[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 48 (Wednesday, April 20, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H2383-H2389]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        ENERGY PLAN FOR AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) is 
recognized for half the time until midnight as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam Speaker, what a day we have had here in the 
House. We have talked about energy policy. And having an energy bill 
come to the floor of this House is something that we have waited for 
for quite a period of time.
  I want to congratulate the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) and our 
colleagues on the Committee on Energy and Commerce. As we have had this 
occur today, it has been quite an effort. Our Energy Committee, last 
week we talked about it earlier in the week and we talked about it the 
past week. We had about a third of the Democrats in the House join us 
in voting that bill out of committee last week. They did it because it 
is a good bill. And they did it because it is time for us to have an 
energy bill, and it is the right step in the right way at this point in 
time.
  I know that we have some across the aisle, many who are going to 
follow the liberal leadership there and walk in lockstep with the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), but I think we are going to 
see more of the House Democrats join us to make this energy bill a 
reality for the American people.
  I would like to remind my colleagues that over the last few weeks we 
have seen quite a bit of bipartisan support on some of our legislation. 
We had 122 Democrats vote with us on the continuity of government bill, 
50 Democrats voted with us on the class action bill, 73 Democrats voted 
with the Republicans on bankruptcy reform, and 42 supported our repeal 
of the death tax and the REAL I.D. Act.
  So we look forward tomorrow to having our Democrat colleagues from 
across the aisle join us as we move forward on our Nation's energy 
policy.
  We have several Members who have joined us tonight to talk about 
energy and to talk about energy policy. One of those is the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Hall), and I would like to yield some time to the 
gentleman to talk with us about the energy bill. I also want to thank 
the gentleman for the wonderful leadership that he has shown on this 
bill.
  At this point, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall).
  Mr. HALL. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. 
Blackburn).
  I think this week and this day and tomorrow are probably two of the 
most important days to the youth of our country because we are 
discussing an energy bill, an energy bill that might just lay out what 
their future might be. If I had a youngster who was a sophomore in high 
school, a junior or maybe a senior, I would be very concerned about 
their future if we do not solve our energy problems.

[[Page H2384]]

  Today and tomorrow I think the most important bill that is going to 
come before this Congress is going to be decided, and I think we are 
going to pass it. We are going to send it over to the Senate. We are 
going to go to work on the Senate to try to get those two votes that we 
have not been able to get in 4 years over there, 4 years.
  We have to make this out as a generational bill because we are 
talking about a generation of youngsters that might have to all go 
overseas to fight a war to bring us some energy here. It is a shame if 
they have to do that when we have plenty of energy right here at home.
  I know that back in the early days, and I go back to history 
sometimes, if you look at the past and see that we should not make the 
mistakes of the past; but sometimes they light a light for us to see 
what happened and see what caused it to happen.
  Back in the 1940s, back in the late 1930s, we had a President named 
Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He made a lot of great speeches. One of the 
great speeches he made was about fear, about the Great Depression. He 
said, ``The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.'' And he led us 
out of that Depression.
  But one of the other speeches that he made that scholars have noted 
and many people have listened to and many have used it as a part of 
their thrust in their discussion, he said, ``To some generations much 
is given, of some generations much is expected, but this generation has 
a rendezvous with destiny.'' That rendezvous with destiny turned out to 
be World War II.
  As we listened on our Philco radios, we heard him make these 
speeches. He spoke those words. He spoke those words following the 
action of Cordell Hull, who was Secretary of State then; Henry Stimson, 
Secretary of War. They had both cut Japan off from energy. We supplied 
them their entire energy thrust and they depended on us for it.
  When we cut them off, we should have known that they had to break out 
and go somewhere. They had to go south into Malaysia. They had to have 
energy because the country of Japan, who did not hate this country, 
Admiral Perry had opened them up to trade earlier, but they were forced 
to go south into Malaysia or do something because they had to have 
energy. That was an energy war; there is no question about it.
  I think, as they did when they cut that off with Japan, having 13 
months' national existence, war was inevitable and that was an energy 
war.
  Sometime later the Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, went into the Ploesti oil 
fields. He went east into the Ploesti oil fields. Their tanks and their 
airplanes were out of fuel. They had to go east. That was a battle for 
energy. Energy caused that action.
  Then George Bush, the father of our present President, just some 10 
or 11 years ago sent 450,000 youngsters over to the desert in Iraq. 
That was a war for energy. Not because we did not like the Emir of 
Kuwait or we wanted to help him for some reason. It was a war to keep a 
bad guy named Saddam Hussein, who is now in a cage, from getting his 
foot on half the known energy sources in the entire world.
  Nations will fight for energy; there is no question about that. But 
we do not have to because we can solve our own problems. With this 
bill, H.R. 6, we can prevent a war. We can drill on ANWR. We can drill 
up to the depths of the gulf. We can go down 5- or 6,000 feet or 10,000 
feet but we cannot get it back up. But with technology we can do that. 
That is provided for in this bill.
  We certainly can have energy if we pass this bill. And then our 
youngsters can say with a great bit of courage and great bit of hope in 
their voice, What school am I going to attend, rather than what branch 
of service am I going to have to enter.
  This country will fight for energy. We do not have to. This Congress 
has to fight for H.R. 6. We have to pass H.R. 6, and if we do that, our 
youngsters will not have to fight that war that the past has indicated 
could happen.

