[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 65 (Tuesday, May 17, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5369-S5371]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the matter of giving the President an 
up-or-down vote on his judicial nominees or, more accurately, giving 
the country an opportunity for any President to have what every 
President has always had, a chance for the full Senate to have an up-
or-down vote on his nominees, is a matter of great importance to our 
country. It is not the only business before the Senate. I would like to 
speak for a few minutes about natural gas prices and prices at the pump 
and how, at a time when China and India are buying up oil reserves 
around the world, we make sure that we have plenty of energy.
  We spend, in this country, about $2,500 per person on energy per 
year. We are about to have a big debate and discussion in the Senate 
about how much we spend on energy in the future. The Senator from 
Louisiana was here a few minutes ago. She made an excellent address. 
She summed up some of what happened today in the Senate Energy 
Committee. It was a very good meeting. At one time, virtually every 
member of the Senate Energy Committee was present, even though the 
purpose of the meeting was simply for us to make opening statements and 
to take initial action on a few relatively noncontroversial matters. 
That is because all of us understand how important it is.
  It is also because Chairman Domenici and Ranking Member Bingaman, who 
are from New Mexico, have worked unusually hard in creating a framework 
so that we could have a significant piece of legislation. To those 
outside the Senate, that may sound like a lot of ``inside baseball,'' 
but it is not. It is crucially important for the Republican majority to 
have listened, as Senator Domenici and the rest of us have over the 
last several months, to the views and attitudes of the Democratic 
minority and vice versa.
  What is happening in the Energy Committee is no accident. Senator 
Domenici, at the beginning of the year, told the Republican members of 
the committee that as he looked back over the last session of Congress 
and saw our failure as a Congress to grapple with this question of high 
prices at the gas pump, high prices for natural gas, which are driving 
manufacturing jobs overseas, which are raising costs for farmers, which 
are making it hard to heat and cool our homes, he decided he wanted to 
operate in a little bit different way. So we have. In a way, it is a 
good thing that we didn't pass an energy bill last year because this 
one ought to be a lot better, a lot more aggressive, and a lot bolder.
  The situation is more urgent. We have a better bipartisan framework, 
and we have learned a lot in the last year. Senator Domenici and 
Senator Bingaman have cochaired large conferences on coal and natural 
gas, so Senators themselves and key staff members could learn about the 
newest technologies and could understand the facts about what are a 
very complex set of considerations so we are better prepared.
  I especially compliment the Senator from Louisiana. She mentioned the 
Americans Outdoors Act that she and I introduced together again 
yesterday. We introduced it in the last session of Congress. She has 
worked on major parts of it for the last 6 years. But basically it 
picks up a principle that was a part of President Reagan's Commission 
on Americans Outdoors which I chaired 20 years ago. It sought to create 
a steady stream of reliable funding for conservation purposes, 
specifically the Land and Water Conservation Fund, for city parks, for 
wildlife, for enjoyment by soccer players, by duck hunters, by walkers, 
by most Americans.
  The idea is, if we are going to drill for gas and oil and use up some 
of our assets, we ought to take a part of that and use it and put it 
back as an asset. If there is an environmental burden, there ought to 
be an environmental benefit. That is a very simple idea.
  She and I call it a ``conservation royalty,'' and it is our hope to 
persuade a majority of the Senate, which we believe is conservation 
minded, that a majority of Americans--and we know there is a 
conservation majority in the United States--want us to help them have 
more places to enjoy themselves outdoors.
  I look forward to working with her on that and the conservation 
royalty.
  Mr. President, let me put the meeting Senator Domenici chaired in the 
Energy Committee in this context. A couple weeks ago, I had a private 
letter from GEN Carl Steiner. He is a real American hero. He was head 
of the special forces, a very brave man. He wrote to remind me that 
September 11 was a big surprise, but it should not have been. During 
the 1980s and 1990s, there were terrorist attacks on American interests 
around the world and in our country itself. If we had paid attention, 
General Steiner reminded me, we would not have been surprised on 9/11.
  The next big surprise in this country will be to our pocketbooks. But 
it doesn't have to happen. If we pay attention, we already know we have 
the highest natural gas prices in the industrialized world. Three or 4 
years ago, we had the lowest natural gas prices in the industrialized 
world. Today we have the highest. We know gas at the pump is at record 
levels for our country. We know China and India are increasing their 
demand for energy. We know that because of high prices, manufacturing 
jobs are moving overseas, farmers are taking a pay cut, and consumers 
are paying too much to heat and cool their homes.

