[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 127 (Tuesday, July 29, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7588-S7591]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this has been an interesting morning to 
watch the Senate debate. It reminds me a bit that the strongest muscle 
in the body is the tongue. Debate that I have heard this morning is 
quite extraordinary. We have people come to the floor of the Senate, 
and they say that something like 85 percent of the Outer Continental 
Shelf is not open and available for leasing and drilling. That is not 
true. Two-thirds is open and available for the Minerals Management 
Service to lease.
  I want to talk a little about where we are with respect to this issue 
of production. I have seen the big old sign that my Republican 
colleagues have been using. It says: Produce more and use less.
  We will have a chance again today to decide whether members actually 
want to produce more. Some people believe the only way you produce 
energy is drill a hole someplace and search for oil and gas. I support 
that. But another way to produce energy is to produce homegrown energy 
from solar, wind, biomass or geothermal sources--another homegrown 
energy plan.
  We have had a chance for at least six separate times to vote to 
extend the tax credits to support renewable forms of energy to produce 
more energy. Six times we have been stymied. I will talk about that a 
bit in a moment.
  The first car I got as a very young man was a 1924 Model-T Ford I 
bought for $25 and lovingly restored it for 2 years. I have described 
this often.
  I discovered as a young boy that you couldn't date very well in a 
1924 Ford. So I sold my model T. But it was interesting restoring an 
old Model T Ford. I understood that you put gasoline in a 1924 vehicle 
the same way you put gasoline in a 2008 vehicle. Nothing has 
fundamentally changed. You to go a gas pump someplace, stick a nozzle 
in your tank, start pumping and then pay the price. It is drive and 
drill approach. It has been that strategy forever. Some of my 
colleagues come to the floor of the Senate dragging a wagon of the same 
old drive-and-drill policies. Keep driving and drilling, and things 
will be fine. The problem is the hole gets deeper every single year. 
They come here once a decade and say: Our strategy is to drill more.
  I support drilling for oil, but I also think we ought to do a lot 
more than that. We ought to have a game-changing plan, some sort of a 
moonshot plan that says: Ten years from now we need to have a different 
approach to energy. John F. Kennedy didn't say: I think we will try to 
go to the Moon. I would like to send a person to the Moon. I hope we 
can go to the Moon. He said: By the end of this decade, we will send a 
person to the Moon. We will have a person walking on the Moon.
  That is what this debate ought to be about. In the next 10 years, 
here is the way we are going to change America's energy plan. That 
ought to be the debate.
  There are a lot of things we can and should do together. There are 
far too few things we are engaging in together on the floor of the 
Senate. We had a energy future speculation bill defeated, or at least 
the minority that puts up the sign that says produce more and use less 
voted in unison to stop movement of it. We had a bill on the floor that 
said: Let's get rid of excessive speculation in the futures market that 
is driving up prices. We had people who testified before our various 
committees who said as much as 30 to 40 percent of the current price of 
gas and oil is due to excess speculation. In 2000, 37 percent of the 
oil market was speculators. Now it is 71 percent. It is unbelievable 
how rampant speculation has become in the oil futures market. But the 
oil speculators have a lot of friends here, enough friends so they 
could stop that kind of legislation that would put the brakes on some 
of this speculation and put some downward pressure on prices. The oil 
speculators have a lot of friends here.
  Big oil companies have a lot of friends here. With record profits, 
the largest oil company, ExxonMobil, spent twice as much money last 
year buying back their stock as they did in investing in infrastructure 
for producing more oil. Let me say that again. The biggest oil company 
in the world spent twice as much money buying back its stock as it did 
exploring for more oil. We are paying at the pump enormous prices so 
one would hope at least a substantial portion of that money would go 
back into the ground to find more energy resources. But sadly it is 
not.
  Again, these Big Oil companies have plenty of friends in this 
Chamber. They view their role as a set of human brake pads to stop 
whatever is going on. They don't support anything. Just make sure you 
stop things.
  Let me describe one of the things that makes so much sense to me that 
has been stopped dead in its tracks. It was stopped last year on June 
21, 2007. It was stopped December 7, 2007. It was stopped December 13, 
2007. They stopped it on February 7, 2008. What is it? It is our 
ability, as a country, to change the game and say: We want to encourage 
production by taking energy from the wind, solar, wave, and other forms 
of renewable energy. We had a vote on all those occasions to provide 
tax credits and stimulus to say: Here is the kind of energy we want to 
produce in the future. This is a new energy future. On each and every 
occasion, the minority that comes to parade with a big, old sign 
calling for producing more, on each occasion those who hold up that 
sign today voted against producing more. Isn't that interesting? They 
voted against producing more.
  Let me tell you what we did in this country with respect to energy. 
In 1916, we put in place long-term, permanent, robust tax incentives to 
say to people: If you want to explore for oil and gas, God bless you 
because we need it. We want to provide big incentives for you to do it. 
Almost a century ago we put in place those tax incentives. That is how 
much we wanted to encourage people to find oil and gas. Contrast that 
with what we did to encourage people to wean ourselves off the need for 
fossil fuels. At least 60 to 65 percent of that oil comes from off our 
shores.
  In 1992, we put in place a tax credit for renewable energy, a 
production tax credit which was short term and not particularly robust. 
We extended it five times. We let it expire three times. We have had a 
stop-and-start, stutter step approach.
  Look at this chart. Here is what has happened. This shows you what 
has happened to wind energy. When the credit expires, the investment 
goes to zero. Put the credit is extended, the investment goes up. When 
the credit expires, the investment drops off. It is unbelievable, what 
a pathetic, anemic response by a country. So we have a piece of 
legislation that says: Let's extend the wind energy tax credit. Let's 
extend the tax credit that takes energy from the Sun. Let's produce 
energy from the wind and the Sun and geothermal and so many other forms 
of renewable energy. The minority side says no. They don't want to do 
that. On June 21, 2007, we failed to get cloture by one vote. A large 
portion of the minority side said no. The same ones who

