[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 101 (Wednesday, June 18, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H5572-H5578]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE FRESHMEN CLASS OF THE 110TH CONGRESS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Hodes) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. HODES. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be here tonight on the
floor of the House of Representatives with a number of my colleagues
who will be coming in and out, I imagine, as the evening goes on. And
I'm also especially glad to be able to follow my colleague from Iowa
(Mr. King), who's got an interesting, but obsolete, perspective on the
energy future for this country and what we need to do not only in the
current crisis, but for the future of our great country, for the future
of our economy, for the future of our energy use.
So tonight we will be talking about what it means to go green.
Because, let's face it, green is the new red, white and blue. And
before I jump into the energy issues, but sticking with the theme of
going green, I cannot help but stand to congratulate the Boston Celtics
for winning the NBA finals. And if anybody exemplifies what it means to
be green and to be champions, it certainly is the Boston Celtics. It's
the kind of lesson that we all could learn in this country.
Many of us in New Hampshire are diehard Celtics fans. And some of a
certain age, including myself, remember the great championship Celtic
teams from the sixties, seventies and eighties. And this has been the
longest stretch in the Celtics' franchise history without winning a
championship.
The Boston Celtics last night beat their rival, the Los Angeles
Lakers, by a whopping 39 points. It was the first NBA championship for
Boston since 1986. Now, Celtics fans are especially proud today of
Captain Paul Pierce, who, in the great tradition of Celtic champions
like Red Auerbach and Larry Bird and Kevin McHale and Dennis Johnson
and other greats, was the obvious choice for the NBA Final MVP Award.
I'm proud to stand tonight to congratulate Paul Pierce for securing his
place in Celtics history and the rest of the team for bringing the 17th
banner back to New England. It's time to go green: Go Celtics.
Now, along with going green, what's important to note is that, as we
are here tonight, in my home State of New Hampshire, New Hampshire
families are paying record prices for gasoline. Today, the average is
$4.04 for regular gas and $4.73 for diesel. Last year at about this
time, New Hampshire families were paying $2.92 for regular gas and
$2.82 for diesel.
Now, for some reason, as if to rewrite history, the President of the
United States and my Republican colleagues, regrettably, would like to
shift the blame for the soaring energy prices to the Democrats in
Congress. They would like somehow for the American people to believe
that it is simply the fact of the switch of majority in 2006 and
Democrats who have been here working hard on reasonable, responsible,
smart energy legislation, who are somehow the cause of the pain at the
pumps. Well, tonight we'll talk a little truth, we'll talk a little
truth to what are outrageous scams. It is simply not true.
The President today proposed, for example, drilling in ANWR. He
proposed giving the oil companies even more access to drilling. The
President's proposal today is, unfortunately, another page from the
administration's energy policy that was literally written by the oil
industry. I don't think anybody can forget that it was Vice President
Cheney, an oil man, who, together with President Bush, an oil man, sat
in secret with the oil companies to create this country's energy
policy.
The product of that energy policy is that today, after the first
quarter of 2008, we've had another record year for oil company profits.
Apparently Mr. Cheney's energy policy seems to be working for the oil
companies. In 2002, the profits of the oil companies were $6.5 billion
in a quarter. And today, in 2008, first quarter of 2008, the record
year for oil company profits, $36.9 billion in profits, while we pay
$4.04 at the pump.
So the plan from the President now is to give away more public
resources to the very same oil companies that are raking in record
profits; and all the time those oil companies are sitting on 68 million
acres of Federal lands they've already leased; 68 million acres of
Federal lands they've already leased
[[Page H5573]]
and already have done the environmental permitting on. That's 68
million acres ready to be drilled on for oil.
The President's speech, in a time of record gas prices, had no ideas
for more efficient transportation or renewable American energy; no
ideas for conservation and an alternative future that will actually
free us from oil; no real ideas to deal with the current crisis now, as
well as looking toward the future because they are inseparable. And we
are now paying the price, frankly, for 30 years of not paying attention
as we should, and for 8 years under the Bush administration, together
with a previous 12 years, much of that with a Republican Congress in
which energy policy has been designed for the oil companies, favoring
the oil companies, and the American consumers have been paying the
price. The President's proposal is nothing more than a continuation of
addiction to fossil fuels and dependency on an oil industry earning
record profits.
Now, just before I turn it over to my colleague, my good friend from
the State of New York, John Hall, who has been working on environmental
issues his entire life, what is clear is that we will need to
transition from the current addiction we have to oil that binds us to
unfriendly countries, that threatens our national security, that
depresses our economy, we will need to transition to a future of energy
efficiency and conservation, and renewable and alternative fuels, which
will explode the entrepreneurial spirit of this country, deliver real
security, real jobs, and a sustainable future. But in that transition,
what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would like the
American people to think is that somehow, by drilling in Alaska, they
will see some real benefits.
