Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. DOMENICI. We are still on the ethanol amendment. I understand--so Senators will know--there are still negotiations taking place. I am hopeful they will be fruitful with reference to some portion of this amendment. We are going to stay on it and see what happens. In the meantime, a couple Senators have indicated they would like to speak. I understood Senator Akaka had come up and asked if he could be heard. He is not here. I yield to the Senator.

Mr. DOMENICI. Could I ask the distinguished minority leader another question? Do you know if there are any other amendments that are ready on your side after Senator Cantwell?

Mr. DOMENICI. I think global warming is going to wait until next week.

Mr. DOMENICI. I have no objection--just a moment.

Mr. DOMENICI. Reserving the right to object, how long do you think the Cantwell amendment might take?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, we are ready to vote on the ethanol amendment, as modified. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DOMENICI. Let me say to the distinguished minority leader, I am fully aware of the problem he has discussed. I am empathetic and want to move ahead. But I think it is better for a while to let the ethanol deal which is being considered in terms of perhaps some modification to continue for a while rather than get off of it. We are going to do the best we can to move this bill. We need your help. We need our leader's help to move ahead.

Mr. DOMENICI. I am pleased to yield.

Mr. DOMENICI. Let me ask maybe if we could put in a quorum for a minute.

Mr. DOMENICI. Just for the benefit of the Senators, I know it is close here to leaving, but we are getting close also to a vote. I am very hopeful that will occur in a couple of minutes here. We will ask for the yeas and nays and have a vote on the ethanol amendment, as modified, which I think will make many people happy, before we draw to a close this afternoon. We will not be closing the Senate, but as far as voting, we will wait until the Senators return from the Nebraska trip on behalf of the late Senator Exon.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Your State has. They have done it, along with Texas and a couple of other States. Frankly, before we start giving other States resources, I wish they would start making decisions and we would start making them so other States would join. We have to help your State. We have to help you because you are taking the burden, and we are going to try to do something about that. I don't know what we can do because we are stymied by a few things that are intangible, that we don't control--fiscal policy and budget policy and the like. But I want to say it doesn't do very much good to adopt resolutions on this floor and proposals such as are pending here from Senator Cantwell--it doesn't do a bit of good to say these are our goals, let's do them. Flexibility. We don't need that kind of bill if we do what we know we should do. We have not built a nuclear powerplant in two decades plus, while the rest of the world built them. We can talk all we want about why did we use so much natural gas in the powerplants of America. We know why. We didn't want to use anything else. Right? So we used natural gas, even some from offshore, some from your State. We piped it all the way over and burned it in powerplants as though it were coming out and would be here forever. It starts running out, right? So we are going to import it pretty soon. That is the problem. We have been doing that. It is the problem in this bill. We are 90 percent where we ought to go, but the big thing is no action with reference to the largest asset we have toward independence, which is natural gas and crude oil hundreds of miles--not a mile--offshore. There is one thing we are asking in this bill: Let's inventory it. Right? We voted in our committee. It was a hard vote. Hard? Just ask somebody to go out and tell America what we own. That natural gas you have been talking about, how much is there? You don't have to disturb anything anymore. We have been talking about high tech. You don't drill holes to find out what is there. We do it by technology, by looking, by checking, by a new kind of geophysical equipment. Should not we tell America how much is there? You watch, there will be a motion to strike that here on the floor. You and I will be here saying, What is the matter with that. But we are apt to lose that. Yet we are talking about some ``pie in the sky,'' let's set a goal 30 years from now to be 40 percent less dependent upon crude oil and we will have all the flexibility in the world. We don't need flexibility of any statute. We need the flexibility of Americans deciding that we have to do what you said. If we have a source of energy, we have to produce it. Do not think we are producing ourselves out of existence. This bill conserves more than any piece of legislation will ever ask Americans to conserve. But we can't conserve our way out of this dilemma either, right?

