[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 90 (Tuesday, June 26, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H3602-H3608]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  ADDRESSING THE NATION'S ENERGY NEEDS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from California (Mr. Radanovich) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. RADANOVICH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take the time that I 
have that I have been most graciously given to begin to talk about our 
Nation's energy needs and the national energy policy that has been put 
forth by the new administration, by President Bush, and the information 
contained in the National Energy Policy Development Group's report on 
national energy policy.
  I want to commend the administration for taking the leadership on 
what is a real challenging issue, and that is, providing energy for 
America's needs. Being from California, they are urgent

[[Page H3603]]

needs now and also for the energy needs in the Nation for the future. 
It is a daunting task and one that needs to make up for a lot of lost 
time because there has not been a lot of focus on our Nation's energy 
needs in the last 8 years. So although it may not be popular at times, 
I want to commend the President for the excellent job that he is doing 
by tackling such difficult issues.
  Why do we need an energy policy? If I may take just a few minutes to 
outline, it is because America faces its most serious energy shortage 
since the oil embargoes of the 1970s. Our fundamental imbalance of 
supply and demand has led to this crisis. Our future energy needs far 
outstrip present levels of production. Right now, United States energy 
needs are 56 percent dependent on other countries supplying that need. 
With that need growing at an ever-increasing rate, we become far more 
dependent on rogue nations that do not have the best interests of the 
United States at heart and in many, many ways leave ourselves very 
vulnerable. I think that it is high time that this policy has been 
sought after, and I applaud the President for taking steps in this 
direction.
  Last winter, heating bills for many families in the United States 
tripled. Average natural gas heating costs in the Midwest rose by 73 
percent last winter. New Englanders' heating bills jumped by about 27 
percent. Millions of Americans are dealing with rolling blackouts, 
including myself, and brownouts and grayouts and threatening their 
homes, businesses, families and their own personal safety. Low-income 
Americans and seniors have been the hardest hit. While energy costs 
typically represent only about 4 percent of a middle-class household 
budget, last winter costs for average low-income households were about 
14 percent of the household budget.
  Drivers across America are paying higher and higher gasoline prices. 
In 2000, fuel prices on average rose 30 to 40 cents per gallon from a 
year earlier. This summer in some parts of the Nation, gasoline prices 
may skyrocket to about $3 a gallon. High fuel costs also are destroying 
many, many jobs. For example, trucking company bankruptcies are at an 
all-time high. Farm production costs are spiking sharply because of 
higher energy prices while farm income remains low. Surging natural gas 
prices have increased the prices of fertilizer by 90 percent since 
1998.
  I can read a lot of the talking points on this about a national 
energy policy, but I think I can speak from the heart being from 
California and dealing with our energy crisis and the blackouts that we 
have. Many, many people say that California is an example of how not to 
deregulate and because of that they face rolling blackouts. Gratefully 
and thank God there was no direct loss of life attributed to the 
blackouts that we have had so far, but there is no guarantee that we 
will not face them in the future. In California's energy problems, it 
was as much mismanagement of the issue from the State level as it was 
an energy crisis that hit this year; but had there been good 
management, California would have hit sooner or later because of the 
dramatic increase in energy needs in California and the lack of 
California's ability to meet those needs through increased power 
generation.

