[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14921-14923]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I know you care a lot about the way we 
move toward addressing our energy crisis, and I think the American 
people are very wise about this. I think they want to see action, but 
they do not want to see phony solutions to a real problem.
  I remember when the idea came up for a gas tax holiday and it was put 
forward by Senator McCain and others, it took a few days for people to 
understand that our gas tax funds our highway program and we were not 
about to put our highway program at risk because that program is 
essential to building the infrastructure of our Nation. That program is 
essential for hiring millions of workers. The American people are wise. 
They want to see solutions that are real and that work.
  That is why I believe so strongly that as we shine the light of truth 
on this idea to undo a moratorium we have had on magnificent areas of 
our coastline, as people shine the light of truth on that, they will 
understand that this is another phony solution. It doesn't do a thing 
to lower gas prices. Just as the gas tax holiday put the highway trust 
fund at risk, this idea puts our national coastal economy at risk, 
which, as my friend knows, is a $70 billion economy with millions of 
jobs, many of them in his State of New Jersey and my State of 
California. It makes no sense to tell the American people that by 
undoing this very important protection for our coastline, that is going 
to result in lower prices at the pump. It simply is not going to 
happen.
  There are many things we can do. I am going to outline some of those 
things for the consideration of colleagues, but I think the important 
thing for us to note as we reach this election year is that we are 
going to hear a lot of silly stuff. We are going to see a lot of 
proposals to try to take the focus off why we are where we are.
  Two oil men in the White House for 8 years equals $4 per gallon for 
gasoline. That is 8 years divided by two oil men in the White House 
equals $4 per gallon of gasoline.
  As my colleagues were coming up with this idea on how to show us 
where we are--and Senator Whitehouse was one of those--I said to him: 
We better be careful, because in California we are getting to $5 a 
gallon gasoline and this math will not work.
  But I am happy we did this, because one of the hallmarks of being a 
mature adult is taking responsibility. And this administration does not 
want to take responsibility for anything; not for the housing crisis, 
not for the war in Iraq, not for the deficit, the debt, not for the 
stock market, not for anything, and certainly not for a 300-percent 
increase in gas prices that has occurred while we have had two oil men 
in the White House.
  The oil companies have gotten everything they have wanted: record-
breaking profits, CEOs taking tens of millions of dollars home in their 
pockets. And guess what the President's solution is: Give the oil 
companies more of what they want. Give them access to beautiful land, 
land in the OCS, the Outer Continental Shelf, that was set aside first 
by President George Bush, G.W.'s Dad. He did not listen to him on Iraq 
and he is not listening to him on this either, and then carried forward 
by President Clinton.
  Now, here is the point: Do we need to drill? Do we need to have 
domestic drilling? No problem. I agree with that. I agree with that. So 
go to the places where it makes sense. Do not go to the places where 
you are going to threaten a thriving coastal economy.
  That leads me to the next chart which is: Use it or lose it. What do 
I mean? The oil companies have available to them 68 million acres they 
have leases on for drilling. Have they drilled there? No, not really. 
They have not. So I would say, rhetorically, why would the oil 
companies, in a time of these prices, not go and drill in these acres 
where they have all of this oil?
  Answer--it is easy to answer your own question. Answer: They love the 
fact that there is a shortage of supply. I have seen in my own State 
where they tried to shut down a refinery and made up a whole story that 
it was losing money, that there were no buyers. That was baloney. And 
now why do you think they want more access to these leases? It is 
because they can put it on their balance sheet and their stocks can go 
up and their CEOs can make more money. Even the Bush administration 
stated very clearly there would be no impact on gas prices if you gave 
them access to more OCS. So let's go through this again. There are 68 
million acres available for the oil companies right now this minute. 
And they want more, more, more, so they can put it on their balance 
sheets, get their stocks to go up higher, get their CEOs to earn more 
money. They are not going to drill. It would be foolhardy to believe 
this President when it comes to this issue. He said, and I am quoting 
him almost verbatim--if I do a disservice I am sure I will hear about 
it because I listened to him say it. He said: There is only one thing 
standing in the way of lower gas prices, and that is the Congress.
  I thought: Well, that is interesting. What does he want us to do? 
Then he said he wants us to reverse our policy of preserving the 
pristine areas of our coastline. By the way, 80 percent of our 
coastline, 80 percent of the resource, is already available for 
drilling, so this represents 20 percent, so it is not an answer, 
anyway. His own people tell him it is not, but he is so desperate to 
detract the flak away from himself and his oil partner, Dick Cheney, 
that he comes up with this idea.
  I am here on the floor tonight because I am trying to tell the 
American people the God's honest truth. Here is what you are going to 
hear. You are going to hear: There were no problems with oil spills 
after Katrina. My friend from New Jersey, Senator Menendez, is in the 
chair. I heard him give a little speech about this. He has documented 
tens of thousands of gallons of spills after Katrina. We have spills in 
California all the time. We have a lot of offshore oil drilling in our 
State.
  But we know we do not want it expanded, because we count on the 
quarter million jobs we have in our State in the tourist industry and 
the fishing industry and the recreation industry. So I say to my 
friend: What can we do then to push for lower gas prices? There is a 
whole host of things we can do. I want to say for the 68 million acres 
available for drilling now: Use it or lose it, oil companies.
  There is another 22 million acres in the naval reserve that is off of 
Alaska. They have only bid for a few million acres there, so they can 
do that. But do not come into our coasts. They are a gift from God. It 
is a moral responsibility to protect it, and it is an economic 
responsibility to protect it, because once you start the drilling, it 
changes the whole nature of that coast. I know that because I have got 
part of the coastline that allows drilling and part that does not, and 
the difference is immeasurable in terms of the activities that go on, 
in terms of the wildlife, in terms of the scenic value, the beauty, and 
the pristine feeling you have.

