[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17740-17744]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I commend the majority leader from 
Tennessee who told us in no uncertain terms this week that the Senate 
will not be going to an August break until we have an energy policy 
adopted by the Senate. I thank him for his leadership, thank him for 
his vision, and thank him for basically drawing the line so that we in 
the Senate can get focused on bringing this important piece of 
legislation to a close, tying up some loose ends. There are some three 
or four major amendments that still need to be debated and discussed on 
the Energy bill, but we are close to the end under Senator Domenici's 
leadership, with Senator Bingaman. I have been proud to be a part of 
that effort. I look forward to closing out the debate in the Senate 
with a very fine bill, a bill that is balanced, that encourages more 
production, encourages more conservation, and sets a framework for an 
energy policy for this Nation that we can be proud of, and equally 
important, if not more important, that can grow jobs, that can get the 
job growth trend moving back in the right direction. Not that this 
could do it all by itself, but having a strong, clear energy policy for 
this Nation could be a big boost in terms of getting jobs recreated in 
America and giving business the certainty they need so they can make 
good and wise decisions for their shareholders and stockholders and 
begin to increase the vibrancy of this economy.
  I rise to talk about a very compelling presentation made by Chairman 
Greenspan yesterday on this subject. He shared a couple of his 
thoughts, and I thought it would be a good idea for me to try and 
express some of what he said in a way by adding my own thoughts and 
comments, because I think what he said and what he showed was quite 
compelling.
  The energy situation is a hard subject for a lot of us to grasp. We 
cannot exactly see electricity. It is not like it is on every street 
corner. We know about schools and we can deal with health care, because 
there are hospitals and there are schools and we all have personal 
experiences. The energy issue is a lot harder for us even to grasp as 
policymakers and for our constituents to grasp because we cannot see 
big pieces of it. So it is a policy that takes extra time and focus, 
which Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman have given.
  I thought this chart would be helpful. This was a chart that was 
shown in the energy hearing yesterday with Chairman Greenspan, and I 
think more than any other chart it shows one of the major dilemmas 
facing the Nation right now in terms of energy policy.
  We can see clearly that up until about 1996, we were generating 
capacity for electricity by fuel type in a variety of different ways: 
Petroleum in the dark purple color; hydrogen in blue; nuclear in green; 
gas in a fuschia color; and coal in black. We can see with one glance 
that it was a pretty interesting and balanced mix of what we were using 
to produce electricity in this country.
  Then all of a sudden something pretty extraordinary happened, and one 
does not need a Ph.D. or an MBA or even be on the Energy Committee to 
understand this chart, and that is that in 1996 the world changed. All 
of the capacity, or virtually all of it, started to be built in 
anticipation of using natural gas. People say to me, Senator, why did 
this happen? Did the Congress mandate that everyone do this in the 
country? Was there major legislation?
  The answer is, there was not one thing. It was not a Presidential 
Executive Order. We do not order our industries in that way. It was not 
one congressional act. It was a confluence of things that had to do 
with a couple of big policy decisions the Congress made.
  One policy was we must begin to clean up our air. Our air is too 
dirty. We need to clean it up. We have all of these coal-fired plants 
that, prior to clean coal technologies, were polluting our air. Our 
children were getting asthma. People were complaining, rightfully so, 
about some of the air pollution issues.
  So Congress acted, and with the Clean Air Act of 1990, and then in 
1996 when some rules and regulations came out, the industry said, let's 
move to a fuel source, natural gas, that meets these clean air 
standards, that helps to reduce air pollution. They began building, in 
anticipation of this regulatory mode and public demand for cleaner air, 
natural gas.
  Although we do not produce a lot of coal in Louisiana, I am mindful 
of

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States such as West Virginia and Pennsylvania that do. Meanwhile, work 
has gone on in research to clean up the coal and we will anticipate in 
the future having coal become more of a mix, but it will be cleaner, it 
will be better, and it will be far less polluting than what was 
happening back in 1965, 1970, 1975, and 1980.
