[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 65 (Monday, May 5, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5696-S5697]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page S5696]]
                             ENERGY POLICY

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, it has been mentioned this morning, of 
course, that we are going to move forward this week to deal with energy 
policy. I must tell you I am very pleased that that is the case. We 
have worked very long and hard to develop an energy policy to bring it 
again this year before the Senate. As you recall, we had one last year. 
It went into conference and we were unable to bring it up.
  I think it is certainly important that we do that. Of all the issues 
that are before us, I expect it may be one of the most compelling--
compelling because it is something that is of vital importance to this 
Nation. Probably more people are affected by energy than most any other 
service.
  We have the Middle East situation, of course. Over time we have 
gotten ourselves in the position where 60 percent of our oil imports 
are a matter of importance because we have become very dependent.
  It was almost 2 years ago that the President of the United States and 
the Vice President, Dick Cheney, and their task force, came up with 
energy recommendations. This is one of the first issues talked about. 
Since that time, it has become even more compelling partly because of 
the unrest in the Middle East. Also, partly because of the result in 
Iraq, I think people now are more aware of how important it is for us 
to have an energy policy.
  The President said we need to have an energy policy for the future, 
but, of course, one that also meets the needs of today. I think we can 
do that. I think we can develop a policy which deals with the problems 
we now have, but, more importantly, we should try to get a vision for 
the future--15 or 20 years in the future--and see what we have to do, 
and where we would expect to be at that time and then measure what we 
do in the interim with respect to accomplishing those goals.
  We do have to make changes. We have to make changes in most 
everything. But I have to tell you that in the case of energy, perhaps 
change is more apparent and more obvious and more compelling than most 
of the other issues with which we have to deal. We must modernize 
conservation. Obviously, what we need is a balanced policy but one that 
deals with conservation, one that deals with alternative fuels, one 
that deals with research, one that deals, of course, with enhancing 
domestic production, and other issues. But those certainly have to be 
the basic elements of our energy policy as we look forward.
  There is much that we can do. I can recall a number of years ago in 
Casper, WY, meeting with an energy group. I don't remember who it was. 
But I remember they said that we have never run out of an energy 
source. We have continued to change. We used to have wood. We used to 
have coal. We had oil, we had gas and nuclear, and we continue to 
change. But it takes some forward thinking to do that. It takes some 
research to do that. It takes an effort made to bring about the changes 
that are necessary to provide Americans with a very important element 
of their support. We need to modernize our infrastructure.
  Obviously, situations change. We are going to have production, for 
instance, in gas. In my State, we have a great deal of supply and a 
source. In order to get it to a marketplace, you have to have 
pipelines. You have to have transportation.
  The same is very much true with electricity. The largest source of 
fuel for the future and for which we have a resource is currently 
coal. You have to move that resource to the consumer. You can either 
move it as coal in a railroad car, which is very inefficient, or you 
can produce energy at the mine site and then move it to the consumer in 
transmission lines. We have not kept up with that. We are beginning to 
feel the consequences of that very much.

  We have to increase our supplies of energy. We are doing that, of 
course, by having new places to drill, new places to extract, new 
places to find different alternative fuels that are available, frankly, 
very little of which has become really commercial in nature.
  If you exclude hydro from renewables, then only about 3 percent of 
our energy comes from renewable sources. That is not very much, so it 
is going to take a while. It is going to take research. It is going to 
take much action to make sure we get those actually in the homes in 
America. Renewables are very important. We have to accelerate our plans 
and our efforts to protect the environment as we do this.
  I think everybody wants a balanced energy policy, a balanced policy 
which says, yes, we need to produce more of our own energy in whatever 
way. As we do it, we have to protect the environment.
  Again, in my home State of Wyoming, that is very important to us. 
Fifty percent of Wyoming belongs to the Federal Government, so most of 
the resources there, such as oil and gas and often coal, are on Federal 
lands. We need to be able to produce this energy in such a way that you 
can also have wildlife, you can also enjoy the environment, as well as 
production. Frankly, we have shown you can do that. We need to make 
that activity become even more workable by doing more research.
  The bottom line, which I have already mentioned, is, in our national 
security, to be less dependent on having to look somewhere else for the 
energy that is necessary for us to remain secure and prosperous. It is 
not only part of security; it is also part of economic stability and 
economic growth.
  We have been trying. I mentioned we tried last year, but our attempts 
failed. We worked very hard at it, as a matter of fact. We had bills 
out of both the House and the Senate. After some controversy on both 
sides, we went to committee to put them together and were never able to 
come up with a solution. Now we are back again.
  That process was flawed. Basically, the committee of jurisdiction, 
the Energy Committee in this case, did not work through the bill before 
it came to the floor. Quite frankly, it is very difficult to be 
successful on the floor unless you can come to some agreement in the 
committee prior to that. We had no hearings, really. We had no markups.
  But it has been different this year. We have a chairman who has 
worked very hard--the Senator from New Mexico. We have a bill that is 
ready to come before us, and one we really need to work on.
  Again, certainly it is essential to completing this war activity we 
have been in, to really having stability in our own country so that we 
have somewhat of an energy independence. We may not be totally 
independent, of course. There is nothing wrong with bringing in fuels 
from other places, but we should not allow ourselves to be 60 percent 
dependent on that.
  The development of resources is essential to economic growth and that 
is what we are looking for now, at the same time we are looking at ways 
to stimulate the economy to create more jobs. I can tell you, the 
movement in the energy field is one that allows us to do the same 
thing. We need a balanced approach. I have mentioned that.

