[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 96 (Wednesday, June 11, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H5304-H5310]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2030
                           ENERGY DEVELOPMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, today, June 11 of the year 
2008, we had an interesting happening in the Capitol. We have had $4 
gasoline for some time now, we have had $5 diesel, record high natural 
gas prices approaching $13 per thousand, the most expensive energy 
America has ever known.
  We had a chance today in committee the deal with this issue. I was 
stunned. I have been working on this issue for many, many years. We 
passed a major bill in 2006 with good bipartisan support, a lot of 
Republicans, but we had probably 40-some Democrats. A lot of people in 
this Congress realize that we must produce more energy in America if we 
are going to deal with the prices in America.
  Today the Interior subcommittee met. I offered an amendment to open 
up the Outer Continental Shelf. As you look at the chart to my left, 
that's the east coast and the west coast and down

[[Page H5305]]

here in the gulf on both sides of Florida. The red or pinkish areas are 
locked up. There's 86 billion barrels in those areas, by old standards, 
by old seismographic tests which was 30-some years ago. Most people 
feel there is many times that. There is 400 trillion cubic feet of 
natural gas there.
  My amendment today would have removed the moratorium. For 27 years 
Congress has had legislative language that says we cannot produce here. 
It's locked up. This Outer Continental Shelf is from 3 miles offshore. 
The first three miles is controlled by the States. Next 197 miles is 
owned by us, the taxpayers, citizens of America. Not by any company, 
not by the President, not by Congress, but owned by the citizens, not 
by any State. It's our resources.
  The interesting and troubling fact is my amendment would have opened 
it up from 50 miles to 200.
  Every country in the world that has energy offshore produces it. It's 
the most environmentally sensitive place to produce energy.
  In most places the fisheries are better, they like the platforms, 
they like the places to hide. The fishermen love them being there 
because it's where the best fishing is.
  Down here in this little blue area, 40 percent of our energy comes 
from there that we produce in this country, that little bit of the 
gulf.
  Now there they produce right up to the shoreline. We were given a 50-
mile buffer. There has not been an oil spill on a beach from a well 
except for the one in Santa Barbara in 1969, pretty good record, in my 
view. There has never been a natural gas well that's ever caused an 
environmental problem that I know of.
  But today we had a vote of nine ``noes'' for the Democrats and six 
``yeses'' for the Republicans. I don't like to be partisan. I like to 
have bipartisan support, and I worked very hard on this amendment. I 
thought I had strong support from both parties, and I was stunned 
today.
  I guess it's another example of Speaker power.
  I have been in the legislative business for 31 years, 19 years at the 
State and 12 years here. I have seen legislative bodies that were good 
process bodies where you debate the issues from the subcommittee to the 
full committee to the floor. Then when the House and Senate meet in a 
conference committee, that really gives you seven shots at a bill. 
That's not happening here.
  This is the most top-down legislative body I have ever been a part 
of. Today showed that. I would bet the farm there are members on this 
subcommittee that wanted to vote for this, but for some reason chose 
not to. I am not going to name them, I am not going to second-guess 
them, but I was stunned.
  I think America would be stunned. I believe this Congress is way 
behind the folks, approaching 60 percent of Americans at a recent poll, 
who want us to produce offshore, on shore, wherever we have energy. I 
find, in talking to town meetings and large groups, when you discuss 
the issue and explain the facts and explain the alternatives, almost 
all Americans want energy produced so it's affordable.
  Our economy was built on affordable energy. The problem we have, the 
arguments today were that there are 68 million acres already leased, 
and that's enough. This is the percentage, and, actually, it's less 
than 3 percent, of the Outer Continental Shelf where there is a lease 
that has been offered. So there is a very small part of the continental 
shelf that actually has a lease on it.
  They said, well, there are 68 million acres, we need lease no more. 
Well, if you have leased property--yes, there are leases, there are 
leases that are not active--but if you have leased property and spent 
millions and millions of dollars and you get dry holes, you don't drill 
anymore. You find out there is not oil in there.
  As we look on here a little bit, this is interesting, this is a map. 
It's not as good as color as I had hoped to see. This is Cuba, this is 
Key West, this is Florida. These are the leases that have been granted 
by Cuba, China, Canada and Spain. I am not sure here, but these are the 
ones that are being negotiated now. Canada is going to be producing 
energy off our shores, and we absolutely disallow it.
  Does that make any sense? No. Our biggest competitor, China, will be 
possibly producing our oil and our gas, using it to compete against us.
  Natural gas is the one that's really in trouble in America. We know 
the oil prices today closed at $137, natural gas at $12.75. Natural gas 
is the one that we don't talk enough about. Oil is painful, but every 
country that competes with us pays that price. America may be the only 
country paying--now, this is not the price people pay. This is what the 
price today coming out of the ground is.
  Now, what's sneaking up on Americans this year, they already know it 
costs a lot to travel. Those who are on propane and fuel oil last year 
know it was pretty expensive to heat their homes.
  Natural gas did not rise a lot last year. But here is what happened 
to natural gas this year. This is the chart of natural gas for this 
year. This is what's happened this spring.
  Never before have I ever seen natural gas prices--this is the time of 
year when we are not heating and cooling much, it's call the shoulder 
season for use, and this is when we usually put it in the ground for 
next winter's storage to heat our homes. We are putting gas in the 
ground at a price more than we paid for it last year. Now you have to 
add storage costs, transmission costs and processing costs.
  Americans will be getting somewhere between a 60 to 100 percent 
increase of natural gas prices this winter. So those who are struggling 
to pay $4 to drive their cars are now going to struggle to heat their 
homes. The sad story is, with natural gas, our big employers like Dow 
Chemical in 2002 paid $8 billion for natural gas for a year's use. This 
year they are paying $8 billion every quarter, that's $32 billion.
  Folks, here is what has happened to the jobs and what will continue 
to happen if we don't deal with energy prices because the rest of the 
world is. Natural gas will push petrochemicals, polymers, plastic and 
many other steel and aluminum jobs--I predict, glass will be made 
offshore, bricks will be made offshore. Bulk commodities will not be 
made in this country because of natural gas prices, because you use so 
much.

