Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, tomorrow morning, the Senate will begin the process of moving to debate energy legislation--at least that is what we are told, and we hope we do in fact have a good, honest debate about energy and that we on this side, which constitutes 49 Senators out of the 100, have an opportunity to offer 1 or 2 or 3, or some reasonable number, of amendments so as to make the case for the American people that in fact we want to produce more energy; that we want to both save energy and produce more; and we have every reason to believe that can be done. With that in mind, we open the discussion, we begin the debate that should end up in a number of days of discussion on real energy legislation. And when I say real, I think the American people have awakened to the idea that Congress should and can pass legislation that will produce more oil for the consumption of the world and America, and thus have the strong potential for dropping the price of gasoline, lowering the price of gasoline at the pump. So we are here to begin the debate, a debate on how we might lower the price of gasoline at the pump by using less and producing more. Now, before I talk about my prepared remarks, I am going to say it is common knowledge in the oil and gas industry of America and the world that offshore--off the shores of the United States--be it California or Georgia, there exist large quantities of natural gas and crude oil, and that there are ways today to discover precisely where that oil is and to build platforms that are impregnable, onto which the apparatus is moved for the drilling of oil, and that from one such platform 10 or 12 major wells can be drilled underground--way down, many feet, in fact miles below the surface--to produce oil and gas for the American people. As we begin this debate, it is interesting to note that it has been 26, almost 27 years that these offshore oil and gas reserves owned by the American people have been locked up in a moratorium, either congressional or Executive. We note the other day the President lifted his moratoria, wherever they were around the United States. He lifted them. So what is left is the congressionally imposed, 1 year at a time--and we have imposed it for 26 years--moratorium on using this valuable resource because we were frightened and scared about the damage it might cause, the harm that might be caused by going out and drilling in the deep waters off the coasts of our country. We have since found out, without question--during this 27 years of getting oil elsewhere and expecting oil to be cheap--we found out during that period of time that we can indeed locate and find and drill for and produce and deliver oil and gas from the bottom, way down deep from the bottom of the coastal waters of America. Huge quantities of oil and gas can be removed, can be piped out, with no damage and no danger to anyone. That was proven with Katrina. When Katrina happened, America had a number of platforms, deep-water platforms in existence, because some parts of the offshore were open and yielded large quantities of oil and gas. None of them was disrupted. None of them was broken. None of the pipes were broken, and no environmental damage occurred from one of the most severe problems that came with Katrina and the hurricane that followed, as we all know. Experts now tell us the price Americans are paying at the pump is the result of global oil supply and demand imbalance. Having worked as a leader on energy legislation for 36 years in the Senate, I can honestly say I have never seen a problem so big being met with proposals and proposed solutions that are so small. Again, experts tell us it is a supply and demand problem and the legislation that will be before the Senate does nothing to address supply and demand. Americans are clamoring for more energy production at home. They know this is a serious problem that calls for serious solutions. It has been 81 days since I introduced a bill called the American Energy Production Act of 2008. Since that time, the Senate has failed to act on adding new supply measures. Since that time the price of oil has risen by nearly 15 percent, from $112 to $129 per barrel, even after last week's decline. Over that same time period, we have seen the other side offer a windfall profits tax that has been uniformly rejected by nearly all energy and economic experts across the ideological spectrum. In fact, the architect of this very concept in the Carter administration has said that ``it's a terrible idea today.'' On price gouging, an issue once dismissed by top economic advisers to Senator Obama, the other side abandoned their flirtation with this issue after confirming it was grounded in fiction and unsupported by any evidence. Then the majority sought the authority to sue OPEC, the OPEC nations, in the Federal courts of the United States for withholding energy supplies. Perhaps the other side decided to abandon this concept when they realized how much energy supply the Congress was responsible for locking up. Finally, the majority sought to increase taxes on the domestic energy companies, believing that increasing their business costs would somehow make it easier to compete with much larger national oil companies in their quest for global commodities. Having failed repeatedly to achieve success in increasing taxes, the other side has now decided to do so under the auspices of additional production. I have said before on the Senate floor in much greater detail that the ``use it or lose it'' concept is an uninformed and ill-conceived policy that will harm all our energy security and increase our energy costs. In the midst of all these failed ideas, the majority brought a climate change bill to the floor of the Senate that was estimated to increase gas prices by as much as $1 per gallon over the coming years and would have resulted in even greater price increases for overall energy costs. The assertion that the majority knows how to deal with the problems of high energy costs is discredited by their continuous attempts to advance policies that will raise the prices even higher. That is how we have arrived here today. After a series of failed ideas and counterproductive policies and counterproductive policy proposals, the other side seeks to set up another smokescreen against the force of overwhelming public opinion, and Senate Republicans united to increase domestic energy production. The other side seems content to create another politically motivated diversion from the serious problem which stares us in