[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 78 (Tuesday, June 14, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6439-S6445]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2005

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the hour of 10 a.m. 
having arrived, the Senate will proceed to the consideration of H.R. 6, 
which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 6) to ensure jobs for our future with secure, 
     affordable, and reliable energy.

  Mr. DOMENICI. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sununu). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, so the Senate will have an idea what we 
are trying to do, the first amendment we are trying to offer up is in 
the process of being completed in a bipartisan manner, the ethanol 
amendment. We don't know exactly when that will be ready. It looks as 
though they are working on the last clearances or clarification of 
words. I was told a while

[[Page S6440]]

ago it may be an hour, it may be less. That will give us a chance to 
speak. In Senator Bingaman's absence, we agreed that after our 
statements, Senator Nelson will speak.
  Mr. President, I think the most important thing to start with here is 
that this bill before us cleared the Energy and Natural Resources 
Committee, after years of stalemate, by a rather incredible vote of 21 
to 1. Some would think perhaps that doesn't mean a great deal. But to 
the Senator from New Mexico, as chairman of this committee, I think it 
is very important. I think it means that, for once, Republicans and 
Democrats have seen an American problem of real significance and have 
tried very, very hard to see if they could cooperate at every level, 
with every amendment, and give everybody a chance to argue, present, 
win, lose, and produce a bill.
  I will start by saying that is one of the big differences between why 
we are here today and what we are here about. I think it means that 
eventually the American people and their great concern finally bubbles 
up, and I hope partisanship disappears and we try to get a bill. 
Partisanship might not be over because when you get to the floor, there 
is still a chance to be partisan, and that is all right. The thing is, 
we want very much--and I use ``we'' because I speak for my friend, 
Senator Bingaman--to get a bill. That means the Senate is going to have 
a lot of time but perhaps not as much as last time or the time before, 
when we had literally hundreds of amendments left when we finished 
debate. And only through good fortune were we able to go to conference, 
in a very unordinary way, and we lost on the floor for reasons that the 
Chair and others understand.
  Having said that, let me say there is no question that this great 
country, with this rather fantastic economy, with its leadership role 
in terms of security, is in a position where we need a bill that 
enhances America's energy supply, maximizes conservation, and that 
produces clean energy. So what we are talking about is an American 
Clean Energy Act that will produce security of supply, affordability 
and, ultimately, national security and prosperity.
  It sounds as though that is a rather auspicious hope for a bill, and 
I am not here saying everything about it is perfect, nor am I saying 
some could not find ways to criticize it and say that perhaps it could 
be done a better way. But remember, we are in the Senate, where 
Senators have to get a chance to work their will, where there is a 
myriad of ideas about how America should move through this very, very 
difficult time.
  I want to say right up front that I wish we were here saying we could 
go back 25 years and make some big changes so we were not having such a 
serious problem with reference to crude oil and the requirement that we 
import so much. Of that importation, a huge amount, 75 percent, goes 
to transportation. Americans should know that means automobiles, that 
means SUVs, trucks, and everything that has to do with moving us 
around. We decided years ago that cheap oil, even if it came from 
overseas, should come to America and feed this desire for prosperity 
and mobility and transportation, which was one of our ways of providing 
our freedom. Now, 25 to 30 years later, we are in one gigantic bind, in 
that we cannot produce enough oil to meet this need.