                              {time}  2045

  There has not been a new generation plant in California in the last 
10 years.
  So many, many people buried their heads in the sand thinking that the 
increased population was not going to have an effect on the 
infrastructure of California, when indeed, of course, it did, and it 
caught up with us in the form of these blackouts.
  So I do commend the President for his desire to want to piece this 
thing together and diversify our energy base so that we are not so 
reliant on natural gas.
  I have with me today a dear friend. My mom was born in his district 
in Arizona. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) is here also to 
speak on the President's national energy policy, and I would like to 
yield him some time.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Radanovich), for scheduling this hour to discuss the 
challenges at hand, and whether one resides in Mariposa County, 
California, or Maricopa County, Arizona, or Mecklenburg County, North 
Carolina, or Mecklenburg County, Virginia, for that matter, from coast 
to coast and beyond, in our 50 States we are confronting a serious 
challenge. We need a comprehensive policy, the type drafted by this 
administration, because we have reached a point where we must realize 
that this challenge is multifaceted.
  We cannot conserve our way out of it. We cannot drill our way out of 
it. Instead, we need a calm, confident reassessment of where we are 
headed.
  Mr. Speaker, as I stand here in the well of the United States House 
of Representatives and I look just behind me here to this podium, I am 
acutely aware that 40 years ago Jack Kennedy stood there and challenged 
this Congress and challenged this Nation to put a man on the moon and 
bring him safely back to Earth before the decade of the 1960s was 
completed. We were able to do that; a triumph of technology, yes, but a 
triumph of will and the human spirit. It will take that type of 
commitment. Just as we brought together the best minds and the most 
innovative companies to put a man on the moon, so, too, we need a 
national, organized effort, a strategic and financial partnership 
between business and government to solve the energy problems.
  Am I talking about a State plan, excessive regulation program? Of 
course not. We need to find a reasonable, rational way to put the best 
minds in this country to work on this program, to take what is valuable 
from business, to take the strategic planning that should be part and 
parcel of our constitutional Republic and form a good partnership to 
solve the energy challenges we face.
  Quite simply stated, we need less dependence on foreign oil and more 
attention to developing our own energy supply.
  My colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Radanovich), summed 
it up. It is worth noting and amplifying. Early in the 1990s, the oil 
and gas needed by the United States, the majority of that oil and gas 
was produced within the borders of the United States. Some 60 percent 
was produced here in this United States. Foreign suppliers accounted 
for a distinct minority, some 40 percent. Sadly now, at the dawn of a 
new century, with almost a decade devoid of any energy policy, with 
almost a decade of the sweet by and by and we will take our risks and 
we will not worry about this, the situation is completely reversed. We 
now depend on foreign sources for almost 60 percent of our oil and gas. 
Simply stated, a reasonable, rational environmentally sensitive policy 
of exploring for more American energy is something that forms the 
foundation of what we need to guarantee an uninterrupted supply of 
energy when we need it.
  It goes beyond that, as important as those products are, because when 
one thinks of the challenge of energy, when one thinks of what my 
colleague pointed out, we are talking ultimately not only about the 
process of exploring and ultimately consuming energy, but there is an 
impact to the pocketbook. The most immediate effect we think about and 
associate with across the country is the price at the pump.
  We need to have a situation where we are no longer dependent on the 
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, otherwise known as OPEC.
  Here is one of the ironies at the outset of the 21st century: Saddam 
Hussein's Iraq, a nation which threatened the stability of its 
neighbors, attempted to invade and occupy another oil-producing state, 
Saddam Hussein's Iraq, a country in the early days of this 
administration where American war planes carried out a raid in part to 
try and disrupt the fiberoptic sophisticated air defense systems now 
being installed, here is the irony, Mr. Speaker, because of the lack of 
a cohesive, coherent energy policy, we now import more oil from Iraq 
than we did prior to the Persian Gulf War.
  Mr. RADANOVICH. Mr. Speaker, I want to take the example of the 
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) and put an environmental approach 
to it, because I am in the Congress continually amazed about the 
hypocrisy of the extreme environmentalist movement in this Nation. I 
really believe that the current style of

[[Page H3604]]

