[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 100 (Thursday, July 27, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7763-S7764]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page S7763]]
                           THE ENERGY CRISIS

  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I recall a time very early in my career, 
not as a Senator but when I was involved here in Washington in support 
of a particular amendment that was being debated in the House of 
Representatives. I sat in the gallery in the House and listened to the 
debate and was somewhat startled when a Member of the House stood up 
and attacked the amendment as ``the General Motors amendment.''
  He went on to thunder against big business in general, and General 
Motors specifically, and say: This amendment would take care of big 
business and it would hurt everybody else.
  After it was over--and I can report gratefully that our side 
prevailed in that particular debate--one of his colleagues went to this 
particular Member of the House and said: What are you talking about 
when you are attacking General Motors on this amendment?
  And the Member said: Well, when you don't have any substantive 
arguments, you are always safe in attacking General Motors.
  That comes to mind because, as we talk about today's energy crisis, 
and the rising price of energy at the pump, there are those who are 
attacking big oil. I think they are a little like that former Member of 
the House. When your arguments don't have any substance, attack big oil 
and hope that the public will respond.
  I want to talk today about why gasoline prices are so high and why a 
nameless political attack on big oil is not the answer. I do expect 
these attacks to continue. We are in an election year. There is at 
least one candidate for President who thinks, if he constantly attacks 
big oil, people will not pay attention to what is really going on. I 
want people to pay attention to what is really going on and focus on 
why we have energy problems in the United States.
  I start with a memo dated June 5 of this year, sent to the Secretary 
of Energy, through the Deputy Secretary, from Melanie Kenderdine, who 
is the Acting Director of the Office of Policy in that Department.
  She says a very startling thing. I must say, when I say startling, I 
am being sardonic about it. She says that it is due to high consumer 
demand and low inventories. What a great revelation--high demand and 
low supply is going to give us high energy prices. Of course it is.
  I have said many times, and repeat here today, that one of the things 
I think should be engraved in stone around here for all of us to see 
every day is the statement: You cannot repeal the law of supply and 
demand.
  We keep trying on this floor--we keep trying in the Government--to 
repeal the law of supply and demand and make prices and costs in the 
real economy respond to our legislative whims. But they do not. Prices 
respond to the law of supply and demand.
  So this internal memo, from the Department of Energy, is interesting 
in that it says the real problem is that ``high consumer demand and low 
inventories have caused higher prices for all gasoline types. . . .''
  But then it goes on to say there are other things that have 
exacerbated the problem, made it worse. These things are, in fact, 
legislative, or, in this case, regulatory actions taken within the 
Clinton-Gore administration in response to the constituency that Vice 
President Gore seeks to cultivate as he pursues his Presidential 
campaign.
  It talks about, specifically:

       . . . an RFG formulation specific to the area that is more 
     difficult to produce . . .

  The ``area'' we are talking about here is the Midwest. We are talking 
about Chicago. We are talking about the State of Michigan. We are 
talking about the Midwest, where gasoline prices are currently over $2 
a gallon.
  These are regulatory actions--I will not read them all--that have 
been taken by the Clinton-Gore administration that have raised the 
price of gasoline simply by constricting further the supply. If we 
understand this, that we cannot repeal the law of supply and demand, if 
we understand that everything that has anything to do with constricting 
supply is going to drive up prices, we will begin to understand why we 
have runaway prices.
  What can we do to increase supply? That is the answer. You don't have 
to be a Ph.D. to understand that. You don't have to be smart enough to 
go on ``Who Wants to be a Millionaire'' and name all of the foreign 
heads of state if you want to understand this. You have to understand 
the very basic principle. If we are going to bring gasoline prices 
down, we are going to have to increase supply.
  As an aside, let me point out that this problem is not limited to 
gasoline prices alone. Americans are facing higher heating oil prices 
next winter. Americans are facing higher hot water prices from natural 
gas. For any source of energy, the price is going up. Why? Because the 
supply is not sufficient to meet the demand--economics 101.
  Let us look at the sources of supply in this country and what the 
Clinton administration--under the prodding of Vice President Gore who 
is acknowledged to be the leader on this whole subject within the 
administration--has done to supply. Let's start with oil. What has 
happened to the supply of oil in the United States? We find that 56 
percent of our oil comes from foreign sources now, which is up from 35 
percent, the level when we faced the oil crisis in the 1970s. If we are 
going to decrease this dependence on foreign oil, we ought to increase 
the amount of supply in the United States. It is very simple. If we 
have oil in the United States, let's start pumping that oil to increase 
the supply.
  What have we done since President Clinton has been in office? Under 
the prodding of Vice President Gore, when there was an opportunity to 
increase supply up in Alaska, this administration said, no, we will not 
allow you to do that. We passed legislation, both Houses of Congress, 
and sent it to the President, that would have increased supply, had 
more oil available in the United States. Under the prodding of Vice 
President Gore, the President said, no, we will not allow you to drill 
for oil in Alaska, even though there are indications there is as much 
oil up there as there is in Saudi Arabia, according to some reports. 
No, we will not allow you to increase that source of supply.
  There are other sources of supply domestically. What about the Outer 
Continental Shelf? President Clinton said, no, you can't drill anymore, 
no more exploration on the Outer Continental Shelf until 2012. Vice 
President Gore, in his campaign, has pledged to stretch this 
prohibition perpetually. President Clinton says, we will prohibit you 
from doing it until 2012. Vice President Gore says that is not good 
enough; we will prohibit you from going further.
  So they won't let us look for supply in Alaska. They won't let us 
look for supply on the Outer Continental Shelf. What about the Federal 
lands? Is there oil in the Federal lands? No, we won't let you drill. 
We won't let you explore in the Federal lands, even to find that out. 
So we are at the mercy of foreign sources of supply. This 
administration has determined to keep us at the mercy of foreign 
sources of supply when we are talking about oil.
  Now let's talk about natural gas. The geologists say the United 
States has an almost unlimited supply of natural gas. Maybe it is all 
right for us not to increase the supply of oil, even though that is 
what is driving up the cost of gasoline at the pump, if we can provide 
our energy through natural gas. Federal lands in the Rocky Mountain 
West, where I come from, contain up to 137 trillion cubic feet of 
natural gas. But this administration has put those lands off limits for 
exploration. We cannot even find out how much is there. No, Vice 
President Gore says, we can't look for natural gas on Federal lands.
  So what other sources of energy do we have? Well, one of the major 
sources of energy in my State is hydroelectric power coming from the 
Glen Canyon Dam. The Sierra Club has said: Let's tear down the Glen 
Canyon Dam. Let's take it down and eliminate that source of power 
supply altogether. The administration, to its credit, has said, no, we 
don't think that is such a good idea. But the Vice President, who has 
been endorsed by the Sierra Club, says he endorses their agenda, which 
raises the question, if he were to become President, would he in fact 
say, let us tear down the Glen Canyon Dam and thereby destroy that 
source of power? They have already suggested they want to study tearing 
down the dams on the lower Snake River, which produce hydroelectric 
power. Now, in this election

