[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 71 (Tuesday, May 22, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H2550-H2557]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         NATIONAL ENERGY POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Grucci). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, some of my colleagues who will be joining us 
this evening will continue our discussion that we had last week in 
regards to our national energy policy.
  Mr. Speaker, most of the Nation and the world realizes that the Bush 
administration has come out with a detailed plan that they announced 
last week. The Members of the new Democratic Coalition in the House 
have an energy plan that we announced last week, announcing principles, 
values, and policy statements that we want to work on as we move 
forward in this session of Congress to try to find some long-term 
solutions to our 21st century energy challenges. We do face challenges 
as we start this new century; and hopefully we will find some solutions 
to these challenges.
  That is why we in the Democratic Coalition believe that the best 
approach is one that calls for balance. We are not going to turn our 
short-term energy needs and dependence on fossil fuel and the burning 
of fossil fuels, turn that around overnight, but any sensible and 
reasonable long-term energy policy, and hopefully we will enact in 
legislation later this year, is going to be looking at the development 
and use of modern technology, the use and greater reliance on 
alternative and renewable energy sources, the importance of investing 
in the current energy infrastructure that we have in this country which 
has become very outdated, and trying to figure out how we can move 
energy more efficiently and cost effectively in areas of surplus to 
areas of deficits.
  Mr. Speaker, these are some of the areas that we hope to elevate in 
the national debate and engage the American people on. I also want to 
take exception to a couple of proposals that the Bush administration 
announced last week. They said all of the right words, and there is a 
lot of good statements in the energy plan that they sent up to the Hill 
in book form, National Energy Policy.
  A couple of concerns that I personally have is that they are relying 
a tremendous amount in their energy solution on the development of more 
exploration and more drilling in one of the last pristine places in the 
United States, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR.
  I am ranking member on the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral 
Resources in the Committee on Resources here in Congress. We have had 
eight hearings already on energy resources on public lands. Many 
Members in this Chamber would be surprised to learn that roughly 95 
percent of our public lands are already open and available for energy 
exploration. In fact, we had one of the largest expansions of public 
land access over the last 8 years in the Clinton administration.
  Instead of trying to develop those resources that are already 
available and that the infrastructure needs to be developed in order to 
extract, the new administration wants more, more drilling and more 
drilling in one of the most protected and pristine places in the United 
States, the ANWR.
  In the energy plan, the administration also says the right things in 
regard to the need to develop alternative renewable energy sources. 
When you look at the details of the energy proposal, that investment 
would only occur after oil is drilled and extracted from the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge. In fact, it is from the oil royalties 
collected from the drilling of oil in ANWR that would then be used, at 
least partially, in order to fund the alternative and renewable energy 
research and development that needs to take place in this country. I 
find that a little disheartening.
  Mr. Speaker, Republicans are trying to convince the American people 
that we are for this, too; but only after we have more reliance on the 
fossil fuel development, more reliance on the drilling of oil up in the 
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, rather than treating it as a stand-
alone part of the puzzle that it deserves to be.
  In fact, if you were to match the administration's record on their 
energy proposal with the priority that they established in the budget 
that they submitted to the Congress earlier this year, the rhetoric, 
quite frankly, does not match the action. In fact, when one looks at 
the energy efficiency program at the Department of Energy, the new 
administration is proposing a $20 million cutback from the previous 
year's level.
  On the R&D programs at the DOE, there is roughly $41 million or a 23 
percent cutback on the R&D programs at the DOE. These R&D cuts include 
a $48 million cut in buildings, research and standards programs; a $12 
million cut in the Federal energy management programs; a $61 million 
cut in the industry programs; a $16 million cut in transportation 
programs; over $3 million in policy and management of alternative and 
renewables.
  When you look at the energy program that exists, the administration 
is calling for roughly a 36 to 50 percent cut across the board in most 
of these programs: 48 percent less with the wind-power program; 48 
percent less with the geothermal power program; 48 percent less in the 
development of hydrogen energy sources; 86 percent less for 
concentrating solar power.
  Obviously there is a mismatch between the rhetoric and the 
administration's energy plan and what they submitted in the course of 
their budget proposal this year in Congress. We are hoping to work with 
them.
  Mr. Speaker, energy should not be a partisan issue. We need to find a 
bipartisan solution to an issue that affects all regions of the 
country, whether East Coast or West Coast or middle of America which I 
represent. This is having an impact on people with fixed incomes and on 
economic growth in this country.

[[Page H2551]]

