[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14014-14015]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I wish to thank the Senator from 
Texas for his lucid explanation of this DISCLOSE Act, and I like the 
name he used for it. As the Republican leader has said, this is a piece 
of legislation that is primarily about saving the jobs of Democratic 
Members of Congress. I think the American people would rather we spend 
our time saving their jobs during a time of 10 percent unemployment.
  I would like to talk about that for a minute because one way to save 
American jobs is to stop sending jobs overseas looking for cheap 
energy, which is what the Democratic proposals have been about this 
year.
  We hear that maybe this afternoon the majority leader will propose an 
energy bill. It is being proposed in a way that has become all too 
familiar here. It is being written in secret, offered at the last 
minute, and there will be time for little debate. We have 1 or 2 days 
at most to work on this bill, given the need to consider the 
President's nomination of Ms. Kagan for the U.S. Supreme Court, and 
there apparently will be no amendments. So last minute, written in 
secret, little debate, no amendments, big issue--that sounds a lot like 
what happened at Christmas with the health care bill. But the question 
to ask is why have we waited so long on an energy bill?
  In defense of the majority leader, he has a lot on his plate, and he 
has a tough job in trying to figure out what comes first, and it takes 
a while to get anything done in the Senate. The last time we had a 
great success with energy bills--2005-2007--they were offered in a 
bipartisan way. I remember working with Senator Domenici and Senator 
Bingaman on those bills. We did a lot of good and changed the direction 
of the country on clean energy in 2005 in the Energy bill. But it took 
a number of weeks on the floor of the Senate to do that, and any 
serious effort on energy would take that amount of time here as well.
  So why have we not had an energy bill? We have had a clear consensus 
on how to have cheap energy. For years, Republicans have said: Why 
don't we build 100 new nuclear plants? That is 70 percent of our 
carbon-free electricity. Why don't we set as a goal electrifying half 
our cars and trucks? That is the single best way to reduce our use of 
oil, including oil from foreign countries. Why don't we support 
doubling energy research and development? That is the best way to get a 
500-mile battery for electric cars and reduce the price of solar power 
by a factor of 4, which is what we need to do in order to be able to 
put solar on our rooftops and supplement the energy we need. But we 
haven't had bills like that. There are even 16 Senators--6 Republican, 
9 Democrats, 1 independent--who are cosponsors of the Carper-Alexander 
bill on clean air. We know what to do about sulfur, nitrogen, and 
mercury, so why don't we do it? We have 16 Senators ready to do it.
  Instead, the other side has been focused on two bad ideas--one has 
been a national energy tax in the middle of a recession, and the second 
bad idea has been a so-called national renewable electricity standard, 
which basically boils down a requirement to build 50-story wind 
turbines to try to produce electricity in this large country. Let me 
give one fact on that. Denmark has pushed its wind turbines up to 20 
percent of its electrical capacity. We often hear on the floor what a 
great thing Denmark has done. That is about as many windmills as you 
can have and still have a viable electricity grid. But Denmark hasn't 
closed a single coal plant. It is still highly dependent on fossil 
fuels. It has to give away almost half of its wind-generated 
electricity to Germany and Sweden at bargain prices because it comes at 
a time it is not needed. And Denmark has some of the most expensive 
electricity in Europe. Meanwhile, France has gone 80 percent nuclear. 
Its per capita carbon emissions are 30 percent lower than Denmark, and 
it has so much cheap electricity that France is making $3 billion a 
year exporting it to other countries. So why are we even thinking about 
passing a law making Tennesseans build 50-story wind turbines on our 
scenic mountains or buy it from South Dakota, which means running a lot 
of transmission lines through backyards, when the Tennessee Valley 
Authority says wind power is available when needed only 12 percent of 
the time?

