[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 163 (Thursday, October 25, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H12096-H12101]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        ENERGY CRISIS IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from

[[Page H12097]]

Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) is recognized for 60 minutes as the 
designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address 
the House on an issue that I think should be a very high priority in 
this Congress.
  On October 25, 2007, our world oil prices hit $92 a barrel and closed 
at $90. This is our chart from 1986. These are annual average prices. I 
can't analyze this year's price; we don't show the little spikes that 
happen throughout the year. But folks, we're clear up here, off the 
chart.
  Two weeks ago, I stood at this microphone with shock and dismay that 
we had over $80 oil, had set record prices 2 weeks ago. Now, this would 
be understandable if we had had a storm in the gulf as we normally do 
every summer, but we have been protected for the last 2 years. We have 
not had a storm in the gulf that disrupted supply. We get 40 percent of 
our energy from the gulf. So whenever we have problems in the gulf we 
have oil spikes because oil and gas are deprived from the system for 
weeks, months at a time until all repairs are made, and so we lose a 
lot of our energy.
  But this year and last year, we've had no disruptive storms in the 
gulf. We've not had a terrorist act that has blown up a refinery, a 
pipeline, or somehow impeded supply. We have not had a dictatorship. I 
don't think a lot of people realize that the vast majority of oil 
produced today, in fact 90 percent of the oil in the world, is produced 
by government-run dictatorships who own the oil, produce the oil, 
market the oil, skim off the profits for their social programs, and 
actually run their own oil companies.
  It's kind of surprising to the world, but Exxon is now the 14th 
largest oil company in the world, our largest. But they are only 14th 
in the world. The other 13 are countries, dictatorships, some of them 
very unstable ones. Now, we haven't had one of them tip over, but here 
we are at $90 oil.
  Six years ago, we got as low as $16, just 6 years ago. Now, it 
doesn't show it on here because these are average prices, but it got as 
low as $16. And we had $2 natural gas.
  The question I have is, When will the House of Representatives of 
this Congress think that energy should be a priority issue for 
Americans?
  What's really concerning is, as we look at $90 oil, we have somewhere 
slightly under $3 gasoline at the pump today. Now, that's not going to 
last because there is a lot of gasoline, there is a little extra 
gasoline in the market place, and this is the slowest time of year for 
gasoline usage, so the price is below the normal trend.
  I talked to a refinery in Warren, Pennsylvania, today in my district 
and I said, where would, normally, gasoline prices be with $90 oil? If 
it stays there, now it has to stay there a while until the system 
becomes $90 oil because it's not $90 oil yet in the system. He said it 
will be about $3.29 or $3.30 gasoline. What does that do to the 
American homeowner, the American family trying to raise their children 
and go to work, go to school and travel, $3.29 to $3.30 gasoline?
  We're going to have record-setting home heating oil prices this year 
for both natural gas, and particularly home heating oil. We already 
have record-setting prices for fuel oil for trucks, record-setting 
prices.
  Now, the Senate passed a bill some months ago and the House passed a 
bill some months ago. And we heard a lot of chatter here a few moments 
ago about conferencing on the appropriations bill; and that's 
appropriate, but this week, last week, the week before, I have not 
heard any mention of conferencing on an energy bill for America. I 
don't know why they're not getting together. I guess it's just not a 
priority.
  You now, why do we have record-setting oil prices? Because for three 
administrations in a row and 26 years of congressional rule we have 
