[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 42 (Tuesday, March 30, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H1723-H1729]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          U.S. ENERGY POLICY MEANS LOWER PRICES AND MORE JOBS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bishop of Utah). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
Beauprez) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority 
leader.
  Mr. BEAUPREZ. Mr. Speaker, I would like to spend a portion of my time 
talking about the situation that has been rapidly developing of late, a 
situation that sometimes is called outsourcing or offshoring, whatever 
one's term might happen to be. The definition seems to be very much the 
same, though: sending American jobs to foreign countries.
  Now, some of our friends on the other side of the aisle seem 
particularly eager to make this subject a central one for the next, oh, 
about 7 months. I relish that opportunity. I relish the opportunity to 
also have that debate. To quote their presumptive Presidential nominee, 
I would say, ``bring it on.''
  Our friends on the other side of the aisle are unwittingly the 
biggest proponents of this very problem that they highlight: 
outsourcing, offshoring. What I mean by that, Mr. Speaker, is that by 
their opposition to a comprehensive national energy policy, they create 
and nurture an environment that is, in fact, hostile to job creation. 
The very thing that they say they are critical of, they are fostering a 
hostile environment toward job creation. Corporate greed is not 
responsible for outsourcing; anti-energy, anti-job policies are 
responsible.
  Since 2001, Mr. Speaker, this House, this body has passed 
comprehensive energy legislation three times, led by Republicans. The 
other body has repeatedly failed to follow suit and, as a result, our 
Nation has no energy policy today. The ramifications of this lack of 
national energy policy are absolutely staggering.
  Mr. Speaker, let me itemize. Gasoline prices have increased 30 
percent. U.S. imports of oil have increased 10 percent. The price of 
crude oil has increased 65 percent. The cost of natural gas has 
increased 92 percent. And according to the United States Department of 
Commerce, America loses 12,389 jobs for every $1 billion spent on 
imported oil.
  Let me repeat. These are not my numbers; this is from the United 
States Department of Commerce. America loses 12,389 jobs for every $1 
billion spent on imported oil. That means, based on today's current 
prices, that we are offshoring, outsourcing 1.7 million jobs every 
year.
  Mr. Speaker, the House passed an energy bill in this 108th Congress. 
It is estimated that that energy bill would produce 838,500 new good-
paying American jobs. It has a great deal of incentives for cleaner 
fuels, renewable energy, and tough environmental standards. That bill 
would lessen our dependence on foreign sources of energy and strengthen 
our economic and national security and independence. The U.S. has 
always been a leader when it comes to the steady increase of better-
paying jobs and improved standards of living. That is why we consume, 
yes, we consume 25 percent of the world's energy; but we create 33 
percent of the world's economic output.

  Mr. Speaker, it is developing countries around the entire planet that 
covet our economic system and our economic output, our ability to 
produce not only goods and services, but the jobs that produce the 
goods and services. That is why people look to the United States of 
America as that shining city on a hill, that vision of something 
better. And in order to achieve that, developing nations worldwide 
struggle to develop an energy system that is the very foundation of 
these United States of America, the jobs we create, and the economic 
output that we enjoy.
  Mr. Speaker, one-third of the total economic output of the world is 
produced by the United States of America, but we are at risk today. We 
are at risk because of not a faulty, not a weak, but a nonexistent 
national energy policy. What America needs right now is an affordable, 
reliable, and safe supply of energy to strengthen our economic and 
national security and to help create good-paying jobs. Mr. Speaker, it 
is time for the entire Congress to do their job and get a national 
energy bill passed.
  Mr. Speaker, I am joined tonight by one of my colleagues, a classmate 
of mine, the distinguished gentleman from the State of New Mexico (Mr. 
Pearce). The gentleman from New Mexico has spent most of his life 
before he came to Congress very, very close to this issue of energy. 
Coming from New Mexico and the West, he is intimately familiar with the 
issues of energy resources, energy production, energy utilization. It 
is my pleasure to yield to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce).
  Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate him 
bringing this very critical issue to the American public tonight.

[[Page H1724]]