  As a matter of fact, today, as we stand here, the United States has 
diminished regularly its ability to produce the quantity of oil that it 
produces so that in the world we are no longer a major producer; we are 
No. 6. If you look out in the world, we are the sixth largest 
producer--and fading. There is nothing we can do about it, in terms of 
gigantic steps forward. We can, and this bill attempts to, enhance our 
ability to produce oil on American soil, where oil exists. We attempt 
to create a better format for permitting and drilling and acquiring 
American oil, and then, as an aside, there will be a major debate 
later--not on this bill--as to what we do, if anything, with the oil of 
America that is in Alaska, which we frequently call and discuss as 
``ANWR''.
  Nonetheless, in this bill, we have tried, with a degree of 
reasonableness, to say we are going to insist that we save 1 million 
barrels of oil a year, as far as what we use, by saying to the 
President: You use whatever means at your disposal to save a million 
barrels. And we give him that authority. Anybody who thinks we can do 
way more than that--I hope everybody understands that that is a 
discussion that doesn't have a great deal of merit, and it is beyond 
the realm of the responsible and reality.
  Having said that, in addition to that 1 million barrels, this bill is 
laden with opportunities for additional savings because we are 
promoting hybrid cars, and I am sure the tax bill, which would be 
attached to this, will further enhance the use of hybrid cars, which is 
a great energy saver.
  In addition, while some are critical, we will produce a very major 
ethanol bill before we are finished. The finishing touches are being 
put on it now. That particular bill will say to America, produce the 
maximum amount of ethanol, and ethanol will be used to mix with 
derivatives of crude oil and, yes, indeed, that will have a tremendous 
impact on how much oil we have to import from overseas from foreign 
countries. I will get to the specifics on that shortly.
  At the same time, that particular aspect of the bill produces a lot 
of jobs. As a matter of fact, as I spoke of this bill at the inception 
and I spoke about prosperity, I spoke about security, I should have 
said to Americans it also will produce jobs because, with an abundance 
of energy, we are more competitive; with an abundance of alternative 
sources of energy, we get stronger in terms of our ability to compete, 
which means this is a jobs bill.
  So it is a jobs bill, a security bill, a clean air bill, and a clean 
energy bill. Add all of that up, it is a tremendous step forward for 
the United States.
  I will speak for a minute about one of the most important commodities 
that we use in the United States: it is that marvelous product called 
natural gas. We are very grateful and fortunate in America that we do 
produce a lot of our own natural gas, but I regret to say that we have 
begun to use it in such abundance because we started about 8, 9, or 10 
years ago putting natural gas in all of our new electric powerplants.
  Understand that powerplants in America and in the world produce 
electricity that goes into a grid that is distributed out. If anyone is 
wondering how important it is, turn on the lights, and that is 
electricity that came from some far away power company. In the United 
States, powerplants receive their basic energizing from a number of 
sources. Currently, 20.5 percent of America's energy comes from nuclear 
power. We have not built a new nuclear power plant in almost two 
decades. Energy from nuclear power is undergoing a renaissance. It is 
beginning to percolate up as something that many more people think is a 
real, bona fide source of electricity and energy for the future.
  I am well aware that the occupant of the chair, the distinguished 
junior Senator from New Hampshire, is a staunch proponent of nuclear 
power. I recall vividly his father, who had been Governor of the 
granite State many years ago, discussing with this Senator way before 
people were talking about it that we ought to move ahead with nuclear 
power. That is one source.
  This bill, in a number of ways--and when the tax bill is finished and 
gets before us, that will finish the requirements--will push us in the 
direction of saying let us move ahead with nuclear power, provided we 
follow all of the rules, regulations, and laws because we have 
concluded that it is as safe, if not safer, than any other source of 
energy.
  In addition, this bill would be a producer of clean energy. Nuclear 
is one of them. Secondly, we are a country while on the one hand not so 
blessed because we use so much crude oil and do not have enough, we are 
a country that is laden with coal. Right now the largest source of 
electricity produced in America comes from coal.
  In numerous ways, this bill is a boost and sends a real powerful 
signal that we want to invest in new technology to produce clean coal 
for clean powerplants. We even provide incentives for the production of 
new coal transformation plants where we will begin to produce clean 
energy and capture the carbon that is one of the negative aspects of 
burning coal today.
  Harkening back to natural gas, this bill does another very important 
thing.

[[Page S6441]]

We must bring down over time, if we can, the price of natural gas. 
People wonder what we can do in other areas, but natural gas is a 
feedstock in America. It is fertilizer, it is jobs, it is agriculture, 
it is the feedstock for many other products in our country. I believe 
we are paying the highest price in the world today for natural gas.
  In this bill, we provide for a better way to site and locate 
liquefied natural gas--commonly called LNG--ports in the United States. 
We say they cannot be delayed indefinitely. If they are safe, then the 
Federal Government ultimately can get involved and see that we do them. 
It is important that we do that.
  I did not mention everything. There are so many other aspects of this 
bill, but I want to talk about conservation because there are some who 
do not think conservation is the kind of thing that is important in an 
energy bill. It is vitally important, and I compliment those who have 
pursued it with vigor, led by my good friend, Senator Bingaman, who has 
pursued conservation for a long time.
  This bill has very major conservation aspects. The amount of 
conservation that will be forthcoming in this bill is astounding. From 
what we understand, this bill will give us an opportunity, with 
reference to the use of energy from powerplants, to have the 
equivalent, if I am correct, of 50 powerplants of 1,000 megawatts over 
time. Just think of that. That is rather major. We could go on and talk 
about many other aspects, but Senator Bingaman will talk about the bill 
from his vantage point.