locked up America's best oil and gas reserves. Then we can go up here 
to Alaska, and there are even larger spots up there locked up.
  Now, I remember the arguments decades ago when gas was $2 a thousand 
and oil was $10 a barrel. People said, yes, we should use their cheaper 
energy and we should save ours. Should we be saving ours when it's $90 
a barrel?
  I don't know if you watched ``60 Minutes'' 2 weeks ago and watched 
Dubai build cities, build islands, build immense properties with our 
cash. That part of the world is enriched. They're buying our debt, 
they're buying our facilities, they're buying our buildings, they're 
buying our infrastructure because they have so much cash because $90 
oil will enrich them far greater than they were enriched at $50 and $60 
oil.
  When is America going to realize, when is this Congress going to 
realize that high energy prices, the only way to fight them is to 
increase supply of all of our energy sources. They are market driven on 
Wall Street. Every day they're trading them on Wall Street. And when 
there's a shortage in the world, the prices go up. When there's a storm 
in the gulf, prices go up. When something happens in a country that 
produces two or three million barrels a day, prices go up because there 
is going to be a shortage.
  Now, these are not caused by weather. These are caused by 
congressional action, not inaction, action. We have locked this up. 
This outer area is known as the Outer Continental Shelf. Should we 
produce there? It appears Congress thinks we shouldn't. Does Canada 
produce there? Yes. Does Norway produce there? Yes. Does Sweden produce 
there? Yes. Does Australia and New Zealand? Yes. Does Denmark? Yes. Do 
South American countries produce there? Yes. Is there another country 
in the world that doesn't produce on the Outer Continental Shelf? No.
  America is the only Nation who has decided to lock up its energy 
resources. And maybe they were right when it was $2 for gas and $10 for 
oil, and we'll use theirs while it's cheap; but it's not cheap anymore.
  I met recently with someone from the Department of State on energy, 
and they shared with me their concern that $75 oil would put this 
country, and maybe the world, into a recession. It didn't. But energy 
is such a part of our overall economy, overall lives, that when it 
reaches a certain point, it will put us into a recession. Every 
recession we've had goes to energy spikes, in the seventies, in the 
eighties and in the nineties. Energy prices have an immense impact on 
the economic future of our country, yet we sat here today, a body 
that's not even talking, Congress is not even talking about the energy 
crisis.
  In fact, I guess they don't think it's a crisis. I thought it was a 
crisis for a number of years and I've been speaking out for a number of 
years, and I'm going to keep speaking out until this body decides that 
energy is something we need to deal with.
  Now, why is energy so high? Well, what people don't realize, I was 
talking to a gentleman today from a world oil company, Statoil in 
Norway, stopped into my office just to talk. And he said the world is 
astounded by the amount of energy being used by China and India, the 
two largest populations in the world, as their economies are almost 
exploding with their population. Those two countries are moving forward 
with tremendous growth in their economies. Their energy use is growing 
between 15 and 20 percent per year. And their thirst for oil and gas 
and all other energy sources are causing the world's shortage.
  We've never had competitors before. America has always been the big 
dog in the world marketplace. We've always been the big dog in the 
energy market. China will soon pass us in energy usage, and India is 
climbing fast.
  And then you have all of developing South America. The developing 
world starts to use energy when they go from life on a desert, or nomad 
on a desert, to where they're living a life like we live. They use 
energy. They use electricity. They use heat. They use fuel in a 
vehicle. That's happening all over the world. So the demand for energy 
continues.