  Our friends on the other side of the aisle continue to complain about 
the jobs being driven out of this country as if it is the President's 
fault. The gentleman from Colorado, my friend, has adequately described 
the problems of a failure to pass the energy policy through the entire 
House as a source of great difficulty in this Nation. There are two 
things, Mr. Speaker, that we must provide to keep our way of life, to 
keep our standard of living in this country. Those two things are food 
and energy. If we ever ship all of those requirements overseas, this 
Nation will find itself undergoing a change in the lifestyles and the 
abundance which we have been treated to and which we have become 
accustomed to.
  This Nation has been blessed with abundant natural resources, 
including natural gas and other fossil fuels. Almost all of the natural 
gas used in the United States comes from inside the United States, 
comes from domestic sources. Natural gas provides a cheap and plentiful 
source of fuel for home heating and, more importantly, manufacturing 
facilities, particularly the chemical industry. The chemical industry 
uses natural gas as a fuel and also as a raw material in the production 
of its products. Those products include plastics, fertilizers, and many 
of the other products that we find and use daily. Today, the United 
States has the highest natural gas price of any industrialized nation. 
It costs the equivalent of $10 per gallon of gasoline. Most people do 
not know what they pay per thousand cubic feet of gas, but it equates 
to $10 per gallon in gasoline, and one can imagine the stress that 
industries are undergoing.
  Sadly, this increase in price has contributed to higher home-heating 
costs and the loss of thousands of American jobs, including jobs in my 
home district in New Mexico. Throughout the United States, chemical 
manufacturers have lost an estimated 78,000 jobs since natural gas 
prices began to rise in 2000. These 78,000 jobs lost in one industry, 
the chemical industry, the chemical manufacturers, have been lost to 
manufacturing facilities in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and South 
America. Why do those jobs move overseas? Because our domestic supplies 
have been interrupted to the point that our prices in this country for 
natural gas are in the $5 to $8 range. Typically in this country, $2 is 
the range for natural gas.
  We had a briefing in the Committee on Transportation last year which 
showed us that the price of natural gas here in this country is between 
$5 and $8. Overseas in Russia and overseas in Africa, the price is 50 
cents and 70 cents respectively. When we are paying 10 to 20 times more 
for natural gas in this country as other countries, the economics will 
eventually take hold and companies will move infrastructure out of this 
country.
  What happened to cause the gas prices to increase so dramatically? 
First, there are two conflicting domestic policies. Number one, the 
U.S. adopted a policy in the 1990s encouraging the use of natural gas 
as the fuel of choice to burn in power plants to generate electrical 
power, even though we have abundant domestic coal resources. Natural 
gas was the clean fuel, the fuel of choice; and it was mandated by the 
Federal Government. The increased U.S. restrictions on oil and gas, 
however, the restrictions to production of natural gas on public lands 
has caused the supply to decrease, while the demand is increasing. 
Those two conflicting domestic policies have combined to force jobs 
offshore into other countries.
  Mr. Speaker, we cannot long sustain the loss of these jobs because of 
conflicting policies and because of the special interests who would 
drive our jobs overseas.

                              {time}  1945

  In 2000, Americans consumed about 23 trillion cubic feet of natural 
gas, almost 23 percent of the energy used. The U.S. Energy Information 
Agency forecasts that by 2020 domestic natural gas demand will increase 
by more than 60 percent, to between 32 and 35 trillion cubic feet.
  Much of the U.S. current production is coming from mature fields. Gas 
supplies from these fields are declining at about 29 percent per year. 
A mature field is one where the gas has been produced out of oil to the 
point that the down-hold pressures do not force the gas to the surface 
in the same quantities as used to occur. It is a naturally occurring 
phenomenon that you are able to gather in so much gas from one well 
before you have to drill another well.
  We find these declining production curves to be a major threat to the 
price of natural gas in America and, therefore, a continued impediment 
to creating jobs in this country.
  We often hear from our friends about the failure to create jobs, and 
they themselves are standing arm in arm with the groups who would limit 
the production of our natural gas which would get the cost of the 
natural gas to a point where our industries would become competitive 
again. Most of the promising new oil fields and gas fields in the U.S. 
are on public lands: the Rocky Mountains, Alaska, and the outer 
continental shelf. These areas are in the Rocky Mountain regions and 
Colorado and New Mexico.
  Mr. Speaker, if we as a Nation choose not to access our own natural 
resources, with our high standards for compliance with our 
environmental laws and regulations, we deliberately reduce our economic 
security and reduce the opportunities for continued leadership in 
resource development, manufacturing, and technological advancement; 
and, at the same time, we deny our fellow citizens the opportunity for 
high-paying, family-wage jobs with good benefits.
  We do not even bring up in this discussion the additional risk to 
national security. It is time my colleagues and I take the bull by the 
horns and fix our Federal land use policies so we can access our 
abundant natural resources for the benefit of all Americans. Why do we 
need to do this? People in the southern district of New Mexico 
understand why.
  Mr. Speaker, the reason we need to do that is that our standard of 
living is at stake. Also, the number of jobs that are created in this 
country are at stake. But even more importantly, the ability to pay for 
our utilities is at stake.
  People on fixed incomes are facing the price increases that my 
colleague from Colorado has mentioned to us already. We are facing 
tremendous increases in the price of gas, in the price of electricity, 
in the price of heating our homes and cooling our homes. Lest we 
forget, last year in the heat wave in Europe more than 10,000 people 
died from that. This is a matter of life and death as well as the 
future of our economic engine that powers this country.
  Mr. Speaker, families spend about 5 percent of income on energy, but 
for many low income and minority families nearly half of everything 
they earn is spent on energy. Price increases will be a crushing blow 
for many, Mr. Speaker. Many people in my district are forced to choose 
between essentials of heat and food. While we have soaring natural gas 
prices, the cost is carried by the consumer.
  Consumers pay more for goods that are produced with natural gas. 
These goods, I have mentioned before, include fertilizer, which is a 
key component in the food production.
  We get to the unhappy state where the supply of natural gas can 
scarcely meet demand in two ways: First, it is an effort to make our 
air cleaner, which is an admirable condition. Many electricity 
producers and factories have switched to natural gas. But this switch 
has caused the demand to increase to such a point that the prices are 
now making our industries non-competitive with overseas markets.
  Mr. Speaker, if we are to do anything about the loss of jobs and the 
failure to create jobs, we must begin to have a balanced approach to 
our policy of accessing public lands. Our balanced approach would say 
that, yes, we can be environmentally friendly while we develop our 
resources.
  It has been proven in Alaska, that State we saw the concerns about 
the tundra there in Alaska along Prudhoe Bay. We found that what 
producing companies did was drilled in the wintertime. They built ice 
pads and ice roads. When the well was drilled, they did no damage. Then 
when the spring came, the thaw came, those ice pads and ice roads 
disappeared to leave just the hole in the ground and the producing 
wellhead.
  Since our way of life is at stake, since our entire economic engine 
is

