[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 82 (Wednesday, June 13, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H3141-H3147]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 REASONABLE SOLUTIONS BY REASONABLE PEOPLE REGARDING THE UNITED STATES 
                            ENERGY SITUATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Hart). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. McINNIS. Madam Speaker, this evening I want to talk about the 
energy situation that we have in the United States. Really, the theory 
of my discussion this evening is about reasonable solutions by 
reasonable people.
  We have heard on this floor for any number of weeks now constant 
attacks against the administration, constant attacks against the U.S. 
Congress, constant attacks on why this energy crisis has come about, 
but we are real short on hearing much about solutions.
  This evening I want to talk a little about, number one, just how 
widespread especially the electrical shortage is in this country. I 
want to give my own predictions on where I think we are going to be in 
a year or two in regard to the electrical generation shortage we have 
in this country; and I will visit a little about California, which 
seems to be the State, frankly,

[[Page H3142]]

that did the least amount of planning and is in the most amount of 
trouble. There is a correlation between not much planning and lots of 
trouble. We will discuss a little of that this evening.
  We will talk shortly about New York State and the other 48 States and 
what the other 48 States have done and what kind of a situation we are 
in.
  I want to start at the very beginning of my remarks by saying that I 
do not have an anti-California bias. I know some of my colleagues are 
upset, and I think that there is some justification to these people 
being upset, with the situation in the State of California. But there 
are a lot of us on the Republican side, and I am sure on the Democratic 
side, outside of the State of California, who live outside the State of 
California, who happen to believe that we need to help California; that 
California, while it primarily got itself into this mess on its own, it 
cannot get itself out of this mess entirely on its own, although, 
frankly, California is going to have to put its boots on by pulling 
itself up by its own bootstraps. So there is a lot of responsibility 
that falls on California.
  But we have got to remember that California is the sixth most 
powerful economic factor in the world. Not in the United States; it is 
not the sixth most powerful economic State in the United States. If it 
were a country of its own, it would be the sixth most powerful country 
in the world from an economic point of view.
  Frankly, what is bad for California is bad for the United States when 
it comes to economies. California produces a tremendous amount of our 
agricultural products, the foods that you buy at the grocery store. So 
we are dependent on California, and California is dependent on us. This 
is a union, you know, the United States of America, so when one State 
generally gets in trouble, the other States feel the impact; and in my 
opinion, the other States have an obligation to step up to the plate to 
help their colleague.
  But that does not mean that as you step up to the plate to help a 
fellow State you ignore how you got there in the first place, or that 
you take some of the more radical positions, or that you accept some of 
the radical ideals of how to approach this. It all comes back, in my 
opinion, to a reasonable approach by reasonable people.
  Let me talk just very briefly here about the California energy 
crisis. I have a number of charts this evening. I think, colleagues, 
they will help me walk through my points with you.
  Let us take a look at the State of California. First of all, remember 
that in California, this is a State where predominantly you saw, and I 
know this may ruffle some feathers, but the fact is you predominantly 
saw in that State an attitude of ``do not build it in my backyard.'' We 
predominantly saw an attitude in the State of California where the 
political leaders seemed to believe that anything that California 
needed in the way of a new power source, that they could either get it 
from renewables, alternatives, or conservation.