We will talk more about it later. But the last thing I will say
before I turn it over to Mr. Hall is, what the Department of Energy has
told us about drilling in Alaska is very simple: Even if you opened
ANWR to drilling it would take until about 2025 to see any of the
benefits, and at that point you might reduce the price at the pump by
1.8 cents. So that is what the President of the United States proposed
today to deal with our energy crisis and the future of our energy use.
{time} 2145
Drill in ANWR, and by 2025, we will reduce the price by 1.8 cents.
At this time, Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to turn the proceedings
over to my colleague from New York, John Hall.
Mr. HALL of New York. Thank you, Mr. Hodes. Good evening. It is a
pleasure to be here again. I want to just agree with one thing that our
previous speaker from the other side of the aisle, Mr. King, had to say
regarding biofuels. I think that there are ways in which various
biofuels, including corn, but especially cellulosic biofuels and
nonfood crops can and should be used to extend the liquid fuels
capacity of this country. But the main reason that I'm here tonight is
because I've heard in the last several days a nonstop drum beat, a
chorus singing from the same choir book and the same hymn book at every
committee meeting I have been at, at every press conference I have
heard, at every chance I see a Republican representative on television
blaming the Democrats for the high price of gasoline and claiming,
erroneously, that Democrats have been stopping drilling, that Democrats
are opposed to drilling, and therefore we're responsible for the price
of gas. This is not only false but ridiculous on the face of it. And I
challenge it as a falsehood.
Specifically, I would say that over the last 8 years, the number of
drilling permits issued by the government has gone up by 361 percent.
So the lands are open. The oil companies own 9,700 plus leases that
they have bid on and received the leases for. And as you say, Mr.
Hodes, they have got done the environmental permitting on, the permits
have been issued, and the way is clear for drills to go into the ground
or into the offshore adjacent waters of the lower 48. But for some
reason, no drilling is occurring.
Now I'm curious as to why exactly that is, if really the oil
companies want to drill. And I would remind you, by the way, that our
President George W. Bush said, when oil was going for $50 a barrel,
that that was all the incentive the oil companies need. They don't need
any more tax breaks or incentives. Fifty dollars a barrel is enough
incentive to make them drill anywhere.
As this chart will show you, the total Federal acres leased and in
production in 2007 were 91.5 million acres leased but producing only
23.7 million acres. There is a huge discrepancy between land that has
been leased by the oil companies and that which they are using to
actually drill and produce oil. Why is this? Could it be perhaps that
they expect that speculators and market forces may drive the prices up
further, not to mention their restricting supply might drive them up
further, and that if they hold off for a couple more years, that same
land and that same oil might be more valuable? And actually when you're
making profits such as the gentleman from New Hampshire just talked
about, I mean, how much money can you deal with? How many profits can
you possibly figure out what to do with and where to invest in? And
maybe it's better leaving them in the ground.
If I'm an oil company, I'm not necessarily thinking in the national
interest. I'm thinking in the interests of my shareholders for the next
quarter, for the next year, for the next shareholders' meeting, and for
my next bonus if I'm the CEO. We had the CEOs of the top five oil
companies testifying in this House before the Select Committee on
Energy Independence and Global Warming. And when they were asked, ``Now
that you have made the record profits of any corporation in the history
of the world, would you commit to investing in one biofuels pump at
every station that you own?'' And they said ``no.'' And when they were
asked, ``If you would commit to advertising now that you have made the
biggest profits in the history of the world for 3 years in a row, would
you invest in advertising to tell people to conserve more and that it's
patriotic to conserve and to drive a more fuel-efficient car and so
on?'' And they said, ``Oh, we're already doing that.'' Which I frankly
haven't seen. I watch enough television. I think I would have noticed
if they were doing that.
And my friend, Mr. Walden, a minority member, a Republican member of
the Select Committee from Oregon said, ``I'm a capitalist.'' I'm
paraphrasing him now. I don't remember the exact quote. ``I'm a
capitalist. I'm a small businessman myself. And if I made record
profits for several years in a row, profits that I hadn't even dreamed
of, I would start to think about whether I could lower my price to my
customer. Have you at the oil companies thought about lowering the
prices to the consumers?'' And one by one all five of them said,
``Well, we don't set the prices.'' And there was a chuckle through the
room.
But I think there are various factors setting the prices. And one of
them is collusion between the oil companies, which is why I have called
for an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and the Commodity
Futures Trading Commission on exactly that fact, the fact that when
crude oil goes up on the world market, the gas and diesel price spikes
immediately with it. They go up simultaneously. But when crude prices
go down, gasoline prices still go up. And if they come down at all,
they come done slowly. It's kind of like rockets and feathers. The
price goes up like a rocket, and it comes down like a feather very
slowly.
So I'm suspicious about a couple of things, one, the disconnect
between crude and refined gasoline when they're coming down. They're
connected when going up. They are not connected when coming down.
