[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 19136-19138]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                             ENERGY POLICY

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I speak not only as part of the Republican 
leadership in the Senate but as a member of the Energy Committee, a 
committee on which I have served for the 11 years I have been in the 
Senate. During those 11 years, I have had the opportunity to serve 
under three Presidents. For 8 of those years, I served under a Democrat 
President. During that time, he, I, his administration, and certainly 
all Members, attempted to shape a national energy policy for our 
country that never really got accomplished. During that time, we 
continued to grow very rapidly as a nation. We continued to consume up 
to a 2\1/2\ to 3 percent increase in energy each year, although our 
country was only producing a 1\1/2\ percent increase of total need.
  Of course, we know what happened as a result of that timeframe over 
the last 8\1/2\ years: We grew increasingly dependent upon foreign 
sources of energy for our existence, at least in oil. Our 
infrastructure grew older, our transmission lines and pipelines; our 
ability to generate electrical energy did not increase very rapidly. 
But workers found the demand of the new high-tech economy even required 
greater abundances of electricity and energy than we originally 
suspected.
  It is why it became an issue in the last presidential campaign and it 
is why this President, George Bush, immediately developed a national 
energy task force to began to work on a national energy policy. They 
completed their work and sent their information to the Hill.
  While that has been going on, the Energy Committee, now chaired by 
Senator Bingaman, once chaired by Senator Frank Murkowski of Alaska, 
has been working on a national energy policy. We have spent the last 
3\1/2\ to 4 years in hearings, looking at all sides of this issue. We 
clearly have a vision as to what we need and what we need to do. It is 
really not very difficult, although it is politically contentious. We 
need to produce more energy, in electricity and in gas and oil. We need 
to put more research behind new technologies and continue to advance 
the technologies for electronic cars and alternative forms of 
electrical generation--wind and solar. We have invested millions of 
dollars in those alternatives over the last couple of years. We need to 
continue.
  At the same time, there is no question for the next 15 to 20 years we 
will be increasingly dependent upon foreign sources for oil--
predominantly oil--ultimately the greatest form of energy that moves 
the American economy, whether it is the cars we drive, the trucks that 
deliver the goods and services to our communities, the trains that run 
upon our tracks, the airplanes that fly across our skies, or our ships 
at sea, our aircraft carriers and the planes that are now flying day 
and night over Afghanistan. All of those are driven by oil, by energy. 
When we started this debate a decade or more ago, we were around 50 
percent dependent upon foreign sources of that energy. Today we are at 
times over 60

[[Page 19137]]