  Now, most of my discussion this evening is going to be about 
conservation. Conservation is a very, very, very important factor in 
helping California and helping the entire Nation. One, use our energy 
more efficiently; and, two, make sure that the other 40 States avert an 
energy crisis.
  But we have to be realistic, and I am afraid that some of this 
realism never really existed or it was ignored in California, the 
realism that you cannot get yourself out of this energy shortage by 
conservation alone.
  I note that the Vice President has been criticized on numerous 
occasions because the Vice President stood up and said exactly that; 
that, look, no matter how hard we believe in conservation, no matter 
how much we exercise, we still need to come up with additional power 
generation. We still need to take into consideration that this Nation 
is becoming more and more and more dependent on foreign nations for our 
oil resources.
  So as the Vice President agrees and as I strongly advocate, as do 
most reasonable people, it is some kind of combination of answers that 
will help the State of California out of its energy crisis; that that 
combination would contain conservation; that that combination would 
contain other types of alternative energy; that that combination would 
contain exploration of further oil resources; that that combination 
would contain additional electrical generation. That is how we are 
going to get an answer for our colleagues, for our fellow State, the 
State of California.
  Now, remember, in the last 8 years there has not been the approval 
for a natural gas transmission line. I am not talking about the natural 
gas line that goes from Main Street into your House. I am talking about 
a major transmission line, to move the natural gas from one location to 
another location.
  I can tell you that it seems to me that every time there was an 
effort at putting in some type of project, whether it was natural gas 
transmission lines, whether it was electrical generation, all you 
continued to see was that nothing would work; no generation plant in 
California would satisfy the people near it; no gas transmission line 
through California would work. In fact, every single project, to the 
best of my knowledge, in the last 8 or 10 years in California involving 
nuclear energy, involving electrical generation, involving natural gas 
transmission, every one of them was aggressively opposed, as if it 
would bring an end to society as we know it if we dared build that type 
of project. That is one of the reasons that our fellow colleagues in 
California are in this kind of shape.
  Let us look at the second point, place price caps on the rate that 
electrical providers could charge to consumers while doing nothing to 
discourage demand.
  You know, this is a misconception that deregulation, true 
deregulation, actually took place in California. True, they called it 
deregulation, they gave it the label of deregulation, but what 
California did was not true deregulation. What California did in their 
State was they allowed the electrical utility companies to sell their 
generation facilities to an outside party, and then, retaining 
oversight on the utility companies, the State of California prohibited 
the utility companies from raising their prices on the consumer in the 
State of California.
  By not raising your prices to the consumer, it is very similar to 
renting. If you are a landlord renting an apartment to a tenant and you 
pay for the utilities, what happens in that kind of case? What will 
happen is you will go see the people that are renting from you, if you 
are paying their utilities, in the summer their air conditioner will be 
at 50, and in the winter they will have the windows of the apartment 
open trying to get rid of all the heat they are generating in the house 
because they have the thermostat turned up to 80 or 90 degrees.
  It does not work. Economically it does not work. Allowing a price 
freeze for consumers instead of a price that reflects what the markets 
demand, you create an artificial floor. You do not have to walk very 
far on that artificial floor if you do not have supports for it before 
somewhere you are going to fall through. That is what happened, because 
California did not have true deregulation.
  Let us go on. No new coal-fired power permits in the last 10 years. I 
am a little discouraged to see that just in the last few days, number 
one, the State of California has panicked and is now proceeding 
through their Governor Davis, who has attacked almost everyone else, 
the blame game, blame it on them, blame it on them, blame it on them, 
but never point a finger at the political leaders in California, the 
State political leaders, never point a finger at the Governor of 
California. Point them at everybody else.

  The difficulty is that now in the last few days we have seen some 
pretty rash reactions by the political leaders within the State of 
California. The first thing, the Governor apparently, and this is what 
I read from the media, I obviously have not had a conversation with the 
Governor, but the Governor apparently has now agreed to sign long-term 
contracts for electrical generation. Long-term contracts.
  You know where that electrical price is today, folks? Do you know 
where that price is? You are at the top of the market. You are at the 
top of the market in what you are paying for electricity. Now is not 
the time to sign long-term contracts to buy that power, but the 
Governor of California has decided that it is.

[[Page H3143]]

  I will point out here just exactly how many power generation 
facilities we have coming online in this next year. In this next year 
we will have three generation plants a week coming online throughout 
the rest of the Nation. Believe it or not, it is my prediction that in 
the next year to year and a half, maybe 2 years at the outmost, we are 
going to have an electrical glut. We are going to have more electricity 
in this country than we know what to do with.
  We may have trouble with transmission, and, again, looking at the 
State of California, ask California when is the last time they allowed 
a major transmission line to go through their state. You can generate 
all the electricity you want, but if you cannot move it from point A to 
point B, and sometimes that point from A to B is a long distance, the 
electricity does not do you much good, because, you see, once you 
generate electricity, as we all know, you cannot put it in a little 
bottle; or, like a bag of potato chips, eat half the bag and wrap it up 
and eat the rest of the bag the next day. You cannot do that with 
electricity, and time you do not generate is time lost. So I actually 
think that we are going to have an electrical surplus.
  But California's responsibility is to help itself, and we have a 
responsibility to help California. I do not think we should continued 
to heap on California, continue to bash California, but I think we 
should be willing enough, all of us, to say where are the shortfalls? 
What do we need to do to help our colleagues?
  Let us go on.