  Here's what the arguments were. This is what people want to use. This 
is oil. From the middle over is history, this is what the Energy 
Department predicts for the future.
  I don't quite agree with this chart, because we are turning down coal 
plants all over the country. The natural gas will be much wider, coal 
will be much shallower. I don't see the growth in coal. We also all had 
high hopes for coal-to-liquid. That's sort of on hold in this country. 
Why, I don't know, because of carbon, I guess. The concern of carbon 
has become a greater concern.
  Nuclear, to stay here, we have to have 35 to 40 nuclear plants built 
in addition to what we have to keep nuclear where it's at as 20 percent 
of the grid.
  Nonhydro, the amount, everybody wants--hydro is not growing because 
we are not doing dams. Nonrenewables are mostly woody biomass and 
hydro. That's what most of this is.
  If we double wind and solar, and we hope we can, we are less than 1 
percent of our energy needs in 5 years or 10 years whenever we do that. 
That's the scary part.
  Now here's the dependence part. When I came to Congress, we were in 
the 40s. We are now 66.3 percent dependent on imports, and here is 
where we get it. Canada is our best friend to the north, Mexico is our 
next best friend, nonOPEC and Ecuador, and then we go down here.
  These are the countries that are going to own us. These are the 
countries where our wealth is going. In fact, I think I heard a speaker 
a few moments ago on floor talk about the purchase of the Chrysler 
Building by one of the Mid East countries.
  Ladies and gentlemen, if America does not deal with energy, we will 
not compete in the global economy of the world. We cannot have the 
highest energy prices known anywhere and compete. We will not have 
middle-class jobs. The middle class in America will disappear. That's 
not the America I want.
  Now, how we get past this partisanship, how we get past that we can 
take the minuteness of wind and solar and replace fossil fuels, I wish 
I knew. I am

[[Page H5306]]

for hydrogen. I belonged to the hydrogen caucus for years, but it has 
not grown. Wind and solar has grown a very small amount.
  Until we can store electricity, we are going to depend on fossil 
fuels to make it. If we continue with the chart I just looked at to not 
produce coal plants, that's going to come on natural gas. If we don't 
open up the Outer Continental Shelf and much of the Midwest, we are not 
going to have the natural gas--and natural gas, let's come back to the 
natural gas chart.
  Natural gas, in my view, is the clean, green fuel. We would have been 
far wiser, in my view, to have used compressed natural gas in 
automobiles than ethanol. Automobiles, with a couple of thousand 
dollars addition can burn natural gas. That's a clean fuel.
  If we open up the Outer Continental Shelf, if we opened up the Roan 
Plateau in the west and some of the new areas that we know are 
potentials in this country--but we have to drill a hole in the ground, 
and why aren't we doing that? Well, here are the people that I think 
have been successful.
  I was having a debate late week with the Sierra Club on NPR radio in 
California. When the debate was over she assured the audience that she 
would be beating me back next week when I offered my amendment. They 
won today.
  The Sierra Club, they are against shale oil development. They are 
against coal gasification, and they are against offshore energy. Then 
we have Greenpeace, and they want to phase out all fossil fuels. They 
want to eliminate all of these and replace them with these.
  Now, I wish we could do that. They are opposed. Environmental Defense 
Fund, no power plants, no smokestacks, League of Conservation Voters, 
no coal-to-liquid, wrong way to go; Defenders of Wildlife, no offshore, 
no coastal production; Natural Resource Defense Council, no coal, coal 
is evil; Center for Biological Diversity, no oil and gas drilling. 
That's devastating on public lands.

