[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 74 (Friday, May 25, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H2717-H2718]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  ENERGY IN THE WESTERN UNITED STATES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, that was an extraordinary speech by the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Gary Miller) who preceded me in the 
well, and I will offer a little different perspective on what is going 
on in energy in the Western U.S.
  It is Memorial Day weekend and all across the country Americans and 
their families are pulling up to the pump and surprise, prices are up, 
way up. But there is no market manipulation.
  The deafening silence of the Bush administration and the runup on gas 
prices might have something to do with who supported their last 
campaign but I would not allude that on the floor.
  There is no market manipulation. Exxon Mobil, profits $15.9 billion 
last year, profits up 102 percent in one year, there is no market 
manipulation. There is no role for the Federal Government here, except 
to enable them to drill for more oil and to cut their taxes. That is 
what the Bush energy plan proposes.
  Now, the gentleman from California (Mr. Gary Miller), I am very 
surprised that he did not want to talk about some of these things.
  Yesterday I talked about Reliant Energy. Reliant Energy, based in 
Houston, Texas, profits up 1,800 percent in one year; bought a few 
generating

[[Page H2718]]

plants in California. It was revealed in the San Francisco Chronicle on 
Sunday, with interviews with some of their plant operators, that the 
plant operators were linked by telephone to their commodity trader 
speculators and the commodity trader speculators watched the charts and 
when the price of energy went up, they said crank up the plants. When 
the price of energy went down, they said crank down those plants. They 
did this on as frequently as 10-minute increments.
  That destroys the plants, obviously does not provide reliability or 
keep the lights on for the people in California and the Western United 
States, but it is incredibly profitable; 1,800 percent runup in profits 
in one year. But there is no manipulation.
  The hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil folks at the Federal 
Energy Regulatory Commission appointed by President George Bush, Mr. 
Hebert, the chairman; the Secretary of Energy; the vice president of 
the United States, they do not think there is any market manipulation 
or profiteering or price gouging going on here. It is normal for a 
company to increase its profits by manipulating the market and driving 
up its profits 1,800 percent one year.
  Now today in the Los Angeles Times, closer to the gentleman who 
preceded me, we have, ``Executive tells FERC Hearing of Collusion on 
Natural Gas.'' Natural gas produced in Texas, El Paso Natural Gas, 
bought the pipeline capacity to ship gas between Texas and California. 
It is used for electricity generation and to heat homes and run 
businesses. Guess what? They bought the capacity but they did not use 
it, and they would not let anybody else use it so they could drive up 
the price of energy.
  There is extraordinary, unbelievable market manipulation, price 
gouging, going on in the Western United States, which is imperiling the 
entire economy of the Western U.S., not just California. The Pacific 
Northwest is at risk, too. We are having a drought and we are paying 
more in the wholesale energy market than are Californians because of 
these manipulated prices, because of this unbelievable profiteering.
  What is the response from the Bush administration? Drill ANWR. Well, 
we do not use oil to generate electricity. I have said that to the vice 
president. That does not matter. They want to drill ANWR. Their bosses, 
Enron, Exxon, Chevron, Reliant, El Paso Natural Gas and others, they 
want something here. Let us manipulate this. Let us pretend the crisis 
is caused by, as the gentleman before me said, the environmental rules, 
and let us pretend that they are not obscenely manipulating the market 
and profiteering. Blame someone other than those really responsible.
  That is the agenda of this administration. That is the agenda of 
their energy policy, and I do not believe that it is going to sell with 
the American people, and I certainly hope it does not sell here in 
Congress.

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