[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 34 (Thursday, March 23, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1620-S1624]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             THE OIL CRISIS

  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I would like to proceed in morning 
business for about 10 minutes. I would like to add my comments to those 
of my colleagues who spoke yesterday who were concerned about the 
rising cost of fuel. Many of my friends and colleagues have spoken to 
the issue of our rising dependency on foreign oil. This morning, I 
would like to take a little different perspective and talk a little bit 
about how the crisis affects the backbone of American commerce, which 
is the backbone of the American trucking industry.
  Over 95 percent of all commercial manufactured goods and agricultural 
products are shipped by truck at some point. Mr. President, 9.6 million 
people have jobs directly or indirectly related to trucking. In 
addition, trucking contributes over 5 percent of America's gross 
domestic product which is the equivalent of $272 billion in the economy 
every single year. Over 6.7 billion tons of goods are shipped in this 
Nation every year. Those are staggering numbers. I use them to 
emphasize the impact that trucks have in America.
  I know the trucking life myself. I started driving when I was 21, 
when I got out of the service. I put myself through college by driving 
an 18-wheeler. Last year, I decided to renew my commercial driver's 
license in the State of Colorado and I attended a truck-driving school 
to do that. I have a small tractor trailer so I know firsthand the 
impact of the increase of fuel. Paying the bill for 200 gallons of fuel 
in a truck is not like filling up the family car, and these long-line 
trucks, by the way, fill up every day.
  Last week, while the Senate was in recess, I spent the week making 
deliveries in a truck along Colorado's Front Range. I did it so I could 
see and hear firsthand what truckers, as well as shippers and other 
related businesses, are going through. At diners, gas stations, and 
delivery points, they told me from their perspective it is much worse 
than anyone in Washington may imagine.
  While I was driving, I met a man named Wesley White from Oregon who 
said he was on his last run. He couldn't afford to continue fueling his 
truck. He had been a policeman for over 20 years and at the end of his 
police service he retired, took his pension, and bought a truck with 
the intent of going into business for himself. But, this time around 
when he gets home he is going to park the truck for good. Without the 
income from delivering goods, he is not going to be able to make his 
truck payments. He will lose the business of the truck and he will also 
lose his pension which he used to buy the truck.
  Wesly is not alone. Three times in the last 2 months, hundreds of 
truckers from all over the United States have come to Washington to ask 
for help. I attended the first rally in February, and I went to another 
one yesterday. One thing I did learn, when these people come to 
Washington, they are not here to complain about profit margins or stock 
prices. They are here because their very livelihood is on the line.
  I have to tell you, Mr. President, I never met a trucker who wanted a 
handout. They want a job, a fair shake, and fairness from Congress. One 
trucker I met at the last rally I went to had a wife and two small 
children. The four of them were actually living in the sleeper of the 
truck because the increased price of diesel fuel did not leave them 
enough money at the end of the month to even pay house rent.
  Unfortunately, this administration has ignored the plight of these 
hard-working Americans. The administration has got us into this mess by 
the total lack of any energy policy. They stand in the way of domestic 
oil production, they refuse to release Federal fuel stockpiles to drive 
the cost of fuel down, and they continually lock up public lands so we 
cannot explore for

[[Page S1621]]

new resources. Now faced with skyrocketing diesel prices, they still do 
nothing of substance, instead they are hoping the OPEC oil ministers 
will reverse their strategy to limit production and increase fuel 
prices.