                              {time}  2045

  Friends of the Earth, no liquid coal, that is dirty.
  Folks, we have technology in this country today. We can produce 
energy cleanly. We can burn it cleanly. We have clean coal technology 
we are refusing to build to replace the old plants.
  If we continue, we are the only country I know of in the world that 
is on a madness mission, I call it, that we are not going to use fossil 
fuels. Now I want to grow all of these. I would be building hydrodams. 
The only one that has grown on this chart, and I have another chart 
that shows it better, woody biomass has doubled in the last decade. 
That is wood pellet stoves. Almost a million Americans use them now. 
That is using wood for generators, small plants for electricity using 
wood waste, and heating small factories. I am from a wood area, the 
greatest hardwood forests in America are in northern Pennsylvania, and 
we dry kiln our wood. We used to use propane and natural gas, now we 
use wood waste. Wood waste has found a marketplace, and it is 
continuing. But that's the only one that has had measurable growth that 
you can put on a chart. I don't have that chart here.
  But folks, we need to have a comprehensive policy. But until we have 
the renewables available to use, we have to use clean fossil fuels in 
the very best manner we can. But if this Congress says no in full 
committee a week from now, we will be doing our bill in full committee, 
if they say no again, partisanly, and if they say no on this floor when 
we do the Interior bill, America will miss its only chance.
  My bill, the Outer Continental Shelf bill, has 170-some cosponsors, 
and can't get a hearing or a discussion. We are not going to talk about 
fuels in this Congress.
  Now we passed a great bill a couple of weeks ago where the Democrats 
proposed to enable us to sue OPEC. We are going to sue a group of 
countries, I had the chart here a minute ago, that we don't think have 
produced enough energy, when we refuse to produce it at all. Now what 
is the logic of that? What court is going to listen to that, and how do 
you even have a serious face. Back home, people laughed about that. 
They thought it was stupid.
  We also have proposals to tax oil companies. Who pays the taxes, the 
energy users. I know there is hatred for the energy companies. They are 
really a small part of the mix. The vast majority of energy in this 
country is not produced by Big Oil. It is produced by small producers 
in my district in Pennsylvania and all down through the south. It is 
mostly independents. They are the brand names. They own some of the 
refineries. They own a lot of product lines in their names, but they 
are a small part of the production of energy. Yet we want to punish 
energy production.
  We passed a bill here once, fortunately the Senate didn't, that was 
going to tax all energy companies. And I have two refineries in my 
district, one who was struggling, American Refiners and United 
Refinery, and we were going to make them pay higher taxes than the 
businesses right down the road. Did that make any sense? No. That is 
taxing American energy; not taxing imports but American energy.
  I believe this Congress is way behind the American public. When I go 
back to my office many times after giving one of these speeches, I have 
phone calls for hours, I have phone calls for days saying I believe in 
what you said; I believe America should be producing energy; thank you 
for speaking out.
  I believe the American public in the next election, I believe energy 
availability and affordability will be one of the major issues that 
they will be looking at because I don't think we are done. I don't 
think $4.05 gasoline is the end.
  We have these high prices today that have scared the American public. 
I have people in my district who don't know how they are going to get 
through the winter and how they are going to heat their house. They 
don't know how they are going to make it. We have these high prices 
today. We have not had a storm in the gulf, which interrupts a lot of 
production when it happens, for 2\1/2\ years. Everyone is predicting we 
are going to have major storms in the gulf, hurricanes, and that will 
eliminate a lot of energy production and prices will skyrocket.
  We have not had a successful terrorist attack on our energy supply 
system. That could happen tomorrow. We have not had a major foreign 
country, and I had that chart of countries we get our oil from, most of 
those are dictatorships that could tip over. When there is a little 
trouble in Nigeria, energy prices skyrocket. When there were problems 
in Venezuela, prices skyrocketed. When Chavez was arguing with Exxon, 
oil went up $20 just because they were arguing.
  The reason is there is no surplus in the system. Historically we had 
eight million barrels of oil that another country could produce if some 
country couldn't produce. Today we are down to where this is about a 
million barrels of oil. It is 86 million barrels a day countries use. 
We use 21, and so there is only a one million barrel surplus. So if a 
country has problems and produces three million less, there is not 
enough oil.
  Now the reason these gas prices that I showed you earlier are going 
up, we are using more gas than we are producing. One of the big storage 
companies told me a month ago, they are not sure they can get their 
storage full this winter and they have always had it full by winter 
because we cannot produce enough gas, we have to put it in underground 
caverns and store it for winter.
  I believe this Congress is at the root of the high prices of energy, 
and three Presidents, too, I am not going to hold them countless, 
because we have not had an adequate, thoughtful energy policy for 
America. While the rest of the world is building an energy supply for 
themselves, we are twiddling our thumbs and we are refusing to produce 
fossil fuels.
  I think if this Congress before we recess in July does not deal 
effectively with energy and open up supply, you are going to see the 
beginning of the decline of the America we know. It is a national 
security issue. It is an economic issue. American companies cannot 
compete, and when they can't compete here, they will diminish their 
operations here and they will expand them over there. They have had 
other reasons to do that, but the biggest one has been energy. So I beg 
my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, let's get by this partisan 
bickering and let's support an energy policy for America.

[[Page H5307]]

  The gentleman from Ohio has come to join us, and I yield to Mr. 
Latta.
  Mr. LATTA. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and he speaks the 
truth. This country is in a crisis and we are not listening. The folks 
back home get it. But we are not getting it. It is time we do.
  I would like to start off with this. This is kind of sobering. Right 
now the United States uses 21 percent of the world's energy. If you 
look across this chart, in 2010 we still have energy supremacy and 
usage over India and China. When you look at 2015, those two countries 
together will be consuming more energy than the United States. When we 
get to 2020, China is going to be consuming more energy than the United 
States. And just look at the chart as it goes across, the United States 
is barely moving while China is making leaps and bounds. The question 
is, what does that all mean. It means this: energy means jobs. Those 
are American jobs. The folks back home get it. Congress doesn't get it.