  California, if they were a stand-alone country, would be the fourth 
largest economy in the entire world; and yet that State is experiencing 
rolling blackouts. It is going to take a concentrated effort at the 
local, State, and Federal level to find some long-term solutions.
  That is why we in the Democratic Coalition are advocating both 
balance in our energy approach but also greater reliance on the 
technology that is available and being developed today and the 
potential of increased energy efficiency, whether in our homes, 
businesses or cars that we use to get around this country.
  That is the type of bipartisan, balanced approach that we are hoping 
to be able to work with our colleagues across the aisle in this session 
of Congress, with the new administration. The energy plan that they 
submitted last week, albeit a starting document, has a lot of good 
features in it, but also a lot of features which require more scrutiny 
and closer debate, not the least of which is giving the FERC eminent 
domain power to force States in where they are going to locate their 
transmission lines.
  I personally am reluctant to give that eminent domain authority to a 
Federal agency, basically dictating the States and localities where 
their energy lines are going to have to run. That is going to require 
extensive debate at the local level to find the best route for many of 
these transmission lines that most of us agree are needed to meet the 
long-term energy needs. We are hoping during the course of the next 
hour to get varying viewpoints and different ideas.
  Mr. Speaker, let me recognize the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. 
Larson), one of the foremost thinkers when it comes to fuel cell 
potential in this country, someone who has been working in a bipartisan 
fashion with a very good piece of legislation.
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with 
the gentleman's idea of balance.
  I think it is also important that, as the gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Kind) indicated, it is important not only that we do this in 
balance, but we do this bipartisanly. Certainly energy is not a 
partisan concern. It is something that we all share.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe that it starts with the concept of becoming 
independent: becoming independent from the foreign suppliers of our 
energy. And so in seeking to become energy independent, we have to move 
to alternative sources. We have to be willing to embrace conservation 
at the very core of what we are going to do, understanding that it is 
very hard in principle and that there are limited resources throughout 
the world and that we have an overriding responsibility, being large 
consumers of energy ourselves, to conserve here in this Nation.
  We also have a responsibility to make sure that we are moving forward 
technologically in the most efficient manner. It seems to me with the 
over preoccupation and the emphasis on more drilling, that we are 
fighting yesterday's wars and yesterday's battles. What we need to do 
is move forward aggressively and embrace the technology that can truly 
make us energy independent.
  President Kennedy was able to establish a goal for this Nation. He 
said back in 1960 that we ought to be able to put a man on the moon in 
10 years. With American ability, intellect and know-how, we were able 
to achieve that goal. We need to establish the same goal here in this 
country by simply stating that we will be energy independent from 
foreign sources in the next 10 years, so that by 2011 we will no longer 
be dependent upon OPEC nations.
  Coincidentally as we have seen in the past, when Americans embrace 
alternative and renewable energy, and we put the full weight of this 
Nation behind a concept and an idea, the price will automatically be 
driven down in terms of the current cost of oil.
  We find ourselves in an awful situation, not only on the West Coast, 
but all across this Nation as we look at the price of oil. When my 
colleagues consider just in 1999 that the cost of oil was $60 billion 
annually to this country, it now costs this Nation $120 billion.
  Mr. Speaker, I am proposing that we invest 1-120th of that, $1 
billion, into fuel cell research. Why fuel cells? Fuel cells are just a 
small part of the larger picture, along with conservation, along with 
nuclear power, along with making sure, as the gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Kind) pointed out, that we take advantage of existing drilling 
opportunities that are in this country and not open up new, virgin 
territories and virgin land, but focus on a technology that can provide 
us independence from foreign competitors and inefficiencies that we see 
in the old economy, and also independence from the awful effects that 
happen from pollution.
  Fuel cells, for example, can relieve the atmosphere of more than 2 
million pounds annually of CO2 that are currently spewing 
into the environment. They can also remove more than 40,000 pounds of 
noxious pollutants that are unnecessarily being spewed into this 
atmosphere. It is our moral responsibility to make sure that we are 
stepping forward to do this.
  If we do not embrace the plan, if we do not make the investment, as 
the gentleman from Wisconsin pointed out, those moneys to fund this 
cannot come from expansive drilling in the ANWR, they have to be the 
commitment of the United States Congress.

                              {time}  1830

  We are the appropriators. We should be making sure that we are making 
this investment now to be energy independent, to be more efficient and 
to protect our environment by embracing technologies like this that 
will allow us to move forward in the future, so that we will find our 
senior citizens, as the gentleman pointed out, in Wisconsin and 
California and in Connecticut that do not have to make the decision 
between the food they are going to put on their table, the prescription 
drugs that their doctors have asked them to take, and the energy that 
they need to heat and cool their homes and propel their automobiles.
  This technology, with fuel cells, we can get 80 miles to the gallon 
in an SUV. We can run silent. We can run clean, the by-product of which 
is vapor. So with the green energy, with this new technology, with the 
willingness for us to roll up our sleeves and invest in a new 
technology that is both clean, efficient, and will provide us with this 
independence that we need from foreign sources is the way for this 
Nation to go.
  We have started down this path before with respect to renewables. 
Coincidentally, when the Nation moves forward aggressively and starts 
to embrace these alternatives, what we see is the market respond by the 
lowering of the cost of oil and its production.
  I believe the best way to lower costs immediately is to aggressively 
pursue those kinds of policies; but this time the United States must be 
committed to achieving that goal by the year 2011 of being energy 
independent, and if we stick to that course not only will we drive down 
the costs in the short term but in the long term we will be independent 
of our reliance on foreign products. We will be independent of the old 
inefficiencies that have hurt our economy, and we will be independent 
of the disastrous effects that have enveloped our entire environment.
  I thank the gentleman again for his leadership and look forward to 
working with him, and compliment my other colleagues.
  Mr. KIND. May I ask a question before the gentleman leaves?
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Yes.
  Mr. KIND. Am I correct in stating that the space shuttle is already 
being fueled by fuel cells?
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. The gentleman is absolutely correct. This 
is a technology that has been around for more than 40 years. We all 
know that the Apollo was powered by fuel cells; that we have the 
ability to go to the Moon and Mars and beyond. And certainly if we have 
the technology to go to the Moon and Mars and beyond, we have the 
technology available to get back and forth to work and to heat and cool 
the buildings that we live in and the buildings that we use.
  This is not something that has to be created. This is something that 
we need to make sure we are producing more of. By utilizing the Federal 
Government and State and local municipalities through pilots and 
saying, look, we will provide the incentives to power the fleets of 
automobiles, to make sure that the school buses, the

