[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 44 (Monday, April 10, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2454-S2455]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               GAS PRICES

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President I enjoyed listening to the majority leader. 
I have always worked well with him, although we have different 
perspectives and a different philosophy and opinion on some issues. I 
have worked with him both in the House of Representatives and here in 
the Senate. When I listen to him I am always reminded why I have always 
liked him personally. He is a good person. I appreciate his public 
service.
  There are some things on the agenda, however, that we might not agree 
about. I want to comment about a couple of those issues, especially 
with respect to an agenda item this week dealing with the repeal of the 
4.3-cent-a-gallon gas tax, which is set for a cloture vote tomorrow 
afternoon here in the Senate Chamber.
  My expectation is that the cloture vote will fail. I am not certain 
of that, but that is my expectation. Just hearing some of the comments 
and some of the statements that have been made previously, I expect 
that cloture vote will fail, and I think justifiably so.
  Let me describe why.
  I think the price of fuel in this country is a pretty tough pill for 
the American people to swallow. What has happened is the price of 
gasoline has spiked up. It is not because the free market has caused 
that. It is because we have a cartel called the OPEC countries that are 
limiting production and increasing the international price for their 
product.
  That is not the free market. That is monopoly pricing. They have the 
strength and, I guess, the opportunity to do that. What they have done 
is, of course, impose a significant new charge on American families, on 
family farmers, producers, manufacturers, drivers, and others.
  There was no vote on that. That was something the OPEC countries did. 
We

[[Page S2455]]

didn't have a chance to discuss that or vote on it in the Congress.
  The question I ask with respect to the repeal of the 4.3-cent gas 
tax--which is, after all, rather small in the scheme of what has 
happened to the price of gasoline--is who would get the benefit of 
that? Is there a guarantee of any kind that the American people would 
actually get the benefit of the gas tax reduction? The gasoline tax is 
not imposed at the pump. The gasoline tax is imposed up the line. There 
is no guarantee at all that if the Congress would repeal the 4.3-cent 
gasoline tax, that that savings wouldn't simply be blended into the 
profits of the large oil companies. There is no guarantee that the 
American driver is going to pull up to a gas pump and find that 
gasoline prices are 4.3 cents a gallon less.
  The other question is, What is going to happen to make sure we 
continue the building of the transportation infrastructure, roads and 
bridges, the programs we have already approved in the highway program 
that are done with this money? I am told by some: This money will be 
made up from the general fund. Where from the general fund? Where do we 
get that money? How do we know that will be the case?
  Someone once said you should never buy anything from somebody who is 
out of breath. There is a kind of breathless quality about bringing 
this bill to the floor of the Senate to repeal the 4.3-cent-a-gallon 
gas tax.
  One of the reasons we heard Members stand up last week and ask some 
very tough questions about this is, most of them understand, this is 
kind of an immediate, quick reaction that hasn't been thought through 
very well. It will not necessarily provide any relief to drivers. There 
is no guarantee this 4.3-cent-a-gallon reduction is going to show up at 
the pumps.
  Secondly, where is the money? Where are we going to make up the 
money? Which roads aren't we going to fix or which bridges are not 
going to be repaired? Those are questions that need answering this 
week. Because they cannot be answered, I think the cloture vote will 
fail.
  I think this is a pretty good discussion we are having with respect 
to energy policy. The majority leader indicated this country doesn't 
have much of an energy policy. I don't quarrel with that. We haven't 
had much under any administration, as a matter of fact. We are far too 
dependent on foreign sources of energy. There is no question about 
that. But in many ways this is a helpful discussion because we have had 
the discussion in recent years about the globalization of our economy. 
How can one stand in the way of the global economy? We are told this 
economy is a global economy. Understand it, they say.
  Well, where are people going to produce energy in this world? In a 
global economy, they will produce energy where it is least expensive to 
produce. You can bring up oil under the sands in the Persian Gulf for a 
fraction of the cost of bringing up oil in the United States. That is 
the global economy, I guess. That is a decision the global economy 
helps make.
  The majority leader asked the question--I think a very important 
question--do we have a national policy with respect to energy and our 
desire to be somewhat independent of foreign sources? That is a good 
question not just for oil. It is a good question for steel and for a 
whole series of things we know are important to the American economy.
  We have been told until this time there is nothing that is more 
important than globalization of our economy; if steel moves and is 
produced elsewhere, so be it. Do the people who say that feel the same 
way about oil? Because that is where we are. The oil we consume is 
produced elsewhere. We now discover that when a cartel manipulates 
artificially the price of oil by restricting supply, Americans get 
overcharged. That is part of a monopoly in the global economy that we 
do not control.

  We need to do a lot of things. This administration is proposing 
something I hope the majority leader and others will support in the 
area of domestic renewable energy. They are proposing significant new 
initiatives in wind energy, which I think make a lot of sense. We have 
new technology on wind-generation devices that is remarkable. If we put 
some in this Chamber on the right days, we could electrify New York.
  In my State, North Dakota, I grew up walking outdoors in the morning 
with the wind and the breeze. If you take a map and evaluate what is 
the Saudi Arabia of wind energy, it is North Dakota, and a lot of other 
northern border States are right behind. Some will say, listening to me 
speak, they would have known we ranked high on wind energy. But 
seriously, we have an opportunity, with new technology, to capture wind 
energy in many parts of this country and extend our energy supply.
  The same is true with biomass. The same is true with geothermal, and 
natural gas, which the majority leader suggested. Absolutely, we have 
wonderful new discoveries in natural gas and deep well finds. We are 
doing a lot of that.
  We do need to pay attention to the development of oil and the 
development of coal, which are important in this country. We also need 
to get behind the proposals coming from the Department of Energy and 
this President's budget that call for the development of renewable 
energy resources and what is called green power--environmentally 
friendly sources of power. I mentioned one: wind energy. We need to 
fully fund these initiatives.
  I hope no one comes to the floor later and says, ``We really care 
about our energy supply,'' if before that time they voted against these 
initiatives to extend our energy supply by investing in renewable 
energy sources. We need to do that.
  This, in many ways, is a wonderful discussion. What does the global 
economy mean? Does it mean we don't have to worry about dependence on 
anything? We are now discovering it means we have to worry about 
dependence with respect to oil. What about steel? What about a range of 
other economic activities without which a country such as ours will not 
long remain a world economic power? This is a great discussion to have. 
It is right on point and right on time.
  Yes, it is about oil and gas, but it is about much more than that. 
When we have this vote on cloture on the 4.3-cent gasoline tax repeal, 
I hope it will be preceded by a rather lengthy discussion of a whole 
range of these issues. I appreciate the majority leader raising them 
today.
  I don't intend to support cloture. As I said, there is kind of a 
breathless quality of coming to the floor with a 4.3-cent gas tax 
repeal that consumers will probably never see, even if we take the 4.3 
cents off. I expect it is going into other pockets long before it gets 
to the consumer. If it gets done, dye the dollars green and then look 
around for green pockets someplace. You won't find green at the gas 
pumps. You will find it somewhere upstream. Some bigger enterprise will 
pocket that money.

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