[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 43 (Wednesday, March 31, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3515-S3516]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         NATIONAL ENERGY POLICY

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, there has been a lot of discussion about 
high gasoline prices lately, and rightly so because gasoline prices are 
as high as they have ever been in the history of our country and, in 
the process, not only taking a lot of money out of the pockets of 
working men and women, but harming the overall economy. And the full 
impact has not been felt yet.
  In the process of hearing so many remarks and concerns about this 
situation, as we heard for a half hour a few minutes ago from one of 
our colleagues from the other side of the aisle, I wonder if we are not 
hearing so many speeches from the other side of the

[[Page S3516]]

aisle on the issue of energy because it was the other side of the aisle 
that led a filibuster against the national energy policy we had before 
us last November. Maybe there is some guilt on their part about 
defeating a national energy policy, as it was through a Democratic 
filibuster.
  I thought since that vote, when we had 58 votes and only needed 2 
more to get cloture, to get to finality on a bill that was passed 
overwhelmingly by this body, that bill would have been the national 
energy policy. It would have been the first national energy policy that 
passed this body for probably a dozen or more years, and it is now 
needed more than ever before, but we needed two more votes. It is so 
puzzling to me that 46 out of 49 Democrats can stick together when they 
want to defeat very well-qualified judges the President sends up here, 
so well qualified they have the highest rating of the American Bar 
Association, and yet when we had a national energy policy, we adopted 
that national energy policy 3 or 4 months after the Northeast blackout 
last August and just before we knew energy prices were going to go up 
because OPEC announced they were going to shut off the spigot, why 
couldn't we get more than 13 out of 49 Democrats, considering the 
unanimity of holding the caucus together to defeat judges, and the 
Democratic leader was very much in favor of the Energy bill but he 
voted to stop debate? Why couldn't more than 13 Democrats help bring 
about a national energy policy?
  Now we are hearing so much from the other side that one wonders if 
they don't have a somewhat guilty conscience about that vote.
  We only needed two more Democrats. There are at least four Democrats 
from corn-producing States who should have been voting for cloture 
because this bill was so good for the ethanol industry, as an example, 
producing ethanol, a renewable fuel to mix with gasoline, to stretch 
gasoline, but we had four Democrats on the other side from corn-
producing States who did not vote. We only needed two of them.
  Also, this was a very comprehensive energy policy, so comprehensive 
it was well balanced with tax incentives for fossil fuels, tax 
incentives for renewables and alternative energy, and tax incentives 
for conservation. In fact, the speech we just heard was a lot about 
conservation, tax incentives for conservation, and they do not want to 
vote to stop a Democratic filibuster and move the bill along? It is 
very puzzling. I do not understand it. It makes one wonder: Are we 
hearing all these speeches now since gas is way up, at the highest 
level in history, because maybe they have some shame because they 
didn't want to vote to stop that filibuster last fall?
  Then I hear some criticism toward the President about high gasoline 
prices. But what about the President of the United States leading the 
way ever since he has been in office to get this Congress to adopt a 
national energy policy, and Congress came within two votes, but a 
Democratic filibuster killed it, and the President is getting blamed 
for a national energy policy he has been pushing that the other side 
killed?
  Is there some guilt, some shame on the other side trying to detract 
from what the President has been trying to do? Is there some shame on 
the other side when they were in the majority in 2001 and 2002 and 
could not produce a national energy policy?
  We have had an opportunity to move forward with a national energy 
policy, and those people who are giving the speeches condemning the 
President or concerned about high prices, what about helping us to 
reconsider that vote of last November--it can be reconsidered--and 
bring cloture and finality to the bill, and we can have a national 
energy policy?
  Is a national energy policy going to make a difference when it comes 
to high energy prices? You bet it is because it is sending a signal to 
OPEC that we have our act put together and we are prepared to respond.
  It very much broke the stranglehold of OPEC in 1982 when President 
Reagan deregulated the cost controls that we had on petroleum. For the 
next 20 years, OPEC was irrelevant because it told the rest of the 
world that we are not going to hold our product off the market. When we 
establish not only our own incentives for producing our own fossil 
fuels to a greater extent than we are today but also that we are going 
a whole new route of having a national energy policy on renewables and 
alternative energy and also that we are going to have incentives for 
conservation, it is going to send that same clear signal to OPEC?
  OPEC is meeting maybe right this very day to say to the rest of the 
world: We are going to shut our spigots down another million barrels a 
day. And all the time the Senate is languishing because of a Democrat 
filibuster last November of the Energy bill. They see inactivity on our 
part, and to a great extent it encourages them the same way they were 
encouraged when we had price controls on petroleum from 1979, 1980, and 
1981 until Reagan finally took them off. I hope we will have less 
speeches from the other side and votes in favor of ethanol and 
biodiesel, all of those things that are good for the agricultural 
communities of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, as well as Iowa and 
Minnesota. They are good for the environment because ethanol and 
biodiesel are cleaner burning than fossil fuels; good for the 
agricultural economy because when the bill is fully implemented, we 
would be using 20 percent of our corn crop to produce ethanol and will 
eventually be doing the same thing with the soybean crop and biodiesel. 
We will also be conserving as well.
  Yet what do we get from the Members of those States when they have an 
opportunity to do something? They vote no, under some excuse that we 
are not going to be able to maybe have some lawsuits that they want to 
have.
  Do they want chocolate cake for lawyers or do they want lower 
gasoline prices? Do they want chocolate cake for their lawyers--because 
the whole new realm of lawsuits after tobacco and after asbestos, that 
is where those lawyers are going to go, suing the energy companies--or 
do they want a cleaner environment? Do they want chocolate cake for 
their lawyers or do they want to help their farmers? Do they want 
chocolate cake for their lawyers or do they want to send a signal to 
OPEC that we have our act together and we are going to play in this 
energy game and we are not going to be in a stranglehold by those oil 
sheiks? I think the choice is pretty clear. I hope we get some action 
and less words.
  I yield the floor.

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