Congressional Record, Volume 149 Issue 120 (Thursday, September 4, 2003)

[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 120 (Thursday, September 4, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H7922-H7930]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H.R. 6, ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2003

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the
Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 6) to enhance energy conservation and
research and development, to provide for security and diversity in the
energy supply for the American people, and for other purposes, with a
Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the amendment, and agree to a
conference asked by the Senate.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). Is there objection to the
request of the gentleman from Louisiana?
There was no objection.

Motion to Instruct Offered By Mr. Dingell.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.
The Clerk read as follows:

Mr. Dingell moves that the managers on the part of the
House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two
Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 6 be
instructed to resolve by September 12, 2003, the differences
between the House and Senate regarding the electric
reliability provisions contained in the House bill (section
16031 of the House bill) and the corresponding provisions
contained in the Senate amendment (section 206 of the Senate
amendment).
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 7(b) of rule XXII, the
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and the gentleman from Louisiana
(Mr. Tauzin) each will be recognized for 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell).
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. Speaker, the motion is quite simple, and I would hope that my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle will support it. It simply states
that the conferees should be instructed to resolve their difference on
the electric reliability provisions of the legislation in the next
week.
This is not a difficult task. In fact, it is very simple. The
language in both

[[Page H7923]]

the Senate and the House bills are very similar, and we have reached
tentative agreement on the outlines of the provision in the last
Congress. If we can reach agreement quickly on this matter at this time
as I expect, we can bring a bill to the floor in a matter of days that
contains these provisions and have those provisions on the desk of the
President for signature immediately. Then the conferees can turn to the
more contentious matters in the legislation.
The people of my district, as well as 50 million other Americans,
were affected by the August blackout, and they are looking to us for
action to see that this does not occur again. They do not want common
sense answers to be delayed or held hostage as we debate unrelated
controversial provisions that have had the practical effect of killing
this legislation for the last 8 or 9 years.
As I have said on other occasions, what we need to do today, and in
this conference, is to kill the snake closest to us, and that is the
question of the failure of our electric reliability system. I do not
contend that the reliability provision alone would have prevented the
August blackout. We are still looking into the cause of the blackout,
and just as it would be wrong to suggest that the more controversial
provisions in this bill would have prevented the blackout, I can make
no such claims about these provisions. But the reliability provisions
of this bill will certainly do much good. And in the hearings of the
last two days before the conference committee, they have proven to be
the kind of provisions that would do much to prevent the kind of
situation we saw last August 14. They are not in contention, nor are
they contentious.
Both President Clinton and President Bush have endorsed the
proposals. And Democrats like my colleague, the gentleman from Maryland
(Mr. Wynn) and Republicans have introduced these proposals.
Unfortunately, each year they have been caught up in larger electricity
matters such as deregulation and the repeal of the Public Utilities
Holding Company Act, matters of intense controversy. We can get to
these more controversial provisions later. But they are the same
provisions as I have noted that prevented us from passing a
comprehensive energy bill for 8 long years.
Let me explain briefly why these reliability provisions are
important. Following the blackouts of 1965, the electric industry
established the North American Electric Reliability Council, NERC, to
establish reliability standards for the operation of the electricity
grid. These are voluntary standards and, unfortunately, they are not
always followed as we have found out in the hearings yesterday and
today.
According to NERC, last year there were over 500 violations of the
rules that could have been subject to some $9 million in fines had they
been authorized. The practical effect of the reliability provisions
would be to codify the NERC as the electric reliability organization
charged with setting reliability standards and enforcing them through
appropriate penalties and other actions. Since we are all in basic
agreement over the reliability provisions, all we need to do is to
finalize the agreement and to bring them to the floor under suspension
and then continue the conference on more controversial matters.
As a conferee, I am prepared to do my part to work on all of these
matters. I note that our chairman of last year did an excellent job in
developing the conference agreements in many areas, and I expect
similar progress this year.
There is no need to take the reliability of our electric grid hostage
to other controversial provisions. Many of the controversies are not of
a partisan nature. For example, recently Republican Senators and the
administration announced an agreement on language to stall regulations
establishing standard market design for utilities.
While many of our colleagues in the House disagree, we will find that
some of the provisions could make problems worse. Last year, when we
failed to reach agreement on the entire bill, we decided to pass the
pipeline safety provisions separately from the rest of the legislation,
a good and a sensible approach to a difficult problem. That bipartisan,
bicameral agreement was supported by both the industry and public
interest groups.
The reliability provisions also have broad appeal amongst the utility
industry regulators and consumer advocates.
I urge my colleagues to vote for this motion, and let the American
people know that we will, we have, and we do take important steps to
prevent blackouts while debating other issues. I urge my colleagues to
support the motion.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in the strongest opposition possible to this
motion to instruct. It is rather cleverly worded. It is cleverly worded
because as we would expect from someone as talented as my friend, the
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), in parliamentary terms it says
separate this issue from the rest of the energy bill and pass this
issue, leaving to limbo, perhaps, the rest of the comprehensive energy
bill.
It does precisely what we should never do and that is to ignore the
fact that the blackout is just part of an awful energy situation that
exists in this country. Oh, yeah, we just had a big blackout in the
Northeast, but do not forget that just recently Alan Greenspan made
four or five trips to this Hill to warn us of a natural gas crisis
facing this country this winter.
We are paying twice as much for natural gas as we did this time last
year. Petrochemical plants in my district are beginning to lay off
workers and threatening to move their production to offshore facilities
in other countries because we pay twice as much for natural gas in
America as we do anywhere else in the world.
Has anybody noticed the price at the pump lately? Have my colleagues
noticed the awful situation with gasoline prices? Do you think for a
second that the problem in the Northeast is just a single, isolated
problem in the whole energy situation our country faces?
On the contrary, the situation in the Northeast is just one of many
enormous problems in our energy marketplace. Also, as my colleagues
might recall exhibited was the awful situation of the California energy
crisis just a few years ago.
In this country we face the possibility of huge natural gas price
cost increases to consumers as winter approaches. We face the situation
where low-income beneficiaries whom we are trying to help with LIHEAP
funds may not be able to pay their energy costs this winter. We saw the
price spikes in gasoline.
To strip off one piece of this bill for political expediency would
not only be foolish, it would be disastrous.
The House and Senate have both finally passed comprehensive energy
bills after a great deal of deliberation. The Senate passed the bill
they passed last year. We improved our product. The conferees have just
been named, and we have agreed to go to conference.
But my colleagues should know on the day the Senate passed that bill
by unanimous consent, our staffs and the Senate committee and the House
committee began work immediately, conforming the two bills.
And now that the conferees are appointed, we are going to bring in a
conference report before the end of this month and vote on it on this
House floor. We are going to pass the comprehensive energy title.
It will include, by the way, all the improvements that have been
recommended in the transmission grids following the New York and
Northeast blackouts. Those improvements were passed last April on this
House floor and are contained in the comprehensive bill.
They include transmission incentives to build new transmission
systems. They include new provisions on siting to make sure the Federal
Government is involved in interstate siting of transmission lines so
States cannot block interstate improvements to transmission facilities.
It will eliminate the artificial barriers to the new investment grid
called the Public Utility Holding Company Act. It will change the
transmission tax treatment to create more favorable tax treatments to
encourage people to invest in improvements in transmission grids so we
do not have the problems we saw in California and now in the Northeast.