[[Page S7589]]

are holding the sign that says produce more said: We don't want to 
produce more. On December 7, the same folks who hold the sign said: No, 
we don't want to produce more. December 13, they still said: No, we are 
not interested in producing more. February 7 of this year: We still are 
not interested in producing more.

  But during the last week or so, they show a big, old, oily chart on 
the Senate floor that says produce more, use less. Well, perhaps we 
will have a chance to vote once again. Then the question is, Is their 
policy just drill a hole, which is a yesterday forever strategy, or is 
their policy a game-changing policy to join us and say: Let's do 
something different for a change.
  Given the circumstances we have, those who decide it is in their 
interest to block everything, should rethink that plan. I have said 
often, Mark Twain was once asked to engage a debate. He said: Yes, as 
long as I can have the negative side. They said: But, Mr. Twain, we 
haven't even told you the subject. He said: It doesn't matter. The 
subject doesn't matter. The negative side will take no preparation. So 
it is on the floor of the Senate. Coming out here simply to block 
everything and then hold a sign that says: We support producing more. 
That takes no preparation. It takes a little bit of gall, I might say, 
but it certainly takes no preparation.
  The question is this: Should we do everything? You bet your life. We 
should drill more, in my judgment, and there is two-thirds of the Outer 
Continental Shelf that is open for leasing and drilling. I support 
that. We ought to conserve more too. We are prodigious wasters of 
energy. We ought to have much more energy efficiency for every single 
thing we do. Everything that is turned on from a switch that we flick 
on or off should be examined. So produce and conserve, and most 
importantly have a game-changing plan to say: We want renewables in 
this country.
  T. Boone Pickens was in town last week. He was like a big old boat 
coming through, leaving a big wake in the background of the boat. He 
said: You can't drill your way out of this problem. What we need to do 
is wind from Texas to North Dakota, in the area where we have all this 
wind energy potential. We need to develop more solar in the Southwest, 
where we have a tremendous capability. We need to produce that way and 
develop an interstate grid system for transmitting energy all around 
the country, just as we did with the interstate highway system.
  That makes a lot of sense to me. But we can't do that with the 
pathetic approach that exists on providing incentives to renewables. As 
I indicated, we put in place permanent, robust incentives for looking 
for oil and gas in 1916. We have these short-term incentives, and we 
can't get them passed. Because on occasion after occasion, time after 
time, the folks who now come and hold a sign that says produce more 
said: No, I will not vote to produce more. When it comes to renewable 
energy, I am going to vote to stop it.
  We can get oil from the ground. I understand that, but we can also 
produce biofuels from a whole series of feedstocks. We are using a lot 
of corn. But the bill we have tried to get passed has a significant tax 
incentive for the cost of facilities that produce cellulosic biofuels. 
Does that make sense? You bet your life it does. That is production for 
America. If you say you are for production, don't hold up a sign. Just 
vote for this legislation. Then you will really be for production. The 
new credits for qualified plug-in electric drive vehicles, how 
important is that? It is unbelievably important for us to convert from 
the internal combustion engine to an electric drive vehicle and then, 
eventually, to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. That is game changing. But 
the legislation in which this occurred, that is legislation the 
minority that has been holding the signs all morning opposed.
  All I say is this: You want to do a lot of everything. Let's do a lot 
of everything. Let's advance America's energy future. We go to Saudi 
Arabia, Iraq, Venezuela, or Kuwait and say: In order for America's 
economy to run, we need a large portion of our oil and gas from you, 
you need to provide that to us. It impacts so many other parts of our 
