[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 83 (Thursday, June 4, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6138-S6140]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I rise today to talk about the crucial 
issue of energy, to express real and deep concern that President 
Obama's energy proposals are, pure and simple, a huge package of new 
taxes on domestic energy production that will hurt this country and 
particularly hurt middle-class and working-class families, and to offer 
a clear alternative which is embodied in a bill I have introduced with 
14 other Senators and 30 House Members, the No Cost Stimulus Act of 
2009.
  Energy plays a very unique and important role in our great society 
because energy--affordable, accessible energy--is one of the great 
equalizers in our great society. Low-cost energy provides for the 
single mom working two jobs to be able to drive her kids to school in 
the morning or soccer practice on the weekend, the way a wealthy family 
can. Low-cost energy allows for an elderly couple living on Social 
Security to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer, as Warren 
Buffett can.
  In providing energy that is truly affordable and accessible to 
businesses and consumers, we not only grow the society, but it is even 
more fundamental than that. It is a great equalizer. We ensure that 
those important opportunities and comforts are available to everyone in 
our society.
  The converse of that is also true. When Congress acts to increase the 
cost of energy or when Congress acts knowing that will be the effect, 
we are making a decision to reduce the standard of living of middle-
class, working-class families and the poor. We are making a decision to 
increase that gap, to put classes into our society and take away one of 
those great equalizers.
  Cheap, affordable, accessible energy is as basic as putting a roof 
over your head and food on the plate of your children. Energy keeps the 
elderly in Wisconsin warm in the winter, keeps kids in Louisiana cool 
in the very hot and very humid summer.
  With that truth, as sure as we should supply clean drinking water to 
all Americans, we must provide reliable, affordable energy to the 
people of our great Nation. It is our responsibility to do so in a 
nation of the people and by the people and for the people. It is 
fundamental to who we are as a people because it is a great equalizer, 
and we are a society not of classes but of one people.
  In contrast to this, I am concerned about President Obama's energy 
proposals which across the board constitute a set of major new taxes on 
domestically produced energy. I favor an alternative to that, the No 
Cost Stimulus Act of 2009.
  Our goal in the energy debate should be four things. It should be 
ensuring affordable energy for all Americans, including middle- and 
low-income families, keeping energy that great positive equalizer in 
our society. It should be growing the economy from our own abundant 
resources right here at home and not creating another factor that 
pushes jobs out of the country to other countries. It should be to work 
vigilantly to achieve energy independence, doing more here at home. And 
No. 4, tied directly to that, it should be about ensuring our efforts 
are consistent with our national security interests, which is, of 
course, more energy independence.
  Again, the President's tax proposals are big increases on domestic 
energy production across the board. So they work against all of those 
four core aims that I laid out.
  To see how that happens, we can look at history, and not that far 
back, to President Carter. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter increased 
taxes on domestic energy production. He signed into law the Crude Oil 
Windfall Profits Tax Act. The windfall profits tax was forecasted to 
raise more than $320 billion between 1980 and 1989. But a funny thing 
happened on the road of implementation. The reality was far different.
  According to the CRS, the government collected only $80 billion in 
gross tax revenue, compared to that $320 billion projection. The CRS 
also found the windfall profits tax had the effect of decreasing 
domestic production, what we produce at home, by between 3 percent and 
6 percent, thereby increasing our dependence on foreign oil sources 
from 8 percent to 16 percent.
  A side effect was declining, not increasing, tax collections. And 
while the tax raised considerable revenue in the initial years 
following its enactment, those revenues declined to almost nothing as 
that domestic energy industry went down as a direct result.

[[Page S6139]]