Mr. DOMENICI. We could close up the wells offshore in Louisiana and say, ``Thank you.'' Of course not. We need more--and conservation. But I thought, since you raised the subject of offshore, we ought to tell the Senate, tell the few people listening, where the real value in America is, that we refuse. We are like ostriches when it comes to offshore. People say, it is so pretty here, we don't want to touch it. What about 100 miles out from that shore? You cannot even see it. And people around here are crying that you will hurt their States. You could put any limitation you would like that is credible and let's go beyond that and try to do something with this very important asset--this asset field that is ours. I thank the Senator for her comments and thank her for yielding.

Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I will take 1 minute. Before Senator Bond leaves, I thank him for his statement. I have heard the Senator eloquently describe this whole situation regarding automobiles in the United States and CAFE standards, but it seems to me this amendment is even way beyond anything we debated before. We are talking about changing by a couple miles, 2 or 3 miles. What we are talking about here would never become law. Let's be serious about it. But if it would, we are talking 3 or 4 times the CAFE standards we have today. What kind of cars could we build?

Mr. DOMENICI. It seems to me the answer is impossible. That is the answer. This is an impossible amendment. People want to dream, but you do not build a country on dreams. Maybe you can dream, wake up and think of something that is quite appropriate for goal achievement. This seems like somebody dreamt up something to tell us we ought to save 40 percent of crude oil we use in the United States by 2025; is that what it sounds like to the Senator?

Mr. DOMENICI. Just for a few minutes, without losing your right to the floor. I want to say to the Senator, thank you for your discussion, as you zero in on what States do and do not do. I will not repeat that. People heard it and they ought to heed it. Some of the States you have alluded to ought to heed it, too. Some of them are the very ones who do not want to produce anything and have production somewhere else, not there. But in passing, the Senator discussed offshore production in her State, which she described in terms of new technology that is very safe. There is nothing happening that hurts anybody. There is no degradation of the water, no degradation of the air. I have seen one of the new facilities. I wish everybody who is worried about offshore drilling would take a helicopter and go out there. They are not next door to your house, they are miles and miles out in the ocean, and they are very large. They look like a big battleship out there all lighted up, full of technology, with 10 or 12 oil wells you cannot even see, producing natural gas for America, and you don't know where it goes, no pipes, nothing. Nothing spills, and it is our resource. The Senator knows in this bill one big thing is missing and that is we are not going to do anything significant about letting the United States of America or States make a decision that off their shores they could produce more natural gas or crude oil for this great country. That is because Senators will not vote for it because the Senators with coastlines stand up and talk about what you have been talking about here. ``We need the energy, we need to grow, we are great Americans, we have a lot of plants, we want jobs--but you bring the energy here.'' Right? Off our shores, remember--and Americans should remember it well--sits the largest reserve of natural gas that America has today, but for some parts of Alaska which are very difficult right now, but we are going to bring some down. It is the largest mainland reserve of natural gas we are going to have for generations to come. What does it mean that we do nothing about it? Listen well, we are not going to stop using it. Remember how much crude oil we import. It will be 5, 6, 10 years and what will we be importing? The Senator knows the answer: Natural gas. Where from? Not from our seashores 100 miles away out there in the ocean where our natural gas is. From thousands of miles away in big, gigantic boats. They are going to come across the ocean and come over to America. And do what? Pump it into these States you are talking about. Because right here on this floor, if the Senator from New Mexico and two Senators from Louisiana were to say, just simple: Those States that have moratoriums off their shores where we can't drill, if they would like to let us drill, let's let them say yes and then let's pay them a little more royalties than we have been paying. Because right now we get no royalties. Give them more than we are paying now and let them decide whether they would like to or not. Guess what would happen. I have already been told. The bill, if it passed, will die. First of all, it will not pass. Because for all this language around here--flexibility, let's do what we can, let's use every avenue for exploration--that is not true. That is not true. Because don't touch this one I have just talked about. Right?