[[Page 14015]]

  So these are the two bad ideas that have had our clean energy 
consensus stuck on the sidelines for the last year.
  There is another idea we should be focusing on, actually it should be 
our first priority; that is, the oilspill that has caused such 
destruction in the gulf coast. The bill we understand the majority 
leader may be bringing out this afternoon--of course, we do not know 
what is in it; it was written in secret--bringing it out this 
afternoon, may be the bill that came out of the Environment and Public 
Works Committee, which would, in effect, end offshore exploration for 
natural gas and oil.
  That sounds pretty good, particularly in light of the fact that it 
has been 99 days since this terrible oilspill began. But what will 
happen if we were to, in effect, end offshore exploration of natural 
gas and oil? It means we would be depending more on oil from overseas. 
We use 20 million barrels of petroleum product a day. Unless we get 
busy with electric cars, we are still going to be using 20 million 
barrels a day.
  It will probably mean higher prices, since about one-third of our 
natural gas and oil that we produce in the United States comes from the 
Gulf of Mexico. It would mean lost jobs in large amounts. The number of 
lost jobs is estimated, in a study released by IHS Global Insight on 
July 22--if we have a de facto end of independent oil production of 
offshore natural gas and oil in the gulf, the job loss would be 300,000 
jobs by 2020; $147 billion in tax revenues over that time.
  So, in addition to depending more on foreign oil, higher prices, lost 
jobs, it means we would depend on leaky tankers to bring that foreign 
oil--some from countries that do not like us--over to the United States 
so we could use it. So that is a bad idea as well--not a very good 
proposal.
  There is a better way to approach the problem of dealing with an 
oilspill that has been offered by Senator McConnell and other 
Republicans last week. Here is what it would do: Instead of ending 
offshore exploration for natural gas and oil, which is what unlimited 
liability requirements, in effect, would do, it would fashion a 
proposal that is much like the proposal we use for the 104 nuclear 
powerplants we have operating in this country.
  They operate under a law called Price-Anderson. Price-Anderson is an 
industry-funded insurance program that spreads the liability for any 
nuclear accident among all the operators of nuclear plants. It is 
important to note, we have never had to use it. Even though we have not 
built a nuclear plant in 30 years, there has not been a single death in 
the United States as a result of a nuclear incident at a commercial 
nuclear plant or as a result of a nuclear accident on one of our Navy 
ships, which have been operating with reactors since the 1950s.
  But the Republican proposal, instead of saying unlimited liability, 
which sounds good but has all the problems I just mentioned, would 
employ a risk-based approach and allow the President to establish 
liability limits for offshore facilities by taking into account risk-
based factors. There could be unlimited liability.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of New Mexico). The Senator has 1 
minute remaining.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. There could be unlimited liability. But the President, 
in setting those risk-based factors, could take into account that there 
might be a company with a spotless record operating at drilling 500 
feet for oil, but there might be a company with not as good a record 
operating in 5,000 feet deep water.
  In addition, the proposal would allow for collective responsibility. 
Instead of big oil companies just sitting around watching the one that 
spills clean up, everybody would have a stake in the game. In addition 
to that, it would not drive out of business the smaller oil companies 
and only leave big oil as the only ones that could risk unlimited 
liability and drill in the gulf, such big national oil companies as the 
Chinese, Venezuelan, or Saudi Arabians.
  So I would recommend to my colleagues that the Republican proposal is 
where we should begin because a risk-based liability proposal would 
allow independent explorers for oil and gas to continue to operate, 
would not drive them out of business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute to 
finish my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. The 1.6 million of us who fly daily would not stop 
flying after a tragic airplane crash. We would find out what happened 
and do our best to make it safe. We cannot simply stop drilling after a 
tragic oilspill unless we want to rely more on foreign oil, run up our 
prices, turn our oil drilling over to a few big oil companies, and all 
our oil hauling over to more leaky tankers. I hope that instead of the 
proposal we have been hearing about, we can focus on the clean energy, 
low-cost consensus Republicans have advocated, and that the President 
has proposed as well, electric cars, nuclear power, energy research and 
development, and clean air.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, may I inquire how much time is remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 8\1/2\ minutes remaining.

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