                              {time}  1930

  Now let me say that on the coal-fired, as I started to say, the coal-
fired plant permits, another thing that has discouraged me in the last 
few days, which is caused by panic and by poor planning, I understand 
now in California the Governor has lifted restrictions on some of the 
dirtiest or most polluting electrical generation plants in the State 
for special hours when they run short of electricity.
  What brought that about? A shortage. But what brought about the 
shortage? The fact that it now has California reducing or diluting 
their tight standards for pollution, it is because they have refused to 
approve anything. Nothing satisfied the regulators out there in 
California. Nothing satisfied the people that opposed electrical 
generation plants or electrical transmission lines or natural gas 
transmission lines.
  Now, as a result, when they get in a crisis in the State, they see 
the environment in my opinion kind of taking second seat because they 
have to have that energy. What is going to come first, the environment, 
or having electricity to the local hospital? The environment, or being 
able to power the refineries so they can continue to produce gas?
  There is give and take in everything we do. We cannot possibly live 
on this Earth without taking something from the environment. We have to 
eat, sleep, et cetera.
  The same thing in California, but now the give and take is kind of 
out of proportion because, in California, they did not plan. They did 
not say, all right, we may not like electrical generation plants, we 
may not like coal-burning plants, we may not like transmission lines, 
those big towers with those big wires that are kind of ugly. We may not 
like to even begin a discussion on nuclear energy, but the fact is, we 
have to do some planning.
  That is what is missing from the California solution, from the 
California deregulation effort. Now we see not a discussion, a good, 
thorough discussion by reasonable people about, what do we do on 
deregulation so it does not repeat itself. Instead, what we are seeing 
primarily from the elected State officials there in California, 
primarily the Governor of California, we are seeing the blame game: 
``It is your fault. It is your fault. It is your fault.''
  Come on. We have to come up with a solution here. Let us look at a 
couple of other things.
  One is, no inland refineries have been built in 26 years. 
California's power capacity is down 2 percent since 1990, while demand 
is up 11 percent in that same time period. That is a collision. That is 
a collision waiting to happen. They drop capacity down at the same time 
they bring demand up and they are going to have a collision. That is 
what has occurred in California.
  Let me say that the Governor of California speaks as if all of the 
States in the Union are in this kind of problem. I have to tell the 
Members, there is a reason that California stands alone in this energy 
crisis. There is a reason that California is in worse shape than 
everybody else. It is not because they got the bad draw out of the hat. 
It is not because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong 
time. It is because they put themselves there.
  There are a lot of States in this Union who have said, we may not 
like it in our backyard, we may not like electrical transmission lines, 
we may not want to see a generation facility, but the fact is for our 
citizens in this particular State we need to plan for our future energy 
needs. Now, that includes, by the way, conservation.
  I must say here, Madam Speaker, California has demonstrated a solid 
move and solid progress towards conservation. In the last month alone, 
the State of California has dropped their energy demands in the 
electrical market as I understand it by 10 percent, not because they 
brought additional production on, although, as I said, they are going 
to have to, but because they have begun to conserve.
  We are going to go over some conservation ideas tonight that I think 
will be an easy sell to my colleagues, because my ideas and ideas that 
I have gathered of other people's for conservation are conservation 
without pain.
  Does it sound too good to be true? It is not. It is just some simple, 
commonsense ideas about conservation that will reduce the demand, 
which, by the way, in the long run will also reduce the price, and 
also, it is good policy not to waste energy.
  Let us go on. I just mentioned how ironic it is that the State of 
California really has its biggest problem. The dark days are ahead in 
California. Now, remember that California is an importer. They are 
bringing in electricity because they cannot, under the regular course 
of events, under a regular course of events, generate enough 
electricity to supply their State.

  The same thing, by the way, in the United States. Under a regular 
course of events, this Nation has become more and more dependent on 
foreign countries across the oceans to answer our needs because, in 
large part, we have not had exploration.
  Let us take a look at the United States. We are going to find out 
that the Governor of California, by the way, has taken great delight in 
criticizing Texas simply because, in my opinion, he wants to run for 
President in 2 years, and the President happens to be from Texas.
  But if we put the political biases aside, the problem that Texas has 
is Texas frankly has done good planning. It has plenty of power for its 
State. The difficulty is Texas, which really has surplus power, they, 
in other words, are on the another end of California, and they have 
power they can export out of their State, but they do not have the 
transmission lines, for example, to take much power into the eastern 
grid or into the western grid. I think that is going to be resolved 
pretty soon, because then Texas can help other States.
  New York City has been unable to generate enough energy for its 
demand. They had blackouts, as we remember, in 1965 and in 1977. But 
they are in the process of allowing facilities to be built in New York. 
They are not a State that has refused to allow electrical generation to 
be built in their State for 10 years. They are trying to keep up with 
demand, and they are being more aggressive about it as we speak.
  New York, my guess is this summer New York blackouts will be at a 
minimum because New York is racing to come up with a solution, 
understanding that conservation alone will not give them the answer, 
although conservation is going to be a critical part of the solution.
  Now, in the Pacific Northwest we have heard about possible power 
shortages up in Washington and Oregon. These are not because Washington 
and Oregon have refused to allow generation facilities. These shortages 
are not because they are naysayers, because they have that NIMBY 
attitude, not-in-my-back-yard attitude. Their problem up there in the 
Northwest is they have a drought.

