[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8122-8124]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            ENERGY SECURITY

  Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I recently returned from a trip around 
Wyoming. The focus of my trip was the need for change in our health 
care system. I have spoken about that issue on the floor of the Senate 
on a number of occasions, and while improving our Nation's health care 
system is essential, here today to speak on another issue of great 
importance to my constituents. That issue relates to our Nation's 
energy security. We have debated measures to tax one type of energy to 
provide tax incentives for other industries. We have debated, without 
success, the idea of opening up more of America to energy production 
and the Senate will eventually take up legislation related to climate 
change.
  As we have had those debates, we have seen gas prices rise to record 
levels. We have passed a ``renewable fuels mandate'' that looks less 
encouraging with every new study that is released, and we have sent 
more and more money to countries that do not support our ideals of 
freedom and democracy.
  Because of that, it is my intention here today to inject a little 
reality, a little common sense into the energy debate. I want us to 
take a realistic look at how we get there from here. The ``there'' is 
an America that produces more clean, renewable energy than we can 
possibly consume. The ``here'' and now is an America that is largely 
dependent on foreign governments for the energy we need, the energy we 
can't do without--the energy that is the lifeblood of our economy; the 
energy that makes our way of life possible. Where we find ourselves now 
is the hole that the failed planning of the past and realistic ideology 
has put us in. We have got to get out. We have got to get out for the 
sake of our children and for the sake of Americans who are struggling 
to pay their bills today.
  For the most part, we can all agree on where we want to go. We want 
more clean energy. We want to import less foreign oil. We want improved 
energy efficiency. We can also agree that where we are is not 
acceptable. Its the road we travel, the pathway we take to a better 
future that we have been arguing about for decades. The arguments I 
have seen over the past dozen years or more center not on economic 
health of our Nation but on environmental health. OK. That is fine with 
me. We can talk about hydrogen fuel cells, solar panels and wind 
turbines and we should. All these energy sources and many other 
renewables are going to be a part of the solution, but overnight, they 
cannot replace the fuel sources we use today. The technology is not 
there. The infrastructure is not there, and the will of the American 
people to switch to different, more expensive fuel sources is not 
there. It is one thing to say, yes, let's go green, but it's another 
thing to pull the green out of your wallet to pay for it. Technology 
takes time to commercialize. Infrastructure takes time to build and the 
attitudes and willingness of many Americans to embrace a new energy 
market, a market that could be more expensive, will take time to occur.
  What do we do until we get there? What do we do with the energy 
sources we have now? We make them better. We use them more efficiently. 
We make them clean. We make them green. And what is America's most 
readily accessible energy source that we already have the 
infrastructure in place to use? What is the 800-pound gorilla in the 
room that unfortunately so many of our political leaders are ignoring 
or worse yet, persecuting? It's coal.
  When you turn on your computer, when you flick that light switch or 
turn on the television, it's probably powered by coal. Most of the 
energy we use to recycle the aluminum cans you put in the special bin 
on the curb, the glass, the metal, the plastic, well it comes from 
coal. And if you had an electric car now and wanted to plug it in to 
recharge, that energy would likely come from coal. Coal supplies more 
than 50 percent of our Nation's electricity and we have enough of it to 
last us for more than 225 maybe 500 years. Coal is what is going to 
pave the way to a completely renewable energy future. But its not going 
to be the coal you are picturing in your head right now. It's not going 
to be the black lump that Santa gives to ill-behaved kids on his list. 
It's not the dirty, dusty coal of Dickens' Victorian London. No, what I 
am talking about is plentiful clean coal that we use our ingenuity and 
our resources to turn into green coal.
  You are worried about climate change and support the use of clean-
burning natural gas. Good. Then you should support the projects 
underway right now that will convert coal into that natural gas or 
carbon sequestration of 50 percent of the carbon from coal, which makes 
coal just as ``clean'' as natural gas. We are developing technology to 
efficiently and cost-effectively convert coal into low carbon, low 
sulfur diesel, and to convert coal into low carbon gasoline so we can 
cancel those trips to Saudi Arabia where we have our hands out begging 
them to increase production of oil. Look, tomorrow we are not going to 
be able to jump into our hover car that is powered by common household 
trash. We need to develop what we have right now alongside the fuels of 
the future. Instead of running from coal, we should invest in its 
abundance, in its power and its potential. Instead of running from 
coal, America needs to run on coal, green coal.
  George Washington Carver is one of my heroes for what he did with the 
peanut. He found over 300 ways that American farmers could use the 
peanut, including as soap, facial cream, shampoo and even ink. What we 
need now is a George Washington Carver of coal--and I believe several 
are out there right now ready to invent. They just need a little bit 
more encouragement instead of the ``can't do'' attitude that I hear 
from some opponents of coal.
  Over the next few months, as we debate energy issues in the Senate, I 
will be talking with my colleagues about the need to develop the energy 
sources we will use in the future, some of which must be cleaner, more 
efficient versions of the energy sources we use today. We need all the 
energy we can get to power America, and I look forward to working on 
that solution.
  I have been paying attention to what China is doing. They have 
figured out that the future power of the world is in energy, and they 
are buying it up anywhere they can. They are even buying U.S. coal.
  But I wish to speak today in a little more detail on an issue that is 
affecting everyone in the Nation, and that issue is the rising price of 
gasoline and

