Frank Murkowski

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I would appreciate it if the Senator will get his name so we can contact him.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to advise my colleagues why I think it is appropriate that we address some relief for the American consumer with regard to the gasoline price spike that has occurred in this country. I am a cosponsor, with the majority leader, Senator Lott, and a number of others, of this important legislation that will give us an opportunity to take positive action in a meaningful way to put a brake on the ever-rising gasoline prices that American families face each day. The American people should have a choice, whether they feel the priority is such that they should have relief from the gasoline tax. I emphasize a choice. I emphasize the American people, through their elected representatives on this floor, have to make a determination that this is a priority because there is no free lunch around here. What we are talking about is a combined bill which would waive the Federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents. That is a considerable tax. It is even larger when you add the State taxes to it. When I said there is no free ride around here, what I meant was we have agreed if we suspend the Federal gas tax for the balance of this year, we will also make whole the highway trust fund. That alternative will require that we find considerable funds. But if we guarantee we are going to find them, that means they are going to come through the budget process, from surplus and other areas. Is this a sufficient priority? There are those who feel very strongly this jeopardizes the highway trust fund. In this bill itself, it says we will hold the highway trust fund harmless. That is a mandate, in effect a promise, to hold it harmless. It does not say where the money is going to come from to offset it. We are suspending it only for the balance of this year. I have been advised by the budgeteers that this will not jeopardize any of the contracts that are presently let for this construction year or next year that propose to use highway trust fund moneys because those have already, in effect, been designated, earmarked, and so forth. I am not on the Budget Committee, but that is the advice I have been given. I think Members should understand a little background here. It was in 1993 that the Clinton administration proposed a significant tax on Btus. There was going to be a big tax increase on all Btus--British thermal units. It was going to be based on what you use. We debated this issue at length and we voted down the increased Btu tax that the Clinton administration proposed. However, there was a 4.3-cent-a-gallon gas tax that was also proposed at that time. It was hotly debated. That 4.3-cent-a-gallon gas tax was not designated for the highway trust fund. It was designated for the general fund. That is just where it went. Of interest to the Chair, perhaps, is how this happened. All the Republicans voted against the tax; six Democrats joined us, and we had a tie vote. Vice President Al Gore sat in the Chair as the Presiding Officer of this body, where the Senator from Utah sits, and he broke the tie. The Vice President has to wear the mantle. That is where the 4.3-cent-a-gallon tax came from. He has to wear the mantle. It did designate the tax would go into the general fund. Later, when the Republicans took control of this body, we changed the designation from the general fund and we designated that 4.3 cents into the highway trust fund. It should again be noted what this legislation specifically provides because there is a lot of confusion over it. It says in order for the 18.4 cents to be suspended, and this is regular gasoline, the price has to average $2 a gallon. Only then will it be suspended, and only for the balance of this year. And the highway trust fund will be made whole. I know there are Members who feel uncomfortable about the highway trust fund. But all I can do is make very clear what this bill provides. It provides for full reimbursement of the highway trust fund. But it is not a free ride. The money is going to have to come from someplace else. The point I want to make, and the appeal to my colleagues and our staffs who are listening, is about the real savings. America's consumers cannot pass on this price increase. If you buy an airline ticket, as my friend from Utah and I do occasionally, to go back to Utah or Alaska, you are paying a surcharge for fuel. You don't know what the tax is on the ticket because the airlines have so many confusing fares you can't figure it out, but a $40 surcharge is in there. The trucker who comes to Washington, DC, who has a contract for delivery, maybe he cannot pass it on; and the farmer, it is very unlikely he is going to pass it on; nor the fishermen in my State who fuel up their vessels, it is pretty hard for them to pass it on--but the person who surely cannot pass it on is the American consumer, the moms driving their kids to the soccer game. The family bought a utility sports vehicle for convenience. Maybe the SUV does not get too many miles to the gallon. It might have a 40-gallon gas tank. When mom goes to the gas station and fills that up at nearly $2 a gallon, it shoots a pretty good hole in a $100 bill. The question before us is: Do we want to do something short term, or do nothing, which is what the administration proposes. My colleagues heard the President yesterday. He said we have to develop more dependence on alternative fuels, we have to develop more resources domestically. He does not tell you he is going to open up low-sulfur, high-Btu coal in Utah. No, he says he has made that wilderness, for all practical purposes. He does not say he is going to encourage exploration on public lands in the Rocky Mountains so that oil and gas exploration can occur in those States in the overthrust area where there is a tremendous potential for oil and gas in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, Kansas, or Oklahoma, where the small strippers have almost gone out of production because they simply cannot produce at the low prices. They only produce a few barrels a day. My colleague, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, addressed that earlier today. In our long-term package of proposals, there is relief for the stripper wells. There is relief to encourage exploration in the overthrust Rocky Mountain area. There is relief to provide OCS areas for lease--we heard the Vice President say: If I am elected President, I am going to cancel all the OCS lease programs. He does not say where he is going to get the oil to replace that produced under the leases. Think about what this administration's policy is on energy. One does not have to think very long because there is none. Clearly, our Secretary was sent over to OPEC almost on his knees to beg for production increases. OPEC said they were going to have a meeting on the 27th. He was over there 3 weeks prior to that. The Secretary said: We have an emergency in the United States. They said: We are going to meet on the 27th. They met on the 27th. They did not do anything until the 28th. I have a chart which shows what they really did. They did this yesterday. Not many people are aware of the realities associated with what has happened to oil and the demand for oil in this country. To the left of the chart in the red is the total global demand for oil in the world today. It is about 76.3 million barrels per day. To the right of the chart is the production and where it comes from: 45 percent from non-OPEC, 23 percent from OPEC, 5.6 percent other OPEC. My point is, actual production is 75.3 million per day, but the demand is 76.3 million per day. There is a 1 million-barrel-a-day difference. There is a greater demand than supply. When there is this kind of situation, we have price spirals. I want to point out and make sure everybody understands what happened yesterday with OPEC. I am really amazed, with the exception of the Wall Street Journal and a few other folks, the media has not really delved into this. When OPEC met last year, they decided they were going to produce 23 million barrels a day. They promptly began to cheat. They overproduced. They produced 24.2 million barrels a day. The difference between what they said they were producing, 23 million barrels a day, and what they were actually producing, 24.2 million barrels a day, is 1.2 million barrels a day. The difference between the 1.2 million barrels and 1.7 million is 500,000 barrels a day. That is what they are actually producing. Here it is. They were cheating 1.2 million barrels a day. As I said before, they started out with 23 million but were actually producing 24.2. The difference between 1.2 and 1.7 is 500,000 barrels a day, and that is exactly what we got. That is the actual new production. It is not 1.7 million barrels a day, it is 500,000 barrels a day. Let me take it one step further because this really excites me, and that is, what our share of OPEC oil has been. Our share has been about 16 percent. If we got another 500,000 barrels increase--remember, this does not go just to the United States, this goes to all the customers of OPEC all over the world. The U.S. share is about 16 percent. So that amounts to about 79,000 barrels a day. With the help of some of my staff and the AAA, we determined the immediate metropolitan area of Washington, DC, uses 121,000 barrels a day. This means that with the 500,000 new barrels, we are not even standing still. I do not want to put too much of an arithmetic load on my colleagues, but there is one more figure they ought to know about, and that is the little secret of the administration and the Department of Energy they did not want you to hear. They did not want you to find out what was written between the lines of the OPEC agreement. Here it is. Buried in the agreement is what they call a ``price band'' provision to keep the prices between $22 and $28 a barrel. We have seen prices for oil go up to $34. A year ago, that price per barrel was at $10 and $11. This is a unique arrangement, but our friends in OPEC are unique in their craftsmanship of what is in their best interests. The arrangement calls for producers to increase output 500,000 barrels--remember where you heard it. That is the 500,000 that is the actual increase. They said: The arrangement calls for producers to increase output 500,000 barrels per day on a pro rata basis if oil prices remain above $28 for 20 consecutive days. My friend, I am a businessman. I understand the fine print of an agreement, but I do not think the folks down at the White House do or, if they do, they do not want you to know about it. This agreement further states that OPEC will also cut from production--there it is, cut from production, cut from their 1.7 million-barrel promise, or really the 500,000 barrels a day. They will cut from production by that same amount if prices fall below $22 for more than 20 days. They have set a ceiling, and they have set, obviously, a cellar. OPEC or the Clinton administration has made no acknowledgment of this in their announcements. Isn't that rather curious? We talk about significant relief. If we have this kind of a deal, I do not know from where the significant relief is going to come. Under this agreement, one can easily see that the price of oil is going to hover around $28, maybe as high as $34 per barrel for extended periods or until OPEC meets again. I urge those in the media and my colleagues, and particularly their staffs who are a little bit curious, to read today's Oil Daily, page 2. It is all spelled out under the headline ``OPEC Bases New Production Strategy on Price Band Experiment.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, now they are experimenting on us with this price band. That is a pretty dangerous precedent to set, but, nevertheless, we have become so beholden to OPEC, we are 56-percent dependent on OPEC. The occupant of the chair remembers the Arab oil embargo in 1973. We had gas lines around the block. A lot of people were unhappy. Oil was more than $30 a barrel. We were excited here. We were concerned. We said: We will never allow exports to get to a level of more than 50 percent. We created something to ensure that we had some relief. We created the SPR, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We wanted to have a 100-day supply. I think we have a 56-day supply in the SPR today. Now some people say: We have an emergency. Take the supply out of the SPR. Think about that. It is very dangerous to use your reserve to manipulate prices. You can only draw about 4 million barrels a day out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is located in the salt mines of Louisiana. If you take it out, remember, you have to refine it. Then what are you going to do for a fallback in a real emergency? OPEC is watching what we do. If we pull down our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, we become that much more vulnerable and, as a consequence, more likely to be held hostage. As we address what we are going to do this afternoon, again, I reiterate, is the priority here for a short-term fix for the American consumer not at the expense of the highway trust fund but at the expense of making it up through the budget process some other way? I think that is a legitimate question. When you pit what we are attempting to propose on this side of the aisle, which is some kind of relief, to that proposed by the other side of the aisle, which is no immediate relief, the difference is clear. The Administration suggests only that we develop alternatives, and that we have conservation, all of which are worthwhile. But those goals are not going to help mom today on her way home with the kids from the soccer game when she has to fill up the sports utility vehicle and it is going to cost her $80. It is not going to help the farmer. It is not going to help my fishermen. It is not going to help the truckers. They want relief today to stay in business. We have that opportunity. We are going to make that choice. It is a choice. It is a