[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 1491-1492]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                      STABILIZING CRUDE OIL PRICES

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the gouging of the 
American consumer, particularly high energy users and, probably most 
importantly, working Americans who are paying such high gasoline prices 
because of OPEC. I do this in the context of supporting a resolution 
Senator Ashcroft is offering the Senate. I do this not only because he 
is my good friend but because he knows the impact on working Americans 
and on agriculture.
  This is a sense-of-the-Senate resolution to communicate to the 
leaders of the OPEC nations and even non-OPEC cartel producers, prior 
to the next meeting of the OPEC nations in March, the importance of 
stabilizing crude oil prices.
  I appreciate the importance of the message by my good friend from 
Missouri. He realizes the significance of this issue because he is from 
a State with vital interests in the health and well-being of the 
agricultural economy and the transportation industry. The soaring 
prices of diesel fuel and of gasoline have had an especially 
detrimental effect upon farmers and truckers whose livelihood is tied 
closely to the input costs.
  We in the Senate should not stand idly by while a foreign monopoly 
dictates our States' economic stability.
  Remember, if oil company CEOs were doing this sort of OPEC price 
fixing, they would be in prison for violating the antitrust laws. We 
obviously can't apply our law to foreign countries in the sense that 
their leaders are violating them. But it is antithetical to the 
principles of free trade and markets, even to the WTO. Saudi Arabia 
wants to get into the WTO. We should not be supporting their entry into 
the WTO if they are using their economic power in a way that is 
antithetical to the very organization they want to join.
  Just in the past month, gasoline prices in my State have taken their 
biggest jump in 10 years. We now pay an average of $1.38 a gallon for 
gas, an average of 17 cents higher than last month and 48 cents higher 
than in February a year ago. Diesel prices in my State are averaging 
$1.45, which is 12 cents more than last month and 43 cents higher than 
a year ago.
  When considering the family farmers' plight, OPEC's action creates a 
harsh duty that is applied to every bushel of corn, soybeans, and any 
other agricultural product produced in the United States. Anyone who is 
farming can tell you that fuel expenditures are always one of the most 
costly inputs on the farm.
  The agricultural industry has not fared as well in recent years. Just 
last year, prices for all kinds of livestock and grain commodities were 
at their lowest since the 1970s. The outlook for the next year is, at 
best, mixed. At a time when margins on farm products are already tight, 
OPEC has consciously increased the price of petroleum products and 
expenditures within our agricultural community. It is not the free 
forces of the marketplace that are doing this. These are political 
decisions that we ought to stand firmly against.
  But this isn't just about family farmers and truckers. Sometimes we 
forget that trucking impacts almost every industry. While farmers and 
truckers might feel the most immediate impact from this action in my 
home State of Iowa, it is really true that all consumers will 
eventually feel the far-reaching effects of OPEC's marketplace 
shenanigans. In Iowa alone, trucks transport freight for 4,438 
manufacturing companies, supply goods to 19,500 retail stores, and 
stock almost 9,000 wholesale trade companies.
  Trucks supply goods to 2,359 agricultural businesses and deliver the 
produce and products to market. Annually, trucks transport 
approximately 160 million tons in and out of Iowa. Eighty-three percent 
of all manufactured freight transported in Iowa is carried by trucks, 
and over 75 percent of all communities in Iowa depend entirely on 
trucks for the delivery of the products my constituents use every day.
  OPEC's action has and will continue to drive up costs for 
transportation, and the bottom line is that the consumer will 
eventually be forced to bear the burden of the cost. As anyone can see, 
this situation has the ability to have a substantial detrimental impact 
on the economies of Iowa and the entire Nation.
  For this reason, I have tried to address this problem from every 
angle available to me. I recently wrote to Energy Secretary Bill 
Richardson and asked him to encourage the President to use the 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve to stabilize the price of petroleum 
products. As he is well aware, the President has the power to use the 
reserve when a very sharp increase in petroleum prices threatens the 
Nation's economic stability. In my opinion, the current situation meets 
this test. At the very least, the option should be heavily weighed.
  I also sent a letter to Mr. Stanley Fisher, First Deputy Managing 
Director of the International Monetary Fund, to ask that the market-
distorting behavior of the 11 members of OPEC be weighed when these 
nations apply for loans. Twenty percent of the IMF money comes from the 
American taxpayers. We should not be using U.S. taxpayers' money to 
further the causes of an economy that is anticompetitive and is 
strangling the economy of the very taxpayers who support the IMF.
  IMF is an international organization of 182 member nations. Each 
member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries also 
belongs to the International Monetary Fund.
  Due to the fact that the IMF's purpose is to promote monetary 
cooperation and economic growth, I find it disheartening that the 
member nations of OPEC have chosen a course of action which adversely 
affects economic growth and stability in the United States. It is for 
this reason I ask the IMF to consider developing criteria to judge 
market-distorting behavior which would be weighed when nations 
exhibiting monopolistic behavior apply for loans through the IMF.
  I also spoke out against Saudi Arabia previously in my remarks and 
about their joining the World Trade Organization. I have made this a 
formal request of U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky.
  As we all know, we have become far too dependent upon foreign oil. 
For a very long time, I have been a leading advocate for the 
development and expanded use of renewable sources of energy, especially 
corn-based ethanol as well as wind energy and biomass. I have been 
successful in getting tax credits applied to these alternative forms of 
energy. I thank my colleagues for their support of that.
  You have all heard me say that not only is clean-burning ethanol good 
for the rural economy and the environment, it helps to reduce America's 
dangerous and expensive dependence on

[[Page 1492]]

foreign sources of energy. I am disappointed it took a crisis to make 
some people aware of this unhealthy addiction, but now we should all 
see how our dependence on foreign crude can impact our economy and why 
we should seek to develop domestically-based renewable fuel sources.
  This is a very important issue, and I applaud the resolution offered 
by the Senator from Missouri. I thank him for bringing the resolution 
to the floor and for helping to bring this issue to the attention of 
the Clinton-Gore administration, which needs to finally get on top of 
this growing problem.
  Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 4 minutes remaining.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I will reserve that for use at a later time.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed under the 
leader's time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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