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A little more than two short years ago we heard presidential candidates vowing to fight to prevent rapid spikes in gas prices at the pump. Well, here we are again not too far in the future and $4.00 per gallon gas could be right around the corner. Like you, I’m hardly surprised.

The unrest in the Middle East should really clarify for President Obama that we can no longer remain dependent on foreign oil, especially from countries run by bad actors like Muammar Gaddafi. Unfortunately, the administration seems stubbornly resolved to halt American domestic energy production in its tracks to appease their radical environmentalist agenda.

I’m introducing new legislation in the near future that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil – from countries like Libya – by finally unshackling our own domestic energy sector from excessive regulation, while also directing a portion of those revenues to continued funding for alternative and renewable resources. Renewables and alternative fuels may be the future, but only our current administration has fooled itself into thinking these potential alternative fuels are right around the corner. We need our traditional energy resources as a bridge to help free us from dependence on foreign sources and sudden price fluctuations caused by uncontrollable world events.

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Yesterday, I introduced legislation that would direct stimulus funds rejected by state governors and local municipalities to paying down the growing national debt.

This week alone, the Louisiana Senate Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations rejected legislation that would call for the state to accept $98 million in stimulus funds that the governor has declined.

Many local and state governments, including in my home state of Louisiana, recognize the future burdens attached to many of these bloated stimulus projects. Congress should use the returned money based on fiscal decisions by those who better understand their own needs – the local and state government officials – to pay down our ever-growing national debt.

In order to prevent a scenario similar to the recycling of the Wall Street and auto bailout money as being currently practiced by the Treasury Department, Congress needs to put in legislative rules that prevent the recycling of your tax money to prevent it from being used for other stimulus projects once rejected by state and local governments.

Since the passage of the stimulus bill, governors, state legislatures and municipalities across the country have taken steps to reject stimulus funds, leaving hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars back in the hands of Washington bureaucrats. My Want Not, Waste Not Act would direct the federal Treasury to use the rejected funds to pay down the national debt.

Ever since the passage of this bloated spending bill, we have seen multiple cases of waste and fraud associated with funding projects, and many local and state officials have outright declared that they do not want this money sent to them by an ever-growing and intrusive federal government.

My bill gives the taxpayers an opportunity to have their money returned to the Treasury to help reduce the burden on their grandchildren instead of spending future generations’ money on unworthy or insolvent projects.

This week, I authored an amendment to the massive omnibus spending bill that would repeal the provision of law that set in place automatic pay raises for members of Congress. Sens. Feingold, Grassley and Ensign joined as co-sponsors. For the better part of the week, however, I was blocked from offering this amendment by the Majority Leader who was using his authority to cherry-pick only the amendments that he wanted to have debated.

Unfortunately this is nothing new for the Majority Leader. Throughout the 110th and 111th Congresses, he has repeatedly cut off debate and blocked amendments from consideration. Over the previous two years, he has “filled the tree” on numerous occasions to prevent minority amendments from being heard.

And even when he does “allow” amendments, they are generally hand picked by the Leader himself as he knows they will be defeated by large majorities.

Last night, I successfully forced the Senate to take up this amendment that would end Congress’s ability to give itself automatic pay raises. As Senator Reid called for the unanimous consent of the Senate to move forward with further votes on the omnibus, I objected to proceeding until I was given assurances that this important amendment would receive a roll call vote. That vote is likely to occur on Monday.

My amendment is similar to a stand-alone bill that I recently introduced to achieve the same goal – ending automatic pay raises.

In these tough economic times, when many Americans are making sacrifices, it’s time that the Congress quit making political theatre out of their hard times, attacking business leaders for their selfishness but trying to quietly give itself a raise. We should remember we’re here to serve our constituents in our states, and therefore our compensation for that service should be publicly debated and not automatically doled out through a mechanism in the law.

Last year in Louisiana, the state Legislature tried to give itself a large pay increase with a bill that would ultimately also make future pay increases automatic. Louisianans were rightly outraged and called for the bill’s defeat. Most Americans don’t have a formula at their jobs set to give them pay increases automatically. Congress shouldn’t either.

As almost everyone following the debate surrounding the Senate stimulus bill will tell you, this is not a job creation bill; it’s a massive government spending bill.

Yesterday, I introduced an amendment to remove wasteful spending from the stimulus bill. My amendment would remove almost $47.6 billion in funding that is not focused on creating jobs to help stimulate the economy.

By targeting the removal of approximately $30.4 billion in direct spending and striking a union-backed Davis-Bacon provision to save more than $17 billion in inflated construction costs we can start to trim the overall cost of this bill.

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This past week we saw the unfortunate overturning of the longstanding Mexico City policy that prevented funding of abortions by U.S. tax dollars abroad even though I and a number of other senators recently joined a letter to President Obama asking that he not reverse the policy. And we will likely see more expansive abortion legislation like the Freedom of Choice Act offered soon since the new make-up of this Democratic Congress and the Obama administration are much friendlier to abortion advocates.

I intend to ensure that the views of the many Americans who find this practice to be abhorrent are represented as we move forward.

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On Monday, President Bush made a request on behalf of the incoming administration to release the second half of the $700 billion that Congress authorized last fall under the Troubled Assets Relief Program. I have some serious concerns with these funds being released, and I believe that we need to think very seriously on this matter.

For this request to be approved, Congress is required to do nothing, and a formal resolution of disapproval must be passed if we are to prevent these funds from being released. This week, I introduced a disapproval resolution co-sponsored by U.S. Sens. Bunning, DeMint, Inhofe, Sessions, Barrasso, Brownback, Enzi, Cornyn and Roberts, and I urge my other colleagues to do the same. TARP has raised far more troubling questions than it has provided answers. And surely, at a minimum, we need to see plans for how the second half of this $700 billion will be used before we approve it.

I have a number of significant concerns with TARP as it stands, beginning with the fact that the entire rationale on which it was presented to Congress was thrown out within days of its passage. To date, it has become apparent that the plan has not achieved one of its pivotal goals – making credit available to individuals and businesses.

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