[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 21565-21567]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           ENERGY LEGISLATION

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wish to visit for just a few moments 
today the subject of energy policy.
  Most of us spend all of our day having a better day because of energy 
and think very little about it. We get up in the morning, perhaps, and 
use an electric razor or an electric toothbrush. We go to the kitchen 
and have some coffee that was made by plugging the coffee maker in or 
turning on a stove. Then we get in a car, put a key in an ignition, 
start an engine, and off to work. We do all the while using all the 
energy available to us all day long, never thinking much about it.
  We have a serious energy problem in this country in that a 
substantial amount of energy we use, particularly oil which comes from 
outside our country, including from some countries that do not like us 
very much. We are about 70 percent dependent on foreign countries for 
our oil, and, as I indicated, some of those countries are in some 
difficulty and turmoil. Yet we are unbelievably dependent on them to 
help supply our oil.
  One of the propositions is, should we not produce more American 
energy?

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Should we not have more conservation in this country? Should we not 
have a plan that makes us less vulnerable and less dependent and 
improves our national security and our energy security? Of course, the 
answer to these questions is yes.
  This is a big-old planet of ours, and we stick straws in the planet 
and suck oil out. Today, Tuesday, we will take out from the drilling 
rigs where we produced about 85 million barrels of oil from 
underground. One-fourth of it needs to be used in this country. The 
United States needs one-fourth of all the oil that is produced in the 
world today. As I said, 70 percent of that oil comes from outside of 
our country, and about 70 percent of the oil we use in this country is 
used in our transportation system.
  We have a very serious dependency on oil. It makes us less secure 
nationally, and it creates all kinds of other issues. So the question 
is, What do we do about that problem? That is what I want to talk about 
for a few minutes, and I also want to talk about it in the context of 
some news reports that said recently that I and several others somehow 
did not support climate change legislation. Let me make clear what my 
position is regarding acting on climate change legislation.
  I have said on the floor of the Senate early this summer that I do 
not support cap and ``trade.'' I do not have any interest in supporting 
legislation that will establish a trillion-dollar carbon trading 
securities market. This could benefit Wall Street, speculators and big 
investment banks who would be trading carbon on a Monday so we can 
determine how much energy prices are going to be on a Tuesday depending 
on how well that trading went on Monday. I have no interest in doing 
that type of activity. Not very long ago we saw what has happened to 
the price of gasoline and oil. For example, the price of oil went from 
about $40 a barrel to $147 a barrel in day trading in a little more 
than a year without any notion of supply or demand changes. How can you 
justify the runup on the price of oil from $40 to $147 a barrel over a 
number of months? I have already seen abuses of other markets. I have 
seen the markets with respect to derivatives and swaps and all of the 
exotic instruments that have been created in order to be traded on 
other markets. I have no interest in the carbon market ``trade'' 
portion of ``cap and trade'' and would not be intending to support 
that. There are other ways for us to have a lower carbon future.
  I do believe there is something happening to our climate to which we 
should be very attentive to. I do believe a series of no-regret steps, 
at the very least, makes a lot of sense right now as we begin to 
address reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
  Let me say that while I have said I do not intend to be supportive of 
the cap-and-trade approach, especially with quotes around ``trade,'' I 
think there are some things we can, will, and must do to address the 
issue of climate change and bring about a low carbon future. Having 
said that, my hope is that the legislation already passed through the 
Senate Energy Committee will be brought to the floor for a debate 
because it makes significant steps toward addressing energy and climate 
change policy. It will also reduce our dependence on foreign oil and 
increase our national and energy security. This is achieved for our 
country by producing more American energy and by incentivizing the 
kinds of things that can serve, save, and create other forms of energy 
as well.
  Let me talk just for a bit about the bill passed by the Senate Energy 
Committee. Some people have said that we have to bring an energy bill 
to the floor and combine it with a climate change bill. I do not 
believe that should be done at this time. In my judgment, it would be 
much smarter to bring an energy bill to the floor which has already 
passed out of the committee with a bipartisan vote. It is called the 
American Clean Energy Leadership Act. We should bring that bill to the 
floor, debate it, pass it, and get it to the President for his 
signature. That would do something very significant for our country's 
energy future. After that, we should then turn to address climate 
change legislation and how we create a low carbon future.
  Here is what is in that legislation that I hope we will bring to the 
floor of the Senate first.