[[Page H7924]]

We passed, in this comprehensive energy bill, massive improvements in
energy efficiency and conservation all designed to help reliability of
our systems. Do my colleagues want to throw those away tonight?
Of course, H.R. 6 addresses all the urgent needs of the energy sector
by increasing the production of oil and gas and other energy resources,
particularly renewables, by dramatically increasing LIHEAP funding, by
making significant investments in energy research and development
including the President's Freedom Car Initiative.
Mr. Speaker, my committee has just conducted two very full days of
hearings on the August blackouts. With the testimony from nearly 30
witnesses working with our Secretary of Energy, Mr. Abraham, and
others, we will get to the bottom of what happened just a few weeks
ago. But the overwhelming message I got from those hearings is that
abundant, reliable energy sources are the lifeline of our economy.
If we walk away from all the policy improvements that this bill
provides, we will be turning our backs on the people of this country,
our economy, and a reliable and secure energy future for this country.
So I urge my colleagues to defeat this motion to instruct. While it
is not binding, it is a wrong signal. It needs to be defeated tonight.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak).
Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan for
yielding time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the motion to instruct conferees
offered by my friend and colleague the gentleman from Michigan (Mr.
Dingell).
As the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
has stated, for the past two days, we sat in hearings on the full
Committee on Energy and Commerce on the reasons for the blackout that
paralyzed a huge portion of the Northeast and the upper Midwest
including my home State of Michigan.

{time} 2115

One thing that witnesses in those hearings agree on is that there
must be mandatory reliability standards for the transmission grid in
this country with some real enforcement authority.
The distinguished chairman talked about this may be a political
expedient bill or motion. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) has
had this bill for close to 8 years. For 8 years we have been trying to
get reliability, mandatory reliability standards with real enforcement.
Every witness we heard, every witness we heard agreed with the
Dingell motion, that we have to have mandatory reliability standards,
there has to be accountability and who is responsible. What we have
seen for the last 2 days is everybody pointing their fingers at
everybody else and everyone saying it is not my fault. These are not my
words. Witnesses, including Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham,
Governors Granholm of Michigan and Taft of Ohio, to State public
service commissioners and operators of the regional transmission
organizations and electric power generators and transmission companies
all agreed. We need some mandatory reliability standards, what we have
in this motion to instruct.
The present system of voluntary standards does not provide enough
assurance of reliability.
The House bill, H.R. 6, allows the North American Electric
Reliability Council, NERC as we call it, to set and enforce mandatory
standards for cooperation among utilities. No enforcement, no fines, no
penalties if they violate these standards. NERC is a voluntary
compliance, not mandatory.
NERC was created after the massive 1965 blackout when Congress, and I
was not here then, but Congress back then said this should never happen
again. So they created NERC. Measures taken then have not been enough
to prevent the disastrous consequences that affected more than 50
million people on August 14th with the August blackout.
In Michigan alone there were more than $20 million in losses to
public entities, 70 manufacturing plants that had to shut down and more
than $1 billion in expected losses to business when it is all totaled
up.
There are genuine and serious differences about other provisions in
the House and Senate energy bills that have to be worked out in the
conference. There is little dispute about the need for mandatory
reliability standards for the aging electricity transmission grid in
our country.
The motion to instruct, this motion by the gentleman from Michigan
(Mr. Dingell), joined by many of us on this side of the aisle, will
ensure that electricity reliability is not held hostage to what may be
a long, drawn-out process on the energy bill as a whole.
In the last 2 years, this House has passed comprehensive energy
legislation. It has never made it to the conference. It has never been
passed by the Senate. We do not want a situation where once again this
goes to a conference and it dies as we adjourn for the year. We have
this aged electrical transmission power grid out there. Everyone talks
about a way we can improve it. Right now we have to talk about how can
we get some reliability into it right now.
All the incentives in H.R. 6, all the things that are put forth in
H.R. 6 will not take place for years. Let us put some reliability into
the system now.
This motion to instruct will do that. Let us not hold reliable energy
hostage in the conference report. Vote yes on the motion to instruct.
Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
That was a wonderful speech, but what was not very clear and should
be made clear is that enforceable reliability standards are in the
House bill that was passed in this House 254 to 175, with 40 Democrat
votes joining us and we passed it. It is in the Senate bill. It is
already in the conference. We passed it last April.
Secondly, I want to remind my friend this is not the end of the
conference. This is the first year of a 2-year Congress. We are going
to get this bill done in the next few weeks.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Hampshire
(Mr. Bass), my friend, a great gentleman from the Northeast, who knows
a lot about energy because he is on the Committee on Energy and
Commerce.
Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to
instruct. Clearly the Northeast is deeply affected by this blackout,
and there are provisions in the energy bill that is currently in
conference that need to be included and will be included. We have had 2
days of hearings and there has been one clear message, and that is, if
there is any message, that we need mandatory reliability standards, and
as the Chairman just said, they are in the energy bill.
What is going on now is an effort to totally eviscerate the energy
bill in the name of this one particular provision.
I voted against the energy bill on the floor of the House, but there
have been changes worked on and made in conference that may make this
bill considerably more attractive to Members like me, and I think it is
mistaken, premature, and misguided to vote for a motion that entirely
eviscerates this effort to develop a national energy strategy in the
name of preserving a provision that is already in the bill. This is not
the time for this motion. Vote it down.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Wynn).
Mr. WYNN. Mr. Speaker, let me begin by thanking my colleague, the
distinguished ranking member from Michigan, for allowing me this time.
I rise in strong support of the motion to instruct conferees on the
energy bill. This motion instructs the conferees to promptly agree on a
measure to provide mandatory electricity reliability standards that
would help avert the type of widespread blackout we just saw in August.
Very interesting, my colleague just used the term eviscerate the
energy bill. We are not trying to eviscerate the energy bill. What we
are saying is simply this: There are provisions that we agree on,
Democrats and Republicans, and that is that we need mandatory
reliability standards. If we agree on both of these on this issue, why
not pass it? Why not do what is doable?
That is not to say that we should not discuss a comprehensive bill.
It is not to say we should not try to reach a