legitimate choice. It is a matter of determining where the priorities of this body are. We have a lot of options. We have some specific proposals for the short term and the long term that I think deserve consideration. Because if you look at the other side and the administration proposals, it is pretty hard to find anything this specific. The American people are saying: Hey, we have a crisis. We have a problem. The difficulty I have, to a large extent, is where we are seeking relief. We are not only limited to petitioning OPEC. Let's take a look at our friend, Saddam Hussein, in Iraq. I have a chart that I think shows and tells more than I can say in a few words. This shows the Iraqi oil exports to the United States. There is virtually nothing in 1997. But we all remember in 1991 we fought a war over there. We sent young American men and women. We had 147 casualties in that war--147. We had 423 who were wounded. We had 26 who were taken prisoner. That war was in 1991. But what about the American taxpayer? What happened? You remember, we have been enforcing the no-fly zone over there. We have troops stationed around there. We have the fleet. We have been keeping Saddam Hussein fenced in, if you will. The cost to the American taxpayer has been $10 billion. That is what it has cost in the last 9 years. The administration does not factor that in. When we look at our fastest growing source of imported oil coming into the United States, it is coming from our good friend, Saddam Hussein. Incredible. I am indignant over it. I don't know about you and my colleagues. Last year, we imported 300,000 barrels a day from Iraq. This year we have imported 700,000 barrels a day. The day before yesterday the Department of Commerce issued a release on sanctions for some of the technical parts that are needed within Iraqi refineries to increase their production by an additional 600,000 barrels a day. We are certainly cooperating with Saddam Hussein. Where do the profits go? We suspect they probably go to the Republican Guard who have something to do with keeping Saddam Hussein safe. It is questionable if funds really go to the people of Iraq. I was looking at some figures the other day. As we rely on the Mideast, I think we should be reminded that what is happening here is we are enriching the Mideast, the Arab oil empire. As I said, in 1973 we were 36-percent dependent. Today we are 56- percent dependent. But the startling reality is--and you may not believe history teaches anything; some people say it does not teach much--but the forecast that the Department of Energy has publicly put out is that we will be importing 65 percent of our oil by the year 2015 to 2020. Currently, we receive 46-percent of our oil from OPEC; that is, on the 11 OPEC nations. Are these countries that we can depend on? How stable are they? What is the risk to Israel as a consequence of the difficulties and distrust in that part of the world? The U.S. has economic sanctions on 8 of the 11 OPEC countries. What for? For human rights abuses, drug trafficking, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction. On the other three countries of OPEC, to name two, Algeria and Indonesia, they are certainly among the least stable nations in the world. Are we through there? I don't think so. Six OPEC nations even have State Department-issued travel warnings against them. I ask you, if it isn't safe for Americans to travel there, is it safe to rely and entrust our energy security to those countries? I was looking at some material which I think I have here. It is kind of startling because I think we had some reference by Senator Lott who is concerned about our increasing support of Iraq and the realization that Iraq is creating a missile capability. I wonder for whom those missiles are designed. Mideast countries? Israel? Who is to say? But we are enriching and we are making possible the cash-flow that Saddam Hussein has; otherwise he would not have the cash-flow. As we look at that energy policy that I talked about, although it is pretty hard to identify. It certainly is to import more. It does not suggest we develop domestic resources in this country. We have the technology to do it safely. We know that. There is a great hue and cry by the administration against opening up the Arctic Coastal Plain. In my State of Alaska, we have been contributing 20 percent of the total crude oil produced in the United States for the last 23 years. We have a pipeline that is 800 miles long. It has withstood earthquakes and it has withstood dynamite, shots fired at it. We have an area in Alaska that I can show my colleagues on a chart relative to the location and a brief description of where it is, because it is important that you understand a few things. This morning I had an opportunity to speak on C-SPAN. One of the callers asked: Senator, you would like to open up the Coastal Plain, but why don't you put the rest of it in a wilderness or put it in a refuge or something? I will shortly have a chart to show you we have already done that. We have 19 million acres in what we call the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This is an area that alone is 19 million acres. It is about the size of the State of South Carolina. We have already put 8 million acres in a permanent wilderness, 9.5 million acres in a refuge permanently. But we left for this body to determine whether we could safely initiate exploration in what they call a 1002 area, which is 1.5 million acres. That is all. The question is, Is this the time to bring in the environmental community to work with us to open it safely because we have an abundance of capacity? This is the area I am talking about specifically. This is the 19 million acres. This is the refuge, 9.5 million acres; this is the wilderness, 8 million acres; this is the Coastal Plain, 1.5 million acres. The footprint would be 2,000 acres, if the oil is there. We have the pipeline right over there. The President vetoed this in 1995. If he had approved it, we would have production today. We have an availability of 1 million barrels a day in this pipeline right now. We have the overthrust belt, as I have indicated. We have OCS. We have the Rocky Mountains. But there is no effort by the administration for domestic production. For those who wonder what it is really like up there and have never been there but are experts on it, who speak on the floor with profound knowledge and have never been to Alaska, let alone the Arctic, this is the Arctic Slope of Alaska. This is a rig. This is what it looks like 8 months of the year. This is winter. It is a long winter. It is pretty dark. This is an ice road. This is an ice pad. They build it up with water and ice so the footprint is minimum. Here is the same picture in the summer. The summer should be 4 months, but it is really only about 3. This is the tundra. That is the footprint. That is reality. It is awful hard to get people to come up and look at it and recognize it for what it is. We are concerned about some of our friends, legitimately so. These are legitimate friends. They are going for a walk. Where are they walking? They are walking on the pipeline. It is warm. They don't get their feet cut. Here are three bears, right at home. That is not a prop; that is real. We have a few more friends; we are concerned about these friends. Here are some of our friendly caribou. There you have it. That is Prudhoe Bay. That is technology that is 30 years old. No guns allowed; you can't shoot them. You can't run them down with a snow machine. When we started Prudhoe Bay, we had 3,800 caribou. Now we have a herd of more than 18,000. I don't know whether that convinces anybody that we have a sensitivity about the environment, that we can work with our technology and do it right. If we get an opportunity for people to objectively take a look at the job we have done, the technology we have developed over the years, and the opportunity we have to contribute to the energy security of this country as opposed to more dependence on imports, they usually agree with us. That is where we are. I will conclude with a short rundown of the long-term and intermediate relief that we have proposed within our caucus to provide an opportunity to Members of this body to address what kind of relief they want. I have spoken to the gas tax. I have enunciated quite clearly that we do not have at risk the highway trust fund. That will be made whole. I have explained in detail that this measure would suspend the tax until the end of this year only, that it would come on only if the average price of gasoline got to $2 a barrel, and that the 4.3-cent-a-gallon tax originally did not go to the highway trust fund, it went to the general fund. I conclude with what we are going to present to this body in our legislative package, which is some kind of a relief for the Northeast on crude oil storage, for not only crude but heating oil. They have been hit very hard, and they are going to be hit harder when they generate electricity this summer. A lot of it is going to be generated from fuel oil. They are going to be paying perhaps a third to two- thirds more for electricity because that is what comes on the line last. As a consequence, the costs associated with all other forms of energy raise up to the last energy source that contributes to the power pool, and that will be fuel oil. We are also going to look at an effort to address the difficulty with the stripper wells by establishing some kind of a bottom price level where, when oil gets very low, they can still stay in existence. Make no mistake about it, the strippers make a tremendous contribution. We can't afford to lose them. They are all over Oklahoma. They are in Kansas, in many States. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has legislation to address their survival. We have legislation for delay of rental payments, to allow expenses for geological and geophysical costs, percentage depletion legislation, NOL carrybacks, marginal and inactive well tax credits, language to address opening within the overthrust belt on public lands. Obviously, we are interested in coal because coal can play a major role in the power source needs of this country. This administration proposes to close eight coal-fired plants. They claim the management of those plants is going to be held criminally liable because they have intentionally extended the life of these plants that were grandfathered. That is the full employment act for the lawyers. They have no idea of where they are going to pick up the power to substitute for these plants. We can address coal through technology, given the opportunity. The administration doesn't have a plan for coal. What are they doing with nuclear? Nothing. They won't address the problem of what to do with the waste. On the West Coast, they will not do anything about hydro. They are proposing to take the dams down. I don't know how many hundreds of trucks a day are going to be on the highways of Oregon if they take those dams down. Grain will be moved by truck rather than barge, contributing to more gas usage and more pollution. The Administration says, we are going to move to increased use of natural gas. If you read the National Petroleum Institute figures, we are using 20 trillion cubic feet of gas now. In the next 15 years, we would be up to 31. We don't have the infrastructure to deliver it. We will have to invest $1.5 trillion for that infrastructure. But, the gas is not available for exploration because they won't let us have access to public lands. So gas is not the answer. If you look at what we are attempting to do as opposed to what the other side has proposed, which is what? Alternative energy, conservation, some tax breaks--I am all for those things. But we have to do something right now. We have a plan. And if it is a priority and deemed a priority by this body, then you have a choice. You have a choice of whether to vote for the gas tax suspension for the balance of this year, if you feel that is a priority or you don't. It will not jeopardize the highway trust fund. Again, it is no free ride. We will have to find that money someplace else. I could go on at length, but I felt it necessary to make this presentation to ensure that we had a fair understanding of what we are proposing in our caucus for immediate, interim, and long-term relief options against what you are hearing from the other side. I wanted you to know what we can do domestically to relieve our dependence on imported oil. And, I wanted to point out what the administration says we got the other day compared to the reality of what we got when we read the fine print. It appears that our negotiators got the short end of the so-called stick because that increase, again, was only 500,000 barrels a day. It has a floor and a ceiling: a $28 ceiling; a $22 floor. If you think we will see oil cheaper than that, it simply is not going to happen. If any Members would like to discuss with me just what is in this highway tax bill, please don't hesitate to do so. I yield the floor.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I would like to announce that a hearing has been scheduled before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place Thursday, April 6, 2000, at 9:30 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this hearing is to examine the energy potential of the 1002 area of the Arctic Coastal Plain; the role this energy could play in National security; the role this energy could play in reducing U.S. dependence on imported oil; and the legislative provisions of S. 2214. Those who wish to submit written testimony should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510. Presentation of oral testimony is by Committee invitation only. For further information, please contact Jo Meuse or Brian Malnak at (202) 224-6730.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

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

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, it is my understanding the leadership plans a cloture vote on the gas tax at some time later today. Is that the understanding of the Chair?