the face. And lo and behold, as we start this discussion, the American people have seen through it all and they have come to the conclusion that it is time, as they put it, to drill for more oil and gas if it is ours. We have called it exploration off the shores of America, where much oil and gas has been locked up for 27 years, where we have imposed moratoria based upon our concern and our fears that should not have existed. We tied up the oil and gas that belongs to Americans, and they are saying ``get on with it.'' No more smokescreens, no more politically motivated diversions. Let's stare this problem right in the face and get on producing more and saving more. I repeat, in all my years in the Senate I have never seen a problem so big met with a proposed solution that is so small. But I do not come to the Senate floor simply to reject the ideas of the other side. I rise to speak today, to share with the Senate some ideas supported by facts about how we can address the serious supply and demand imbalance that confronts us. My proposed American Energy Production Act, as well as the Gas Price Reduction Act, introduced by our Republican leader, Senator McConnell, would help ensure an adequate and affordable supply of energy in both the near term and the long term. The legislation introduced by Senator McConnell and by the Senator from New Mexico, myself, would allow Atlantic and Pacific States to initiate oil and gas production from the deep seas, regions that are believed to contain, at a minimum, 14 billion barrels of oil. We know this is a minimum because we have not bothered to inventory these deep water assets for 20 or 30 years or more. We must understand that during this period of time, with new techniques, new technology, new ways of discovery and new ways of delivery, these underwater reservoirs are going to yield much more oil and gas than we ever imagined, as we looked at them with old-time techniques, 20 and 30 and 40 years old. This legislation would reverse a congressional ban on regulations for oil shale leases--the ``rules of the road'' that industry must have before they will invest in significant resources. That is another asset we have which exists in three Western States. We need the rules of the road which have been locked up, again, by a moratorium imposed in the Interior appropriations bill in the dead of night, with no debate and no one to watch it. That must be removed so that giant potential for oil will be the source of investment by oil companies that seek new and innovative ways to turn that shale, which abounds in oil, into usable oil or usable diesel, which could certainly alleviate America's problems. We also propose establishing a program of direct loans and grants to accelerate the production of advanced batteries in the United States. These are crucial to advanced vehicles such as plug-in hybrids, which promise to reduce our Nation's consumption of oil and our greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, we will be producing more and using less because, with this battery research reaching fruition, producing batteries that give many more miles for the wheels that carry the electric cars-- clearly, when we get that we will be saving oil because we will not use as much gas to service our automobile fleets. These batteries are critical to advanced vehicles, the plug-in hybrids which we are talking about, and which hold so much promise. I am also willing to look at ways to improve the transparency of the markets and the ability of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to enforce its authority. The legislation introduced last month by the Republican leader would strengthen our oversight of the markets by adding more enforcement and increasing transparency. Republicans are open to working with the majority on speculation. It is time now for the majority to work with us on production. Production is a far bigger part of the solution to the American concern for ever-escalating prices of gas for automobiles and natural gas for use in various parts of our daily lives. I look forward to an open debate. Clearly, the issues we attempt to address on the production side and on the side of saving through electric automobiles are a much bigger part of the American problem than the problem that the majority leader attempts to solve in his antispeculation bill, which a number of us have had a chance to read now and to discuss with experts. We will have more to say about it. Suffice it to say that it would certainly not be a major part of solving the energy problem for the American people. There is no question about it. All you would have to do is submit the bill to anybody who knows about commodities and about futures markets, and they will tell you that bill we are going to talk about is not calculated to do a lot of good. As we move toward a new policy, it is important that we do so with every good intention. We want the majority leader to know we respect his approach to bringing up, through rule XIV, his bill. But we believe we are entitled to offer amendments to it--certainly not just one but enough amendments to make our case. The Democratic leader wants to talk about speculation. We say let's also talk about production. There is no question, if you are going to talk about the problem confronting the American people, and you put up a speculation bill--that you are not even sure will work, but it is there--that those who have some real interest in increasing production deserve an opportunity to offer their amendments and to be heard. To address this imbalance it is logical that we seek policies to increase our supply and decrease demand. I urge my colleagues on the other side to join us in this effort and do something big for the American people because the problem is big. It is not a little problem. It is a very big problem. I believe the next 3 or 4 days will shed some light for the American people on the issue of whether they, the American people, own the substantial quantities of oil and gas that are off our shores that in the next few years can be the subject matter of new modern techniques for drilling and gathering the oil and gas for use by the American people, thus reducing the heavy pressure put upon the world's supply of oil and natural gas. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I was hoping our leader would be here because he wanted some of this 15 minutes and I was thinking I could get in on part of it and I would not be here all afternoon. I do not have a long speech. I say to the Senator, I understand he might.

