[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14525-14533]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             HOLDING THE LINE ON DEBT AND THE ENERGY CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 
60 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the privilege to be 
recognized here on the floor of the House of the United States 
Congress.
  I have sat here through the last hour and patiently listened to my 
colleagues

[[Page 14526]]

on the other side of the aisle, and one of the things that comes out 
clearly is the tone of the message that they deliver.
  I have heard this 30-Something Group now, I think I must be into 
about the sixth year of listening to this, and it seemed to me that at 
some point they would maybe get over their bitterness about President 
Bush winning an election in Florida twice, and all the recounts they 
could come up with still came up with the same result and they still 
carry the same resentment that the will of the people was reflected. 
And the bitterness that emerges in this discussion and the implications 
that come that challenge the motives of the President are disturbing to 
me, and particularly their remarks that have to do with allegations 
about: You put two Big Oil people in the White House, and this is what 
you get, is high oil prices. A lot of us that watch the policy will say 
we know better than that, Madam Speaker, and I know better than that 
for a lot of reasons.
  As I look down through this, I am going to pick up the oil in just a 
moment, but I think where I would like to step in here first is to deal 
with the issue of the national debt. Now, some of the gentlemen on the 
other side of the aisle were clearly stating that they believe that 
they could have managed their way into not eliminating the national 
debt alone but providing for a surplus. They say: We could have paid 
off all the national debt if you would have just allowed us to be in 
charge. We would have made the right decisions.
  So I listened to all that, and I tried to put myself, Madam Speaker, 
in a position of what it would be like for a person in a living room in 
someplace across the United States, or maybe someone who just pulled 
into the motel or the hotel and turned on their C-SPAN, turned on their 
television, they are surfing through there and came across C-SPAN or 
heard something like that, that the folks on that side of the aisle, if 
you would have been in charge, you would have paid off the national 
debt, which means if it is paid off, there must be a surplus. That is 
by simple, easy deduction and because the allegation is the folks that 
were in charge were irresponsible, supposedly.
  So I thought, all right, what do I remember? What is real? What are 
some of the facts? And I can think in this 110th Congress, this Pelosi 
Congress, this Congress that is characterized by San Francisco values, 
Massachusetts values, and budget mismanagement, these are the things 
that come to mind on me. And some of them, it has been the Republican 
minority who has fought aggressively to protect the interests of the 
taxpayers. These are the things that I just wrote down off the top of 
my head, and it is by no means a complete list. It isn't even close:
  Republicans held the line and saved the taxpayers $40 billion on the 
State Children's Health Insurance Program, which I support as a State 
senator, which I support at 200 percent of poverty, which today is 200 
percent of poverty still providing health insurance premiums for those 
children in families of four making in my State over $52,000 a year.
  Now, we are helping those folks out some. They--most might make it on 
their own; in fact, I know some families that do make it on their own 
without tapping into the SCHIP program. But this agenda was driven off 
of this floor, Madam Speaker, and pushed by Nancy Pelosi, the San 
Francisco values, at 400 percent of poverty. That bill, that SCHIP bill 
would have expanded this funding of health insurance premium for kids 
and families in my State, of families of four making over $103,000 a 
year.
  Now, who is left to subsidize? If we are going to subsidize families 
that are making six figures, $103,000 a year, who is going to pay that 
tax? Well, presumably not anybody that is making less. We know that 
there were 70,000 families in America that were paying the alternative 
minimum tax which this Congress, this Pelosi-led Congress can't seem to 
get around to repealing the alternative minimum tax. But 70,000 
families in America would have been paying the alternative minimum tax 
and been receiving a Federal subsidy for their health insurance 
premiums.
  The whole thing of socialized medicine and the Nanny Pelosi State has 
come full circle, and the overlap of what subsidized for health 
insurance premiums for families of 200 percent of poverty would have 
gone to 400 percent; and families that were paying the rich man's tax, 
the alternative minimum tax, expands because it is not indexed for 
inflation. Over into that loop were 70,000 families paying the 
alternative minimum tax and getting help with health insurance 
premiums. That is bizarre.
  That is what we stopped. We blocked the 400 percent of poverty that 
would have funded families of four making $103,000 a year with somebody 
else's tax dollars and created more dependency. We blocked their effort 
to lay the cornerstone of socialized medicine, Hillary Care, the care 
that I called SCHIP, the Socialized Clinton Style Hillary Care for 
children and their parents was blocked by a Republican majority of 
fiscally responsible people, and we still maintained a program at 200 
percent of poverty to help out those families so their children would 
have health insurance. That is one thing we did, $40 billion.
  The second thing we did, we fought the battle and I think in the end 
we have got a reasonable chance of winning the war, Barney Frank's $300 
billion bailout of a $150 billion subprime problem, the idea that folks 
could come in and borrow up to 100 percent to buy a home that they 
can't make the payments on, just betting on the idea that the value of 
that home would appreciate and go up, maybe they could roll it into a 
fancier home in a few years and then refinance without any of their own 
equity in the home. That was going on in this country, especially in 
places on the Left Coast and on the East Coast. It wasn't going on 
nearly as much in the Midwest.
  But there are people all across this country that were saving their 
money, that were saving up to the 20 percent down or maybe 29 percent 
down. They looked around, and said, well, all right, now for 10 or 15 
years they put their money together and came up with $20,000 and 
decided, ``I want to buy a home.'' And they went out and shopped the 
marketplace and did the responsible thing and laid their $20,000 down 
and moved into a $100,000 home. In a lot of parts of the country that 
is a modest home; in my part of the country, that is a pretty decent 
home. They laid their $20,000 down and they could make their payments 
on the $80,000 left.
  But now, the Barney Frank subprime bailout bill at $300 billion says: 
Now we are going to tax you, the families, the middle-income families, 
especially in the modest homes that put their 20 percent down on their 
modest home, tax those people to bail out the folks that had nothing 
down and moved into a $400,000 home, all to the tune of creating an 
increase in the deficit in this country by $300 billion. That is the 
bill that came off this floor. That is the bill that is over in the 
Senate. That is the one that I hope they can knock in the head. We 
don't need to do that.
  And there was another one, a grab bag of ``I Want List'' off-budget 
for $168 billion. Those things popped in my head quickly, and I am 
seeing numbers of $1 trillion here and $1 trillion there roll off of 
the 30-Something Group. In my short little piece here, I wrote down 
$508 billion of irresponsible spending. Much of it Republicans have 
been successful in killing because it was irresponsible. That is more 
than one-half trillion dollars just in my memory in this short 
Congress, not in the full duration of 12 years in the majority, in 
which their grievance list goes back well beyond that.
  And then, this group of people has the audacity to put out a whole 
series of proposals on energy because they know the American people are 
tired of paying high gas prices.
  Now, I have sat in this Congress for these years. I started out in 
the 108th Congress, but I will take us back. I have some numbers here 
that come from the 106th, 108th, 109th Congress, and these are 
Congresses that were led by Republican majority and these were efforts 
that were brought forward that