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise as an original co-sponsor of S.J. Res. 14, a resolution proposing that the Constitution be amended to permit Congress to enact statutes to protect against the physical desecration of the American flag. Although it is rare that I support amending our Constitution, in this instance the Supreme Court has made clear that a federal statute is incapable of protecting the national symbol of America. There is no doubt in my mind that every single Member of the Senate abhors the idea that someone would desecrate the American flag. Yet the vote on this amendment will be far from unanimous. That is because many of my colleagues believe that adoption of this amendment somehow represents an attack on the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech. In my view, this amendment in no way threatens the freedoms embodied in the First Amendment. The freedom of speech that is guaranteed in the first amendment of the Constitution is not unlimited. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the law must strike a balance between society's and government's interest and the interests of the individual. More often than not, the Court has come down on the side of the individual. However, the Court has recognized that society's interest in public safety outweighs an individual's right to freely shout ``Fire'' in a crowded theater. The Court has balanced society's interest in national security with a speaker's interest in disclosure of state secrets and has upheld restrictions on such speech. By this amendment, we are not challenging the first amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech. Anyone in America is guaranteed the right to criticize nearly every aspect of American society and American government. Nothing in this amendment precludes such speech. Instead, this amendment speaks to the issue of desecrating the symbol of this country. A symbol that is recognizable throughout the world as the symbol of this 224 year old democracy. A democracy that has asked its men and women to fight all over the world to preserve democracy and freedom against tyranny. When in 1989 the Supreme Court by a 5-4 decision struck down a Texas Flag desecration statute, Justice Stevens dissented and eloquently stated why the Court had reached the wrong conclusion about the First Amendment in this case. Let me quote Justice Stevens: The Court is . . . quite wrong in blandly asserting that respondent ``was prosecuted for his expression of dissatisfaction with the policies of this country, expression situated at the core our First Amendment values.'' Respondent was prosecuted because of the method he chose to express his dissatisfaction [burning an American Flag] with those policies. Had he chosen to spray-paint--or perhaps convey with a motion picture projector--his message of dissatisfaction on the facade of the Lincoln Memorial, there would be no question about the power of the Government to prohibit his means of expression. The prohibition would be supported by the legitimate interest in preserving the quality of an important national asset. Though the asset at stake in this case is intangible, given its unique value, the same interest supports a prohibition on the desecration of the American flag. Would anyone disagree with Justice Stevens' suggestion that the first amendment does not permit an individual to desecrate the Lincoln Memorial by spray painting his political views on the Memorial? Surely that would be a criminal act and no one would suggest that the spray painter's first amendment rights had somehow been invaded. Yet, I ask the question: What is the difference between barring someone from desecrating the Lincoln Memorial and barring someone from desecrating the American flag? Why are the marble and mortar of the Memorial more important than the intangible values represented by the American Flag? Does it make a difference that the American taxpayer paid for the construction and upkeep of the Memorial and therefore as public property an act of desecration is actionable? I do not think that the payment of taxes to construct and maintain the Memorial should make a difference. Are we to compare the payment of taxes to construct a Memorial with the sacrifice of the hundreds of thousands of men and women who fought in wars over two centuries to preserve the democratic ideals embodied in our Constitution? I think not. As I said earlier, I am not a frequent supporter of amending the Constitution. I would prefer that we adopted a statute to prevent flag desecration. But those who argue for a statute ignore the fact that 11 years ago Congress adopted a statute--the Flag Protection Act--which outlawed desecration of the flag. That Act was adopted in response to the Supreme Court's decision striking down the Texas statute and along with that state law, the state flag protection laws of 47 other states. Unfortunately, one year later, the Supreme Court struck down the Flag Protection Act, again by a 5-4 vote. So the only realistic way that we can outlaw flag desecration is by adopting a Constitutional Amendment. Let the people of the 50 states decide whether our flag deserves such protection. I urge my colleagues to support S.J Res. 14.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, there has been a great deal of anticipation today on what OPEC might do. For those of you who do not recall the sequence, several weeks ago, our Secretary of Energy went over to OPEC, encouraging them to increase production. The concern was that we were approximately 56-percent dependent on imported oil. A good portion of that came from OPEC. As we saw with the Northeast Corridor crisis on heating oils, there was concern over the availability of adequate supplies of crude oil. It appears that we are using somewhere in the area of 2 million barrels a day more in the world than are being produced currently. That sent a shock through the oil marketeers and resulted in our Secretary going over to OPEC and meeting with the Saudis and urging them to increase production. They indicated they were going to have a meeting on March 27, which is today, and would respond to us at that time. The Secretary indicated that this was a dire emergency, that oil prices were increasing and the East Corridor was looking at oil prices in the area of nearly one and a half dollars and he needed relief now. The OPEC nations--particularly the Saudis--indicated they would address it at the March 27 meeting. So, in other words, the Secretary was somewhat stiff-armed. Well, the Secretary, as you know, went to Mexico and encouraged the Mexicans to increase production. The Mexicans listened patiently, but they reminded the Secretary that last year when oil was $10, $11, $12, $13 a barrel, and the Mexican economy was in the bucket, where was the United States? The Secretary indicated we would help Mexico out with the tesobonos, ensuring that they would be bailed out. But to make a long story short, we didn't get any relief from Mexico. Well, today, we didn't get any relief from OPEC. OPEC said they would address it tomorrow. So the question of whether or not we are going to get relief, I think, points to one thing: We have become addicted to imported oil. We are like somebody on the street who has to have a fix. The fix is more imported oil. And when the supply is disrupted, we look at what it takes to get more. Well, it takes maybe a higher payment, a shortage of supply. It makes the price go up. That is the position we are in. I encourage my colleagues to look very closely at what OPEC does tomorrow--indeed, if they do anything--because what they have been doing so far is cheating. Who have they been cheating on? They have been cheating, in effect, on themselves at our expense because last year they agreed to cut production. They developed a discipline within OPEC to cut production back to 23 million barrels per day. But they did not keep that commitment. They are currently producing 24.2 million barrels a day. That is about 1.2 million over the agreement. So if they come up tomorrow and announce they are going to come out with a million and a half barrels a day increase, that isn't a million and a half barrels net; the net is 300,000 barrels a day. So we better darn well look at that arithmetic. If they come up with 2 million barrels a day, that is relief, in a sense, but in the last year our demand increase has been a million and a half barrels a day in addition, and I did not take into account my arithmetic. Remember, we are not the only ones in the world who consume oil from OPEC. Those other countries are going to have to share in whatever increased production comes out. So it is indeed a rather interesting dilemma that we find ourselves in as we now are dependent 56 percent on imported oil. The Department of Energy tells us that in the years from 2015 and 2020, we will be 65- percent dependent on imported oil. Well, some people say you learn by history. Others say you do not learn very much. Obviously, we have not learned very much. There is one other factor I think the American people ought to understand. Where has our current increase been coming from? It has been coming from Iraq. Last year, we imported 300,000 barrels a day from Iraq. Today, we are importing 700,000 barrels a day from Iraq. Today, the Department of Commerce lifted some sanctions off of Iraq to allow the Iraqis to import from the United States certain parts so they could increase--these are refinery parts--refining capacity by 600,000 barrels a day in addition. So here we are, importing 700,000 barrels a day currently from Iraq. Some people forgot we fought a war over there not so many years ago--in 1991. What happened in that war? We lost 147 American lives; 423 were wounded in action, and we had 26 taken prisoner. In addition, the American taxpayer took it. Where did he take it? He took it in the shorts because since the end of the Persian Gulf war in 1991, just to contain Saddam Hussein and keep him within his boundaries, the cost of enforcing the no-fly zone and other things is costing the American taxpayer $10 billion. So here we are today looking at OPEC for relief, allowing them to get parts for their refineries so they can increase production. Here we are depending and begging and passing the tin cup for OPEC production. The answer lies in decreasing our imports on foreign oil and, as a consequence, producing more oil and gas in the United States. We can do it safely. We have the American technology. We have the overthrust belt, the Rocky Mountains, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Louisiana, Texas, those States that want OCS activity. My State of Alaska is perfectly capable of producing more oil. We produce nearly 20 percent of the total crude oil; it used to be 25. We have the technology. We know how to open up the Arctic areas and make sure the animals and the character of the land are protected because we only operate in the wintertime. Our roads are ice roads. They melt in the spring. There is no footprint. If there is no oil there, there is no footprint of any kind. We can do that in these areas. But as a consequence, we have to look for a solution. I hope my colleagues really pick up on this. If OPEC does increase production, there are going to be those who claim victory, that we got relief. But it is going to be a hollow victory because that victory simply says our Nation becomes more dependent on imported oil. I think most Americans are waking up to the reality that that is a very dangerous policy. To suggest we got caught by surprise--I will conclude with two little notes. In 1994, Secretary of Commerce Brown requested that the independent petroleum producers do an evaluation on the national energy security of this country and came to the conclusion that we were too dependent on imported oil. Last March, Members of the Senate wrote a bipartisan letter to the Secretary of Commerce, Secretary Daley, asking for an evaluation on the national security interests of our country relative to our increased dependence on imported oil. He released that report in November. It sat on the President's desk until Friday. They finally released it in a brief overview. The conclusion was that we have become too dependent on imported sources of oil and it affects the national security of this country. What do they propose to do about it? They don't have an answer. I will talk more on this tomorrow when we have further information on OPEC.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, I ask unanimous consent the Senate now proceed to a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, with the following exceptions: The first 60 minutes under the control of Senator Durbin or his designee, the second 60 minutes under the control of Senator Craig or his designee.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Surely.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that pending the statement by my good friend, Senator Durbin, I be recognized for 15 minutes. I intend to enlighten my colleagues on the facts and fiction of ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an issue coming up in the budget and an issue coming up in a legislative package we are proposing. I thank my friend.