Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, fellow Senators, I have spoken extensively over the past several months about the growing threat of our dependence on foreign oil. Two weeks ago, we were reminded of the threat by new trade deficit numbers showing a $4.4 billion deficit increase in just 1 month as a result of growing oil prices and growing oil imports. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that six Arab economies took in $400 billion in oil and gas revenues last year alone. The Journal also reported that petroleum-producing states are investing more of their oil wealth at home, triggering an investment and spending boom in the Middle East. But as our reliance on foreign oil grows, 85 percent of our offshore acreage in the continental United States is still off limits for leasing, as are 62 percent of onshore oil reserves. Let no one tell you that we have plenty of American acreage leased for energy development because compared to the rest of the world, we are falling behind, and it is making us poor and poorer and poorer. Since the Senate last voted on my proposal to increase production, it was estimated that America likely sent about $50 billion overseas to import oil. What is particularly troubling to me is that after rejecting a proposal I submitted on behalf of myself and 20 other Senators to open new areas for production, the majority has come up with excuse after excuse for not taking any action. First, without any evidence to back them up, they claimed that price gouging was the reason for high prices. At the same time, they said high prices were not caused by supply-and-demand issues, they told America that we must stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve because the 70,000 barrels a day that went into it were raising the price of gas. Suspending the SPR fill is something I have supported, but I also said we need to do much more. It alone is practically nothing. Unfortunately, advocates of this SPR suspension in the majority rejected a proposal to open areas of production that would bring online more than 2 million barrels of oil a day. Now the other side has apparently settled on an argument that first originated with the Wilderness Society. They claim oil companies are sitting on their leases and that if those companies just developed in those areas, we would not need to open new areas. If only that were true, Mr. President. The other side is now saying the oil companies must use it or lose it when it comes to their leases. They propose adding a tax on companies to punish them for not producing fast enough. This Wilderness Society argument demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of how we explore for oil and gas in this country, and the fact that this argument originates with a group that has led four major lawsuits in the last 4 years to prevent development in the very same area speaks to how disingenuous it really is. Part of the reason it takes so long for companies to produce is because groups such as the Wilderness Society keep throwing up roadblocks. They know it; we know it. Today, I am going to tackle this idea that companies are choosing to sit on their leases, and I will debunk that once and for all. First, let's consider the logic. Companies are paying a lot of money for the right to explore on a lease and are given a short period of time to produce oil. With the cost of oil now at $135 a barrel, why on Earth would a lessee intentionally sit on a lease and choose not to make money on it? Why would a company pay money essentially to rent a tract of land and then not use it? I have heard the claim that 41 million acres are leased on the Outer Continental Shelf and of that acreage, 33 million acres are not being produced. The use of this statistic shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the long, risky procedure and process that begins even before bidding on a lease and hopefully ends with production. The other side is saying that unless oil is literally coming out of the ground on an acre, it doesn't count, even if that acre is being explored or is in the process of getting environmental permits or in any other part of a process that is very long and tedious. Additionally, the use of this argument by groups who consistently go to court to prevent developing on existing lease areas speaks volumes about the intent here. Congress currently restricts access to 574.2 million acres of OCS. In actuality, it is clear by any measurable assessment that the majority in Congress is sitting on far more oil than the oil companies themselves. Let me repeat that. It is clear by any measurable assessment that the majority in Congress is sitting on far more oil than the oil companies themselves. Let's focus on offshore Federal leases for a moment. Simply examining the number of acres leased and the number of acres producing during a snapshot of time is deceptive. There are many different steps for producing oil and gas. At any given moment, a lease may not be producing, but it is active and under development. In the 5, 8, or 10 years that a company holds a lease--and they are given a specific period of time--environmental assessments could be underway, lessees could be trying to secure permits, the leasing agency could be challenged in litigation, and the lessee could be reviewing seismic data. In fact, any number of preproduction processes could be underway. These take time. These require experts. These cost money. I do not