[[Page 14527]]

would have lowered the cost of energy in its entirety, especially the 
cost of gas.

                              {time}  2200

  These are bills that went over to the Senate from the House. Mr. 
Speaker, I hope you write this down and do a little research on this.
  H.R. 1655, from the 106th Congress, the Department of Energy 
Research, Development, and Demonstration Authorization Act, that passed 
the House and went to the Senate. That was on September 15th of 1999. 
Also, H.R. 3822, another energy bill, the Oil Price Reduction Act, that 
passed the House on March 22nd of 2000. It went to the Senate, and it 
died in committee.
  Also, in the 108th Congress, I'll name three other bills: H.R. 3062, 
H.R. 4503, H.R. 4517. They all passed the House in the 108th Congress. 
All would have lowered energy prices. All would have provided more 
energy in the marketplace. All died in the Senate.
  In the 109th Congress--that's the Congress ahead of this one--H.R. 6, 
the Energy Policy Act, passed the House on April 21, 2005. That happens 
to be my mother's birthday. Senate action: They removed the ANWR 
provision that passed out of this House. It died over there. Others 
that passed in that Congress are H.R. 2863 and H.R. 5429 and H.R. 4761, 
all energy bills, all bills that passed the House, all bills, by the 
memo I'm looking at, at least, that didn't make it out of the Senate, 
that didn't come back to the House, that didn't go to conference. They 
just died over there. They died over there not because of Republicans 
in the Senate. They died over there because of the 40 Democrats who 
blocked the bill, the filibuster rule that they have. As long as 
they're able to do that, they can be in the minority, and they can 
block good legislation in the Senate.
  That, Mr. Speaker, is what happened in the last three Congresses 
ahead of this one, this 110th Congress that we are in.
  I didn't mention the 107th Congress. As for the 106th, 108th and 
109th Congresses, all of those Congresses passed energy legislation 
bills. All of them would have contributed to the supply. They would 
have reduced the regulation. Some of them would have provided for the 
siting of refineries on decommissioned military bases, and part of that 
legislation out of here would have allowed drilling in ANWR. Part of it 
would have opened up the Outer Continental Shelf to at least some 
degree.
  We sit here in this Congress, and a question that came up more than a 
year ago was: What is the solution for $3 gas? I happen to have a 
little chart that might help illustrate this.
  Now, George Bush was really put up to be the demon here, in listening 
to the folks who spoke ahead of me, so I thought I'd put a little piece 
of fact up for people to take a look at, Mr. Speaker. Here are the 
facts. This is just slightly dated, but I can bring it up to date. This 
is pretty close.
  This is the time that George Bush was sworn in as President of the 
United States. Gas was $1.49. Oh, boy. Don't we wish we had those days 
today.
  As I move forward, we come to the point where Nancy Pelosi was sworn 
in as Speaker. Gas had gone up to $2.33 a gallon. I'd be happy to go 
back to those days, and so would every American if we could make the 
deal today to hold gas at $2.33, but look at how long it took to get to 
the $2.33 from the $1.49.
  When Bush was sworn in as President and, yes, when the speculators in 
the world and when the investors in the world and when the oil 
companies in the world and when the sovereign wealth funds in the 
nations that control much of the world's energy supply saw what was 
happening here in this country--that the United States had lost its 
ability to pass legislation out of this House and send it to the 
Senate, let alone to a Senate that would pass it and send it to the 
President, who would have signed, I think, every one of these bills 
that I've read off here--then your energy prices shot up. $4.08 is 
slightly dated. It's probably $4.10 or $4.11 today. So that tells you 
what's actually going on here.
  If you take energy off the market, if you increase regulation, if you 
come out and you make noise about windfall profits taxes, I can tell 
you what I'd do if I were sitting on the board of directors of an 
energy company, and Congress had said, ``I want to come in and tax you 
after the fact.'' I would start to look for other places to put my 
capital, where I could get a return that wasn't going to be punished 
after the fact by Congress.
  So I don't think that people on the other side of the aisle here, for 
the most part, understand this free market system that's here. I don't 
think they understand supply and demand. They convinced me of that 
today in a hearing on the Ag Committee. It was all about trying to 
regulate the futures market on energy. There were six different 
witnesses, and I lost track, actually, of how many bills were there, 
but some of those bills were drafted years ago, 1 or 2 or 3 years ago, 
when I would have thought that, maybe, their focus on this regulation 
of the futures market would have come within the last 2 or 3 months 
rather than in the last 2 or 3 years.
  They convinced me, because those Members of Congress had been working 
that long on the futures market, that it actually indicates supply and 
demand on energy in the world, and it lets the people who are watching 
those markets understand at least what the people who are speculating 
on that market think is going to be there for supply and demand. They 
don't have the confidence in that. They think that they need to get in 
there and regulate the market, regulate the market, take the futures 
out of the energy equation because, as the gentleman from Maryland 
said, there must be some margin in there somewhere, and we've got to 
squeeze every drop out of it. Well, they're providing a service with 
the futures market, and that allows people to hedge, and you've got to 
let them hedge because there are people who are vulnerable to the 
fluctuation in energy prices.
  Then, on top of that, supply and demand is not part of the equation 
on the left side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker. It's not. They convinced me 
of that in the hearing today. It's not or it wouldn't be proposed by 
the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, that we should go ahead and up 
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. In a little bit, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania will address that subject matter with a little more 
expertise than I bring to this floor, but it's a limited supply, and 
it's, therefore, a national emergency.
  I can tell you that 42.6 percent of the world's export oil supply 
goes through the Strait of Hormuz. We have Iran threatening to shut 
down the Strait of Hormuz, and they know that that strait there is not 
just the valve that controls 42.6 percent of the world's export oil 
supply. That's the valve that shuts down the world economy. If they can 
control the strait, they can control the world economy. They know it. 
They've known it for a long time. Even Jimmy Carter knew it.
  What would be the dumbest time to open up the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve? Well, that would be the time when we're most vulnerable and 
are most threatened that someone like Iran might decide they're going 
to try to close down the Strait of Hormuz.
  That limited amount of oil is there. It can't change the market very 
much. The markets aren't going to change unless you have a significant 
change in the volume. That doesn't change the volume of oil in the 
market. That just dumps the reserve out and leaves us vulnerable to 
dumping that volume.
  Now, in looking down through a list of some of these other things, 
they put up a chart that showed that there are 91.5 million acres 
leased, and there are only 23.7 million acres producing. So they're 
saying go ahead and drill those acres; we're fine with that. Well, all 
right. I'm fine with that, too, but it doesn't matter whether you're 
fine with it or not. Those acres are leased. The problem is those 
aren't producing acres. It costs millions to sink a well in most of 
these places. So, if you sink a well down someplace where there's not 
oil, you've wasted the money.
  I'd say, if you're serious about this, step up and join me. Let's let 
the leaseholders then trade off those acres for