  I come from the Fifth Congressional District of Ohio which is the 
ninth largest manufacturing district of the 435 districts in Congress. 
I also represent the number one agricultural district in the State of 
Ohio. What does it mean, if we don't have energy, we don't have jobs. 
Companies out there are looking, we look at this chart, companies are 
looking at where can they get energy. How are they going to keep their 
jobs and keep their people employed. Farmers are out there right now in 
our State planting, and some people say farmers are getting these high 
prices this year. Let's look at some facts.
  When they are buying diesel and buying fertilizer that is also made 
from oil, when they are buying their chemicals that they are putting on 
the field made from oil products, they are not making that much money.
  What does that mean to the consumer? Very simple, the consumers when 
they go to the grocery store are finding that prices are going up for 
milk, bread and cereal. It is all going up.
  Looking down the road, when you are paying $4 a gallon for gasoline, 
you are paying more for food and it is costing you more to get to work. 
I have talked to a lot of my manufacturers in Ohio in my district, and 
I asked how far do most people drive to work. It is not unusual to have 
people say people are driving 50 or 60 miles to get to work. So when we 
look at people who are driving maybe 100 miles round trip every day, 
500 miles a week, and $4 a gallon for gasoline, some folks are saying 
I'm not sure I can afford this job. We can't have that happen.
  As the gentleman from Pennsylvania mentioned about Dow, we have a 
company in my district, a float glass company, the price of their fuel 
for natural gas in a 5-year period of time has gone from $10 million to 
$30 million. What does that mean for America? There are only 37 float 
glass facilities left in this country. The Chinese are building 40 as 
we stand here today and bicker, unfortunately, about doing something in 
this country about oil and our energy usage and needs. They have the 
energy and they are going to have a cheaper labor supply, I am going to 
ask you in the future, where are you going to buy a window pane that is 
made in the United States of America? Or where are you going to buy a 
windshield that is made in the United States of America? They will not 
be made in this country at all. And the gentleman from Pennsylvania is 
absolutely correct, more and more products are being made offshore and 
those are American jobs. We can't afford that.
  What made this country great is very simple. After the Civil War, the 
Industrial Revolution really kicked into high gear. We had all the 
natural resources in the country, and we were able to produce for the 
world, and we produced for the world for years. We had the head start 
on everybody, of course, after World War II when the rest of the world 
lay in ruins and the United States' factories were humming. But the 
rest of the world is catching up, if not surpassing us, and this chart 
shows it. And we can't afford it.
  What is the rest of the world doing? France, 70-80 percent of their 
power is nuclear. They are exporting power to the rest of Europe.
  Japan, 55 nuclear reactors, two under construction.
  China, they are building 40 nuclear power stations in the next 25 to 
30 years.
  India, 30 plants in the next 25 years.
  Coal. That was talked about earlier. China and India use 45 percent 
of the world's coal. China is building coal-powered plants as we speak 
and putting them online right now. They are investing $24 billion in 
clean coal technology.
  The gentleman mentioned they are also out there building the Three 
Gorges hydroelectric plant. Again, it is a communist country and they 
are not worried about displacing millions of people, but they are going 
to have that power station producing electricity to make sure that they 
are producing.
  It has been mentioned how China is drilling onshore and offshore and 
right off our shore. But the real question is what is the United States 
doing on all of this? And this scares people, absolutely nothing. 
Absolutely nothing.
  The last nuclear power plant to be licensed in this country was in 
1977; 1977. The last one to go online was in 1996; 1996. We have 24 
percent of the coal in the world; 24 percent. But what are we doing, 
nothing. You mention coal in this Chamber, and it is an absolute no. We 
have to have it.
  In Ohio we have what they call high-sulfur coal so it is very, very 
expensive to burn because you need to have it clean. But if you burn it 
in a closed system, you don't have those emissions. What does that mean 
for Ohio, we will put miners to work and we will have companies that 
make steel to make the coal gasification plants out there, making those 
parts, and we will have people building those plants. And we will be 
able to consume that power in this country because when we have 24 
percent of the world's coal reserves right now, we can get a lot done. 
But what are we doing about it, absolutely nothing.
  What about oil. Again, when you have China out there doing everything 
it possibly can to make sure that they have their oil supplies up, they 
are putting thousands of cars on the road. A lot of people say we don't 
understand what is going on out there. Well, there is only so much oil 
out there in the world right now, and only so much of it has been 
refined. The whole world is now consuming more and other areas are 
producing more, but not in this country.

