[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 96 (Wednesday, July 11, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7484-S7490]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 
                            2002--Continued


                           Amendment No. 893

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I rise to speak against the pending 
amendment. My question is, If we are not going to have exploration in 
the Gulf of Mexico in a limited area for oil and gas, where are we 
going to do it? Not in the Atlantic along the coast. Not in the Pacific 
along the coast. Some people say not in Alaska in the area that has 
been pursued. Then where? I believe we can do it effectively, 
efficiently, responsibly, and productively in the Gulf of Mexico.
  For years, exploration in the gulf and, in fact, drilling activity 
occurred primarily in Texas and Louisiana waters. But in more recent 
years it has moved over under Mississippi and Alabama. It has been very 
productive.
  This is an interesting map to which others have referred. The Florida 
coastline goes to Pensacola, Alabama with Mobile, Biloxi, and New 
Orleans. I live right here; that is where my house sits. I can step off 
my front porch and put a rock in the Gulf of Mexico. I can sit out on 
my front porch and I can see a natural gas well working right in this 
area. In the daytime you can see it. It is clear. And at night 
sometimes they flare it off. It has never been a problem and it is 
producing natural gas. As a matter of fact, it is closer to my front 
doorstep, literally, than it is to Panama City, Florida, or Pensacola, 
or Biloxi or New Orleans. I am perfectly comfortable with this. There 
is no risk.
  Those who live in the gulf area know that some of the most effective 
drilling and exploration drilling anywhere in the world is done in the 
gulf. It has become more efficient, with greater accuracy. If there has 
ever been a spill in the gulf, it must have been very minor and 
certainly never affected my State, I don't believe, since we have had 
the drilling off the coast of Alabama and Mississippi. I don't believe 
we have ever had one.
  It also is a wonderful place to fish around the oil rigs. We take old 
liberty ships out and sink them in the gulf so they will form fishing 
mounds. It is very effective. The rig serves the same purpose.
  But now we have people who say we should not have it in the Gulf of 
Mexico, or we should delay it even further, even though there has been 
a compromise. I think this whole area should be opened up for lease. 
But now it is down to just this green area, a very small area. The 
Governors of the States that are involved--Louisiana, Mississippi, 
Alabama, and I believe this compromise provision is supported even by 
Jeb Bush--all of our leaders

[[Page S7485]]

and all of the people who live in this area support this.
  What are we going to do? We are depending on foreign oil for 56 
percent of our energy needs, and it is going up. It will be 60 percent. 
Can we get everything we need just from wind and sun? If we triple what 
we got from those areas, it wouldn't get us at 6 percent. As I said 
before, maybe we will have to harness some of the speeches around here 
to produce more energy needs in this country. But we need exploration 
for oil and gas. We need to look at greater use of nuclear power. We 
need to take advantage of clean coal technology. We do need alternative 
sources of energy--wind, solar, hydro. We need energy efficiency. We 
need to encourage conservation. But we need a national energy policy--
the whole thing, the whole package--so that we will not be in danger of 
the threat of OPEC countries saying they will cut us off.
  By the way, every time we have a decline or some sort of a threat 
from OPEC countries, we get oil out of the SPR. Where do you think the 
SPR is, the strategic petroleum? I think most of it is in Texas and 
Louisiana.

