[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 41 (Wednesday, April 5, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H1835-H1840]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  VICE PRESIDENT GORE'S ENERGY POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, tonight marks the third installment in a 
series of special orders begun last summer that Members of the House 
have held on the record and views of Vice President Al Gore.
  The Vice President is fond of attacking the work of the majority in 
the House. We conservatives believe it is important that Americans 
understand why Al Gore finds our record of cutting taxes, balancing the 
budget, eliminating wasteful spending, and restoring common sense 
environmental policies so contemptible.
  We believe it is important that the American people know what their 
Vice President actually stands for. Today, we will examine Vice 
President Gore's energy policy.
  American motorists and hard-working truck drivers in rural and urban 
areas, particularly those with lower incomes, are getting squeezed by 
soaring gas prices.
  Unfortunately, the Vice President is not there to help. In fact, he 
is cheering the prices on. It would distress the American people to 
learn that the Vice President is pleased with this turn of events. 
After all, he has long advocated policies expressly intended to raise 
the price and decrease the availability of gasoline to the American 
people.
  He thinks that we just plain use too much of it, the only way to get 
us to cut back is to raise the prices. Whether it happens through 
conservation or supply cutbacks, price controls, or tax increases, the 
end result is what matters. And not only gasoline but all sources of 
energy he thinks other people should not use are targeted. The Vice 
President has long advocated his disturbing energy policy, summed up as 
the less energy used the better.
  Tonight we will highlight excerpts from his apocalyptic book Earth in 
the Balance and other statements the Vice President has made in the 
past.
  Parenthetically, I note this book is being reissued. I am delighted 
to hear that. I recommend its reading by every informed American so 
that they will clearly understand what they are getting when they have 
Al Gore as the Vice President.
  Since taking office in 1993 with President Clinton, Vice President 
Gore was essentially seated in environmental policy for the 
administration. The administration wasted little time in pursuing an 
agenda of strict controls on energy. Indeed, it was not more than a 
couple of months after taking office that a Btu tax was first proposed 
in 1993 that would force people to feed big government in direct 
proportion to the amount of energy they consume.
  While even the Democrat-dominated Congress rejected that approach, a 
4.3 cents per gallon surtax was successfully levied on gasoline. In 
fact, the Vice President cast the deciding tie-breaking vote in the 
upper body that allowed this commuter-punishing tax to be enacted. And 
it remains with us until this day.
  Vice President Gore advocated this tax hike not so much to increase 
revenues for the Federal Government but really to help increase the 
price of gas and help keep Americans out of their cars. But the price 
of gasoline has increased so much recently as to dwarf those 4.3 cents 
per gallon.
  It represents the best of all worlds for Vice President Gore. He has 
the higher gas prices, which he favors on policy grounds, but he did 
not have to pass such a massive tax increase in order to accomplish it.
  To those complaining of high gas prices, Mr. Gore would say, too bad. 
It is for your own good. Buck up, take your own medicine. If you do not 
like it, then invent a more efficient engine, ride a bicycle, or take 
the bus.
  Tonight we will talk about the foreign policy failure of this 
administration, which, by its own admission, was ``asleep at the 
wheel'' on this vital international issue. We will discuss how the 
administration deliberately increased our dependence on OPEC and other 
foreign sources of oil in the first place.
  The United States actually has the potential to become much less 
dependent on foreign powers for oil, but to do so would conflict with 
the Vice President's utopian new-age vision beautifully laid out in 
this book Earth in the Balance.
  Not only oil but other prominent energy sources have been attacked by 
the Clinton-Gore administration. The Vice President has urged Americans 
to find alternative energy sources as an answer to our current woes. 
Well, those have been tried before and they have failed despite heavy 
Federal subsidies.
  As my colleagues can see here in this chart, this thin red line 
represents the alternative energy sources, which is just about one 
percent or so of the total energy consumption in the United States.
  The Kyoto Emissions Treaty negotiated by the Vice President would 
have a devastating impact on American's lives. The upper body wisely 
refused to ratify it, but the Clinton-Gore administration is trying to 
implement it stealthily nonetheless. It would make the present 
situation with gasoline prices pale in comparison.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas).
  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  The gentleman performs an excellent service to his colleagues in 
holding this special order this evening to continue his quest for 
awareness by the American public of the lack of policy for long-term 
self-sufficiency for the United States and, worse than that, the 
implementation of a short-sighted policy that can hurt the American 
citizen in the short term and the long term.

