[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 113 (Tuesday, September 4, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9013-S9014]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ENERGY POLICY
Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I want to expand a little bit on the
question of energy policy. As I mentioned before, there certainly have
been some changes in the California situation. There have been some
changes throughout the country in gas prices and other kinds of energy
prices. They are not significant changes and, indeed, now we see them
moving back again.
The point we do not want to overlook is that when we had what we
called an energy crisis 6 or 8 months ago, we had a problem; and the
problem basically, of course, was that demand was growing but supply
was not. We had a problem in terms of the amount of refining capacity
in this country. It had not grown for a very long time. The same was
true with electric generation.
We overcame that problem largely, I suppose, because, among other
things, winter was over and some of the refineries that had to make
fuel oil for New England had changed their production. But the fact is,
the problem is still there. We do need an energy policy.
I urge that we do move forward. The President has put forth a
policy--and much of it is incorporated in what has passed in the
House--that I think makes a lot of sense. It includes conservation,
having some opportunities for conservation in the usage of energy.
There are many things we could do in that area. We can do it as
individuals and we can do it as governments and still continue to be
productive. Conservation should be part of our energy plan. There are
many groups that believe conservation is very important.
One of the other areas of energy policy has to do with renewable
energy. We have renewables that are growing. We have wind energy,
hydroenergy, and other kinds of energy that I suppose have potential
for the future. Outside of hydro, renewables now represent about 1
percent of our total energy usage, but, nevertheless, we ought to be
doing something in that area. To do that, of course, we need research
and research dollars.
Our committee has already dealt with research, but there needs to be
a considerable amount of research in the whole area of conservation, of
renewables, of how to have more efficient production with less impact
on the environment. So that is a very real part of energy research.
Then, of course, the real key is production. We have allowed
ourselves in the energy production field to become dependent on OPEC.
Nearly 60 percent of our energy resources now come from overseas. When
they change their views, or when things happen over in those countries,
it impacts our economy and our society.
We need to have an opportunity to increase production and to do it
with diversity so we can use various kinds of energy, which includes
coal. Part of the research is to make coal even more clean in terms of
the air. We need to have diversity in terms of using gas, coal,
nuclear, oil, and renewables so we do not find ourselves becoming
dependent on one source.
Unfortunately, the plans that were sort of underway for having
additional generating plants almost all had to do with natural gas.
Natural gas is a good source of energy, but our largest energy resource
is coal. If we can continue to make coal even more clean, why,
certainly that is a source of energy that ought to be used for
generation.
Also, we have not built generation plants for a very long time. Part
of the reason for that is because of the uncertainty of some
reregulation and ideas that are out there. In the past, when utilities
served a particular area, they produced and generated the electricity.
That was a pretty simple arrangement. Now we find more people looking
at generation as a marketable commodity. It does not have to be tied to
any particular area. But what is the secret to making that work? More
transportation. More transmission.
If you cannot move energy from the place it is developed and
manufactured to where the markets are, of course, then that is part of
the problem. The main source in the West for coal and gas has been the
Mountain States area: Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and New Mexico. But
in order to get it to the market, you have to have transmission
capacity, particularly if you have mine mouth which is very efficient.
So these are issues that need to be dealt with in terms of an energy
policy.
One of the issues in terms of transmission capacity is to have a
nationwide grid so electric power can be moved across the country and
can be moved into the RTOs, the regional transmission organizations,
and become an efficient transmitter of energy. We can, in fact, do
that.
I believe there needs to be an emphasis on this energy question
between now and the time we adjourn so we can get into the field and
begin to make some difference in terms of where our energy sources are
coming from so we can continue to have reasonably priced energy in
order to fuel an economy that we would like to have, which obviously is
necessary in order to do that.
So I am hopeful that as we set our priorities for where we go we will
include that in the very near future. We have talked about it a great
deal. I think actually in a lot of ways there isn't a lot of
controversy. There has been controversy, of course, in relation to
having access to public lands and the idea of protecting the
environment which has to go with energy development.
Some have used ANWR up in the north region as a poster child for not
getting into public lands. The fact is, the House-passed provision is
2,000 acres out of 19 million that would be accessible for a footprint.
So we are pretty close to some agreements on how we can set this
country forward in terms of a source and an opportunity to have
affordable energy.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have another subject upon which I am going
to speak. I do want to make a couple of comments on the statements made
by my friend, the distinguished Senator from Wyoming.
This last couple weeks has been somewhat troublesome to me because we
have all been spread around the country not able to respond to the
President who, of course, has the ability to speak from any place in
the world. What has concerned me a great deal is the President and his
Director of Budget Mitch Daniels talking about this great surplus we
have, the second largest surplus in the history of the country. They
failed to mention the surplus is all Social Security surplus.
Of course, we have a surplus because Social Security is not something
that is funded as we go along. We forward fund Social Security. We have
huge amounts of money coming into the Social Security trust fund today
that we are not paying out. That is the way it was planned in 1983 when
there was a compromise reached by Tip O'Neill, Ronald Reagan, Claude
Pepper, and a few others. So people, including the President of the
United States, who talk about this huge surplus are not being fair to
the American public.
[[Page S9014]]
We do not have a surplus. The surplus is a Social Security surplus.
The economy is in a tremendous downturn. This country's tax revenues
are significantly lower than they have been in a long time. We have had
8 years where we have brought down the debt.
In fact, the 1993 budget deficit reduction act, passed in the House
without a single Republican vote, passed in the Senate without a single
Republican vote--Vice President Gore had to break the tie--put this
country on a road to economic stability. We have 300,000 fewer Federal
jobs than we had in 1993. We have a surplus that we have never had
before. And that is as a result of the efforts of President Clinton and
his Democratic colleagues in the House and the Senate.
We have experienced inflation lower than it has been in some 40-odd
years. We have done remarkably good things with the economy, created 24
million new jobs, in the 8 years it took us to do that. It has been 8
months that this administration has been in office, and they have taken
this away from us, in effect. Social Security surplus moneys were once
used to mask the Federal deficit. We stopped doing that. But now the
second Bush Presidency is using Social Security surpluses to again mask
this deficit.
I can't imagine how anyone can come on the floor and say with a
straight face that we have the second largest surplus in the history of
the country, unless they are candid and say that it is as a result of
the Social Security surplus. That is what it is all about. I hope my
friend from Illinois has an opportunity today; I know he has some
things to say about this.
But let's also talk about energy policy. One of the biggest robberies
in the history of this country took place in Congress the last week
that the House was in session when they passed the energy bill. The
reason I say it was a robbery is because people who voted for that bill
thought that they had limited the drilling in ANWR to 2,000 acres. That
is a big diversion from the truth.
The fact is, they now allow them to have 2,000 acres of oil derricks
all over the Arctic national wilderness. That is what they would allow,
2,000 acres of equipment. This could cover 150,000, 200,000 acres of
pristine wilderness.
There are some of us who believe so strongly about this drilling in
the Arctic national wilderness that we will do just about anything to
stop it from happening. We are not going to let them drill in the
Arctic wilderness. We are not going to let them pull this phony
situation where they say we are only going to drill on 2,000 acres
when, in fact, the legislation states that they are going to allow oil
equipment on 2,000 acres.
We don't have a surplus. We are not going to allow drilling in ANWR.
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