environmentalism in the United States will end when one cannot get 
water out of a faucet or one cannot get light out of a light switch. 
People tend in the United States to be very environmental everywhere 
else but their own backyard, and when emergencies hit like this, there 
is a change in perception about what we ought to be doing. It is that 
not-in-my-backyard approach, I think, that has led to a lot of this 
Nation's energy crises. It has been at the local levels of government, 
all across the country, but it has also been fueled a lot by the 
extreme environmental movement that basically puts the environment over 
human life, and the priorities thereof.
  The reason why I wanted to bring that up, when the gentleman was 
mentioning this is, does the gentleman think that the environmental 
policies that regulate oil exploration in Iraq are much more stringent 
in the United States? I do not think so. Yet the United States uses 25 
percent of the world's energy and only has 2 percent of the resources, 
and I do not know what the number is of that 2 percent that is locked 
up, but I guarantee it is a very, very high percentage.
  We are such hypocrites in this country because we demand to use so 
much energy, and yet we refuse to use our own resources, where if we 
did that, energy demand would be much more environmentally responsible 
than in a Third World country.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. RADANOVICH. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to add to that point that in 
Russia, and I was recently in Russia, their pipelines that transport 
the oil, they actually use it for oil transportation as much as trucks, 
but they spill the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez-type spill every week 
just in transporting their oil.
  Here we are, we could help them through aid programs trying to get 
these pipelines improved, which would help the environment but also our 
energy supply, and the gentleman said we have the best, the strictest 
environmental regulations in the country, and yet our environmental 
policies, our radical environmental policies, want to continuously pick 
on America.
  It is interesting that in 1976, in Louisiana, that is when the last 
oil refinery was built in the United States of America in 1976. I bet 
the gentleman was cranking up his eight-track player by the time they 
opened that one up. In fact, the gentleman's eight-track player was 
probably already getting dated. The gentleman's slide rule was gone, 
and he was not driving his Ford Maverick anymore. That is how long ago 
we are talking about.
  Now, unfortunately, radical environmental politics, now there are 
8,000 environmental groups in the country. They generate something like 
$3.5 billion a year in terms of checks and revenues to them. The Sierra 
Club out in the great State of California pays something like $57,000 a 
month just on rent in San Francisco. That is how big we are talking 
about. So we approach so many of these things emotionally to how can I 
best sell my membership rather than what are we going to do to have a 
good, balanced approach.
  Our great friend Kelly Ann Fitzpatrick talks about a poll that says 
if the people in America are polled, 87 percent say they want clean 
air. Her question is, who in the heck are the other 13 percent? What is 
going on here?
  We want a balance. We want clean air, clean water. We want energy-
efficient cars. That is a given. It is extremely important.
  At this point America is not ready to throw in the keys to their 
internal combustion engines and say, okay, we are all going to start 
riding bicycles. So as long as we have cars, let us keep the supply up 
for gasoline.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but think of the distinction 
here. It seems that to the cynic so much of what transpires politically 
is theatrical. We heard in the preceding hour, and I was especially 
struck by our colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) on 
another matter, just dealing with disinformation and demonization 
rather than solutions. It seems to me especially on this topic, which 
touches every American, perhaps we should pledge ourselves not to an 
extremist environmentalism, but to an enlightened environmentalism; not 
to a radical environmentalism, but a rational environmentalism; not to 
the environmentalism of the elite, but to the environmentalism of the 
enlightened.
  Our President has made sense of this because he says, Mr. Speaker, 
that one has to cease looking at this as an either/or. It is not, well, 
we will have a clean environment, or we will burn fossil fuels. It is 
not, we will have clean air, or we will commit to motor vehicles. 
Indeed, there is an enlightened approach that uses the latest 
scientific data for clean-burning energy; for environmentally-sound 
exploration. Though it may not be commensurate with the theatrical 
politics of demonization and disinformation that drives some of the eco 
campaigns my colleague talks about, it is what we should do because it 
is the right thing to do, to provide for our economy, but at the same 
time protect our precious environment.
  Mr. RADANOVICH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to applaud the President 
for just the very reason that the gentleman just mentioned, because he 
is taking a leadership role on this issue. The polls came out the other 
day in the front page of the New York Times that he is slipping now 
down to 53 percent. Whether one agrees with that or not, I can see 
where a President like this has the leadership and the desire to want 
to improve America, to upset a few people and ruffle a few feathers 
just to make things different for our country and better. I think that 
is what real leadership is, and that is why I want to applaud the 
President for doing that.
  The person who spoke recently was the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Kingston), a wonderful representative of that State.
  We are joined now by the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), 
and I would yield to her at this point.
  Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Radanovich) for yielding me the time.
  Mr. Speaker, I had the privilege of having supper tonight with two 
friends from Roswell, New Mexico, who are in the oil and gas business. 
They are second- and third-generation members of their families who are 
in the oil and gas business. I represent the State of New Mexico, which 
is one of the country's providers of oil and gas and uranium and coal. 
We provide the fuel that lights the lights across this country.
  I think all of us understand that we have an energy problem in this 
country. It is toughest in the West, but it affects us all, whether it 
is the price of gasoline at the pumps or the rising price of the things 
that we buy in our stores that take energy to make.
  I think there is a growing consensus in this country that we need a 
plan. We have not had an energy policy in this country for almost 20 
years. We are more dependent on foreign oil today than we were at the 
height of the energy crisis. Fifty-five percent of the oil we consume 
in this country is imported from abroad, mostly from the Middle East, 
from OPEC. The sixth largest source of supply for oil in this country 
is now Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Most Americans do not know that, know how 
dependent we are for our energy security on countries abroad.
  California also got itself into a real tough spot over the last 
decade. Their growing, robust economy required about 10,000 more 
megawatts of power, but they only built 800 megawatts of supply.

                              {time}  2100

  Only my mother can have it both ways. You have to be able to have the 
supply of energy to use.
  Now, I do not think there are any quick fixes that are going to solve 
the energy problems in this country. I think we need a balanced, long-
term approach that conserves the energy we have, and also gives us more 
supply; that will give us the stability in prices we all want and the 
energy that we need.
  I think that this is much too important to do anything but the right 
thing. I am very pleased to join my colleagues here tonight to talk a 
little bit about it.
  I spent Sunday afternoon in the East Mountains that are right up 
against the city of Albuquerque. One of the