[[Page H1836]]

  It was interesting to hear the gentleman report that the energy 
policy, if we want to call it that, on the part of the administration 
calls for less consumption, less utilitarian use of energy, less.
  Everyone knows that the prosperity we are enjoying now and the 
prosperity which we want to enlarge depends on innovative ways to use 
energy to propound the materiel by which we produce and by which we 
span the world in telecommunications, that we need more energy and, 
therefore, more consumption. And in order to do that, we cannot gain 
our goals by shrinking back on consumption, shrinking back on energy 
sources. But, rather, we must do exactly the reverse.
  That is why I have introduced legislation which I commend to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Dooley) which calls for the 
establishment of a blue ribbon commission, much like we had with the 
Social Security problems of 1977 and 1983, which came forth with 
solutions that are still on the books and which serve to save the 
Social Security system, but anyway, a blue ribbon commission to 
establish ways and means by which the United States of America can 
become self-sufficient at energy within 10 years.

                              {time}  1930

  Before everyone bursts into laughter at the impossibility of bringing 
about self-sufficiency within 10 years, I remind everyone that everyone 
laughed at President Kennedy when he felt that within 10 years we 
should be, from his time, on the Moon, and we were. I believe that we 
can develop a policy that will lead us to the promised land of self-
sufficiency within 10 years. But then in order to do that, we have to 
reverse this administration's course, and that is what the gentleman is 
saying this evening, reverse it by allowing fullest consideration of 
the oil reserves in Alaska. That goes without saying. That has to be 
fully explored. And if the people of Alaska themselves are eager to 
develop their own resources for the benefit of our country, who are we 
to say in Washington, D.C. that the Alaskans do not know what they are 
asking? They know what the value is of their resources, with due 
consideration for the environment, the wildlife and all the other 
considerations. They know best about that. Yet they are the ones who 
are the primary forces behind the idea of considering full exploration 
of Alaskan oil.
  Then we have our lower 48 resources which have to be fully developed. 
This commission that I envision would look at the way that we failed in 
the past with oil depletion allowances and with excess profit taxes and 
with disincentives rather than incentives for exploration of oil and to 
consider all the possibilities of how we can fully develop that oil and 
natural gas and all the other possibilities that abound in our own 
Nation.
  We can become self-sufficient. We need more energy. We can do it. 
This would have another bonanza, I believe, with it. I think the 
gentleman will agree, if we think it through together, that if we 
embark on a program of self-sufficiency within 10 years, in the short 
term it will help us in another way. OPEC will get a signal, all the 
other oil-producing countries will get a signal that no longer are we 
going to be satisfied to bow at the knees of the OPEC countries and beg 
for more oil. They will get the signal that we are intent on becoming 
self-sufficient. What will that do? That will make them more temperate 
in the fluctuation of oil production and prices that they have been 
engaging in for all these years and that will help us in the short term 
and in the long term.
  And then as we move gradually towards this self-sufficiency, we will 
see our prosperity expand to unknown limits. I believe that even the 
alternative forms of energy will find a proper place, solar and wind 
and the geothermal and other kinds of alternatives that we can space 
out for our country's use over the next 10 years and then thereafter be 
totally self-sufficient.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I could not agree more with the gentleman. I remember 
reading these figures. At the time of the Gulf War, we were only 36 
percent dependent on foreign oil. Under the Clinton-Gore 
administration, we have now slipped over the line to the point where 
now we are 56 percent dependent on foreign oil, and the policies that 
they are providing to this country will make us even more dependent 
into the future. I think you just have to ask yourself, would a Teddy 
Roosevelt have let this happen? Would a great President or a great 
administration have put us at the mercy of these governments that 
control most of the world's oil supply? I think the answer is clearly 
no.
  Mr. GEKAS. I will conclude by thanking the gentleman for the time 
that he has allotted me and to end by saying I as an American citizen 
am totally embarrassed and humiliated at the thought of having to beg 
the OPEC countries to produce more, to send us more, to sell us more of 
their energy product. It is humiliating. I think our whole Nation is 
humiliated by what has occurred. We have got to reverse this impact and 
become self-sufficient so that the OPEC countries eventually will come 
to beg us to sell us more oil, to beg us to buy more oil.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I thank the gentleman for his comments and 
participation this evening.
  I ran across an interesting quote here. This is by our President, 
very recently as a matter of fact, March 7, speaking at the White 
House.
  ``Americans should not want them,'' referring to oil prices, ``to 
drop to $12 or $10 a barrel again, because that takes our mind off our 
business, which should be alternative fuels, energy conservation, 
reducing the impact of all this on global warming.''
  We talked about alternative fuels. It would be great if we could 
increase the size of this. But despite heavy Federal subsidies, we have 
not made much progress.
  Let me now observe that in his book I referred to, Earth in the 
Balance, the Vice President referred back to that book just about a 
year ago and is quoted in Time magazine on pages 65 through 67, April 
26, 1999. If there were ever a doubt that maybe his views have changed 
somewhat in light of events that have transpired, that maybe he has 
reconsidered certain outlandish statements made in the book, well, it 
is apparent that that is not the case, because this is what he said:

