[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 23 (Wednesday, March 6, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1575-S1592]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  NATIONAL LABORATORIES PARTNERSHIP IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2001--Continued

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, Senator Lieberman is here to give an opening 
statement on the bill. Following his statement, we understand that 
Senator Nickles will be here to give a statement. We are working our 
way through the statements. This is such an important bill. There are a 
number of Senators who have strong feelings about it, and they wish to 
lay out their view of what the energy policy in this country should be.
  While it may appear that we are not making a lot of headway, I 
personally think we are making great progress. There is an amendment 
now pending. Senator Murkowski is contemplating a second-degree 
amendment to the underlying Daschle amendment. If, in fact, he does 
offer it, and it is about what I have learned, I think we will accept 
that and have a vote on the amendment--not because we are concerned 
about where the votes are, as the measure will receive virtually every 
vote but we want the first amendment to come out recognizing the 
importance of Alaska and the southern pipeline and know that when it 
goes to conference, we hope there is close to unanimous support of the 
Senate on this measure.
  Senator Murkowski has indicated he is ready with an amendment. We 
will be ready to work on that. We hope to complete all of the 
statements today and have a vote on the underlying Daschle amendment. 
If Senator Murkowski wants a vote on the second degree, we would be 
happy to do that also and move to whatever Senator Murkowski wants to 
offer.
  I ask unanimous consent that following the statement of the Senator 
from Connecticut, Senator Nickles be recognized to offer an opening 
statement regarding this bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, the Senate has begun a very important 
debate in the last few days on our national energy policy. This is a 
debate that will literally affect the lives and the quality of the 
lives of every single American, as well as affect our national 
security, our independence in carrying out our foreign and defense 
policies, and the quality of the environment and the natural resources 
from which we derive such pleasure as Americans. So this is a very 
important and timely debate.
  It has been 10 years since we last passed major energy legislation. 
We are starting with a bill hundreds of pages long, and hundreds--or at 
least 100--amendments may find their way onto it. We are going to be 
debating some very big opportunities and some very big problems, as 
well as many other smaller issues associated with the bill.
  I saw Senator Bingaman on the floor. I congratulate him and Senator 
Daschle for their superb leadership, along with that of the occupant of 
the chair, in developing the energy legislation that we are debating.
  The bill before us out of the Energy Committee coordinates the work 
of many of the committees of the Senate, including the Senate 
Governmental Affairs Committee which I am privileged to chair, which 
has contributed a section of this bill. Senator Bingaman and Senator 
Daschle have brought before us a very well-balanced national energy 
policy, which does have some incentives for the development of 
remaining energy resources in the United States, but makes a turn and 
acknowledges and acts on the acknowledgment that our energy future is 
in new technologies being applied to create new sources of energy-
efficient, environmentally protected sources of energy. Of course, that 
will include renewables as well.
  Mr. President, this great country became an industrial power for many 
reasons, including, of course, the skills and ingenuity of our people. 
But the availability of inexpensive and abundant sources of energy also 
contributed to the remarkable growth and success of the American 
economy during the industrial age.
  Prior to the mechanization of our society, we relied on wood, water, 
and horses for much of our energy need. ``King Coal'' powered the early 
part of our industrial development and still plays a critical role. 
Hopefully, it will continue, with the application of new technologies, 
to play a critical role in generating electricity for our homes, 
schools, offices, and our factories.
  From the time oil was discovered in Pennsylvania in 1859, the 
petroleum industry has grown enormously--at first, displacing whale oil 
for lighting and, eventually, powering the world's transportation 
systems. Enormous deposits of oil spurred development of oil fields in 
many parts of our country, including Texas, Oklahoma, and California. 
The 1930s witnessed the enormous expansion of hydropower in various 
parts of our country, including, of course, the Tennessee Valley and 
the northwest section of America. In the middle part of the 20th 
century, we began to harness the atom and develop nuclear power, which 
was going to be, in the view of many at that time, ``too cheap to 
meter.'' In other words, it would be so inexpensive you would not even 
be able to keep track of it to base costing on.
  Nuclear power continues to be a significant part of our energy mix. 
In a State like mine, it is most significant. We have two plants up and 
operating that have been decommissioned. I hope we can find a way 
forward to build a next generation of safe nuclear powerplants.
  The oil price shocks of the 1970s brought home to us our dependence 
on foreign markets for oil, on which so

[[Page S1576]]

much of our country and its economy have become dependent. With those 
shocks came an understanding of the ability of foreign countries to 
seriously disrupt our economy and our lives through higher prices, 
bringing higher inflation, and unemployment. We began to think and do 
more about reversing this trend by pursuing energy efficiency and 
developing alternative sources of energy, including renewable energy.
  Yet we have remained largely dependent on--some would say addicted 
to--fossil fuels, which has exacerbated our dependence. We have also 
found out along the way that our energy has a cost beyond that of 
discovering, producing, and transporting product to market. It has 
health and environmental costs. The smokestacks of our powerplants, 
factories, and the tailpipes of our cars and trucks spew out millions 
of tons of pollutants in great quantity, including sulfur dioxide, 
nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, mercury, and carbon dioxide. Our 
citizens --especially our youngest and our oldest--are subject to a 
variety of diseases associated with their lungs, particularly, 
including fine particles and ozone.
  There is quite a remarkable article in the press today about a study 
that has been completed--I believe it appeared in the Journal of the 
American Medical Association--which draws a powerful and unsettling 
link between certain pollutants and higher degrees of disease and, in 
fact, projected numbers of premature deaths. That is, people would have 
lived longer had they not been inhaling the emissions from power plants 
and some of the rest of our society.
  Our lakes and streams have suffered under the assault of acid rain. 
Our bays are being choked by nitrogen loadings that come from cars and 
powerplants. People throughout the country cannot eat fish out of lakes 
nearby because of mercury contamination. The great vistas of our 
national parks are despoiled by haze created by motor vehicles, 
powerplants, and the fossil fuels they are burning creating emissions.
  We are heating up the planet through greenhouse gases. We face 
potentially catastrophic consequences over time associated with sea 
level rise and increased threats from airborne diseases that migrate 
north toward our country or within our country as we heat up the 
planet's atmosphere as a result of the use of fossil fuels.
  We cannot continue to use the atmosphere as a dumping ground for 
waste coming out of smokestacks and tailpipes on a business-as-usual 
basis. It is our responsibility as stewards of the Earth that we are 
blessed to inhabit as temporary residents, trustees for the generations 
and generations that will follow us over the centuries ahead, to 
establish a framework, a system for meeting our energy needs without 
harming public health or destroying the environment in the process.
  We must consider both of those important policy factors as we go 
forward with this energy legislation. Energy policy and environmental 
policy are, if you allow me to put it this way, like a gas pedal and a 
brake pedal. They only make sense when they are used together and used 
sensibly.
  As we consider energy legislation, we have a clear choice between 
developing an innovative and independent new energy policy or 
continuing the same policy--a policy that will continue our energy 
dependence, deprive us of national independence and compromise the 
health of our people and the openness and condition of our environment.

  We all know that America needs a lot of energy. It takes energy to 
move our cars and trucks, to cool our refrigerators, and power the 
terrific technological tools that drive our innovative economy. The 
challenge is--and it is a challenge--how do we get that energy in a way 
that does not do the kind of damage I have just described?
  The biggest challenge is in transportation. Cars and trucks are 
responsible for two-thirds of all petroleum use in the United States. 
That overreliance not only harms public health and the environment, but 
also hastens global warming. The overreliance forces us on a course of 
foreign policy dependence because it entangles us in unstable regions 
and forces us to deal in a much less demanding way than we otherwise 
would with regimes that do not reflect our values, human rights, 
religious tolerance, openness, and democracy.
  Some people think we can drill our way out of this imbalance, but we 
have to do the math, and the math is powerful. We have 3 percent of the 
oil reserves left within our control, yet we consume 25 percent of the 
world's oil. Two-thirds of the world's oil lies in countries in the 
Persian Gulf, even though we have developed other sources of energy and 
oil from Latin America, from Africa, and increasingly from central 
Asia.
  We cannot just drill our way out of the problem. The more oil we use, 
the more dependent we will be on oil that other countries have and own. 
That is one of the lessons we have to learn from world events and 
consider as we go forward on this energy legislation.
  America's strength is not in our oil reserves. That is the painful 
fact. America's strength is in our reserves of innovation and technical 
know-how. An energy strategy that is good for America will exploit 
those reserves of innovation and technical know-how to produce smart 
energy-saving technology and cleaner modern fuels.
  Unfortunately, many would have us extend our dependence on oil, and 
because other countries overwhelmingly control the oil reserves, that 
means extending our dependence on foreign oil.
  They have even, in addition, proposed the despoiling of some of our 
most precious places in the process. And for what? We will obviously 
will have a debate, as we have had before, on the question of whether 
to drill in that remaining 5 percent of the North Slope of Alaska. If 
we opened up, God forbid, the Arctic Refuge to oil exploration, there 
would be, as we have said over and over, a blip of oil to meet the 
enormous need we would have. It just does not do it for us.
  We should say no to oil development in the Arctic Refuge. We should 
protect a most unusual, unique, magnificent, inspiring piece of 
America, piece of God's creation, which is the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge. We have to go in a new direction. We need to spur aggressive 
development of both new and proven energy sources and technologies, 
which would include natural gas, the subject of the amendment before 
the Senate now.
  We should encourage hybrid vehicles. Some of those are out and 
selling very well. There are waiting lists of people who want to buy 
them and cannot get them rapidly enough.
  We must pave the way for renewables, fuel cells, and other barely 
imagined technologies. I am convinced we have the brain power and the 
economic power to develop them if we put our mind and will to it. Of 
course, we should develop our remaining oil deposits that can be 
developed without hurting the environment, and there are some 
remarkable new technologies that will help us do that.
  Fuel cells are a particularly promising technology, and I hope we in 
Government will work with industry and others to develop a credible 
business plan, that is what I would call it, for fuel cell technology 
development, a business plan that would have clear goals and timetables 
by which we would develop and deploy fuel cells.
  I support the progressive tax incentives for alternative fuels and 
clean and renewable energy that are part of the package that came out 
of the Finance Committee. I thank and commend Chairman Baucus and 
Senator Grassley on crafting a responsible and forward-looking set of 
incentives to transform our energy mix and make us more independent and 
efficient.
  The bill before us does open doors to innovation. It sets up a new 
framework for the kinds of innovative energy policy we need. That 
really should be the commitment of our generation, a single-minded, 
all-out drive to protect our security by developing a new framework for 
energy use in our country.
  We have to start with energy efficiency standards. Over the last 20 
years, we have made magnificent efficiency gains which lay a firm 
foundation for future progress. Increasing the fuel efficiency of cars 
and trucks by just 3 miles per gallon, well within our reach 
technologically, would save 6 billion gallons of gasoline per year. As 
I understand it, by the best estimates, that is about two times the oil 
that would come out of the Arctic Refuge if we drilled.
  That 3-miles-per-gallon increase in fuel efficiency would also save 
Americans $9 billion a year in annual spending. Imagine that, $9 
billion in savings.

[[Page S1577]]

 The increase would also reduce carbon emissions by 15 million tons a 
year, that much less contributing to the pollution of our air and the 
warming of our planet.
  We can clearly do, in my opinion, better than 3 miles per gallon. 
That obviously will be the topic of debate that will occur on the 
amendment on this bill regarding so-called CAFE standards. We were all 
shocked in the 1970s by the steep increase in the price of oil as a 
result of the Arab oil embargo in 1973 and 1974 and the Iranian 
revolution in 1979. Gas prices were approaching a dollar a gallon, and 
we thought the price would only continue to rise.
  We made some real efficiency gains in our economy and in our 
transportation fleet, but the price of oil collapsed in 1986. Despite a 
few price spikes along the way, gasoline is now not that much over a 
dollar a gallon, making it cheaper, certainly when adjusted for 
inflation, than it was in 1980. New sales of vehicles are increasingly 
characterized by sport utility vehicles and light trucks--great 
vehicles, but our overall fuel efficiency has therefore and thereby 
declined.
  We are caught in a policy bind. We have less expensive fuel, 
providing little incentive to conserve, and industry remains opposed to 
increased fuel efficiency standards. So gas prices remain low, our fuel 
efficiency averages are declining, and therefore we continue to 
increase our reliance on imports of oil. I hope this legislation before 
us will provide the opportunity to break that gridlock and that we will 
support increased fuel efficiency standards for our vehicles.
  I believe people who oppose the increases in fuel efficiency may well 
underestimate the resourcefulness and ingenuity of our researchers and/
or industry. For example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is 
developing a most promising new technology for economically reducing 
gasoline engine vehicle emissions and fuel consumption. It could reduce 
smog-producing nitrogen oxide emissions from gas engines by 90 percent, 
and it has the potential to increase engine efficiency by 25 percent 
and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent.