[[Page H3605]]

reasons that my family and I love being New Mexicans is we love the 
great outdoors. We love taking our children there. We love the beauty 
of the land in New Mexico. I know my colleagues would disagree, but I 
happen to live in one of the richest energy States in the Nation, but I 
also live in the most beautiful State in the Nation.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentlewoman would yield, you have gone too far 
now.
  Mrs. WILSON. My colleagues, I know my colleagues would disagree, but 
I think you understand my feeling for the place, and also my knowledge 
that this is not an either/or question; that if we are smart about it, 
we can provide the energy that we need to live life the way we want to 
live it, without damaging the country that we love. I think that is the 
kind of policy we want to promote, which means we start with 
conservation.
  One of the things I thought was real interesting about the 
President's energy plan was some of the data that was in it. In fact, 
we do not take credit for how far we have come in the last 20 years in 
energy efficiency.
  This top line in this chart shows energy use at constant energy per 
dollar of gross domestic product, for how much we are producing in this 
country. We have gotten so much more efficient since 1972, which is the 
baseline year. We are using less energy per dollar of GDP.
  Now, part of that is we have a more information-based economy and so 
forth, but we are much more energy efficient now. A refrigerator, we 
had to buy a new one recently, thank goodness my husband was at home to 
get one, and the refrigerator we bought uses one-third less energy than 
the one that we bought in 1972 that it replaced.
  Our cars are more efficient and hold the promise of being even more 
efficient with hybrid vehicles, which will not restrict our power and 
our range of those vehicles. So we do wonderful things. We have made 
tremendous progress with conservation.
  But we cannot conserve our way out of an energy problem, any more 
than I can feed my family just with the leftovers. You have to have the 
supply too. So we need to increase and diversify our supply of energy 
and give a balanced mix of energy.
  One of the things I am concerned about is the growing reliance on 
natural gas. I know that a lot of folks do not know that about half of 
our power plants in this country actually use coal, and we are making 
progress on clean coal technologies. But most of the power plants on 
the horizon are going to use natural gas; and within 20 years, we are 
going to be so reliant on natural gas that we are going to have to be 
importing natural gas as well. Yet we only have one port in this 
country that can take liquefied natural gas, which gets to the third 
problem we have.
  We have to work on conservation, we have to increase and diversify 
our supply, but we do not have the infrastructure in this country that 
is reliable and safe and gets things they need to have in order to have 
a strong energy policy. We do not have the transmission grids that we 
need. We do not have the pipelines that are safe enough and plentiful 
enough.
  We have not built a refinery in 20 years in America. Our refineries 
are working at 97 percent capacity, which means if you have a fire or 
safety shutdown at a gasoline refinery, you immediately create a 
shortage of supply. We only have one port that can accept liquefied 
natural gas.
  So we must address conservation; increasing supply, with responsible 
development of domestic supply; the infrastructure needs of this 
country; and, finally, we have to do some government reform. It should 
not be possible that the Department of Interior, the Department of 
Agriculture, the Department of State, can make unilateral decisions 
that affect our energy security without having to take our energy needs 
into account, and the way our government is set up today they can do 
that. That is not right, and we need to change it.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues this summer on a 
comprehensive energy bill that is long-term to address some of these 
problems.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentlewoman would yield, I think that you have 
really hit a great point. I do not want to say anything bad about the 
great State of California, where my mother lived and my sister lived 
and lots of my friends do, but I have to take on a little bit your 
Governor on politics, because here is a State that has grown 
economically, done real well, demand for electricity has gone up, and 
he will not increase the supply; would not permit some of the things 
that Mrs. Wilson has talked about that increase supply, the 
infrastructure.

  If my hometown, Savannah, Georgia, grew, and it has been growing. As 
it grows we have added new schools, we have added new hospitals, we 
have built new roads, we have built new bridges. In fact, the State of 
Georgia has had about an 18 percent growth. California, I know, has had 
unprecedented growth. Yet as Governor Davis would do those things, he 
would not add on any power plants.
  Now, I have to ask, common sense would say if you are going to have 
growth in population, certainly you have to have growth in the supply 
of energy. For the Governor of California to come East looking for 
energy, when he needs to be sitting back in Sacramento signing bills 
and legislation that streamlines and simplifies regulation, it is 
ridiculous. He is being negligent.
  The Governor, I understand, is going now on David Letterman. Okay, 
let us be real serious about our energy policy. Going on David 
Letterman. It is time to put the politics aside and get back to 
Sacramento and do your legislation.
  Mr. RADANOVICH. Being the gentleman from California, if I may, if the 
gentleman would yield, I think the gentleman is right on the mark. But 
there was a separate issue in California that brought, I think, the 
energy crisis in the United States to the fore.
  What the problem was in California was really a crisis in leadership 
in an improper reaction to a flawed deregulation bill that was passed 
in 1995. We began to see signs of that with this ``deregulation'' plan, 
that froze the rates at which utilities could charge consumers but put 
100 percent of the energy that they were able to purchase on the spot 
market, which fluctuated from day to day. That is half a deregulation 
bill, that is not a full one. If you do not go all the way with 
deregulation, you do not have deregulation. It caused problems 
beginning in May of last year.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield, does Governor Gray Davis 
of California think he is going to get new energy ideas from David 
Letterman, or is he just making a charade out of this?
  Mr. RADANOVICH. I will say again that the problem in California was a 
crisis of leadership, and I think blurred objectives; one being a 
blurred objective, one objective being staying in office and getting 
reelected, and the other being providing for the needs of California.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Has not Governor Davis received over $1 million from 
utility companies?
  Mr. RADANOVICH. The very ones he vilified, many times they have not 
been able to speak to him unless it was at his own fund raisers. This 
is the way the whole thing worked out.
  But the problem could have been solved a year ago, and I will make 
this point: if the Governor would have allowed for a modest retail rate 
increase by the utilities of, say, 25 percent, it would have driven 
down future prices; and he could have encouraged the utilities to get 
into long-term contracts where the wholesale price was below the retail 
price. We would never have been in this situation.
  It was his delay in imposing a modest increase of 25 percent that, by 
the time he had to impose it, grew to 48 percent, and on top of that, 
diverting his energies to State bio-energy, the transmission lines. I 
give him credit, he was working for ways to get the utilities 
creditworthy, but his decision was delayed and delayed for political 
expediency and the fear of doing something wrong that might hurt 
politically. That was the crisis in California.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. If my friend from California would yield, because this 
points up the real challenge afoot. If just one-tenth of the energy 
that is being utilized to engage in name-calling or to go on late night 
television, and I do not know, do stupid gubernatorial tricks or 
whatever is going to be required, if that were utilized to help solve 
the problem, that is the

