[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 22, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S670-S671]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               FUEL COSTS

  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, there are a lot of truckers in town, 
protesting what they say is an unwarranted increase in fuel costs that 
is putting them out of business.
  It really doesn't surprise me. It seems every year we come to the 
floor of the Senate to criticize the administration's failure to 
implement a domestic energy policy that would support a sustainable oil 
and gas industry. We argue for tax relief, common sense royalty 
collection, access to oil and gas reserves on Federal lands. We do this 
because there are a lot of us who watch figures, and every day we can 
see that we are growing more dependent on foreign sources of oil and 
gas. Oil traditionally coming from the Middle East and gas coming from 
Canada in ever increasing volumes despite large, untapped reserves in 
America. I have been joined by numerous Senators from around the Nation 
in bringing those concerns to the floor. We have proposed numerous 
pieces of legislation to combat the problem, yet we have not been 
successful in getting many of them enacted into law.
  As a result, we are faced with what is happening today: Oil prices 
are now around $30 a barrel, with few domestic producers reaping any 
benefits, and with most of our oil coming from offshore. There are few 
domestic producers enjoying the rise in oil prices because the 
Administration's energy and environmental policies have just about run 
them all out of business. That is sad. I speak not only for the oil and 
gas industry, the trucking industry and the transportation industry, 
but also for all consumers. A case in point is that we are already 
witnessing a surcharge being put on airline tickets; the same thing 
will happen soon with rail transportation as well.
  When I take a look at my home State of Montana, fuel costs are at 
least 50 percent higher than they were just a year ago. We have cause 
for frustration. Montanans are at the end of the line. I don't care if 
you are receiving goods or shipping product, it hurts us. This is 
especially true for our number one industry, agriculture. We end up 
selling wholesale, buying retail, and paying the freight both ways. One 
has to remember that these costs have to be absorbed by somebody. This 
somebody is generally the person least able to afford it. Now we have 
to ask ourselves a question. Are we doing anything about fixing the 
root of the problem? What are we doing to fix the root problem we have 
in energy development?
  Today's rally of long-haul truckers underscores the reality that all 
consumers and all producers are being faced with fuel increases 
resulting from a failed domestic energy policy. Prices are simply 
raising out of sight. We have 26,000 people in Montana who are employed 
by the trucking industry. They are being impacted by these increases. 
Farmers are coming upon the planting season. They are facing higher 
fuel costs which add to their uncontrollable costs of production. Costs 
of producing in the agricultural industry cannot be passed on; they 
never have been in the past. It is a buyers' market and you sell for 
what they offer. End of story. Just because our fuels costs go up, does 
not mean we get to charge more per bushel. We also aren't faced with 
the luxury of turning a tractor off and waiting for fuel prices to go 
down. Mother Nature dictates when you plant, when you till, and when 
you harvest. She doesn't care if diesel is 50 cents a gallon, $1 a 
gallon, or $1.80 a gallon. When the time comes, you go.
  We have seen some improvement in the livestock industry, but we have 
not seen any kind of improvement in the grain industry. There again, 
with grain, we get hit harder by energy costs than anywhere else.
  So far, the administration's only action has been to send the 
Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson, to ask OPEC to release more oil 
and reduce prices. That tells me we are not in a very strong bargaining 
position. That is upsetting when we could have taken steps to avoid our 
current plight. The problem of inaction by the administration carries 
over into other areas of energy. One example is the production of clean 
coal. We have a lot of coal that is clean coal and considered 
``compliant coal'' by the Clean Air Act. It has low SO2 
levels, and low emissions. But so far, the Department of the Interior 
has blocked any sale of that coal, which lies right at the top of the 
earth. The only thing that has to be done is to take the overburden 
off, mine the coal and reclaim the area. The result of this inaction 
has been--and it will show up later on in America's power bills--that 
soon we will face a shortage of clean coal and stringent emissions 
controls, and all at once our electric bills will increase because we 
haven't done a very good job in managing our clean coal resources.

