[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 27, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H3691-H3698]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1915
                         NATIONAL ENERGY POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kennedy of Minnesota). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of 
the majority leader.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, before I start this evening on the main 
subject

[[Page H3692]]

of which I intend to spend the majority of my time on, I want to tell 
you that today I had a visit from the Future Farmers of America, 
several young people from Delta, Colorado; Cortez, Colorado; Dove 
Creek, Colorado. As many of you know, my district is the Third 
Congressional District of the State of Colorado. That district 
basically consists of almost all the mountains of the State of 
Colorado.
  It is refreshing to have young men and women like this and young men 
and women of the different groups, not only Future Farmers of America 
but the different groups that come in to see us, the leadership groups 
and so on. It does tell you that there is a lot of promise with this 
new generation, that there is sure a lot more going in favor of that 
generation than there is going against it. So I felt pretty good. It 
recharges somebody in my kind of position to see that the generation 
following behind us, which is something that we become very dedicated 
to, because, after all, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, 
regardless of where you fall down on the issues, if you really looked 
at the heart of why most of us are here, it is because we do care about 
the greatest country on the face of the earth and we do care about 
being able to hand this country over to a generation that will deliver 
the same kind of promise to this great country as have the previous 
generations.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I want to address this evening energy. We 
have got to talk about energy. I will tell you why I am concerned about 
what is happening with energy. We are actually seeing energy prices 
begin to drop. In fact, energy prices are dropping rather dramatically 
here just in the last couple of weeks. My concern about energy becoming 
more affordable, which of course benefits all of us, is that we begin 
to forget the shortage of energy that we have had in the last several 
months, that we begin to forget the necessity to conserve and to 
continue to conserve, not just for the period of time that we had the 
shortage but for the sake of future generations like these Future 
Farmers of America that were in my office today. I think that we have 
to adopt permanent conservation methods for future generations as an 
investment. It is an investment in the future. I think we have to stand 
up to some of the realities of the shortages that were created over 
here in the last year. Why did they come about? What is happening? What 
are we going to do to secure this Nation's future as far as its energy 
needs?
  As the price begins to fall, people begin to take energy and push it 
off their plate. It is not such a priority. Gasoline alone has fallen 
20, 30 cents a gallon in my district. By the way, if my colleagues 
happen to be anywhere in the United States where gasoline has not 
dropped in price, they better take a look at the operator, because 
somebody is making a lot of money. Natural gas prices have begun to 
drop fairly dramatically. Electric prices have begun to drop rather 
dramatically. Why? Because, number one, we are coming out of the winter 
season, obviously we are into summer right now but, two, the supply is 
beginning to catch up with the demand. Why is it beginning to catch up 
with the demand? One, we have had increased production overseas, and, 
two, people are beginning to exercise energy conservation, so the 
demand and the economy has brought that demand down. In other words, 
conservation and the slowness of the economy have begun to bring the 
demand down while the supply goes up. So as supply and demand come 
closer together, that is where your price matches. If in fact at some 
point it looks like supply will exceed demand, in other words, you have 
more than you can sell, prices drop rather dramatically.
  So this summer the good news is we are going to have reasonable 
gasoline prices so that you can go on your summer vacations and you can 
go to work, et cetera. But I do not want that to hide the necessity for 
each and every one of us in here to continue to take a look at what is 
necessary for this country to conserve and to continue to look for 
resources that we think are necessary so that this country can stay on 
an even keel with the needs that it has in the future. It would be a 
dramatic mistake, a dramatic and serious mistake, for us to assume that 
everything is fine once again and we go whistling off into the forest. 
In fact, that was a warning, a warning shot that was fired over our 
bow, so to speak, in the last few months. It was a message to us that 
we need to look with an approach utilizing common sense of, one, how 
can we conserve, number two, probably more important than anything I 
have discussed so far this evening, the importance of having an energy 
policy for this Nation.
  Let me spend just a few moments on the energy policy for this Nation. 
The problem in the last 8 years under the previous administration is 
that we really never had an energy crisis. During the Clinton days in 
office, there never really was an energy crisis. So as a result, that 
administration never really did set forth on trying to come up with 
some type of energy policy. Why? When you decide to come up with some 
kind of energy policy, that is controversial. You take a lot of heat. 
Because if you want to have a good energy policy for this Nation, you 
need to put all of the issues on the table. You need to talk about hot 
subjects like ANWR. You need to talk about hot subjects like nuclear 
utilization of energy. You need to talk about hot subjects of where you 
store waste. You need to talk about and have some discussions with the 
auto manufacturers about increasing the mileage that we get on our 
cars. A lot of those conversations are going to be the subject of very 
heated debate as this administration, the Bush administration, begins 
to put together an energy policy. So it is a debate that any smart 
politician would like to avoid. Why take the heat when you do not 
really have to? If the energy prices are reasonable, in fact, they were 
not only reasonable over the years of the Clinton administration, they 
were cheap, why take on the heat of dragging this country through the 
debate of an energy policy?
  Well, things have changed. We know, of course, in the last 5 or 6 
months, it seems only a few weeks after President Bush and Vice 
President Cheney took office, that we began to feel a shortage. They 
did not run from it. That is important to note. I have seen a lot of 
criticism lately of our President and our Vice President, most of it 
quite unjustified but nonetheless it is out there. Criticism about how 
dare they say we go and look for future energy resources. How dare they 
say a program that has not worked in 20 years have its budget cut? What 
is this new administration thinking by putting on the table the 
different areas of energy and energy reserves in this country and at 
least asking the question, should we or should we not drill, for 
example, in those particular areas? Should we or should we not begin to 
take a second look at nuclear and say maybe we ought to consider it, 
like France, by the way, of which most of the energy in Europe, by the 
way, is generated by nuclear. Some of the conservation methods. It is 
controversial to go out to those car manufacturers and say, we need 
better mileage for those vehicles.
  But this administration was willing to do it. Not only because they 
have had to. And, by the way, now that energy prices are dropping, the 
political heat on coming up with an energy policy is not near as great 
as it was just 3 weeks ago. Just 3 or 4 weeks ago when the prices were 
still up there, the heat was fairly extensive in these chambers. But 
what really will test us is if we are willing to continue to work with 
the President and the Vice President in putting together an energy 
policy despite the fact we are not under a lot of heat in these 
chambers to do exactly that. And I think we have an obligation to do 
that. Because, as I said, in those last few months what came over the 
bow of our ship was a warning shot. It did not hit the side of the 
ship. Our economy did not sink as a result of this energy. We have had 
some blackouts in California but that really focuses more on negligence 
by the leadership out in California. It did not occur in 49 other 
States, by the way, which does make California stand out, saying, 
``California, 49 States must be doing something right. You must need to 
adjust something you're doing.''
  The key here is that while we got a warning shot, let us not ignore 
it. I have got some ideas this evening and some things I would like to 
go over with my colleagues. This evening, my remarks really are going 
to focus on what I call common sense and resource development. It does 
not read common

