[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 50 (Tuesday, March 27, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2071-S2076]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ORDER OF PROCEDURE

  Mr. BEGICH. Mr. President, I would like to enter into a colloquy with 
my colleague from Louisiana.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of Colorado). Without objection, it 
is so ordered.


                            Energy Planning

  Mr. BEGICH. Mr. President, just as I expected, we have been in this 
back-and-forth show-and-tell on oil and gas issues instead of spending 
the time and working on a real energy plan, one that is important for 
not only my State, my colleague's State, but for the whole Nation. So 
we go back and forth, and it is politics as usual in this Chamber. We 
just heard a nice presentation by my colleague from Wyoming about how 
it is all the President's fault the prices are going up and all these 
other issues.
  Let me just say this--and I know my friend from Louisiana knows 
this--in Alaska, there is a clear indication what we believe when it 
comes to energy prices. We have communities that pay $9, $10 a gallon 
for heating fuel. We understand when costs go up what happens to our 
economies in our rural communities.
  We also are a producer of oil and gas, and we understand the 
potential and job opportunities. But this last week, when we started on 
this bill, I know my colleague and I were just two of four people who 
said, no; we are not moving on this bill because we expected exactly 
what is going on now. We are just doing a little show-and-tell, having 
a little argument back and forth, and in another 24 hours or maybe 30 
hours we will be off this bill and we will not have an energy plan.
  When I go back home for our break, when I am talking to Alaskans--and 
I know the Senator will be talking to folks in Louisiana--they will 
complain about gas prices and heating costs and how much it costs to 
fill their cars or their RVs if they are trying to go somewhere on the 
weekends, and we have not done anything to make a dramatic change.
  Of course, this idea of eliminating these incentives for the oil and 
gas industry I have opposed from day one, for a variety of reasons. 
One, if we are going to do real tax reform, then we should do a broader 
sweep, and no industry should be left off the table. Everyone should be 
part of the equation.
  I have heard this from the industry--I know my colleague has heard 
this from the industry--that they are willing to be part of the bigger 
picture, but do not single them out because poll numbers say they are a 
demon of some sort or people do not like them. Let's talk about real 
tax reform. That is one debate.
  The other debate is, if we really want an energy plan, then let's 
really do one. Let's focus on opportunities, and let's quit putting out 
pieces that one side puts down because it sounds good for their 
brochure, and then the other side puts one down. Let's really focus on 
something that will make a huge difference to this economy.
  As I mentioned, in Alaska fuel is expensive in our rural communities 
for heating, and communities in Fairbanks, which is a very urban area, 
can pay upwards in the winter of $1,000 or maybe more per month in 
heating costs, making their ability to survive very difficult.
  As we work on these energy projects and what is important, let me put 
another thing in perspective from Alaska. People think in Alaska all we 
care about is oil and gas. Well, we do. It adds a lot of jobs. But we 
also care about renewable energy. I know I have been on the floor of 
the Senate talking about that. My colleague has been on the floor 
talking about renewable, alternative energy. It is all part of the 
equation, how to ensure we develop a plan. We diversify our energy 
resources, and then we deliver it for the betterment of this country 
and economically in order for us to survive.
  In Alaska, for example, as we work on our oil and gas development, we 
are also moving forward on renewable energy. In our State, just about 
25 percent of our energy production for use in the State is renewable 
energy, with the goal to be at 50 percent by 2025. We have a plan 
because we understand the value of it.
  I want to show a chart I have in the Chamber, and then I know my 
colleague has comments, and we will probably go back and forth a little 
bit. But I want to show you this one chart.
  When I came into office--and my colleague over here talked about 
ANWR. I

[[Page S2072]]

support ANWR. I am aggressive about it beyond belief. My colleague has 
been. Before I got here, she was pounding away on this issue also. It 
is important.
  We have four regions in Alaska that are of high value. When we talk 
about oil and gas in Alaska, at least from our office, we talk about 
everything that is possible. We talk about ANWR. We talk about the 
National Petroleum Reserve which--let me make that point--is designed 
for petroleum production. We have the Chukchi Sea over here, and the 
Beaufort Sea over there. These four regions have huge value to the oil 
production of this country.
  When we talk about this, where are we today? What can it do? What can 
it replace? It can replace countries such as Libya and Nigeria and 
Saudi Arabia, where we get oil from. We could actually produce it here, 
and the good news is we are on the path to do that.