  Great thanks goes to Senator Domenici, who almost singlehandedly can 
claim credit--he is too modest, but I can most certainly say he can 
almost singlehandedly claim credit for the revitalization of the 
nuclear industry. While it has its critics and while there are people 
who still do not believe in nuclear power, it is becoming clear, based 
on science and fact, not myth and fear, that as we begin to deal with 
the waste issue of nuclear power, just like gas, nuclear power produces 
energy in a way that does not pollute our environment and helps us to 
keep the air as clean as possible in the United States and, for that 
matter, in North America and the world, to clean up our Nation's air.
  When our bill passes, nuclear will become a part of this mix. So we 
hopefully will see a little more black, a little more green, and 
petroleum will probably remain steady. We can see it is a very minor 
portion of our electricity.
  We use petroleum to drive our cars and buses. It is used more in the 
transportation sector. But when we are talking about electricity, which 
underlies all of our economy, our manufacturing, our agriculture, 
everything, it is basically produced by natural gas.
  What is the problem, then? The problem is that the prices of natural 
gas have tripled in the last 18 months. Whether one is in Oregon, 
California, or a State such as Louisiana, New York, Illinois, or New 
Jersey, believe me, our businesses are suffering. They are closing, 
consolidating, and laying off workers. Any businesses that rely in 
large measure on natural gas to produce their products, whether it is 
petrochemical or fertilizer or ammonia, are feeling the brunt of prices 
doubling and tripling.
  Why are prices doubling and tripling? Because the capacity has been 
built up, but there is not an adequate supply. At the same time, we 
have had policies promoting the use of natural gas at the very same 
time, in the very same Congress, we have then implemented policies that 
discourage the production of natural gas because we put moratoria down 
around the country. We cannot drill even though we know there is a lot 
of gas. Billions and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas on the 
Outer Continental Shelf, in the interior, in Alaska, are off limits 
from drilling. We are not encouraging as aggressively as we should the 
importation of liquefied natural gas, again based on myth and 
misinformation about the dangers or benefits of such a transfer, which 
brings me to what Alan Greenspan said.
  Alan Greenspan said he is not an energy expert, but he knows 
something about jobs, he knows something about the economy, and he says 
we cannot sustain this imbalance. We cannot sustain the imbalance 
between the demand for natural gas and our lack of willingness to 
supply it because the supply and demand is so out of kilter that these 
high prices will damage the recovery of our economy and we need to 
increase the supply of natural gas.
  He said two things. He said he would prefer to increase the supply of 
natural gas by domestic production.
  But he realizes, based on all sorts of concerns--political and 
environmental--that in a short time that is unlikely. So the chairman, 
wisely--and I agree--said we should pursue a policy of importing 
liquefied natural gas production, but not just a plant, not to take the 
place of domestic production, but to complement it.
  The people in Louisiana would think it is a reasonable policy. We 
first say let's open up areas of natural gas production. Louisiana 
already opened up much of its land, both offshore and onshore. We say 
over and over again we are happy to host the industry. We recognize we 
have made some environmental errors in the past. But today, these rigs 
are not your grandfather's oil rigs. They are run by computers. They 
are much more safe for the operators of the rigs--for their personal 
safety, as well as the safety of the environment.
  In fact, there was a front-page article--and I will submit it for the 
Record--several weeks ago in New Orleans, where they claim--and I 
believe it because I have experienced this myself--some of the best 
fishing in the world is around the rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Why? 
Because the rigs themselves create artificial reefs. You cannot have 
good fishing and the growth of marine life without good reefs. Coral 
begins to grow on and attach to these reefs as artificial reefs are 
created that are really increasing the health of the marine life in the 
gulf. A lot of people don't want to believe that because they want to 
believe that everything associated with oil and gas is terrible and 
damaging, and actually the facts are the opposite.
  So while Louisiana remains a promising place, and in Texas and 
Mississippi, and off the Continental Shelf, I must say there are many 
reserves in Florida and in other places in the Outer Continental Shelf 
that need to be pursued. Now, whether we decide to drill, that would 
have to be left up to the political establishment, the political 
framework. But we should have an inventory of where those reserves are. 
