[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19746-19748]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        HOMELAND ENERGY SECURITY

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I will be speaking each day this week 
on the issue of homeland energy security. I have come before the Senate 
on many occasions to discuss our needs for national energy in this 
country, some form of a national energy policy. I think my colleagues' 
focus for the most part is on the issue of opening and exploring that 
small sliver of the 19 million acres known as ANWR, an area the size of 
the State of South Carolina. This is a sliver because it represents 
roughly 1.5 million acres open for exploration that only Congress can 
allow, and the realization in the House-passed bill that there was only 
an authorization of 2000 acres, not much bigger than a small farm. This 
is the issue of opening up ANWR in my State of Alaska.
  Last spring, for example, Senator Breaux and I proposed a 
comprehensive bipartisan energy policy with some 300 pages. All that 
most people focused on was the two pages remitted to opening ANWR. I am 
a man of few words. It is fair to say some of the radical environmental 
groups have used ANWR as a cash cow in that they have milked it for all 
it is worth from the standpoint of membership and dollars. It is a 
great issue because it is far away--the American people cannot see for 
themselves and understand and appreciate the dimension, size, and 
magnitude nor the response we had in producing Prudhoe Bay, which could 
be transferred to the ANWR area.
  ANWR will be opened. The radical environmental groups will move on to 
another issue in the course of future action. Nevertheless, this 
discussion is not just about ANWR. I am not in favor of opening ANWR 
simply because it is the right thing to do for my State or it is the 
right thing to do for the Nation. My concern with our increasing 
dependence on unstable sources of energy is not a smokescreen for 
narrow political gain. I am in fear of opening ANWR simply as an 
integral part of our overall energy strategy, a policy balance between 
production and conservation.
  I was pleased to note the President's remarks a few days ago when he 
commented: There are two other aspects of a good, strong, economic 
stimulus package, one of which is trade promotion authority, and the 
other is an energy bill. Now there was a good energy bill passed out of 
the House of Representatives, and the reason it passed is because 
Members of both parties understood an energy bill was not only good for 
jobs or stimulus, it is important for our national security to have a 
good energy policy.
  I urge the Senate to listen to the will of the Senators and move a 
bill that will help Americans find work and also make it easier for all 
of us around this table to protect the security of the country. The 
less dependent we are on foreign sources of crude oil, the more secure 
we are at home. We have spent a lot of time talking about homeland 
security. An integral piece of homeland security is energy 
independence, and I will ask the Senate to respond to the call to get 
an energy bill moving.
  The facts speak for themselves. In 1973, we were 37 percent dependent 
on foreign oil and the Arab oil embargo brought us to our knees. How 
quickly we forget about gas lines around the block. In 1991, we fought 
a war with Iraq largely over oil. We spent billions and billions of 
dollars to keep Saddam Hussein in check largely in order to keep a 
stable source of supply coming from the Persian Gulf.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an editorial 
from October 11 in the Washington Post by Robert Samuelson.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Oct. 11, 2001]

                     Now Do We Get Serious on Oil?

                        (By Robert J. Samuelson)