  We fought the gulf war, as you and I know, and this is how we get 
repaid. In fact, in a rather strange twist of fate we are now also 
dependent on Iraqi oil.
  Instead of increasing our own resources, the Secretary recently went 
to the Middle East, hat in hand, to beg for fuel. Now administration 
officials are coming before Congress to propose we study alternative 
energy resources. I have news for them. Trucks don't run on solar and 
they don't run on wind; they run on diesel. Everything we buy, eat or 
wear is delivered on a truck. If they stop rolling, very simply this 
Nation also comes to a stop.
  Even if OPEC increases production, the effect on the American 
consumers will be months away, we need immediate relief. In that 
context, I recently introduced S. 2161 entitled ``The American 
Transportation Recovery and Highway Trust Fund Protection Act of 
2000.'' This bill would temporarily suspend the Federal excise tax on 
diesel fuel for 1 year, or until the price of crude oil is reduced to 
the December 31, 1999, level. It would replace lost revenues with 
moneys from the budget surplus in the general fund while protecting the 
highway trust fund. The bill has bipartisan support, with 12 
cosponsors. Even at that, we know it is only a short-term solution.
  The real problem is our dependency on foreign oil. All the 
negotiations this administration is doing to get OPEC to open its 
spigots is not more than a Band-Aid approach to the problem that will 
continually revisit us as long as we are dependent on foreign oil. The 
administration has known this and the danger to our national security 
since 1994. Senator Murkowski spoke to that yesterday.
  It is unfortunate we, as a global superpower, are reduced to begging. 
More forceful actions are needed and must be taken to expose the 
severity of the problem and to address it now and in months to come. We 
cannot simply stand by and do nothing.
  We can do better. We should be opening new oil fields. We should be 
doing better incentive work to keep the stripper wells from closing, 
and certainly we should renew our efforts in oil shale and other 
renewable fuels that can be turned into gasoline oil. Most of all, we 
have to untether ourselves from Mideast oil.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, a number of my Republican colleagues have 
spoken on the floor about the absence of an energy policy on the part 
of the Clinton-Gore administration. I believe that description is only 
half right. It is true the Clinton-Gore administration has no express 
energy policy that would lead or even contribute to U.S. energy 
independence. But the Clinton-Gore administration, on the other hand, 
does have a very significant implicit energy policy. Under that policy, 
it discourages or prohibits exploration for either oil or natural gas 
over extensive and increasingly large areas of our country.
  Under that implicit energy policy, it proposes to reduce the amount 
of hydroelectric power we have and, in fact, to treat hydroelectric 
power as though it were not renewable.
  Under that implicit energy policy, it has given us an increasing 
dependence each year on foreign sources for petroleum products, now at 
55 or 56 percent, and inevitably directed at 65 percent or two-thirds 
of that oil. Implicitly, it has given us an energy policy that resulted 
last month in the largest single trade deficit in the history of the 
United States, due, in major part, to imports of petroleum products and 
a trade deficit that will inevitably continue to increase.
  So suddenly we do have a short-term explicit energy policy. It is to 
send the Secretary of Energy of the United States of America, hat in 
hand, to countries in Latin America, in Southwest Asia, and now most 
recently into Nigeria, to plead with these countries to lower the cost 
of the oil they send to us. This is a total abdication of the 
appropriate policy of an administration interested in the trade balance 
of the United States and in energy independence for the United States.
  Mr. President, what is the answer to this question? Obviously, in the 
short term our hands are relatively tied. We do, however, have one 
option in front of us which we can engage immediately that will provide 
at least modest relief to the American people during the course of this 
energy crisis, and that is the elimination--whether permanent or 
temporary--of the 4.3-cent motor vehicle fuel tax that was imposed by 
the President and the Congress in 1993. I am convinced we should follow 
that course of action. It is urgent for everyone. It is overwhelmingly 
urgent for the airlines of the United States that operate in a highly 
competitive atmosphere. They are being brutally punished, along with 
their passengers, with the increased airfare caused by that tax.

