[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 20223-20226]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



    NATIONAL ENERGY SECURITY ACT OF 2000--MOTION TO PROCEED--Resumed

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion to proceed.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 2557) to protect the energy security of the 
     United States and decrease America's dependence on the 
     foreign oil source to 50 percent by the year 2010 by 
     enhancing the use of renewable energy resources, conserving 
     energy resources, improving energy efficiencies, and 
     increasing domestic energy supplies, mitigating the effect of 
     increases in energy prices on the American consumer, 
     including the poor and the elderly, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Has there been a time agreement on the legislation just 
proposed?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We have until 5:30 when we have a scheduled 
vote on another matter.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I will consume up to 15 minutes of time in 
relation to the energy issue.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I came to the floor to speak on this 
important issue before the Senate and to talk once again to my 
colleagues about what I believe to be the dark cloud of a national 
emergency. The American consumer has begun to detect a problem because 
the price of gasoline at the pump has gone up 25 or 30 percent in the 
last year. When they begin to pay their home heating bills this winter, 
I think they will recognize where the problem lies.
  We have had the President and the Vice President trying to position 
themselves politically over the last month and a half on energy because 
of the spike in prices, but frankly they have articulated little. Now 
just in the last week we have had the Vice President present an energy 
policy for the country, and we have had Governor George Bush talking 
about an energy policy that he would propose.
  Here is why these things are happening. Finally, I hope, the American 
people are beginning to focus on the very critical state of the 
availability of energy in this country, to run the economy, to make the 
country work, turn the lights on, move our cars, and do all that it 
takes to run an economy based on a heavy use of energy.
  We are now importing between 56 to 58 percent of our crude oil needs. 
Some will remember that during the era of the oil embargo of the mid-
1970s we were only importing 35 percent of our needs. Even at that time 
there were gas lines and fighting at the gas pumps because American 
consumers were frustrated over the cost of gas. What I am saying, 
America, is we no longer control our energy availability, our energy 
supplies, our energy needs.
  Is it any wonder why prices have more than tripled in the last 2 
years from a low of about $11 per barrel of crude oil to a high late 
last month of $38? The reason is somebody else is setting the price by 
creating either a scarcity of supply or by the appearance that there 
would be a scarcity of supply. It is not American producers controlling 
prices and supply, it is foreign producer countries.
  The items we do control in the marketplace are demand and supplies we 
might be able to produce from our own resources. Natural was selling 
for $2 per 1,000 cubic feet last year, just a year ago, and on Friday 
of last week natural gas was selling for $5.20 for every 1,000 cubic 
feet. That is better than a doubling of that price.
  As winter approaches, Americans likely will face the highest energy 
prices ever. Let me say that again. As the winter approaches, Americans 
are going to awaken to the highest energy prices they have ever paid. 
If the winter is colder than usual, energy prices will be even higher.

[[Page 20224]]