  Now people are saying, well, in south Florida, let's build a 1.6 
billion pipeline from my hometown and from Mobile, AL, across the Gulf 
of Mexico into Florida and supply their energy needs. We are supposed 
to take the risk in those areas of the exploration and the drilling for 
natural gas, and of course, sometimes for oil, and now we are going to 
build this pipeline and lay it across the Gulf of Mexico to supply the 
natural gas for people who say they don't want us to explore and 
produce. This makes no sense.
  The people have to decide. Are we going to continue to go down this 
trail of not producing for our energy needs? Are we going to have this 
national security risk, facing the danger of loss of freedoms in 
America? Who thinks gasoline prices will not go up again next summer? 
They are. And so will diesel fuel prices. The families won't be able to 
afford to drive to their vacation spots. The small business men and 
women are going to have trouble paying their electricity bills. The 
farmers will have difficulty paying for the cost of diesel fuel for 
their tractors. It will ripple through the economy.
  This is probably the most serious problem this country faces today. 
Meanwhile, we fiddle in Washington while the country has a heat stroke 
and is threatened with not having the energy to keep the economy 
growing. I think the American people realize this is a very serious 
problem. Some people shy away from calling it a crisis. OK, don't use 
that word. There is no imminent danger now. But there could be 
tomorrow, there could be next week. OPEC countries could say: We will 
cut you off. We could have rolling brownouts in California, blackouts 
in New York City. They will run short of power in south Florida.
  This is the least we can do. We should do it now, not later. We have 
been wrestling around over this for months--in fact, years. This can be 
done safely, effectively. I understand it is projected this area could 
produce enough natural gas to provide 1 million families in America 
with the supply of natural gas they need for 15 years. I don't know 
whether that is accurate. It has been very productive in this part of 
the gulf. It is done efficiently and in very targeted ways. They know 
now where the oil and gas is. They can probably put a pin on it--and 
from long distances.
  I urge my colleagues, this may be the only real vote we have on 
energy production in America this summer. Senator Daschle said we will 
focus on appropriations bills. He is right for doing that. We should 
try to help him move the appropriations bills. We will not get to a 
free-standing energy bill probably until the fall. But we should do it. 
In the meantime, we should not take this step of prohibiting or 
delaying exploration and development of the resources that we know are 
in the Gulf of Mexico.
  My beach is closer to this area than the beaches in Florida. I say, 
bring it on. I am worried about the future of my country and my 
children's economic future. I urge my colleagues, this should be an 
overwhelming bipartisan defeat on an amendment that really, in view of 
all that has gone on, should not be passed.
  I thank my colleague from Louisiana for yielding me this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I yield to my colleague, the senior Senator 
from Florida, such time as he consumes.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I am proud to join my colleague from 
Florida, Senator Bill Nelson, as we offer this amendment to help assure 
that America will have a policy of energy that is also a policy for our 
economic future and for the protection of important environmental 
treasures.
  Let us clearly understand what the amendment we offer will do. It 
will provide for a short, 6-month delay, in the leasing of property in 
the area that is known as lease sale 181. This short delay, 6 months 
from the time the bill is enacted, will allow time to make some 
important decisions before we are committed to an option that may not 
be in the best interests of our Nation.
  This is also an issue, while it is today in the context of the 
eastern Gulf of Mexico, the exact same issues which I will speak about 
are relevant to other areas of the country which share a similar 
concern, whether or not it is on the Atlantic coast. I heard this 
weekend of concerns off the northeast coast regarding a proposal for 
drilling in areas that have been very significant parts of the American 
tradition and history of commercial fishing for hundreds of years.
  We know our friends who live in the area of the Great Lakes are 
concerned about proposals for drilling in Lake Huron and Lake 
Superior--again, areas that have in the past been off limits for 
drilling. California is another area that has expressed concern about 
the proposals for drilling under the rules as they currently exist.
  While this may be characterized as a Gulf of Mexico issue, or even 
more specifically a Florida issue, it raises important implications for 
the Nation. Let me discuss two of those issues which I believe justify 
the 6-month delay we are requesting through this amendment.
  First, the current laws that govern Outer Continental Shelf drilling 
in my judgment are imbalanced. They do not give proper consideration to 
other factors in addition to energy production, factors such as 
economic and environmental needs. We are all aware that America has 
needs for increased energy production. We are not insensitive to that. 
But we also are not myopic, that that is the only issue America needs 
to take in the balance in making these judgments. We believe balanced 
legislation on Outer Continental Shelf drilling would include the other 
factors that might be affected by that drilling. Let me give, as an 
example, what is happening today as a result of our law.
  A number of years ago, leases were granted in these areas that are 
within 40 miles of the coast of Florida. Those are depicted on this map 
in the light pink and blue. The blue area is what is called Destin 
Dome. It is an area that is approximately 35 miles south of Pensacola. 
That lease has been outstanding for a number of years but was dormant. 
Then a few years ago the owner of that lease, the Chevron Oil Company, 
made an application for a drilling permit, to start production on that 
property. What was discovered was that basic environmental analysis, 
which in my judgment should have preceded the lease being granted in 
the first place, had not been done and it was deferred until the 
drilling permit was requested. As an example of those basic studies, 
one of them is the Coastal Zone Management Act. The Coastal Zone 
Management Act is administered in a joint program between the U.S. 
Department of Commerce and the various coastal States affected. The 
result of that analysis of the Coastal Zone Management Act was a 
determination by the State of Florida that it was a violation of the 
act and of the management plan, which had been approved by the U.S. 
Department of Commerce, to drill on this Destin Dome. That has now 
precipitated a series of litigation and administrative actions which 
have drawn this process out for many years.
  In my judgment, the lesson of Destin Dome is let's do the 
environmental surveys before we grant the lease, before we create the 
expectations that a lease carries with it, before people apply for the 
permit to drill, so we have satisfied ourselves on environmental, 
economic, and the other considerations that this is a property which 
will be appropriate to drill should a lease be granted.