[[Page S5370]]

  We can avoid this next big surprise--the one to our pocketbooks--by 
passing an energy bill in the next few weeks that lowers prices, cleans 
the air, and reduces dependence upon foreign oil. To keep our standard 
of living, our goal must be to aggressively conserve and to 
aggressively produce an adequate, reliable supply of low-cost, 
American-produced, clean energy.
  Some may say, why the emphasis on clean energy? Isn't that over in 
the clean air debate in the Environment and Public Works Committee? 
Well, yes, it is, jurisdictionwise. They may have jurisdiction on clean 
air. That is the problem. But the Energy bill has the solution to the 
clean air problem. We are not going to have clean air just by passing a 
bunch of caps on things. We are going to have it by transforming the 
way we produce energy in this country.
  Senator Bingaman and Senator Domenici, as I mentioned earlier, have 
worked hard to produce a bipartisan framework to accomplish the goal I 
just described. But the danger is still that we will be too timid and 
we will compromise our differences and produce a bill that doesn't do 
much. That is why Senator Johnson and I introduced the bipartisan 
Natural Gas Price Reduction Act of 2005 a few weeks ago. According to a 
preliminary analysis by the American Council for an Energy Efficient 
Economy, our act would yield four times the natural gas savings or 
production of last year's energy bill. In other words, our bill would 
make up seven of the eight TFC of America's projected shortfall in 
natural gas by 2020. That is one way to lower natural gas prices.
  I suggested this morning--and some members of the committee seemed to 
respond well to the idea--that we think of this legislation we are 
beginning to work on in the Senate as the ``clean energy act of 2005.'' 
Along with some of my colleagues, I support legislation to reduce 
carbon and other pollutants in our air. But none of these caps on 
pollution will do the job. None will produce an adequate supply of low-
cost, reliable, American-produced, clean energy. The only way to do 
that is, first, aggressive conservation and, secondly, to aggressively 
transform the way we produce energy.
  In writing our bill, we have to keep in mind what the Finance 
Committee of the Senate will do with the tax part of this bill. Some of 
this Energy bill will be in the Environment and Public Works Committee, 
some of it is in our Energy Committee, and some of it is in the Finance 
Committee--the tax part. So it all eventually will come together to the 
floor, where I am sure there will be even more amendments.
  But the reason--in our deliberations this week and next week in the 
Energy Committee we have to keep in mind what the Finance Committee is 
doing--is we have limited resources. This is not going to be a $30 
billion bill. Our Budget Committee says the Energy bill will be an $11 
billion bill over the next 5 years. That is what it will cost in direct 
spending and tax credits. The administration hopes it will be even 
smaller--an $8 billion bill. We won't lower prices if we spend our 
money on more tax credits to oil companies, and we will not lower 
prices if we continue current policies and spend $3.7 billion over the 
next 5 years, or nearly one-third of what the administration wants us 
to spend, on building giant windmills that produce puny amounts of 
high-cost, unreliable power, and destroy the landscape. We don't need a 
national windmill policy; we need a national clean energy policy.
  It is important for us to know what the tax committee is doing 
because it is important for us to know, as I mentioned, that, for 
example, if the tax committee continues its production tax credit for 
so-called renewable energy--$3.7 billion over the next 5 years of the 
$8 billion or $11 billion we have is gone, and we don't have it to 
build clean coal gas plants, for credits for hybrid cars, for credits 
for new nuclear--the things that will make a difference for us. Of that 
$3.7 billion, 70 percent of it will be spent on windmills. So current 
policies would say, if we have $8 billion or $11 billion to spend--the 
total we have to spend on energy--we would spend a large part on these 
giant windmills, which raise prices, only work 20, 25, or 30 percent of 
the time, are being abandoned in many countries that started using 
them, and absolutely destroy the American landscape, because they are 
100 yards tall, wider than jumbo jets, make noise up to a half a mile 
away.
  Here are some of the specific steps I believe we should take to 
conserve and transform production. Many of these proposals are in the 
Alexander-Johnson legislation we introduced a few weeks ago. Several 
have been incorporated in Chairman Domenici's draft before our 
committee. Here are a few examples in the areas of conservation, first, 
and in the area of transforming production:
  In conservation, consumer education. A 4-year national consumer 
education program to reduce the demand for energy, tailored after the 
successful California program, could avoid energy consumption of about 
20 powerplants over 4 years.
  Efficiency standards. Higher appliance and equipment standards for 
natural gas efficiency could save the equivalent of 24 1,000-megawatt 
powerplants by 2020.