                              {time}  1800

  It is interesting. China has just made a deal with Cuba. They are 
going to be drilling 45 miles off the Florida coast and we can't drill 
within 200 miles. Does that make sense? Cuba and China will be 
producing oil 45 miles. Cuba is cutting deals with Canada, with Norway, 
and a number of other countries, I think maybe Russia, I am not sure on 
that one, but I know with China, where they are going to be producing 
oil actually within our 200-mile limit. They are

[[Page H12098]]

going to be producing oil where we can be producing oil, but we have 
chosen not to. We have chosen.
  What does America want Congress to do? I think Americans want us to 
deal with the energy issue. They want available, affordable energy so 
they can heat their homes, they can drive to work and school, and they 
can live a decent life.
  What does this Congress have on the table to deal with energy? Let's 
take a look.
  These are some of the things that are in the energy bills that will 
be looked at in the House and the Senate. Does it produce more energy? 
No. We call it the ``no energy bill.'' It locks up 9 trillion cubic 
feet of American natural gas. The Roan Plateau. Why? I don't know. It 
is prepared. It is ready to be produced. It is ready to take to market. 
But, no, this Congress is going to say, ``That is off limits, too.'' 
This bill cuts off production from the Roan Plateau, a huge, clean 
natural gas field in Colorado that was set aside as a naval oil shale 
reserve in 1912 because of its rich energy resource. This means that 9 
trillion cubic feet of natural gas, more than all the natural gas from 
the bill passed last year in the Gulf, off limits. It has already gone 
through the NEPA process. That is the Environmental Impact Statement, 
and they passed them. It is ready for lease sale. This provision was 
not in the original Natural Resources Committee bill but was added 
without hearings, without any input, any debate and very little 
discussion in Congress.
  The next one, this one requires the redundant environmental studies 
to place a second well on existing oil and gas drilling pads. It really 
locks up 18 percent of the Federal onshore production of American 
natural gas. It guts the category exclusion provision from the Energy 
Policy Act of 2005, a provision I authored and I understand it. What it 
did was, NEPA is an act we have that you have to go through an 
environmental assessment to do anything. It takes almost a year to do 
this environmental assessment. I had people tell me in the West who had 
leased land, 5, 6 and 7 years ago and hadn't drilled a well yet because 
they were doing their fifth, six and seventh NEPA. They had to do a 
NEPA on the original plan. Then they had to do a NEPA where they were 
going to build the roads. Then they had to do a NEPA on every well 
site. Every time they turned a corner they had to do another NEPA, and 
they hadn't gotten a well drilled. It was being utilized to thwart 
energy production because they believed we shouldn't produce energy. So 
we took away the redundant NEPAs, and now they want to put them back.
  Now, this one is really interesting. It locks up 2 trillion barrels 
of American oil from the western oil shale. What is western oil shale? 
This is an oil shale reserve in the West that some say has enough oil 
to supply us for several hundred years. We have to refine the process 
of removing it from the shale rock that it is in. It is somewhat 
similar to what the Canadians have done with tar sands. They have been 
talking about tar sands in Canada since I was a kid as being a great 
oil reserve. They have worked at it to where now they are getting about 
1\1/2\ million barrels a day. Their goal is soon to have, in some 
period of time, to have 4 million barrels a day. We are going to be the 
benefactor because we buy most of it, because we import a lot of oil. 
Thankfully, Canada produces a lot more than we do. They have worked at 
the tar sands with process to release that oil from those tar sands. It 
takes a lot of energy to do it. It takes a lot of natural gas to do it. 
They are fortunate. They have a lot of natural gas there, too, and they 
produce theirs. We don't produce ours. But we are going to lock up the 
shale oil. We are going to stop the production of it. We are going to 
stop the experiments of trying to get that shale oil so Americans can 
have some of their own oil and not have to pay foreign countries $90 a 
barrel for it.
  Do you know what is scary about $90 oil? That is without a storm in 
the Gulf. It is without a dictatorship tipping over. It is without 