[[Page 14528]]

other acres. Let them use those acres to bid with in conjunction with 
the dollar investment. We'll let them trade out of that 23.7 million 
acres or, let me say, the 91.5 million leased acres that aren't being 
drilled on--and I'm taking your numbers at face value. I've not checked 
these numbers, and I'd want to do that before I'd sign onto a bill. 
Take a look at this. Let them trade the acres out, and you'll find out. 
There's no reason why an energy company doesn't want to drill unless 
they don't believe there's oil there, not in this market, not in this 
day.
  Then you know the argument ``use it or lose it.''
  Well, let them use it by letting them trade those acres in for acres 
that are producing acres, and you'll see immediate action. They'd be 
happy to lose some of those acres. Open them up, and let somebody else 
bid on the acres that aren't being drilled. This is a prudent business 
decision.
  Your theory, gentlemen, presupposes that there's oil in equal 
quantity under every acre that's leased whether it's drilled or whether 
it's not. Now, what kind of a myopic view of the underground do you 
have? Do you have any geologists over there in your caucus? I'm not 
really a geologist, but I have personally and physically drilled for 
oil, and I've dug more holes into Mother Earth than has anybody in this 
Congress. I've taken a little look at the stratification of that, and I 
at least have some understanding of what produces oil and what doesn't. 
It can't be everywhere by definition.
  Then the position that came out over and over again is that Democrats 
are going to go after Big Oil. Well, Big Oil is what provides a lot of 
energy in this marketplace. If you cut down on the supply, you're going 
to raise the price some more, and you'll see this price of $4.08 go up 
to $5.08. Go ahead. Go after Big Oil, and see what the result is. You 
are not going to get oil 1 cent cheaper. That price is going to go up 
because you'll scare the capital out of the marketplace; you'll shut 
down the exploration, and you'll empower the Middle Eastern oil more 
because they are the sovereign wealth funds that control a significant 
amount of the energy. That's the mindset over here.
  I suppose, if you say it over and over again, you'll begin to believe 
it, and maybe you actually do believe it, but you're not going to be 
able to get commonsense Americans to believe in an idea of going after 
Big Oil.
  Oh, by the way, windfall profits taxes. Let's just say Exxon. I saw a 
piece the other day of 8.6 percent return on their capital. You want to 
tax windfall profits, calling an 8.6 percent return on capital a 
windfall profit tax? Well, if that's the case, I'll sign on with that 
if you'll also want to apply a windfall profits tax to every 
corporation in America that got a greater return than 8.6 percent. If 
we'd do that, we would kill the goose that laid the golden egg. We 
would also fix the national debt because there are a lot of companies 
that are going to end up getting a better return than 8.6 percent on 
their capital.
  I spent 28 years in the construction business. Many times, I got a 
better return than 8.6 percent on the capital. I never felt guilty 
about a single bit of it because I earned it all competing in the 
marketplace, and that's what these companies are doing, too.
  This is the one that grips Steve King, Mr. Speaker, this statement 
from the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan). Look at the investments in 
biofuels, the Democrats' support for biofuels. He says that some say 
it's keeping gas prices down by 50 cents. Well, I wish that were the 
case. I happen to represent the number 1 biofuels congressional 
district in America. It's the 5th District of Iowa.
  Six years ago when I came to Congress, we hardly had an industry, but 
Republicans passed Blender's tax credits at 51 cents a gallon. I'm the 
guy who introduced the legislation in my first bill in Congress that 
extended the Blender's credit for ethanol and that raised the small 
ethanol producers and the small biofuels producers' credit from 30 
million gallons a year to 60 million so that we could take advantage of 
the economy of scale and the kind of plants that needed to be 
competitive.
  I added biodiesel to this. It came out of the bill I introduced. It 
was written into another bill. I've gotten a lot of help here, and I 
thank everybody on both sides of the aisle for that. I sent it over to 
the Senate. The Senate picked it up, and it arrived at the President's 
desk. The first bill I introduced became law, and I thought I'm a 
freshman, but this is easy. Well, Mr. Peterson knows it's not that 
easy, and I was a little bit lucky, but it was an idea whose time was 
right. I just happened to know, though, about what happens with 
biofuels.
  The 5th District of Iowa produces more, when you add it up, ethanol, 
biodiesel and wind energy than any other congressional district in 
America. We are the renewable fuels capital. We've built an industry 
around this. For at least the last 2 years, maybe 3, there has been 
over $1 billion a year in private investment capital invested in 
renewable energy infrastructure just in my congressional district. So I 
thought I'll do the math on this now.
  If you can lower gas prices by 50 cents because Democrats invested in 
biofuels--well, they didn't do that. That was Republican leadership, 
but Democrats did do this: They brought the farm bill out of this 
floor, and it went to the President's desk. It cut the Blender's credit 
by 6 cents. That's what Democrats have done. So they've sent a message 
to the renewable fuels industry: Don't invest capital in this industry 
because we're going to be changing the rules on you after you get your 
dollars invested. That's what they think of a deal. Cut the Blender's 
credit by 12 percent.
  Now, I'm not here to argue whether that's the right number or whether 
that's the wrong number. That's what happened. That was Democrat 
leadership that did that, but if they think that having renewable 
energy--and that means biofuels--on the market will cut gas prices by 
50 cents, Mr. Speaker, then I went through this math, and I figured 
this out.
  All right. Let's see. In ethanol, we produced 9 billion gallons of 
ethanol last year. That got blended into 150 billion gallons of overall 
consumption. That works out to be 6 percent of the gallons, 4.2 percent 
of the energy. So, with biofuels, ethanol replaced 4.2 percent of the 
energy consumed in gas last year. If 4.2 percent of the gas can lower 
the price by 50 percent as stated by Mr. Ryan from Ohio, if that can 
happen, then I'm here to tell you, if we open up ANWR, that will do a 
better job because 1 million barrels a day going into the marketplace 
in ANWR will replace 5.6 percent of our annual gas consumption. So, if 
4.2 percent in ethanol lowers the price by 50 cents a gallon, 5.6 
percent coming out of ANWR ought to take it down 60 cents or more a 
gallon.

