[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 79 (Monday, June 2, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Page S7178]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page S7178]]
                             ENERGY POLICY

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I would like to make a comment finally on 
the Energy bill which my colleague from Wyoming discussed moments ago.
  If we have learned anything--and I expect we have learned a lot with 
respect to the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the trouble in the Middle 
East--it is that this country is foolish to continue its excessive 
reliance on oil from troubled parts of the world. When 55 percent of 
our oil comes from overseas and outside of our borders, and when the 
largest growth in energy usage is for transportation and putting 
gasoline through our carburetors so we can drive back and forth to work 
and take trips and so on, this country ought to understand the great 
peril it is in--the peril to which the economy would be flat on its 
back tomorrow morning if, God forbid, the supply of oil from outside 
our borders was discontinued or interrupted. We need to understand 
that. We need to pass an Energy bill that recognizes and addresses it.
  The Energy bill, in my judgment, should be legislation that does four 
things: incentivizes increased production of fossile fuels--yes, oil--
using clean fuel technology, coal and natural gas; incentivizes 
conservation and provides for substantial conservation initiatives; 
provides for efficiency with all of these things that we use in our 
daily lives, especially using electricity; and then, finally, addresses 
the issue of limitless renewable sources of energy--ethanol, biodiesel, 
and especially, in my judgment, hydrogen.
  If we fail to do all of that in an aggressive way, we will not have 
much of an Energy bill. We will, as we do every 25 years, come back and 
debate where we should drill now. Digging and drilling is a policy that 
I call ``yesterday forever.'' It doesn't advance this country's 
interests. Yes. We should produce more fossil fuels, and we will. But 
we need to decide that putting gasoline through our carburetors is not 
what we want our grandchildren to do.
  The President talked about moving to a hydrogen economy with fuel 
cells. I agree with that. Good for him. Putting his administration on 
line in support of that initiative makes great sense. Frankly, his 
specific proposal was timid. It was not very bold. But he deserves 
great credit for moving in the right direction.
  I and some of my colleagues will introduce legislation dealing with 
hydrogen and fuel cells. That will be a $6.5 billion program over the 
next 10 years--a type of Apollo program. At the start of a decade we 
said, Let us have a man working on the Moon at the end of the decade. 
We did it with timelines and with targets.
  If we decide we ought to use hydrogen and fuel cells to power 
America's vehicle fleet, and also some stationary engines, then we 
ought to move in that direction boldly, not timidly. This is the time 
to do that with an energy bill. This is the time we decide the 
direction in which we want America to move and then establish public 
policy that makes that happen. I don't know whether we will have a bill 
through the Senate that does all that. I hope so. We will have many 
amendments. I have some amendments I will offer to get us in that 
position.
  Let me make one additional point. Anyone who watched what happened in 
the California and the west coast energy markets in the last couple of 
years has to understand that if we pass an energy bill that does not 
provide safeguards for the consumers, then we will have failed 
miserably. We saw companies--and I will name Enron, for one, but there 
are others the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has already 
identified--that were playing a monopoly game in west coast markets 
manipulating loads--they were buying and selling energy to themselves, 
jacking up prices, in some case, five, ten, and a hundredfold, and 
stealing from consumers. And it was not just a few dollars; they were 
stealing billions and billions of dollars from west coast consumers. 
They are now going to be held criminally liable.
  But while all that was happening, we had a Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission that was dead from the neck up. It would not do a thing; it 
sat on its hands, looking like a potted plant. It did not do a thing. 
So this massive stealing went on in west coast markets because big 
companies that could control supply did control supply, manipulated 
load, and attempted to extract from the consumers in western America 
billions of dollars in an unfair way. We must put safeguards in this 
legislation that prevent that.
  If anybody wonders about it, there is plenty written about it. Go 
trace the trail that describes the Enron Corporation strategies called 
``Get Shorty,'' ``Fat Boy,'' and ``Death Star.'' Do you know what those 
are? Those are strategies to steal from consumers. The FERC is now 
deciding there was plenty of activity, and there are criminal 
investigations going on that warrant perhaps prosecution of both 
companies and individuals.
  But all that happened because we had regulators who did not want to 
regulate. Regulators were afraid to step in and take effective action. 
Once again, it demonstrates that when you have the market power, the 
muscle, and the clout, and you do not have regulators who effectively 
regulate it, people are victims. And in this case on the west coast, 
the victims lost billions of dollars. The question is, How is there 
going to be recompense for that? How is that going to be resolved? Who 
is going to be tried? Which FERC investigations are sent to the Justice 
Department for criminal prosecution?
  My point is, safeguards need to be in this energy bill dealing with 
that. We have been through this once. We have colleagues still calling 
for deregulation of these markets. Deregulation, when you have 
companies with market power willing to use it to the detriment of 
consumers, is a devastating mistake. You need effective regulators, 
wearing referee shirts, who safeguard the interests of the consumers.
  That has to be a part of this bill as well.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair, in my capacity as a Senator 
from the State of Alaska, asks unanimous consent that the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  Without objection, it is so ordered.

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