[[Page H7925]]

comprehensive bill on drilling in Alaska, on natural gas, on
alternative energy sources, but the issue is that the blackout in the
Northeast had nothing to do with ANWR, nothing to do with Alaska. It
had nothing to do with natural gas prices. It has nothing to do with
solar energy and alternative energy. It had to do with problems with
our electricity grid.
If there are measures that we can take, and this is not the final
measure, but if there are measures we can take now to address this
problem, I think we ought to do it.
Currently, we do not have an electricity grid that meets the
requirements of a 21st century economy. In fact, our electricity grid
is overburdened, outdated and underfunded.
It is critical that Congress focus on reliability standards for the
national electricity grid. In fact, today we had a panel testify, an
industry panel testify before the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and
that panel said unanimously we need mandatory reliability standards to
avoid the kinds of problems we have experienced.
Yesterday, my colleague, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell)
introduced legislation to provide for mandatory reliability standards,
but I would note and emphasize that this approach has bipartisan
appeal.
Earlier this year, several months prior to the blackout, the
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Burr) from the Republican side and
myself introduced H.R. 1370, an interstate transmission act, which also
requires mandatory electricity reliability standards.
We need an electric reliability organization with Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission oversight. This would facilitate the development
and enforcement of mandatory reliability rules and standards that are
binding on all electric companies and market participants.
These standards would include, first of all, technical standards
relating to the maintenance and operation of electrical systems;
performance standards for electrical systems; and preparedness
standards related to the ability of those managing the electrical
system to respond to anomalies or unexpected events on the grid.
For example, we must require working and compatible hardware that
monitors our transmission systems for faults and disturbances in order
to contain problems and keep electrical systems up and running. These
monitoring systems should, at selected switch yards and substations,
include the installation of dynamic disturbance recording equipment and
fault recorders to provide data that would enable the verification of
power flow and provide warnings of a disturbance in the bulk power
system.
Importantly, these monitoring systems must be compatible so that we
can report and analyze disturbances in the system quickly and
concisely. A compatible transmission monitoring system over
interconnected regions can help contain the problems we have
experienced recently.
Finally, mandatory reliability standards would provide the Federal
Government with the tools to sanction companies that do not comply with
reliability standards. This language in the Burr-Wynn bill and the
Dingell reliability bill would accomplish these goals.
As we are moving toward a conference, if we can agree on a
comprehensive bill, I certainly will be supportive of that; but if we
cannot, I submit that we should do that which is within our grasp
immediately to address a problem that is confronting this country, and
that is, we need mandatory reliability standards now. There is
agreement. We ought to act on it. I urge the adoption of the
instructions to the conferees.
Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus), a distinguished member of our
Committee on Energy and Commerce, who is also a lieutenant colonel.
Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for this time.
I sat in 2 days of hearings, too, and I would agree that most all of
the panels said we need mandatory reliability standards, but 99 percent
of them said we also need an empowered FERC. They also said we needed
the ability to site. Even the Governors from Ohio and Michigan said if
the States cannot get engaged in the siting of transmission after a
date certain, we need a Federal authority to site transmission power,
and they all said that. They also said there has to be a return on the
investment so that capital will flow to the grid. Yes, they said
mandatory reliability standards, but they said much, much more, and
that is why I oppose this motion.
What has been the biggest concern on electricity in the last couple
of years? It is an issue that is because of a constrained grid, because
we need to expand the grid. Whether it is market manipulation, because
of supply and demand issues in California, if they had an expanded grid
that would not have been a problem. If it bottlenecks in the Northeast,
they call it a cascade, and a power outage. If we would have had an
expanded grid, that probably would not have been a problem.
Illinois needs a national energy plan. We need an expanded grid. We
need to have our coal mines reopened and electricity generation. We
need to keep our marginal oil wells open. We need to make sure that we
decrease our reliance on foreign oil by enacting an ethanol standard, 5
billion renewable fuel standard for ethanol.
The Speaker and the chairman enacted a natural gas task force. Why?
We are doubling demand for natural gas, and we are not doing anything
on the supply end. So producers are stopping to produce fertilizer for
our farmers. The price to dry corn has doubled, and it is disastrous
for the agriculture community.
Do we want to continue to be reliant on foreign imported fossil fuel?
The answer is no. I spoke in the hearings. I said this reliability
issue is a Band-Aid. We need more than a Band-Aid. We need a healing.
We need structural reform and a national energy plan. That is why any
attempt to do anything other than this is really an attempt to kill a
national energy bill. That is what it is. That is what we have
identified, and Illinois cannot afford not to move on coal generation,
transmission, ethanol, nuclear power, a transmission grid, and any
other attempt to split this bill apart and not move now is an attempt
to kill the bill.
I thank the Chairman for the time.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), the distinguished chairman of
the Committee on Resources of the House of Representatives.
Mr. POMBO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me the
time.
It is interesting to listen to this debate here tonight, and some of
what my colleague was saying earlier I agree with; that in terms of the
blackout that they had in the Northeast, it had very little to do, if
anything, to do with the other parts of the bill, and I agree with him
on that. But when we got into this process several years ago, the
reason that we did was because we had so many challenges in terms of
delivering a reliable source of energy for the people in this country
that we had so many different things that we had to take on.
We had a problem with reliability and ability to deliver natural gas
at an affordable price to our constituents, and that is one part of the
bill. We had problems with gaining access for power lines and gas lines
across public lands, and that is one part of the bill. We have a
problem with an overdependence on foreign sources for our energy in
this country, and that is a part of the bill. All of the different
parts of the energy bill, as they moved through the Committee on
Resources and the Committee on Energy and Commerce, were all about
trying to deal with all of these definite challenges and all of these
problems and trying to come up with a way in a balanced approach to
deal with those problems.
Electricity is one problem and that is part of the bigger balanced
energy package that passed this House for the second time this last
April, and hopefully when going into conference it is something that we
can gain bipartisan support on, as we had in the House, and move it
quickly through and begin to address all of these different problems.