[[Page H1725]]

powered by affordable energy, Mr. Speaker, it is past time for us to 
begin to discuss and begin to solve the ways that we access our public 
lands.
  Mr. Speaker, I have more comments, but I will yield back to the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Beauprez). I thank him for bringing this 
important discussion to the floor of the House.
  Mr. BEAUPREZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. 
Pearce) for a very intelligent and concise presentation.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to the distinguished gentleman 
from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus). The Congressman serves on the Committee on 
Energy and Commerce, quite appropriate for our subject matter tonight.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the kind words from my 
colleague from Colorado Mr. Beauprez.
  I am here to talk about a subject that is just critical. We just have 
to get down to, really, the brass tacks. It is really hard for me to 
understand.
  I hope my colleague from New Mexico stays around because maybe we can 
get involved in a debate and discussion on the multitude of issues.
  This energy bill took in numerous committee work from the Committee 
on Energy and Commerce, to the Committee on Resources, to the Committee 
on Ways and Means, the Committee on Agriculture had a part in it, the 
Committee on House Administration had provisions, the Committee on 
Science had provisions. This is one of the few times that you have a 
comprehensive national energy bill and plan.
  And we are there. We are so close, I could almost taste the finish 
line. Because the critical nature is readily evident to all of us. It 
is amazing that when you have the highest gasoline prices that many of 
us have ever seen and you definitely have the highest natural gas 
prices that anyone has seen, to huge blackouts in the Northeast, 
millions of people without power, why cannot we move an energy bill? 
Why cannot we have a vote and then a passage of a plan that would bring 
some security, some safety, some reliability to the energy markets and 
the energy industry and the folks that want to conserve?
  There are actually great conservation provisions in this energy bill. 
We worked at great length to make sure that all stakeholders were 
involved in the debate. It was a free and open debate, taking many 
hours in the Committee on Commerce, late into the night, open, 
amendments passed, amendments defeated. The bill brought before the 
floor, the bill passed overwhelmingly in the House. The conference 
committee did its work, brought the bill back to the House and had 
another good vote on the conference side, and now we are held hostage 
by a minority in the other body.
  It is unfortunate because unless we act on legislation, unless we 
have the public policy debate on energy, on where we want to be in the 
future, then we are going to see the same type of activities that we 
are seeing today.
  And, of course, in this political season, the opposition would love 
to see no energy bill. It is hypocritical to complain about the high 
cost of gasoline when you voted no on the energy bill. It is 
hypocritical to talk about the loss of manufacturing jobs in this 
country when you voted against an energy bill. It is hypocritical to 
continue to spout the same rhetoric when our grid goes unchanged, new 
investments not flowing to protect the grid, ensuring that if we make 
no changes a risk of future blackouts could be in the foreseeable 
future.
  I am at a loss for words sometimes in the way we operate here. I love 
the institution, I love the ability to come on the floor, to have great 
debates on public policy, but eventually you have to move on. A 
majority has to speak its will and especially in the needs that were 
addressed earlier on energy. It is so vital to our economy. It is so 
vital to our national security. It is so vital for the things that we 
take for granted.

