[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9987]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        WEST COAST ENERGY CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Tiberi). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, those of us living in 
California have reached a critical point in determining how Congress 
and the President will address the West Coast Energy Crisis.
  Earlier today, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce canceled 
its consideration of a bill that would have prevented price-gouging and 
blackouts in California and other Western States. The President and the 
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have said ``no'' time after time 
to Californians. Now it looks like the Republicans in Congress are 
saying ``no'' to California; also, ``we will not help you.''
  This is very disturbing. The West Coast energy crisis threatens not 
only the health of our economy, but the health of our citizens, because 
the blackouts roll out through hospitals, through disabled individuals 
living in their own homes, in nursing homes and other facilities across 
our State. The President has said no. The Federal Energy Commission has 
said no, because they believe that price caps will not help the 
situation.
  The President recently said in his visit to California that price 
caps would not help California, they would not increase supply or 
reduce demand. Yet we see that 10 of this Nation's leading economists 
wrote the President to politely disagree with him. They, in fact, made 
a very strong case. The cost-based price caps temporarily, until the 
energy supply can be reached in California, would, in fact, help 
stabilize, stabilize the supply of energy to California.
  A majority of Americans recently expressed their opinions in the 
Washington Post, where 58 percent said they favored temporary price 
caps. Much of the energy crisis in California is beyond our own 
control, and certainly in the rest of the West. Because we are in the 
second driest year on record, we do not have the water behind the dams 
because of the drought to create hydroelectric power. The American 
people understand this, but the Republicans in Congress do not, the 
President of the United States does not, and the Federal Energy 
Regulatory Commission does not.
  What is very disturbing is we watched the President develop an energy 
policy as we started to see the closeness between the administration, 
the White House and America's mainline energy companies. This past 
weekend we saw disclosed the strong personal financial ties of top 
members of the Bush administration's energy team to those very same 
energy generators. Many of us have been concerned about this for some 
time, but we now saw evidence of it.
  Chief political strategist Karl Rove had a $100,000 to $250,000 
investment in Enron, one of the major marketers of energy on the West 
Coast. Lawrence Lindsay gained $50,000 as a consulting fee from Enron. 
Condoleeza Rice, the National Security Advisor, $250,000 to $500,000 in 
Chevron and earned $60,000 as the director on the Chevron Board of 
Directors. Clay Johnson, director of the President's personnel, held 
stock valued between $100,000 and $250,000 in El Paso Energy Partners, 
a Houston oil and natural gas company, involved in the West Coast 
energy problems. The Washington Post also says that Mr. Johnson has 
been involved in selecting the people who will serve on the Federal 
Energy Commission, the very same people who will be regulating the 
companies in which he has a financial interest. Many of us were 
concerned that they were creating an office of special interest in the 
White House, and I think that concern is starting to come forward.
  Mr. Speaker, one of the things that is kind of interesting is when we 
look at the President's energy policy and we look at the annual report 
of Exxon-Mobil, we find that many of the same consistencies are there. 
We see in the President's energy policy that he shows us that, in fact, 
they have energy for a new century, and here we have offshore oil 
drilling that is familiar to us; we have been doing it for many, many 
years. When we pick up the Exxon-Mobil annual report, we see the same 
dedication. This is not about energy for a new century, this is about 
an old fossil fuel-dependent economy from which America must move on.
  Exxon wants to highlight its drilling techniques. We see the drilling 
techniques that show us that from one rig one can drill a number of 
different pockets of oil, one can do directional drilling, and one can 
reduce the supply. We go back to the President's energy policy, and we 
see that, in fact, we have essentially the same graphs, the same 
pictures, telling us that this is the way that we can get into the ANWR 
Wildlife Refuge, that if we drill it just the way that Exxon told us we 
could in their report, all things would be fine and there would be no 
environmental damage. Again, we see the closeness of the two. It goes 
on until we see the same points being made about refinery capacity, the 
same pictures, the same discussion.
  The time has come for the administration to separate itself from a 
very old and tired energy policy, and to move on and engage the full 
ingenuity and the talent of the American economy and its creative 
energies and to move on to renewables, to move on to replaceable energy 
supplies so that America, in fact, can move on with its economy and its 
families will not have to continue to be gouged because of the greed of 
the same energy generators who are doing it on the West Coast of the 
United States.

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