[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 30 (Monday, February 27, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1035-S1036]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             ENERGY PRICES

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about what people 
all across the country are talking about; that is, the high price of 
energy, what people are paying at the pump. I just returned from a week 
in Alaska. It is fair to say that in a State such as ours, that is as 
rich as we are with energy wealth, we are being killed by energy 
prices.
  So I wanted to comment on some of the statements the President made 
over the weekend and Friday when he spoke to the country about energy. 
I have to tell you, I was pleased to hear the President say he is 
joining us in an ``all-of-the-above approach'' to energy. I think that 
is good news. It is certainly something I have been saying ever since I 
arrived in the Senate.
  It is about domestic production, it is about efficiencies and 
conservation, and it is about renewables. So that is good. We heard the 
President say we need to be doing more with oil and gas. You are not 
going to find any disagreement with me. Wind and solar, nuclear, 
biofuels, efficiency, this is all good, but the problem we are seeing 
is the words coming from President Obama are not matching his actions 
when it comes to what we can be doing with our own domestic production.
  I will speak specifically to oil and gas. The actions coming out of 
the administration, whether through this budget or through some of the 
other proposals pushing for higher taxes, higher royalties on the 
industry, when we think about what goes on with the oil and gas leases 
in the gulf, we have certainly seen the impact flow down there.
  In Alaska, we have been pushing, pushing aggressively for 4 years now 
to get the OCS leases advanced through exploration with Shell, not only 
4 years in the process but billions of dollars into a process. We are 
getting closer, but we are not there yet. With the National Petroleum 
Reserve Alaska, an area that has been designated by the Congress to 
explore for production activity, it took almost 2 years to get a bridge 
across the CD 5, an area where we have an opportunity to continue our 
exploration--but 2 years to get a simple permit for a bridge.
  We all know ANWR has been locked up for decades now. There is 
incredibly wealthy potential there. Look at the decision on the 
Keystone XL Pipeline coming out of this administration. When it comes 
to other areas that are supposedly in ``all of the above,'' nuclear--as 
much as we might have hoped that this was enjoying a renaissance, we 
have seen the decision on the shutdown of Yucca Mountain from this 
administration, the issues as they relate to access to uranium in 
certain parts of the country.
  The rhetoric is not necessarily matching what we are seeing coming 
out of the administration. This is what is so disturbing to a person 
like me who comes from an area where we have so much to give, so much 
to offer.
  The President, in his words, said, ``There are no quick fixes to this 
problem.'' I agree. I absolutely agree. That is why instead of focusing 
on what could be perceived as a quick fix, such as releasing oil from 
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, we need to be focusing on the long-
term solution. I keep going back to 1995 when the House and the Senate 
passed ANWR. It was vetoed by the President shortly thereafter.
  Prices at the pump back then were $1.07 at the pump. The average 
price today is $3.65. Think about where we would be if that action had 
not been vetoed; if the Alaska pipeline, which is now less than half 
filled, were at full capacity with oil coming out of ANWR.
  Just yesterday a colleague of ours from New York sent a letter to 
Secretary Clinton asking her to pressure Saudi Arabia to pump more oil. 
In his letter to the Secretary, he said,

       I urge the State Department to work with the Government of 
     Saudi Arabia to increase its oil production, as they are 
     currently producing well under their capacity.

  Well, our pipeline is certainly well under capacity at 600,000 
barrels a day. When we were pushing it through at full tilt, we were 
over 2 million barrels a day. That is exactly what the Senator from New 
York has asked Saudi Arabia to do. We could be doing it from Alaska. We 
could be doing it from this country with our people gaining access to 
our resources, and we are not doing that.

  The President said the Republican plan is just to drill, drill, 
drill. He said: We hear this every year. Well, why do we hear this 
every year? We hear it because it is part of the solution. It is not 
the whole solution, but it is part of the solution, in addition to 
conservation, efficiency, renewables, and other areas of our domestic 
production. But drilling is part of the solution. It should not just be 
part of the rhetoric.
  The President said, and I would agree:

       The American people are not stupid on this. They know that 
     we are not just going to be able to snap our fingers and have 
     oil coming out of ANWR or having oil coming out of the OCS in 
     the Chukchi or the Beaufort.

