[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 34 (Thursday, March 23, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1652-S1655]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             ENERGY CRISIS

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, earlier today I came to the floor, as did 
several of my colleagues, to discuss what I believe is now nearing a 
crisis in our country; that is, the tremendous runup in the price of 
energy that we have watched for well over 3 months creep up on the 
reader boards at the local gas station or in fuel bills for those in 
homes heated with fuel oil.
  A lot of Americans are scratching their heads and saying: What is 
happening? Last year, at this time out in

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Northern Virginia, I purchased regular gasoline for 78 cents a gallon. 
There was a bit of a price war going on at that time that probably bid 
the price down 10 or 12 cents, but there is no question that America's 
driving public a year ago was paying at least 100 percent less, in some 
instances, than they are paying today.
  It is right and reasonable to ask why? What has happened? What 
happened is obvious to many who watched the energy issue. I serve on 
the Energy Committee. For the last several years, we have become quite 
nervous about the fact that we as Americans have grown increasingly 
dependent on foreign sources of crude oil to fuel the economy of this 
country. Several speakers on the floor today, and over the past several 
days, have talked about a dependency that has gone up from 30-plus 
percent in the 1970s to over 55 percent today for oil flowing in from 
outside the United States.
  Why is that happening? Why don't we have a policy stopping it? Why 
are all these things happening at a time when our economy is doing so 
well?
  This morning I joined some of my colleagues to discuss some of the 
whys. This country, for at least the last 8 years, has been without an 
energy policy. When the current Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson, 
came to that seat, I asked him in his confirmation hearing: If we don't 
have an energy program, can't we at least have an energy policy that 
looks at all aspects of the energy basket--both, of course, crude oil 
for the hydrocarbons and for all that it provides for our country, a 
recognition of electrical generation in this country, both nuclear, 
hydro, and certainly coal fired and oil fired? He assured me that would 
be the case.
  Of course, today, that simply isn't the case. In the budgets this 
Department of Energy has presented to this Congress in the last 2 
years, there has been a tremendous increase in the money the Clinton-
Gore administration has wanted to allocate for solar and wind, but they 
have constantly dropped the research dollars on hydro production or 
clean coal production for the use of coal in the firing of our 
electrical generating facilities.
  While all of that has been going on, there has been something else 
that I find fascinating and extremely disturbing: a progressive effort 
to lock up exploration and development of our public lands and public 
areas where the last of our oil reserves exist. The administration has 
not tried to encourage domestic production. In most instances, they 
have openly discouraged it or they have set the environmental bar so 
high that no one company can afford to jump over it.
  Over the course of the last 5 or 6 years, we have seen a tremendous 
number of our production companies leave this country. In fact, the CEO 
of one company sat in my office 5 years ago in a rather embarrassing 
way saying: Senator, after having been in this country drilling, 
developing, and producing oil and gas for almost 100 years, my company 
is being forced to leave the United States if we want to stay 
profitable or productive.
  Of course, that company did largely go overseas. That is an American 
company and they will be producing oil and gas. But they are, in most 
instances, producing for a foreign government, and they don't control 
their supply. Most importantly, that supply is not a U.S. supply. It is 
a foreign supply being brought into this country, dramatically changing 
our balance of trade. Of course, many of those nations are members of 
OPEC or are other oil-producing nations that are, in part, causing the 
problems our consumers are currently experiencing.