                              {time}  2245

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman so much for his 
thoughts, and I thank him for his leadership on the Committee on Energy 
and Commerce, and the gentleman from Texas is exactly right. This is an 
issue about the future. It is an issue that affects our children, and 
as he said, it is an issue about the economy, about security and how we 
need to look at our sources of oil, our security, and many times we 
feel we are too reliant on foreign oil, which we are.
  Right now, 62 percent of the Nation's oil supply is coming from 
foreign sources. If we do not take action and pass an energy bill, it 
is going to be 75 percent by 2010. So we know that action is necessary 
and it is needed now.
  The gentleman from Texas also mentioned new technologies, new ways of 
doing things, and that is something that certainly we have to have our 
eye towards. We look at the needs for today and then as we bridge to 
the future.
  At this point, Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Nebraska 
(Mr. Terry) who will talk with us a little bit about liquefied natural 
gas and about turning that corner, beginning to look at things a little 
bit differently.
  Mr. TERRY. Madam Speaker, I do appreciate the gentlewoman from 
Tennessee yielding some to me so we can talk about what I think is one 
of the most important bills that we will vote on in the 109th Congress, 
and that is a comprehensive energy package.
  As the gentlewoman from Tennessee mentioned, this bill is both 
forward thinking and now thinking. There are alternative technologies. 
There is I think an incredible statement toward renewable fuels and 
alternative technologies like the fuel cell, but we also have to 
recognize some of our issues that face us now, and what I am talking 
about is the price of natural gas and how it is impacting our economy 
and our families in America, especially agri business and small 
businesses.
  Natural gas, by the way, accounts for nearly a quarter of America's 
energy supply and is used by more than half of the households and 
businesses in America. In fact, in my district of Omaha, Nebraska, 
about 65 percent of the households are heated, and by the way, it gets 
cold, maybe not like in the gentlewoman's part of Tennessee, it gets 
pretty cold in Omaha during the winter, and we rely on natural gas.
  Unfortunately, the United States faces a natural gas challenge that 
threatens the profitability of almost every sector of our economy, as 
well as our citizens' quality of life. Nationwide natural gas prices 
just 5 years ago were $1.50 per thousand cubic feet. Today, as this 
chart shows, it is off the charts. It is over $7 and has been for the 
last two to three weeks.
  Let us look at how the United States' natural gas prices compare to 
the rest of the world. In Venezuela, it is about 70 cents per thousand 
cubic feet, 40 cents in Africa, 80 cents in Russia. The next, by the 
way, is Europe with $3.70, less than half of what we pay in the United 
States.
  Farm States, including Nebraska, have been hit especially hard by 
higher natural gas prices since natural gas is the primary material in 
nitrogen fertilizers, as well as the key fuel for irrigation and drying 
of grains. Anhydrous ammonia fertilizer has increased from about $175 
per ton in 2000 to as much as $375 last planting season.
  About half of America's nitrogen fertilizer is now imported. Let me 
restate that. Nearly half of our farmers' nitrogen fertilizer is now 
imported, mostly due to these high costs of natural gas. This is going 
to have a severe impact on our economy and for our farmers.
  The increased cost of natural gas has played a substantial role in 
losing nearly 3 million U.S. manufacturing jobs over the last 5 years, 
according to the Industrial Energy Consumers of America. Whether these 
jobs were located in an auto plant in Ohio or a petrochemical 
manufacturer in Houston, many have been moved overseas, chasing the 
cheaper natural gas where it is more abundant and plentiful.
  These reasons for concern are magnified when one considers U.S. 
natural gas consumption is expected to increase over the next 20 years. 
Simultaneously, domestic natural gas production is falling about 1 
percent a year.
  Let me show my colleagues this chart. We actually have a decent 
supply of natural gas, but most of it is off limits and stays off 
limits in this bill, especially around the coastal regions of 
California and Florida.
  We do encourage some additional domestic production of natural gas. 
Last

[[Page H2385]]