  This is an option the Congress could and should take up and pass with 
extreme promptness. However, in the long run, the more important 
solution is a longer-term solution. That solution lies on two sides: 
the supply of energy for the people of the United States to use and the 
way in which we use that energy with appropriate conservation measures.
  From the point of view of supply, when we deal with petroleum alone, 
we should change policies which have discouraged production in the 
United States--policies of regulation and taxation and hostility that 
have closed down existing sources of supply in various parts of the 
United States.
  We should very seriously consider and move toward the creation of new 
sources of supply rather than cutting them off and prohibiting them, 
whether they are in the North Slope of Alaska or in various parts of 
the lower 48 States of the United States. We need to do this in order 
to have any leverage with the rest of the world with respect to the 
prices it charges us for petroleum supplies. This policy should apply 
not only to petroleum but to natural gas as well.
  Second, I am convinced we should continue to encourage and should 
encourage even more the production of at least supplements to our 
petroleum supply that are totally within the control of the United 
States and that are renewable in nature. Ethanol perhaps ranks as No. 1 
on this particular list. It can be produced by American grain. It adds 
to our supply, and it is, of course, completely within our own control, 
and it enriches the people who provide these agricultural commodities.
  Next, from the point of view of conservation, I point out the utter 
and insane folly of proposing to remove dams from the Snake River that 
produce renewable and environmentally benign electric power. If those 
dams are removed, as many in the administration wish to do, we will end 
up putting 700,000 trucks on the roads of the northwestern part of the 
United States each and every year more than are on those roads at the 
present time--major trucks that carry grain and other products for 
export. The idea that we should be using all of that additional amount 
of diesel and gasoline fuel is simply, in my view, beyond reasonable 
consideration.
  Finally, I believe we have to aim at the way in which we as Americans 
use power, and particularly motor vehicle fuels. Last July, for the 
first time in several years, this body was asked once again by me and 
by other Senators to go back to the successes of the 1970s and to 
reestablish a Government program to improve the energy efficiency of 
our automobiles and small trucks, the so-called CAFE standards. In the 
1970s, this was one of the most successful programs--the single most 
successful governmental program--in history. We came close to doubling 
the average mileage of our passenger automobiles during that period of 
time. This crisis would not be a crisis; it would be an unmitigated 
disaster had those who perceived it not established and implemented 
those policies of the 1970s. But in the early 1980s, we abandoned that 
policy, and we have abandoned it ever since.
  We have even gone so far in this body and in the other body to 
prohibit any study of increasing CAFE standards, as far as small trucks 
are concerned, and even automobiles at any time in the immediate 
future. When we voted on that proposition last July, 40 Members of this 
body--not a majority but a very substantial minority--voted in favor of 
it before there was a crisis. Now the

[[Page S1622]]