{time} 2130

It appears to me that because of the blackout we are now using that
as an

[[Page H7926]]

excuse not to do all of the other things. How else are we going to deal
with the natural gas crisis that has developed in this country? The
lack of an affordable, reliable supply of natural gas is a very real
problem. And in a couple of months, when we hit the wintertime and
everybody is using natural gas, the constituents are going to be
screaming about that, and we have to address that.
Now, this bill does not solve all the problems, but it does go a long
way in terms of dealing with all of these challenges that have built up
because this country has not had an energy policy for so many years. It
is hard to do. It is difficult to put all this together in a package,
but it is something that this country desperately needs. Electricity is
part of it, natural gas is part of it, access and right-of-way issues
are part of it, and production is part of it. Production has to be part
of supplying for our future.
So I do believe that this is an extremely important bill.
Unfortunately, I will have to oppose the Dingell motion to instruct
conferees.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished
gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the motion
to instruct conferees offered by the distinguished gentleman from
Michigan. The gentleman is not only well suited to offer this motion
because of his position as the ranking Democrat on the Committee on
Energy and Commerce; but in addition, his district was one of those
most affected by the August 14 blackout.
On August 14 I was in Israel watching CNN International very late at
night when the first blackout was announced. And as one city after
another was mentioned as being affected and thousands and thousands
more people were being affected, my first thought, and I am sure that
is true of many Americans, was, oh no, this feels like it was another
terrorist attack. And while I was relieved, as many people were, of
course, to find out that that was not the case, I was not really
comforted then or now.
Life as we know it virtually stops when we have this kind of
catastrophic event. Life stops as we know it when the power goes out.
Commerce and industry stop, elevators stop, subways stop, home
respirators stop, water from the tap stopped in many places. And though
Americans rose to the occasion, the vulnerability of our entire
economy, our health and our safety was made devastatingly clear to each
and every one of us. It became clear that our very national security is
now depending on an unreliable electricity grid.
Now, that is the bad news. The good news is that even before we know
exactly every detail on how it happened, there are steps that we can
take to make our system more reliable and our people more secure. And
the further good news is that this is not bad news, this is good news;
that there is a broad consensus around what to do. So let us do it.
I do not find compelling at all that this is not the total answer to
everything; that we have to worry about gas prices; that we have to
worry about gasoline prices. Yes, we do. But we are facing a crisis
that could cripple us right now. So let us do it. This is a simple,
noncontroversial, constructive solution. And it does not mean that we
have to deal with what we know to be controversial issues. Drilling in
the Alaska wilderness is not going to prevent the kind of blackouts
that can cripple our country. So why not deal with something clear and
simple and constructive right now?
So I would urge my colleagues to put aside what may be very partisan
differences on things that we cannot agree on. We will deal with those.
I am convinced that we can come to an agreement on those, and, yes,
separate out now that which we can deal with that may avert a
catastrophe that could cripple our Nation, jeopardize our security, and
the health of our people. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the motion to
instruct that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) has offered.
Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), a distinguished member of the
Committee on Energy and Commerce from the Northwest.
Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding
me this time. I find the gentlewoman's comments disturbing for this
reason. What we really heard her say, and what we are hearing on this
motion is, we are only going to deal with something when it is a
crisis. And that is all we are going to deal with is what is the crisis
of the moment. That is a poor way to do public policy.
In fact, when the other side of the aisle had the opportunity to
offer an alternative to the energy bill, they did not include these
reliability standards in the opportunity that was offered in the
committee, nor the second time when it was offered on the floor, nor
the third time when they offered an alternative on the motion to
recommit. So three chances, and then their lights went out. Now we have
a crisis, and now this is all we are going to deal with, when it was
not something they wanted to deal with in the bill to begin with from
their side.
Why would we jettison additional funding for LIHEAP when we know that
natural gas prices are going through the roof and the poorest among us
are going to have trouble paying their heating bills this winter? Are
we going to wait for a crisis then deal with LIHEAP then, when we can
deal with it here in this bill? If this motion to instruct were held,
we would not be dealing with it.
Why would we get rid of the provisions in this bill that deal with
market transparency requirements that require increased FERC
enforcement authority to prevent anticompetitive practices in
electricity markets? Why would we not deal with that? Is there
controversy over that? No, but there is no crisis at the moment. There
was in 2001 in the West, when we had rolling brownouts and blackouts in
California and prices through the roof. Why do we not solve that here?
Why would we walk away? Because the crisis is behind us? I do not think
that makes sense.
What we found after our blackouts in 1996 and after 2001 is that the
grid needed investment and improvement. We came to the Congress, those
from the Northwest, and we came to the President, and the President
agreed and the Congress agreed to give Bonneville additional borrowing
authority so we could begin constructing the additions that were needed
in our grid. We needed to invest. That has been done.
That is what is needed around the country; and this legislation, H.R.
6, has provisions in it both to encourage research and development of
new technology to make the wires more capable of transmitting more
power as well as incentives to help expand the grid so it has the
capacity to carry the power where it is needed when it is needed. Those
provisions, if this motion were to prevail and be followed by the
committee, would all be stricken. All we would deal with is the
reliability standards, and that does not make sense to me.
There are many other provisions in this bill to help in natural gas,
to help with domestic production of oil that we should deal with. They
are separate, yes. They are getting domestic oil production up and
domestic gas production up and gas and oil where we need it and when we
need it to keep prices in check. Those are important. And, no, they are
not related to the blackout. Of course not. But they are related when
you pull up to the pump and pay $2.10 per gallon, or when you turn on
your heater or your hot water tank and you are paying $3, $4, $6, and
$7 for natural gas.
We need to deal with energy policy for this country in a
comprehensive and thorough manner. This legislation does that. I ask my
colleagues to vote against the motion to instruct.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time remains on both
sides?
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The gentleman from Louisiana
(Mr. Tauzin) has 15\1/2\ minutes remaining, and the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Dingell) has 13 minutes remaining.
Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), a member of our committee.
Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I cannot support the motion to instruct
offered

