[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 22 (Tuesday, March 5, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1438-S1441]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             ENERGY POLICY

  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I simply begin by thanking you, first, for 
your statement in the Chamber today, but also, more importantly, for 
the leadership that you, Senator Murkowski, and others have 
demonstrated to bring us to this point today. I cannot speak for the 
rest of my colleagues, but I am delighted we are in this Chamber and 
have begun the debate. It has been long delayed, but it is a most 
important debate on whether or not we are going to have an energy 
policy for this country of ours.
  At the end of the Vietnam war, as a young naval flight officer, I 
moved from California to Delaware to enroll in the University of 
Delaware Business School. One of my earliest memories of coming to 
Delaware is sitting in line, waiting to buy gas for my car. We were in 
the middle of an oil embargo, and at that time you could only buy gas 
every other day. We did not have an energy policy in the mid 1970s. We 
do not have one today.
  Twenty-eight years ago, some 30 percent of the oil we used in our 
country was imported. We had a trade balance that was pretty much even. 
There was not much of a deficit. Greenhouses at the time were something 
in which we grew plants. We did not worry about greenhouse gases and 
whether or not we would have a hole in the ozone layer of our 
atmosphere. That was 28 years ago. Today, almost 60 percent of the oil 
we consume comes from other places around the globe. A lot of it we buy 
from people who don't like us very much and, I am convinced, use some 
of the money we send them to try, in some cases, to hurt us or our 
interests.
  Our trade deficit has ballooned to $300 billion, and not all of it 
but a good chunk of it is attributable to the oil we import. Today, 
when people talk about greenhouses, we still grow plants in them, but 
we also worry about greenhouse gases and what is going on with the hole 
in the ozone layer, what is going on with a rising global temperature, 
and what is going to happen to our sea level in this world over the 
next 100 years if we do nothing about it.
  The question we are going to be answering in the next couple weeks 
is, What kind of energy policy should we have in this Nation?
  Like most of my colleagues, I would argue that the answer to that 
question has two parts. One part says we create more energy. And while 
we work to do that, in a variety of ways, the second part says we need 
to conserve more energy.
  Let me talk a little bit about both of those issues: First, the 
creation of more energy and, second, the conservation of energy.
  I live in a State where, I am told, we actually grow more soybeans in 
Sussex County, DE, than any other county in the country. We also have 
more chickens in Sussex County than any other county in the country, 
including those in Arkansas. We can look to those soybeans for a source 
of energy. Frankly, we can look to those chickens as a source of 
energy, as well, as we go along.
  We raise soybeans in Delaware to feed chickens. We feed them the hull 
of the soybean. The oil that comes out of the soybean we do all kinds 
of things with in this country. We create soy foods, soy milk. We also 
can create something called soy diesel fuel: 20 percent soy, the rest 
is diesel. We can burn it in our diesel-consuming machines, and it 
works just fine. It is energy efficient. It works well in the 
machines, and the emissions are no worse, for the most part, than any 
regular diesel fuel. In some cases, they are actually better.

  We have too much soybean in this country; we have a glut of that 
commodity. It is a good alternative to use the soybeans that are in 
excess on our farms to help lessen our reliance on foreign oil.
  We have figured out how we can burn animal waste to derive the Btu 
value, including chicken litter, in ways that are environmentally 
friendly.
  In my State, we have the biggest independent producer of solar energy 
panels in the country. We are proud of the work they do at AstroPower. 
And it is not just at AstroPower; there are places all over this 
country that are relying more and more on solar energy in developing 
evermore efficient ways to create that solar energy.
  Windmill farms are becoming more common in this country. Hopefully, 
as we continue to perfect that technology, they will become even more 
efficient.
  Others have spoken, and will in the weeks ahead, about geothermal 
energy, how we can take hot air in the summer and run it 300 feet 
underground to cool it off, and then use it to cool our homes in the 
summer; and we can take cold air in the winter, run it 300 feet 
underground to warm it up, and then use it to warm our homes and 
businesses in the winter.
  Those are just some of the ideas of renewable energy that we can use, 
that we can rely on, that we are more relying on, and need to do more 
so in the future.
  We also have, as Senator Bingaman said earlier, a lot of coal in this 
country. I think he said we are the ``Saudi Arabia of coal.'' I am 
privileged to represent the State of Delaware in the Senate. I was born 
in West Virginia. I know full well they have a lot of coal there and 
other places around our Nation. We ought to find ways to burn that coal 
without doing more harm to our environment. We can do that. Clean coal 
technology is very promising. We need to continue those efforts.
  There has been some discussion already today about natural gas. We 
are starting to rely more on natural gas from other places around the 
world. We have a lot of it in our country. But consumption is going 
right through the roof because we have such good environmental 
consequences compared to other fossil fuels we use. There are