  I remember reading an analysis of our use of electricity in our homes 
and power tools and all the neat little gadgets we have. The average 
citizen, because of our ability of using electricity and machines and 
technology, it is like we have 340 servants. The stuff that we are able 
to do because of the use of electricity and machines would be similar 
to having many, many servants doing our every whim.
  That is part of the reason why we have prospered so greatly in this 
country, because we are willing to take risks, we are willing to take 
capital, put it at risk, hoping to get a return. And when we want the 
economy to move forward, when we want job creation, when we want to 
keep manufacturing, one of the major costs in the manufacturing is the 
energy cost.
  But yet we are hamstrung, I think, because of political calculations 
on an upcoming election that we do not want to see improvement in the 
economy, that we do not want to see job creation, that we want to 
complain about no security on our electricity grid. We still want to 
see higher costs for natural gas. We want to see high gas prices.
  They want to blame this administration, the only administration that 
has brought a comprehensive energy bill before the legislative body and 
the House and the Senate has been vetted and voted on. Again, very 
hypocritical and embarrassing to my point of view.
  As we continue to focus on the manufacturing jobs, I find some relief 
in the debate that there is a difference between the payroll survey and 
the household survey on jobs and job creation. But, having said that, 
even though the numbers are better, the job loss statistics are only 
based upon payrolls.
  So in my district in southern Illinois, there are a lot of farmers. 
They are self-employed. They are not counted on the payroll surveys 
because they are self-employed. So in all these jobs statistics they 
are not there, because they are not salaried.
  But we do know that the manufacturing economy is stressed. If we want 
to ensure that we have job creation, we are going to move a highway 
bill. I think it is going to be a good bill. It is going to bring, 
obviously, leveraging dollars from the Federal Government and State 
governments to be able to build roads and infrastructure; and we want 
that.
  Listen to what the Department of Commerce says about job creation in 
this energy bill. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, America 
loses 12,389 jobs for every billion we spend on energy imports. And, of 
course, we spend a lot on energy imports. At today's oil prices that 
means America is sending more than 1.7 million jobs overseas for oil 
every year.
  We have oil in this country. We have it, as we talked about before, 
in ANWR. We have it on the continental shelf. Illinois is the tenth 
leading oil-producing state. A lot of people do not know that. A lot of 
our wells are marginal wells. They take energy to get the crude oil out 
of the ground. We have a gusher that was hit about a year and a half 
ago.
  It is new technology. It drills underneath a wildlife preserve. It is 
producing for us a million barrels a year, which is a pretty good add 
toward meeting the demands that we have here.

                              {time}  2000

  It is not going to solve our problems. We are still going to have 
needs for export, but we do have great natural gas reserves in this 
country. We have got enough, and I am continuing to look at my friend 
on the Committee on Resources because they deal with this all the time, 
to meet our natural gas demands for 25 years, if we would just get 
access to them; and this is all not natural wildlife refuges in 
pristine areas. It is Bureau of Land Management scrub land. It is 
nothing that we even need to worry about other than it is the Federal 
Government's land, and we cannot even permit ourselves to go and look 
for natural gas reserves. Again, it just boggles your mind.
  An estimated 85,000 jobs have been lost by the U.S. chemical makers 
since natural gas prices began to rise in mid-2000. If we cannot get 
natural gas at an affordable price, more and more the production 
facilities will be forced to pack up and leave the country.
  One of our problems in this whole fuel debate is we have not built a 
new refinery in 25 years in this country, and we have a Balkanized fuel 
market, which means we have specific fuels for specific reasons.
  I always tell the story, I fly into St. Louis. I am a St. Louis 
metropolitan Member of Congress. I live over in Illinois, and my 
hometown is Collinsville, but if I were to fly in and we get picked

[[Page H1726]]