                              {time}  2100

  One of the things that we should be doing is, as the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania mentioned, we've got to be drilling. We've got to be 
exploring. And one of the places we've been talking about a lot is ANWR 
in Alaska.
  As has already been mentioned, how big are we talking here? We're 
talking one-half of 1 percent of that area. Of 19.6 million acres, 
total, we're only talking 2,000 acres.
  Anybody who has ever done any title work, you know that a section of 
land is only 640 acres, which is 1 square mile. We're talking a little 
over 3 square miles. Three square miles. And we're talking about an 
area of 19.6 million acres, and we're not allowed to go in there and 
produce?
  And there's estimated that we have 10.4 billion barrels of oil that 
we can extract up there. What's it all about?
  That's twice the proven oil reserves in Texas, almost half of the 
total U.S. proven reserves of 21 billion barrels. What are we doing? 
What's this Congress doing? Absolutely nothing.
  But we are doing something that this past year we almost imported 65 
percent of the oil that we need to use in this country; 65 percent of 
the oil being imported into this country.
  We talked about it a little bit earlier. We're watching our dollars 
flow overseas. What's that all mean to America?
  We have a $9 trillion national debt right now. What scares the devil 
and daylights out of me is this little fact. $2.4 trillion of that 
national debt is owned by foreign countries. The Chinese almost now own 
almost one-half of $1 trillion of American debt. That's what's 
happening.
  You know, the American people out there, again, they get it. This 
Congress doesn't.
  Again, as the gentleman mentioned earlier, right now it's estimated 
there's 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas offshore and 86 billion 
barrels of oil. 85 percent of that's off-limits, and we

[[Page H5308]]

can't afford that. We can't afford that for the future.
  Onshore, it's estimated there's, on Federal lands, 31 billion barrels 
of oil and 231 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. And again, it's 
restricted down to access, which does not allow Americans to be getting 
that. 92 percent on Federal lands for oil and 90 percent for natural 
gas. We can't get to it. What civilized country in the world allows 
this to happen? Not very many. But right here in this country it's 
happening. It's happening here, ladies and gentlemen, and we're doing 
nothing.
  The old saying is, ``Rome burned and Nero fiddled.'' That's what's 
happening.
  We haven't built a new refinery in this country, talk about problems, 
in two-and-a-half decades. I'm fortunate in my district, just by 
coincidence, that I have a company that produces solar panels. Over 99 
percent of their production goes overseas to Europe. We have another 
plant that's going to be constructed. Solar is another area out there. 
It's good supplemental power.
  We also have the only four wind turbines located in the State of 
Ohio. I can see them out my back door in Bowling Green. We only have 
four. There's a lot of objection now because people say they're 
unsightly; they don't want them; build them someplace else.
  But when you talk about wind-powered turbines, to kind of get an idea 
how many you have to have to equal something, you have to have between 
600 to 800 turbines to equal one coal-fired plant, or anywhere from 
1,250 to 1,700 wind turbines to equal one nuclear power plant. If we're 
having problems around Bowling Green in Ohio, getting turbines built, 
how are we going to build 1,700 turbines if people are objecting to a 
few?
  Because now in Ohio the Division of Wildlife is going to have to 
start making assessments what birds might be killed, or a bat. And it's 
going to be blocking them.
  We also have an ethanol plant in my district. We're working on 
biofuels. It's all out there. But we've got to be acting and we've got 
to be acting now. We can't wait. The American people can't wait because 
we've got to be getting this done today.
  This country, 10, 20 years ago, had the ability to make mistakes and 
say, well, in a few years, okay, we can get it corrected. We can't do 
that today. Why can't we do that today? Because the rest of the world 
has caught on and they're moving. Every day that we do not act they 
are, and we're falling farther and farther behind.
  That's American oil, energy that we have to be producing, and we're 
not doing it.
  I introduced a House resolution not too long ago, 1206, and it's 
really pretty basic what we need to be doing. Just a few points. We 
have to expand the use of our renewables and alternative energy 
sources. We have to increase the U.S. domestic refining capacity. We 
have to promote, incentivize an increase in the conservation and energy 
efficiency, expand and promote additional research and development 
through new and innovative methods, such as public-private 
partnerships, and enhancing the consumer awareness and education 
regarding methods to increase energy efficiency and available 
alternative fuel sources to reduce our dependence on middle eastern 
oil.
  But the time's getting short. The clock's ticking, and America must 
act now.
  I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and I yield back.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman from Ohio for his 
very thoughtful comments.
  I now recognize the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp).
  Mr. WAMP. I thank the gentleman, and I'll try not to be long. But I 
do want to start by saying that I seek not to blame anyone, because one 
of the things that I'm the most turned off by in the modern era of 
American politics is that everybody wants to blame everybody. And 
Democrats always say Republicans are wrong. Republicans always say 
Democrats are wrong. The truth is, neither party has a whole lot to 
brag about, and more and more people are being frustrated or becoming 
frustrated with the two parties.
  But I will say, on this particular issue of energy, it's important to 
realize that talk is cheap. Words are not worth much. And votes really 
do matter. And the positions you take really do have consequences, and 
we have to actually discuss that as we look at solutions, because what 
I want to talk about is solutions; not blame, but solutions to these 
major problems.
  In my 14 years of service here, this issue now stings and hurts more 
than any issue that I've seen. And I've served through impeachment, 
through the Iraq war, through the awful response to Katrina, and I 
would say that more people are angry and upset and concerned about 
$4.05 gasoline than anything.
  And it's easy to say, I told you so. The gentleman from Pennsylvania 
can definitely say I told you so because I've served with him for 12 
years, and he's been talking about supply of oil and gas and the 
consequences of us not going after it and becoming more independent 
ourselves for the whole 12 years; a very powerful and effective voice.
  I too have a long history of talking about the problems that are 
going to be associated with the energy crunch and was very concerned 
following September the 11th that we would end up here tonight. I do 
think that the nexus between national security, energy and the 
environment is the most important challenge of our generation because 
they're all connected now inseparably.

