[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 65 (Tuesday, May 23, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4958-S4960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HURRICANE SEASON
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I know the debate today and for the past
several days has been focused on immigration. The Presiding Officer has
been active in the negotiations, and I commend him for his good work.
It has been a tough debate on a very important issue--an issue of
security, fairness, and justice. It is an issue of economics, and it
affects all of our States. It affects what America stands for. We have
spent an inordinate and appropriate amount of time on that subject.
Tonight, I come to the floor to speak about another issue very close
to my heart and to the people of Louisiana, particularly with regard to
the closeness of the arrival of the hurricane season. It is hard to
believe that we are about ready to face another hurricane season again.
June 1, a few days from now, is the first official day of the hurricane
season. It comes this year bringing a lot more fright and anxiety to
the gulf coast because we were hit by a powerful series of storms last
year that devastated parts of Florida and a great part of the gulf
coast from Mississippi through the whole of south Louisiana, into the
city of New Orleans and the metropolitan area, and then on into Texas.
And two of those storms were the worst to hit the United States of
America. The devastation and the amount of damage is still climbing. A
report I saw today was that the damage is now $150 billion and
climbing. Hurricane Andrew, which was the greatest storm to hit the
United States and to hit your State, Mr. President, was $40 billion. We
are now at $150 billion and climbing. We have lost, of course, over
1,300 people. People were killed by the storms and the flooding that
ensued from the multiple breaks in the levees that have put a major
American city and region--not just New Orleans, but St. Bernard Parish
and Plaquemines, which often get left out of the debate. They are two
of the parishes that lie south of New Orleans, as they hold the
Mississippi River, if you will, that splits their parishes in half. It
affected the southwestern part of our State as well.
That doesn't get mentioned as much as it should--little towns such as
Creole and big towns such as Lake Charles took a tough hit, and
parishes such as Vermilion and little towns such as Erath, where almost
every home was destroyed or very damaged.
Having said that, it added insult to injury that this particular
coast that got battered so badly by these storms is also America's only
energy coast. This is the only energy coast in America, the only four
States that right now will allow drilling of oil and gas off their
shores to provide for the economic vitality of this Nation and to
provide the oil and gas necessary to run the electric grid in this
country and the transportation systems in this country, and to run
energy from lights to the entire energy grid.
I have been on this floor many times in my time in the Senate--now
almost 10 years--to talk about this subject. I thought I would take a
few minutes tonight, because we are approaching hurricane season, to
remind the Senate that while immigration is a very important issue, and
we want to bring closure to that this week, I hope that very soon we
will get back to another issue of great interest and security for the
Nation, and that is the issue of energy security. It starts, in my
view, with providing some more understanding and more help to those
States that are providing the oil and the gas for this Nation, as we
seek to open up new places to drill in the Gulf of Mexico, which has
become known as a section of the gulf called lease-sale 181. I hope
that bill will be considered. It came out of the Energy Committee that
the occupant of the chair and I serve on. I think that bill will come
to the floor for some discussion.
As that bill moves to the floor and we move to the focus on energy
and energy security, I want to take a few minutes to talk about this
gulf coast area and how much we contribute and how, without some stream
of revenue--whether we get it from lease-sale 181 or from other
offshore drilling--to secure the wetlands that we are losing at an
alarming rate, to provide some energy-related protection of this
infrastructure, to provide for the restoration of these wetlands this
energy coast will continue to be at risk.
If my colleagues and the people in Congress think that $150 billion
is a lot of money, just wait until we go through a couple more
hurricane seasons to really feel the effect of underinvestment over
time, to a point where it is almost criminal. Let me repeat--an
underinvestment over time that borders on being criminal.
I have some new charts, since I have used all my old ones up for 10
years of this debate. This is a satellite photograph from USGS of all
of the pipelines and flow lines in the United States off of the shore.
I have come down here so many times to say that the offshore oil and
gas industry could not even exist if it were not for the partnership,
which we have done thus far proudly and willingly--but that is wearing
thin--we have done it proudly and supported the oil and gas industry
for now almost 45 years off of our shores. You can see this is the
Louisiana coastline. This is the Mississippi coastline. This is Texas.