Mr. DOMENICI. Right.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I say to the Senator, thank you so much. I am going to proceed on our time and see what happens with our leader. If he arrives, I will, obviously, yield to him. I will sit down and quickly get out of the way.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, it is nice to be here with you in the chair, since we are discussing issues that are very important, of which you have been a part for a while around here. First of all, I wish to talk for a minute about the good news. The good news is that crude oil prices have gone down $16 a barrel in 3 days. That is a bigger drop in the prices of crude oil in history in terms of actual dollars. One of those 3 days it was an $8 drop. I do not know what this bodes for the future, but today it looks good, it sounds good, and it ought to make us feel good. What we ought to do is something positive that will have a chance of showing the world; that is, the world that is buying and selling oil and buying and trading oil futures on the market, that there is going to be more oil coming on because the United States has awakened; we have decided that after 27 years of being asleep. We have all this property called the continental offshore, which is owned by the people of our country, and for 27 years we kept all but small portions of it under lock and key. We had decided it was not worth opening that to drilling, even in modern days, when we have the cleanest and best way to go into deep waters and drill for oil. With oil spills being at a minimum, we kept it locked up. The year before last, we passed a bill that started the process of opening parts of this great valuable offshore owned by our people. Yes, the President of the United States waited around for us to act and finally decided he would lift the Executive ban, the Presidential moratorium that was on 85 percent of the offshore that has been locked up. Make no bones about it, now, when people say we have already let a lot of that land out to bid, 85 percent of the offshore--85 percent of the offshore--was under lock and key by moratorium until the President lifted the Executive ban. We now have imposed, on that same 85 percent, millions and millions of acres of offshore property. Now we have the situation where, come the first day of October, the Congress will have to act to put on another 1-year moratorium; the moratorium of Congress is 1 year at a time. We will have to act to put it on or there will be no moratorium, and it will be open for leases pursuant to the law of the land. This morning, I attended a workshop held by the Energy Committee to discuss the price of oil. We had two leading experts, and we were very fortunate, except that I would say we have heard about enough from experts, and we have talked enough about the problem. We ought to do something within the next couple weeks. But at this workshop was Dan Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, publisher of a very popular book on oil. He was accompanied by Roger Diwan of PFC Energy. Their message to us this morning, with many Senators asking questions, coming in and out of the room, was the same as I have been hearing from leading economists for the last several weeks. What did they say? Supply and demand problems are the reason why gas prices are so high, why crude oil prices are so high. The majority leader stopped by our workshop this morning to talk about the bill he has introduced today on speculation. He said that while he understood that speculation was not the only problem, he thought it was a big part of it and we should start there. Well, obviously, he controls how we start, so perhaps we will start with speculation. I, for one, think speculation is not nearly the problem of supply and demand, it is not nearly the problem of opening more property we own for drilling. I think that is the real problem: to put more of that out to the oil operators of the country and get started on some real new production. I am puzzled by the decision our leader has made about going first with speculation, antispeculation statutes. I am not against looking at that, but if there is something we can do to increase transparency, that is fine. But why would we start by addressing problems when the experts tell us they are not the real problem? What do the experts say? I will share with you a few comments of what they say. David Yergin, a great expert, a very fluent man: The rise in oil prices can be explained by basic economic factors, such as limited growth in supplies in recent years, a weakening dollar, a global surge in energy demand, and a string of production disruptions in countries such as Nigeria. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke: There is speculation, but speculation, under most circumstances, is a positive thing. It provides liquidity and allows people to hedge their risks. And it provides price discovery. It can help allocate oil availability over time, depending on the pattern of future prices and so on. Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway: It's not speculation, it's supply and demand. We don't have excess capacity in the world anymore, and that's what you're seeing in oil prices. So why would we start with speculation, instead of supply and demand? Eighty-five percent of the continental U.S. lands offshore are being locked up by Congress; that is, we have a prohibition. The most conservative estimates of how much oil is in the Atlantic and Pacific offshore is 14 billion barrels. Now, I actually think that is totally wrong. I think we have many times that, perhaps as much as three times that. We have not done a current evaluation, so we are doing some enlightened guessing. Yet we are coming up with 14 billion barrels that is out there that we might be able to drill for and bring on board. Let me assure everyone that is no pittance. That is a lot. For some perspective, that is more oil than the United States has imported from the Persian Gulf in 15 years and more oil than we have gotten from the Gulf of Mexico in 50 years. We have a plan to allow States to tap into those resources. The American people support that plan overwhelmingly. Why shouldn't we start there? From 1998 to 2002, global demand rose by 4 million barrels per day. Since 2002, it has risen by 8 million barrels per day. In China, the number of cars on the road double every 5 years. The economy there is growing by 10 percent annually. Yet, through problems in places such as Nigeria, we have lost global supplies. It should be no surprise that prices have gone up. It is clear what this Senate needs to do about it: increase American production now. I close by saying, the time has come to act on supply and demand. That means, as the American people are saying it: Start drilling on our property to produce oil and gas for our people instead of getting more and more from others overseas and actually sending all our wealth overseas, putting us in a ruinous situation, where we are growing poorer and poorer by the day. With that, I wonder if the distinguished Senator from Virginia would like to speak.

