[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 174 (Tuesday, November 25, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15920-S15922]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE ENERGY BILL

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise to make a few observations for 
the Senate and for our people regarding the Energy bill that is still 
pending as we leave.
  First, I hope and pray that during the ensuing months without an 
Energy bill we don't have high spikes in natural gas prices and the 
people of our country asking: What have we done about it? Our answer is 
nothing. I hope that doesn't happen. But I think there is a chance it 
will happen.
  I hope there isn't another blackout. I am not sure there will be but 
there could be. If there is, the American people are going to ask why 
and we are going to tell them because we did nothing. There was 
something that was in that bill that would have solved the problem, 
according to the experts, and the answer will be, if you have a 
blackout, we did nothing.
  For all of those who have projects that will be finished in wind, 
energy, solar energy, and renewables, they will be looking around and 
asking: Where is my next project? The answer will be there is no next 
project. The question will be: Why? And the answer will be because we 
haven't provided laws that will give to those kinds of projects the tax 
relief to which they are entitled and which they have been receiving 
that will keep wind energy going and solar energy going and geothermal 
energy going.
  When these projects stop and thousands of people who are working in 
the industry have no jobs, when there are no new projects, the question 
will be asked: What happened? The answer will be simple. We didn't pass 
an Energy bill. I can go on with many more such as this.
  In closing, I hope the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission does not 
act with the full power that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 
now has. I hope the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will 
understand that we were that close to deciding we did not want the 
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to have the single and sole power 
to regulate electricity interests in this country.

  But when the first electric-generating plants and generating systems 
are mandated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to join in 
organizations that they don't want to be in, and they ask the question 
why, the answer is going to be clear.
  For those Senators who represent them who are upset because their 
utilities are being forced to conduct themselves in a manner that the 
Federal

[[Page S15921]]

Energy Regulatory Commission determines singularly and solely, the 
question will be: How can they do that? My friend, Senator Craig from 
Idaho, knows how they can do that. That is their authority without an 
Energy bill.
  We modified that significantly to take into account the differences 
in our energy system. That is gone. Between now and the time we get a 
chance to take another look at this bill, perhaps we will have a few of 
those mandates that will take place. Then people will ask: Why did that 
happen? I will say: Well, there was nothing we could do about it. The 
Senate chose not to pass the bill.
  I acknowledge that the Senate worked its will at least temporarily in 
an interim decision, but I am hopeful that in the next couple of months 
as we watch things get worse in the energy field we will find a way to 
come back to this bill and pass it substantially as it is, and if some 
adjustment has to be made, that we will find ways to do that.
  It isn't going to be easy. But neither has it ever been easy to pass 
an energy policy for this country. We have been looking for it, looking 
at it, staring at it, watching it evolve and doing nothing for many 
years. We passed a bill about 10 or 12 years ago. But it wasn't like 
this bill. It wasn't a dramatic change in the policy of our land in 
terms of energy production and energy efficiency and energy 
alternatives. Those are temporary--while the winter season hits. Those 
are out there with no action. They have a big NA after them--no 
action--or a big nothing done by Congress after each of those episodes 
that could occur and that will embarrass us because we didn't do our 
job.
  I yield the floor to the distinguished Senator, Mr. Craig.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee). The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. I thank my colleague, the senior Senator from New Mexico, 
for yielding.
  Let me first and foremost thank him for the phenomenal time and 
effort he has put into a national energy policy. We missed getting 
cloture by just two votes. Again, a majority of the Senate supports 
your work. It is full, it is comprehensive, it is revolutionary in 
driving this country toward having reliable energy once again.
  As the average American got up this morning and flipped the light 
switch, the lights came on. They expect that to happen every day. What 
they do not understand is that there is now a risk in our country that 
might not happen. Why? Because over the last decade we have not allowed 
the energy sector to reinvest, to reconnect, to change the way it did 
business in the past. Government regulation, in almost every instance, 
stood in the way and created a supertest and sometimes total 
obstruction in the ability of a company to invest back into the energy 
sector.
  During the decade of the 1990s, if you wanted to generate 
electricity, how did you do it? You used natural gas because the Clean 
Air Act said you could do it no other way. So we did. But on the other 
side, we were not producing more natural gas so we used up the surplus 
capacity, and a couple of months ago gas spiked--at $5 to $6 per 
million cubic feet--astronomically high. What happened? The chemical 
companies shut down and sent their work overseas. Of course, those 
electrical plants that were built in the decade of the 1990s, that were 
generating electricity, turned off the switches. They could not afford 
in the marketplace to be able to generate electricity. The bill we have 
in the Senate today, that we have been denied passage of, would go a 
long way toward remedying that problem.
  If the American consumer believes you pass a bill tomorrow and the 
light switch is reliable, they better remember its reliability is based 
on a decade of investment, that it does not happen just overnight. What 
the Senator from New Mexico was trying to do is drive that investment 
forward for decades to come to create reliability.
  The other morning I woke up to the announcement that the President of 
the nation of Georgia had just resigned. What does that mean as it 
relates to our energy? We want the oil out of the Caspian Sea to flow 
into the energy markets of this world to drive down overall prices and 
to create availability. Guess what happened. Companies are building a 
major pipeline across Georgia. They invested heavily through the 
politics of this President. He resigned. Georgia is almost in 
revolution. Yet that $2 billion pipeline that is going to start 
producing about 1.2 million barrels of oil a day into the world market 
may not produce.
  The significance of the resignation of Shevardnadze, the President of 
Georgia, is quite simple. He, by that action, created some degree of 
instability in the world oil market. If we are going to continue to 
rely on our supply flowing from unstable areas of the world, then the 
American consumer can expect broad fluctuations at the fuel pump--
$1.50, $2, $2.50.
  The passage of this legislation would stabilize that kind of action. 
There is no question. If this Senate thinks we will rely on the nation 
of Georgia or the Caspian Sea or Saudi Arabia or anywhere else to be a 
reliable, continual supplier of hydrocarbons into our system to fuel 
the gas pumps and to fuel our chemical industry, they ought to think 
once again.