  ``There's not a statement in that book that I don't endorse. The 
evidence has firmed up the positions I sketched there.''
  I think there is some pretty interesting material in that book. Let 
me talk a little bit about the failure of the foreign policy of the 
Clinton-Gore administration, because indeed they have deliberately made 
us more beholden to the foreign oil-producing nations, particularly 
OPEC. As the Energy Secretary recently admitted, the administration 
was, quote-unquote, ``caught napping'' regarding the current crisis at 
the gas pump. OPEC should not have the unilateral power to dictate the 
price of gasoline that American motorists pay at the pump; but 
unfortunately this is exactly what is happening.
  This really is a national security issue. We have put ourselves at 
the mercy of many regimes hostile to the United States. The weak, 
vacillating foreign policy of the Clinton administration has a great 
deal to do with this as we continue to tolerate the excesses of Saddam 
Hussein. In case of hostilities with any one of these oil-producing 
nations, we could have our oil supplies cut drastically with little 
recourse. The Clinton-Gore administration response was to beg OPEC to 
increase production, and so we went hat in hand asking them, please 
increase production. We need an administration that will strongly 
advocate U.S. interests and will produce policies that will take care 
of the national security of all Americans.
  Let me just comment on this energy policy. Here are a few facts that 
have been assembled, alarming oil and gas facts. Since 1992, U.S. oil 
production is down 17 percent. Yet consumption is up 14 percent. In 
just 1 year under the Clinton-Gore administration, oil imports 
increased over 7 percent. As I mentioned, imports are now at 56 percent 
and growing rapidly. The Department of Energy predicts 65 percent 
foreign oil dependence by the year 2020. Indeed some project it will be 
higher than that. Sixty-five percent importing probably the most 
fundamental commodity to the interests of this Nation.
  At current prices, the United States spends $300 million per day on 
imported oil, over $100 billion per year on foreign oil, one-third of 
the total trade deficit. Iraq is the fastest growing source of

[[Page H1837]]

