[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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