  Renewable electricity standard. There is an old saying: If you don't 
care where you are going, you are never going to be lost. That is 
certainly true for a country and a congress. If you do not establish 
standards and say: Here is what we aspire to achieve, then you will 
never know whether you have met it. We should strive for a renewable 
electricity standard of 20 percent. The current bill's standard has 15 
percent. When we get an energy bill to the floor, my hope would be we 
would have a 20-percent combined renewable electricity standard that 
says that we aspire to achieve this level of renewable energy as part 
of our country's electricity mix by 2021.
  This would be the first national standard in the history of this 
country. More than half the States have already taken action in this 
area, but we need a national standard that creates the goal of what we 
aspire to achieve. A strong, national renewable electricity standard is 
what I support. There is currently a national standard in this energy 
bill which we can bring to the floor. Having a standard drives 
additional production of renewable energy. It is one significant step 
towards addressing climate change. Wind energy, solar energy, biomass 
are the types of renewable energy that this country needs to increase. 
Through an RES, we can incentivize that additional production.
  Turning to energy efficiency, the lowest hanging fruit by far in 
energy is about taking steps to make our buildings more efficient. The 
MacKenzie study shows many ways to reduce emissions. By far the least 
costly, most effective, way to address energy and greenhouse gas 
emissions is through efficiency improvements in our buildings, homes, 
equipment, appliances, and factories. All of these areas are dealt with 
in this energy legislation, promoting much greater movement toward 
achieving the conservation that comes from expanded energy efficiency 
programs.
  Another thing that is in this bill is building an interstate highway 
system of transmission capability. We can produce a lot of new 
renewable energy, but if we do not move it from where it is produced to 
where it is needed. We need to move it to the load centers otherwise it 
will not have done much good.
  My home State, North Dakota, is No. 1 in wind production. The folks 
at the Department of Energy call North Dakota the Saudi Arabia of wind. 
We are almost born leaning toward the northwest against that prevailing 
wind. We have a lot of wind. The fact is we don't need wind power in 
our State. What we need to do is maximize the production of wind power 
and move it to the load centers. In order to do that, you need a 
national interstate highway of transmission capability. We are not able 
to build it now, but the energy legislation that passed the Senate 
Energy Committee will give us the opportunity to do that.
  We have built 11,000 miles of natural gas pipeline in the last 9 
years to send natural gas through pipes around this country. During the 
same period of time, we have built less than 660 miles of high-voltage 
interstate transmission lines. Why? Because with the current rules, it 
is very hard to build interstate transmission lines, you almost can't 
get it done.
  So this legislation has a transmission piece I helped write that 
gives us the opportunity to say: We are going to maximize the 
development of renewable energy sources, such as wind energy from the 
heartland, and solar energy from the South and Southwest. This 
legislation would allow us to move it from these areas where the energy 
is produced and then move it to the load centers where it is needed, by 
way of an interstate highway system of transmission capability, which 
we do not now have. Building an interstate highway system of 
transmission lines would be a huge boost to this country's energy 
future and also a significant step toward reducing our greenhouse gas 
emissions. It would accomplish this

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by allowing the development of clean energy sources, such as wind 
energy, solar energy, biomass, and others.
  The bill would also reduce our dependence on foreign oil by 
transforming our transportation system. We are headed toward plug-in 
vehicles. Electrifying the short-haul transportation system is the best 
way to reduce the role foreign oil plays in our economy. By 
electrifying our cars at the same time as we reduce the amount of 
carbon produced by electric generation, which I will talk about in a 
minute, we not only cut our dependence on foreign oil but we also 
reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Plug-in hybrid vehicles, I think, 
are a bridge to the electric future integrating the electric motor with 
a gasoline engine. All this is trying to aspire a new direction for our 
country.
  I wish to say the most abundant resource we have is coal, and the 
energy legislation passed by the Senate Energy Committee also addresses 
the use of coal. Some people have said: Well, it might not be used in 
the future, I disagree completely. It is our most abundant resource. In 
this bill, we facilitate a large-scale demonstration and deployment of 
carbon-capturing storage technology which will allow us to continue to 
use coal while also capturing the carbon and using it for other 
products or sequestering it. But we can continue to use our most 
abundant resource, and we facilitate those necessary demonstration 
projects in this legislation.
  This legislation will also be helpful to hydrogen and fuel cell 
technology in the future, which I am a strong supporter of. I believe 
hydrogen and fuel cell technology is another generation we need to work 
on with respect to the research. Finally, let me say I offered an 
amendment during the energy deliberations on this bill that opens the 
eastern Gulf of Mexico, including the Destin Dome in the Gulf of 
Mexico, for oil and gas development.
