[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 51 (Wednesday, March 28, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2156-S2158]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             ENERGY PRICES

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, high energy prices are hurting 
individuals and families and businesses, particularly during these 
difficult economic times. While I support the measure before the Senate 
this week that would eliminate certain subsidies for the largest 
integrated oil companies and extend several clean energy tax 
incentives, the fact that we are not debating a bill to establish a 
long overdue national energy policy is a missed opportunity.
  To better protect American consumers against fluctuating and 
escalating prices, we need a thoughtful and comprehensive energy policy 
for the 21st century that promotes greater efficiency, the development 
of viable alternative fuels, and the production of domestic energy 
sources, including oil and natural gas, wind, solar, biomass and 
others.
  The rising costs of energy are burdensome to Maine families, truck 
drivers, farmers, fishermen, schools, small businesses, mills, and 
factories. Nearly 80 percent of the homes in our State rely on heating 
oil, leaving Maine families extremely vulnerable to rising crude oil 
prices. It is clear that we need a dramatic change in our energy policy 
to protect ourselves from rapid increases in oil prices without 
sacrificing our environment. We must rally around a national effort to 
achieve energy independence for our economic, environmental, and 
national security.
  In the nearly 40 years since the 1973 oil embargo, numerous 
approaches aimed at lowering energy prices have been discussed, such as 
expediting the review of offshore drilling permits, opening new areas 
to oil and gas leasing, releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve, and promoting the development of domestic energy alternatives. 
The serious will to tackle a comprehensive policy, however, has been 
lacking.
  If the United States is to become less susceptible to volatile global 
market situations that drive up the cost of heating and transportation 
fuel, we must decrease our dependence on foreign oil. To accomplish 
this goal, we must promote energy efficiency and develop viable and 
affordable domestic energy sources. I have worked to advance these 
goals by supporting legislation that would promote clean energy 
initiatives, such as accelerating research of plug-in hybrid 
technologies for heavy duty trucks, providing incentives for producing 
alternative fuels from biomass, improving the energy efficiency of cars 
and appliances, the deployment of deepwater offshore wind power, and 
expanding domestic production of oil and natural gas in areas approved 
for exploration.
  We must seize every opportunity to use oil more efficiently. For 
example, the provisions I was able to include in the last 
Transportation Funding Bill to allow heavy trucks to use Maine's 
interstate highways instead of being forced on secondary roads and 
downtown streets will shorten travel distances significantly. The 
owner-operator of a logging business in Penobscot County told me this 
change will save him at least 118 gallons of fuel each week. At today's 
diesel prices, that's more than $500.
  The current political turmoil in the Middle East and our reliance on 
oil from countries with which we have strained relations, such as 
Venezuela, remind us that decreasing our dependence on foreign oil and 
relying on domestic energy sources must be the cornerstone of our 
Nation's energy policy. For this reason, I have supported efforts to 
increase the responsible domestic production of oil and gas.
  Our efforts to increase American production should first be focused 
on regions that are already open to gas and oil production. The many 
lessons learned from last year's oil spill disaster in the Gulf will 
help to ensure stricter safety regulations. I continue to believe, 
however, that we must also continue to avoid our most sensitive coastal 
areas and areas that are essential to our fishing industry, such as 
Georges Bank. Pursuing domestic oil and gas leasing and transport is an 
important component in reaching this goal, and I remain disappointed in 
the President's decision to deny the permit for the proposed Keystone 
XL pipeline. Canada is our Nation's largest trading partner, and 
construction of the pipeline would create thousands of jobs in our two 
nations and reduce our reliance on oil from overseas.
  Finally, we must also continue to support important safety net 
programs, including providing adequate resources for the Low Income 
Home Energy Assistance Program to help low-income Mainers and senior 
citizens afford to heat their home. The Weatherization Assistance 
Program, which helps Mainers improve the efficiency of their homes and 
substantially reduce heating bills for the long-term, is another very 
important program.
  I remain committed to working with my Senate colleagues to advance 
effective and commonsense energy legislation that increases America's 
supply of energy and decreases our demand for foreign oil. This will 
help us to achieve energy independence and stabilize gas and oil 
prices.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, it is long past time to close the wasteful 
tax loopholes for Big Oil. Over the past 10 years, the five biggest 
private sector oil companies--BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and 
ConocoPhillips--have amassed combined profits of almost $1 trillion. 
Last year was no different. Due to skyrocketing prices for oil, these 
same five corporations raked in a record-breaking $137 billion in 
profits. Despite this massive windfall, Big Oil continued to receive 
billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies subsidies that are 
unnecessary and, in my opinion, unconscionable. The Repeal Big Oil Tax 
Subsidies Act will eliminate these harmful subsidies and level the 
playing field for all Americans.
  Big Oil does not need these big tax breaks, and the prices they set 
for consumers at the pump suggest that they don't appreciate them. As 
of March 22, the national average price of regular gasoline is over 
$3.88 per gallon--up almost $0.34 from a year ago. I need look no 
further than the prices at the pump in Vermont, where the average price 
for a gallon of gasoline is $3.85--up approximately $0.30 from the 
average price in March 2011. This price increase is especially 
burdensome in rural states such as Vermont, where people must often 
rely on cars to get around, and heating fuel is a life-or-death 
necessity in the winter. For every penny the price of gasoline 
increases, big oil companies make an additional $200 million per 
quarter.
  In spite of their ever-increasing profits and unneeded subsidies, the 
five major oil companies have done absolutely nothing to bring down 
prices for average consumers. Instead, they have padded their own 
pockets, using the vast majority of their net profits to pay exorbitant 
dividends, repurchase stock, lobby government officials, and buy radio 
and newspaper advertising to fight this bill. These actions benefit 
elite oil company executives and the companies' largest stockholders 
but do nothing whatsoever to ease the pain of hardworking Americans who 
trying to commute to their jobs every day or heat their homes during 
the long winter months.
  This bill will halt the transfer of money from hard-working middle 
class families to oil company fat cats by ending more than $2 billion 
in annual tax breaks. It is a watershed moment for both energy policy 
and deficit reduction, and I support it wholeheartedly. Eliminating 
these wasteful tax breaks that benefit a few undeserving companies will 
allow us to reinvest in clean energy technologies that will benefit 
everyone. These investments will improve our national security by 
making the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil. They will also 
strengthen our economy and create new green jobs for the large number 
of Americans who are currently out of work and facing hard times.
  Specifically, the Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act would renew 
incentives for clean energy technologies and put America on the path to 
energy independence. In order to break free from