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to address an issue that is very close to Alaska, Senator Stevens, our Representative Young, and myself. It represents the myth associated with ANWR and the realization that Alaska has been producing almost 25 percent of the total crude oil that has been produced in this Nation for the last 23 years or thereabouts. I have here a map of Alaska that shows the pipeline and gives you a dimension of the magnitude of this particular area of our State. It is necessary that you recognize, as we address the disposition of allowing exploration in ANWR, that this was established as a responsibility that only Congress could address in releasing this particular area for exploration. I am going to give you an opportunity to view a map of Alaska. Alaska is a pretty big piece of real estate. On a map, if you overlayed Alaska on the United States, it would extend from Canada to Mexico and from Florida to California. We have the Aleutian Islands that go out almost 2,000 miles. The breadth of the State from the pipeline alone at Prudhoe Bay to where the pipeline ends at Valdez is 800 miles. It is a big piece of real estate. Until a few years ago, we had four time zones in the State alone. When Senator Stevens or I go back to the State, we just begin our travel. We have a very small segment of the State that has a road system. This entire western area is without any roads, with the exception of a few miles in Nome and Kotzebue, and the villages. We are not connected to the continental United States, as you can see. Our neighbor to the right, Canada, constitutes a barrier--a foreign country; a good friend--from the rest of the United States. We have our southeastern part where our State capital is in Juneau, roughly 700 miles from our largest city, Anchorage. Our second largest city, Fairbanks, is 400 miles to the north of Anchorage. I go into this detail because it is important, as we look at the issue of ANWR, to keep it in perspective. I am going to refer to the chart behind me because I think it represents an appropriate comparison. Let me advise my colleagues of a couple facts. One, ANWR is going to be in the budget. We are going to be addressing the budget in the coming weeks. It is going to be in there at an anticipated revenue forecast of about $1.5 billion to the Federal Treasury. You can evaluate the pros and cons of that. It is also going to be in the Republican package that we are preparing to try to do something meaningful about the energy crisis in this country, which the current administration has not done. They have no energy policy, as evidenced by their inability to address what they are going to do with hydro. Some want to tear the dams down. What are they going to do with the electric industry? Obviously, Carol Browner wants to close half a dozen coal-fired plants, with no indication where we are going to pick up the alternative. Our nuclear situation is such that we cannot address what we are going to do with our nuclear waste, yet the nuclear industry contributes 20 percent of our energy in this country. If you look at gas, you may assume, as some do, that all we have to do is plug into it. If you read the National Petroleum Council report on gas, you have to recognize a harsh reality: We are using about 20 trillion cubic feet of gas a day. In another 10 to 15 years, we will be using 31 trillion cubic feet a day. We do not have the infrastructure to deliver the anticipated demand. It just isn't there. It is going to require over $1 trillion--the industry figures $1.5 trillion--in the next decade, and that is only if we have access to areas where we are likely to find gas. Much of the overthrust belt--which is the Rocky Mountains--65 percent of that has been removed from exploration. So where do we go? We go offshore; we go to Louisiana; we go to Texas; we go, to some extent, to Colorado and Wyoming, but we do not have an aggressive plan. But we have an opportunity, in my State of Alaska--a significant opportunity--and that is ANWR. What is the significance of ANWR? ANWR is shown on this map in this little tight corner, over here by the Canadian border. It looks small on this map, but it is in proportion. There are those who say: Good heavens, you are going to jeopardize this area for exploration. What we, as Alaskans, have not been able to portray--because the media will not pick up on it, and people are evidently not interested enough to recognize the proportion here--this is ANWR. This is 19 million acres, as shown by this little spot up here. It is as big as the State of South Carolina, a pretty big hunk of real estate. What have we done with this? In 1980, we made some permanent designations. We created the refuge, the arctic refuge: 9.5 million acres in perpetuity. We went up and created a wilderness: 8 million acres in this area that is shown on the map marked with the slices. But we left for Congress's dictate 1.5 million acres, so-called 1002 areas, up here. The reason we left it is, Congress was concerned there might be major deposits of hydrocarbons in this area, just like there were in Prudhoe Bay. Let's look at Prudhoe Bay for a moment because there is an interesting parallel here. Prudhoe Bay is where the oil development is today. Let's look at Prudhoe Bay today and let's look at the traditional oil development and a picture that is an actual scene showing Prudhoe Bay and the animal activity that surrounds the area. I show you a picture taken some years ago, but it represents the heart of Prudhoe Bay. There you see the pipeline. You see the oil derricks, and you see the caribou. There is a degree of compatibility there. The reason it is there, obviously, is nobody is shooting these animals; nobody is running them down. There are no snow machines. It is summertime. There is no threat. They feel very much at home. These are nomadic herds that move in and out, but there is a compatibility. We have seen a tremendous growth in this western arctic herd since we developed this area. The reason we have seen that is there are no guns allowed in the area. These animals are protected. They prosper, as they should. To suggest somehow they are in jeopardy defies reality. When we started oil drilling in Prudhoe Bay, there were 3,000 or 4,000 caribou in this herd. There are over 18,000 today. That is just a fact associated with experience that we have already had. Prudhoe Bay's technology is 30 years old. We can do a better job if we are allowed in here. What is the footprint going to be if we indeed are allowed to open up ANWR? The footprint is estimated by the industry to be 2,000 acres out of all of ANWR's 19 million acres. That is what we are looking at. We are keeping the refuge, we are keeping the wilderness, and we are making a determination. What does it look like when they are drilling in the area? This is what we would like to communicate to the American people. It is a pretty tough environment. There it is. We have a well under construction. This is not in ANWR because there is no entry or activity allowed. It is a typical scene in the Arctic in Prudhoe Bay. This is an ice road. They don't allow anything on the tundra in the summertime, but the ice roads stay there about 9 months of the year because you are way above the Arctic Circle, nearly 400 miles. It is a harsh environment. That is a typical rig. When the disposition of this is made one way or the other, what is going to be left? Well, let's look at it in the summertime. Same site, summertime activity is gone; ice road is gone. There you have it, Mr. President: the tundra, a spigot; that's it. I always think of my good friend, Senator Mark Hatfield. Mark Hatfield, it is safe to say, was a pacifist. He said: I will vote for ANWR any day of the year rather than send our troops in danger in the Mideast to keep oil flowing from neighbors we cannot count on. All right. Where are we? This is an extraordinary chart. This marks from where our increasing oil exports are coming. Ironically, they are coming from Iraq. Last year, we imported 300,000 barrels a day from Iraq. This year we are importing 700,000 barrels a day. How many people remember 1990 and 1991? Do you know what happened over there? We fought a war. We fought a war to keep Saddam Hussein from invading Kuwait. What did that cost us? That cost us 147 American lives. We had 448 wounded. We had 23 taken prisoner. That is a cost. We had another cost. What has it cost the taxpayers of this country since that war was over? What has it cost us in the last 10 years, from 1991 until today, to keep Saddam Hussein fenced in, enforcing the no- fly zone, enforcing, if you will, the embargoes, putting the fleet over there? We added it up. It is $10 billion. That is what it has cost the American taxpayer: 147 lives, 448 wounded, 23 prisoners, $10 billion. Where are we getting our oil now? The fastest increasing imports are from our old buddy, Saddam Hussein. Isn't that ironic? Look at the national security interests of this country. We are today 56-percent dependent on imports. When we fought this war, we were 47- to 49-percent dependent. I think the President will recall, in 1973, we had an energy crisis in the country. We called it the Arab oil embargo. We had gasoline lines around the block in this Nation. People were inconvenienced. So Congress acted. At that time we were 37-percent dependent on imported oil. Congress set up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and said we would never approach 50 percent. We are going to take action. We never got 100 days supply of oil in SPR. We got a 56- day supply. That is what it is now. Now there are proposals we should take oil out of SPR for the national crisis that we have on oil prices. That is very dangerous because if you take it out of SPR, you still need more imported into the country. And your good neighbors, the Saudis and the Mexicans, know it; the Venezuelans, you have less leverage. If we are ever going to take anything out of SPR, we should have a certification from the Secretary of Defense that it does not jeopardize our national security because you can only pull about 4 million barrels a day out of SPR. The point is--and it is a very important one--go very slow with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve because after that, you don't have a backup. So here we are, depending on Saddam Hussein today. I find it inexcusable. This administration has no energy policy. They hope this won't be an issue in the campaign. They hope the issue will go away, and they hope the Secretary of Energy is going to be successful in his efforts to go around with that tin cup and try and get more production. Let's see what he has done so far. He went over to Saudi Arabia about 10 days ago and said: We have an emergency in this country. They said: Well, we will have a meeting on March 27. We will address greater oil production then. He said: No, you don't understand; we have an emergency now. We fought a war over here. We kept Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. They said: I'm sorry. We are going to have a meeting on March 27, and we will address it then. He got stiffed by the Saudis. So he went to Mexico and said: We need more production. The Mexicans said: Well, we appreciate that. We would like to help you, but you have been buying oil at $11, $12, $13 a barrel. Our economy went in the bucket. Where were you? The Secretary said: Well, we bailed you out of the tesobonos. We had a tremendous refinancing commitment for Mexico. They said: Sorry. We got stiffed. So where did the Secretary go next? Well, he went over to some of the other countries. Nigeria, you might get a little out of Nigeria. I don't know. Here is the superpower of the world, a Nation that is the most productive and has become the most dependent on imported oil. Make no mistake about it, we have to conserve. We have to have alternative energy. We have to develop the technology, but we have to be realistic. If somebody drove here, somebody came in on an airplane, they are going back the same way. We don't have the technology now for hydrogen. Fuel cells won't do it. Four percent of our energy is alternative. I wish it were more. Some of you came in here in a sports vehicle. Gasoline, at $1.70 a gallon, is going to shoot a pretty good hole in a $100 bill when you fill up that 40-gallon tank. What are we doing about it? We are hoping the problem will go away. It is not going to go away. It is going to get worse. We are going to be held hostage again and again. So our alternative is greater production in the U.S. Keep the jobs at home, keep the dollars at home, and for heaven's sake, why can't we do it? We have the technology; we have the know-how. We have a very active, extreme environmental community that is opposed to any resource development on public land, whether it be grazing, whether it be timber--timber, of course, is renewable--whether it be mining, whether it be oil and gas. This administration doesn't have a policy. They want to tear down the dams. They won't do anything about nuclear. Nuclear is 20 percent of our energy in this country. They don't have a policy. We are trying to do something about it. I am chairman of the Republican Energy Task Force. We have a legislative package, short- term, interim, and long-term. We are proposing to do away with the gasoline tax and not jeopardize the highway trust fund. It can be done. If gasoline gets up to $2 a gallon, or thereabouts, I am of the opinion that we ought to do away with all of the tax. That is a little over 18 cents a gallon. We have a positive approach. We are going to stimulate development and on public land and on offshore areas. We are going to stimulate development of our agricultural potential in ethanol. My good friend, Senator Grassley, has been a proponent of that for some time. We need all the domestic sources of energy we can get--the sooner the