  Now, has it been long and tedious? Yes, it has. But are we moving in 
the right direction? Yes. We have seen for the first time in 30 years 
the opportunity to develop in the Arctic that we have not seen before. 
We are seeing for the first time--this summer, Shell is moving their 
ships up to the Chukchi Sea because the potential between the Chukchi 
Sea and the Beaufort Sea alone is 24 billion barrels of oil.
  Let me repeat that. I know we deal with these numbers in our two 
States: billions, billions. When we look at the Chukchi Sea, 15.4 
billion barrels of oil; plus a little side product, gas, and we love 
gas because it is clean burning, 77 trillion cubic feet; the Beaufort 
Sea, 8.2 billion barrels of oil--this is what we know best today in our 
estimates--where they are doing exploration now, so we are going to 
find out more opportunities--gas, 28 trillion cubic feet.
  NPR-A, the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, 1 billion barrels of 
oil is what we know of, and they are in production this year.
  ConocoPhillips will be developing in what they call CD5.
  ANWR is still a struggle, but 10.4 billion barrels of oil. It is 
still an important piece, where a small, little component of this would 
be developed, 2,000 acres out of 19 million acres. That would be the 
footprint we would utilize.
  But the point I am trying to make is, if we want to get on to a real 
energy plan, then let's do that. I know the folks on our side did their 
vote. It was amazing. It shocked me, actually, that they voted to move 
forward. They had not done that ever since I had been here on that 
bill. It is because they wanted to do show-and-tell for a week, get 
some press, and beat up the President because of Presidential politics.
  I have my differences with the President. We fought him a lot on 
these issues. But what I am interested in, what I came here for--and I 
know the Senator came years ago for--is to do a real energy plan that 
involves our country being more self-sufficient on our own energy 
resources, and let's do it the right way.
  Let's have the real debate that will make the difference for 
consumers. So when I go home, and my colleague goes home, and someone 
says thank you because we have set in motion a trend that will lower or 
stabilize gas prices for our homes, for our cars, for our businesses, 
for transportation in general, that is what we should be doing. But 
instead we are going to burn up a few days here and make a lot of 
speeches, and then we will move on.
  Well, I will tell you, and I think my colleague will agree with me on 
this, that the two of us are not going to stop. We are going to talk 
about an energy plan because that is what we need in this country if we 
want to grow this economy and make ourselves more self-sufficient and 
more secure nationally.
  What is happening in the Middle East? The price is going up. It is 
not anything we are doing. But we have some good news. Even though it 
is predominately private land that has been the growth factor of oil 
and gas, we are seeing more domestic production for the first time in 
10 years. I do not know, but to the Senator from Louisiana, I think 
that is a good thing; right?
  Ms. LANDRIEU. It is a good thing. The Senator from Alaska is right on 
as usual on this subject and in the main stream of what most Americans, 
I believe, are thinking about.
  I wanted to ask the Senator from Alaska, following his comments--I 
mean, why does my colleague think our friends on the Republican side 
want to spend this week beating up on the President as opposed to doing 
something that might help energy policy advance in the country? I do 
not know if they do not realize that people are very frightened and 
anxious and upset about these prices or what does the Senator think is 
driving this sort of theater on the Senate floor?
  Mr. BEGICH. Well, I think the Senator said it in the question in a 
way. It is a lot of Presidential politics. I think what I hear when I 
go home is--and the Senator probably hears it too--that people are 
frustrated with that activity.
  Think about this: Just a couple of weeks ago, we passed a bipartisan 
transportation bill. Unbelievable. People say we cannot do things 
together. Seventy-four votes moved a bill, with very diverse views, as 
we all know. But we worked it out. We spent 5 weeks doing it after all 
the committees' months and months of work. And what did we end up with? 
A great product that went over to the House, that now sits there 
languishing and not having anything happen to it.
  What is interesting, if we do not do a good energy plan, here is what 
happens: asphalt, which is a petroleum-based product which builds those 
roads, only goes up. When that goes up, that means now the roads we 
want to build become less. It is not complicated.
  Why are they not doing this--I think even some of their own Members 
were surprised that they had to be told by their leadership to change 
their votes and do a certain type of vote. Now we are in this no-end 
product. In other words, we are not going to end up with anything. I do 
not get it. I know they will go home just like the Senator and I, and 
they will hear the same thing: jobs, gas prices, and construction and 
the housing market, what is happening? These are things we hear about. 
I am surprised.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I am surprised myself. I hope when we do go home 
constituents in all of our States will say: Stop the bumper sticker 
politics on the floor of the Senate and get down to passing an energy 
bill. I think we most certainly, if we stop electioneering and start 
legislating, could actually do that.
  Now the Senator from Alaska and I--and I have been here a few years 
longer than the Senator, but he has been a most welcome addition to 
this issue because he is knowledgeable. He comes from a State that is 
larger than almost half of the lower 48. His State is rich in 
resources. I have had the great pleasure to go to Alaska. I am looking 
forward to traveling there again this summer and actually going to the 
North Slope because in Louisiana we build many of the ships that 
actually operate in Alaska for their exploration activities.
  Mr. BEGICH. If I can make a comment that the Senator just christened 
one of our new ships coming up. It has Icebreaker capacity to work for 
Shell to do what? Go right here.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. That ship was just christened this weekend in 
Louisiana. So the relationship between Louisiana and Alaska goes back a 
long way. I am very happy to have the Senator here advocating for a 
smart and effective energy policy.
  This debate some people are having--I do not believe I am included in 
that because we are having our own colloquy about serious issues. But 
this so-called debate that everybody else is having is going to result 
in nothing, just a lot of sound bites. There will be no energy policy 
that comes out of this because the fact is--and everyone knows this 
that follows this--both parties are guilty for not having the right 
kind of energy policy, Democrats and Republicans alike.
  Democrats, from my perspective, do not appreciate the way they should 
the need for more domestic drilling. So they resist sometimes the need 
for more domestic drilling. I think Senator Begich and I have pointed 
out there are some places where there are people--Governors and 
Senators, Democratic Senators--who are open to drilling. We could go to 
those places and do a better job of developing onshore and offshore.
  But Republicans are not good at all when it comes to conservation. 
They resist helping the auto industry, for instance, to retool itself, 
which we know