[[Page S2157]]

our unhealthy addiction to oil, we must choose the President's all-of-
the-above energy strategy which will grow clean energy industries, 
including alternative fuel vehicles, advanced manufacturing, biofuels, 
and solar, to name just a few. Savings from repealing these tax 
subsidies for Big Oil will help continue important incentives for 
alternatives to oil and usher in a bright new future of energy 
independence.
  In addition to the benefits we will receive from investing in clean 
energy technology, the remaining savings from this bill will be 
dedicated to reducing the national deficit, a goal shared by both 
Democrats and, supposedly, Republicans. Time and again we have heard 
seemingly impassioned rhetoric from Republicans about the need to 
balance the budget and rein in spending. And yet, when given the chance 
to end more than $2 billion per year in unnecessary tax breaks, 
Republicans have stood with Big Oil. Instead of standing with Big Oil, 
we need to stand up to Big Oil.
  For years, Republicans have opposed efforts to end taxpayer subsidies 
to the major oil companies. However, lavishing these giant corporations 
with incentives they do not need merely deepens our deficit and takes 
money out of the pockets of hard-working families, money which could be 
spent growing the economy and hastening our recovery. The Repeal Big 
Oil Tax Subsidies Act is precisely the action we should take to ensure 
that oil companies pay their fair share to help lower the deficit, just 
as working class taxpayers do.
  It is important to note that cutting these subsidies will not result 
in less oil production or an increase in prices. Expert analysis has 
revealed that it costs the big five oil companies only about $11.00 to 
produce a single barrel of oil. This amount is dwarfed by the current 
price of a barrel of oil, which has consistently hovered around $110 
per barrel. At today's prices, oil companies regularly earn $100 in 
pure profit from each barrel of oil that they sell. In fact, the former 
chief executive officer of Shell Oil Company, John Hofmeister, has 
admitted that, in his point of view, high oil prices made subsidies 
unnecessary. Therefore, it is highly improbable that a small change in 
tax subsidies would reduce their output. Furthermore, because oil is a 
global commodity, any incremental change in production that might 
result from changing oil subsidies in the United States will likely 
have no impact on world oil prices and, therefore, no impact on the 
price of oil.
  The Senate should also go one step further and once again pass the No 
Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act (NOPEC), which I have filed as 
an amendment to today's bill, along with Senator Kohl and others. We 
must do everything we can to ensure that oil prices are not 
artificially inflated, driving up gas prices at the pump. Our NOPEC 
amendment will hold accountable those who engage in collusive behavior 
that artificially reduces supply and increases the price of fuel by 
allowing the Justice Department to crack down on illegal price 
manipulation by oil cartels. This illegal manipulation affects us all. 
As long as OPEC's actions remain sheltered from antitrust enforcement, 
OPEC's member-governments will continue to have the ability to wreak 
havoc on the American economy and their destructive power will remain 
unchecked.
  The benefits of the Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act should be 
obvious to all Senators. An overwhelming majority of the Americans, 66 
percent, have said that repealing tax subsidies for Big Oil is an 
acceptable way to help reduce the deficit. I would go further. Not only 
is this an acceptable way to reduce the deficit, but in these lean 
times when so many are struggling to make ends meet, it is an essential 
way to bring the budget back in line. It is time to end Big Oil's free 
ride at the expense of taxpayers.
  Going forward, our focus should be on 21st Century clean energy that 
powers a jobs boom and fuels our economy. If these tax breaks were ever 
justified, that day has long passed. The Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies 
Act will end the unjustified Federal subsidies for the biggest oil 
companies that are enjoying record profits at the expense of working 
families. It will propel us into the future by investing the savings in 
clean energy technologies and reducing the Federal deficit.
  Senators must make a choice: stand with the American people and stand 
up to Big Oil or continue business as usual. I think the choice is 
clear, and strongly support this bill.