[[Page H7927]]

by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) because I am not going to
permit politics to override substance. The gentleman from Oregon (Mr.
Walden) was correct that when the gentleman had an opportunity during
the committee when he offered a substitute that he did not bring up
this issue. When it came to the House floor on the motion to recommit,
the gentleman's recommittal motion addressed hydropower, not mandatory
reliability standards. And as a matter of fact, many of the Democrats
did not support this bill in committee and did not support the bill on
the floor. But now, when we go through a blackout, all of a sudden we
need to pull this out of the national energy bill and pass this? No, I
do not believe we can permit politics to override substance.
H.R. 6 is an extremely important bill that the gentleman from
Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) has spent a lot of time on. The national energy
bill is about a national energy policy. And the United States, as the
sole remaining superpower, needs a broad-based and diversified
portfolio with regard to our energy sources. So it is about coal, and
we need to make an investments in clean coal technology. It is about
oil. Yes, we have our imports, but we have to also do domestic
drilling, exploration and drilling. It is about natural gas. Boy, have
we messed this one up.
The Democrats controlled Congress in 1990 when they passed the Clean
Air Act. They want us to move from coal-powered generation to natural
gas, and at the same time they passed these laws to lock up the lands.
We cannot gain access to natural gas, whether it is off the Eastern
Shore, whether it is out of the gulf, whether it is off the Pacific or
in the western States or in Alaska. So we move to a demand for the
increased utilization of natural gas and at the same time cut off
access to natural gas. And people wonder why there is a natural gas
shortage. Congress created it.
This bill addresses that. There are also issues on nuclear power. The
Federal Government has not even authorized a permit to build a nuclear
facility in over 20 years. There is more computing power in our
automobiles than what was in the Apollo mission to the Moon. We can do
much better today.
The issues also deal with renewables, whether it is in wind or solar
or hydrogen or fuel cell technologies. This bill is comprehensive. We
should not go and try to pick and choose, pull something out of the
bill and then turn to the American people as if we have done something.
There is an electrification portion of this bill. My Democrat
colleagues on the committee did not like that this was part of the
bill. I think it was pretty smart that the gentleman from Louisiana
(Mr. Tauzin) made this part of that bill. Very telling.
We said the power grid was frail and outdated, and guess what
happened? Congress was not the Nostradamus, because we knew this grid
was outdated. There are utility companies that are undercapitalized.
This bill gives those incentives to do things smartly with regard to
our infrastructure, not only by trying to bring transparency to the
grid but on how we move and distribute that power. Very important.
So I hope that Chairman Tauzin, as he goes to that conference, that
he is able to address the issues on natural gas and the other issue
dealing with the discussion today at his hearing on the need for
interconnection standards on distributed energy.
So, Mr. Speaker, I have to oppose the motion of the gentleman from
Michigan.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).
Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, the fact is that if the efforts of the
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) had been successful in years
past, it is very possible that August 16 would not have happened. It is
a simple fact, and I want my colleagues to listen to this, the American
people are watching, that if we reject this amendment, they have a
right to know who is responsible if a blackout occurs next year and we
have not yet taken action on this measure.
Now, I listened to my colleague from Illinois, and he is a good
friend of mine, I respect him a lot, and he talked about a lot of
things. He talked about ethanol. He talked about coal and natural gas.
And he talked about nuclear energy and about renewables. And I support
all of these things. We all do. But the fact is that some of the
provisions regarding these aspects of the energy bill are
controversial.
Now, our chairman says that this reliability provision is in the
energy bill. It is. But does he actually believe that that bill is
going to get through the Senate and be sent to the President and be
signed into law? I think that is very questionable. It has not happened
in the recent past. We have a responsibility to do what we can do, and
what we can do is agree on reliability standards.
Now, others of my Republican colleagues implied that somehow this
effort was an attempt to dismantle the energy bill, to jettison, that
word was used, to jettison provisions or to dismantle provisions. Quite
to the contrary. All we are trying to do is to separate from the larger
energy bill this portion that we can agree on and that we can actually
pass and have signed into law and give the American people some
confidence that this Chamber has the ability to do something that they
need to have done.

{time} 2145

Mr. Speaker, that is all we are asking for. Now I believe that they
are attempting to take this provision that is popular, that is well
established as a need, and use it to try to accomplish something in the
energy bill that they cannot accomplish without it. I think that is
what is happening. I hope the American people are paying attention. We
ought to accept this amendment. We ought to get on with separating this
issue out, passing it here in the House, encouraging the conference to
proceed with their work.
We are not encouraging the conference to jettison any part of the
energy bill at this point. We are simply asking for a reasonable action
on the part of this House. I support this bill. We need a stand-alone
piece of legislation that deals with reliability. August 14 happened.
Lives were in jeopardy, economies were injured, and we can fix this
problem.
Mr. Speaker, I ask the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) to
reconsider his position and accept this amendment for the merit it
deserves, and let us move forward.
Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Arizona (Mr. Shadegg), a distinguished member of our committee.
Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to
instruct. The reality is that the motion to instruct will in fact stop
all of the other reforms in this bill, in H.R. 6, that we have worked
on so hard through the years to get to this point and focus the entire
issue on reliability. That might be important if we had reached a point
where the conference was not resolving the issues. If this conference
had met for months and had not been able to resolve the other
provisions in the bill, perhaps we would have to say we have to focus
on one issue that we can pass. But the conference committee has not
even met yet.
I want to comment on another issue of this debate. The point here is
what we are being urged to do is to focus only on reliability because
that is the crisis of the moment. Again as the gentleman from Oregon
(Mr. Walden) pointed out, if we only legislate on the emergency of the
moment, that is a poor way to construct public policy, and it is the
way to create the precise kind of circumstance that led to the blackout
we just experienced. The reality is it requires forethought, and the
reality is reliability is a problem, but it is not the only problem.
If this legislation did not include reliability provisions, perhaps
it would make some sense to focus on that issue; but no one here, no
one is arguing that we should not deal with reliability. Indeed, the
bill does deal with reliability. What is being argued is if we adopt
this motion to instruct, we drop everything else.
Well, I have a flash for my colleagues on the other side: In Arizona
the crisis is not a blackout. That blackout did not strike my State.
The crisis in my State of Arizona is gasoline. We had gasoline prices
spike 2 weeks ago in Arizona to over $3.99 a gallon. We had people
sitting in lines to buy gasoline because they could not get gasoline
because a pipeline broke.
There are other issues involved in the energy issue than simply
reliability,

