[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 42 (Monday, March 25, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2797-S2799]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY AND THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET

  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, they are going to be handing out the Oscars 
tonight in Hollywood, honoring the film industry's best efforts at 
creating fantasy and make-believe. Well, we create a lot of that in 
Washington, too, and if it were a movie, the latest Clinton budget 
would be taking home the award for ``Best Special Effects.''
  After all, it is a document that makes the impossible appear 
possible. It disguises reality with the smoke and mirrors that are 
staples of any good special effects team.

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  It is such a creative effort, in fact, that you have to wonder 
whether Steven Spielberg and George Lucas somehow had a hand in it.
  Yes, the President's budget would be right at home amongst the glitzy 
phoniness of Tinseltown. And at a cost to the taxpayers of more than 
$1.6 billion this year, it is a big-budget production that makes the 
$175 million lavished on ``Waterworld'' look like a drop in a water 
bucket.
  But like any movie, the more often you see it, the more you start 
noticing the special effects and the more time you spend trying to 
figure out how they did. And suddenly it is not all so magical anymore.
  Unfortunately for President Clinton, the American taxpayers have had 
almost a week to study his proposed budget for fiscal year 1997, and I 
think they have begun to figure it out.
  After eight earlier tries by the President over the last 13 months, 
the taxpayers were hoping this budget would reflect the changes they 
called for in 1994: They want a workable balanced budget, real tax 
relief for middle-class Americans, an end to welfare as we know it, and 
the reforms needed to save entitlement programs from bankruptcy.
  But after carefully reviewing the President's recommendations, I have 
to report that this budget does not deliver. In fact, as hard as it is 
to believe, President Clinton's budget takes the status quo and makes 
it even worse.
  He requests over $61 billion more in nonentitlement spending than he 
proposed in his own minibudget last month. He pays for that increased 
spending by raising taxes and fees by more than $60 billion. 
Furthermore, he delays nearly 60 percent of his promised spending 
reductions until the last 2 years of his plan, making this a paper 
budget only, with no hope of ever being implemented.
  By perpetuating bigger government, more spending, and higher taxes, 
this document is an affront to the American taxpayers.
  One area of this budget I find particularly frustrating is the 
funding for the Cabinet-level Department of Energy. If we have indeed 
entered a time in which ``the era of Big Government is over,'' as 
President Clinton proclaimed in his State of the Union Address, there 
should be no place in the budget for this $16 billion relic.
  At a time when taxpayers are demanding that Congress be accountable 
for each and every dollar we spend, Secretary O'Leary and the President 
have submitted a budget plan that ensures the continuation of DOE's 
bloated bureaucracy at the expense of responsible, accountable 
Government.
  Perhaps they believe that spending enormous amounts of tax dollars on 
DOE will mask the fact that the Energy Department no longer has an 
energy mission of its own. Since the oil crisis that led to its 
creation in the 1970's evaporated, DOE has expended its resources in a 
perpetual attempt to expand its reach and justify its existence. Today, 
in fact, 85 percent of DOE's annual budget is spent on activities 
entirely unrelated to national energy policy.
  That trend would continue under the President's budget, beginning 
with the administration's proposal to increase DOE's overhead costs by 
more than 38 percent next year. At the same time, DOE is boasting of 
personnel decreases of nearly 20 percent. But if you examine the budget 
carefully, looking beyond the summary pages delivered to Congress which 
list nearly 19,000 full-time personnel, the actual decrease is only 
about 6 percent from this year.
  Of course, those 19,000 individuals represent just full-time workers. 
DOE employs another 150,000 contract employees at its labs and cleanup 
sites across the country.
  If you are looking for a more in-depth breakdown of Energy Department 
personnel, you will not find it within the pages of the President's 
budget. The agency does not even rate an individual listing in the 
historical tables for the executive branch--instead, it's lumped into 
the ``other'' category. One can only assume that the White House 
doesn't want the taxpayers to realize just how large the DOE 
bureaucracy really is.
  There are numerous other examples of how this latest budget 
symbolizes the wasteful spending that has plagued DOE throughout its 
search to re-invent itself.
  DOE's research, which includes the development of alternative sources 
of energy such as solar power, has cost the taxpayers more than $70 
billion since the agency's creation in 1977.
  But during testimony before Congress last year, Jerry Taylor of the 
Cato Institute said:

       Virtually all economists who have looked at those programs 
     agree that federal energy R&D investments have proven to be a 
     spectacular failure.