[[Page H3693]]

sense of resource development. It reads common sense, resource 
development. In other words, we have got a lot of conservation, for 
example, and that is the first one I have got down here. Conservation.
  Let us talk about conservation for a couple of minutes. There are a 
lot of commonsense things in conservation that we can use. And it does 
not create a lot of pain with the American people. As I have said 
numerous times on this House floor, the average American driver that 
owns an automobile, you do not have to change your oil every 3,000 
miles. Now, you may have been convinced by marketing efforts that your 
engine is going to fall out of your car or the engine is going to blow 
up if you are not down there at Quick Lube getting your oil changed 
every 3,000 miles, but the fact is if you read the owner's manual, you 
are going to discover that your car only needs its oil changed maybe 
every 6,000 miles. In some cases 7 or 8 or 9,000 miles. Now, you can 
begin to become a participant in this conservation by simply changing 
your oil when the owner's manual tells you to change it. That is not 
painful to the American people. It is not painful to my colleagues. 
That is what I call common sense. That is an example of common sense 
approach to our resource development that we need. Part of that 
resource development is conservation.

  There are a lot of other things. Of course the simplest thing that 
anybody can think of which absolutely causes you no pain is shut off 
the lights when you leave the room. Shut off the lights when you leave 
the house. I said the other day in Europe, when you go into a hotel in 
Europe, you actually have a little card. When you walk into the room, 
you slide that card into a slot. As long as that card is in that slot, 
your hotel room lights are on. But as you leave the hotel, you pull the 
card out and the lights go off so you do not forget to leave lights on 
in your hotel room. Does that cause you any pain? No. Does it impact 
your life-style in a negative fashion? No. In fact, it will actually 
save you money if you do this in your own home, watch out to turn out 
those lights, and it also helps you become a reasonable and responsible 
participant in conservation efforts. That is a key part, I think, in 
resource development.
  Some people would like you to believe that the only way you can have 
resource development is to exclude conservation, that when the 
President and the Vice President talk about resource development, that 
they have ignored conservation, they have drawn a line through it. That 
is just political propaganda. That is all that is. It is bogus. I have 
talked to the Vice President. I know what the President's policy on 
energy is and conservation plays an important part in it. But the 
President and the Vice President have had enough courage to say, look, 
you cannot do it on just one of these elements alone. You cannot make 
up the gap that we have or the gap that we might have in the near 
future simply through conservation. You can make a significant dent in 
it, but you cannot make it up with just simply conservation. Nor can 
you make it up with alternative forms of energy.
  I want to point out that if you go all throughout the world, you pick 
every alternative form of energy you can find, solar, wind, other types 
of renewable energy generation, take a look at that. If you took all of 
that renewable alternative energy in the world and you applied it all 
to the United States, in other words, only the United States got that 
alternative energy, that would only meet at the most 3 percent of our 
needs. That is not going to be an answer, but it is an important part 
of the answer. It is a critical piece of the puzzle when combined with 
conservation.
  Then you have got to take a look at other renewables. What is a good 
renewable source out there that generates electricity and provides 
recreation and provides fisheries and prevents flooding and allows us 
any other number of benefits? Hydropower. Now, I speak of hydropower 
with great admiration because I come from the West. My family has had 
many generations on both sides out of the mountains in Colorado. The 
mountains in Colorado, believe it or not, it is an arid area. I think 
almost half the geographical area of the country only gets about 14 
percent of the water. Out here in the East, in some areas you sue to 
get rid of the water. You try and shove the water over on your 
neighbor's property.
  Out in the West we need storage. We have about 6 weeks every year out 
in the West, out in those Rocky Mountains, you have all been out there, 
you have skied in my district, Aspen, Vail, Telluride, Beaver Creek, 
Steamboat, Glenwood, Durango. You have skied out there. You think the 
snow never ends. You think there is lots of moisture out there. First 
of all, we do not need the moisture in the winter. We need the moisture 
primarily for agriculture, municipal use, et cetera. For about 6 weeks 
as that snow melts off those high mountain peaks, and my district 
happens to be the highest district in the Nation, as the snow melts 
into that cold water and comes rushing down, for about 6 weeks we have 
all the water we want. But we do not exactly, because we have not 
figured out that direct connection with the good Lord, we do not know 
how to time that. We cannot control the timing of that. Sometimes it 
comes early, sometimes it comes late. Mostly it comes early. So we have 
to have the capability to store it. So while we are storing that water, 
water which we have to have, remember that in the West we have got to 
store it, not only just for flood control but for our drinking water. 
So why not while we are storing the water use the renewable assets of 
the water and generate electricity.
  I am going to show you exactly how hydropower works here in just a 
few minutes. It is probably the cleanest energy generator we have got 
out there. What we do is we take the water as it drops, we grab that 
energy from the water as it goes down, we spin a generator and we 
create electricity. Keep in mind one thing with hydropower, when we 
have a generator, a turbine, that is natural gas. We use a fuel. We 
have to use natural gas.

