[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12098-12101]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, as I have said before on this floor, I think 
it is time for us to get real about energy. It is time for us to get 
real about lowering gas prices.
  The American people, as we all know if we have listened to our folks 
when we go back home, are suffering from record-high prices of 
gasoline.
  Now, in response to the record pain at the pump, the American people 
deserve something more than legislative gimmicks that raise taxes, 
increase litigation or provide political favors. It is a startling 
place many of our Democratic friends now find themselves in. They seem 
to believe that for every problem there is a tax increase that can 
help.
  If there is someone you do not like or want to take a shot at, raise 
their taxes. You have a problem that needs fixing, raise the taxes. We 
saw that with the climate debate last week. To address the issue of 
climate change, the bill proposed, and the amendment we did not adopt 
last week proposed, to raise energy prices $6.7 trillion to lower 
energy demand and pay for new Government programs and spending.
  With record-high prices for gasoline, climate sponsors wanted to 
raise gas prices a further 53 cents by 2030 and $1.40 by 2050. This 
week brought a new attempt to raise taxes. Well, last week some 
quibbled about whether the $6.7 trillion in higher energy prices was a 
hidden tax or a hidden fee. It did not make much difference to the 
people who would pay it. There was no hiding from the fact that a tax 
increase is what the Democrats proposed this week.
  This week they proposed raising taxes on the exploration and 
development of new oil supplies. You know, folks back home cannot 
believe that. Those looking for new sources of oil for the American 
people would pay higher taxes to find and deliver that oil to us. I 
have a hard time believing that too.
  But we folks from Missouri do not take words at their face value. We 
call ourselves the Show-Me State for a reason. You need to show us how 
raising taxes would help this situation. For me, personally, I have not 
ever seen a time when raising taxes on something lowered its price or 
produced more of it.
  I think our minority leader pointed out the Los Angeles Times said 
raising taxes to deal with the oil supply was similar to a 
climatologist saying trees caused global warming.
  Well, it is economics 101, folks. Raise taxes, you get less of it. 
You increase exploration and development and you get more of it and you 
lower the price. In this case we actually have the experience about 
what President Carter did. In the mid-1970s, he pushed through higher 
taxes on domestic oil production.
  What a disaster that was. Oil companies reduced their U.S. domestic 
operations and went overseas. The result was a greater U.S. dependance 
on oil from the Middle East, which continues today. Why our friends on 
the other side of the aisle would want to return us to the days of 
Jimmy Carter, I do not understand.
  It may feel good to some people to propose hurting American consumers 
by putting a tax on the oil industry or on the executives, it may sound 
good, but it winds up hurting the American people. The Democrat bill 
failed to get support. It contained other provisions that would hurt 
consumers as well.
  One section would allow the Department of Justice to sue, to sue 
those countries for their membership and participation in OPEC. Now, 
that is a feel-good provision as long as you do not think about what 
would happen. How can anyone doubt that an OPEC country facing the 
prospects of U.S. lawsuits--if we could have jurisdiction over them, 
and I question that--would stop selling oil to the United States and 
take their oil someplace else, such as China.
  Again, the Democrat bill would hurt suffering Americans by driving 
oil supplies away from the United States for fear of litigation.
  Speaking of litigation, we sure didn't hear much from supporters of 
the bill about the $1.6 billion in tax breaks for trial lawyers hidden 
in the legislation to extend renewable energy tax credits. Section 311 
would allow trial lawyers working on contingency $1.6 billion in tax 
breaks. Apparently, the suffering of trial lawyers is more important to 
some in the Democratic Party than the suffering of the American people 
paying record prices at the pump. The tax breaks for trial lawyers is 
one section before the tax provisions before film and television 
producers. Section 312 modifies tax deductions for domestic film and 
television production. It gives special tax treatment for U.S. actors, 
directors, and producers.
  Obviously, I support tax breaks for U.S. workers. But why does the 
Democratic Party think tax breaks for American actors are more 
important than price relief for moms and dads suffering record gas 
prices?