  We should take advantage of the many advances that have been made 
under the aegis of the Partnership For a New Generation of Vehicles, a 
private-public partnership between the Federal Government and the 
automobile industry to improve the fuel efficiency of our vehicles. The 
advances we have made in these hybrid technologies that have already 
come out of that partnership are dramatic. The administration has 
embraced fuel cells fueled by hydrogen, and I welcome that, but the 
results are still some time away. That is why we need to make advances 
in fuel economy sooner, as well as later.
  We must also reform our energy system to give renewables and 
alternative energy fair access to the market, both by ensuring they can 
make a physical connection to the grid and by enacting tax credits that 
will ensure the market is open and welcoming to them; in other words, 
to give consumers and businesses a tax credit for use of some of the 
renewable and alternative energy systems coming on board, including 
fuel cells.
  We should also require electricity generators, I believe, to account 
for a portion of their output through renewable energy sources, and I 
support the inclusion of a renewable portfolio standard in this bill.
  I understand many existing industries are resistant to change because 
change involves risk. Fortunately, many companies are ready to accept 
some risk because they know there is reward in that, that nothing 
ultimately ever stays the same. Many businesses have developed new 
technologies and are willing to do so even more if given a clear, 
lasting signal from our Government as to what we are going to ask and 
in which direction we are going. If Government leads by establishing 
clear goals, objectives, and incentives, as this bill does, progress 
will follow. Government can act as an innovation spur, not an 
innovation barrier.
  I know there are some who will argue the energy bill is not the place 
to address climate change. I disagree. I see climate change as probably 
the biggest long-term environmental challenge that we as Americans and 
everyone else on the planet face. Some would argue climate change is 
separate from energy, but I respectfully disagree; they are 
inextricably linked. The overwhelming majority of greenhouse emissions 
come from producing and consuming energy, whether in our powerplants, 
our factories, or our cars and trucks.
  I particularly salute the pioneering bipartisan work done by Senators 
Byrd and Stevens to promote research and development on climate change, 
to require an office in the White House which will have the 
responsibility of developing and overseeing the implementation of 
hopefully a national climate change policy.
  I am proud to say the Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously 
passed the Byrd-Stevens legislation and it has become part of the 
energy bill we are debating. The provision does not create any 
mandatory programs to address climate change--that debate has been 
reserved for another day--but it puts a strategic planning and research 
and development foundation in place so we can understand the nature of 
our problem and begin to work aggressively on solutions.
  In particular, the Byrd-Stevens legislation would create a 
comprehensive effort within the executive branch that would provide 
creative thought, the creative thought that global warming requires, 
including a new White House office to develop a peer reviewed strategy 
to stabilize the levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere to safe 
levels. Now that is an objective on which I hope we can all agree. In 
fact, the Senate has already agreed on that goal because it is the 
stated objective of the 1992 Rio Treaty on Climate Change, which this 
body ratified.

  Finally, I again compliment the comprehensive nature of the Byrd-
Stevens provision. In crafting a climate change strategy, the White 
House office would be instructed to consider four key elements: 
Emissions mitigation, technology development, adaptation needs, and 
further scientific research. Very often in our debate on this issue all 
four of these topics do not make it into the discussion, but they must.
  To quote Senator Byrd, his bill is meant to complement, not replace, 
other mitigation measures by creating a process by which we receive 
expert evaluation of the challenge we face. I hope this legislation 
will be the tree off which other critical climate change measures will 
branch.
  This is a challenge of great import to us and to all who will follow 
us on the planet. As Senator Stevens starkly reminded our Governmental 
Affairs Committee at a hearing last year, we can already see some 
deeply unsettling signs of climate change in the Arctic. Permafrost is 
melting, glaciers are disappearing, boreal forests are moving north, 
and the migrating habits of many species are being disrupted.
  The provision these two leading Senators, Messrs. Byrd and Stevens, 
authored is an important first step in examining and reacting to the 
climate change crisis. To me, it is one every Member of the Senate 
ought to be able to support, and I hope because it is part of this 
legislation before us that all will.
  I am thankful for the opportunity to make this opening statement. I 
repeat what I said at the beginning: This is a bill whose importance to 
every single American and to our country in general cannot be 
overstated. I look forward to the debate. I hope we can find common 
ground to achieve what I believe is our commonly held goal, which is to 
make America more energy independent than it is today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Corzine). Under the previous order, the 
assistant Republican leader is recognized.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, thank you very much.
  I wish to make a few remarks regarding the energy bill. Let me first 
compliment my colleague and the former chairman of the committee, 
Senator Murkowski, for his leadership on this issue and for the 
statement he made both yesterday and today.
  Let me also express my very strong displeasure with the process that 
leads us here today. I am glad we are debating energy. I am glad we are 
going to have an energy bill that will be amended and discussed. But I 
am very upset about the procedure and how we arrived here today.

[[Page S1578]]

  I served 22 years on the Energy Committee. I worked with Democrats 
and Republicans to pass historic legislation, to deregulate the price 
of natural gas. I worked with Senator Bennett Johnson, Wendell Ford, 
Jim McClure, and other Senators. It was bipartisan, historic, important 
legislation. We passed other legislation.

  My point is, we passed historic, meaningful legislation in a 
bipartisan manner through committee markups, some of which, as in the 
case of natural gas deregulation, took years. We worked on it, we 
amended it, and brought a bill to the floor. We did not do that in this 
case. I cannot recall in my Senate career a legislative proposal this 
significant where it bypassed the committee. The committee proposal we 
have before the Senate had no Republican input. I have not had one 
chance to offer one amendment to this bill. I am offended by that. I am 
offended by the process. I am offended by the fact that people think we 
do not want markup in the committee because we cannot control the 
committee. Since when do we say, we will not have markups if we cannot 
win?
  That is exactly what happened. I have heard some say, that is not 
really what happened--we just rule 14 bills all the time. We do not, 
all the time, take significant legislative action and say we don't want 
the committee to mark it up; we do not want to have bipartisan input; 
we do not want to allow people to offer amendments; we do not want them 
to have an amendable vehicle.
  The fact is we did not have a legislative markup in the Energy and 
Natural Resources Committee for months. I am offended by that. Why am I 
serving in the Senate? Why did I select the Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee? Why am I one of the senior members on that 
committee and not even have a chance to offer an amendment to express 
some positive or negative points about some provisions that affect 
every single American? I did not even have a chance to offer an 
amendment. I did not even have a chance to say this is good or bad. Now 
we have to do it on the floor.

  There are a lot of items in this bill that a lot of people do not 
know about. I wonder if my colleagues are aware there is a $10 billion 
loan guarantee in this bill. Most people do not know that is included. 
We never had a hearing on it. We did not have a hearing on it in the 
House or in the Senate and it is in the bill. I understand they will 
change it. That is interesting. That has not been discussed.
  When Senator Murkowski was chairman of the committee, we had a lot of 
hearings dealing with the issue, and we were going to mark up the bill. 
We started marking up the bill last year but we stopped. Why did we 
stop? The Washington Post says in an October 11 headline, ``Daschle 
Stops Panel's Consideration of Energy Bill.''
  Then it goes on to say: ``Majority leader, Tom Daschle, yesterday 
abruptly halted further committee consideration of major energy 
legislation after Democrats concluded there were probably enough votes 
on the panel to approve the Bush administration's plan for drilling in 
Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.''
  In the Washington Times, the headline, ``Daschle Takes Control of the 
Energy Bill; Republicans decry bid to stall Alaskan drilling as 
`partisan' maneuver.''

       Daschle yesterday took control of the energy bill in a move 
     to strengthen his opposition to the administration's proposal 
     to drill for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 
     which President Bush says is critical to national security.
       In an unusual legislative action . . .

  It is more than ``unusual.'' I don't remember it happening. I have 
been here 22 years, and maybe others who have been here longer can say 
it has happened, but I can't remember a majority leader saying: Stop, 
don't work, don't mark up, I will come up with something on my own.
  That does not happen.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. NICKLES. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. I recall when we saw the budget resolution last year 
that contained the President's enormous tax cut, that came from the 
Budget Committee without markup. That was brought by Senator Domenici 
to the floor, at the request of the majority leader at the time, 
Senator Lott. Am I not correct that was a major piece of legislation 
that came to the Senate floor without ever having a committee markup?
  Mr. NICKLES. Let me answer the Senator's question. I thank the 
Senator for the point.
  There is a difference between a budget resolution that is not even 
law--a budget resolution does not even go to the President for 
signature. Budget resolutions are entirely different matters. That is 
not the same. A budget resolution does not have the impact. A budget 
resolution authorizes committees to say: Here is how much you spend. 
But it is not a tax cut. You still have to pass a tax cut; you still 
have to pass the legislation.
  This is legislation. This is a bill that will become law. This is a 
bill that has the potential of increasing the cost of vehicles for 
everybody in America by $2,000 or $3,000. Are people aware of that? Do 
I recall a hearing on that provision, the so-called CAFE standards? No. 
Did the Commerce Committee have a hearing on it? Did the Commerce 
Committee have a markup on it? Did it pass by bipartisan majority out 
of the Commerce Committee? The answer is no.
  Where is the committee report? One of the reasons we have markups in 
committees is to have everybody on the committee who has expertise on 
the issue to have input, to support it or oppose it--to issue a 
committee report so we can find out what is in it, so you can read what 
is in it in English, not just the legislative language which is 
difficult to decipher. Our competent and capable staff prepare a 
committee report explaining in English, here is what this provision 
does, here is what this provision means.
  On most legislative issues I can remember we have had a committee 
report. There is no committee report because the committee did not 
report on this bill.
  This bill has enormous potential impact on American citizens, but no 
one knows what is in it. I didn't know what was in it and still don't, 
even today. I pride myself on doing a little homework on legislative 
issues. I kind of like to read bills. The bill introduced by Senator 
Daschle did not come through the committee. Maybe it is supported by 
Senator Bingaman, but it is not supported by this Senator. It was 
introduced February 15. It is 436 pages. I wanted to get the yeas and 
nays because I had an idea it might be changed. I was not successful 
and could not do that. But it was introduced and I thought at least I 
can now start reading it and do homework.
  The more I read, the less I liked. It is a pretty crummy energy bill, 
in my opinion. I started to say you couldn't do much worse, but maybe 
you could, surely you could. It is not much to my liking, but I had no 
input on this bill whatsoever. And I think I happen to be No. 3 in 
seniority in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee--No. 3 or 4.
  Then the bill was changed. That bill was introduced on February 15, 
and it was 436 pages. On February 26, the bill was introduced, just a 
week or so ago, and it was 539 pages. It grew by over 100 pages in a 
couple of weeks. I don't know what the differences are. I am trying to 
find out. I thought, now I have a printed copy. I had to ask consent to 
get this copy printed, so I did. So now it would not be just in loose-
leaf form, and now we can get some work done. I can do my homework and 
take this home.
  I started reading it. I didn't like this one either. And I didn't 
have any impact on this. I didn't get to vote on one single page of 
this bill--not one. I am offended by that process.
  Then it was changed yesterday. We have version No. 3. This was dated 
March 5. It is 590 pages. That is only another 51 pages more than the 
bill that was on the floor a week or so ago. I have not analyzed that. 
I don't know what is in the 51 pages. I have not figured that out yet. 
But I do know I had no impact, no input, no amendment--nothing.
  We have a terrible process where the majority leader shuts down the 
Energy and Natural Resources Committee and says: We do not care if you 
have 20 members who have experience on these issues. We don't care if 
you have had a lot of hearings in the past on these issues--issues such 
as electricity, CAFE standards drilling in Alaska. We

[[Page S1579]]

do not care if you have expertise because we do not want your input. 
The Democrats are going to put together a bill. We will decide what you 
will mark up.
  Sure, there is a reason. They said: If you want to change it, go 
change it. We will give you some amendments. And we will have 
amendments. Yes, we will just fix it. That is almost the size of the 
Bible, and unlike the Bible, it contains no good news.
  This is a problem. Now we have to fix it. We will fix it paragraph by 
paragraph. There are a lot of paragraphs in 590 pages. I keep reading 
things in here I don't like. What is my alternative? I didn't have a 
chance to offer an amendment. I do not like the loan guarantee. I don't 
like any loan guarantee. For the most part I opposed the steel loan 
guarantees. I lost on that one. Now there are loan guarantees for oil 
companies in here. I don't like loan guarantees for oil companies 
either. It is in here. Now I have to strike it, I have to replace it.

  I don't like the CAFE standards. Some people think: Let's just 
increase CAFE standards; we'll go from 27.5 to 35. Wait a minute, in 
this other version it was 36. But we are going to increase CAFE 
standards.
  Does that include SUVs and pickups? Do they have a different 
standard? Yes.
  How much will that cost? Some people say it costs a couple of 
thousand dollars a vehicle. It may cost a lot more. It may cost 
thousands of lives.
  Who had a hearing? Where is the committee report? Where is the 
scientific analysis? Where is the data we have from the Department of 
Transportation that this is a good change? It is not here.
  Where is the committee report, where you can study the pros and cons, 
the supporting opinions and dissenting opinions that we usually have in 
the back of the report? It is not here. I don't recall a committee 
report.
  We are going to consider legislation of monumental importance, 
probably the most important issue we will consider this year--maybe 
not. Maybe it is in the eyes of the beholder. Maybe some people think 
campaign reform is more important. I don't. This will impact every 
single American because energy security is national security. If you 
don't have energy security, you don't have national security. If you 
don't have energy security, you don't have economic security.
  We have seen that happen in the past. We have found ourselves, in the 
past, when we have not prepared properly, to have made serious 
mistakes, to have been really vulnerable to curtailments. We had a 
curtailment, I might remind my colleagues. In 1973 we had a 
curtailment. It was called the Arab oil embargo. Some of my colleagues 
might remember it. I remember it. I was in the private sector back in 
those days. There were lines; there were shortages; we had brownouts; 
we had schools that were closed; we had people lined up for blocks to 
buy gasoline. There was a real shortage. It was caused by an oil 
embargo because there was a real crisis in the Middle East.
  At that particular point in time, we had gross crude oil imports of 
26.1 percent. Today we are over 60 percent. In 1979 we had another 
shortage. It was during the Iranian hostage situation. There was an 
embargo. At that time we were importing 44.5 percent. Today we are 
importing 60 percent.
  Today we have a real problem in the Middle East. It is flaring up 
every day in Israel. It could expand. I hope and pray it does not. But 
we are a lot more vulnerable today than we were back in 1973 and 1979. 
So now, finally, we have an administration that has put together a 
package after a lot of work, promoted that package, passed that 
package, by and large, in the House of Representatives.
  Did the Senate have a hearing on the House-passed package and use 
that as a markup vehicle? We do that a lot, but we didn't in this case.
  Did we hold the House-passed bill at the desk and use that as a 
markup vehicle? We do that a lot. No, we didn't do it in this case.