better-- to get off this kick of paying tribute to Saddam Hussein. Do not be misled. We have an opportunity to open up an area. We can do it safely. We have the technology. I am going to counter some of the myths that are associated with ANWR. Some ask: What do you want to open this area for because all of this Arctic coast is available? It is not available. That is truly a myth. With the exception of the area between the Colville and the Ganning Rivers, which is owned by the State of Alaska--this little area in here--more than 1,000 miles of the Arctic coastline is closed. That is just the harsh fact. What you have over here is a rather interesting piece of real estate because it happens to be an old naval petroleum reserve, now called the Petroleum Reserve Alaska. For heaven's sake, if you can't initiate exploration of a petroleum reserve that was designated in the 1900s or thereabouts, where can you? What an irony. There have been a few leases here. There is some production in there. But where the independents wanted to lease, the Department of Interior wouldn't put up the area for lease. As a consequence, that is an unrealistic statement. It is not factual because this is the Coastal Plain that borders clear around to here, and a very small portion is open. That happens to be State land. The Federal lands are not open. The Department of Interior won't issue a permit. They won't put up a proposed bid. That is just the fact. Let's move a little further. The State of Alaska will get 90 percent of the royalties. That is not true. The royalties are split 50-50, just like they are in Oklahoma or Louisiana or any other State. Somebody said Alaska's indigenous people are against all oil exploration in the Coastal Plain. That is very inaccurate. There are Inupiaq people in one Eskimo village called Katiovik that sits right here. I have another chart that shows you a greater portion of where this little village is. It is the only community within ANWR. They strongly support onshore exploration for oil and gas. That is in their backyard. Let me give you another example. We have a group called the Gwich'in near the Canadian border who are opposed to opening ANWR. It is kind of interesting. I am going to ask that this be printed in the Record. The Gwich'in at one time offered to lease all of their land of 1.799 million acres to the oil industry for exploration. The only problem is the oil industry didn't find any interest there. So they didn't opt to purchase the leases. Maybe they should have. Since that time, the Gwich'in, for the most part, have been funded by the national environmental groups and the Sierra Club. It is kind of interesting that one of the prominent members' names, Sarah James, is on the lease. They are free to choose. But, by the same token, the reality of what they were prepared to do at one time is kind of inconsistent with what they have chosen to do now. This is a copy of the lease that I ask unanimous consent to be printed in the Record.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, this lease is from the native village of Venetie. It has the signatures of Sarah James and a number of others. It is dated April 2, 1984, and it specifically states that the acreage offered under the lease is 1,799,927.65 acres, U.S. Survey 5220. That is where we are relative to the issue of some of the folks who feel that this is not in their interest, but by a long shot that is not all the people. I point this out not to condemn the attitude of my constituents but just to point out a reality that at one time they were willing to sell their interest in leasing this land for oil and gas, and now, to a large degree, their public relations efforts are funded by the Sierra Club and others. I will submit at a later time the specific financial contributions that are paid to the Gwich'in by the various environmental organizations. What is happening in Alaska is a molding of our State into the image that much of America's environmental community would like to see established as opposed to the reality associated with the population of our State, some 700,000, and the fact that we are the new kids on the block. We have been a State for 41 years. We don't own our own land. Here is the land ownership in Alaska, unlike Illinois or California or any other State. We have 368 million acres in our State. What is it made up of? Let's look at private land ownership in our State: 5 million acres; less than 2 percent. Why is that? Because the Federal Government owns it. OK? We have 51 million acres of national parkland; 76 million acres of Fish and Wildlife land; 23 million acres of U.S. Forest Service; and 57 million acres of wilderness forever locked up. How much is enough? Where is the balance? This is the Bureau of Land Management alone controls 65 million acres. The State has 104 million acres in State land. The State is so lucky. It must have had a fortune teller. This little piece of land right here is what funds our State, the land it had when it became a State. The Natives finally gave land to residents of Alaska. The Natives got 43 million acres. But the Federal Government owns our State. That is just the reality. Some say we need to save ANWR for our grandchildren. We need to know if oil is there. If there isn't, it is not going to be developed. You have to find a lot of oil in Alaska before drilling. Otherwise you can't afford to drill it. If they cannot produce 5,000 barrels a day, the cost is not economical. Prudhoe Bay came in. It is 30-year-old technology. It is a pretty big footprint. We went from there to Endicott. Endicott is up in this area. The significance is that when it came on it was the tenth largest producing field in the United States. It came in at a little over 100,000 barrels a day. Today, it is the seventh largest producing field. The footprint is 56 acres because it is all directional drilling from one spot. It makes sense in Alaska, but the costs are high. We could do a better job if we had an opportunity over here. As a consequence of whether we need this oil now or later, we had better find out whether it is there or not. They can only do that through exploration. Then they can make a decision. As a consequence of this, we run into one other argument, which really bewilders me because it is so unrealistic. They say, well, the Coastal Plain may only have a 200-day supply of oil, and that is not worth developing. Let me tell you a little bit about it. First of all, Prudhoe Bay was supposed to have 9 billion barrels of oil. It has been producing now for 23 years. We have had a total of 12 billion barrels from Prudhoe Bay in the last 23 years. We were supposed to get 10 billion barrels. It is still producing at a million barrels a day. It is good for another 10 years with the technology that we have. When you say this only has a 200, do you know what you are implying? An unrealistic argument because you are saying the rest of our domestic oil production would stop. That is totally unrealistic. A two-hundred- day supply, but that is assuming the rest of the oil is produced domestically in this country is going to stop. First of all, it is not going to stop; is it? That is an argument so full of holes that it defies imagination. Let me show you what happens when we bring oil on line from Alaska and what it does to our imports because I think it states in no uncertain terms the reality associated with the opportunity we have now. Let's recognize what has happened here. This body passed ANWR 5 years ago, in 1995. The President vetoed it. Had he not vetoed it, today we would have had a lease sale and we would know what the prospects for a major discovery were. We might be within a very short time of production. Somebody says opening ANWR will not have any impact. Wrong. Here is the proof. This chart identifies our imports in 1975, 1976, 1977, and 1978. They were going up dramatically, 6 or 7 million barrels a day. We developed Prudhoe Bay in 1976, the current field we have. We can see when it came online and production increased, imports dropped dramatically, it was a major contribution. It was 2 million barrels a day, 25 percent of our total domestic production. To open up Prudhoe Bay, it took this Senate meeting in this Chamber with a tied vote. Vice President Spiro Agnew broke the tie. That is why we have Prudhoe Bay today. That is why we have production of 20 to 25 percent of our crude oil. That is reality. Don't be misled by the myths. We are not going to destroy the Coastal Plain. We are not going to destroy the caribou. We are only going to allow activity in the wintertime when the caribou come through and calve. As the picture demonstrates, caribou are healthy for the most part. Do not suggest we cannot address our concern over the migratory Porcupine caribou herd; we can do it if given the opportunity. Somebody says ANWR oil will be exported and not reduce our dependency. I have received a letter from BP that says they are curtailing their small amount of exported oil. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. That situation may be resolved by the takeover by Phillips of ARCO. BP did not have on the west coast any refineries. ARCO did. To make a long story short, with BP acquiring ARCO refineries, there will not be a surplus on the west coast. I think the amount varied. There were up to 60,000 barrels a day at one time. I have been assured as a consequence of the change, the purchase by Phillips of ARCO, that the little oil that was exported will be terminated simply because it will be utilized by BP in their refinery. Some say any development in Alaska would be environmentally damaging. People might not like oil fields, but Prudhoe Bay is the best oil field in the world. We can do a better job if we can get into ANWR; there is no question about it. They say the Coastal Plain is unspoiled. Let me say something about the Coastal Plain. It is not unspoiled. In one sense, there is an Eskimo village there. Those people live there. There are a couple of radar sites that are, and for all practical purposes have been abandoned. This section of the State is pretty remote. One cannot find anything much more remote than this particular area of our State. It is probably one of the better areas if one were looking for less of an impact on mankind and animal-kind. Some ask what will happen to the birds. Most of the birds are near the lakes. Birds come in, they migrate. The issue isn't that there are no birds in ANWR, because there are. Some ask about the polar bears. They den on the ice; they do not come ashore. A few do. Do you know what we have done to save the polar bear? We don't allow the white man to shoot the polar bear in our State. You can't shoot them. That is the greatest threat they have. The native people can keep them for subsistence. A white man can go to Canada or Russia and take a polar bear. So that is a bogus argument. We are protecting the polar bear. To suggest a little exploration is going to threaten the polar bear is a specious argument. This is what the press and the public do not digest. I guess we have a hard time communicating that reality. Here is another picture of our friends taking a walk. Three bears are walking on top of the pipeline. Why are they walking on the pipeline? Because it is easier than walking in the snow. They don't get their feet cold or damp. It is just easier. The predictions that were associated with developing Prudhoe Bay have not come true. They said: You are putting a fence across Alaska; the caribou and the moose will never cross it. When you put a hotline in permafrost, it will sink to China. These things never happened. That pipeline is one of the construction wonders of the world. It has been bombed, shot at, dynamited, not to mention having withstood earthquakes. We had a bad accident with a ship called the Exxon Valdez. It was the fault of the crew. We had a 10-and- a-half-wide channel, and they ran on to a rock because they were drinking coffee and not paying attention. That is a harsh reality of that. Then they took on a little alcohol and everything was lost. The public ought to understand reality. I would love to debate some of the extreme environmentalists because they don't know what they are talking about, but they won't give me the courtesy or the chance. They refuse to let me participate in any of their gatherings. We have a letter that gives an idea of the extent to which some of the environmentalists go to generate public opinion. They are entitled to that, but by the same token, we are entitled to communicate some of the tactics. In a letter from the Sierra Club, Friday, January 2000, called ``The New Millennium Action Special Edition,'' it says: This February 5th, the Sierra Club, together with the Alaska Wilderness League, the Wilderness Society, the National Audubon Society, is hosting another National Arctic Wilderness Week in Washington. Supporters from grass roots are key in protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and its fragile Coastal Plain. This gathering will help arm you with the skills and knowledge you need to build support in your community. They give hands-on training. They will provide you with opportunities for training. You will learn how to intensify your skills in lobbying, message development, meetings, communications and legislative advocacy. All are worthwhile and appropriate. It says further: We've got you covered. That is the last paragraph: ``We know your time is valuable so we don't ask you to cover all your expenses for the trip.'' A trip from where? A trip from Alaska, that's