                              {time}  2215

  And they say don't drill in ANWR.
  I can take that up a little bit later, Mr. Speaker, and I have some 
things that I would like to say about the commodities and futures and 
trading markets as well, but I also recognize that the gentleman who is 
and remains the leader on energy in the United States, in the United 
States Congress, the gentleman who is down on this floor over and over 
and over again who is working in front of the scenes and behind the 
scenes, who's working strategy, who is engaging in amendments in 
committee, who walks this floor constantly seeking to lower energy 
prices for the American people, a man who leaves a legacy and hopefully 
gets his way at the end of the 110th Congress so there's a real marker 
for that legacy is the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson), whom 
I'd be proud to yield so much time as he may consume.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman from Iowa and for 
the opportunity to share time with him.
  I don't know about you, Mr. Speaker. After the 4th of July recess 
where we had $4 gasoline, $5 diesel, almost $4 heating oil, and 
Americans are shuddering because what they don't know, and they will be 
even more concerned, is that in a few months, they will be getting 50- 
to 60-percent increases in home heating costs with natural gas.

[[Page 14529]]

Those passed-through costs will be approved by our State PUCs. My home 
company in western Pennsylvania raised the rates at 6 percent in May 
and are going to be raising it 50 percent August 1, and they have 
another opportunity to raise it again in November. And they're just 
passing through the costs of gas.
  Just like New England just had a 42 percent increase in electric 
costs because of the percentage of their electricity that is now made 
with natural gas. So as natural gas prices escalate, theirs escalate.
  When we have these prices, I have neighbors who don't know how 
they're going to heat their home this year. I have churches in my 
district who probably won't use their sanctuaries, seniors who are 
living on limited budgets. I know a gentleman, a neighbor, this week--
he's 75 years old. Four years ago, he sold his pellet stove because he 
was 71 and decided he was getting too old to carry 40-pound pellet bags 
into the basement. He had it in his basement and ran heat up through 
his registers. And he took it out. And with the current energy prices, 
he bought another pellet stove. He has to cut another hole through the 
cement wall that he had cemented and put another pellet stove in 
because he can't afford fuel.
  I have neighbors and friends who kept their house at 55 last year. 
And this year energy prices are double if they're heating with home 
heating oil. They're about 75 percent higher with propane, and they're 
going to be somewhere between 50 and 75 to 100 percent higher in 
natural gas when those prices hit the market.
  I know Americans who are driving 30 and 40 and 50 miles to work. I 
have a neighbor lady who makes $11 an hour. She has two children. She 
travels 36 miles to work. Her balanced billing bill is $175 a month, 
and she has no money in her budget for a 60 percent increase in natural 
gas prices that are going to hit her for this winter.
  People all over America are scared. Should we open the reserve? Well, 
I guess if we do, we sort of say we didn't need a reserve because the 
reserve is only several months' supply in case there's a tragedy in the 
world market, there is a major problem in one of the big sending 
countries. Let's just say, God forbid, that terrorists would blow up 
the sending platforms where we load our tankers in Saudi Arabia, we 
would have $250 oil quickly.
  The petroleum reserve is in case of war, is in case of tragedy 
somewhere in the country, some tragic incident that cuts off our 
supply. Because today, we get one-third of our oil from home, we buy 
one-third of it from our friends like Canada and Mexico and other 
friendly countries, and we buy one-third of it from the Middle East. 
The one-third in the Middle East, as we've heard earlier, is fragile. 
We don't know that will always be available. Should we use the reserve? 
I don't personally think we should. I think we should have kept filling 
it because 70,000 barrels a day is a drop in a bucket. It did nothing 
for prices, will do nothing for prices.
  So use the reserve and say July, August, and September it will be all 
gone. And what do we do in October, November, December if we have 
tragedy or what are we going to do then? That's not a solution.
  It amazes me, because I'm not giving high grades on energy to many 
people around here. It's my view that 3 Presidents and 14 Congresses in 
succession have not gotten good marks on energy, have not had a bona 
fide energy plan. And you say, Why is it? Well, it's kind of 
understandable. Up until 7 or 8 years ago, except for a spike in the 
1970s and 1980s and 1990s for a year or two at a time, we had $2 gas 
and $10 oil. And the argument was--and I remember debating it at the 
State--should we use theirs or should we use ours. I always thought we 
should produce ours. It creates jobs here. It's part of our economy. 
There's no better jobs than oil- patch jobs and all the related jobs, 
the refineries and the pipelines and all of that whole system.
  You can go down in downtown Washington and buy gasoline made in 
Russia, and the only person making money off of it is the guy selling 
it. It was refined in Russia. We can buy that in Washington, D.C. They 
only chain the stations here in the east coast.
  So I just find it, I guess, inconceivable that we don't--we can't 
figure this thing out that when we're one-third dependent--we're two-
thirds dependent--but one-third dependent on enemies or people who 
aren't our friends, and people who--or they're not stable governments. 
And when they say not to drill here, every day we don't drill here we 
become more dependent.
  Since I've been in Congress, we've averaged 2 percent a year. This 
year we will increase another 2 percent. We're at two-thirds now 
dependent on foreign countries.
  And what happened was--I don't give the Bush administration high 
marks. In fact, looking at, you know, they actually get higher marks 
than many. They had the hydrogen car initiative 2 or 3 years ago. They 
pumped a lot of money into hydrogen cars. But do we have a hydrogen 
car? No. Do we hope to some day? Yes. But that's futuristic. That's a 
good thing.
  Last year they had the mandate, they urged us to increase the mandate 
on biofuels to 36.5 billion by 2030, switching from corn after 15 
billion gallons to cellulosic ethanol. Now, I get a little nervous when 
you mandate cellulosic ethanol when we still don't have the design of a 