  Electricity prices will move right along with gas and oil because 
many of the electrical-generating facilities of our country are fueled 
by natural gas. While petroleum and natural gas supplies appear to be 
adequate, no one can doubt that the supply and demand for crude oil, 
natural gas, and other energy sources is very tight, resulting in 
increased prices for these commodities. While many observers believe 
supplies of oil and natural gas will be sufficient to meet our needs in 
the coming months, I am concerned these important resources will likely 
remain in very short supply and, therefore, will be very costly to the 
American consumer.
  I believe, and I mean this most sincerely, as a member of the Senate 
Energy Committee who for the last 10 years has tried to move policy and 
has seen this administration either say ``no'' by the veto or ``no'' by 
the budget, I sincerely believe the Clinton-Gore administration, by its 
failure to produce a national energy policy, is risking a slowdown, 
perhaps even a downturn, in this economy.
  Some expect energy prices to remain high throughout the first quarter 
of 2001, above $30 a barrel for oil and as high as $4 per thousand 
cubic feet for natural gas. If this is true and that cost ripples 
through the economy, then they--and by ``they'' I mean the Clinton 
administration--are truly risking a slowdown in the economy. This means 
Americans will be paying more than $1.50 per gallon of gas and perhaps 
twice as much as they paid for residential natural gas use last year. 
Driving, heating homes, providing services and manufacturing goods will 
be much, much more expensive under this new high-cost energy economy.
  It is not only the price at the pump you worry about anymore; it is 
the plastics; it is the supply of goods; it is everything within our 
economy that is made of the hydrocarbons that will go up in price. 
Since energy costs are factored into the cost of all goods and 
services, we can expect food, appliances, clothing--essentially 
everything--to become more expensive. As these costs rise, the amount 
of capital available for investment automatically begins to decline, 
pulling the economy down along with it. As we devote more of our money 
to the daily need for energy, we have less to spend on the goods and 
services that we need, the goods and services that have fired our 
economy. As budgets shrink, consumers will be forced to make hard 
choices. If we have to spend 10 or 15 percent more of our income to 
fill up the tank or to buy the services and goods that are energy 
intensive, then, of course, we will have less money to spend elsewhere.
  We are in this undesirable position not because we are short on 
energy resources such as oil, natural gas, or coal; we are here because 
this administration, in my opinion, has deliberately tried to drive us 
away from these energy sources. Look at their budgets and look at their 
policy over the last 8 years. Al Gore himself has spoken openly about 
how much he hates fossil fuels, how he wants to force the U.S. off 
fossil fuels no matter the cost. He has proposed many times to do so. 
Twice in the last 8 years the Clinton-Gore administration has tried to 
drive up the cost of conventional fuels. Isn't that interesting? Just 
in the last few weeks they have been trying to drive down the costs by 
releasing crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve into our 
market, but for the last 8 years it has been quite the opposite. 
America, are you listening? Are you observing? Why this change of 
heart? Why this change of personality?
  First, Clinton and Gore proposed a Btu tax, which the Republican 
Congress defeated. They had to settle for a 4.3-cent gas tax. The 
Republicans in every way tried to resolve that and to eliminate it, but 
that was how they spread it into the market. They took that and said: 
We are not going to use it for highway transportation as we have 
historically done. We want it for deficit reduction.
  During debate on the Btu tax, the administration admitted that its 
intent was to encourage conservation, or discourage use, and therefore 
cause us to move more toward renewable energy sources by dramatically 