[[Page H3144]]

  In fact, that contributes to the problem in California, because 
California is dependent upon the hydro power, which of course means 
water, which of course, when we have a drought, we do not have, out of 
the Pacific Northwest.
  The Pacific Northwest, primarily the Columbia River, which has dried 
up fairly dramatically, that is nature, that is an act of nature. We 
have to do what we can do to help these States, but I think that will 
resolve itself. Our droughts usually come to an end. I think we will 
see some resolution.
  Now let us look at California. There could be as many as 34 or more 
blackouts in the State of California, although, again to the credit of 
California, because of the conservation methods they are now 
exercising, California may drop that fairly dramatically. California 
may have less of an energy crisis. They will not eliminate it until 
they accept the fact they have to have additional generation, but I 
think they are going to have less of an energy crisis than we thought 
even just 2 weeks ago because of the fact that the people in California 
are seriously accepting conservation methods.
  So in California, the primarily problem with California is lack of 
planning and lots of pretending, lack of planning and lots of 
pretending. That is what has happened in California. They pretended 
that they really had deregulation. They pretended that they could say 
to their citizens, you will never have a price increase. We are going 
to cap it. They pretended that while demand for power went up, there 
was no need to provide additional generation to answer that. They 
pretended that conservation and alternative energy standing alone could 
meet the additional demands of the citizens of California.
  That is what has happened. That pretending has created the problem in 
California. But I think we can get it resolved. I am going to show the 
Members some other ideas I have.
  This cartoon I just saw today in the paper. I wanted it made up. The 
fact is, as I have said repeatedly throughout my comments this evening, 
reasonable people can reach reasonable solutions, but we have to have 
people who are not hypocritical. We have to have people who do not say 
one thing on one end and do something else on the other.
  I think this editorial cartoon out of the Grand Junction Daily 
Sentinel pretty well depicts exactly some of what has gone on.
  Here we are in a Volkswagen van. It has solar power on the roof. It 
says, ``Make love, not power plants. Save the Earth. No nukes.'' On the 
back, it has a California license plate, racing right by the ``last 
chance'' energy gas station. Then the cartoon down there shows the 
Volkswagen bug running out of gas. Now it shows the driver of the bug 
with a gasoline can in his hand walking back saying, ``It is all Bush's 
fault.''

  That is exactly what we are seeing a lot of out there, people who 
oppose generation: ``Not in my backyard. No more exploration. No 
electrical generation plants, no transmission lines.'' But then the 
minute they run out of power, they go and blame everyone else.
  We need to avoid that, because we can come up with solutions, all of 
us working together. We have to face the fact that no matter how good a 
solution we come up with, we are always going to have 10 percent over 
here on this extreme that might, for example, say, ``Drill at any 
expense.'' That is crazy. We all cherish our environment too much to 
have that, to buy into that. We have 10 percent or 15 percent over here 
who say, ``Do not drill at all. We do not need additional power,'' et 
cetera, et cetera.
  But in the middle there is a large segment of people who believe, 
one, in conservation, and believe in exercising responsibility in their 
own lifestyles for conservation, while at the same time acknowledging 
that we have to become less dependent, not more dependent, on foreign 
countries, and that we have to have generation facilities sometimes 
within view of our homes, sometimes within view of our communities. 
Sometimes we have to sacrifice a little of that so we can have the 
supply, the energy supply, that we need.
  Let us talk about our homes. As we all know, the electricity in a 
home travels through the house in wires. These wires lead to light 
switches and outlets which power the televisions, computers, lights, 
and most everything else in our homes.
  Think about how dependent we are on energy. Our heat is dependent on 
energy. No matter whether we use natural gas or propane, we have to use 
electricity. The air cooling, whether it is refrigerated air or a 
humidifier type of air or just simply fans, is dependent on 
electricity. Obviously, the lights, the security system, is dependent. 
When we take a look at our houses, just how dependent are, it is 
incredible just how much we depend on electricity. Electricity makes 
our homes comfortable to live in.
  It is not free. Electricity is not free. We cannot have electricity 
brought to our homes without some type of sacrifice. We cannot have 
electricity in our homes without some type of impact to the 
environment.
  The key on the impact is that as we look at the impact, is it a 
reasonable impact? Is it a balanced impact? Is it an impact that is 
sustainable as far as mitigation to the environment?
  Let us go on. Before electricity gets to our homes, some type of fuel 
must be used. It can be coal, it can be nuclear, or even a dam on a 
river. We give up certain parts of nature to enjoy electricity, so we 
must do our part to conserve electricity.
  For example, if we leave the light on in the room after we leave it, 
we are using electricity we do not need. To conserve electricity, shut 
off lights in rooms we are not using.
  Now, that sounds pretty simple. Gee, here is the gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. McInnis) telling us to turn off our lights. We know that, 
it is common sense, turn off the lights on the way out of the room.
  I will make a little confession here: Up to about 3 months ago when I 
went to my office the first thing in the morning, I turned on every 
light in the office. I put on the coffee, turned on the lights. I went 
to the sink, ran the hot water until the water got hot, started to put 
it in the coffee pot.
  We do it differently now in my office. Now I do not turn on lights in 
the office, all the lights. I turn on the light that I need to read by, 
but I do not turn all the lights on until the office personnel shows 
up, until we actually need the lights.
  If we as a Nation would only turn on that light switch when we 
actually needed the lights, that would help. Light we use for security 
purposes, for example, we may have a timer that turns on a bedroom 
light, especially while we are away on vacation, or a garage light that 
a timer turns on at 2 or 3 in the morning. Just go up to that light and 
replace it with a lower wattage light and we are helping save energy. 
These are simple ideas that cause no pain.
  The fact that I go into my office and do not turn on all the lights 
does not cause any pain. It helps the situation. The fact that we use a 
lower wattage bulb does not impact the security at all.
  Shut off the TV when nobody is watching it. Keep the computer in 
sleep mode if we are not using it. Shut off the monitor. Unplug 
appliances like curling irons and clothing irons right away. Letting 
them sit while turning off wastes electricity, and on top of that, it 
is unsafe.
  I know the Members are saying, well, this is all pretty basic stuff. 
We have heard this before. The whole reason, the whole reason that I am 
visiting with the Members this evening is we have all heard it before, 
but we have not all used it before. We have not exercised our 
responsibilities to help with conservation. If we are going to get to 
the bottom of this problem, we have all got to pitch in on 
conservation.