where. It is expensive, about a $1,000 to get here from Alaska. It also says that you need to pay a $40 registration fee, but if you don't have it, some scholarships are available. Where does that money come from? The Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club of course: We'll pay for your travel to Washington, DC, your hotel, two in a room, a continental breakfast each morning and several dinners. Unfortunately, space is limited so hurry up. To find out if you are eligible phone the Sierra Club. I don't know any development groups that have that kind of money to do that kind of lobbying. Nevertheless, that is reality. It is fair game. Just make sure the public knows about it. Many of these people have never been to ANWR. That is what bothers me. I have been there. I take a group of Senators up there every year so they can see for themselves and make their own evaluation as they represent their State. One of the things I will conclude with: If you are from the Northeast corridor and you are sick and tired of high prices for heating oil, you haven't seen anything yet. The Northeast corridor is just getting started. And here is why. This is the harsh reality of where we are today. Our crude production is represented by this gray line. It is roughly 6 million barrels a day domestically, this is down from 7.5 million. So our crude production is dropping. It is dropping significantly. The crude oil production is dropping and the petroleum demand is going up. What is happening here is the crude oil production has dropped about 17 percent, and the petroleum demand, which is the black line, has gone up 14 percent. So we have a shortfall. So we have to make up the difference. We have had the heating oil crisis in the Northeast corridor. There was an assumption we would have a cold winter. We didn't. There was an assumption we would have storage. A funny thing is, 20 percent of the crude oil storage in the Northeast corridor has been eliminated because it did not meet legitimate environmental concerns, as well as 15 percent of the heating oil storage. These are old tanks that didn't meet specs and were not rebuilt. We have lost 37 refineries in this country in the last decade. Why? The refinery business is not too attractive for a lot of reasons. You have Superfund exposures, you have EPA requirements, you have a situation where the return on investment is questionable. Many of the majors have gone out of the refining business because of the consequences associated with that. So you have a situation now where the Northeast corridor better look out for their high electric bills. This winter it was high heating oil bills, but it is going to be electric bills this summer. Only 3 percent of the Nation's electricity comes from oil-fired generating plants, but that is not true in the Northeast corridor. It is nearly one-third. New England relies on fuel oil for about a third of its power generation. Just a small handful of those plants will be setting the electric prices in the region during the periods of high demand. This is going to cost Northeast residents millions of dollars. So what do they want us to do about it? Do they want us to import more oil, or do they want us to relieve our dependence by producing safely and domestically? The arguments I get from all of the Northeast groups: You can't open ANWR. You cannot do it safely. They are breathing the fire of the radical environmental movement that wants three things: They want a cause, they want dollars, and they want membership. They sell America short--especially America's ingenuity and our technical ability. The fact is, we can produce energy here at home. They will not debate me. They refuse, they absolutely refuse. So this is what is going to happen in the Northeast corridor. I hope the newspapers and their editorial writers start figuring this out because it is going to happen. Remember when you heard it first. Electricity establishes a rate structure from a uniform price. Under that method, the central dispatchers first tap generation offering to sell electricity at the lowest price. But as the demand goes up, air- conditioning use goes up, and you are going to see the more costly generating powerplants come on line. Those are the ones that are oil fired. The power purchasers pay all bidders the price charged by the last powerplant called into service. In many cases, the final unit will be an old, oil-fired plant which will charge a rate higher because of the higher oil prices. All other non-oil-burning plants will reap a windfall profit because they will be paid as if burning oil. That is the way the process works. I hope somebody can take heed of what I am telling you. New England relies on 30 percent fuel oil for its own power generators. What do they want us to do? They say: Alternative energy. Fine. Let's do it. What are we going to do? Four percent is what we produce currently. Let's spend more on development. We are. We do not have the hydrogen technology yet. In the meantime, we have an opportunity for domestic relief, and I implore those people up there to seize that opportunity. It is as if they are born with their eyes closed, and they keep them closed to the reality that we can open these areas safely. They say: The Senator from Alaska comes to the floor and his motivation is selfish. Sure, I represent my State. Sure, this is in my State. But my State doesn't consume it. Sure, we get half the revenue, just like Oklahoma or any other area. But this is domestic energy for domestic jobs paying domestic taxes and providing for the national energy security of this Nation. Some of these other folks would rather have us import it from Saddam Hussein. That is where it is coming from, 700,000 barrels a day, from a country where we lost 147 servicemen fighting a war. So we are going to be facing higher prices. Non-oil-burning plants are going to reap a huge windfall. New England is going to take it and they are going to scream and ask why we are not doing something about it. It has been estimated an oil plant that offered electricity at $37 a megawatt hour for power 1 year ago is probably going to be seeking a price of $75 or more because they are going to have to buy oil on the open market. Remember, oil has gone from $10 to over $30. That is significant. There are a couple of other factors a lot of people overlook. There is an inflation factor. They figure every time oil goes up $10, it contributes about \1/2\ percent to inflation. We have seen the truckers come to Washington. They came twice. Do you know why they were here? Because they cannot pass on the increased price of diesel fuel. They are stuck. They are going out of business. Wait until you see the farmers when they start fueling up to plant their crops. They are going to be screaming. They will be driving their tractors to Washington. They will want relief. The relief of this administration is to go beg for more oil production in the Mideast. I find it inexcusable. We concern ourselves with the deficit in the balance of payments, $300 billion a year. That means we are buying more from countries than they are buying from us. But of the $300 billion, $100 billion is the cost of imported oil. We are sending our jobs overseas. We have seen employment in the domestic oil industry drop dramatically. It is important that Members understand what has happened to this country and to our ability to maintain a growing industry that we have become so dependent on, and what a poor job we have done on it. What we have done, under this administration, is to simply import more oil, propose more taxes. I think the administration's tax proposal is about $2.5 billion this year. We have seen the gas tax, 4.3 cents a gallon. I would like to do a little short review because I remember 1993. I remember when the Republicans lost control of this body and the Democrats took control and the administration came in with a huge Btu tax--British thermal unit--a tax on energy. We defeated that tax then. It is a good thing we did. But we also had a 4.3 cent-per-gallon gas tax and that was not going to go into the highway trust fund. That was proposed to go into the general fund. We had a vote. Every Republican voted against it. We had six Democrats join us. The vote was tied. Vice President Al Gore broke the tie, and that is why we have the 30-percent increase in the gas tax that went on in 1993 at 4.3 cents a gallon. Our Vice President, who broke that tie, deserves accolades, if you will, because he bears that responsibility. We are living with it today, and it has cost the taxpayers somewhere in the area of $43 million. That gives us some idea of the background of how we got to where we are and what kind of a policy this administration has toward our energy crisis. They hope it will go away. There is so much finger pointing around here that one cannot believe it. The Secretary of Energy the other day said an interesting thing. He said: We were caught by surprise; we were caught napping. Come on. Let's recognize facts, and facts are that in 1994 the independent petroleum producers were concerned about our dependence on imports. They solicited Secretary Brown under the Trade Expansion Act and asked him to do an evaluation of the national security risk, and he did. As a consequence of that, even the President acknowledged our energy dependence on the Mideast and our oil imports affect the national security interests of the Nation. He did that. What happened? Nothing. There was no relief. So we went along even more. In any event, nothing was done. Time went on. We became more dependent. As a consequence, we found ourselves in a situation last March where many of us became concerned. We became so concerned that we wrote a bipartisan letter to the Secretary of Commerce, Secretary Daley. I have the letter dated March 21 to our President. I am going to quote what he said in November after he received the report from the Department of Commerce by Secretary Daley. He said: I'm today concurring with the Department of Commerce's finding that the Nation's growing reliance on the imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products threaten the Nation's security because they increase U.S. vulnerability to oil supply interruption. He was on notice in 1994. To bring my colleagues up to date, in March of last year a bipartisan letter went to Secretary Daley asking him to again initiate, under the Trade Expansion Act, an evaluation of the danger to our national security because of our increased dependence on imports. That was done. It was delivered to the White House in November of last year, and the White House either did not open their mail, sat on it, or put it at the bottom of the stack. In any event, they have refused to release that report. Clearly, it is going to say the same thing. The national security of our Nation is at risk because of our increased dependence on imported oil. I am told we are looking at billions of dollars of increased appropriations this year for the military so they can have fuel for our defense. We have another case of this administration refusing to recognize reality. It is as though they want to get out of town before this becomes a political issue or before the American people understand the danger of what is happening because of our increased dependence on imported oil. The chairman of the Armed Services Committee, John Warner, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Jesse Helms, our majority leader, Trent Lott, and I as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, all wrote a letter to the President asking him why he has not opened that report he received in November from the Secretary of Commerce. We asked why he has not shared that with the American people, and to tell us whether our national security is at risk because of our increased dependence, again on our old buddy, Saddam Hussein. How ironic. What goes around comes around. Last year, we had 300,000 barrels a day from Saddam Hussein; this year, 700,000 barrels a day. The fastest growing source of our imports is coming from Iraq. I will say it again and again and again. In 1991, we lost 147 lives, 448 soldiers were wounded, 23 were taken prisoner, and the U.S. taxpayers paid $10 billion to fence in Saddam Hussein. Where does this oil go? It goes to the United States--to you and me, and for our airplanes and cars. Where does the money go? Do you think it goes to the people of Iraq? It goes to Saddam Hussein who controls the flow of that money. Do you know where most of it goes? It goes to the Republican Guard that guards him and keeps him alive. He has probably had more assassination attempts than we know. But he takes good care of those people. How does he do it? He has one source of cash-flow--oil. I just cannot accept the policies of this administration to enrich that man. We have the farmers, and we have the truckers. Mr. President, have you flown lately? Have you looked at your airplane tickets? They put on a surcharge. Nobody can figure out what the ticket costs anyway. If it is a short trip, it is $20. If it is a long trip, it is $40. Have you received a FedEx package lately? There is a surcharge added. Pretty soon, the American people are going to wake up. A surcharge is going to be on everything. They say: Oil really hasn't affected inflation. Don't be too sure it has not hit yet. Do my colleagues think we will get relief? We will see what happens on Monday. Anything that happens on Monday is 8 weeks getting to your gas station. That is the harsh reality. The policy of this administration is more