December 12, 1979
Page 35632
Mr. JACKSON. Mr. President, I should hope that the leader will hold up the option that he alluded to earlier, and that is price controls. I think all of us are aware that the process of decontrol is now underway. It will be completed in September of 1981. But there will be, on January 1, a very, very substantial decontrol process underway. It starts January 1.
This is an option that is available to the President. He can reimpose price controls if the Congress fails to enact legislation. He can also roll back the prices. He has absolute power, under the existing law, to reinvoke controls with a rollback, if necessary. And that authority continues until September 30, 1981.
I hope that the majority leader will hold open the option of recommending to the President that possible course of action if we are not going to be able to pass at least some kind of windfall profit tax legislation.
Mr. ROBERT C. BYRD. I thank the distinguished Senator from Washington
The week before last I stated that I hoped that the President would reinstitute controls if the Congress did not pass a bill that was fair and equitable to the American people. I stated the same thing again last week. And I have mentioned this to the President in the leadership breakfast this week. I will certainly speak with him at some length the next time I talk with him on this matter.
I am against controls. I am for decontrol, under the circumstances. I have been for decontrol.
But I am also for getting a bill through this Senate that is fair and equitable to the American people. I want to vote on the minimum tax. The Senate wants to vote on the minimum tax. We demonstrated that this morning. That is all I am asking for. Let us vote. And let us get the Danforth amendments up and let us vote on them.
So I hope that the President will exercise his rights under the law. And if it gets to the point where the Senate is not going to break this impasse without the President so stating — this is the first time since the time I have been a leader of the Senate that I have suggested that the President do something to get the Senate to move. I am very hesitant about that, because I like to feel that the Senate will move. But the American people are to be considered in this and I hope that they understand that there is a filibuster going on right now.
And I hope that they understand that the Senate is going to stay in and do its duty. I hope the President would be ready to reinstitute controls and to roll back, if necessary.
I yield to the distinguished Senator from Kansas (Mr. DOLE) without losing my right to the floor.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator yielding, I certainly understand the urgency of passing this legislation.
It is not out of proportion to have 130 hours of debate on a $500 billion bill. That is only about $4 billion an hour. So I do not get carried away with the fact that there has been 130 hours of debate. The Senator might accept that a filibuster has been started because I think there will be some debate. Some of us have a different view on the minimum tax. We had a different view in the committee on the minimum tax.
In fact, the vote on exempting new oil from any tax was 19 to 1 in the committee. There are not 19 Republicans on the committee. There are only 8. There are 11 Democrats, and 8 voted to exempt newly discovered oil from tax; 1 voted against.
On incremental tertiary, the vote was 14 to 2 to exempt that category of oil from any tax. On heavy oil, there was a voice vote, and the administration recommended that heavy oil be exempted from tax.
So the Senator from Kansas can certainly understand the problems of the distinguished majority leader. Nevertheless there is a principle involved. First we were talking about revenue numbers.
Now we are talking about a minimum tax. We were trying to negotiate, a week ago, on how we could reach $185 billion, or somewhere in that range. Now we are told today that the numbers are not so important, but the minimum tax principle is important.
I wish the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee (Mr. LONG) were here to discuss this. I think, at least I felt, that he had the same feeling an hour ago that there should not be a tax on newly discovered oil — that there was every reason not to tax newly discovered oil.
There cannot be a windfall profit on something that has not been discovered. If we really believe that we can produce more energy in this country, we ought at least to exempt newly discovered oil from a tax.
This is no longer an energy bill. It is a tax bill. We have not talked about energy production for about 2 weeks. How much tax can we raise? Who can offer the biggest tax amendment? And we have tax amendments pending now.
I do not believe that we ever thought we would win the motion to table this morning. We thought that if we could get a favorable vote in the mid-forties, we were in pretty good shape on the cloture vote. That is just about where it came out. There were 46 who voted against cloture and 44 who voted against tabling. So I would say that is about what we expected.
We would have been surprised, in view of the heavy lobbying by the administration with two Secretaries floating around in the galleries and in the corridors, lobbying Senators; and the Vice President called up for what might have been a key vote. This is an indication that the administration had more than a passing interest in what was happening — this is the very administration that said months ago that they wanted $50 billion, but now are not satisfied with $160 billion — and the very administration that said they wanted to exempt heavy oil, but now wants to tax heavy oil.
We talk about the Iranian crisis and all the other crises we have. We should not be here trying to destroy the domestic industry.
And I am not so certain that we need to hurry to consider Chrysler. They have been done in by the Government and now we want to do the same to the oil industry.