[[Page S2073]]

has had an absolute direct bottom line on less petroleum products being 
used for gasoline.
  Many of the new automobiles coming out of domestic manufacturers, 
because of what Democrats and President Obama, who led this effort--
which he never gets enough credit for on the other side--have done to 
retool Detroit so that just this week in the newspaper, I believe it 
was the Washington Post--I wanted to ask the Senator from Alaska if he 
saw this article. The most amazing thing that has happened over the 
last 10 years is that our imports of foreign oil have decreased for 2 
reasons: One, we are producing more oil and gas at home, although there 
have been some setbacks with this administration which we are not happy 
about, the two of us, but also because of the conservation we have done 
in this country.
  Mass transit is a part of that, which many Republicans reject. 
Conservation initiatives are a major part of that, which Republicans 
reject. Helping the domestic auto industry, which they--even Mitt 
Romney, their leader on the Republican side, said that was a mistake to 
help Detroit, Ohio, et cetera, Michigan and places in Ohio.

  So I am coming to the floor to say this blame game is not going to 
work because both parties are almost equally at fault. Senator Begich 
and I would like to believe that we represent a little bit of the 
Democratic side, a little bit of the Republican side, coming from 
States--both of us being Democrats but from States that know something 
about drilling.
  I want to put up my map of Louisiana so people believe when I say 
that we know something about drilling.
  This is what my State looks like. Some people might not like this 
picture. This is the oil and gas infrastructure in Louisiana. To 
someone who is a purist and does not like pipelines and does not like 
oil wells and does not like leases, they may recoil at this. But people 
in Louisiana like this because this is about money, and it is about 
domestic energy self-sufficiency and independence.
  These are pipelines. There are 9,000 miles of pipelines under south 
Louisiana. We have been drilling onshore and offshore for the last 50 
years. Until the Macondo Well blew up in spectacular fashion and killed 
11 people, which is very unfortunate and the fault of BP and some of 
the contractors who were not doing their jobs correctly, it has been 
mostly successful. We have drilled 40,000 wells--40,000.
  So when the Senator from Alaska says we know something about oil and 
gas drilling, trust me; it would be like asking the Senators from 
Michigan: Do you know something about building cars? We know about 
that. We have been fracking. We have been using horizontal drilling. We 
know there is a lot of oil and gas still to be found, and the Senator 
talked about some of his reserves.
  I know the Senator is aware that Louisiana--just off the coast of 
Louisiana--produces just about as much oil as we import from Saudi 
Arabia every year. I do not know if the Senator knows that.
  How are the reserves looking in Alaska?
  Mr. BEGICH. Well, absolutely. As a matter of fact, as we know, this 
line--this is the pipeline that brings resources from here down to 
Valdez and ships it throughout the country and the world. It is about 
10 percent of the oil for our country that comes from Prudhoe Bay up 
here.
  What is amazing about this development is, as it moves forward, it 
will obviously provide even more. Also, as the Senator said, with the 
map there, it is about jobs. I mean, when we think about this 
development, this could be upwards of 54,000-plus jobs estimated by an 
independent research arm. Plus these jobs pay very well: on an average, 
$117,000 a year. I do not know about you; I think that is a good-paying 
job.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. It is a very good paying job. This is a very good point 
because I have tried to remind everyone here that this oil and gas 
industry that exists in Louisiana and Alaska does not just support the 
people of our States. Think about it. There are only 500,000 people in 
Alaska. If that is going to create 50,000 jobs, that would be 1 for 
every 10 people. But people fly in and fly out. They will work for 2 
weeks or a month and fly back. We have people working on our rigs that 