This is all of the pipelines and flow lines connecting thousands of
wells that are in the Gulf of Mexico bringing oil and gas to a nation
that is thirsty for oil and needing gas, because the supply is so low
and the consumption is so high and the prices are going up. The four
States that are putting their shoulder to the wheel every day are
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. This is the picture that
proves it.
This is out on this map about 200 miles of activity. So for some
people who have said the drilling is so far off your coast that the
people of Louisiana don't have anything to do with it, let me explain
that you cannot access grids and rigs and oil and gas without
pipelines, gadgets, widgets, drills, well heads, and supply boats. It
is impossible. Every single widget, gadget, and supply boat either
comes by boat or helicopter out of one of these many ports that have
proudly supported this industry. You can see the line stops at the
Mobile Bay. The reason is because Florida, which consumes more energy
than almost any State relative to its lack of production--consumes but
has not produced. Florida is not the only State. I could show you a
chart of California and Michigan and New York--States that consume a
lot of energy but have not been willing to produce it in any way,
either by nuclear, by wind, or by strict conservation--except for
California; I will give them credit for conservation measures. But
other States won't do conservation or production.
I don't know if you can see this thin line. Last year, the industry
went ahead, because of this policy, and laid a pipeline all the way to
Florida to provide gas to Florida. But we have to drill it off of
Alabama's coast and then send it to Florida free of charge.
I am going to show you another chart that says the same thing, but it
is a little different. When I say that the gulf coast is America's only
energy coast, this is another way to look at it. Every one of these
green blocks--this goes out 200 miles into the gulf--were active leases
prior to 2003. That is the green. They are active leases issued in
2003, which were the last lease-sales; 185, 187, and 189 are the light
yellow. And then the red have been withdrawn from leasing. Not many.
The active leases issued in 2004.
Basically, the green and yellow are leases. From these leases are
produced, for the Federal Treasury--I remind everybody that we are
running a serious deficit. So besides contributing oil and gas, we also
contribute a lot of money to the Treasury. We are sending to the
Federal Government every year $6 billion. It was $2 billion when I got
here; now it is $6 billion. Before I leave, it will probably go up to
$15 billion, assuming I can get here another term. So $6 billion goes
from the royalties by passing all of the communities here that build
the widgets, gadgets, supply boats--over all the heads of the workers
that drill, over all their homes that are underwater and ruined, over
all of the wetlands that are being infringed upon, and in a fairly
critical way.
Although we have made a lot of changes in our environmental laws, the
problem is that a lot of these canals were drilled in the 1930s and
1940s. I am sorry, I wasn't born to try to help protect them then. But
like my daughter said the other day, I am born now. We tried our best
in the last couple of years, with the little money Louisiana had to do
some of this work, but we
[[Page S4959]]
cannot possibly do this work on our own. We should not have to, Mr.
President, because we send to the Federal Treasury--which is much
wealthier than the State of Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama,
three of the poorest States in the Union--and even Texas has a lot of
poor and lower middle-income people. We are subsidizing the National
Government, giving them the oil, giving them the gas, and then giving
them all the money. It just has to stop.
We need some money to restore our coast, to build levees, and to
protect the infrastructure that is at risk. We were very fortunate that
even with this powerful storm, most everybody in the industry has
worked very hard to create very good technology so that these rigs and
platforms can withstand a lot of wind pressure and strong waves. Every
time a storm comes, the industry, because it is innovative, gets better
and better. But there were some close calls with these platforms. They
are still not completely up in the gulf.
I will show you one more chart. When people say what about gas, this
is oil and gas. I will show you what the gas trunk looks like. This is
billion cubic feet flow levels. The areas do not include LNG imports.
This is just what we drill ourselves. If we put imports here, I don't
know what it would look like because nobody wants to put a liquefied
natural gas plant anywhere except where? Texas, Louisiana, and
Mississippi again. Everybody has siting problems with liquefied natural
gas that comes imported. Here we step up again and are building some of
the largest liquefied natural gas plants so we can get gas from other
places. Agriculture in every State, particularly the Midwest, needs
these gas prices to come down. They are having a great deal of
difficulty in the Midwest. They are having a great deal of difficulty
in Illinois and in New Jersey and in Delaware.
The chemical industry runs on very slim margins. So who comes to the
rescue? Louisiana and Mississippi, all the gas coming through here to
try to keep everybody happy and working. And we cannot get one penny
from these royalties in any significant way.