  It's ironic that the left wants to promote legislation and 
conversation about global warming and climate change because actually 
that will further restrict our access to energy, and everybody knows 
that. And it will raise prices. It will increase regulation. It will 
actually compound this problem. Yet they're promoting that agenda at 
the same time that they're retreating from energy capacity. And these 
votes really matter.
  Now I come at this with 10 years of service on the Energy and Water 
Appropriations Subcommittee, 8 years of service as the cochairman of 
the Renewable Energy Caucus here in the House, which is a bipartisan 
thing; the Representative that represents the premier energy research 
facility in this country, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. And I want 
to start by saying that conservation is a very important piece of these 
solutions.
  As a matter of fact, conservation is not for wimps, as some people 
would have you believe. Conservation is for warriors, in my opinion. 
Not everyone is going to put on the uniform of our Armed Forces. We 
should be grateful to everyone who does. But not everyone's going to do 
that.
  But every person in this country can contribute to our national 
security by becoming more energy efficient, by conserving, by trying to 
be more efficient in their daily life, and there are a lot of ways to 
do that.
  And I rolled out at the National Press Club, with some outside 
groups, some very effective outside groups, the Drive Smarter 
Challenge. You can go to drivesmarterchallenge.org, and you can save 
yourself hundreds of dollars by following simple instructions of how to 
conserve gasoline without cutting back on your travel. Obviously the 
speed limit and how much you travel would be a good step. But there a 
lot of other things you can do with your automobile, depending on how 
much gas it uses, to save and conserve, because even in small ways, if 
we reduce the demand, and the supply stays the same, the price will 
come down. Demand and supply are connected to each other.
  I'm also very, very much about new technologies. As I talk about 
these solutions, understand that I'm here tonight, not because these 
solutions are all technology-driven or conservation-driven, but I'm 
here tonight because we have to go forward with an all-of-the-above 
strategy. We can't afford to leave anything off the table. We can't 
afford to pick winners and losers.
  As a matter of fact, I can give you a good example of picking winners 
and losers in the energy sector because in California, they said, we're 
not going to use all of the resources for electricity production. We're 
going to mandate that a certain amount of our electricity has to be 
produced by these sources. They picked winners and losers. And guess 
what happened? The lights went out. They didn't have any electricity.
  That's the problem with picking winners and losers. We have to have 
an all-of-the-above strategy.

[[Page H5309]]

  I'm here tonight, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania laid out 
earlier, because we have to increase capacity. We have to go after 
these resources from the Outer Continental Shelf, from ANWR.
  I've been in Congress 14 years. I've cast 24 votes to increase 
capacity for oil and gas in this country. Twenty-four votes. As has 
been said ad infinitum now, and I'm not a partisan guy--I don't want to 
blame anybody--but these votes matter. And almost every time the 
Republicans vote for new capacity, and almost every time the Democrats 
vote against it. Even today, it happened again. And 2 weeks ago it 
happened in the Senate again.
  This is one of those issues that I don't want to be too partisan, but 
you can't deny there is a huge difference between increasing capacity. 
Frankly, even the wild-eyed environmentalist has to recognize that this 
is painful to regular people. And you've got to get off of your crusade 
to save every tree, you know, to save every form of wildlife at the 
expense of our human beings who can't pay their bills and they can't 
buy gas.
  Be reasonable, people. That's not happening today.
  But there's a tremendous amount of new technologies. I would argue 
that we can literally grow our economy, a manufacturing-driven, export 
robust U.S. economy, by being aggressive in this energy sector, because 
we have the innovation.
  What does everyone around the world still emulate about our country? 
We would like to say it's our privilege to vote. That's important. But 
they don't all emulate that. We'd like to think that they all would 
freely worship as we do, and I cherish that. But they don't all emulate 
that. We would like to think we all have freedom of the press.
  The one thing they emulate is our private sector, our capitalistic, 
free enterprise, innovative sector. We have that.
  How did we balance the budget in the late nineties? I was here. Four 
straight years. People think, oh, you cut spending. No we didn't. We 
slowed the growth of spending, yes we did. We didn't cut spending. But 
revenues surpassed expenses principally because of one sector of our 
economy that roared, information technology. We led the world. 
Microsoft is an example. There are many others. We led the world. 
Revenues surpassed expenses.
  That can happen again in this sector if we will lead and not be in 
retreat and not regulate, not limit, but expand, go after it, create 
new technologies, increase capacity. Be competitive.
  As the gentleman from Pennsylvania said, it's important.

