[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 116 (Tuesday, July 15, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6678-S6682]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Mr. ISAKSON. I wish to commend the Republican leader on his remarks. 
I wish to follow up on those remarks on what is the crisis of the day 
in the United States of America, which is that the Congress of the 
United States has chosen, all of us--I am not pointing fingers at 
anyone--to argue about partisan politics over energy while the American 
people are paying numbers they have never had before in their lives. 
The future of oil is only looking higher and higher and higher.
  Quite frankly, in the United States of America, the Congress of the 
United States is sitting on a ham sandwich starving to death.
  This is a problem we have solutions for, if we will put our partisan 
differences aside and develop a comprehensive mandatory plan to address 
the supply and demand on petroleum. Yesterday the President removed the 
executive order prohibiting offshore drilling. That is absolutely 
something we ought to do. We need to be exploring our domestic 
resources to reduce our dependence on foreign imports. It is good for 
America not only because it is our energy, it is good because it is in 
the geopolitical interests of the United States. Every barrel of oil we 
are dependent on from the Middle East is a geopolitical problem, not 
just an arithmetic problem or a cost-of-oil problem. We should be 
exploring every resource we have. Some Members of the Senate have come 
together to realize there are things we can do and things we can't. We 
should be focusing on the things we can do. For the purposes of my 
remarks, I want to outline all of those things that are doable today.
  No. 1 is offshore exploration with the States and their general 
assemblies and Governors having the authority to authorize it. We know 
we have significant offshore resources in terms of both natural gas and 
petroleum.
  Second, we ought to reenergize the nuclear energy business. It is 
absolutely ridiculous that the most industrialized country in the 
world, the country that brought nuclear power and nuclear electric 
generation to reality, now sits on the sidelines while the rest of the 
world generates safe, carbon-free, inexpensive energy on a daily basis. 
In the Nation of France, 87 percent of their energy is generated for 
electricity by nuclear energy. It emits

[[Page S6679]]