                       Surface Transportation Act

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I come to the floor of the Senate this 
evening to urge Speaker Boehner and the House of Representatives to 
pass the bipartisan Senate highway jobs bill now. This is an important 
bill that would save or create nearly 3 million jobs with really a 
stroke of the President's pen.
  From Washington in the Northwest, 33,700 jobs, to Rhode Island in the 
Northeast, 9,000 jobs in our small State, to Florida in the South, 
81,700 jobs, this is the jobs bill on which we need to act.
  Rhode Island would receive $227 million a year for highways, roads, 
and bridges from this bill, and that would hold us steady at funding 
this year's funding levels.
  Rhode Island would also receive an additional $30.5 million each year 
for transit projects, which would be a 10-percent increase over this 
year's Federal aid.
  Importantly, this bipartisan Senate bill that will be so good for 
jobs across this country includes language authorizing the Projects of 
National and Regional Significance Program. That will help fund 
critical infrastructure projects such as the Providence Viaduct. Where 
I 95, the main northeast highway corridor, comes through Rhode Island, 
it goes through our capital city, Providence, next to the Providence 
Place Mall, and it proceeds through Providence as a bridge. It is a 
big, long land bridge. Its condition is so poor that when you go 
underneath it, as you do to drive down and enter the back parking 
entrance of the mall, and you look up, you see that between the I-beams 
that support the highway have been laid planks. The planks are there to 
keep the highway that is falling in from landing on the cars that pass 
underneath the highway below.
  If you look just to the side where Amtrak, the main rail corridor for 
the Northeast passes under the Viaduct, you see the same thing: Planks 
across the I-beams so the road that is falling in does not land on the 
trains as they pass or block the tracks.
  It takes a program like the Projects of National and Regional 
Significance Program to address repairs of this magnitude, particularly 
in a small State like mine, which simply does not have the resources to 
repair a facility like that built in 1964.
  The Senate bill would send significant funds to States to build badly 
needed projects like these. All of those projects not only repair 
crumbling, broken, and deteriorating infrastructure, but they put 
Americans back to work at a time when we still urgently need these 
jobs.
  So we passed this bill in the Senate. We passed it with 74 votes, and 
another Senator making it 75, expressing that had he not been required 
to be at a funeral in his home State, he would have voted for it. So we 
have 75 votes on a bipartisan bill that spent, if I remember correctly, 
5 weeks on the floor of this body getting amendments, bipartisan 
amendments, amendments of all kinds being worked on and improved to the 
point where it could pass out of this body with that kind of a 
majority--even in the contentious and partisan atmosphere that often 
prevails in Washington.
  It is a good bill, it is a bipartisan bill, it is a highway bill, it 
is a jobs bill, and the House should move on it.
  What have they done instead?
  Well, the House Republicans initially proposed funding transportation 
programs with a 30-percent cut in existing transportation funding. 
That, obviously, would have been a disaster. It would have resulted in 
the loss of an estimated 600,000 jobs across the country. So, of 
course, it was overwhelmingly opposed by transportation advocates and 
by business groups.
  The House Republicans then tried to introduce something called the 
American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act back at the end of January. 
This bill was so extreme and so flawed that it was even opposed by many 
House Republicans. It removed dedicated funding for transit programs 
and went after things like offshore drilling.
  Transportation Secretary LaHood was a Republican Member of the House

