[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 153 (Thursday, September 25, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9453-S9455]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me take a few minutes to discuss 
what we have been able to do with regard to energy policy in this 
Congress and discuss where I believe we are headed in the next 
Congress.
  We began this Congress having passed, in mid-2005, the first 
comprehensive Energy Policy Act in 13 years.
  Mr. President, could I be advised when 8 of my 10 minutes has been 
used?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will be notified.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. We passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. That bill was 
about 5 years in the making. It only became law because the chairman of 
the Energy Committee at that time, Senator Domenici, took it upon 
himself to work constructively across the aisle with Democrats, myself 
and others, to put forward a bill both sides could embrace. In the 
first session of this Congress, we followed up with a new comprehensive 
energy bill, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. That 
bill was also the result of a strong bipartisan effort.
  President Bush helped by putting forth some important policy 
initiatives in his 2007 State of the Union speech, calling for more 
production of alternative transportation fuels and for higher fuel 
economy standards.
  In the Senate Energy Committee, we were able to report a strong 
energy bill that formed the basis for Senate action with a large 
bipartisan majority. Other committees played a major role in different 
parts of that legislation as well.
  After a long and difficult process with the House, we were able to 
come to closure on a financial piece of bipartisan legislation that the 
President signed in December of last year.
  The Energy Policy Act of 2005 was a good piece of legislation. The 
Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 was an even better piece 
of legislation. Throughout much of 2008, energy issues have been 
surrounded, unfortunately, by more partisan rancor as energy emerged as 
a key concern for voters as an issue on the campaign trial.
  This is an important reason why, despite so much floor discussion of 
energy and energy-related topics, we do not have as much to show as a 
result of our efforts as I would like.
  When energy issues become politicized along party lines, it is clear 
the Senate loses its ability to act in an effective way. I am pleased 
that in the past few weeks we have begun to find a bipartisan way 
forward on energy again. We have put together an energy tax incentive 
package that has won very broad bipartisan support in the Senate. It 
passed with a margin of 93 to 2.
  The efforts of leadership, Senator Reid in the Senate, Senator 
McConnell, Senator Baucus, Senator Grassley, and many others helped to 
put this legislative package together. Also, we have made some 
significant bipartisan progress on energy policy in the continuing 
resolution, which I believe is coming up for consideration in the 
Senate very soon.
  The moratorium on offshore oil and gas exploration has been lifted 
for much of the Outer Continental Shelf. That is a development I 
support. We have also fully funded the direct loan program for 
retooling the auto industry, permitting up to $25 billion in loans to 
be made to help move our transportation sector into a cleaner and more 
energy-efficient future.
  This is important to our future national economic security. I hope 
all these accomplishments make it across the finish line and actually 
become law in the next few days. If they do, they will help set the 
stage for what I believe to be a reemergence of bipartisanship on 
energy after the election is behind us and as we reconvene this next 
year as the 111th Congress.
  I wish to make clear this morning my intention to push early and hard 
in the new Congress to renew our commitment to an effective, 
bipartisan, and comprehensive approach to energy policy. Despite the 
successes we have had in this Congress, and in the past, there is a 
great deal of work that remains to be done in order to secure our 
energy future, an energy future that is adequate and affordable and 
clean.
  Let me talk about a few of the energy challenges we face in the next 
Congress and that I hope to work on with my colleagues both on the 
Democratic and Republican side. We have a real need to work on the 
deployment of new energy technologies of all kinds, particularly with 
the growing concern about global warming.
  We need to make sure we are developing and putting in place a new 
generation of clean, low-carbon energy technologies. These technologies 
include renewable energy, and carbon capture, transportation and 
storage and other low-carbon technologies relevant to the nuclear power 
industry.
  There is a global clean-tech revolution we can either lead in or we 
can miss out on. I believe we need to make the investments here in the 
United States to be leaders in this revolution.
  Along with new clean energy technologies, we will need a modernized 
energy infrastructure to make sure clean energy can be transported or 
transmitted from wherever it is generated to wherever it is needed. 
Without a major new focus on putting in place a 21st century energy 
infrastructure, we will not be able to make the progress we need to 
make to secure our energy security goals and our climate security 
goals.
  Along with new sources of energy, we need to make much more progress 
on using energy wisely and efficiently. A major focus of our effort 
needs to be made in the transportation sector. Many in the Senate have 
talked about the need for another Manhattan Project or another Apollo 
Project.
  While I recognize that a different committee, the Committee on 
Commerce and Science and Transportation, is largely responsible for 
regulatory standards on fuel economy, there is a great deal our 
committee, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, can do to make 
sure we have the right technology push for advanced vehicles. I see 
that as a focus of our work in the next Congress as well.
  We need to do more to improve energy usage in manufacturing, 
buildings