We should at least know what our reserves are, which is part of what is 
in the bill.
  Chairman Greenspan agreed that we cannot sustain--if we want new jobs 
for the Nation, we cannot sustain this out of balance. How do we fix 
that?
  Let me show another chart that is pretty startling. One of the ways 
is to ask every State and region to just pull their own weight. It is 
not a new concept in America. Our country was founded on a very simple 
principle: Those who work get to eat; those who produce should consume; 
those who are unwilling to work or do their part, unwilling to produce, 
and if they are able, should go without. All able-bodied men and women 
should pull their own weight. It is just a fundamental value and 
principle in America. Our country cannot operate on any other value. We 
do that pretty well in some areas, but we are not doing very well in 
the area of energy production.
  You can see from this chart, which is colorful and easy to 
understand, that these States, starting with California and New York, 
and going all the way down to Louisiana and Wyoming--I should say all 
the way up in this case, as this is positive and this is more negative. 
These are the States that are consuming more than they are producing. 
This is the energy deficit in the Nation.
  We talk a lot about deficits and budget deficits. We talk about 
health care deficits. But the energy deficit is very important to 
discuss and understand.
  The United States imports more energy than we consume. Why is that? 
It is because some States and some regions are not producing nearly 
what they consume. We are relying on just a few States to be net 
exporters of energy. Those States are Utah, Colorado, North Dakota, 
Montana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, New Mexico, Alaska, West Virginia, 
Louisiana, and Wyoming. They are all net exporters of energy. We 
produce a lot of energy from a variety of different sources--maybe it 
is hydro, maybe it is coal, maybe it is oil and gas, or maybe it is 
nuclear. But we don't consume as much as we use, and then we send out 
our excess to other States.
  You can see that Wyoming gets the prize. They are the top State for 
producing energy, consuming little and sending out 8,000 trillion Btu's 
in excess to be used by their neighbors and the rest of the Nation. One 
of the reasons is Wyoming is a relatively unpopulated State, with only 
about 450,000 people. They have a large landmass, and they are blessed 
with a lot of natural resources. They have a fairly pro-production 
mindset in Wyoming. So they produce all that they consume and then they 
help the rest of the States with their very difficult situations.
  Louisiana, which is also a net producer, could also win first prize 
in the sense that not only do we have 4.5 million people, we produce 
enough for our

[[Page 17742]]

own consumption, but we are also a highly industrialized State. Most of 
the petrochemicals, fertilizers, and many plastics are produced in 
Louisiana. Not only do we produce enough energy for our residents, but 
for the industry in our State, which sends their products into the 
country and the world. On top of that, we still send out electricity 
for everyone else. It is the same thing for West Virginia, which is 
more like Wyoming. They are not an industrial State, but they are 
blessed with a lot of natural resources. And there is also New Mexico, 
et cetera.
  Let me talk about this part of the chart for a minute. They are big 
States. California is blessed with natural resources, and New York, 
Ohio, and Florida consume a tremendous amount of energy. Yet because of 
policies that their States have enacted, and maybe because of a lack of 
understanding about how much they actually are consuming, they 
basically refuse to produce any energy--or enough energy. Year after 
year, decade after decade, they consume and consume, and they refuse to 
produce. What happens, then, is because of that, the Nation has an 
energy deficit and we have to import oil or import liquefied natural 
gas from other places--sometimes places that are not friendly, 
sometimes places that are quite dangerous, sometimes countries that we 
would prefer not to be dealing with, except for the fact that they have 
the resources we need.
  This has to change. Senators from these States would come to me and 
say: Senator, just because you want to drill for oil and gas in 
Louisiana doesn't mean we have to.
  Well, they are right. If they don't want to do it, that is fine. But 
I say you have to produce it in some way. They can put up a nuclear 
powerplant, or two, or three, or four, or five, or dam some of their 
rivers to generate hydro power, or they can find some coal reserves and 
dig for some of their coal, or they can come up with alternatives, such 
as putting up windmills.