[[Page S2158]]

of Representatives himself for many years. He said about that House 
bill that it was ``the worst transportation bill I have ever seen'' and 
that it would ``take us back to the horse and buggy era.''
  So with bipartisan opposition to this extreme, the worst bill that 
Secretary LaHood had ever seen, Speaker Boehner was forced to pull it, 
and that was that for that effort.
  Then they spent months going after budget proposals that would reduce 
spending on our highways and on our bridges. Ultimately, they have 
thrown in the towel. They have no transportation bill in the House. 
They cannot get one up for a vote. So they have fallen back on trying 
to pass short-term extensions.
  Well, first of all, that is not a great outcome for jobs and for the 
economy. According to the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, 
short-term extensions have had significant detrimental effects. These 
include delaying $80 million worth of projects, which equates to the 
loss of 1,000 job-years of work; delaying planning for needed safety 
and structural improvements of a $300 million to $400 million 
interchange that is in deplorable condition; delaying the advertising 
and awarding of the entire 2012 formula-funded construction program, 
which may cause the State to miss an entire construction season, 
putting the entire road construction industry out of work for that 
season; making long-range planning and the development of a sound State 
Transportation Improvement Program nearly impossible; and, last, 
jeopardizing the State's plans to design and construct the replacement 
of the Providence Viaduct I spoke about.
  So the idea that an extension just carries on the status quo, it is 
more or less OK, it will not create harm, and it will not cost jobs is 
just plain dead wrong. There is job loss and there is economic loss 
associated with these extensions.
  So how have they done on the extensions? Well, they have not even 
managed to pull themselves together to deal with the extensions. The 
House leadership has proposed 60-day extensions and 90-day extensions 
to the Federal transportation programs. Twice they have placed these 
proposals over on their calendar, but both times they have had to pull 
the proposals down because they do not have the votes.
  So what do they have over there? They have no bill they can vote for. 
The bill they did put up was called one of the worst and most extreme 
transportation bills in history by a former Republican Congressman. 
They cannot get their act together to pass an extension. Even assuming 
it is not a bad idea to pass an extension for our economy, they still 
cannot do it, even as bad of an idea as that is. So they have nothing, 
and we are coming up on a deadline. On March 31, the authority to draw 
funds from the Highway Trust Fund runs out. So we are up against a 
pretty serious time constraint. As we whittle away to those last days, 
and as they get ready to leave the House and head home without having 
done their work on transportation, it is becoming more and more urgent 
that they take some action. If they cannot do a bill of their own, if 
they cannot pass a 90-day extension, if they cannot pass a 60-day 
extension, there is one obvious solution that is standing there as big 
as the proverbial rhinoceros in the living room; that is, pass the 
Senate highway transportation bill.
  It is right there. It is ready to go. It could be on the President's 
desk in just days. It is bipartisan, with 75 votes in the Senate. It 
preserves these important programs and saves or creates nearly 3 
million jobs in this country. The people of America understand that our 
highways, our roads, and bridges are important. They want us to go 
forward on this bill. This is not controversial. This should be easy.
  So the House needs to take a look at where they are and make a hard 
decision.
  They should not go home without addressing this problem and let us 
hit the deadline wall--particularly not with a good, solid, bipartisan 
Senate highway bill waiting to be taken up, waiting to be voted on, and 
waiting to be signed. All of the indications are that if the Senate 
highway bill were taken up by the House, it would pass overwhelmingly. 
Who would vote against a bill that creates 2.9 million jobs? Who would 
vote against a bill that maintains our highways, our roads, and our 
bridges? Who doesn't get it that in this country, our highway, bridge, 
and road infrastructure is in terrible shape? We understand this. The 
Nation's civil engineers have given our infrastructure near-failing 
grades in these areas. Other countries spend 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 percent of 
their gross domestic product on infrastructure, keeping it right, 
knowing it helps grow their economy. We are down below that.
  It is very unfortunate that the House at this point cannot sort 
itself out to come up with its own transportation bill, cannot sort 
itself out to pass an extension--they cannot even do that. A deadline 
is coming at them that is nonnegotiable. Ideology, partisanship, 
rhetoric--all of those things don't matter against the hard deadline 
they are driving this country toward. I hope and urge that they take up 
the Senate Transportation bill, put it to a vote, let's get going, 
let's put 2.9 million people to work rebuilding our roads and highways, 
and let's get America moving and working again.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Begich). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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