country that we can't possibly control.
  Should we continue down this road? I don't think so. It is a 
disappointment to me that it is toward the end of July, and we still 
have this kind of discussion on the floor of the Senate. We should have 
had 100 Senators in support of legislation to shut down this 
unbelievable speculation that is going on. I understand oil speculators 
have a lot of friends here now. They have a lot of friends in this 
Chamber, enough to have stopped this oil speculation legislation last 
week. We ought to have 100 votes for people who say we are going to 
support homegrown energy. We are going to support big, aggressive tax 
incentives to produce energy here at home, and that includes wind, 
solar, geothermal and biomass, and we are going to change the game. Ten 
years from now, America is going to have a different energy future. 
Instead, we got the ``yesterday forever'' crowd who comes to the 
Chamber and slouches around with their hands in their pockets and says: 
We always liked what we did, and we want to do it some more. Then, 10 
or 15 years from now, the same crowd will be back saying the same 
thing. They will say no to anything that will change the ground, and 
yes to anything that continues this unbelievable dependence.
  My hope is we can find a way, perhaps, to join together and decide we 
ought to produce more in a smart way. We ought to be much less reliant 
on foreign energy, on the need for oil from overseas. We ought to be 
much more vigilant on aggressive conservation and energy efficiency 
measures. This Congress in particular ought to decide that it is 
finally, at long last, going to vote to produce energy in a good way. 
That is, to produce homegrown energy from wind, solar and so many other 
sources of renewable energy.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator the assistant minority 
leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from North Dakota, 
who has come to the floor almost every day to talk about the energy 
crisis. But if the American people had their choice, all of us would be 
talking about it every day of the week. It takes anywhere from an hour 
to 2 hours to go from downtown Chicago out to O'Hare. I have made the 
trip a lot. But recently, the fellow who was driving me said: I have 
noticed something strange. Even during rush hour, there are fewer cars 
out here. I know a lot of people are on vacation, but something is 
changing.
  I have noticed it all over my State, and I think people are noticing 
it all over the country. What is changing is people are looking at 
gasoline that costs $4.50 or $4.30 a gallon and saying: I will drive 
less. I am going to look for a car or truck that is more fuel 
efficient. People are understanding in their daily lives that things 
are changing, not always for the better, because as the price of oil 
goes up and the price of gasoline goes up, we may make energy-
conserving decisions, but some of those are forced on us. Some of those 
are painful, painful when we pay for the gasoline each week and painful 
when people find their family budgets wrecked by the cost of gasoline.
  They are not alone. The major airline companies have now announced 
dramatic cutbacks in scheduling and in employees. They can't keep up. 
The price of jet fuel has gone through the roof. I have met with the 
CEOs of these companies. The stories they tell are very sad. They can't 
afford to fly people anymore. They can't charge enough. They can't make 
enough. They are charging us now for everything in sight, $15, $20, $50 
for a second bag they check, trying to keep the airlines afloat. And 
some of them will fail, I am afraid, unless something dramatic happens.
  So it is no surprise that on the floor of this Senate we have talked 
a lot about this energy issue. There are two distinct points of view, 
and I think they tell the difference between outlook. Senator Dorgan of 
North Dakota talked about ``yesterday forever.'' On the Republican 
side, their idea is to drill more oil, keep drilling, keep finding more 
oil. Sadly, they have ignored the reality.
  The reality is this: If you take a look at all the oil reserves in 
the world, the United States has 2 percent of the world's oil reserves. 
Ninety-eight percent, of course, is in countries such as