increasing the cost of conventional fuels. In other words, tax America 
away from gasoline and oil.
  Next, the Clinton-Gore administration designed the Kyoto Protocol. We 
all know about that. That is the great international agreement that 
will cool the country, cool the world down because the Administration 
asserts that the world is warming due to the use of fossil fuels. They 
said it is necessary that we do it, critically important that we do it. 
But if implemented, it would substantially penalize the nations that 
use fossil fuels by forcing reductions in fossil fuel usage. The Vice 
President has publicly taken credit for negotiating this document.
  I don't think you hear him talking much about it today. He is a bit 
of a born-again gas and oil user of in last couple of weeks. But 
clearly for the last 8 years that is all he has talked about, his Kyoto 
Protocol, penalizing the user nations to try to get them to use less 
energy, all in the name of the environment. The protocol could result 
in a cost of nearly $240 per ton of carbon emissions reduction.
  What does that mean to the average consumer out there who might be 
listening? This results in a higher cost of oil and gas and coal. What 
would it mean? About a 4-percent reduction in the gross domestic 
product of this country. If we raise the cost of those three items--
oil, gas, and coal then we will drive down the economy 4-percent. 
Simply translated, that means thousands and thousands of U.S. jobs 
would be lost and our strong economy weakened. Yet the Vice President 
takes credit for flying to Tokyo and getting directly involved in the 
negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol. This is Al Gore's document. Yet he 
talks very little bit about it today.
  Why is this administration so wholeheartedly committed to forcing us 
to stop using fossil fuels at almost any cost? Because they buy into 
the notion that our economic success has been at the expense of the 
world's environment. I do not buy into that argument. I think quite the 
opposite is true. I believe our success has benefited the world. Our 
technology is the technology that the rest of the world wants today to 
clean up their environment, to make their air cleaner, to make their 
water more pure. It is not in spite of us; it is because of us that the 
world has an opportunity today, through the use of our technology, to 
make the world a cleaner place to live.
  The challenge now is to ensure we go on in the production of these 
technologies through the growth and the strength of our economy so we 
can pass these technologies through to developing nations so they can 
use them, whether it be for their energy resources or whether it is 
simply to create greater levels of efficiency, and a cleaner economy 
for their people.
  The message to Vice President Gore is don't shut us down. Let us 
work. Let us develop. Let us use the technologies we have and expand 
upon them. You don't do that through the absence of energy. You don't 
do that with 2,300 windmills spread across the Rocky Mountain front. 
You do that by the use of what you have, to be used wisely and 
hopefully efficiently at the least cost to provide the greatest amount 
of energy that you can to the economy.
  To ensure that we all succeed, we must pay attention to our 
strengths. The United States has an abundant supply of oil, natural 
gas, and coal, and we must, if we wish to have an influence on the 
price of these commodities, develop our own resources in an 
intelligent, responsible, and environmentally sound way.
  Were we to produce oil from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, we 
could produce up to 1.5 million barrels of oil a day. Some say that 
will destroy the refuge. Envision the refuge in your mind as a spot on 
a map, and compare it to putting a pencil point down on the map of the 
United States. The impact of that pencil point on the map of the United 
States is the same impact as drilling for oil in the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge.
  Shame on you, Mr. President, for vetoing that legislation a few years 
ago. If you had not, we might have 1.5