[[Page 12099]]

  Why does the party on the other side think tax breaks for Hollywood 
film producers are more important than price relief for American 
truckers suffering record diesel prices?
  At the same time the Democratic bill is giving tax breaks to trial 
lawyers in Hollywood, they are blocking the American people getting new 
oil supplies they need to bring gas prices down. I am a cosponsor of a 
bill entitled ``The American Energy Production Act of 2008.'' If 
enacted, this legislation would produce up to 24 billion barrels of oil 
from U.S. domestic sources. The bill would allow environmentally 
friendly access to roughly 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil in 
northern Alaska.
  I challenge anyone who opposes opening access to Alaskan oil to read 
the bill and see all of the environmental requirements it contains. I 
challenge them, if they haven't done so, to go to the North Slope of 
the Bering Sea and see the drilling going on at Prudhoe Bay 45 miles to 
the west of ANWR. They have been drilling there. They drill in an 
environmentally friendly way. They have to put the roads in in 
midwinter, when it is 200 degrees below zero. They are rock roads. They 
don't disturb the environment. As a matter of fact, the caribou love 
them. The caribou herds are flourishing. The wolves are great. The 
flowers are just as good as they are elsewhere. The mosquitos are just 
as big as they are in the lower part of Alaska. That drilling is being 
done without environmental damage.
  About 30 miles to the east Canada is drilling. Several hundred miles 
to the west Russia is drilling. They are producing significant amounts 
of oil. Oil drilling in Alaska or exploration in the deep sea or 
recovering oil from shale would take advantage of the latest, most 
modern, environmentally friendly drilling and development technology. 
Today we have modern oil rigs that can drill down and then virtually 
sideways far beneath sensitive surface areas needing protection. Oil 
rigs at sea are now so safe they can withstand hurricanes without 
spilling a drop of oil.
  There are thousands of oil rigs off the coast of Louisiana. Did 
anyone hear a report about an oil spill after Hurricane Katrina? No. 
Because it didn't happen.
  This is the kind of environmentally protective technology we would 
use to open oil reserves in the seabed off America's coasts. Experts 
know of at least 14 billion barrels of oil off our Atlantic and Pacific 
coasts so far out to sea they couldn't be seen from shore. There may be 
many more. There are much higher estimates. This number is probably an 
understatement because they have not even mapped many of these areas 
and explored for oil reserves. We also have a massive supply of oil in 
oil shale in the mountains of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. The shale is 
so thick with oil one can smell and feel it in the rocks. With oil at 
$10 a barrel, it was too cheap to make oil shale affordable in the 
1970s and 1980s, but prices at even half of today's level would be 
enough to unlock U.S. oil reserves in shale: roughly 2 trillion, it is 
estimated, barrels of oil, and that is seven times the reserves of 
Saudi Arabia.
  Why should we be begging OPEC or Saudi Arabia for more oil when we 
have seven times the oil Saudi Arabia has in that one area alone?
  Opponents say no. They give us the NIMBY treatment--not in my 
backyard. Unfortunately, they don't limit themselves to blocking action 
in their backyards. They limit everybody else's backyard as well.
  We had a classic vote in the Appropriations Committee in May--
unfortunately, a straight party-line vote--whether to lift the 
moratorium and allow the preparation for environmentally friendly 
exploration and development of shale oil. Fifteen of my Democratic 
colleagues voted no; 14 Republican Senators, including me, voted for 
opening it. We failed. In Alaska, the people fully support opening 
northern Alaska to further environmentally safe oil extraction. It is 
the elected representatives of other States far below to the east of 
Alaska who want to thwart the will of the people of Alaska.