  Cogeneration. Regulatory relief enabling manufacturers to more easily 
produce their own power and steam from a single source would save money 
and energy and reduce pollutants.
  Efficient electricity generation. Incentives to encourage utilities 
to utilize their natural gas plants based on efficiency--we call that 
efficient dispatch--to increase their efficiency as much as 40 percent. 
In plain English, there are old natural gas plants and there are new 
natural gas plants. The new ones use a lot less natural gas than the 
old ones to produce the same amount of power. Using gas from the new 
ones first would save a lot of gas.
  Oil savings. Last session of Congress, the Congress adopted a plan 
Senator Landrieu and I recommended to direct the administration to come 
up with a plan that would reduce by 1 million barrels per day by 2015 
our use of gasoline.
  Senator Johnson and I in our legislation suggest the administration 
adopt a plan to reduce gasoline use by 1.75 million barrels per day. 
This would save enough gasoline to equal twice the anticipated 
production from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
  And finally, in terms of conservation, another important idea is 
support for hybrid and advanced diesel vehicles. Most of this will have 
to come from the Finance Committee. But the National Commission on 
Energy Policy, which a lot of us have been reading, both Democrats and 
Republicans, ``A Bipartisan Strategy to Meet America's Challenges,'' 
has a number of excellent ideas in it.
  One of them is $1.5 billion over 5 years in manufacturer and consumer 
incentives for domestic production and purchase of efficient hybrid 
electric and advanced diesel vehicles. Hybrid vehicles use about 60 
percent of the gasoline conventional vehicles use. The Commission 
wisely suggested that we have some loan guarantees or tax credits. We 
might do the loan guarantees in our own legislation in the Energy 
Committee to help make sure those hybrid vehicles and clean diesel 
vehicles are built in the United States.
  The other area in which we need to move boldly, and I hope we will, 
is in transforming the way we produce energy. At the head of the list 
has to be nuclear power. There is a lot of talk in this body about 
global warming and carbon. Mr. President, 70 percent of the carbon-free 
energy we produce in the United States comes from nuclear power. Again, 
Seventy percent of the carbon-free energy we produce in the United 
States comes from nuclear power. And in the next 5, 10, 15 years, if we 
are serious about global warming, reducing the amount of carbon in the 
air and setting an example for the rest of the world to do the same, we 
will appropriate at least $2 billion for research and development and 
loan guarantees to help start at least two new advanced technology 
plants.
  We have not built a new nuclear powerplant in America since the 
1970s. TVA, the Tennessee Valley Authority, fortunately, is reopening 
Browns Ferry, one of its plants. This will basically be a new plant. 
Yet France produces 80 percent of its power using nuclear energy. Japan 
builds a new nuclear powerplant every year. Our Navy operates 70, 80, 
90 nuclear vessels. I guess the number is classified; I do not know the 
exact number. They have never had one single, not one single accident 
with those reactors since the

[[Page S5371]]

1950s. Yet here we are, the most scientifically advanced nation in the 
world, worried about air pollution, worried about the need for low-
cost, reliable supply of power, many are worried about global warming 
and carbon in the air, and we have not built a new nuclear powerplant 
since the 1970s. We should start.
  The second best hope for transforming our way of producing a low-
cost, reliable supply of American-produced energy is coal. We need a 
national coal gasification strategy. Again, both Democratic and 
Republican Members have been studying this very carefully. I suggest $2 
billion in loan guarantees for the deployment of six coal gasification 
plants by 2013 and $2 billion for industrial applications of coal 
gasification.
  Clean coal gasification, very simply, is taking coal, of which we 
have plenty, hundreds of years of supply, and turning it into gas and 
making electricity from it, either in freestanding powerplants or 
letting industries do that to produce their own power as, for example, 
Eastman does in Kingsport, TN.
  Next we should focus on carbon capture and sequestration from coal 
plants. Coal gasification eliminates most of the problems we have with 
mercury, nitrogen, and sulfur, but it still produces carbon. If we 
could find a way to capture that carbon and put it away somewhere, 
sequester it, we would have created right there, in addition to nuclear 
power, a way to have a fairly permanent supply of low-cost, reliable, 
adequate American-produced energy.
  That technology is not mature yet, but we need a research program to 
demonstrate commercial scale carbon capture and geological 
sequestration at a variety of sites as well as research to reduce 
capital costs of processes to sequester carbon. That is also one of the 
recommendations of the National Commission on Energy Policy.