terrorist attacks. If any one of those happened tomorrow, if we have a 
storm in the Gulf, I had two energy experts tell me this morning, I 
said, ``What will oil be?'' They said, ``$120 a barrel if a major storm 
hits the Gulf that disrupts our refineries and disrupts our oil 
supply.''
  Folks, we are already in trouble. We better pray that we don't have a 
storm. We better pray that dictatorships stay stable. I don't know 
about you, but I am not comfortable with that. I am not comfortable 
with this process we are in. It also locks up 10 billion barrels of oil 
from the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Why? Many of those oil 
reserves up there are tundra. They are frozen ground. There is little 
life. But we are saying we are not going to produce it. They want to 
produce it. The Alaskans beg to produce it. But Congress says ``no.'' 
Legal offshore contracts are being thwarted. We have legislation moving 
because of contracts that had royalty incentives in them that they 
think are too low. Now, whether they are or not, Congress doesn't have 
the right to change legal contracts. The Clinton administration signed 
them. They are law. They are a contract. But that is part of our 
legislation.
  This one is really crazy. There are a lot of Members of Congress that 
hate the oil companies. I won't say that I am in love with them. But a 
$15 billion tax increase on the American oil and gas industry. When we 
tax the production of energy on our shores, that means we are less 
competitive and we are more likely to buy energy offshore.
  And we will get to that chart in a minute. We are tremendously 
dependent on foreign energy. For us to tax, what they are doing was 
when we had the corporate tax cut for employers to grow in this 
country, we had a 4 percent cut. They are taking that away. The 
manufacturer right down the street will pay 4 percent less tax than the 
guy who produces energy right up the street. I don't think that makes 
sense, because when you increase the taxation on energy, the users pay 
it. The gasoline price goes up. The fuel oil price goes up. The natural 
gas price goes up. We are taxing ourselves. And it seems to me $90 oil 
is enough. Why do we want to tax it?
  While they are trying to get at big oil, I have American Refinery, a 
little 10,000-barrel refinery in Bradford. It used to be Kendall 
Refining. They now pay the higher priced taxes. That was a company that 
we put together a few years ago. The State government helped them. When 
Kendall left us and we had a refinery and the Kendall brand got sold 
off to another company, and American Refinery, a smaller company came 
in and bought it, I used to say it was put together with chewing gum 
and rubber bands. But it worked. We now have 400, 500 employees there. 
They are a growing company. They have developed another brand. They are 
entrepreneurs. They are doing good. And we are going to make them pay 
higher taxes.
  United Refinery in Warren, not big oil. But they provided the 
gasoline for most of New York State and Pennsylvania. They are going to 
pay 4 percent more now in income taxes. And who pays it? We do by 
raising the cost of energy.
  Now this one down here I find frightening. There is nothing in the 
Democrats' bill about coal to liquid or coal to gas. It would seem like 
when we had 70 and $80 oil, that was enough incentive that we ought to 
start figuring out how we make liquid energy out of coal. Not burn it; 
turn it into gas. There are processes to do that. In World War II, 
Germany fought us because we barricaded them. We didn't allow them to 
have oil shipments. They had to make their own energy. The Germans are 
pretty smart people. They figured out how to make it out of coal, the 
Fischer-Tropsch method and several other methods. Penn State has just 
developed a process to make jet fuel out of coal. Instead of us 
incentivizing and promoting energy from coal and liquids and gas so we 
learn how to do it so we get it streamlined, so we make it compete with 
oil, so we would be less dependent on 90 or $100 oil. No, we are not 
going to do that because coal has CO2. We can't do anything 
that puts carbon in the air.
  I said to some I was arguing with recently, well, let's start eight 
plants, and we will give them a dual role. We will say, ``We want you 
to streamline the Fischer-Tropsch process and you streamline this 
process, and let's get it going. Your secondary mission will be to 
sequester the carbon and figure out how to deal with it. Let's 
practice. Let's get to work at it.'' No, we can't do that. Coal is out.