year, this Congress passed a pipeline from Alaska down to Chicago, but 
I am telling my colleagues, looking at the politics in Alaska, this may 
take decades before that pipeline is run from Alaska to the continental 
United States to provide some price relief for our economy and for 
heating our homes.
  So we must look at these natural gas prices in a holistic way, 
meaning domestic production, pipeline, and we still have to realize 
that to meet the increased needs of natural gas within our United 
States, we are going to unfortunately have to import some of our 
natural gas. Otherwise, if we do not look at it in a holistic way, 
domestic, Alaskan pipeline and liquid natural gas imports, natural gas 
prices may increase to $13 or $14 per thousand cubic feet.
  Unfortunately, to import liquid natural gas, we have got about three 
or four facilities today. There are many applications to site liquid 
natural gas to an import terminal where the liquid natural gas comes 
in, it goes in, it is unloaded, it is turned into a gas and then put 
into pipelines, but we are experiencing the typical not-in-my-backyard 
with some extreme overexaggerations of the dangerousness of liquid 
natural gas. Because localities and States have played on this fear, 
those localities, in fact, in Maine, a locality even, though the States 
have issued permits, are approved permits, a locality stops an LNG 
terminal. This forces us to have to look at different ways.
  In this base bill, we in the Committee on Energy and Commerce worked 
on this together in committee. We recognized that what we have to do is 
streamline this process. If we are going to help alleviate the 
pressures on price, we have to give more authority for this 
international and national commerce to the Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission. We want the States to have a part in here. What we just do 
not want is for the States and localities, based on NIMBY, to have veto 
power. This is in the base bill.
  Tomorrow, we are going to have a movement by a gentleman from 
Massachusetts and Delaware to strip out this provision, and it is only 
going to hurt manufacturers, small businesses, agri business and people 
who heat their homes with natural gas, companies that generate 
electricity by natural gas. We must overcome this provision tomorrow 
for the overall economic and basically lifestyle of the citizens of the 
United States.
  So I want to thank the gentlewoman for reserving this time so we can 
help educate our colleagues and America on something as important as 
liquid natural gas and its implications to their budgets at home.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his 
leadership on this issue and for his diligent work on behalf of his 
constituents and on behalf of all Americans as we are working on this 
bill and bringing it forward to the House, getting it ready to move 
forward and looking forward to the time that the President signs this 
into law, so that we do have an energy policy.
  A couple of points I would like to highlight with my colleagues that 
the gentleman from Nebraska brought forward to us, this bill is, as he 
said, forward thinking and it is now thinking, and it is important as 
we look at these two provisions that we realize it is this way because 
we have to think about small business. We have to think about farmers. 
We have to think about the impact of this on the economy.
  Madam Speaker, as the gentleman from Nebraska has said, this is about 
jobs. We think about our economy. This wonderful free enterprise system 
that we have in this great Nation of ours has created nearly 3 million 
jobs in the past 2 years, and we need to continue that. This economic 
engine needs to continue working.
  We do not hear enough about the jobs creation that has happened. We 
do not hear enough about the tax relief that has happened over the past 
couple of years, but we know that jobs creation is such an important 
part and an energy policy will serve as a boost for that jobs creation.
  I thank the gentleman from Nebraska, and at this point I yield to the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Beauprez) who has been a leader on the 
energy issue, has done a wonderful job for his constituents in the 
State of Colorado and is going to talk with us for a few minutes about 
ANWR and the implications of ANWR.
  Mr. BEAUPREZ. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman and commend her 
for organizing this hour that we can talk about this energy bill, but 
we all hope we not only hope can pass on this floor but can actually in 
this Congress become law because we have waited too long. The American 
people have waited too long to have an energy policy that is a little 
bit more than one day at a time. So I do, again, commend the 
gentlewoman.
  ANWR has been an issue in this Congress and much of the United States 
for years and years and years. When I got elected to Congress in 2002, 
ANWR was very much on my mind because one of the first issues we talked 
about was an energy bill.
  I had an opportunity to go up and see that much talked about, much 
described, very valuable piece of real estate in August of 2003 with a 
few of my congressional colleagues. I have in front of me tonight a map 
that puts Alaska in relative size to the lower 48 States in proper 
perspective. ANWR is in this region. The area we are actually talking 
about exploring is represented by that green dot, just 2,000 acres. 
2,000 acres is roughly the size of the St. Louis airport that most of 
us and many Americans have landed in. I have also heard that in 
relative size it is about like Dulles, which we are all very familiar 
with back here in the Washington, D.C., area. It is about the same size 
as the land dedicated to the Dulles airport as compared to the entire 
State of Virginia. So we are talking about a relatively small part of a 
massive piece of real estate.
  This map very quickly puts in perspective one other key thing, the 
amount of oil represented by 1 million barrels per day coming from that 
one small piece of real estate, and that is a conservative estimate of 
the amount of oil that can be generated from this ANWR reserve, over 1 
million barrels a day.
  Several other energy sources are addressed in this bill, wind power, 
which I certainly embrace coming from Colorado. We produce a little 
wind power ourselves, but so do our friends from Rhode Island and 
Connecticut represented in gray by about 3.7 million acres dedicated to 
wind energy. To generate the same amount of total energy is 1 million 
barrels of oil from ANWR.
  In red, down at Lake Okeechobee, where they utilize solar, as we do 
also in Colorado, but some 448,000 acres are dedicated to solar energy 
generation, to again apply the energy to 1 million barrels from ANWR in 
one day.

                              {time}  2300

  Or in green, again the coastal plain, or in black the acreage, as I 
mentioned, from the Lambert Airport.
  Ethanol is in yellow. Massive piece of ground. We have heard much 
about ethanol already tonight on the floor of the House. Ethanol is 
also of interest to the eastern plains, especially in Colorado, where 
we grow a whole lot of corn.
  I see one of my colleagues from Iowa here tonight grinning a bit. I 
know it is important to him. But you see the massive amount of land 
acreage, 80.5 million acres that would have to be dedicated to growing 
corn to produce as much ethanol as we get from a million barrels of oil 
a day in Alaska.
  Now, to the point I really wanted to address, and this is the point. 
We ought to remember that there are precious few people who actually 
live in that very difficult, very hostile environment in the world, 
ANWR, which is literally on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. I went up 
and visited that. If I can put this map back up, I will put it in 
proper perspective.
  Prudhoe Bay, which we often talk about, is located here, again 
literally on the edge of the Arctic Ocean. A small village of Kaktovik 
is roughly where that green dot is. We actually flew over in a very 
small plane, landed on a gravel runway and visited these people in 
Kaktovik; about 270 of them actually manage to survive in that very, 
very difficult environment.
  How do they do that? They still hunt the whale. They go out when the 
Arctic Ocean opens up a little bit and get in the open water and they 
are allowed to get three whale a year. They fish for Arctic char and 
they survive on them. And, yes, they hunt and kill and eat