                              {time}  1945

  Let us continue. Here are a few steps you can take to immediately, 
this is immediately, help this Nation conserve on fuel, on energy. Do 
not let the hot water run while you are washing your hands, brushing 
your teeth, or shaving.
  I have done that before. I get ready to shave. I turn on the hot 
water, I walk over, I get the shaving cream or something, water is 
running, and I casually look in the mirror. You can save a lot of hot 
water, plus you can save the water.
  Water is a little more complicated, because it is a renewable 
resource. But the electricity to heat is not renewable, and we can 
conserve on that. Use smaller appliances such as microwaves, toaster 
ovens, and crock pots. Use cold

[[Page H3145]]

water to operate your garbage disposal, this saves energy. And, 
frankly, it helps the unit to dispose of grease more efficiently.
  Wash your clothes in cold water. If you use ceiling fans, blades 
should rotate clockwise, keep that in mind, that in the summer, your 
ceiling fans have to turn clockwise. Make sure it is turning clockwise, 
otherwise it is defeating the purpose.
  If it is turning counterclockwise, it works to help heat the home. If 
it turns clockwise, it lifts the cool air up, and it helps cool the 
home, very simple, no pain. It does not cost you any more money. It 
does not require you to sacrifice the lifestyle that you have.
  All it requires you to do is reach up and pull the chain, that is all 
it requires, and you can help our Nation conserve.
  Keep doors closed as much as possible, especially on refrigerators. 
Do not circle a parking lot over and over instead, take the first spot 
available. How many of us do go to Wal-Mart, we go down to the grocery 
store and go through the parking lot three times or four times and see 
if we can find a parking spot that is 15 feet closer to the front door?
  Take the first available parking spot you saw, number one, walk into 
the store. It actually helps you get a little more exercise, takes off 
a few calories and you are wasting less energy. For somebody that goes 
down where there is parking, having a tough time finding parking in 
shopping centers, over a year period of time, you actually would be 
surprised how much consumption of gasoline you would save by simply 
taking the first parking spot available.
  Again, back to conservation. Here are some others. Now, this is one 
that is really a pet peeve for me. If you take a look, and I am asking 
all of my colleagues to pay special attention to this, because this is 
a significant conservation move that we can take that is totally and 
completely painless.
  What am I talking about? Tonight when you go home, colleagues take a 
look at your owner's manual in your car. Go into the glove compartment 
and pull out the owner's manual.
  Before you look at the owner's manual, remember a couple of basic 
things. Number one, that people who drafted it, who put that owner's 
manual together are the people who designed the car, the people who 
tested the car, the people who sell the car. If you look in there, go 
in there and see how often the people who know the most about your car 
how often they tell you to change the oil.
  My guess is that most of you will see in your owner's manual that 
your personal car oil only needs to be changed every 5,000 miles to 
7,000 miles.
  Now, take a look at the campaign that has gone on over the last 
several years. There are a lot of people out there that want you to 
believe that if you do not change your oil every 3,000 miles, your car 
motor is going to be ruined.
  It is a very clever marketing ploy, and it has worked very 
successfully. There are hundreds of thousands of people in this country 
who religiously change their oil every 3,000 miles even though the 
owner's manual says change it every 5,000 or every 6,000.
  Let us say that if half of those people that change their oil every 
3,000 miles now do what the owner's manual tells them to do and change 
it every 6,000, look what kind of savings you have. Look what you do to 
demand. Over a year period of time, you are talking about, you are 
talking about millions of barrels of oil, millions of barrels of oil.
  Yet, if we do this, there is no pain. Your car is not going to run 
any less efficient. You are not going to be restricted from driving 
anywhere. Life goes on just as it went on before, except now you are 
helping us reach some kind of solution. You are a reasonable person 
coming to a reasonable solution. You are a contributor to the solution.
  Let us go on. Make a grocery list and take fewer trips to the store; 
use public transportation or ride your bike or walk when you can; turn 
down cooling levels for your refrigerator or freezer; keep all exterior 
doors tightly shut and avoid frequent in and out traffic; lower the 
temperature of your hot water heater to 120 degrees.