  The people of Virginia fully support opening oil reserves in the deep 
ocean off their shores, but elected officials from California and other 
States from the West want to thwart Virginia's desire. The people of 
Utah support opening the oil reserves under their mountains, but it is 
the interest groups in Washington, DC, and other States that are 
thwarting the people of Utah.
  The people of my State don't understand why we are blocking access to 
U.S. oil reserves. They don't understand why we are withholding new 
supplies needed to get prices down. They don't understand why we are 
denying ourselves the relief we need and deserve.
  In my State we mine lead. Lead has environmental problems. We have to 
deal with the environmental problems, and we do. There is only one 
simple reason we mine for lead. We have 90 percent of the lead in the 
United States, and it is needed for technology. But at the same time on 
energy, we in Missouri are working hard to develop new, clean sources 
of fuel and ways to reduce energy demand.
  Kansas City, MO, is a national leader in hybrid cars and the advanced 
vehicle batteries they need. We have a Ford plant where Missouri 
autoworkers assemble the Escape hybrid SUV. We also have a GM plant 
where they assemble hybrid SUVs and sedans. In the Kansas City area, we 
have an advanced battery manufacturer producing the next generation 
lithium-ion batteries. They use a polymer technology to improve 
performance and safety. Our military is taking advantage of this 
technology now, and someday it will go into our automobiles. Trying to 
stay one step ahead, we are also working on the next generation of 
hybrid cars. Right after these remarks, I intend to go outside to the 
area we call the swamp, just northeast of the Capitol, to see a plug-in 
hybrid Ford Escape brought to town for the Department of Energy.
  Plug-in technology would allow us to begin to travel the first 40 
miles of every trip on electricity, without burning a drop of gas. Many 
families and commuters in the city could go the entire week back and 
forth to work burning no gasoline. Rural folks and farmers could drive 
their trucks with plug-in hybrid technology into town and around the 
farm. Then, when they need to haul a load great distances, the 
traditional engine would automatically kick in.
  I introduced an amendment to the climate bill last week which would 
have helped workers, the environment, and costs for Americans by 
starting the U.S. domestic manufacturing supply base for hybrid 
batteries for automobiles. Hybrid cars are more expensive than 
traditional cars because their hybrid batteries are made in low 
quantities in Japan, Korea, and China. Not surprisingly, those firms 
favor their Japanese and Korean auto manufacturers, and whatever is 
left comes to U.S. carmakers. The answer to this problem is mass U.S. 
production that will produce hybrid batteries in high volumes and cause 
prices to fall, putting thousands of U.S. workers in good manufacturing 
jobs in Missouri and across the Nation. It would be a win/win 
situation--good for the environment, reducing oil demand; good for 
consumers who need cheaper cars that burn less gas; and good for 
workers needing good-paying jobs at home.
  I introduced an amendment that would have provided Federal funds. 
Unfortunately, that amendment, like others, was blocked from 
consideration by climate bill sponsors. I will continue to fight for a 
commonsense proposal, and that is what we need. We need to get past 
gimmicks, charges, and countercharges, taxes, ranting and railing and 
lawsuits. The American people need fundamental relief for a fundamental 
problem: prices are high. There is too much demand, not enough supply. 
It is economics 101, as I said. We need a comprehensive solution that 
provides the American people with more supply and less demand and also 
with more environmentally clean solutions.
  Last year we addressed demand through higher, newer, aggressive but 
achievable CAFE auto efficiency standards. Yet, as we have seen, demand 
strategies have not stopped the record increase in prices. We need to 
address supply--billions and billions of barrels