hear critics suggest that we speed this up or that we waive or shorten environmental requirements--and I am not suggesting that either. But critics do want to impose new costs on U.S. producers under the guise of ``speeding up leases.'' This tax and spend solution to a supply and demand problem makes no sense. And, once again, the other side proposes a solution that threatens our competitiveness with nationalized oil companies who are after the same commodity around the world. My friends on the other side of the aisle are fond of saying that we can't drill our way out of the problem--and they are right. But my message back to them is that we can't tax our way out of the problem either, and that is exactly what they keep proposing to do. Second, there are many up-front costs that leaseholders take on to acquire an oil and gas lease. Bonus payments and pre-production rental payments often cost millions of dollars and these capital investments are only being made for the ultimate development and production of oil to return a profit on investment. Simply put, if oil is not produced from a lease, companies lose money on it. Third, using these acreage numbers to claim that companies are ``sitting on'' $135 oil simply ignores the historical fact that simply because you lease lands does of necessarily mean that you are able technically or economically to produce on them--or even that there is oil under your lease. Hence the term: ``exploratory well.'' Ironically, some of the very same people who are arguing that these leases are not being developed also opposed an inventory of new areas that would clearly speed the development process when they are opened. To suggest that companies are not diligently developing their leases on the American deep sea is to simply ignore the facts. Over the past decade, more than 100 new discoveries have been announced and since the passage of the Deepwater Royalty Relief Act 13 years ago, offshore oil production has increased by 535 percent. Over the past months, three major sales for OCS oil and gas leases have taken place and together raised more than $9 billion in federal revenues. Under the oppositions argument--that is a lot of money companies are paying to sit on leases. I have had the opportunity to review the data provided by one company that holds leases--BP. BP has 124 leases that are actively producing. Those are the only ones that the majority is counting when they give you their statistics of producing leases. But BP also has 459 leases that are in the exploration phase, So 65 percent of BP's leases are under exploration so that BP can produce from them in the future, yet the majority would have you believe that BP is ``sitting on'' those leases instead of actively working toward producing on them. This is about as deceptive an argument as I have ever heard. It is either totally deceptive or it is absent knowledge and information--which is impossible. This information is readily available. We have severely limited our access to the American deepwater, and the situation is only getting worse. In 1982, nearly 160 million acres of land were being leased for exploration. Today, its less than 40 million. Why? Because we are running out of available land and we are restricting access to our own resources in favor of foreign oil. According to the MMS, only 2.4 percent of the total offshore acreage is currently being leased and about 85 percent of our continental offshore is under moratorium. As we debate about the use of 43 million acres available for development, we must recognize that Congress has placed 574.2 million acres under moratorium--and the majority has supported continuing to do so. Only 6 percent of total lower--48 OCS is currently leased. This does not demonstrate a lack of progress in the deepwater, it demonstrates a lack of progress on energy policy in Congress. The American people have had enough with excuses and they are looking for leadership. Two-third of Americans are asking us to produce American oil, but the majority in the Senate is blocking it. I urge my colleagues to look at the facts and take action. There is no question in my mind that the excuse that is being used is that we cannot drill our way out of the crisis. I submit that is not the issue, whether we can drill our way out of the crisis. The issue is whether we can produce more American oil or oil alternatives so we spend less overseas and keep more of our money at home. We are spending ourselves broke. We are spending ourselves into economic oblivion by sending so much of our resources overseas every day, every month, every year, for the acquisition of crude oil from foreign countries. I have an editorial from the Albuquerque Journal of Sunday past called ``It Takes Black Gold To Get to Green Future.'' It states: With all due respect to Al Gore, there is an urgent, new ``inconvenient truth.'' Unless Congress acts quickly to expand domestic oil supplies, the nation could face economic destruction long before it sees the environmental fallout of global warming. For decades it has been easy for most Americans to dodge the truth about our foreign oil dependence and to just keep driving--but $4-a-gallon gas has finally snapped the trance. Reality is sobering. The United States has put its economic survival in the hands of unstable foreign powers and volatile commodities markets. At any time, a major disruption in foreign supply could bring the enormous, transportation based U.S. economy to a standstill.

Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent the editorial and a Washington Post editorial called ``Drill Deeper'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. DOMENICI

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

Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, parliamentary inquiry: Is it appropriate to speak now as in morning business?

Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes, and I ask the Chair to advise me when I have 2 minutes remaining. I also ask unanimous consent that Senator Dodd be recognized following my remarks.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, over the last several weeks, I have come to the Senate floor to discuss my ideas on how to address the high price of gasoline in this country. I understand the toll these high prices are taking on the American people, and I understand the grave consequences of continuing our cycle of dependence upon foreign oil. Americans are looking to us for some solutions and leadership. But, so far, all they are getting is gridlock and fighting. However, I think there are some things that we ought to be able to come together on that would truly address the fundamental global supply and demand imbalance. Today, I would like to talk about them with the Senate and anybody who is interested out in the hinterland of America. This morning, my friend, the senior Senator from New York, said the Republican leader was incorrect in his assertion that the Democrats do not want to increase American oil and gas production. I was glad to hear him say that because given the votes that the other side has taken, I had my doubts. Just in the last month alone, they have opposed exploring in Alaska, opposed deep sea exploration, opposed lifting the moratorium on final regulations for commercial leasing of oil shale, and they have opposed converting coal to liquid fuel. That liquid fuel could be used by the U.S. military, as an example. They will be using it in one way or another. They could use the liquid that comes from conversion from coal. In fact, in the past, a large majority of the other side of the aisle has opposed taking inventories on our U.S. lands to simply find out how much oil and gas we actually have. Why would that proposition be objectionable? Wouldn't it seem appropriate, with such large resources offshore, that we would inventory them, even if it costs some money? The amount we could find out there may be terrific and tremendous in size. Yet we have had objection to even doing that. If the United States were to explore in our deep sea and move to develop our vast quantities of oil shale--just those two things--we could completely shift our dependence upon foreign oil in ways I suspect my friends on the other side of the aisle don't even realize. The amount of oil shale potential alone in our Nation is massive. This morning, I met with officials from the Department of the Interior who told me that in the coming decades, American companies are predicting production of up to 3 million barrels per day from our American oil shale. That gives us a good idea of just how much our Nation has at its disposal that we are not taking advantage of. Nevertheless, my friend from New York pointed out that he supported my effort in 2006 to open a portion of the Gulf of Mexico to exploration. In fact, he even said he ``helped lead the charge.'' Well, if that was the case, then I invite him to help me once again lead the charge to increase domestic production. Everything I have tried so far, his side has said no to. Tell me, what proposal will get them to say ``yes''? The Senator knows that I have been here a long time, and I have had a hand in passing many pieces of legislation. I understand it usually takes some bipartisan compromise to get something done. So I say to my friend, on the production side, how can we compromise? One reason I have been so discouraged about our ability to get something done is because even a limited, reasonable proposal to allow one single State to explore natural gas was rejected by the other side last year. My good friend from Virginia, Senator Warner--who you all know is respected for his bipartisanship--introduced an amendment a year ago this week, with Senator Webb's support, that would have allowed his home State to conduct natural gas exploration in the deep sea over 50 miles off the coast. He did this because the Democratic Governor of Virginia, and Republicans in the legislature expressed interest in possibly developing Virginia's coastal resources. It all sounds pretty reasonable, doesn't it? What is the harm in letting Virginia explore for natural gas if Virginia is interested in it? And yet Senator Warner's amendment was defeated by the Senate. Six Members from the other side of the aisle voted for it, and 39 voted against it--including my friend from New York. America has enormous oil and gas resources. Total offshore oil reserves are around 85.9 billion barrels of oil. Over 19 billion of that is completely off-limits for exploration. On shore, we have 30.5 billion barrels of oil, and over 60 percent of it is considered off- limits. We have over 1.6 trillion barrels of oil equivalent in oil shale, which is the equivalent of more than three times the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. This policy of taking our own resources off the table simply makes no sense, especially when we face a price of $135 per barrel of oil and $4 per gallon of gasoline. No other nation in the world deliberately prevents itself from using its own resources. Look