Secondly, why so much leased acreage that is not being drilled on? And
thirdly, why at this time when the prices are at a record, when
America's families are being squeezed and hurt, and their budgets are
being hurt, they're being forced to choose between food, medicine or
gasoline, some people have given up their jobs because they can't
afford to commute to those jobs, why at these times are these oil
companies and our friends on the other side of the aisle choosing to
put the pressure on and say drill in ANWR and drill in these
environmentally sensitive areas?
By the way, two of the individuals who have been stopping offshore
drilling, I haven't personally stopped any myself, but two of the
people who have
[[Page H5574]]
are the President's brother, Jeb Bush, who is the Republican Governor
of Florida who is opposed to drilling off the coast of Florida, and
Governor Schwarzenegger of California, a Republican Governor who has
been opposed to further drilling off the coast of California. So you
can't just say this is a Democratic opposition even if we were opposing
it.
But the fact is that we have seen an increase, a radical increase in
leases that are made available, in leases that the oil companies bid
for apparently believing there is something of value underground, 9,700
separate leases and 68 million acres of land currently available and
not being used. And I suggest that our friends in the minority might
think of another reason, or perhaps another policy, that would help us
get out of the box we're in.
We have worked very hard in this Congress to try to develop new
sources, to provide incentives and tax breaks and subsidies for
renewable energies like solar, wind and geothermal and various kinds of
biofuels. For the first time, we made a major investment of, I believe
it was $6 billion or so in carbon sequestration so we can use the
record amounts of coal that we have and still precipitate out the
carbon so we don't release that carbon dioxide that causes the global
warming.
And, by the way, I would say in sympathy to the folks from Mr. King's
State and to the parents of the five Boy Scouts who were killed by a
tornado there, and in sympathy to the folks in Cedar Rapids who are
just now starting to pump out their basements and put their city back
together, it used to be called the city ``that would never flood,'' by
the way, that was under 12 feet of water from its most recent flood, in
sympathy to the poor citizens of Myanmar who were struck by the cyclone
a couple of weeks ago that was as strong as Hurricane Katrina but came
to shore with no warning and no FEMA, and not even Brownie to save
them, and in sympathy to the people in Georgia and in Florida with
record droughts, and in sympathy to people of the Rocky Mountain States
and the Western States with record fire seasons, and in sympathy to
folks in the 19th District of New York, which I represent which has had
three 50-year floods in the last 5 years, I would say in sympathy to
all those folks and to protect them, that global warming is here, it is
starting to change the climate. These extreme weather patterns fit the
computer models of global warming. And if we want to pump and drill
more oil and burn more fossil fuels, fine. But that had better not be
our only solution, or we will see more tornadoes, more floods, more
extreme weather catastrophic events and more global warming. And I
think that is not what the American people want. What we want are fair
gas prices, fair energy prices and a green, renewable, sustainable
energy future.
I yield back to my friend from New Hampshire.
Mr. HODES. Thank you. And what strikes me is as you recite the litany
of terrible tragedies, natural disasters, or unnatural disasters, that
have struck the world, my district underwater in various parts of it,
as yours has been in the last 5 years, with unprecedented floods, the
floods around our Nation, hurricanes, Katrina, in Burma, Indonesia,
around the world, clearly, the world's climate is changing.
What strikes me as radical is to attack the notion that global
warming is here. What seems radical to me is not to accept that we're
going to need to make the kind of transition that seems evident that we
will have to make from a fossil fuel past to a new energy future. And
in the middle of all this, how convenient it is at summertime with
people in pain from rising gas prices, caused by lots of things, to
say, for my friends on the other side of the aisle, it's those
Democrats, if only they would let us drill, if only those Democrats
would let us drill, everything would be fine. If only we could drill in
ANWR. If only the Democrats weren't stopping us from drilling, gas
prices would come down.
Let me point out that since the 1990s, the Federal Government has
consistently encouraged the development of its oil and gas resources,
and the amount of drilling on Federal lands has steadily increased
during that time. The amount of drilling on Federal lands has steadily
increased.
Now that includes the period of time in which the Democrats have had
the majority in Congress. Federal lands have been open to the oil
companies. They have leases. The environmental permitting is done. As
you pointed out, they haven't been drilling, although the number of
permits has been going up. In fact, we would call it an explosion in
Federal permits to drill for oil on Federal lands, a resource for all
the people which, through the wisdom of the Federal Government, the
Federal Government is allowed to be drilled on in the environmentally
proper ways.
In fact, 5 years ago, there were 3,802 permits to drill, and in 2007
there were 7,561 permits issued to drill. We're not stopping drilling.
We're not stopping drilling. What we are talking about, though, is
truth.
And one of the questions that you have to ask is, so where is the
drilling getting us? What effect will the drilling have, has the
drilling had, on gas prices? Well, if the President's answer is we want
to drill more, if my friends across the aisle's answer is, oh, drill
more, the more you drill, the lower the gas prices will be, then let's
at least first take a look at that claim that more drilling means lower
gas prices.