[[Page H12099]]

  I see coal electric plants all over this country being turned down 
for permits. That is going to have a huge impact on electric prices 
because nuclear and coal are the cheapest electric prices we have. Coal 
to liquid should be something, and coal to gas should be things that we 
are incentivizing.
  Now, the interesting one down here at the bottom, raises false 
expectations by mandating unrealistic 15 percent RPS. Now, what is RPS? 
It is renewable portfolio. It says that companies making electricity in 
America have to use 15 percent, they have to produce 15 percent of it 
from renewables. I am for that. But when you mandate it by law, and it 
is not achievable, what happens? They are going to pay penalties. Who 
is going to pay the penalties? The electric users. Or they are going to 
cheat. Currently we make 3 percent of our electricity from renewables, 
3 percent. And we are going to mandate 15 percent.
  Now, Pennsylvania has a mandate. But they were smart. They have waste 
coal. They use the cleanest process they know. But that is being 
included in their standards, renewable standards, using the waste coal 
where we clean up the environment when we get rid of that runoff from 
the coal piles. So Pennsylvania was smart. They are using it. Now, some 
States will be able to do it more so than others. But some States, if 
you have a lot of wind farms, the only States that come to mind with 
real sizable wind farms that produce any amount of wind energy is north 
Texas and North Dakota. They will be able to do some wind. Solar is 
still on the margins everywhere. We are hoping and praying solar 
becomes a bigger factor. But we are going to say that we have to 
produce 15 percent of electricity from renewables. I wish that was 
simple. But it is not.
  Let's look for a moment at where our energy use is. Currently, 40 
percent of our energy is petroleum. And 66 percent of that comes from 
foreign countries. A lot of them unstable dictatorships. Natural gas is 
now 23 percent and fast growing. Coal is 23 percent, and I say will 
soon be shrinking because Federal policies, Federal regulators and EPA 
are making it very difficult to permit a new coal plant. There are many 
Members of Congress who don't want new coal plants, even though they 
are using the newest, cleanest methods.
  Nuclear is at 8 percent and shrinking because the amount of 
electricity is growing, but nuclear has been studied. Now, there are 35 
plants starting the process of permitting. The 2005 act speeded up the 
process.