[[Page H2386]]

the caribou meat, as they have for generations and generations. That is 
how they survive.
  I submit to this body and submit to the American people that if 
anyone is concerned about preserving that environment, it is these 
people. Not because it is pristine, not because they like the view, not 
because the air is very, very clean, but it is about survival. It is 
about their very existence. If that environment changes, these people 
have a very, very serious, life-threatening problem. If anybody is 
interested in maintaining that environment unchanged, it is them.
  And we all know what the environment is supposed to look like. It 
looks like this for a small window of the year. It is covered with 
caribou and a little bit of short grass, as I saw it in August when I 
was there. And, actually, the caribou, from 1972 to current days, in 
about a 30-year window, have increased, not decreased. Since we did the 
Prudhoe Bay development, they have actually increased by about tenfold, 
a thousand percent. And we have heard much about that.

  That is how ANWR looks some of the year. This is how ANWR looks most 
of the year. That is not the moon, that is actually ice, and that is 
about all that is there. It is frozen and it is ice covered.
  How much oil is there? The experts, the scientists tell us that if we 
would develop ANWR, and frankly, had we gone ahead and done it in 1995, 
when Congress actually approved it and President Clinton vetoed the 
bill, today we would be bringing over a million barrels a day to the 
lower 48 from ANWR.
  How much is a million barrels a day? Actually, they project almost 
1.4 million a day from ANWR. That is almost as much as we import daily 
from, yes, Saudi Arabia, our largest single source of imported oil, 
almost a direct offset to Saudi Arabia.
  Now, what do the people in ANWR think? Final point. We asked Fenton 
Rexford, who is the President of the Native Indian Corporation that 
populates that little piece of real estate, well, that very large piece 
of real estate but very small group of people. What should we do with 
ANWR? I asked him the question. Two-word answer: Drill it. I said, 
Really? He said, Yes, drill it. I said, Is that what your villagers 
think? He had already told us there were 271 people living there that 
day. He said, well, at least 270 of them agree. That is close to 
unanimous.
  One of my colleagues said, but what about the caribou? This was after 
he told us how they depend on the caribou for their very survival. He 
said, What about it? Well, my colleague said, If we happen to drill 
there, explore there, develop there, we might scare them off or change 
their migratory pattern. And the president looked at us and he said, 
You are missing something here, and we all leaned forward in eager 
anticipation. He said you are missing something here.
  We said, What is that? We hunt them and kill them and they come back. 
And we all said, Oh, yeah, you do. We hunt them and kill them and they 
come back. You are not going to scare them off by exploring for a 
little bit of oil out here. He said again, Drill it.
  With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado 
for the explanation of this. I think it is so important for us to keep 
this in perspective. We are talking about 2,000 acres when we talk 
about ANWR, and it is in many hundreds of thousands of acres. It is 
like putting a quarter on the dining room table, that is the 
relationship of that space. So I thank the gentleman from Colorado for 
his work on the issue.
  The gentleman from Idaho, who is a member and a leader on the 
Committee on Energy and Commerce, has certainly worked on some of the 
issues dealing with refineries and permitting. We have not had a new 
refinery built in the country in 30 years, Madam Speaker. And as I 
mentioned earlier, the bill addresses our needs for today and looks 
toward the future.
  Obviously, there are some in this body who would like for us to flip 
a switch and tomorrow start driving hydrogen fuel cell cars and to 
start doing things we would all love to see happen, to look at more 
alternative sources. But we have to think about where our economy is 
today and meeting those needs for oil and gas today while at the same 
time we are planning for the future.
  The gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) is going to talk with us for a 
few moments about refineries and permitting and some of the points that 
are covered that address the needs of today and of our economy today. 
So I thank the gentleman for joining us and I yield to him.
  Mr. OTTER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership 
and also for offering some time and providing us the opportunity 
tonight to speak to the energy bill.
  I also compliment the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Beauprez) and the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall) and the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. 
Terry) for the insights that they have given us tonight into the whole 
concept of the energy bill. We are not talking about a few of the hot 
points that the news media like to talk an awful lot about.
  I cannot go through the process that we did last week in formulating 
this energy bill without thinking of a childhood poem, and it goes like 
this: ``I saw a group of men in my hometown, I saw a group of men 
tearing a building down. With a heave and a ho and a mighty yell, they 
swung a beam and a sidewalk fell.
  ``So I said to the foreman, `Hey, are these men skilled, you know, 
the kind I'd hire if I wanted to build?' And he laughed and said, `Why, 
no, indeed, common labor is all I need. For with common labor I can 
tear down in a day or two what it took a builder 10 years to do.'
  And so I thought to myself as I walked away, Which of those roles am 
I going to play?''
  The 109th Congress, Madam Speaker, is deciding now what role we are 
going to play. Are we going to build an energy future? Are we going to 
build an economic future for this great Nation of ours and for future 
generations? Are we going to put in place today a public policy that 
will serve this Nation in our competitive efforts with the rest of the 
world?
  I can tell you there is no other place in the world that this 
argument is going on, of whether or not we are going to energize our 
natural resources, energize our native creative genius in order to 
provide the cheapest and the most abundant and most reliable energy 
source that we possibly can. Yet this is a heartfelt debate.
  Fortunately for us, with the leadership of our chairman, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), we were able to come out of the 
committee with a great energy bill and in a bipartisan fashion.