  I have found it fascinating over the last several years as we have 
watched this administration refuse to acknowledge our vast reserves of 
oil and gas, offshore, and in Alaska. The Senator from Alaska, chairman 
of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, was on the floor to 
speak for the last hour about one of the great remaining reserves in 
northern Alaska that could be tapped, and tapped in a sound and safe 
environmental way so the beautiful area would not be damaged. 
Literally, tens of thousands of barrels a day of oil could be produced 
from that region of our country and brought into the lower 48 to be 
refined and sold.
  The Rocky Mountain overthrust belt in my area of the country is 
largely now off limits to further exploration and production. Yet in 
the 1970s and the early 1980s a lot of the new domestic production in 
our country came from the overthrust belt areas of Wyoming and 
Colorado.
  We have seen the Clinton administration recently announced a ban on 
any future exploration of many areas of the Outer Continental Shelf, 
where some of the largest oil reserves exist today, all in the name of 
the environment. Even though some of the great new technologies have 
allowed the kind of development in the Gulf of Mexico and other areas 
where the chance of a spill is almost nonexistent today. In fact, the 
greatest concern for a spill is not drilling and development and 
transfer onshore of crude oil; it is the shipping in the great 
supertankers from all around the world. That is where the greater risk 
to our oceans exist, not offshore oil production. Yet this 
administration, all in the name of the environment, says, no, we will 
not develop our offshore capabilities.
  In 1996, the administration resorted to the little-used Antiquities 
Act. I mentioned that earlier this morning. They made 23 billion tons 
of low-sulpher mineable coal off limits to production in southern Utah. 
The U.S. Forest Service issued road construction policies designed to 
restrict the energy industry's ability to explore for gas and oil on 
Forest Service lands. The Clinton-Gore administration has vetoed 
legislation that would have opened the coastal plain, as I mentioned, 
in the remote Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, where an estimated 16 
billion barrels of domestic oil may be found.
  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 about 22 trillion cubic feet per year to more than 30 
trillion cubic feet per year over the next 10 to 12 years.
  Doable? Yes. Environmentally sound? Yes. A clean fuel source? Yes. 
Then why aren't we doing it? Because we have an administration that is 
hostile to the idea of actually producing in this country and providing 
for this country, and their 8 years of record clearly show that.
  The Clinton-Gore administration has shown little interest in solving 
these kinds of domestic problems and, as a result, as I mentioned 
earlier, we have watched our dependence on foreign crude tick up to 56 
percent of our total crude demand. The price last year of a barrel of 
crude was around $10 and peaked last week at somewhere near $34 a 
barrel.
  Did we see it coming? You bet we did. Has the administration known 
it? Yes, they have. On two different occasions, and in two very well-
developed reports over the last several years, that message has been so 
clearly sent to this administration.
  Why would they ignore it? There are probably a lot of reasons, and I 
have already expressed some of those reasons why this country cannot 
use its energy resources.
  Yesterday, my distinguished friend from West Virginia, Senator Robert 
Byrd, spoke eloquently on the floor on this very subject. Of course, 
his State of West Virginia is a great coal State, a great producing 
State. The United States has the world's largest demonstrated coal 
reserve base and accounts for more than 90 percent of our total fossil 
energy reserve. In other words, we have more coal than any other 
country. Yet we have an administration that truly wants to deny the use 
of it or the development of technologies that will cause it to be 
burned in an ever increasingly clean way.
  At the present rate of recovery and use, U.S. coal reserves can last 
us for more than 270 years. Let me repeat that. For 270 years, we can 
be self-sufficient at our current level of coal consumption. Of course, 
we all know the technology that will develop over that period of time 
that might well make the use of fossil fuels unnecessary at some point 
in the distant future.
  Coal is used to generate over 56 percent of our electrical supply and 
about 88 percent of the Midwest's electrical needs. Coal use for 
electrical power has risen more than 250 percent since 1970, while 
sulfur dioxide emissions has decreased to 21 percent below the 1970 
level.

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  While there has been a dramatic increase in the use of coal, there 
has been a dramatic drop in coal-fired emissions. Why? Technology, the 
application of technology, the kind of combustion technology that has 
continued to drive down emissions and make continued use of coal 
economically attractive.
  Why shouldn't we be putting more research dollars into even better 
technology? Of course, we should, but it does not show up in this 
administration's budget. Not at all. They want windmills and solar 
cells. The last I checked, to provide electricity for Los Angeles with 
solar energy, one has to cover the whole State of Arizona with solar 
panels. President Clinton, don't you understand that would be 
environmentally unsound? It would not make a lot of sense and would not 
be a very, shall we say, aesthetically valuable thing to do.
  Somehow they are caught in this mythical illusion: Pop up a solar 
cell, put a propeller on the end of a stick, tie a generator to it, and 
the world is going to light up. We simply know that is not the case 
when it comes to the kinds of energy we need to fuel our households and 
drive our industries. That kind of energy has to be of large capacity. 
It has to have the ability to peak and  supply our needs during high-
demand periods. Of course, it says little for the need of America's 
farmers and ranchers when they go to the pump this year to find out 
their energy costs have now doubled.