                              {time}  2115

  Now, I have had the editor of Automotive News say that we're going to 
be driving electric cars. That might be true. Ion lithium batteries 
have some potential. GM and Toyota say that next summer they're going 
to have plug-in hybrids. But I will also tell you that Volkswagon, 
which is a premier automotive interest in the world, can make a three-
cylinder diesel engine, lightweight, gets 50 to 60 miles a gallon so 
biodiesel, biofuels, as long as they're cellulosic in nature and not 
corn based, are very important developments as well.
  I will tell you what I don't think the Congress ought to do is pick 
winners and losers. I think we ought to have an all-of-the-above 
strategy. Let the market determine which one gets their best and first. 
Let consumers choose and promote them all. Let the marketplace decide. 
Let me say that if we do end up plugging our cars in, though, we don't 
have the electricity capacity to keep them running. We have to have 
nuclear energy.
  The numbers--81 percent of France's electricity is generated by 
nuclear power. They have 53 reactors; we have roughly twice that many. 
They don't bury their waste, which we propose at Yucca Mountain. They 
reprocess their spent full turning most of the spent waste back into 
energy. Why don't we do that? Because we're still stuck in a Three Mile 
Island time warp mindset that it's somehow not safe, and it is. And 
there is no evidence that it is not. And we've not had any nuclear 
incidences. We have 53 nuclear reactors. It is emissionless.
  You want to reduce the carbon footprint? Promote nuclear. If you want 
to reduce the carbon footprint in a meaningful way and you're against 
nuclear, you're disingenuous. I don't care what your name is. You're 
not living in the real world, or you're playing politics. We need 
nuclear.
  Now, another new technology is the stationary solid oxide fuel cell. 
What is that? Well, it's developed out of Silicon Valley. Partnerships 
around the country. We have a 100-kilowatt system now being 
demonstrated in the Tennessee Valley. It looks like the HVAC system in 
your home, but here is the special element of a solid oxide fuel cell: 
It makes electricity, but it's not on a transmission grid. That's 
pretty cool in the world we live in today because without a 
transmission grid, you can't shut down the electricity through a 
terrorist incident because not everyone is connected to the grid.
  And in this stationary solid oxide fuel cell, which is also 
emissionless, reducing the carbon footprint, it does have to be fueled 
in one feedstock. It's an HVAC system with fuel cells that creates 100 
kilowatts of power which is roughly a 30,000 square foot building. 
Office building, commercial center, several houses. But you have to 
have a feedstock, but it will run on anything, just about. It will run 
on natural gas, it will run on solar in some places, ethanol, different 
feedstocks.
  But that's an important development. It has got tremendous 
electricity potential especially if we start plugging in our cars and 
we need this new electricity capacity.
  I believe we ought to look at a follow-up stimulus bill that directs 
resources to people that are stuck. And I'll tell you in the south, if 
you're on the lower income, you probably have a very inefficient 
vehicle and you probably drive a long way to work and you're stuck; and 
those are the people that our next economic stimulus ought to help. We 
ought to figure out a way in a bipartisan way to get them some 
resources to move to more efficient transportation, one way or another. 
Because people right now, they can't trade that big car. They can't get 
for it what it's worth, and then they don't have the money to go to a 
more efficient car. We should help them.
  In closing, let me just say words are cheap and votes really do make 
a difference, and the votes for energy capacity have been really 
important in the past, and they're even more important today; and 
they're going to be even more important tomorrow. And this is where we 
have to bring this Congress together.
  And the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate is way out of 
touch with reality unless they get serious immediately about increasing 
capacity because if we made moves that were published around the world 
that we're going back in the energy-production business, prices would 
come down overnight, not because the energy is there overnight, but 
because they know we're going in the right direction because right now 
we're going in the wrong direction.
  We need help.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee.
  The president of DOW Chemical said in a letter I received, he said, 
We have a debate going on in this country and one side wants 
production, the other side wants conservation and renewables. He said 
you're going to need them all. You'll need them both. There's no room 
for choice.
  At this time, I'm glad to be joined by my friend from New Jersey (Mr. 
Garrett).
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I appreciate the gentleman for hosting 
this special hour tonight and also very much importantly for all of 
your work all over the years on this very important issue.
  And this issue really does strike at the heart of my constituents 
back in my great State of New Jersey whether it's from my home County 
of Sussex County, where over 60 percent of them have to commute out of 
the county every day by car, or Warren County or Bergen County where a 
host of so many commuters are being hard hit by this hard energy crisis 
that we're facing right now.
  I join with my friend from Tennessee where--I don't come to the floor 
to blame anyone because the American public simply wants the Congress 
to come up with answers to the problems

[[Page H5310]]