[[Page H7928]]

and my constituents in Arizona absolutely do not want us at this early
stage in the process to throw out all of the important reforms in the
legislation. They are concerned about the natural gas shortage, and
they are happy that H.R. 6 will encourage natural gas supplies. They
recognize that we are more and more reliant upon natural gas. Indeed,
many more new natural gas plants have been built in Arizona, and more
and more of our energy is coming from natural gas. We had better do
something about the production of natural gas. That would be thrown out
with this motion to instruct.
My colleagues are deeply concerned about renewable fuels and
improving energy conservation. They want to promote renewable energy
and alternative energy. They do not want that thrown out.
One of the interesting things in this debate is that it was
hydropower that enabled the blackout to end in less time than it
otherwise would have. If we focus solely on reliability issues, we will
throw out the important provisions in this legislation that deal with
hydropower. It simply is pennywise and pound foolish not to deal with a
comprehensive energy bill. I urge my colleagues to reject the motion to
instruct.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio
(Mr. Gillmor).
Mr. GILLMOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time, and I rise in opposition to the motion to instruct.
The gentleman from Michigan and I agree on having reliability
standards. We both represent districts affected by the blackout; but
the need for reliability standards is why we already included language
in both the House and Senate versions of the bill passed earlier this
year. A reliability provision is not a substitute for a robust energy
package that we urgently need to address fundamental infrastructure
production and conservation issues that are critical to our Nation's
energy security.
I think it is interesting as we go through this process, after the
blackout many of the same people who are saying the only thing we ought
to focus on are reliability standards are exactly the same people that
before the blackout, when it was important, voted against legislation
that had reliability standards in it. But just passing reliability
standards would not have prevented the blackout of August 14. There was
a lot more to it than that.
We have to look at what has been happening in energy, in electricity
in the last few decades. Electrical use has been growing significantly
and steadily, and it has been growing at a faster rate than
transmission capacity. We are putting more and more power into an older
grid that is less and less able to handle it. Why? Because we have not
had a good energy policy. The problem is going to get worse if all
projections are correct, and simply passing reliability standards will
not correct it.
We need to solve the problem. We need the things that are in H.R. 6.
We need conservation to take some of the load off the grid. We need to
encourage as a country renewable fuels. That is also part of H.R. 6. We
need to increase our energy supply. If we do not increase the supply to
keep our economy growing, to keep jobs, we can post reliability
standards on every wall in America and people will have a lot of time
to read them because they are not going to have any energy to have
jobs. We need the provisions in H.R. 6, reliability standards,
conservation, renewable fuels and increased supply. For that reason we
ought to vote no on the motion to instruct.
Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted and honored to yield 5
minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), a subcommittee
chairman, and one of the principal architects of this comprehensive
energy plan we are trying to save tonight.
(Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and
extend his remarks.)
Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, natural gas prices at the wellhead
are over $5 or approaching $5 a thousand cubic feet. The motion to
instruct by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) does absolutely
nothing about that problem. Gasoline prices are averaging $1.50 a
gallon all over the country, and in some parts they are over $2 a
gallon. The motion to instruct does nothing about that.
The President's hydrogen fuel cell initiative, which we all applauded
when the President was before us during the State of the Union and
which I know the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) supports, there
is nothing in the motion to instruct that does anything about that.
Many of my friends on the minority side of the aisle very strongly
support an R&D clean coal technology program in the bill which passed
the House last April. There is nothing to instruct conferees on that
particular issue.
Everybody I know of is for hydropower and hydro reforms in the House-
passed bill awaiting conference with the Senate. There is nothing in
the gentleman's motion to instruct about hydro licensing reform.
If we only want to focus on electricity, the gentleman's motion on
reliability standards does not say anything at all about the need for a
regional transmission organizational policy, does not do anything at
all for siting authority which is desperately needed, does not do
anything at all to create any new incentives to build and operate
transmission.
In fact, if all we did was pass the reliability provisions the
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) has put before the body this
evening, if that is all we did, we would not even solve the problem of
the blackout that happened on August 14 in the Northeast, because if we
only do reliability standards and we do nothing else structurally in
electricity, you can have all of the mandatory standards that you want
and if you flip that switch and there is no electricity to go through
that switch, the lights are not going to come on.
The only way, even if we have mandatory enforceable reliability
standards, that we are really going to prevent the kind of problem that
happened on August 14 is if we do a comprehensive energy bill, which we
did on this floor I believe on April 9 of this year, where we did
address the natural gas issue. We did address the oil issue and the
gasoline issue. We did address the hydrogen fuel initiative and clean
coal technology. We did address hydro licensing reform, and we did
address a comprehensive electricity title that does include mandatory
standards for reliability, that does include an RTO policy, that does
include a Federal backstop for siting and does include incentives to
build and operate new transmission. I could on and on.
There is nothing wrong with the gentleman from Michigan's motion to
instruct conferees to do reliability. We have done it. We did it on
April 9, but we need to do more than that. We need a comprehensive
energy bill that is integrated and interconnected. The House has passed
it on a bipartisan basis. We are going to nominate conferees to go to
conference with the Senate.
As the chairman of the full committee has so aptly pointed out, we
can have a comprehensive energy bill conference report back before this
body and the other body by the end of this month if we work together in
a good-faith, bipartisan fashion. I invite the gentleman from Michigan
(Mr. Dingell) to do that. I am sure he will be a conferee. And let us
be sure that we do not just do a little bit that does not really solve
the problem. Let us do a comprehensive bill that solves the problem. To
quote a famous sports shoemaker, let us just do it. Let us just do it.
Do it right, do it now, do it together.
Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to
close.
Mr. Speaker, it was February 2001 that I was honored to assume the
role of chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce of this great
House. It was in August of that same year that our Committee on Energy
and Commerce, together with the Committee on Ways and Means, Committee
on Resources, Committee on Science, numerous committees of this body,
helped to report to the floor a comprehensive energy bill for our
country following the disaster in California, recognizing the disasters
to come in the Northeast. It took the Senate almost 2 years to finally
pass their version at the end of the conference when it was too late to
finish the conference report.

