[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 68 (Thursday, May 23, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4787-S4788]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ENERGY BILL CONFERENCE

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, last Friday, May 17, marked the 1-year 
anniversary of the release of President Bush's National Energy Policy. 
And the day after tomorrow, May 25, will mark the one-month anniversary 
of the Senate's completion of its consideration of the Energy Policy 
Act of 2002. I believe that it is appropriate to take stock of where we 
were 1 year ago, where we are today, and what we need to do next to 
move this process forward.
  One year ago, when President Bush released his National Energy Policy 
Plan, his proposal was little more than a glossy brochure. The summary 
of all the recommendations in the President's Plan, which appeared as 
the first appendix in his report, amounted to a mere 17 pages of text. 
Most of these recommendations were stated in very broad terms, and only 
about 20 actually related to legislation. A classic example of the 
recommendations in the President's Plan is the following one relating 
to electricity reform. Here is the electricity recommendation in last 
year's plan, in its totality:

       The NEPD Group recommends that the President direct the 
     Secretary of Energy to propose comprehensive electricity 
     legislation that promotes competition, protects consumers, 
     enhances reliability, promotes renewable energy, improves 
     efficiency, repeals the Public Utility Holding Company Act, 
     and reforms the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act.

  That was it for electricity. Now those 44 words include some very 
good thoughts. I am sure that a lot of work went into developing them. 
But it wasn't something that Congress could immediately turn around and 
send to the President's desk for signature.
  So, over the last year, we have done a tremendous amount of work in 
Congress, and especially in the Senate, to put real flesh on the bones 
laid out in the President's plan. In the Senate Energy Committee, we 
held over 2 dozen hearings in this Congress on various aspects of 
energy policy, seeking to get broad and inclusive input into our bill.
  In the case of electricity, instead of the 44 words contained in the 
President's plan, the Senate developed and passed 80 pages of 
legislative text on electricity reform. Our provisions sought to give 
real meaning to the general principles of protecting consumers, 
promoting competition, and promoting renewable energy. We had a lot of 
help and input from the Administration, but the work was really done 
here in the Senate.

  We are now at the beginning of the next phase in the legislative 
process. That is conference with the House of Representatives. We have 
a lot of work to do, but it cannot begin until the leadership of the 
House of Representatives decides who will represent them in a 
conference.
  I have to confess that I am getting a little frustrated at the delay 
in moving to this next phase. When the Senate passed its bill, the 
House majority whip put out a press release calling this body a bunch 
of ``do-nothing Daschlecrats'' and stating:

       Now, it's important that we move quickly to work out the 
     differences between the House and Senate bills.

  I agree with the second part of his comments, but his own colleagues 
in the House of Representatives apparently do not. Senators Daschle and 
Lott named our Senate conferees on May 1. After three weeks of silence 
from the House on who their conferees might be, it seems that all we 
are getting from the House is a lot of delay.
  And there is a tremendous amount of work to be done to have a 
successful energy conference, even before we sit down around a table 
somewhere.
  First, we will have to decide how the conference will be organized, 
including how it will be chaired. We seldom go to conference on energy 
bills. The last conference on an energy bill, the Alaska Power 
Administration Sale and Asset Transfer Act, took place 7 years ago, in 
1995. The House of Representatives chaired that conference. If one 
accepts the notion that conference chairmanships alternate between the 
Houses, then that means that it is now the Senate's turn to chair an 
energy conference.
  And, judging from both the lack of forward motion from the House on 
naming their conferees and some of the informal comments from the House 
leadership on their vision of what a conference would look like, I 
think that there might be some important advantages to Senate 
chairmanship of the conference.
  A number of leading members of the House of Representatives seem to 
be of the opinion that there should be a lot of televised meetings of 
conferees. I have nothing against openness, but I don't think that lots 
of televised meetings would be conducive to actually getting an energy 
bill out of conference. My prime mission in chairing a conference would 
be getting a bill, not getting Nielsen ratings. We should regard the 
time that conferees are actually present in the same room as a limited 
resource, to be used to promote forward motion, and not grand-
standing.
  Second, there have been rumblings that some in the House leadership 
might prefer to delay a conference until September. There are so many 
complex issues to be dealt with in this bill that delay would result in 
no conference report. I would prefer to see us begin work as soon as 
the organization of the conference itself was worked out, much along 
the lines of how issues were dealt with during past energy conferences.
  I am very much looking forward to learning whom we are supposed to be 
negotiating with from the House of Representatives. I'm not going to 
initiate discussions with the House of Representatives, though, that 
might be regarded as attempts to pre-conference

[[Page S4788]]

the bill, or parts of it, prior to knowing who all the legitimate 
participants will be from the House.
  But once the House has made its selection, I would propose that the 
conferees from both Houses take the following three key steps.
  First, we should get the conference leadership from both Houses into 
a room to get the organization and ground rules of the conference set 
down as our first order of business.
  Second, we should have the appropriate Senate and House staffs meet 
to work out a mutually agreed-to side-by-side presentation of the 
bills, so that there is common agreement as to which proposals are 
similar enough to be paired up in the negotiations. For the tax 
provisions, the Joint Committee on Taxation has already prepared a 
draft side-by-side that can be reviewed by both sides. We need to get 
the corresponding treatment for the energy policy provisions done in a 
consensual manner between the two Houses.
  Third, we will have to decide whether there will be subconferences; 
and if so, how many; and what each will encompass.
  What I have just laid out is a substantial amount of preparatory work 
that is now on hold. And time is slipping away from us in this 
Congress. If we adjourn in early October, as is likely, then we may 
have only 12 or 13 weeks of session left in this Congress. That is less 
time than one might think, and there will be a lot of other issues that 
will occupy the time and attention of leading members of this 
conference.
  I hope we can get started with the critical organizational phase of 
the discussions as soon as possible. But there is no way that can 
happen, without knowing who the conferees from the House will be. I 
urge my colleagues in the other body to give this high priority so that 
the real work can begin.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I wonder if my friend will yield for a question.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. I will be glad to yield for a question.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Recognizing the extended effort that was gone through 
in the time sequence we spent on the floor, I am sure my friend from 
New Mexico would agree, had we been able to proceed within the 
committee process, having the educational activities associated within 
the committee structure as opposed to on the floor of the Senate, it 
would have saved us a lot of time. Nevertheless, I think my friend from 
New Mexico would agree this was a dictate by the Democratic leadership.
  I think he would also agree that the House did move on their energy 
bill much earlier than we were able to because we had to go through the 
floor process. I think my friend would agree the general understanding 
is the House intends to name conferees as soon as we return from this 
recess.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Just to respond, the point my colleague makes is one he 
made numerous times during the debate of the energy bill here on the 
Senate floor. Clearly, that is his point of view.
  We were able to produce a bill. I think it is a far superior bill to 
the one the House produced last summer.
  The main point I am trying to make is we cannot move any further down 
the road toward enacting an energy bill unless we get a conference. It 
has been a month since the Senate passed its bill. It is time the House 
appointed their conferees.
  Madam President, let me go ahead with the second of the issues I want 
to deal with, and that relates to retirement security. How much time 
remains, Madam President?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 2\1/2\ minutes.

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