[[Page H2552]]

 military buses, the mail trucks are powered by fuel cells, to have 
alternative sources and backups of fuel cell power buildings where we 
know that the energy shortage cannot afford to be derailed at all but 
there must be continuous operation, that the fuel cell is the most 
dependable way for us to achieve this goal.
  There are other alternatives out there. The gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Lofgren), one of our colleagues, has introduced 
legislation on fusion. There are other great sources of renewables. 
Combined, together, I think we have a great opportunity to achieve that 
goal by 2011.
  Mr. KIND. The gentleman mentioned the by-product of fuel cell use is 
hydrogen and oxygen. Basically, it is water vapor?
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Basically it is water vapor. The newest 
technology with respect to fuel cells is taking advantage of our most 
abundant element, making sure we are taking advantage of hydrogen. It 
is the most abundant element we have here in our universe, so let us 
capitalize on that, let us utilize it in a scientific manner and apply 
the great American know-how of turning this around.
  Our foreign competitors in both Japan and Germany are already further 
along in terms of automobile production, especially in the use of fuel 
cells, but give America the research and development opportunities, 
provide our great research universities, provide our great corporate 
entities with the opportunity to get not only the backing of R&D 
dollars but the commitment of the Federal Government to produce so that 
we can streamline activities and drive the cost of production down in 
the long term, and then we will wean ourselves off of dependency on 
foreign governments.
  Mr. KIND. Reclaiming the time, I want to thank my friend, the 
gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson), for his insight and the 
leadership he has shown on this and many other areas of energy policy. 
Hopefully, we will get enough support with the legislation he has 
introduced so we will have serious policy enacted in this Congress in 
the further development of fuel cell, the potential that fuel cell 
holds for our long-term energy needs.
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. I look forward to continuing to work with 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) in his outstanding efforts in 
the area of energy, conservation, and making sure that this environment 
is one that is livable and safe for all of us. These are the citizens 
that we were sworn to serve and protect. I think it is incumbent upon 
Congress, it is a moral responsibility as much as it is a legislative 
responsibility, for us to move forward along these lines. I commend the 
gentleman for the leadership he has provided.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. 
Larson) for his comments.
  Mr. Speaker, next I would like to recognize another colleague of mine 
who has been living and been experiencing some of the most difficult 
energy challenges we face in the country today. Of course I am 
referring to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman), whose State 
and constituents have been experiencing from time to time the rolling 
blackouts. In fact, some of our economic development coordinators in 
the upper Midwest are kind of targeting the businesses in California 
with the slogan, ``We may experience an occasional whiteout in 
Wisconsin but never a rolling blackout.'' That is really what is at 
stake right now is the further economic growth and development in the 
State of California, and I recognize the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Sherman) for his comments tonight.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Kind) for yielding.
  I agree about the importance of bipartisanship. I came to this floor 
last night with intensity, as any of us would have intensity if we were 
living through what California is and soon will be living through.
  What was missed was I was here chiefly to support a bill submitted by 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), from the San Diego area, 
one of the more conservative Members on the other side of the aisle. 
This is a bipartisan Hunter-Eshoo bill. We need it passed only for one 
reason, and that is the repeated pleas of our Governor and our entire 
State government to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have been 
ignored.
  We have asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, look, since 
we are prohibited by Federal law from imposing reasonable costs-plus-
profit regulation on what is being charged at the wholesale level, 
they, as is required by law, should do it.
  FERC has closed their eyes to what is happening, and we in California 
have been FERCed. Instead, we need a Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission that does its job or a Congress that is willing to make sure 
that California gets the kind of regulation that so many other States 
already have; that we in California had for about 100 years 
successfully; that we have made the mistake of going away from and that 
we need to get back to for a couple of years. That is why the Hunter 
bill simply provides that for a temporary period California will get 
the same kind of rate regulation that so many of our States are 
enjoying now.
  Instead, we are being told that California should be crucified on an 
altar of near-religious zeal, near-religious dedication to a 
deregulated market. We are told that if the wholesale price of 
electricity is regulated, we will get less of it. This is true if one 
has only taken Economics 101. Economics 101 would say if one pays more 
for something they will get more of it, more will be produced. But one 
has to take the upper division courses as well, and they have to learn 
the policies of those with monopoly power, and then they discover that 
sometimes what is supposed to happen does not happen.

  In fact, the California Public Utilities Commission determined that 
because we have this enormously high price, this deregulated price, 
plants are being closed for maintenance. Why? Well, think about it. If 
one has regulated production and they can make a megawatt for $30 and 
sell it for $50, they would say, I want to do that all day every day as 
much as I can, make $20 on every transaction. But what if they have a 
deregulated market where it costs $30 to create a megawatt and instead 
of producing all that can be produced and making all the $20 profits 
that could be made, the production is suppressed? Then the price goes 
not to $50 a megawatt but $500 a megawatt.
  Obviously, the incentive is to withhold production under this 
deregulated system with monopoly power; and that is why virtually all 
elements of California society, including not only a majority of the 
delegation from California but some prominent Republican conservatives, 
have urged that we have this temporary regulation.
  Instead, we are told Washington knows best; they have to be told that 
it is their problem, solve it, but they will be tied up by Federal 
preemption law that does not allow them to solve it; and in that way 
they will have this enormous transfer of wealth.
  We paid $7 billion for electric generation in our State in 1999. In 
2000, we used the same amount of electricity. We paid $32.5 billion. 
This year, we are going to be charged $70 billion for the same amount 
of electricity that we paid $7 billion for in 1999. All that is going 
to a few very large corporations which happen to be based in Texas.
  I do have a couple more comments. I will ask the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) whether it is appropriate to continue, and he is 
nodding, yes, because I want to talk about conservation a bit and how 
important it is.
  We are told by the Vice President that conservation may be a personal 
virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a comprehensive energy 
policy. We have to respond. Environmental degradation and enormous 
energy company profits may be politically profitable, but they also are 
not a sufficient basis for a comprehensive energy policy.
  The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) went through the list of how 
this administration's budget cuts money for renewables, for 
conservation, for research.
  I want to point out that those cuts that he enumerated so clearly, 
those very deep cuts, are a cut of the current year's fiscal budget. 
But what about the prior years? In each of the 6 years of Republican 
Congresses, President Clinton's budget request for conservation, for 
renewables, for research was cut by this Congress. So we start with