  In other words, I believe we ought to do a lot of everything. We 
should be developing more, producing more including oil and natural 
gas. We should also find a way to produce coal in a manner that 
protects our environment, and we will. We should conserve more and save 
more. We should do all those things. But in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, 
there are about 3.8 billion barrels of oil and about 21 trillion cubic 
feet of natural gas. It makes no sense that we are so unbelievably and 
excessively dependent on foreign oil when we are not producing that 
which we have in our country. We should do all of that mindful of the 
environment; mindful of all the protections that are necessary. I 
understand that.
  So I offered the amendment that opens the eastern gulf with a 45-mile 
buffer zone. I did not offer this amendment, but I will when we get it 
to the floor. This amendment will allow our oil companies to compete 
for production capability in the Cuban waters. The country of Cuba is 
interested now in producing and leasing oil and gas. The Spanish are 
there, the Canadians are there, India is there, and China is 
interested, but our companies are prohibited because of an unbelievable 
50-year moratorium, against the country of Cuba. A 50-year embargo, 
which is almost farcical in terms of its failure.
  We are told it is okay for everybody else to go there. We are told 
there are a million barrels a day in those waters after the production. 
There is no one in the world that is better at the kind of ultra or 
unconventional deepwater drilling than America. We have done the 
research. We have done the work to understand that we drill better than 
anybody else in the world. Yet we are told our companies are not able 
to compete for leasing in those Cuban waters. This embargo makes no 
sense at all.
  As I said previously, I happen to think we should do a lot of 
everything and do it well. Whether it is conservation or other related 
issues--producing more, conserving more--and increasing the use of 
renewable sources of energy, we will step, in a giant way, toward 
addressing climate change. It is exactly what we should do.
  We are told: Well, you have to bring Waxman-Markey or you have to do 
this or that. What we have to do, it seems to me, is to be smart. The 
smart thing, in my judgment, would be to take the legislation the 
Senate Energy Committee has passed, which does all the things I have 
described. It would contribute, in a very positive way towards reducing 
our greenhouse gas emissions and increasing our national and energy 
security by making us less dependent on foreign oil and making us more 
dependent on American-produced energy.
  I mean, why would we not want to have a much greater focus on 
American energy produced in this country? Why would we not want to have 
a much more significant focus on developing national aspirations for 
what we want to do with renewable energy? It is this old case of we 
kind of walk around and say: Well, whatever happens, happens. Well, the 
fact is we can't consign our future to that.
  I have spoken about, I guess a dozen times on the floor, that my 
first car, as a very young boy, was one my father found in a grainery 
in an old abandoned farm in North Dakota. I bought it from the guy who 
put it in that grainery for $25. It was a 1924 Model T Ford, completely 
rusty, with no wires or seat covers. All it was was a bunch of metal 
and a bunch of rust. As a young boy, I lovingly restored that old Model 
T. What I discovered, when I got it all done and running, was that you 
put gasoline in that Model T the same way you do in 2009 cars. 
Everything else has changed except that. Cars are computerized today, 
but you still pull up to a gas tank, take the cap off, and put gas in 
that 1924 Model T, as you do with a brand spanking new Ford. That 
hasn't changed, but it must. It so describes how mired we are in our 
previous energy policies. We can't get out of the rut.
  The Energy bill we passed in the Energy Committee gets us out of this 
rut, it makes us more secure, it strengthens our country, and it makes 
us less dependent on others for our energy sources. Particularly those 
who don't like us very much.
  One final point. Several years ago, there was a blackout on the east 
coast. Just like that, all the electricity was gone. At that moment, 
almost everyone understood what energy meant to them, and we understood 
its connection to our daily lives. It is unbelievable. So the question 
of reliability of energy for our country. Where do we get it? How do we 
use it? What does it cost? What does it mean for our climate? These are 
all important, interesting, and in some cases difficult questions. We 
have addressed most of those questions in an energy bill Senator 
Bingaman and I and many others had a role in writing.
  I hope very much, after the debate on health care legislation, as 
people start thinking and talking about energy and climate change, 
consideration will exist for bringing a good energy bill to the floor 
that is a significant step in the right direction toward climate change 
first. Then at some later point, bringing a climate change bill to the 
floor. Because I think they are related but separate. I think it would 
be much smarter to get the value and the success of an energy bill that 
has been passed by the committee and ready to be dealt with by the 
Senate at some point very soon.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in 
morning business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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