percent dependent. We understand the issue. We clearly understand the 
urgency.
  We awakened to that energy problem last year when the lights went out 
in California. We all said: My goodness, why is that happening? What 
happened that caused all of this--for elevators to stop operating and 
traffic lights to stop operating, for the economy of California to 
nearly go in the tank as a result of not having the energy base they 
needed to feed their growth and demand? We knew they had launched a 
policy some time back that was not allowing them to produce. While it 
was a wake-up call for California, it truly was a wake-up call for our 
Nation.
  As a result of that, this Senator's effort, the committee's effort, 
and the President's effort, the House moved an energy bill and was able 
to pass a fairly comprehensive new policy toward production and 
infrastructure development and the kind of refinement that a new, 
dynamic energy policy for our country needs. They did their work. They 
got that work done before the August recess.
  We were working, and with credit to Chairman Bingaman, although we 
had the transfer of leadership in the Senate, he continued to work. He 
was looking at a much broader bill to deal with the issue of energy 
than the House produced. We were working with him in a very bipartisan 
manner. Sure, there were differences of opinion. Yes, there are several 
issues on which we clearly disagree. But in the general sense, we were 
moving toward a national energy policy.
  Along comes September 11. We all know that day now; It is seared into 
our minds, our world stopped for a time and thousands of Americans lost 
their lives. We began to rethink who we were and what we were all about 
as a country. Up until that time Americans, if they were polled, said 
that, yes, a national energy policy was necessary because it meant the 
strength of our economy and the growth of our economy and it meant that 
future generations would have an opportunity to have a supply of 
energy. But about third or fourth on that list of reasons for a 
national energy policy was national security. It did not register but 
third on some polls, or fourth.
  September 11--the world changes; the American mindset changes. All of 
a sudden, by nearly a 60 percentile polling factor, energy and energy 
policy and energy supply for our country--reliable, abundant, stable--
became the No. 1 issue. National security, national security, national 
security.
  Why, then, do I read in a press release from Chairman Bingaman 
yesterday that the majority leader of the Senate has directed the 
chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to suspend any 
further markup on energy legislation for this session of Congress?
  What? A No. 1 national energy policy, being now a No. 1 national 
security policy in our country, and the leader of the Senate is saying 
stop, don't go forward? The House has done its work, but the Senate 
cannot do its work?
  He says he wants to write his own bill. OK. I have been involved with 
this issue for a long time. I know why he wants to write his own bill. 
I understand the politics of the issue. I understand the other side 
lost a component of the battle on September 11. Actually, they had lost 
it much before then. They lost it when the House voted to include oil 
exploration in the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in August. 
They were not willing to admit it at that time. They thought they still 
had the votes, but the House had already made that decision because 
America was sensing a need for a broader national energy policy.
  But on September 11 that issue was gone. When it says down here that 
Senator Bingaman went on to say, ``the Senate leadership sincerely 
wants to avoid quarrelsome, divisive votes in the committee,'' what the 
chairman is saying is he can't control his own people anymore in the 
committee because September 11 convinced them that we have to have a 
national energy policy because national security and energy is 
paramount.
  So he went to his leader and said: Leader Daschle, I can't give you 
the energy bill that I thought I could. I have lost the votes on a 
couple of key issues and you won't like what comes to the floor.
  Some on the other side are saying if you bring that kind of a bill to 
the floor, we will filibuster, we won't let it pass, and we don't want 
to see that kind of partisanship on the floor post-September 11. So 
they are stopping any effort to develop a national energy policy and to 
allow the Senate to address the issue.
  I come to the Chamber today because this is not only a distressing 
press release from the chairman of the Energy Committee, I am amazed 
the majority leader has pulled that authority away from the authorizing 
committee chairman who has, over the last good number of years, truly 
become an expert in the energy issue. He and I do not always agree, but 
we think it is the responsibility of that committee to produce a bill, 
not for the majority leader to go into his back office and write a bill 
that is politically correct for his side of the aisle.
  Is that--will that be--could that be a comprehensive national energy 
policy? I don't think so. But let's say it could be.
  I ask unanimous consent for no more than 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CRAIG. I am going to give the majority leader the benefit of the 
doubt at this moment--because I should. I am going to say to the 
majority leader at this moment: OK, if that is your decision--and I 
understand the timing here; I understand we are in the last month to a 
month and a half of this session of Congress and that national energy 
policy is truly a national security issue and all Americans now believe 
that. All the polls show that. It is something the House has dealt with 
and we should deal with. So I say to Leader Tom Daschle at this moment: 
If you are going to craft an energy bill in your office and bring it to 
the floor as the prerogative of leadership, get on with it. Do it now. 
Don't tell us you are going to do it and then wait 3 or 4 or 5 weeks, 
knowing that it cannot get done and it cannot get conferenced with the 
House. That way you have given your people a vote, but you have not 
faced the issue and you have not put a bill on the President's desk. 
That is not leadership. That is politics.
  The majority leader and the chairman of the full committee say they 
want to avoid quarrelsome, divisive votes. They don't want to allow 
partisan politics to come to the floor.
  I suggest if he crafts a bill and brings it to the floor, he avoids 
that. But if this is a ploy, if this is simply rhetoric to get the bug 
off their back--because it is now squarely on the majority's back; they 
have canceled the committee from acting; the majority leader has said: 
I'll do it. So if we do not have a national energy policy for the 
energy security and the national security of this country by the close 
of business of this first session of this Congress, then it is Tom 
Daschle's fault.
  I believe that is quite clear. I think that is plain and I think that 
is simple and I think he has said it just that way when he has said 
that he will craft a bill and bring it to the floor under the 
leadership prerogative. Comprehensive, balanced energy legislation can 
be added by the majority leader to the Senate calendar for potential 
action prior to adjournment: so speaketh the leader of the U.S. Senate.
  Mr. President, I am going to support my leader. But I am going to 
insist, as all other colleagues will, or at least many will, that he 
act and that he act in a timely fashion so it can be conferenced with 
the House and put on the President's desk. It is an issue of national 
security. It is every bit as critical as an airport security bill--and 
the ranking member of the Commerce Committee is on the floor now trying 
to get that bill up. It is every bit as important as an antiterrorist 
bill.
  If we get into a greater warlike problem in the Middle East and our 
flow of oil is cut off from the Arab nations, from Iraq--believe it or 
not--from Iran, from which we are now getting oil, and if we do not 
have a national energy policy that begins to move us toward a

[[Page 19138]]

higher degree of national energy independence, then shame on us but, 
more important, shame on the majority leader of the Senate, who has 
chosen to take away from the authorizing committee the authority to 
craft a bill and bring it to the floor, if the majority leader himself 
does not honor the commitment he has now made to us, that he will 
divine--define and maybe divine--a balanced energy policy and bring it 
to the floor for a vote. That is an obligation that the Senate of the 
United States should deal with before we adjourn or before we recess 
this first session of this Congress.
  I recognize the importance of this issue, as do many of our 
colleagues. I am phenomenally disappointed in the form of leadership 
that says we cannot let our committees work in this instance because 
this is not something new, as I said. We have been at the business of 
trying to write a bill for 3\1/2\ years. We have held 25 or 30 hearings 
on it. It is not a new issue, but it is a timely, critical issue to our 
country. I hope the statements of the majority leader represent the 
clear intention of bringing the bill to the floor within the next 
several weeks, that we can deal with it and move it off to conference 
and have a national energy policy on our President's desk by close of 
business.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, can you tell me the parliamentary 
situation as it exists presently?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is on the motion to proceed to S. 
1447, under cloture.
  Mr. McCAIN. How much time remains on the 30 hours of postcloture 
debate of which there has been none that I have seen?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Time will expire at 4:57 this afternoon.
  Mr. McCAIN. If there is no one on the floor to engage in postcloture 
debate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will put the question on the motion.

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