  What about nuclear? Nuclear drives 20 percent of our electrical 
needs, and yet this administration is the most antinuclear 
administration in the history of this country. They have on every 
occasion attempted to block the effective storage of nuclear waste, 
high-level waste, the kind that comes from nuclear generation of 
electricity. They are basically saying to the electricity industry, the 
power industry, at least the generating industry: Don't build any more 
nuclear plants, even though there are no emissions from such plants. If 
you want to strive to get to the clean air standards that we want in 
our unattainment areas, you cannot do it any other way than to assure 
that we at least maintain the 20 percent of our electricity being 
generated by nuclear power.
  What does that mean? It means we have to bring newer reactors online, 
safer reactors with new technology. Yet this administration will not 
invest in the necessary research.
  In November of 1999, the Environmental Protection Agency sued several 
coal-burning utilities claiming they made major modifications in their 
facilities without applying for new source review permits. Utilities 
maintain that the modifications fell within the routine maintenance 
provisions that had been provided and grandfathered into the Clean Air 
Act in 1990.
  What kind of a message does a central government send to the 
generating industries of this Nation? It tells them: We will not stick 
by the rules; we will not play by the rules; we are interested in 
politics at this moment, EPA politics, environmental politics; we are 
not interested in the pocketbooks of the consumer or, more important, 
the strength of the economy, even though the utility industries are 
providing ever cleaner sources of energy.
  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 under the Clean Air Act. President Clinton, don't you 
understand that you cannot keep beating this economy and our energy 
supplies over the head with these silly notions and expect the economy 
to remain productive?
  EPA recently changed the toxic release inventory, or the TRI, 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 ``dirty'' 
facilities list.
  Again I say to the President: From where are you coming? What is the 
game? Because it appears you are attempting to game this issue.
  In 1993, EPA staff concluded that coal combustion waste, or fly ash, 
bottom ash, slag waste, or other combustion products, from electric 
utility generation do not warrant hazardous waste regulation. Yet, EPA 
at the behest of the environmental community seems to be about to 
overrule the staff recommendation. The story goes on and on.
  Here is the other message. Out in my area of the country, a very 
large portion of the electric generating capacity comes from 
hydropower. We dam up rivers and we put generators in the face of the 
dams and we generate large quantities of renewable clean electricity.
  Ever since Secretary Babbitt took office, he has been running around 
the country trying to find a dam to blow up. On numerous occasions, he 
said: I would like to blow up a really big dam. That is what the 
Secretary of Interior wants as his legacy. What kind of a legacy is 
that? I think it is called a cave man  mentality legacy. Give everybody 
a candle and send them to a cave? Come on, Bruce Babbitt. You know the 
tremendous value of clean hydroelectric generation. Some 15 to 18 
percent of our market blend today is hydro.

  In my area, it is much larger than that. Do we need to modify our 
dams to save fish? Do we need to make them operate more efficiently 
with new technology? Absolutely we do. And we are doing that. Already 
we are putting in new fish-friendly turbines at Bonneville Dam at the 
lower end of the Columbia River. We are going to work our way up the 
Columbia-Snake Rivers system and that marvelous hydro facility that 
fuels the States of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. No, Mr. 
Babbitt, we ``ain't'' going to blow up any really big dams.
  It is going to be kind of refreshing when that man leaves office to 
leave that silly mentality by the wayside.
  Technology? Yes, you bet. Bring on the new technology. But shouldn't 
we be encouraging clean fuel, renewable resource technology of the kind 
that is so abundant in the West today?
  I could talk a good deal more about this, but what I hope we 
accomplish is a reduction in the overall fuel cost of this country by 
eliminating the 4.3-cent Gore tax. That is right, that is Al Gore's 
tax. He is the one who sat in the Chair and broke the tie and caused 
the tax to become law. I want him to get the credit for raising the 
cost of energy in this country by that vote.
  Here is something else I want to close with today that is added 
frustration as to why this country finds itself increasingly in an 
energy dilemma. The Clinton-Gore administration embraces the Kyoto 
Protocol. What is the Kyoto Protocol? It is the misguided result of 
concern by scientists around the world--and by all of us--that our 
world may be getting warmer as a result of the generation of greenhouse 
gases.
  We all know that we have phenomenal long-term cycles in our country 
of warming and cooling. Once upon a time ago, there was an ice age. 
Prior to that, there was a warm period. Those 5,000- to 10,000-year 
cycles are very evident throughout geologic time. We know, as a fact, 
we get warmer. We know, as a fact, we get colder. Right now we are 
getting warmer.
  The question is, Does the presence of man on the globe and what we 
are doing to our climate cause us to get warmer or does it cause us to 
get a little warmer under a normal warming cycle? We don't know that 
yet. Yet this administration, in the absence of science, and in the 
full-blown presentation of world environmental politics, said: Let me 
tell you what we are going to do. We are going to put all kinds of 
restrictions on the United States and other developed nations. We are 
going to tax the use of hydrocarbons. We want those lessened in their 
use. To do that, we are going to drive up the cost. Al Gore thinks the 
internal combustion engine is a really bad idea. He's said so on 
numerous occasions.
  But what they did not recognize was the double kind of impact that 
would result from driving up the costs through taxes and limiting 
production at a time when the world was not ready to shift away from 
conventional forms of energy.
  The Kyoto Protocol would require the United States to vastly reduce 
the use of oil, natural gas and coal, and achieve emission reduction 
standards when, frankly, the rest of the world