around the world-- Brazil, Norway, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Russia and many others. They are producing their own oil and gas off of their own shorelines. So I sincerely hope that my friends on the other side of the aisle will join with me to try to find a way to allow States that wish to explore 50 miles off their coasts to be able to do so. The other side of the aisle frequently tells us that we can't drill our way out of this problem. This morning, the majority leader said that the ``answer to this is not drill, drill, drill.'' I agree with him. He is right. The answer to this problem is not just ``drill, drill, drill.'' There is no question that our long term future requires us to find solutions other than drilling. We need to reduce our dependence on oil from all sources. But we need to build a bridge to help get us there. On the far side of the bridge is a world in which cellulosic ethanol and plug-in hybrid vehicles are available and deployed on a wide scale basis. But in the near term our experts tell us we need oil to fuel our economy and our lives. So the question remains: is Congress going to choose to create jobs and revenues in America by exploring for our own oil and gas, or are we going to continue to increase our deficit by purchasing foreign oil in greater quantities? In order to get across this bridge I just described to secure an energy future, we need to develop our own natural resources. So let's build this bridge to a cleaner, more independent energy future by increasing domestic production here at home. It will take time and investments. Congress has already made great progress developing these resources for the long term and for the future of this country, but we are falling short in the near term. So let's come together in a bipartisan fashion to build a bridge to the future and begin to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. I truly believe that if we decided we could do this, the independence that would be shown to the world because of the great quantities we could say we would produce for ourselves, for the world inventory, would have an immediate impact on those who are speculating and those who are counting on a future of shortage. When they see the United States is going to do something about it, it can do something rather significant, I am convinced. We don't need to look at those other countries in awe when we have at home great resources that we are refusing to explore just because we refuse to do it. There should be no higher priority than the exploration of these resources, unless it is some great national interest that takes over and takes place and displaces this enormous interest we have to stop sending $125 a barrel to a foreign country for every barrel of oil we use. I repeat what I have said before: We are growing poor--p-o-o-r. Our economy is not flourishing, and we are asking why. We are being given all kinds of reasons. This Senator says one of the big reasons is that we are approaching the time when we will have sent $600 billion a year to foreign countries just for the crude oil we consume at home. If we have some of that locked up offshore of our country, we should say: Where is it, and what damage will it do if we use it? The answer will probably be that we have plenty and there will be no damage to use it. And if we move it out 25 or 50 miles from the shoreline into deep waters, there will be no damage to anyone. This technology has been perfected. Hurricane Katrina hit a part of the offshore where we had many of these rigs. Some were old and some were brandnew technology. It didn't matter, the technology was strong enough to where there was no leakage, no oil was spilled. I believe my friend has been waiting; therefore, I will not use my last 2 minutes. I will certainly yield to my good friend from Connecticut. I told the Senator that if he lets me go first, good things would follow. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. If anybody was listening, the Senator talked about that. At the time the cloture motion is filed, there are certain requirements, a certain number of Senators have to sign it. It is a request to the Senate that you vote on whether you are going to continue debate. When that vote occurs, you are voting on cloture, on a cloture motion regarding the pending motion or pending legislation. Last night I spoke to a group of energy experts and gave them the same warning I have been giving since the start of this year in a series of speeches on the Senate floor. That is that the United States faces a grave and growing threat to its well-being. Our economic strength and our energy security is being threatened by our vast dependence on foreign oil. I have said it before and I will say it again: If we do not address this problem in a serious way, America will become poor. I could have added a whole lot to that, but let me repeat: If we don't do something about this vast dependence upon foreign oil, America will become poor, p-o-o-r. Mr. President, $600 billion a year--it looks like is where we are headed--will be sent from this country to other countries to buy crude oil that we are going to turn into gasoline or diesel fuel to use here in America in our transportation system, essentially. We have seen the warnings for years now. I remember when President Nixon launched the Project Independence more than three decades ago. The goal of that project was to eliminate our dependence upon foreign oil within a decade. Since then, our dependence on foreign oil has more than