[[Page H3606]]

measure of a man or woman in public office. Not posturing and preening 
for the cameras and issuing attack memos and spin, but working to solve 
the problem.
  Mr. Speaker, I have to ask my colleague from California, I heard 
other reports where temporary energy stations could have been placed 
into commission on an emergency basis, where some regulations had been 
streamlined, but what I find amazing is that, apparently, Mr. Speaker, 
the Governor of California said if the folks employed there do not 
belong to a union, why, then it was not worth opening the power plant.

  Now, Mr. Speaker, whatever your feeling on the right to work or 
collective bargaining, it seems to me the collective need for energy 
outweighs the political chits called in by the union bosses.
  Let me address, Mr. Speaker, my colleague from California. Are those 
reports true? Did the Governor say he would not allow these temporary 
plants to come on line, these regulations to be streamlined, unless the 
folks were union employees at the controls?
  Mr. RADANOVICH. I have no doubt that that happened during the time 
from a year ago beginning last May to now. I think the real crime has 
been the hesitancy to provide leadership on the issue. Because of that, 
it led to a situation that could have cost the State maybe $2 billion 
to one that has cost the State of California $50 billion and has eaten 
up about a $12 billion surplus that we had last year. It really was a 
hesitancy to act, and an allegiance to labor and the environment.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me ask the gentleman, why is it that the Governor 
of California has enough time to come on major comedian shows like 
David Letterman and come out in Washington for Democratic fund raisers 
and come back East to raise cane about George Bush, but he does not 
have the time to stay at home and solve the problem? Is the problem not 
better solved in California, rather than blaming it on George Bush, who 
just unpacked his bags when the crisis began?
  Mr. RADANOVICH. The solution to California's problem was within the 
leadership of California, in the State legislature and the Governor's 
office. It was clear that that is where this problem was going to be 
called.
  After a series of mistakes, refusing to impose modest rate increases, 
gallivanting off, getting the State involved in energy purchasing, 
buying energy for seven times more than what the utilities were able to 
receive for that energy, led this thing into such a precarious position 
that the Governor could not afford then to solve the crisis, frankly, 
because, if he did, he then would be answering questions like what the 
heck did you do with our $12 billion surplus? So, unfortunately, the 
politics do not allow for the solution in California. Just know for a 
fact that there is no solution to this paying four to seven times more 
for the energy in California than what is being gathered up by the 
utilities.
  The reason that that is happening is because it is not politically 
expedient to solve the problem in California. There is too much need to 
vilify the President, there is too much need to vilify Members of 
Congress, those of us on the Committee on Commerce, because then the 
issue becomes why did you wait so long to solve this, when it could 
have cost far less in money and in damage to the State?
  Mrs. WILSON. If the gentleman would yield, I am a New Mexican. I have 
never met Gray Davis, I would not know him if he walked in the room, 
but I do know people want us to get down to solutions and stop the 
blame game and get some things done.
  I think that this House over the next 6 weeks has got a strategy for 
dealing with the energy problem that really stresses four things, and 
they are the four important things for a long-term balanced approach to 
America's energy needs. Those include things like conservation, 
increasing supply, fixing our infrastructure and government reform.
  When we talk about conservation, there are so many things that we can 
do. Sandia National Laboratory is in my district in New Mexico and has 
done some of the leading-edge research on energy conservation in areas 
that most folks do not think about.
  About 40 percent of the electricity used in America is used to put 
the lights on. Yet we have made so few innovations in lighting in 
America, to reduce the use of energy in lighting.