are from Maine or from Colorado or from New Mexico or from New York.
  Most of the people who work offshore are from the Gulf Coast States, 
I might say. You can tell this when you drive through the parking lots 
and see the license plates which are easy to spot. But I can tell you 
there are people from all over the country who work in this industry.
  If I showed you a supplier line, you would see supplies coming from 
all over the United States to fund the operations like, for instance, 
the boat that is going to be operating in Alaska was built by people 
from Louisiana. Some of those boats are built in Mississippi, and some 
of that may even come from the east coast. I do not know if the Senator 
is familiar with that.
  Mr. BEGICH. Some of those ships will be refurbished and some of the 
work that is being done is out of the Port of Seattle and Tacoma and 
that region. It is a nationwide aspect. Think about this. In 2011, the 
oil and gas industry produced 9 percent of the new jobs in this 
country.
  Let me repeat that: Nine percent of all of the new jobs in this 
country came from the oil and gas industry. It is the fastest growing 
industry at producing jobs.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. It is also producing great wealth. I do not think 
people understand because a lot of the land in the West is public land. 
So we hear this debate about public land, et cetera. But most of the 
land in my State is private land. In fact, the Federal Government owns 
less than 2.5 percent.
  Now, we are at polar ends of this debate. We are at opposite ends 
because in Alaska the Federal Government owns 90 percent of that State. 
It only owns 2.5 percent of my State, and the farther east you go it is 
less and less and less.
  So when there is more drilling, like in Louisiana, it is private land 
owners who are getting wealthy. In many of these instances, such as in 
the Haynesville shale, which is up along this area in Louisiana, 
northwest Louisiana, farmers whose land was virtually worthless or who 
were growing crops but not really making it very well, now the gas has 
been discovered on their land, so they are getting royalty checks for 
$10,000 a month, $20,000 a month. That is more money that people have 
made or ever dreamed about making. I have heard of royalty checks of 
$50,000 a month that people are getting. So they take that $50,000, 
they are not even drilling for oil and gas; they have just leased their 
property. They go out and start a business in their hometown or they go 
out and buy two new automobiles for their family or a new pickup truck 
for their operations.
  I know the Senator understands the indirect impact. It is not just 
the direct jobs for the industry, but the wealth that is created 
personally, and the U.S. Government collects quite a bit of taxes from 
this industry as well.
  Mr. BEGICH. If I could add, in this Chukchi/Beaufort, for example, it 
is estimated that the cumulative state, local, Federal value over the 
next 50 years in terms of revenue stream is upwards of $100 billion. If 
we then talk about the payroll over the next 50 years for the same two 
areas, it is $150 billion.
  What happens to that $150 billion that people get paid? Exactly. They 
buy a house. They maybe put their kids through college or they are 
vacationing or they are improving their lifestyle. They are moving up, 
and that kind of money is significant.
  It has a multiplier effect that is hard to measure, but it is real. 
Anybody seeing somebody making $117,000, they are spending that money 
in the economy. That is why we see the job growth we see here. Again, 
to the principal debate we are having tonight--and we are the minority 
of the minority in a way--we need to get back to the basic issue of 
what do we want in this country in a diversified, well-delivered energy 
plan. We can get there. For example, we had a bill, and the other side 
threw down the same old talking points a few weeks ago--to drill 
everywhere one could imagine. It is about drilling but doing it 
responsibly, in the right areas, with the right design. They had 
Bristol Bay, the fish basket of the country, where 40 percent of the 
fish are caught. They want to drill there. I cannot vote for that. It 
is a balanced approach that we need.