                              {time}  1930

  So we consume one part of our environment to create the electricity. 
Same thing with coal generation. On coal generation facilities, we burn 
coal to spin that turbine to create electricity, but hydropower is 
different. On hydropower, we do not use any fuel. We do not have to 
consume any natural gas. We do not have to consume any coal. It is in 
the water, and it is in the drop of the water. That is where we pull 
our energy from so it makes a lot of sense. You keep going on here, oil 
and gas.
  I read a very interesting poll today, or saw a poll. I do not know 
whether it was taken today but I looked at it on the computer.
  By the way, speaking of computer, if you want to help conserve just 
go on to search and hit ``conservation ideas.'' I pulled up 19,000 
hits. I did not look at each hit but up came 19,000 hits on 
conservation ideas. So your computer really at home can help you help 
us conserve energy in this country.
  I took a look at the words that have negative thoughts to them in 
regard to energy-related. I can say that oil and gas has a pretty 
negative connotation to it. Same thing with coal, same thing with 
nuclear. There are some people out there, again using strict rhetoric, 
political rhetoric in a lot of occasions, will lead you to believe 
that, look, exploration for oil or natural gas or nuclear generation 
for electricity or hydropower, that that is bad; that we can get our 
power by simply conserving or simply using alternative or solar. Do not 
buy into this argument that solar is going to replace at least in the 
near term, and near term meaning the next 10 to 20 years, do not buy 
into that argument that solar alone is going to do it. The reason we 
all do not have solar generation in our homes today, although a few of 
them have it with those panels on the roof but it is not very efficient 
and it is not very effective. That is why most homes do not have it.
  I can assure you that once somebody masters how to put that solar 
energy into a home to generate, for example, your electricity or to 
provide the energy needs that you have, we are going to go solar. That 
is where the market will take us. That is the beauty of the 
capitalistic market that we have. It will go for the best product but 
right now it is not the best product, and you are being led down a path 
without a good return at the end when people say that solar, or 
renewable energy, or other factors or even conservation will solve our 
problem.

[[Page H3694]]

  The fact is, we have to have oil and gas until we are able to make 
some fairly significant technological advances in solar and other 
alternative fuels so that at some point in the future we can replace 
oil and gas, but today you need oil and gas. We have to face up to the 
fact that we have to have further exploration.
  Here is a chart to give you an idea. This is energy production. It is 
a flat line at our growth rates last year, flat line energy production. 
This is energy consumption, the red line. Look at the angle of the red 
line compared to the flat green line. You say, all right, Scott, there 
is the energy consumption. There is the energy production. What fills 
in the gap? Well, what fills in the gap, of course, is foreign oil. We 
become more and more dependent on people like Saddam Hussein to provide 
for that gap.
  Let us take a look. How do we close that gap? What do we do to 
minimize, to minimize this gap, to bring consumption in with 
production? That is, by the way, what brings your price down. Well, we 
can conserve and conservation will make a significant dent in that. 
Vice President Cheney has said that on a number of occasions. The 
President himself has talked about the importance of conservation, but 
it will not wipe out this gap.
  Here is my angle with my pointer, conservation maybe brings it down 
maybe around like that. It will take care of a good chunk of that gray 
area but it will not take care of the biggest portion of it.
  Then if we take a look at alternative energy like the solar and so 
on, maybe a little tiny fraction. Certainly, the technological advances 
we have today, for example, on solar or other alternative energy will 
not make at all the kind of dent that conservation will make but it 
will help a little. So after you take that into consideration you still 
have a significant gap here.
  What does that significant gap represent? Well, it represents energy. 
It represents whether you have air conditioning for elderly people. It 
represents whether we have refrigeration for storage of food. It 
represents vehicles and I am not just talking about your car. I am 
talking about the ability for everything, to run ambulances, to drive 
semis, to move food from one point in the country to the other point in 
the country. I do not have to say what needs we have as far as oil and 
gas, but we cannot pretend to let it always happen in the other 
person's backyard. We cannot pretend that we do not really need to 
drill for oil and gas, that somehow oil and gas pipelines are going to 
fall out of the sky because we need it and we do not have to go through 
the pain of having to look for it.