plant to make it. Now, we're hoping and praying, and the thought is 
making it out of wood waste and making it out of garbage and out of 
sweet grasses like switchgrass. That looks hopeful as a better way to 
make ethanol. Because we do know that corn prices have edged up a 
little from $2 a bushel to I think it hit a high of $7.70 last week. 
It's down to maybe $7.40 this week.
  But the first Bush administration locked up the Outer Continental 
Shelf. We're the only country in the world to do that. Canada drills 
right up here. And they drill right up here within sight of our 
coastline. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, 
every country, all of South America, everybody produces offshore. In 
fact, Brazil, the country everybody gives high marks for, and they gave 
the credit for ethanol. Ethanol is 15 percent of it. But they went out 
and opened up their continental shelf and just recently in deep water 
found a huge reserve of oil, and now we're going to be an exporter of 
oil.
  Now, what we don't know about America is when we did seismographic on 
our shores 30-some years ago, since then for the last 28 years law has 
prohibited us from even measuring out there to see what's out there. 
That's how stupid I say we are. We don't even want to go out and look. 
We could have somewhere out here, or somewhere out here, the largest 
oil and gas reserve because all over the world, offshore is tremendous 
energy production.
  In fact, everybody tells me, everybody that knows the business and 
who have regulated the business, not necessarily producers, that it is 
the least environmental hazard. When you're out in the ocean and you 
drill a hole in the ground, I mean, one little storm stirs up more than 
a drilling bit going down into the ocean floor. And we've not had a 
major spill since Santa Barbara in 1969. We have the technology today. 
And the cost offshore is big.
  But here offshore when we did the seismic measurements 30-some years 
ago. We only did it in water less than 4,000 feet. Now, today we can 
drill in 2-mile deep water so we've never even used--and the seismic of 
today would be like comparing an old seismic 30 years ago. It would be 
like a black and white TV to the current thin-screen TVs like we have 
today. That would be the difference. I mean, the new seismic tells you 
what's there. Tells you a lot.
  But we're not there. We just drill in a small part of the gulf. 
That's the other thing. And it amazes me when we listen to these talks 
about we got 64 or 84 million acres. Until they drill that we're not 
going to let them. Well, you know, four out of five deep water wells 
are dry. It costs $900 million. I'm going to say that again: $900 
million to build a deep water platform. It costs $1 million a day to 
operate it, and it's four out of five wells you will drill.

[[Page 14530]]

  Now, I'm not able to personally assess. I'm meeting with some people 
tomorrow in two different groups to learn more about the potential of 
those 64 or 84--I keep hearing different figures--million acres that 
they're talking about. But I do know that these are great and the rest 
of the gulf here are great areas, and we are saying can't drill there.
  Now, it seems to me drilling for oil's not a sure thing. Four out of 
five deep? No. You don't get anything. Three out of four shallow? No. 
You don't get anything. So you explore, and when you find three or four 
good wells, now you know you've hit a pool and you will go in and try 
to figure where it's at and maximize it.
  We know in much of the gulf we've been drilling for so long that the 
gulf is actually depleting. Although we're drilling twice as many wells 
there as we used to, we're getting less energy because we're in old, 
tired fields. We're drilling between wells. We're drilling deeper where 
it's more costly, and it's still exploring, trying to find more gas and 
oil.
  Now, I guess the part that really confounds me is the hope we have 
for renewables. And you know, I hope for the day in my lifetime that we 
can run our country on renewables. But here is the chart. From the 
middle of this chart towards me is history. This is the Energy 
Department's figures. From the middle of my chart to my left is their 
projection of the future. Of course, oil's the Big Kahuna. Natural gas 
and coal are the other big ones.
  Now, they show coal increasing. I disagree with that because of the 
carbon issue and because 70 coal plants in the last 8 or 9 months have 
been turned down by State agencies, and they will all become gas 
plants. And the reason we have such high gas prices in our country 
today is that 12 years ago we took away the moratorium for using 
natural gas to make electricity. Historically, Mr. Speaker, we only 
made electricity out of natural gas in a peak power plant that ran in 
the morning and the evening when we consumed huge amounts of 
electricity when we're heating water at home and cooking and doing the 
washing and so forth in the morning and evening, and all of the plants 
that were running to. So that was a maximum load of electricity.
  So 12 years ago we took that moratorium off, and now 24 percent of 
our electricity is made with natural gas. From 7. That's a huge 
increase, and we didn't open up supply.
  Now, just several years ago natural gas was $2 a thousand. The last 
few months it's been running at $1,300 to $1,350 a thousand. Those are 
figures that will drive most industries left out of this country 
because natural gas is not a world price. It's a country-by-country 
price. When we pay $130, $140, or $150 for oil, it's very painful; but 
it's painful for our competitors. It's painful to our neighbors.
  But on natural gas, we've been paying the highest prices in the 
world, and we have competing countries who are right in South America. 
Trinidad has $1.60 gas. Now, if you're going to make glass or you're 
going to make bricks, you're going to make petrochemicals, you're going 
to make fertilizers which consume enormous amounts of gas.
  Just to show you. Dow Chemical in 2002 paid $8 billion a year for 
natural gas. Today, Dow Chemical pays $8 billion a quarter for natural 
gas. And to show you the migration of jobs out of this country, Dow 
Chemical in the year 2000 had 64 percent of their production on shore 
in America. Today they have 34 percent. Why? They can't afford to be 
here. Just like my neighbors can't afford to heat their homes and drive 
their cars in rural areas. Companies and small businesses who heat 
treat things who bend metal and twist metal and have to heat it with 
natural gas, they can't afford to function competitively in this 
country if they're competing with products made in another country that 
can buy gas for a fraction of the cost.