U.S. oil imports. In 1990 we had 405,000 jobs in exploring and 
producing oil and gas. In 1999, that number of 405,000 had dwindled to 
293,000, a 27 percent decline. In 1990 we had 657 working U.S. oil 
rigs. In the year 2000, 10 years later, we had 153 working oil rigs. 
Our fuel storage has shrunk.
  New York lost 20 percent of heating oil storage because of 
governmental mandates contributing to shortages and price hikes. This 
year's Department of Energy budget has $1.2 billion for climate change 
activities but only $92 million for oil and gas research and 
development. It is clear that the priorities of this administration are 
not on decreasing dependence on foreign oil, for indeed just the 
opposite has happened during the nearly 8 years now of this 
administration. The administration indeed is quite adamant about 
blocking our attempts to gain energy self-sufficiency. I will just read 
this quote from the Vice President. He said in October of 1995, ``If 
they,'' meaning the Republican majority, ``satisfy us on 100 percent of 
everything else we ask for and they open ANWR in Alaska to drilling, 
President Clinton will veto the whole thing.''
  Mr. Gore is an absolutist in opposition to drilling for new sources 
of American oil. During his tenure in office, as I mentioned, our 
demand has grown by 14 percent while our domestic oil production 
declined by 17 percent. Yet Mr. Gore supports government policies that 
take many areas of the United States with the greatest oil potential 
off the table. ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is a 1\1/2\ 
million-acre arctic coastal plain in Alaska. In 1998, the U.S. 
Geological Survey estimated that up to 16 billion barrels lie 
underneath the soil in ANWR, enough to replace our oil imports from 
Saudi Arabia for 30 years. These reserves can be tapped into with 
essentially no environmental damage. The development area where the 
drilling would occur would be less than 1 percent of the whole Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge, leaving almost no impact on the environment.
  Just to note, at the existing Prudhoe Bay site, the North Slope, 
which currently provides an enormous amount of oil to the domestic 
market, wildlife has thrived despite the outrageous and extreme claims 
of so-called self-styled environmentalists, people with whom apparently 
the Vice President identifies, that we would do grave harm to the 
wildlife there. I have been there personally to see it. You would be 
very impressed with what is going on at Prudhoe Bay and the pipeline. 
Very, very impressive operation. It has not damaged the environment. If 
anything, it is looked upon as an asset, and the wildlife has 
flourished with the facilities that have been placed there.
  The people of Alaska overwhelmingly support drilling in ANWR, but the 
Vice President does not; and as we can see made clear that he would 
recommend a veto and indeed that is exactly what happened. It was 
vetoed by the administration. The cost of oil and gas exploration in 
the U.S. is so expensive through our tax and environmental policies 
that our own companies would rather search for oil among armed 
terrorists in Colombia than here. Pushing industry outside the United 
States does not help the environment because what they do will occur in 
places where it is not as strictly regulated as in this country. 
Nevertheless, the production will occur.
  Transferring businesses to nations that lack our stringent production 
standards invites mishaps. Requiring that more oil be shipped overseas 
increases the risk of tanker accidents. By importing oil, we also are 
exporting our wealth and jobs overseas. As I observed, the domestic 
energy industry has lost 112,000 jobs during this administration.
  Let us talk about Kyoto. The Vice President wrote in his book, Earth 
in the Balance, something I think we should focus on for a minute.