  The fact is, in this country, we have to continue to do that or we 
can make a conscious decision, as they did in California over the 
years, we can make a conscious decision not to explore for that and 
become dependent on other sources. In other words, in the United States 
we can make that decision not to continue to explore for more oil and 
gas and to continue to become more reliant. The trade-off is we then 
become more reliant on foreign oil.
  Now there are all kinds of risks to that and we ought to be aware of 
that. What happened in the State of California is they adopted a policy 
for many, many years, in fact ironically today the governor or 
yesterday the governor of California, Mr. Davis, switched on a new 
power plant. First one I think they have had in 13 or 14 years. Well, 
it is about time, California. It is about time, Governor, because the 
policy that California adopted was, look, let us deregulate and we do 
not have to build any generation in our State. We do not have to have 
natural gas transmission lines in our State. We do not have to have it 
in our backyard. Let somebody else do it. We will become dependent on 
somebody else. So that is a conscious decision that the leadership in 
California, by the way on both sides of the aisle, but today it is 
headed by the Democrats, but that was a decision made many years ago 
and it has been continued through the years, hey, let us not drill in 
our State; let us not build electrical generation in our State; let us 
not put a gas transmission line in our State here in California; let us 
depend on somebody else. They did that and look what happened. It went 
along real well for awhile until the person they depended on decided 
they wanted a little more for their energy and then pretty soon they 
wanted a lot more for their energy, and pretty soon the market changed. 
The reason they wanted a lot more for their energy is if California did 
not want to buy it somebody else was willing to pay that price to take 
it. That is the risk of us in this Nation and for the future 
generations of becoming dependent on foreign oil. We can do it, but 
remember what happened in California could happen to all 50 of the 
States if in fact our dependency on foreign oil is some foreign 
dictator who overnight decides he is going to shut off the oil tab. 
That is why it is important within our boundaries to continue to 
explore our reserves.
  Now does that mean explore our reserves at any cost? Of course it 
does not. You cannot go into Yellowstone or into a national park, into 
the Black Canyon National Park or up on the Colorado Canyons National 
Monument or the national conservation area. You cannot go up in there 
and explore. There is a lot of country, though, however, that we can 
drill in this country. I know it has a negative connotation to it. The 
easiest thing you can do on this House Floor is to stand up and say, we 
do not want to drill here; we do not want to drill there; we are 
against drilling; we are against any kind of exploration.
  Leadership, however, requires that you stand up here and say, we need 
conservation; we need alternative fuel, but we do have to continue to 
explore for oil and gas. We need to do it in an environmentally 
sensitive method, a responsible method, which not only mitigates the 
impact to the environment.
  The days of mitigation for the environment are pretty well gone, 
where you go in and you have a project and you are supposed to mitigate 
for the environment. Those days are pretty well gone. We have now 
accepted the responsibility for future generations that we have a 
higher standard, not just mitigation but enhancement, enhancement of 
the environment. We have done this with wetlands. We have done it with 
our endangered species, any number of different things. We have 
actually, because we are concerned about the environment for future 
generations, we have lifted it to a higher standard, a standard which 
we think will be of benefit to future generations while at the same 
time allowing utilization, say, of a resource.
  Well, let me go on here. We have a very negative connotation based on 
coal. Coal generates a lot of power in this country and it generates a 
lot of jobs in this country and it can be done in a doggoned 
responsible way. Now you have to exercise oversight over it.
  I am not too sold on taking off a mountaintop, for example. I am not 
too sold on burning coal without the most modern efforts we have, the 
smoke stack technological instruments that we have, technological 
instruments that we have to clean that coal, to make sure that the area 
that comes out has a minimum impact on our environment if we are going 
to burn coal.
  What we can do today? We can do a lot of that. Now some of my 
colleagues, because coal has a negative connotation to it, say shut it 
down. My guess is they are not relying on coal. My guess is they do not 
have jobs dependent on coal. My guess is they have never been in a 
coal-powered generation facility. That is a responsibility that each 
and every one of us have. In fact, it is incumbent upon us to go out 
when we talk about these things, when we talk about hydropower or when 
we talk against hydropower we ought to go look at a dam. You ought to 
go out and see what kind of impact, both negative and positive, it 
might have. We have to weigh it out. That is exactly what the President 
and the vice president have said on their energy policy. Put it all on 
the table. Put it down on that table. Then let us debate it. If it does 
not work, take it off. But everybody has an obligation to put their 
idea on the table so that we can have this debate, so that we can 
develop some kind of energy policy for this country.

