[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 35 (Monday, March 27, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1704-S1706]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             ENERGY POLICY

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to join 
my colleague from Wyoming who has so clearly outlined in the last few 
moments part of the problems our country faces at this time in our 
history relating to energy policy, or a lack thereof.
  As I speak on the floor, as my colleague has just completed his 
comments, all eyes are turned on Vienna. That is not Vienna, NY, that 
is Vienna, Austria, where the OPEC nation members are meeting to decide 
whether they will be generous enough to turn their valves on a little 
more and increase crude oil production to a million or a million and a 
half barrels a day so that our gas prices will come down at the 
pump. How can a great nation such as ours now find itself so dependent 
upon a group of nations, almost all of them quite small but all of them 
very rich in crude oil? How do we find ourselves dependent on their 
thinking? What is the reason we find ourselves dependent? This is part 
of what my colleague from Wyoming was talking about. It is the loss of 
production units and the drop in number of rigs out exploring, and that 
is all our fault, our fault collectively as a nation, for having failed 
over the last several decades to put in place an energy policy that 
had, as its first criterion, relative independence from other nations 
of the world as suppliers of our fundamental energy-based need for 
crude oil, crude oil production for our petrochemical industry.

  I have been to the floor several times in the last couple of weeks to 
speak about this because the price at the pump today is not an 
aberration. It is not something that was just quick in coming. We, as a 
country, have known for some time this day would be at hand. Several 
years ago, we asked our Government to investigate whether a lack of 
domestic production would put us at some form of vulnerability as to 
our ability to defend ourselves. The answer was yes. Those studies were 
placed on the desk of our President, Bill Clinton. Nothing was done. A 
year ago similar studies were done, and they reside on the President's 
desk as we speak. They have been there since last November, and nothing 
has been done.
  Only in the last month has the President sent his Secretary of Energy 
out and about the world, with his tin cup in hand, begging--begging 
producing nations to turn their valves on a little bit.
  What is the consequence of turning your valve on at the pump? The 
consequence is a reduction in the overall world spot price of crude 
oil. When you do that, the cash-flow pouring out of this country to the 
OPEC nations of the world declines; oil production goes up, cash-flow 
declines. Why would they want to do that? Out of the generosity of 
their hearts?
  For the last year-and-a-half or 2, they have been in political 
disarray. During that time, they were largely pumping at will into the 
world market. A year ago, we saw crude oil prices at $10 a barrel on 
the world market. Today, they are over $30. Now $10 a barrel is 
probably too low, but $30 is a huge and bountiful cash-flow to the 
treasuries of these countries--Saddam Hussein's country, the man whose 
country we fought against to free Kuwait and the Kuwaiti oil fields 
less than a decade ago.
  In fact, it was Northeastern Senators who, some months ago, wrote a 
letter to our President asking him to become sensitive to this issue 
because they were aware, with the run-up in oil prices--and we knew it 
was coming the minute the OPEC nations got their act together--the 
Northeastern Senators would see their States hit by heavy home heating 
oil costs. Sure enough, that is what happened. It happened because of 
the run-up in price. It also happened because of a loss of refinery 
capacity that has been going on for some time.
  What was going on in the Northeast, 2 and 3 months ago, is now going 
on across America. I come from the West, where energy prices are 
extremely high and the impact on goods and services, and our citizens, 
can be dramatic. So even if the OPEC oil countries decide to raise 
crude oil output, my guess is it will be just a little bit. It may 
sound like a lot to the average listener--a million, million-and-a-half 
barrels a day--and it could bring crude oil prices down a little bit. 
But the OPEC nations' goal is to keep crude oil prices above $20 a 
barrel and therefore keep regular gas at the pumps at somewhere in the 
$1.40 to $1.50 range. That is still a dramatic increase, nearly 
doubling east coast prices. It will be even higher on the west coast.