We can put off Chrysler until next year. This tax bill is probably the most important piece of legislation that this Senator has ever been involved in, $500 billion is a lot of money. This is not a partisan piece of legislation. It may be pitting those of us from oil States against those from nonproducing States, but our motives are pretty much the same. All of us want to find a way to produce more energy. I do not quarrel with my coIleagues who have a different view.
I hope the Senator from Kansas has not been unreasonable in the negotiations, in the debate, or in the Senate Finance Committee. We voted for substantial taxes. We are ready to vote for a tax of $156 billion. Nevertheless We have to be very careful. I am not certain that $156 billion is enough or $200 billion is enough, or too much.
I assume, however, that the Senate will be in session next year and the follow ing year and the following year. If we do not do the correct thing now, and if we do exempt new oil and the com- panies do not go out and find new oil, we can then impose a tax.
This Senator believes as much as we support the exemption of incremental, tertiary, and heavy oil, that if newly discovered oil could be exempt, that we could still reach an agreement.
I know the distinguished majority leader has great power and influence and the Senator from Kansas has none. Sooner or later the majority leader prevail, party discipline being what it is. We have fewer numbers on this side. We are not in total agreement, nor should we be. There is not total agreement on that side, nor should there be. But all things being equal, the majority leader is way up here and the Senator from Kansas is way down here. The Senator from Kansas understands that. But if we are going to lose, we may as well lose right out here in the open, on the Senate floor. If we are going to be rolled we ought to be rolled on the Senate floor. If someone wants to invoke cloture, then we can see what happens.
We have heard much talk about compromise. Compromise to some is getting all they could not get on the floor. That is not a compromise. It was this Senator's understanding we were talking about dollars. We were very close to a dollar figure. I will not go into the session that we had because I think that was privileged. Nevertheless, this Senator believes that there is still an opportunity to reach an agreement.
I do not believe anybody on this side is hard-headed or set in concrete. We do not represent big oil. We do represent a point of view that believes that you have to provide some incentive to find more energy in this country.
It does not bother us to be worried about having to debate tomorrow, the next day and the next day, or an all-night session. There are other things we would prefer to do, but there is a matter of principle involved. If those of us on this side or that side are not willing to stand up for principle and stand up for reasonable compromise, then we probably should not be here in any event.
The Senator said to give the Senate our right arm. Some in this body have, though maybe not to be here.
The Senator from Kansas does not find people across the country talking about the size of the tax the Senate is going to impose. Is it bigger than the House or less than the House? I have not had anybody walk up to me in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, or in other places that I have been, saying, "You are not giving enough tax on the Senate side."
The people are distressed with the oil industry. I think the Senate majority leader is correct, that he wants to be fair with the industry. He has been fair with the industry. We simply have a different point of view. We would like to resolve it. It is my hope, and I think we are all still on a friendly basis, that perhaps by the next couple of hours we can reach some agreement. Certainly, we must finish this bill. We should finish this bill. There should be a tax. It should be on the President's desk. I would hate to think that we are holding it up unnecessarily.
I would say one other thing. There has been no opportunity to discuss any modification to the pending amendment. Under the procedure being used, any further amendment is shut off. If somebody sends an amendment to the desk, then that same person is locked in from sending up a second degree amendment. That shuts off amendments. I am not certain that is the proper procedure. It does not give anyone with a different view a chance to offer that different view.
Now we have to take it or leave it. Some of us are unwilling to take it. We may have to take it in the end, but we will not take it without a fight.
Mr. ROBERT C. BYRD. Mr. President—
Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. ROBERT C. BYRD. May I respond briefly and then I will be glad to yield.
The distinguished Senator from Kansas has said that sending up an amendment in the first degree and then having an amendment sent up in the second degree has been shut off. I say to my friend, this shutting off has worked both ways. There have been some of us on this side who have been shut off. The Senator from Missouri (Mr. DANFORTH) was shut off. Why? Because under an order that we secured some days ago, the amendment by Mr. DOLE, the plowback amendment, would be the amendment before this Senate right now, or it would have been the amendment before this Senate any number of times if he had proceeded with calling up the amendment. But he did not choose to do that. He chose to leave it there so that it has to be set aside only by unanimous consent.
The Senator from Missouri (Mr. DANFORTH) has been shut off, shut off because Mr. DoLE was against Mr. DANFORTH calling up his amendment. The only way he could get it called up was by unanimous consent. Why? Because there sits the order saying that Mr. DOLE is next on the plowback amendment. So when we talk about shutting off, it works both ways.
I am not asking to be shut off. The Senator says, "Roll us over." I say, "Well, let us go. Let us vote on the minimum tax and see who gets rolled over." If we get rolled over, I will not take my ball and go home. I will take it like a man saying that we had our chance and we lost.