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would not have to play--or at least the rest of the newly developing 
world that will be the largest generators of greenhouse gases.
  Thank goodness this Senate, in July of 1997, stood up, in a very 
bipartisan way, and said: No, Mr. President. No, Mr. Vice President. 
Your idea and the protocol is wrongheaded. We are going to stand 
together as a nation. More importantly, we are going to convince the 
rest of the world to go with us. If we are going to develop this kind 
of policy, we will all share equally.
  What we ought to be doing, with our tremendous talents, is developing 
the technology for the rest of the world to use to clean up their air 
and to clean up their water. We should not ask them to sacrifice. We 
should not ask the people of developing nations to live with less than 
we have simply because we do not want them to use their resources for 
the purpose of advancing their economies. Yet that is exactly what this 
President and this Vice President have said by the proposal of and the 
endorsement of the Kyoto Protocol.
  Our Senate said no, on a vote of 95-0. Thank goodness we did. It had 
a chilling effect. In fact, I have not heard Al Gore mention Kyoto once 
in the last 6 months. Why? Because he knows he has created a tremendous 
liability for himself politically, when the American public really 
understands what would have happened if the protocol had become law, 
and those kinds of standards and those kinds of taxes had been placed 
on the American consumer on the eve of a dramatic runup in the cost of 
crude oil that has resulted from our OPEC neighbors getting their 
political act together.
  We will be back next week. Stay tuned.
  On Monday of this coming week, on the 27th, the OPEC nations meet. 
Bill Richardson has been running around, all over the world, with his 
tin cup, begging them to turn on the oil. They turned them off 6, 8 
months ago--or turned them down by several millions of barrels of 
production a day. They may open them a little bit. But my guess is, 
their goal is to keep crude oil prices well above $20 a barrel, which 
means the price at the pump will remain high. It may come down some 
this summer--and I hope it does. I hope we can jawbone them. I hope we 
can convince them, through good foreign policy, that wise economic 
policy dictates that they ought to increase production.

  Yesterday, the House spoke very clearly. It said to the OPEC nations: 
If we are going to provide for your defense, as we have in the past, 
maybe you need to help us provide for some of our energy needs. All of 
that is a part, in combination, of what we ought to be involved in and 
what we ought to be talking about. I think our consumers would expect 
nothing less of us because, clearly, energy policy is a Government 
responsibility in this country, especially if there is policy that is 
negative in its impact on the ability of the private sector to produce 
an abundant source of low-cost energy to the consuming public.
  This is an issue that will not go away because every day, when the 
consumer goes to the gas pump, and sticks his or her credit card in it, 
and pulls out 10, 12, 15, 20 gallons of gas, they are going to feel the 
impact. If you go out to buy new carpeting, if you go out, as a farmer, 
to buy pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides--all with a hydrocarbon 
base--you are going to find out that this runup in cost is having a 
dramatic impact on the economy and, ultimately, could have an impact on 
the lifestyle of all American citizens.
  We must act. I hope we act both with short-term and long-term policy 
that is sensible, environmentally sound, but recognizes that energy 
abundance in this country has been the key to our tremendous economic 
successes down through the decades.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Voinovich). The Democratic leader.

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