Mr. DOMENICI. Yes.

Mr. DOMENICI. That is right.

Mr. DOMENICI. That is right.

Mr. DOMENICI. Thank you, sir.

Mr. DOMENICI. Yes, sir, I do.

Mr. DOMENICI. Yes, sir.

Mr. DOMENICI. The time is here.

Mr. DOMENICI. Thank you. I am glad to be at our Republican leader's side on this issue and help wherever I can.

Mr. DOMENICI. We are aware this is a real big, big-time American problem, as hard as any kind of problem as we have had.

Mr. DOMENICI. You bet.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, how much time does the Senator from New Mexico have?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, it is a privilege this morning to follow after two Republicans who have eloquently expressed their views on this subject. I compliment our conference chairman from Tennessee, Senator Lamar Alexander. He has quickly taken the lead in this area as conference chairman and is doing an excellent job of putting us in a position where we can explain to the American people what this issue really is. Mr. President, 2\1/2\ months ago, I introduced a bill. The bill was intended to call to the Senate's attention that we ought to be producing oil and gas from U.S. assets, this oil and gas to be used by the American people to lessen our demand on foreign oil so that as we move across the bridge to the next fuel the world uses, we use less crude oil from foreign sources by using our own. That was the gist of the bill. It had conservation in it. It had production in it. It had addressed the continental offshore exploration. Indeed, after 2\1/2\ months, nothing has been done except that the President of the United States intervened and said to the American people: Let's just put the blame right where it belongs. I am lifting the Executive moratorium on all of the coastline of America in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that abuts our country. I am lifting the ones I have control over. And, Congress, you do what is next; you lift yours so we can begin the orderly process of having leases and producing oil and gas from our property for our people. I cannot tell you how thrilled this Senator was with the President's action because it said: What is next? I can almost envision the minds of those who are in the business of holding us hostage to natural gas and crude oil we have to purchase from overseas, in particular crude oil. I can almost envision them peeking over and peeking down into the Congress of the United States, saying: Now it is your turn; we are wondering what you are going to do. Those who are holding us hostage are wondering: Is the United States going into another deep sleep? There has been a 27-year deep sleep by America on these very valuable resources that should be explored on our coastlines which we own--we, the people, own--and we should get to work on a program to see how much of that we can use and where is it and how many billions of barrels there are. Make no bones about it, it should have been inventoried in depth, but it has not been. For a long time, people were scared to do that because they did not want to hear the results. Lately, the administration did not want to do it because they didn't know if Congress would ever let us use it. So we have just cursory inventories, but they indicate that 20 billion barrels is a pretty good number to consider as the barrels we will probably get from offshore America. I am somewhat informed, and I say that is a lowest possible number. I would think, if these offshore oil lands should really be opened for exploration, we are talking about anywhere from 20 billion to 100 billion barrels of oil that belong to Americans that ought to be produced. As those foreign countries peek over, they are doing two things: they are peeking at us to see what we will do, and they are also peeking at us to see whether we are going to let this asset go dormant or are we going to put it into the pool so that the psychology of what is available to the world will work its will and bring the price of oil down. I rise again today to speak on the most important economic and energy issue of our time. America faces a grave and growing threat from our massive dependence on foreign oil. We are told by lead economists for the International Energy Agency that we face a ``dangerous situation'' and that at today's pace, our global suppliers of oil will fail to meet demand over the next 25 years. We hear our businesses deeply concerned about fuel costs, and we hear the American people clamoring for new energy supplies in the wake of $4-plus gasoline. Amidst all of this noise, from the majority in Congress we get a deafening silence. In fact, I think some on the other side of the aisle were hoping that this whole thing could disappear until after the election, that they wouldn't have to vote on what they want to do with the American people's assets--to wit, the offshore oil and gas reserves that are theirs, that have been locked up, as I said, for 27 years. I think sometimes the other side of the aisle--at least some of them--and the leadership would think: Let's just wait until after the election, and then we will solve the problem and we won't have the Republicans in the way here. They can't do that because this is the Senate. An energy bill has to come up. We have to have amendments to it, and we have to vote. We will be looking anxiously and waiting anxiously for that to happen. I have spoken recently about the need to build a bridge to a clean energy future of affordable, reliable alternative energy fuel. The foundations of that bridge for the next three or four decades will be built on our Nation's use of crude oil. I hate to say that, but I have thought it through, and no matter what we do, no matter how successful we are, we are going to have to use crude oil until we find a total substitute for the automobiles and the trucks of today. They are the big users. We cannot just pile them up and throw them away. They are going to be used. As they are used, we must have crude oil. So we are going to be dependent, and we have to find our way to bridge that with as much of it as we can produce at home. I have spoken about this and the fact that may be three or four decades. It is very important that everybody understand that. A growing majority of the American people are clamoring for us to explore for more homegrown energy. When you consider that an increasing number of Americans across all political ideological spectrum support more oil production at home, the Senate's silence on this issue is rather shocking. It is past time that the majority in the Senate respond to the clarion call of the overwhelming majority of Americans. It is time for leadership. The American people are calling for solutions, and they are getting excuses. They are growing disillusioned by the inactions of Congress. I have spoken at great length on this Senate floor about the fallacy of the so-called ``use it or lose it'' argument. I want to do that one more time. I hear many Members of this body accusing others of sitting on leases. But perhaps we should point this bright perspective light back on ourselves. With the Executive moratorium now lifted, Congress is solely responsible for locking up billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. Perhaps it is the American people who will tell us: Use it or lose it. According to a comprehensive report by the National Petroleum Council called ``Facing the Hard Truth About Energy,'' in the United States an estimated 40 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil resources are completely off limits or are subject to significant lease restrictions. That is more than the equivalent of 8 years of total U.S. imports at current rates. On the Atlantic and Pacific OCS alone, there is estimated to be 15 billion barrels of oil. That is more than the total Persian Gulf imports over the past 15 years and approximately the