[[Page 8123]]

diesel fuel. The rising prices are disproportionately affecting my 
constituents in Wyoming, who are oftentimes forced to drive long 
distances to get to and from work, and then all over the country I am 
hearing from truckers, usually small company truckers who have a fixed 
contract to deliver a product and no fuel escalation clause. I expect, 
from a financial literacy situation, that they have learned something 
about that, but they are still tied into those and they are going broke 
doing what they agreed to do because of the cost of fuel. They are 
visiting with all of us.
  The Senate needs to take up action, and there is an amendment before 
us that will help all Americans.
  With Americans hurting, we need to do something--anything to reduce 
gasoline prices. But, instead of working on solutions for one of the 
single most important issues confronting the American people, the 
majority sticks its fingers in its ears and loudly sings campaign 
rhetoric chorus and verse. Last week, as oil shot up above $115 per 
barrel, we held one vote. We did not vote on Tuesday, Wednesday, 
Thursday or Friday. This week, we were out of session on Monday. This 
is not the way we should legislate when Americans cannot afford to fill 
up their tanks. We need to do something about energy and we need to do 
it now.
  I am proud to be a cosponsor of the Domestic Energy Production Act of 
2008 that was recently introduced by Senator Domenici. The legislation 
includes a number of important provisions that will have a positive 
effect on our Nation's energy situation. Some provisions are designed 
to help hard working consumers today. Other provisions have a long term 
impact that will make it so that we are not as dependent on oil barons 
in the Middle East and foreign dictators to get our energy.
  There are a number of good provisions in this bill that will make a 
difference. The bill allows for the development of domestic energy 
sources that are currently off limits. A major reason we are seeing 
high prices is the lack of domestic energy supplies in the face of 
growing energy demands. It allows for responsible energy production in 
the Outer Continental Shelf and for limited, environmentally safe 
energy production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Allowing for 
this production will help us to lessen our imports of energy. What we 
produce in the United States we do not have to send money to other 
countries for.
  The bill addresses the need to build new refineries. There is not 
enough refining capacity in the United States to handle the demand that 
we have. Yet our policies are so onerous that there has not been a new 
refinery built in the United States in more than 30 years. This needs 
to change, and the only way it will change is if we act to make the 
process for permitting a refinery more reasonable.
  The bill addresses the need to fairly compensate States that allow 
for energy production to occur on their lands by repealing a provision 
to withhold 2 percent of the revenue States receive to pay for 
``administrative costs.'' This provision is particularly harmful to 
Wyoming and must be repealed immediately. The Federal Government's 
actions toward the Sates regarding mineral royalties are the actions of 
a bully and a thief. I am standing up to this bully. I hope my 
colleagues will join me. Your State could be bullied next. Don't forget 
that.
  This bill also addresses our Nation's need to find alternatives to 
oil by promoting coal to diesel fuel. Coal is our Nation's most 
abundant energy source and can be made into low sulfur diesel through a 
process that has been in existence for years. We need to build coal to 
diesel plants in the United States in order to increase our energy 
security and this bill has provisions to promote this important and 
much needed policy.
  Any one of provisions I have mentioned will help our Nation's energy 
situation and we need to act now. If the majority doesn't like every 
part of it, that is fine. Let's get in there and pass the parts we can 
agree on. Let's change the parts we can't agree on. Let's throw some of 
the parts out. I was working on an 80 percent rule, figuring we can 
usually agree on 80 percent of anything and if we concentrate on the 80 
percent, we can get it done and leave the other 20 percent to the 
pundits. But we need to get out there and pass the parts we agree on. 
We need to get something done.
  There will be plenty of credit to go around. Congress cannot sit back 
and do nothing as American pocketbooks are bleeding. Right now, the 
credit for that has to go to the majority.
  I hope all my colleagues join me in supporting the Domestic Energy 
Production Act of 2008, even though we do not get to vote on it 
tomorrow and we don't get to vote on it Monday. We are not going to get 
to vote on it until Tuesday. But we ought to be making some difference 
by Tuesday.
  Like I say, we can revise it, we can change it, we can throw parts 
out, but we have got to do something. America is complaining about the 
price of gas. I understand that. I look forward to seeing everyone next 
week to make a difference for America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.