[[Page S2074]]

  Ms. LANDRIEU. We don't have to drill everywhere. The resources are so 
spectacularly promising. I have to get back to this blaming President 
Obama. I don't know if my friends on the other side remember who the 
President was when the Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, a Republican, 
opposed drilling off the eastern gulf. The President at the time, his 
brother, George Bush, honored that no drilling pledge. I remind my 
friends on the other side that their party is not blameless in this 
debate. They could do a lot better for the country if they would stop 
trying to throw President Obama under the bus every minute--although I 
don't agree with all his energy policies; I didn't agree with the 
moratorium in the gulf and other things. I think they made some strong 
points. But this should not be about hurting anybody; it should be 
about helping our country. We do that by using a balanced approach, 
such as the Senator from Alaska said. It is how we came together on the 
Transportation bill. It was balanced, a compromise, and it was a little 
of this and a little of that. We put a jobs bill together that will 
help our Nation.
  We could put an energy bill together if we have both parties stop 
beating up on people. One beats up on the companies and the other beats 
up on the President and the poor people are the ones who suffer.
  I wish to show you something about oil and gas taxes. People say: 
There goes Landrieu again; she is defending the oil and gas industry. 
Frankly, some of them, and the industry itself, should be defended 
because it is an honorable, good industry. It has provided jobs. It 
provided the oil we needed to win World War II. How do you think the 
allied troops got across Europe? They didn't do it on a wish and a 
prayer. That oil came out of the Permian Basin in Texas. We have a long 
patriotic history in that industry. We get our dander up when people 
beat up on the industry.
  People say the oil industry gets these subsidies. I wish to put two 
things into the Record. It says that according to the Energy 
Information Administration--which is our administration, not a third-
party spinmeister group. It says in the study published in 2008 that 
oil and natural gas received only 13 percent of the subsidy but 
produced 60 percent of the energy needed to power our country. I will 
repeat that. The oil and gas industry receives only 13 percent of all 
the subsidies, but we produce 60 percent of the energy that keeps the 
lights on in this building and powers everything in the country. We 
spend about $16.6 billion on U.S. energy subsidies over the course of 1 
year on everything, and renewables, refined coal, nuclear, and others 
accounted for more than 85 percent of the subsidies.
  So the oil and gas industry got less than 13 percent of the 
subsidies, but they continue to be the bogeyman in all this. In 
addition to receiving only 13 percent of the subsidies--and my friend 
from Alaska will know this as well--look what tax rate they pay. 
ConocoPhillips paid 46 percent. This was the effective tax rate from 
2006 to 2010. Chevron paid 43 percent. They made a lot of money. They 
are absolutely making a lot of money. These are public companies, and 
their executives are paid well. I think they are probably paid a little 
more than I would pay, but that is what they are paid. These are public 
companies, and the shareholders are making money as well. But they are 
paying this very high rate in taxes.
  Look down here on the chart. Walmart only paid 33 percent. Philip 
Morris only paid 27 percent. PepsiCo--a very good company--only paid 24 
percent. These are effective tax rates. My favorite--although I like 
them very much, but GE only paid a 9-percent effective tax rate.
  When the Senator says we need tax reform, we most certainly do. If 
you came to me and said in a major bill we are going to have an energy 
bill and have some tax reforms to balance this out, I would be for 
that. But in good conscience, I cannot take away the subsidy from oil 
and gas when they only represent 13 percent of the overall subsidies 
but produce 60 percent of the energy. I certainly don't want to raise 
taxes on an industry now with prices at the pump being so high. If we 
do, we are just going to drive them up, which is the last thing we want 
to do, particularly when this is the truth about the tax rates. The 
Senator from Alaska is again absolutely correct. This debate we are not 
having but everyone else is having is not getting us very far.
  Mr. BEGICH. If I can, I will add one more point before we finish. If 
these incentives are so bad, then why are we at a 10-year high in 
production? Why do we see in Alaska more independence than ever before? 
Probably in the Senator's State I venture to guess--I remember 
Anadarko, a very small company, which is now a very big one. We can 
look at these different companies and part of the incentives are 
utilized to take hard-to-get areas and make them more profitable so 
they can produce them. The result is that we now have more gas, for 
example, than we have ever had, and the price dropped so far that 
people are excited about it, which happens--if we talk to the 
petrochemical industry, they love these low prices because they are 
producing more opportunities in this country to produce products we 
used to produce overseas. So there is a ripple effect. People say these 
are bad incentives. Actually, we are producing more. They are paying 
one of the highest tax rates, as the Senator said. So we are getting 
money back on our investment. They are high prices because we don't 
have a comprehensive energy plan to have diversified energy portfolio 
and make sure we deliver it everywhere we can. It is not complicated.