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, so the Senate will have an idea what we are trying to do, the first amendment we are trying to offer up is in the process of being completed in a bipartisan manner, the ethanol amendment. We don't know exactly when that will be ready. It looks as though they are working on the last clearances or clarification of words. I was told a while ago it may be an hour, it may be less. That will give us a chance to speak. In Senator Bingaman's absence, we agreed that after our statements, Senator Nelson will speak. Mr. President, I think the most important thing to start with here is that this bill before us cleared the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, after years of stalemate, by a rather incredible vote of 21 to 1. Some would think perhaps that doesn't mean a great deal. But to the Senator from New Mexico, as chairman of this committee, I think it is very important. I think it means that, for once, Republicans and Democrats have seen an American problem of real significance and have tried very, very hard to see if they could cooperate at every level, with every amendment, and give everybody a chance to argue, present, win, lose, and produce a bill. I will start by saying that is one of the big differences between why we are here today and what we are here about. I think it means that eventually the American people and their great concern finally bubbles up, and I hope partisanship disappears and we try to get a bill. Partisanship might not be over because when you get to the floor, there is still a chance to be partisan, and that is all right. The thing is, we want very much--and I use ``we'' because I speak for my friend, Senator Bingaman--to get a bill. That means the Senate is going to have a lot of time but perhaps not as much as last time or the time before, when we had literally hundreds of amendments left when we finished debate. And only through good fortune were we able to go to conference, in a very unordinary way, and we lost on the floor for reasons that the Chair and others understand. Having said that, let me say there is no question that this great country, with this rather fantastic economy, with its leadership role in terms of security, is in a position where we need a bill that enhances America's energy supply, maximizes conservation, and that produces clean energy. So what we are talking about is an American Clean Energy Act that will produce security of supply, affordability and, ultimately, national security and prosperity. It sounds as though that is a rather auspicious hope for a bill, and I am not here saying everything about it is perfect, nor am I saying some could not find ways to criticize it and say that perhaps it could be done a better way. But remember, we are in the Senate, where Senators have to get a chance to work their will, where there is a myriad of ideas about how America should move through this very, very difficult time. I want to say right up front that I wish we were here saying we could go back 25 years and make some big changes so we were not having such a serious problem with reference to crude oil and the requirement that we import so much. Of that importation, a huge amount, 75 percent, goes to transportation. Americans should know that means automobiles, that means SUVs, trucks, and everything that has to do with moving us around. We decided years ago that cheap oil, even if it came from overseas, should come to America and feed this desire for prosperity and mobility and transportation, which was one of our ways of providing our freedom. Now, 25 to 30 years later, we are in one gigantic bind, in that we cannot produce enough oil to meet this need. As a matter of fact, today, as we stand here, the United States has diminished regularly its ability to produce the quantity of oil that it produces so that in the world we are no longer a major producer; we are No. 6. If you look out in the world, we are the sixth largest producer--and fading. There is nothing we can do about it, in terms of gigantic steps forward. We can, and this bill attempts to, enhance our ability to produce oil on American soil, where oil exists. We attempt to create a better format for permitting and drilling and acquiring American oil, and then, as an aside, there will be a major debate later--not on this bill--as to what we do, if anything, with the oil of America that is in Alaska, which we frequently call and discuss as ``ANWR''. Nonetheless, in this bill, we have tried, with a degree of reasonableness, to say we are going to insist that we save 1 million barrels of oil a year, as far as what we use, by saying to the President: You use whatever means at your disposal to save a million barrels. And we give him that authority. Anybody who thinks we can do way more than that--I hope everybody understands that that is a discussion that doesn't have a great deal of merit, and it is beyond the realm of the responsible and reality. Having said that, in addition to that 1 million barrels, this bill is laden with opportunities for additional savings because we are promoting hybrid cars, and I am sure the tax bill, which would be attached to this, will further enhance the use of hybrid cars, which is a great energy saver. In addition, while some are critical, we will produce a very major ethanol bill before we are finished. The finishing touches are being put on it now. That particular bill will say to America, produce the maximum amount of ethanol, and ethanol will be used to mix with derivatives of crude oil and, yes, indeed, that will