that we are all facing back in our district.
  And I think really when you get right down to it, it's not that 
complicated in one sense to take a look at the various policies or 
ideas out there. It's easy, I think, one way to tell whether a good--
whether a policy is a good energy policy or not. All you have to do is 
look at three things: supplies, cost, and security.
  A good energy policy is a policy that will do what? It will give you 
more energy. More supply. A bad energy policy will give us less supply. 
A good energy policy is one that will lower costs for Americans. A bad 
energy policy is one that is going to continue to raise or escalate 
costs, meaning that American families are going to have to have less 
money for their food, housing, education, and so on. And thirdly and 
finally, a good energy policy is one that will make us a stronger, more 
secure America. A bad energy policy is going to be one that makes us 
less secure, less independent of foreign, unstable regimes like 
Venezuela and overseas and Saudi Arabia and places like Russia and the 
like.
  So why don't we take a minute to see what has, quite honestly, the 
other side of the aisle proposed for us. I have in my hand right here, 
the Democrat plan to lower gas prices. You may recall that when 
Democrats were campaigning for the 110th Congress, they said that they 
had a commonsense solution to lower the price of gasoline and energy 
for the American public. And we are now 18 months, I think, into the 
110th Congress. And, well, there is absolutely nothing in the 
Democrat's plan.
  Their commonsense solution, and that's why we're so eagerly awaiting 
it, and that's why we, on this side of the aisle, come to the floor 
every night to hammer home the point that something must be done. But 
we can look to see what has occurred over the last 17 months, 18 months 
of the 110th Congress now that the Democrats have been in charge of 
dealing with energy. On these three points: on supply, on cost, on 
security.
  On supply. As I stand here tonight, as was already indicated from the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania, 85 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf 
where our energy supply comes from, natural gas principally, but oil as 
well, it's basically locked up off limits to us for further exploration 
even determining what is actually out there. There was legislation to 
do that just to say what's out there. Let's find out the information. 
Off limits to us.
  Deep sea exploration. Over 100 or 200--200 miles off sea totally off 
limits right now. Eighty-six billion barrels of oil, 420 trillion cubic 
feet of natural gas could be at our disposal to give us greater supply, 
but it's not.
  Oil shales In the Midwestern part of this country. Oil shales were 
reported in the paper just today as it was going through committee and 
will be coming to the floor later on, proposals to keep that off-limits 
as far as greater supply for the country.

  Let me give you some quick little number here. U.S. has two trillion, 
that's with a ``T,'' two trillion barrels of oil that effectively are 
involved here. And to put that in perspective, from 1859 from the first 
days that oil was pulled out of the ground to today, one trillion 
barrels of oil has been used. And we have basically two trillion 
barrels over there that we could basically be getting in economically 
viable ways.
  Supply has not been addressed, unfortunately, during the 110th 
Congress by the Democrats.
  Costs. Well, when they were campaigning for office, I know in my 
district you could buy gasoline for $1.80. Now, of course, it's up to 
$4, doubling the price, and that's hurting the American family.
  What else has occurred during these last 17 months? Four times 
legislation has come through this House that would raise taxes on 
energy costs. And who actually pays those taxes at the end of the day? 
You and I do at the pump or any other ways where we buy our energy.
  And finally, there are still proposals, believe it or not, from the 
other side of the aisle that want to put more taxes on us like 50 
cents-a-gallon gasoline taxes has been proposed by Chairman Dingell. So 
the next time you go to the pump and you're paying around $4 bucks per 
a gallon of oil, just remember the other side wants to add another 50 
cents; and there is another proposal for a nickel as well by Chairman 
Oberstar. So 55 cents more if they have their way in taxes.
  Finally on security. Well, right now this country imports around 63 
percent or is dependent upon foreign oil. Places like Saudi Arabia, 
places like Venezuela, places like Nigeria where they have so many 
problems, Down south in South America as well; and that number 
continues to grow for the reasons I have just stated.
  Gasoline. We have not built refineries in this country so now we are 
like many countries across the globe. We have to import gasoline, 10 
percent of our consumption of gasoline is coming into this country, 
which makes us a less secure Nation because we do not have our own 
supply of refineries right here at home.
  Let me move off of what we're doing here on the floor to an outside 
source to look at this. And the Investors Business Daily has taken a 
look at this issue. And what they said is this. They said just going 
back a couple of years, under the eight Clinton years alone, U.S. oil 
production declined 1.3 million barrels per day, or 19 percent, while 
our foreign imports increased 3.5 million barrels a day, or 45 percent.
  During President Clinton's time, he vetoed legislation that would 
have increased legislation that would have increased production of our 
own vitally needed oil supply, not only for Americans but for our 
national defense emergencies as well.
  The article goes on to say--it poses this question. So were the 
Democrats and Members of Congress together merely short-sighted with 
only a few having any real business experience, or were they just 
ignorant about economics, the fact that the law of supply and demand 
determines the price of oil commodities such as oil, steel, copper, and 
lumber? Or were they utterly irresponsible and incompetent in their 
actions that led us to become dangerously dependent on increasing oil 
imports from foreign companies? We think, it says, we think it was all 
of the above.
  The unintended consequences of the Congress Members' poor judgment 
and meddling micromanagement of U.S. energy policy is that they 
actually hurt most of the people that they profess to help: the average 
American consumer, lower-income workers, and those in the inner cities 
who can't afford an extra $100 a month to drive to and from work.
  So that, ladies and gentlemen, is the dilemma we face here in the 
110th Congress on a proposal, on plans that do not address supplies, 
costs, and energy. And that is why I so commend the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania for the solutions that he's offered over the years as well 
and his legislation that goes to the issue of supply to increase the 
amount of energy that the American consumer can attain, to lower the 
cost of energy for the American family so that they have more 
disposable income for other needs, and to increase national security to 
strengthen America to make us more independent of these volatile 
countries.
  And with that, I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey 
for his fine comments, and we yield back the balance of our time.

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