  We started with an entirely different bill, one that has never seen 
the light of day, one that has never gone through a legislative markup, 
one that has never had a Republican amendment considered.
  Basically, what you have is a couple of people who put this bill 
together, making a whole lot of special interest groups very happy in 
the process. There are lot of special interest groups that, because of 
this bill, are very happy. But it is a pathetic excuse for an energy 
bill, and it is a very poor excuse if we want to do something that will 
help solve some of our national energy problems. Even worse than that, 
it is a terrible legislative process.
  If we are going to tell two major committees--the Energy Committee 
for the energy components of this bill and the Commerce Committee for 
the CAFE standards--don't mark up, then you have just disenfranchised 
47 Senators: We don't want your input; one or two people will decide 
what we are going to do, and if you don't like it, amend it; and, 
incidentally, if you try to amend, we are going to filibuster your 
amendments so now you have to have 60 votes to change this bill.
  What is the difference? If a committee markup was held you would have 
input from Democrats and Republicans. You would probably come a lot 
closer to having consensus, a bipartisan bill. You would have a 
committee report so people could understand it, they could read what it 
is, what people are trying to do, what they are doing in the 
legislative language. Then, if you disagreed with what the committee 
did, a group of 40 Senators--in this case, 20 from the Energy Committee 
and 20 from the Commerce Committee; maybe 42 or 43--you could offer 
amendments to try to change it.
  Instead, we are acting as if we have some type of totalitarian 
government or some type of kingdom over here that says: Committees 
don't operate. I'll decide what is in your bills. Maybe one or two 
people, maybe three--I don't know how many; a few people, not 
Republicans--put together the bill. It is 590 pages. Oh, we will amend 
but if you offer a couple of amendments, we are going to filibuster 
those amendments. You need 60 votes. Good luck.
  If you marked it up in the committee and put ANWR in the bill--which 
we would have--then somebody would have to strike it out of the bill. 
It is totally different. Then you are talking about a majority vote, 
you are not talking about 60 votes. There is a big difference. Or if 
somebody wants to set new CAFE standards, new CAFE standards that have 
bipartisan support that come out of the Commerce Committee, we didn't 
do that. It is a terrible legislative process. Shame on the Senate for 
this legislative process. Shame on the Senate.
  I have only been here 22 years, but we have not done this. It is not 
the same thing as the budget resolution. It is not the same thing as a 
sense-of-the-Senate resolution. This is very comprehensive, significant 
legislation. It is similar to legislation with which we wrestled in the 
last Congress dealing with the Patients' Bill of Rights. It is a tough 
bill.
  I was in charge of a lot of it. I disagreed with a lot of the ideas 
that were floating around. But we had a markup in the Labor Committee. 
We had a markup in the Labor Committee that lasted days. We had 30, 40 
votes on amendments; more amendments, that many votes.
  The committee passed, with Senator Gregg's leadership, with Senator 
Collins' and others, a Patients' Bill of Rights. Senator Jeffords was 
on the committee at that time. They passed a pretty decent Patients' 
Bill of Rights, and we considered it on the floor and amended it on the 
floor, and we passed it.

  I didn't agree with everything that was in it, but I agreed with the 
final package. It was a decent package. It brought a lot of people 
together. Some people said it was not enough. But anyway, it went 
through the legislative process. It wasn't easy. We could have said: We 
are in the majority, the heck with the committee; we will come up with 
what we have deemed is the right package and run with it.
  I think that is a violation of Senate protocol, spirit--basically 
telling the minority they don't matter. It doesn't make any difference 
if there are 49 Members on the Republican side, you don't matter; you 
have no input.
  I just very strongly disagree with that. It means a lot to people who 
have not looked at this legislation. Usually a lot of Senators haven't 
looked at it but they rely on the committee, the authorizing committee, 
for their expertise and for their homework, and they can rely on them 
for their judgments.

[[Page S1580]]

  It is kind of hard for us, many of us on this side of the aisle, 
because we have not looked at this. I keep finding things in there at 
which I am kind of shocked: Where did this come from? Well, some 
lobbyist or somebody had some idea, so he stuck it in the bill. We have 
all kinds of mandates and subsidies and loan guarantees.
  Now there is an amendment that says that we, in our infinite wisdom, 
are going to choose which pipeline route to go for a natural gas 
pipeline in Alaska. The underlying bill says there is a $10 billion 
loan guarantee. I question that. But I also question why we are trying 
to choose which pipeline route should be involved in building the 
Alaska natural gas pipeline.
  Let me see. Let me count the number of days we have had hearings on 
this. This is about a $20 billion project--a pretty good size project, 
over which we should have held several hearings on at the least.
  Did they have a hearing in the House of Representatives? No.
  This language or similar language is in the House bill. I am not 
going to fault the House. I think they did a pretty good job.
  I question the wisdom of putting this in without hearings. Should we 
dictate which pipeline route? I hate to say this, but what about the 
marketplace deciding which route? Why don't we use the route that would 
be most economical? Why don't we use the route that makes most economic 
sense? Why don't we use the most feasible route?
  Is that language in here? No. The language that Senator Daschle is 
proposing now--in addition to the $10 billion loan guarantee that came 
from somewhere, just appeared in this bill--it says: Oh, we are going 
to take the southern route. The southern route--if you look at the 
chart; that is the one shown in orange--swings through Fairbanks and 
through Alaska. It is several hundred miles longer than the other 
route. The other route looks a lot cleaner, a lot shorter, a lot 
straighter, and it is also in plains, maybe marsh. It is parallel to 
the Mackenzie River. The other one goes through about 900 miles of 
mountains.
  I used to work for a pipeline company. I helped lay pipe in some of 
my private sector days. I know a little bit about it. I know it is 
expensive. Man, it is a lot more expensive to do it in the mountains 
than it is on the plains. There may be pluses and minuses on both. I do 
not know all the pluses and minuses.
  I know one thing: I probably do not know enough yet to say this is 
the right route or this other one is. I have not studied it enough. I 
don't recall a hearing. I have not met with all sides. I have met with 
a couple people. I have constituents who have an involvement. I have 
constituents who have some minerals or gas in the project, and they 
would like to get it to market. I would like to get it to market. It 
would be good for the economy to get it to market.
  But why are we going to mandate which way to go? Why are we going to 
mandate which way to go under Senator Daschle's amendment without even 
a hearing? Whose special interest group is this?
  I just question the wisdom of acting this way, of having this bill up 
in this manner. We have not had a hearing on this bill. No one knows 
what is in it except for a few people. And now here is an amendment 
that says: Oh, in our infinite wisdom, we are going to dictate you go 
this route. Let's go the longer route, the route that looks a lot more 
expensive because it is several hundred miles longer than the other 
route. We are going to dictate that?
  I don't think we should. Maybe I am in the minority on that. I want 
to defer to my friend from Alaska, Senator Murkowski. I have great 
respect for him. But I really question the wisdom of Congress trying to 
dictate this, and it just goes with the whole process of this bill.
  I am more offended by the process and the way this has come to the 
floor than anything procedurally in the Senate in my career, and 
certainly out of this committee. I have not been on other committees. 
Maybe other committees have tried a little end run like this in the 
past, but I can't remember. But I know they have not in the Energy 
Committee because I have been on the committee. I would have been very 
outspoken. If our side tried to do it, I would say: No, that is not 
right. We have to run it through committee. You have to have input from 
Democrats and Republicans.
  You may have party-line votes once or twice, but most of the time on 
the Energy Committee we didn't vote on party lines. We tried to vote 
for what was right and in the best interests of the country.
  This is 590 pages of all kinds of little subsidies for alternative 
fuels, mandates. Oh, we already have a big mandate for ethanol, about 
53 cents a gallon for ethanol. Now we are going to mandate not only the 
subsidy, but we are going to mandate that they have to produce so many 
gallons; I think it is something like 5 billion gallons in another 10 
years or something. Wow. How much are we going to do? Then on and on 
and on.
  The more I see--oh, we have subsidies for wind energy, you name it. 
There are all kinds of things that are in this bill, some of which are 
very questionable economically, some of which are going to greatly 
increase consumer prices.
  Then let me just touch on the other side of it, and that is the issue 
of CAFE. The Federal Government is going to mandate that we raise the 
fuel average economy standards from 27.5 miles per gallon to 35 miles 
per gallon, and do that over the next 13 years. In a previous bill it 
was over 11 years. Now that has been adjusted.
  My wife happens to drive a Pathfinder, an SUV. We should send out 
signals to SUV moms all across the country: Hey, the Senate Democrats, 
under this bill, are going to raise the price of your vehicle by at 
least a couple thousand, if not $3,000 or $4,000. Notice to soccer 
moms, notice to SUV vehicles: It is in here. It is going to increase 
the price of your vehicle.
  Maybe I should have an amendment that says Senate cars should meet 
these standards, because they do not. But we are going to make every 
soccer mom in America pay for this because it is in this bill.
  Oh, soccer moms: One of reasons you like these SUVs is that they are 
kind of big, kind of safe. My son has two kids, and he has one. He has 
the baby seats in it, and he likes it because it is safe. It is not 
going to be nearly as safe if this bill passes because this bill is 
going to mandate--well, the vehicle is going to have to have a much 
smaller engine, it is going to have to be a lot lighter, it is going to 
resemble something more like a Volkswagen than it is an SUV, and we are 
sorry about that.
  Will the fatalities go up if we pass this bill? The answer is yes, by 
the thousands. How many? What scientific studies do we have? We don't 
know. We have not had a hearing. We were not able to ask the safety 
experts. We were not able to ask the experts who build this: Can this 
be done? Can it be done safely? And how much will it cost?
  I would love to ask the automobile manufacturer: How much is this 
going to cost? Can we comply with these standards? How much more will 
SUVs cost in 8 years if they meet this standard?
  I will tell you, it is going to be in the thousands. We do not know 
because we have not had the hearing. We have not asked those questions. 
We have not gone the legislative route. There is no committee report. 
There was no homework done. This is put together and changed almost on 
a daily basis.
  It is a crummy way to legislate. And this first amendment is a crummy 
way to legislate, a very poor way. Shame on the Senate if, oh, we are 
just going to decide this is the way we are going to build this 
pipeline, we are going to dictate you have to take this route.
  That is not the way it should be done, not when you are talking about 
$20 billion, not when you are talking about Federal loan guarantees 
that should not be in the bill in the first place. Oh, now we are going 
to have loan guarantees and we are going to dictate which route to go. 
We never had a hearing. We do not know which way is the best as far as 
protecting the environment is concerned. We do not know which is best 
as far as the economy is concerned. One might cost twice as much.

  I would think to build a mile of pipeline through the mountains would 
probably be several times as expensive as building one on the plains. 
Yet we have an amendment offered by Senator Daschle, the first 
amendment up: Here is what we are going to do. Maybe

[[Page S1581]]