       If politics is the art of the possible, then things ought 
     to be possible now that weren't before Sept. 11. Or perhaps 
     not. For three decades, Americans have only haphazardly tried 
     to fortify themselves against a catastrophic cutoff of oil 
     from the Middle East, which accounts for about a third of 
     world production and two-thirds of known reserves. Little 
     seems to have changed in the past month, although the 
     terrorism highlighted our vulnerability. Oil is barely part 
     of the discussion.
       Over the past 30 years, we have suffered Middle East supply 
     disruptions caused by the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the fall of 
     the shah of Iran in 1979 and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 
     1990. We have fought one war for access to oil--the Persian 
     Gulf War. How many times do we have to be hit before we pay 
     attention? No one can foresee what might lead to a huge 
     supply shutdown or whether the present attack on Afghanistan 
     might trigger disastrous changes. A collapse of the Saudi 
     regime? A change in its policy? Massive sabotage of 
     pipelines? Another Arab-Israeli war? Take your pick.
       Even if we avoid trouble now, the threat will remain. In 
     2000 the United States imported 53 percent of its oil; almost 
     a quarter of that came from the Persian Gulf. Weaning 
     ourselves from Middle Eastern oil would still leave us 
     vulnerable, because much of the rest of the industrial 
     world--Europe, Japan, Asia--needs it. Without it, the world 
     economy would collapse. Of course, countries that have oil 
     can't benefit from it unless they sell it. The trouble is 
     they can sell it on their terms, which might include a large 
     measure of political or economic blackmail.
       They, too, run a risk. Oil extortion might provoke a 
     massive military response. It is precisely because the 
     hazards are so acute and unpredictable for both sides that 
     Persian Gulf suppliers have recently tried to separate 
     politics from oil decisions. (Indeed, prices have dropped 
     since the terrorist attacks.) But in the Middle East, logic 
     is no defense against instability. We need to make it harder 
     for them to use the oil weapon and take steps to protect 
     ourselves if it is used.
       The outlines of a program are clear:
       Raise CAFE (``corporate average fuel economy'') standards. 
     America's cars and light trucks--pickups, minivans and sport-
     utility vehicles--consume a tenth of annual global oil 
     production, about 8 million barrels a day out of 77 million. 
     Tempering oil demand requires lowering the thirst of U.S. 
     cars. The current CAFE standards are 27.5 miles per gallon 
     for cars and 20.7 mpg for light trucks. With existing 
     technologies, fuel economy could be raised by 17 percent to 
     36 percent for cars and by 27 percent to 47 percent for light 
     trucks without harming safety and performance, according to 
     the National Research Council. Changes would have to occur 
     over a decade to give manufacturers time to convert.
       Impose a gasoline or energy tax. People won't buy fuel-
     efficient vehicles unless it pays to do so. Cheap gasoline 
     prices also cause people to drive more. An effective tax 
     would be at least 35 cents to 50 cents a gallon. It ought to 
     be introduced over two or three years beginning in 2003. (To 
     impose the tax would worsen the recession.) A 50-cent-a-
     gallon tax might raise about $60 billion a year. Some of this 
     might be returned in other tax cuts; some might be needed to 
     cover higher defense and ``homeland security'' costs.
       Relax restrictions against domestic drilling. The other way 
     to dampen import dependence is to raise domestic production. 
     It peaked in 1970 and since then has dropped about 28 
     percent. The easiest way to cushion the decline is to open up 
     areas where drilling is now prohibited, including the Arctic 
     National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and areas off both the 
     Atlantic and Pacific coasts. This would aid both oil and 
     natural gas production.
       Expand the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Tapping the SPR is 
     the only way to offset a huge oil loss until a military or 
     diplomatic solution is reached. Created in 1975, the SPR was 
     envisioned to reach 1 billion barrels. At the end of 2000, it 
     had 541 million barrels, roughly where it was in 1992. The 
     failure to increase the SPR in the Clinton years was 
     astonishingly shortsighted. When oil prices are low--as now--
     the SPR should be slowly expanded to at least 2 billion 
     barrels. Other industrial countries should also raise their 
     oil stocks.
       What prevents a program such as this is a failure of 
     political imagination. There ought

[[Page 19747]]

     to be a natural coalition between environmentalists and 
     defense groups. Environmentalists want to reduce air 
     pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Defense groups want 
     to limit our vulnerability to oil cutoffs or blackmail. A 
     common denominator is the need to control cars' gasoline use. 
     But these groups aren't allies, because their dogmas 
     discourage compromise. Environmentalists don't like more 
     drilling in places such as ANWR, despite modest environmental 
     hazards; and defense types (read: the Bush administration) 
     want to expand production and dislike CAFE, because it 
     compromises the freedom they seek to defend. Both shun 
     unpopular energy taxes.
       The American way of life doesn't depend on $1 or $1.50 
     gasoline. It does depend on reliable sources of energy. 
     Unless vast reserves are discovered outside the Middle East--
     or new technologies eliminate the need for oil--the world's 
     dependence on fuel from the Persian Gulf seems destined to 
     grow. The dangers have been obvious for years, and our 
     failure to react ought to be a source of deep national 
     embarrassment. This is a long-term problem; anything we do 
     now won't have significant effects for years. But if we fail 
     to heed the latest warning, the neglect would be almost 
     criminal.