[[Page H7929]]

This year in this Congress, this House had the wisdom to pass this
bill as early as April of the first year of the Congress, and the
Senate in just 7 short months has passed their version and now joins us
tonight in a conference to finish the work.

{time} 2200

Many, many votes have gone by since August of 2001. In fact, prior to
that in committee, many votes were taken. I find it strange that on the
night we finally appoint the conferees to finish this awesome task, on
this night, my friend, the gentleman from Michigan, who was the main
opponent of the comprehensive energy bill on the floor when we brought
it here in April of this year, brings this motion to take one small
piece of that bill and to leave, in fact, the rest behind. That is the
game.
Is it a coincidence that every person who spoke on the other side
voted against the comprehensive energy bill when we brought it to the
floor? I do not think so. I think this is an effort to help derail the
final passage of that great bill. We are not going to let them get away
with that because this country cannot do without this comprehensive
energy bill. It is critical for this country.
We had 13 recorded votes on the floor tonight. Thirteen times we came
to this floor and we put our card into the electronic voting machine
and we made a decision for this country. We are two votes away on the
floor of this House and in the other body, one in this House, one in
the other body, we are two votes away from finishing the most
comprehensive energy package to help this country on its way again than
we have ever been. When this conference brings its conference report
before the end of the month to this floor and to the Senate, we are two
votes away from putting it on the President's desk for final signature.
I know those of you who voted against it, those of you who were in
the 175-Member minority who voted against the passage, would probably
not like to see us finish, but this country wants us to finish. People
in the Northeast who went through that blackout want us to do a
comprehensive bill. The people in the Northwest, in California who had
their problems a few years ago want us to do this bill. Americans who
suffer with high energy prices want us to do this bill.
Let us reject this motion to do away with this bill and to simply
pick it to death. I urge my colleagues to reject this motion to
instruct.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I love my colleagues on the other side. I know they are
sincere and I understand and I sympathize with them because they have
difficulty in understanding the parliamentary situation.
We have been grappling around with the business of passing a
comprehensive energy bill now for about 8 years. I have listened to my
colleagues on the other side promise us that we would have a bill on
the floor in 2 weeks, or we would have a bill passed by the end of the
session. None of those promises have been good. We are still grappling
around with a piece of legislation. The Senate, it could not pass a
bill, so they took the bill that they had passed last year and they
passed it and they went to conference. The Member of the Senate who
says he will be the senior Member of the Senate body considering this
legislation says they are going to write the bill in conference.
What bill are they going to write? I do not know. But I have written
several large energy bills, and I would note to my colleagues that the
time of the writing of these, including the time in conference, was
somewhere between 18 months and 2 years, the full period of a session
in the Congress and the second session besides.
I would remind my colleagues that what happened in this country on
August 14 was we had the biggest blackout that we have had, one of
three which have affected major areas of the country, but a number of
others which have affected smaller regions such as parts of the Midwest
and the Far West and the Northwest, areas which supposedly were rich in
electric power.
We are not trying to foreclose the consideration of all of the items
in this overall comprehensive energy bill that my Republican colleagues
want, but we want to pass a bill which will address the most immediate
and serious energy problem which this country confronts and that is the
problem of blackouts and shutdowns of electrical utility service to the
consumers of this country. Such an event occurred on August 14.
Elevators stopped between floors; subway cars stopped in subways;
factories shut down; explosions occurred in refineries; steel mills
shut down; huge losses occurred to business; huge losses occurred to
manufacturing; thousands of businesses shut down; millions of Americans
were without electric service. Fortunately, the one good thing that can
be said is no one died. But everybody was put at risk in the Northeast.
One of the problems about the situation is that we do not exactly
know what all caused this, but we know that one of the major problems
was the fact that there are no enforceable standards to enforce
reliability upon the system. This is something upon which there is
broad agreement in this body and in the Senate. It goes across the
lines of partisanship. It is something on which everybody agrees, and
it is something which can be quickly and easily done.
What I say is not to kill the whole bill, but to pass expeditiously
those portions which will address the immediate and serious problem
which this country confronts. Let us move towards breaking those
portions out, putting them speedily on the floor, putting them speedily
on the floor in the Senate, and sending them to the President so that
he may sign them and Americans may understand that we will have a
decent program for the protection of the American consuming public and
American industry with regard to reliability of electrical service.
There is no difference in view between me and my good friend, the
chairman of the committee, about whether or not we ought to go forward
with a comprehensive energy bill. This can be done at the same time.
But we can speedily move forward the question of reliability and afford
Americans the comfort, the safety and the security of that step by
providing assured safety for them in their electric utility service.
What all is involved in this comprehensive energy bill? Clean air and
clear skies are now going to be put in in the conference, we hear, a
matter which is neither germane nor is it within the new matter rule.
They are going to talk about drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, a
matter which has triggered filibusters in the Senate; tax credits for
oil and gas and matters of that kind; repeal of the Public Utility
Holding Company Act; renewable fuels; royalty relief for people in the
energy production business; funding for ethanol; MTBE liability relief,
an extremely controversial question; global warming on which the Senate
voted 95 to nothing against, fuel efficiency in automobiles; and scores
of other questions.
Those are matters which will take much time in conference. These are
not matters which can be addressed easily and which can be on the floor
in 2 weeks as my good friend the chairman of the committee tells us.
Much though he might want that and much though I might want it, it is
not something which is easily done. We agree that the country needs an
electric reliability bill. This motion to instruct the conferees makes
that possible.
Mr. Speaker, the chairman of the committee and I both agree the
country needs a comprehensive energy bill to diversify our supplies, to
create energy independence as much as we can, and to increase the
energy security of this country. All that this motion advocates is that
we do promptly what we can do to prevent another blackout. It avoids
long, tedious discussions which will delay the probability of
legislation being enacted quickly and before we might confront this
same problem which could occur again even as we speak.
I would point out to my Republican colleagues that I do not seek the
perfect solution to energy problems. We have been working on energy
problems since I came to this place many years ago. We have consumed
enormous amounts of time of the Congress in working on energy supply,
energy sufficiency, and other questions of that sort. We can roll up
our sleeves and work on those matters while we are moving this other
legislation forward

