[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 48 (Wednesday, April 20, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3960-S3962]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE ENERGY BILL

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, once again, today, President Bush is going 
to talk about the rising cost of gas and how it is hurting Americans at 
the pump. He is going to talk again about our dangerous dependence on 
foreign oil.
  Last weekend, President Bush used his radio address to urge Americans 
to support his energy legislation. He said, and I quote him:

       American families and small businesses across the country 
     are feeling the pinch from rising gas prices.

  President Bush is right. The fact is American families are 
struggling. But unfortunately he is wrong about his support of the 
energy bill and his approach. The issue is not that the President 
doesn't understand the problem; it is that he does not have a real 
solution. He has not proposed the kinds of steps that are staring us in 
the face, available to us to be able to put together a real energy 
policy for the country. The energy plan he continues to campaign for 
will, in fact, make the United States more dependent on foreign oil, it 
will keep gas prices at record highs instead of making them affordable 
for consumers, and it will make our air and our water more polluted 
instead of investing in a cleaner future. These are pretty stark 
choices. Each and every one of them, on examination, is proven in the 
ways in which this administration has moved backwards on enforcement, 
backwards with respect to its

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commitment to a major independent energy policy for the Nation.
  What we need to do is provide the Nation with sound solutions that 
are going to create jobs, instill a greater confidence in our 
relationships with other countries, and begin to move away from that 
dependency and to excite the economy through the creation of those 
kinds of jobs and the commitment to new technologies and to the 
research and development to create them.
  The crisis, as it is currently unfolding, affects our economy. It is 
a drag on the economy, a drag on growth, a drag on our security, and it 
is obviously harming our environment.
  The status quo energy policies the President is promoting are also 
hurting consumers at the pump, and no amount of taxpayer-funded, 
campaign-style events are going to cover up this reality because the 
evidence is plain for everybody to see at gas stations all across the 
country. People are now paying an average of $2.28 a gallon at the 
pump. That is up 6 cents in the last week and over 50 cents in the last 
year.
  All of this has been predictable. The rise of demand in China and the 
rise of demand in less-developed nations has been there for every 
economist to lay out over the course of the last years. Notwithstanding 
the rise in demand and the competition for available oil resources, the 
United States continues down the same old road. All of the hype about 
the Arctic Wildlife Refuge or other sources is never going to make up 
for the reality of how much of the oil reserves are actually available 
to the United States versus that increasing demand curve.
  For the fourth week in a row, gas prices are at an all-time high. 
They have now increased a staggering 56 percent since 2001. A recent 
Gallup survey revealed that 44 percent of Americans believe it is 
extremely important for Congress and the President to address gas 
prices. But you only need to look at the legislation that is promoted 
by the President, and set to be voted on in the House this week, to see 
that, yet again, Washington is turning its back on common sense and 
turning its back on the best interests of the American people.

  Under this administration, higher gas prices cost American consumers 
an extra $34 billion. If the House passes this bill, the Senate passes 
it, and the President signs it, it will cost the American consumer $34 
billion. Airlines, truckers, and farmers spent an extra $20 billion 
last year alone. That is a regressive energy tax on the backs of 
working Americans.
  But the administration's friends got off a lot easier than the 
average American. This energy bill is going to make their load even 
lighter. While American workers and families were struggling, oil 
companies earned record profits in the fourth quarter of 2004: 
ExxonMobil, up 218 percent, ConocoPhillips, up 145 percent; Shell, up 
51 percent; ChevronTexaco, up 39 percent; and BP, up 35 percent.
  Show me the American worker whose income has gone up by several 
percentage points, let alone double digits. Show me the American worker 
whose income has risen so they can keep up with the higher cost of 
fuel.
  What is the President proposing to do about this? Well, 95 percent of 
the tax benefits included in the President's bill, the bill he 
supports, more than $8 billion, goes directly into the pockets of big 
oil and gas companies. At a time when oil prices are at historic highs, 
our energy policy ought to be aimed at investing in new and renewable 
sources of energy, not providing another big giveaway to special 
interests, particularly to the big oil and gas companies that have had 
these remarkable increases in their profits over the course of the last 
year.
  Simply put, what is good for the administration's contributors has 
not been good for our economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan 
has said:

       Markets for oil and natural gas have been subject to a 
     degree of strain over the past year not experienced for a 
     generation.