there are political considerations behind his amendment. I don't know. 
But I am just astounded by this process.
  I am very disappointed in this process. This process should not be 
repeated. It should not be repeated by Democrats or Republicans. We 
have committees for a purpose. We have committees for a purpose: So we 
can have bipartisan input, so we can have the legislative process work, 
so we can have hearings on legislation so people can know what they are 
voting on, to where they can try to improve it, to where any member of 
the committee has an opportunity to read the bill and to amend it, to 
change it--win or lose, at least they have the opportunity to try.
  No one has had an opportunity to amend this bill--no one. A few 
people might have been able to get their special interest provisions 
in, thanks to the majority leader and to the chairman of the committee. 
But no one, no Member of the Senate, has offered an amendment to this 
bill because it has not had a markup.
  Right at about half the Senate has been disenfranchised because we 
did not have a markup on the CAFE standard and did not have a markup on 
the energy package. So now we are presented with an energy bill: Here 
it is. Go get it. Have at it. See if you can improve it. Oh, yes, if 
you have an amendment we don't like, get 60 votes. That is not the way 
the Senate is supposed to work.
  The Senate is a great institution. People are violating the thrust of 
the Senate. Totally ignoring the committee process should not be done 
lightly. So I am critical of it.
  I want my colleagues to know of the problem of how we are situated. 
So we have a bad bill. Some of us are going to try to make it better. 
It may take a while. We may have to ask a lot of stupid questions: What 
is this in here for? How much is it going to cost? I would like the 
proponents to know I am going to be asking those questions because I 
did not have a chance to ask them yet. I did not have that chance to 
ask them in committee, so I am going to ask them on the floor. So this 
markup may take a little while.
  This amendment may take a little while. I do not want to filibuster 
this amendment, but I want to know how much it is going to cost. I want 
to know why this route is preferred over the other route. I want to 
know why there is a $10 billion loan guarantee in the bill. Why? Who 
benefits from that? What is the purpose? Is that the best way to do it? 
Should it be done? Is it necessary for it to be done? Could we build 
the other route even without a loan guarantee? Without price supports? 
Is that possible? Does it need to be? Or does the marketplace dictate 
we have to go this way?
  Aren't those decent questions? Shouldn't those questions be asked? 
They have not been asked before. Yet we are getting ready to commit to 
a $20 billion project? This is a crummy way to legislate. The Senate 
leadership should know this is not the way to operate.
  We should not disenfranchise 40 some Senators from the committee 
process. I hope we won't do it in the future.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I wonder if I could respond to some questions that the 
Senator from Oklahoma, the minority whip, brought up because I 
certainly agree with his contention that these matters have not been 
addressed in a committee process. They are being addressed on the 
floor.
  As I indicated earlier in my opening statement, we have quite a 
responsibility before us to educate Members. I think the questions my 
friend from Oklahoma posed deserve consideration. I wonder if I could 
perhaps offer an explanation as to why the proposed route that has been 
supported by the State of Alaska is the preferred route.
  As my colleague knows, the concentration of capital necessary to 
build either route is going to be substantial, somewhere in the area of 
$15 to $20 billion. Clearly, the companies that are going to build this 
pipeline are interested in a return on their investment. I don't think 
my colleague is aware of the particulars associated with the northern 
route.
  It would require roughly 400 miles of pipeline at sea. If I can refer 
to the map, I think it is important to recognize that this is an area 
that is extraordinary because it runs roughly from Prudhoe Bay, where 
the gas has been discovered about 400 miles off the Arctic coast. This 
is an area that is only ice free about 40 days of the year. We are well 
above the Arctic Circle here. As a consequence, the technology is 
obviously achievable, but there is still a question of at what price.
  As the Senator from Oklahoma is well aware, we have been trying for 
decades to get permits and the authority to open up ANWR, which is on 
land, for oil and gas exploration. The consideration has been whether 
we could do it safely. The problem we have in laying this pipeline in 
this particular body of water is access because much of the year it is 
covered with very heavy ice.
  Theoretically, most pipelines are laid with a trench being dug on the 
ocean floor and then covered up, and so forth. We are talking probably 
about this pipeline being 3 to 4 miles offshore where you would get the 
adequate depth. The unique problem you have with the engineering is 
this scouring of the bottom when the ice moves because, as you know, 
about seven-tenths of the ice is underwater. So these present some 
engineering problems.
  They also present some problems associated with the concern over the 
Native people, the Eskimo people of Alaska and their concern over the 
migratory bullhead whale which they are dependent on from the 
standpoint of subsistence. They support drilling on land and support 
activity on land, but they are reluctant to see activity offshore that 
may change the route of the migratory whale movement of the bullhead 
whale. So they are opposed.
  I can cite for the record comments I received in opposition to 
anything out at sea that might affect them.
  I ask unanimous consent to print the comments in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 Comments on Proposals for a Natural Gas Pipeline From the North Slope 
   of Alaska by George N. Ahmaogak, Sr. Mayor, North Slope Borough, 
                             Barrow, Alaska

(Submitted to the United States Senate, Committee on Energy and Natural 
                      Resources, October 2, 2001)

       I want to thank Chairman Bingaman and the Committee for 
     inviting comments on North Slope natural gas development from 
     residents of the regions, because we will be most affected by 
     the impacts of development. As Mayor of the North Slope 
     Borough. I represent the people who live in eight communities 
     scattered across the top of Alaska. The majority of our 
     residents are Inupiat Eskimos, whose ancestry is traced back 
     thousands of years along this stretch of the Arctic Ocean 
     coastline.
       For more than a quarter of a century, the people of the 
     North Slope have played an active role in Alaska's oil and 
     gas development. After our initial fears about the 
     environmental safety of oil and gas operations were calmed by 
     experience, we struck a stance on development that has not 
     wavered. We have supported onshore projects when they contain 
     adequate environmental safeguards for the land and animal 
     populations and when they do not jeopardize our traditional 
     subsistence hunting and fishing activities, which are so 
     crucial to the continuation of our Native culture.
       We have pursued these goals in our interactions with the 
     oil industry largely through our local powers of planning and 
     zoning within the oil fields. We have also sponsored 
     extensive biological research and worked with state and 
     federal agencies to gauge the continuing health of wildlife 
     species in the region.
       Twenty-five years later, we remain committed to the 
     stewardship of our homeland as we work in partnership with 
     state and federal agencies and the industry to extract the 
     oil and gas resources our nation so clearly needs. Our 
     commitment to a culturally sensitive development approach 
     leads us to a very firm position on natural gas development. 
     We recognize the need to export the North Slope's vast 
     natural gas supplies, and we believe there is only one 
     environmentally sensible transportation path--along the 
     route of the existing Trans-Alaska oil pipeline. Most of 
     the issues associated with pipeline routing have already 
     been identified and successfully resolved through years of 
     experience with the TAPS oil pipeline. Using the existing 
     corridor is more environmentally efficient than any 
     alternative and is unlikely to result in significant 
     surprise impacts related to land or wildlife. It is 
     clearly the safest and most acceptable transportation plan 
     in our opinion.
       For these reasons, we support the State of Alaska's 
     insistence on a southerly (Alaska Highway) route. We also are 
     adamant in our opposition to any project that would involve 
     an offshore pipeline to the McKenzie Delta on the Canadian 
     side of the border. We believe this ``over-the-top'' scenario 
     is technologically arrogant and offers substantially

[[Page S1582]]

     greater risk of environmental and cultural damage.
       Our elders and our subsistence whalers are the true experts 
     on the seasonal movements of sea ice along the arctic coast. 
     They have spent decades studying the forces of pack ice as it 
     piles upon itself to create huge pressure ridges the size of 
     tall buildings. They have witnessed the results of current-
     driven ice scouring the ocean floor. They have heard stories 
     about these forces, stories that represent the oral 
     preservation of empirical science handed down from generation 
     to generation.
       At the same time, the industry has repeatedly tried and 
     failed to show its ability to clean up an oil spill in broken 
     ice conditions. Demonstration of such ability should be an 
     absolute requirement before any offshore oil development is 
     allowed to occur.
       Our opposition to an over-the-top route is not conceived 
     lightly. We have proven ourselves to be both willing partners 
     and environmental stewards. When we stand up against a 
     proposal, our objection cannot be dismissed as environmental 
     dogmatism. Nor can our support for a project be written off 
     as pro-development fanaticism. Ours is a more complex 
     position, stemming from a cultural perspective that 
     acknowledges the advantages of development, clings to an 
     inherent environmental ethic, and has as its highest goal the 
     continued health of the original culture attached to this 
     part of the world. The southerly route offers the best 
     solution in light of this trio of concerns.
       While we support the southern route, we do not believe that 
     a natural gas pipeline should be supported at any and all 
     cost. A successful project must have the inherent fiscal 
     strength to preserve existing arrangements for local property 
     taxation of energy infrastructure. We have heard rumors of 
     tax concessions associated with a gas pipeline project, but 
     we have not been asked for our opinion on such a scheme. We 
     do not support tax concessions at the local level.
       Additionally, we are concerned about the cumulative impacts 
     of oil and gas development. Federal project permits are based 
     in part on an analysis of potential environmental impacts on 
     land, wildlife and human inhabitants of the area. However, 
     this analysis is project specific, and while it has been 
     discussed for years, no provision has ever been made for 
     alleviating the cumulative effects of industrial activity on 
     local communities.
       We see the effects in a constant level of stress in our 
     villages. Health problems, family dysfunction, alcohol abuse 
     and other symptoms require intervention. We need help in 
     assessing and addressing these impacts, and we look to the 
     government for impact aid or some other form of assistance 
     aimed at combating these social stresses.
       Discussion of a natural gas pipeline necessarily exists in 
     the larger context of North Slope resource development. With 
     that in mind, I would like to reiterate our support for 
     careful exploration in a small portion of the Arctic National 
     Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). This is in keeping with our belief 
     that activity in onshore areas of strong potential is more 
     responsible than offshore exploration and development. 
     Directional drilling and other technical improvements make 
     low-impact activity on the edge of ANWR feasible. 
     Accommodations for seasonal caribou migration can be achieved 
     in ANWR as they have been elsewhere in the region.
       Again, I appreciate the committee's interest in the 
     perspective of people who live on the North Slope. I hope my 
     comments assist you in your deliberations. Ours is certainly 
     not the only perspective, but it is a view that springs from 
     the landscape whose future you are considering. I honor the 
     difficulty of your task, and I hope that faith, determination 
     and the good of the people guide you.

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. As the Senator from Oklahoma has expressed, we have 
not had any hearings. We don't know what the scientific answer is. But 
there is the fear of the people and therefore an objection to any 
offshore activity.
  Then there is the question of trying to get permits to do something 
for which we don't know what the impact will be. We have never been 
able to get permits even on land, let alone the difficulty of offshore.
  There is also a considerable discussion that has taken place in the 
engineering community about the prospects of having to loop the line at 
sea because if you had a break or a fracture and the tremendous amount 
of volume of somewhere in the area of 4 to 6 billion cubic feet a day 
flowing through that into a market in the Midwest, perhaps in Chicago, 
if there was a fracture, you would have a devastating supply situation. 
And your ability to get at it in the winter with the heavy ice, which 
is 4 and 5 and 6 and 9 feet thick, would mandate a duplicate route. 
These are all theoretical, but nevertheless they are concerns 
expressed.
  I will highlight the concern associated with this route. It is 
certainly a route that is less from the standpoint of distance. There 
are a couple other aspects we should point out. This is not necessarily 
a mountainous route. This is a route that parallels the highway and 
also is a route proposed in 1941 for a railroad to Alaska. The Senator 
from Oklahoma knows we don't have a connection with the 
transcontinental railroads of the United States or Canada. But this 
route is a relatively low elevation. There is one pass in here where 
the pipeline goes. But as the Senator knows, you increase pressure, and 
it is not nearly as bad at picking up friction as an oil pipeline.
  There are a couple other points I do want to make that are relevant 
to our consideration. That is the realization that since this is Alaska 
gas, not found on Federal land but Alaska State land, we obviously want 
access to the gas for petrochemical and development within our own 
State, as opposed to the northern route which would simply move the gas 
offshore with very little secondary industry opportunities for Alaska 
petrochemical employment, and so forth.
  Furthermore, we have been exporting gas out of Kenai to Tokyo, to 
Tokyo Gas and Electric since about 1966. That gas has come from Cook 
Inlet. The reserves are running lower now, and we are concerned in 
Anchorage about only two year-round manufacturing plants for urea and 
ammonia, and an LNG plant having access to gas. If it goes this way, 
the majority population centers will not be afforded the opportunity of 
this gas.
  I don't disagree with the Senator from Oklahoma. I think he knows me 
well enough to recognize, as businessmen, the market dictates. But 
Alaska is a little different than Oklahoma. We are isolated from the 
United States by Canada. If we don't put our foot forward in the area 
of development, we are simply going to be a State where our resources 
are exported. We have no residential capital base of any kind so 
capital comes in, exploits the resources, takes them out, and leaves 
nothing. Our oil companies are good citizens that come to Alaska. They 
support our efforts. But they are not domiciled in Alaska.
  The Senator from Oklahoma is fortunate in having oil companies 
domiciled in his State even though I guess some of them are moving to a 
little bigger State--not the biggest State. I would like to see them 
move to Alaska rather than Texas. He has a lot of independent oil 
companies, oil and gas. We don't have that in Alaska because we have 
never been able to accumulate residential wealth nor the availability 
of private land.
  This is a public lands State. As you know, the wealth that is 
accumulated in our State is public wealth. It is not private. So we 
don't have domiciled capital ventures that develop our State. We are 
dependent on outsiders coming in with a lot of money. When they take 
the resource out, they don't leave much more for it.
  This has been the constant history of Alaska. It has been 
exploitation. First, it was the copper at Kennicott near Cordova. They 
took the copper out for years and left nothing, absolutely nothing 
except an abandoned railroad. The canned salmon industry exploited the 
fishing in southern Alaska. It was all controlled out of Seattle. They 
left, and there is nothing left in Alaska. We have had the oil 
industry, and we see our oil going down to Valdez and shipped out of 
the State. It benefits Washington and Oregon and California.
  We are at the point of saying: Wait a minute. We have a resource in 
our State. We want to make sure we are involved in utilizing this 
resource to employ our people. We had 30,000 of our young people, ages 
roughly 19 to 35, leave our State in the last 10 years because we are 
not able to offer good paying jobs in blue-collar resource development. 
Yet we are the State with the largest resource base: Oil, gas, timber, 
the fish, the minerals. But as the Senator from Oklahoma notes, in our 
effort to open up ANWR, we are taking on the whole public posture of 
America's environmental community. It is a different set of 
circumstances.
  I trust that my friend from Oklahoma will get a little better 
understanding.
  This isn't just a simple matter of a shorter pipeline. It is a matter 
of jobs in Alaska, resident opportunities in Alaska because, as this 
route goes, the jobs and activity are virtually all in Canada. You have 
the Yukon Territory, Northwest Territory, Alberta, British Columbia, 
and so forth.
  I don't dispute the reality that economics dictate how things happen. 
But

[[Page S1583]]

remember one thing, and this has been overlooked in this debate: This 
gas belongs to the State. It doesn't belong to Exxon; it doesn't belong 
to BP; it doesn't belong to Phillips. They hold the leases. When this 
gas is developed, one-eighth of the gas can be taken by the State in 
kind. We should have something to say about where our gas goes and how 
it benefits our State.
  So that is the action that was taken in the House of Representatives 
and they designated the route that would be most beneficial to the 
State of Alaska. That is why I have cosponsored the amendment offered 
by the majority leader this morning.
  But I totally agree with my friend from Oklahoma about the manner in 
which the majority leader circumvented the committee process and, as a 
consequence, we are here now educating one another on the merits of 
this bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is recognized.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield for 1 minute?
  Mr. REID. Yes.
  Mr. NICKLES. I thank my friend and colleague, Senator Murkowski. I 
understand his situation. We are dealing with $20 billion projects, $10 
billion worth of loan guarantees, and we haven't had nearly the number 
of hearings necessary to consider proponents of both sides and 
environmentalists. In addition, we should have people who are going to 
be granting permits, and so on, to give us some input and some 
estimates on how much it will cost and what the time delays would be, 
and so on. I haven't seen that being done.
  The chairman of the Energy Committee is not here, but I want to have 
this hearing--and I may not get this hearing before this bill is taken 
care of, but I want to have a hearing on this before we get a 
conference report. So he is not here, but I will insist on it. We are 
not going to have a conference report until we get to have some 
hearings. I think if we get to the conference, I might have something 
to do with what is going to be in the conference report. To have this 
kind of issue and ask Senators to vote on it when we haven't properly 
reviewed its substance in committee, that is a real procedural mistake. 
We need to have more significant input from many more experts before 
making these decisions. I think it is a mistake for us to dictate which 
pipeline we should be building, without more information.
  With that comment, I yield the floor and thank my colleague from 
Nevada.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, if I may make one clarification.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, before my two dear friends leave--and 
perhaps they are not leaving--I would like to have the opportunity to 
clear the record on a few things. First, my friend from Oklahoma, for 
whom I have the greatest respect, talked about a number of bills. We 
know that last time we talked about the energy bill. It got to the 
floor the same way this bill got here. We know that on the budget 
resolution the same thing happened, and also on the Patients' Bill of 
Rights. They got to the floor the same way.

