[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 163 (Thursday, November 29, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12145-S12147]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      AN ENERGY POLICY AS STIMULUS

  Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the amendment to the 
underlying bill before the Senate.
  I think the Senator from Kansas has spoken eloquently on the need to 
pass a moratorium on human cloning. It is interesting to note that 
about 80 percent of the people in this great Nation agree with that. It 
is also interesting to note that the other portion of the amendment 
calling for an energy policy for this country is also supported by 
about 80 percent of the people in this country. Although I do not 
ordinarily pay that much attention to polls, I say, in this case, the 
polls reflect good public policy for the United States of America.
  Mr. President, with all the debate that has been going on in this 
body and throughout the Nation as to whether or not we actually need a 
stimulus bill, I reiterate my view that, yes, we do need a stimulus 
bill.
  It is important that we pass a bill from several points of view.
  Psychologically, the American people need a stimulus bill. For all 
the talk over the last couple of months about how much we need a 
stimulus bill, the public has now grown to expect we will pass a 
stimulus bill. I think that has been taken into consideration in the 
decisions the American public has been making. They see it as a 
positive measure, one that will bring us out of our economic doldrums 
and put things back on track.
  As my colleagues know, the National Bureau of Economic Research 
reported earlier this week what many of us knew; and that is, our 
country is in recession. The people in my State of Ohio have known that 
since last year.
  We need to spark our economy by getting businesses to boost 
investment. We need a stimulus package to help raise consumer 
confidence and get the American people spending again. As you know, 
consumer spending makes up two-thirds of our economy. We have to get 
buying. That is what we need to do: We have to get buying.
  We need an economic stimulus bill that will put money in people's 
pockets, one that will restore consumer confidence, give businesses the 
money

[[Page S12146]]

they need to survive by letting them recapture taxes they paid in the 
past.
  We need a bill that will lower people's tax rates by expanding the 
amount of earnings that are taxed at the 10-percent marginal rate. We 
need a stimulus package that provides a ``life preserver'' to the 
unemployed by giving them 13 additional weeks of unemployment benefits 
and one that responds to their health care needs.
  One proposal that responds to what Americans want is the Centrist 
Coalition package that the Presiding Officer is completely familiar 
with and that has been sponsored, on a bipartisan basis, by the 
Presiding Officer, Senators John Breaux, Olympia Snowe, Zell Miller, 
and Susan Collins.
  Regardless of what we do involving a stimulus bill, the American 
people expect us to work together in a bipartisan fashion. They see 
President Bush doing that. He is more worried about protecting the 
Nation's interests than in partisan politics.
  Indeed, some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle have been 
critical of the President because he has not been partisan enough. In 
fact, he has gone the extra mile, I believe, to be nonpartisan.
  The American people believe that Congress' motives are the same as 
the President's. If they become convinced otherwise, that we are 
working for special interests or succumbing to our past bad habits of 
playing politics, the consequences are going to be devastating.
  It will lower their confidence in us and in the economic future of 
our Nation. Things changed on the 11th of September. Those of us in 
Congress should never forget it.
  There is one other action we need to take to stimulate our economy, 
improve and enhance public health and the environment, secure our 
competitive position in the global marketplace, and secure our homeland 
and national security. That action is the adoption of an energy policy 
for this Nation.
  That is why I am so enthusiastic about the amendment to the 
underlying bill. Given the tragedy of September 11 and the actions that 
have occurred in the aftermath, enacting an energy plan is much more 
relevant than ever before.
  As far as I am concerned, and many others, our adoption of an energy 
package is, in the long term, more important to this country than the 
economic stimulus package.
  Because of the situation in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf and 
Southwest and Central Asia, we are more vulnerable today than ever 
before.
  You can see from this chart that one-fourth of our crude oil imports, 
27.18 percent, come from the Middle East. Consider the following 
numbers: Iraq, 6.83 percent; Kuwait, 2.9 percent; Saudi Arabia, 16.79 
percent; the United Arab Emirates, about three one-hundreths of 1 
percent; Oman, less than three one-hundreths of 1 percent; Yemen, 
three-tenths of 1 percent. Given the near constant instability in the 
region, it should give my colleagues little comfort to know that we are 
so reliant on that part of the world.
  OPEC, which produces approximately 40 percent of the world's oil 
supply, has threatened to cut oil production 4 separate times this 
year, and they cut oil production a total of 3.5 million barrels per 
day or 13 percent this year. I know this is a figure that can be 
difficult for people to comprehend, but every day, the United States 
receives 750,000 barrels of oil from Iraq. If we look at the chart, 
over 6.8 percent of the oil we import every day comes from Iraq.
  In December, the United Nations will be conducting a periodic review 
of Iraq's oil-for-food program. In the past Iraq has suspended exports 
during the review in order to press their case that the program be 
allowed to continue uninhibited by the United Nations. This could 
happen again.
  As many of you know, Iraq could be next on the list of nations that 
we go after because of their threat to world peace. It would be surreal 
if we were importing oil from Iraq at the same time we were engaging in 
antiterrorist activities against that nation.
  It was strange enough that when we had the last oil crunch last year, 
we were providing them with technology to increase their oil production 
while at the same time we were conducting air sorties over their no-fly 
zone. We were bombing them on one hand and providing them technology so 
they could increase their oil production at the same time. It doesn't 
make sense.
  The attack on Washington and New York could make things even more 
unpredictable as support for the United States by oil-producing Arab 
nations could bring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida attacks on them. It is 
important to make it clear that Osama bin Laden would dearly like to 
bring down the Saudi government because of its Western influence and 
the alleged exploitation by the United States of Saudi oil. Remember, 
the Saudis provide 16.8 percent of our oil imports.
  On the domestic front, we are also in trouble. The refinery fire in 
Illinois this past August decreased the available supply of gasoline 
while our inventory was already low. That caused prices to jump in my 
State of Ohio and other Midwest States. The price of gasoline jumped up 
30 cents per gallon in Ohio over a 2-week period because of a fire at a 
refinery.
  We have had no new refineries built in almost 26 years, while the 
number of refineries has dropped from 231 in 1983 to 155 today. While 
the refineries today are more efficient, they are not getting the job 
done. When a refinery shuts down for repairs or accidents such as 
fires, it creates price spikes that can be felt across the Nation.
  We should not be lulled into complacency because of the temporary low 
cost of gasoline. If you travel the country, the price is down. We must 
do more to increase domestic production of oil in the United States.
  Our transmission system also needs to be improved and opened up. We 
don't have the infrastructure in place to transmit natural gas and the 
pipelines to transmit oil. Last year one of the reasons we had the 
large increase in gasoline prices in the Midwest was because of a break 
in an oil pipeline coming up from Texas and another one coming from 
Wolverine, MI. Those two events skyrocketed the price of oil in Ohio 
and many other States in the Midwest.