                           Offshore Drilling

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, next Tuesday--not Monday but 
Tuesday--we are going to have a series of votes and ultimately get to 
the final vote on the flood insurance bill. And miraculously, out of 
the air comes a couple of energy packages side by side that we are 
going to be voting on.
  It is very interesting that in one of those energy packages, that 
being offered by the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Domenici, it will 
have a provision for drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf. Now, we 
have gone through this drill about drilling several times, the last of 
which, I want to remind the Senate, when the pro drilling for oil 
forces wanted an additional 2 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico, 
which would go east in the eastern Gulf of Mexico headed straight 
toward Tampa, FL, we worked out something that would satisfy all of the 
parties; that they would not have 2 million acres but they would have 8 
million acres--8 million acres, not 2 million acres. But it would be 
further to the south, not to the east and, therefore, would not harm 
the interests of Florida or the U.S. military.
  I remind my colleagues that the U.S. military's largest testing and 
training area in the world is almost the entire Gulf of Mexico off of 
Florida. It is the pilot training for the new F-22 out of Tindale Air 
Force Base in Panama City. They have to have wide areas with which to 
do dog fighting, not at submach but at 1.5 mach, and the turning radius 
at 1.5 mach is extraordinary. When are you doing this with live fire 
exercises, you can imagine that you do not want anything down there on 
the surface of the water. By the way, that is also why all of the new 
F-35s, the new joint strike fighter pilot training, when that fighter 
is developed, will also be in that area.
  It is also the reason the Navy now sends its squadrons down to the 
Key West Naval Air Station at Boca Chica, because when they lift off 
the runway at Boca Chica, in 2 minutes they are over restricted air 
space where they can do their pilot training. But it is also the area 
where we are testing some of our most sophisticated weapons systems, 
many of which are with live ordnance, and you simply cannot have oil 
rigs down there on the surface of the water where you are doing all of 
this in furtherance of the training and the testing in order to have 
the best military in the world.
  Yet it is coming back. It is coming back again. Now this time it is a 
little easier for us because we etched it into law as to that 
additional lease area for drilling in the Gulf, and you have got to 
change the law. Until the last time, it had always been under a 
Presidential moratorium. So it will be more difficult for them to have 
to change this. But I bring this up because the attitude is tunnel 
vision about drill, drill, drill.
  That is not how we are going to solve the problem. I mean, are we not 
going to wake up with $120 per barrel oil prices and, who knows, with 
the tight