                              {time}  2230

  Now, let's look at where we're putting all our faith. I want wind and 
solar to be huge but it's not.
  Nuclear, we did in the 2005 Act streamline the nuclear process. We 
have thirty-some permits applied for. I think we have 33 about ready to 
be given. We need 35 to 40 new plants built for nuclear to keep nuclear 
at 20 percent of the grid, just maintain, 20 percent, not gain.
  Hydro continues to lose ground--that's the brown line here--because 
we're not building dams. We aren't allowed to build dams. That's the 
cleanest energy we could have.
  The top line is the renewables. Now, over on my left, I'm going to 
have a big chart tomorrow, but the red is biomass, woody biomass. Now, 
woody biomass has grown almost a percent in the last 4 years. That's 
pellet stoves. Over 1 million Americans this year will heat their home 
with a pellet stove. That's wood waste factories burning boilers with 
wood waste, heating their factories with wood waste. And it's power 
plants topping their coal loads with some wood waste to meet air 
standards there near the edge. So woody biomass, and I don't think 
there's been any initiatives, any tax credits. That's just happened.
  Then we have hydro, and it's not gone. It's going to stay there. The 
yellow line is geothermal, and there's all kind of incentives. They get 
the tax credits, but as we grow our economy, it just remains a small 
portion.
  Then we have the blue line, which is wind, which has bubbled 
somewhat. But if we double wind and solar in the next 5 years we will 
be less than 1 percent of our energy portfolio. Now, I hope we can, and 
I hope we can double it again the next 5 years, but we'd still be less 
than 2 percent of our energy portfolio, maybe even less than that 
because our energy needs will grow.
  Now, the problem that's changed in the world, and a lot of people 
don't realize it, is the growth of use of energy in the world. It's not 
us. We're flat on energy use. In fact, we're decreasing because of 
price.
  China is increasing 15 to 20 percent a year. India's increasing at a 
huge rate. You have South America developing. You have Malaysia 
developing. You have millions and millions of people in this world who 
are buying their first car and owning their first home, and when they 
buy their first car and own their first home, they're in the energy use 
business.
  So, no matter what we do, we can't control prices by conserving. I'm 
for conservation. In fact, we need to figure out how to help Americans 
to use energy more wisely and let them write it off on their income 
taxes in a 3- or 4-year period. We need to do that, whether it's more 
efficient heating, whether it's better windows, better doors, whether 
it's more efficient appliances, yes, we need to help them out, because, 
really, I hate to say it, but the only thing Americans have today that 
they can do is use less energy. There is nothing now because we are not 
going to drill. We're not going to drill.
  I have a bill to open up the Outer Continental Shelf. I had it 
poised. I offered it in the committee, in Interior, in the 
subcommittee, and it's the first time that it's been treated 
partisanly. We had six Republican votes were ``yes'' and nine Democrats 
votes ``no.'' Now, I'm not going to blame those Members. They had 
tremendous Speaker power applied to them. There were Members who voted 
against energy who have never voted against energy in this Congress in 
that sitting.
  A week or two later, we were going to offer our amendment again in 
the full committee, where you have about 75 or 80 Members. And I think 
somebody in the Speaker's office took a count, and when they didn't 
have the votes to beat my amendment, we didn't do the Interior bill. 
And here we are today, weeks later, we are still not doing the Interior 
bill. Why? Because Congressman Peterson has an amendment that would 
open up the Outer Continental Shelf that would open up drilling 50 
miles out, from 50 to 200.
  Like I say, I don't pass out any gold awards around this place in the 
last three decades on energy leadership, and I mean that sincerely. We 
haven't had a President. President Clinton didn't lead on energy. He 
vetoed the ANWR bill. And I personally think President Bush tried hard 
to do ANWR. I voted for ANWR, but if he would have put the

[[Page 14531]]