  I close by saying that renewables are important. This bill recognizes 
renewables in many aspects and ways. Clearly, we promote fuel cells. We 
fund it. We encourage its research. Clearly, it is an energy source of 
the future. It will be part of making us more independent and clearly 
help us even in our transportation problems with reference to fuel.
  Likewise, there is a section of this bill that I believe is about as 
innovative as anything we have done, and it has to do with incentives 
for building new and innovative sources of energy. In this bill, we 
call that title incentives. What we have done in the bill is provided 
for a new way for the United States, through the Secretary of Energy, 
to make decisions about new technology applied to pilot projects that 
might be built in various kinds of new technological breakthrough 
activities. It will be a provision that will be known as the loan 
guarantee provision, but it is different in that whoever applies will 
pay the risk insurance costs, and then they will borrow on an 80/20 
basis. That means the U.S. Treasury should come through this with no 
actual cost to the Government.
  According to our budget provisions and the law that provides for loan 
guarantees, it will not cost the Treasury and will be a very big source 
of new and exciting applications for the United States of new 
innovation, which among all the things we have mentioned--the 
breakthroughs in coal gasification, the breakthroughs in many other 
areas of technology--are really going to be important in making America 
more secure, producing more jobs, producing a society that indeed 
continues to be prosperous. So this is a bill that has great efficiency 
and conservation built in.
  On the electric front, I mentioned production of electricity, but I 
also want to remind everybody this bill also should provide for a 
framework where we will not have blackouts in the future. That is an 
easy one to remember. Even the young people here remember blackouts 
because they just occurred a while ago.
  We have a reliability section which everybody in the business says is 
high time we have because everyone will have the same reliability 
standards, and we hope blackouts will become a thing of the past.
  I mentioned ethanol. I note there is one of the strongest proponents 
of ethanol on the floor, and I say to the distinguished Senator, I hope 
we get a good ethanol bill. Thanks to his efforts and many others, we 
should get one that produces literally thousands of jobs, billions of 
gallons of gasoline, and millions of barrels of oil saved from 
overseas.
  When we add that all together, the hybrid cars that will be 
produced--and I just heard the other day that if we continue to 
stimulate the purchase of hybrids, and if indeed they are produced as 
they have been, and if American manufacturers will get to where they 
are producing them so that it is not just Japanese hybrids, we should 
have in the not too distant future the equivalent of a million cars a 
year that would be hybrids. That will be a huge saver along with the 
other things that we are doing.
  I want to add two things that are not in this bill that are very 
important to our future. Separate and apart, as everybody remembers, we 
produced a proposal that should bring natural gas down from Alaska into 
Chicago, a huge pipeline, one of America's major construction projects. 
I do not want to overstate the case because it is not in this bill, but 
what we are trying to say is everything put together, this is where we 
are going. When that is completed, there will be a huge new supply of 
natural gas coming into our country, along with what we are discussing 
in this bill regarding other fronts. I will not give the details of 
what the ethanol provisions will do for our country, but it is obvious 
that will be discussed many times over.

  I can get it now. It will reduce crude oil imports by 2 billion 
barrels and reduce the outflow of dollars to foreign oil producers by 
$64 billion. It will create 234,000 new jobs. It will add $200 billion 
to the GDP between 2005 and 2012, and it will create $6 billion in new 
investment, much to go to States that are currently called rural States 
that truly need the economic development that will come with it.
  Actually, because it is agricultural products and because of the add-
on that will occur in the development of ethanol, U.S. household 
incomes could, indeed, go up substantially overall, as much as $43 
billion.
  This bill has provisions and ideas that came from every Senator. 
Senator Bingaman remembers on his side of the aisle four or five 
Senators have major provisions they got in this bill. Senator Bingaman 
and I negotiated out a number that were his ideas. I worked hard on the 
nuclear section. As I said, I think this bill, with the tax provisions, 
is going to cause a renaissance in nuclear power. In fact, I believe it 
is fair to say we will have a nuclear powerplant started in this 
country, ground turned, within 5 years--and I think that is the 
outside.
  Three consortia applied for pre-permitting under our rather new law 
for the expeditious handling of nuclear power permits. I mean 
expeditious only in that they will not have to stop over so many times. 
It will be clearly reviewed and have to meet standards, but they will 
not stop six or eight times from the construction until the end.
  And we do provide some assurance to those who will fund those 
powerplants that they will not get stuck midway through construction; 
that they will be able to complete the powerplants.
  I hope I have not neglected important issues, but the most important 
is we have done our very best to get a bipartisan bill. We have done 
our very best to send the right kind of messages to the world that, if 
we get this, America is alive in terms of our energy security, our jobs 
for the future, our competitiveness and reduction in the costs of some 
of the major basic energy sources, and, yes, cleaner air, cleaner 
coal--cleaner electricity production. If you add it up, it is truly an 
American Clean Energy Act.
  With that, I understand my fellow colleague from New Mexico would 
like to give his statement on the bill and I yield at this time.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. DOMENICI. Please.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Could the distinguished chairman or ranking 
member of the committee inform the Senator from Florida at what point--
maybe after the caucus lunch--we will be able to huddle up to finalize 
the suggested colloquy that we have been discussing?
  Mr. DOMENICI. The time got away. It is almost 12.
  How long will my colleague take?
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I should not take more than 15 minutes.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Unless there is something intervening, the Senator can 
speak right after that.