doubled and we have literally put trillions of American dollars into the hands of others who often do not share our interests. The problem has gotten worse under both parties for decade upon decade. Yesterday, another warning was brought up to us in the form of trade numbers, international trade numbers for April. Our deficit in the international trade of goods and services rose by 7.8 percent to nearly $61 billion in the month of April. We were also told that this $4.4 billion increase in trade deficit in April was nearly entirely attributable to imports of crude oil and petroleum products. The average price of imported petroleum and the total amount of fuel bought were both the highest ever. It is obvious it is because the price of crude oil was the highest ever for that particular month versus any other month. It is time we begin to do something about this. Family budgets are being strained by the price of gasoline. America's small businesses are being hurt by the cost of energy. America's trade deficit is swelling out of control by the importation of foreign crude oil and the money we pay to buy it. It is the time to act, to do something. Over the past 2 months, Republicans have offered a new direction on energy policy. We have recognized we must open additional areas to American exploration and that we must put the decision of locking up our own areas to a test of whether closing the land to development meets a greater national interest than opening the land for exploration and production of oil and gas. In making such an assessment, we must listen carefully to the American people, who are hurting and who are asking us for some relief at the pump. A clear majority of Americans wants us to open more lands for oil and gas production. They want to understand what lands are open from which we could develop our own energy. We have sought to open ANWR. That would not work. We didn't have enough votes. We have sought new deep sea exploration. We have sought to develop oil shale, or at least to take off the moratorium which was imposed last year that will make it more difficult to develop oil shale, which we own in large quantities and in great abundance. We also have sought to turn coal into a liquid fuel. We could do that in any number of ways. The technique is available; it just costs a lot of money. But it is costing us a lot of money to pay for this dependence. So we could initiate a major program for coal to liquid and say we are going to contract to sell that to the military. Their needs are enormous. They buy a lot of it from overseas because we do not produce enough of our own. So why not take that huge resource called coal, use one of the existing ways of converting it, and arrive at an agreement where we could use the diesel fuel so produced to fuel our military and we would be using our coal, we would buy less overseas, our military would get the diesel produced here in America, and at the same time the other one we could do is commit ourselves to develop oil shale into oil. If those who have us by the throat can strangle us with the price of oil only believed we were going to develop ANWR in Alaska, that we were truly going to develop liquid from coal and use it for whatever specialized purpose we wished, know we could do it in large quantities, and then if we would commit to oil shale conversion and get started, even if it were only to produce a small quantity, the world would respond. They would say America is serious about minimizing rather than maximizing her dependence upon foreign oil. No doubt about it. Any of those three--and the offshore I talked about, the exploration of our offshore which is subject to moratoria that have been imposed by Congress. There are a number of States that would do it, that could do it, and we would share the royalties as we are with Louisiana and Texas, that many of us voted for when we produced an energy bill, the second Energy bill the year before last. We did it, we knew how to do it, and we could do it elsewhere. It appears to me now is the time to move on. Each and every one of these American energy policies has been turned back by our Democratic friends on the other side of the aisle and they have sought to raise taxes, increase regulation, and ask Saudi Arabia for more oil. I ask unanimous consent I be given an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. DOMENICI. Let's look at what we voted on yesterday. The Democrats sought to increase taxes on American business competing with foreign nations for a global commodity. They tell us this tax is the solution because the oil companies are making too much money. These new taxes will not lower prices, and they know it. What raising taxes on American companies would do is to ship the competitive business advantage to foreign oil companies. Raising taxes on American companies and not on their competitors costs American jobs. Raising taxes on American companies increases imports and lowers American energy production. This is not only my analysis, it is the analysis of the independent Congressional Research Service. It is the analysis of the Wall Street Journal and the analysis of officials from the Carter and Clinton administrations, who had experience with the windfall profits tax, which had a pretty-sounding name and a terrible-sounding effect, for it rumbled through the country causing oil companies to pay higher taxes, thus raising costs of oil and lowering the amount that was produced. So we are told by a consensus of our greatest experts that such a time is decades off. I have