                              {time}  1815

  It used to take 10 years to get a permit. They have told them they 
have to do that in 4 years, then it takes another 4 to 5 years to build 
the plant. For a new nuclear plant to begin producing electricity, 
you're probably going to be looking at a minimum of 10 years. There's 
one, I think, that has a complete application in; the rest are in the 
process. Now there are 35 that are in the process, and we need them all 
permitted by 2030 and built and producing electricity to keep nuclear 
at 8 percent of our grid, just to keep status quo. That means we are 
going to have to have more of something else. And if we don't meet that 
goal, we are going to have to have more of something else to replace 
nuclear.
  Hydroelectric is 2.7 percent of our overall energy power. Nuclear is 
actually 20 percent of the grid, but 8 percent of overall. 
Hydroelectric is 2.7 percent. Again, a figure that is dropping because 
as energy use rises and it remains static, and there are many Members 
of Congress who want most of our dams in place torn down. When they 
tear a dam out, we lose hydroelectric power because they don't believe 
we should have ever built dams.
  Now, the only energy field portfolio that is showing pretty steady 
growth is biomass. That surprises a lot of people. That is wood waste. 
This year more and more Americans will heat their homes with pellet 
stoves. Pellet stoves are saw dust, wood waste pressed into a pellet, 
put in a nice heating unit in your home. They can be put in fireplaces. 
More and more Americans, many use wood stoves, but they are now using 
pellet stoves. People who can't cut wood or don't have access to wood, 
and that is biomass, wood waste.
  There are many companies in the wooded areas where there's a timber 
industry that heats their factories with wood waste because they have 
it. They take the old trash wood and they grind it up and they burn it. 
We have dry kilns in the timber industry. We used to run them all with 
natural gas. Now they can't afford to. They are putting in wood waste 
boilers.
  In fact, I had a friend a couple of years ago when I saw gas prices 
rising, I said to him, How do you dry your wood? I knew they had two 
plants. They said, Well, we use natural gas. I said, Had you ever 
thought of putting wood waste? He said, No, why would we do that? I 
said, Well, natural gas is going to get pretty expensive.
  Well, they had a little meeting about it and decided not to do it. A 
couple of months later they called me and said, How did you know gas 
prices were going up? I said, Well, I just knew it. They said, We got 
our new contract and our prices quadrupled and we can't afford to dry 
wood with gas anymore. But it took them a year to buy the equipment to 
put in a biomass burner.
  There are many coal power plants who are topping off their load with 
wood waste so they get under the EPA standards, because wood burns a 
lot cleaner than many fuels. So the new hope for biomass is cellulosic 
ethanol. Now, that is still in the test tube. This administration is 
pushing six new plants. Even though it's still in the test tube, there 
are those who think they are close to the process.
  Now, geothermal is one that we have high hopes for. That is where you 
use groundwater temperature. You either pump water out of an aquifer 
and put it back after you take heat out of it, or take coal out of it; 
or you put in a big loop system and fill it with water and use the 
ground to cool and warm the water after you have used it.
  Now, wind and solar are the ones we have tremendous hope for. 
Windmills are being talked about everywhere. Solar. What a lot of 
Americans don't realize is they are not ready to take over. We have a 
growth curve in the use of energy.
  These renewables at the bottom people think can supply our future 
needs, and we don't need to drill and we don't need to use gas and we 
don't need to use coal. And most of them don't want nuclear either. 
This is what we have to use. I wish it was growing at the rate that it 
would fill the bill. I wish it was ready to take over. It's not. We are 
incentivizing, we are supporting, we are subsidizing; but it has to 
become where it will pay for itself somewhere down the road. Though 
it's growing, when you multiply wind by two, it takes years to double 
it; solar by two, it's still a very small part.
  Let's just talk about where we get our oil, once again. We are 
actually higher than 60. We are up here at 66, because this is a 2-
year-old chart. We are up here at 66. We are increasing dependence on 
foreign oil 2 percent a year. Now, if we pass the Democrat plan, I 
predict our only option, if we pass this plan and take gas off the 
table and oil off the table, we will increase 3 percent a year in the 
future.
  Foreign dependence, unstable dictatorships: 90 percent of the world's 
oil is owned, produced and marketed by a government-owned oil company, 
a dictator. Our best friend ought to be Canada. We buy more oil from 
Canada than anybody, and we buy most of the 17 percent of our natural 
gas. We import I think about 15 percent of it comes from Canada. So we 
should be saying: Thank you, Canada.