  Because of this, last month I introduced the Environmental 
Streamlining of Energy Facilities Act with Senator Landrieu. Our bill 
will streamline the siting process for pipelines and transmission 
lines.
  Utility costs are another major factor in our Nation's competitive 
position in the global marketplace. Long before the events of September 
11, utility costs were exacerbating the recession in Ohio and the 
Midwest. We need to assure Americans that they can count on reasonable, 
consistent energy costs if we expect to get their confidence back in 
terms of the economy.
  As a major manufacturing State, energy is the backbone of my State, 
and Ohio and the Midwest are the backbone of this Nation's economy. 
Twenty-three percent of our Nation's gross State product for 
manufacturing is concentrated in five States which comprise the 
Midwest; Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. For example, 
when you compare Ohio's manufacturing production with the New England 
States, Ohio's gross State product for manufacturing is higher than all 
six of the New England States combined. Energy is the backbone of the 
U.S. economy. And without a reliable supply, we are not competitive in 
the world marketplace.
  Congress needs to act on an energy bill as soon as possible. It needs 
to be done on a bipartisan basis.
  This chart is really very illuminating. It looks at projected demand 
for energy in this country between now and 2020. The green line is what 
we are going to need. The red line is based on current production and 
shows what we will have available to meet the demands for energy in 
this country. As my colleagues can see, there is a large canyon between 
the lines that needs to be filled. That means that we are going to have 
to produce more oil, more gas, use more coal, produce more nuclear 
energy, if we are going to take care of this large gap.
  Many of my colleagues would argue that the solution to our need for 
energy is the issue of renewables and other alternatives. The fact is, 
today, renewables, that includes hydro- and non-hydropower, take care 
of only a fraction of our energy needs in the United States of America. 
That is surprising, because I have had some colleagues come to the 
floor and argue

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that all we need are acres and acres of windmills and acres and acres 
of solar panels and that will take care of our energy problem. The fact 
is, solar and wind power make up only one-tenth of one percent of our 
energy needs. There is no way that we are going to be able to deal with 
our energy problem with renewables because if you look at the bottom 
line, this purple line, going out to 2020, you can see that it is going 
to represent a very small part of the production we have in America.
  There is no question, we need more energy. We need more oil. We need 
more gas. We need more nuclear. We need more coal. While conservation 
helps, it is not going to meet our estimated consumption without 
drastically changing America's standard of living. We cannot kid 
ourselves and think otherwise.
  Although it won't get the entire job done, a good beginning in our 
goal of achieving a solid energy policy is a bill that is currently on 
the Senate calendar, H.R. 4, and which is part of the amendment to the 
underlying bill before the Senate that was submitted today by Senator 
Lott.
  It is a good beginning. Those of us who have been on this issue for a 
long time would like to see amendments dealing with an ethanol 
component which will help decrease our dependence on foreign oil. We 
need to use more ethanol. We need to have an electricity title to 
improve nationwide delivery. We need more funding for clean coal 
technologies and a nuclear title, including Price-Anderson 
reauthorization.
  It is a beginning, a big beginning, a bill that passed the House of 
Representatives and one that should be passed in the Senate.
  I hope when Monday comes and this body has an opportunity to vote on 
the issue of cloture dealing with the amendments to the underlying bill 
that we will vote to allow those amendments to be debated by the 
Senate. It is important not only to the economic well-being of our 
country, but it is important to our national security.
  We cannot allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of 
complacency simply because energy prices have stabilized. People say, 
``Natural gas prices are down, George,'' and, ``Oil prices are down, 
George.'' The fact is that they have been down before and we have seen 
them go up. These prices are like a yo-yo, up and down and I am worried 
that one day, we are going to end up hanging at the end of the string.
  It is time for us to act. As sure as the Sun will rise, so too will 
prices. OPEC will make sure it happens. The longer we wait to pass an 
energy bill, the more vulnerable this Nation will be to supply 
disruptions, which will, in turn, have a dramatic impact on our 
economy, our environment, our health and, yes, our national security.
  The time has come for the Senate to act and adopt an energy policy 
for the United States of America.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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