[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 175 (Wednesday, November 16, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7596-S7598]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT,
2012
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 2354, which the clerk will
report.
The bill clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 2354) making appropriations for energy and
water development, and related agencies for the fiscal year
ending September 30, 2012, and for other purposes.
Pending:
Reid amendment No. 957, in the nature of a substitute.
Reid amendment No. 958 (to amendment No. 957), to change
the enactment date.
Reid amendment No. 959 (to amendment No. 958), of a
perfecting nature.
Reid amendment No. 960 (to language proposed to be stricken
by amendment No. 957), to change the enactment date.
Reid amendment No. 961 (to amendment No. 960), of a
perfecting nature.
Reid motion to recommit the bill to the Committee on
Appropriations, with instructions, Reid amendment No. 962, to
change the enactment date.
Reid amendment No. 963 (to (the instructions) amendment No.
962), of a perfecting nature.
Reid amendment No. 964 (to amendment No. 963), of a
perfecting nature.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from California.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, it is my understanding that Senator
Bingaman would like to speak on an amendment he has filed and Senator
Murkowski may well come down to speak on that, which is fine.
I will yield to Senator Bingaman to do that now.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Mexico is
recognized.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak
briefly about an amendment Senator Murkowski and I have filed.
There is a provision in the Energy and Water appropriations bill,
which we are considering in the Senate, that we would like to see
stricken or deleted from the bill. It is a provision in the legislation
that mandates the sale of $500 million worth of oil from the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve, or SPR, as it is called. The bill also ends the
Royalty-in-Kind Program. That part I am not disputing at this point.
The language in the bill that we are concerned about is on page 41.
It says in that part of the bill:
Notwithstanding various other provisions, the Secretary of
Energy shall sell $500 million in petroleum product from the
reserve not later than March 1 of 2012, and shall deposit any
proceeds from such sales in the general fund of the Treasury.
In the words of the Department of Energy:
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve exists, first and foremost,
as an emergency response tool the President can use should
the United States be confronted with an economically
threatening disruption in oil supplies.
The SPR is our Nation's insurance policy against oil supply
disruptions, and keeping it well stocked and operational is important
to our energy security. I believe that is a view shared by Democrats
and Republicans.
The SPR became filled to its maximum capacity of roughly 727 million
barrels for the first time in its history in the year 2009.
The President, in the budget he submitted--the 2012 budget--proposed
a sale of oil from the SPR that would generate $500 million in revenue
for the Federal Treasury. The administration explained that because the
SPR was at maximum capacity, it needed to sell off some oil for
operational purposes. They needed extra space in the SPR in order to
move oil around within the system and to refurbish some of the
underground salt caverns in which the oil is stored.
However, this past June, there was an emergency drawdown, and there
was a sale of 30 million barrels of SPR oil. I understand that the
emergency sale generated more than $3 billion. This indicates to me
that more than six times the amount of oil that the President thought
was necessary to be sold for operational reasons has now been sold.
Clearly, the President's proposal from February to create a little
free space in the SPR is no longer necessary. The concern we have is
that the SPR sale provision in this legislation remains part of an
appropriations bill,
[[Page S7597]]
and the sale is no longer necessary for operational purposes; it is
simply a way of generating revenue.
I hope my colleagues will consider the long-term implications of
using our strategic oil stocks just to generate revenue for the
operation of government on a weekly and monthly basis. I believe this
is a bad precedent. I believe we should reject this part of the
legislation, and if the opportunity presents itself to offer the
amendment, I will urge our colleagues to join us in deleting this
provision and ensuring that future revenue-generating sales of SPR oil
not be accomplished or proposed simply to pay the ordinary operating
bills of the various agencies covered by the legislation.
I know my colleague from Alaska is expected to come to the floor in
the next few minutes and give her views on this same legislation that
she and I are cosponsoring, the amendment I have just spoken about.
Until then, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I thank Senator Bingaman for his
comments. He has been an excellent chair of the committee.
It is our understanding that these points were never brought to the
committee. However, I am told the Energy Department has told my staff
that the budget request is valid due to the Department's need for
operational flexibility.
I want everybody to know that the floor is open. If you filed an
amendment, please come down to speak on it. If you want to file one,
please do so as quickly as possible. The floor is open for amendments.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I have come to the floor this morning
to discuss a provision in the Energy and Water appropriations bill that
apparently Senator Bingaman has just spoken to. This would require the
sale of $500 million worth of oil from our Nation's Strategic Petroleum
Reserve or we call it the SPR. I do believe this is an inappropriate
use of our limited emergency stockpiles, and I think it would also set
a dangerous and an unsustainable precedent for the future.
As I understand it, the administration first requested this sale in
its fiscal year 2012 budget proposal and justified it by asserting
there was an integrity issue in one of the caverns where the SPR oil
was stored. We heard this discussion before the Energy Committee some
months ago. He asserted the sale was necessary because DOE had to drain
the oil in that cavern to perform some repairs that were apparently
necessary.