up, I would have to go to the northern part of my district, the State 
capital of Springfield, and I would have to gas up the car before I 
took the drive. Well, the gas that I put in in Missouri would be 
different than the gas, regular unleaded, would be different than the 
gas in my hometown of Collinsville which is only 30 minutes from the 
airport, which would be different from the gas in Springfield, 
Illinois, regular unleaded, only 90 miles north. Three different blends 
of fuel in less than a 200-mile area.
  Now, when people ask why are we having a gas crisis, I will tell you 
one reason is we cannot move product from point A to point B because it 
is not the proper mix for a proper region. You know what the energy 
bill does? It addresses this. There are 48 different fuel mixes in this 
country, and it tries to pare them down to five. It still says you need 
different fuels for different regions; but let us get realistic and say 
five regionally, that way you can move product when the supply and 
demand equation goes wacky. It is a great provision. It probably would 
have been helpful in this time of our energy needs.
  The energy bill will help create or maintain over 156,000 full-time 
and part-time jobs in my home State of Illinois. That is how important 
this energy bill is for me, just my parochial interest, as a Member 
from Illinois.
  Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has repeatedly testified that 
energy prices are the single greatest threat to job creation and the 
continued growth of an otherwise burgeoning economy; but instead of 
getting a national energy policy, the people of America wait. They see 
energy prices rising higher and higher. They see jobs in manufacturing 
disappear because a plant closes due to high energy prices. They see us 
sending billions of dollars to foreign countries to buy oil. What they 
do not see is an energy bill.
  The House passed the energy bill conference report, and we are still 
waiting, obviously, for the other body to at least do something. It is 
time for Congress to send an energy bill to the President that will 
create and maintain needed jobs across this country.
  This is an important debate, and I applaud my colleague for 
organizing this Special Order because in the public policy arena, I 
mean, we have to be in the arena. We have to be debating the major 
issues of our time that not only affect us for the next election cycle, 
but really this is a comprehensive energy plan that will affect our 
children and our grandchildren.
  So I applaud my colleague from Colorado. I hope to stay around for a 
few minutes and maybe can add based upon what other things are 
mentioned or added, but I really appreciate that.
  Mr. BEAUPREZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments; 
and a couple of things that he said sparked a little bit of my memory, 
if I might.
  I know that in Illinois, of course, there is a tremendous amount of 
agriculture, a lot of farmers. That is what I spent most of my life in 
is a farm family; and a few months back, as you were preparing to take 
up this energy bill, I held a hearing in my district back in Colorado 
in Golden, and we had a gentleman at that hearing who is a potato 
farmer from an area of Colorado, southern Colorado, high mountain 
plateau, called the San Luis Valley; and he grows some pretty high-
quality potatoes down there.
  Like a lot of farmers, though, he struggles with ever-shrinking 
margins, and every year they try to get a little more efficient and try 
to squeeze just a little bit more out of the land and their operation 
and still make a living.
  He told me something that I thought was profound and probably a fact 
that goes unnoticed by most everyone. He went through his operating 
overhead, all of the costs on an annual basis it takes for him to 
operate his potato farm. Thirty-five percent of his operating overhead 
is energy-related, not just the fuel that he puts in his equipment, 
gasoline, diesel, but the energy to run. We are a pretty arid State. So 
you have got to irrigate, to run the electric motors to pump the water 
for the sprinklers to irrigate with. Obviously, the chemicals he 
fertilizes with are produced from natural gas primarily, 35 percent of 
his overhead.
  Now go to that gentleman and tell him that gas prices are going to go 
up 30 percent or more, natural gas is going to go up 92 percent, so his 
electric bill is going up dramatically and see what he has to say.
  When we talk about these rising energy prices affecting jobs, it is 
real. It is as real as it gets, and having been in business most all of 
my life until I came to Congress this past year, and being a community 
banker, I came in contact with businessperson after businessperson, and 
there is only so much they can do, so much more efficient you can get. 
At some point, you throw up your hands and say I am done.
  So when we are saying tonight that the lack of an energy policy, as I 
stated earlier, it is not a weak one, it is not a short-term one. It is 
no energy policy this Congress has failed to pass. It is extremely 
real, and blaming the President, as the other side of the aisle likes 
to do night after night, day after day for this outsourcing of jobs 
situation, we need to look inward.
  I will say again, the reason that we are losing jobs in America, we 
need to look at the people that are promoting higher taxes and higher 
regulation that render us less competitive and the people that have 
refused to give this country a commonsense, sane, straightforward 
energy policy that would allow us to have affordable, predictable, 
sustainable supplies of energy, domestically produced energy. That is 
where we need to look. That is the problem.
  I thank the gentleman. I was thinking of back to that hearing that I 
had in Colorado on natural gas, and there are statistics and numbers 
out there to boggle the mind, but one that stuck with me from that 
hearing was relative to natural gas, which I know the gentleman from 
New Mexico (Mr. Pearce) is close to, is that we have enough natural gas 
in this country just under Federal land, nonpark, nonwilderness Federal 
land for 100 million homes for 157 years. That is a staggering amount.
  Natural gas prices, at least back in my hometown, are nearly double 
right now. Somebody said, well, we have a storage problem. Somebody 
else responded, yeah, we have got a storage problem. It is all stored 
under Federal land, that is our problem.
  As my colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus), just 
pointed out, we get in the way. So I would be pleased to, once again, 
yield to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce) on this critical 
subject.
  Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I think my friend from Colorado (Mr. 
Beauprez) is like I am, a business owner. He understands that you just 
do not create jobs out of thin air, and you do not do it without good 
thoughts and good resources.
  The gentleman from Illinois adequately pointed out that it is 
hypocritical of our friends on the other side of the aisle to talk 
night after night about the failure to pass an energy policy when it is 
the other side of the aisle that is blocking that energy bill from 
being passed.
  The environmental extremists who stop production of oil and natural 
gas are the ones who are responsible. The process for drilling a 
natural gas well on public land is to file an application for permit to 
drill, an APD, and that process simply goes in for review, and when it 
is reviewed, the application is either given or denied.

  What happens is that the extremists will file a lawsuit, and many 
times that application simply dies right there without ever even a 
hearing, and by the way, they have limited access. The extremists have 
limited access to over a trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the 
Rocky Mountain regions.
  Now, then, sometimes the cooperation between the extremists and the 
government groups has gotten just a little bit too close and friendly. 
In a recent case that the media has not done a very good job of 
covering, three BLM employees in Wisconsin were convicted of 
racketeering, conspiring to keep people from drilling on public 
property. It is going to be very interesting to see how other employees 
in the Federal Government begin to respond to that conviction, 
understanding that their actions sometimes are simply extortion.
  I have constituents of mine who report that Federal employees will 
tell them no, no, you really do not have a problem, but your case would 
go much easier if you would contribute to, say, this archaeological 
study that our office is doing. If you gave a check of

[[Page H1727]]