zero carbon. The French use the MOX system to recycle their spent fuel 
rods and use them a second time, reducing nuclear waste by 90 percent 
and getting the maximum use out of the uranium to generate energy.
  Synthetic fuels. It is absolutely important that we work as hard as 
we can to have the tax credit, tax incentive, and depreciation 
necessary to incentivize companies to rapidly develop synthetic fuels 
that do not depend on petroleum. Our military has proven this can be 
done. It is a matter of Congress directing tax policy and research and 
development to see to it that we do it.
  Wind and solar. There are those who say that won't solve our problem. 
Well, they won't, but they will help. In those States, 40 of them where 
wind energy actually will produce a significant amount of energy for 
the grid, we ought to be incentivizing it through tax credits, rapid 
depreciation, and other procedures that the Congress has the power to 
do today. Renewable sources of energy, ethanol, both cellulose and corn 
based, are essential. It has its place. It won't solve the problem, but 
it will help.
  It is very important for us to understand that if this Congress 
decided to adopt a comprehensive policy to increase the supply of 
resources for energy, the cost of petroleum would begin coming down 
immediately, because those who speculate on the future would understand 
the United States has finally had enough. We are going to develop our 
resources. We are going to incentivize the private sector, and we will 
get the job done. This country has accomplished amazing things in 
difficult times. These are difficult times, but we know what the 
solutions are, and we know where they lie. They lie domestically with 
our own production of petroleum. They lie in research and development 
and ingenuity, and they lie in a Tax Code that needs to incentivize the 
development of energy.
  I wish to share a story that opened my eyes to the importance of 
exploring our own resources. I am ranking member of the Subcommittee on 
Africa. Earlier this year I traveled to Djibouti and to Equatorial 
Guinea. I saw a good example that the people of the United States ought 
to know about. Equatorial Guinea 10 years ago was the poorest nation in 
Africa and the poorest nation in the world. Today, it is the seventh 
fastest growing economy in the world. They came to America and asked 
American oil companies to come and explore in the Gulf of Guinea to see 
if they had any gas or any oil. Marathon Oil went over there, along 
with other smaller companies from Texas, and found gas in the Gulf of 
Guinea. Ten years later, when you go to Equatorial Guinea and the 
island of Malbo, and you go to the Marathon plant that liquefies 
natural gas for shipment around the world to places such as the United 
States, Russia, wherever it might be needed, you see tanker after 
tanker after tanker anchored in the Gulf of Guinea, loading up $25 
million, the value of a tanker full of liquefied natural gas, to go 
around the world.
  Equatorial Guinea has gone from a country that could not feed itself 
or take care of its people to a country building hospitals, 
universities, schools, highways, building the prosperity of their 
people, all because they had the willingness to explore. From an 
environmental standpoint, there has been no environmental impact. We 
know and have learned that we can drill offshore safely and securely 
and proved we can withstand even the most dangerous of hurricanes as 
happened in Katrina. There is no excuse for the United States not to be 
exploring offshore and be exploring today, no reason whatsoever we 
should not be reenergizing nuclear energy, no reason we should not be 
working on renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar, no 
reason we shouldn't expedite the development of synthetic fuels, coal 
liquefaction, and clean coal technology. America has every resource we 
need to be energy free, from coal to petroleum. All we to have do is 
have the political will and common sense to make it happen.
  I call on my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, to put their 
elephants and donkeys in the barn and look at the needs of the American 
people, understand if we leave this year without a comprehensive 
declaration for energy policy and energy independence, we have done a 
disservice to the people of the United States, and we will not have 
fulfilled our constitutional responsibility. It is time to get out of 
the chair, get off the ham sandwich, and understand that we have 
everything we need here to begin an end to high gas prices, high oil 
prices, and dependence on the Middle East for foreign oil.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Georgia. That 
was such a good summary of where we are, and we do need to put aside 
partisanship. We do need to acknowledge that a lot of things have 
changed and those changes require this Government to make some 
decisions that can help us deal with the crisis we are facing. I am not 
a negative person. I believe we will work our way through this. But I 
am going to say some things that are honest and discouraging and 
worrisome about where we are today as a nation. The surging price for 
energy is a crisis that is moving our economy into a recession, and it 
is absolutely savaging the family budget. Record prices that we are 
facing today have a real impact on small businesses and family budgets 
across my State. My home county was rated the No. 1 county in America 
for the percentage of money spent on oil and gas, because it is a rural 
area, a poorer area, and people drive a long way to work. A larger 
percentage of their wealth is spent on buying fuel than any other 
county in America. So it is personal to me.
  The average price of regular unleaded gasoline climbed to $4.10 a 
gallon as of yesterday. One year ago it was $2.84, and 2 years ago, it 
was $2.62. As a result, the typical American family with two 
automobiles driving an average of 24,000 miles a year is paying 
approximately $1,260 more per year for the same amount of fuel, 
according to the Energy Information Agency. That amounts to $105 a 
month of disposable after tax, after house payment, after retirement, 
after Social Security, after insurance, the little after tax money that 
people take care of their families on, $105 more a month coming out of 
that to pay for the increase in gasoline over the past year.
  I hear we are now going to soon be having a LIHEAP bill which would 
be a bill, I suppose, as it usually is, to increase funding for people 
who have to buy heating oil and heating in the winter. The Government 
will subsidize that energy for those people, give them more money so 
they can buy more of the product. That is the policy we are having from 
our Democratic leadership. Has anybody thought maybe we should 
encourage people to use solar energy or geothermal or wind to heat 
their homes? We know the reason why that is not being suggested. That 
is, it is not ready yet in mass production. In many areas of the 
country, it is not feasible. Solar energy is four times as expensive as 
nonsolar energy. That is why people can't afford the current rates. 
They certainly can't pay four times as much. I say that to ask, what 
are we going to do now? That is the question. What is ready to help us 
deal with this crisis now?
  Last week the Energy Information Administration and the Cambridge 
Research Associates reported that the price of natural gas surged to 
more than $12 per million Btus. That is up from $8.94 in February. That 
is a one-third increase in a few months in natural gas prices. Of 
course, this represents an enormous economic hit to the American 
family, businesses that have to be competitive in the world 
marketplace, and the economy. Congress cannot go home until we take 
some action that addresses these issues. According to T. Boone 
Pickens--you may have seen his ads, an old oil man now into the wind 
business and favors utilization of natural gas for automobiles, which I 
think has real possibilities; it is much cleaner than gasoline--we are 
on track to spend this year $700 billion in American wealth overseas to 
purchase 60 percent of the oil we utilize in this country. This 
represents one of the greatest threats to our economy we have ever 
faced. When the price of oil goes up, the stock market goes down. That 
is almost a daily occurrence. This is because virtually every industry 
is affected by high oil prices.
  In addition, this export of our national wealth decreases the value 
of