  As many leading environmental groups have pointed out, coal 
gasification and carbon capture is the best strategy for the rest of 
the world. Even if we clean up our air, even if somehow we limit our 
production of carbon, if China, India, and Brazil build hundreds and 
hundreds of dirty coal plants around the world, it will not matter what 
we do because the air goes around the world, and we will end up 
breathing it, too.
  So it is urgent that we move ahead with advanced nuclear technology 
and with advanced coal gasification and carbon capture and 
sequestration, not just for us, but in hopes that the rest of the world 
will adopt our technology and, therefore, make our air safer and 
cleaner and make us less dependent on foreign oil.
  We need to increase our supply of domestic natural gas, and there are 
specific ways in the Alexander-Johnson legislation to do that. I hope 
the Senate bill adopts those ideas.
  No. 1, we should provide the Department of Interior with the legal 
authority to issue ``natural gas only'' leases. Some of the oil 
companies are saying, ``What do you do if you find oil?'' We are not 
the experts; they are. If the State of Virginia or North Carolina, or 
some other State prefers to look for natural gas, I would like for them 
to have that option, and today the Secretary does not have that option.
  No. 2, we should instruct the Department of Interior to draw the 
State boundary according to established international law between 
Alabama and Florida regarding lease 181 and lease portions of it not in 
Florida by December 31, 2007.
  That may sound very technical, but here is what that means. The 
Secretary should draw the State line out into the water, which should 
have been done years ago. The part that is in Florida can't be drilled 
on because of the moratorium. The part that is in Alabama could be. 
Some estimates say 20 percent of the natural gas that is produced in 
the Gulf of Mexico over the next several years could come from that new 
part of lease 181 in Alabama. That would lower natural gas prices.
  Finally, it allows States to selectively waive the Federal moratoria 
on offshore production and collect significant revenues from such 
production.
  If Tennessee had a coastline--I know Georgia does--but if Tennessee 
had one, here is what I would do. I would put some gas rigs so far out 
in the ocean that nobody could see them. I would take that money and I 
would put it in an endowment of Tennessee colleges and universities so 
they would be the best funded and gradually the best colleges and 
universities in America. Second, I would take the rest of the money and 
I would lower taxes.
  That would be a pretty good platform for a Governor. I wish I could 
do it in Tennessee, but maybe a Governor of New Jersey or Georgia or 
Florida or Virginia will want to do that. I think they should have that 
option.
  Finally--I said finally, but one other thing on domestic natural gas. 
We should take part of these revenues from offshore drilling and create 
a conservation royalty. That royalty would be equally shared by all the 
States in the Land and Water Conservation Fund and wildlife grants. We 
should take that money and invest it in conservation so an 
environmental burden becomes an environmental benefit.
  There are a couple of other things I would specifically like to 
mention. We are going to have to temporarily increase the foreign 
supply of natural gas. We have no option if we want lower natural gas 
prices. We do that by streamlining the permitting of facilities for 
bringing LNG from overseas to the United States. We need to give the 
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission exclusive authority for siting and 
regulating LNG terminals while still preserving States' authorities 
under the Coastal Zone Management Act, Clean Water Act, and the Clean 
Air Act. Renewable power is an important part of what we ought to do. 
Regarding solar power, the production tax credit now in the law for 
solar power really isn't enough to make solar power a viable option. We 
should increase that over the next several years. We should adopt the 
work that many Democrats, and President Bush, and many Republicans have 
worked on to encourage hydrogen fuel cell initiatives.
  We should require that FERC grant or deny a terminal pipeline 
application within 1 year. We should clarify the permitting processes 
for pipelines and natural gas storage facilities.
  These are specific steps. They are aggressive steps. But they are the 
kind of steps we need to take.
  I make these remarks, as I said at the beginning, because Senator 
Domenici and Senator Bingaman, both of whom have been here for a long 
time, have worked pretty hard to give us a chance to have the right 
kind of clean energy bill. I believe the American people expect us in 
the Senate to know that natural gas prices are driving jobs overseas 
and are raising prices for farmers. They expect us to know they are 
having a hard time affording the cost of gasoline. They expect us to 
take steps to do something about it. Only the steps like the ones I 
have mentioned will create a true Clean Energy Act of 2005. Only steps 
like these will produce adequate conservation and adequate supply of 
reliable, low-cost, American-produced, clean energy. Only steps like 
these will lower prices and save the United States from the next big 
surprise: The surprise to our pocketbooks because we failed to prepare 
for the oncoming energy crisis.

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