                              {time}  1945

  ``Minor shifts in policy, marginal adjustments in ongoing programs, 
moderate improvements in laws and regulations, rhetoric offered in lieu 
of genuine change; these are all forms of appeasement, designed to 
satisfy the public's desire to believe that sacrifice, struggle, and a 
wrenching transformation of society will not be necessary.''
  Focus on that for a minute. What he is really saying is, in his view, 
a wrenching transformation of society will be necessary, and that we 
are fools to think that it will not be. A wrenching transformation of 
society. Let us see. Could that mean something on the scale of the 
forcing out of the rural areas into the cities, the peasants in Russia, 
the so-called collectivization that resulted in the deaths of so many 
millions. That was a wrenching transformation of society. Or could the 
period under Mao in China when so many millions were tortured and 
murdered there, would that be a wrenching transformation of society? 
That is what I think of when those terms are used. I really think we 
ought to ponder this belief of the Vice President.
  Now, Kyoto, speaking of a wrenching transformation of society, 
because I believe this is on that magnitude. The disastrous Kyoto 
protocol was negotiated by the Clinton-Gore administration in 1997, and 
it would force just indeed such a wrenching transformation that the 
Vice President envisions in Earth in the Balance, his book written 
personally, he has reaffirmed by him. And he agrees even more now, or 
as much now, feels that the arguments have been strengthened in the 
intervening years since he first wrote it.
  The Kyoto protocol requires the United States by the year 2012 to 
reduce emissions to the levels they were at in the 1980s. The economic 
recession of the late 1970s caused the United States to cut emissions 
by 2 percent. Complying with Kyoto would require 3 times the cutbacks 
experienced during those economic downturns. Those were not good times. 
We all remember them well, those of us who are old enough to remember. 
They were very trying times for the United States. It is indeed tragic 
and frankly, amazing, that someone who has risen to the office of Vice 
President would propose these sorts of Draconian alterations in our 
policy.
  Happily, the upper body in the Congress voted unanimously to urge the 
President and the Vice President not to sign the U.S. on to any global 
warming treaty if it exempted developing countries or injured the 
American economy. Nevertheless, the resolution of the upper body was 
ignored and the treaty was negotiated and signed. This treaty basically 
allowed 132 out of the 168 countries attending the conference to opt 
out of the treaty on the grounds that they are still developing 
countries. Among these countries are some of the world's biggest 
polluters, including China, India, Brazil, and Mexico. So, out of the 
168 countries that get to opt out, only 36, including the United 
States, are precluded by the provisions of the treaty from opting out.
  Perhaps the Draconian sacrifices in our standard of living required 
by Kyoto would qualify us as a developing country. Taken together, 
developing countries will emit a majority of the world's greenhouse gas 
emissions by 2015. Yet, under Mr. Gore's treaty, none of those 
countries would have any obligation to reduce emissions or to obey the 
rules that govern the United States under the treaty. With so few 
countries actually agreeing to this protocol, it is highly doubtful 
that global warming will be reduced.
  Happily, the upper body has refused to vote on and ratify the Kyoto 
treaty. But that has not stopped the Clinton-Gore administration from 
attempting to end-run the Constitution in implementing it anyway. This 
administration's 1999 budget included $6.3 billion, an increase to the 
EPA to draft strict new rules that would unilaterally enact portions of 
the Kyoto protocol. The cost to U.S. business workers and consumers of 
complying with the Vice President's Kyoto treaty could be staggering. 
In real terms, Al Gore committed Americans to reduce our fossil fuel 
emissions by 41 percent, compared to projections of what we need to 
maintain our economic growth.
  Now, just focus on this for a minute. A 41 percent reduction in 
fossil fuel emissions would result in huge job losses. Up to 1.5 
million workers would lose their jobs in energy intensity manufacturing 
industries like petroleum, refining, pulp and paper making, cement, 
steel, chemicals and aluminum, as these jobs move to developing nations 
not bound by the Kyoto restrictions.
  What kind of a policy could that possibly be, to take these high-
paying jobs

[[Page H1838]]

and send them to some developing Nation and out of the United States to 
be replaced, no doubt, by more service sector, lower-paying jobs.
  Secondly, a 41 percent reduction in fossil fuel emissions would 
result in a huge increase in the cost of living. American families 
would pay 25 cents per gallon more due to this alone, this treaty, and 
$2,000 more annually, for necessary consumer goods, which will 
experience the trickle-down effect of having the fuel costs raised, and 
since all of these goods are moved in one way or another and the fuel 
is used, the average increase for Americans could be $2,000 a year.