have a tremendous impact on how much oil we have to import from overseas from foreign countries. I will get to the specifics on that shortly. At the same time, that particular aspect of the bill produces a lot of jobs. As a matter of fact, as I spoke of this bill at the inception and I spoke about prosperity, I spoke about security, I should have said to Americans it also will produce jobs because, with an abundance of energy, we are more competitive; with an abundance of alternative sources of energy, we get stronger in terms of our ability to compete, which means this is a jobs bill. So it is a jobs bill, a security bill, a clean air bill, and a clean energy bill. Add all of that up, it is a tremendous step forward for the United States. I will speak for a minute about one of the most important commodities that we use in the United States: it is that marvelous product called natural gas. We are very grateful and fortunate in America that we do produce a lot of our own natural gas, but I regret to say that we have begun to use it in such abundance because we started about 8, 9, or 10 years ago putting natural gas in all of our new electric powerplants. Understand that powerplants in America and in the world produce electricity that goes into a grid that is distributed out. If anyone is wondering how important it is, turn on the lights, and that is electricity that came from some far away power company. In the United States, powerplants receive their basic energizing from a number of sources. Currently, 20.5 percent of America's energy comes from nuclear power. We have not built a new nuclear power plant in almost two decades. Energy from nuclear power is undergoing a renaissance. It is beginning to percolate up as something that many more people think is a real, bona fide source of electricity and energy for the future. I am well aware that the occupant of the chair, the distinguished junior Senator from New Hampshire, is a staunch proponent of nuclear power. I recall vividly his father, who had been Governor of the granite State many years ago, discussing with this Senator way before people were talking about it that we ought to move ahead with nuclear power. That is one source. This bill, in a number of ways--and when the tax bill is finished and gets before us, that will finish the requirements--will push us in the direction of saying let us move ahead with nuclear power, provided we follow all of the rules, regulations, and laws because we have concluded that it is as safe, if not safer, than any other source of energy. In addition, this bill would be a producer of clean energy. Nuclear is one of them. Secondly, we are a country while on the one hand not so blessed because we use so much crude oil and do not have enough, we are a country that is laden with coal. Right now the largest source of electricity produced in America comes from coal. In numerous ways, this bill is a boost and sends a real powerful signal that we want to invest in new technology to produce clean coal for clean powerplants. We even provide incentives for the production of new coal transformation plants where we will begin to produce clean energy and capture the carbon that is one of the negative aspects of burning coal today. Harkening back to natural gas, this bill does another very important thing. We must bring down over time, if we can, the price of natural gas. People wonder what we can do in other areas, but natural gas is a feedstock in America. It is fertilizer, it is jobs, it is agriculture, it is the feedstock for many other products in our country. I believe we are paying the highest price in the world today for natural gas. In this bill, we provide for a better way to site and locate liquefied natural gas--commonly called LNG--ports in the United States. We say they cannot be delayed indefinitely. If they are safe, then the Federal Government ultimately can get involved and see that we do them. It is important that we do that. I did not mention everything. There are so many other aspects of this bill, but I want to talk about conservation because there are some who do not think conservation is the kind of thing that is important in an energy bill. It is vitally important, and I compliment those who have pursued it with vigor, led by my good friend, Senator Bingaman, who has pursued conservation for a long time. This bill has very major conservation aspects. The amount of conservation that will be forthcoming in this bill is astounding. From what we understand, this bill will give us an opportunity, with reference to the use of energy from powerplants, to have the equivalent, if I am correct, of 50 powerplants of 1,000 megawatts over time. Just think of that. That is rather major. We could go on and talk about many other aspects, but Senator Bingaman will talk about the bill from his vantage point. I close by saying that renewables are important. This bill recognizes renewables in many aspects and ways. Clearly, we promote fuel cells. We fund it. We encourage its research. Clearly, it is an energy source of the future. It will be part of making us more independent and clearly help us even in our transportation problems with reference to fuel. Likewise, there is a section of this bill that I believe is about as innovative as anything we have done, and it has to do with incentives for building new and innovative sources of energy. In this bill, we call that title incentives. What we have done in the bill is provided for a new way for the United States, through the Secretary of Energy, to make decisions about new technology applied to