[[Page S6442]]

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I thank the Chairman, but I was asking a 
different question. I was wondering when we would be able to have some 
substantive discussion on a future colloquy that we would have on the 
floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI. We all agreed that the next issue, the next item is 
going to be an amendment on ethanol. It is being gotten ready. We would 
take it up, but you understand when you do ethanol it is not one 
person, it is both sides of the aisle and 10 or 15 Senators. They are 
almost finished. That will be the next item.
  If you are referring to a colloquy with respect to coastal offshore 
drilling, we are working on something with you and Senator Martinez, 
both sides, and I don't know when we will have that ready. It is being 
worked on right now. But this side does not have any desire to delay 
that. We have to bring Senator Landrieu and other Senators in on that--
Senator Vitter--and we will do that as soon as we can, I assure you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The junior Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me first congratulate our chairman, 
Senator Domenici, on successfully bringing this bill through the 
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and to the Senate floor. As 
he indicated, the vote to report the bill from committee was 21 to 1--
nearly unanimous. That vote is a testament, not only to what is 
contained in the bill but also to the process he followed when moving 
the bill to the Senate floor.
  It has been over 4 years since President Bush released his energy 
policy plan. I believe President Bush was right to want to fashion a 
comprehensive energy policy for the Nation. President Clinton had such 
a policy document put together by a task force under Secretary of 
Energy Federico Pena. The first President Bush also had a national 
energy strategy document that was put together by then-Secretary of 
Energy James Watkins, after numerous public hearings around the 
country.
  The fact that three successive Presidents have seen the need for 
comprehensive energy policy illustrates an important fact; that is, a 
good energy policy does not happen automatically. Energy markets are 
not inherently free markets and the short-term thinking that drives 
much corporate behavior in America is often mismatched to the long-term 
energy needs of the country.
  As one example, if you look at the utility sector, you can see that 
our generation mix in recent years has strongly skewed toward new 
plants based on natural gas. But we now find that our long-term supply 
picture for natural gas cannot accommodate this additional demand 
without significant increases in price for all gas consumers.
  Energy policy is something that requires intentional forethought and 
planning. I remember former Chairman Bob Galvin of Motorola saying at 
one point that there are certain things a country needs to set out to 
do on purpose. I believe, along with my colleagues on the Democratic 
side, a good, comprehensive energy policy is one of those things. I 
believe what we should try to do on purpose can be summarized under 
four basic principles.
  The first principle is that we need to increase our supplies of 
energy from all available sources. Every potential source of energy 
will be required in order to meet our energy needs in the future. We 
need to make sure that resources that have not yet been as extensively 
developed as they might otherwise be, such as renewable energy, get the 
policy assist they need to make their maximum contribution.
  The second principle is we need to ensure that the energy we do 
produce is transported as effectively as possible and is consumed as 
efficiently as possible. Our national energy system depends on a 
critical infrastructure of ports and pipelines and transmission wires 
and other modes of moving energy from one place to another. Building 
and maintaining that infrastructure is difficult and it is expensive. 
We need to make sure we have policies so consumers are not hurt by 
price spikes and other problems caused by bottlenecks in the energy 
system.
  Once energy reaches its point of end use, it is important that it not 
be wasted. Improving the efficiency of energy use in appliances, in 
commercial equipment, in industrial processes, and in transportation 
will lead to two important goals: lowering the price for all energy 
users and less strain on our energy infrastructure.
  The third principle of a good, comprehensive energy policy is that we 
need to make sure it meshes well with other important national 
policies. It is especially important the energy policy have good 
synergy with environmental policy. Nowhere is this more clear, in my 
view, than in the case of global warming. Mr. President, 98 percent of 
the carbon dioxide produced in the United States is associated somehow 
with energy production and use. We cannot afford an energy policy that 
does not take into account environmental and climate impact, just as we 
cannot afford to have a climate policy that ignores energy impacts.
  Finally, because we rely heavily on market forces and signals to 
shape our energy choices, we need to be sure that we have energy 
markets that are transparent and that are fair to consumers. I believe 
when we have competitive energy markets that work fairly, everyone in 
the energy chain, from the producer to the consumer, benefits.
  As the California electricity crisis a few years ago showed--and not 
just the California crisis but the crisis that afflicted most of the 
west coast--when energy markets are not structured properly, when those 
markets allow for hidden and manipulative practices, great economic 
damage can be done.
  These four principles are the foundation I hope we have before us in 
this energy bill that is coming to the Senate for consideration. I 
believe the Senate will ultimately be judged in the area of energy 
policy, first by whether our bill makes a concrete difference in 
bringing new energy resources and technologies into the mix; second, by 
whether we make sure that we use advanced technology to save as 
much energy as possible; third, by our ability to protect the 
environment and respond to challenges such as global warming; and, 
finally, by our ability to shape energy markets for the future that 
protect and empower consumers.