  The Senate Energy Committee has fought long and hard about this for 
the last decade. In the last 5 years we have worked hard, in the last 2 
years we have kept the lights burning all night to try to craft a bill.
  The Senator from New Mexico got that job done. We missed by just two 
votes in the Senate. It is the President's No. 1 priority. He thinks 
like we think, if we do not make a major move in the direction of 
beginning to supply energy to the country once again, the availability 
of jobs, our cost of living, our lifestyles, our standards, all that we 
hold dear as Americans will have to change because so much of what we 
do today is based on a relatively low cost, reliable supply of energy 
to all sectors, all segments of our economy.
  Shame on this Senate because a little bit was not right or a little 
bit was not right there. Nobody looked down the road. Nobody got out in 
front of their headlights to try to understand the implication of 
failing to move a bill that produces long-term investment in the energy 
sector.
  We just passed an important bill for all citizens of our country. It 
is an expenditure right out of the general fund of the United States 
Treasury. While we were criticized on the energy side for some of the 
tax credits in this bill, there is a fundamental difference.
  First of all, the industry has to invest in the economy before they 
can get the credit out. They have to drive investment. They have to go 
out and borrow money, pour concrete, build transmission lines, and hire 
people. These jobs, created by the tax incentives and the investment, 
is somewhere in the neighborhood of 800,000 over the decade into the 
energy sector.
  There is a fundamental difference in the way both bills ought to be 
looked at. While what we just voted on is an important expenditure for 
the well-being of our country and the well-being of our citizen's 
health, this is an investment in the infrastructure, in the stability, 
in the light switch reliability.
  Tomorrow morning, for anyone who is listening, when you flip that 
switch for just a moment, think, how did the electricity get there? No 
one really understands it unless you have studied it. Think a little 
bit about it. When you go to the gas pump and fill up your car, ask 
yourself why it is a little higher now than it was a year ago. How did 
it get there? All of that is part of what makes our country work.
  The Energy bill we had before the Senate, the Energy bill we must 
have before the Senate again when we return, will speak to that, speak 
to it clearly, and say to the American people, the Congress of the 
United States has looked out into the future, determined what the 
fundamental needs are, and is creating an environment of investment 
that creates reliability, that creates conservation, that creates new 
technologies, that drives the energy sector in the direction of 
production as well as conservation for the well-being of this country 
and future generations.
  I thank the senior Senator from New Mexico for all the work he has 
done in 2004. Early on in the next session of the 108th it is incumbent 
upon this Congress to finish our work on that issue.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished senior Senator 
from the State of Idaho, Mr. Craig,

[[Page S15922]]

very much for his comments and his help on the bill thus far.
  He made a great point about the future in terms of investment and the 
infrastructure. This bill would have encouraged that. That is just one 
item.
  There is an ancient piece of legislation called PUCHA, and it would 
have been repealed. People have been saying it should have been 
repealed for decades. It makes it hard to get the kind of investment in 
this industry that most industries can get. We finally repealed it this 
year. It was stuck in the mud of an ancient bill. We are scared to let 
money get invested in utilities and utility investment in business.
  Everywhere you looked there were things to be fixed. That is why it 
is a big bill.
  There is an issue, Senator, regarding the MTBE, the substance 
approved by the United States Government as an oxidizer for gasoline. 
There is no question Senators brought issues with reference to it to 
the attention of the Senate. We have to take a look at that with the 
House because the Senate has many Members who are worried about that 
issue. We know we get no bill or we take that in conference.
  I hope the House will look at that in January because when this bill 
dies, there is no protection for the producers of MTBE. When it dies, 
the hold harmless clause that we put in--and we can sit around a table 
and with enough time we can convince almost anyone that they are not so 
bad as some implied. That is a major issue that will have to be looked 
at. I thank the White House for helping us on that--or trying to help. 
There are those who think it is the most important issue around, and I 
have an empathy with them.
  I call on them to apply their thought process in the next few months. 
The bill will die if we do not inject life into it. With it will go 
whatever protections the MTBE industry got in this bill. Maybe that is 
the way we can look at it when we come back and try to figure out a way 
to take a frontal attack on that issue. Who knows, there might be 
enough Senators who may want to take a look at that bill just on that 
point alone.

  I close now by thanking Senators who worked very hard on the bill. It 
is as difficult an undertaking as you can have. I decided to do that 
after years on the budget, and it is much more difficult than writing 
the budget for the United States. We did it, but in a sense we are two 
votes short. The rule is it requires 50 votes for adoption, but we did 
not have enough for a filibuster, which would require 60.
  So with that, I yield the floor and thank the Senate for listening.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.

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