[[Page S7486]]

  One of the things we could do, during this 6 months of deferral, 
would be to do an analysis of our current law to see if it is 
appropriately representing the wide range of interests that should be 
considered. We know we are going to be doing a major energy bill 
sometime in the next few months. Our Republican leader has indicated he 
thinks that will be on the Senate floor sometime this fall. I know the 
chairman of the Energy Committee is driving a schedule that would have 
it considered in committee this month. So we are not talking about long 
delays. We are talking about legislation that is viable at this moment 
and would be the appropriate means by which to raise these issues as to 
whether our current laws are adequate to represent the range of 
interests.

  The second point I would make, that in my opinion justifies the 6-
months delay which the House of Representatives has voted by an 
overwhelming margin, is the very fact of these existing leases 
outstanding. If we were looking at a map, not a current map but a map 
as recent as the early 1990s, we would also have seen lots of these 
little pink squares in this area adjacent to the Florida Keys. What 
happened there was that there was great concern about the potential 
adverse effects on one of the most fragile environmental areas in the 
world, the Florida Keys and their adjacent coral reefs. The President, 
George Herbert Walker Bush, announced that in his judgment that danger 
should be eliminated by the Federal Government reacquiring those leases 
in the vicinity of the Florida Keys. Over a period of less than 10 
years, an aggressive program of reacquisition of those leases has, in 
fact, eliminated those leases.
  I believe today we should be entering into negotiation during the 
administration of George W. Bush to do the same thing in the northern 
Gulf of Mexico, to eliminate those inappropriate leases that have been 
granted in years past, that now threaten the beaches of the Panhandle 
of Florida. Again, the 6-months delay would give us the opportunity, 
would give us the time to undertake exactly that type of analysis.
  This idea is an idea which has been long under consideration. When 
some of the initial proposals were being made for lease site 181, our 
former colleague and then Governor of Florida, the now deceased 
Governor Lawton Chiles, wrote a letter, on October 28, 1996, to the 
Director of the Minerals Management Service about lease site 181. In 
that letter, Governor Chiles made this statement:

       A remaining concern, however, is the potential for 
     development of the existing leases in the eastern gulf. I am 
     still quite concerned about the dangers the State's pristine 
     coastline faces from production activities on these leases 
     offshore Northwest Florida.

  Governor Chiles was talking about this cluster of leases in the 
Florida Panhandle section of the north Gulf of Mexico.

       While the final program represents a tremendous victory for 
     Florida, I know the victory will not be complete until there 
     are no existing leases off our coast.

  This letter is now almost 5 years old and no progress has yet been 
made towards achieving that goal of eliminating those leases off the 
coast of Florida. This 6-month period should be a time in which we 
start the serious negotiations with the current administration of 
President Bush that proved to be so effective in the administration of 
his father in eliminating a similar cluster of oil and gas leases in 
the area of the Florida Keys.
  This is not 6 months which would be frittered away. This is 6 months 
in which we can reexamine the fundamental law that currently governs 
the leasing of Outer Continental Shelf lands for oil and gas 
production, to assure that appropriate environmental studies are done 
before the leases are granted, not after the leases are granted, 
precipitating the kind of contentious litigation and administrative 
procedures we have been dealing with as it relates to Destin Dome.
  It would also give us 6 months in which we could commence the serious 
negotiations with the current administration, as was the case in the 
late 1980s and early 1990s with the administration of the previous 
President leading to the elimination of the oil and gas leases in the 
southern Gulf of Mexico.
  I believe our request is fair; that it is reasonable; that it has a 
specific purpose to be accomplished by the brief delay. It is the same 
amendment that the House of Representatives has already adopted by an 
overwhelming margin. It is one which I commend to my colleagues in the 
Senate, not only as it relates to the specific very fragile 
environmental area of our Nation but also for the precedent that was 
set in terms of establishing appropriate laws for the future and a 
reexamination of possibly ill-considered decisions in the past, such as 
granting these leases in appropriate areas which would be beneficial to 
all Americans.
  I urge adoption of the amendment. Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schumer). Who yields time?
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I watched the debate with a great deal of 
interest. I can only think of the amendment a little while ago that was 
offered by the Senator from Illinois. The Minerals Management Service 
has been working on this lease sale for quite a while, and includes the 
current 5-year Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Program. This was 
put on the table under the Clinton administration. The service prepared 
the draft EIS. They have ensured that the proper public hearings have 
taken place, including the hearings in Pensacola, Tallahassee, and 
Mobile. But despite the fact that service has jumped through all of the 
required administrative hoops, some opponents are now trying to foul 
the whole thing up in the end game right before the lease, of course, 
is finalized.
  When we take a look at the Land and Water Conservation Fund, it is 
interesting that Members who have been leaning towards voting for this 
amendment are the same Members who have submitted healthy requests for 
money out of that Land and Water Conservation Fund for some of their 
projects. It is also interesting to note that in this very bill, 
Florida has approximately $42 million in items that are funded under 
the Land and Water Conservation Fund. It is likely that State has been 
the single largest draw on the Land and Water Conservation Fund in the 
last 5 years. That money is derived from royalties from offshore 
drilling and production. It is ironic to note that the State of Florida 
is actually the third largest consumer of petroleum products. However, 
it only produces about 2 percent of the petroleum that it consumes.
  Basically, this amendment on the surface appears to be one of those 
``not in my backyard'' kinds of situations or games.
  To top it off, this amendment totally ignores the fact that last week 
the administration announced that it decided to reduce the size of the 
lease sale and in particular decided to make sure that the lease sale 
is much further away from Florida's shores.
  A while ago, we had the amendment of the Senator from Illinois. Now 
we have the proponents of this amendment pleading with us to heed the 
local concerns for the protection of Florida's beaches, of which I 
would concur. I will say right now that I think the offshore drilling 
probably does less damage than the tankers that go up and down and 
unload in the Gulf of Mexico every day. They want those decisions to be 
made locally. But when it comes to voting on an issue that affected the 
West, they disregarded that.
  When voting, I ask my fellow Members to think about the fact that 
this is a legislative rider that could ultimately reduce the amount of 
funds contributed to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and it might 
interfere with our country's ability to produce its own oil and gas 
during a time when the country is facing a very serious energy crunch.
  If local concerns are in play in Florida, why aren't they in Montana? 
I call that the lack of fairness. I think that is all we ever want in 
this body--fairness.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, this is a very serious national issue. 
It is not a Florida issue in any strict legal sense at all.
  I used to be the U.S. attorney and represented the Federal 
Government. I know that these Federal waters are 260 miles away from 
Tampa, FL. It is a Federal decision about whether to lease it and 
produce oil and gas from it.