[[Page H2553]]

6 years of research lost, 6 years of opportunity behind. Then we get to 
the current year, and we get a budget that slashes from even the 
depressed levels of the current year. Then after that budget resolution 
is passed, we get a glossy pamphlet from the administration saying that 
they are now in favor of spending money, billions of dollars, on 
research, on conservation. Where is that money supposed to come from?
  The budget resolution does not provide it. The appropriations bills 
will not provide it, and we are in a situation where perhaps we have an 
administration that has a reason to hope for blackouts because in the 
light of day it is obvious that one cannot claim they are in favor of 
something and put out a glossy pamphlet describing how they are going 
to do something if they will not budget for it and they will not 
appropriate for it.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time. That is one of the great 
ironies of the Bush administration's energy plan is they, first of all, 
came to power this year claiming this was not their responsibility; it 
was because of a deficient energy policy over the last 8 years; and yet 
many of the recommendations that are contained now in their energy 
proposal they released last year are carbon copies of what the Clinton 
administration was advocating during the 8 years but stymied by the 
Congress and action was not taken.
  In fact, when we take a look at the detailed budget proposal that the 
Bush administration submitted, obviously when one has a 48 percent cut 
in the photovoltaic area, 48 percent in wind, 48 percent in geothermal, 
48 percent in hydrogen, there was not a lot of energy or thought being 
given into these cuts. Otherwise, one just would not have straight-
across-the-board 48 percent reductions in all of these alternative and 
renewable programs.

                              {time}  1845

  So it is a little bit troubling.
  But what I would like to do right now, since I know the gentleman has 
been waiting and has to leave for another meeting, is recognize the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge), my good friend, who is 
one of the more thoughtful thinkers when it comes to energy policy and 
our long-term energy needs in this Congress. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Wisconsin. I thank 
the gentleman for having this Special Order tonight because I think 
this is one of the issues, along with the issue we were debating today 
on education, these are two of the most important issues that we will 
be dealing with in this Congress.
  I, like the previous speakers, will try not to plow some of that 
ground again, as my folks in North Carolina say, but the truth is, the 
gentleman has articulated very eloquently the issues before us and the 
problems we face. Let me touch on it a little differently, because I 
was very disappointed as I went through that document last week, the 
energy plan the President put forward. It was light on efficiency and 
conservation and heavy on drilling. We all know we are going to need 
more capacity. There is no question about that. I think we acknowledge 
that jointly. But the issue is, how do we get balance in it?
  As an example, in this country, certainly in my State, in the 
Southeast, natural gas prices have gone up 400 percent in the last 18 
months. There is nothing in this plan to talk about how we are going to 
deal with that in the short run. What are we going to do for the people 
who are hurting?
  I stopped to get gas last weekend at the service station. A guy 
pulled up behind me and he recognized me, and he said, Congressman, 
what are you going to do about these gas prices? I said, well, in the 
short run, it is really up to the executive branch. The President is 
the one who can go to the Strategic Oil Reserves.
  I remember when Governor Bush was running for President, he called on 
the President to pick up the phone and call the people in OPEC to open 
the spigots for the short term. We went over there in the sands of the 
Middle East and recovered the oil wells from Saddam Hussein. I believe 
if he picked up the phone, he could make that call.
  Now, I do remember reading this week that the Vice President said he 
did not want to make that call, he did not want to beg. Well, the 
people in my district do not care how he gets the gas, they want it. 
That is not begging. I think it is just folks reminding them that they 
have an obligation to help keep the prices down.
  Let me tell my colleagues what this will do for the people not just 
in North Carolina and across the Southeast, but all across America, 
because gasoline prices have gone up more, more than what the average 
taxpayers are going to get back out of this tax bill that they have 
been pushing all year. The increase in gasoline prices will soak up a 
$300 to $400 increase per individual for an automobile if they have to 
drive to work on one tank a week, and the tank costs $25.
  In my part of the country, a lot of people commute to work. They do 
not have the benefit of mass transit. They do not have the opportunity 
of alternative ways to travel. I just think it is important that we 
look at the short run as well as the long run. We need to look at the 
alternative energy sources.
  Mr. Speaker, I serve on the Committee on Science, as does the 
gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson), who talked earlier. I will 
only repeat one part of what he said, because I think it bears 
repeating here when he talked about the fuel sales, but it is bigger 
than that. It really is our commitment to really be serious about this 
issue. If we are not going to spend the money on R&D, on the things 
that we know we can make a difference within the long run, I do not 
know that we can ever have enough drilling in the future to provide the 
energy resources we need, unless we are willing to find the 
alternatives, to find the efficiencies and do the important things we 
need to do.
  The farmers I have talked with back home are now out in the field, as 
I am sure they are in Wisconsin and California and other parts of this 
country. They are facing a tough summer because the energy costs have 
gone up for equipment, for irrigation. We know the problems in 
agriculture today. Commodity prices are down, and they are going to be 
squeezed all over again. But this year, it will be everyone who is 
going to be squeezed. Small business people, large businesses and 
others are being squeezed.
  Last winter I know we had one fertilizer company who sold their 
natural gas, and guess what happened to the cost? So they were not 
making fertilizer, they waited until later to do it, and guess what 
happens to nitrogen prices this summer? The prices went up, so the 
farmer got caught twice.
  One other point I want to make as we talk about this whole energy 
piece, and I am sticking mostly to gasoline and transportation, since 
my colleagues have talked about the other pieces, we tend to forget 
sometimes what this means to the public purse. Let me just use North 
Carolina as an example, because we have a State public transportation 
system for our children going to school. The State operates that system 
and buys the gasoline. Now, normally they buy it a year in advance on 
contract. However, it has gone up dramatically, and that is going to 
affect State treasurers all across this country; whether they are 
private or public, it will send the cost up.
  What we are really doing is driving the cost up of everything we 
purchase, and eventually it is going to show up in the marketplace of 
all of the products we have that are petroleum-based, and that will 
have an impact on our overall economy and could have a negative impact.
  So I call on the administration not only to look at the long term, 
but let us look at the short-term things, the efficiencies, the 
economies we can do, encourage people to conserve where they can, do 
the carpooling we need to do. It is going to take a concerted effort. 
But we need to spend the R&D money to find the new ideas to make the 
big difference down the road in the long run.
  I thank the gentleman for his time, and I thank him for taking time 
to bring this to our attention tonight, and I appreciate having an 
opportunity to join my colleagues.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from North Carolina for his 
comments and insight today and for his participation in this 
discussion. He raises a lot of valid points. Those who are most 
adversely affected by the increased energy costs, whether it is in