But we have gone the last mile in every way. We did not insist on standing back with our minimum tax. We said, "OK, we will go."
We did not insist that it be brought up under an agreement that would waive a Senator's right to move to table. "OK, move to table. We will take our chances." We took our chances.
Now what we want is a vote. Let the Senate work its will on that tax. If it says, "No," I have had my day in court and I will not grumble about it. But I say let us vote. Until we do vote, I see no way other than just to stay here, unless we can get an agreement that will set a vote for a particular hour, and, more than that, see what else we can vote on. We have to get this bill off the dead end street or dead end where it is now.
Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. ROBERT C. BYRD. I yield.
Mr. STEVENS. I would like to point out to the majority leader that when this bill came from the House in July the figure was $105 billion. The calculations were based upon $22 a barrel.
The issue that the majority leader wishes to cover now regarding new oil and tertiary recovery is covered by the House bill and will be in conference.
What we seek most is to close the gap between the House and the Senate as to the new calculations. The House has a figure of $278 billion and we have, under our calculation, somewhere around $156 billion. There are issues there that are conferenceable, since the House is taking the position of 50 percent tax treatment, for example not the 75 percent as suggested by Senator BRADLEY. But they give Tier 1 treatment to many more classifications of oil than does the Senate.
I do not quite understand, my good friend, how we can set these arbitrary limits as to how much money the Senate bill must raise when we know we have in conference at least $278 billion under the House bill now. As a matter of fact, I have pleaded, as the Senator from West Virginia knows, that we readjust the figure to more realistic levels today. That is how fast the oil prices are going up. If we priced this bill at just $1 more, there is no difference between them. Did you know that? We price oil at $31 instead of $30; there is no difference between us.
We are arguing about things that should be left to conference. I do not see any reason for offering the minimum tax now because the House bill does, in fact, tax new oil. The House bill does, in fact, tax tertiary oil. And the percentages which will come before the conference pursuant to the Bradley amendment, would have greater scope than anyone imagines.
I can demonstrate how the conference could actually come out with more than 278. It is a very simple matter. All we have to do is put the Bradley percentage on the House bill. It would be a lot more than 278.
This bill has gigantic proportions right now, coming out of conference.
I do not know why we have to shut off the conference by taking a position here that deals with minimum tax concepts, particularly on new oil, when I thought it was an agreed upon position of the Senate that we were not going to tax new oil. That, I think probably more than anything else, has this side of the aisle disturbed. That is a commitment we thought had been made.
This minimum tax does, in fact, apply to new oil. It should not apply to new oil, in our opinion.
I thank the Senator for yielding.
Mr. ROBERT C. BYRD. I thank the distinguished Senator.
Mr. President, I am not going to hold the floor. I shall yield shortly. Before I do, I should like to propound a unanimous consent request. I am not going to propound it because the manager of the bill is not here, but I make the suggestion that we try to reach an agreement to vote on the tax tonight — perhaps at 8 o'clock. We have had 7 or 8 hours this afternoon and the remainder of the morning following the vote. Try to get an agreement to vote on the minimum tax, then get an agreement to vote; let Mr. DANFORTH call up his amendments. I am not making the request right now; I shall not make it while the manager of the bill is away. And I suggest that, once we have disposed of that, as far as I am concerned, we enter into an agreement that there will be no more amendments increasing the revenues and no more amendments decreasing them. That is as far as I am concerned. That may not sit well with others. Take the amendments in time to get a final vote and pass this bill before the next two or three days are gone.
I am amenable to any number of time agreements that can be reached, and they can be reached. We can dispose of this amendment. It is not going to go away. The Senate is going to have to vote on it one way or the other. Someone can move to table an amendment in the second degree any time he wants to. We cannot move to table the amendment in the first degree for a couple of
days. because we voted on that this morning. But I am agreeable to setting a time to vote on this tonight. Let us get Mr. DANFORTH's amendments up. Once we dispose of these two matters, I think the bill can be passed reasonably soon.
I am amenable to a time agreement. I am amenable to going back and talking about the matters of new negotiations. I am as much amenable to negotiations as anyone could possibly be, I guess, because I never see it as having to have my way and nobody else's way. I simply want to get a decision by the Senate.
Mr. MUSKIE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. ROBERT C. BYRD. Yes, I yield.
Mr. MUSKIE. The distinguished majority leader has just said that he is as willing to negotiate and compromise as anybody. I simply want to attest to that. I have been invited to participate in negotiations, I think, over most of the last 3 weeks now, which have involved Senators on both sides of the aisle, on both sides of the issue. I have to say that the tone of those meetings was effectively established by the distinguished majority leader:
They were positive; they were instructive. There was a minimum of hotheadedness or abrasiveness. There was a genuine effort on both sides, including that of the distinguished floor manager of the bill, the Senator from Kansas, and others, to try to find a basis for accommodation.