$25,000, maybe things will go easier. When I was out flying over the 
Salt River project, one group held hostage that project for a $25 
million contribution into this extremist environmental fund.
  Mr. Speaker, those are the things that are driving jobs offshore, 
that hostility to business and the development of energy. The most 
heartbreaking story, Mr. Speaker, that I have seen here in Congress 
occurred in the Committee on Resources about a month ago. Members of 
the union came in, the union that deals with workers who cut timber and 
who create the pulp wood and paper. Those union employees were talking 
about the loss of their jobs in that industry and were heartbroken by 
the fact that they were going to lose the wages that their families 
depended on, and they are good, good living-wage jobs.
  The Members on the other side of the aisle said, oh, but you do not 
understand, you can get a job in the hospitality business. I am sorry, 
but the unions and Republicans do not often match up. The unions and 
the other side of the aisle do the most, and it was their friends 
telling them you could lose these high-paying jobs in the timber 
industry and you can get a job working at the hotels. The union 
representatives literally spit back at them across the table the words, 
We do not want your hospitality jobs; we want our jobs in the timber 
industry.
  What a heartbreaking thing. I began to do research on that, and I am 
pleased to show a chart tonight. I am not pleased to show the chart 
tonight. I am horrified to show the chart tonight that describes the 
loss of pulp and paper mills and plants throughout this country.
  The dots on this chart represent the mill closures and employee 
layoffs from 1989 through 2003. The blue dots with Xs are mills that 
have been closed, and the red dots list the number of employees that 
have been laid off during the past 16 years. The small blue dots 
represent the remaining operating U.S. mills and plants.
  Since 1997, the forest products industry has lost more than 120,000 
family-wage jobs and closed more than 220 plants. While there are many 
factors that contribute to these mill closures and the loss of family-
wage jobs, several issues stand out.
  Number one is the lack of access to timber resources on the Federal 
lands that have been brought about through the Endangered Species Act, 
the roadless rule, and the lawsuits filed by the anti-development 
environmental extremists. Access to timber resources results in lack of 
raw materials needed by the mills to produce their products.

                              {time}  2015

  High natural gas prices, and we have discussed why we have high 
natural gas prices, are also driven by misguided environmental 
policies. During the 1990s, the U.S. environmental policy encouraged 
the use of natural gas for the generation of electricity as a clean 
alternative to the coal-fired plants. However, during this same time 
and continuing through the present, area prospectives for oil and gas 
production have been put off limits to exploration and development. 
This includes almost all of the outer continental shelf offshore gas 
production, portions of the gulf, and a significant part of the Rocky 
Mountain natural gas resources.
  America gets more than 85 percent of the natural gas we use from 
domestic production. These conflicting policies have driven natural gas 
prices to historic highs, above $5.50 per thousand cubic feet, the 
highest natural gas prices of all the industrialized nations. This 
makes the United States less competitive and is outsourcing our 
manufacturing industries, including the production of forest products.
  Our misguided environmental policies are directly responsible for the 
loss of the majority of family-wage jobs in the forest products 
industry. In 1990, almost 12 billion board feet of timber were 
harvested from the Federal estate. That is 12 billion in 1990. Today, 
we harvest 2 billion board feet of timber from the Federal estate. Our 
national forest resources are allowed to lie fallow, to build up 
excessive fuels. They are subject to overgrowth, they are subject to 
disease, and they are subject to fire.
  We are finding that the wildfires are going to destroy our forests 
before we ever cut them. When the fire races across the top of our 
forests, killing these mature trees, it only makes sense to go in and 
harvest the charred timber. But, instead, the extremists will file 
injunctions, they will file lawsuits to slow the process down.
  Recently, in my district, we had a large forest fire. Before the 
timber could be cut, the value of the timber had lost 60 percent of its 
value because of delays created by the extremists who said it is better 
not to ever touch one tree than to cut these charred stumps that were 
left and had valuable timber in them.
  Mr. Speaker, our watersheds are completely dependent on the quality 
and the character of our healthy forests, but also an entire industry 
is dependent on the way that we manage those resources. In this 
landscape, my constituents are asked to forego a development project 
that would provide family-wage employment so that a passerby's view is 
not spoiled. The same passerby expects my constituents to live with the 
charred remains of timber that could have provided feedstock for a 
local mill, that could be made into 2-by-4s for a neighbor's home, that 
could be paper used by a local school or business, a lovely piece of 
furniture to be passed into the next generation, or it could be used to 
make a young woman's high school prom dress.
  If we as a Nation choose not to access our own natural resources, 
with our high standards for compliance and with our environmental laws 
and regulations, we deliberately reduce our economic security and 
reduce the opportunities for continued leadership in resource 
development, manufacturing, and technology. We deny our Federal 
citizens the opportunity for high-paying, family-wage jobs with good 
benefits. We also risk our national security.
  Mr. Speaker, on the second chart, and I would show it briefly, it has 
a picture of a mill that is being closed; and much like the Vietnam 
wall, the names of the casualties are listed down below in black. Those 
names go on and on, 220 of those that have closed. I have got the 
closings here in a document that is 25 pages, with 35 mill closures on 
each page.
  There are mills that have been closed in Alabama. Over 300 jobs lost 
at another plant in Alabama, at Cusa Pines. Here is one where 450 jobs 
were lost in Mobile, Alabama. Another 500 jobs lost in Mobile, Alabama. 
Camden, Arkansas, lost 600 jobs to these policies. We go page after 
page after page, California, Florida. St. Mary's, Georgia, lost 800 
jobs in one mill closing. Page after page. Illinois lost many, many 
jobs to mill closings because of the misguided attempts of 
environmentalists to block every single tree from being cut. We have 
Louisiana with mill closings, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, and 
Michigan. State after State, 25 pages, 35 mills per page. When we get 
to Oregon, we have page after page after page of mill closings in 
Oregon, 100, 180 jobs.
  This information is readily available to those in this body who would 
want to access it, but the disappointing thing is that our friends do 
not want reality in the debate about where jobs are lost and why they 
are lost. They simply are looking for their agenda to be carried out at 
all cost.
  My friend from Illinois adequately characterized it as hypocritical. 
The job loss, the pain in the States and the rural areas of this 
country are borne by individuals who have to live with the policies 
that are implemented in our courts and in our regulations that face our 
businesses as they try to make a profit in the hostile environment that 
is created in this country.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Beauprez) for 
organizing this, and if I have an opportunity, I will have further 
comments to make. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. BEAUPREZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend. He brings up a number 
of very clear points.
  I think the gentleman from Illinois mentioned 1.7 million, the 
estimated number of jobs we have lost because of our dependence on 
foreign energy sources, primarily oil. It is absolutely tragic. And the 
gentleman from New Mexico highlighted some of the extreme, radical 
environmental concerns and efforts that have restricted our energy 
development and energy production in this country.