  Mr. Murkowski. In this article he rightly points out:

       Even if we avoid trouble now, the threat will remain. In 
     2000 the United States imported 53 percent of its oil.

  I pointed out that factually, it was 56 percent and will be closer to 
62 percent in the next few years, according to the Department of 
Energy, with the biggest increase coming from the Persian Gulf. Mr. 
Samuelson points out the terrible threat to our economic stability 
created by this state of affairs.
  I don't necessarily draw the same conclusions, but I agree we need a 
comprehensive program to address the situation. There are those who 
tried to shut down the discussion on energy that are so bound to narrow 
parochial interests of one group that they refuse to address the clear 
and evident need for energy now. What we need is a balanced policy 
based on conservation and increasing our own domestic production. These 
are solutions that are available and as a consequence we must look to 
develop these solutions--not a moratorium on discussion of what that 
balance will mean. I fear we will not address this situation until it 
is too late. That seems to be the case.
  I fear the United States is in denial about the reality of the 
situation. What is it going to take to wake up? Is it going to take 
another crisis, the overthrow of our friends in the gulf? We know that 
Saudi Arabia, one of our staunchest allies in the gulf, has told the 
United States that it is unable to cooperate in freezing the assets of 
bin Laden and his associates. What kind of signal does that send us? 
The money supply is his lifeline. Evidently, bin Laden is still intact. 
The Saudi regime is providing little help to Federal investigators with 
background checks on suspected terrorists. The Saudi Government, as we 
have learned, has also asked Britain's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to 
stay away for the time being and not visit the Kingdom as part of its 
efforts to build support for the international coalition against 
terrorism. What kind of a signal is that? I understand why the Saudi 
regime is uncomfortable with being helpful in our efforts to track down 
bin Laden, and I can understand why the Saudis are uncomfortable, 
seemingly overfriendly to the United States at this time. There is a 
sizable constituency in Saudi Arabia that supports bin Laden, and we 
know that.
  By overtly choosing sides against him, the regime would endanger its 
own rule. But by siding with the United States, the Saudis risk an 
uprising which could make the ones going on in Pakistan, Israel, and 
Indonesia right now look very tame.
  The Saudis are rightly worried about their political future, and I 
can understand that. But I also suggest if the Saudis are worried about 
the stability of their regime, then we should be worried, too. If the 
Saudis, from whom we get 16 percent of our oil, view our close 
relationship as destabilizing, we should, too.
  It is interesting to look at where we get our oil. Let me show you 
this chart. This is pretty much where the inputs into the United States 
come from. There are about 6 million barrels a day coming into the 
United States. Saudi Arabia is the largest contributor at about 1.7 
million barrels, then Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain, 
Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and so forth.
  The interesting thing is the significance of the oil that we seem to 
be getting from Iraq. It is a little over 1 million barrels a day. It 
was 862,00O. Lest we forget, we are enforcing a no-fly zone over Iraq. 
From our friend Saddam Hussein, who since the Persian Gulf war has been 
a thorn in our side, we are importing nearly 1 million barrels a day. 
We are taking his oil, putting it in our aircraft and enforcing a no-
fly zone in the air, which is very similar to a blockade, in theory.
  What is he doing with our money? We know he takes the money for the 
oil and obviously pays his Republican Guard that contribute to his 
livelihood, or he develops a missile capability with biological warfare 
capability and for all practical purposes may aim it at Israel. So here 
we are taking the oil, fueling his aircraft, we bomb some of his sites. 
Aspects of that are associated, realistically, with where we have 
vulnerability. The vulnerability of our country speaks for itself.
  Before I go to a couple more charts, I wish to identify our reliance 
on the Persian Gulf in the sense we rely on the Persian Gulf to get our 
children to school in the morning, inasmuch as our fuel comes from 
there; we get the food from the farms, inasmuch as the oil fuels our 
tractors; and to heat our homes in the winter.
  There are some in this body who believe the urgency behind the 
development of energy policy faded on that disastrous day of September 
11. There are those who would put aside the energy issue and move to 
more pressing affairs. I cannot disagree more. Mark my words, energy is 
front and center on the war on terrorism. If you go back and find out 
where terrorism is being funded, it is being funded indirectly through 
Mideast oil.
  Bin Laden refers to oil as Islamic wealth. He believes the United 
States owes Muslims $36 trillion because we paid artificially low 
prices for energy.
  I think we are becoming more and more aware of bin Laden's writings. 
I ask unanimous consent to print an article bylined Donna Abu-Nasr, 
under the headline, ``Bin Laden's Past Words Revisited.''
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the Associated Press, Sept. 28, 2001]