                              {time}  2310

  In fact, I myself have voted on this energy bill. Although I have 
only been in this Congress for 4 years and 4 months, I have voted on 
the energy bill four times, with the great hope that was going to be 
one thing as a Member from Idaho's First Congressional District I could 
leave as a legacy. Yet 4 years and 4 months later, we are still wanting 
and still faced with those who will tear down rather than build up.
  I would like to talk about something that has not gotten, I believe, 
the attention that it needs. As the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. 
Blackburn) mentioned early on, we have not built a refinery in this 
Nation in nearly 30 years. Garyville, Louisiana, was the last refinery 
we built in this Nation, and yet every day we continue to consume more 
and more refined gas. So our capacity to consume is increasing, yet our 
capacity in relationship to produce and to refine is dwindling. Thus, 
we are counting more and more and more for yet another strategic part 
of our value-added energy on some foreign country.
  Madam Speaker, last fall I went down to Venezuela and visited Hugo 
Chavez. One of the reasons I did that was because there are several 
Idaho concerns down there probably mining more coal than any place else 
in the word, and mining more silver and gold than any place else in the 
world. There is an exploration company that is environmentally 
responsible in their exploration and in their research and development 
for Venezuela's natural resources.
  One of the other reasons I went down there was to see where we are 
importing a million, 800,000 barrels of refined

[[Page H2387]]

fuel a day. We import 14 million barrels a day. We use 21 million 
barrels a day. So for two-thirds of our consumption, we are now relying 
on some other country that may be friend or foe, and Mr. Chavez has 
already suggested he is not going to be really friendly towards us. Yet 
we are still relying for two-thirds of the strategic element for our 
economy on some other nation. We are relying on their labor, their tax 
base. We are relying on building up their economy in order to support 
our own rather than doing that ourselves.
  Part of this bill we are looking at today is environmentally 
streamlined permitting. We heard many, many times in the committee, as 
the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) will be able to attest 
to, we heard many times from the opposition, those who would not build 
but rather tear down, that there is not one permit that is waiting to 
go through the bureaucratic process, not one permit in the United 
States. I would suggest there ought to be a reason and that we need to 
take a look at that.
  One of the reasons nobody gets a permit is they have been denied for 
so long. They are so expensive and have been denied for so long. One 
thing I found out in Caracas, Venezuela, every U.S. oil company that 
owns a refinery in the United States is down there today asking for a 
permit to build one in Venezuela. There are permits being given 
throughout the world and permits being requested. Unfortunately, they 
are being requested where they find a friendly permitting process, or a 
permitting process.
  And I asked the fellows at lunch that day, are you telling me it is 
easier to get a permit down here?
  They said, no, environmentally speaking, we have to obey the same 
laws. Safety-wise we have to obey the same laws. They are no different 
than the United States except it happens. It happens. In the United 
States you can sit around for months and years, and then decades before 
you finally get a permit. And that is just too lengthy and too costly a 
process.
  They said, we come down here and we can get a permit in 6 to 8 
months. We have to bond it and do everything we do in the United 
States. The thing is, these people are working with us. That is why we 
are here permitting.
  The other thing that this bill looks to is something that a lot of 
people in the United States do not realize. If a refinery today, one in 
Garyville, Louisiana, should happen to come across some new technology 
and that new technology would say they could increase their efficiency 
or their production capacity or their yield, and it happens to be more 
than 10 percent, they do not want to do it. The reason they do not want 
to do it is our environmental laws authorized by the Environmental 
Protection Agency would say that new 10 percent is new source.
  What new source means is you have to go back and permit the whole 
plant, not just the 10 percent increased, but you have to go back and 
permit 100 percent of the plant's production.
  So they may have increased since 30 years ago when the last one was 
permitted, they may have increased 6 or 7 percent, but they do not want 
to go beyond that or it will be very expensive to go on.
  For our economy and for the jobs that are increased and energized and 
permitted, refinery capacity would do that for this country of ours. 
For all of the good that could happen, I would say it is time for us, 
and we will be deciding tomorrow who they are that want to build and 
who they are that want to tear down. I am proud to say that all the 
folks that you have listened to tonight are the ones that want to 
build. I am amongst them, and I am sure the majority will be tomorrow.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. 
Otter) for his leadership to our committee.
  To mention a couple of things that the gentleman highlighted, and one 
is the amount of time that has gone into this bill. During the 107th 
Congress that the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) spoke about, that 
was 2001-2002, the Republican-led Committee on Energy and Commerce held 
28 hearings related to a comprehensive energy bill. In 2002, the 
committee spent 21 hours marking up an energy bill and considering 79 
amendments. In 2003, there were 22 hours and 80 amendments. In 3 years 
the Republicans in the House have held 80 public hearings with 12 
committee markups and 279 amendments. That is the amount of work and 
energy that has gone into what the gentleman so appropriately describes 
as a total-concept bill.
  Another point was about the permitting. One of the things that we 
have all learned so well in our public service is if you want less of 
something, pile on the taxes, pile on the regulation because you are 
going to get less of it. If you want more of something, you have 
lighter regulation, lower taxes; and you are going to see that 
flourish.
  Those are certainly points that we take to heart as we look at the 
energy bill. I thank the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) for his good 
work on this effort.
  A gentleman who has been a leader on the issue of small business and 
taxation and regulation and how that affects our economy is the 
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King). I certainly welcome him to our debate 
tonight. I appreciate the leadership that the gentleman shows in the 
Committee on the Budget and in the Republican Study Committee as we 
work to lower taxes and spending and address appropriate regulation.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for 
organizing this Special Order, and I ask the gentleman from Idaho if he 
would pause a moment to engage in a brief colloquy with the gentleman 
from Idaho (Mr. Otter) because the gentleman holds some expertise, and 
that is the need to continue to build refineries in this country, crude 
oil refineries. Could you speak for a moment about what we expect will 
happen with refinery construction in this country if we pass the energy 
bill as it is presented.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Foxx). The gentlewoman from Tennessee 
(Mrs. Blackburn) is recognized for an additional 19 minutes.
  Mr. OTTER. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to review some 
of the facts and figures that we have in the committee. I appreciate 
the gentleman's question, that is, the amount of jobs of course that 
would be created. I am saying high-paying professional jobs, not only 
for the construction phase of building a new refinery which is millions 
and millions of dollars, but certainly for the operation phase.