  At the beginning of the markup of the bill in the Energy Committee, I 
expressed my appreciation to my colleague, Senator Domenici, for the 
way he and his staff had worked with Democratic Members and staff in 
preparing for the markup. I told him that he deserved great credit for 
a good start, and I looked forward to working with him to see if we 
could have a similarly good finish in the committee.
  We had a very good finish in the committee. We are now having a good 
start on the Senate floor. This bill is a good starting point, but 
there are several important issues with which we need to deal in the 
full Senate that we were not able to address in committee. Three of 
these issues deal with providing more certainty to all those associated 
with our energy system so that they can make rational investments in 
the energy technologies of the future.
  First, we need to provide renewable energy with a more certain place 
in our future. Renewable energy provides nowhere near the contribution 
to our energy mix today that it could or that it should. In the last 
Congress, we expanded the scope of production tax credits for renewable 
energy, but these tax credits expire after only a very short time. 
Thus, they do not provide the needed long-term market signals. I 
believe we need to supplement these tax credits with a long-term 
national renewable electricity standard. By having a clear, certain 
requirement that 10 percent of all electricity generation comes from 
renewables in the year 2020, we would give industry the certainty it 
needs to successfully undertake new projects to improve the diversity 
of our electricity generation mix and to relieve some of the pressure 
that is leading to high natural gas prices.
  Second, we need to deal responsibly with global warming. The electric 
industry and many other sectors of our economy are gripped with 
uncertainty about the future of carbon-based energy and products in a 
world that is increasingly concerned about global warming. There is a 
need for certainty about the regulatory framework that would be in 
effect regarding future investments to ameliorate the threat of global 
warming. Under our current voluntary approach to the problem we will 
likely never see these new investments,

[[Page S6443]]

not because they are not needed but because the economic picture is so 
clouded.
  Third, we need more clarity on how we plan to deal with our 
dependence on foreign oil. We need to see if we can spur additional 
petroleum production in a way that is environmentally responsible, and 
we need to see if we can find ways to use less oil in the American 
economy. If we can trim the growth in our national demand for oil, we 
will relieve both our dependence on imports and the pressure on our 
national infrastructure of oil terminals and pipelines and refineries, 
all of which are operating near their capacity today.
  An energy bill is a place for clear purposes. I hope that when the 
full Senate has completed its consideration of this measure, it will 
have expressed a willingness to take clear and forceful new action to 
ensure that our energy future is clean and abundant and affordable.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burr). The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I will address some initial 
comments to both the chairman and the ranking member of the committee. 
Senator Bingaman and the chairman of the committee, Senator Domenici, 
have been very kind as we have discussed what is in the interests of my 
State and other coastal States. I will lay out my case. I want everyone 
to understand this is the initial laying out of the case. I hope the 
version I will give, over the next 15 or 20 minutes, will be the only 
speech I have to give on the subject of oil drilling off the coast of 
Florida. I hope we are not going to have to address this issue. I hope 
I will not have to address this because somebody--a Member of this 
Senate--will not be coming forth with an amendment to change the 
existing moratorium on oil drilling off the Outer Continental Shelf.
  The United States is depicted on this map in green; the Outer 
Continental Shelf area subject to the moratorium is off the Pacific 
coast from Washington in the North down to the southern end of 
California; on the Atlantic coast, off the tip of Maine all the way 
down to Florida; and the Outer Continental Shelf off of the gulf coast 
of Florida. This area depicted in blue is where there are existing, 
active leases for oil and gas drilling off of the coast of Alabama, 
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.
  A better description of this is depicted in this map. Before I get to 
the details, I hope this Senator from Florida and this Senator's 
colleague from Florida, Senator Martinez, do not have to give lengthy 
speeches. We are prepared to utilize the rules of the Senate in order 
to keep this moratorium in place. It is not only the Senators from 
Florida who are interested in this, but the Senators from Georgia, 
South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New 
Jersey, New York, and all the way up into New England, as well as the 
Senators from California, Oregon, and Washington State.
  There are a lot of Senators who, particularly when the geology shows 
there is not much oil and gas, have other interests we have to face in 
a tradeoff. What are those? In Florida, obviously, it is the 
extraordinary $50-billion-a-year tourism industry, as evidenced by some 
of the most pristine beaches in the world which spawn a major part of 
the attraction to our guests that come to Florida to enjoy this kind of 
environment. Or this kind of environment: An extraordinary place of 
clear water, of beautiful beach sand--places that people love to come 
to for vacation and to enjoy the bounty of our extraordinary nature in 
our State.
  That, of course, is one reason we do not want oil rigs out there. We 
do not want oil rigs because of the chance of despoiling that 
environment. Think of the Senators from Georgia. They have a place 
called Sea Island. They have a place called Jekyll Island. They have a 
National Park in a place called Cumberland Island. Beautiful beaches.
  Imagine the Senators from South Carolina looking at the extraordinary 
part of the economy of their State that comes in from those beautiful 
beaches they have. Myrtle Beach is an example.
  Or look at the Senators from North Carolina, the extraordinary beauty 
they have. Guests to their State, including their own citizens, want to 
go to beaches like that.
  Oil rigs off the beaches are not compatible with keeping a site like 
that or like that. But there are many more reasons I will get into. I 
hope this is the only speech I will have to make. I take the chairman 
and the ranking member at their word, that they have, in fact, been 
dealing with me in good faith. We are trying to work out the language 
of a colloquy that assures the Senators from these coastal States that 
the leadership of the committee handling the bill before the Senate 
would not support a lifting of the moratorium that allows the drilling.
  However, it is particularly important to me and to Senator Martinez 
from the State of Florida because the place the administration wants to 
drill is a place called Lease Sale 181, a place drawn back years ago, 
including about 6 million acres. In 2001, along with then-Senator 
Graham, this Senator from Florida, the Governor of Florida, the 
Governor negotiated a line that is the Alabama-Florida line, an 
imaginary line due south from the border of Alabama and Florida, near 
Perdido Key, and that there would not be any part of that lease sale 
that would be agreed to.
  Thus, as to that 6 million acres in Lease Sale 181, 4 years ago in 
2001, what was agreed was there would be approximately 1.5 million 
acres offered for lease but this would be off the coast of Alabama, not 
off the coast of Florida. Since then, that 1.5 million acres has been 
offered for lease and that is proceeding through exploratory wells. 
However, it is not off of Florida.
  Why are these coastal Senators so exercised, especially the two 
Senators from Florida? Because the administration wants to expand now 
into the rest of that 4.5 million acres that begins what we see as an 
inevitable march toward the coast of Florida. That was not the 
agreement in 2001. But the administration is now trying to change that 
agreement.