crisis is upon us. Now we have people wondering why it is our small 
trucks and SUVs are so energy inefficient. People are being punished by 
the lack of foresight of this administration and having the cost of 
operating those vehicles increase exponentially, and it is often not 
affordable.
  I am convinced that in addition to providing a greater degree of 
supply from sources within the United States we must, once again, focus 
on making our use of that energy and particularly making petroleum 
energy more efficient. The best way we can do that is by going back to 
the CAFE standard regime we had a generation ago in the United States 
and doing what is technologically quite feasible to do by increasing 
anywhere from 20 to 50 percent the efficiency of the engines that use 
petroleum products. That would be a true energy policy--an energy 
policy both for the short term and the long term, a policy which is 
totally and completely lacking in the Clinton-Gore administration at 
the present time.
  I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise today to join many of my colleagues 
in expressing my deepest concern about the problem concerning energy 
and the cost of energy to many working Americans, and certainly to my 
constituents in the State of Maine.
  We have been plagued by a significant surge in increases at the 
pump--certainly during the wintertime in the State of Maine concerning 
oil prices, home heating oil prices that more than doubled within a 1-
month period, not to mention the gasoline prices we are seeing and the 
tremendous spike in those prices, as well. And, even according to the 
Department of Energy's own information, we will not expect an abatement 
of those prices by the end of the year. In fact, we can expect to have 
continuously high prices in terms of gasoline.
  We know that the OPEC countries are going to be meeting on Monday, 4 
days from now. We hope the administration and the Congress sends an 
unequivocal message that they rethink their unconscionable policy of 
keeping a very low level of production when it comes to petroleum 
products.
  We know that a year ago in October they made a decision to limit 
production when it came to oil. The administration was well aware of 
the fact that the OPEC cartel had made a deliberate and concerted 
decision to limit the production of oil. Even last fall, the Department 
of Energy's own report indicated that we could expect a 40-percent rise 
in home heating oil prices, and if it was a severe winter, a 30-percent 
rise in home heating oil prices. That was more than a 70-percent 
increase projected by the Department of Energy with respect to home 
heating oil prices. That was anticipated by our own Department of 
Energy last October.
  In fact, my constituents in the State of Maine faced a 100-percent 
increase in home heating oil prices--a 100-percent increase. Yet we had 
silence from the administration--silence when the OPEC cartel made this 
decision to limit the production of oil without any apparent reason, 
and without any rationale.
  Then the Department of Energy anticipated we could have up toward a 
70-percent increase in home heating oil prices. In fact, we face a 100-
percent increase. Yet there was a deafening silence from the 
administration when it came to the types of policies that could 
mitigate the burden the surging prices imposed on working Americans.
  Here we are today anticipating what might or might not happen on 
Monday, the kinds of decisions made by the OPEC cartel. I hope the 
administration is working very hard to send a strong message that the 
OPEC cartel should reconsider its policy. Its policy is all the more 
shocking when we consider the men and women all across this country who 
defended the freedom of democracy for countries such as Kuwait and 
Saudi Arabia, that the United States lost 147 American lives, 458 were 
wounded, and 23 were taken prisoner in the struggle during the Persian 
Gulf war.
  I think it is entirely appropriate for Congress and the 
administration to press OPEC in terms of the kind of decision they 
should be making on Monday. The administration also should consider 
predicating foreign assistance to some of these foreign countries that 
are part of the decisionmaking of the OPEC cartel, such as Mexico, whom 
we bailed out 5 years ago when it came to the peso crisis to the tune 
of $13.5 billion. We were prepared to bail them out up to the tune of 
$20 billion to ease the economic hardship imposed on their people. It 
is no different now.
  Or Indonesia and Nigeria, for whom the President is proposing $256 
million in economic assistance because these are countries in 
transition. Again, our assistance should be predicated on their 
cooperation.
  Those are the kinds of issues we must confront. In the short term, we 
have to deal with the reality of what is happening at the gas pump. I 
hope Congress will give consideration to recommendations that will be 
made by many who have been working on this issue to suspend the 4.3-
cent gas tax which many Members opposed back in 1993 because we didn't 
think this was a hardship we should impose on the American people.
  Beyond that, if the price of gasoline is going to surge upwards of 
$2--which it is already doing in California--we should clearly suspend 
all of the taxes on diesel and gasoline because it is that important to 
our economy and to Americans in all parts of the country, not just in 
one region; it will be in all regions.
  When the Department of Energy says it would undoubtedly be too late 
to deflect domestic gasoline prices on their way to record nominal 
levels and may be too little to reduce prices much by the end of the 
year 2000, clearly we have something to be concerned about.
  No one really knows even if OPEC will make a positive decision on 
Monday. I am concerned about the decision they will make on Monday or 
if they decide to have other meetings.
  What does that all mean if this does not translate into lower prices 
at the gas pump this summer? We clearly will have problems. I know my 
State will have problems. It is a tourist State. We rely on tourism. It 
is the second biggest industry in the State of Maine.
  I think we have to be prepared. I hope we do fashion a policy that is 
contingent upon what the price might be, irrespective of the decision 
made by OPEC. That is a decision the administration is not prepared to 
make, and they are not even prepared to take a step forward in any 
direction. The President announced last week: We will do a reserve in 
the Northeast but we need to do an environmental impact study; it needs 
legislation from Congress.
  Senator Dodd introduced legislation in which many joined because we 
think it is a prudent policy to set up a reserve in the Northeast to 
mitigate the impact of high price increases or an interruption in oil 
supply. What is so difficult about that? The President can't even take 
that step. He says there are a lot of contingencies involved. In 
effect, we don't have anything from this administration to address this 
problem. We don't have an energy policy.