  Ms. LANDRIEU. The Senator is right. I am glad he mentioned this as 
well because I happen to also represent a State that has a tremendous 
petrochemical industry. Of course, that is because the Mississippi 
River is there, as well as the great finds in the 1950s and 1960s for 
gas. So when big companies--particularly petrochemicals but big 
manufacturers--look around in the world to where they go, one thing 
they look at is the tax rate. But that is not the most important thing. 
The other thing is to make sure they can find the skilled labor they 
need. They need cheap energy costs because they cannot produce steel 
competitively, for instance, if we don't have cheap energy.
  So a lot of these companies came to Louisiana in the 1960s because we 
had cheap energy. That changed, and a lot of them left. Maybe we did 
other things to drive them offshore. You know what is happening today. 
Because of this $2 gas, they are all coming home. You should see the 
building we have going on. That is why the Texas unemployment rate is 
the lowest in the Nation. I know the Governor would like to take all 
the credit for this. My Governor likes to take all the credit for this 
too. They are two outstanding Republican Governors, and they may be 
pretty good, but it is the low price of energy that is driving this. 
That could happen in Colorado, it can happen in Illinois, if we just 
support the oil and gas industry in a balanced way, instead of choking 
it off.
  Not only does that money go to them, it helps undergird this entire 
industry which employs millions more people, and it helps us to compete 
better with China, with India, and I know the Senator understands that. 
He doesn't have as much heavy construction or refining in Alaska 
because of a little bit of the isolation. But I think he can appreciate 
what happens in New Jersey and Louisiana and Illinois, as an example.
  Mr. BEGICH. Absolutely. I will tell the Senator we have been 
exporting for 40 years. We have been doing that because of our ability 
to do so and being able to get to the Pacific Asian market. Overall, 
the State here--through all its natural resources, we are a net 
positive in our export trade. We help lower the trade deficit for a 
variety of reasons--our fish, minerals, gas, and natural resources. So 
we are a huge contributor to this economy in a lot of ways.
  I have been here only 3 years, and I still wake every day being 
hopeful. I am hopeful that at some point we will debate and have a real 
energy plan discussion. When we do that, the net result is that 
Americans will win, consumers will win, and national security will win. 
Everything wins if we have a good dependable energy policy that looks 
not only at today but down the road.
  I think my friend from Louisiana made a very good point about 
conservation, about those issues. Thinking about the automobile 
industry, we came to their rescue and we got a lot of

[[Page S2075]]

criticism--all of us, the President included--but what is the result? 
Those folks paid back their loans, and they are more innovative than 
ever before. But they are also producing more fuel-efficient cars, 
which saves fuel, and it saves on the long-term dependency on foreign 
products.
  Some people say that is not conservation; that was a bailout. It is a 
combo. It is multifaceted. For whatever reason, the other side sees 
that as just another government thing. I cannot remember, but it was a 
pretty good interest rate we got on that money and they paid it back 
and now they are being more innovative. Most recently, our automobile 
industry is building more natural gas fuel vehicles. They want to move 
forward in that area. I don't know if that will be successful, but they 
are moving forward because the price is lower. We have a lot of it, and 
that is an industry that is stronger than ever before.
  As we sit talking about the importance of energy and how we have to 
develop our plan and have a diversified plan of action from all 
sources, as the Senator went through the list of the subsidies, we do 
it in every arena. We are trying to create a diversified energy 
portfolio for economic security, and it also creates innovation. We 
cannot depend on one type of fuel source. It is all part of it. People 
who say it can just be oil and gas are in another world. We have to 
have a multifaceted approach and then we have to do it and deliver it 
for the benefit of the American people. There is a way to do that.
  Again, I struggled tonight because of the vote I took yesterday--one 
of four--that said we are not moving forward because I saw what was 
going to happen. By this weekend, I will be home talking to Alaskans 
and sharing their concerns about high energy costs in small villages 
and urban areas, and they will be asking the question: What are we 
doing? I wish I could say here is the answer and the price will go 
down. For the 3 years I have been here--and the Senator from Louisiana 
has been here longer--we have had a debate with no real substantive 
beef. People have put something out on the table, and the other side 
votes against it, instead of having a meaningful, real comprehensive 
energy bill. We have tax incentives here and there but not something 
that says this is what are going to do, so 20 years from now, all of 
us, including my colleague from Louisiana and my colleague from 
Colorado, can look at our kids and grandkids and say we did the right 
thing because we are stronger because we diversified our energy 
resources.
  That is the fundamental issue we will not get to. We are in our own 
debate because we are a group of four. Two of them are out tonight. The 
rest are in a different debate.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Yes. I wish to reemphasize too the importance of 
getting back to the basics on energy policy. I have been privileged to 
be here long enough where I have helped to pass comprehensive energy 
bills. I remain hopeful when I wake too. I am a person with the glass 
half full and not half empty, and I try to remain optimistic in the 
face of evidence to the contrary. I remain hopeful we can continue on 
the path of more energy independence for our country. That is why that 
article, written this week, which I will put in the Record, was very 
telling to me, because I have been saying, similar to the Senator from 
Alaska, are we making any progress? I believe if we cannot manage, we 
cannot measure. What is the measurement? One of the measurements is, 
are we importing more or less oil from dangerous places in the 
world. And when I saw that had dropped by 15 percent, I was very 
encouraged.