  Thirdly, due to this 41 percent reduction brought about by the Kyoto 
treaty, reduction in the fossil fuel emissions, it would greatly 
diminish U.S. trade competitiveness. Now, we constantly hear out of 
this administration how they are concerned about trade and they want to 
increase competitiveness. Well, Kyoto really sets us back. Since 132 
countries are not subject to the treaty, the Kyoto treaty will make it 
much harder for U.S. businesses to compete internationally.
  Now, let us get to this: what would it really take? Suppose somehow 
this were to become law, which the Vice President really wants it to 
become law and has done everything he could to try and bring that 
about. Well, it would require huge reductions in total U.S. consumption 
of fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The only practical way to 
force these cuts would be through steep price increases. That is really 
what it is all about. That is why the Vice President is happy that the 
gas prices have gone up. It is long overdue. Economists, friends of the 
administration, we can read their quotes in the current news magazines, 
saying how our gasoline prices were way too low and this is a good 
thing to have them up there, that these economists, some of them, who 
obviously are very sympathetic to the unfriendly policies of the 
Clinton-Gore administration, they also decry the rise in SUVs. 
Americans love their sports utility vehicles. Well, this administration 
is not at all happy about that, and their friends are not at all happy 
about that, and they would like to see the price of gas rise so much 
that one cannot afford to drive those vehicles which they think are bad 
for the country.
  Let me just observe in reference to this point that gas price hikes 
really are what would be compelled by the Clinton-Gore Kyoto treaty. In 
other places, where the countries have signed the treaty and which have 
put the treaty into force, unlike the United States; in Germany, 
France, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan, they have all decided 
that the only way to reach the Kyoto limits is to raise taxes on fossil 
fuels. These countries, not coincidentally, in my judgment, are the 
ones that have had much slower economic growth than the United States 
over the past decade. What would we expect when the price of gas in 
Europe for years has been between $2 and $3 a gallon because of the 
high excise taxes that they have imposed.
  Mr. Speaker, we do not want the Europeanization of our energy policy. 
Cheap energy has been a tremendous blessing, perhaps the single 
greatest blessing that we could name in terms of economics to the 
people of this great country. Now we have people in power that are 
determined to wreck that policy and to replace it with something that 
will really shrink our standard of living and will make it much more 
difficult to maintain the prosperity and rates of economic growth that 
we have had in the past.
  Well, we have spent a few minutes tonight talking about the role of 
the Vice President and his views on energy policy. I am glad that we 
have had this opportunity, and I would like now to recognize my 
colleague from Florida (Mr. Weldon).
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding, and I certainly commend the gentleman for bringing this 
Special Order to the floor this evening.
  One of the things that I have noticed in my 5 years of experience 
here on Capitol Hill, having left my previous vocation as a physician 
and taken up the role of legislator for the people of my congressional 
district is the nature by which so many of the more outrageous blunders 
and outrageous statements that come from the Vice President are 
essentially ignored or passed over by the major media outlets in the 
United States, the electronic media and many of the printed media 
outlets, newspapers such as the Post, The New York Times.
  One area that is very, very significant in my congressional district 
is the mismanagement by the Vice President of the space station 
program. The space station program is a program that was redesigned by 
the Clinton-Gore team in 1993, and in that process, they brought the 
Russians in as critical partners where we were now suddenly dependent 
upon the Russians for critical elements in space station construction. 
The Vice President was intimately involved with this program.
  Over the years, subsequent to 1993 he had a series of meetings with 
the prime minister, Mr. Chernomyrdin at which various phases of space 
station progress were negotiated, along with other scientific 
enterprises that the United States was supposedly cooperating with the 
Russians on.
  There were many people, including the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Sensenbrenner), the Republican Chairman of the Committee on Science, 
who warned at the time that this approach and this strategy that the 
administration is pursuing is risky, is dangerous, and could lead to 
significant delays in the space station program, significant cost 
overruns, tremendous amounts of additional costs and, indeed, could 
ultimately lead to the failure of the program in its very important 
mission.
  Well, now here we are, 7 years later, and lo and behold, all of the 
warnings of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) at that 
time have come to pass, and indeed, we have a situation where instead 
of saving $2 billion as was originally put forward by Clinton-Gore, the 
space station program is probably going to cost $4 billion over and 
above what it was originally projected to cost. We have gone from a 
savings of $2 billion to an overrun of $4 billion, a $6 billion swing.
  What is equally egregious is the program is now 2 years behind 
schedule and indeed, it is uncertain as to whether or not it is ever 
going to be able to get back on track.
  What is even more disappointing is that the Vice President's 
fingerprints were all over this, and he has yet to put forward his 
proposal to get this program back on track.