  They know it takes a while. They know in some cases it might take 
decades to come. So why would we not start now? If we had started in 
1995, think about where we would have been.
  He said, ``There are no short-term silver bullets.'' Once again, I 
agree. But there is a long silver bullet in Alaska, and that is our 
Trans-Alaska Pipeline that has been moving oil for 30 years now for 
this country. That silver bullet could be filled, and it would be 
helping this country just as we are asking for help from Saudi Arabia.
  The statement that I think most upset me this weekend was the 
statement that the President made when he said: Some politicians see 
this--being higher oil prices--as a political opportunity. He repeated 
a quote that ``Republicans are licking their chops,'' and stated, 
``Only in politics do people root for bad news.''
  Well, the people of my State are not rooting for bad news when it 
comes to higher energy prices. I will tell you, I am a little offended 
by the President's statement. I would invite him to come to Alaska, 
spend a week with me, go to where I was last Saturday in Fairbanks 
where people are paying $4.29 for their home heating oil. My sister 
pays over $1,000 a month for home heating fuel to fill her tanks. She 
lives within 20 minutes of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. You can see it. 
You can drive by it, this line that is half full, and it is not, again, 
because we are running out of resources. It is because we have been 
locked out of ANWR, we have been delayed on NPRA, and we are still 
waiting on OCS. There are certainly plenty of leases out there. But it 
is getting the permits out of this administration that has been holding 
us back from doing more, from doing more to help the people of Alaska 
and to help the people of this country.
  Last month I was out in Bethel in southwest Alaska. There was a 
native elder who came to a little gathering we had. He is from Eek, AK. 
He was telling me that he pays $7.46 for home heating fuel in the 
village of Eek. That is how they stay warm. When I was there in 
January, the average temperature for that month was about 20 degrees 
below zero. He said he has to buy his fuel 10 gallons at a time because 
that is all he can afford. Then when he does not have any more money, 
he goes out looking for fire wood for he and his wife. This gentleman, 
as I said, is an elder, probably 70 years old. But that is how he is 
living. High energy prices for him are not an opportunity.
  Go up to Nome. All eyes of the Nation were on Nome several weeks back 
when the Coast Guard cutter was escorting the Russian fuel tanker, the 
Renda, to get to Nome to provide fuel for the community of Nome and the 
surrounding villages because the winter ice had come in and the winter 
barge had not been able to make it in with the fuel.
  When I was in Nome that afternoon, the price for gas at the pump was 
$5.43; the price for diesel was $5.99.
  But it was projected that if they weren't able to fill their tanks, 
they would see the prices go up to over $9 a gallon. Think of what that 
does to your ability to live. Thankfully, the Coast Guard and the fine 
men and women there were able to see that the community and the 
villages were taken care of.
  I was in Yakutat on Wednesday, a small community that is not 
accessible by road, as most of our communities aren't. There in 
Yakutat, they are paying 54 cents a kilowatt hour for energy. Most of 
their power is diesel-generated

[[Page S1036]]

power--54 cents. That is for the businesses that get a subsidy from the 
State of Alaska for 30 cents a kilowatt hour. The small grocery store 
we visited paid $10,000 for its energy prices in January alone--$10,000 
a month for a little grocery store. They are paying $5.19 a gallon 
right now, but it is going up with the next fuel barge that comes in.
  Alaskans in villages who rely on diesel for their power can pay 
between 40 and 45 percent of their income for their energy costs. 
Compare that to the rest of the country, where you are looking at 
between 3 and 6 percent of your income going toward energy. We are 
paying almost 50 percent in some of our villages.
  Mr. President, I don't view high oil prices as a political 
opportunity and neither do my constituents. What we view as an 
opportunity is the resource our State holds--a resource that we 
continue to be denied access to that opportunity. We learned late last 
week that the USGS has come back with an estimate that the shale oil in 
Alaska would come close to 2 billion barrels of oil. ANWR's estimate is 
about 10.6 billion barrels. In the OCS, we anticipate over 26 billion 
barrels of oil. We have the resources. We have the ability to access 
the resources and to do so in an environmentally safe way. This needs 
to be part of an all-of-the-above solution, in addition to everything 
we do with renewables and our efficiencies and conservation. We must be 
doing more domestically. Alaska holds the opportunity.
  Again, I agree with the President that there is no short-term fix, 
but if we don't get started today, there is not going to be a tomorrow 
for communities such as Yakutat and Eek and Bethel and Fairbanks. We 
have to get started today.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arizona is 
recognized.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, first let me commend my colleague from Alaska 
who is seeing this battle of the high price of gasoline firsthand in a 
State that could contribute greatly to the country's solution to the 
problem if the President and administration would but let it. I was led 
on a trip by her father several years ago to the northern part of 
Alaska, where there are huge untapped reserves that literally, if they 
had been allowed to be sent to the lower 48 at that time, could have 
significantly ameliorated the problem we have today. I appreciate her 
comments. We will talk more about that.

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