[[Page 20225]]

million barrels of additional crude oil a day flowing into our markets 
for 30-some years. We would not have to beg at the throne of OPEC. We 
would not have to go to them with our tin cup, saying: Would you please 
give us a little more oil? Your high prices are hurting our economy.
  The President was not listening in 1995 when he vetoed that 
legislation. Other oil and gas resources can come from production from 
the Federal Outer Continental Shelf and from onshore Federal lands in 
the Rocky Mountain front. The abundance of our crude oil and the 
abundance of our gas is phenomenal. Yet, a year ago, in the 
northeastern part of the United States in New Hampshire, Al Gore, now a 
candidate for President of the United States, said he would stop all 
drilling. He does not want us to drill anywhere, and he would do it in 
the name of the environment.
  These resources can be obtained today, under the new technologies we 
have, with little to no environmental impact. When we have finished, if 
any damage has occurred, we clean it up, we rehabilitate it, and the 
footprint that was made at the time of development is hardly 
noticeable. That is what we can do today.
  There is no question that the road to less reliance on oil, natural 
gas, and coal is a responsible one, but it is a long one. You do not 
shut it off overnight without damaging an economy and frustrating a 
people.
  We have these resources, and they are in abundance. We ought to be 
producing them at relatively inexpensive cost to the American consumer 
while we are investing in better photovoltaic and solar technologies 
and biomass, wind, and all of the other things that can help in the 
total package for energy.
  The problem is simply this: This administration stopped us from 
producing additional energy supplies at a time of unprecedented growth 
in our economy. Of course, that economy has been based on the abundance 
and relatively low costs of energy.
  Creating punitive regulatory demands, such as the Btu tax and the 
Kyoto Protocol, is not the way to go if you want an economy to prosper 
and you want the opportunities of that economy to be affordable and 
benefit all of our citizens. Such policies create--the policies of 
which I have spoken, Btu tax and Kyoto Protocol--winners and losers. 
The great tragedy is that the American consumer ultimately becomes the 
loser.
  The path to stable energy prices is through a free market that 
rewards efficiency and productivity and does not punish economies for 
favoring one form of energy over another. The American consumer will 
make that decision ultimately if he or she has an adequate number of 
choices in the marketplace.
  The Vice President, in his recent speech on energy, simply repeated 
the tired, old rhetoric of the Carter administration and every Democrat 
candidate in past presidential elections. Each placed reliance on 
solar, wind, and other renewables and on energy conservation--all 
admirable goals that Presidents Reagan and Bush also encouraged, but 
Presidents Reagan and Bush supported renewables with the clear 
understanding that renewables could not be relied upon to replace 
fossil-fuel-fired electrical generating capacity that currently 
supplies our baseload of electricity. And that baseload demand will 
continue to rise as our economy grows.
  Presidents Reagan and Bush also recognized that somehow the 
automobile was not just going to disappear overnight and that it was 
not going to be replaced by electric cars within the near future. They 
understood that. They rewarded production and encouraged production. 
For 8 years now, domestic oil and gas production has been discouraged 
and restricted, and the American consumer is paying the price at the 
pump. This winter the American consumer will also pay a dramatic price 
as their furnaces turn on.
  Can it be turned around overnight? Absolutely not. We must begin to 
invest in the business of producing, whether it be electricity or 
whether it be oil from domestic reserves or gas. It is there. It awaits 
us. We simply have to reward the marketplace, and the marketplace will 
produce. We cannot continue to squeeze it, penalize it, and refuse 
access to the supplies the American consumer needs.
  It is a simple message but a complicated one, especially complicated 
by an administration that says: No, no, no, let the wind and the Sun 
make up the difference. Probably not in my lifetime or in the lifetime 
of any of the youngest people listening today can and will that be 
possible. But a combination of all of those elements of energy coming 
together--hydro, nuclear, or the production of crude oil and gas from 
our own reserves, supplies from abroad, and renewables and 
conservation--will be necessary to carry us through a crisis that 
clearly could spell a major hit to our economy.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Collins). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. THOMAS. I understand the order of business is the energy bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct. We are on the motion 
to proceed.
  Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Chair.
  As I have said before, energy is terribly important to all of us. It 
is particularly important to those of us who come from producer States. 
But perhaps if you come from a part of the country where there is no 
production and the cost continues to go up, you are even more 
concerned. In New England, that is pretty much the case.
  In any event, we do have a problem in energy and we have to find 
solutions. We have two very different points of view in terms of what 
our needs are and how we meet them.
  Many wonder, of course, why gas and diesel prices are so high. 
Heating oil will be very expensive. I come from a production State, and 
it wasn't long ago that oil in our oil fields was bringing less than 
$10 a barrel. Now, of course, in the world price, we are up in the 
thirties. Part of that, of course--I think the major part--is that we 
have relatively little impact on the price. We have allowed ourselves, 
over a period of time, to become dependent upon importation of oil. We 
have not had, in my view, an energy policy. We have had 8 years of an 
administration that really has not wanted to deal with the idea of 
having a policy in terms of where we are going.
  I have become more and more convinced--it is not a brand new idea, 
but I think it doesn't often get applied--that we have to set policies 
and goals for where we need to be over a period of time. And then, as 
we work toward that, we can measure the various things we do with 
respect to attaining that goal. If our goal is--and I think it should 
be--that we become less dependent upon imported oil, then we have to 
make some arrangements to be there. That has not been the case.
  This administration, on the other hand, has basically gone the other 
way and has indicated that we ought to reduce our domestic production. 
In fact, our consumption requirements have gone up substantially over 
the last couple of years--about 14 percent. During the same period of 
time, domestic production has gone down approximately 17 percent.
  In 1990, U.S. jobs in exploring and producing oil and gas were about 
400,000 or 500,000 people. In 1999, the number of people doing the same 
thing was about 293,000--a 27-percent decline.
  Why is this? Part of it is because we haven't really had this goal of 
how we were going to meet our energy demands and then measure some of 
the things that have brought us to where we are. On the contrary, the 
policy pursued from this administration has been one that has made 
domestic production even more difficult than it was in the beginning--
and more difficult than it needs to be, as a matter of fact.
  So I guess you can talk about releasing oil from our strategic 
storage. I don't make as big a thing out of it as