                              {time}  2320

  As we operate these refineries, we have more and more technology and 
we call upon these professionals for a higher degree of 
professionalism. As a result of that, we are not talking about some of 
these jobs that can simply be replaced at a moment's notice.
  So one of the things that we have to do, along with the construction 
of the refinery, along with the potential operation of the refinery, is 
we have to prepare educating the chemical engineers in our colleges, 
and there have not been really jobs, at least in the United States that 
have been forthcoming because of the lack of appreciation, if you will, 
for the refinery business in the United States and for the gas and oil 
business in the United States.
  A lot of these high-paying jobs have gone overseas, as well as the 
education opportunities. We are going to have to incentivize our 
education system to gear up not only for the construction of the plants 
but for the potential operations of them. When you look down the road 
at it, it has got tremendous possibilities of what it can do for our 
economy.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) for 
his comments. I will get to some more of that subject matter of 
education as I go through this. I appreciate your patience with me 
tonight and indulgence.
  I would like to first speak to the broad picture of energy across 
this country. There is this entire pie of energy here and different 
components and slices of this pie. Energy, first of all, is a component 
in everything that we buy. If there is any one item that adds to 
inflation in all the products that we purchase in this country, it is 
energy because it takes energy to produce anything, it takes energy to 
deliver anything, and it takes energy to go pick it up and buy it. So 
whenever we move, we are burning energy, and that is a part of the cost 
of everything we are. If we do not have an effective energy policy, we 
are paying more for all

[[Page H2388]]

goods and services in this country than is necessary and that means it 
makes us less competitive in the rest of the world. That is the big 
picture as to why energy is so important.
  Some of the components of this energy are crude oil. We know how much 
energy we bring in across from the Middle East and Venezuela and other 
parts of the world that is imported into the United States. The crude 
oil cost includes also the military investment over there and the 
unrest and everyone, as was said earlier, the gentleman from Texas 
stated about every country must have their energy. Whatever it takes, 
we must have our energy. But we sit in this country on a significant 
supply of domestic crude oil. This bill puts in place the motion to 
construct the refineries that we need so that we can bring the crude 
oil in and get it refined. It also allows for us to go up to ANWR and 
do our drilling up there to bring that crude oil down to the lower 48.
  I also have been up to ANWR to take a look at that. As I asked the 
people up there around the Kaktovik area, they said, yes, we have to go 
hunt the caribou during a certain time of the year but really the 
resident caribou in the drilling area are only in there from mid-May 
until the end of June. They come in to calve and then they leave about 
the end of June. That is the time when the permafrost thaws down to 
about a foot or 18 inches.
  Nothing is going to move during that period of time except the 
caribou and when those young calves get old enough to walk back, they 
go back over to Canada out of the area, so nothing would be going on in 
that region when the caribou were there. It is kind of a caribou 
maternity ward in that part of Alaska. We need that domestic crude oil 
and any nation that is looking to its long-term best interests will be 
producing its own energy.
  The concern about someday running out of crude oil, why would you 
keep it in the bank forever when we have other opportunities for 
different energy supplies that will be developed as science and 
technology catches up? We need to go there, get that crude oil, get it 
drilled, and bring it down the Alaska pipeline. By the way, the Alaska 
pipeline, if the North Slope oil runs out, and it looks like it is 
heading in that direction, that pipeline has to stay full almost all 
the time or it starts to erode inside the pipe, it turns to rust and it 
may not be able to be put back up on line. So it is important that we 
keep the Alaska pipeline up and going. That is a huge and valuable 
resource that began construction there in about 1972. It has been there 
a long time, it has served very, very well, and it can do a lot more. 
In that same region is all of the natural gas that is already developed 
that we do not have a good way to deliver it to the lower 48, that is 
the pipeline.
  Yes, there are some things to work out within the State of Alaska. I 
hope that gets done. We have done, I think, what we can do here, at 
least for now, but we need that natural gas, we need it into the Corn 
Belt, we need it for a lot of the reasons that the gentleman from 
Colorado said, and I am glad he is in here talking about corn and 
ethanol with regard to energy.