[[Page S7487]]

  As a resident of Mobile, AL, which is right here at the tip of OCS 
central planning area, I am pretty familiar with the facts in this case 
and what happens.
  Frankly, I have to say I am a little bit disappointed. The President 
of the United States, in my view, made a mistake when he cut back huge 
portions of this lease that is on that map to accommodate and appease 
the political leaders in Florida. What did he get? They still opposed 
the sale and are still opposing it right on this floor.
  Yet this map shows a dotted line from my hometown of Mobile, AL, over 
to Tampa, FL. I wonder if anybody knows what those dotted lines 
reflect. They reflect a pipeline. That pipeline is being built at this 
moment. It started in June. The pipeline is to take natural gas 
produced in the western gulf to Tampa, FL, and to south Florida to meet 
their surging demands for natural gas. Yet when it comes time for them 
to go along with a national goal of producing natural gas way out in 
the Gulf of Mexico, far from where you can see it from land, they say: 
Oh, no. We can never allow that to happen.
  They have fought it natural gas production consistently. I am really 
concerned about this position. We have natural gas here in the Gulf of 
Mexico. It is being produced off the shores of Alabama, Mississippi, 
Louisiana and Texas. Now they want to transport that gas over to 
Florida. What is that going to do to the price of natural gas for the 
homeowners in Alabama and electricity users in Alabama? They are going 
to bid it up. This demand on the limited supply in the western Gulf of 
Mexico is going to drive up the price of natural gas for the people in 
Alabama; and, at the same time, Florida refuses to allow any production 
in Federal waters 100 or more miles from their shore.