  Interestingly enough, in one of the States--Massachusetts--which 
consumes more than it produces--there are some communities that are 
opposing the putting up of windmills offshore because people don't want 
to look at them. They don't like the way they look. They don't like the 
way oil rigs look or the way windmills look.
  While they have a right to that opinion, I am not sure it is good 
policy for us just to completely eliminate sources of energy because 
some people might not like the way these structures look. They think 
``not in my backyard.'' But everybody wants to walk into a room and 
turn on the lights; everybody wants not one cell phone but several; 
everybody wants a laptop; they may want to own a business where they 
can use the energy sources and pay a little bit of money for that use, 
but they don't want to produce. It cannot sustain itself. We will 
either become more vulnerable to outside sources or we will drive 
businesses away from the United States and the North American Continent 
to other places where they can get an adequate supply of energy for 
cheaper prices. It will cost jobs in your State, in my State, or in New 
York or California.
  When we lose jobs, we lose income from taxes. When we lose taxes for 
local government, the police force gets cut, the fire departments get 
cut, schools close. We have communities, perhaps in the State of the 
Presiding Officer, with 4-day school weeks. Who ever heard of such a 
thing? Four days of school? My children would like that, but I don't 
think for a nation trying to develop a skilled workforce we can afford 
to go to 3- and 4-day school weeks.
  When we lose jobs, we lose income, the economy gets sluggish, we lose 
tax revenues, schools close, hospitals close, and it is a ferocious 
cycle.
  Will fixing this fix everything? No. But fixing the energy deficit in 
this Nation will go a long way. It can be done if we come to grips with 
the facts.
  Let me be clear because I don't want anyone saying the Senator's 
answer is for everyone to start drilling for oil and gas in their 
State. If some States or some regions do not want to drill for oil and 
gas, although they might have a lot of it, they need to think about 
what they will do. Will they dig for coal? Will they put up windmills? 
Will they construct nuclear powerplants? Will they use more hydro? Will 
they allow the damming of some rivers--not all rivers--to create the 
kind of energy they need?
  What is not fair is to put these States in the position of having to 
produce all the energy for all the rest of the States and for these 
States to jeopardize the security of this Nation both from a national 
security aspect and an economic aspect because their policies will not 
be in line.
  If any one of these States thinks they could enact within their 
States enough conservation to take up this slack, more power to them. 
If these States--whether it is Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, or 
Florida--think, fine, we decided we do not want to produce anything, we 
do not like the idea of producing, we do not want to produce any 
energy, we will conserve, then fine. They can go to all their 
businesses and tell them you can only use electricity between the hours 
of 8 in the morning and 12 noon and close your business and come back 
the next day. If they think they could politically get away with that, 
that is a solution they also have--or coming up with alternative 
sources.
  I am not trying to be unreasonable; I think the American people 
understand it. I don't know about the policymakers, but I promise 
people in Louisiana, people in Florida, people in California understand 
they have to produce energy if they are going to consume it. They can 
either produce more or conserve more. But to just put your head in the 
sand and say, A, we do not have a problem, or, B, we can get ourselves 
out of it by conservation only, that is the wrong way to lead.
  Sometimes I am accused of wanting to bend or modify environmental 
laws or regulations. The reason I feel so strongly is I believe in 
clean air standards. I want to keep the air clean. If we can produce 
more natural gas, if we can produce more nuclear, if we can continue, 
as this bill proposes, to invest in clean coal technology, we could 
increase the supply of energy and clean up our environment. I want to 
move in that direction. I don't want to have to back up from those 
environmental standards we have set for ourselves. I hope we can do 
this.
  We have an energy deficit. It is a national natural gas crisis. 
Chairman Greenspan has said he believes one of the solutions is to 
increase the supply of natural gas domestically and to try to create a 
framework in this bill to at least make it optional to import liquefied 
natural gas not only from other nations but Alaska, which is a rich 
source of natural gas. However, we must do something not only as a 
nation but as regions.