[[Page 12100]]

of oil on our land, under our land, off our shores, in our mountains. 
That is what the American people need--not gimmicks, not increases in 
taxes, not more litigation, not tax breaks for trial lawyers or 
Hollywood.
  I urge my colleagues, it is time. Let's get real about our energy 
strategy so we can provide Americans the real relief they deserve and 
we ought to be providing.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, may I inquire as to how much time 
remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 14 minutes 21 seconds.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Brownback follow my time with 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the most important 
issue on the minds of my constituents in Georgia and, I know, folks all 
over the country; that is, skyrocketing gas prices. I hear from 
hundreds of Georgians every day who are struggling to fill their gas 
tanks to get to work or to take their kids to school or to run their 
necessary errands. They want to know what Congress is doing about these 
out-of-control gas prices.
  Nobody disputes the fact that the United States is dependent on 
foreign sources of oil, and nobody disputes that this problem has been 
in the making for any number of years. We currently import more than 60 
percent of our oil and, over the past 30 years, we have reduced our 
domestic exploration options and left our refining capacity stagnant. 
But we can do something to provide relief to American families who are 
really feeling the pain at the pump. If we can do something about it, 
the obvious question is, Why aren't we?
  Let's look, first, at what the Democratic response has been to high 
gas prices. Yesterday, we voted on a so-called energy bill proposed by 
the majority. The two highlights of this bill to address skyrocketing 
gas prices are, first, sue OPEC. The Democrats want to sue the 
individuals we are doing business with as a means of lowering gas 
prices. This is hard to understand. Second, the Democrats propose to 
put a windfall profits tax on big oil companies that are certainly 
achieving big profits in today's market in the petroleum industry.
  I had a group of businessmen from Georgia in my office yesterday. 
They were small businesspeople, but they were all from the same 
industry.
  I said: OK, let me ask you this. If the Federal Government walked 
into your office and said, we are going to put a windfall profits tax 
on you; we are simply going to raise your taxes by an extraordinary 
amount, what would be your reaction?
  They said: It is pretty simple. We would do two things. First, we 
would try to reduce our profits below a point where we would not be 
subject to a windfall profits tax, and that means we would decrease 
production. The second thing we would do is, if we had a tax that we 
had to live with, we would pass it on to our customers.
  Again, to think that a windfall profits tax on oil companies is going 
to decrease the price of gasoline is somewhat foolish.
  What has been the Republican response? Where should we go? There are 
very clearly four separate issues that need to be addressed with 
respect to the issue of skyrocketing gas prices. The first one has just 
been alluded to by Senator Bond from Missouri; that is, we simply need 
to take advantage of additional resources we have inside the United 
States. We, as Republicans, have sought to do that.
  On May 13, less than a month ago, Senator Domenici and Senator 
McConnell proposed an amendment to expand exploration in the ANWR 
region of Alaska and to authorize drilling in offshore coastal waters 
currently subject to a Federal moratorium--in other words, deep-sea 
exploration. This amendment was defeated. Mr. President, 43 Republicans 
voted for the amendment; 48 Democrats voted against the amendment.
  So once again, as is known throughout the country, Republicans are 
consistently advocating--and have for all of the 14 years I have been 
privileged to serve in the Congress--exploration for more domestic oil 
in this country to alleviate our problem, while the Democrats continue 
to oppose measures to explore domestically.
  Now, of the four things we need to do, certainly exploration for more 
oil is one of those. We do have a lot of capacity in this country that 
has simply gone unexplored over the years. There is deep-sea 
exploration available to us. There is oil in the ANWR region of Alaska, 
which we have consistently sought to explore, as well as now we know 
that in the Rocky Mountains of our great country, we have a greater 
resource of oil than exists in Saudi Arabia. It is simply imperative 
that we explore more from a domestic standpoint.
  Secondly, supply and demand dictates the price of everything in our 
economy. We simply have to implore our oil companies to provide more 
gasoline to Americans. We are seeing today more people driving to the 
gas pump than ever before in the history of our country simply because 
of the increase in the population. Our economy has done pretty well in 
the last several years. People are traveling more than ever before. We 
must have the capability to provide the kind of supply that is demanded 
by Americans.
  Thirdly, we have to continue down the road of researching and 
developing more alternative fuels. Historically in this country, we 
have shied away from that. We have seen the development of ethanol 
primarily in one region of our country, the Midwest. But when you get 
to the Northeast or the Southeast or even, for the most part, the far 
West, you simply do not see a supply of ethanol. It is concentrated in 
one part of our country. But that is changing. It is changing now, and 
we are seeing more production facilities built in all parts of the 
country.
  But there is an unintended consequence that nobody thought about. We 
have 101 ethanol-producing facilities online in this country today. We 
have another 100 ethanol manufacturing facilities that are scheduled to 
come online in this country in the next 14 to 18 months. All but two of 
those facilities are producing ethanol from corn. The unintended 
consequence we have seen due to the high demand of corn for energy 
production is an increase in food prices. Corn, wheat, soybeans, 
peanuts, or other commodities have simply increased in price because of 
the demand for corn; therefore, farmers are planting more corn and less 
of the other commodities. That is the unintended consequence.
  I am very proud of the fact that in the farm bill we just passed we 
addressed the issue, that we ought not to incentivize the production of 
additional ethanol from corn. But what we have done in that farm bill 
is to provide funding for research--grant money as well as loan money--
as well as funding for the construction of additional ethanol and 
biodiesel facilities to be resourced not with corn but with cellulosic-
based products.
  The Presiding Officer comes from a part of the country where corn can 
be grown in great quantities and great quality, I might say. But in the 
southeastern part of the United States, because of our hot weather and 
our soil is not as rich and our rainfall is not as consistent as the 
midwest part of the country, we cannot grow corn the way it can be 
grown in the Midwest.
  But there is one thing we can grow like nobody else; that is, a pine 
tree. What we are seeing in Georgia today is the construction of an 
ethanol-producing facility that is going to be resourced with pine 
trees. It is one of two facilities that are under construction in the 
country today where cellulosic products are, in fact, going to be used. 
So I am very proud of the fact that in that farm bill we have sought to 
incentivize additional production of ethanol from cellulosic-based 
products.
  The fourth thing we have to do--Americans have been very spoiled. We 
are used to getting in our car and going where we want to go when we 
want to go, and when the time comes when we have finished our business 
and want to

