[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16256-16257]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       GULF OF MEXICO ENERGY BILL

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the leader, and I join with him 
in his excitement in seeing the health care technology bill move. I 
know how much work he has put into it as a member of the HELP 
Committee. I have watched that bill for some time, and it would be a 
tremendous thing. It will save lives and reduce errors. Errors mean 
people stay in hospitals longer and become disabled more, and many of 
them die. So reducing errors is a great thing and will help us maintain 
this fabulous health care system we have, and at the same time, not 
have costs go through the roof. So I am excited about that also.
  Mr. President, I asked the question earlier: What are people 
objecting to about this Energy bill? We went through the environmental 
concerns, and I pointed out that we have 4,000 wells which survived 
some vicious hurricanes, and we haven't had spills. The technology has 
increased incredibly well. There has not been a significant spill in 26 
years, and that one was such that it did not reach the shores of the 
United States. The last spill that resulted at all from a well 
impacting the coastal areas was 37 years ago in California, and that 
ended the drilling off the coast. But we are so much better today. We 
have so many ways to avoid that, and it is just not happening.
  Also, we dealt with the allegation that this is all for big oil 
companies.
  That is exactly wrong.
  All of the oil companies will not bid on the lands in the gulf that 
will be allowed for production under this legislation. Most of them--
probably most of them--won't even bid on it. A number will and a number 
won't. Those who don't bid already have reserves somewhere else, and 
sizable increases in production of natural gas or oil from the Gulf of 
Mexico will drive down the value of their reserves. They probably don't 
even want the oil and gas produced out there, if they already have 
substantial reserves. That is a bogus argument, the kind that I hope is 
beyond the Senate. But I hear it is still echoing a bit.
  I think some maybe just hate fossil fuels, so they don't want us to 
have fossil fuels anymore in America. I would like to see us move to 
nuclear and do some other things, too. Why don't they object to us 
going down to Venezuela and paying hundreds of millions of dollars to 
Hugo Chavez for his oil that we bring over here or Saudi Arabia or 
Iran's oil or Middle Eastern oil in any number of areas or Russian oil 
and gas. We are not going to stop this. We are going to use oil and gas 
in America, so why don't we produce it on our lands and keep our money 
at home.
  I would just note that last year, in the balance of payments deficit 
that we have, the record balance of payments deficit, $200 billion of 
that deficit was our money we spent in other countries for oil and 
gas--$200 billion. That is a lot. A big part of our trade deficit is on 
this one resource. So why in the world wouldn't we want to keep that 
money at home to produce jobs here, to produce incomes to Americans who 
will pay taxes to the U.S. Government instead of having to go to these 
other countries.
  Oddly, I just have to note parenthetically that we have done 
something after many years of battling that is important. In the Energy 
bill we passed last year, we had some improvements in the law relating 
to nuclear power. Nuclear power can reduce our demands for natural gas 
significantly. There was a long battle over a number of years. Senator 
Domenici worked on it hard. We made those changes, we put them in the 
law, and at that time we had not a single preliminary request for 
building a nuclear power plant in this country. Since that Energy bill 
passed, there are now 18 out there--18 preliminary requests--to 
consider building a nuclear powerplant in America. We haven't built one 
in 30 years in this country.
  What I am saying to the American people who may be listening tonight, 
and to my colleagues, is that our job is not to help nuclear power 
companies. Our job is not to help oil companies.
  Our job is to try to provide safe and environmentally good energy 
sources to our people at the lowest possible rate. When the price of 
gasoline goes up substantially, people who are paying $150 a month for 
their gasoline now may be paying $225 a month. They may be paying $75 
more each month out of their paycheck, money that they want to spend on 
their children, money they need to repair their vehicle, money they 
need to pay their rent. People are struggling. We need to be thinking 
of ways to reduce the cost of energy. Nuclear power is one of those 
ways.
  I have just had a recent meeting with the people at TVA, the 
Tennessee Valley Authority, created by Government agents, created by 
Franklin Roosevelt. They are producing nuclear power at about 1.2 cents 
a kilowatt hour--1.2 cents. Coal is about 1.8 cents. That is 50 percent 
more expensive. Nuclear power is 50 percent less expensive than coal. 
And natural gas that is being used quite a bit is about 6 cents--five 
times as much. So we need more nuclear power and we need to burn a lot 
less natural gas for electricity and we can burn less coal also because 
it is not a very clean fuel. We are doing better with coal, but it is 
still not nearly as clean as nuclear power.
  So I say there is a whole host of things we can do to meet the 
legitimate pleas of our constituents to do something about the high 
cost of energy.
  Natural gas heats a great many homes in America. It provides the 
energy for all kinds of industrial production. I visited a chemical 
plant recently. They are exceedingly concerned about the additional 
costs they have sustained simply as a result of the doubling of the 
price of natural gas. Trust me. If these wells are producing in the 
gulf, as will be authorized by this bill, it will significantly impact 
the price of natural gas in the United States. So that is the kind of 
approach we are trying to bring to bear on producing more at home.
  Then there is one other argument that people have complained about, 
and that is revenue sharing. They say that States should not get any of 
the money out of this. We have been trying to expand the gulf drilling 
for quite a number of years and had no success, really. It is time to 
get serious about it. I believe we can make a breakthrough this year. 
We got, now, both Senators from Florida to say they would support this 
bill. They studied it very carefully, as strongly as Florida is 
committed to environmental purity along their coast. I respect it, but 
I am telling you they are very committed to it. They want us to produce 
our oil and gas off our coast and put it in that pipeline that runs 
from Mobile, AL, to Tampa, FL. That is what we are doing right now. 
They built, in 2002, an oil and gas pipeline right off our coast, and 
shipped it over there. But they do not want oil drilling 150 miles from 
their coast.
  We are working this out now. We are giving them a guaranteed 
protection of 125 miles. The Governor, Jeb Bush, is on board now and 
Senators are on board so maybe we are making progress. I think we have 
more protection than is justified. But it will allow us, probably, to 
have as much territory available to drill in as we could drill in for 
the foreseeable future. So maybe that will be acceptable under all the 
circumstances.