  This is a national issue. One reason, in my view, we have an economic 
slowdown--and I do not think anybody can dispute it--is an increase in 
energy prices. Fifty-seven percent of our fossil fuels comes from 
outside the country. And that amount is growing. What does that mean? 
What it means is, American wealth is going overseas to Saudi Arabia, to 
Venezuela, to Iraq and other foreign countries, to pay for oil and gas 
that we have right here off our coast. Whom do we pay when we produce 
it here? We pay us. We pay the United States. We keep American wealth.
  The oil companies agreed to pay $136 million just for the right to 
bid on this property and are projected to pay $70 million, at least, 
per year of royalty. More than that will probably go into the Treasury.
  A big chunk of offshore royalty goes to the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund. The Land and Water Conservation Fund funds the 
purchase of parks and recreation areas, estuaries, and to protect 
environmentally sensitive areas that need to be preserved.
  So the question is really simple for Americans: Whom are we going to 
pay? Are we going to transfer our wealth overseas? Keep it within the 
United States? Or are we going to send it abroad?
  Make no mistake, people act as if the price of energy makes no 
difference. But when a family had a $100-a-month gasoline bill several 
years ago, and now has a $150-a-month gasoline bill, they have $50 less 
per month to spend for things their family needs. It is right out of 
their pocket. When that $50--or a big portion of it--is sent over to 
Saudi Arabia or Iraq and Saddam Hussein, for their oil and gas, we are 
not helping America.
  Let me tell you, we do not just have oil and gas wells off the 
Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana coast 100 miles away, we 
have them right up in Mobile Bay, in some instances less than a mile 
from homes. I drove over to Gulf Shores right near Pensacola this 
Saturday to visit my brother-in-law, and he was there with his 
grandson. They were so proud. They had a picture of a 40-pound ling, a 
great fish. Where did they catch it? Under an oil rig about 1 mile off 
the gulf shore's coast--1 mile.
  We have never had a problem with these oil and gas wells. Offshore 
oil and gas production in state waters has helped to generate for the 
State of Alabama a trust fund of $2 billion. The interest on that fund 
contributes over 10 percent of our general fund budget on an annual 
basis.
  America has benefited from that. That supply has allowed American 
money to stay in Alabama and the producing States and not to go off to 
Saudi Arabia. It has helped to build wealth in America as a whole. You 
may say: You just want the money for Alabama. The truth is, Alabama is 
not going to get a dime out of this lease except as any other State 
would under the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The proposed lease 
sale is in Federal waters. It is not in State waters.
  But we have produced oil in State waters right off the beaches, right 
in the bay here, and we have had no problems. People fish around it on 
a regular basis. It has created a steady flow of income and has been 
good for America.
  The President, in trying to be accommodating, agreed to cut back this 
lease sale to less than one-quarter of the original area proposed by 
President Clinton. He tried to do that. He moved it off on the Alabama 
side--nothing in the Florida waters--to try to accommodate Florida. And 
the Florida politicians are still not happy. But they want this 
pipeline built. They want this pipeline built so they can get natural 
gas. And why do they want the natural gas? Because it is needed to fuel 
the new cleaner burning electricity plants they need to heat and cool 
their homes, shops and offices.
  What is particularly valuable in the Gulf are the huge reserves of 
natural gas. The wells in the remaining lease area are going to be a 
mixture of oil and gas. But the neck, the ``stovepipe'', that the 
President shut off as part of his compromise to appease Florida's 
political leaders was virtually all natural gas.
  So I think the Senators from Florida are asking a bit much. I would 
ask them to think about this. Is not this the philosophy that got 
California in the fix they are in today? For decades California was 
facing the question of offshore drilling: No. Nuclear power: No. Coal 
plants: No. Electric plants: No. And what happened? They have brownouts 
and prices going through the roof. And they want to blame somebody 
else. They won't blame themselves.
  But energy is going to come from somewhere. It is either going to 
come from foreign sources or our own sources. We should not threaten 
our economy. We should not press down on the brow of American working 
men and women, with the burden of paying 20, 30, 40, cents more a 
gallon for gasoline, or twice as much perhaps for natural gas to heat 
their homes to accommodate some sort of political fear that exists out 
there.
  So what I think is important is that we, as America, just relax a 
little bit. Let's be rational. Let's think this thing through. Let's 
ask ourselves: What real threat is there? And what are the benefits 
from producing out there? We simply cannot allow people over in Naples, 
FL, in their beach houses, worth probably $2, $3, $4 million each, 
worrying about running their air-conditioners all the time to dictate 
national energy policy.
  Do you know how you generate electricity for air-conditioners in 
south Florida? They use natural gas because it is efficient and clean 
burning, much better than coal. So they want that natural gas. They 
just do not want it 213 miles or 260 miles away. ``Oh, no, we can't 
have this'' they say. I really do not think they know what has 
happened. I think they have been misled by some politicians and 
environmentalists who are not responsible.
  This is an extreme position. I hate to say that. This is an unhealthy 
position to have this Senate take. We ought not to adopt this amendment 
that would stop us from producing oil and gas in one-quarter of the 
previously approved area. It is going to hurt us in America. It is 
going to hurt us economically.
  The demands in Florida are significant. Thirty percent of all natural 
gas produced in America comes out of the gulf, and Florida will consume 
huge amounts. Their demand is going to double in the next 15 years, and 
increase over 142 percent in the next 20 years, according to experts.
  Yes, we should conserve. Yes, I hope people will use those hybrid 
automobiles. I would like to have one myself. I don't know why 
everybody doesn't buy one. There must be some reason they don't buy 
them. If they are so wonderful, why doesn't everybody go out and buy 
one, if you get 50 miles to

[[Page S7488]]

the gallon? But I think they have potential. I am interested in looking 
at them and support the efforts of our automakers to improve 
efficiency. But it is a free country. Are we going to make everybody go 
out and buy one?