[[Page H2554]]

the western part of the State or the eastern, are small business 
owners, operating on the margin and people on fixed incomes. When they 
see an energy blip, it has a huge impact on their family budgets. It is 
the farmers who are getting hit with not only increased energy costs, 
but also increased fertilizer costs, which is a terrible problem for 
them.
  That is why we need a comprehensive, long-term solution and not 
something short term that calls for more drilling, and that is going to 
take about a decade before we get the increased reserves to the 
marketplace to make a real difference.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield on that 
point, the point the gentleman just made, we will be back on this floor 
in the next month or so, and we will see substantial increases in 
LIHEAP funding for people on fixed incomes over the winter, and I 
predict that that number will go up and it will have to go up again if 
this continues, if we do not deal with the short-term issues. I thank 
the gentleman. He is absolutely right.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for participating 
tonight.
  I think the overall theme in tonight's discussion is we are looking 
for 21 century solutions to the challenges we are facing in this 
century and not a throw-back plan that would be better suited for the 
19th century or the first part of the 20th century.
  In fact, what was striking about the Bush administration's energy 
plan that came out last week was how similar it was to the plan that 
was actually proposed under the Reagan administration. In fact, former 
Interior Secretary James Watt was recently quoted in the Denver Post in 
regards to the similarity of the plans they were pursuing back in the 
early 1980s compared to what the new administration is talking about 
today in 2001. This is what former Secretary of the Interior James Watt 
had to say, and I quote: ``Everything Cheney is saying, everything the 
President is saying, they are saying exactly what we were saying 20 
years ago, precisely. Twenty years later, it sounds like they have just 
dusted off the old work.''
  Yet, there has been a lot of progress that has been made in the 
advancement of technology and energy efficiency over the last couple of 
decades, and it is an area, it is a policy area that we, within the new 
Democratic coalition, want to emphasize more, want to use and rely upon 
more as we are trying to increase energy efficiency and conservation as 
a part of the long-term solution.
  Now I would like to yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. 
Inslee), who has been sitting patiently for a while, a colleague of 
mine who serves on the Subcommittee on Energy of the Committee on 
Natural Resources.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's leadership on 
this. I just have something to report for a moment. In our Subcommittee 
on Natural Resources today, members of the energy industry came to us 
and testified and reported that they were happy, tickled pink, is the 
way I would characterize it, about the administration's alleged plan to 
deal with energy. I guess it is really not a great surprise that they 
would be very, very pleased.