[[Page S9454]]

and commercial equipment and appliances. Our investments in these areas 
have been totally inadequate over the past decade. Our investments in 
new energy technologies and innovation, new energy science and 
engineering, on training the next generation of energy researchers and 
technicians have been inadequate.
  Finally, we need to include the functioning of our Federal agencies 
and programs related to energy across the board. We need to develop 
real strengths in the Federal Government in terms of working with 
entrepreneurs and industry and markets in commercializing new energy 
technologies.
  One other area we obviously need to put a focus on is the area of the 
recent scandals in the Minerals Management Service. This indicates that 
a thorough examination is needed as to how that agency currently 
functions, how its programs can be reformed so the taxpayers get the 
value they deserve from the Federal oil and gas resources.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tester). The Senator has used 8 minutes.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. I appreciate that notification. My colleague from 
Alaska, the very valued senior member of our committee, Senator 
Murkowski, is here and wanted to make a few comments about our plans 
for the upcoming Congress.
  I very much welcome her strong support for a bipartisanship effort, 
and I yield the balance of my 10 minutes to her.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I am pleased to be here to follow up on 
the comments from the chairman of the Energy Committee.
  As one of the senior members on the committee, I have had an 
opportunity to work with him and Ranking Member Domenici on many of the 
issues he has talked about, as we have tried to advance energy policies 
for the country. One of the things we recognize on the committee 
historically is there has been a very good, strong, bipartisan 
relationship, working together to advance policy goals. The point has 
been made that perhaps politics has intervened as we have tried to 
advance some policies of late. I would like to think that as we begin a 
new Congress next year, with the initiative before us that this country 
needs and deserves a good, comprehensive energy policy that works for 
the Nation, that gets us to a point that allows for a level of energy 
security for us, that we will do so in a way that is cooperative, 
collaborative, and that allows us to move the technologies and advance 
the infrastructure that is necessary, that allows us to have policies 
in place that not only provide for increased domestic production but 
renewables and alternatives, with a focus on conservation--truly an 
energy policy that works. I look forward to working with the chairman 
in advancing these goals.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I ask unanimous consent that after the remarks of 
Senator Allard and Senator Bond, I be recognized for 30 minutes.
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I object. Senator Bond had already asked 
for time.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I said after Senator Allard and Senator Bond.
  Mr. ALLARD. No objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Colorado is recognized for 15 minutes.
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. 
Bingaman, for his leadership on energy, and also the Senator from 
Alaska, Ms. Murkowski, for her leadership, as well as Republican 
Senator Pete Domenici for his very strong leadership on energy over the 
last number of years. This is an issue that is extremely important to 
the country. I rise to talk about energy policy and some of the 
thoughts I have been talking about since coming to the Senate. It is 
important that we get the solution right.
  I fully support what the Senator from New Mexico talked about, the 
three goals he outlined for the next Congress. I will not be here. I am 
retiring voluntarily. But I do support those goals. I hope we continue 
to follow through with those goals; that is, an adequate supply of 
energy, affordable, and that we have a clean source of energy to begin 
to address some of our environmental problems.
  When I first came to the Senate from the House of Representatives, I 
had been a member of the renewable energy caucus. I came over to the 
Senate and discovered that we did not have a renewable energy caucus to 
support the staff and Members of this body. I began the process of 
establishing a renewable energy caucus because I had come to realize 
that not only was a balanced energy policy good for the State of 
Colorado but also for the Nation.
  In the State of Colorado, we have the Renewable Energy Laboratory, 
which was focusing on new technology, whose main effort was to move 
that technology--not only to discover it but also to move it to market. 
That is an important step that happens so often in the research world. 
Nobody looks at the practical aspect of moving scientific discoveries 
into a market that will really serve the people.
  This is a fabulous agency we have, a research agency in Colorado. It 
naturally came on my shoulders to begin to organize the Senate 
renewable energy caucus. We did this in a bipartisan manner. We were 
able to get leadership from the Democratic Party to join me. As 
cochairmen, we promoted the Senate renewable energy caucus. Over the 
years, the membership built up. Our programs got stronger with the 
support of renewable energy labs as well as support from renewable 
energy industries and businesses throughout the country.
  As time went on, we had a change in administration from President 
Clinton over to President Bush. At the time, he was very strongly in 
favor of the oil and gas industry and perhaps did not appreciate what 
was going to be brought to the table with renewable energy. I had to 
spend some time trying to convince this Republican administration that 
it needed to appreciate a little more what renewable energy technology 
was going to bring to this country, now and in the future.
  When first coming to the Senate, I always believed we needed to 
eventually get to a renewable energy economy, but we needed to do it in 
a way that wouldn't destroy the economy. In other words, initially we 
had to support new energy development--whether it was in hydrocarbons 
or other sources of energy, whether it was nuclear, whether it was 
coal, whatever--but we could not afford to take anything off the table 
because we had to establish a bridge between older technology built on 
hydrocarbons, an economy built on that, and build that into sort of the 
new stage of energy independence. This is not something I was trying to 
think about in the last year or two when we had the energy crisis, but 
something I have been working on since coming to the Senate, thinking 
that we needed to have that balance, that it was important for us to 
move forward.
  Eventually, the Bush administration became very supportive of 
renewable energy. I am delighted to have them understand the importance 
of renewable energy and what needs to be done as far as nuclear power.
  On nuclear power, by the way, we have lost our infrastructure. A lot 
of technicians who know how to operate nuclear powerplants, we have 
lost, and we have exported our technology to France and England. I have 
gone to those facilities and visited with them. They have been 
supporting nuclear power, which allowed them to sign on to treaties 
like the Kyoto Treaty which we did not pass in this Congress by a very 
large margin because we understood that this country was not ready to 
move forward yet. We understood at that time that we were exempting big 
polluters in the world such as China and India.
  We need to get ready because we need to be prepared to compete in a 
world where the source of energy is going to be changing.
  I continued to press for oil and gas development, which is important 
to the economy of Colorado. It was important to the economy of this 
country when I first came here, and it remains so. It is with interest 
that I looked at the public employees' retirement accounts in the State 
of Colorado. These are State employees. It is a retirement plan with 
growth built on the stock market. A large percentage of their 
investments today are in oil and gas. So if we walk away from oil and 
gas development in the State of Colorado, we would severely impact the 
retirement incomes of many of our State employees.
  We need to keep in mind how important oil and gas still is to the 
economy