                              {time}  2000

  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to observe that the 
gentleman is absolutely right.
  It is a funny thing. With the Clinton-Gore administration, the only 
time I have ever seen them interested in saving money is when it comes 
to cutting taxes. All of a sudden, they are the guardians of the 
Treasury. Every last dime they have to hang onto so none of it goes 
back to the taxpayer.
  The gentleman just mentioned a $6 billion increase they had gone 
along with. Their regulatory policies are costing us billions and 
billions of dollars, the consumer and the country itself. They are 
constantly pushing for increasing the amounts of money in these 
appropriations bills. They are vetoing our bills because they do not 
spend enough money, but if it comes to hanging onto the dollar and 
protecting the taxpayer against himself by not letting him have a tax 
cut, they are very good about being parsimonious.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to 
yield, I want to follow that, regarding Al Gore's assertions that 
George W. Bush's tax cut policies are risky. He is fond of using this 
term. He used this term to describe the Republican tax cuts policies in 
the past.
  The question I would ask the Vice President, which I believe people 
in the media should be asking him, is why is it risky when we want to 
give working men and women a portion of their money back, but it is not 
risky when Al Gore and Bill Clinton spend that money? Which gets to the 
heart of the issue that the gentleman is talking about. The only time 
they talk about saving money is when they are talking about not giving 
a tax cut.
  Why, why, why is it so risky to give working men and women some of 
their hard-earned tax dollars back to spend on their priorities: their 
kids' college educations, braces for the kids, saving money for the 
first home, getting out

[[Page H1839]]

