[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 135 (Wednesday, October 10, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10416-S10417]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    CONSIDERATION OF AN ENERGY BILL

  Mr. INHOFE. I was hoping the assistant majority leader would stay on 
the floor so I could tell him I was very pleased with what happened 
last night. I have dealt with the assistant majority leader and 
majority leader for several weeks now in an attempt to get an energy 
bill to the floor. I understand an agreement has now been announced 
that the majority leader and assistant majority leader will bring one 
to the floor.
  I started to say to Senator Reid, when I saw him walk out--I wanted 
him to be here so he could hear me compliment him on this action. I 
think it is critical.
  I believe we should have gone through an extensive committee markup. 
On the other hand, as the weeks go by and we get closer to adjournment, 
I think this would be an impossible thing to do at this point.
  Second, I am hoping when this bill comes to the floor--and there is 
now a commitment from Senator Daschle to bring it to the floor during 
this Congress, before adjournment--that we get it in time to be very 
deliberative, in time to consider all the amendments.
  I do not know what this energy bill will look like when it comes to 
the floor. I will read this now to make sure it is in the Record in 
case someone else hasn't done so:

       At the request of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, 
     Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff 
     Bingaman today suspended any further markup of energy 
     legislation for this session of Congress. Instead, the 
     chairman will propose comprehensive and balanced energy 
     legislation that can be added by the majority leader to the 
     Senate Calendar for potential action prior to adjournment.

  While it did not have a chance to go through the committee process, 
which I would have preferred, when it became apparent that it was not 
going to go through, I thought the next best thing was to go ahead and 
send it straight to the floor; let us work on it here. We need to put 
amendments on it. We need to be in a position where we are able to 
offer the amendments to make sure it has the necessary provisions to do 
something about an energy policy for the future.
  I do not say this in at all a partisan vein because I started, in the 
1980s, trying to get the Reagan administration to have an energy 
policy.
  Then I tried to get the Bush administration, the Bush I 
administration, to have an energy policy for this Nation. They would 
not do it. I thought surely he would, coming in from the oil patch, but 
he did not.
  Then of course we tried during the Clinton administration, and they 
decided they were not going to do it.
  So this is our chance right now. As long as we have lip service, 
saying, yes, it is important; yes, it is important for our national 
security to have an energy policy, but not doing anything about it, we 
are doing a great disservice to our Nation.
  Here we are in two wars for all practical purposes right now. In Iraq 
you may have noted this morning another one of our Predators was shot 
down, and of course what is happening in our war on terrorism around 
the world. This is no time to be playing around with what is probably 
the single most important aspect of our ability to defend America, and 
that is our current reliance upon foreign sources for our ability to 
fight a war.
  When Don Hodel was Secretary of Energy and Secretary of the Interior, 
back during the Reagan administration, he and I went around the Nation 
giving speeches as to why our dependence on foreign countries for our 
ability to fight a war is not an energy issue; it is a national 
security issue. We went, I remember, to New York and Chicago and 
different places to try to explain to people we cannot be dependent 
upon foreign sources for our oil and still be able to fight wars and 
defend America as the American people expect of us.
  At the time that Don Hodel and I went around the Nation, we were 37 
percent dependent upon foreign sources for our ability to fight a war. 
Today that is now 56.6 percent.
  What I am saying is we are importing 56.6 percent of the oil we are 
using to run America and to fight wars. Today, in this current 
environment, it costs much more, in terms of amounts of oil, to fight a 
war than it did in the past.
  Of the 56.6 percent that we are dependent upon for our ability to 
fight a war--we have to say it in that way--half of that is coming from 
the Middle East. Do you know who the largest contributor to our 
dependency is, in the Middle East? It is Iraq. Here we are at war with 
Iraq. They just shot down one of our Predators, a third one, this 
morning. We are sending battle groups over there to defend America, 
sending them into combat situations with Iraq, yet we are dependent 
upon Iraq for our ability to fight a war against Iraq. That 
is preposterous. It is not believable that this could be happening.