  Congress is going to have to take the concerted steps necessary to 
address these problems in the short term to be sure these are short-
term solutions. We also have to look at the long term. I did support 
the CAFE standard issue that Senator Gorton addressed today as well. 
Obviously, the costs have been significant to this country in terms of 
transportation. We need to get better fuel efficiency with respect to 
automobiles and minivans.
  We also should look at providing some incentives for the marginal 
producers in this country, the small producers, about which Senator 
Hutchison has also talked, as well. Congress will have to take the lead 
because it is clear that this administration is not intending to in any 
respect. Beyond anticipating we will have this problem this year, the 
administration has been virtually silent. I hope they make the message 
very clear to the OPEC countries about how important their decision 
will be on Monday.

[[Page S1623]]

  Beyond that, we also have to be prepared for any contingencies in the 
future that these prices might not decline in the short term or for the 
reminder of this year. Frankly, it is not just my word, it is the word 
of the Department of Energy.
  Again, I hope we will be taking actions in the next few days 
irrespective of what the decision might be from the OPEC nations.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bunning). The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I have come to the floor today, as has the 
Senator from Maine, to speak about the energy crisis our country finds 
itself in. Let me use those words again: energy crisis.
  A week and a half ago, Senator Snowe was before my subcommittee 
testifying on some key legislation she has introduced. The Senator from 
Maine recognizes the phenomenal impact high energy costs have on her 
State. Whether it is home heating or the transportation systems that 
drive her industries, she has recognized it clearly and early on 
announced to this administration there was a problem coming and 
encouraged them to change their policy. Yet they have done nothing.
  As I listened to the Senator from Maine this morning, she spoke very 
clearly about what this country needs to do. I strongly support the 
words she has stated for the Record.
  When the Clinton-Gore administration came to town in 1993, it 
announced its intent to drastically alter the way the Nation used 
energy, especially fossil fuels. Remember, briefly, the President and 
the Vice President determined that through the use of a broad-based Btu 
tax, they would drive us away from our most abundant and economical 
fuels to a renewable solar wind or biomass system. The objective has 
remained a hallmark of this administration's energy policy. That is all 
they have wanted to talk about until now.
  Their policy now is to send the Secretary of Energy abroad with a tin 
cup, begging at the wells of foreign energy producers, asking them to 
please turn on their tap. We will know next Monday whether the begging 
of Bill Richardson and the energy policy of this administration has 
worked.
  President Clinton promised early when he came to town that the tax he 
proposed, $72 billion over 5 years, was going to be fair, it was going 
to be healthful, it was going to force down dependency on foreign oil, 
and do the right things for consumers. In fact, it would have unfairly 
punished energy-intensive States such as mine, Western States where 
transportation needs and movements spread across broad expanses in 
agricultural States such as mine. The American Petroleum Insurance 
Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers predicted the 
tax would hurt exports, reduce GDP in this country by $38 billion, and 
destroy some 700,000 jobs. Yet the administration wouldn't listen. They 
drove on, pushing the tax issue.

  Clinton and Gore claimed the tax was needed to balance the budget and 
fund large new spending programs to offset the negative impact of the 
tax. They also claimed the use of crude oil imports would fall 
dramatically, by 400,000 barrels a day.
  At that time, DOE's own projections predicted the tax would shave oil 
import growth by less than one-tenth after 10 years. DOE predicted by 
the year 2000, Americans would depend on foreign oil for three-fifths 
of their total crude oil requirements.
  The American Petroleum Institute testified before the Energy 
Committee on which I sit. It said:

       . . . even if imports were to fall by the full 400,000 
     barrels a day claimed by the administration, the cost of $34 
     billion in lost GDP is excessive relative to other 
     alternatives for improving energy security. Using the 
     administration's optimistic predictions, the cost of the Btu 
     tax works out to be about $230 a barrel.

  That is right, $230 a barrel. In the end, Congress refused. Thank 
goodness we listened to the experts. We didn't listen to the politics 
of the Clinton-Gore administration, and we said no. Hopefully, in the 
next few days we will also reverse something that was largely a 
Clinton-Gore initiative and that was the 4.3-cent-per-gallon gas tax 
that our consumers are now paying.
  The Clinton-Gore administration's obsession with the use of fossil 
fuel reduction has actually put us in the position we find ourselves 
today. What does our President say? On March 7 of this year, he said:

       Americans should not want them [oil prices] to drop to $10 
     or $12 again because that . . . takes our mind off the 
     business of . . . alternative fuels, energy conservation, 
     reducing the impact of all of this on global warming.