  Some people think, oh, my gosh, all you are going to do is take oil 
wells out there and start drilling everywhere. That is not the case. We 
are looking at conservation. As we look at our own lives, there are 
many ways, if we make some changes in what we do, we can reduce our 
demands on energy. We can shift our demands on energy to those things 
that are more available.
  Think about it at home. Are there any ways in which we could have 
appliances where we could do things a little differently and have them 
use less energy? I think that is true. We are all looking for ways to 
increase mileage in our automobiles, and there are ways to do that.
  I have to tell you, I think it is a mistake to mandate certain action 
over a period of time because that becomes very expensive and also puts 
a real halt on us moving forward. But what we ought to do is have 
incentives so that we do work toward having more conservation.
  Fossil fuels, of course, are our biggest supplier now of energy and 
will be for some time. Again, for instance, in the case of coal, we 
have a great abundance of coal, and we have done a great deal to make 
it more clean to help with climate change. But we can do even more.
  In the coalfields in Wyoming there is an effort to begin to put some 
emphasis on hydrogen. Hydrogen can be made with coal and water, and 
hydrogen can

[[Page S5697]]

then be used much more efficiently in terms of the movement of the fuel 
as well as using it for automobiles. We can do that.
  Natural gas, of course, is one of our very important resources. 
Again, we need to be able to move that. We need to be able to use it at 
the highest priority and use these fuels where we get the best bang for 
the dollar. That is what we are seeking to do: to give some diversity, 
to utilize the domestic resources, to have an overall energy strategy.
  I think too often--and we are a little guilty of that right here in 
the Senate--we get into one of these issues and we start talking almost 
entirely about today's problems and solving the problems we have or our 
constituents have out there right now. That is fine, and we need to do 
that. But this is a policy. This is designed to give us a roadmap to 
make changes over time.
  Again, electricity is a good example. Years ago, when you had a 
distribution area, you had a city or a county, and you had an electric 
supplier that provided for that group. They had a generating plant and 
a distribution system, and it was all contained right there in the city 
or right there in the county.
  Now 40 percent of energy is generated by what you call merchant 
generators that do not do distribution, but they sell it to 
distributors. Of course, to do that, you have to have transmission 
lines that move the energy around. So things are changing, and we need 
to keep ahead of change the best we can.
  There are also great opportunities for doing something with nuclear 
power, which is one of the cleanest sources of power we have. We will 
be talking about doing some things with Alaska, for example, whether it 
is pipelines or ANWR.
  So I just want to say, Mr. President, we are going to be spending a 
considerable amount of time on energy in the next several weeks. Our 
goal, hopefully, in the Senate is to get through with the program by 
Memorial Day. The House will be moving forward as well and has a 
program that is ready to go, pretty much.
  Part of this, of course, will be in the area of tax incentives. As I 
said, what we need to do is provide incentives for people to do better, 
to have better ways of drilling, to do better in geological surveys, 
and so on. Part of that will be a tax title that has been passed out of 
the Finance Committee. And now the energy bill has been passed out of 
the Energy Committee. So we are ready to go.
  I am hopeful we can come together. I know there are going to be 
different views about what we do on conservation, what we do about 
ethanol, what we do about alternatives, but all of those must be 
resolved if we are to come forward with something that will be good for 
our country in terms of an energy policy.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and 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. DORGAN. 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. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for as 
much time as I may consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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