  I think one of the reasons, although it was unstated, is that this 
plan is one of total inaction in dealing with the crisis in the western 
United States of wholesale electrical prices. Because while the prices 
we have to pay in the west for wholesale electricity have gone up 500 
percent, 1,000 percent in some circumstances, this administration 
willfully, and in what I think is a pretty amazing display of casual 
indifference to the plight on the West Coast, has said they are going 
to do nothing about those prices.
  To the people I represent, people who, like a fellow who told me he 
has conserved half of his energy in his house to respond to the need 
for conservation, but his energy bill has gone up. The Bush 
administration's message to him is real simple: tough luck.
  To the small business operator in Shoreline, Washington that has an 
ice rink who is going to have to curtail their hours of operation and 
reduce their small profits, to try to keep their mom-and-pop operation 
going, the Bush administration has one simple answer to them: tough 
luck.
  To the Edmonds school district, which is having to have hundreds of 
thousands of dollars now going to large energy generators, instead of 
hiring teachers and textbooks, the Bush administration has a real 
simple message: tough luck. And the message of tough luck is one that, 
although it has been music to the ears of the energy companies when 
they come testify to us on the Committee on Natural Resources, the 
message of tough luck is not one that is being well received by my 
constituents, who are in very, very tough shape.
  I go to food banks now and I talk to family after family and they say 
they have never been to a food bank before until they have been hit 
with these energy prices, and yet the administration is refusing to do 
anything about it. I just want to report to my colleagues that it is 
terribly upsetting to us that this administration will fail to do 
anything about price mitigation plans that have been proposed with at 
least several Republicans in this Chamber who are supporting an effort 
to bring these incredible prices under control.
  This weekend, I read an article that I thought was salient, because 
the administration has argued that they do not want to do anything 
about these prices, because they are afraid it will act as a 
disincentive to the creation of a new generating capacity. We need the 
President to read the San Francisco Chronicle this weekend.
  I want to read a couple paragraphs from an article from this Sunday's 
San Francisco Chronicle that leads with this paragraph: ``Large power 
companies have driven up electricity prices in California by throttling 
their generators up and down to create artificial shortages, according 
to dozens of interviews with regulators, lawyers and energy industry 
workers.''
  It goes on to say that ``According to the accounts of three plant 
operators,'' a Corporation X, I am not going to expose them right now, 
my colleagues can buy the newspaper, ``Generator X operation schedulers 
on the energy trading floor ordered them to repeatedly decrease, then 
increase output at the 1,046 megawatt at plant X. This happened as many 
as 4 or 5 times an hour. Each time the units were ramped down and 
electricity production fell, plant employees watched on a control room 
computer screen as spot market energy prices rose. Then came the phone 
call to ramp the units back up. Quote: They would tell us what to do 
and we would do it, closed quote, said one of the men, who only agreed 
to speak on condition they would not be identified because they feared 
being fired. Quote: Afterward, we would just sit there and watch the 
market change.''
  Well, they sure did watch the market change. They watched these 
prices go up 1,000 percent.
  Now, if we want this diminution of power to continue, if we want the 
continued reduction of power as much as 30 percent in the California 
market, up to 30 percent of the generators right now have their plants 
turned off, for goodness sakes. At the time we have blackouts in 
California, at the time we are paying 1,000 percent more for energy, 
these people have turned off 30 percent of their plants.

                              {time}  1900

  Now, if we want that to continue, it would seem to me we would want 
the status quo, which is what the Bush administration has proposed. 
They are going to do nothing.
  We already have a disincentive for power in California, Oregon, and 
Washington. That is the existing dysfunctional market, because these 
folks can turn off their plants and jack up prices 1,000 percent.
  We want to create a market condition that is an incentive to bring 
these plants online. That is a cost-based system, where at least for 
the next 2 years we can have a short-term time-out of this 
dysfunctional market, have a cost-based system, give these generators 
the cost of producing their power plus a reasonable degree of profit, 
and bring some sanity back to this market.
  We could give these generators the highest profit margin since Bonnie 
and Clyde were in operation and we would still cut these prices in 
half. That is what we ought to do. That is what we are calling on this 
administration to do.
  So we are going to continue on this effort to ask this administration 
to get

[[Page H2555]]