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huge finds of natural gas in the northern parts of Alaska. We ought to 
bring it down here and use it.
  Similarly, in the Gulf of Mexico there are huge deposits of oil and 
natural gas that are available to us to be extracted safely and in an 
environmentally sound way. Those are sources on which we need to rely.
  A year or so ago, I reported back to my colleagues about a trip in 
which I led a bunch of Boy Scouts from Delaware on down to Norfolk 
Naval Station. The trip was on a weekend a year ago last January. We 
visited a lot of ships and submarines. It was a lot of fun for the 
adults and for the young Scouts.
  One of the ships we visited was the Teddy Roosevelt, a nuclear-
powered carrier. It is about 1,000 feet long. It is about 25 stories 
high. It carries a crew of roughly 5,000 men and women. Underway, it 
has about 70 aircraft or so that it takes with it. It needs to refuel 
about once every 25 years--once every 25 years.
  For us to walk away from nuclear power as if it is from a day gone by 
I think is a mistake. I fully acknowledge the security concerns that 
revolve around nuclear power and terrorism. I acknowledge the 
legitimate concerns about disposal. But having said that, the potential 
is real, and we have only begun to realize it. I urge us not to walk 
away from that technology while we work to solve the issues regarding 
security, the environment, and disposal.
  Another very promising area for creating new energy is fuel cells.
  The idea that we can take hydrogen, which we have in abundance, and 
derive energy from that hydrogen and end up with a waste product that 
is H2O--what a bonanza, what potential.
  This is 2002. By 2012, we will have cars, trucks and vans traveling 
the highways of America powered by fuel cells. We will have homes, 
buildings, and factories that are going to be powered by fuel cells.
  In Government, if we are smart enough to, one, invest in the research 
and development; two, help commercialize those new technologies, 
including fuel cells; and, three, in addition to doing those things, if 
we will provide tax incentives to encourage producers to produce those 
more fuel and energy efficient, environmentally efficient, and friendly 
sources of energy, and to encourage consumers to buy them, we will do 
this country and this planet a real favor.
  Let me talk about a couple of efforts on the conservation side. We 
will have a substantial debate on CAFE standards in the next 2 weeks. 
That deals with the efficiency of the cars, trucks, and vans we drive.
  I would suggest we consider and keep in mind these principles as we 
go forward. As we seek to reduce the amount of oil our cars, trucks, 
and vans consume, one, let's work to find meaningful reductions in oil 
consumption by motor vehicles.
  Two, let's set measurable objectives so we actually know we are 
making progress and we can measure our progress against the objectives.
  Three, let's provide a reasonable time line for the auto industry to 
make the changes it needs to make to bring more energy-efficient 
vehicles to the market.
  Four, let's make sure we don't get rid of, as collateral damage, the 
domestic auto industry; but when we finish our work in 10, 15 years 
from now that we still have a strong and vibrant, even more strong 
domestic auto industry.
  Fifth, we ought to set some long-range goals for car makers and truck 
makers with respect to oil consumption. We should defer to other 
entities, to NHTSA, within the Department of Transportation, to 
actually do the intermediate setting of goals for fuel efficiency.
  Six, we need to think outside the box with respect to the auto 
industry so that they have some additional tools to work with to help 
them get to the target we are going to set.
  One of those I have already mentioned is fuel cells. Fuel cells is 
where we are going to be in 10 or 15 years. Today, we are, for the most 
part, the internal combustion engine. The bridge to the future with 
cars, trucks, and vans is with hybrids. We are starting to see the 
introduction of gas hybrid vehicles that are getting 50, 60 miles per 
gallon. I continue to be struck by a presentation I received from 
Daimler-Chrysler where they shared with us a model vehicle they could 
produce which gets 75 miles per gallon. It is a four-door passenger 
vehicle, the SX-3. They cannot sell them in this country. It is a 
diesel hybrid vehicle. They can sell them in Japan and Europe.
  We need to work with the auto industry to help them achieve the next 
tier of standards, tier 2 standards, for emissions that include 
nitrogen oxide. We need to be mindful that diesel-powered vehicles, 
which now account for about 40 percent of the sales in Europe, can do a 
lot to help us reduce our reliance on foreign oil and reduce carbon 
dioxide emissions which lead to greenhouse gasses and global warming.
  The last topic I want to address is what the Government can do: One, 
we can invest our money, our taxpayer money in research and development 
in ways that will help us to create more energy and to conserve more 
energy.