same amount of the total oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico in the past half century. There are abundant oil reserves there waiting to be drilled, waiting to be explored, waiting for American ingenuity and talent which is now in abundance, and it is best to act on it because it is ours. These figures are staggering, and in light of the fact that our estimates have historically been very low when we get to actual exploration and production, perhaps we should take the time and resources to pay for a very comprehensive inventory. Then we would know how much there is out there. The American people would be even more excited about the prospects of that vast resource which is theirs. Staggering as the numbers are, they do not include the 800 billion barrels of oil-equivalent oil shale located in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. By the conservative estimates of the RAND Corporation, our oil shale resources at the base is three times greater than the oil reserves in Saudi Arabia. The facts are clear: We are spending hundreds of billions of American dollars to purchase something from around the world that we have sitting under our feet. As gasoline exceeds $4 a gallon and oil hovers around $140 per barrel, the American people should be tired of excuses. I believe they are. Amidst this backdrop, it is stunning that the majority offers a simple speculation bill. Every serious expert--from Daniel Yergin, to Guy Caruso, to Ben Bernanke, and Warren Buffett--recognizes it is a supply-demand problem and not a speculation problem. We are glad to debate the issue, but we better put some other things before the Senate, not just that, if we intend for the American people to believe we care about their plight and the plight of the American economy today. With all that is going on that is scaring the American people, I personally believe the biggest culprit in the crowd is the growing dependence on crude oil, the amount of money we send overseas every hour, every day, every week, every month to countries, many of which are our enemies and could care less about us, that we must pay that to get crude oil to be refined so that we can move our automobiles and our trucks and do our work and our business every day. It sounds incredible that we would not join together, Democrats and Republicans, on this exciting day and say we finally have pulled back the curtain that has had a blackout imposed on offshore drilling in America and join hands and say: What do we do to begin to develop it as quickly as we can? I don't see why we ought to be arguing. We ought to do it together and quickly. That is what the American people would like. I don't think that is what we are going to get. I hope some Democrats will be listening. That is what this Senator would like to do. We have a bill. We have a proposal. It would probably be better if Democrats and Republicans had one together that both produced and conserved, that produced more oil and conserved more in terms of our automobiles by producing more electric cars. Just combine those--this one, and match it off against another one--and we will be moving in the right direction. I close by saying I hope that day comes. I hope the other side is not waiting, doing nothing until the election is over, using any excuse they would like. There is no excuse. We can do it, and we ought to do it now. The curtain has now rolled back. The offshore is there to look at, to see, and it contains billions of barrels of oil that are ours. We ought to go get it in an orderly way, and we ought to pass laws in a bipartisan way that permit us to do it. But if not, we ought to put forth ours and have some serious votes in front of the American people to decide our future. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, on rollcall vote 181, I voted ``yea.'' It was my intention to vote ``nay.'' Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to change my vote since it will not affect the outcome.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I just caught some of the remarks of the distinguished Senator from New Jersey. I don't know whether I will be able to answer them today, but obviously, in the course of the next few days or weeks, I will answer every single one. Most are covered in what I will talk about today. In the course of the United States of America and the use of crude oil and natural gas as part of the transportation base of our country for automobiles, trucks, and the like, and at the same time the natural gas that has been produced that is being used by our chemical industry, the heating and cooling of our houses, and all kinds of things, and now some for automobiles also, in the course of that, yesterday was a remarkable day. After 27 years of moratorium on offshore exploration imposed on a year-to-year basis by the Congress and 18 years placed by the President, the executive branch of Government, which is not year to year but as long as the President wants it, we had the President of the United States taking off that Executive order putting a moratorium on 85 percent of the offshore properties in the continental U.S. owned by every single American. We had the President take off the moratorium and challenge the Congress to do likewise because without lifting the moratorium, whether it is the executive branch or the legislative branch, we cannot explore for oil and gas that we own. I regret to say that we have been so far off base in terms of deciding where we would spend our money to help determine our course, where we are going, that we have not spent the money to go out and find the inventory, to do an inventory of this huge offshore resource, including off the California shores, all the way around the Atlantic and Pacific where there must be billions of barrels of oil that are going to be developed over the years and literally trillions upon trillions of natural gas Btu's that are going to be discovered. We decided there was plenty of oil and gas in the world, so we could put a moratorium on because we were frightened of what would happen if there would be spills. We were scared of what would happen if oil might spill out of one of the pipelines. I say to everyone, during this 27 years, more or less, of moratoria, there has been a part of the offshore that has been open. The part that has been opened is singularly marked by a huge production of crude oil and natural gas for the people of America, principally off the coast of Texas, Louisiana, and a little bit of Alabama and Mississippi. But it has yielded literally millions upon millions of barrels of crude oil for America and literally scores of natural gas, that little bit that is open. How much is open, so we will have it straight? Mr. President, 15 percent, 1-5; 85 percent has a moratorium on it. We have not inventoried it because we didn't want to spend the money. It cost a little bit of money to inventory it. So we have a sloppily done estimate that says we have an awful lot of oil and natural gas on that 85 percent. It is estimated that there are somewhere between 17 billion and 18 billion barrels. This Senator thinks that is so low that if we were to do an inventory, I think it would be twice as much or more that the American people own and we are not doing anything with. So, yes, indeed, it was a remarkable day when President Bush lifted that moratorium and said to us: You do likewise. Specifically, the President was saying to us: Do something that will tell the world we are going to start producing and get that done in a way that will cause those who are in the fields of buying and selling oil and gas and producing it to understand that there is another new, huge reserve coming onboard in due course, some of it in a few years, some of it over the long haul, but that it is there and America is going to use it. In response to the President, the majority leader of