same effort on offshore, we would have probably accomplished it, but he 
didn't. In fact, he has never supported offshore until a news 
conference two weeks ago. But he also--and I'm going to say this 
critically--there's a Presidential moratoria and there's a legislative 
moratoria, and he said, if Congress will lift their moratorium, I will 
lift mine.
  Mr. President, I was disappointed that you didn't lead. I was 
disappointed that you didn't lift your moratorium. Now, your father put 
it on. It was not supposed to be long-term. It was supposed to be 5 
years until they could assess what parts of our coastline might need to 
be protected. President Clinton came in, had no energy initiative. He 
extended it to 2002, and then come Bush II, and because he had a 
brother in Florida and offshore drilling was an issue, he didn't touch 
it.
  In fact, last year we passed a major bill here in the House to open 
up offshore. The Senate wouldn't deal with it. They passed a small bill 
down here in the gulf that was tracked 181 that had been on the 5-year 
plan in the Clinton administration that had not been leased, was taken 
out of the 5-year plan because of its proximity to Florida by the Bush 
administration, and was legislated back into the 5-year plan by the 
Senate, and I had to lead the fight here to get that accomplished in 
the House. They wouldn't conference with us on our bill so we could 
merge the two bills, but I led the fight here to make sure that we got 
that passed. That lease sold for I think $3.6 billion and is on its 
way, and it was done rather quickly.
  Now, there are those who say we can't do anything in 10 to 20 years 
just don't know what they're talking about. If we work close to the 
areas in the gulf first--and we will--that have been leased, there's 
infrastructure. And if we would expedite the permit process 
legislatively like we did with track 21, and force the hand of the 
bureaucracy not to sit on this and to get it done, we could have oil 
and gas production in several years.
  We still have 27 platforms active in the western coast that were 
exempted by the moratorium. They're still functioning. In fact, the 
governor of California uses some of them to drill in his 3-mile zone, 
when he's telling us not to drill nationally. Yes, Arnold 
Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, issues permits, and 
California approves them or his administration does, to drill off the 
shore of California every year, drilling in the 3-mile zone. Now, they 
drill part of them from onshore with a slant drill. They go on our 
Federal platforms in Federal Waters and slant drill into the 3-mile 
area to produce oil.
  I'm sorry, but California and Florida are huge users of energy and 
both of them have thwarted us. I've got to give credit to the Florida 
delegation. They have come around. Many of the Florida delegation 
realize--and the Florida citizens picked it up first--they're now 
supporting offshore production of energy. Offshore production of energy 
is not a threat to our coastlines. It's the best reserves we have. It's 
close to where the people are. We have pipelines and refineries there. 
It's what really works.
  When you produce oil in some parts of the Midwest it's hard to get it 
to market. I'm not saying we shouldn't produce it, but when you produce 
it on your shorelines where your population centers are, it's the best 
place.
  I find this Congress almost unbelievable that we use excuses like 
there's 68 million acres that are leased and are not producing. Well, 
if you punch 10 holes in the ground and they're all dry holes, you stop 
spending your money.
  I know also there's probably hundreds of cases in the gulf where 
there's lawsuits preventing them from drilling a hole in the ground. 
Citizen lawsuits, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, all these organizations 
continually sue to stop the production of energy.
  Yes, the problem we've had, we've had three Presidents in a row and 
14 Congresses in a row, and all these 10, 11 environmental groups that 
said we must stop using fossil fuels. We must stop using these, and 
we're going to replace them with these. They're going to replace these 
with this.
  I wish we could, but until we can, we better produce and we need to 
be doing coal-to-liquids and coal-to-gas. We need to be continuing to 
push hydrogen. We need to do all of the above.
  And I want to tell you something, it's my opinion, my humble opinion, 
that if we drill offshore and we drill more in the Midwest and we do 
coal-to-liquids and coal-to-gas--they all take time--this country is 
going to be in an energy crunch for a number of years, and there's 
going to be pain felt in this country. We're going to lose middle-class 
jobs. We're going to lose industries out of this country because they 
can't afford to be here, no matter what we do, because we've waited too 
long.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. 
I'm standing here transfixed. Much of this argument I have heard, but I 
seldom hear it put together in such a way, such a deliberative way that 
flows. And when you start talking about the future and what it looks 
like and the pain that we're going to feel because we waited too long, 
that's a good message for this Congress to hear.
  And from my own perspective, I'd like to say this. Some of us are 
going to be able to coast along through and shift into retirement and 
be able to be just fine for the rest of our expected lifespan. That's 
not the case for millions and millions of Americans who are at the 
earlier stages of their life that have yet to step forward and get an 
education, that have yet to join up and raise a family.
  And I'm thinking about my children, my grandchildren. I'm thinking 
about a little fellow named Joseph Dean Anderson that was born the day 
after the 4th of July that I'll be watching very closely as he grows up 
and how we shape the future for him, and the decisions that we make in 
this Congress and the debates that we're going to have a lot harder 
time winning because there's an agenda out here that we can't quite get 
our hands on.
  And I'm always trying to figure out how can I bring some more logic 
to win this debate. I came into this political arena about, oh, I don't 
know, 12, 13 years ago, believing that if I'm right on principle, all I 
have to do is articulate that principle and that will bring those folks 
over to my side and we'll get the votes together. That was a naive 
thing to believe that somehow logic and principle was going to carry 
the day. It doesn't carry the day because people migrate towards 
political power.
  So if you have a green coalition that's putting money into campaigns 
and if you have an agenda that's being driven across the Web pages, 
they say we'll support you and we'll come in and we'll march the 
streets and hang door hangers on the doorknobs and we'll make sure that 
you get reelected, all you have to do is if we label it green, just sit 
up and vote our way. That suspends logic. It suspends the logic. The 
logic that John Peterson has delivered out here tonight, the logic I 
think I've added to, is suspended is because this agenda is an agenda 
that goes beyond our rational understanding.
  Now, I have been telling my constituents that Nancy Pelosi and the 
people that follow her, the people who would have voted for energy and 
now vote for green in the committee, in the end they really don't want 
cheaper gas. They want more expensive energy in America. That's what 
they want. That's what the agenda is, and now here is how I explain it.
  First, for me, for those of us who approach this thing with the best 
interest of Americans in mind say this. If we can do this, this is the 
energy pie chart. It's taken me a little time to put this together, but 
what it represents is the inside circle the total BTUs produced in the 
United States of America. That's 72 quad-trillion BTUs. And then the 
outside circle is all the energy that's consumed in America. That's 
101.4 quad-trillion BTUs of energy. Now, quad-trillion doesn't mean a 
lot to me or anybody else for that matter, but it's this.
  Seventy-two percent of the energy we consume in America is produced 
in America. The difference, that 28, 29 percent, is what we have to 
import from outside the United States, and in these pie charts that are 
here are a

[[Page 14532]]

number of these components that Mr. Peterson talked about so much.
  Here's coal in the orange. That's the coal that we consume on the 
outside; the coal we produced is on the inside.