  We can use the buying power of the Federal Government on both the 
civilian and military side to help commercialize new technologies. If 
companies, particularly in America, are building more fuel-efficient 
vehicles, whether they are gas hybrids, diesel hybrids, and eventually 
fuel cells, we should use our buying power to commercialize those 
technologies in the marketplace.
  Lastly, if manufacturers are going to build hybrid vehicles, fuel-
cell-powered vehicles, that will enormously reduce our reliance on 
foreign oil and that are good for the environment, we should provide a 
tax incentive for producers to produce them and for us, as consumers, 
to buy them.
  Two general points with respect to conservation: Air conditioners, we 
have the technology to build air conditioners that will cut our 
reliance on electricity or reduce our consumption of electricity by 30 
percent. We can do that. We have the technology. We need to 
commercialize the technology. We ought to build them, and we as 
consumers ought to buy them.
  On transmission lines, we have seen presented in our Energy Committee 
transmission lines which are able to transmit electricity across the 
country and reduce the loss of energy through those transmission lines 
by some 30, 35 percent below what is currently occurring. That is 
another thing we can do and ought to do in order to conserve energy.
  Let me close with this: I am troubled, having felt for 28 years that 
we need a comprehensive energy policy, by the voices I hear inside this 
body, and outside, who say we are not going to agree on an energy 
policy.
  In the wake of September 11, we must develop the political will to 
hammer out an agreement on energy policy that conserves more energy and 
produces more energy at a time when almost 60 percent of our oil comes 
from overseas, comes from some of the people who don't like us and who 
use the resources we give them to threaten us. How can we not pass an 
energy policy bill? We are smarter than that; we are better than that. 
The American people deserve better than that as well.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Clinton). The Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I am so pleased that finally we are 
going to address an energy policy for our country. It has been a long 
time coming.
  I thought, even since before I came to the Senate, we were not 
looking forward enough to address the future energy needs of our 
country. September 11, 2001, turned an energy policy from a possible 
economic, far-reaching element that we should put into our policy 
think-tanks to a national security issue.
  The fact is, if we do not have energy supplies within our own 
country, under the control of our own country, we are not going to be a 
country that is economically self-sufficient, strong, and stable. And 
we most certainly cannot prosecute this war on terrorism if we do not 
have a strong and stable economy.
  The fact is, today we import 60 percent of our oil for national 
consumption. If we had a sudden closing of Middle East oil to our 
country, it would have a profound impact on the stability of our 
economy. What we cannot take, as we are looking at a fragile recovery 
in our economy, is another hit.
  We have the chance to do what is right, to plan for the future, and 
to stabilize our self-sufficiency. What we need is a balanced energy 
policy.

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  We need a policy that addresses conservation, that says to Americans: 
You can do certain things and cut back on your consumption, and that 
will save millions of barrels of oil that we would need to import or 
millions of feet of natural gas or electricity or whatever.
  The bottom line is that we can have incentives for conservation. We 
need to look at alternative sources of renewable energy. That is 
certainly something we are just beginning to scratch the surface on, to 
see what the capabilities are.
  Nuclear power is certainly a clean energy, and we know we can build 
safe nuclear powerplants. We have seen other countries that are 
practically totally dependent upon nuclear power, and it is a safe and 
environmentally sound way to produce energy. We stopped building 
nuclear powerplants, and, frankly, I think we need to look at ways we 
can safely build nuclear powerplants today. That would provide a huge 
source of energy in our country, and it would certainly be a way to 
become more independent.
  Last but not least, we need to have more exploration and drilling in 
our own country. We need to have an energy supply that we can provide 
at home. So if we had a balanced approach, we would be able to become 
much closer to energy self-sufficiency. That is the kind of bill we 
need. It is not the kind of bill that will be laid before us.
  The bill that will be laid before us does practically nothing for the 
production side and relies totally on the other two prongs--
conservation and renewable energy sources--and it is not a balanced 
approach. We must go full force on all fronts.
  There are two things that will be very valuable. One is in the bill, 
and that is to encourage production by small businesspeople with 
marginal well tax credits. They could actually cost nothing because the 
price of energy is so high right now. If the price falls below break-
even, which is $15 to $18 a barrel, we need a floor for the small guys, 
the 15-barrel-a-day well businesses--and to put that into perspective, 
15 barrels a day is barely break-even in the best of times. A normal, 
good well would produce 1,000 barrels or 10,000 barrels a day. We are 
talking about 15 barrels a day. A well like that, when the price goes 
to $11 per barrel, has to shut in. It cannot stay in business. It is 
too small. The margins are too low, and you have to have a break-even 
point, which is about $15 to $18 a barrel.
  So if you have a tax credit for that small driller of 15 barrels a 
day or less, if the price goes below $15 per barrel, you can keep those 
people in business; whereas, they would shut in the wells, as thousands 
did when the price of oil, 2 years ago, sank to $11 a barrel. In fact, 
those little bitty wells have a great capacity. There are 500,000 of 
those around the country. Many have not been reopened because of the 
fluctuation and the view that if prices went down, they would have to 
shut in again, and they don't want to go to the expense of reopening. 
If we had those 500,000 wells working and producing 10 to 15 barrels a 
day, that would equal 20 percent of America's needs--the amount we 
import from Saudi Arabia every day.
  Think of the stability for that small businessperson just with a tax 
credit, if the price falls below break-even, which costs the Treasury 
nothing but keeps small business jobs going and creates stability for 
our country for 20 percent of our oil needs. That provision has been 
introduced and it will be part of our debate.
  We need to keep that provision, and I don't think we will lose it. 
But it is a significant part of our energy bill that is very important 
that we pass, hopefully, within the next few weeks.
  The second part is opening up ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge. There has been a lot said about the environmental concerns 
about drilling in ANWR, but I think people who make this argument do 
not understand the new technology for drilling. For example, the 
wildlife refuge is an area the size of South Carolina. It is, 
obviously, a vast area. The amount we would be limited to drilling in 
from the House bill that has come to the Senate, and which everybody 
agrees is reasonable, is approximately 2,000 acres of land. That is an 
area the size of Dulles Airport. So the area is the size of South 
Carolina, and the area of drilling is limited to an area the size of 
Dulles Airport. That is what we are talking about. It would have all of 
the environmental restrictions to make sure that land is preserved and 
not damaged in any way for the wildlife there.