[[Page S6680]]

the dollar. When the dollar falls, the balance of trade deficit 
increases, which is increasing steadily, which further erodes the 
economy. Companies forced to spend more to purchase the same amount of 
energy a year or so ago are not able now to expand their businesses and 
create new jobs. In addition, electricity is going up; 20 percent of 
our electricity is generated by natural gas. Those prices have been 
surging. According to the Cato Institute, the price of residential 
electricity has doubled over the past 5 years, from an average of $5.43 
per kilowatt hour in 2003 to $10.31 per kilowatt hour this year. A key 
factor is the cost of natural gas and other sources of energy.
  High energy costs also drive energy-intensive businesses overseas 
where prices are lower. If we had passed this cap-and-trade bill that, 
fortunately, was blocked and pulled down after it failed to gain the 
necessary support, it would have driven up electric bills by as much as 
$100 a month for families and driven up the price of gasoline by 
another $1.50 per gallon according to the EPA.
  Let me give an example. According to Dow Chemical Company, for every 
$1 increase in natural gas prices, that adds $3.7 billion in cost to 
the chemical industry. This will lead chemical companies to outsource 
their operations overseas where their feedstocks, their energy, their 
natural gas is cheaper. From 2003 to 2005 alone, rising natural gas 
prices have forced Dow to shift its production overseas, leaving the 
company to close 27 facilities and eliminate approximately 15 percent 
of its workforce.
  Let me read you the latest from a Forbes magazine article on Dow and 
what they have done to adjust to this surge in energy prices that are 
some of the highest in the world, and there are a lot of lower priced 
areas for natural gas around the world. They are shifting their 
commodity lower margin business ``into joint ventures with partners in 
emerging markets like the Middle East, China, Russia, and Brazil. Dow 
contributes the technical know-how for producing plastics and 
chemicals, while its partners provide low-cost feedstocks''--basically 
natural gas--``and access to new markets. Dow ends up with lower 
capital expenditures and less risk.''
  Well, that is jobs. That is American jobs that are going abroad, 
directly as a result of an increase in natural gas prices.
  So I was very pleased that yesterday President Bush took an important 
step to address this initiative by lifting the moratorium on oil and 
gas exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf. With this action, the 
President has removed an important obstacle to reducing our dependence 
on foreign sources of oil, and particularly natural gas, because there 
is a great deal of natural gas offshore.
  While the eastern Gulf of Mexico would remain off limits to 
exploration until 2022, this decision could potentially allow access to 
significant oil and natural gas reserves right here at home at a time 
when global supply is struggling to keep up with demand.
  In 2005, this Congress directed the Department of the Interior to 
study the oil and gas reserves in the OCS. The study found that 8.5 
billion barrels of oil and 29.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are 
currently known to exist off our Nation's shores. In addition, the 
study estimated that approximately 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 
trillion cubic feet of natural gas also exists in these waters.
  Now, we utilize 7 billion barrels of oil a year, and approximately 4 
billion of that is imported. Eighty-six billion barrels of oil lie 
offshore, and we have a lot of reserves onshore. If we produce that, 
how many years is that? Four into eighty-six? Mr. President, 25 years, 
20 years of zero imports if we were to do this.
  So the American Petroleum Institute reports that producing all our 
domestic reserves we have will provide enough oil to power 60 million 
cars for 60 years and enough natural gas to heat 60 million homes for 
160 years. Yet these estimates are based on old data. Exploration for 
oil and gas reserves in the Outer Continental Shelf has not occurred 
since the early 1980s. Technological advances have made it possible to 
explore for reserves in areas previously ignored due to scientific 
limitations. The scientific advancement also reduces the number of dry 
holes. They can tell better what the prospects are when you drill a 
well and not drill as many dry holes. When deepwater wells cost over $1 
billion, better technology is important.
  By acting now to increase supply, we can be sure to reduce the price 
of crude oil and natural gas. This is the most reliable way to end the 
largest wealth transfer in history, keeping our money here at home in 
our economy, creating jobs here, creating taxpayers here, and improving 
our economy.
  Let me add, parenthetically, I am not for a carbon economy. I want us 
to move beyond a carbon economy. But I would wish to say that 10, 15, 
30 years from now we are still going to be dependent on fossil fuels. 
We do not have the option right now.
  So I see the production of more fossil fuels at home not only as 
keeping American wealth at home but as a bridge to a new energy world 
in which we have wind and solar and biofuels, especially cellulosic 
ethanol that I am seeing in my home State of Alabama from wood 
products--I believe that has real potential--geothermal, clean coal, 
and nuclear power with plug-in hybrid automobiles where you plug in 
your car at night using clean nuclear power, with no CO2 
emitted, and run your car back and forth to work, never using a drop of 
oil. All those things are in the works and will happen, but it does not 
mean we should not be productive at home.
  So even with the President's decision yesterday, Congress must still 
take action to remove the congressional moratorium on oil and gas 
exploration in 85 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf. Every day 
Congress refuses to act is another day Americans are forced to pay 
higher prices at the pump.
  I urge the majority leader to bring legislation to the floor that we 
can work on, in a bipartisan way, to lift this ban so the Senate can 
pass good legislation before the August recess and bring relief to the 
taxpayer. I cannot imagine we would fail to do that. There are a lot of 
things we can do right now that will not impact the environment in any 
negative way but will produce more energy at home and help our economy 
create jobs and wealth at home. I believe we can do this, and I am 
hopeful that will occur.
  Mr. President, I see my colleague from Texas, Senator Cornyn, in the 
Chamber.
  I am pleased to yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, might I ask how much time remains in 
morning business on our side?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is 8 minutes 10 seconds.
  Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Acting President pro tempore.
  Mr. President, I wish to join my colleague from Alabama, my friend, 
Senator Sessions, in talking about the item that is at the top of 
everyone's agenda in America; that is, high gas prices.
  But, first, I wish to say that in 2006, much to my chagrin, the 
Democratic Party won control of both Houses of Congress. I say that 
because it is more fun being in the majority than it is being in the 
minority. But with becoming the majority and Senator Reid having become 
the majority leader, he has the complete power to schedule legislative 
action on the floor of the Senate. With that power comes 
responsibility. I wish to point out a few areas where I do not think we 
are living up to the responsibility that the American people would have 
us live up to.
  There is good news. The good news is, it took only 145 days for us to 
pass the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. 
The problem was, in those 145 days, our intelligence officials were 
hampered in their ability to listen in on conversations between 
terrorists. Thank goodness, at least so far as we know in the public 
domain, that has not resulted in other attacks against Americans. But 
the fact remains, it took 145 days to get that done, and it should not 
have.