  So here we are in 2009 and, unfortunately, it seems to be back to the 
future, a repeat of that sad experience. The Obama administration is, 
again, proposing to increase taxes across the board in major ways on 
domestic energy production and on domestic utilities, even in the midst 
of this serious recession. In this case, the President imagines 
different results from the same policy of the 1980s, but I am afraid 
the result will be more of the same.
  Let's look at exactly what these energy proposals, which are just tax 
increases, are.
  First, a huge category of President Obama's proposals is his so-
called cap-and-trade plan. Let's make no mistake. Cap and trade is a 
phrase in vogue. It has gained a lot of vogue. What it is about, again, 
is a tax on domestic utilities and domestic energy. It is a carbon tax. 
It is an energy tax, pure and simple. You can dress it up, you can 
muddy it up, you can try to confuse the public, but it is a tax on 
utilities, and it is a tax on energy.
  Independent analysis by the Heritage Foundation estimates that the 
economic impact of the Waxman-Markey bill by 2035 will be enormous and 
it will be negative: reduce aggregate gross domestic product by $7.4 
trillion; destroy 844,000 jobs, with peak years seeing unemployment 
rise by over 1.9 million jobs; raise electricity rates 90 percent after 
adjusting for inflation; raise gasoline prices by 74 percent after 
adjusting for inflation; raise natural gas that goes to residential 
customers, American families, by 55 percent; raise an average family's 
annual energy bill by $1,500. That is a $1,500 a year tax bill on 
working-class, middle-class families. Increase the Federal debt by 29 
percent after adjusting for inflation. That is $33,400 of additional 
Federal debt per person, again, after adjusting for inflation.
  Some might say this is a conservative think tank, this is biased. 
There is independent analysis, and in this case it comes from President 
Obama. The President spoke very directly on the campaign trail. It was 
at a private editorial board meeting, but it was on the record, and we 
have his direct quote that said that utility rates would skyrocket--
``skyrocket,'' his word--and he is right.
  In addition to his carbon tax, cap-and-trade proposals, President 
Obama has other energy taxes on domestic production, right when we 
should be increasing domestic production, increasing that bridge to the 
future, energy independence. He has tax proposals on domestic 
production that would do the opposite: $62 billion of new taxes on the 
so-called LIFO reserve through a change in accounting rules, bottom 
line, a $62 billion tax increase on domestic energy; $1 billion of new 
taxes by increasing the amortization period to 7 years for oil and 
natural gas production, bottom line, a billion-dollar tax increase on 
domestic energy; $5 billion tax increase with new taxes on a 
significant part of domestic oil and gas production, 25 percent of oil 
production in the United States and 15 percent of gas; $49 billion of 
new taxes through the repealing of the passive loss exception for oil 
and gas properties; $13 billion of new taxes by repealing section 199 
of the manufacturers tax deduction; $175 billion of new taxes by 
forcing States into a renewable portfolio system which is particularly 
difficult and particularly troubling for States such as Louisiana which 
has many resources and many renewable resources but not the specific 
ones demanded by that portfolio; and $17 billion of new taxes by 
reinstating the Superfund excise and income taxes--again, a package of 
enormous tax increases all on domestic energy production.
  If you raise taxes in a major, significant way on domestic energy 
production, do you think that production is going to go up or go down? 
The answer is obvious. In theory, it is going to go down. And the 
answer is obvious, in history, in practice, it is going to go down. It 
did go down with the Jimmy Carter windfall profits tax, which is small 
compared to this huge onslaught of new taxes on our utility bills and 
on domestic production.
  Energy Secretary Chu has argued clearly in the past that if the 
United States wanted to reduce its carbon emissions, policymakers would 
have to find a way to increase petrol prices, as he put it, to levels 
like we see in Europe. It is not a secret. Secretary Chu is saying we 
need to increase taxes on oil, the cost of gasoline. President Obama 
said on the campaign trail that we need to do a carbon tax, cap and 
trade, that will, of course, cause utility bills to skyrocket. This is 
not a secret.
  Let me go back to what I think the four main goals of a sound energy 
policy are and are these major energy tax increases doing any of it.
  No. 1, ensuring affordable energy for all Americans, including 
middle- and low-income Americans. The President is doing the opposite. 
He is taking away a great equalizer of our society. He is putting an 
enormous burden on working-class, middle-class families.
  No. 2, growing the economy from our own abundant resources and trying 
to stop the outsourcing of jobs to other countries. The President's 
plan is doing the opposite of that. He is putting taxes on at a time of 
a severe recession, and he is putting a tax on domestic energy which is 
going to increase the flow of jobs elsewhere.
  No. 3, working vigilantly to achieve energy independence. It is 
common sense that if you dramatically increase the taxes on energy 
here, you are going to increase energy dependence, not increase 
independence.
  No. 4, we need to ensure that our efforts are consistent with our 
national security interests. We need to increase our energy 
independence consistent with national security. Taxing energy here will 
do exactly the opposite.
  It is one thing to say no to bad ideas, but with that comes a 
responsibility to lay out clear, positive alternatives that provide a 
positive answer. I have done that, working with many other colleagues, 
in introducing our No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009. Again, I introduced 
this bill with 14 other Senators and with 30 House Members about 2 
months ago.
  As the title suggests, this bill is a comprehensive economic recovery 
bill. It is a solid energy bill that does not require borrowing more 
money from China or anywhere else, increasing the outflow of taxpayer 
dollars in a time of already historic deficits.
  The No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009 can achieve a number of positive 
outcomes--again, without further indebting our kids and grandkids--and 
specifically, it does six major things:
  First, we can save or create more than 2 million long-term, 
sustainable, well-paying jobs.
  Second, we can dramatically increase GDP that could exceed $10 
trillion over the next 30 years.
  Third, we would reduce the cost of energy to manufacturers, all U.S. 
businesses, and American families, including low-income families. On 
top of helping businesses compete internationally, that reduces the 
cost of a key input so that resources may be used on other purchases or 
employee hiring.
  Fourth, we would have a real, positive impact on low-income families, 
as this is the equivalent of receiving a major stimulus check. As the 
price of energy decreases, a family may direct the extra money toward 
other needs.
  Fifth, we can achieve these goals while not incurring huge amounts of 
new debt to foreign governments or to anyone else, leveraged against 
our kids' and grandkids' futures.
  Sixth, this bill will have a direct and significant impact on 
reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
  So again, you go back to those four main goals I laid out for sound 
energy policy. The No Cost Stimulus Act moves us toward those goals, 
unlike the President's energy tax proposals, which move us away from 
all of those goals.
  What does the No Cost Stimulus Act do exactly? It does three big 
things:
  No. 1, it increases domestic production of energy. We produce more 
energy here at home on the Outer Continental Shelf, in Alaska, and from 
oil shale. We have enormous energy resources in this country. We are 
the only country in the world that has major resources but puts 95 
percent of them off limits. This bill would change that.
  No. 2--and this is very important--this bill would invest in 
alternative and renewable energy. No one, including me, thinks our 
long-term future in energy is oil and gas. We need a new alternative, 
renewable energy future, and this bill will help build that by actually 
creating new Federal revenue