spoken with those who know about our needs. They say we need a bridge to secure our energy future--a bridge. On the far side of the bridge is America, where we are no longer dependent on these vast amounts of crude oil. On the far side of the bridge is cellulosic ethanol used widely around the Nation and in our plug-in hybrid cars that will influence the use of oil. However, we are told by a consensus of our greatest experts that bridge and that such a time when we will not be using oil could be as many as four decades from now. In the meantime, if we do not move to solve it, that bridge will be built of crude oil, if it is imported, and we will just pay more for longer periods of time to countries around the world that may not agree with our idea or our philosophy of life. We are also told from the IEA that our world oil production estimates for the year 2030 are well below what we previously thought. The question then becomes will this Nation get about the business today of producing our own American energy for tomorrow or will we continue to rely to a greater degree on foreign oil. The question is that simple. I ask my colleagues to seriously reconsider the Domenici American Energy Production Act. I ask them to reconsider the views that they held when oil was at $19 in an era of $135 oil. I ask them to reconsider their views as many have done on nuclear power since I begin advocating for it more than a decade ago. Since then, we have seen a nuclear renaissance in America and we are seeing a growing number of people come over to our side on that issue. I ask my colleagues to listen to the 57 percent of Americans who are telling us to produce more here at home. And I ask my colleagues to consider whether the foundation of the bridge to our energy future should be built with American energy or foreign energy. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. So cloture is an instrument whereby you stop debate, if you impose cloture?

Mr. DOMENICI. I wonder if the Senator from Wyoming would answer a question on my time, before he sits down.

Mr. DOMENICI. I listened to the Senator's speech and I was very impressed. I think it would be helpful to those who are listening if you could define one word, because you use it and I use it and everybody uses it around here. What does ``cloture'' mean?

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Hutchison be the leadoff speaker and she be allowed 7 minutes, and that I follow her with 15 minutes, and then we will see where it goes from there.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, am I correct in assuming that I have 2 minutes, plus the leader's time?

Mr. DOMENICI. I yield myself 5 minutes and will reserve the remainder. Mr. President, the American people are clamoring for relief at the pump. In 1 year we have seen a 16-point increase in the percentage of Americans who seek more exploration and production of oil and gas in this country. Today, according to a recent Gallup poll, 57 percent of Americans are seeking more exploration and production of oil and gas here at home. I do not know what percentage of Americans would like to see higher taxes, increased prices, and greater imports, but I suspect it would be very low. But according to the independent Congressional Research Service, that is what the people will get if the Reid tax increase is enacted into law. They will get exactly what they do not want, because the bill will raise taxes, increase imports, and contribute to a pattern of sending more than half a trillion dollars overseas to hostile regions. I will oppose the motion to proceed this morning. I wish to start by looking at the windfall profits tax contained in this bill. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found a windfall profits tax could have several adverse effects and could be expected to reduce domestic oil production and increase the level of imports. This group is not alone in their estimate. The Wall Street Journal predicts a windfall profit tax is a sure formula ``to keep the future price of gas higher.'' It is not simply these two views that warn against a windfall profits tax. Former officials from both the Carter and Clinton administrations have spoken. The Under Secretary of Commerce in the Clinton administration recently said: A new windfall profits tax, however emotionally satisfying it may seem, also harms most people saving for their retirement or living on retirement savings. More than 40 percent of that cost would fall on tens of millions of seniors and retirees who own oil stock directly or indirectly through their pension plans and retirement accounts. An individual named Phil Verleger, the individual responsible for implementing the tax during the Carter years, recently called a windfall profits tax ``a terrible idea today.'' There seems to be a consensus everywhere that the windfall profits tax is a bad idea, except in the halls of Congress and within the Chavez administration in Venezuela. It is not only conjecture that leads us to the conclusion that this is a bad idea but, rather, an understanding of history. Between 1980 and 1986 when the last windfall profits tax was in place, domestic oil production was reduced by as much as 8 percent and our imports rose from 32 percent to 38 percent. Revenues for the tax came in well below what was originally estimated, and the tax came to be called an administrative nightmare that stunted economic growth. It was a bad idea then and it is a bad idea now, and it should be rejected. About that I am certain. How much time remains?