[[Page S9455]]

and to retirement benefits. There are mandates in States such as 
Colorado that say you have to invest those dollars in those areas where 
you can get a good return. So by law in the State of Colorado, they 
have to invest in oil and gas companies because they have a good, safe 
return. That is probably going to be there for some time.
  Clean coal, obviously, in Colorado and in the country remains 
important. Clean coal in Colorado is used to dilute the softer coals so 
that mainly communities on the eastern seaboard can meet their air 
pollution requirements. We still have a need for that very inexpensive 
source of energy, and we should not ignore it.
  There are proposals to convert oil to liquids, which is extremely 
important from a national defense standpoint. I know the Defense 
Department is looking at this kind of technology so they can have a 
reserve available in times of war or if, for some reason or other, this 
country's reserve should be disrupted, pretty much like the naval oil 
reserve we used to have in Colorado, which is now referred to as the 
Roan Plateau, where much of our oil shale is today.
  Natural gas remains important. Again, we are giving in to the lower 
carbons which burn very cleanly. Colorado State University, which I 
attended, is doing some remarkable research where they are growing 
algae now that will grow and develop a diesel fuel. It is a biofuel. We 
have a company in Berthoud, CO, to the south of where I live that has 
taken the grease from restaurants and converted it to a diesel fuel. 
This not only helps us get rid of a very problematic sort of discharge 
that we have from restaurants, but it converts it into fuel. The 
exciting thing about this company is they can operate without 
subsidies. To me, that is really exciting. I hope we can continue to 
get more companies of this nature to begin to work without having to 
lean on the Government for the subsidies.