                    Bin Laden's Past Words Revisited

                          (By Donna Abu-Nasr)

       All American men are the enemy, Osama bin Laden says. And 
     the United States owes Muslims $36 trillion, payback for 
     ``the biggest theft'' in history--the purchase of cheap oil 
     from the Persian Gulf.
       A book with that and more of bin Laden in his own words has 
     been snapped up by Arabic readers in the weeks since he was 
     named the No. 1 suspect in the Sept. 11 suicide bombings in 
     New York and Washington. The book, ``Bin Laden, Al-Jazeera--
     and I'' by Jamal Abdul Latif Ismail, includes a 54-page 
     transcript of the complete 1998 interview that was broadcast 
     in abbreviated form on Al-Jazeera, a popular television 
     program. Al-Jazeera has rebroadcast its version of the 
     interview, conducted by Ismail, since the attacks. Those 
     hungry for more often found copies sold out in book stores 
     across the Mideast. Readers have been borrowing and 
     photocopying the book from friends.
       Bin Laden spoke to Ismail in a tent in mountainous southern 
     Afghanistan four months after the August 1998 bombings of two 
     U.S. embassies in Africa--attacks in which he's also a 
     suspect.
       Bin Laden began the interview with personal notes, saying 
     he was born 45 years ago, in the Muslim year of 1377, in the 
     Saudi capital of Riyadh. The family later moved between the 
     two holy cities of Mecca and Medina and the port city of 
     Jiddah.
       Bin Laden's father, Muhammad, who was born in the Yemeni 
     region of Hadramawt, was a prominent construction magnate who 
     built the major mosques in mecca and Medina and undertook 
     repairs on Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock. He died when bin 
     Laden was 10.
       After getting a degree in economics at a university in 
     Jiddah, bin Laden joined his father's company before 
     beginning his road to jihad.
       Even before President Bush mentioned the word ``crusade'' 
     in describing the anti-terror campaign, bin Laden was using 
     that term to describe alleged U.S. intentions against 
     Muslims.
       ``There's a campaign that's part of the ongoing Crusader-
     Jewish wars against Islam,'' bin Laden told Ismail.

[[Page 19748]]

