[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
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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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