Mr. DOMENICI. On the time I yielded to myself?

Mr. DOMENICI. All right. I will use it now. Now, Senators today should have been--under anyone's understanding of the dilemma we are in with the price of oil scaring the American people to death, the amount of money we are sending out of our country to meet our energy needs, it is going to reach $600 billion a year. With the escalating price of crude oil, that is what it looks like next year. It will be what a full year will cost us, $600 billion. I would think with that in mind, there would be on the floor of the Senate some real proposals by the Democratic leadership and the majority party. Instead, what do we get? We get what I call a ``no-energy energy bill.'' It is a no-energy energy bill because it does not produce an ounce of energy; it raises the cost instead of lowering the cost of crude oil; it produces less rather than more crude oil. That is why there is nothing going on on the floor, because there is nothing exciting. The Democrats have offered nothing. We are begging them to try something. We are begging them to try something that would produce more American oil or oil substitutes. We know what they are. The distinguished Senator from Colorado knows what they are. We know that offshore, deepwater exploration around the shores of America could be put in effect by raising the moratorium, and we would have literally billions of reserves of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas readily made available. We need to take off the moratorium that we put on ourselves, take it off and say to the people: Let's produce it. It would take a few years. But the signal would be positive. We would have the oil shale in your State and Utah, your sister State, if we said we are ready to set the final guidelines so the oil companies can invest. Someone down here prior to my speech said the oil companies will not do anything to help. Yes, indeed they will. One of them is investing $8.5 billion in oil shale and tar sands up in our neighboring country of Canada. Some people think that is terrible, because they did not want them to produce that kind of oil. But I do not think it is terrible, because it eliminates the potential for gouging, for prices being too high. Because if you have these great inventories of resources and they are yours and you can use them, you ameliorate the increasing price of oil, and we ought to be doing that. Instead of that, we are down here talking about a second bill. The second bill is a bill passed by the House, sent over here to us that is full of tax increases to pay for a series of tax incentives that we should pass without the tax increases. We have done it before, we ought to do it. That bill ought to be defeated, no question about it, because we ought to pass it. We need the incentives, but we do not need the tax increases. We have done it without tax increases twice before, and somehow or other the House keeps getting it put in their head if they send it over here with other tax increases, different ones, we will go for it. I think it is pretty clear we will not. So it is an interesting day. Instead of being here with some positive things we are going to do, we will be here defending some old ideas that are not going to help one bit, and we are saying, let's try them anyway. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, Parliamentary inquiry: How much time remains and who has time before the vote?

Mr. DOMENICI. So that means I would use the remaining time, and there would be no time for anyone else before the first vote?

Mr. DOMENICI. That was my question. I didn't pose it right.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes and see how it works out. The Senator from Pennsylvania wanted some of my time. I don't know if I have enough to give him, but I will try, and I thank him for coming down so early in the morning. First of all, let me say to my fellow Senators but most of all to the American people that the Senate has a bill before us today we will call the Reid bill, named after the majority leader, and I think it deserves a simple little nickname. It should be the Democratic Party's ``No Energy Energy bill.'' It doesn't produce one ounce of energy. Clearly, the American people are looking to us to see how we can suggest that the price of oil might be stabilized or brought down. We are told by most experts we are going to be using crude oil for 30 or 40 years to come, and we call that the bridge, the bridge between now and the future, where we are going to have to use crude oil. If we are going to have to use crude oil, then America should look to itself and see where and how can we produce oil that belongs to us so this bridge, this 30 or 40 years when we are going to have to use crude oil to get by, that we will have as much of ours as possible. It is a shame the majority party in the Senate is not looking to American resources, does not have a bill, will not let us vote on a bill, will not let us amend a bill that would produce more energy from the coastal waters off the shores of the United States, upon which we have put a moratorium. That moratorium says we cannot drill. Everybody knows there are literally billions of barrels of oil that belong to us. We could do whatever we would like. We could say 50 miles out is where we start, so it will harm no one, but let's open it and explore