  This is a pretty interesting one, because a lot of people do not know 
about this. Colleagues, tonight when you go home, take a look at your 
hot water heater, take a look at the hot water tank.
  On the bottom of the tank you are actually going to see a thermometer 
and you might find, to your surprise, that your thermometer is on high. 
I can tell you if you think, put your thermometer on low at about 120 
degrees, that water is still too hot for you to stand in; 120 degrees 
is still too hot.
  You actually save energy, there is no reason to heat the water to 190 
or higher. Heat it to 120. Move that little gauge to lower. And guess 
what? You are one of those reasonable people who help with a reasonable 
solution that has not impacted your life-style one iota. It has not 
impacted your life-style one bit. Very important you are part of the 
team.
  Take shorter showers. Now I know I have that on there. I can tell you 
it was snowing in my district. By the way, colleagues, as you know, my 
district is the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. We are at the highest 
elevation in the country. And after it snows in the middle of June, you 
like to go home and have a long hot shower.
  So I do not know, maybe that impacts life-style a little too much, 
but if it does not impact your life-style, go ahead and cut down your 
hot water showers.
  Let me tell you just the conservation elements that we have gone 
through to this point. We have not had to use millions of dollars of 
taxpayers' dollars to research whether these work or not. We have not 
had to put taxpayer credits out there, so that you have the money and 
you get credits to use against your taxes to see whether these work or 
to make them work.
  I can tell you, in my opinion, if the American people would follow 
the recommendations I have made this evening, we will have made more 
progress towards conservation, in my opinion, than any of these solar 
tax credits or other tax credits, we have spent hundreds and hundreds 
of millions of dollars at the Federal level trying to find a Federal 
solution which generally does not work.
  Let us go on. Conservation. This is pretty interesting. I did not 
know this until about 3 weeks ago when I was researching it. Preheat 
your oven only when it is necessary to preheat it. Do my colleagues 
know that foods that take over an hour to cook do not require a 
preheated oven?
  In other words, if you have a roast and it is going to take more than 
an hour to cook it, do not preheat your oven, it does not do you any 
good. And not only does it not do you any good, if you do not preheat 
your oven, guess what happens? You save money. Because preheating an 
oven takes a lot of energy.
  You actually cut your own electrical bill. You improve your life-
style, because you bring home more money at the end of the month.
  If your water heater, and this is important, was purchased about 
1992, use a blanket around it. You can buy that blanket at a local 
convenience store. It probably pays for itself over a 6-month period of 
time. After 1992, there is some question as to whether or not the 
blanket is really going to help you with your hot water heater.
  A full refrigerator uses less energy to cool. If you have a 
refrigerator, and you just have a couple of cartons of milk and cheese 
and maybe 120th of your refrigerator has food in it, put some water 
bottles in there, occupy the space. It actually saves energy, and you 
have cold water to drink.
  Some of this stuff may sound mundane. Some of it he just keeps 
talking about conservation. He just keeps talking about conservation. 
Every item I have told you tonight is something that each and every one 
of us can utilize. This chart does not belong to one class. This chart 
does not belong that only one in one State can use it. This chart is 
for another.
  Every chart I have showed you on conservation hints or conservation 
suggestions work no matter where you use it. It works in California. It 
works in New York. It works in Florida. It works in Montana.
  Conservation, paint and decorate in light colors. Dark colors absorb 
light. Light colors reflect light. The lighter colors you use the less 
artificial lighting is required. You think we would all know that. But 
if you have a room with