  The failure of the Clinton-Gore administration to recognize it, to 
understand it, and therefore to deal with it, is one of the great 
domestic and foreign policy tragedies of the decade. I say that from an 
economic point of view, but it is true also from a defense point of 
view--our ability to defend ourselves and stand as an independent 
nation in a community of nations around the world.
  Here are some statistics. Probably everyone's eyes glaze over a 
little bit when you use statistics, but it is important for the record. 
U.S. crude oil production is down by 17 percent since 1992. We have 
actually had wells shut off and shut in. What does that mean? The price 
of oil got so low, they could not afford to pump them. It cost money to 
produce. So they turn the well off and they shut the well in, meaning 
it no longer has the capability of producing.
  U.S. crude oil consumption during that same period of time went up 14 
percent: 17 percent down in production, 14 percent up in consumption. 
It sounds like a ready-made situation for a crisis, and that is exactly 
where we find ourselves today. The United States is 55-percent 
dependent upon those nations that are meeting in Vienna at this moment; 
55-percent dependent for so much of what we do. That is dramatically up 
from just a couple of decades ago when we were in the mid-30s, relating 
to dependency.
  While all of this is going on and nothing is being done by this 
administration, and most of what we are trying to do here has either 
been denied or vetoed or blocked by this administration, the U.S. 
Department of Energy estimates we will have a 65-percent dependency on 
foreign producers by the year 2020. Some would say that is good because 
we will not have the environmental risks in this country; we will not 
be drilling and we will not be refining as much, and therefore the 
environmental risks will be gone.
  What they did not tell you is, it puts hundreds of new supertankers 
out there on the open ocean on a daily basis--even if our foreign 
neighbors will produce and even if they will sell to us, hundreds more 
of those huge supertankers out there in the open ocean,

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coming into our ports, offloading. Let me tell you, there are greater 
environmental consequences for that than the use of today's technology 
on our land or out in our oceans, drilling, finding, and shipping to 
our refineries.
  The United States is spending $300 million a day on imported crude 
oil. That is $100 billion a year flowing out of this country to the 
coffers of the OPEC nations. That is big money, huge money, in any 
sense of the words. We sit here and wring our hands over a balance of 
payments, yet we do nothing to bring that production back to our shores 
and to be able to control our own destiny in the production of crude 
oil.
  As I mentioned, the world oil price reached over $30, about $34 a 
barrel on March 7. It is down a little bit now on speculation that the 
OPEC nations today will make decisions that will increase production. 
But, of course, we already know energy prices on the west coast are at 
nearly $2 a gallon at the pump and are certainly extremely high here. 
More than half of all crude oil we use, about 18 million barrels per 
day, goes directly into home heating oil, motor gasoline, diesel fuel, 
and other transportation fuels.
  The Clinton-Gore administration has failed to do one single thing to 
develop more of our Nation's crude oil reserves, of which we have an 
abundance. In fact, I was watching CNN a few moments ago. Some people 
in the oil industry would suggest only about half of the crude oil 
capability of this Nation has been used since we first discovered crude 
oil. Only about half of it has been used. The rest of it is under the 
ground. It is more difficult to find, more expensive to produce, but it 
is still there, and the great tragedy is we are not producing it. In 
fact, we are doing quite the opposite.

  Since this administration has come to town, there has been an anti-
oil attitude from a standpoint of domestic production. From the very 
beginning, they pushed through a 4.3 percent gas tax increase. They 
argued it was for deficit reduction. But when one listens to the 
soundings of the Vice President when he talks about crude oil and 
combustion engines and how negative they are to the environment and we 
ought to tax them out of existence--and he has said all of those 
things; I am paraphrasing, but it is not new; he has been replete in 
those expressions over the years--it is not unexpected that he cast the 
single vote that broke the tie between Democrats and Republicans on 
this floor that put the gas tax in place.
  We now are looking to try to take that gas tax off in the very near 
future, at least roll it back a ways, and give our consumers some 
flexibility. We are going to balance the budget this year and have 
surpluses. Why not use some of that surplus money to offset the runup 
in expenses that consumers are now feeling at the gas pump at this 
moment and that certainly our transportation industry is feeling? It 
ought to be something we do.
  I argue that we hold the highway trust fund fully offset. That is the 
trust fund that funds the pouring of concrete for our roads and our 
bridges and creates hundreds of thousands of jobs a year in the 
building and rebuilding of our infrastructure. Those need to be funded. 
I do not argue they should not be. But here we are dealing with a 
surplus, fighting with our Democrat colleagues over whether we should 
give tax relief to the taxpayers this year. What better way to give 
some of it back than to reduce the cost at the pumps? Most Americans 
today who drive cars find themselves paying increasingly higher fuel 
bills.
  For the next few moments, I will talk about rural America. I come 
from a rural State. Many of us do. While runups in energy costs are 
dramatically impacting urban America, it is even greater in rural 
America. Why? It is quite simple. Many of my friends in Idaho drive 50, 
60, 70 miles a day to just get their kids to school or just to shop at 
the local grocery store. That is not unusual in rural America.
  All of the goods and services that flow to our farms and from our 
farms travel on the backs of 18-wheeler trucks, all consuming diesel 
oil.
  Diesel oil is now being acquired by farmers across the Nation as they 
enter our fields for the spring farming season. All of that is going to 
drive up the overall cost of the farmers this year. In agriculture, 
farmers have experienced a 4-year run of very low commodity prices and 
have found most of their farms and ranches below break even. Now, 
because of an absence of a national energy policy, they find their cost 
of production could double, at least in the energy field. Many of the 
tools they use--the insecticides, the pesticides, and the herbicides 
that are made up of oil bases--are going to go up dramatically in cost.
  In my State of Idaho, farming and ranching, logging and mining are 
also an important part of the rural economy. All of them very energy 
intensive. Those industries have found themselves nearly on their backs 
from the last few years at a time when we see energy costs ready to 
double or triple.