[[Page H1728]]

  One would think, Mr. Speaker, that a few wake-up calls would be 
enough to get Congress' attention. Electricity blackouts. The big 
blackout in the Northeast. We had rolling blackouts even out in 
my neighborhood. The skyrocketing prices we are going through right 
now.

  I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that just as we are concerned about 
taxes in this Chamber, the information that my colleague from New 
Mexico just pointed out, those are taxes, too, the most painful kind of 
taxes. When your job goes away, that is 100 percent tax. When the cost 
of production goes up, that is a tax as well; and it eliminates jobs. 
When businesses become less and less and less competitive and finally 
close their doors, that is a very real tax on the business, on the 
employees that work there and on the community that depended on it.
  How many wake-up calls do we need? Well, our environmentalist friends 
apparently believe many more, because they still cause us to not have 
an energy policy in this country. They seem, in fact, to oppose all 
forms of energy. A few years ago, they were the ones telling us to use 
more natural gas. Why? Because it is more affordable, and it is 
abundantly available. But it is those same people who are now telling 
us no to natural gas. They have caused us to limit production right 
here in this very country where we have enormous resources.
  So it is no to clean-burning natural gas; no to hydroelectric energy; 
no to clean coal energy; no to new outer continental shelf gas and oil 
exploration; no to more energy exploration in Alaska; no to more energy 
exploration in the inner mountain west, my home; no to more electricity 
transmission lines; no to more power plants; no to more energy 
pipelines; no to ANWR, and I would like to return to that; no to 
liquified natural gas ports; no to offshore wind energy farms, even 
renewables; and no to onshore wind energy farms.
  The environmentalists seem to have two policies: one, BANANA, build 
absolutely nothing anywhere near anything; or NOPE, not on planet 
Earth. Now that is some energy policy for a Nation, again, Mr. Speaker, 
that produces 33 percent of the world's economic output. And, yes, we 
consume 25 percent of the world's energy. That is how we produce that 
economic output.
  I would like to yield some of the remaining time that we have to the 
gentleman from Illinois once again. Again, he serves on the Committee 
on Energy and Commerce and should have quite a little bit of insight on 
this issue.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Again, I thank my colleague, Mr. Speaker. Actually, he 
has mentioned some of the things that I probably should have mentioned, 
being a little more parochial. I am so passionate about this because 
for southern Illinois this bill is the best bill I think we will ever 
see coming across the pike.
  And why would I say that? First of all, if you looked at a geological 
map of what is called the Illinois coal basin, it in essence is the 
entire State of Illinois, with the exception of Chicago and the 
suburbs. It actually bleeds over into Indiana, and it bleeds over into 
Kentucky. It has as much energy resources there, 250 years of Btu 
burning capability, as Saudi Arabia has oil. Why will we not have 
access and use of those energy issues?
  Illinois is also a highly nuclearized State. We have 11 operating 
nuclear facilities in the State of Illinois. As my colleague from 
Colorado said, nuclear power is, as far as emission-wise, there are no 
emissions, but of course we have concerns with individuals.
  I want the public to understand base load generating, which is the 
everyday needs for electricity, just to run the lights on average the 
whole year, and then peak load generating, which is the times where you 
really need additional electricity, and that is best met with natural 
gas, where you can turn it on and turn it off. But base load generating 
is those standard fuels that we have used for many, many years: 
hydroelectric, coal, and nuclear power. They have to be part of a 
national energy policy, and in our bill they are, they remain, and that 
will help us have safety and security in the energy markets for years 
to come.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for again managing this 
hour on energy.
  Mr. BEAUPREZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  I would like, Mr. Speaker, in the time that is remaining, to return 
to the issue of ANWR.
  Now it is estimated that, if we were able to construct the natural 
gas pipeline that has been proposed from ANWR down to the lower 48 
States, not only would we dramatically increase our availability of 
natural gas to the lower 48 but we would create more than 400,000, 
400,000 direct and indirect jobs from that one pipeline alone.
  Now let us talk about ANWR just briefly. This is a map that points 
out the entire State of Alaska on the far side of the chart. For scale, 
you see in gold the area known as ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife 
Reserve; and you see that it is roughly the size of the State of South 
Carolina. The area we are talking about, and this is the entire Arctic 
Natural Wildlife Reserve, ANWR, the area we are talking about is not 
the entire reserve but just the coastal plane. In fact, in the coastal 
plane, only the little area in red. It may or may not be that location, 
but that is the 2,000 acres within the bill that is limited for 
production. Just that one spot.

