Mr. President, As the Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, I want to express my serious concern with the content of the amendment offered by Senator Domenici. This amendment differs even from the surprise energy bill that was introduced on February 12, 2004 and placed directly on the Senate’s calendar. Senators should make no mistake, this legislation is not the product of bipartisan consensus in the Senate Committees of jurisdiction. In most respects, this amendment is the energy bill conference report we have already defeated, Mr. President. And, most importantly, it is not the right energy policy for America. I agree with Senator Daschle that we should try to reach consensus on targeted pieces of energy legislation. We could pass legislation on issues such as renewable motor fuels, as Senator Daschle has proposed with his amendment. We could enact fiscally responsible extensions of needed energy tax provisions, such as the wind energy tax credit. National electricity reliability standards are another area in which Senator Cantwell and I believe there could be agreement and we could pass a bill. But Mr. President, there should be no agreement on the poor environmental policy that is contained in this amendment. The Senate should reject this amendment, and oppose cloture. As with the energy bill conference report, nearly a hundred sections of this amendment are in the jurisdiction of the Environment and Public Works Committee. We were not consulted on any of these provisions, and I have repeatedly raised concerns about them on the Senate floor. This amendment does not represent the kind of forward-looking balanced energy policy that our Nation needs. The Senate should be able to ensure that our constituents have reliable electric power without polluting their drinking water. Our constituents deserve cleaner gasoline without requiring them to breathe dirtier air. We should be able to promote renewable energy without waiving environmental laws. This amendment seriously harms the environment. The supporters have said that a waiver of liability for MTBE producers is not contained in this amendment. That does not make the motor fuels provisions good or workable public policy. Though we know MTBE is environmentally harmful, the amendment would allow this product to be used for ten more years before we pull it off of the market. In addition, the amendment allows the President to overturn the MTBE ban prior to June 30, 2014, and continue its use indefinitely. The amendment unravels the ozone designation process in the Clean Air Act by delaying compliance with the national health-based air quality ozone standards until the air in the dirtiest city is cleaned up. Neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives has ever considered this damaging provision. It is a leftover from the failed energy bill conference report. Changing cities' ozone compliance deadlines under the Clean Air Act doesn’t increase our nation's energy supplies. Exposing the public to continued levels of harmful dangerous air pollution emissions for far more time than allowed under existing law guarantees thousands of more asthma attacks, more hospital visits and more cases of respiratory distress, disease and illness. Recently, the EPA announced that there are record numbers of Americans, more than 165 million, who are breathing unhealthy air. The change is also unfair to states that have worked hard to achieve compliance with the Clean Air Act’s health-based national standards. Why should areas that have done little or nothing to reduce emissions be given a free pass from halting local pollution? This amendment also provides unprecedented relief for a single region of the country from application of the entire Clean Air Act, without a hearing in the Environment and Public Works Committee or Senate consideration. The amendment continues the Administration's drive to greater dependency on old technologies and fuel systems. This focus will increase greenhouse gas emissions and keep us on the wrong path that increases the risks from global warming and climate change. This amendment also continues to include language from the failed energy bill that exempts oil and gas exploration and production activities from the Clean Water Act stormwater program. The Clean Water Act requires permits for stormwater discharges associated with construction activity. The amendment changes the Act to provide a special exemption for oil and gas construction activities from stormwater pollution control requirements. The scope of the provision is extremely broad. Stormwater runoff typically contains pollutants such as oil and grease, chemicals, nutrients, metals, bacteria, and particulates. I have told colleagues this before, but EPA estimates that this change would exempt at least 30,000 small oil and gas sites from clean water requirements. In addition, every construction site in the oil and gas industry larger than 5 acres would be exempt as well. The large sites have held permits for ten years or more. That is a terrible rollback of current law. I want Senators to imagine trying to explain to constituents why an oil drilling site that had to comply with the Clean Water Act for ten years suddenly no longer needs to do so. So let's review the contents of this amendment. This amendment pollutes our surface and groundwater by exempting oil and gas development from provisions of the Clean Water Act. This amendment pollutes our drinking water by allowing MTBE to seep into our public and private drinking water systems for ten more years. This amendment pollutes our land by accelerating development of energy installations on public lands, including parks, wildlife refuges, and sensitive areas. And this amendment pollutes our air in many different ways. It extends pollution compliance deadlines and continues to avoid serious progress in cleaning up our air. Mr. President, there are too many serious problems with this amendment. We should not invoke cloture on it. The American people do not want energy security at the expense of the environmental quality. We should be passing the pieces of the energy bill where we can reach agreement to do so, like those issues I outlined. We should not be rushing to pass legislation with such serious consequences. This is an aggressive, overreaching amendment, and it is deeply flawed. I will vote against cloture, and other Senators should as well.