imports. That is it. They never learn by history: 37-percent dependent in 1973; 47-percent dependent when we fought the war in the Persian Gulf; 56-percent dependent now; 65-percent, according to the Department of Energy, in the year 2015 to 2020. Does it behoove us to take action now? I think so. I told you a little bit about exploration and production. Here is what happened in our employment in energy: 405,000 employed is down to 293,000. That is the position we are in. Our oil production domestically dropped from about 7 billion to about 6 billion in this period of time because we don't have an aggressive posture. It is not that we do not have oil and gas. This administration will declare victory, I guess, on the 27th if OPEC releases more oil. But I think Americans are going to have to ask a basic question, a simpler question, and that is: Will the administration's actions decrease our oil dependence or increase it? That is the basic question, and the American people ought to understand it. Next Monday is March 27, and they say there will be an increase in foreign production of another 1 million to 2 million barrels. Then the administration--the Secretary of Energy and the President--is going to claim victory. They will say: We have more oil. How hollow, because it is going to increase our dependence, it is going to give them more leverage. We are going to have another crisis. They said OPEC could never get together and did not have the discipline. They did. They got together. They would rather sell their oil at a higher price than sell less oil, obviously. They would like to see it somewhere at $20 to $25 to keep us on the hook. That is the thought. I encourage the American people to ask: Is this in our national interest to swallow the administration's claim of victory? If indeed there is a significant increase coming, if we swallow the administration's claim of victory that it is in the Nation's interest to become more dependent on imported oil, or strike out with an aggressive posture based on American technology and American can-do spirit to develop resources at home in the overthrust belt in my State of Alaska? I implore my colleagues who want to speak on behalf of America's environmental community, to know what they are talking about. I ask them to get up to ANWR and Prudhoe Bay and take a look at it. See what we have done and look at some other oil fields. Just do not take the word of the self-anointed environmental groups that have a mission. That mission is membership, dollars, and a cause. I am not suggesting they do not make a significant contribution. The problem is that they refuse to recognize that we are going to be needing crude oil--petroleum products--for a long time. They refuse to recognize that we are better off developing domestically than importing it. They refuse to recognize where we are getting our imports, the significant role of our rock. They refuse to recognize the role of the lives we lost in the Persian Gulf war. They refuse to recognize we have done a pretty good job in developing oil and gas resources. We can do a better job, if given the opportunity. I do appreciate the time that has been allotted to me today. I think it is important to recognize that, in all honesty, we do not have an oil policy, we do not have an energy policy. I fear my colleagues from the Northeast are going to be exposed to substantial increases in electricity. I have the obligation to proceed with electric reliability bills, electric restructuring. But the fact is, they are going to be dependent on fuel oil making electricity. The price is going to be a lot higher than they have ever had before. People are going to be asking, What are you doing about it to relieve the problem? I hope their answer is not solely to increase imports. I again extend my willingness to travel to the Northeast corridor, my willingness to meet with the editorial writers of the Northeast papers that continually misrepresent facts. I encourage them to give us an opportunity to be heard. I encourage them to come on up and take a look and spend the money so they can objectively make recommendations and decisions upon those to whom they and their papers and their media extend themselves. I would like them to know that our Governor, and our delegation would love to have you. We will treat you with a level of hospitality that you will find quite suitable and quite comfortable. You might want to bring some long underwear though. Give us an opportunity to contribute to this country. The last thing I want to say is, we became a State in 1959. That was 41 years ago, or thereabouts. The rest of the country established their land patterns 100, 150 years ago. We are still trying to develop an economy. We have 700,000 people. We are trying to develop a university. We don't have any roads across our State. The Federal Government owns it. We are dependent on natural resources. Our fish are renewable. Our timber is renewable. We also have a lot of oil and gas.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I alert my colleagues that an extraordinary thing happened yesterday in the House of Representatives. The House accepted the Senate bill on nuclear waste without amending the Senate bill. As the occupant of the Chair knows, oftentimes the House has a little difference of opinion on what is good for the country. The bill we passed in the Senate on nuclear waste had certainly a vigorous debate in this body. There were 64 votes recorded for the legislation which would resolve what to do with our high-level nuclear waste and how to proceed with the dilemma associated with the reality that the Federal Government had entered into a contract in 1998 to take this waste from the electric-power-generating units that were dependent on nuclear energy. This is the high-level rods that have partially reduced their energy capacity and have to be stored. We have had this continued buildup of high-level waste adjacent to our reactors. The significance of this is that this industry contributes about 20 percent of our power generation in this country. There are those who don't favor nuclear energy and, as a consequence, would like to see the nuclear industry come to an end. But they accept no responsibility for where the power is going to be made up. Clearly, if you lose a significant portion, you will have to make it up someplace else. The point of this was to try to come to grips with a couple of things. One is that the ratepayers have paid the Federal Government $15 billion over an extended period of time to take the waste in 1998. The second issue is the cost to the taxpayers because since the Federal Government has failed to meet the terms of the contract and honor the sanctity of the contract agreement, there are damages and litigation from the power companies to the Federal Government. That cost is estimated to be somewhere in the area of $40 to $80 billion to the taxpayer in legal fees associated with these claims that only the court will finally adjudicate. By passing the Senate bill in the House--I believe the vote was 275-- indeed, it moved the issue closer to a resolve. Many in this body would like to not address it. That is irresponsible, both from the standpoint of the taxpayer and from the standpoint of the sanctity of a contractual commitment. If we don't do it, somebody else is going to have to do it on a later watch. The difficulty is, nobody wants the nuclear waste. But if you throw it up in the air, it is going to come down somewhere. France reprocesses theirs. The French learned something in 1973, during the Arab oil embargo. They learned that they would never be held hostage by the Mideast oil barons and be subservient to whatever the dictates of those oil nations were and what it cost the French economy in 1973. As a consequence, they proceeded towards the development of a nuclear power capability second to none. About 92 percent France's power is generated by nuclear energy. They have addressed the issue of the waste by reprocessing it through recycling, recovering the plutonium, putting it back in the reactors, and recovering the residue. The residue, after you take the high-level plutonium out, has a very short life. It is called vitrification. In any event, we are stuck still. We can't resolve what to do with our waste. But we have a bill that has moved out of the House. It is our bill. I have every belief it will go down to the White House. We will have to see if the President wants to reconsider his veto threat in view of the energy crisis we have in this country now and the fact that the administration does not have an energy policy, let alone the willingness to address its responsibility under the contractual terms to accept the waste. If the administration chooses to veto it, we have the opportunity for a veto override. In this body, we are two votes short. I encourage my colleagues, particularly over this weekend as they go home, to recognize that this issue is going to be revisited in this body. If they have nuclear reactors in their State and they don't support a veto override, they are going to have to wear the badge, the identification of being with those who want to keep the waste in their State. That is where it will stay. It will stay in temporary storage near the reactors that are overcrowded and that were not designed for long-term storage. It will never get out of their State unless we come together and move this legislation, if the President does not sign it now that it has gone through the House and Senate. Unfortunately, this would put the waste ultimately in Nevada where we have had 50 years of nuclear testing out in the desert, an area that has already been pretty heavily polluted. We have spent over $7 billion in Nevada at Yucca Mountain where we are building a permanent repository. Quite naturally, the Nevadans, my colleagues, will throw themselves down on the railroad track to keep this from happening. But the point is, you have to put it somewhere. In my State of Alaska, we don't currently have any reactors. As chairman of the Energy Committee, my responsibility is to try to address this national problem, with a resolve. What we have, obviously, is this legislation that has passed both the House and the Senate. It will be back. It will be revisited. I encourage my colleagues to recognize that we have a responsibility to address this on our watch. If we put it off, somebody else is going to have to address it. It is going to cost the taxpayer more. Now is the time, since we finally have a bill that has gone through the House and Senate. The interesting thing is, had the House taken up our bill and amended it, we would be hopelessly lost because there would be a filibuster on appointment of conferees. It would take 9 days or something like that. It could not be done. That didn't happen in the House. I commend the Speaker, Denny Hastert, for keeping a commitment. I commend our leader, Senator Lott, who made a commitment that we were going to bring this up. Not only did we bring it up but we passed it. I alert my colleagues, again, what goes around comes around. We are going to get this back. If you are against it, you had better come up with something else that is a better idea. Otherwise, it will stay in your State. If you want to get it out of your State in a permanent repository, you had better get behind this bill, if we have to go for a veto override. I thank the Chair and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I will take the opportunity, as the junior Senator from Alaska, to make a few comments relative to the designation by Alaskans of Senator Ted Stevens, Alaskan of the Century. For years we have been proclaiming the Alaskan of the Year. This is an extraordinary designation to honor an extraordinary individual. When I first came to the Senate in 1980, as a freshman with virtually no experience in the legislative process, I had an opportunity to have an extended discussion with Senator Stevens. He suggested the best position for the State of Alaska would be for him to give up his position, his longstanding seniority on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, so I could serve on that committee, and he vacated that spot. He could be not only the chairman of the Appropriations Committee but senior member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and could be chairman if he so chose. But he chose to leave that committee and make an opening available to me. Now I have the honor of serving in that capacity. But it was a sacrifice for him. It was a sacrifice he made on the basis of what was good for Alaska that he pursued the appropriations process, the Governmental Affairs Committee on which he served and continues to serve, as well as the Commerce Committee. I might add, with his seniority he has the option of serving as chairman of those committees, as well as of the Rules Committee, I believe. So he is really in an extraordinary position of seniority within this body. As a consequence of that, the contribution he has made, it is quite fitting Alaskans have selected him the State's Man of the Century. I do not believe there is a more deserving individual in our State. That is evidenced by the support Senator Stevens has received in this nomination. I am going back to Alaska tomorrow, along with our House colleague, Representative Don Young, to acclaim, if you will, the recognition of Senator Stevens and his wife Catherine in receiving this award. He has been a central figure in our young State's history. It has been a time of unparalleled changes in the 49th State. The