  Mr. President, we should not take our minds off energy conservation. 
That is good policy. We should not take our minds off alternative 
fuels, that is also good policy. But saying you are going to tax 
hydrocarbons out of existence and now finding this Nation pushing 
itself into an inflationary mode, finding our costs going up 
dramatically because of your policies, it was wrongheaded then and it 
is wrongheaded now. And we know it.
  What has happened since 1993? Domestic oil production is down 17 
percent. Domestic crude oil consumption is up 14 percent. Dependence on 
foreign oil sources of crude oil has risen to 56 percent of our total 
crude requirements.
  In 1973, during the Arab oil embargo, our dependence on foreign crude 
was 36 percent of our crude oil requirement.
  Iraq is our fastest growing source for U.S. crude imports, about 
700,000 barrels a day. I have one thing to say to the President: Shame 
on you. Shame on you for the absence of policy and the clear knowledge 
that you had, that all of us had, that this kind of dependency would 
ultimately result if we did not push and we did not drive toward a more 
effective domestic policy to increase production and find all the other 
effective conservation uses we could find.
  The Clinton-Gore administration, while making much of the increase in 
efficiency, greater use of renewables from biomass, and other things, 
ignores the very fundamental fact that a large part of our energy use 
cannot be addressed by these measures. Sure, it is an important part of 
the blend but a very small percentage of what is absolutely and 
necessarily needed.

  Of course, those of us who come from agriculture recognize the 
importance of crude oil feed stocks to the chemical industry and the 
products they produce, which results in the high quality of agriculture 
production in our country. The administration fails to encourage 
domestic oil production and the production of coal and natural gas that 
now leads us to this point.
  The administration has refused to acknowledge the vast reserves of 
oil and gas offshore, in Alaska and the Rocky Mountain overthrust area. 
Of course, we, the consumers, are now paying the price.
  The Clinton-Gore administration recently announced a ban on future 
exploration on most of the Federal Outer Continental Shelf until the 
year 2012. Can you imagine that? Here we are, increasingly dependent on 
foreign sources, and the President turns his back on some of the 
largest reserves left in this country to be explored by some of the 
finest technology in environmentally sensitive ways that we now know, 
to bring oil into production in the Outer Continental Shelf.
  In 1996, the administration resorted to the use of the Antiquities 
Act to lock up 23 billion tons of mineable low-sulfur, high-quality 
coal in Utah. The story goes on and on.
  I would argue the Clinton-Gore administration has acted in other ways 
designed to force us away from the use of all of these resources that 
are so abundant and so available to us and wise for us to use. At the 
present rate, we are now demonstrating our unwillingness to produce at 
the local, national level. We will be 56-percent dependent, moving into 
60-percent dependent in very short order.
  The U.S. Forest Service has issued road construction policies that 
are designed to restrict the energy industry's ability to explore for 
oil and gas on Forest Service lands.
  The Clinton-Gore administration has vetoed legislation that would 
have opened the coastal plain of the remote Alaska National Wildlife 
Reserve denying the Nation access to an estimated 16 billion barrels of 
domestic crude oil.
  The administration has ignored a report prepared by the National 
Petroleum Council, requested by the Energy Secretary, explaining how 
the Nation can increase production and use of domestic natural gas 
resources from

[[Page S1624]]