  As I said earlier, I am concerned that because energy prices are 
dropping that us, Mr. Speaker, in leadership positions will begin to 
say well, that is not as important as it was three or four months ago. 
Prices are down. Our constituents are not concerned. The complaints are 
not out there. Let us move

[[Page H3695]]

on to something else. We cannot do that. We just got a warning shot. Do 
not let that go unnoticed because of the fact that our energy prices 
have dropped.
  Let me just reemphasize right here. I know I brought this chart up a 
couple of minutes ago but I just want to reemphasize one thing. That is 
our production. That is energy production today. That is demand. Now 
demand came down just a little but the fact is this is our projected 
shortfall, right there, projected shortfall. Every one of us can make 
that projected shortfall. We can drop that through conservation. We can 
drop it somewhat through alternative energy like solar, and we can also 
drop that shortfall by allowing continued exploration in this country 
under reasonable oversight, using common sense an enhancement to an 
environment. Now, it is very interesting to hear about people. I 
mentioned this the other day when I was making comments because I find 
it kind of ironic. I, of course, get out in the mountains. I love the 
mountains. Most of you who visit the mountains can understand that, but 
I have a lot of heritage and I feel a lot of deep bonding to my 
district, as do all of you with your districts. So I get out in the 
mountains all the time, and I was out talking with a mountain biker the 
other day. Now I mountain bike, too. I ride my bike and so I enjoy the 
sport a lot, but I was talking to a colleague of mine who was riding a 
mountain bike and they were complaining about the fact, boy, we cannot 
continue to drill, we cannot continue to use oil and gas, very negative 
about mining; you have got to get mining out of here; we cannot have 
mining. It is interesting comments from somebody on a mountain bike 
made of titanium.
  I said to my friend, I said that bike you have got is one of the most 
technically advanced bikes in the world. That thing you can lift it, no 
matter how strong you are, even a child can lift that thing up it is so 
light. But you know why that is? Because we have mines, we have 
minerals. We are able to have oil and gas production. We are able to 
come up with things like this device which, by the way, utilizing your 
bicycle is a good way to conserve. In fact, by using that resource we 
in the long run can use less of it by developing something like a 
bicycle that is comfortable to ride and a bicycle of which people can 
recreate on without having to use a gasoline-powered engine, for 
example.
  The fact here is, look at this, our demand for product, this is our 
demand for product right here. U.S. crude production, these bars right 
here of production, that is production, 1990, 1991. This right here is 
the petroleum demand. Take a look at what demand has done to 
production. When you have that kind of gap, your price skyrockets. That 
is the kind of gap that begins to lead to a crisis.
  Now we did not have an energy crisis this last few months, with the 
exception maybe in California, blackouts in New York. New York City may 
face some. We do have a drought up in the northwest on the Columbia 
River.

                              {time}  1945

  Mr. Speaker, the fact is 49 out of the 50 States were in pretty good 
shape. We had an energy crunch, not an energy crisis. That energy 
crisis is just sitting out there waiting to fire right into the center 
of us, unless we do something to prepare for it.
  I mentioned earlier if we make the conscience decision, which we are 
free to do, that is why we are on this floor, that is why we have this 
debate, if, in putting our energy policy together, as the President and 
Vice President have said we need to do, we need an energy policy, if my 
colleagues out here make a conscience decision not to have further 
exploration of our natural gas and our oil reserves in this country, 
only one thing can happen, you cannot fill the gap in with 
conservation. It helps, but it does not fill the gap.
  You cannot fill the gap in with solar energy. The only way you can 
fill in the gap between supply and demand, when you decide not to drill 
or further explore in our country, is right here, foreign countries 
like Iraq.
  Take a look at our dependence on Iraqi oil exports to the United 
States. Take a look at that line. The more you decide not to find 
alternative resources, the more you decide not to conserve in our 
country, so you have more consumption, the more you try and mess with 
the market, like price controls, and I am going to talk about that in a 
few moments, the more you become dependent on people like Saddam 
Hussein over here in Iraq.
  That is not the answer. That is not the answer. That is what is going 
to lead us from an energy crunch to an energy crisis.
  Mr. Speaker, let us talk for a moment about the State of California. 
I told you that I love the State of Colorado. I am very proud of the 
State of Colorado. I want you to know that I like the State of 
California.
  California is a beautiful State and California has a lot of wonderful 
people in it. But, frankly, the California leadership has done a pretty 
poor job of planning for their energy needs. The governor of California 
and other elected officials, you are going to hear them blame everybody 
else for this. But the fact is, there are 49 States in this country 
that are not in the predicament that California is in.
  Lightning did not just strike California and they got picked out of 
the bunch for this to occur. California brought it on themselves. We 
have several things we ought to discuss since California brought it on 
themselves.
  Number one, a fair question for us to ask to California, to ask the 
governor of the State of California, ``what are you doing to pull 
yourself up by your bootstraps?'' In other words, that word called self 
help, what are you doing, California leadership, to pull your people in 
that State out of the energy crisis that you have?
  We have to be careful. I am critical of the governor of California, 
whom, by the way, has blamed everybody else but himself. I never heard 
him once say that he accepts at least a part of the blame for their 
shortage out there. That is why I am so critical of the leadership of 
the State of California.
  I want to tell all of my colleagues that we are very dependent on 
that State. It is not a foreign country. We should not walk away from 
California. It is a State. We have an inherent obligation to help 
California. That help should not come without some kind of matching 
grant, so to speak, matching effort.
  They have to make their own effort, but when you look at it from an 
economic point of view, California is the sixth most powerful economy 
in the world, we better not walk away from them; not only do we have 
what I think is an obligation to help California because they are a 
State. They are our brothers. They are our sisters. They are our 
neighbors. They are a State of the United States.
  We do not walk away when another State is in trouble, so we also 
cannot walk away from California, because California is the sixth most 
powerful economic unit in the world.
  What does California have to do to get help from the rest of us? 
First of all, California, and I hope the governor of California has an 
opportunity to visit with me at some point, you have a lot of power 
generation facilities to be built in your State. You cannot continue to 
demand energy and have energy demand continue to grow while at the same 
time say ``not in my backyard.''
  You cannot continue to depend on people outside your State lines to 
supply your generation inside your State, unless you want to subject 
yourself to the ups and downs of price fluctuations. That is exactly 
what happened.
  California deregulated, well, not really deregulated. They called it 
deregulation. They sold their generation outside. Outside owners run 
it, because they thought they could save money by buying the spot 
market, which means the prices go up and down by the hour in power, by 
the hour in electrical power.

