[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 154 (Friday, November 18, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S13292]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          ENERGY CONSERVATION

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, for the last several weeks, those of us who 
serve on the Subcommittee on Health and Human Services have been trying 
to find adequate resources amongst other resources to fund LIHEAP, the 
money necessary to help low-income families provide for their comfort 
this winter. I thought it would be an appropriate time to talk about 
that for a little bit because I think Americans need to understand they 
are not without power to do a few simple things over the course of the 
next several months of this winter to help themselves as it relates to 
the heating of their own homes.
  Americans spend more than $160 billion--that is right, $160 billion--
a year on heat, cooling, lights, and living in their homes. That is an 
awful lot of money. If most Americans are like I am, I would like to 
know how I can bring that number down a little bit, how I might be able 
to tighten my belt a little or my family's budget a little bit during 
this time of extremely high-priced energy.
  We hear about record natural gas prices and 30- and 40- and 50-
percent increases in heating bills this winter for those who heat with 
natural gas. We know those who heat with home heating oil in the 
Northeast are going to pay substantially more. In the West and in the 
pipelines of the West on which my home is connected, where there is 
more gas, we are still going to be paying 25 or 30 percent more.
  What might we do about it? Let me suggest a couple of things.
  Do you know that if you lower your home heating thermostat by 2 
degrees--by 2 degrees--for every degree you lower it, you save 1 
percent on your heating bill. We were told by experts recently who were 
testifying before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, if every 
American did that this winter, by spring, we could potentially have a 
surplus in natural gas in the lower 48, and that in itself would drive 
prices down. Americans have power to help themselves if they simply 
would turn their thermostats down by 2 degrees.
  I am not going to do a ``Jimmy Carter'' on you by saying put on a 
sweater, but if you did turn your home heating thermostat down by 2 
degrees and if you did put on a sweater and if you are a couple living 
by yourself in a large home and you turn off the radiators in some of 
your bedrooms that you are not using and close the doors, there could 
literally be a dramatic savings across this country.
  If you want to change your gas price experience at the pump, instead 
of driving 70 and 75 or 80 miles per hour on the freeway, why don't you 
go back to 60 or 65? And if you turned it down and slowed it down, oil 
consumption could drop in a day--a day--in this country by 1 million 
barrels of consumption. That is the power of the American consumer if 
the American consumer wants to do something about it instead of 
pointing fingers and blaming--and there is plenty of that going around, 
and we deserve to take some of it. The consumer is not without power.
  Let me suggest this in my time remaining. Senator Bingaman and I 
would like to help in that effort. So we are going to provide 
conservation packages, packets of information to our colleagues' 
offices that they can send out in their letters to their constituents 
advising and assisting in this kind of conservation effort. We hope you 
do it. If every Senator and all Senate staffs turn off their computers 
when they go home at night--shut them down, hit the off switch, turn 
out the lights in your office. If that were done across America today, 
heating bills and energy bills would drop precipitously.
  But we are in this mode of everything on, all the lights on, the 
thermostat turned up because we are still living in the memory of 
surplus and inexpensive energy. That memory is gone. The reality is 
that the world has changed significantly, and while we scramble to 
catch up and provide increased availability of supply in the market--
and that is what we are doing and that is what the national energy 
policy passed in August is attempting to do--while that is happening, 
you know what we can do: We can help ourselves.
  So once again I say to America, turn your thermostat down a few 
degrees, put on a sweater, shut portions of your house down and take 
literally tens, if not hundreds, of dollars off your heating bill in 
the course of a winter. If we do it collectively across America, by 
spring, natural gas prices could be down dramatically, and we would not 
see the kind of job loss that is occurring today in the chemical 
industry as large manufacturing plants are shut down simply because 
they cannot afford the price of natural gas, and they are moving 
elsewhere in the world to produce their product.
  We are building pipelines, we are drilling for more natural gas out 
West and in the overthrust belts than we ever have before, and there 
are trillions of cubic feet available out there if we can get to it. We 
are making every effort to, and this administration is doing just that. 
In the interim, in the reality of a cold winter, America, you can help 
yourself. America, you can drive a little slower, you can turn your 
thermostats down, and if we were all to do that collectively, it would 
have a dramatic impact on the marketplace and on consumption.
  Does it have to be mandated by law? Need there be a law to tell you 
that you can save a little money by those actions? I would hope not. I 
would hope that the wisdom of the pocketbook would suggest that we be 
prudent as to a procedure to follow.
  Senator Bingaman and I are going to supply packets to the offices of 
our colleagues. We hope our colleagues will pass those on. We hope our 
colleagues might take the time to do a public service announcement over 
the course of the next month, talking to their folks at home about the 
opportunity and what is available. I think it is appropriate, and I 
think it is the right thing to do.
  Senator Bingaman and I have coalesced with industry to see if they 
cannot collectively begin to produce a greater message of clarity about 
the opportunity in the marketplace to conserve and to save and, in so 
doing, to lower the overall cost of energy and its impact upon the 
American economy.
  Want to give yourself a Christmas gift? Put on a sweater and turn the 
thermostat down 2 degrees.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be permitted to 
proceed for such time as I may consume in order to finish my statement. 
It will not be much more than 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KERRY. Subsequently, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator 
from Arizona, Mr. Kyl, be recognized to speak after me.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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