[[Page H7930]]

quickly and put reliability legislation on the floors of the Congress
and on the desk of the President to assure safety and security for the
American people.
I would remind my Republican colleagues of the old legislative axiom
that the perfect good is the enemy of the good. It may be a perfect
good to wrestle around and wrangle around about a piece of legislation
which will deal with every imaginable energy problem, which will evoke
the support and the enthusiasm of every special interest in this town
and in this country, but it is not the way to assure that we do the
things which we can do quickly and well while we work upon the other
more difficult and controversial questions.
I would point out we have not yet appointed conferees. The Senate
does not yet have even the vaguest idea of what it is upon which they
may agree. They had to send to conference a curious concoction of last
year's energy bill with the simple statement that the chairman of the
Senate conferees is going to write the bill as the matter is considered
in conference, hardly an open and transparent and intelligent way in
which we might legislate.
I would urge my colleagues, let us do that which we can do quickly
and let us do that which will take us longer with more deliberate and
careful and thoughtful effort which will lead us to a quicker and
better solution to the problems we confront.
I urge the adoption of the motion to instruct conferees. It is
consistent with our responsibilities. It is consistent with the public
interest. It gives protection to the American people in a fashion on
matters that greatly concern them about their safety, about the well-
being of themselves and their families and about the well-being and the
efficiency and the capability of the American economy to provide the
things that are necessary for us all.
Let us deal with those things which can quickly be addressed, and let
us then work more slowly in the conference on other matters. And if
they can be moved as fast as my good friend, the chairman of the
committee, says, then we will have something on the floor in the next
couple of weeks. If not, then there is nothing lost because we will be
able to wrangle around interminably on these matters as we have for so
long.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the motion to instruct
that is being offered by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell).
Our constituents want to know what caused the August 14th blackout,
and what we are going to do to prevent it from happening again.
Unfortunately, the testimony the Energy and Commerce Committee
received from the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission yesterday, indicates that the Bush Administration
remains pretty much in the dark about the causes of the blackout.
At the same time, the Bush Administration continues to press for the
immediate adoption of an energy bill that contains language that would
make sweeping deregulatory changes in electricity law and launch a
wide-ranging assault on our environment in the name of increasing oil
and gas production. The Administration is essentially saying that these
radical proposals are needed to prevent the recurrence of an event
whose causes they say remain unknown. But if we don't know what caused
the blackout in the first place, how can we know whether the proposed
cure is worse than the disease? That's like a doctor telling you he has
no idea what caused you to black out, but he'd like to see you in the
morning for brain surgery. When you hear that, you know it's time to
get a second opinion.
And the gentleman from Michigan has very helpfully offered a second
opinion. Instead of a full frontal electricity lobotomy, he proposes a
more modest initial course of treatment. His motion essentially says
that we should quickly reach agreement on the consensus reliability
language, and put the rest of the electricity title on hold for a later
day. This solution, if adopted by the conferees would allow this
Congress to solve a very real problem that we already know exists--the
fact that existing electric utility reliability standards are purely
voluntary and unenforceable. We know this is a problem. It very well
may have contributed to the August 14th blackout. We should deal with
it quickly, and not hold its ultimate resolution hostage to a
resolution of the very complex and contentious issues of PUHCA-repeal,
Regional Transmission Organizations, Native Load protection, incentive
ratemaking, renewable portfolio standards, and a whole host of other
entirely unrelated energy issues that are in the House and Senate
bills.
We should set aside all of these issues now, at the very least until
we've heard back from the U.S.-Canada Task Force on the causes of the
blackout. Instead, we should just pass a clean, stand alone reliability
bill, and do it now. If we get further recommendations from the Task
Force after it completes its work, we can decide if more legislation is
needed.
But right now, we should, reject once and for all this ridiculous
notion that drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge is somehow needed to
prevent future blackouts. Oil is for cars and trucks, not for air
conditioners, refrigerators, ovens or light bulbs. Only about 3 percent
of the oil our nation consumes is used for electricity.
What stopped working during the blackout? Our lights, our cooling,
our refrigerators, our ovens.
Our cars and SUVs ran just fine.
It is ridiculous to use the blackout as an argument for drilling in
the Arctic Refuge and other pristine public lands, and it exposes those
who make the argument desperate for an outcome, driven by ideology, not
facts.
The only relationship between the electricity blackout and gasoline
is that several refineries shut down temporarily, which the oil
industry used as an excuse to raise the price of gasoline to record-
breaking levels nationwide over the Labor Day weekend.
I don't think that was justified, but at least the relationship is
clear--electricity doesn't depend on reliable oil--oil depends on
reliable electricity.
That is why we should stop searching in Alaska for solutions to the
blackout. The problem is not in Alaska, it is in Ohio. The solutions
won't be found above the Arctic Circle, but below Lake Erie.
Yesterday, Energy Secretary Abraham and FERC Chairman Pat Wood
essentially told our Committee ``we'll get back to you later'' with
some answers about what caused the blackout. So right now, we really
don't have all the answers. We do know, however, that this $7-10
billion dollar hit to the economy could happen again tomorrow. Before
we enact comprehensive energy legislation, we should know what caused
the blackout.
We can, as a first step, pass by consensus reliability language that
is in both the House and Senate bills, and defer action on the broader
issues of FERC oversight, PUHCA and other issues that are just too
contentious to resolve quickly. After we've gotten some answers, we can
then come back and consider whether we should do other things. But is
we legislate right now, we are just firing a shot in the dark--a shot
that could hit our constituents and our economy with very severe
consequences.
I urge adoption of the Dingell motion to instruct.
Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). Without objection, the previous
question is ordered on the motion.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct
offered by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell).
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

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