[[Page 16257]]

  But they object to revenue sharing so States get a little part of it. 
One of our Senators, Mr. Bingaman from New Mexico, has complained about 
it. We should not have any revenue sharing.
  We had 4,000 wells out there, all these deep gulf wells, and the 
States don't get a dime out of it--not a dime. But a State like New 
Mexico that has a lot of oil and gas and a great deal of federally 
owned lands in those States, what do they get? They get 50 percent of 
that. This will be just a little over a third; 37 percent would be 
shared with the coastal States and would be earmarked for coastal 
funds--12 percent for the Land and Water Conservation Fund nationwide, 
and 50 percent to the Federal Government. These are moneys, new moneys 
coming into the Treasury of the United States that do not exist today. 
Until we get this approval and this moratorium lifted, we are not going 
to have any money. You know, until we reach accord here and lift this 
moratorium and allow the drilling to occur, we are not going to have 
any money.
  So it is not a taking from the Treasury of the United States. It is 
an increase to the Treasury of the United States, and we should see it 
in that fashion.
  The gulf coast has environmental problems of quite a large degree. We 
had severe hurricane damages on our coast. The whole area--whole areas 
in Louisiana are sinking, and we will have to spend large amounts of 
money to deal with that. So there are a lot of things that this money 
could be used for that benefit, not just the people of those States but 
all the many hundreds and thousands--millions, really--of visitors that 
come to the gulf coast areas every year. We will set up estuaries, 
wetlands, and things that will just make the area better. We would like 
to do that for the Nation and not just Alabama.
  I think the objections are not substantial. I believe it is time for 
us to complete this step. We are at record prices for oil. How do we 
get our oil? Sixty percent of it we obtain from foreign sources. So we 
pay this world price, transferring $200 billion in American wealth out 
of our country to those countries when we could keep it at home by 
producing large amounts off our gulf coast.
  Just to mention those amounts, they are quite huge. It is 1.3 billion 
barrels of oil that are projected to be in the Gulf of Mexico. That 
exceeds the proven reserves of Oklahoma and Wyoming combined, two of 
our largest oil-producing States. There are almost 6 trillion cubic 
feet of natural gas, enough to heat and cool 6 million homes for 15 
years, for example. These supplies are significant enough that they 
will impact prices. I can't say what the prices will be a few years 
from now when this oil and gas comes on line, but whatever it is, it 
will be less if this oil and gas is coming on line than if it is not.
  That will redound to the benefit of the American consumers that we 
represent--the ones who have sent us here and asked us to do something 
about energy prices. All of us have told them we are going to do 
something about it. This is one vote about which you can have no doubt. 
If you vote to produce oil and gas off the coast of America, you will 
help reduce the price of oil and gas in America. Not only that, you 
will keep at home billions of dollars that might otherwise be sent to 
foreign nations, some of which are hostile to us. It is the right thing 
to do. We need to follow through on it.
  I am optimistic more than I have been in quite a number of years. It 
is particularly thrilling to see Senator Martinez of Florida, who has 
worked so hard on this issue, and Senator Bill Nelson from Florida, who 
earlier today said he would support the Senate bill.
  So we are moving to make this a reality. It will be a positive step 
for this country. The only thing we have to fear is there will be some 
on the other side for what reason I can only imagine who will want to 
filibuster this legislation. Hopefully that won't happen. I hope not. 
We need to move it forward and pass it this year.
  I thank the Presiding Officer and I yield the floor.

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