                              {time}  2245

  They don't quite match up because the size of our circles are 
different.
  Then you can go down here, but look at the outside circle, the 
natural gas. Our overall consumption is 23.3 percent of our energy 
consumption is natural gas. Nuclear is up here; 8.29 percent of our 
energy consumption is nuclear. That needs to get bigger.
  You get around to these parts that we've heard about, the biodiesel, 
wind, geothermal, how hydroelectric is shrinking. Here's your ethanol. 
And I've pushed hard for ethanol. And we've got solar power is a small 
little piece of this thing; bigger than what you might think in 
comparison to ethanol.
  As you get around here, here's motor gasoline. That piece is the 
piece of this overall consumption pie that's getting smaller in 
proportion, but it is not shrinking in its overall consumption.
  The solution for the United States of America is to add one piece to 
this pie; that's called energy conservation. John Peterson spoke to 
that as well. Then we need to take every single piece of this pie and 
we need to expand it. We need to produce more gas, more diesel fuel, 
more coal, more hydroelectric. And that's the hardest thing to do. And 
it is the cleanest and it is renewable. Wind is renewable, and we'll 
produce more of it, but it's not a big enough piece.
  More natural gas. That is troublesome to me in particular, 
representing farm country where 90 percent of the feedstock that goes 
into producing nitrogen fertilizer is natural gas. And American 
companies that were producing fertilizer in the United States have 
moved to places like Trinidad because of the lower gas prices and had 
to set up their operations there. They've been driven offshore. We've 
essentially lost the fertilizer industry in America.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I would yield
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. That's one of the things I didn't 
mention is I think nitrogen fertilizer is 70 percent natural gas. 
Petrochemical, 55 percent natural gas, as an ingredient. Polymers and 
plastics, 45 to 50 percent natural gas. We have steel. We all know the 
manufacturing of steel and aluminum use huge amounts of natural gas.
  My prediction is if we don't open up natural gas and get the price 
down, we'll make our bricks--bulk commodities like bricks that are 
easily made in our own neighborhoods from clay somewhere in a mountain 
nearby, those will be made in Trinidad, where gas is $1.60. Glass for 
our home windows will be made in Trinidad. In fact, car windows are 
coming in from overseas right now because of natural gas prices.
  Natural gas is the mother's milk of the manufacturing process in this 
country. And if we don't fix the natural gas problem, we're not going 
to have a manufacturing base of anything. We will import everything 
that's manufactured. And at the same time, Americans, this winter and 
the winters ahead, are just plain going to struggle to drive their cars 
and heat their homes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, and thanking the gentleman for 
coming to the floor and delivering this good, composite message on 
energy, the natural gas that we know of in this country is at least 406 
trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That's our reserves. We saw the map 
on how to go drill them.
  I would point out that there was a referendum that went up on the 
ballot the third day of June in Union County, South Dakota, and the 
question was, are you for or against building a new refinery, a $10 
billion investment in southeastern South Dakota? That referendum passed 
by 59-41 percent. We think we're going to get a refinery built that 
will receive that heavy crude oil coming out of the tar sands in 
Alberta. It's not certain that we can get through the regulations. We 
think we'll get one built anyway.
  And I want to add that the ANWR piece--we didn't talk about ANWR very 
much, I've gone up there and looked at that--the ANWR component of this 
is about a million barrels a day. It's identical in the topography to 
the North Slope. We drilled the North Slope starting in 1972 and we had 
oil pumping out of there in 1975. It doesn't take 10 or 20 years, as 
the gentleman said, to get this fuel down there. We can do it in months 
on the North Slope of Alaska, and we can change the market prices if we 
open up the situation to do that.
  Now, in just concluding this, grow the size of the energy pie, add a 
piece for conservation, produce more Btus in all ways that we can, 
dramatically expand nuclear. If the French can produce 78 percent of 
their electricity with nuclear, we can dramatically increase that. And 
nuclear should be coming online rather than natural gas to generate 
electricity because the mother's milk of manufacturing, the mother's 
milk of our economy is natural gas.
  We're having difficulty breaking down the barriers of the people that 
believe we ought to have more expensive energy in this country instead 
of less. And I'm here to make the point that the reason that they 
support more costly energy and give lip service to windfall profits 
taxes and higher regulation and trying to squeeze down the futures and 
the commodities market, the reason they denied a global demand 
increase--which for the Chinese this year, their gas imports have 
increased 2,000 percent so far this year--they deny that because they 
want to see higher energy prices, not lower, because they know higher 
energy prices shuts down the mother's milk of our manufacturing 
industry in this country, it slows the economy down, it forces 
Americans to park their car and ride their bicycle. And now, that 
serves the myopic belief that the goddess of mother nature is more 
important than the God that created this Earth, and that somehow we can 
serve her by shutting off the consumption of energy, cutting down on 
greenhouse gases, and answering to this question of controlling our 
climate here in the United States of America. Meanwhile, while China 
and India and the rest of the developing nations are building coal fire 
plants faster than we can shut them down here in the United States, we 
can't solve this problem, if it exists, by shutting off the energy and 
shutting down the world's economy that's here in the United States, 
this 25 percent that we produce.
  That's what's wrong. They want a higher energy price, they want a 
slower economy. They think somehow that can be paid for by the rich in 
America. John Peterson and Steve King know it can't be.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Could I ask you a question?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. To the gentleman from Iowa, do you know 
of any energy bills scheduled for this week?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I do not.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Do you know of any energy bills 
scheduled for next week and the week after, before we go on the August 
recess?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I believe we will be going home for the August 
recess having done nothing with energy.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. I would have to think, if I was a 
citizen back home knowing just a fraction of what I know now, I would 
be one angry citizen. Because this Congress, like the 14 Congresses in 
succession, have done little to formulate an energy policy for America 
and produce available, affordable energy. And it's doable, it's 
something we can do.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I would ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania if he 
would support a policy like this energy pie chart that I've advocated.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Oh, absolutely.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. More energy of all kinds. Supply and demand does 
affect the marketplace. If we put more Btus on the market, we will have 
lower price energy of all kinds. And we need to prioritize the 
utilization of that energy, bring the nuclear in to replace

[[Page 14533]]

the gas, let the gas drive our economy, the natural gas drive our 
economy. And we can do this and it will be painful. John Peterson is 
exactly right.
  I yield.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. We heat 63 million homes, we heat five 
million small businesses, and a quarter of a million industrial 
companies use natural gas in great numbers, and they're all going to 
get hammered this year. Our hospitals and our schools are going to pay 
twice as much as last year.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Commonsense solutions delivered here on this floor, 
Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate your attention to all of this. And I 
imagine we have swayed you considerably as you paid attention to the 
arguments of the gentleman from Pennsylvania and myself.

                          ____________________