the Senate, who has been my friend for a long time, announced that he will introduce his own bill. I heard the Senator from New Jersey alluding to parts of it. Probably tomorrow, he said. His bill will focus principally on the idea that speculators are driving up the price of oil, even though speculators are only responding to the same supply-demand concerns that everyone else is. In fact, recently Warren Buffett, the great businessman, explained the spike in gas prices by saying: It's not speculation, it's supply and demand. We don't have excess capacity in the world anymore and that's what you are seeing in oil and gas prices. Guy Caruso, the Administrator of the Energy Information Agency, said speculation was not driving the increase in prices. Just today, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said: If financial speculation were pushing all prices above the level consistent with the fundamentals of supply and demand, we would expect inventories of crude oil and petroleum products to increase as supply rose and demand fell. But, in fact, available data on oil inventories shows notable declines over the past year. These experts say that speculation is not the main reason for this surge. What really struck me was the majority leader announced he would not allow amendments at all to his bill. Let me make sure we say this on the first day after the President raises the moratorium, and so the moratoria that are left are all dependent on Congress. Whenever Congress is ready, Congress can change them. And if Congress doesn't do something, those moratoria will all expire at the end of this fiscal year. That is the first day of October. They will expire. We will have to act to keep them on. But here we have the majority leader announcing that he would not allow any amendments to his bill that we haven't seen yet--not a single one, said he. I can't believe the people of this country are going to buy that, that one man, instead of the Senate, one man in his capacity as majority leader can say to the Senate: Take it or leave it. Here is my bill. It hasn't been produced by any committee. It is the bill of the leader of the Senate, and it principally says: We are going after speculators, so it is not going to produce any oil, from what we can see, and he says there will be no amendments. I really don't believe, I repeat myself, that when the American people understand that out there for use, for development in the world market of oil and gas supply sits all this offshore development potential, and here stands the majority leader of the Senate and he says: So long as you do it my way, there will be some impact, some change, but it will only be what I say and not what anybody else thinks--we have already said on our side--and we are not just a few people; we are 49 out of 100. We have already said we want to produce more oil and gas offshore and we want to share the royalties with the States so that as we go about asking California if they would like to lift the moratorium and put a 50-mile limit, they could assess with experts how many hundreds of millions of dollars that State is going to get from royalties, in exchange for which the American people are going to have oil and gas drilling off that shore. All across the country, down in the South where we have a moratorium, the same thing can happen. There can be an honest, bona fide look by the States under our proposal. But that won't happen. The occupant of the chair is one of the most reputable and fair Senators around. He wouldn't like to see that happen. He is listening attentively: Is that what I am for as a Democrat? Is that what I am going to do, say we are running this like the U.S. House, except we don't have a committee to police the bills because it was never in our power to do it, but our majority leader is going to be the one who decides what we take up. You can't amend a bill he puts on the floor on this energy crisis, this offshore oil which is in a huge new abundance that we own that sooner or later is going to add substantially to the supply and thus have an impact on the price of oil and gas for the American people. I don't really think the majority leader is going to be able to prevail on this issue. Understand, he is going to have to have a vote on a continuing resolution because we are not doing any appropriations bills. Come time for that continuing resolution, they have to extend all of these moratoria because those appropriations bills they are having votes on are not going to get to the floor of the Senate. So we are going to have a continuing resolution around here and have to get the votes on it, excepting that I understand right now that the majority leader wants to bring his own bill to the floor, lay it up, and not let anybody amend it. Yesterday he talked about this: You do it my way. Why? You won't get a chance to vote. Why? Because you lose because you cannot get 51 Senators to vote with you and do nothing to liberate for use these huge, huge billions and billions of barrels of oil and natural gas in abundance. As all of my colleagues know, I have been around here about 36 years. Some people say that can't be right, but it is, and I am about to make it the last, soon. I have had a hand in passing a lot of bills. For many years, I passed a Budget Act every year. I don't think I missed but once. I was there doing that for about 18, 20, 26 years. You all-- even new Senators have seen what an ordeal that is. If I look stooped and worn out, it is because I did that for so long before I got this wonderful job trying to do something about the energy crisis. And we have done a lot. It is just that the energy crisis is pervasive. You can do a lot, and nobody knows you have done anything. I have had a hand in passing a lot of bills, and I have seen what happens when one party decides it can dictate to the other. Unfortunately, that is what is happening now. On the most important economic issue of our time, the majority leader has decided that he alone--he and he alone--is the only person here who can make energy policy. The rest of us might as well go home. We can't offer any amendments and we would be lucky if he even let us have a good debate. Why? The majority leader knows that one of our ideas is to allow each individual State to decide if it wants to explore for oil and gas. Eighty-five percent of the land in the continental United States is currently off limits for oil. The President lifted his 85 percent; the same number remains under moratoria from the legislature. Republicans want to change that. I am pleased that I think some Democrats want to change that. This area is laden with billions of barrels of American oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, so the majority leader knows if you were to have a vote on this subject on the floor, he may not win. He may not win. And I believe the American people will have a lot to say about who wins when they understand this issue plain and simple. The offshore has always been open to development under certain rules until you put on a moratorium and we now have one on, put on by the legislature, and it ought to be taken off. Republicans want to change it and I am pleased to say that, talking to Democrats, I also believe there are some of them who want to join us. The majority leader knows if we were to have a vote on this subject, he may not win. I put it the other way, he may lose. And even if he does win, the American people will not like it, since the vast majority of them agree with us that America ought to be producing more oil through deep-water exploration. The American people are clamoring for it. They do it in Norway, Brazil, Great Britain, and many other nations. So Americans are asking, why not here? I have heard all kinds of excuses as to why we should not open up the new areas. The latest one, according to the majority leader, is----