Well, it is not true that we have not gotten one penny. What is true
is that Senator Domenici, with his great leadership, recognized this
and has been a wonderful help and supporter. Last year, in the Energy
bill, he gave us, for the first time, a billion dollars. We were
grateful. But it is a billion dollars over a few years. We have to
divide it among the States. It sounds like a lot, but it doesn't go
very far. We need a long-term commitment so that we can count on money
year after year to do what we need to do in this community.
I want to show one more that is even more dramatic. I am going to get
to this for Texas and Mississippi and Alabama. But this shows the oil
and gas wells inside the coastal zone. This is how many wells we have.
If you would see our whole State, you could not believe it. Most of
this land is private land, unlike the Western States that came into the
union with a lot of Federal land. This is private land. So private
landowners get a royalty. That is fine. The State gets some money.
While it looks like a lot of money the State would be getting, these
wells were drilled decades ago, in many cases. Some of them are still
producing, but some of them are not.
Outside this coastal zone--this is our 3-mile line--outside this
coastal zone, according to the law which I am trying to change, we get
no revenues from these wells.
The final chart is pretty frightening, actually. This is a chart of
the hurricane tracks from 1955 to 2005. This is how many hurricanes
have hit the gulf coast and the east coast from 1955 to 2005. The blue
line is the track of Hurricane Rita, and the yellow line is the track
of Katrina. Both of these storms were at some point in their track
category 5 storms. Within 3\1/2\ weeks, they hit the east side of
Louisiana and then right to the Louisiana-Texas line.
For the State, it was terrible to have two very big storms hit, but
as a Senator, I have to tell you, I said a thanksgiving that it didn't
hit Houston straight-on because if it had hit Houston and Galveston and
put that energy sector out--Katrina had done a great deal to put out
Port Fourchon, which is the only energy port in the Nation right on the
coast--I don't know what would have happened to the lights in America.
Maybe they would have all gone off. But nobody seems to care about
that.
I promise my colleagues, as sure as I am standing here, there will be
a series of storms that plow into this gulf coast. The water is getting
warmer. I don't know how many times people have to write articles, give
speeches, or write books about the fact that global warming is
happening. One can argue about its causes, but nobody can argue that it
is actually happening. When the waters warm, any scientist will tell
you these storms are going to pick up in intensity and in frequency.
I need to ask the Congress: What more will it take? What more will it
take before we act to give the gulf coast a portion of their revenues
to protect themselves so that we can protect everyone else? What more
has to happen? How many more storms? How much more loss of property?
How many more close calls before we have to shut down the rigs and the
pipelines and put America's lights out and put our economy at even
greater risk?
I go to my office and I ask my staff: Is there some other chart we
can come up with that could show people the danger? Is there some other
speech I can give?
I might not be making myself clear, so I am asking the Senate
tonight, as we wind down the immigration bill and as we think about
moving to lease sale 181 or maybe a mini Energy bill because we have
lots of problems in the energy sector, lots of challenges, can I please
ask one more time: Can we please get some funding out of the new
revenues that are being generated off America's only energy coast to
give the people of the gulf coast some resources so they can protect
themselves a little better?
If somebody tries to tell me, Senator, why don't you just have
everybody move, if I have to hear one more person say we have to get
everybody to move or we have to move out of New Orleans--New Orleans is
not even on the coast. We are not on the coast. Miami is on the coast.
Savannah is on the coast. Gulfport is on the coast. Beaumont is on the
coast. New Orleans is not on the coast. We are 100 miles from the
coast. But if these wetlands continue to erode at the rate they are
going, we are going to be talking about Little Rock as a coastal city.
I know I am exaggerating a little bit, but I promise the Senate that
this coastal erosion is moving at such a rapid rate that not only is
New Orleans at risk, Baton Rouge is at risk, Lafayette is at risk, Lake
Charles is at risk, and then we have Galveston, Beaumont, and Houston.
We just cannot move everybody back 200 miles from the coast. In fact,
the last time I looked at this data, all along the coast of the United
States and growing mostly in Florida, people are moving to the coast.
We may be the only State where people are actually moving away from the
coast, but the coast is moving to us. We are not moving to the coast to
build condominiums or golf courses. We can't build a golf course in a
wetland, and we can't put a big skyscraper up in the wetlands.