for American oil where there is an abundance. In addition, let's go ahead and convert coal to crude oil, coal to diesel. We know how to do that. Let's get on with it so we can send the right signal to the world. Let's take the moratorium off oil shale and get on with a 5- or 10- year program to produce oil from those properties that belong to Americans that are laden with oil and are in the States of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. That is what we are looking for, not a bill that attempts to levy a windfall profits tax which everybody associated with that tax-- including those who helped put it on during the regime of President Carter--now comes over and joins us, saying: Don't do that. It will do nothing but raise the price of crude oil. Why do we want to pass a tax increasing the cost of crude oil when the American people are asking us to do the opposite? The majority here in the Senate believes the major oil companies--there are not very many left that are American oil companies. There are just a few of them left, and all the rest of the oil is owned by countries--not companies, by countries. They own it. We have five or six American companies. We ought to be grateful we have them. They are the only ones out there capable of competing with these countries to get oil and produce more. Yet the Democrats would like to make life onerous for those companies, would like to make it harder for them to produce oil, and try to let the American people think that if we tax them enough, somehow or another that will produce more oil. From my standpoint, this is a very simple debate. The Democrats have no energy bill before us, in terms of producing energy. So they have a ``no energy'' bill. We ought to say we don't want to debate that because it doesn't amount to anything. Then the House sent us a bill that imposes taxes. That is all it is. They impose taxes in order to put on a kind of energy stimulus for wind and the like. They want to tax in order to pay for it. We have never paid for it before. We have imposed those various incentives. They are good. We passed them 88 to 8 one time. We are for doing that again, but we are not for doing that in the manner suggested by the legislation from the House which came over here. It is our second vote. We ought to just say no to that and say we are ready to extend those tax credits and we are ready to do that in exactly the way we have done it before, with no taxes added to the American people or to anyone--just go ahead and do those tax extenders, which we desperately need. Let me repeat. One of the most important things we need is an extension of those tax extenders. We do not need a tax bill that will pay for those extenders because we have already done it without taxes. We ought to do that again, nice and clean and quick. That would be a very good start toward an alternative energy policy or a continuation of one. Mr. President, I wish to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania at this point.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I yield the floor at this time.

Mr. DOMENICI. I want to try to raise a concept and see if we can get this where more people would begin to discuss this idea. In a hearing about 8 days ago, a crude oil expert made the statement that we would be using oil as a bridge to the future for more than 30 years. Let me repeat. We will be using crude oil as a bridge to the future for more than 30 years, this expert said, perhaps 40 years or more. That is kind of common sense. Crude oil is used to make gasoline and things such as gasoline, and those are used in the importation industry. We cannot get rid of that quickly.

Mr. DOMENICI. I will use 1 minute and then I will sit down. Let me repeat so everybody will get this. For something like 40 years, we will be using crude oil, our own or others, because we cannot get rid of the current mode of transportation any quicker. Cars will be cars, and we will be using them because we cannot wean them off the scene. As we move to a better era of a better life where we do not have to use crude oil in our daily lives so much, we will have to use the bridge which will be crude oil. Now, why do I talk about this? I do because it is important we understand that if we have any cards, playing poker, if we have any aces in our hands, we better go ahead and play them, and the aces are crude oil we might produce some way that is ours. We ought to go ahead and play the card. I submit that we do have a lot of aces. We have got a huge amount of crude oil that is in the Outer Continental Shelf that we ought to be exploring for forthwith. We ought to take the moratoria off and start at 50 miles out across this land. If we did that and sent that message for starters, it would be received in a terrific way. Take the moratoria that were put in the bill that has been referred to as the Domenici bill for production, and believe it or not, we would send a signal that America is coming back to life, and during that bridge time we are going to produce more oil on our own. Nothing will help us more in reducing the price and cost to our consumers than that idea we implemented. We must try to do it even if the Democrats do not want us to. We have got to try to force a vote so that people understand what we are trying to do. I reserve the remainder of my time and I yield the floor.