Mr. DOMENICI. I ask for 3 additional minutes.

Mr. DOMENICI. I have heard all the excuses I have ever heard of. I want to close with one. The other side says they are going to put in some language that says to those companies that own leases: Use it or lose it. They don't have to put that in their new law because there is already a ``use it or lose it'' provision. I say to my friend, Senator Kyl, all of those companies that have leases have either a 5- or 8- or 10-year lease. In each of those leases it says: When the lease expires, if you are not producing, you lose the lease. That is: Use it or lose it. So already all the leases say by the time the lease expires--and they are not long leases. They are 5s and 8s and 10s. If you talk about a lot of property not being used, it is because they are going through different phases of evaluating the property to get it ready for the final decision whether to drill the hole. So we are not worried about that. We contend that there is no ``use it or lose it'' necessary because it is already the law under which they serve today. There is nobody sitting on it. It is $140-a-barrel oil. If you were to sit on that, as an oil company, you would be held responsible to your board and your stockholders for wrongdoing because you ought to get on with producing it so you don't lose it because it already is a ``use it or lose it,'' and we do not need any new rules. The President's action yesterday places the ball firmly in our court. It is a decision we have to make soon because the existing moratoria on offshore exploration expire at the end of September. But in order to address any of these problems, the Senate must be able to function as a deliberative body. As long as we are blocked by the majority from offering amendments to virtually every bill that comes before us, we simply can't do that. It is not the right way to govern. The American people are paying a very high price. We know it. We have to make sure the American people find out--and first, that those who disseminate the news find out that in fact this should be open for debate. Republicans will be reasonable, but we want some amendments and we want to vote on the disposition of this property which belongs to everybody. Some of it may have great quantities of natural gas and crude oil. We have to make some decisions other than: Do it my way. I, the leader, have a bill. It will be that bill or no bill. I am sorry to say to my good friend, the leader, he was not that way before. He should go back as a leader the way he was before and not think he can do that. He does not own the Senate. He does not run the Senate in that manner. We didn't give anybody that authority and we ought to get on with an understanding and agreement in the normal way that we have always done it and see how this comes out. It will probably come out right for the American people if we do that. It will become an asset for them. It will help bring down the prices, and certainly it will take millions of dollars we would otherwise be throwing away and we will keep it for ourselves as we keep some of these oil and gas revenues. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I object.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, on behalf of myself and Senators Sessions, Murkowski, and Landrieu, a bill that establishes the foundation for a sustainable nuclear fuel cycle for the U.S. A sustainable nuclear fuel cycle is the key to nuclear energy reaching its full potential to provide the large scale base load electrical generating capacity our country needs, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Today, nuclear energy provides nearly 20 percent of our electricity generation capacity and does so more reliably, and with a lower cost per kilowatt hour than coal, with essentially no greenhouse gas emissions. In the decades to come, we will need nuclear energy to play an even greater role, not only in electrical generation, but also in the transportation and industrial sectors, if we are to achieve the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions needed to address the challenge of global climate change. The Strengthening Management of Advanced Recycling Technologies Act, or SMART Act, represents the first important step in building the bridge to that future. The SMART Act promotes the establishment of privately owned and operated used nuclear fuel storage and recycling facilities. These facilities will help resolve the current deadlock in spent nuclear fuel management while providing a means to extract additional energy from used nuclear fuel. I believe that a commercially viable used fuel recycling strategy, combined with a responsible waste disposition strategy, will enable the expansion of nuclear energy necessary to meet all our goals for the future of nuclear energy. The SMART Act advances this vision through incentives--rather than mandates--for both industry and local communities. The SMART Act establishes a competitive 50-50 cost share program between the Department of Energy and private industry to finance engineering and design work and the development of license applications for up to 2 spent fuel recycling facilities. The SMART Act restricts facility designs to commercial scale facilities that do not separate pure plutonium. The recycling technology must also reduce the burden on geologic repositories used for ultimate disposal of waste and promote extraction of additional energy from used fuel stocks. Beyond these restrictions, the choice of recycling technology is left up to industry. The resulting reference licenses for recycling facilities may then be used by industry to construct domestic used nuclear fuel recycling capacity. To assist industry in securing the necessary financing for these facilities, the SMART Act authorizes DOE to offer long term contracts for spent fuel recycling services. All construction and financing costs, however, would be born by industry. Although ultimate geologic disposition of waste will always be needed, interim storage of used nuclear fuel is a necessary component of the nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure. To encourage development of interim storage facilities the SMART Act establishes an economic incentive program for communities and states that wish to host a facility within their jurisdiction. All interim storage facilities would be privately owned and operated and licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The SMART Act incentives are designed to encourage the development of two large scale facilities with enough capacity to accommodate our annual domestic used nuclear fuel generation. As with the used fuel recycling facilities, the SMART act authorizes the Department of Energy to enter into long term contracts with storage facility operators. In addition, the SMART Act allows the Department of Energy to enter into agreements with utilities for the settlement of all future claims against the department for failure to take title to spent nuclear fuel by 1998. Currently, the Nuclear Waste Fund established by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 has a balance of approximately $20 billion and is growing by nearly $1.8 billion annually from fees paid by the utilities and interest on the fund. Unfortunately, this fund is currently ``on budget'' and amounts to little more than an IOU to the U.S. ratepayers. The SMART Act will allow access to