  That is why I say we have to get out of this position. We have to 
establish a national energy policy that is comprehensive, that does 
have as one of its cornerstones the maximum that we are going to be 
dependent upon foreign sources for our ability to fight a war. And that 
is not just the Middle East; that is other parts of the world also.
  To be in a 56.6 percent dependency--and, incidentally, by the end of 
this decade, if we don't do something to dramatically change it, it is 
going to be 60 percent. That is 60 percent dependent upon foreign 
governments for our ability to fight a war.
  What happened last night is a major breakthrough because we now have 
the majority leader stating that he will have a comprehensive bill 
before us to vote on before we adjourn. That is major. We are going to 
have to consider all aspects. I don't want to see something coming down 
that is not comprehensive. It is going to have to talk about where our 
untapped resources are in this country.
  I can see right now all the lobby of the far left environmental 
extremists are going to say this is an ANWR bill. It is not an ANWR 
bill. Of the comprehensive bill, H.R. 4, from the House of 
Representatives, that passed--and that is the one we will probably go 
into conference with--out of 200 pages, only 2 pages talk about ANWR. 
That is a very minuscule part of it. It covers a lot of items. For 
example, we have untapped resources in the United States other than 
ANWR. We have some offshore opportunities, where we have tremendous 
reserves.
  I happen to be from the State of Oklahoma. We had huge stripper well 
production. When we talk about stripper wells, we are talking about 
small wells, shallow wells that only produce 15 or fewer barrels a day.
  But if you had producing today, right now, all of those stripper 
wells, or marginal wells that we have plugged in the last 10 years, 
then it would equal more oil than we are currently importing from Saudi 
Arabia. That shows it is out there.
  Why can't they do it? They can't do it because to lift a barrel of 
oil out of the ground, it costs us 10 times as much in the United 
States in marginal production as it does in Saudi Arabia, for example. 
So it is not the price of the oil so much as, when they make this 
decision as to whether or not to explore for these marginal wells, they 
have to have some idea of what the price of a barrel of oil is going to 
be when it is ultimately produced--and that will be a period of a year. 
We have jumped around from $8 to $35 a barrel in less than a year, so 
how can they predict that? That has to be included in a comprehensive 
energy policy so we can exploit all of these opportunities.
  The other day I was on a program with one of our well-respected 
Senators, and I made the comment almost in jest that you can't expect 
to run the most highly industrialized nations in the history of the 
world on windmills. He said, in fact, you can. He talked about this 
wind technology. Fine. We want to go after these other technologies and 
exploit other opportunities out there--hydroelectric, the sun,

[[Page S10417]]

and the wind. But until that comes along, we have to look very 
seriously not just at oil and our dependency upon foreign nations but 
almost nuclear.
  I can remember back in the 1960s when people would protest nuclear 
plants. Now they realize there is a serious problem with the quality of 
our air. A lot of those people are saying: Let's go back and reexamine 
nuclear energy. No. 1, it is the cheapest; No. 2, it is the cleanest; 
and, No. 3, it is the most readily available.
  I think we should address that in a comprehensive energy policy. That 
is what I hope will be on the floor.
  We have something that is very significant. I am sure the American 
people, since the days of my going around the Nation with Don Hodel 
back in the 1980s, and since we went through a very large Persian Gulf 
war in 1990, now realize we can't be dependent upon the Middle East. 
That is the hotbed. That is where the problems are today. We are 
concerned about North Korea and Afghanistan and about many areas, but 
the Persian Gulf region is where there is a tremendous threat--yes, 
almost a terrorist threat.
  I commend the majority leader for making the agreement to bring up a 
comprehensive bill. But I am asking him, since it is in his lap--he is 
totally responsible for keeping his word on this--that he bring 
something to the floor early enough so we can go through the process, 
debate it, and have amendments. Then we can go to conference with the 
House. They have already passed theirs way ahead of us. We can come up 
with an energy policy, which we have been trying to get through. The 
President, I am sure, will be happy and anxious to sign it. He already 
stated that he would this year before we adjourn.
  It is something that we must do. It is something that is long 
overdue. But the opportunity is here today.
  I feel very strongly that this is an opportunity we cannot bypass. I 
commend the majority leader and am anxious to see what that product 
looks like. I hope we are able to work on that product and get it to 
conference so we get an energy policy and get it signed.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Dayton). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Edwards). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________