[[Page 12101]]

move on, we are used to getting in our vehicle and moving on, by 
ourselves for the most part. That simply has to change. We have to 
implement conservation practices from a personal household standpoint 
like we never imagined we would have to do in this country.
  From a political, legislative policymaking standpoint, we have put 
some measures in place that are going to dictate to the automobile 
manufacturing industry that they have to develop automobiles that get 
higher miles per gallon. That is good. But we also have to implement 
some personal measures to make sure we truly do have conservation 
practices in place.
  I had a constituent say to me just the other day: Saxby, I don't 
understand this issue of why we are not exploring for more oil 
domestically when everywhere I go, people tell me, why aren't we 
exploring for more oil that we know we have in America? He said: What 
you ought to do is call for a national referendum on this, and let's 
see what the American people, by and large, think of this issue.
  It is difficult, frankly, to do that, although I think it is a very 
good idea. I would like to know what the masses in other parts of the 
country think. I certainly know what they think in my part of the 
world. But there is one thing very similar that I think should be 
considered.
  I note that just yesterday, the American Solutions for Winning the 
Future announced that over half a million Americans have signed a 
petition online urging Congress to immediately start exploring for oil 
domestically to lower gasoline prices. Now, here is the way the 
petition reads:

       We, therefore, the undersigned citizens of the United 
     States, petition the U.S. Congress to act immediately to 
     lower gasoline prices (and diesel and other fuel prices) by 
     authorizing the exploration of proven energy reserves to 
     reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable 
     countries.

  According to American Solutions' resource data, 81 percent of the 
American people support the United States using more of its own 
domestic energy resources to combat the rising cost of energy. I cannot 
say that I am surprised by that statistic, but I think it further 
underscores how Senator Domenici's bill is a commonsense plan for 
lowering gas prices for Americans, and doing it now.
  Another commonsense solution Republicans have offered, which I have 
supported, was proposed by Senator McCain. This would provide an 
immediate Federal gas tax holiday. What does this mean to our American 
consumers? Well, here we are going into the summer when travel 
certainly increases. If this bill passed, as soon as tomorrow, if it 
got to the President's desk and he signed it, each and every American 
could be paying 18.4 cents per gallon less for gasoline and 24.4 cents 
per gallon less for diesel fuel.
  The Democrats promised leading up to the November 2006 elections that 
if you send the majority of Democrats to Congress, we are going to 
address this issue of gasoline prices, we are going to get prices under 
control. Well, at the time Senator Reid became majority leader, at the 
time Congresswoman Pelosi became the Speaker of the House, the price of 
a gallon of gasoline in this country was $2.33. Today, average prices 
have increased by $1.71 cents per gallon over that last year and a 
half.
  We all know summertime is the time when families take an annual 
vacation. Americans generally drive more during this time of the year. 
Giving a temporary gas tax holiday until Labor Day is a pure short-term 
policy and will benefit Americans only in the short term, but I think 
it is another way we can provide immediate relief to American families.
  This is an issue that ought not to be partisan in nature. It is an 
issue all Americans are feeling every single day. It is an issue we as 
policymakers should address. It is an issue that cries out for strong 
leadership in Washington today. We need to see that leadership come 
forth out of this body. We need to see the American people given some 
relief and given a long-term solution to this issue of gas prices; 
otherwise, the next generation is going to be looking at much higher 
energy costs than what we are looking at today.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on the 
Republican side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Five minutes.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleagues' comments, 
from both Missouri and Georgia, and I agree on the energy issues. I 
have been traveling across all of Kansas, going to all 105 counties. I 
have been in nearly 70 so far, and the dominant issue by far is the 
price of energy. People want to get these prices down.
  The key to supply and demand is to get more supply as fast as we can. 
Work on demand as far as being conservation-minded but not to increase 
taxes. Increasing taxes--things such as a windfall profits tax--does 
not get you another drop of fuel. It only raises the price. I do not 
know of anything we have increased taxes on where you end up getting it 
for less price. It just does not work that way.
  So I support my colleagues' statements on that, and I hope the 
American people are looking at that issue and seeing that here is a way 
of increasing production but not raising taxes. What the Republicans 
have put forward is an increase-energy-production bill, and what the 
Democrats have put forward is an increase-energy-tax bill. I hope 
people can decide which of these will likely get them lower prices. It 
is production, it is not increasing taxes.

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