping that it finds its way into our fuel supply on its own. It means taking major steps now to put a national biofuel infrastructure in place.
Already, some cars on the road have the flexible-fuel tanks necessary for them to run on E85, a cheaper, cleaner blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. But millions upon millions of cars still don't have these tanks.
It's time for them to install those tanks in every single car they make, and it's time for the government to cover this small cost, which currently runs at just $100 per car. We should also make sure that from now on, every single automobile the government purchases is a flex-fuel vehicle.
It's also a time to start making E85 fueling stations more available to the public. Currently, only 681 out of 170,000 fueling stations in America offer E85 pumps. This is not acceptable. Every American should have the choice to fill up their car with E85 at any fueling station. And oil companies should stop standing in the way and join us in making this happen. If the big oil companies would devote just 1% of their first quarter profits this year to install E85 pumps, more than 7,000 service stations would be able to serve E85 to hungry motorists.
Finally, we should reduce the risk of investing in renewable fuels by providing loan guarantees and venture capital to those entrepreneurs with the best plans to develop and sell biofuels. And we should create a market for renewable fuels by ramping up the renewable fuel standard and creating an alternative diesel standard in this country that together would blend 65 billion gallons of renewable fuels into the petroleum supply each year.
In the days and months after September 11th, Americans were waiting to be called to something bigger than themselves. Just like their parents and grandparents of the Greatest Generation, they were willing to serve and defend their country - not only on the fields of war, but on the homefront too.
This is our chance to step up and serve. For decades, we have heard President after President call for energy independence in this country, but for decades, we have fallen short. Well it's time to call on ourselves. We shouldn't wait for the next time gas hits $3 a gallon - and we shouldn't accept any more headlines that talk about a dying auto industry or a terrorist plot to use oil as a weapon against America. We should act - and we should act now.
Now is the time for serious leadership to get us started down the path of energy independence. Now is the time for this call to arms. I hope some of the ideas I've laid out today can serve as a basis for this call, but I also hope that members of both parties and all levels of government can come together in the near future to launch this serious quest for energy independence. Thank you.
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