  In the part of the country where I come from, we have constructed 
ethanol production to the extent that within the next 2 years, we will 
be able to say that we have built all of the ethanol production, all 
the plants that we have the corn to supply in the Fifth District in 
Iowa, the western third of Iowa. We have started construction now on 
biodiesel plants, we have two plants up and running now, we are 
breaking ground on a third plant that happens to be about 9 miles from 
where I live as the crow flies on biodiesel.
  Biodiesel is coming along in the same shoes as ethanol, only a lot 
faster, because they have learned from the people that blazed the trail 
in ethanol. We are going to have, I believe, within the next 5 to 6 
years, all of the biodiesel production that we will have, the soybeans 
and the other bioproducts to supply. That has made already this 
district that I represent an energy export center with the ethanol 
production being up to almost all we can provide and the biodiesel, we 
have started on it very well.
  We have tremendous wind energy that has been put in place there in 
the last 4 to 5 years. I will say 6 to 7 years ago, we had almost no 
energy production, we were an energy consumption region, and today we 
are an energy export center. It has changed that much. It has helped a 
lot with our energy independence and to become less dependent on 
foreign energy supplies of all kinds.
  But we are faced with this need for nitrogen fertilizer and almost 
all of our nitrogen fertilizer is made directly from natural gas, 
directly from natural gas. Ninety percent of the cost of that 
fertilizer is the cost of purchasing the gas to produce the nitrogen 
from it. So we sit in this country without being able to get the 
pipeline down from Alaska where the gas is, it is already developed, 
and that is a process that if all goes well could maybe get done in 6 
years. It may take 9 or 10 years to get there. Yet that needs to happen 
and it needs to happen quickly.
  But within the lower 48 States, earlier we saw the map of the layout 
of the natural gas, along the east coast, the west coast and the outer 
shelf around Florida and in the central part of the United States. One 
of these esteemed gentlemen has made the statement on this floor, and I 
am going to repeat it, and I believe it, and that is that we have 
enough known natural gas reserves underneath non-national park public 
lands in the United States of America to heat every home in America for 
the next 150 years. That is almost a renewable energy resource when you 
look at that kind of a quantity. Yet natural gas is three times the 
price as it was just 5 and 6 years ago. Our natural gas that produces 
our fertilizer has done the same thing to our fertilizer prices.
  People in the Corn Belt pay going into the ground with their 
fertilizer and then when they take that grain off the field in the 
fall, they have to dry the grain and most times what do they dry it 
with? Natural gas. So we are more susceptible to high natural gas 
prices than maybe any place else in the country and we have watched 
because of that the fertilizer production go offshore to places like 
Venezuela and Russia.
  I remember what happened with the oil cartel in the late seventies 
when they shut down the oil delivery to the United States and the 
prices went up. We could be in that same situation with Venezuela and 
Russia if we let them take on any more of the fertilizer production. We 
need it here. We have got the gas here. We need to develop the gas. 
When we develop the gas, we will be able to keep our fertilizer plants. 
But if we do not, we will not be able to keep those plants which means 
we lose that fertilizer production and makes us dependent on those 
countries that I named. That is really critical.
  We mentioned the solar energy as a component and that is going on in 
some of the parts of the country. Hydroelectric has been built and 
constructed. One of the other things I am concerned about is we have 
not built a nuclear plant in this country in a generation. The 
engineering technology that it takes to do that is leaving us year by 
year. That is another piece that has got to move along. We have got 
hydrogen around the corner and hydrogen may be the answer to much of 
this, but if we put all these pieces together, wind and ethanol and 
biodiesel and natural gas and crude oil, hydroelectric, the whole list, 
we have got the picture of the pieces that make us less dependent on 
foreign oil.
  That is the picture, that is the energy bill, and that is why I 
support it.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman from Iowa for spending some 
time with us. He is exactly right, Madam Speaker. This is a homeland 
security and an economic security issue. We realize that. 
Competitiveness is important. We know, just as the gentleman said, we 
are meeting today's needs. We cannot not address the needs of today. 
That does require us to address oil and gas. At the same time we have 
to build that bridge to the future. This bill does that and does put 
the focus on biodiesel, biomass, ethanol, wind, hydropower, hybrid 
cars, hydrogen fuel cells, solar power, and all of those alternative 
and renewable energy sources so that we will have a goal of reducing 
that dependence on foreign oil.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) who 
is going to talk with us about the economic issues that affect his 
district in Texas.

[[Page H2389]]