  This chart shows the U.S. census regions and divisions. The Pacific 
West is represented, and then the Mountain States, the West North 
Central, the Texas and Louisiana region, and then the Northeast. This 
is not in the bill as drafted at this moment, but I will work on 
language that would begin to help these regions focus on energy 
independence.
  I am not pulling this concept out of the sky because I met with some 
leaders from Canada. Much to my amazement, Canada has developed quite a 
different way than the United States. Each of our States has acted, of 
course, independently. We are the United States of 50 States acting 
independently. Canada has developed its electricity and energy system 
on a regional basis. They have six distinct regions and each region is 
self-sufficient. They each generate enough energy in their region--
which makes a lot of sense--based on the natural resources in the 
region. One region has a lot of nuclear power because that is what 
their region decided. Another region produces a lot from hydro because 
they have the ability to do that. Other regions have gas.
  And then they have the mix of supply. When, say, there is a drought 
in an area with the hydro and they do not have enough water, the other 
regions are able to meet the demand of that region because they have 
nuclear or they have gas. Say the price of natural gas goes up. That 
region, then, says no, we

[[Page 17743]]

will not buy your gas; it is too expensive. And they get inexpensive 
hydro or less expensive nuclear. That competition is good. It helps 
everybody keep the price low and stable, which is the point. Canada 
operates in a very model way.
  We are far from that model. We need to get closer to that model and 
eventually get Mexico in that model. Then we will have quite a robust 
North American model.
  What we have now are individual States, and we are trying to break 
our States down a little bit, recognizing State rights and trying to 
work with the States but encouraging them to break up into regions and 
think about regional independence so Florida and Georgia and South 
Carolina can no longer say, we just want to consume, we want to get all 
of our power from Louisiana, or we want to get all of our power from 
Mississippi. This region should think, how are we going to sustain our 
region and come up with regional plans.
  It will not be simple. It will not happen overnight. But this is a 
view of what potentially could be done.
  Another chart demonstrates RTO, regional transmission organizations, 
which is happening now. This is not something in the far distance. This 
is underway now through regulation and through congressional bills and 
amendments we are passing, encouraging the development of these 
regional transmission organizations for the purpose of transmitting 
electricity.
  On the same concept, we should be producing regionally a balance, so 
that no State should be allowed to simply consume and not produce. No 
region should be allowed to simply consume and not produce.
  Different people say to me: Senator, some States produce wheat; your 
State does not produce wheat. But some States produce all the wheat and 
ship it to you and not every State has to produce wheat. That would be 
a pretty good argument except that people do not object to having 
wheatfields in their backyards. People want to grow crops; they want 
agriculture to be there. So we manage, as a nation. I grow a lot of 
wonderful cotton and sugar and soybean. We ship it up to the Midwest. 
They produce wheat and ship it down to us. That system is working fine 
because there are no environmental efforts to undermine the growing of 
our crops. But there are misguided environmental efforts to undermine 
the production of energy and electricity in this country, forcing some 
States to basically say: Not in my backyard, not today, not tomorrow, 
not anything--not oil, not gas, not coal, not nuclear, not windmills, 
not anything. And, by the way, we are not going to conserve very much. 
We conserve a little, but we still want to use all that we want, 24 
hours a day.
  It is not going to work. It never has worked in the history of the 
country, and it is not going to work today. So we have a problem. This 
bill we are going to adopt, thanks to the leadership of many on the 
Senate floor, will begin to solve some of these problems. For Louisiana 
and for the Gulf Coast States I think it will be quite a victory 
because we have done more than our share of production. We are happy to 
do it. We want to be more fully and equally compensated for that 
production. We want to share in the taxes that are generated from the 
production so we can invest in our infrastructure, in our environment, 
in saving our wetlands that are somewhat damaged by the drilling.