[[Page 20226]]

some, but that is not a long-term answer. It is a relatively small 
amount of oil compared to our usage--about a day and a half's usage--
and it is not going to make a big difference in terms and no difference 
to where we are in being able to have domestic production in the 
future. I set that aside. I only warn that that can't be offered as a 
solution to the energy problem. That seems to be about all this 
administration is prepared to do.
  On the contrary, going back over some time, in 1993 the first Btu tax 
increased the cost of a gallon of gas about 8 cents. The compromise was 
about 3 cents, with the Vice President casting the deciding vote. Now, 
of course, the effort is to manipulate the price of the storage oil, 
but it won't do that. As I said, it is only about 1 and a half day's 
supply.
  We find our refineries now producing at about 95-percent capacity, 
partly because of some of the restrictions placed on these facilities. 
Some have gone out of business, and practically none has been built. We 
find natural gas, of course, becoming increasingly important. Fifty 
percent of U.S. homes and 56 million people rely on natural gas for 
heating. It provides 15 percent of our power. It will provide more in 
that this administration has also moved basically against the use of 
coal, which is our largest producer of electric energy, instead of 
finding ways to make coal more acceptable. The coal industry has been 
working hard on that. We have low-sulfur coal in my State. This 
administration has pushed against that, and we have therefore had less 
use than we had before.
  So what do we do? I think certainly there are a number of things we 
can do. There does need to be a policy. A policy is being talked about 
by George Bush, which is supported generally here in the Senate--that 
would be No. 1--to help low-income households with their energy bills 
and put some more money in as a short-term solution to help with the 
low-income energy assistance program. We can do that. We can direct a 
portion of all the gas royalty payments to that program and offset some 
of the costs over time. We are always going to have the need, it seems 
to me, regardless of the price, for low-income assistance. We can do 
that. And we can establish a Northeast management home heating reserve 
to make sure home heating is available for the Northeast. We should use 
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve only in times of real crises--not 
price, but crises such as the wars of several years ago.
  We need to make energy security a priority of U.S. foreign policy. We 
can do a great deal with Canada and Mexico. It seems we ought to be 
able to exercise a little more influence with the Middle East. 
Certainly, we have had a lot to do with those countries in the past--
being helpful there. I think we can make more of an impact in Venezuela 
than we have. I think we can support meetings of the G-8 energy 
ministers, or their equivalent, more often.
  Maybe most importantly, we have lots of resources domestically, and 
instead of making them more difficult to reach, we ought to make it 
easier. I come from a State that is 50-percent owned by the Federal 
Government. Of course, there are places such as Yellowstone Park and 
Teton Park where you are never going to do minerals and should not. 
Much of that land is Bureau of Land Management land that is not set 
aside for any particular purpose. It was there when the homestead 
stopped and was simply residual and became public land. It is more 
multiple use. We can protect the environment and continue to use it--
whether it is for hiking, hunting, grazing, or whether indeed for 
mineral exploration and production, as we now do.
  This administration has made it difficult to do that. We can improve 
the regulatory process. I not only serve on the Energy Committee, but 
on the Environment and Public Works Committee. Constantly we are faced 
with new regulations that make it more difficult, particularly for 
small refineries, to live within the rules. Many times they just give 
it up and close those. We can change that. It depends on what we want 
to do with the policy. It depends on our goals and what we want to do 
with domestic production and whether or not these kinds of things 
contribute to the attainment of those goals. It is pretty clear that 
they don't.
  I think we can find ways to establish clear rules to have some 
nuclear plants that are safe, so they indeed can operate. They are very 
efficient. We talk about the environment. They are friendly to the 
environment. We need to do something. Of course, if we are going to do 
that, as they do in France and the Scandinavian countries, we can 
recycle the waste, or at least after a number of years we can have a 
waste storage at Yucca Mountain, NV. This administration has resisted 
that entirely, as have many Members on the other side of the aisle.
  So these are all things that could be done and are being talked 
about. We are talking about breaching dams. I think everybody wants to 
look for alternative sources. We ought to use wind and solar. But the 
fact is that those really generate now about 2 percent of the total 
usage that we have. Maybe they will do more one of these days. I hope 
they do. We have some of that in my State as well. As a matter of fact, 
my business built a building about 20 years ago, and we fixed it up 
with solar power. I have to admit it didn't work very well. It works 
better now, and we can continue to make it work better, but it is not 
the short-term answer to our energy problems.
  We can do something with ANWR. I have gone up to the North Slope of 
Alaska. You can see how they do the very careful extraction. You have 
to get the caribou out of the way. But you can see what is going on. 
That can be done. I am confident it can be done.
  Those are some of the things that are suggested and which I think 
ought to have real consideration. It is difficult sometimes to try to 
reconcile environmental issues. I don't know of anyone who doesn't want 
to do that. Environmental protection has to be considered, but it 
doesn't mean you have to do away with access.
  Quite frankly, one of the real problems we have in some States is how 
to use open spaces. We are doing something in my State about protecting 
the environment and protecting public land. Too many people say you 
just shouldn't use it for anything at all. When some States, such as 
Nevada and others, are up as high as 85 percent in Federal ownership, I 
can tell you it is impossible to have an economy in those States and 
take that attitude. On the other hand, I am persuaded that we can have 
reasonable kinds of programs that allow multiple use and at the same 
time protect the future use of those lands. It seems to me those are 
the kinds of things we ought to be doing.
  It is very difficult. It is certainly easy to set energy policy back, 
particularly when the price has gone up as it has. I think all of us 
remember a year or so ago when the price at the gas pump was down as 
low as 86 cents a gallon. Now in my State it is as high as $1.60. You 
think about it a lot more when it is $1.60 than when it is 86 cents. We 
didn't complain much about the producers then. But now we are pretty 
critical. We need a policy.
  That is the opportunity we have in this Congress--to really establish 
some of the byways and roadways to help us achieve a reduction on our 
dependency on foreign oil. We need to move toward changes in 
consumption and in the way we travel. I have no objection to that. The 
fact is, that is going to take time. The economy, the prosperity, and 
the security of this country depends a great deal on an ample and 
available energy source. It requires an energy policy. It requires the 
administration to step up to the plate and work with this Congress to 
continue to work to establish an energy policy.
  That is our task. That is our challenge. I think it is a necessary 
movement in order to continue to have freedom and economic prosperity.
  I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.


  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hutchison). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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