  And the article pointed out two reasons, not one--not drill, baby, 
drill or conserve and conserve only but both, because America has been 
doing a better job. Despite the setback of the moratorium, despite the 
setback with the Deepwater Horizon, despite some of the President's 
slow policies on drilling, and despite the Republican resistance to 
conservation, we have been doing something right, because we have 
reduced our dependence on foreign oil, which is good.
  We don't want to be dependent on Venezuela, and we don't want to be 
dependent on the Mideast, particularly Saudi Arabia. They have been 
somewhat of an ally, but they do not share all our values, let's be 
honest. Women just got the right to drive this year--no, actually, to 
vote this year. I don't think they have the right to drive yet 
officially. So do we share those values? No.
  So why don't we kind of get back to the basics here of drilling more 
at home, promoting and expanding our nuclear industry safely. And I 
mean drilling where it is safe and not everywhere, as some Republicans 
suggest--let's drill everywhere. We don't have to drill everywhere; we 
just have to be smart and strategic about where we drill, compromise 
some about the places that are really opposed to it. We can drill more, 
have revenue sharing, which makes sense with the coastal States of 
Alaska, Louisiana, Virginia, Mississippi, and Alabama because that 
builds a strong partnership and stakeholders between the local, State, 
and Federal governments.
  I think we could do more on building efficiency. We can do more on 
natural gas vehicles. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have the kinds of 
vehicles that run on electricity or on--and I don't know if this is 
possible yet, but we could experiment on electricity, on natural gas or 
on petroleum fuels or on diesel or bio so that if the price of natural 
gas was low, you would just sort of power yourself on natural gas. If 
your electric bill is low because you are on nuclear and the nuclear 
price is low and you are getting your electricity from your nuclear 
powerplant, you just plug in your automobile and you pay very little.
  Why can't we break this dependency by producing more of everything at 
home and transforming our auto industry, which is the big pull on fuel. 
You know, our industries run on coal or natural gas or some oil, but 
the real pull on this oil is our automobiles.
  So that is why Republicans are wrong. They do not want to fund this 
transformation, but we have to fund the transformation to help America 
move from an old-fashioned petrochemical, where we just fill up at the 
pump because we only have one thing to get--and that is petroleum--to 
where we can fill up with several other things. This isn't pie in the 
sky, this is happening right now. But with a little more government 
investment, it could happen more, and wouldn't that be a relief?
  The Senator from Alaska will know this, and I don't want to misquote 
here because I could get in trouble, so I will be careful, but if we 
had a system like that and the price of gasoline was $10, no one would 
care. Do you know why? Because they wouldn't have to use it. Think 
about that. You wouldn't have to buy it. You wouldn't need it for your 
airplanes, you wouldn't need it for your trucks or your cars because we 
would have created a system of choice. And choice is power for the 
consumer--really good choice. They could fill up their car with natural 
gas or they could fill it up with another source. That is where we need 
to go. Then we will break it. We will break the dependency because it 
could be $10 or $100 a gallon and who would care, because no one would 
have to buy it.
  So that is where we need to go. We can get there. We are sort of 
creeping there. That is what this article also said--inch by inch we 
are getting there, but we could accelerate it--no pun intended--if we 
get off this ridiculous ``blame the person in the White House so you 
can win the next election and then get back to doing nothing.''
  So I will turn the conclusion over to the Senator from Alaska by 
saying that the debate with sound bites for elections coming up and 
bumper stickers to put on cars will not help, but I am ready for a real 
debate.
  We have introduced several pieces of legislation. I have been a 
cosponsor of every piece of legislation since I have been here on any 
kind of major Energy bill, but it has to have a conservation component, 
it has to have an environmental safety component, it has to have more 
drilling, revenue sharing, and then I think an expansion of nuclear 
power would be very important and the right subsidy mix for the kinds 
of energy we would like to produce in this Nation. That would make our 
Nation much stronger when it comes to energy, but it would make us so 
economically powerful and it would make us militarily more powerful 
because we would negotiate treaties differently if we didn't have to 
get on our hands and knees and ask countries that don't even share our 
values to pump a little