We moved little communities so that we could construct a fishing
industry for the Nation. We run the great ports that benefit the whole
country, and we run the oil and gas industry that benefits the Nation.
We are not on the coast sunbathing and building condos. But if the
country wants everybody along the coast to move, then I suggest some
agency come up with an evacuation and relocation plan that can proceed
to move tens of millions of Americans because that is exactly what we
are going to have to do because two-thirds of all Americans live within
50 miles of a coast. But New Orleans is not 50 miles from a coast.
The Netherlands has a much better plan. I am going to save that
speech for another time. There are countries--not America--in the world
that use their technology, use their resources, use their brains, and
use the money they get from oil and gas by placing it into good levees,
good dikes, good engineering, and they protect their people as best
they can. We cannot stop these storms. Nobody can stop them. But a
smart country, a country with good policies, mitigates and protects and
puts up smart barriers and learns to work with the water and the wind
much better than we are doing.
[[Page S4960]]
With this chart in the background, I conclude by saying, let us move,
after immigration, to an energy subject. Let us take the opportunity
Senator Domenici is going to give us to bring lease sale 181 up for
debate. I will show where it is. Lease sale 181 is going to be a new
area, which sits on the border of Alabama and Florida, that we are
going to try to open.
I know, Mr. President, this is a sensitive subject for Florida
because I have worked with you and Senator Nelson.
The Presiding Officer and Senator Nelson have been outstanding in
their advocacy of trying to balance the needs of Florida and their
tourism industry, which we have as well, with the needs for the gulf
coast.
As we can see on this map, there is plenty of room to give a buffer
to Florida that is reasonable and allow for more drilling. That is the
idea. It has to be reasonable and provide some additional areas to get
some oil and gas far enough off the coast so it will not affect the
beaches because Florida does have a tourism industry based on beaches.
Our tourism industry is not based on beaches. We only have two beaches,
and they are only 7 miles long, and we can't hardly get to them. But we
have great wetlands and we are proud of them. We have a lot of
ecotourism, pirogues, canoes, hunting and fishing, which is
extraordinary in our State, and we are proud of that, just as Florida
is proud of its beaches.
Mr. President, you heard me say this to you privately many times.
Half the people of Louisiana have grown up on the beaches of Florida.
We don't have that much money. We can't go that far. So we manage to go
to the Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida beaches. We are happy for the
day or two spent on a beach in Florida. We are happy for it. But there
is a reasonable compromise to be had.
I have been proud to work with many of my colleagues to try to come
up with a way to open up this drilling, provide revenue sharing for
these States on the gulf coast that have given so much and that want to
continue to give and benefit the Nation, and finally to give our people
some hope.
It has been a struggle to build the levees through the years. We
needed to repair the levees that broke. The hope that we could give to
our people all along the gulf coast as hurricane season starts June 1--
hurricane season starts June 1. Millions of people living along this
coast are reading the reports that this hurricane season might be worse
than last. Wouldn't it be wonderful for the Congress of the United
States to say this is a security issue for America, that this means a
great deal to us, and we are going to act now to provide some hope to
the people of the gulf coast?
We have lived in this area a long time, and we are going to stay
living here. We have been living here for over 300 years. We were a
colony before there was a country. We were living here, and we are not
leaving. Whether the country helps us or not, we are going to stay here
and keep doing our job. It has gotten to the point where it is so
grossly unfair. We have to find a solution so that the people who live
here can have hope that the country they live in actually cares about
them, not just about how fast they can get out to the rigs to turn on
the oil and gas for everybody else, but maybe we would care enough
about their homes that have been flooded and the children's schools
they can't go to or their churches that got flooded and help them to
rebuild their homes, their schools, their churches so they can continue
to work out on these rigs and send the oil and gas to New York and to
Illinois and to Florida.
We will build smartly, we have built smartly, and we will build even
more in that way, but we cannot abandon this coast because if we did,
who would keep the rigs working? Who would keep the pipelines open? Who
would navigate the ships up the port?
Mr. President, I have taken all or maybe more of my 30 minutes, and I
appreciate the time. Again, when we get to lease sale 181, let's try to
come together and come up with a reasonable solution, one that works
for the Nation, one that works for the gulf coast States, and one of
which we can actually be proud.
I yield the floor.
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