  That is where we are prepared, as the Senators from Florida, to take 
our stand and not allow additional drilling.
  I return to where I started. I hope this is the only major speech I 
have to make in the Senate on the discussion of the Energy bill, other 
than other amendments I am involved in. This Senator and his colleague, 
Senator Martinez, are prepared to use the rules of the Senate--
including extended debate, if necessary--in order to prevent drilling 
off the coast of Florida.
  It is instructive to look at the entire Gulf of Mexico on this map 
generated by the Minerals Management Service, MMS, that shows in green 
the active oil and gas leases. As this shows, clearly, they are west of 
the State of Florida. There is a reason for that. The reason, 
primarily, is that the geology shows this is where the oil and gas is 
located. We can see by the darkness of the green that a lot of that is 
right off the coast of the State of Louisiana.
  There is also a reason we do not see this area with active leasing 
off the coast of Florida. Because where there were leases, they have 
been bought back, either under agreements with the administration and 
the Governor of Florida, as in the case of the Destin Dome, which is 
right here off Pensacola and Fort Walton--although there are two tracks 
or blocks there that are still available for lease after the year 2012.
  There is a reason why we do not see any here. All of those leases off 
the southwest coast of Florida have been bought back under the 
administration of the previous President Bush.
  There is another reason we do not see any, and that is because of the 
geology. They have done a bunch of test wells in the eastern gulf and 
they have come up dry.
  And there are more reasons. In the course of my explaining all of 
these reasons, let me say this is not the first time this Senator has 
been involved in trying to keep drilling off the coast of Florida. When 
this Senator was a Member of the House of Representatives, in the 
middle 1980s, representing a district that included east central 
Florida--Orlando, Cape Canaveral, my hometown of Melbourne, this 
general area of the east coast of Florida--there was a Secretary of the 
Interior named James Watt, under President Reagan, who was bound and 
determined he was going to offer for sale leases for oil and gas 
drilling from Cape Hatteras, NC, all the way south to Fort Pierce, FL. 
This

[[Page S6444]]

