[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 38 (Thursday, March 30, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1925-S1926]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             GAS TAX REPEAL

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I want to take a little while this morning 
to lay the foundation for a vote we will be taking later today. There 
is going to be a limited amount of time to talk about the cloture vote 
on the gas tax repeal.
  No one is happy about the cost of gasoline in America today. It is 
something of which we are all aware, especially those of us on the west 
coast. In the State of Nevada, there are places where gas can cost more 
than $2 a gallon. In California, that is the rule rather than the 
exception.
  However, what the majority is attempting to do today, in moving this 
legislation forward, is something that should not take place. The bill 
was placed on the calendar under what we call rule XIV. That means it 
is acted on in an expedited fashion. It goes right here. It has not had 
a single hearing in the Finance Committee, the committee of 
jurisdiction. There is no companion bill that has passed the House. If 
this bill is passed by this body, only two things can happen: No. 1, it 
will lie here on the desk indefinitely; or, No. 2, it can be sent to 
the

[[Page S1926]]

House where it will be automatically blue slipped, meaning that the 
bill is dead. So it is quite clear the repeal of the gas tax is nothing 
more than an effort to make a political statement, and I think the 
political statement is not appropriate.
  If the majority is serious about this matter, it should call up, for 
example, the House-passed tax bill. There is one there, H.R. 3081, 
dealing with minimum wage and various other tax matters.
  I do not believe there is anyone in this body who does not want a tax 
decrease on fuel. But this is not the way to go about it. Let's keep in 
mind where we are. OPEC has agreed to produce more oil. In addition to 
that, there are other nations, such as Mexico and Norway, that have 
agreed to produce more oil. It is going to take some time before these 
gas prices go down, but they will.
  To show how really frail in logic the majority is on this matter, 
they recognize it should be just a short-term fix. That is, by the end 
of the year a certain mechanical thing would happen that would 
reestablish the tax. Remember, we are talking about a tax of 4.3 cents 
per gallon. So I think the action by the majority leader is wrong.
  There are a lot of things we can do, I think, to meet some of the 
demands for fuel we have in this country. For example, there are 
300,000 barrels of oil every day produced in our country, in Alaska, 
that are shipped to Asia. Should that oil not be shipped to the United 
States? Obviously, the answer is yes.
  There is also every reason to believe there are things we can do to 
lessen our dependency on this foreign oil. We could develop alternative 
fuels. I think we could improve the efficiency of energy use through 
different economy measures. One of the things we have not done for many 
years is advance and enhance fuel efficiency standards, what we call 
CAFE. Given the modern technology that we have, there is no reason in 
the world we cannot produce automobiles in America that are more fuel 
efficient. We did it once before, and it was tremendous. It was unheard 
of, that cars would get over 20 miles to the gallon of gasoline, but we 
were able to do that through modern technology.
  We need to promote renewable energy. In what ways? Geothermal, solar, 
wind. As soon as the energy crisis was over, it seemed we backed off 
from that as a government. We fight every year in this Senate Chamber. 
Every year, there is a battle. I am the ranking member of the Energy 
and Water Development Subcommittee on Appropriations. Senator Domenici, 
from New Mexico, is the chairman. We have an ongoing battle in here 
every year, trying to get more money for alternative energy programs--
geothermal, solar, wind.
  There are other things that simply need to be done that are not being 
done. Reducing the price of fuel by 4.3 cents a gallon for part of a 
year is not the solution to the problem.
  It is important that we recognize some of the things that are being 
written around the country. There are lots of things being written 
about how foolish it would be to reduce the price of gas for part of 
the year by 4.3 cents a gallon, especially when one keeps in mind the 
tremendous infrastructure needs in this country.
  Take, for instance, the State of Nevada. I hope to travel to Nevada 
tomorrow to be part of a very large celebration. That celebration will 
deal with cutting a ribbon to open a highway project, the largest 
public works project in the history of the State of Nevada, except for 
Hoover Dam and a few other programs. Certainly, without question, it is 
the largest public works project that relates to highways. This one 
thing we call the spaghetti bowl cost $100 million.
  Those moneys came from this tax. When the American consumer goes to 
the fuel pump and buys gasoline, there is money taken every time, about 
18 cents a gallon, and put into a trust fund. That money can be used 
for the construction of roads, bridges, highways. That is why I am able 
to go to Las Vegas tomorrow and cut the ribbon on this project. It will 
alleviate traffic problems significantly in that area.
  These programs take place all over America, and if we cut this 
program, if we eliminate this 4.3-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax, it will 
mean we will not have approximately $6 billion a year for construction 
projects around the country.
  That is why there is a bipartisan effort to defeat this foolish 
proposal to take away this tax.
  I was here yesterday afternoon when Senator Warner of Virginia, who 
serves, and has served for many years, on the Environment and Public 
Works Committee and is one of the senior members of that committee, 
said it is not the right thing to do. Sitting in the position of 
Presiding Officer yesterday was Senator Voinovich of Ohio. He was 
relieved of his duties as Presiding Officer and came down and gave a 
speech as to why this should not be done.
  I hope we will look at this and realize that papers all over America, 
not the least of which is the New York Times, talks about the 
``Gasoline Tax Follies.'' This means it is simply a foolish thing to 
do.
  Quoting from the New York Times:

       Let's start with why the oil cartel should love this 
     proposal.
       Put yourself in the position of an OPEC minister: What sets 
     the limits to how high you want to push oil prices? The 
     answer is that you are afraid that too high a price will lead 
     people to use less gasoline, heating oil and so on. Suppose, 
     however, that you can count on the U.S. Government to reduce 
     gasoline taxes whenever the price of crude oil rises. Then 
     Americans are less likely to reduce their oil consumption if 
     you conspire to drive prices up--which makes such a 
     conspiracy a considerably more attractive proposition.

  They go on to say:

       A cynic might suggest that that is the point.

  They are being critical in this article, among other things, about 
Gov. George W. Bush pushing for repeal of this gas tax. In fact, they 
say, as others say, it appears his solution to all the problems in 
America today is tax reduction. For example, we know he wants over a $1 
trillion tax cut over the next few years. The American people do not 
accept this. Why? Because they think it is more important that we have 
targeted tax cuts and we also spend these moneys, if we have extra 
moneys, to do something about education, to fix the prescription drug 
problem we have with Medicare, make sure we bolster Social Security, 
and, most important, that we do something to reduce the $5 trillion 
debt that has accumulated.

  This New York Times article goes on to state:

       A cynic might suggest that that is the point. But I'd 
     rather think that Mr. Bush isn't deliberately trying to throw 
     his friends in the oil industry a few extra billions; I 
     prefer to believe that the candidate, or whichever adviser 
     decided to make gasoline taxes an issue, was playing a 
     political rather than a financial game. . . .
       This is one case in which a tax cut would lead directly to 
     cutbacks in a necessary and popular government service.

  I hope the Senate, in a bipartisan fashion, will resoundingly defeat 
this effort to roll back this 4.3-cents-a-gallon gas tax. There are 
other places we can look to move taxes back or adjust taxes. Certainly, 
this is not one of those places. We need to do better than this.
  I repeat, I hope in a bipartisan fashion this afternoon we will 
defeat the motion to invoke cloture on the repeal of the 4.3-cents-a-
gallon gas tax.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.

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