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional 
minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I will just say that I believe the 
President has submitted a scaled-down, fair, and reasonable proposal--
too scaled down, frankly. It ought to have satisfied those who would 
object. Unfortunately, it has not. We have had to have this debate. And 
though it is healthy to have the debate, I am confident that the 
amendment will be defeated and that this small production area will be 
opened for the benefit of American taxpayers and the American economy.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, how many minutes remain in 
opposition?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The opposition's time has expired.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. How many minutes remaining do I have as the 
proponent?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Forty-one minutes twenty-one seconds.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I do not intend to take that. I see all of the 
staff smiling at me.
  But I would like to summarize. I would like to see if I can bring to 
closure a 3-hour debate on a part of setting any energy policy in this 
country that is very important not only to us along the gulf coast but 
to the Nation as a whole.
  I want to mark the contrast in the debate that you have heard: Every 
Senator who has spoken in opposition to this amendment to stop oil 
drilling off Florida in the eastern Gulf of Mexico planning area is 
from an oil State.
  That is the beauty of the United States of America. We come, each 
State represented by two Senators, and bring all of our different 
interests and constituencies here. But it is an interesting contrast 
that every opponent to us trying to protect against oil drilling in the 
eastern Gulf of Mexico is from an oil State.
  Senator Graham, my senior colleague from the State of Florida, has 
eloquently pointed out a number of things. He pointed out in his 
summary that these light-colored areas are active leases but no 
drilling has occurred. Senator Graham and I have offered a bill to buy 
back these leases, just as President George Herbert Walker Bush had 
proposed buying back a bunch of leases off of the Ten Thousand Islands 
off of Naples, off of Fort Myers that occurred about a decade ago. We 
want to get rid of these, including the lease called the Destin Dome, 
where Chevron has an active permit to drill.
  Let me give you some statistics about Chevron and its offshore rigs 
in the Gulf of Mexico and what they have experienced between 1956 and 
1995.
  There were 10 gas blowouts and an additional 5 blowouts of oil and a 
combination of gas. There were 65 fires and explosions of which at 
least 28 originated from natural gas, 14 significant pollution 
incidents, and 40 major accidents, resulting in at least 19 fatalities. 
There were five pipeline breaks or leaks.
  I don't have any particular reason to cite this with regard to 
Chevron, except that Chevron came up because they have an active lease 
that is ready to be drilled 30 miles off of some of the world's most 
beautiful beaches called the Destin Dome. What Senator Graham and I 
would like to do is to see us buy back that lease so that drilling, 
with a safety record and a blowout record as has been shown by the 
facts--and remember, facts are stubborn things--so that that won't 
occur right off of the sugary white sand beaches of Destin, FL.
  We would like to reacquire that lease, just as the first President 
Bush had acquired so many leases down here threatening the 10,000 
islands of the Florida Keys.
  That is not the issue here today. The issue today is taking these 
active drilling leases in the central and western planning areas of the 
Gulf of Mexico and thrusting eastward toward the coastline of Florida 
with a new sale of 1.5 million acres.
  They had 6 million acres in this original lease sale 181. They knew 
they were not going to pass it. They knew there was too much political 
opposition. So what they have done is they have scaled it back to 1.5 
million acres, thinking they can get it through.
  It is, in fact, the eastward inevitable march of drilling into the 
eastern planning area, an area that heretofore has not been violated 
with this drilling.
  Let me cite some more statistics as we wrap up this debate. The 
Department of the Interior, on the day that the Senate and the House 
goes home for the Fourth of July, on Monday, July 2, announces this 
deal, that they are shrinking 181. In the course of that announcement, 
they put out a news bulletin: Secretary Norton announces area of 
proposed 181 lease sale on Outer Continental Shelf. And in that, the 
release states: The area also contains 185 billion barrels of oil.
  You have heard the statistics of how much oil is there. The fact is, 
it is not 185 billion barrels of oil; it is 185 million barrels of oil 
that MMS, a part of the Department of the Interior, estimates is in 
this lease sale 181.
  So I raise the question again, since this equates to about 10 days' 
worth of oil and gas energy for this country, is it worth the risk to 
the beaches of Florida and to the environment of Florida, this eastward 
march that will inextricably, inexorably happen, is it worth the risk? 
It is not.
  I said earlier in my remarks, if ever I have seen anything that looks 
like the nose of a camel suddenly under the tent, it is that yellow-
colored, 1.5 million acres coming into the eastern planning area that 
has no drilling.
  Back in the middle 1980s, I was a junior Congressman from the east 
coast of Florida. The Reagan administration had a Secretary of the 
Interior named James Watt. James Watt was absolutely intent on drilling 
for oil off the entire eastern coast of the United States and was 
offering for lease sale leases from as far north as Cape Hatteras, NC, 
all the way south to Fort Pierce, FL. I went to work, as the 
Congressman from the middle eastern coast of Florida, to try to defeat 
that. And we defeated it in the appropriations bill, in an 
appropriations subcommittee on this very same Interior Department 
appropriations.
  They left me alone. And 2 years later, they came back. This time they 
had worked the full Appropriations Committee in the House so that they 
thought they had the votes. And they were running that train down the 
track for oil drilling from North Carolina to south Florida. The only 
way that we beat it was to finally get NASA and the Department of 
Defense to own up to the fact that off the east coast of Florida, where 
we were launching the space shuttle, you couldn't have oil rigs out 
there where you were dropping the solid rocket boosters from the space 
shuttle launches and where you were dropping off the first stages of 
the expendable booster rockets that were going out of the Cape 
Canaveral Air Force Station.
  They have left us alone on oil drilling until now. That was almost 
16, 17 years.
  What we happened to do was call the the Pensacola Naval Air Station.
  Fast forward 17 years. We decided to call one of the greatest 
military installations in the world, the naval air station at 
Pensacola, the place where almost every naval aviator has learned to 
fly, and we asked if this lease sale 181 were to have a spill--
remember, I cited statistics earlier that the Minerals Management 
Service says this lease sale has up to a 37- percent possibility of 
having an oilspill--we said to the executive officer at the Naval Air 
Station Pensacola: What would happen to Pensacola Naval Air Station and 
to the Air Force installations at Eglin Air Force Base at Fort Walton 
and Hurlburt Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach?
  No. 1, for both of those military complexes, virtually all testing, 
training, and operations over water would cease until the oil slick was 
completely cleaned up.
  No. 2, flights would cease due to the hazards to pilots if they had 
to eject over oily water.
  No. 3, water training and equipment testing would cease.