  In fact, the part where you would really do most of the drilling is 
not an area that has trees or any kind of vegetation. It is frozen a 
good part of the year, and it is basically barren flat land. Other 
parts of the wildlife refuge do have beautiful trees and wildlife, and 
it would not be encroached on at all. So we are talking about, I think, 
a very environmentally safe operation--to go in and drill. If we don't, 
let's look at what happens to the environment.
  If we decide not to drill in ANWR, the drilling will be done in 
Russia, right across the channel from Alaska. Will Russia put the same 
environmental concerns in place that we have if we do it on American 
soil? I don't know, but I doubt that the Russian environmental 
requirements would be as much as we would put on it if it were in 
Alaska. If Russia does this, using the same resources under the ground 
that would be what we would drill from Alaska, then you will have 
foreign ships coming in and out right through the Alaska channel. Oil 
spills that could happen, if we were not in control of the requirements 
for those ships, could be very damaging.
  So I think, environmentally, it would be much safer to drill on our 
shores with our environmental requirements, with our requirements on 
the ship that would come in and take the oil out, than to have it done 
15 miles away in Russia, where we would have no control. So I think the 
argument is better made to do it where we can control it, where we 
would have the standards that would make sure it does not encroach on 
any kind of wildlife or wilderness area. That is why Alaskans are for 
drilling in ANWR. That is why the State that would be most affected 
very much wants this to happen.
  I think it will be a huge help for our national defense if we go 
forward and drill in ANWR. Today, we import a million barrels a day 
from Iraq. Oddly enough, in September of 2001 we were importing a 
million barrels a day from Iraq.
  Do we really want to depend on the good will of Iraq for almost 20 
percent of the needs of our country--for jobs, for companies that need 
energy to continue to operate, for the gasoline we buy at the pump? Do 
we really want to depend on Iraq for 20 percent of our needs?
  I do not think that is a prudent position. We can create the same 
amount of oil from our shores in an environmentally safe way as we 
import from Iraq every day.
  We are going to have to make some sacrifices in our country to become 
energy self-sufficient. It is part of our effort in the war on 
terrorism. It is part of what we should step up to the plate and do to 
make sure our country is secure; that we do not depend on the good will 
of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, or anyone else who produces oil that 
is exported to America. We are friends with Saudi Arabia. We are 
friends with Venezuela. But do we really want to be dependent on any 
country? Do we really want to be dependent on a country that has 
clearly exhibited hostilities to the United States as Iraq certainly 
has?
  I hope not. I hope the Senate will pass a bill that will have the 
goal of creating energy self-sufficiency in our country. Only then will 
we be truly able to control our own economy. Only then will we not have 
to go begging with a tin cup to other countries to ask them not to cut 
back on their supply to our country.
  This is not a nation that does well at begging with a tin cup. This 
is a nation that has taken the lead in the war on terrorism; that is 
standing behind our military and our President in the prosecution of 
this war; that is standing behind those men and women who are in harm's 
way today. To not go forward with an energy policy that protects those 
in the field and those at home and strengthens our freedom, our 
democracy, and our economy will be walking away from one of the most 
important responsibilities we have.
  I hope we will pass an energy policy that does all that needs to be 
done: That creates incentives for conservation; that asks Americans to 
conserve;

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that puts in place a program asking Americans to do certain things, not 
forcing them but asking them.
  I hope we will look at new sources of energy, such as nuclear power, 
wind energy, and solar energy--all the sources that are renewable--and 
producing in our own country, creating the jobs in our country rather 
than exporting them overseas, giving good living wages to people in our 
country to drill for our own natural resources. That is a balanced 
energy package. Anything less would be an abdication of the 
responsibility of the Senate.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

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