  We have heard it from the homeowner and the apartment dweller in the 
Northeast for the last several months, that their fuel costs have 
doubled, their heating bills have doubled. Some are having to choose 
food over warmth or warmth over food. Many are senior citizens on fixed 
incomes.
  While we have tried to offset that some with help from Washington, we 
have not been able to do it all. And in the next month and a half, we 
are going to hear it from the farmers and the ranchers as their fuel 
bills skyrocket.
  We have already heard from the truckers. They have been to town 
several times, and many of our independent truckers are literally 
driving their trucks into their driveways, shutting them down, and not 
turning them back on, therefore, risking bankruptcy and the loss of 
that income-making property because they cannot afford to pay the fuel 
bills.
  Why? It is time we ask why, as a country, and it is time Congress 
dealt with at least some short-term provisions while we look at and 
strive for some long-term energy policy.
  I do not think one can expect the Clinton-Gore administration to be 
very helpful, except begging at the doorsteps of the palaces of the 
sheiks of the OPEC nations, because that is their only energy policy.
  Those are the kinds of things we are going to look at and abide by. I 
think this Congress will attempt to respond and respond in a positive 
way for the short-term provisions while we look at long-term policy to 
increase production of crude oil inside the 50 States of our Nation in 
a way that we can control it, we can shape our energy future without a 
group of energy nations meeting in Vienna having a choke hold around 
our very neck.
  Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt is talking about taking down 
valuable hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest--the 
administration does not consider hydropower a renewable resource. 
Electricity from hydro meets about 10 to 12 percent of U.S. needs.
  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner is trying 
to shut down coal fired electric generating plants in the midwest--
which depends on those plants for 88 percent of its electricity. The 
U.S. depends on coal for 55 percent of its electricity needs.
  While the Clinton-Gore administration tried to kill off the use of 
coal fired electricity it is doing nothing to increase the availability 
of domestic natural gas which is the fuel generators will use if they 
cannot use coal. To replace coal the U.S. must increase its use of 
natural gas by about 10 trillion cubic feet per year.
  Federal land in the Rocky Mountain West could contain as much as 137 
billion cubic feet of natural gas but the Clinton-Gore administration 
refuses to allow any oil and gas exploration on those lands.
  Last week the President announced his plans for dealing with our 
current energy problem. Once again, his emphasis focused on 
conservation and renewable energy sources like solar, wind and biomass. 
We cannot put windmills on trucks or solar panels on trains or barges.
  The Clinton-Gore administration has refused to even consider allowing 
exploration in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge which could contain 
up to 16 billion barrels of domestic crude oil which could easily be 
moved to refineries in the lower 48 through the Alaska pipeline.
  The Vice President has vowed to prohibit any future exploration for 
oil and natural gas on the Federal outer continental shelf when there 
are clearly

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areas that have great potential for new domestic energy supplies. The 
President recently closed most of the Federal OCS to any exploration 
until 2012.
  The Clinton-Gore administration embraces the Kyoto Protocol which 
would impose staggering economic costs on the United States. The 
Protocol would require the U.S. to vastly reduce its use of fossil 
fuels like oil, natural gas and coal to achieve reductions in emissions 
of carbon dioxide--which is not a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and 
has not yet been proven to be the cause of climate change. The U.S. 
Senate voted 95-0 to reject it.
  Clearly, there is a pattern.
  It started in 1993 when the Clinton-Gore administration proposed a 
$73 billion 5-year tax to force U.S. use of fossil fuels down.
  It continues with misguided Federal land use policies, environmental 
policies designed not necessarily to protect the environment but to 
kill fossil fuel use, and continues with administration support for the 
economically punitive Kyoto Protocol. This administration hates the 
fossil fuel industry and apparently the economic well-being these 
abundant and relatively cheap fuels have helped the U.S. economy 
achieve. These are the words of the Vice President:

       Higher taxes on fossil fuels . . . is one of the logical 
     first steps in changing our policies in a manner consistent 
     with a more responsible approach to the environment.

  That is by Senator Al Gore, from ``Earth in the Balance,'' 1992, page 
173.
  To me it is pretty clear that this administration is unwilling to 
commit to a rational energy policy that will help America's families.
  I yield the floor.

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