In fact, between 1999 and 2007, when the number of drilling permits
issued for development of public lands increased, as you said, by 361
percent, gasoline prices have also risen dramatically. The chart to my
left shows emphatically, categorically, with no room for argument, that
more drilling, more permits, doesn't equal lower gas prices. When you
look at this chart and you start down here in the corner that I'm
pointing to, we have the price of gas along this side. I'm pointing to
here. The years are along the bottom. We see in red, the bars are
drilling permits issued. In blue, we see the number of wells drilled.
And the green line is the price of gas. So we're showing all three
components of the question I asked: Does more drilling lower gas
prices? Because if it doesn't, then the President's argument to drill
in ANWR holds no water. The complaints of the minority that we're
somehow stopping progress, we are the fault for keeping gas prices
high, holds no water. And we're going to have to look for other enemies
to point the finger at and other solutions for our energy.
{time} 2200
So let's take just a quick look. Without going through it all, what
this trend clearly shows, as you can see, are the permits issued. This
starts in 1994 and goes up to 2007. As you can see, in the early years,
with the red bars, there are more permits issued than there is drilling
because, first, you have to issue the permits before you drill on it.
Then by about 1999, after we've issued permits from 1994, 1995, 1996,
1997--here we are in 1998 and 1999--what we're seeing is that the
number of wells drilled has caught up and has surpassed the number of
permits issued, and it's relatively stable through there.
Then starting in the year 2000, we're going to see that the number of
wells drilled is declining. As you pointed out, the oil companies are
getting permits. They're buying up leases. They're holding onto the
supply, but they're not drilling wells, not because there aren't the
permits issued, not because they couldn't drill but because of some
other reason. Now, let's remind ourselves that they're also making, in
these last years here, record profits while their drilling on public
lands available to them is lower than the permits issued.
Now let's take a look at the price of gas. Notice how the price of
gas basically tracks these lines. So it shows more permits, more
drilling, higher prices of gas. More permits, more drilling, higher
prices of gas. The argument that if we simply open up ANWR to drill
will somehow lower the price of gas is absolutely wrong. It just
doesn't hold water.
What is so interesting to me is that this is a, theoretically, free
market economy, and this country has always stood for free markets with
reasonable regulation because, as Abraham Lincoln--a good Republican--
said, the purpose of government is to do what the free markets cannot
or will not do so well for themselves.
In our free market economy, if the oil companies tapped the 68
million
[[Page H5575]]
Federal acres of leased land, it could generate an estimated 4.8
million barrels of oil a day. That is what is available to them now
under lease with the environmental permits done. 4.8 million barrels of
oil a day is six times what ANWR would produce at its peak in the year
2025. It's available to the oil companies today. Yet, somehow, the
President and our colleagues want to open ANWR, which will take 20
years to get done and will reduce the price, theoretically, by 1.8
cents. It simply doesn't hold water.
The fact is that 80 percent of the oil available on the Outer
Continental Shelf is in regions that are already open to leasing, but
the oil companies, in their wisdom, haven't decided it's worth their
time to drill there either. They have the leases. They have the
permits, but they don't want to drill there. So we have the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, a small place up there in Alaska where the
caribou are wild, where wildlife flourishes, where it's tough to get
the oil out of there because you've got to build a pipeline forever. We
have onshore Federal lands available to the oil companies. We have
offshore lands available to the oil companies. They're not drilling.
They want more leases. It sounds kind of like grab and greed to me.
Grab and greed.
We're a nation that has, perhaps, 2 percent of the world's supply of
oil. We use 24 percent of the world's supply of oil. There is a
disconnect there. We need to find new solutions because the bottom line
is we cannot drill our way out of an energy situation in which foreign
countries, many of them unfriendly to us and multinationals who are
making record profits, control our supply of oil. It has had disastrous
consequences for our foreign policy because now you read the various
evidence that's coming out about the reason we went to war in Iraq.
I just finished the book of President Bush's spokesman, Scott
McClellan, called ``What Happened,'' which is on the reason we went to
war. What is very interesting is that, when you read the passages of
the discussions in the White House about why we went into Iraq and Vice
President Cheney's concerns about oil, many of the fears that people
have seem to be clarified about the reasons we went to war in Iraq.
Now, I understand the motivation that says we need oil and that we
need to secure our supplies and that we're going to use our
geopolitical power and our military might to make sure we have the
energy, but the bottom line is, when our energy future runs our foreign
policy instead of our foreign policy and our energy future being tied
together for our independence, we're at great risk. Here we are in
2008, stuck in a quagmire of a war with a huge debt. We have a deficit
with China. Our gas prices are soaring. There is no way to drill our
way out of the solution, and so we're going to talk about some more
facts, some more truth and some of the things we're doing both to deal
with the current issues and what we're doing for the future of this
country.