                              {time}  2115

  Super conductivity. That is kind of a long word, but what it really 
means is that when electricity goes down the wires, whether it is the 
transmission wires that take electricity from New Mexico to Southern 
California, or even just the wiring in this building that keeps the 
lights on, we lose electrons as it is getting to where you want it to 
do the job.
  In fact, one of the executives with a public service company in New 
Mexico told me that because California is so big and New Mexico is 
really kind of small in comparison as far as number of people, we 
actually lose more electricity. Of the amount that we send to 
California, we could light up the entire State of New Mexico for a 
year, just because of the loss in transmission. Well, if we could save 
that energy through superconducting materials, in other words, 
materials that do not lose those electrons along the way that heat up 
the wires in our walls or along the transmission grid, we can use that 
energy to actually do work and not waste it.
  Mr. Speaker, we have wonderful plans for next-generation power plants 
that will conserve electricity and will make power plants much more 
efficient as they turn the raw materials, whether that is neutrons or 
nuclear materials or coal or natural gas, and turn that into 
electricity; and when we make those more efficient, we use less of that 
natural gas and less of that coal in order to make the electricity to 
light our homes. But we also have to increase supply.
  I want to say something here about nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is 
one of the safest forms of energy. It has some of the fewest emissions 
of any kind of energy that we have, and it is time to take nuclear 
energy out of the ``too-hard column'' where it has languished for 
almost 20 years. We are going to have a hydro-licensing bill, and it 
will come out of the Committee on Commerce, I hope within the next 
month.
  Hydropower is one of the cleanest powers we have, and yet there are 
dams in this country that have existed for 200 years and they are under 
State control. What most folks do not know is that as soon as you put a 
turbine on a dam, it comes under Federal regulators, not State law; and 
it is a nightmare because it takes almost 10 years to get that turbine 
licensed to provide power and, in the process, you can be ordered to 
breach your dam. So why would anyone in their right mind take the risk 
of putting a turbine on an existing dam that has been there for 
hundreds of years? And as a result, we have clean, safe energy that is 
going over spillways and dams in this country because we cannot get our 
licensing right for hydropower.
  There are wonderful things we can do with clean coal technology, with 
natural gas, where we have natural gas on nonpark public lands that we 
cannot get access to because the Bureau of Land Management is no longer 
focused on how we steward our resources, but how to keep people off the 
land that we enjoy in the West.
  So there are things that we will do in this House to lead the way, to 
stop the blame game, to give ourselves a long-term policy on energy, to 
conserve, to increase supply, to fix our infrastructure, and to reform 
our government. I am very glad that this House is focusing on those 
things and not on politics.
  Mr. RADANOVICH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say, continuing to 
defend California, it was an issue of supply I think that is at the 
heart of California's energy problems; but the way out of the energy 
crisis in California now is to, number one, get the governor out of the 
energy purchasing business; and, number two, work over time to get 
those utilities creditworthy again so that they can begin to get back 
into the energy purchasing business, and then get them off the spot 
market as much as possible. Really, that is the way out of California's 
energy crisis, in addition to aggressively working on new power supply 
in the State.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California.

[[Page H3607]]

Those of us who hail from the West and in the western power grid, 11 
States, including the gentlewoman from New Mexico and the great State 
of Arizona, along with our friends in California, understand that the 
implications of this are far, far-reaching, so there is more than a 
casual concern when it comes to flipping the light switch.
  But listening to my colleague from New Mexico, I think it is 
important to amplify what has transpired. When she talked about clean-
burning sources of energy, I could not help but think about the Palo 
Verde nuclear plant outside of Phoenix that has worked well and without 
incident for well on 2 decades, now serving and providing power for the 
Nation's sixth largest city. Even as we look across the ocean to 
Europe, while it is true that in Germany, there has been now a 
hostility, the hostility of the radical environmental movement to step 
away from nuclear power, we see that Germany's neighbor France 
has relied on nuclear power for the better part of 3 decades. If the 
French are able to do so, with safety measures intact, it would seem 
that American ingenuity, American technology and the ability to 
streamline regulation, to bring on line new technologies, should 
prevail.