  The taxpayers have financed a great deal of pork with their $70 
billion investment, but few meaningful scientific breakthroughs. That 
reckless spending on renewable energy sources is slated to continue. 
For example, by DOE's own accounts, the fiscal year 1997 request 
includes an increase of 157 percent in subsidies to the solar building 
technology industry. Contrary to what this administration would have us 
believe, however, the solar industry is already competitive, and as a 
former solar-home builder myself, I can tell you that such an 
overwhelming increase in a single year is not necessary.
  The Department of Energy has proven to be more of a hindrance than a 
help in making technologies self-sustaining and independent of taxpayer 
assistance. It is time for the Federal Government to get out of the 
business of directing market forces in the renewable area.
  Rather than spending billions of taxpayer dollars to promote 
particular industries within the private sector, DOE should be funding 
basic research which actually breaks our growing dependence upon 
foreign oil. Minnesotans recognize that conservation and renewables 
alone will not heat a home in the winter--it is time this 
administration owns up to that fact as well.
  The President is also requesting $651 million--a 9-percent increase 
over 1996--to fund DOE's nondefense environmental management programs. 
It is all part of the agency's environmental and nuclear waste cleanup 
efforts. Yet the budget increase comes on the heels of a report issued 
just last month by the National Research Council which criticized DOE's 
waste disposal program as being too bureaucratic with too many layers.
  Beyond the bloated bureaucracy and questionable spending, the 
President's budget plan reflects policies which are inconsistent with 
current law, pending legislation, or at times, even common sense.
  For example, the President proposes to delay until 2002 the sale of 
the Naval Petroleum Reserve oil located at Elk Hills. This is in direct 
contradiction to legislation enacted last year as part of the 
President's fiscal year 1996 budget which called for the sale to take 
place this year. In an effort to continue to milk the NPR for money to 
pay for additional DOE spending, this administration is rejecting 
current law, ignoring the fact that there is gross mismanagement at the 
facility.
  And what about the back-loaded savings from the sale of the United 
States Enrichment Corporation? Under the President's budget, a portion 
of the proceeds were shifted to 2002. Obviously, he was not watching 
floor consideration of the most recent omnibus spending bill when this 
body used those same proceeds to pay for the additional education 
funding President Clinton demanded. Again, they are trying to spend the 
same dollars once, twice, three, four, five times.
  Then there are the policies which defy common sense. We have all 
heard about the environmental hazards resulting from leaking oil at the 
Weeks Island facility. The Energy Department is currently removing over 
70 million barrels from there and transferring them to other strategic 
petroleum reserve facilities --only to be sold in 2002. But again, a 
portion of the proceeds from the sale have already been spent, targeted 
to offset the additional spending requested by the President in the 
omnibus appropriations bill. Again, trying to spend the same dolalrs 
more than once, it is smoke and mirrors, trying to balance the budget 
at the taxpayer's expense.
  Furthermore, why does DOE not prioritize the Weeks Island reserve for 
immediate sale, rather than moving it to another facility, storing it, 
and then selling it? If the Secretary of Energy believes we will not 
need this oil in 2002, I am certain we don't need it now.
  Mr. President, under this budget, the potential for even further 
abuses would

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continue, because it does nothing to rein in DOE's ever-present search 
for something to do, someplace to spend the taxpayers' hard-earned 
dollars. There would be nothing to stop the extravagant, taxpayer-
funded foreign excursions, or the use of tax dollars to investigate 
reporters and their stories, or the other wasteful spending that has 
become all too common at the Energy Department.
  The Department would be left to operate mostly as it has in the 
past--free to pursue its own supposed manifest destiny through 
expansion, reinvention, and constantly redefining its missions. That 
kind of freedom has allowed DOE's budget to grow 235 percent since 
1977, even in the absence of another energy crisis like the one that 
led to its creation.
  At a time when the people are demanding a balanced budget and 
justification for every dollar spent by the Federal Government, can any 
of us in good conscience claim that business as usual at the Department 
of Energy is how the taxpayers ought to be served?
  Mr. President, in presenting its budget to Congress, DOE's chief 
financial officer testified last week that the document demonstrates a 
new commitment to streamlining its operations. ``More than ever,'' he 
said, ``American citizens are holding us accountable for superior 
results with increasingly limited resources. The Department of Energy 
is meeting these expectations. We are improving our process efficiency 
and effectiveness.''
  Mr. President, whether or not DOE is meeting these expectations is a 
question clearly open to debate. I believe they are falling short, way 
short. And I am afraid that improving process efficiency and 
effectiveness will not ensure accountability or solve the fundamental 
problems that rack the Department of Energy.
  President Clinton's budget feeds DOE's problems through more 
spending. But when will the big spenders here realize that the time-
honored Washington tradition of throwing money at a problem does not 
make the problem go away--that it only perpetuates the status quo and 
aggravates the damage?
  Mr. President, I believe the solution lies in less spending and 
ultimately, elimination of the Department of Energy. Without a specific 
and defined mission to guide it, the agency will remain a taxpayers 
boondoggle for years to come, a burden the taxpayers are no longer 
willing to bear.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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