[[Page S7590]]

Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Canada. We have 2 percent of the oil reserves.
  The oil consumption by the United States? We consume 24 percent of 
the oil. In other words, we cannot drill our way out of this. We cannot 
find enough oil here to sustain the American economy. If you are going 
to be honest--and you should be with the American people--if we made a 
decision tomorrow to start drilling in any specific spot, for instance, 
off the coast of the United States, it takes literally years for that 
to happen, for it to go into production, and to deliver the oil to the 
United States. Estimates are 8 to 14 years.
  So coming to the floor and saying: Drill more, drill now--well, the 
reality is, ``drill now'' means drill in 8 to 14 years. That is going 
to have little impact on current gasoline prices, no matter what we 
think. That is the reality. The question, obviously, is: Are there 
places we should go to drill? Well, of course there are. The United 
States is in control of its sovereign territory as a nation, and its 
offshore territory as well. The Federal Government owns many public 
lands, and some of those are used for ski resorts and national parks 
and mining.
  Some are used for oil and gas exploration. We say to the companies: 
If you would like to drill more oil and gas on our land, the Federal 
land, pay us a lease, pay us a rental, and we will allow you to do so. 
The oil and gas companies gobble up this territory. In fact, 68 million 
acres of Federal land are currently under lease to oil and gas 
companies for that purpose: to drill for oil.
  What are they doing with those 68 million acres? Well, it turns out a 
lot of them are not being utilized. This is a little map of the Western 
part of the United States I have in the Chamber. The land you see in 
red is Federal land leased to oil and gas companies not in production. 
When the Republicans say we have to put more acres out there for them 
to drill, the fact is, they are paying us to lease acres they are not 
touching. I do not know what the explanation might be, but of those 
onshore, 34.5 million acres have been leased from the Federal 
Government and go untouched.
  It is just not onshore. If we think the mother lode is offshore, as 
shown on this other map, these are acres we have leased in the Gulf of 
Mexico, and all those in red are currently untouched--leased, so the 
oil and gas companies believe there is oil or gas there but untouched.
  So to argue there is not enough acreage for us to go searching for 
oil, there is some 68 million acres of leased Federal land to oil 
companies, and zero of those acres in production onshore and offshore.
  We recently had a lease to offer 115 million more acres of Federal 
land available to these companies for lease for oil and gas purposes. 
This was in the last year--since January, I should say, of 2007. Mr. 
President, 115 million acres were offered.
  What does 115 million acres of land that the Federal Government owns 
and will lease to oil and gas companies represent? This is the path, as 
shown on this map, of Interstate 80, which most of us know. It goes 
from New Jersey all the way to California. This represents a 67-mile-
wide swath along I-80. That is the size of the acreage we have offered 
to the oil and gas companies to drill on for oil and gas. Of that, they 
have accepted 12 million acres they bid on. Another 103 million acres 
have gone unclaimed by these oil and gas companies. So it is not as if 
there is not land available. There is--a lot of it--millions and 
millions of acres made available to these companies. Some they are 
paying for, some they could lease. There is plenty of land for them to 
drill.
  So why, then, is the Republican approach that we need to drill more, 
when the opportunity is there? There are plenty of acres, and we know 
that even with drilling, we are going to wait 8 to 14 years to see the 
first drop of oil. Well, here is what it is all about.
  For the last 8 years, the White House has been under the control of a 
President and a Vice President with a deep background in the oil 
industry--both President Bush and Vice President Cheney. And not 
coincidentally, the oil companies have done very well. The policies of 
this administration have been very friendly to these oil and gas 
companies. They are reporting record profits, which I will get to in a 
moment.
  So the last gasp before this crew leaves town is for the Republican 
side of the aisle to give to the big oil groups more leased land, give 
them more land to stockpile inventory for future purposes. That is what 
this is all about. It is not about solving the current energy crisis. 
It is not about bringing down gasoline prices. That is 8 to 14 years 
away, if ever. It is about, frankly, giving big oil exactly what it 
wants.
  If you think I am making this up, take a look at the full-page ads in 
your hometown newspapers by the American Petroleum Institute supporting 
the Republican position. What is the American Petroleum Institute? The 
largest and smallest oil companies in America. They understand this is 
their last grab under this administration and the Republicans want to 
give them that grab and take that land and try to convince the American 
people it will make a difference when it comes to our energy policy. 
Quite honestly, we know better.
  Now, in a short time--maybe a matter of days, maybe this week--the 
oil companies are going to be reporting their latest profits. This 
chart will show you what is happening to big oil profits since this 
administration took office. Starting in 2002 to 2007, you can see a 
dramatic increase in billions of dollars for oil and gas companies in 
America. These just are not large increases for this industry, these 
are the largest reported profits of any business in the history of the 
United States of America.
  The oil companies have done extraordinarily well. Notwithstanding all 
the other arguments, the fact that the Republicans want to give these 
oil and gas companies one last grab at this land is an indication they 
want the profit margins to continue.
  But is that what we are all about? Is that why we are here, to make 
sure wealthy, profitable companies make record profits unseen in the 
history of the United States, at the expense of families who pay for 
the gasoline, at the expense of businesses that cannot survive, at the 
expense of our airlines that are shutting down their planes and 
schedules, at the expense of farmers in my State of Illinois and across 
the United States? I do not think so.