Prior to the action the Senate took on the Leahy amendment, the Leahy amendment and its fate, the Danforth amendments and their fate, as well as the minimum tax and its fate, were discussed.
It is true that they were discussed in the context of trying to reach accommodation by reaching an agreement on the amount of money to be raised by the bill but, at no time, even when we were talking about dollars, was there an absence of principle urged by one or another Member of the Senate involving those negotiations.
Senator DOLE always made it clear when we were talking about numbers that he could never agree to a minimum tax on newly discovered oil. He always made that clear. Other Senators took the direct opposite point of view as a matter of principle, even though we were talking about numbers. So there was an effort at that period in the negotiations to accommodate differences in principle by reaching agreement on the revenue to be raised.
Just when I thought that we were about to reach agreement on numbers, for some reason, the whole thing collapsed. We came to the floor and the Leahy amendment was called up and disposed of. When that lost by a sizable margin, the disposition to negotiate seemed to disappear.
It disappeared completely, negotiation in terms of numbers or negotiation in terms of principle. It was not until the vote this morning, the vote on tabling the minimum tax, that the disposition to negotiate reappeared. So we gathered again this afternoon and have spent most of the 8½ hours that have passed since that time in again examining the possibilities for agreement.
The discussions swung back and forth between discussion about numbers as we did earlier and, more than before, insistence upon principle at other times. And the talks today collapsed, I think, on the basis of accommodation of the two. Each side had a bare minimum beyond which it was not willing to yield, as a matter of principle as well as dollars. I do not really think the difference in dollars was as much a reason for the collapse of the talks as was the basic minimum on principle.
I want to say to the majority leader and to my colleagues, having been a participant in these negotiations — not as an expert on the subject, which I am not, but in an effort to contribute whatever I could to development of pragmatic or practical solutions — I have learned a lot about the positions taken by the distinguished Senator from Kansas, the floor manager of the bill, and the Senator from Wyoming, who was part of the discussions. I learned a great deal about their point of view, about the subject, about oil, and about this bill. I found that discussion very useful.
To a certain extent, I rather regret that it took place behind closed doors so that only a dozen and a half — perhaps a few more than that — Senators were the beneficiaries of the discussion.
Now, the talks have apparently collapsed. I do not see any prospect in anything that was said in the majority leader's office this afternoon that an agreement can be reached by a handful of us. So it seems to me that the majority leader is right: Having found it impossible to reach an agreement on accommodation behind closed doors, perhaps it is time to come to the floor — every Senator who has been involved in those discussions knows his subject, knows what his stand is, knows what his principles are — and let us debate them.
I think they are all capable of debating them. Let the whole Senate benefit from that debate. Let the whole country benefit from that debate and then let us vote.
If, in the meantime, a new formula for accommodation emerges from this public debate, nothing will be lost. If a new formula for accommodation does not emerge, then let us get to a vote.
I know how I would like that vote to come out, but, if it comes out contrary to my own view, I can live with it, as the majority leader said he can.
So I would like to compliment the majority leader. The negotiations have not been arm-twisting negotiations. There has been no pressure brought by him or anybody else to force Senators into a point of view with which they could not agree. Every Senator has been free to offer his own suggestions. And nothing came of it.
I have never seen more patience used by the majority leader than in those discussions in Senator ROBERT C. BYRD's office.
So I think his suggestion now that we bring the debate to the floor, continue it until we resolve the issue, is a healthy one. Certainly, it is not new. I have been here for 21 years and I have had someexposure to extended debate, and more extended than we have had thus far. I am not sure I would call this so much a filibuster as an extended discussion that could develop into a filibuster, unless the Senate exercises its judgment to bring the matter to a vote.
It does not have to be brought to a vote in an hour. It could be brought to a vote at midnight, or 2 o'clock in the morning, as far as I am concerned. I see nothing wrong with that.
Let us air all issues, get it out, and if the solution and agreement emerges, that is fine. If it does not, let us vote in due course. I think that is what the majority leader is saying to us.
The calendar is running against us. We do not have a lot of time. I think there are a couple of other urgent matters we ought to discuss.
I think it is in that spirit the majority leader has spoken. I applaud him for his patience over the last 3 weeks and his continued patience today.
Mr. ROBERT C. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE). He has participated in the discussion. He has been very helpful. He has done everything he possibly could do to move the discussion along and try to negotiate some kind of understanding that would see the Senate make progress on the bill.
Mr. President, I am going to shortly yield the floor.