[[Page S7489]]

  No. 4, test firing of weapons would cease over and into oily water.
  In other words, the Pensacola Naval Air Station would virtually cease 
to operate as one of our greatest national assets.
  We have not even talked about something that is a natural phenomenon 
in the State of Florida. Look at this peninsula. It is a land that I 
call paradise, but paradise happens to be a peninsula that sticks down 
into something known as hurricane highway, for in the course of the 
summer and into the early fall, because the Lord designed the Earth 
this way, hurricanes spring up in the gulf, they spring up in the 
Atlantic, and they go from the Atlantic into the gulf. It is an 
additional reminder of the additional hazards of Florida offshore oil 
drilling.
  As we bring to a close this 3-hour debate, the risk of spill, 
according to the Government, on this lease sale 181 is all the way up 
to 37 percent. This lease sale, by the Department's own recognition, is 
only going to have about 10 days of oil and gas for the entire country. 
It is not going to lessen the dependence on foreign oil.
  My goodness, the United States has 5 percent of the world's 
population, 3 percent of the reserves, but we consume 25 percent of the 
world's oil. We cannot drill our way out of dependence on foreign oil. 
We have to have a balanced energy policy which includes the use of 
technology to get greater miles-per-gallon in our transportation, as 
well as conservation, as well as being balanced with drilling.
  I recite the statistic I cited that of all the future reserves, they 
are not in the eastern gulf planning area. Sixty percent of the 
Nation's undiscovered economically recoverable Outer Continental Shelf 
oil is in the central and western gulf area where they are already 
drilling, and for natural gas, of the entire Outer Continental Shelf, 
80 percent of the future reserves are from the central and western 
areas, not from the eastern area.

