[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 7490-7491]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



    NEW ADMINISTRATION'S ENERGY POLICY IS TO DRILL, NOT CONSERVATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the news magazines of this country often 
give us warning what is going to happen. If one wants to know what is 
going to happen in the United States, always look at California. No 
matter what is happening, if California has got something going on, it 
is going to be everywhere in the United States in the next 3 years.
  Now, if one picks up this week's Newsweek magazine, there is an 
article by Allan Sloan called ``Profiting From the Darkness.'' It 
really lays out the rape and pillage of the California electrical 
consumers over the course of the last few years, last few months 
actually.
  Now, who saves us from this kind of assault on the consumers? Well, 
the government does. But in January, we put into this country a new 
dynasty or brought back an old dynasty. George II of the oil dynasty 
took the White House; and he brought with him some of his counts and 
his dukes and so forth. The Duke of Wyoming became the Vice President. 
He has worked for an oil company, as did the President. The Secretary 
of Commerce, he came from an oil company. Go right down the line and 
one can see that the oil dynasty is fully in charge in this country.
  Now, the question that has to be raised here is how are we going to 
deal with the energy problems in this country. Now, there are only 
three things one can do. Well, there are three major things one can do. 
One is increase the supply, the second is conserve, and the third is 
develop alternative energy sources.
  Now, the Vice President of the United States met with all the 
legislators from California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana and 
told us this is not a Federal problem. It is not a Federal problem. 
This is a State problem. Whatever happens to California, that is their 
problem. Whatever happens to Washington, it is their problem.
  When the issue of conservation was raised, he said conservation may 
be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for 
sound comprehensive energy policy.
  Now, his answer to our problems in this country is to drill, drill in 
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, drill under the Great Lakes, even 
go down to the President's brother's State, Florida, and drill in the 
shelf off the coast of Florida. The Governor of Florida told his 
brother to go on back home and stay out of his local waters. But that 
is the solution being offered, drill wherever you can, and maybe we can 
fix it.
  Now, the fact is that the American Council on Energy Efficiency 
Economy estimates that gradually raising the fuel efficiency on 
automobiles and small trucks to 35 miles per gallon would save a 
million and a half barrels a day in 2010 and four and a half million 
barrels a day by 2020.

                              {time}  1530

  That is seven times what could be attained if we drill in the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge. There is no reason to be drilling. We ought 
to be raising the conservation standards in this country.
  The energy czar the President appointed also says that we ought to 
have 1,300 new generating plants in the next 20 years. This comes from 
an arm of the Energy Department that has always pushed coal and gas and 
oil. But at the same time they are using that study to say we have got 
to build 1,300 new plants, they conveniently overlook another Energy 
Department study, called ``Scenarios For a Clean Energy Future,'' which 
is put out by the Energy Department's national laboratories. This study 
concludes that efficiency measures alone could obviate the need for 
building 610 of those 1,300 plants. Conservation alone would cut it in 
half. In fact, constructing buildings that were more efficient would 
eliminate the need for 100 plants. Air-conditioning, clothes dryers, 
water heater changes could save another 180 plants.
  But our government is designed to help the oil industry, make it 
possible for them to drill everywhere. And this spring and summer, as 
they are now

[[Page 7491]]

talking about $3-a-gallon gasoline, when our constituents are riding 
around in a car and they stop and pay three bucks for a gallon of 
gasoline, who is the person they should thank? The President of the 
United States. He wants us to use that. We do not hear anything out of 
this administration about conservation or about alternative energy 
sources.
  Now, here is a simple little fact: every day in California, seven 
times the energy that is used in California falls out of the sky in the 
form of solar energy. Seven times. There is no energy crisis in 
California, and we ought to be talking about a lot of other things 
besides drilling for oil.

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