                              {time}  2330

  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from 
Tennessee for yielding to me. I very much appreciate it because this is 
such an important issue for all of our country, but especially for our 
district in East Texas. The eastern side of my district is Louisiana, 
and it is actually quite a help for Louisiana as well. But the things 
we are talking about, the resources that we have in our district 
include oil, gas, coal, lignite, biomass material. That could be made 
from things like corn maize or soy, but also from forestry material 
that is left over when lumber is made.
  There are so many jobs that will be assisted and created. It is 
estimated that there could be half a million jobs created as a result 
of the energy bill that we are discussing here.
  Some people worry about the environmental effects of an energy bill 
and encouraging energy production, but I want to tell the Members I am 
familiar with oil wells, I am familiar with gas wells, I am familiar 
with lignite. I was just in a couple of lignite mines in my district in 
the last 2 weeks, and we worry about the destruction of property, but 
when we see what has been done and the way the land is reclaimed and 
reestablished, it ends being a work of art. The hardwoods are put back. 
The streams are back better than ever. The hillsides, it is just 
beautiful what has been done. Plus the renewable resources like pine 
trees are there. It is a good thing for East Texas.
  Of course we have heard in ANWR previously that it would destroy the 
caribou population. When the pipeline was going to be laid, many of us 
remember back in the 1970s they said it was just going to decimate the 
caribou. As it turned out, there were about 3,000 caribou back then. 
Now there are around 32,000, as it turns out, because that oil is 
warmed as it goes through the pipeline to keep it flowing. When caribou 
want to ask each other for dates, they go to the pipeline and it makes 
them really romantic-thinking. So it has actually increased the 
population there.
  When people complained we should not have oil and gas wells out in 
the coast because it is going to destroy the fish and the teeming life 
in the Gulf of Mexico, it turns out after they put offshore rigs out 
there, that is where commercial fishermen went because that was an 
artificial reef and it ended up helping fishing as well.
  There is so much technology that has been developed over the last 30 
and 40 years that has been good for everybody.
  We also have the Eastman plant, actually more in Harrison County but 
there by Longview, and they use natural gas to make plastic products, 
all kinds of products there. This will help them. It will create 
cheaper natural gas. If we have cheaper natural gas, the papermill that 
had to close down in Lufkin because they could not get cheap enough 
gas; they are planning on reopening if that can happen. That just does 
not help Lufkin. It helps St. Augustine and Hemphill. They worked there 
at the paper mill. Clear up in Longview there is a man who lost 7 
percent of his business when the paper mill closed all because of 
energy costs. These things can come back.
  But not only that, we do a lot of drilling. These small business 
companies in East Texas, we have got the drillers themselves that go 
back to work. We have got land men going to work getting leases on the 
land. We have got the owners that are getting that lease money. We have 
got people that retain mineral interests getting royalties back. We 
have got people that are going back during the production, the service 
companies rehiring folks.
  We have got the steel producers, companies that are renting equipment 
to those facilities. We have got independent drillers that are doing 
well. There are workers of all kinds and their families that are all 
having their lives made better. We have got clean coal technologies 
that are going to assist us and keep the air clean and make the 
environment just as good or better after the production of coal. There 
are so many good things that result for the Nation and especially for 
my district.
  And let me just say on a personal note, with all of the things that a 
good energy bill will do for the Nation and do for our district, I feel 
good about what we are doing and I appreciate the gentlewoman's 
yielding to me because it does mean a lot. To take it to a very 
personal note, I have got three daughters. Two are away in college now, 
and our youngest is a junior in high school. Sarah's birthday is 
tomorrow, and I do not remember not being there on the morning of one 
of my kids' birthdays. She will be 17 tomorrow. And I hate like heck 
missing her birthday tomorrow, but we are going to pass us an energy 
bill tomorrow. And if I did not believe with all my heart that I was 
helping to make this country better for my children, then I would not 
miss Sarah's birthday tomorrow. But I think we are doing a good thing. 
And when I quit believing we are doing good for this country and making 
it better for my girls, then the voters will not have to send me home. 
I will go home as fast as I can.
  But we are doing good, and I am proud to be a part of a majority that 
is working to make America better. And I thank the gentlewoman from 
Tennessee very much for yielding to me.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for participating with us tonight.
  He is exactly right. The estimate is that 500,000 new jobs will be 
created over the next year by the changes made in the energy policy for 
this Nation.
  As I close this time that I have had tonight, I do want to certainly 
draw some attention to provisions of the bill, and tomorrow we hope 
that everyone is going to be able to talk with us and work with us as 
we go through the bill. And we are going to address so many things not 
only with our small business, but we are going to hear about 
electricity transmission and capability and reliability of our Nation's 
electricity and the electrical sources. Everyone was concerned, and we 
all are, when we hear of brownouts and blackouts and the series of 
blackouts over the past decade. So electricity is something that we 
will be addressing.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) for her 
comments on the bill.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman very much for 
organizing this effort on behalf of H.R. 6, the Energy Policy Act of 
2005.
  As we all know, gas prices are skyrocketing, as are the costs of 
heating and cooling our homes. Many families and businesses are 
struggling under the additional financial burden.
  I am encouraged we have the opportunity to tackle this issue head on 
and take the necessary steps to reduce the cost of energy. Hard-working 
Americans are depending on us to take action.
  H.R. 6 will lower energy prices, strengthen the economy, generate 
hundreds of thousands of new jobs, and encourage greater energy 
conservation and efficiency. This bill will also reduce our dependence 
on foreign oil and encourage investment into alternative energy 
sources.
  Furthermore, this bill will provide relief to our hard-working 
farmers by providing tax incentives and money for research and 
development for ethanol and biodiesel energy sources.
  I hope all of our colleagues are going to vote for this vital piece 
of legislation.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her 
comments.
  As we continue with our debate, as we were saying earlier, we will be 
looking at electricity, and we are going to have some provisions in 
this bill that the Federal Government is going to lead on energy 
conservation issues.
  One of our colleagues talked earlier about clean coal technology and 
renewable sources. Those will be addressed in the bill also. And we 
will look forward tomorrow as we come to the floor to being able to 
continue our discussion and to draw attention to these issues.

                          ____________________