I'll yield back to you, Mr. Hall.
Mr. HALL of New York. Thank you, Mr. Hodes.
As you were speaking, I was thinking about some of the things that we
can do.
Westchester County, one of the counties that I have the honor to
represent, has a loop of county bus service which has switched from
diesel buses to biodiesel buses to hybrid biodiesel buses.
We have John Jay High School, at which I just spoke a couple of days
ago, where the environmental club has a grease mobile, a diesel car
they've converted to run on biodiesel that they made from cooking oil
from restaurants in the area.
The Newburgh Free Academy, a public school in Orange County, New
York, one of the counties I'm honored to represent, has a solar racing
club that built a solar car which tied for first place in a race
between Houston, Texas and Newburgh, New York. They were built without
the faculty advisors' even touching the vehicle. The adults were not
allowed to touch the vehicle. The kids had to build it by themselves.
These students knew how to weld and fasten the car together and how to
build it sturdily enough and how to make sure that the wheels rotated
so that they didn't wobble and so on. The advanced placement math and
science students knew how to calculate how many square inches of
photovoltaic cells it took to power a certain number of batteries to
drive the wheels.
They drove that car from Houston for 2,000 miles to Newburgh, New
York, and tied for first place in a race that was sponsored by a
corporation that put the money up for the entire educational and
research experiment.
When we did a presentation in our district on this, the students came
in, wearing their solar racing club hats and their solar racing club T-
shirts, and they showed the video of their car rolling down the highway
with nothing but solar power powering it. By the way, this was a
standing-room-only crowd who came to see this at the Bedford Town Hall
in New York.
Afterwards, the adults came up to me as we were leaving, and they
were saying, if these kids can do this on a shoestring, with no budget
to speak of, where is Detroit? Why can't GM and Ford and Chrysler, our
automakers, do this?
I would say that they can and that they should have been, but they're
only now starting to. In fact, as to the Chevy Volt, as advertised on
their Web site--it will be out, I believe, next year--they're planning
this car to be a plug-in hybrid which will have a small internal
combustion engine, but it will not be connected to the drive chain. The
gas engine will only be used to drive a generator to keep the Lithium-
ion batteries fully powered. When you drive this car, they say, on a
100-mile commute or less, it will run as an electric vehicle and will
not use any gasoline. When you run it on an intercity trip of hundreds
of miles, it will average 150 miles per gallon. That's supposed to be
available next year.
I was at an event last week, and I talked to somebody from Toyota.
They said, oh, that's nothing. In a couple of years, we're bringing out
a car that's going to get 500 miles to the gallon.
Now, my feeling is that, when I was growing up and when we were in
the middle of the space race and when President John Kennedy had
challenged us that we would get to the Moon in 10 years, in our
country, we were used to the position of leadership, and we thought,
certainly, the United States has the ingenuity and the creativity and
the expertise and the intelligence to be able to devise solutions for
all of these problems. I still think we can, and I think we need to,
and I think that the solution here is not to drill, drill, drill, and
to open up more environmentally sensitive areas to be destroyed.
By the way, it was interesting to me that the polar bear was just put
on the threatened list by the Secretary of the Interior. Then just this
week, with a rulemaking process that doesn't have to go before us here
in Congress, Secretary Kempthorne issued a rule indemnifying the top
seven oil companies against any legal action should they kill polar
bears in their exploration for oil.
So it's kind of a curious environmental consciousness that this
administration seems to have where they give lip service to it on one
hand, but on the other hand, they want to protect their friends in the
oil companies from any risk at all at the same time that they open them
up to all profit imaginable.
Just turning to this chart, natural gas is, of course, another one of
the things we hear about, the oil and gas for which we bad Democrats
are not allowing them to drill. Currently, how much natural gas is open
to leasing? 82 percent. Closed to leasing is this small piece of the
pie chart. This came from the Minerals Management Service in 2006.
Technically, of the recoverable reserves of natural gas, 82 percent of
them are open to leasing. This corresponds with the figures that we've
been talking about in terms of oil that is open to leasing and that, in
fact, has been leased and that is not currently being used.
I would contrast that with the inventiveness of Listening Rock Farm
in my district, which is in the town of Amenia, New York. It's,
actually, just barely north of my district. It's a renewable tree farm
that's making biodiesel from wood waste and is running all their farm
vehicles--their tractors and other vehicles and their road vehicles--on
biodiesel made from wood waste, which is wood chips, sawdust, leaves,
anything that doesn't go into the furniture that they make.
I would contrast it with Taylor Biomass, which is a company in Orange
[[Page H5576]]
County that is a private corporation but that takes municipal solid
waste currently from the Town of Montgomery on a pilot project. They
separate out the batteries and the solvents and the Raid and the
insecticides and other bad things that you don't want to go into the
groundwater or up into the air, and those things get taken away and are
dealt with in a responsible way. What is left is gasified and burned to
spin a turbine and to put kilowatts out into the grid and, at the same
time, to produce ethanol. These are creative solutions to our energy
problems that, I think, must be explored.