about 22 trillion cubic feet per year to more than 30 trillion cubic 
feet per year over the next 10 to 12 years.
  The Clinton-Gore administration has shown little interest in solving 
our domestic energy problems until now as foreign oil producers have 
forced crude oil prices to over $30 per barrel and gasoline prices to 
almost $2 per gallon--double prices of only little more than a year 
ago.
  I would argue that the Clinton-Gore administration has acted in other 
ways designed to force us away from the use of readily available, 
relatively inexpensive fossil fuels. It has chosen especially to vilify 
and deny the use of our most abundant national energy resource--coal. 
My distinguished friend from West Virginia, Senator Robert Byrd spoke 
eloquently yesterday on this subject and I want to add a few thoughts 
to his.
  The U.S. has the world's largest demonstrated coal reserve base and 
accounts for more than 90 percent of our total fossil energy reserves.
  At present rates of recovery and use, U.S. reserves will last more 
than 270 years.
  Coal is used to generate over 56 percent of our electricity supply--
and about 88 percent of the Midwest's electricity needs.
  Coal use for electric power has risen more than 250 percent since 
1970 while sulfur dioxide emissions have decreased to 21 percent below 
1970 levels and introduction of new cleaner coal combustion 
technologies will continue to push emissions of all types down.
  Electricity from hydro represents about 10 to 12 percent of our 
electricity needs.
  Nuclear powerplants meet about 20 percent of our total electricity 
demand.
  Yet the Clinton-Gore administration takes a dim view of these sources 
and has taken steps to reduce their use.
  In November 1999 the Environmental Protection Agency sued several 
coal burning utilities claiming they made major modifications to their 
facilities without applying for New Source Review permits. Utilities 
maintain that the modifications fall within the ``routine maintenance'' 
exception to the new source rule, and that EPA had routinely approved 
such actions in the past.
  EPA is discussing the notion that new source review should include 
``voluntary'' regulation of CO2--which is not a poisonous 
gas and which is not regulated by any part of the Clear Air Act.
  EPA recently changed the toxics release inventory to require electric 
utilities to report chemical release data. The level at which reporting 
is required for Mercury was lowered by an order of magnitude. In making 
these changes EPA presented no studies or supporting rationale for why 
nearby communities should suddenly be concerned about such releases. 
Nevertheless, the reports will be widely published thereby placing 
utilities at the top of the list of ``dirty'' facilities.
  In 1993, EPA concluded that coal combustion wastes (fly ash, bottom 
ash, slag waste, and other combustion products) from electric utility 
generation do not warrant hazardous waste regulation. EPA appears now 
to be prepared to reverse an EPA staff decision that coal combustion 
wastes do not warrant regulation as ``hazardous.''
  In 1998, EPA issued revised Nitrogen Oxides New Source Performance 
Standards for all new and existing utility and industrial boilers. It 
based its standard on a single, very expensive control system 
regardless of boiler and fuel type.
  Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has talked openly about ``tearing 
down dams'' in the West to restore habitat for fish, ignoring the power 
and transportation benefits they provide. And, the administration is 
imposing new, often impossible criteria that must be met before federal 
licenses can be reissued. Many existing hydro projects will seek 
relicensing over the next several decades.
  Finally, the Clinton-Gore administration continues to threaten veto 
of legislation designed to create a permanent nuclear waste storage 
facility and which fulfills a longstanding promise by the federal 
government to create such a facility. Without a federal storage 
facility, U.S. nuclear generating stations, which are running out of 
on-site storage capacity may be forced to shut down their operations.
  There are too many more examples of the Clinton-Gore administration's 
failure to produce a coherent, balanced national energy plan. It almost 
seems they are trying to create crisis after crisis in the hope that a 
magical solution will rise from the chaos--fat chance. Solving these 
problems requires tough choices and I suggest that we begin now by 
pursuing a number of short to long term objectives.
  We should work with our Western Hemisphere neighbors to help them 
increase their crude oil production.
  We should provide relief to consumers by cutting taxes on fuels 
derived from crude oil, such as the 4.3-cents a gallon tax and the 24-
cent a gallon tax on highway diesel fuel and taxes on fuels for air, 
rail and barge transportation.
  We need to step away from punitive, command and control environmental 
regulations and move toward performance based regulatory concepts that 
offer the regulated community opportunities to find flexible approaches 
to reducing emissions of legally regulated contaminants.
  Finally, we need to face up to the fact that we are part of the 
problem. Our unwillingness to develop our own abundant oil, gas and 
coal resources dooms us to greater dependence on foreign sources, 
especially for crude oil. We must make the conscious choice to 
carefully find and develop our resources while protecting our 
environment.

                          ____________________