off the dime, do its job, tell FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission to do its job, and get some short-term cost-bid pricing.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington State 
for his comments this evening, and for the work the gentleman is doing 
on the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources with myself and 
others here in Congress.
  This is an important issue. The gentleman mentioned the profits that 
are currently taking place in the oil and gas industry. It is 
astounding, seeing the triple-digit increase in profits in the first 
quarter of this year alone, 350 to 400 percent profit margins.
  Seven of the ten Fortune 500 companies in the entire world are oil 
and gas companies. In fact, if we just go through the list of the 
profit statements over the last fiscal year, we have ExxonMobil, for 
instance, with a 124 percent profit increase from the previous year; we 
have Chevron, with a 151 percent increase of profit last year; CONOCO, 
with a 156 percent increase in profit from the previous year.
  Yet, in the first quarter of this year alone, ExxonMobil is realizing 
a $5 billion profit in just the first quarter of this year. BP Amoco, 
BP now, is at $4 billion profit in the first quarter of this year; 
Chevron, a $1.6 billion profit in the first quarter of this year; 
CONOCO, with a $700 million profit already in just the first few months 
of 2001.
  So obviously they are making a hefty profit. They are covering their 
costs. They are laughing to the bank, quite frankly. I think they have 
to answer to this, why there is such a huge increase over the last year 
alone in the profit statements of their individual companies, and yet 
we see the consumers paying a triple-digit increase in the energy 
costs, primarily on the West Coast right now.
  Mr. INSLEE. If the gentleman would continue to yield for one comment, 
we believe profits are American. There is nothing wrong with profits. 
But when demand for electricity in the State of California has gone 
down since last year, and demand has actually gone down from last year, 
supplies have gone down as much as 30 percent on a given day, but then 
they have a way to game the system to jack their prices up 1,000 
percent, something is rotten not just in the state of Denmark, it is 
rotten in the State of California, and Oregon, and Washington. We are 
losing 43,000 jobs in my State because of this rampant gaming that is 
going on. We are going to continue to try to fix that. I thank the 
gentleman.
  Mr. KIND. I thank the gentleman for his participation this evening. I 
am not sure about my colleague from Washington State, but one of the 
most surprising facts I learned as ranking member on the Subcommittee 
on Energy and Mineral Resources this year was the incredible access and 
availability of these oil and gas companies on most of our public lands 
already throughout the country. Roughly 95 percent of the public lands 
they have access to. Granted, there may be things we can streamline in 
regards to the permitting process and some of the regs that surround 
those, but 95 percent.
  In fact, there was a story that broke yesterday in the Anchorage 
Daily News where Phillips Alaska Company up in Alaska announced that 
they discovered three oil and gas fields on the North Slope of Alaska 
that was newly opened, the National Petroleum Reserve up in Alaska.
  This was a reserve that the Clinton administration actually permitted 
out to the oil and gas industry. They now have discovered a tremendous 
oil and gas reserve to the tune of 429 million barrels of oil up in the 
North Slope, which is the largest energy find, energy resource find, in 
over the last decade.
  So obviously there is access already with public lands in the 
country, some that the Clinton administration worked closely with the 
industry to gain them access. That is why we have to question the need 
right now to go into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one that was 
specifically set aside for the protection of the pristine place and the 
ecosystem and the animal and bird species that exist up there, when we 
have discoveries like this being made already on the public lands.
  As I mentioned earlier, perhaps one of the most cynical aspects of 
the energy plan is they are saying us, too, when it comes to renewable 
and energy sources, ``. . . but only after we drill in the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge and we are able to collect the oil royalties 
from these oil companies.''
  But we also know in recent months that we have been having difficulty 
collecting a fair market price for the oil royalties. In fact, U.S. 
News on May 14 of this year just released a big article titled ``Making 
Them Pay: How Big Oil Companies Shortchange Taxpayers on Royalties.''
  Apparently they have been cooking the books. They have been 
understating the actual market value of the oil that they are 
extracting from public lands, and some of the companies actually are 
storing the oil supplies in the summer, where the prices are lower. 
They are selling in the winter when the prices are higher. Yet, they 
are quoting the summer prices, the lower price, in regard to the 
royalties they are now responsible for.
  Chevron, Texaco, BP have been forced recently to spend nearly $8 
billion to settle underpayment lawsuits with the Federal government and 
with seven other States, according to a project on government 
oversight.
  There is a recent jury verdict in Alabama holding ExxonMobil liable 
for $88 million of underreported oil royalties, and also assessing a 
$3.4 billion punitive claim on them because, in the words of one of the 
jurors, ``We were sending a message: If you cheat, you will be 
punished.''
  Yet, here we have an administration that is going to be relying on 
financing of alternative and renewable programs through oil royalties, 
when we know we have a problem in collecting the fair share of oil 
royalties that these companies agreed to pay in order to have access to 
the public lands in order to alleviate some of the burden on taxpayers.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield for another 
moment, the gentleman has alluded to this point. I want to make sure 
that Members who are aware of this proceeding tonight are aware of 
exactly what the administration has said.
  They have held the environment hostage, because what they have said 
in their budget is unless we give up the protection of the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge and allow drilling there, we are not going to 
spend one single dime on these conservation and new technology 
renewable efforts.
  To me, if they are going to hold somebody hostage, the last person 
they should hold hostage is Mother Nature. That is who they have held 
hostage on this. To say that unless they get their way, unless these 
major oil companies get their way, the real party in interest here, to 
me it is an incredibly shortsighted approach to take, particularly 
since, as the gentleman knows, if we increase our mileage 3 miles a 
gallon, if the administration would yield to our efforts to increase 
our CAFE standards, our average miles, if we increase it 3 miles a 
gallon, we will save more oil just by that one step, without stepping a 
foot in that refuge, than we will ever get out of the wildlife refuge.
  That is the route we ought to be going. We hope at some point the 
administration will see the light in that regard.
  Mr. KIND. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I think we need to be 
thoughtful and deliberative in regard to increasing access to the 
public lands. Obviously, we have a lot of access already. I think it 
would behoove us to spend a little bit of time trying to improve the 
safety and environmentally-friendly measures of being able to extract 
some of these resources that already exist, because we also have 
problems in that.

  Again, I hate to keep plugging the Anchorage Daily News, but on April 
17 this year they reported a huge pipeline leak up in the North Slope 
of Alaska, which is one of the largest spills to occur in the last 10 
years. Some 92,000 gallons of salt water and crude oil leaked from a 
pipeline at Kuparuk Oil Field in April.
  The pipeline burst, and this is a problem we have with current 
infrastructure when it comes to the extraction of gas and oil is we 
have a very old infrastructure with the eroding and corroding pipes 
that are leaking.
  In fact, there have been four major oil spills in the North Slope of 
Alaska within the last 6 months alone. Yet, I think the administration 
is trying to sell the American public on the idea that we can go into 
these public lands

[[Page H2556]]