  I listened to the gentlewoman from New Mexico talking about the role 
of the Committee on Commerce, not to become prideful of different 
committee jurisdictions, but as the first Arizonan to serve on the 
House Committee on Ways and Means, the committee charged with tax 
policy, I think I would be remiss if I did not mention the fact that as 
we take a look at conservation and the promotion of new technologies, 
there is a role to be played in tax policy.
  I have sponsored a bill that again champions residential use of solar 
power. The fact is, when that first came online, now almost 30 years 
ago, another broadcaster who had gone into public office, the late Jack 
Williams, Governor of Arizona, at that time there was this promise of 
nuclear energy, but the technology had not caught up with the vision. 
Now, we have made changes, to the point where residentially, for 
heating water, for cooling our homes, we have the opportunity to look 
to the sun, and solar power and solar energy on a residential basis. 
Just as so many Americans have their own garden in the backyard, we can 
look to a sound alternative form of energy with technological 
advancements and, in the long run, not only save on power bills, but 
save on taxation too.
  Mr. Speaker, we should look to those types of commonsense policies. 
We should never forget that the term ``conservative'' and 
``conservation'' share the same root, the same notion, that we preserve 
in a commonsense fashion and, in so doing, free up other sources for 
those who need them. That is something we need to remember. 
Conservation plays a key role; not the only role, but an important part 
to play, just as we look at tax policy and new exploration and 
streamlining regulation.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I wanted to 
touch base with what he is saying in terms of nuclear energy and what 
the gentlewoman from New Mexico was saying. In France, 76 percent of 
the homes and buildings are powered by nuclear energy; in Belgium, 56 
percent; in America, most people do not know this, it is 20 to 25 
percent already, and it is safe.
  I represent Kings Bay Naval Base and all the subs down there are 
nuclear submarines; yet ironically, people in that county will say, 
well, I am against nuclear energy; it might be dangerous. So you have 
more nuclear power plants in your county than most of the States in the 
entire country.
  But nuclear energy is safe. It is low cost, it has fewer disruptions 
of power. One out of every five homes in America are powered by a 
nuclear plant. It is the second single-largest source of energy 
already, and it provides almost 70 percent of all emission-free energy. 
This is something that we cannot ignore. There are 103 operational 
nuclear power plants in America today, and over 3,000 shipments of 
nuclear fuel that were spent were moved safely in the last 40 years.
  So when we talk about nuclear energy, people need to understand that 
this is not some bold new frontier that we are talking about. I always 
hear people say, well, what about Three Mile Island? Mr. Speaker, there 
were no people killed at Three Mile Island. That does happen with other 
sources of energy; but the thing is, that was over 2 decades ago.
  Again, going back to the days of the 8-track tape player, technology 
has moved. I think in terms of just the cellular telephones, my first 
cellular telephone was the size of a brick, it weighed about the same 
amount and could hardly transmit a message past a couple of oak trees. 
Technology has moved on. Technology has moved on in nuclear power. I 
think that we are just fooling ourselves by not being a little more 
bold and aggressive about it. Again, 76 percent of the houses and 
buildings in France are nuclear powered.
  Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, it is 
interesting, on this issue of conservation, on Saturday afternoon I was 
on the west side of Albuquerque visiting a housing development that is 
full of first-time homes and the builder, Jerry Wade of Artistic Homes, 
specializes in energy-efficient houses and they build it into the 
house. I met a family there who were buying their first home. They were 
moving from a rental house, and one of the reasons they were moving is 
because their electricity bill had gotten so high. They were paying 
$160 a month for their electric bill. In the new home, which was 
larger, but the payment they were going to make, in a home that cost 
$110,000, and it was a really nice home, but Jerry Wade guarantees 
their electric bill will be no more than $20 a month, because they 
build the energy efficiency in.
  One of the things that I hope to do in our conservation bill that we 
are going to be working on here is to make it possible for those 
savings to be taken into account when people apply for their mortgages, 
for their federally supported home mortgage loans, so that we can take 
into account that the electricity bill is going to be lower. The neat 
thing about what I saw on Saturday was, we are not talking here about 
something that costs more, we are talking about something that costs 
less, and that can be done in homes for first-time buyers, not just 
people who can put on solar panels on their homes.

  Talking about where we are going with solar, it used to be that we 
thought about solar and, gosh, it takes 10 or 15 years to get back the 
cost of the solar panels. We are on the verge of innovations and 
technology that will be just as cheap to put on solar shingles on our 
houses as it is to put on tar paper shingles on our houses. The 
difference is we hook it up to the meter, and we can actually sell 
power back to the power company, if we live in a sunny place like my 
colleague from Arizona and I are privileged to do. We have solar-
powered homes, and it does not power the electricity, but it helps 
preheat the water, it helps keep our electricity bills lower, it helps 
keep the gas bill lower by preheating the house and heating a bed of 
rocks under the House. We can do those kinds of things, and it is going 
to be in the very near future just as inexpensive to do that as it is 
to build a home the conventional way, and we should build those 
incentives in to the conservation bill we hope to pass here in the 
House.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, it has been very 
interesting to spend this hour, not engaged in disinformation or 
demonization, but looking for reasonable, rational solutions at the 
outset.
  When the gentleman from California claimed this hour of time, I 
reminisced about the fact that 4 decades ago, President John F. Kennedy 
stood at the podium behind us and challenged us to go to the Moon. We 
harnessed not only a triumph of will and exploration, but a triumph of 
applying science to a national vision to deal with that challenge. 
Certainly this challenge cannot be as formidable. Certainly this 
Nation, with the best minds at the fore, working together with sound 
policies that streamline regulation, to make it reasonable that look 
for environmentally sensitive ways to explore for new energy options, 
that do the research to bring online the innovative new sources of 
energy and that realize that our destiny is within our grasp in terms 
of energy self-sufficiency. Certainly that can be the watchword, the 
vision for us. Certainly that is what the administration offers in its 
energy plan.