  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. REID. I will in a minute. I want the record to reflect the fact 
that after Senator Bingaman took charge of the committee, a number of 
hearings were held: June 26 of last year, July 12, July 13, July 17, 
July 19, July 24, July 25, July 26, August 1, August 2. On August 1 and 
2, there was a markup of provisions of this bill.
  I also say to my friend from Oklahoma, there have been hearings on 
this. We have had extensive hearings on this.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. REID. I will in a second. I am trying to lay out something on the 
record, and we can elaborate on it later.
  In fact, we had just one hearing where we had 15 witnesses, including 
the Governor of Alaska, the State Senators from Alaska. We had people 
from Exxon and BP. Senator Murkowski told us how important this is to 
them. We have had 15 people talk about this. We had 4 different panels.
  Senator Bingaman is doing something now and is out of the Chamber 
momentarily, but I want everybody to understand that Senator Bingaman 
has done an outstanding job of holding hearings. My friend from 
Oklahoma should not in any way feel that people have not had knowledge 
of what goes on.
  Mr. NICKLES. I think there are factual inaccuracies here.
  Mr. REID. I will be happy to talk about that in a second.
  H.R. 4, which they say is a great bill, has the same stuff in it that 
we are talking about today. I don't understand why they are upset when 
we are following the example that the Republicans used when they were 
in control of the Senate. If the Republicans are wrong and we are wrong 
in doing that, the bill is here and it is open for amendment. People 
can talk as much as they want.
  As I said, I will bet Oklahoma wished they were in the quandary that 
Alaska is in today. Alaska has a chance of getting the southern route 
pipeline that would create 400,000 jobs. That is a pretty good deal for 
a small State like Alaska, or even a big State like New York. It would 
be a great deal for Nevada.
  This is an economic development program for Alaska that I support. I 
think it is great. But I want everybody to know that I think Senator 
Bingaman has done an outstanding job. I think he is an exemplary 
chairman and we should not complain about how we got here; we are here.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, the Senator mentioned that we had 
hearings. Can he give me the dates? Have we had a hearing on the two 
alternatives for pipelines for Alaska?
  Mr. REID. We had a hearing to receive testimony on the status of 
proposals for the transportation of natural gas from Alaska to markets 
in the lower 48 States, and on legislation that may be required to 
expedite the construction of a pipeline from Alaska, Tuesday, October 
2, 2001, 10 a.m.
  Mr. NICKLES. I am surprised. I don't recall that. I don't recall 
considering the two alternatives. I asked staff did we have a hearing 
and they said no. I asked if there was a House hearing; they said no. 
On something this controversial, I am just not so sure we did. Maybe my 
memory is short, but for a $20 billion project, I kind of think I would 
know about it. Maybe that is not the case. Maybe I am wrong, but I 
doubt that hearing was set up in a way that said let's consider these 
two alternatives.
  I will do a little more homework to find out what happened on October 
2. I want to find out if we were in session. This doesn't ring a bell.
  The Senator said the Republicans brought up Patients' Bill of Rights 
under this procedure. That is wrong. We had a committee markup on 
Patients' Bill of Rights. It was marked up, amended, voted on. It was 
tough, difficult, and it was a very challenging thing, but we marked up 
the Patients' Bill of Rights. We passed it in committee and on the 
floor.
  The Senator mentioned a budget resolution. That is not a law; that is 
a guideline for the Congress. Maybe my colleague is right. Maybe we 
should not have done that. But, at least in my 22 years in the Senate, 
we have never had substantive, major, significant legislation out of 
the Energy Committee where we had a day or two of markup and the 
majority leader said ``no more'' and we have no more input or 
consideration of amendments. That has not been done, I am absolutely 
certain, in my 22 years in the Senate.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I wonder----
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I had the floor.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. May I ask my friend a question?
  Mr. REID. In a minute. I want to explain that we have here from the 
Congressional Record the fact that the hearing was held on the Alaska 
natural gas pipeline. The committee concluded hearings to examine the 
status of proposals for the transportation of natural gas from Alaska 
to markets in the lower 48 States, and on legislation that may be 
required to expedite the construction of a pipeline from Alaska. After 
receiving testimony from--and it lists well over a dozen people, 
including the Governor of Alaska, whose testimony I read into the 
Record today.
  So this was shortly after September 11. We all had a lot of things on 
our minds, and I know how heavily involved the Senator from Oklahoma 
was on matters that leadership was involved in. Maybe he missed this, 
but

[[Page S1584]]

this was an extensive hearing that took a long time.

  Mr. NICKLES. I may well stand corrected, and October 2 is pretty 
close to September 11. Maybe I missed it. My guess is that hearing did 
not consider the two alternatives. It may have been promoting one 
alternative. It may have been promoting the alternative that the 
Governor wanted, but other people--I don't know.
  I happen to think there is a lot of interest in two alternatives, and 
I do not know which is right. I will readily admit that I do not have 
the answer to which is the best, which is the most economical, which is 
feasible. My colleague from Alaska was saying we may have to go 
offshore and build that pipeline; it is a challenge. I do not know that 
we have to go offshore. These are things that need to be discussed and 
need to be explored. We did not do that.
  My point is, though, we began markup on this bill and that markup was 
stopped. Again, I will go back to my little 22 years; I cannot remember 
a substantive legislative item, certainly in the Energy Committee, 
where we started a markup and then were stopped and were told: No more 
committee markup; i.e., we do not want input from other people; we are 
just going to come up with a bill on the floor.
  That has not been done, and the process is terrible. I am going to 
maintain my criticism of it. I look at the 590 pages, and it has grown 
100 pages--actually it has grown 154 pages in the last 3 weeks--and I 
do not know what is in it because we did not have it in committee. 
There is no committee report. I am fumbling around here. I do not see a 
committee report. There is no minority report.
  That is very unusual for something that is going to increase people's 
bills, that is going to increase the cost of electricity. We ought to 
know something about it. It is not out there.
  I stand corrected. I always want to be factual. I may have strong 
passions, but I want to be factual. If we had the hearing and I said we 
did not, I stand corrected, and I thank my colleague.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, also, there were witnesses talking about the 
northern route at the hearing. Among those testifying was Forrest 
Hoglund, chairman and CEO of Arctic Resources Company in Houston, TX.
  Maybe the Senator is upset about the procedure, but he should back 
off a little bit because he has clearly been wrong in the statement 
about not having a hearing. It was a long hearing; it took a long time.
  I state again we are in the Senate working on this most important 
legislation. I have in my hand S. 1344, which is the Patients' Bill of 
Rights. This came to the Senate without a single hearing. There were 
hearings on the Patients' Bill of Rights but not this bill. It was the 
same with the energy bill we had on the floor when the Republicans were 
in control of the Senate.
  We went one step further than they did. My friend from Oklahoma said: 
I have never known in 22 years they started a markup and then got the 
bill here this way. The Republicans would not allow us to even start a 
markup. We at least started one.
  Mr. President, this seems to be getting a little silly. We are here. 
It is Wednesday. We have to move this legislation. We have other things 
we need to do. We only follow the lead of the Republicans. If they were 
wrong, then maybe we should have followed somebody else's lead. The 
fact is we are here; let's do the best we can on this legislation. If 
there is something people do not understand--and I am sure my friend 
from Oklahoma, who is an astute legislator, and he does read 
legislation and understands it--that he may not have had the time. He 
has one of the best staffs in the Senate. I am sure very quickly they 
can bring him up to snuff.

  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield for a question? Since there was a 
hearing and my able staff pointed out that, yes, there was a hearing, 
it happened to be on October 2, did that hearing involve the necessity 
of loan guarantees? Where did the $10 billion loan guarantee come from? 
This is a surprise and, to my knowledge, was not considered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I do not believe there was substantial 
testimony on the issue of loan guarantees. Frankly, this is a proposal 
we included to make the point to the Senate that some type of risk 
sharing might well be possible if this project was going to be viable, 
if the construction of a pipeline was going to be viable.
  As I understand it, the ranking member of the committee is in favor 
of pursuing a different course. I am certainly working with him jointly 
to see if there is any other way to reduce the risk involved to the 
companies, if they decided to go ahead with a pipeline.
  I can understand there are different points of view about whether or 
not that would be an appropriate thing to do. We will have an 
opportunity for a debate on that, I am sure, if the bill finally does 
contain some kind of financial incentive or support provision like 
that.
  If the Senator from Oklahoma is opposed to that loan guarantee, he 
ought to propose to delete it. That is certainly an option.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I think I still have the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada has the floor.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, while the Senator from New Mexico is here, I 
say to him that I very much enjoyed telling everyone what a great 
chairman he is in his absence. I think he has done a tremendous job 
getting the bill to this point. This bill and this provision is so 
important to people of Alaska and our country.
  I agree with the Senator from New Mexico. If someone does not like 
parts of this very important amendment, then move to delete it. But I 
think we are going to have the support of Senator Stevens and Senator 
Murkowski on this, as they should support this.
  I say to my friend from Oklahoma, I repeat, maybe there is blame to 
go around about how legislation happens, but we only follow the example 
set by my friends in the minority. However we got here, we are here 
now. It is legislation that is important for this country, and I 
acknowledge changes probably should be made. It is imperfect, but I 
think it is really a strong step forward.
  I look forward to working with my friend from Oklahoma in any way he 
thinks is appropriate to improve this legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, before my friend from Nevada leaves, let 
me clarify a couple things. One, he referred once or twice to the 
Patients' Bill of Rights. We had a markup on the Patients' Bill of 
Rights. I am absolutely positive of that. No matter how poor my memory 
is, I know there was a markup on it.

  Mr. REID. Not this one.
  Mr. NICKLES. I do not care how many times the Senator from Nevada 
waves that bill around, I remember there was a markup. I remember 
putting several people in our committee through a very difficult markup 
to pass legislation, which they did.
  My colleague says, if you do not like the loan guarantees, strike it. 
The point is, we did not have a committee markup. If we had had a 
committee markup, I would have had an opportunity to strike it in 
committee. We would have had 20 people around the committee who would 
have maybe participated in this hearing and maybe had some impact, but 
we did not have that chance. I pointed out the $10 billion loan 
guarantee because I do not know where it came from.
  The point is, it would have been nice to have a markup so we could 
have discussed it. Maybe I would support it. I do not doubt it is a 
real national energy plus if we can get all the gas reserves that are 
just being pumped into the ground to the lower 48. That would give us 
some energy security. That is positive. I would like to see that 
happen. But I know one thing: I did not have any chance in committee to 
debate should we have a loan guarantee? Should we have cost shares? 
what kind of protection do we have for the Government? Is that the best 
way to go? I am interested in these things. Is this the correct 
alternative?
  I do not believe the hearing was to consider which alternative is the 
best. Maybe it was, and maybe it was just too close to September 11 and 
there were other things going on. I am not sure.

