[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 129 (Friday, August 4, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H8513-H8514]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


          QUESTIONS REGARDING THE SECRETARY OF ENERGY'S TRAVEL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke] is recognized for 5 minutes.

[[Page H 8514]]

  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, I think that you are aware that as the 
Chairman of the Committee on the Budget Working Group on National 
Security, I have spent a great deal of time with respect to the 
Department of Energy and examining the needs and missions of the 
Department of Energy and making a full investigation into what is going 
on there.
  As a result of that, it has been called to my attention, and I have 
found out a great deal about certain travel habits of the Secretary of 
Energy from the perspective of the monies that have been transferred 
from the accounts in the programs that safeguard nuclear energy and 
nuclear weapons, away from those programs and into the travel accounts.
  I wanted, today, to talk about a different problem that has been 
brought to my attention with respect to the travel. The Secretary has 
justified these trips, among other reasons, for the benefit that they 
have brought to American companies that have been able to generate a 
great deal of commercial transactions as a result.
  In fact, the Secretary has made claims of about $20 billion with 
respect to the amount of transactions that have been entered into as a 
result of her travels.

                              {time}  1600

  In fact, it has not been brought to my attention that there have been 
any more than about $400,000 or $500,000 of actual committed contracts; 
and what I wanted to talk about today was the cancellation of the Enron 
contract, which I believe can be tried directly to the Secretary's 
involvement.
  In other words, what I am saying is that not only has the Secretary 
of Energy not been able to catalyze these contracts, but in this case, 
has actually damaged the relationship between the United States and 
India to the extent that the Enron contract has been canceled.
  Mr. Speaker, today there was a Washington Times article about the 
cancellation of what is nearly a $2.8 billion power plant project at 
Dabhoi in Maharashtra, India. That is the state of which Bombay is the 
capital. This is where the Enron deal has been taking place.
  They are building a nuclear plant there. It involves the Enron Corp., 
the U.S. corporation, General Electric, and Bechtel. This is a deal 
that had a great deal of support from OPIC and from the Export-Import 
Bank, and it has been the target of intense criticism by nationalists 
in India.
  Nonetheless, President Clinton felt that it was necessary to sanction 
two trade missions to India, led by Secretary O'Leary, in July 1994 and 
then in February 1995, trips that served to raise the profile of the 
already controversial Enron deal.
  In the wake of the February trade mission, the Maharashtra state 
government was defeated by a nationalist coalition that ran on its 
distinctly anti-American platform with particular venom reserved for 
the Enron deal.
  Nevertheless, the new state government and Maharashtra did not 
immediately terminate the Enron deal. That came only very, very 
recently, in the last 3 days, after Secretary O'Leary very unwisely 
threatened the Indian Government, without Clinton administration 
approval, by stating that, ``The failure to honor the agreements 
between the project partners and the various Indian governments will 
jeopardize not only the Dabhoi project, but also the other private 
power projects that are being proposed for international financing.''
  It has been widely reported in the Indian press that as a result of 
that, this blatant intimidation tactic on the part of Secretary O'Leary 
inflamed the national sentiments in this state of India during what was 
already a very, very tough and sensitive process in terms of trying to 
save this deal. Then the governments of Dabhoi and Maharashtra canceled 
this.
  I want to share with my colleagues just two thoughts about this, 
because I think it is important to understand that the conducting of 
this trade mission has not only been an expensive boondoggle serving 
the Secretary's wanderlust, but in this case, the intimidating and 
blatant threats have actually killed the deal.
  I want to show my colleagues that this is something that the 
Secretary sent to all of the people that were on the trade mission in 
February. It says, ``A Mission to India.'' It is an alternative view by 
Carl Stoiber. Carl Stoiber is the director of international programs 
for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This was produced and 
distributed out of Secretary O'Leary's office.
  As can be seen, there is a one cartoon, she says, ``Yes, the Air 
Force runs a really great flying cocktail lounge.'' Here is another 
one, ``Let's make sure we stop in Shannon on the return flight.'' They 
did, in fact, stop in Shannon.
  The last one I want to show, and we can understand how perhaps the 
Indian Government might take some offense, there is a can of milk; it 
says, ``not concentrated milk.'' It says, ``simmered milk,'' and then 
it has a picture of a cow and it says ``with cow dung patties.''
  This was distributed by the Secretary of Energy and sent out from her 
office. I think it is time that we had a full-scale investigation of 
the travel office and the travels of the Secretary of Energy.


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