  They thought they could outsmart the market. What did they do? They 
bought spot power. The people now control the power, the price goes up. 
You have to be able to build your own resources within the State of 
California.
  I know that California is now looking at that. They opened their 
first power plant in 13 years, as I understand it, as I mentioned 
earlier in my comments, yesterday or today. That is good; not enough, 
but it is good. You are headed in the right direction.
  Mr. Speaker, I want my colleagues from California to know that the 
rest

[[Page H3696]]

of us feel an obligation to help your State. But, by gosh, California, 
you have to help yourself. You have to allow some natural gas lines. 
You have not allowed a transmission line, not natural gas to your 
house, but a transmission line to move large volumes of natural gas in 
8 years.
  You have put price caps. That is one of the problems I am going to go 
through in a little more detail. Let us just real quickly go to that 
while we are on the subject.
  Let us talk about price caps. I can tell you in fairness of 
disclosure, I am a student of Adam Smith, the Wealth of Nations. That 
is the capitalistic system where you have supply and demand. You have 
to have some oversight so you do not have monopolies, but you have to 
be careful of abuses, and I understand that. You have to understand, 
especially in the government, we are not business experts in the 
government.
  None of us are business experts. In fact, a lot of us in these 
chambers, I happen to have been, but a lot of the people in these 
chambers have never operated a business.
  Where do you think we develop the expertise to go into the 
marketplace which has been tested in this country for hundreds of 
years? Where do you think we can go into it and decide that government 
manipulation of the market is for the benefit of the consumer, then, in 
the end, how to beat the market?
  The government never beats the market. Let us take a look at how they 
think they can. Price caps. You know what makes me upset about price 
caps right off the bat? I am a big proponent of conservation. Price 
caps encourage waste. Price caps do not encourage conservation.
  It is like leasing. I will give you an analogy here. It is like you 
own a house and you rent the house to a tenant. You rent it to somebody 
and you say to the person you are renting to, look, you pay me $500 a 
month rent for the house, and, by the way, I will pay all the 
utilities.
  Do you know what is going to happen with the person that is renting 
your house since you are paying their utilities? The air conditioning 
will be set at 50 in the summer, and the heat will be set so high in 
the winter you will look over at your house and you will see the 
windows open so they can get rid of the heat.
  Price caps encourage waste of energy. Take a look. Price caps are bad 
for consumers, the economy and the environment.
  The polling in California, and maybe throughout the country, but 70 
percent of the American people say they like the idea of price caps. 
That is where leadership comes in. That is where we as leaders have to 
say, look, on the short-term basis, you are asking for a short-term 
return and a long-term risk.
  The risk is substantial. The risk is substantial that more waste will 
occur. Mr. Speaker, the risk is substantial that you cannot 
artificially hide prices. I know it is painful.
  Let me say we do not have price caps in Colorado. Do you know what 
has happened to my wife and my family here in the last 6 months? We 
have conserved energy. Why have we conserved energy? Because we did not 
have price caps.