  Our responsibility has to go further. Our responsibility has to go to 
the point----
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional 
minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. The point I want to make is this: We have to look ahead. 
If President Bush was right when he said America is addicted to oil, 
how can we break the addiction? We will never be oil free. That is 
ludicrous. We will have a dependence on fossil fuels, on oil, for my 
lifetime and well beyond.
  But if we want to be fair to the next generation, we have to be 
pushing for an energy agenda which sees a source of energy homegrown in 
America, so we are independent and do not have to rely on OPEC and 
foreign countries, a source of energy that is kind to the environment, 
so we do not make global warming worse for kids in the future, and a 
source of energy that is affordable.
  In order to reach that goal--and America can reach it--you cannot 
look backward, as the Republicans have by saying: Let's keep doing what 
we have always done. Let's keep drilling for oil.
  You need responsible exploration and production of oil, and you need 
another future agenda: a next-year agenda that says we are going to 
look to a way to produce energy to keep this economy moving that is 
affordable.
  We have the bill to do it. It is a bill that has lost on the floor of 
the Senate. It is the energy tax production credit. It is one that will 
produce energy. We cannot get enough Republican votes to support it. We 
are going to try again. We are going to keep trying because with this 
bill we are going to expand tax credits for biomass and hydropower, for 
solar energy, for biodiesel production. We are going to have tax 
credits for local governments in renewable projects, advanced coal 
electricity demonstration projects, plug-in electric cars, heavy 
vehicle excise tax for

[[Page S7591]]

truck idling reduction. It goes on and on--a list of ways to conserve 
energy and look to future uses of energy that are consistent with an 
American economy that will grow and not be too expensive for the 
American people.
  That is what we have to move to. This afternoon we will give our 
Republican colleagues a chance to take their signs that say ``produce 
more'' and turn them into a vote for this tax program that will produce 
more. I hope they will join us in this effort.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's time has expired.

                          ____________________