       Asked about his 1998 fatwa, or edict, urging Muslims to 
     target not only the U.S. military, but also American 
     civilians, bin Laden said only American men were the target. 
     ``Every American man is an enemy whether he is among the 
     fighters who fight us directly or among those who pay 
     taxes,'' bin Laden said.
       Bin Laden claimed Western attacks on Arabs, such as the 
     British-U.S. bombings of Iraq, were directed by Israelis and 
     Jews who have infiltrated the White House, the Defense 
     Department, the State Department and the CIA.
       His views on other issues:
       --On reports he was trying to acquire chemical, biological 
     and nuclear weapons, bin Laden said:
       ``At a time when Israel stores hundreds of nuclear warheads 
     and bombs and the Western crusaders control a large 
     percentage of these weapons, this should not be considered an 
     accusation but a right. . . . It's like asking a man, `Why 
     are you such a courageous fighter?' Only an unbalanced person 
     would ask such a question.
       ``It's the duty of Muslims to own (the weapons), and 
     America knows that, today, Muslims have acquired such a 
     weapon.''
       --On whether he's ready to stand trial in an Islamic court: 
     ``We are ready at any time for a legitimate court . . . If 
     the plaintiff is the United States of America, we at the same 
     time will sue it for many things . . . it committed in the 
     land of Muslims.''
       --Bin Laden denied he was behind the 1998 embassy bombings, 
     but acknowledged he ``has incited (Muslims) to wage jihad.''
       --Asked about the freezing of his assets, bin Laden said 
     even though the United States has pressured several countries 
     to ``rob us of our rights,'' he and his followers have 
     survived. ``We feel that the whole universe is with us and 
     money is like a passing shadow. We urge Muslims to spend 
     their money on jihad and especially on the movements that 
     have devoted themselves to the killing of Jews and the 
     crusaders.''
       --On the U.S.-backed fight against the Soviet presence in 
     Afghanistan: ``Those who waged jihad in Afghanistan . . . 
     knew they could, with a few RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), 
     a few anti-tank mines and a few Kalashnikovs, destroy the 
     biggest military myth humanity has even known. The biggest 
     military machines was smashed and with it vanished from our 
     minds what's called the superpower.''
       --Asked about the money the United States put on his head, 
     bin Laden said: ``Because America worships money, it believes 
     that people think that way too. By Allah, I haven't changed a 
     single man (guard) after these reports.''
       --Bin Laden claimed the United States has carried out the 
     ``biggest theft in history'' by buying oil from Persian Gulf 
     countries at low prices. According to bin Laden, a barrel of 
     oil today should cost $144. Based on that calculation, he 
     said, the Americans have stolen $36 trillion from Muslims and 
     they owe each member of the faith $30,000.
       ``Do you want (Muslims) to remain silent in the face of 
     such a huge theft?'' bin Laden said.
       --His message to the world: ``Regimes and the media want to 
     strip us of our manhood. We believe we are men, Muslim men. 
     We should be the ones defending the greatest house in the 
     world, the blessed Kaaba . . . and not the female, both 
     Jewish and Christian, American soldiers.'' Bin Laden was 
     referring to the U.S. troops that have deployed in Saudi 
     Arabia since 1990 following Iraq's invasion on Kuwait.
       ``The rulers in the region said the Americans would stay a 
     few months, but they lied from the start. . . . Months 
     passed, and the first and second years passed and now we're 
     in the ninth year and the Americans lie to everyone. . . . 
     The enemy robs the owner, you tell him you're stealing and he 
     tells you, `It's in my interest.'
       ``Our goal is to liberate the land of Islam from the 
     infidels and establish the law of Allah.''

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I will just refer to two very short paragraphs.

       All American men are the enemy, Osama bin Laden says. And 
     the United States owes Muslims $36 trillion, payback for 
     ``the biggest theft'' in history--the purchase of cheap oil 
     from the Persian Gulf.

  It further goes on to say:

       Bin Laden claimed the United States has carried out the 
     ``biggest theft in history'' by buying oil from Persian Gulf 
     countries at low prices. According to bin Laden, a barrel of 
     oil today should cost $144. Based on that calculation, he 
     said, the Americans have stolen $36 trillion from Muslims and 
     they owe each member of the faith $30,000.

  If there is any motivation in the connection of oil, I remind you of 
that.
  Control of Arab oil is the core of bin Laden's philosophy and at the 
heart of Saddam Hussein's politics. There is no question about it; oil 
is the key, not only to bin Laden but Saddam Hussein. Our Achilles' 
heel in this war is our dependence on foreign oil. Bin Laden knows it. 
Saddam Hussein knows it. That the Senate does not yet seem to know it 
is to our immense discredit. I hope I have helped enlighten us a little 
bit today. That we do not recognize it and did not recognize it on 
September 11 is to our immense discredit. If we do not recognize it 
soon, God help us all.
  I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oregon, Mr. Wyden.

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