[[Page S1585]]

  We did not have a markup, and I know if we had a markup and somebody 
offered amendments which said we are going to dictate which route we 
go, I think I would say why not let the marketplace decide which route 
to go.
  My colleague from Alaska may be exactly right, maybe the southern 
route is the way to go, but I am saying let's let the marketplace 
decide.
  We have pipelines running all over my State, and I have never voted 
once on where they should go. We have sort of let the marketplace work. 
Alaska is a little unique, but should we not find out how much these 
two routes cost?
  My colleague says if I do not like the $10 billion, strike it. Part 
of our problem right now is we are taking this whole bill up on the 
floor and now we have to try and fix it. It would have been nice to 
have had a markup where we could have debated this in committee instead 
of, oh, I am reading through the bill and, oh, there is a $10 billion 
loan guarantee. That is interesting. I wonder where that came from?
  It is very interesting some of the things one will find in this bill. 
I am going to be reading more of the bill, much to the chagrin of the 
manager of this bill. I hope we do not pass a bad bill. I question the 
wisdom of a $10 billion loan guarantee, but my point is we should have 
had a markup on it so these issues would have been resolved. If in the 
committee markup a loan guarantee was supported, I might have been 
convinced in the process it was the right thing to do so we would have 
bipartisan support for it, and maybe we do.
  The problem is no one knows. I asked my caucus: How many of you know 
there is a loan guarantee? Nobody, except for Senator Murkowski. The 
point is, we should have had a markup so we would not have to go 
through an educational process on the floor and go through a lot of 
this. Again, clearly the Senator from Alaska knows what he is talking 
about but I would imagine about 90-some percent of the rest of the 
Senate does not, and that is kind of unfortunate.
  I wish we would have had a markup on the entire bill. It would have 
eliminated a lot of the process and a lot of the mess that we are in 
trying to pass an energy package that is 590 pages and, in my opinion, 
still needs a lot of improvement before we are finished.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Maybe I can enlighten my two colleagues. I see the 
majority whip has left our midst. He told me he is going to talk to a 
Republican Governor. That may help his frame of mind, but maybe not.
  In any event, in reviewing what took place in October, it was not 
addressing the issue specifically of routing. It was to consider how to 
market Alaska's natural gas, and there were proposals for LNG, there 
were proposals for the boroughs of the North Slope, the Fairbanks 
borough, the Valdez borough, to come together. There were about half a 
dozen proposals. It is fair to say, and I want the Record to note, that 
I was not aware, nor did I request, the $10 billion guarantee that is 
in the underlying bill. This was put in, I think, as an explanation 
offered by my good friend from New Mexico, to try and address some kind 
of a safety net that was expressed primarily by one producer from the 
State of Oklahoma.
  That being what it is, I was of the opinion, after talking to the 
producers--Exxon, BP, and Phillips--that this $10 billion loan 
guarantee that was put in--and I assume it was put in probably by staff 
in their willingness to try to come up with something that would 
provide a safety net--would not provide the assurance they need 
relative to the magnitude of this project. This is a $20 billion 
project. So I think the record should note we are going to have to 
address the necessity of this, and the Senator from Oklahoma has 
already indicated he questions it.

  There has not been a hearing held on it. I hope before this debate is 
over, we could get a position from the producers, namely the companies 
that hold these gas leases, on whether they think it is necessary and 
whether it would be beneficial. That is pretty important relative to a 
determination of this nature.
  I intended to ask, and I will for the record, my good friend from 
Nevada, who indicated we kind of had a choice--we had a curtain that we 
could have an ANWR, we could have a gas line, and that sounds very 
encouraging. I ask if he would give us an up-or-down vote on either 
one, a 50/50 vote. I will have an opportunity to pose that to him 
later, or maybe Senator Daschle can provide that.
  I also ask him, since he was so accommodating, to provide me with an 
answer of what the position of the committee was on ANWR. What was the 
position of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee on ANWR? I think 
the Record should reflect it. I do not think we are going to get an 
answer, and I think the Senator from Oklahoma would agree with me that 
we are not going to get a committee position on ANWR, which is as a 
consequence of the manner in which the whole bill was constructed, 
eliminating the committee process and eliminating the opportunity to 
have a debate and voting on it one way or another out of committee. It 
was designed to circumvent the committee process.
  I ask the majority whip if he could provide us, in his opinion, what 
the committee position was on ANWR. I think that may enlighten some of 
my colleagues.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, to answer the question, I think it was 
obvious the reason why we did not complete markup on the bill is 
because the votes were in the committee to have an ANWR provision, and 
I think obviously the majority leader did not want that to happen. So 
he basically told the committee not to mark up the bill.
  I ask for the yeas and nays on committee amendment No. 2917.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It takes unanimous consent to ask for the yeas 
and nays.
  Mr. NICKLES. I ask unanimous consent that the yeas and nays be 
ordered on amendment No. 2917.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. 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. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak on the 
bill for up to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I want to make a few comments on the 
energy policy in the form of an opening statement. It is something 
which should take a couple of weeks for us to decide given the bill was 
not taken through committee. We need to do a lot of work, and I hope we 
can have a very open amendment process so we can work through the 
issues and at the end of the day arrive at a bill we are all satisfied 
with, one that we can be proud of for an energy policy because I think 
an energy policy has been neglected for too long. It is too important, 
and it is something we need to act upon.
  We are driving a lot of foreign policy based on our lack of an energy 
policy, and we are having to do some things in regions of the world we 
probably should not do because we lack that energy policy, because we 
are so dependent upon the foreign sources.
  I particularly point out that the areas upon which we are so 
dependent for oil are so volatile, we could almost count on the fact 
that at some time within the next couple of years we are going to see 
energy disruptions from the Middle East.
  We are having some difficulties with Saudi Arabia now, a key place of 
energy supplies. If we do not act to diversify and get more domestic 
sources of oil and energy, we are setting ourselves up for a problem 
that we know is coming, so we need to get a bill through. We need to 
get a bill through this Congress.
  Our energy policy has been neglected for far too long. We see the 
effects of this neglect in the sporadic high gas prices at the pump 
during the summer,

[[Page S1586]]

in the fact that we import 57 percent of the petroleum we use, and in 
the complexities we must endure in our foreign policy because of that 
energy dependency. To alleviate these problems, the U.S. must produce 
more domestic oil and natural gas while diversifying our energy sources 
with renewable energy sources, as well. Accomplishing this goal means 
we engage in a thorough debate on the matter.

  I am pleased the Senate is finally addressing such an important 
issue. I urge my colleagues to resolve our differences so we can get a 
bill passed.
  The Democratic bill before the Senate has some noble goals, 
particularly with regard to increasing renewable energy, encouraging 
conservation, fuel efficiency, and addressing global climate change.
  However, I am concerned that the specifics in this bill will not get 
the United States to the shared goal we all have: greater energy 
independence and improving our energy infrastructure. At issue is a 
real philosophical difference between the two parties as to how we 
should meet these goals. As I look at the bill before me, I am 
concerned the main objectives are accomplished through mandates that 
may not be achievable by the industry we are trying to grow. Whether it 
is the CAFE issue or climate change, we need to focus more on 
incentives, market-based mechanisms, to meet our shared goals.
  There are some basic tenets that our conservation energy policy 
should address that are not included in this bill. The prime issue is 
our domestic oil and gas production. The bill has some positive 
measures encouraging renewable energy, particularly ethanol, biomass, 
and biodiesel, of which I am very supportive. It neglects to address 
that we need to expand oil and gas in this country. As a result of not 
having that base in this country, we are forced for reliance on foreign 
energy. That has numerously dangerous consequences. Increasing our 
domestic production of oil and gas cannot be left out of the energy 
security equation. Conservation is important, but it will not solve the 
problem alone.
  The problem is larger than just our domestic situation. It greatly 
affects our foreign policy, as I noted at the outset. If we were freed 
from our Middle East dependency on oil, there would be important 
security benefits for our Nation. Regrettably, at this point, 
renewables alone cannot accomplish this task, but a combination of 
increased focus on renewable energy, along with increased domestic 
production and increased imports from new energy exporters such as the 
central Asian countries--and I hope we will be working with other 
nations, too--can yield a formula for accomplishing our mutual energy 
security and independence goals. It is not a simple equation, but I do 
think we can see through to a solution.
  I commend the work done by the Finance Committee in putting together 
what looks to be a very positive energy tax package. The tax component 
is a critical part of making this work. My friend, Senator Grassley, 
has worked hard to ensure a positive approach to achieving the goals I 
have described, particularly in support of renewable fuels such as 
ethanol. Specifically, I am pleased to see the inclusion of tax credits 
for marginal oil and gas production as part of our important need to 
increase domestic production. We have many of the marginal oil and gas 
wells in my State, and this will help bring those online or, in some 
cases, keep them in production.
  We must encourage an infrastructure to serve as a barrier against 
high prices OPEC may inflict. Independent oil and gas producers are 
this country's safety net for energy security, and it is in our 
national interest to preserve and enhance that infrastructure.
  Further, the bill provides tax incentives to consumers to buy hybrid 
vehicles which pollute less and consume less energy. These are positive 
measures. I am hopeful we can push them through this body, along with 
some support for other alternative methods of energy production.

  As I mentioned, regarding biomass, we can have coal-fired plants that 
can burn a portion of biomass in their energy production. That can help 
with our carbon dioxide emission problems but also help having 
localized sources for energy.
  Securing comprehensive energy policies is one of the most important 
efforts this Congress should undertake this year. We should take the 
time, we should take the effort, and we should not just vote along 
partisan lines but work back and forth in the amendment process to come 
up with a good bill at the end of the day. Let the body work its will.
  Regarding how this bill got to the floor, we need to have the body 
itself work its will and not get tied down on partisan lines. Then at 
the end of the day we can come up with a national energy strategy that 
is as broad based as this Nation and the desires here--although our end 
objective for all of us, energy security, is shared by every Member of 
this body.
  Energy is a key engine that drives our economy. Neglecting it forces 
us into international dilemmas that can conflict with our security and 
counterterrorism agenda. I urge my colleagues to work out our 
differences and pass legislation on this vital topic.
  I am hopeful in one other area that I would like to discuss, the area 
of carbon dioxide emissions. There are important parts of the bill, and 
I will submit amendments with other Senators, to reduce carbon dioxide 
loading into the atmosphere. I strongly believe we should go forward 
with a policy of a trading system, where we go to least cost methods 
and we put in place a marketplace to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in 
this country. We have done it previously on issues such as acid rain. 
We need to do this with carbon dioxide so we can reduce the 
CO2 level at the least cost base as others trading for those 
carbon credits.
  There have been innovative programs put in place. I traveled to 
Brazil to look at one program the Nature Conservancy is implementing 
there. It is innovative, helping the environment by reducing carbon 
dioxide. We should incorporate it as part of our energy strategy. I 
look forward to this process. I think it is important.
  As I noted, this is one of the most important bills we can consider 
this year.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Miller). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Amendment No. 2982 To Amendment No. 2980

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Stevens and 
myself, I send a second-degree amendment to the desk and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Alaska [Mr. Murkowski], for himself and 
     Mr. Stevens, proposes an amendment numbered 2982 to amendment 
     No. 2980.

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment 
be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

   (Purpose: To protect the jurisdiction of the State of Alaska and 
                    provide for workforce training)

       At the end of the amendment insert the following:
       On page 142 after line 20 insert a new section as follows 
     and renumber all following sections accordingly:

     ``SEC. 708. STATE JURISDICTION OVER IN-STATE DELIVERY OF 
                   NATURAL GAS.

       ``(a) Any facility receiving natural gas from the Alaska 
     natural gas transportation project for delivery to consumers 
     within the State of Alaska shall be deemed to be a local 
     distribution facility within the meaning of section 1(b) of 
     the Natural Gas Act, and therefore not subject to the 
     jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
       ``(b) Nothing in this Subtitle, except as provided in 
     subsection 704(e), shall preclude or affect any future gas 
     pipeline that may be constructed to deliver natural gas to 
     Fairbanks, Anchorage, Matanuska-Susitna Valley, or the Kenas 
     peninsula or Valdez or any other site in the State of Alaska 
     for consumption within or distribution outside the State of 
     Alaska.''.
       On page 148 after line 2 insert:

     ``SEC. 714. ALASKAN PIPELINE CONSTRUCTION TRAINING PROGRAM.

       ``(a) Within six months after enactment of this Act the 
     Secretary of Labor (hereinafter referred to as the 
     `Secretary') shall submit a report to the Committee on Energy 
     and Natural Resources of the United States Senate

[[Page S1587]]

     and the Committee on Resources of the United States House of 
     Representatives setting forth a program to train Alaska 
     residents in the skills and crafts required in the design, 
     construction, and operation of an Alaska gas pipeline system 
     that will enhance employment and contracting opportunities 
     for Alaskan residents. The report shall also describe any 
     laws, rules, regulations and policies which act as a 
     deterrent to hiring Alaskan residents or contracting with 
     Alaskan residents to perform work on Alaska gas pipelines, 
     together with any recommendations for changes. For purposes 
     of this section Alaskan residents shall be defined as those 
     individuals eligible to vote within the State of Alaska on 
     the date of enactment of this Act.
       ``(b) Within 1 year of the date the report is transmitted 
     to Congress, the Secretary shall, directly or through grants 
     or cooperative agreements, establish within the State of 
     Alaska, at such locations as the Secretary deems appropriate, 
     training center(s) for the express purpose of training 
     Alaskan residents in the skills and crafts necessary in the 
     design, construction and operation of gas pipelines in 
     Alaska. The training center shall also train Alaskan 
     residents in the skills required to write, offer, and monitor 
     contracts in support of the design, construction, and 
     operation of Alaska gas pipelines.
       ``(c) In implementing the report and program described in 
     this section, the Secretary shall consult with the Alaskan 
     Governor.
       ``(d) There are authorized to be appropriated to the 
     Secretary such sums as may be necessary, but not to exceed 
     $20,000,000 for the purposes of this section.''.

