[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 22 (Thursday, February 15, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1441-S1442]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             ENERGY PRICES

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise to comment about the situation in 
this country with respect to energy.
  Last evening I was signing letters, as is so often the case for those 
of us who serve in public life. We receive a great deal of mail, many 
phone calls, hundreds of e-mails every day, and then, of course, the 
old-fashioned way--we get letters actually written and stuck in an 
envelope and mailed to us. It is among the most important things we do, 
to try to respond to constituents.
  Last evening, as is the case with most of my colleagues, I was 
spending time late in the evening reading mail and signing mail that 
has come from North Dakota. I came across a couple of letters I want to 
read to my colleagues and then describe what it is we need to be doing 
to respond to some of these issues.
  I received a letter from a man named John. I have not contacted him, 
so I will not use his last name. John, from Fargo, ND, wrote the 
following:

       Dear Senator Dorgan,
       I am in complete shock after receiving my natural gas bill 
     yesterday. I live in a modern house that is well insulated, I 
     am careful about closing doors and ensuring that all the 
     windows are sealed, I set my thermostat at 68 degrees (now 
     even lower), and yet I receive a bill for natural gas alone, 
     for over $726 for a one month period. How is that possible?
       Please tell me, Senator, how it is that we can live in the 
     most technologically advanced country in the world, yet we 
     can't maintain adequate stocks of natural gas to get us 
     through the winter. Are we being gouged by producers?

  He then asks a series of additional questions. I will not read the 
entire letter. I will only say that he asks a question he could ask on 
behalf of millions and millions of Americans who are opening their 
bills now to heat their homes and discovering, after 2 of the coldest 
first 2 months of the winter in a century in this country, it is 
costing a fortune to pay for natural gas bills, propane bills, home 
heating fuel bills. John writes a letter saying: I am doing all the 
right things. I have a home that is well insulated. I seal it. I keep 
the thermostat at 68, and my heating bill for natural gas last month is 
$726, and I can't afford it.
  I have a second letter from another fellow also named John from North 
Dakota. He described what happened to him. He and his wife had 
purchased an older building that had been subdivided into several 
apartments. They took an apartment in their retirement years and were 
renting the others. He said he had been paying $300 a month for heat. 
When his February bill arrived, it was $1,091. He went to the office of 
the gas provider to talk to them. He said:

       I left the office wondering what to do. I didn't want to 
     tell my wife the truth about this. She doesn't know about it 
     yet. Today is her birthday, and tomorrow is our 53rd wedding 
     anniversary. We have been making it okay in our retirement 
     years, nothing to spare with the $1600 monthly income from 
     our five apartments. This is our retirement home. We have no 
     choice now but to sell it. Our $1,000 monthly bill would be 
     impossible and yet they say it is going to go up even more. 
     We don't want to move, but there is not much else we can do.

  I am sure all of us are getting identical letters from around the 
country. What is happening? What on Earth has happened that has caused 
fuel bills to double, triple, and, in some cases, even quadruple? When 
people get fuel bills for $600, $700, $800 a month--and in

[[Page S1442]]

North Dakota we have had a bitterly cold winter, the first 2 months 
especially, and especially the last few weeks again--it is sticker 
shock to get bills like that.
  Now I want to mention a couple of additional points. I will be very 
brief. First of all, we need to take some emergency action. We need 
more money in LIHEAP. We are out of money. We have to do a supplemental 
at some point, and there has to be money for the low-income energy 
assistance program.
  No. 2, I have suggested, in legislation I have joined others in 
introducing, a tax credit, an income tax credit to offset about 50 
percent of the increase in home heating fuel bills of this year versus 
last year.
  That is a way, it seems to me, to use a tax credit to put some money 
into people's pockets to offset about 50 percent of these increased 
bills. That would also be helpful.
  Legislation will be introduced today that would deal with 
weatherization, LIHEAP, conservation grants to States, and increased 
energy efficiency in the Federal Government. Senator Bingaman has been 
working on that along with others, and I have been working with him, as 
well. We have a lot of things to do, both in the short term on an 
emergency basis, and in the long term. We also are investigating 
potential causes for the natural gas price increases.
  But we also need, at the same time, to understand that we have the 
requirement to not only find more natural gas and oil--we stopped 
looking when it went to $10 a barrel--and now it is at $30 a barrel and 
there is a great deal of exploration again. I think all the evidence 
indicates that there is a record amount of drilling, and we will have 
more natural gas and oil coming on line within 6 months, 12 months, 24 
months; but that is not going to solve the problem for the next 3 
months, or even 6 months, or a year. So we are doing all of that.
  At the same time, we need to be more concerned about the development 
of both renewable energy and also about conservation. Renewable energy, 
such as wind and biomass, can contribute a significant amount to this 
country's energy future. Any energy program that makes sense also must 
include an element of conservation. That is why I talk about 
weatherization and other issues.
  Most important, I think, this ought to lead us to the question of the 
deregulation in areas of essential service. We need to be sure we have 
an adequate supply and demand relationship in areas of essential 
services for the American people. I don't suggest we reregulate natural 
gas supplies, but we ought to have a safe harbor somewhere with respect 
to production and consumption, so we don't get into a situation where 
people's natural gas bills spring up two, three, four, five times over 
what they were previously, for causes to which they didn't contribute. 
So I wanted to bring attention to these two letters from two fellows 
named John who wrote me lengthy letters about their respective 
experiences.
  It is painful and difficult and, in some cases perhaps impossible, 
for some people to pay these kinds of home heating bills. They don't 
have the money. We need to do something on an emergency basis to try to 
be helpful to them. More importantly, this country needs a long-term 
energy strategy that works. Under both Republicans and Democrats, we 
have not had an energy strategy. We are far too dependent on the Middle 
East and on foreign sources of oil. If, God forbid, something should 
happen to interrupt the pipeline of foreign oil coming into this 
country, and all industrial countries, we would have an emergency on 
our hands.
  We must do something to try to escape the excessive dependence that 
now exists on foreign energy, notwithstanding all of the current 
problems we have with respect to the dislocation between supply and 
demand. Energy issues are critical, and we must do something about 
them. It is time to have a national energy policy that works, No. 1, 
and, No. 2, it is time this Congress understands there is an emergency 
in parts of this country this winter, with respect to the need for some 
help to pay home heating fuel bills that are exceeding the ability of 
some people to pay them. That emergency includes the need to provide 
more money for low-income energy assistance, weatherization, and other 
related issues.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Missouri is 
recognized.

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