[[Page 8124]]

world oil market, if it is not going to keep going up?
  And why is it at $120? We have had testimony here in the Senate from 
oil executives who say the typical supply-demand on the world market 
ought to have the price of oil at $55 per barrel. If that testimony is 
accurate, why the difference then between $55 and $120?
  I think part of the answer to that question is, you look at history. 
You see these spikes whenever there is an unsettling condition in the 
world. You saw that in the early 1970s in the oil embargo. You saw that 
again in the late 1970s with the Iranian capture of the American 
Embassy people and holding them hostage. You saw it again at the 
beginning of the 1990s with the first gulf war, when Saddam Hussein had 
moved on Kuwait. You have seen it again in this decade with the Iraq 
situation, and you see it now with the jitters about what is happening 
in the Middle East.
  You see it also in the unsettling relationship we now have with the 
President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, who bombastically keeps 
threatening to cut off oil. Now, that is a hollow promise because we 
have the refineries that have to process his grade of crude. But over 
time he could change. Nevertheless, it unsettles the markets.
  By the way, we get 14 percent of our oil daily, our daily consumption 
of oil, from Venezuela.
  You see it also with regard to Nigeria. Mark my word. Nigeria is an 
accident waiting to happen with regard to the 12 percent of our daily 
consumption of oil that comes from Nigeria. And already the battery, 
the thievery, the kidnappings, all of that being done by criminal 
thugs, that is one threat. But I recall for the Senate the fact that in 
northern Nigeria, al-Qaida is ascending. So that is certainly one 
reason for the difference between what some people have testified that 
the supply and demand would have oil at $55, and instead it is at $120.
  But there is another reason. That is the speculation on oil futures 
and bidding the price up that gets us to this point.
  Now, I am giving all of this background to say, well, what do we do? 
Is the answer the tunnel vision or myopic vision of drill, drill, 
drill, or do we do what we know we have to do? And the question is, 
where is most of our oil consumed? It is in transportation. Where in 
transportation is most of the oil consumed? It is in our personal 
vehicles.
  So why do we not get serious, as we had our first inkling that we 
are, by having more conservation with greater miles per gallon? We 
passed in this Senate 35 miles per gallon phased in all the way out 
until 2015.
  In Japan today, they are running around in their cars at 50 miles per 
gallon. In Europe today, they have got an average of 43 miles per 
gallon. Why cannot America summon the political will to say we are 
going to do something different than what we have been doing in the 
past, and we are going to try to wean ourselves from dependence on 
foreign oil which makes up 60 percent of our daily consumption. If we 
had the political will, we could do it. And, of course, if we had the 
political will, we could not only do the miles per gallon, we would put 
the money into the research and development to ultimately get to 
cellulosic ethanol so we would not be making ethanol from what we need 
to eat, and instead we would be making it from fiber, from that which 
we throw away. If we summon the political will, we would get serious 
about conservation measures and renewable fuels such as wind and solar, 
all the more than we are now. We would get serious about a major R&D 
effort and pouring the money into it in order to start developing the 
engine of the future that does not depend on any kind of petrol, such 
as hydrogen, or perfecting these batteries so we can have an all-
electric vehicle. That is what we would be doing if we summoned the 
political will. At the end of the day, that is what we are going to 
have to do. It is going to have to be the new President who does it.
  On this subject I will close by saying, America has a historical 
tendency to drag its feet until we are abruptly shoved up against the 
wall and we have to do something, and you see this throughout our two 
centuries of history.
  There was at a time, for example, during the Korean war, the Soviets 
had the high ground. Their MiGs could fly higher than our jets. Again 
in 1958 they had the high ground, because they put up the first 
satellite, Sputnik. Again in 1961 they had the high ground, when they 
put up Yuri Gagarin, the first human to orbit the Earth.
  We did not even have a vehicle that was powerful enough until 10 
months later when we put John Glenn in that flimsy Atlas that had a 20-
percent chance of failure, and finally got up.
  Again, they had the high ground when they rendezvoused, the first 
time in space, with two spacecraft. They beat us to that. But then 
America summoned the political will when the President said: We are 
going to the Moon in 9 years and return. And we did. And we have the 
high ground now.
  Now it is another complete subject--I will not get into it--about how 
we could be losing that high ground with NASA, because NASA is not 
getting enough resources for all of the things it is trying to do and, 
therefore, it is not going to have a chance to achieve and keep that 
high ground if we do not. But I will save that one for next week.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon is recognized.
  (The remarks of Mr. Wyden are printed in today's Record under 
``Morning Business.'')
  Mr. WYDEN. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________