  Do you know that not having price caps what happened to our bill? Our 
bill went through the ceiling with our natural gas bill. We were 
stunned. We got a $500 natural gas bill one month and you want to bet 
that we did not start conserving immediately. Of course, we did.
  If we would have had a price cap where it said, look, no matter how 
much you use, we are only going to have to pay a cap of this amount, it 
defeats the purpose.
  It is a manipulation of the market. That never has happened in the 
history of this country. I know it is popular. I know it is popular. 
Seventy-five percent of the people support it.
  I am telling you, take a look at the history. Seventy-five percent of 
you supported it, but there has never been successful price caps in the 
history of this Nation ever.
  It is always popular when it is suggested, because, of course, it is 
only suggested when prices go up. But it has never, ever worked. That 
is where we have a leadership obligation to at least stand up to the 
popular opinion and say, I know we want to jump on board, but before we 
do jump on board, take a look at what the long-term risk of putting 
price caps on it does.
  Price caps impede energy conservation and drive away new energy 
supplies. Some have called for regionwide price caps, including costs-
of-service ratemaking. That is part of California's effort. Simply put, 
wholesale and retail price caps prevent markets from working properly.
  It is a manipulation of the market and is a politically expedient 
solution that has exaggerated problems that they are supposed to fix. 
Price caps create an imbalance between supply and demand by preventing 
utilities from passing along market prices.
  Retail price caps disrupt the natural relationship between supply and 
demand and prevent markets from operating efficiently. It eliminates 
incentives for conservation and harms the environment.
  Retail price caps eliminate consumers' incentives to conserve in 
times of tight supply, because consumers are not paying the true cost 
of the electricity, for example. Without incentives to reduce 
consumption, older, dirtier plants are kept running longer.
  Let me say that price caps sound good, but think about it. If you 
artificially keep the price low, you are not putting the investment out 
there that you need for further supply and reserves for further supply 
exploration.
  If you keep price caps, you have no encouragement at all for people 
to conserve because they are not feeling the pain in the price. As I 
mentioned earlier, the primary reason I would like to say is because we 
wanted to do the right thing and so on.
  In fact, I think all of us would admit that the primary drive outside 
of the State of California, where you do not have price caps, the 
primary drive for conservation was the fact that because we did not 
have price caps, our bills went through the roof. You can bet that the 
energy conservation immediately went into place.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that as prices begin to drop that all of us 
continue our responsibility for energy conservation.
  Let me just summarize my position on California. California is a very 
important State. We cannot walk away from them. They are a State after 
all.
  They are the sixth most powerful economic power in the world, but 
California has to deploy or employ their own self help. They should not 
look at the other 49 States, which, by the way, are not in the 
situation California is, because they did not say ``not in my 
backyard,'' because they did not refuse to allow generation plants in 
their State, because they did not refuse to allow gas transmission 
lines in their State, but California cannot expect the other 49 States 
to bail them out.
  We ought to help, but California has to pull itself up by its own 
bootstraps. California, from an agricultural point of view, from any 
number of different point of views, is critical for the economy of this 
country, but, by gosh, the leadership out there in California has to 
quit shifting the blame to everybody else and accept the fact that this 
is going to be a painful process, that you are going to have some 
trade-offs.
  You are not going to get electricity without electrical generation 
plants. You are not going to have natural gas without natural gas 
transmission. That is the point I am making about California.
  Let me talk for just a moment here about another common sense 
approach, and that is hydroelectric, hydropower electricity 
conservation combined with common sense. Worldwide, 20 percent of all 
electricity is generated by hydropower.
  We are the 2nd largest producer of hydropower in the world. Canada is 
first. Hydropower makes a lot of sense. Let us take a look at how 
hydropower works. It is really pretty simple.

                              {time}  2000

  Here is a dam. You have to have a dam. As I mentioned earlier in my 
remarks, out in the west, for example, we have got to have the 
capability to store the water. Here in the east, you need dams to 
control flooding. You also need storage water.
  But in this country, our dams provide us a lot of generation of 
electricity. Remember, with hydropower, we do not have to have a coal 
burning facility. We are not using natural gas. In fact,

[[Page H3697]]