  But when it comes to oil dependence, and I hear people on the House 
floor talk all the time oil independence, we have got to be 
independent, there is no way in the next decade America could even 
conceive of being oil independent. Anybody who says that doesn't know 
the numbers, doesn't know the facts. At the same time, they say you 
can't drill out here and drill off the coast and you can't drill in the 
Midwest and Alaska, but we want to be energy independent, wind, solar 
and geothermal. I wish they were right, but they are not.
  These are just the facts, folk. These aren't opinions; these are just 
the facts. Here's the supply of natural gas. Natural gas is becoming 
the choice fuel because we use it to make ethanol, we use it to make 
fertilizer to grow the corn to make ethanol, we use it to make 
hydrogen, we use it to make most of our products. I will show you that 
chart in a minute.
  Natural gas is the one that is going to have tremendous pressure upon 
it.

[[Page H12100]]

It's the one that heats 58 percent of our homes. It's the fuel we ought 
to be the most concerned about. Why? It's not as bad price-wise today 
as oil. But when oil is $90 a barrel, the whole world pays that, and so 
all our competitors that we compete with in the global marketplace pay 
that. But we have one of the highest prices for natural gas of anyplace 
in the world.
  On this chart, there is $1.85, $4.90, $1.65, and $7.20 is about our 
price. Russia, $1.50. But Trinidad is the one I am worried about. They 
are building every kind of manufacturing plant known to man in 
Trinidad. That is a very short shipping distance from the United 
States. If we think China is tough competition, wait until Trinidad 
starts making our bricks and our glass and our bulk commodities, 
because their natural gas prices are a fraction.
  You know, I want the American working people to have a job. When we 
look at the next chart, we will see why natural gas is the one we 
should be most concerned about. Most people don't realize that natural 
gas is the feedstock for all these products. I don't mean that it is 
just the energy we use to make them. It is part of the ingredient.
  I mentioned fertilizer a little bit ago. The fertilizer we grow corn 
with, one part of it is 70 percent natural gas. There is another one, I 
can't remember the name, some sort of ammonia, it is 90 percent natural 
gas. Natural gas is what we make it out of. So farmers are paying huge 
prices for energy, and in the last 2 years, 50 percent of our 
fertilizer business has gone offshore, and I find that very troubling. 
Whether it is household products, skin softeners are a derivative of 
natural gas, shampoos, pipe, clothing, plastic products, plastic 
bottles. All these products. Tires have natural gas to make them and 
natural gas as an ingredient.
  It is the mother's milk of manufacturing in the world, and we are 
paying the highest prices for it of anybody in the world, and that puts 
American manufacturers and processors at a disadvantage. When oil is 
$90, the whole world pays, unless they have their own. If they are 
buying oil, they pay it. But natural gas, there is not a world 
marketplace because you can't just ship it around.
  We buy about 2 percent of our natural gas, liquefied natural gas, 
called LNG, that comes in large tankers. Unfortunately, it comes from 
the same parts of the world where we buy our oil: foreign, unstable 
dictatorships.
  Folks, energy for America, affordable energy for America should be 
the number one issue in this Congress. It should be the number one 
issue on the White House's agenda. It should be the number one issue in 
the Senate's agenda. Affordable energy for America.
  Why should it be in crisis mode? Any of the things we have talked 
about, whether we are opening up the Continental Shelf, whether we are 
opening up land in the Midwest, wherever we are going to produce 
energy, whether we are going to do coal to liquids, whether we are 
going to do nuclear, all of those initiatives take 8 to 10 years before 
we have the energy to run America.
  The longer we wait, the more trouble we are going to be in, because 
what is going to happen, it is my opinion, that Congress thinks little 
about America as a country that has to learn how to compete in the new 
global economy. The debate on being in the global economy is over. We 
are a global economy. We trade with everybody. We have to compete. 
There are developing countries everywhere, and we have to sharpen our 
tools, we have to sharpen our competitiveness, we have to help our 
manufacturers stay alive in this country.
  The first thing we ought to do is give them decent energy prices, 
less litigation, better tax laws. You tax jobs because that is what you 
tax when you tax business. A lot of people say, we are just taxing 
business. Well, businesses are jobs. I was talking to a gentleman, a 
Member of the House the other day, I was talking about a cost to 
business we were debating about, and he said, they have got lots of 
money; they can pay for that.
  I said, sir, they have choices. Do they grow this plant here, or do 
they grow this plant over here where costs are less?
  They are going to grow that plant and their production where costs 
are less. It is a competitive world. They have to compete with 
competitors. And Congress needs to make priority number one helping 
American job makers, help American businesses compete. And that means 
affordable energy, legal reforms, tax cuts for business, regulatory 
reform to be fair to business, help our companies make sure they have 
the skilled workers they need with technology education, which we are 
terrible at in this country. We are a failure. We are one of the worst, 
teaching the working people the new skills they need.
  It used to be 50 percent of Americans had to show up at a plant and 
within 6 weeks they knew their job and had a good job for the rest of 
their life. Not true today. Today you need to have skills, a set of 
skills that are certified with some sort of a 1-year or 2-year 
certificate that says, yes, he or she has this ability and she can 
provide this company with the skills they need to compete in the global 
marketplace.
  America is being challenged, my friends. We are being challenged by 
fast-growing nations who have plans on action. On the energy side, 
China is opening a coal plant every 5 days. They are opening a new 
nuclear plant every month. They are building the biggest hydro-dams in 
the world. They are locking up oil and gas supplies all around the 
world. And we sit here and do not have a plan of action.
  The 2005 energy bill had a lot of good pieces in it, and I want to 
congratulate all of those that created it and got it passed. It took 
like 4 years to pass it because this Congress didn't want to deal with 
energy. But, folks, it is not enough. It was just the starter. It was 
just the primer.
  We are now challenged with a world shortage of energy. America must 
figure out how to have their own. Now, I agree, we have to conserve 
more. We have to use it more wisely. We have to teach Americans how to 
be careful and not waste energy. And we need to help small businesses 
be energy efficient, like big businesses.
  Big businesses are cutting their energy bills. I have been told by 
many of them, they say we cut our energy bills 20 percent the last 4 
years. But you know what? Energy costs us more, because energy prices 
are going up faster now.

