[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 26 (Thursday, March 1, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1731-S1732]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         STARTLING ENERGY FACTS

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise to share with my colleagues 
circumstances that should be evidenced in prompt action on the energy 
bill which has been introduced as a bipartisan bill by Senator Breaux 
and myself, Senator Lott, and a number of other Senators.
  I have said for some time that we have an energy crisis in this 
country. Let me share some startling facts.
  The majority of the Fortune 500 corporations in this country, 
reporting fourth quarter earnings, have indicated their earnings have 
come in far less than projected as a consequence of the increased cost 
of energy in this country. There is a multiplier associated with that.
  This has an effect on inventories, an effect on transportation, on 
virtually every facet of our economy from buying furniture to big-
ticket items such as automobiles. Think for a moment that 50 percent of 
the homes in this country are dependent on natural gas. The average 
billing for energy for those homes has gone up 50 percent in the last 
year. There is no end in sight.
  We have a situation where companies that traditionally make 
fertilizer--urea, the technical name--and use natural gas in the 
conversion of the fertilizer are no longer making fertilizer. They are 
reselling their supply of gas because they have some relatively low-
cost gas sources. We have aluminum companies in the Northwest that are 
no longer manufacturing aluminum. They have shut their aluminum 
production down and are reselling their electricity because they have 
long-term contracts at favorable rates. In other words, it is cheaper 
to resell the power than it is to make the aluminum from the standpoint 
of return on investment. We have in Colorado copper mines that are no 
longer operating as a consequence of the cost of power. More and more 
people are becoming unemployed in these industries as a consequence of 
a lack of an energy policy.

  It is not my intent to point fingers because that doesn't get us 
anywhere. We have to recognize that we have a crisis, and we have to 
recognize how we are going to get out of it. We are not going to get 
out of it by drilling our way out, nor are we going to get out of it by 
conservation. We are going to have to go back to the basics of our 
conventional energy sources, as well as the prospects for greater 
dependence on alternatives and renewables, and recognize the use of our 
technological capabilities to achieve a balance because our energy 
supply is out of balance.
  We haven't built a new coal-fired plant in this country since the mid 
1990s. Why? A number of reasons: Permitting, costs, the problems 
associated with removing high sulfur, and the realization that we have 
had to take many of our old coal-fired plants, which became inefficient 
and no longer could meet permits, out of the mix.
  We haven't built a new nuclear plant in this country in nearly 20 
years. Why? It is not because we don't have the technology. Nuclear 
contributes about 20 percent of our energy. It is emission free. The 
reality is that we have not been able to address what to do with our 
nuclear waste. We can't come to grips with the technology or with how 
or where we are going to dispose of it. As a consequence, nobody in 
their right mind would build a nuclear plant in this country. We talk 
about hydro, but we have limited the hydro available. We are debating 
whether to take some dams down, but there is a tradeoff. If you take 
the dams down, you eliminate the ability to move traffic by barge, so 
you put it on the highways.
  So we have turned to natural gas as our preferred source of energy. A 
year ago, natural gas was about $2.16 per thousand cubic feet; now it 
is $8 or $9, and it has been up as high as $10. The point is that we 
are pulling our natural gas reserves down at a very rapid rate. The 
realization is, as we have seen in the California dilemma where they 
have become dependent on outside energy sources within their State of 
about 25 percent, the danger of becoming dependent on outside sources.
  Let me conclude with a reference to oil, which is something I know 
something about. Currently, 56 percent of our oil comes from overseas, 
primarily the Mideast. The CSIS study shows that for the next decade we 
are going to increase our dependence on hydrocarbons. That doesn't mean 
we are not conserving more, or should not, or develop more 
alternatives. The realization is we are simply using more energy. 
Society moves by computer and e-mail, by technology, and it is fostered 
by energy.
  The picture I am painting today is not very pretty, but there is one 
more facet of concern to this Senator from Alaska. When do we begin to 
compromise our national security interests by increasing our dependence 
on imported oil? I have said this in this Chamber on many occasions, 
and I will say it again.
  If we look at our policy toward Iraq, a country we fought a war 
against in 1991 and 1992 to ensure that Saddam Hussein didn't invade 
Kuwait and go on into Saudi Arabia and basically control the world's 
supply of oil, isn't it ironic that since that time we have flown over 
20,000 sorties, enforcing the no-fly zone, and the cost of that to the 
American taxpayer is difficult to calculate. You might say it is a 
Pentagon energy tax, but it costs each one of us to enforce that no-fly 
zone.