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, if I may just give a brief explanation.
  This amendment makes it explicitly clear that the State of Alaska has 
complete authority when it comes to regulating in-state distribution of 
natural gas coming off the Alaska Gas Transportation System.
  It also directs the Secretary of Labor to design and establish a 
program in the State of Alaska to train Alaska residents in the skills 
and crafts necessary to enhance their ability to compete for jobs and 
contracts associated with gas pipeline construction.
  These amendments are needed because the first degree amendment 
offered this morning by the majority leader falls short of protecting 
Alaskan's prerogative to regulate in-State distribution of gas coming 
off the Alaska Natural Gas Transportation System. I want to highlight 
in-State distribution.
  This ability to control their own destiny is critical to the long-
term creation of jobs and the establishment of a gas based industry in 
my State.
  The economic future of Alaska rests with the development of its 
natural resources--key to the utilization of these resources is the 
ability of the State to manage their in-State use.
  My amendment accomplishes this with respect to North Slope natural 
gas--it puts Alaskans in a position to guide their own future.
  They will decide how and under what conditions gas will be 
distributed within the State of Alaska.
  It will provide locations across Alaska like Anchorage, Fairbanks, 
the Kenai Peninsula, Delta Junction, and Valdez and Point Mackenzie in 
Manuska Valley, with the opportunity to pursue gas based opportunities 
when, and if, they work out the economics.
  Like the remaining states of the union, Alaska needs access to a 
reliable and economic source of clean burning energy. North Slope gas 
answers this need for the Nation and my State.
  The second part of my amendment directs the Secretary of Labor to 
design and establish a program in the State of Alaska to train Alaska 
residents in the skills and crafts necessary to enhance their ability 
to compete for jobs and contracts associated with gas pipeline 
construction.
  Because the impact of this project will fall upon Alaskans in a 
disproportionate manner, it is only fair that they be provided with the 
training necessary to compete for pipeline jobs in the State.
  These training opportunities will be available to all Alaskans 
regardless of where they live in the state.
  I point out to my colleagues that there is nothing in this amendment 
that gives Alaskans a priority selection right for pipeline related 
jobs. Rather, it gives them the training which will allow them to 
``compete'' for those jobs.
  My amendment calls on the Secretary of Labor to come up with a plan 
on how to best accomplish the goal of enhanced employment opportunities 
for Alaska residents.
  This plan will be transmitted to the Congress for our review. This 
will ensure that this investment will produce the desired results.
  The greatest investment we can make in any project is investment we 
make in the people who will design, build, and operate the system.
  Senator Reid said this morning that Alaskans should be grateful that 
they are likely to end up with at least the gasline. That comment 
demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the economy of 
Alaska. Our economy does not rely on one resource any more than this 
Nation can rely on a single energy source. The gas pipeline, if 
constructed, will provide the foundation for the potential development 
of a petrochemical industry in my State. ANWR, on the other hand, is a 
resource destined for consumption in the lower 48. In addition, ANWR is 
critical to the economic, health, and education future for the peoples 
of northern Alaska, especially the Inupiat who live on the Coastal 
Plain. These are entirely separate issues and both offer considerable 
benefits to the State and to this Nation if we simply have the 
understanding and courage to do what is right.
  While this amendment will rectify some of the shortages in the 
original proposal put forward by the majority leader, it will be 
necessary to offer several additional amendments that we are still 
trying to work out.
  For the moment, however, I urge my colleagues to join with me in 
support of this second-degree amendment.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me speak in favor of the amendment 
Senator Murkowski is offering. I think it does improve the underlying 
Daschle amendment. I strongly support it.
  I note one thing with regard to the job training aspect. There is a 
Federal job training program that is set up under the Workforce 
Investment Act that makes funds available to each State for job 
training. I think we are in agreement that is a very important 
activity. We need to be aware of that as we put the budget together 
this year and as we do the appropriations bills because those job 
training programs are being threatened with major budgetary cuts under 
the administration's proposed budget. I hope the program authorized in 
this amendment that Senator Murkowski and Senator Stevens have offered 
will be consistent to the maximum extent possible with the existing 
workforce training programs in the State of Alaska.
  I was requested to ask unanimous consent that Senator Stevens be 
added as a cosponsor of the underlying Daschle amendment. I do not 
believe he has been so listed as yet.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. As far as I know, there is strong support for the 
amendment on our side and we could proceed to a vote.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the committee chairman.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I do not think I overlooked adding Senator Stevens on 
this morning. So he is on both the second-degree and the Daschle 
amendment.
  I urge adoption of the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 2892) was agreed to.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, if I could address my friend from Alaska and 
the manager of the bill, Senator Bingaman, we now have the Daschle 
amendment pending. We have been talking about it most all the day. I am 
wondering if we can agree on some time to vote on it. We have a number 
of people wishing to speak, but we cannot do that until we have this 
amendment disposed of, or at least a time set for the vote. The Senator 
from Georgia wishes to speak. The Senator from South Carolina has an 
extremely important piece of legislation he wants to introduce and 
speak about that for awhile. Until we have a time to vote, I don't 
think we can move off this legislation.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I have no objection to trying to set a time.
  Mr. President, we understand there is another Member coming over who 
may

[[Page S1588]]

offer a second-degree. I guess we will have to wait.
  Mr. REID. 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. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have checked with my counterpart, Senator 
Nickles, and the two managers of the bill, and they are in agreement 
that the Senator from Nevada, Mr. Ensign, can speak as in morning 
business for a period up to 6 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Ensign and Mr. Reid are printed in today's Record 
under ``Morning Business.'')
  Mr. REID. 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. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have spoken to the Republican manager of 
the bill and my friend the Senator from Oklahoma. They have graciously 
consented to allow the chairman of the Commerce Committee to speak for 
up to 15 minutes as in morning business relative to introduction of a 
bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank the most distinguished assistant 
majority leader.
  (The remarks of Mr. Hollings pertaining to the introduction of S. 
1991 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced 
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Reid, Senator Bingaman, 
and Senator Murkowski for their courtesy. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
previously agreed to amendment No. 2982 be in order.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. 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. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Stabenow). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Miller, 
wishes to make a statement now in regard to this bill, and he has an 
amendment which he is not going to offer but wishes to talk about. I 
ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to speak--we have received 
permission from the Senator from Alaska, even though we probably do not 
need it other than to call off the quorum; we appreciate his courtesy--
for up to 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. MILLER. Madam President, I rise today in defense of that great 
American workhorse: The pickup truck. I am proud to sponsor, along with 
my friend, Senator Gramm of Texas, an amendment that would exempt all 
pickup trucks from the higher CAFE standards that have been proposed.
  This is a very simple and short amendment. Pickups are now required 
to meet a standard of 20.7 miles per gallon, and our amendment would 
simply freeze pickups at that standard. All pickups would be exempt 
from any higher mileage standard proposed in this legislation.
  Some have said we should only exempt the very largest pickups from 
the higher standards. That would only cover a small percentage of the 
pickups that are on the road, and I do not think that is good enough. 
Our amendment says all pickups will be exempt from the higher CAFE 
standards.
  We absolutely should not impose these higher mileage standards on our 
pickups. We absolutely should not impose the undue safety risk and 
extra cost of these CAFE standards on our farmers, our rural families, 
and our small businesses that rely so heavily on the pickup.
  We have had a lot of conversation about the state of the economy 
these days, and we hang on every word of Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, 
and the like, about the recession and when we are coming out of it. I 
knew a fellow back in Georgia. He did not have a Ph.D. in economics; he 
would have thought Ph.D. stood for ``post hole digger.'' But he was one 
of the wisest men I ever knew. He told me years ago that if you really 
want to know when times are bad, take notice of the number of people 
having to sell their pickups. Look at the ads in the paper and the 
``for sale'' signs in the yards. The more you see, the worse it is 
because pickups are the very symbol of the working man. As the pickup 
goes, so does the working man and the very heart of this country.
  Madam President, a pickup truck has two ends to it: A working end and 
a thinking end. Of course, the working end is the engine in the front. 
I would like to tell you about the thinking end in the back.
  I submit that the back of a pickup is the think tank of rural 
America. I suspect more problems have been solved on the tailgates of 
pickup trucks after a long day's work than have been solved anywhere.
  I do not rise to speak often in this hallowed Chamber. I am still 
learning the complexities of being a Senator. I envy my learned 
colleagues who can speak with such great assurance on so many subjects. 
But, Madam President, on this one you can trust this man from the 
mountains of North Georgia. If this amendment fails, the tailgates of 
rural America are going to drop, and it will be a clank that will 
reverberate from now through November because then the conversation at 
the end of the day on the back of a pickup as the Sun goes down will 
not be about the farm or the family or the State or the Nation; the 
subject will be how to get rid of us in the next election.
  Every election year we talk a lot about all those soccer moms out 
there and how they vote in such high percentages. Well, there is 
another group out there that votes in a very high percentage. They are 
the pickup pops. In fact, I would bet pickup pops go to the polls in 
higher percentages than any other Democratic group out there, and they 
also have long memories.
  If these higher CAFE standards are applied to pickups, they will be 
made unaffordable for many, and unsafe for all, and that will hurt 
those pickup pops. It will hurt the working man. It will hurt rural 
America.
  We are big on acronyms in Congress, and quite frankly they can be a 
little deceiving and confusing. I cannot even keep up with all of them. 
When we talk about CAFE and CAFE standards, most folks think we are 
talking about restaurants.
  People in rural America also understand what an acronym is, and I 
think on this issue they would say that ``pickup,'' P-I-C-K-U-P, is an 
acronym for ``People in Congress Keep Us Perplexed.'' Let us not keep 
them perplexed anymore.
  One of the first things I noticed when I came to Washington, DC is 
that you hardly ever see a pickup. They are scarce in Washington, DC, 
but they are not scarce outside the beltway, out there in middle 
America.
  I want to show this chart. In 1999, pickup trucks accounted for 
almost 18 percent of all registered vehicles in this country. In 29 
States, these red and blue States--that is more than half of our 
States, of course--pickups amounted to as much as 20 to 37 percent of 
all the registered vehicles. In the year 2000, drivers in this country 
bought 3.18 million pickup trucks. That makes pickups the third most 
popular choice of vehicle for American drivers.
  So pickups may not be prevalent in Washington, DC, but pickups are 
popular across the rest of America. When all this talk about CAFE 
started last year, I got worried Washington was going to stick it to 
the pickup owners of this Nation, so I tried to write a song about it. 
I am no Orrin Hatch, but I tried to write a song about it with

[[Page S1589]]

my good friend, Jack Clement, in Nashville. It is called the ``Talking 
Pickup Truck Blues.'' I will spare everyone the agony of my singing, 
but I want to share one verse. It goes something like this:

       Sure, an SUV is classy travel, but it ain't much good for 
     hauling gravel, or hay seed or bovine feces. So please do not 
     make my pickup truck an endangered species.

  Now, I will be the first to admit that song has not climbed to the 
top of the charts, but here is the point we are making: Do not mess 
with the working machine of the American road. Do not mess with 
pickups. Farmers depend on them. Families in rural America depend on 
them. Small businesses across this country depend on them, small 
businesses such as construction companies and home builders.
  One of the greatest economic engines we have in this country is the 
housing industry. You can go to any construction site across America 
and see at least a half dozen pickups. Plumbers drive them. 
Electricians drive them. Painters drive them. Carpenters drive them. 
Raise the cost of a pickup truck and more than just pickup owners will 
be harmed; entire industries will be hurt--the housing industry and 
others that rely heavily on pickups.
  Folks buy pickups not because they are affordable and they are safe. 
They buy them because they get the job done, whatever that job may be, 
whether it is pulling a trailer full of cattle or hauling lumber to a 
construction site or driving on gravel and dirt roads in rural America. 
There are times when only a pickup will do.
  So I urge my colleagues, who represent the millions of pickup owners 
across this country, when this amendment comes up at a later date to 
vote for this amendment. We must exempt the American workers, the 
pickup truck, from these higher CAFE standards.
  Like the last verse in my song goes:

       So help us, Lord, and let there be a little wisdom in D.C.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to speak for 3 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Domenici are printed in today's Record under 
``Morning Business.'')
  Mr. BINGAMAN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, we are in the process of getting agreement 
for a vote in the next few minutes on the underlying Daschle-Murkowski 
amendment. We hope that will be accomplished soon. We are waiting to 
hear from one person whether or not we can proceed with that vote. 
Members should be alerted we are going to see if we can have a vote 
this evening.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I would like to express my appreciation to 
everyone for their cooperation at this point in this debate. There has 
been some very good debate. It has been heartfelt on both sides. But I 
think we are moving forward with this legislation.
  As Senator Murkowski said earlier today, this is only preliminary. We 
have many difficult issues on this bill that are going to come forward 
in the next few days. So we have to recognize we may have some late 
nights. We may have to work long and hard on this legislation.
  I ask unanimous consent the time until 5:50 today be divided equally 
and controlled for debate with respect to the Daschle amendment No. 
2980, as modified and amended, and at 5:50 p.m. today the Senate vote 
on the amendment, with no further second-degree amendments in order 
thereto.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered. Who yields time?
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the unanimous 
consent agreement I just propounded be amended to begin the vote at 
5:45 p.m. today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                    Amendment No. 2980, As Modified

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, what is the regular order?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 
2980, as modified and amended.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays on that 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, for the information of our colleagues, 
we are going to be voting momentarily. I appreciate the cooperation of 
my friend from New Mexico for postponing the vote for just a moment.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against the Daschle amendment, which was 
also modified by my friend and colleague, Senator Murkowski, because it 
mandates that we pick the southern route for a major gas pipeline to go 
through Alaska. That may be the best route. There are other 
possibilities, other alternatives.
  There is a northern route. It is several hundred miles shorter. It 
may be more economical. Most of the northern route goes through the 
Mackenzie River Delta which is on a pretty flat plain and would not 
require going through 900 miles of mountains.
  I do not know which one we should choose. I do not think that 
Congress should choose it. I do not think we should mandate it without 
more significant oversight and discussion.
  I would like to hear the experts. I would like to hear the 
environmentalists. I would like to have some input from a lot of 
people. And I would like to have an idea how much the alternatives 
would cost.
  I have heard that the pipeline route that Senator Daschle is trying 
to mandate, the southern route--going through Alaska, and then going 
through Canada--would cost about $20 billion. I do not know. I do know 
that in the underlying bill there is a $10 billion loan guarantee. We 
have never had a hearing on the loan guarantee. We have never had a 
hearing on how this is going to be financed, whether it needs 
governmental assistance or not.