  The Chairman of the President's own Council of Economic Advisors has 
admitted:

       High energy prices are now a drag on our economy.

  But the problem goes even deeper. The administration's failure to 
propose a real energy policy also threatens our national security. We 
are more dependent on foreign oil than ever before, forcing us into 
risky and even compromising political entanglements with nations that 
we rely on for the fuel oil. America will never be fully secure until 
we free ourselves from the noose of foreign oil.
  Unfortunately, the so-called energy plan of the administration does 
nothing, nothing to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. Don't take my 
word for it. The President's own economists found that oil imports will 
actually increase 85 percent by 2025 under a proposal such as we see at 
this point. The President's economists also found that ``changes to 
production, consumption, imports, and prices are negligible.''
  You don't have to be an expert on oil or on energy policy to 
understand the basics of where we find ourselves. All you have to do is 
be able to count. The United States of America only has 3 percent of 
the world's oil reserves. That is all God gave us, 3 percent. Saudi 
Arabia has 65 percent of the world's oil reserves. There is no possible 
way, with the current population growth, the current increase in demand 
for oil, the current increases in other countries, no possible way for 
the United States to drill its way to energy independence. We have to 
invent our way to it.
  But the President's energy policy is completely lacking in the major 
commitment necessary. There are token commitments, yes, but not the 
major commitment you need in order to spur the investment strategies, 
in order to spur the research and development and the fast transition 
in the marketplace we need to provide for the alternative energy 
sources the country ought to demand.
  The President's energy bill is not even a real Band-Aid on the energy 
crisis that threatens our economy and challenges our national security. 
What it does do for sure is fatten the coffers of big energy companies.
  There is a reason Senator McCain called the energy bill the No 
Lobbyist Left Behind Act.
  What kind of message do these policies send? If your profits go up, 
your subsidies go up. If the policy makes us more dependent on foreign 
oil, it makes the status quo even worse.
  What we ought to be doing is something profoundly better than this, 
and we know we could. Energy policy gives us a rare opportunity to 
address a whole series of challenges at the same time. If we end our 
dependence on foreign oil and move in that direction, then we begin 
to strengthen our national security, and we become more independent and 
more capable of making choices that are less founded in that 
dependency. If we lead the world in inventing new energy technologies, 
we create thousands of high-paying jobs in the United States, and we 
create products we can export and an expertise we can also export at 
the same time. If we learn to tap clean sources of energy, then we 
preserve a clean environment, and we reduce the level of environment-
induced cancers and other problems we face. If we remove the burden of 
high gas prices, then American consumers will have more cash in their 
pockets, more ability to spend elsewhere, and we give our economy the 
boost it needs.

  Unfortunately, the energy bill before the Congress achieves none of 
these fundamental goals in the way we could and in the way we need to, 
given the crisis we face. It is laden with handouts to corporate 
interests. Over the period of the next days, I will lay out further the 
specifics of those particular linkages and what they mean to us.
  We have an opportunity to change the direction of our country, to 
change our economy and make ourselves more secure and to create jobs. 
The solutions to our energy crises, all of them, are staring us in the 
face. The fact is, a number of years ago, back in 1973, when the first 
oil crisis hit, and then in the latter part of the 1970s, this country 
did move to try to create a real policy of alternative energy. The 
result was thousands of small companies started up around solar or wind 
or alternatives. But then, unfortunately, in the 1980s, the Government 
pulled back from that commitment and many of those companies were lost 
and much of that technology shifted and was lost to Japan or to Germany 
or to other countries. The record of jobs lost versus jobs created and 
of opportunities lost

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versus opportunities seized is a clear one. It is long past time we get 
the politics out of this and put practical, real and, in some cases, 
visionary solutions on the table so we can strengthen our own economy, 
strengthen our country, and provide ourselves with alternatives that 
will make our Nation both healthier and safer at the same time.
  I believe we owe the Nation more than staged political events and 
rhetoric in the effort to move to that future, and I hope we will do 
so.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Vitter). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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