Senator, then a member of the House of Representatives, went to work to 
defeat it, and defeated it in the Appropriations Committee of the 
House.
  But 2 years later, under the next Secretary of the Interior named Don 
Hodell, they came back with the same plan in the mid-1980s. At that 
point, they were bound and determined they were going to start 
drilling. They were going to start drilling off the coast of the State 
of the Presiding Officer sitting in the chair of the President of the 
Senate right now. They were going to drill all the way down to Fort 
Pierce. We finally beat it but it was a tough fight.
  But the way we did it was we explained that you simply cannot have 
oil and gas rigs out in the Atlantic where you are dropping the solid 
rocket boosters from the space shuttle and where you are dropping the 
first stages of the expendable booster rockets coming out of the Cape 
Canaveral Air Force Station.
  A major national asset: our Eastern Test Range, where we fire our 
rockets into equatorial orbit and where, in our manned space program, 
likewise, we are launching the space shuttle into equatorial orbit.
  Well, we have a similar reason now of why we want to keep oil and gas 
rigs on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico because one of the major 
national assets of the United States is called restricted airspace. It 
is where we train our military pilots. We have--this area here is just 
the State of Florida, but the State of Florida is so key, off of the 
northeast coast of Florida and off of the State of Georgia--restricted 
airspace, but particularly here in the Eglin Gulf Test and Training 
Range, which you can see, as depicted by the white on the map, is 
almost the entire eastern section of the Gulf of Mexico.
  Why is this a major national asset? Because it is hard to create 
restricted airspace in order to train our military pilots. When Vieques 
closed down--that was the little island off of the eastern end of 
Puerto Rico where the Navy trained its pilots, all for the Atlantic 
region--when that was shut down because of the government and the 
people of Puerto Rico wanting it shut down, where do you think most of 
that training had to come? It had to come right here, and it is 
operating out of these military facilities all along the panhandle.
  It includes ranges actually in the State of Florida. But with the 
advance of technology, computers can now create virtual battlefields on 
the surface of the ocean--in this case, the surface of the Gulf of 
Mexico--in which these pilots can then train for their missions.
  Ladies and gentlemen, you cannot be training by dropping your 
ordnance in an area of the Gulf of Mexico where there are oil and gas 
rigs. You cannot have coordinated training exercises with the Navy on 
the ocean surface, the Navy underwater, and the Navy in the air, if you 
are having to deal with oil rigs. So it is another reason we simply 
have to have other considerations when the administration says they 
want to come in with lease sale 181, which is a place, almost in the 
middle of this Eglin Gulf Test and Training Range.

  By the way, why is it that most of the Navy concentrated student 
pilot training is now at Pensacola Naval Air Station and Whiting Field? 
Why is it that the joint service fighter, the F-35, training for all 
branches of the service is being done at Eglin? And why is the training 
for the new stealth fighter, the F-22, being done at Tyndall Air Force 
Base? Why? Because they have plenty of restricted airspace in which to 
train. So that is another reason we do not want to have oil rigs off 
the coast of Florida.
  In the lengthier version of my remarks, which I hope I do not have to 
give, I can give you additional reasons why we do not want it. I can 
show you all kinds of pictures that are imprinted in our memories of 
what oil does to a beach, of what oil does to sea life and waterfowl, 
and of what oil does in spills that are trying to be contained and yet 
going out of control.
  In the lengthier version of these remarks that I hope I do not have 
to give, I can show you plenty of pictures that are not the kind of 
pictures that any one of us coastal State Senators who now have a 
moratorium on oil and gas production want to have--none of us. Yet it 
is real. The possibility is there.
  So what we are facing is a situation that if we cannot get agreement 
from the chairman and the ranking member that they will oppose a change 
in the moratorium on this oil and gas drilling off the coast of and on 
the Outer Continental Shelf, we have no choice but to use the tools 
available to us in the Senate rules to prolong debate and to utilize 
various parliamentary procedures in which to get our point across.
  I do not think that is going to be necessary because of the good will 
of the chairman and the ranking member. As I speak, there are 
negotiations going on with our staffs in order to come to an agreement 
on colloquy language between Senator Martinez and me and the chairman 
and the ranking member stating that they would oppose any of these 
amendments that would allow this expansion of drilling in the Outer 
Continental Shelf and lease sale 181, which is off the coast of 
Florida.
  Mr. President, there is another reason; that is, Florida is this 
unique environment where all the forces of nature come together along 
our coast. If it is not the barrier islands that have the beautiful, 
pristine beaches that you have seen in these pictures, it is the parts 
of Florida that are the critically delicate estuaries and mangroves 
such as in the Big Bend of Florida and down south of Marco Island in 
this incredible area of mangroves called the 10,000 Islands that is so 
absolutely necessary as a part of the ending of the sheet flow of water 
that is called the River of Grass, known as the Everglades of Florida--
a unique environmental feature in the world itself.