One thing I would share with our friend Mr. King is that we need to
look at a wide variety of different kinds of energy around different
parts of the country but, in particular, in the northeast where we have
a hilly topography. There are many opportunities for small, low-head,
hydroelectric power. In New York alone, the Department of Energy's Web
site--the Idaho National Laboratory page--lists 4,000-some, low-head
hydro sites, meaning small dams and small waterfalls, where, according
to them, no lefty, environmental, tree-hugging organization--this is
our DOE that we're talking about now--says that if we just put turbines
where the water is already falling at these 4,000-some sites of low-
head hydro potential that we could generate greater than 1,200
megawatts of power. That's about 60 percent of the output, the full
output of the two Indian Point nuclear plants in my district. That's
just for contrast.
Lastly, I would say that I'm interested that Texas recently passed
the State of California as the State with the largest installed wind-
power capacity. They have now become the leading wind generation State
in the country. The reason, in part, is that Governor George W. Bush,
when he was Governor of Texas, signed a renewable energy standard
requiring that 10 percent of all electricity in Texas be generated by
renewable sources of power.
{time} 2215
Of course, once the industry knew that that was there, that was a
requirement they had to meet, they more than met it, they exceeded it.
They had passed California and became the top wind-power electric
producer that T. Boone Pickens, one of the original oil tycoons in this
country, was quoted recently as saying that he is more excited today
about wind power than he ever was about any oil field he ever
discovered.
The odd part of this picture is that now that George W. Bush is
President of the United States, he threatened to veto our energy bill
last year if it included a renewable energy standard in it. What was
good for Texas, for some reason when he was President, wasn't good for
the whole country.
Now, I wish that he would revisit that or explain it to us, but I
believe that the same thing that was good for Texas would be good for
the whole country. It doesn't have to be wind everywhere. It just has
to be renewable. Some places will be wind, some places might be low-
head hydro, some places might be biofuels, some places might be tidal
power or wave power, but all of these things are available.
There are test programs and pilot programs that show they are
effective. The sooner we start using them, the sooner we can get off
this dependence on foreign oil and start to put our economy back to
work and create new jobs and the new businesses, new technologies, here
at home.
I yield back to my friend.
Mr. HODES. Thank you, and I appreciate the kindness and decorum with
which you discuss the change in apparent policies from our President,
who was Governor, apparently understood the importance of a renewable
electricity standard which would help industry, help consumers and help
move us to the kind of energy future that is responsible, American
independent energy future.
As Governor of Texas, as you said, he signed a 10 percent renewable
energy standard. As technology has developed, in our bill in the House,
when we tried to pass a bill with a 15 percent national renewable
portfolio standard to give our utilities who generate the power and the
electricity we need the certainty they are waiting for, to unleash the
free market forces, to use the renewable and alternative energies with
technology already existing to do it, that would come from a variety of
sources around the country and start to give us the kind of power
around the country that could come from renewable and alternatives, but
unfortunately it didn't get past the Senate where, unfortunately,
Senators from my State of New Hampshire stood in opposition to it,
along with a number of their Republican colleagues. It didn't pass.
We did pass an absolutely important, precedent-setting new CAFE
standard, which means that for the first time in 30 years the mileage
standards for automobiles will begin to rise. We have been able to pass
legislation to correct the obsolete standards we were stuck with, and
now by 2020 we will be in a 35-mile per gallon standard. But as you
discussed in your earlier remarks, the technology is here today for our
automobile companies, which are now languishing in the doldrums. These
former engines of the American economy, in which some people estimate
20 percent of the workforce of this country is in some way involved
directly or indirectly in the supply chain, our car companies are
taking a back seat to others which seem to have gotten on the new
technology bandwagon a lot earlier. They have simply fallen behind,
when if they had kept up with advanced technology, technology that's
available now, think about the markets around the world, which our car
companies, thus the people who are working directly and indirectly in
that supply chain would then have the benefit of, we would then be
exporting advanced technology instead of being behind the rest of the
world, because the technology is certainly here now.
One area that you touched on that I would like to amplify are the
kinds of innovative and entrepreneurial activities that are going on at
home in our districts in our State. In New Hampshire, we have a lot of
wood, and in much of the Northeast and in much of the cold belt of this
country we are heavily forested, have a lot of wood resources.
One of the things that I was glad to see in the farm bill, not a
perfect bill by any measure, as you know, in any of these large bills,
there is a lot to like, there is a lot not to like.
One of the things that's important in the new farm bill is that
cellulosic ethanol will receive much more help from the Federal
Government, as opposed to corn ethanol, which we now know I think to be
somewhat of a problem. The subsidies were lowered for corn ethanol,
raised for cellulosic ethanol.