                              {time}  2030

  I am told that if you thought of it in terms of a very large room, it 
would be like a postage stamp in the corner. I visited this site last 
August. I wanted to see it for myself. I flew up. I flew to Prudhoe Bay 
here. I flew over to this village of Kaktovik right here. About 270 
Eskimos live there. I visited with the president of this entire Eskimo 
corporation. Think of it as an Indian tribe, if you will, these few 
hundred that live in this region; and we talked about this.
  This is as flat as flat gets. It is as flat literally as a table top. 
We asked him, What about drilling? What about exploring and producing 
in ANWR? What should we do? He says, drill it. I said, Really? He said, 
Yeah, drill it. One of my colleagues that was there with me said, But 
what about the caribou? This gentleman had already mentioned that they 
still hunt the whales and they fish in the frozen sea. They hunt the 
animals, including the caribou, for survival. What about the caribou? 
He said, What do you mean? He said, Wouldn't we scare them off? He 
looked at him and he said, We hunt them and kill them and they come 
back every year. What part of this don't you get?
  It is pretty obvious, Mr. Speaker, that the people that depend on 
this area, that have the most at stake, in fact, their very lives at 
stake, their survival, their way of life are saying, drill it. This is 
the kind of insane environmental policy, people that have nothing to do 
with this area, have never seen this area, are thousands and thousands 
of miles from this area, are prohibiting the people that do live there, 
that do have a vested interest, that care about it the most, from 
reaping the benefits of it. That is insane environmental and insane 
energy policy.
  Mr. Speaker, we could go on for hours on this subject. It has 
negatively impacted this Nation long enough, and it is time that it 
stop.
  I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico for a closing minute or two. 
Unfortunately, we need to bring this hour to an end.
  Mr. PEARCE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  (Mr. PEARCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. PEARCE. We will do more on this same subject at another time. In 
the closing minutes, let me talk about the hostility that we find 
against business in this country. Behre Dolbear publishes an annual 
survey entitled ``Ranking Countries For Mineral Investments.'' This 
survey ranks the 25 countries with the largest mining industries and/or 
the most significant mining industry potential. To establish the annual 
rankings, the survey considers seven criteria that influence 
investments by the mining industry in each of those 25 countries. These 
criteria include economic systems, political systems, social issues, 
permit issues, corruption, currency stability, and tax regimes. A 
review of each country relative to each of the above criteria is 
performed, using the general assumption that a technically viable 
mining operation is being considered in that country. The countries are 
then

[[Page H1729]]

given a ranking from 1 to 10 in each category, with 10 being the most 
favorable.
  Recently in 2004 the USA scored well in economic systems and currency 
stability, et cetera; but it had a dismal ranking in the category of 
permit issues. This ranking is based on the time and expense required 
to get permits, not on stringency of regulations. In 2004, the U.S. had 
a numerical score of 4. That score puts the U.S. 19th out of 25 
countries. The U.S. ranks below Peru, Ghana, Colombia, South Africa, 
Argentina, Canada, Brazil, Namibia and Bolivia. Only seven countries 
rank below the U.S.
  Keep in mind that this is an improvement, that the Bush 
administration has made progress because previously under President 
Clinton, we had a 2 ranking. The U.S. was tied for 24th out of 25 
countries with Indonesia. Just why does the U.S. have to have such a 
low rank in permit issues?
  Mr. Speaker, we have covered tonight the many, many reasons that jobs 
are moving offshore in America while our industries are being 
decimated, why manufacturing is being sent overseas and our friends, 
while talking about it, continue to be a part of the problem. I thank 
the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Beauprez) and the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) for allowing me to participate in this Special 
Order.

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