of an apartment? That is risky, but lo and behold, when they want to 
increase spending from Washington, when they want to keep that hard-
earned money of those working families and spend it on what Al Gore 
thinks it should be spent on, then that is not risky.
  The answer to that is very, very obvious. This is empty rhetoric used 
as ploy to avoid the thing they despise the most, which is taking power 
and influence out of Washington, out of the hands of elected 
politicians, and giving it back to people; giving the money that they 
earned back into their own pockets and pocketbooks.
  I just applaud the gentleman for so many of the issues that he is 
bringing up.
  I was listening to the gentleman's presentation earlier. He brought 
up the whole issue of ANWR. I am very, very glad that the gentleman 
brought that up as it relates to what is going on right now in this 
country with the high gasoline prices, high fuel oil prices that many, 
many Americans are having to wrestle with, and the impact on their 
budget.
  We have millions and millions of barrels of additional oil available 
to us in Alaska. President Clinton and the Vice President are standing 
against exploiting those oil reserves for no rational reason 
whatsoever.
  I went up there to the North Slope, and people like the Vice 
President talk about the North Slope as though it is this pristine, 
wonderful place that we have to protect, teeming with wildlife. It is 
the most barren, moonlike landscape that Members could ever imagine, 
and the most amazing thing is that the people who live there see 
absolutely no problem with tapping into these oil reserves.
  The technology has gotten so good and so sophisticated that not only 
do we protect the environment but, as well, the environment is enhanced 
by the oil exploration efforts that are there.
  When I was there, because of the initiatives pursued, they now have 
ponds that were lifeless that were rendered deeper because they needed 
the gravel, and now the ponds are filled with fish. Those fish-filled 
ponds are attracting more grizzly bears. The roads that they build to 
drive on in the oil exploration efforts raise the ground up 
sufficiently that various birds can nest along the edge of the road, so 
we have a proliferation of birds as a consequence.
  Furthermore, the Holy Grail, the thing that they ballyhooed was going 
to get so disturbed, the caribou, it turns out that the herd is 
multiplying at a much more rapid rate. The size of the herd has 
increased dramatically because of the presence of the pipeline.
  So every single excuse that they use, and what is, I think, the 
greatest outrage in this whole affair is here we are today, again, the 
poor working stiffs of America who have trouble making ends meet, who 
run out of checkbook funds before the month runs out because they are 
paying more money for gasoline and for fuel oil, their lives could be 
made better if we were able to tap into those additional oil reserves 
there in Alaska.
  They are very close to the existing pipeline infrastructure. It 
entails putting in just a short segment of additional pipeline, and 
would allow us access to millions and millions of barrels of additional 
oil. The increased production would have the potential to lower the 
price of oil worldwide and significantly enhance the quality of life 
for every American, but yet the Clinton-Gore administration stands up 
and says, no, no, with these empty, irrational explanations for their 
opposition.
  Frankly, I applaud the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle). 
This just further confirms in my mind that we are standing up for the 
needs of working men and women, and that we must continue to do so. It 
is very, very critical that we continue to speak on these issues. I am 
happy to yield back to the gentleman.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, just before the gentleman got down, I was just saying 
the same thing about my trip to the North Slope, and the observations 
the gentleman made about ANWR and the pipeline are right on track.
  But the Vice President apparently does not want to open up ANWR 
because that will take us away from this which he seeks, a wrenching 
transformation of society. I guess in his vision we are all supposed to 
suffer a little. Somehow that is for the common good.
  That is not the policy that I endorse. Americans are suffering right 
now with the failed foreign policy and energy policy that has given us 
this bump-up in the gasoline prices. Long-term, Americans are going to 
suffer a lot more if we do not reduce our dependence on foreign oil, 
and opening up ANWR is the first and most vital step to do that; 
furthermore, in addition to that, reducing the ridiculously burdensome 
rules and regulations and restrictions that have been imposed on our 
people in the oil development industry that is forcing them to go to 
Colombia, where there are armed terrorists; to feel that that is a more 
favorable climate to do their drilling work than it is right here in 
the United States.
  So the gentleman is absolutely right, things have been out of hand 
and they need to be changed.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. I want to underscore a very, very important 
point highlighted by that poster up there. It is very, very clearly 
spelled out in Al Gore's book, Earth in the Balance.
  I would highly recommend every American purchase a copy of this book 
and read it. If they read this book, Al Gore wants the price of oil to 
go up. He wants it to go up dramatically. He would like the American 
consumer to pay substantially more for a gallon of gasoline. I would 
wager that the current price of $1.50 to $1.80 per gallon is not high 
enough for Al Gore, because he would like the price to be so high that 
people would stop driving and that people would start using mass 
transit. He would like to get them out of their cars.
  That agenda is very, very clearly spelled out in that book in black 
and white. I would assert that if any Republican had ever written a 
book with the outrageous assertions that are put forth in that book, 
that that Republican candidate for president would be excoriated by the 
American news media; that every single outrageous statement in that 
book would be attacked and questioned. That candidate could not go 
anywhere in the Nation where a reporter would not come up to him and 
ask him, how could he make these outrageous assertions?
  Let me just read what that says there: ``Minor shifts in policy, 
marginal adjustments in ongoing programs, moderate improvements in laws 
and regulations, rhetoric offered in lieu of genuine change, these are 
all forms of appeasement designed to satisfy the public's desire to 
believe that sacrifice, struggle, and a wrenching transformation of 
society will not be necessary.''
  How outrageous a statement can we find? It is disparaging of public 
opinion. He says, ``designed to satisfy the public's desire,'' as 
though that is something we are not supposed to do; as though we are 
supposed to have some higher knowledge and calling and that we are 
somehow supposed to ignore them, the people who are literally our 
bosses, and that we are to do what we think is necessary or what he 
thinks is necessary, a wrenching transformation of society.
  What is that wrenching transformation? He wants to get every single 
one of us out of our cars. He further goes on to claim that the 
internal combustion engine is one of the single greatest threats to the 
human race. How much more outrageous a statement could anyone ever 
have?
  I thank the gentleman from California. He has all of the quotes up 
there. Within the context of the SEI, the Strategic Environmental 
Initiative, a plan of the Vice President's, it ought to be possible to 
establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal 
of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a 
25-year period.
  What will a Gore presidency mean? It will mean the implementation or 
an attempt to implement that program right there, spelled out in Earth 
in the Balance: to completely eliminate the internal combustion engine.
  Let me just say that if there were a good replacement for the 
internal combustion engine that was totally pollution-free and was 
affordable, I think

[[Page H1840]]

every American would support that. Who would not want to be able to 
avoid gas stations? Who would not want to drive a car that does not 
spew fumes?
  But the reality of physics, the reality of modern science today is 
the internal combustion engine is the only affordable way for people to 
get about, and God forbid we have a situation where politicians from 
Washington are trying to completely eliminate the internal combustion 
engine, let alone no one other than the President of the United States.
  I just want to wholeheartedly congratulate the gentleman from 
California on bringing these issues to the forefront. These are the 
issues that we should be debating, what are the underlying philosophies 
and beliefs of the candidates.
  I certainly thank the gentleman, and I would be more than delighted 
to do this again with the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I thank the gentleman. We will be doing it again soon 
as we examine other aspects of the views and the record of Vice 
President Al Gore.

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