       So what can we do? First, tell the oil companies: Drill 
     where you have got leases. Oh, and the other thing you hear, 
     in addition that there were no problems after Katrina, you 
     will hear other stories about how we do not know if there is 
     any oil in those acres. Excuse me, we do, because in the 2005 
     Energy bill we ordered an inventory to be taken. That 
     inventory was started and we are getting the information. We 
     know there is six times the amount of oil here than in ANWR, 
     the Alaska preserve. So use it or lose it. That is one.

  I did a whole study in my office about what it would mean to our 
imports of foreign oil if we could suddenly have every car on the road 
get in the high 30s, toward 40 miles per gallon fuel economy. I drive a 
hybrid. It is very good. One of my hybrid cars, the newest one, gets 
over 50. So I wanted to know if we all suddenly shifted--we know it is 
not going to happen, but it was an exercise. If we were able to get 39, 
40 miles per gallon, that would save every single bit of import of oil 
from the Persian Gulf. Can you imagine?
  So why are we sitting around being so dour about this? The technology 
is

[[Page 14922]]

already there. We know we can do even better. If we can get that fuel 
efficiency up to 39, up to 40, we will no longer have to import nearly 
as much foreign oil. That is a very exciting point. So what can we do 
to lower gas prices and have the impact not be felt on our pocketbook? 
One way is to lessen the demand. Another way, because that does not 
always work, as my friend knows, if you get cars that do better so 
that, yes, you may be paying more at the end of the day but you need 
less to keep your car running, I would like to see some strong 
incentives for buying a hybrid car. Those incentives are gone now. We 
limited them to a certain number of cars. I would like to see that come 
down here, and we do not need to give people who earn $200,000 or 
$300,000 a year those benefits, but I would like to give people who 
earn $30,000, $40,000 even up to $100,000, $150,000, a break when they 
buy a hybrid vehicle, an electric vehicle, because families do save up 
and do make these decisions. And we should incentivize them for 
purchasing such an automobile.
  What else can we do? We have a Strategic Petroleum Reserve. One of 
the reasons it is set aside is so we can avoid the shock for the 
economy of high gas prices. Now is the time. I agree with Speaker 
Pelosi, who has put this out as an idea, to release some of the oil 
from the SPR. It is 97 percent full. Even if you kept it at 90 percent 
full, it is the highest it has been in history. That would have a 
salutary impact by allowing that supply to get right into the market.
  And, by the way, if we did it in a swap, and it is complicated here, 
there are ways we could actually make money on such a plan. So that is 
another way.
  Incentives for conservation, use it or lose it, while we protect our 
coasts. I am saying to you there are many ways to move.
  Speculation. Some experts have said speculation is anywhere from 25 
percent of the problem to 50 percent. I do not know where it comes out. 
But I can tell you this: We ought to go after the speculators. I talked 
to my friend Maria Cantwell from Washington. She and I and Senators 
Feinstein and Murray were so burned on the Enron scandal. Now we have 
got traders doing the same thing. And we know there are many people 
playing in the futures market who are unregulated. They go abroad.
  So I am hopeful, and Senator Reid said he is working on this, he will 
be able to bring down to this floor a bipartisan measure that goes 
after the speculators. We can do these things. There are many other 
things we can do.
  Let me tell you, the bottom line in the long run is global warming 
legislation, which I know my friend was such a strong supporter of. The 
fact is, we have 54 Senators who said: Yes, let's go forward on this. 
But we did not have 60, so we were cut short.
  The fact is, our next President is going to take this on, and when he 
does and we work with him, we will unleash the genius of America. Once 
there is a price on carbon that will probably be set in the private 
market through a cap-and-trade system, the investments that will be 
made in cellulosic fuels, in biofuels, all of these things that we 
need, they are going to happen.
  I have been told by Silicon Valley that they are going to spend more, 
more in finding alternative energy that is clean, that does not have a 
carbon footprint, than they did in the biotech revolution and in the 
high-tech revolution. That is pretty remarkable.
  What we need to do in the long term is to stand up together, fight 