  We are all familiar with ethanol and how that has developed over 
time. There is a lot that can be done. We have talked about 
hydrocarbons.
  There is a lot that can be done in renewables. I see that development 
happening in the State of Colorado.
  We have communities that are using geothermal energy. This is where 
they run pipes down into the ground. It provides either cooling and/or 
heating into a building structure. It takes a certain type of geology 
for that technology to work, but there are many areas in this country 
where that can work. The environmental community doesn't like to talk 
about hydroelectric power, but it is a renewable energy, and it is 
something we should not forget. There are times when it is very 
applicable to use hydroelectric power.
  We have a large wind area in the Midwest involving Texas and Colorado 
and Wyoming and Montana, parts of Nebraska, Utah, Nevada. These areas 
are being looked at for wind technology. We have been hearing about it 
throughout these debates.
  Solar and hydrogen are two things that work well.
  Obviously, we have legislation dealing with conservation and battery 
technology. Senator Bingaman talked about the Energy bill of 2005. We 
promoted all this to happen in that Energy bill.
  I was extremely disappointed when last year's appropriations bill had 
a rider in it that prevented us from developing Outer Continental Shelf 
oil resources as well as oil shale in the State of Colorado. Oil shale 
in Colorado is one of the largest potential reserves we have of 
hydrocarbon fuel in the world. It is larger than all the known reserves 
in Saudi Arabia. We should not mark that off. When we start 
disregarding sources of energy, we run the potential of breaking down 
that bridge that we need from traditional fuels to where we need to be 
in the future with renewable sources.
  Each year, we send over $700 billion overseas for fuel. Much of this 
money goes to nations that are on less than friendly terms with the 
United States. For both economic and national security reasons, 
achieving energy independence should be one of our top priorities.
  Yesterday, the House of Representatives took a step in the right 
direction by approving legislation which would repeal the moratorium on 
offshore drilling and on issuing oil shale regulations. This is an 
important step that Republicans in the House and Senate have been 
championing. Lifting the moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf will 
allow access to an estimated 18 billion barrels of oil and 76 trillion 
cubic feet of natural gas. Lifting the moratorium on oil shale 
regulations moves us one step closer to being able to access an 
estimated 800 billion barrels of potentially recoverable oil. That is 
more than the proven reserves, as I mentioned earlier, of Saudi Arabia. 
It is one of the largest reserves in the world.

  Taking these steps to increase our energy supply could not come at a 
better time. Families across America are struggling with high fuel 
prices. The cooler temperatures of fall are also making folks worry 
about how the cost of home heating fuel is going to affect their 
ability to make it through the winter.
  As the Senate takes up the continuing resolution that was worked on 
by the House yesterday, I am hopeful my colleagues will consider this. 
I am not saying drilling is the only answer to our energy needs. As a 
founder and cochair of the Senate renewable energy caucus, I know the 
importance of using renewable energy. I was pleased the Senate passed 
legislation yesterday that extended many important renewable energy tax 
incentives.
  I am a strong supporter of renewable energy, but we are not at a 
point yet where renewable energy can meet all our energy needs. We 
still need fossil fuels, which is why I support removing the Outer 
Continental Shelf and oil shale moratoriums. With millions of Americans 
struggling with high fuel prices, it is imperative that the Senate pass 
a continuing resolution that does not contain these misguided 
moratoria.
  So I ask my colleagues to join me in working for a balanced energy 
policy for this country that will not only help mean a more secure 
America from a military aspect but also a more secure America from an 
economic aspect. I urge my colleagues to join me in that effort in the 
closing days of this session.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, while he is on the floor, I commend and 
thank the Senator from Colorado, Mr. Allard, for the great work he has 
done on housing. I commend him also for his great leadership on all 
aspects of energy. I join with him in recognizing the great 
contributions of Chairman Bingaman, Senator Murkowski, and, of course, 
Senator Domenici. We will miss his guidance and his leadership. But he 
has made a great contribution, and we are most appreciative.
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Missouri for his 
comments and recognize his leadership, particularly on housing issues, 
and I think he has some great ideas he is bringing forward.

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