pilot projects that might be built in various kinds of new technological breakthrough activities. It will be a provision that will be known as the loan guarantee provision, but it is different in that whoever applies will pay the risk insurance costs, and then they will borrow on an 80/20 basis. That means the U.S. Treasury should come through this with no actual cost to the Government. According to our budget provisions and the law that provides for loan guarantees, it will not cost the Treasury and will be a very big source of new and exciting applications for the United States of new innovation, which among all the things we have mentioned--the breakthroughs in coal gasification, the breakthroughs in many other areas of technology--are really going to be important in making America more secure, producing more jobs, producing a society that indeed continues to be prosperous. So this is a bill that has great efficiency and conservation built in. On the electric front, I mentioned production of electricity, but I also want to remind everybody this bill also should provide for a framework where we will not have blackouts in the future. That is an easy one to remember. Even the young people here remember blackouts because they just occurred a while ago. We have a reliability section which everybody in the business says is high time we have because everyone will have the same reliability standards, and we hope blackouts will become a thing of the past. I mentioned ethanol. I note there is one of the strongest proponents of ethanol on the floor, and I say to the distinguished Senator, I hope we get a good ethanol bill. Thanks to his efforts and many others, we should get one that produces literally thousands of jobs, billions of gallons of gasoline, and millions of barrels of oil saved from overseas. When we add that all together, the hybrid cars that will be produced--and I just heard the other day that if we continue to stimulate the purchase of hybrids, and if indeed they are produced as they have been, and if American manufacturers will get to where they are producing them so that it is not just Japanese hybrids, we should have in the not too distant future the equivalent of a million cars a year that would be hybrids. That will be a huge saver along with the other things that we are doing. I want to add two things that are not in this bill that are very important to our future. Separate and apart, as everybody remembers, we produced a proposal that should bring natural gas down from Alaska into Chicago, a huge pipeline, one of America's major construction projects. I do not want to overstate the case because it is not in this bill, but what we are trying to say is everything put together, this is where we are going. When that is completed, there will be a huge new supply of natural gas coming into our country, along with what we are discussing in this bill regarding other fronts. I will not give the details of what the ethanol provisions will do for our country, but it is obvious that will be discussed many times over. I can get it now. It will reduce crude oil imports by 2 billion barrels and reduce the outflow of dollars to foreign oil producers by $64 billion. It will create 234,000 new jobs. It will add $200 billion to the GDP between 2005 and 2012, and it will create $6 billion in new investment, much to go to States that are currently called rural States that truly need the economic development that will come with it. Actually, because it is agricultural products and because of the add- on that will occur in the development of ethanol, U.S. household incomes could, indeed, go up substantially overall, as much as $43 billion. This bill has provisions and ideas that came from every Senator. Senator Bingaman remembers on his side of the aisle four or five Senators have major provisions they got in this bill. Senator Bingaman and I negotiated out a number that were his ideas. I worked hard on the nuclear section. As I said, I think this bill, with the tax provisions, is going to cause a renaissance in nuclear power. In fact, I believe it is fair to say we will have a nuclear powerplant started in this country, ground turned, within 5 years--and I think that is the outside. Three consortia applied for pre-permitting under our rather new law for the expeditious handling of nuclear power permits. I mean expeditious only in that they will not have to stop over so many times. It will be clearly reviewed and have to meet standards, but they will not stop six or eight times from the construction until the end. And we do provide some assurance to those who will fund those powerplants that they will not get stuck midway through construction; that they will be able to complete the powerplants. I hope I have not neglected important issues, but the most important is we have done our very best to get a bipartisan bill. We have done our very best to send the right kind of messages to the world that, if we get this, America is alive in terms of our energy security, our jobs for the future, our competitiveness and reduction in the costs of some of the major basic energy sources, and, yes, cleaner air, cleaner coal--cleaner electricity production. If you add it up, it is truly an American Clean Energy Act. With that, I understand my fellow colleague from New Mexico would like to give his statement on the bill and I yield at this time.

Mr. DOMENICI. Please.

Mr. DOMENICI. The time got away. It is almost 12. How long will my colleague take?

Mr. DOMENICI. Unless there is something intervening, the Senator can speak right after that.