  It has been 602 days since the Colombia Free Trade Agreement has been 
pending. Now, why is that important? Well, in my State, we sell about 
$2.3 billion worth of agricultural products and manufactured items to 
Colombia. Because we have not acted on the Colombia Free Trade 
Agreement, they bear a tariff which makes those more

[[Page S6681]]

expensive than they should be. Correspondingly, when Colombian items 
are sold to American markets because of another agreement, they do not 
have any tariff at all. So this is a burden, a millstone around the 
neck of American manufacturers and farmers that is unnecessary and 
unfair. It has been 602 days since that matter has been pending without 
any action by the Democratic leadership in the House and the Senate.
  Then, yesterday, we had a forum on judicial nominees. There have been 
747 days during which some nominees, who have been nominated to the 
Federal bench by President Bush, have waited for a simple up-or-down 
vote on the Senate floor.
  To the point of my main remarks: It has been 813 days since Speaker 
Pelosi, when she was running, hoping she would become speaker, in the 
2006 election--that her party would have the majority in the House and 
she would be elected Speaker--it has been 813 days since she said 
Democrats, if elected, would have a commonsense plan to bring down the 
price of gasoline at the pump.
  Well, what has happened since that time, in 813 days?
  As to gasoline, which I am sure seemed too high then--on January 4, 
2007, it was $2.33 a gallon. And there are some people today who are 
pining for the good old days when gasoline was $2.33 a gallon because 
the average price of a gallon of gas today is $4.11 a gallon. There is 
no indication at all it is going to go down. Every indication is it is 
going to go up.
  I wonder how long it is going to take the distinguished majority 
leader, Senator Reid, to recognize the American people are hurting and 
the impact these high energy prices are having on not only the 
lifestyle, not only the daily routine but the ability of the American 
people to do the bare essentials they need to do in order to provide 
for their family and in order to get their children to school and in 
order for them to get to work. How long will this go on? Will it take 
$5-a-gallon gas? Will it take $10-a-gallon gas? How long will it take 
before the majority leader will allow us to vote on a balanced plan 
that will allow us to deal with this crisis?
  Already, if you compound the price of energy, including gasoline, 
along with the other burdens Congress has imposed on the American 
working family, things such as Federal taxes--it takes 74 days of every 
year for people to pay their Federal taxes; another 39 days for them to 
pay their State and local taxes; another 60 days to pay for housing; 
health care, about 50 days; food, 35 days; and transportation, 29 days.
  So even in things such as food, we have seen because of the price of 
energy--of course, there is the diesel and the gasoline our farmers use 
in order to bring their crops in and actually produce them--the price 
of food continues to go up. A large part of that is because of the 
price of energy, the price of diesel, the price of gasoline.
  The squeeze continues on the American people.
  So what is the solution? Well, I have seen the majority leader wants 
to bring a bill to the floor that deals with speculation. Of course, 
that deals with the way oil is bought on the futures trading platform, 
the commodity futures trading system, which allows people to guess 
basically what the price of oil will be in the future and to bid at 
that price. Of course, for every willing buyer, there is a willing 
seller willing to buy it.
  Of course, we do need to police the commodity futures trading system 
to make sure there is not abuse, that there is complete transparency. 
We need to make sure we have more people, more analysts--more cops on 
the beat, so to speak--to make sure they have the personnel to be able 
to do their job. But it is shortsighted and, frankly, naive to think 
Congress can continue to suspend the laws of supply and demand. So just 
dealing with that narrow component of the problem is not enough. Is 
that part of an overall balanced energy package? Yes, it is. But it is 
not enough by itself.
  We have to deal with this by finding more and using less. What do I 
mean by that? Well, using less means we need to be more efficient. We 
need to be less wasteful. We need to conserve energy. America consumes 
about 20 percent of the oil produced worldwide every day. We need to 
find ways to be more efficient. That is why I think our manufacturing 
sector, whether it is producing plug-in hybrid vehicles in 2010, which 
eventually, hopefully, will provide an alternative, or the CAFE 
standards, the corporate fuel efficiency standards Congress has 
passed--those help. But it is not enough because you cannot conserve 
your way into energy independence or energy self-sufficiency.
  So how about ``the find more'' part? Well, the fact is, there is 
about 85 million barrels of oil consumed globally every day--85 million 
barrels globally every day. So even if America were to use less, that 
does not mean China and India are going to use less. In fact, they are 
not going to use less. They are going to use more because their 
economies are getting bigger, their people are becoming more 
prosperous. They want to buy cars. They want the same sort of things 
Americans have come to expect as commonplace. They want more, and they 
are going to consume more, because they know energy drives their 
economy. In particular, in countries such as China, you are going to 
see they are growing at 10 percent gross domestic product a year, and 
it is because they are building two coal-powered plants every week and 
they are consuming more energy. So we are going to have to produce more 
energy while we use less in order to just allow us to transition to 
using renewable fuels and the research we need to do on things such as 
clean coal technology. We are going to need some time to transition 
into more energy independence and a clean energy future. That is only 
going to come by producing more oil here at home.