global warming, save the planet, have a transition fund to help our 
consumers get through the early years. We know from our modeling that 
by the time we get to the outyears, people will be saving money because 
we will have the alternatives.
  So when it comes to energy, efficiency is the name of the game too. 
You know, if you have a leaky house, meaning that if you do not have 
double-paned windows, you double-pane them, the difference in your bill 
is overwhelming. If you are putting in a new air conditioner, and you 
have to do it, if you go to the high efficiency end, your bills will go 
down by two-thirds. That is a fact. We cannot drill our way out of 
this. Anyone who tells you we can is not telling the truth.
  Senator Biden was saying to me, suppose you opened up every single 
drop of oil to drilling. It is a tiny percent of the energy we need. 
Why on Earth would we tell people, therefore, if you just open the 
coastline, your gas price will go down? That is what the President is 
saying. It is not true. His own energy people tell him it is not true. 
It will not have an impact on gas prices. Why don't we do something 
that will? I think I talked about some of those ideas.
  I will close where I started, which is to the oil companies and to 
this President: Let the oil companies start drilling in the acreage 
they have access to before we start giving away the crown jewels of our 
country. We are just not going to do it.
  I know the Senator from New Jersey very well. He and I are close 
friends. We worked hard on coastal protection. We will use every tool 
at our disposal to make sure that an energy policy we embrace is real, 
is not phony, does not give away more gifts to the oil companies and 
these CEOs who are making hundreds of millions of dollars in 1 year. We 
are not going to allow it. It is not going to happen. It shouldn't 
happen. What should happen is a balanced approach where we have 
drilling where it makes sense, where it doesn't endanger our precious 
coastline.
  By the way, to think of the millions of dollars we have put into 
sanctuaries to protect wildlife and to hear our President say what he 
said was, to me, extraordinary. I haven't had a note in front of me 
through this speech because, honestly, I wasn't going to speak about 
this formally. But I couldn't resist the opportunity to get into the 
Record my dismay at having a President who is an oilman, who has 
presided over the biggest runup in gas prices we have ever seen. He has 
not ordered one investigation. He hasn't used any of the tools at the 
FTC, at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, not one thing to say 
to the oil companies: Shape up.
  We have proven in California that they are trying to control the 
supply. All he can do to deflect attention away from 8 years divided by 
two oilmen in the White House equals $4 per gallon of gasoline, all he 
can do now is to say: Congress, it is all your fault. It won't work. 
The American people are too smart.
  Where is the President on the renewable energy tax credits we have 
tried and our Republican friends stopped us every single time? There is 
so much genius out there. We have the technologies, the solar, the 
wind, the geothermal. In California, we have 400 new solar companies 
because we are taking the lead on global warming. Thank God, we do 
because as the housing market is doing very badly in California and 
people are laid off of construction, they are going over to work 
putting solar panels on, building windmills. Thank goodness. That is 
what we could be doing all over this great Nation if we had a leader in 
the White House and enough of us here to overcome the status quo, the 
sucking up to the oil companies. I hate to be crude about it, but I 
have to say that is what it is like. We don't have an energy policy 
that works for anybody but the oil companies. It is quite obvious.
  I hope the American people watch this debate. I hope they embrace the 
values we have had for so long, since George Bush's dad was in the 
White House, when we said there is a value to our unspoiled coast and 
there is not enough oil there to make a difference overall, so why 
should we jeopardize the many jobs that come from this unspoiled coast 
by drilling there when there are so many other places to drill and so 
many other ways we can work on this problem?
  My colleague has been a leader on this issue. In many ways, he has 
been inspirational to many of us. I hope he has a chance to take the 
floor of the Senate and make some remarks. Leadership is very 
necessary.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

[[Page 14923]]

  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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