[[Page S6140]]

through the royalty on energy production and devoting most of it to 
those investments in alternative and renewable energies. Again, we do 
this without borrowing money by establishing a renewable and 
alternative energy trust fund and putting funds from domestic 
production royalties into that trust fund. In doing so, we do more for 
alternative and renewable energy than President Obama's entire $800 
billion stimulus plan.
  No. 3, the third big thing the No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009 does, it 
streamlines the regulatory burden and clarifies environmental law. We 
streamline the review process for new nuclear energy production, and we 
prevent the abuse of environmental laws, which were not meant to be 
used as a way to simply stop and block all of these projects.
  Madam President, I wish to close as I began. Energy is a big topic, 
and ensuring affordable, reliable energy is central to the core of who 
we are in this country because energy is a great equalizer. We are a 
society of equals. We have never had distinct classes. We have always 
had great mobility. You can make it in America. If you are successful, 
you can do anything. You are not born into a class. You are not limited 
in that way. Affordable, reliable energy is a key equalizer that 
ensures that American way of life.
  So what should energy policy be about? It should be about four 
things:
  No. 1, ensuring affordable energy for all Americans, particularly 
middle- and low-income families, so that we keep that great equalizer 
in the center of our society, in the center of our economy.
  No. 2, it should be a way to grow the economy with our abundant 
domestic resources, particularly as we need to get out of this serious 
recession.
  No. 3, good energy policy should work us toward energy independence 
so we do more here at home and we rely less on foreign sources.
  No. 4, a good energy policy should ensure that it is consistent with 
national security, which, of course, increasing our energy independence 
is.
  I truly believe the No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009 achieves all four of 
those broad goals in a very significant way. Just as clearly, President 
Obama's energy tax proposals, which across the board increase the tax 
burden on utility bills, on domestic energy, on domestic energy 
production, move us in the opposite direction.
  President Obama said very recently about GM, in the midst of the 
latest GM bailout, that:

       GM has been buried under an unsustainable mountain of debt, 
     and piling an irresponsibly large debt on top of the new GM 
     would mean simply repeating the mistakes of the past.

  There is an old saying: What is good for GM is good for the country. 
I would like to modify that to say: What is true for GM is true for the 
country. So why are we piling an irresponsibly large debt on top of our 
existing historically high levels of debt in this country? We need 
another way. We need something like the No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009. 
We need to learn again how to generate wealth and a healthy economy. We 
need to refocus here at home on our abundant energy resources. And that 
is the way we can have a sound energy policy that meets those four 
crucial goals I mentioned and allow us to work out of this severe 
recession--not by borrowing more from the Chinese, not by spending more 
taxpayer dollars--and it is all borrowed money right now--but focusing 
here at home on our own resources, on our own people, on good 
sustainable jobs we can build here toward a prosperous future and 
toward a new energy future.
  Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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