[[Page S7764]]

season, we have a statement out of the administration and the Vice 
President that says: We will not take down these dams now. We will not 
take these dams down in the short term. We will study it.
  There are those who suggest that means we will wait until after the 
election, and then we will take down the dams. If, indeed, the dams are 
taken down, hydroelectric power goes away. Hydroelectric dams generate 
roughly 10 percent of this Nation's power.
  So we can't drill for oil, we can't explore for natural gas, and we 
want to dismantle some of the hydroelectric power. What about nuclear 
power? That is where most of the power comes from in Europe and in many 
other countries that don't have the hydroelectric facilities we do.
  On April 25 of this year, President Clinton vetoed legislation that 
would have allowed storage at Yucca Mountain of nuclear waste. Nuclear 
waste is building up at every nuclear facility in the United States. At 
some point we have to deal with it. The Congress thought it had dealt 
with it by creating Yucca Mountain. The President said, no, even though 
we have spent billions and billions of dollars preparing Yucca Mountain 
to receive this nuclear waste, we won't let it go there, thus 
jeopardizing the opportunity for this country to have a long-standing, 
long-going nuclear program.
  All right. If we are not going to be able to handle nuclear power, if 
we can't drill for oil and oil power, if we can't explore for natural 
gas, and if we are trying to cut back on hydroelectric, where are we 
going to get the power? There are those who say, well, most of the 
power in this country comes from coal. Coal, of course, has a problem 
as far as the environment is concerned.
  I am proud to report that we have in the State of Utah some of the 
best low-sulfur coal in the world, which, if burned, would have an 
enormous benefit for the environment. Just 4 years ago, President 
Clinton, with Vice President Gore clearly identified as the driving 
force behind the decision, shut down the possibility of ever using any 
of that coal from Utah when he created the Grand Staircase Escalante 
National Monument, using the Antiquities Act in a way it was never 
anticipated to be used, violating all aspects of consultation as 
required under NEPA, refusing to even admit to elected officials in the 
affected State that he was even thinking about it. The President, with 
a stroke of a pen, said, you can't use any of that low-sulfur, good-
burning coal.

  So you have to go to other kinds of coal. Fifty-five percent of our 
Nation's electricity is generated by coal, and 88 percent of the 
electricity in the Midwest comes from coal.
  But now they are saying we must put controls and restrictions on coal 
and the activity with respect to coal--to the point we have seen the 
senior Senator from West Virginia, who represents a number of coal 
producers, demonstrate his concern with this administration.
  So what is left, Mr. President? What is left to increase the supply? 
Well, you can't drill for oil. You can't explore for natural gas. You 
can't expand hydroelectric power. We hope to get that back. You can't 
use the coal. What is left? Prayer? I believe in prayer. But I also 
believe that the Lord prefers those who pray to him to do a little bit 
about it, to work at it. If I can go back again to the roots of my 
State, founded by the pioneers who came across the Plains, the story is 
told about a wagon train that got caught in a river. One of the leaders 
of the wagon train immediately dropped to his knees. The other fellow 
who was involved said, ``What are you doing?'' He said, ``I am 
praying.'' And the second man said, ``I said my prayers this morning. 
Get up and pull.''
  I think if we are going to pray for divine assistance to help us 
increase the supply for energy in this country, we better get up and 
pull at the same time and recognize that saying no to the expansion of 
every single source of energy in this country in the name of appealing 
to an environmental community, as the Vice President has historically 
done, puts us in the position where we are going to have high energy 
prices for as far as the eye can see.
  I hope as people address the question of why gasoline is over $2 a 
gallon in the Midwest today--and those high prices are spreading--and 
as people address the question of why fuel oil will be twice as much in 
the winter than it has historically been, as people address the 
question of why the natural gas prices are continuing to go up, they 
will understand that, once again, we cannot repeal the law of supply 
and demand. If we want to bring energy prices under control in this 
country, we ought to help the President and the Vice President 
understand that truth and say the only solution to high prices, Mr. 
President and Mr. Vice President, is increased supply for the demand 
that is built into our economy. As soon as they understand that and 
will work with this Congress to try to get increased supply in the 
various ways we have sent them legislation to do, we will then--and 
only then--begin to see these high prices come down.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.

                          ____________________