[[Page H3608]]

  The challenge for us, Mr. Speaker, is to abandon the theater of 
politics where some have been so tempted to engage in name-calling and 
political posturing, to truly represent the American people to find 
sound solutions, to reject the environmentalism of the extremists and 
embrace the conservation and environmentalism of the enlightened. That 
is our challenge. I believe we are poised to meet that challenge, just 
as we put a man on the Moon in the 1960s.
  Mr. RADANOVICH. Mr. Speaker, I agree with my friend from Arizona. I 
want also to state my admiration for this President for taking on this 
job. I do not envy him. I mean, I was born and raised right next to 
Yosemite National Park.

                              {time}  2130

  Mr. Speaker, I go up and I feel in many ways closer to God in the 
high country at 9,000 feet. I go to Yosemite, and I hug boulders, and I 
love them, and I love the environment.
  This country has the reputation of holding the environment so sacred. 
It is wonderful, especially the States we represent and the beauty that 
comes from those States, those are treasures that we always want to 
cherish. But we also have people who have needs, who need water, who 
need electricity.
  I am not willing to say that myself or my wife or my child have more 
of a right towards those needs than anybody else does. Everybody has a 
right to equal access to this infrastructure in this country, and so we 
have these resources, the desire to want to be environmentally 
responsible and, yet, the need to use energy and water and 
infrastructures.
  So it is not an easy job, I think, but I want to applaud the 
President for taking this on, because it is not a real popular thing. 
It not something that will shoot him up in the polls for a while, but 
it will be something that he is providing leadership for in this 
country and that we so desperately need.
  Mr. Speaker, before I wrap up this hour, I will yield to the 
gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson).
  Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Radanovich) for inviting me down to join him here this 
evening. I think if there is one thing that I will take away from this 
is that it is time to end the blame game, and to pull together and to 
lead as a Nation and to give this country real answers to the energy 
problems that we face.
  Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with my colleagues to that 
end, and I thank the gentleman from California for yielding to me.
  Mr. RADANOVICH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New Mexico 
for her comments.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California, and 
I just want to say that I do believe we can work together for good, 
sound science of modern technology, of solutions, and we can get there.
  We can improve our infrastructure for energy to get the power to the 
places that it is needed. We can promote conservation, a balanced 
environment. We can simplify government regulations so that we can make 
some progress.
  I am a member of the Committee on Appropriations, and we will 
continue in this Congress and continue to fund research and development 
on alternative and renewable energy sources.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very excited that Honda has on the drawing board 
right now a hybrid car that will get 75 miles a gallon. I am excited 
about these fuel cell cars that are out there that have these perpetual 
batteries. I believe that our government has a role in funding such 
research, such general research, and we are going to continue to do 
that.
  Mr. Speaker, I also applaud the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) 
and the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) for your boldness in 
speaking out on nuclear energy, because I think it is something that 
Americans need to be comfortable with the dialogue.
  Finally, I want to say that I think that we should continue to 
explore alternative uses and evaluate our own domestic resources to see 
what we can do to become more energy-independent and not risk our 
national security on the whims of Middle East dictators and kings and 
despots.
  I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Radanovich) for inviting 
me to be here tonight and look forward to working with the gentleman 
and the rest of the Congress on some very positive solutions.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Just one note in closing, Mr. Speaker. Very soon we 
will move past the rhetoric, and we will have to roll up our sleeves 
and make it happen. The administration has put out a plan.
  I cannot help but think about the holiday we are about to celebrate 
and observe, the independence of this country. A new biography of our 
second President John Adams has been written. In the final year of his 
life and the final days, a committee of men from his home State of 
Massachusetts went to visit the second President, at that time his son 
was President of the United States, and they asked John Adams, Mr. 
President, would you like to propose a toast to the country you helped 
to found? And he stood up there, stiff-legged, still the strong voice, 
and he offered two words: ``Independence forever.'' They said, Mr. 
President, do you want to add anything else to that? And he said, no, 
not a word, that suffices.
  Indeed, not only in the tradition of this constitutional Republic, 
but for the future of a sound energy policy with an enlightened 
environmentalism, let that again be our cry: Independence forever.
  Mr. RADANOVICH. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from New 
Mexico and gentleman from Arizona and the gentleman from Georgia for 
participating in this special order.

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