                              {time}  1830

  And they were discouraged because they had worked so hard. Big 
business has the ability to figure out the cheapest way to do it, but 
many Americans don't understand and we need as a government to provide 
the technology and the education so that people know how to use energy 
wisely and purchase energy-efficient appliances and energy-efficient 
cars. We need to conserve.
  But folks, we also need to have affordable energy to run this 
country. Folks, America is at the crossroads. Today it is $90 oil. Two 
weeks ago I was here, it was $80 oil. I didn't expect this. I predicted 
that energy prices would rise steadily this fall. I didn't think they 
would spike. We haven't had a storm in the Gulf which we were afraid 
of, we haven't had a country topple, which can cause 2 or 3 million 
barrels a day to come out of the system. We haven't had a terrorist 
attack which interrupted oil supply.
  But in spite of that, we have fast-rising oil prices. If we couple 
that with any of the three I just mentioned, we have $100-$120 oil. I 
can guarantee you this country cannot afford $100 a barrel for oil and 
stay competitive and have a thriving economic base. We will go into the 
tank. We will be in a recession, and this Congress needs to take this 
issue seriously.
  You know what bothers me in the Presidential debate, and I listened 
to two Presidential debates. The press asks the questions, and so I 
blame the press. The press doesn't take this issue seriously. The press 
doesn't understand this issue very well. If they did, they would be 
asking every Presidential candidate in every forum: What is your energy 
policy for affordable, available energy for America?
  I haven't committed to a Presidential candidate yet because I don't 
see a candidate that has a good, well thought-out energy policy for 
America. That will be the issue the next President has to deal with 
because the Congress in the last decade, we have not adequately dealt 
with energy's availability and affordability for America.

[[Page H12101]]

  Without a crisis, without a storm in the Gulf, we have $90 a barrel 
oil, and it hit $92 today. I am going to conclude my comments this 
evening with America needs a bona fide energy plan. We need to open up 
the Outer Continental Shelf where we are energy rich.
  My legislation opens it up for natural gas, and I hope we can get it 
considered. I will conclude with that chart. Our bill says that the 
first 25 miles remain locked up, and you can only see for 11 to 12 
miles, so nobody will even see it. It will not hurt the shoreline. It 
won't be unsightly. The second 25 miles are options of the State. If 
they want to open it, they can. The second 50 miles are open 
automatically for natural gas, but the States still have the right to 
close it if they choose to. By passing a law with the Governor's 
signature, they can keep it closed for the first 100 miles. The second 
100 miles it is open. That is a pretty soft bill. That is not what I 
would like to do, but that is what I hope to coax this Congress into 
doing so we do something for natural gas.
  We will give $150 billion in royalties to the States, $100 billion 
for the treasury, $32 billion for renewable energy. That's real money 
to help renewables; not promises, real money; $32 billion for carbon 
capture sequestration research, and that can come from the payments of 
royalties; $20 billion to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, exactly what 
they have been needing; $20 billion to clean up the Great Lakes 
restoration, exactly what they have been needing; $12 billion for the 
Everglades; $12 billion for the Colorado River basin; $12 billion for 
the San Francisco Bay restoration; and $10 billion to help the poorest 
of Americans winterize their homes and pay their heating bills in the 
wintertime.
  Folks, the NEED Act is the act Congress needs to pass. We have 160-
some cosponsors. It is bipartisan. The gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. 
Abercrombie) is my co-partner on this bill. It is the bill that America 
needs to have in its energy package, but neither the House nor Senate 
are talking about it.
  On top of natural gas and offshore, we need to have a plan for 
nuclear, the expansion of nuclear in America. We need to have a plan 
where we are moving forward with coal to liquids and coal to gas. We 
need to have a plan where we push wind and solar and all renewables. 
And yes, we should look at many dams we have that are not harnessed, 
harnessing them for hydro. There are many dams in America that could be 
harnessed for hydro.
  And yes, we need to do ethanol and biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol. 
Landfill gas should never be flared. It should all be plugged into the 
energy pipeline. We need to get serious about not wasting energy in 
America, conserving energy in America, and producing energy for 
Americans that is affordable and available so this winter they can 
afford to heat their homes, they can afford to run their businesses, 
and the jobs will not be pushed offshore.
  High energy prices have pushed more jobs offshore than any other fact 
that this Congress talks about. And energy has the potential of pushing 
almost every manufacturing and processing job that is left in America 
offshore if we don't deal with the energy issue. Energy is a crisis for 
the future economic viability of America.
  I challenge this Congress, both bodies and the White House, to get 
serious about it. Affordable, available energy for America, we could do 
no more. That's the least we can do to make sure Americans have the 
quality of life that they should have, they have a right to, and they 
deserve.

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