we are not using any fuel at all to generate electricity. This is a 
renewable resource.
  What we are grasping, what we are grabbing is the energy that is 
created as a result of the fall of the water. You put the water here, 
it end up here, and the energy that is created between the two points 
is what we grab to spin a turbine to create electricity. That is 
exactly what hydropower is about. That is the beauty of the nature of 
this thing. It is a renewable resource.
  The storage of the water that is necessary provides for recreation. 
In fact, our largest recreational water body in the West is Lake 
Powell. That provides for a tremendous amount of family recreation. It 
provides for fisheries. It helps us control floods, et cetera, et 
cetera.
  So the water comes in, the water drops through, turns the turbine 
here, and the turbine generates the electricity, and out it goes on 
these power lines. But do you know what? You have got to be able to let 
these power towers come. You have got to be able to allow transmission 
lines come into your area. You cannot always think that the burden is 
going to be on your neighbor's property. You cannot always think that 
the burden is going to be on every other State of the union, which is 
exactly the policy that the leadership in California adopted. That is 
why one out of 50 States has got a real serious problem.
  Now, up in the northwest, of course, the Columbia River is way down 
because of the drought. I think, frankly, going back to California, you 
have got to commend the people in California. In the last month, we 
have seen a tremendous amount of conservation in California.
  I think because they have some of these price caps and they are also 
selling bonds, they are indebting future generations to pay for this 
generation's use of power. Talk about unfairness. For years here, when 
I was in the Congress, we talked about how future generations do not 
deserve the debt that we are putting on them, that we should balance 
the budget.
  In the State of California, they are using the power today, and they 
are selling bonds, they are indebting their State and letting future 
generations pay for the power. That is not right. We ought to absorb 
the pain as we go.
  It is the same thing with hydropower. You have to have transmission 
towers. There is a lot of common sense that can be deployed here that 
will give us results where one State does not suffer at the expense of 
other States, where some people do not suffer at the expense or benefit 
at the expense of other people. There is a lot we can do.
  Let us take a look at, real quickly, hydropower. This is a very 
important statement that I wanted to cover. Take a look at what 
utilizing hydropower does, this first statement. Hydropower is clean. 
It is clean. It prevents the burning of 22 billion gallons of oil or 
120 million tons of coal each year.
  The hydropower that we have in place in this Nation, we are the 
second largest user in the world, Canada is the first, our utilization 
of hydropower saves us and prevents the burning of 22 billion, 22 
billion gallons of oil, and 120 million tons of coal. That is a lot of 
coal that we do not have to burn because we have used a common sense 
approach and we have built hydropower.
  Now, as with exploration of coal, as with conservation, you need to 
use a reasonable approach and you need to use an approach that is 
sensitive to the environment. I do not propose for a moment that we go 
out and build a dam anywhere we want to build a dam, but I do propose 
that we do not reject it on its face.
  I do propose that hydropower be something that we consider, that it 
go on the table for this energy policy that we have all determined is 
absolutely necessary for future generations of this country. Our 
leadership obligations require us to begin and complete the process of 
an energy policy.
  Take a look at what it does. Hydropower does not produce greenhouse 
gases or other air pollution. We have heard a lot about air pollution. 
We have heard a lot about greenhouse gases. Hydropower does not produce 
that. Hydropower leaves behind no waste. Think about it. When you burn 
gas or oil or any other resource, you leave some waste. Hydropower, you 
do not leave any waste. The water goes through, turns the turbine, 
generates the electricity.
  Reservoirs formed by hydropower projects in Wisconsin, for example, 
have expanded water-based recreation resources. It is renewable, and it 
is common sense. That is the kind of policy that we have to put in 
place for energy in this country.
  Let me just kind of summarize my comments this evening and what I 
think is essential. First of all, I pointed out at the beginning in my 
remarks energy prices are beginning to drop. In fact, it is my 
prediction that we will actually have an electricity glut, an 
electrical glut here in the next year or so.
  Believe it or not, last year we had 158, now this is not in 
California, but throughout the rest of the Nation, we had 158 new 
generation plants come on-line last year, 158. What you have been 
reading in the media or hearing from some of the political rhetoric is 
that there had not been any electrical generation facilities. We had 
158.
  In fact, if we build out everything that is planned for the next 5 
years, if you take weekends out, we will have a new generation facility 
open every day for the next 5 years if you do not count weekends and if 
all of those projects that are planned are built out. We are going to 
have an excess of electric generation, but that is part of the market. 
It will work itself out.
  But the key is this, you cannot have good energy policy by having 
artificial price on the product. You cannot have price caps. I know it 
is popular. I know it is the politically correct thing to be talking 
about.
  I know I am going against the wave of popular thought, but the 
reality is, by going out and selling bonds or by putting an artificial 
cap or a price, one, you do not help at all in conservation, you 
encourage waste; and, two, somebody has to pay for it.
  Remember basic accounting. Every time you have a debt, you have a 
credit. Every time you have a credit, it has got to balance out. Every 
time you sell something at an artificially low price, you have to 
subsidize it. Somebody is paying for it. In California, they are 
selling bonds to raise the cash to buy the electricity that is being 
used today. Those bonds are going to be paid by the working people of 
tomorrow. A little unfair, a little inequitable in my opinion.
  But to come back to my main point, we have an obligation to help 
California. California has an obligation to help itself. We have an 
obligation in this country to conserve. That is part of it.
  Probably the most important poster is this poster right here because 
I think this diagram illustrates our energy production if it is going 
to remain flat, I think it will go up a little, but if it is going to 
remain flat, and our energy consumption is going to continue to climb 
at that angle, we are going to have this projected shortfall. Common 
sense will allow us to fill in that shortfall. Remember, we have got to 
fill in all the blue on this chart. Common sense allows us to do it.
  How do we do it? Conservation will fill in a part of that chart. 
Alternative fuel like solar generation or alternative generation will 
fill in a little gap of it. But the rest of it, it is going to have to 
be filled in by further exploration of natural gas resources or nuclear 
resources or coal resources.
  We can combine. Our answer is not any one of those things I 
mentioned, not coal, not nuclear, not conservation, not solar. None of 
those standing alone can solve the energy crisis that we could have in 
the future. Certainly it is not solving the energy crunch that we have 
today.
  But combined, when you combine conservation with alternative fuels, 
with renewable energy like hydropower, with further oil and natural gas 
exploration, when you put that combination, you can construct a model. 
You can construct a model that can deliver the energy needs to this 
Nation without requiring undue sacrifice on the lifestyles of the 
people of this Nation. You can create a model that will provide energy 
for future generations.
  After all, our discussions on this floor, our discussions are not 
just focused on this generation. This generation has an obligation to 
think about future generations. We have an obligation to provide energy 
just as much as we have an obligation to provide a

[[Page H3698]]

strong defense, just as much as we have an obligation to provide a 
strong educational system.
  It is no less of a responsibility to take a look at our future energy 
picture than it is to take a look at education or health care or any 
other issue you want to talk about for future generations. We have that 
opportunity today.
  So I would urge my colleagues that, even while the price of energy is 
dropping, we have an obligation to continue to urge people to conserve. 
We have an obligation to continue to try and assist our colleagues in 
California and every other State in this country, to say just because 
energy has become more affordable does not mean that our energy crunch 
does not still exist.
  We have got to plan for the future. We had that opportunity today in 
our hands. Now it is going to require leadership. It is going to 
require an energy policy which we have not seen for 8 years.
  We have got a President. We have got an administrative team and many 
of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that are prepared to put 
together an energy policy. That debate has already begun. Now we need 
to take it to its logical conclusion, and that is to come up with a 
policy for this generation and future generations of this country in 
regards to energy.

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