and the refuges and the national parks, be able to extract these fossil 
fuels in an environmentally-friendly manner, when in fact the new 
stories belie that type of argument, because we know there are problems 
and oil leaks occurring, which has a devastating environmental impact.
  Mr. SHERMAN. If the gentleman will yield, I will point out that we on 
the Democratic side of the aisle, while we are opposed en masse to 
drilling in the National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, this does not mean 
that we are not looking for more production. In fact, our side of the 
aisle, and not the other side of the aisle, is pushing to bring the 
natural gas from Prudhoe Bay, the part of Alaska that has already been 
developed.
  They are bringing the oil down, and if there is a leak in an oil 
pipeline, it causes the environmental problems that the gentleman talks 
about. The natural gas that is being produced from that already-
developed field is being reinjected back into the Earth.
  Instead, our plan, the Democratic plan, calls for building a 
pipeline, even providing an incentive to build that pipeline, so that 
we bring that natural gas to market.
  Why is this so important? The price for oil is going to be set at the 
same price that OPEC is selling its oil. There is a world price for 
oil. We move oil from one continent to the other. A little bit of 
production by destroying the ANWR is not going to have any effect that 
helps consumers. A couple of oil companies might get rich on a big 
project, but it will not have any effect for consumers.
  In contrast, natural gas does not move from continent to continent. 
The North American market is based upon North American supply and North 
American demand. If we can bring the natural gas that is already there 
at Prudhoe Bay, we can reduce prices that are paid by American 
consumers, by California consumers, by electric consumers whose 
electricity is generated by the burning of natural gas, as well as 
people who use natural gas in their homes.
  So there is a project in Alaska that will reduce the price paid by 
consumers has no support in the President's plan, but there is this 
project that will despoil the environment and have no effect on world 
prices. Perhaps this administration, as has been asserted by us, has 
forgotten that they do not work for the energy industry anymore; at 
least, they are not supposed to.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, what is also not stated in this debate on the 
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is even if the authority is given and 
they start drilling, it is a 10-year period before they bring the 
product to market, so obviously that is not going to be any short-term 
answer to the crisis we now have on the West Coast or in other parts of 
this country in regard to rising prices.
  Unquestionably, we need to modernize the infrastructure. We need to 
invest in more refineries. In fact, many of the industry experts in the 
economy say this is not really a supply problem we are facing. This is 
not the 1970s, when OPEC decided to turn off the spigots and hold us 
hostage by reducing oil production or selling oil in the country. We 
had the lines backing up at the service stations with escalating gas 
prices in the 1970s.
  That is not the situation we face now. OPEC has, as a group, been 
able to keep their per barrel price of oil within the reasonable range 
of $25 to $30 a barrel, which they said was their target range. They 
have been staying true to that. It is really an infrastructure 
challenge we face right now, and refinery capacity. I believe Members 
on both sides of the aisle recognize that.
  Mr. SHERMAN. If it is an infrastructure bottleneck, it is also a 
cause for antitrust investigation, because there has been an explosion 
in the profit margin that refiners are generating. It may be that, as 
we have seen problems in the generation of electricity, that we may 
also have supply being artificially constrained.

  I would say that OPEC is probably charging 10 cents to 20 cents a 
gallon more than is fair, and that is a problem. But when we are paying 
$2 a gallon, as they do in my State, the 20 cents that is going to 
OPEC, which, after all, foreign countries are relatively hard to 
control, is not necessarily the focus of our attention.
  Of course, when President Bush was running for office, he said that a 
United States President who was strong could get OPEC to cut their 
prices just by lifting up the phone. Obviously, he has changed his mind 
on the definition of strength, and, as other speakers have pointed out, 
has been unwilling to make that call.
  I would like to comment on a few of the other points that have been 
made, if the gentleman will continue to yield.
  We have talked about the importance of conservation. I should point 
out that America has produced four times more energy through 
efficiency, conservation, and renewables than we have from all other 
new sources of energy over the last 20 years. Over the last 20 years, 
we have saved $180 billion on our energy bills because of this 
conservation. That is more than $200 for every dollar of Federal money 
spent on developing renewables and developing conservation measures.
  Mr. KIND. On that point, this is actually a perfect segue into a map 
that I brought with me this evening talking about the potential of the 
renewable and alternative energy sources that already exist within our 
own country.
  In the upper left corner here we show the potential for biomass and 
biofuel resources throughout the country, albeit more predominant in 
the eastern part of this country and also the West Coast, but 
nevertheless, a tremendous potential.
  It is one of the farm industry criticisms of the Bush energy plan is 
how little attention or interest they have in developing the biomass 
and biofuel resources that we have in the country. It could be a win 
for the consumer; it could also be a win for the farm producers that 
exist throughout the country. Lord knows, they are looking for a win at 
this point. But also there could be solar energy potential, too. In 
some regions the potential is much greater than other regions, but 
virtually every region of this country can certainly develop solar 
power potential to a much greater extent than we have today.

                              {time}  1915

  Geothermal resources, the Bureau of Land Management released this map 
showing the geothermal potential that exists in the country. There are 
a lot of uses of it already in Nevada, Utah, California, Hawaii, in 
particular, but there is also potential in the middle States of the 
country.
  The small country of Kenya in Africa is moving aggressively with this 
geothermal power, and they are anticipating 35 percent of their energy 
needs over the next decade will be generated by geothermal power.
  Then finally wind resources, which basically covers the map as well, 
and there is where we have seen some of the greatest efficiency in 
recent years. They have gone in the last 3 years from 30 cents per 
kilowatt hour in producing wind power to roughly 3 cents to 5 cents per 
kilowatt hour making it very market competitive.
  These are some of the ideas that many of us are calling for in the 
development of alternative and renewable energy sources that should be 
a part of the overall energy solution, rather than increased reliance 
and dependence on the extraction of fossil fuels and the burning of 
fossil fuels in this country.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I know we have limited time, but just in 
closing, I want to say that California is building 14 electrical 
generation plants now. Under our prior Republican governor, we built 
not one, but the private sector was not trying to build plants in our 
State until last year.
  We need help only in the form of being allowed to go back to the 
regulation system that we had before. We do not need billions of aid 
from the rest of the country, but we need the ropes untied from our 
hands.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Sherman), my friend, for his comments tonight and for joining us in 
this important discussion. Obviously, this is the beginning of a long 
discussion and a much needed debate in this country trying to develop a 
21st century energy policy to meet the challenges that exist today.
  Again, if we can bring balance, if we can utilize the technology that 
is available, increase energy, efficiency and conservation, I think 
that is going to be the best long-term solution.

[[Page H2557]]



                          ____________________