  But it is not the primary culprit. The primary culprit in our case, 
which you cannot see here--Louisiana through the Mississippi River 
drains more than 40 percent of the continental United States. It also 
serves as a river for commerce for the whole Nation. Where we dam this 
river, the Mississippi River, and as we have tried to tame it, which is 
an ongoing process over the last 200 years, so this country could grow 
and expand, we now do not allow the river to overflow and to replenish 
the marsh. So we are losing a lot of this extraordinary wetland in the 
southern part of the State. It is not due primarily to oil and gas 
drilling. It is due to the commercialization and the leveeing and 
dredging of the greatest river system in the world.
  So the country has an obligation to help us. We have a plan, and with 
good help, in this Energy bill we will begin to solve our wetlands 
problems, maintain good commercial navigation for the international 
trade that benefits not only our State but the whole Nation, and 
hopefully begin to get this country on a more commonsense approach to 
energy production and electricity use.
  A national energy policy must address the regional challenges that 
confront our country. It must call for each region to use wisely the 
resources it can access in order to supply its particular demand for 
energy. For too long, individual States have prevented regions of our 
country from producing the energy needed, creating an energy deficit, 
all the while continuing to consume the majority of that region's 
energy. This bill must address the national gas crisis and the emerging 
energy crisis in America.
  I need to make this one final point. It is the subject of a whole 
other speech, but I don't want to finish without saying this about 
another consequence of relying on outside sources of energy. California 
says we don't want to drill, not on our State, offshore, Outer 
Continental Shelf. Florida says we don't want to drill; we don't want 
to produce. Illinois and others say the same. What happens is, because 
we refuse to regulate our consumption or reduce it substantially--
because, frankly, we can reduce some through technology and through 
alternatives, but we just can't restrict consumption because we will 
restrict economic growth, which we do not want to do.
  But what happens, then, is we begin importing from other countries, 
countries that have lower environmental standards than we do, countries 
that have less capacity to enforce the meager regulations they have on 
the books, countries that are more desperate for jobs. Although we want 
them, there are countries desperate for them. So, inadvertently, we end 
up increasing pollution, damaging the world environment because we 
refuse to adopt commonsense principles, which are to extract national 
resources and develop energy on our own soil, off our own continental 
shelf, and minimize the degradation internationally.
  If anybody wants to come to the Senate floor and debate that with me, 
I will be more than happy to debate it because I am scrambling for 
information. Perhaps I have gotten information incorrectly.
  I am very concerned because America consumes so much oil and so much 
gas. I know a lot of that production comes from the Mideast. But now we 
are asking it of Venezuela and now we are asking countries in Africa. 
They want to, of course, because if they ship oil to us, their 
countries make money. They put their people to work. I understand that. 
We produce a lot of oil and gas.
  But I am also well aware, as a producer, of the environmental 
degradation that can occur if we do not have strong rules and 
regulations, strong court systems, and a mature political system that 
can monitor it.
  I say to the leaders in our country, when we force production off of 
our shore, we damage the international environment. It is not right. If 
some environmental organizations want to challenge that comment, then 
please do it. I urge them to send mail to me or send e-mails to me and 
tell me why I am wrong; that we can easily and clearly and without 
damage drill in other places of the world.
  I don't believe it because I know what we went through in the 
Louisiana Legislature over 20 years ago, led by a group of very great 
legislators, to try to bring good rules and regulations to the 
industry. Now the industry is doing much better. But 30 and 40 years 
ago, people were not too interested in environmental rules and 
regulations. So I know what can occur when the rules and regulations 
are not there.
  I wonder how the people of California or Florida might feel about the 
fact that, because they refuse to produce, somebody is producing 
somewhere for them, in places that do not have rules and regulations 
like they do, in places they cannot be enforced.

[[Page 17744]]

  What about the children who live in those areas? What about the 
families who are struggling with meager incomes? What environmental 
legacies are we leaving in Third World countries around the globe?
  For all the reasons--for independence, for national security, for 
jobs, for the economy, and for making this world a more beautiful place 
than we found it when we got here--I urge this Senate to take seriously 
the bill that is being put forward by both Senators from New Mexico, 
the chairman, and the ranking member, to pass an Energy bill before we 
leave for the August break. I will stand with them. The people of 
Louisiana support this bill.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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