[[Page H3146]]

white walls, you are going to use a whole lot less electricity to light 
that room up than if you paint it with dark walls.
  Defrost food in the refrigerator instead of defrosting it in a 
microwave where you use a lot of extra energy. Place it in the 
refrigerator 24 hours before you need it. So tomorrow if you know that 
you are going to have, you have some frozen burritos in the freezer, 
instead of 5 minutes after you come home from work and 10 minutes 
before you have dinner stick it in the microwave to thaw it out, simply 
the night before, place it in the refrigerator. By the time you come 
back the next day, they would have thawed out on their own and ready to 
go right in the oven.
  It is a very simple step. Imagine if we had 200 million people going 
home from work and they were not defrosting in the microwave, you want 
to know something? That would help conserve electricity? Good idea.
  Every time your iron heats up, you burn more electricity than leaving 
your lights on for 4 consecutive hours. Try ironing all of your clothes 
at one time. This simple practice can make a surprising difference in 
your water and power bill. Clean the lint filter after every load. It 
says that on your dryer, clean that lint filter.
  Every time you turn that iron up, it is like lighting for 4 hours. 
That iron uses a lot of electricity. I am not saying do not use the 
iron. I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is, hey, let us do 
all of your clothes at once so you do not have to continually heat it 
up.
  Mr. Speaker, let us talk about a couple other simple things. Replace 
60-watt bulbs that are left out overnight with two 15-watt bulbs. We 
talked about that. We talked about the use of the lights that use 
compact fluorescent bulbs. You have probably heard that.
  Here is another conservation, replace 150-watt bulb operating 5 hours 
a night with a 35-watt compact fluorescent bulb. Same lighting impact, 
no impact on life-style, but yet you are helping conserve in this 
country.
  Let us look at this one, here are some other easy steps, unplug or 
get rid of that refrigerator in the garage. Do you know how many people 
have an extra refrigerator in the garage? Millions. Do you know how 
many people have a freezer in the garage that does not have much in it? 
A lot of people.
  You probably do not really need it and if you figure it out, the 
average refrigerator, the extra refrigerator you have plugged in your 
garage uses about $16 a month in electricity.
  You figure out what kind of foods you have in that refrigerator you 
may have a couple six packs of beer and figure out at $16 dollars a, 
you figure how much, what that, about $192 dollars a year, just to be 
able to refrigerate it in the garage. Make a little more room in the 
refrigerator, put your beer in there. You are going to save a lot of 
electricity, and you are going to save yourself a lot of money.
  Use your dishwasher only when you have it full, the same thing with 
your clothes washer. If you have to cook a hot meal, wait until later 
in the evening until it is cool. That one is maybe kind of a little 
impractical, but it is not impractical for you to take a look and see 
if you really need that refrigerator in the garage.
  Let us look here. While on vacation, there are a lots of us 
colleagues that are going to be taking vacations this year. Here is 
some ideas, completely painless. It will not affect vacation. Set your 
air conditioner at 35 degrees at 85 degrees, excuse me, not 35 degrees, 
you get the opposite result, 85 degrees when you leave the home.
  My wife and I left this last weekend, and we have refrigerated air. 
Every air conditioner in our house we have three separate thermometers, 
three separate air conditioning units, one system, but three units and 
each of those units, that thermometer was at 90 degrees on all three of 
them.
  When we came home, it only inconvenienced us for about 15 minutes. 
The house was hot for about 15 minutes before that refrigerated air 
began to cool that home, and within half an hour, we were at the exact 
temperature we wanted to be.
  But in the meantime for 48 hours instead of those air conditioners 
running about every 20 minutes, they didn't run at all. That probably 
saved my wife and I $20 or $30 for the weekend. So you save money, you 
help conserve.
  We have talked about several basic things that we can do for 
conservation. Let me reiterate a few of my points and with my last 17 
minutes, let me just kind of recap what I have said this evening.
  First of all, take a look. Cleaner air. We are making progress. Do 
not become distressed about the entire picture. There are certain areas 
that we really need to do something or we are going to have a lot of 
problems.