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, will the Senator yield without losing 
his right to the floor?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I will yield to the chairman. You caught me in 
midsentence. I was about to talk about the fragility of the Keys of 
Florida, but I want to yield to my chairman because he is such a great 
chairman and he is such a good friend.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Go ahead, Senator.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. No, I want to yield.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator. I was just wondering, we 
understand your genuine concern. You are going to have plenty of 
opportunity as this bill moves along to make sure that your State is 
protected. What I would like to do, since we are going to have to go 
out because of your caucus--we do not have ours today--I wonder if you 
might consider making this first statement of yours kind of abbreviated 
so Senator Dorgan could have a little opportunity before we break. Then 
we would take our break, and, hopefully, we would have ethanol ready. 
You would not lose anything, obviously. The floor is going to be open 
to you, and you can state what you wish to state beyond what you have 
spoken here today.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Well, of course I want to work with the 
chairman. Over the weekend, this Senator sprained a muscle in his right 
leg, and the last thing he wants to do is have to stand on his feet 
with this injured leg for hours and hours. So I want to work in good 
faith with the Senator from New Mexico in working out the colloquy. 
This Senator would clearly want that colloquy to come sooner rather 
than later, as soon as our staffs finish it.
  I, of course, will yield for Senator Dorgan to make his statement, 
since we are going out in just a few minutes.
  I will just conclude by saying, I don't think there are many 
Americans who do not know the beauty and the fragility of the Florida 
Keys and the coral reefs there. That is another one of the reasons we 
have to be so sensitive about drilling off the coast of Florida.
  So at the chairman's request, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I wish to say to the Senate, the 
distinguished junior Senator from Florida, Mr. Martinez, has spoken 
with this chairman on numerous occasions about this issue. He continues 
to be as concerned as Senator Nelson about this issue. We are working 
with him--I am not sure how it is all going to turn out in terms of a 
colloquy, but we do not intend to do anything to harm Florida. We have 
already told everybody that. It is very hard to make broad-based 
commitments in advance, and it is not just up to me. There are other 
Senators, including Senator Bingaman. But we are doing our best.

[[Page S6445]]

  I want everybody to understand that both Senators are working very 
hard at this.


                         Privilege of the Floor

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor 
be granted to members of staff who will be listed hereinafter. They are 
members of the committee who will have to spend time, from time to 
time, on the floor. And I ask unanimous consent that their names be 
printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The list of names is as follows:

       Karen Billups, Colin Hayes, Lisa Epifani, Kelly Donnelly, 
     John Peschke, Frank Macchiarola, Frank Gladics, Dick Bouts, 
     Carole McGuire, Marnie Funk, Kathryn Clay, Josh Johnson, 
     Clint Williamson, and Amy Millet.

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of 
fellows and interns of the Democratic staff of the Finance Committee be 
allowed on the Senate floor for the duration of the debate on the 
Energy Bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The list is as follows:

       Brian Townsend, Cuong Huynh, Richard Litsey, Jorlie Cruz, 
     Mary Baker, Stuart Sirkin, Andrea Porter, Ashley Sparano, 
     Drew Blewett, Jake Kuipers, Rob Grayson, Katherine Bitz, 
     Danny Shervin, Paul Turner, Heather O'Loughlin, Julie Golden, 
     Julie Straus, and Adam Elkington.

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I yield to the distinguished Senator, 
Mr. Dorgan.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my understanding is the Senate is about to 
go out for the caucus on our side. It is customarily held on Tuesdays. 
My thought is, perhaps when we come back--I believe at 2:15, by 
previous consent; is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. DORGAN. I am wondering if it might be appropriate for me to be 
recognized at 2:15 for 15 minutes. Then, at that point, Senator 
Domenici and Senator Bingaman will proceed with whatever agreement they 
are going to have.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DOMENICI. There is no objection, as long as it is understood I 
have the floor when we return.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The unanimous consent request would be that 
Senator Dorgan--
  Mr. DOMENICI. The Senator from New Mexico would have the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN. At 2:30.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Yes.
  Mr. DORGAN. I would start at 2:15. That is my request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I heard the statement by my colleague from 
Florida. He is aggressive and persuasive. I must say, in the committee 
we have already had some of these discussions by some who would want to 
open the Outer Continental Shelf and have more drilling and have a 
State election and so on. We already had some of that discussion, and I 
do not know whether anybody can agree in advance to prohibit 
amendments. You cannot agree to that, certainly, or agree to oppose 
amendments you do not know exist.
  But I would say to the Senator from Florida, I do not think there is 
a ghost of a chance of us finishing this energy bill and having it 
carry some new mandate for Outer Continental Shelf production. That is 
just not going to happen, in my judgment. I think the reason it is not 
going to happen, at least in part, is for the reasons my colleague from 
Florida has described with his charts of what it would do to Florida. 
And it also relates to some concerns in other areas as well dealing 
with the Outer Continental Shelf and areas that have been set aside.
  I just want to say, I understand the presentation. I did not mean to 
be here to interrupt it. I would like to make a general statement at 
2:15 about the bill which, incidentally, I think is an excellent bill. 
It is the best energy bill we have brought to the Senate for several 
decades, in my judgment. I am going to support a couple of additions to 
it here and there. We have not done the energy independence approach, 
what is called the renewable portfolio standard. We will do that and 
some other things.
  I am proud of this bill. This is a bipartisan effort, which is 
unusual in the Senate. I hope this starts a new habit. This legislation 
moves this country in the right direction in a significant way. 
Acknowledging the concern of my colleague from Florida, when the dust 
settles, I think he will understand that the battle he wages is one he 
will win because I don't believe the Senate is going to add the 
concerns he expresses about Outer Continental Shelf production.
  I am pleased to come back at 2:15 and make a more general statement. 
I thank my colleagues from Florida and New Mexico.

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