[[Page S2076]]

more gas for us when we could pump it ourselves.
  I yield to the Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. BEGICH. I thank my friend from Louisiana, and I will conclude by 
saying again that her point about being smart and strategic is what we 
are saying. No one is saying either/or, that it has to be this or that. 
It is a combination of things. Some will be more expensive today but 
maybe less later.
  Think about the technology around the cell phone the first time it 
came out, which used to be a box about this big, and you plugged it in 
your car and the big receiver would be in your trunk. It cost several 
thousand dollars to buy that technology, if you remember, and people 
were saying: No one is ever going to do that. Now you can go to the 7-
Eleven--or in my State it would be the Holiday store--and buy throwaway 
phones. It is amazing what can happen when you allow some expansion of 
this knowledge and technology.
  Oil and gas bring new technology. The Senator mentioned directional 
drilling, for example, which is new technology being developed in our 
State and her State to bring opportunities that Shell gas is now 
doing--all kinds of opportunities.
  When you think of the security level, I know the Senator from 
Colorado, our Presiding Officer here, has been in the Armed Services 
Committee, where we talk about this all the time. How do we get the 
biggest consumer--the military--to find new alternatives? And they are 
experimenting.
  But what is amazing--and we heard it last week and the week before--
is that our friends on the other side are wondering why the military is 
looking at alternative fuels. They actually asked, what gives you the 
authority to do that? Well, actually, when it costs you almost $400 a 
gallon for diesel fuel on the front lines of Afghanistan, I think that 
is a good reason. They should be looking at what kinds of alternatives 
they can use.
  I have seen what they are doing. They are doing some amazing things 
with solar panels and small devices. And what is important about that 
for the military is they can move more rapidly through areas so they 
won't have to worry about where is the diesel truck for energy. But for 
rural Alaska, it is important in our rural villages where it is $10 or 
$11 a gallon for heating fuel, and now there is technology that, 
instead of taking up a whole room, is portable, and they can move it, 
they can use it, and it saves consumers.
  So there are all kinds of things we should be doing.
  I know the other side will say: Those things cost too much; these 
things cost too much. When you are at the R&D stage, things always cost 
too much because you have to move slowly to develop and create the 
markets. But the military is a huge driver of a market, so I am excited 
that they are in these areas. And I oppose the idea of some Republican 
Senators and House Members who are saying they shouldn't be doing 
anything experimental. Absolutely, they should. They are a consumer of 
the product. Let's have them give us some innovation.
  People may forget that the same people who were doing the energy 
development in the early 1960s are the ones who started the Internet, 
from which we all now benefit. Imagine in the 1960s if we had said to 
the military: Oh, we don't want you testing whatever they were calling 
that Internet system. That is bad. You get out of that business. Where 
would we be today? Now, as the parent of a 9-year-old, I might have a 
different view on this. I may not want my son on the Internet. But it 
made a difference in our economy and everything else that is going on.
  To conclude, I would say we have a chance to develop, to diversify, 
and to deliver a real energy plan if we focus on it. That is what we 
should be doing. So I thank my colleague from Louisiana, and I thank 
the Senator from Colorado, who is our Presiding Officer tonight, for 
allowing us to have a little rant time here in our own world. But I 
think the world we talk about is the same world almost everyone in 
America is living in, with high gas prices and wanting real solutions.
  Anyone who says there is a magic bullet and the price will go down--
that isn't happening. I support the Keystone Pipeline, and I know my 
colleague from Louisiana supports that, but that won't lower prices 
tomorrow. I support, for a variety of reasons, a long-term plan--jobs 
and other things--but it won't lower prices tomorrow. Drilling in 
Chukchi and Beaufort is important to me. I think in the long term it 
will create jobs and it will lower gas prices but not tomorrow. But 
these are the kinds of things we should be doing.
  Will our investing in conservation to ensure that our commercial 
buildings and houses are more efficient turn a dollar right away? A 
little bit. But over the long haul--I am doing an energy retrofit to my 
house in Anchorage. I am going to save some money. It will go in and go 
out because I have to put some money aside for my son's education. But 
I will have more money. So it pays over time. Nothing happens 
overnight. It drives me crazy when I hear the other side say that this 
is like magic and tomorrow things will change. I wish that were the 
case. We all do. But we have to have a plan to get there.
  I thank the Senator from Louisiana for joining me tonight. I thank 
her for standing tall when we took our vote yesterday. I think we made 
our point, and now we need to move forward, and hopefully we can get 
other people to follow our lead and do a comprehensive plan.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Senator.

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