                              {time}  2000

  One of them is our dependency on foreign oil. Our second one is to 
ignore conservation. We cannot ignore conservation, and we cannot 
continue to build our dependency on foreign oil.
  But some of the good things that are happening is, one, people in 
this country are willing to conserve. If we can help give ideas, tell 
your neighbor, talk about it at coffee.
  In California, they are in a crisis. Now they did not conserve 
because the Governor of California told them to conserve. They did not 
conserve because, all of a sudden, they felt like good citizens 
overnight. They conserve because they had a crisis. They conserve 
because they got their monthly utility bill. But none the less, their 
conservation cut electricity demand by 10 percent in the State of 
California last month alone. That is pretty good. That is positive.
  I want my colleagues to know that if one takes a look, cleaner air, 
energy consumption has risen while emissions have declined. We can make 
better cars. We can make cars with cleaner emissions.
  Now, the answer for our automobiles, for example, in my opinion, is 
not to eliminate the automobile, we would never do it on a practical 
aspect, and not to make such outrageous demands on the automobile 
manufacturers that the automobile they produce cannot go more than 30 
miles an hour, cannot go up a hill.
  I live in the highest mountains of the United States. We have got to 
have cars that have power. We have to have SUVs up there. We need those 
kind of automobiles. But we do not need automobiles that get four miles 
to the gallon.
  Frankly, the automobile manufacturers had been responsive, not 
because they are all of a sudden good citizens, but because we the 
citizens are demanding more efficient automobiles. We are demanding 
better gasoline mileage; and after this energy crisis, we are going to 
demand more.
  But take a look. As I said earlier, mark my word, I think in a year 
and a half, at the outmost 2 years, we are going to have an electrical 
generation glut in this country.
  Let me give my colleagues some statistics. Right now, the power plant 
industry is in the midst of an unprecedented, unprecedented in our 
entire history, power building boom and adding more new power than the 
plant a week that was recently called for. Last year, 158 new 
generation plants were completed nationwide or three plants a week. The 
new units had an average capacity of 150 megawatts. That means about 
150 homes.
  Let me just go on here. The electricity industry expects to build 
1,453 new power units in the next 3 years. Taking time off for 
weekends, that amounts to one plant a day for 5 years running. Now, 
maybe all of these will not get built, but right now the electrical 
generation capacity plants designs in this country call for a new plant 
every day coming on-line for the next, as I said, for the next 5 years.
  So I think we are going to have an electrical generation glut. But 
that does not mean we have solved the problem. Number one, we have to 
have transmission lines. We have to move the electricity from point A 
to point B. Number two, we have got to continue a very aggressive 
educational campaign on conservation, points like I gave my colleagues, 
very harmless ways to help all of us, reasonable people bring about a 
solution for our energy crisis.
  But probably what is most important this evening, I can tell my 
colleagues, is it cannot be conservation alone. I am a big believer in 
conservation. I just spent the last hour going through with my 
colleagues where I think we can all conserve. The numbers that result 
from these conservation ideas that I gave are not insignificant 
numbers. These are not small numbers. These numbers make a difference.

[[Page H3147]]

  But while I say this, while I say that conservation will be of 
substantial benefit to our energy situation, I must also say that we 
have got to continue to look for, explore for natural resources, that 
we have got to continue to allow transmission lines, that we are going 
to have to have some refineries in this country.
  We cannot typically say that everything that is being built is a 
disaster, that everything being built means the end of our life as we 
know it, that everything being built is going to be a complete and 
ultimate decimation to our environment. There are a lot of reasonable 
proposals out there that can be made to work.
  Now, no project, no project should be approved without mitigation, in 
fact even higher than mitigation, and that is supplementation to the 
environment. On the other hand, when the environmental impacts have 
been mitigated, when the environment has been enhanced in some cases or 
may be enhanced to a degree in all cases, when we meet that standard, 
do not continue to say no. Do not continue to say it cannot happen in 
my backyard.
  When those standards are met, we as a Nation have a responsibility to 
the next generation. We have to have enough foresight for future 
generations to say yes to reasonable projects, yes to reasonable 
conservation. We have also got to have enough guts, frankly, to stand 
up here. We have tax credits that are not working, not only in 
Washington, but Washington is unique. There have been hundreds of 
millions of dollars wasted in tax credits for so-called alternative 
energy.
  Well, what are the results. Do not let people divert us from looking 
at the bottom line. Are we getting the results that we want simply 
because of what they call their project: ``My project is the solar 
project, so do not dare ask me any questions about what is the bottom 
result.'' Are we really coming out with a product that is efficient for 
our environment? Are we really conserving energy for the hundreds of 
millions of dollars we are spending?
  It was amazing to me how many people criticize the President in his 
budget when he says this program has not produced. This program sounds 
good. It has got a great name, especially in an energy crisis. It has 
got lots of special interest groups in Washington who benefit from 
those tax credits, pushing, how dare you say no to this alternative or 
that alternative.
  But the reality of it is, one, we have to conserve; two, we have to 
explore and find new resources for our energy; and, three, the money 
that we are currently spending, the taxpayer dollars, my colleagues' 
dollars, their constituents' dollars, we have to justify, we have got 
to treat those dollars as if they were our own.
  We have an incumbent responsibility, an inherent responsibility to 
manage those dollars. No matter how nice sounding or how progressively 
sounding a program is, if it is not giving us results, we have got to 
have enough guts to stand up and cut it off.
  In summary, Madam Speaker, I think this energy crisis is limited. 
Over the long-term, obviously we have issues. We cannot continue to 
grow in dependency on foreign oil. But California is unique. California 
is more the exception than the rule. California, a large part, brought 
this on itself. But California is a large part of the United States. We 
all want to help California despite the criticisms we have; and some of 
the whipping that California gets they have got coming. But a lot of 
it, they do not. Californians I think are exercising responsibility by 
practicing conservation.
  But the reality is this, reasonable people can come together and have 
reasonable solutions that, one, protect our environment; two, conserve 
for future generations; three, lower dependency on foreign oil; and, 
four, do not have a negative impact on the life-style to which we have 
all become accustomed. If we can meet those four, five standards, we 
have done pretty well. I think reasonable people can do that.

                          ____________________