  The other day, the raids in the northern part of Iraq were carried 
out to destroy Saddam Hussein's technical capability that he developed 
with his radar sensing system, which endangers our aircraft and our 
pilots. If you look at that scenario--and I have said this before--we 
seem to have an arrangement where we buy his oil, 750,000 barrels a 
day, and we put it in our airplanes, and then we go bomb him. That may 
be an oversimplistic statement, but I think it is fairly accurate.
  What does he do with our money? He develops his missile capability, 
the delivery capability, and his biological capability. At whom is it 
aimed? Our greatest ally in the Mideast, Israel. So we have some 
inconsistencies.
  I was asked the other day to explain at what point I thought we would 
compromise our energy security interests by increasing our dependence 
on imported oil from the Mideast. I thought for a while, and I 
responded by saying: I guess we have already been there. We fought this 
war and lost 147 lives. We have had 427 wounded. Now, the Department of 
Energy says we are going to be close to 63-, 64-, 65-percent dependence 
in the early years of the 2007 period, or thereabout. If we are going 
to increase that, at what point are we really vulnerable to being held 
hostage by the Mideast, Mr. President?
  What does that mean? Well, it means that since we have become so 
dependent on one source--the Mideast, which is a very unstable part of 
the world--we face the reality of them controlling the price to the 
point where they can pretty well dictate the terms of our addiction to 
oil. They can do that simply by reducing the supply at any given time, 
and they have shown the discipline to do that. As a consequence of 
that, they can increase the price.
  The point of my discussion is to suggest to you that we should all 
come to grips with the reality that this administration has to adopt an 
energy policy with great dispatch. It has been estimated that the high 
oil prices are reducing our U.S. economic growth by as much as 2 
percent a year. Our lost GDP has been estimated at about $165 billion a 
year. It is estimated that we are losing approximately 5.5 million jobs 
that we would have had, had we had the availability of relatively low-
cost energy.
  The last point I want to make is as to our vulnerability. As I 
indicated in my opening remarks, we are not going to drill our way out 
of this, by any means. We are not going to conserve our way out. We 
have to go back to the basics and get the balance. There is legislation 
introduced in this body to put the

[[Page S1732]]

one single area in North America where you are likely to find a major 
oil discovery into a wilderness in perpetuity. I really question the 
judgment of that action in a time of supply shortage of the present 
magnitude. To suggest that that arbitrary action is going to resolve 
our energy shortage is not only shortsighted but unrealistic.
  If, indeed, this body chooses to open that sliver of ANWR--and I say 
a sliver because it is just that--out of 19 million acres, an area of 
the size of the State of South Carolina, we would propose to open a 
million and a half acres. The technology is in place, and we would have 
a footprint of between 1,000 and 2,000 acres. Imagine that, an area the 
size of the State of South Carolina. That is the sliver about which we 
are talking.

  We have the technology to protect the environment, the ecology, and 
the caribou. The answer is certainly.
  This alone will not, by any means, resolve the energy policy, but it 
will go a long way in two particular areas. If the oil is there in the 
abundance the geologists suggest, that one act will reduce our 
dependence on Mideast oil to less than 50 percent.
  The goal of our energy bill--and its objective with which I think 
most people will agree--is to reduce our dependence on foreign sources 
of energy by the year 2010. The question is, How do we do it? We 
develop domestic sources with our technology in the overthrust belt, 
offshore of the Gulf of Mexico, my State of Alaska. We expand our 
energy sources by using technology to do it better.
  To suggest this is the time to consider putting the wilderness off 
limits is unrealistic and I think bad politics because each one of us 
is going to bear the responsibility to our constituents to explain why 
we cannot get together on a workable, responsible energy policy, one 
that addresses the merits of a balanced effort to lower the cost, 
increase the productivity of our Nation, and do it with some dispatch.
  I encourage my colleagues to take a look at this bill. It is a 300-
page bill. God knows why it has to be 300 pages, but nevertheless that 
is what it came out to.
  Also, this bill is a composite of Republican and Democratic ideas. It 
is a bipartisan bill--Senator Breaux is one of the original 
cosponsors--and it attempts to promote alternative fuels, increase our 
conservation, and explore our own resource base and use our technology. 
As a consequence, we should get on with the challenge ahead because the 
sooner we get on with it, the sooner we can rectify this terrible 
situation that is beginning to throttle our economy, increase 
unemployment, and result in a situation where there is perhaps a 
similar exposure to that we have already seen in California.
  California is striving for more energy as a consequence of not having 
produced energy in a manner to keep up with demand. We are in that same 
situation nationally.
  I encourage my colleagues to review the legislation. I encourage them 
to communicate with us on changes and additions, and I encourage the 
administration, which is in the process of developing their view of an 
energy policy to do it with some dispatch because the rates are going 
up, the problem is getting worse, and the economic impact on our 
society and our businesses is evident, as I have already said.

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