remarkable thing is that Ted, while he has become a figure of national prominence, has not lost his interest and relationship with Alaskans. When we became a State in 1959, we had a lot of catching up to do. Senator Stevens has been very active in ensuring that Alaska catch up. The rest of the States have been around 100, 150 years, some of them 200 years, but ours has not. While Ted currently ranks sixth in the Senate in overall seniority, second among Republicans--and is just one of 109 Senators who have served in this body for more than 24 years--he still can be found meeting every Alaskan Close-Up student group, talking with residents about health concerns and meeting villagers about their rural sanitation needs. In his 36-year legislative career--four years in the Alaska House of Representatives and now in his 32nd year in the U.S. Senate, Ted has played the largest single role in seeing Alaska, a territory of just 210,000 people 41 years ago, grow into a vibrant, modern state that has more than tripled in population. In the state's House he crafted legislation to help the state recover from the devastating 1964 Good Friday earthquake. As majority leader in the state's House and Speaker pro tempore, he helped Fairbanks residents recover from the massive flooding they faced in 1967. And in 1989-90 he and I worked together to help craft federal legislation to help Alaska recover from the aftereffects of the 1989 wreck of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker in Prince William Sound. His encyclopedic knowledge of Federal-Alaska State relations is legendary in Washington. In the Senate, which has lost much of its institutional memory in the past decade, Ted is able to offer insights on everything from passage of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Act in 1974, to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. He can talk about passage of the Magnuson Fisheries Conservation Act of 1978--a law now justly named after him--to passage of the Alaska Lands Act in 1980. Those four laws are the keys to shaping the direction of Alaska as we enter the 21st century. His recollection of events is so extraordinary not only because he helped draft the Alaska Statehood Act, while serving as a legislative counsel at the Department of the Interior starting in 1956, but because he served as chief counsel and solicitor for the Interior Department in Alaska in 1960--helping to get the young State off and running after Statehood in 1959. I won't take this Chamber's time to talk about the Senator's early life, or even his impressive military career, where he served as a Flying Tiger in the U.S. Air Force in China during World War II-- service that helped form his comprehensive knowledge of the military, which has been such a help to him in shaping our Nation's Armed Forces budgets over the past two decades from his post on the Senate Appropriations Committee. I do want to speak a bit about what it has been like working with Senator Stevens. While we have disagreed on only a handful of issues over the past 20 years, Ted Stevens has truly given of his time and shared his great knowledge and expertise to help me to represent the citizens of our State. He has selflessly given guidance and counsel to help our delegation reach a common accord on what is best for Alaskans. And I can't personally thank him enough for his many kindness. We have truly worked together to help our small State, one that sports just three electoral votes, have a voice in the direction of our Nation. It has not always been easy. We have had to battle those who have no knowledge of what life is truly like in Alaska, whether we are trying to save our timber industry in Southeast Alaska, or trying to protect our rights to access our natural resources--Alaska's main means of supporting our citizens and our State government. We are working together to win the right to produce oil, without environmental damage, from North America's last great storehouse of energy--the Arctic coastal plain. While Ted served eight years as assistant Republican leader (whip) handling key national issues, especially defense matters, he has been willing to put aside personal ambition for the good of his State. Many forget that Ted sacrificed his seniority on the Commerce Committee to move to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee during the key fight over the Alaska lands act. He then moved back to Commerce to represent Alaska fishermen--proof positive that Ted always puts Alaska first. During his years on the Appropriations Committee, he has battled hard to make sure Alaska receives its fair share of Federal funding--money needed to help Alaska provide basic services to its citizens--piped water and sanitary sewers, roads and schools that Americans elsewhere take for granted. Today I, join with all Alaskans, to thank him for his skill, drive, and dedication and congratulate him on the honor he will justly receive this weekend. I also offer him a heart-felt wish for many, many more years of service to the State and the Nation. Nancy joins me in congratulations to both Ted and Catherine on this honor. It's been a great privilege working with you my friend.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

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

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, I ask unanimous consent that S. 2251 be placed back on the Senate calendar.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. In light of this agreement, there will be no further votes today. The next vote will occur on Tuesday, at 2:15 p.m. Mr. President, let me again thank you for your courtesy, and that of the clerks, who listened to me intently. I understand there may be some more morning business time available. I invite my colleagues to engage in the debate on the subject of ANWR at any time they appear on the floor, in my office, or outside. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 1:30 p.m. on Monday the Senate begin consideration of S. J. Res. 14 regarding the flag desecration and it be considered under the following time agreement: At 1:30 p.m. Monday, following the reporting of the resolution by the clerk, Senator McConnell be recognized to offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute regarding a statute, and it be limited to 2 hours equally divided in the usual form, and an additional 30 minutes under the control of the Senior Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd, with no amendments in order to the substitute, and, if agreed to, it be considered original text for the purpose of further amendments; Further, following the debate on the McConnell amendment, Senator Hollings be recognized to offer his first-degree amendment regarding campaign spending limits, with no amendments in order to the amendment and time limited to 4 hours equally divided in the usual form, with 1 of the 4 hours under the control of Senator McCain; Further, that no motions to commit or recommit be in order or any additional amendments; Further, that at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, the Senate resume the Hollings amendment for up to 2 hours of their designated debate time, equally divided; Further, that at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, there be up to 60 minutes equally divided between the chairman and the ranking minority member of Judiciary for general debate on the joint resolution; And, finally, that following the debate on the amendments, the amendments be laid aside, with votes to occur on or in relation to the amendments in the order in which they were offered, beginning at 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday, with 4 minutes for debate prior to each vote.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Further, I note that that particular letter is a bipartisan letter. Many Democrats as well as Republicans are on that letter, specifically asking, again, for a new finding on oil imports and pointing out that the domestic oil and gas industry was basically in a free-fall--this was March of 1999 --and that that free-fall would further threaten our national security. In April of 1999, Secretary of Commerce Daley initiated the study. That study was delivered to the President last November. Now, the President has not released that study, but clearly that study is going to point out that national security is at risk because of our increasing dependence on imports. Why hasn't the White House released that report? Yesterday the Majority leader, Senator Lott, along with Senator Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Helms, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and myself wrote to the President laying out this sequence of facts and asking the President to release that report that has been sitting on his desk since November. Now, he is required by law to do this within 90 days--which has past. So when I hear from the administration that they were caught by surprise, or caught napping, I can only assume they haven't been reading their mail, or they haven't been moving the reports, or they have decided they didn't want to bring this issue up before the American people, because they were told in 1994 and they were told again last November that we were risking our national security as a consequence of our import and dependence on foreign oil, which is now up to 56 percent. The Department of Energy, in its own forecast last year, said in the years 2015 to 2020 we will probably be in the area of 65-percent dependent on imports. I am not buying the excuse that they were caught napping or caught by surprise. They were caught because they haven't done anything about it. They haven't wanted to do anything about it. They hoped they would get out of town before the American public became aware, before the crisis hit, before the farmers came to Washington, before the truck drivers came to Washington, before we had a surcharge on our airline tickets, before we were approaching $2-a-gallon gasoline. But it has caught up with them. It will be very interesting to hear what the White House is going to say now that they have this report under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act; they have had it since November. And why haven't they released it to the American people? I ask the Senator from Texas how much time she will need. We have had 7 minutes. We have had 10 minutes. And we have a couple more speakers. Is 10 minutes adequate?

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I am happy to yield 10 minutes.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I thank my good friend from Maine for an update on what has occurred as a consequence of the crisis in the Northeast corridor and the implications associated with that in her area. I think she certainly has been diligent in attempting to bring about some relief for her area. It is unfortunate that the administration's answer seems to be soliciting more imports. Of course, those of us who follow this closely know that it is somewhere between 6 and 8 weeks before a barrel of oil that originates in Saudi Arabia is going to be available in her area for the benefit of relieving those who are subjected to the high prices of heating oil. Before I recognize my friend from Texas who is seeking recognition on this subject, I remind my colleagues that there is going to be a lot of finger pointing as to who bears responsibility. The claim by the administration that they have been ``caught by surprise'' suggests that they must have been napping because evidence certainly shows that the President had knowledge of the extent of this crisis developing back in 1994, when the Independent Petroleum Association of America petitioned the Commerce Secretary, under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. Under that act, upon a request from an interested party, which the independent petroleum producers certainly were, the Secretary of Commerce must institute, over a 270-day period, an investigation into whether imports threaten U.S. national security. Then, if the Secretary determines such imports do threaten national security, the President has 3 months to disagree or agree and, if he agrees, to determine a response or a solution. In 1994, the Independent Petroleum Association petitioned the Commerce Department. At that time, the late Secretary, Ron Brown, under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, responded. After study, the Department of Commerce found that imports did threaten the national security and reported this to our President. What was the President's response? I quote from the 1994 findings: I am today concurring with the Department of Commerce and their finding that the Nation's growing reliance on imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products threatens the Nation's security because they increase U.S. vulnerability to oil supply interruptions. Granted, that was in 1994, but something else happened in March of 1999. The Congress asked for a new section 232 finding on oil imports. I ask unanimous consent that a letter asking the Department of Commerce for an evaluation under section 232 be printed in the Record.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I wonder if I might ask a question of my friend from Texas relative to, again, the contribution of these small stripper wells. They are prevalent in our State, Oklahoma, and other areas. While they don't produce much, the numbers are significant. Collectively putting them together could offset dramatically a significant portion of what we import.