a small portion of this fund so that it can begin working to resolve the nuclear waste issue as it was intended. The SMART Act establishes a revolving fund from $1 billion of the current waste fund as well as the annual interest on the fund. The remaining 95 percent of the current waste fund, as well as all future fees, would be placed in a legacy fund for the purposes of constructing a geologic repository. Expenditures from the revolving fund for the provisions of the act could be made without further appropriations but would be subject to limitations in appropriations acts. In this way the revolving fund could be put to use without being subject to the uncertainty of the annual appropriations process while still retaining the authority of Congress to oversee the fund. The resolution of the used nuclear fuel issue has been deadlocked for decades. Fortunately time has been on our side since nuclear energy produces so little waste. For example the nuclear waste generated by a family of four during their entire lives is only a couple of pounds. Some have even said that we do not need to begin recycling used nuclear fuel for 30 or 40 years. I do not believe we can wait that long before we resolve the used nuclear fuel issue, however. We must begin taking steps today that will place us on the path to a secure and sustainable nuclear energy industry in the future. We must demonstrate to industry and financial institutions the Government's commitment to resolving the used nuclear fuel issue. The SMART bill will place us on that path to the future.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, on behalf of myself and Senators Sessions, Murkowski, and Landrieu, a bill that establishes the foundation for a sustainable nuclear fuel cycle for the U.S. A sustainable nuclear fuel cycle is the key to nuclear energy reaching its full potential to provide the large scale base load electrical generating capacity our country needs, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Today, nuclear energy provides nearly 20 percent of our electricity generation capacity and does so more reliably, and with a lower cost per kilowatt hour than coal, with essentially no greenhouse gas emissions. In the decades to come, we will need nuclear energy to play an even greater role, not only in electrical generation, but also in the transportation and industrial sectors, if we are to achieve the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions needed to address the challenge of global climate change. The Strengthening Management of Advanced Recycling Technologies Act, or SMART Act, represents the first important step in building the bridge to that future. The SMART Act promotes the establishment of privately owned and operated used nuclear fuel storage and recycling facilities. These facilities will help resolve the current deadlock in spent nuclear fuel management while providing a means to extract additional energy from used nuclear fuel. I believe that a commercially viable used fuel recycling strategy, combined with a responsible waste disposition strategy, will enable the expansion of nuclear energy necessary to meet all our goals for the future of nuclear energy. The SMART Act advances this vision through incentives--rather than mandates--for both industry and local communities. The SMART Act establishes a competitive 50-50 cost share program between the Department of Energy and private industry to finance engineering and design work and the development of license applications for up to 2 spent fuel recycling facilities. The SMART Act restricts facility designs to commercial scale facilities that do not separate pure plutonium. The recycling technology must also reduce the burden on geologic repositories used for ultimate disposal of waste and promote extraction of additional energy from used fuel stocks. Beyond these restrictions, the choice of recycling technology is left up to industry. The resulting reference licenses for recycling facilities may then be used by industry to construct domestic used nuclear fuel recycling capacity. To assist industry in securing the necessary financing for these facilities, the SMART Act authorizes DOE to offer long term contracts for spent fuel recycling services. All construction and financing costs, however, would be born by industry. Although ultimate geologic disposition of waste will always be needed, interim storage of used nuclear fuel is a necessary component of the nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure. To encourage development of interim storage facilities the SMART Act establishes an economic incentive program for communities and states that wish to host a facility within their jurisdiction. All interim storage facilities would be privately owned and operated and licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The SMART Act incentives are designed to encourage the development of two large scale facilities with enough capacity to accommodate our annual domestic used nuclear fuel generation. As with the used fuel recycling facilities, the SMART act authorizes the Department of Energy to enter into long term contracts with storage facility operators. In addition, the SMART Act allows the Department of Energy to enter into agreements with utilities for the settlement of all future claims against the department for failure to take title to spent nuclear fuel by 1998. Currently, the Nuclear Waste Fund established by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 has a balance of approximately $20 billion and is growing by nearly $1.8 billion annually from fees paid by the utilities and interest on the fund. Unfortunately, this fund is currently ``on budget'' and amounts to little more than an IOU to the U.S. ratepayers. The SMART Act will allow access to a small portion of this fund so that it can begin working to resolve the nuclear waste issue as it was intended. The SMART Act establishes a revolving fund from $1 billion of the current waste fund as well as the annual interest on the fund. The remaining 95 percent of the current waste fund, as well as all future fees, would be placed in a legacy fund for the purposes of constructing a geologic repository. Expenditures from the revolving fund for the provisions of the act could be made without further appropriations but would be subject to limitations in appropriations acts. In this way the revolving fund could be put to use without being subject to the uncertainty of the annual appropriations process while still retaining the authority of Congress to oversee the fund. The resolution of the used nuclear fuel issue has been deadlocked for decades. Fortunately time has been on our side since nuclear energy produces so little waste. For example the nuclear waste generated by a family of four during their entire lives is only a couple of pounds. Some have even said that we do not need to begin recycling used nuclear fuel for 30 or 40 years. I do not believe we can wait that long before we resolve the used nuclear fuel issue, however. We must begin taking steps today that will place us on the path to a secure and sustainable nuclear energy industry in the future. We must demonstrate to industry and financial institutions the Government's commitment to resolving the used nuclear fuel issue. The SMART bill will place us on that path to the future.

Mr. DOMENICI

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