  Secretary Richardson has testified before the Senate Energy and 
Natural Resources Committee that clean coal will be an integral portion 
of our Nation's energy portfolio for the next 30 years. But after they 
say that, they have done nothing or they are unwilling to ensure that 
the political actions of the Department of the Interior do not endanger 
the supply of clean coal.
  It doesn't make a lot of sense. How about hydroelectric production of 
electricity? Secretary Babbitt wants to be known as the first Secretary 
to tear down large dams that are placed along some of our major 
waterways, and he offers no response when asked how we are going to 
replace the power produced by those dams. In light of the recent action 
on the nuclear waste bill, the administration has also opposed any 
cohesive policy for nuclear energy management, instead desiring to sit 
back and posture on the debate.
  Again, we see evidence of a failed energy policy. Today we see the 
truckers coming to town, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. The 
Department of the Interior has thwarted any attempts to reinvigorate 
the domestic gas industry. They have closed vast areas of our Outer 
Continental Shelf to gas. They will release a statement saying they 
fully support the natural gas industry, yet fail to deliver on any of 
the policies to help it along.
  The same has been done throughout the Rocky Mountains. We have 
reserves of natural gas across Montana that could be used to fuel this 
nation. There is a large supply, yet we cannot tap it because of the 
Department of the Interior and this administration's policy seal it 
away development.
  I want to bring up one more fuel related problem we are faced with in 
Montana. In my hometown of Billings, MT, we have three refineries. They 
produce gas, diesel, and other refined petroleum products, not only for 
domestic use in Montana but also for the entire region, including 
eastern Washington. We have to reroute a pipeline that lets those 
products flow to the Spokane area, and it has to cross about 60 miles 
of Forest Service managed public lands. This reroute has been 
vigorously opposed by this administration.

[[Page S671]]

  What happened? The Yellowstone Pipeline Company went to the Forest 
Service and said: Give us an estimate for the reroute proposal. We have 
to do an environmental impact statement. We want to do it right. This 
was back in 1997. What will it cost they asked. Less than a million 
dollars was the response from the Forest Service. Good they responded, 
let's go ahead with the EIS process and find a viable route. Three 
years later, the Yellowstone Pipeline Company has paid $5 million to 
resite those 60 miles of pipeline, and just a week and a half ago the 
Yellowstone Pipeline was forced to pull the plug on the project because 
the Forest Service refused to acknowledge that their preferred 
alternative was too expensive to build. A pipeline, the cheapest way to 
move fuel and distribute energy across this country, now is in 
jeopardy, if not dead.
  The result will be that these 60 miles absent of pipeline will be 
crossed in another way. We are going to rail it or truck it. We will 
probably have an accident, even the Forest Service's EIS documents 
acknowledge this. A spill will probably result--we have already had one 
at Alberton. We might also truck it. However, with energy costs as high 
as they are today, that will increase the cost to consumers. It also, 
in that 60 miles, exposes traffic to large semis on a two-lane road. 
Lives will be at stack. The Forest Service has also acknowledged that, 
but continues to forge along proposing an unbuildable route. The 
hazards to the public, and the costs to the consumer, increase. That is 
just an example of what this administration has failed to do to ensure 
that we have energy prices that are affordable and energy is accessible 
to all Americans.

  So we feel for those truckers out there. We know what it is like to 
go down that road and try to deliver the goods to America in an 
efficient and safe way, and to get the products to market in a 
competitive manner so they fall within the consumers' reach of 
affording them.
  Two years ago, we were buying gasoline for around 85, 90 cents a 
gallon. It didn't take us long to get spoiled, did it? But now we find 
that through that we usually have to pay the piper one time or another. 
It is us, the consumers, that will pick up the bill of a failed energy 
policy. The administration will be gone, but we will be left holding 
the tab. It is our economy that will slow, and it is our families that 
will have to do with less. We see it happening today in our oil and gas 
production. Let's not see it happen in our electricity production. This 
economy we have been enjoying all these years could go away in a 
flash--just a flash. It takes a while for an administration's action to 
lead to a tangible impact, we are beginning the impact of this 
administration's failed energy policy today.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bunning). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DOMENICI. 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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