The House Appropriations Committee subsequently authorized the sale
in its version of the bill which was then released in June. At that
point in time, based upon DOE's representation, I guess it was kind of
hard not to argue the sale was not justified. But then events took a
different course. Several weeks later, as part of a coordinated effort
with the IEA to increase global supplies, the President chose to sell
about six times more crude from the SPR than the House had originally
contemplated.
Whether one supported that sale or not, I think it would have been
reasonable to assume or to expect the administration would sell the
crude from the cavern that needed the repairs. They needed to get that
out so they could do the necessary repairs. So when an unannounced sale
comes along, one would think they would take the oil from that cavern,
thereby solving at least one of the problems and obviating the need of
a future maintenance-related sale. Enough oil has now been sold from
our emergency reserves to fill not one but six troubled caverns.
The only justification that can remain now is the need for more cash.
We need more money. Given that background, I would encourage the Senate
to consider that selling $500 million worth of our emergency oil
reserves right now simply to help offset other appropriations is akin
to cashing out our insurance policy in order to cover the cost of a
mortgage we can't afford in the first place.
The SPR was designed to be that emergency safety net, if you will, or
like an insurance policy. Remember, there is a very good reason why we
have this insurance policy in the first place. Congress created the SPR
in the aftermath of the oil embargo back in the 1970s to serve as a
safety net in the event we were to see a major supply disruption. Given
the volatility that continues to churn the global markets, our
strategic stockpile is arguably more important today than ever before.
As long as we maintain a large volume of oil within the SPR, we will
ensure Americans have some level of protection against future
disruptions. If we decide not to take the long view, we face the very
real risk of being forced to spend more tomorrow to repurchase the oil
that is being sold today.
One may ask: How likely is any kind of a future disruption? I would
say the odds are still higher than we would like. Our Nation remains
roughly 50 percent dependent on foreign oil, importing close to 9
million barrels a day at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars a
year. The world, as we know, is not exactly stable. Large volumes of
Libyan oil remain offline. Iran continues to provoke its neighbors,
raising the specter of future attacks. Saudi Arabia's leadership is
aging rapidly, leaving the door open to perhaps future unrest and
upheaval. China, India, and many of the other countries are rapidly
expanding their oil consumption and, in the meantime, forging close
relationships with major suppliers that can be leveraged in times of
emergency.
Here at home, the Federal Government continues to hinder the
development of new supplies that would improve our energy security and
reduce the need for a strategic reserve. We have seen development
halted or delayed in Alaska in the northern part of the State, in the
Rocky Mountain West, and a number of other areas. The new 5-year
leasing plan for offshore development does take a few small steps, but
it keeps both the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts under a de facto
moratorium through at least 2017. The administration has also delayed
its decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. We just saw that news this
week. This would have carried significant volumes of Canadian oil.
Again, that is oil from an ally, from a neighbor, that would have
brought that into this country.
The result is, we are not doing, in my opinion, nearly enough to
reduce our dependence on foreign oil, so we still need a Strategic
Petroleum Reserve, and we cannot treat it as a national ATM that can be
tapped when the money is tight. That is not the reason we should have
or the way to utilize the SPR.
I wish to share a quote from a witness who testified before the
Energy Committee earlier this year. His name is Kevin Book. He is a
real expert on energy policy, and I think he made quite an impression
on our committee. He encouraged us to seek alternatives to petroleum,
but he also said:
Selling oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to pay
for efficiency gains and alternative fuels could seriously
diminish U.S. energy security without necessarily delivering
financial benefits.
For anybody who might be interested, I am happy to provide a copy of
his testimony. I think it was quite useful in understanding why this
approach is not appropriate at this point in time.
As we seek to pay for legislation that comes before us--whether it is
this appropriations bill or something else--I continue to believe one
of our best paths forward is to produce more of our own abundant
resources and then put the resulting Federal revenues to good use.
Instead of selling our emergency oil and risking future dilemmas, we
should, instead, put policies in place that expand and that accelerate
the pace at which we develop our immense natural resources.
Right now, Alaska has about 40 billion barrels of oil that are just
waiting
[[Page S7598]]
to be tapped for the good of the Nation. I keep saying we have money
that is buried in the ground up there. If we harness those resources
and more of the resources in the Gulf of Mexico and the Rocky Mountain
West, we would be dramatically increasing our energy security, we would
create tens of thousands of new jobs, and generate billions and
billions of dollars year after year that could be applied to both
deficit reduction and the development of new energy technologies.
I would encourage the Senate to support any amendment that strikes
the SPR provision in this bill and encourage us, instead, to focus on
the development of a more viable long-term energy policy.
With that, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
____________________