[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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