  I come back to the point at which we began 3 hours ago: Is it worth 
the risk? Is it worth the tradeoff: Little oil and gas, and yet the 
first invasion of the eastern planning area, a huge invasion, a million 
and a half acres? Is it worth the risk to an economy of a State that 
has pristine, white sandy beaches on which its economy is so dependent 
because of a $50 billion-a- year tourism economy? Is it worth it to the 
estuaries of Apalachicola, the Big Ben, and the Ten Thousand Islands, 
Tampa Bay, and the Caloosahatchee River, and the sandy beaches from 
Tampa all the way to Marco Island? It is not worth the risk. It is not 
worth the tradeoff.
  That is why for years we see, as depicted by the green color, the 
active drilling leases off Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, 
but not off Florida in the eastern planning area of the gulf.
  I know the White House is putting on a full-court press. I know the 
oil and gas industry, through all of their innumerable lobbyists, are 
putting on a full-court press. We heard the Senators from each of the 
oil States. Not one non-oil-producing State spoke against this today. 
Yet we have our hands full because the full court lobbying press by 
every special interest involved in drilling in oil and gas is going to 
be working this issue as hard as it can before our vote that is going 
to occur sometime late tomorrow morning.
  I ask my colleagues to consider the risk to their Outer Continental 
Shelf and to consider what is in the best interest of the Nation.
  I am deeply honored that this is one of the first great debates in 
which I have engaged, in which I have joined so many of those with whom 
I argued in many of the other debates, such as budget, education, and 
the Patients' Bill of Rights. This, however, is one of the great 
debates that will take place, and it is an honor for me to have 
participated in it.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, OCS Lease Sale 181 is an essential 
element of a national energy policy that will provide affordable and 
secure supply of energy.
  Sale 181, the most promising domestic opportunity for newly-available 
leases in many years is a resource rich area for new supplies of 
natural gas and oil. It will play an important role in meeting the 
Nation's energy needs.
  Sale 181 is the work-product of more than five years of planning and 
preparation by the Federal Government, affected States, and industry, 
and should proceed as scheduled in December 2001.
  The Nation's demand for natural gas is expected to grow 
significantly.
  According to a 1999 National Petroleum Council study, the nation's 
demand for natural gas is expected to increase by 32 percent to 29 
trillion cubic feet by 2010 and by 41 percent to 31 trillion cubic feet 
by 2015.
  Current demand is 22 trillion cubic feet. Natural gas is essentially 
a North American commodity.
  If the Nation is to meet its growing natural gas demand, access to 
gas resource rich areas like the Sale 181 area is an indispensable 
element of the energy policy agenda.
  Major reserves of oil and natural gas are believed to exist in the 
eastern gulf. According to a study conducted in conjunction with the 
1999 National Petroleum Council study, the Sale 181 area may hold 7.8 
trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 1.9 billion barrels of oil.
  This is enough natural gas to supply 4.6 million households for 20 
years and enough oil to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for three 
and one-half years or make enough gasoline to fuel 3.1 million cars for 
20 years.
  This is also three and one-half times the amount of oil currently in 
the Strategic Petroleum Reserves.
  Sale 181 was recently modified to ensure a balance between state and 
federal interests.
  Key affected constituencies including Alabama, Florida, and the 
Department of Defense were consulted during development of the current 
five-year plan to ensure that all concerns were addressed.
  For example, the sale area was drawn to insure it was consistent with 
the State of Florida's request for no oil and gas activities within 100 
miles of its coast, including limiting the number of tracts offered for 
lease.

  In 1996, Florida Governor Lawton Chiles expressed appreciation to MMS 
for developing a program that recognized the need to exclude any tracts 
within 100 miles of Florida's coasts.
  The sale area, with full recognition by Florida, including Florida 
congressional delegation, was specifically excluded from current 
leasing moratoria language under both Congressional action and 
President Clinton's 1998 Executive order.
  Other tracts are expected to be deferred to assure smooth operations 
when the military and industry operate in the same area.
  Sale 181 is a regional opportunity that impacts 5 Gulf States; all 5 
Gulf States were consulted. Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas 
support Sale 181.
  These States will enjoy significant economic benefits as a result of 
exploration and production activities in the area.
  In addition, the coastal area of Louisiana will be the most heavily 
impacted of the five States.
  The impact on Florida will be minimal. Many tracts in the sale area 
are closer to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama than to Florida. In 
fact, Cuba is closer to Florida shore than is this lease.
  Parts of the sale area come within about 40 miles of Mississippi, 64 
miles of Louisiana, and about 18 miles of Alabama.
  Florida could benefit significantly from Sale 181. Florida's 
population is expected to grow by 29 percent between now and 2020.
  Florida's total demand for natural gas is expected to grow by 142 
percent during the same period.
  About two-thirds of this growth in demand is for natural gas to 
generate electricity.
  Some of the potential 7.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that 
could be produced from Sale 181 could help meet the State's significant 
demand for natural gas during this time.
  Making more natural gas available to Florida utilities for 
electricity generation should lead to better air quality in the state.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I would like to clarify for the Record why 
I voted to table the Durbin amendment to H.R. 2217, the Interior 
appropriations bill for fiscal year 2002.
  First of all, once national monuments are designated, similar to 
other federal designations, those lands are withdrawn from any further 
mining activity, with exception to existing

[[Page S7490]]

leases. My understanding is that nearly all of the recent monuments 
designated by the prior Administration are protected in this manner. 
Only one of the newly established monuments in Colorado has specific 
provisions in its proclamation that could potentially allow some type 
of oil or gas mining development. Unless the Congress or the President 
by executive action changes the terms of the original proclamation that 
established these monuments, these lands areas are protected. I would 
imagine that such changes would be difficult to approve.
  The second reason I opposed this amendment is that I object to the 
process by which many of these monuments were designated by the 
previous Administration. If important land use issues like this one had 
been thoroughly evaluated during an open and fair public process prior 
to the monument designation, the Senate would not have to vote on this 
type of amendment. The use of the 1906 Antiquities Act is not an 
appropriate way to unilaterally cut off millions of acres of land from 
public use by fiat nor does it allow for the type of open and fair 
input to those living and working on and near those lands. Our 
democratic process should promote such procedural fairness and 
consultation.

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