With all due respect to my colleagues on all sides of the aisle,
whose districts produce a lot of corn and have been producing corn for
fuel, we now know there are some issues with corn ethanol. It takes
about this much energy to produce this much corn ethanol. There may be
some byproducts. Food pricing around the world has suffered, so we
clearly need to find a range of solutions.
Cellulosic ethanol means ethanol that can be added to the fuel of
automobiles and other vehicles that comes from wood waste, biomass,
switchgrass and other organic matter other than corn. It's very
important in the Northeast where we can use wood chips, and the waste
from logging and forestry products.
One of the fascinating things that I had the privilege to visit in my
own district was a wood pellet plant in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, New
England Wood Pellet, which is one of the pioneers of wood pellets. Now,
wood pellets are essentially compressed wood waste where you take
sawdust. Then you are able to compress it under very high heat.
When compressed and fed into a stove, it's incredibly efficient,
extraordinarily clean at the same time, and very convenient. You can
put it in the hopper, and power your home and heat your home with it.
The sad thing is that after wood-pellet technology was developed in the
United States, the leader has become Germany.
Now, when I was visiting a closed paper plant up in my district,
there were Germans who were thinking of coming to take it over and turn
it into a wood pellet plant. So we have the capacity, clearly in this
country, to use our entrepreneurial skills and use local resources to
produce our energy.
[[Page H5577]]
The even more interesting thing about the wood pellet plant in my
district is that they have attached an innovative system to their wood
pellet plant. What they have done is they have brought in a large
turbine, it kind of looks like a jet engine, that's housed in a small
business, that's attached to the wood pellet plant. Now, as I said, the
wood pellets are produced using extraordinary amounts of heat and
sawdust to compress it into the wood pellets for use in a stove.
What these folks have done is they have attached their own heating
and electricity generating system right off their own building, so they
have these two buildings interconnected. The turbine, which looks like
a large jet engine, is fed through a series of filters and tubes. What
happens is from the wood pellet process, the waste gases and the waste,
of which there is some, is fed through the filtering system, gasified,
and then fed into the turbine.
The turbine spins, it provides heat first to preheat the heating
system that makes the wood pellets. It provides all the power, the
electrical power to run the wood pellet plant, and it provides
additional electric power which they sell back to the electric grid.
So they are heating their plant, they are preheating their
manufacturing process, they are providing the power for their building.
They are selling electricity back to the grid all in an integrated
system that is creating fuel from a locally produced product that can
be used to heat homes in a renewable energy efficient and appropriate
way.
Now, if that one small wood pellet plant in my home district of New
Hampshire can do that, we can be doing that all over the country in
different ways, whether it is geothermal, whether it is tidal, whether
it is small hydro, of which there is plenty all over this country,
solar, wind, biomass, we have the capacity. We have the brains. We have
the entrepreneurs, we have the technology, the computer systems, and
the people who are just waiting to have the entrepreneurial spirit of
this country unleashed.
To hear the President, and to hear our colleagues on the other side
of the aisle, trying to propose that we go backwards in time to a
technology which clearly does not lower the price of gas for consumers
and clearly threatens our planet, is surprising, to say the least. I
asked my friends on the other side of the aisle, for whom I have great
respect, because this is an important process, to have two different
philosophies come before the American people so that they can help
discern the truth.
I have asked them, and I have yet to hear a good answer, what is it,
what is it that prevents you from seeing the free markets, which you
say you believe in, are waiting for the signals from the Federal
Government, are waiting for the standards to be set here in Congress,
are waiting to be unleashed. They know it means jobs, they know it
means good products, they know it means new markets around the world,
they are ready.
The utilities are ready, industry is ready, the market are ready. I
just don't understand the thinkers who are stuck in the past and aren't
ready, not only to address the issues we are facing today, but help
move this country into the future.
I don't have an answer. I haven't heard an answer. I certainly would
like to hear one, because what is being proposed by the President makes
no economic sense except perhaps to the oil companies, whose record
profits will go up even more if the President's plan were followed.
They would get more leases, get more permits, do less drilling, let the
price go up, and make more money as they have been.
That doesn't seem to be a good deal for the American people, so why
the President would propose it, I have no idea. But I don't understand
why he and his colleagues, his supporters, don't understand that the
future is simply waiting.
If they are real free market folks, then let's go, let's unleash the
free markets.
Do you have an answer for me, Mr. Hall?
Mr. HALL of New York. Well, I have a couple of comments. One is there
is a bill that will be, I believe it's already been introduced, but we
are going to be talking about more tomorrow called the Responsible
Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act of 2008 introduced by Representatives
Rahall, Markey, Hinchey, Emanuel and Yarmuth, among others, I am
cosponsor as well, as are you, I believe.
Mr. HODES. I am.