  Of course, this is a national security issue because we buy a lot of 
our oil from dangerous regions of the world, such as the Middle East, 
or from our enemies, such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. So why does it 
not make sense for us to rely less on them--people who don't 
necessarily wish us well--and rely more on ourselves while at the same 
time create more jobs right here at home, here in America?
  I know attitudes are changing. We look at things such as the 
Rasmussen poll, which shows now that 67 percent of all of the 
respondents say we ought to produce more American natural resources 
right here at home. I know there are folks on the other side of the 
aisle, such as our distinguished Presiding Officer, who are trying to 
work to find a bipartisan solution, and we need to do that. Frankly, we 
should not leave here in August without addressing this issue and doing 
it in a meaningful way. By that, I don't mean just trying to go after 
the speculation part. We need to deal with all of this in a balanced 
sort of way that will allow us to give the American people some relief 
at a time when they need some relief because of the squeeze that 
continues to be put upon the average working family when it comes to 
high energy costs, which, in turn, ripples into high food costs.
  Hopefully, we will be successful in weathering this financial crisis 
we have seen because of the subprime mortgage market and the housing 
crisis, but unless we do something about high energy prices, we are 
going to end up in a technical recession. I have no doubt about that. 
So we can weather those--and I hope we do--and still find ourselves in 
the ditch from an economic standpoint if we don't do something about 
high energy costs. Frankly, now that the President has lifted his 
Executive order banning offshore exploration and development, the only 
thing that remains to be done now is for Congress to get out of the way 
and to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
  I wish our side of the aisle could do it. We can't because we are not 
in the majority. Only the majority leader has the power to call this up 
and allow debate and a vote on a commonsense energy plan that will 
allow us to find more and use less. I am asking them again today, as a 
number of us have, to please, please listen to what the American people 
are telling us. They are telling us that they are hurting, that their 
costs are going through the roof, whether it is food prices or just the 
price of filling up their cars at the gas station. Really, it is the 
U.S. Congress that is part of the problem. We need to be part of the 
solution. We need to listen to them and do what we can to help make 
their lives just a little bit better.

[[Page S6682]]

  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The time under the control of the 
minority has expired.
  The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for a few 
moments as in morning business on my amendment that will be voted on at 
11.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.

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