  I think it is wrong for us to dictate we go this particular way and 
other options cannot be considered. I would like to think we believe in 
the free market system enough to where we would let the marketplace 
decide what is the best route, what is the most economical route, what 
is the route that will do the least environmental damage. Instead, we 
have people coming up and saying: Oh, wait a minute, I have talked to a 
couple politicians. We are going to mandate the southern route with 
very little discussion or debate.
  Let's let the marketplace decide. Let's get some input from a lot of 
people. I do not think we are doing that in this case. I do not think 
this is a good way to legislate.
  I do not think we know how much it will cost. I do not think we have 
an idea of the environmental impact. Instead, we are just going to have 
a 2-

[[Page S1590]]

hour debate on the floor, and then we are going to say: Let's go make a 
decision on a $20 billion pipeline.
  Do we need a loan guarantee? Do we need Federal assistance? Do we 
need to have Federal financing for this project?
  I think we are moving pretty quickly here. I would hope we would be 
silent and assume we could go through the regulatory process.
  We have built hundreds of miles of pipeline through my State, and we 
have never had Federal legislation designating what you have to do, nor 
have we had State legislation designating what you have to do.
  I question the wisdom of us mandating one particular route at this 
particular time. So I urge my colleagues to vote no on the Daschle 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I am sad to disagree with my friend 
from Oklahoma. I point out to the Senate that this oil and gas is 
produced on State lands, with State leases. And our State law prohibits 
the rights-of-way for this gas to be moved on the northern route. It is 
within our province to guide the course of this asset of our State so 
that we might enjoy part of it.
  If this gas goes east from Alaska, Alaskans will never enjoy one 
single benefit from it except a portion of the wellhead price coming to 
us as royalties. We will not have any right to use it in our second 
largest city, in Fairbanks, along the Alaska highway going out of 
Alaska into Canada. This is a very dynamic area from the point of view 
of tourism.
  In addition to that, we have two major bases there, Wainwright and 
Eielson, and the national missile defense system is right alongside 
that road. This gas must come south. My State has recognized that and 
has now passed legislation, signed by the Governor, that specifies that 
no route will be allowed going east on these State lands. This gas must 
exit State lands before it can go either east or south.
  We have spoken as a State. We understand there may be some problem 
for us downstream. The Senator from Oklahoma would know, it may well be 
that the wellhead price of this gas will be lower and our share of that 
wellhead gas will be lower. But we will have access to the gas. We will 
have a chance to build the industry that might well utilize this gas in 
our State.
  This is the same problem that came up in the oil pipeline. When the 
pipeline route came through, there was an argument whether we should be 
able to take oil out of that pipeline around Fairbanks. As a matter of 
fact, we have won that argument. We do take out oil. We run it through 
two different refineries, and it is one of the greatest sources of 
aviation fuel for our country. It is available in the Nation's largest 
cargo landing port at the international airport at Anchorage.
  I disagree with my friend from Oklahoma. I think we have every right 
to say we should enjoy a portion of this resource that comes from under 
our own State lands and to utilize it in a way that will mean a future 
job base and future low energy costs for the one area of our country 
that pays the highest energy costs, and that is the area that this 
pipeline will come through and down to the border of Canada.
  That is the only route that is going to be built. I hate to tell my 
friend this. I told the industry that that line would go east over my 
dead body. I am not about ready to leave this world.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, it is my understanding there has been a 
vote ordered at 5:50; is that right?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes, that is correct.
  Mr. REID. So the regular order would be for us to begin voting; is 
that right?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 
minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator 
from New Mexico be given 2 minutes. So Senator Nickles, 1 minute; 
Senator Bingaman for 2 minutes; and then we vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. NICKLES. I thank my friend and colleague.
  I tell my friend from Alaska, I have no desire whatsoever for him to 
depart this world at this particular moment or any time in the not too 
distant future. Also, it is not my intention to say that the northern 
route is preferable to the southern route. I just don't think we should 
mandate that it be the southern route. It may well be, due to the 
information our colleagues have had, the southern route is the 
preferred route. I am not saying it is not. I just don't think it 
should be mandated by this legislation that it be the southern route, 
when we may find out that it costs twice as much as some other 
alternative.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I strongly support the amendment on 
which we are about to vote. It has the support of the Alaska 
delegation, as Senator Stevens indicated, as Senator Murkowski has 
indicated. It has the support of the Governor of Alaska. It is totally 
consistent with the action this Congress took in 1976 with the Alaska 
Natural Gas Transportation Act. It is clear to me that this is the 
correct policy for the Congress to adhere to at this point. I urge my 
colleagues to support the amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I thank my colleagues, Senator 
Bingaman and Senator Reid, the majority leader, and others for their 
cooperation in seeing that the basic Daschle amendment, which was laid 
down, and the second degree, which was accepted, clearly make this 
project much more feasible because it gives Alaskans the option on the 
southern route that suggests we will benefit the State in many ways, 
not only for Fairbanks but for all utilization of gas within the State, 
for Point Mackenzie, for the Kenai area, for Valdez, and for the 
Matanuska Valley.
  As Senator Stevens indicated quite strongly in his opinion on the 
necessity of this happening, it clearly gives us an opportunity to have 
some secondary industries in Alaska to support our young people, the 
greatest natural resource we have--I am most appreciative--as well as 
the job training that is provided in this bill. I encourage my 
colleagues to vote in favor of it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cantwell). All time has expired. The 
question is on agreeing to amendment No. 2980, as modified, as amended.
  The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) 
and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 93, nays 5, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 41 Leg.]

                                YEAS--93

     Akaka
     Allard
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Cantwell
     Carnahan
     Carper
     Chafee
     Cleland
     Clinton
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Corzine
     Craig
     Crapo
     Daschle
     Dayton
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Helms
     Hollings
     Hutchinson
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Miller
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith (NH)
     Smith (OR)
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Torricelli
     Voinovich
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                                NAYS--5

     Gramm
     Hutchison
     Kyl
     McCain
     Nickles

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Roberts
     Warner
       
  The amendment (No. 2980), as modified, as amended, was agreed to.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

[[Page S1591]]

  Mr. KYL. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. REID. The Senator from Arizona has been patient during the day, 
and he wishes to speak on the bill for up to 10 minutes. Although we 
need to leave, he has indicated he has a very difficult day tomorrow. I 
ask unanimous consent the Senator from Arizona be allowed to speak on 
the bill for up to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. I thank the Senator from Nevada for his courtesy. I will 
summarize my remarks and try to find another time to expand on some of 
my thoughts. I appreciate his courtesy.
  There is a big difference between what the President has proposed in 
terms of an energy policy and the bill we are beginning to debate on 
the floor of the Senate. The President's energy policy, I believe, was 
a very well balanced set of recommendations that would have helped 
achieve the goal of energy efficiency, less dependence upon foreign 
sources of oil, and a series of steps of progress toward changes in our 
policy that would result in more environmentally friendly fuels and a 
variety of reforms almost everybody is willing to support.
  Unfortunately, the President's proposals were not met with support by 
many on the other side of the aisle. As a result, even though I believe 
there was sufficient support in the Energy Committee, on which I sit, 
for many of the reforms that the President has proposed, our committee 
was not allowed to deal with this matter. The only hearings held were a 
long time ago and did not deal with most of the specifics of the 
legislation. We were never permitted to mark up the legislation. In 
fact, the bill that is on the floor today has undergone iterations, and 
I am not precisely sure I have the very last version.
  In terms of process, we are suffering under an inhibition of the 
primary committee of jurisdiction never having had the opportunity to 
work out details, to try to smooth out rough edges, and resolve 
differences that probably could be resolved if we had taken the time to 
do that in the committee structure. It is hard to write a complex bill 
during its consideration on the floor of the Senate. Yet that is what 
we will have to do. As a result, I am afraid we are not going to end up 
with a product that would be nearly as good as it would have otherwise 
been.
  Let me mention several aspects of the bill that are going to need a 
lot of work. I will briefly address four or five of them. The bill is 
written to restructure the electric energy industry. This is a very 
complex and difficult subject. I think it is done in a very clumsy way. 
It preempts a lot of State authority. It gives a lot of authority to 
FERC, largely at the expense of the States. It gets the Federal 
Government involved in retail matters, with a utility serving its 
customers in matters such as real-time pricing, net metering, and 
consumer protection issues. That is not the business of the Federal 
Government.
  It gives FERC broad authority with respect to the interstate 
transmission grid. There is some authority here. One can make the case 
that on interstate matters FERC should be able to help open up the 
market for easier transmission of energy. I think we can work some 
provisions out that provide broader authority to FERC even in that 
area. We have to be careful that we do not ``socialize the costs,'' 
which is the term used by one official, with respect to how the costs 
will be allocated. We are going to have to treat the costs in a 
very fair way and make sure the existing customers are not the losers, 
that a utility that currently serves them can continue to do that, and 
they will not have to pay the cost of someone else coming to connect to 
the grid.

  There are a lot of issues with respect to this electric restructuring 
to which we are going to have to pay attention that we could have 
resolved in committee if we had the opportunity.
  The second has to do with nuclear power. The bill itself, 
unfortunately, does not adequately deal with the need to modernize the 
law with respect to the provision of nuclear power. It does extend the 
Price-Anderson Act for 10 years but only for DOE contractors. For those 
not aware, that is the liability protection that has historically been 
provided to nuclear generators to ensure that they would be able to 
provide the power and not have to worry about the insurance costs for 
some catastrophic accident.
  There will be an amendment offered to add the NRC licensees, which 
are the commercial powerplant operators, to this Price-Anderson 
protection. I believe that will pass. I think most recognize that is 
going to be necessary.
  There are 103 nuclear powerplants operating in the United States 
today, including 3 in my home State of Arizona. They supply almost a 
quarter of the power in the United States in a very environmentally 
safe manner--no emissions, no gases such as nitrogen oxide, sulfur 
dioxide, or other gases that threaten the environment. Nuclear energy, 
of course, is the most efficient. It costs 1.83 cents per kilowatt hour 
compared to 2.08 per kilowatt hour for coal-fired plants. We need to 
work to ensure that the nuclear provisions of the bill are modernized. 
We will have amendments to present to do that.
  One of the most contentious parts of the bill relates to increasing 
our ability to generate oil and gas production in the United States so 
we do not have to rely so much on foreign sources of oil. This gets 
primarily into the question of whether we should be able to explore for 
oil in an area of Alaska that was set aside for that purpose by the 
U.S. Government some years ago, an area called the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge or ANWR.
  The facts have gotten very confused by people who do not support this 
proposal. The area we are talking about is about the size of the State 
of South Carolina. But the amount of land that would actually be 
exposed to exploration is no larger than the footprint of an airport in 
most of our communities, including, if you want the exact acreage, 
Dulles Airport outside of Washington, DC, or Sky Harbor Airport in my 
home State of Arizona. Out of an area the size of South Carolina, we 
have an area the size of an airport in which the drilling would occur.
  It is simply not possible to have the degradation of the environment 
that some claim with the modern technology that would be used to 
provide for this production and the small area and the environmentally 
friendly ways in which it would be done. The drilling pads are 80 
percent smaller than they were a generation ago. You can literally get 
oil 6 miles away by drilling down 2 or 3 miles and drilling out 2 or 3 
miles and in that way keep your footprint to a very small area.
  The critics have said there is not very much oil, so it is not worth 
the effort. I will state how much: It is 600,000 barrels of oil per 
day, which is almost the same amount of oil we are importing from the 
country of Iraq. It is the supply of oil we get from the country of 
Iraq for 40 years. That is a lot of oil. If we get into a conflict with 
Iraq, we will wish we had an alternative source so we would not have to 
rely upon purchasing it from Iraq.

  Suffice it to say, if we are going to be serious about increasing our 
energy production, we are going to have to be able to drill for oil in 
Alaska.
  There is a provision of the bill dealing with CAFE standards, setting 
the miles per gallon that cars have to meet. While all Members are 
desirous of trying to improve the miles per gallon that our cars meet, 
the only way we have found to do that has, as a result, caused an 
increased number of automobile fatalities. The National Academy of 
Sciences, certainly an unbiased source, found that previous fuel 
economy measures likely resulted in 1,300 to 2,600 additional crash 
fatalities annually, which is the equivalent, according to the National 
Safety Council, of wiping out the recent hard-won gains of safety belt 
use, airbags, or drunk driving legislation.
  The point is we have had a lot of people unnecessarily killed on our 
highways because we have had to make cars lighter in order to meet 
these CAFE standards. It seems to me we have to weigh the benefits that 
might be achieved--might be achieved--in terms of fuel savings on the 
one hand and the saving of lives that would be achieved on the other 
hand if we do not carelessly move forward with these CAFE standards.
  Once again, we will have an amendment that will have to deal with 
that.

[[Page S1592]]

 I will have amendment also to deal with other subjects. There will be 
other amendments that will attempt to improve the underlying bill.
  My bottom line is this. In this brief opening set of comments, I just 
want to make the point that the bill before us is not the bill that the 
President recommended. It is not the bill that I think could have come 
out of committee. It is a bill that requires a lot of work. It is going 
to take a lot of time. When we try to do the amending process on the 
floor of the Senate, we don't necessarily end up with the best of 
products--just because of the way we have to proceed. It is regrettable 
we have to do it that way, but since we are opened up to a series of 
amendments, then I think we will have to have the indulgence of 
everyone as we present and debate those amendments and hopefully get 
them passed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.

                          ____________________