Mr. HALL of New York. What this will do, it's called, the slang
version is the ``Use It or Lose It Act,'' which would compel oil and
gas companies to either produce on those 9,700 leases that they have
and those 68 million acres of land that they have already leased,
either produce or give up those leases that they are stockpiling, and
it would do this by barring the companies from obtaining any more
leases unless they can demonstrate that they are producing oil and gas
or diligently developing the leases they already hold during the
initial term of those leases. The bill directs the Secretary of the
Interior to define what constitutes diligent development.
By the way, the backdrop for this, the sort of origin for it, is that
back a while in history, coal went through the same kind of
speculation, where Federal coal resources were being abused, potential
coal exploration areas were being leased by the coal companies, and
speculation was driving the price up before that coal was actually
developed.
Some people think that, and this is people in the financial markets
as well as the energy markets believe that a significant portion, maybe
as much as 25 percent in the increase in the cost of gasoline is
actually speculation, people saying, well, that's a good place to put
my money. I guess the stock market is kind of uncertain, and real
estate has taken a hit lately.
Of course, I am not sure which commodities to invest in, but, oil,
that looks like it's always going up. No matter what happens, I think I
will put my money into oil. Of course, the more people that do buy oil
futures, the more the price of oil goes up on the world market, and the
more we wind up paying at the pump.
Companies which lease Federal coal resources are, already by law,
required to diligently develop those leases. That's the result of this
speculation in the past. The requirement has discouraged the rampant
speculation that once did exist in the Federal coal leasing program.
This same type of speculation now appears to be plaguing the oil and
gas leasing program.
So under the Use It or Lose It bill, the Responsible Federal Oil and
Gas Lease Act of 2008, oil and gas companies would have to either
produce on those leases or give them up. I think that this is in the
national interest, I think it's fair, because certainly the application
for lease of a particular plot, whether it be onshore or offshore for
production of oil or natural gas, implies that that company was
intending to develop that resource.
{time} 2230
And the Department of the Interior has I believe the right and the
duty to make sure that our country's natural resources are used for the
best and higher good of the people of this country. Not the CEOs or the
stockholders of those corporation, but every American citizen, every
person in the United States whose future depends on this economy and on
the energy choices we make.
That's all I wanted to say, but I wanted to ask my friend from New
Hampshire, since you have that lovely chart next to you, I wonder if
you can comment on the Republican leadership's voting record on
legislation that pertains to gas prices.
Mr. HODES. I would be happy to talk about that. One of the
interesting things that we have seen, unfortunately, is a do-anything-
to-stop-progress mentality from our colleagues. While they have been
long on accusations about the Democratic attempt to move us, to address
the current issues and move us to a new future, their leadership has
unfortunately been lacking.
For instance, on the issue of OPEC price fixing, the House will once
again take up legislation to empower the Justice Department to take
legal action against OPEC-controlled entities for participating in oil
cartels that drive up oil prices globally in the United States. We are
in the grip of monopolies with price fixing. It is a
[[Page H5578]]
basic right of American law that we deal with that in the proper way to
stop price fixing. The Republicans have stood in the way without any
leadership on that issue.
In terms of price gouging by the oil companies, we have passed, the
Democrats have passed legislation cracking down on Big Oil that are
gouging American consumers.
The Energy Price Gouging Prevention Act would give our Federal Trade
Commission authority to investigate and punish companies that
artificially inflate the price of energy. It sets criminal penalties
for price gouging, and permits States to bring lawsuits against
wholesalers or retailers who engage in such practices. The Bush
administration has threatened to veto the measure and the Republican
leadership has consistently voted ``no, no, no'' and ``no'' on price
gouging.
On renewable energy as we discussed, we have been moving towards
renewable energy provisions. The House leadership of the Republicans,
every single one of them has voted ``no'' on renewable energy. They are
voting ``no'' on America's future. They are voting ``no'' on a
responsible free market. And on our energy security which we have been
working on as Democrats to make sure that we are moving to real
security for the United States and energy independence, they voted
``no, no, no.''
So in closing, and there is so much more we could say about what we
have been doing, but as I close tonight I want to say to you and to the
Speaker's attention I appreciate, another member of our freshman class
of 2006, a distinguished member, that it is time to say yes to the
future. It is time to say yes to American consumers. Our special
interest must be the interest of the people of this country. It must be
an answer to the pain that they are feeling at the pumps, and where
they know, where the American people know the great future and destiny
of this country lies.
So our job is to say yes. We understand that we need to do something
now and we are. We are answering the call now. Democrats will answer,
Republicans will say no, but we will be steadfast in the special
interest of the people. We will be responsible in unleashing the forces
of the free market to take us into the energy future that the American
people need and deserve. It is time to say yes to the future. Green is
the new red, white and blue. I look forward to working in the years to
come on the legislation and the policies that will move us into the
future in a way that the American people will be proud of, and I thank
you for being with me tonight.
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