Frank Murkowski

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, September 28, 2000 at 9:30 a.m., to conduct an oversight hearing. The committee will examine the impacts of the recent United States Federal Circuit Court of Appeals decisions regarding the Federal government's breach of contract for failure to accept high level nuclear waste by January 1998.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, September 28, 2000 at 3:00 p.m., to hold a Joint Committee Hearing.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, September 28, 2000 to mark up H.R. 4844, the Railroad Retirement and Survivors' Improvement Act of 2000 and the Community Renewal and New Markets Act of 2000.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, September 28, 2000 at 10:30 a.m. to hold a hearing.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a markup on Thursday, September 28, 2000, at 10:00 a.m. The markup will take place in Dirksen Room 226.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet on Thursday, September 28, 2000 from 8:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. in Dirksen 562 for the purpose of conducting a hearing.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights and Competition be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Thursday, September 28, 2000, at 2:00 p.m. The hearing will take place in Dirksen Room 226.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Securities of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, September 28, 2000, to conduct a hearing on ``the proposal by the Securities and Exchange Commission to promulgate agency regulations that would restrict the types of non-audit services that independent public accounts may provide to their audit clients.''

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate Thursday, September 28, at 9:30 a.m., Hearing Room (SD-406) to conduct a hearing to receive testimony on H.R. 809, the Federal Protective Service Reform Act of 2000.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I have had a series of discussions with my colleagues on the energy crisis in this country. I think it is fair to make a broad statement relative to the crisis. The crisis is real. We have seen it in our gasoline prices. We saw it last week when oil hit an all-time high of $37 a barrel--the highest in 10 years. And now we are busy blaming each other for the crisis. I think it is fair to say that our friends across the aisle have taken credit for the economy because it occurred during the last 7 years. I also think it is fair that our colleagues take credit for the energy crisis that has occurred because they have been here for the last 7 years. I have talked about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, what I consider the insignificance of the drawdown, and the signal that it sends to OPEC that, indeed, we are vulnerable at 58-percent dependence on imported oil. That sends a message that we are willing to go into our savings account. What did we get out of that? We got about a 3- to 4-day supply of heating oil. That is all. We use about a million barrels of heating oil a day during the winter. That has to be taken out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in crude form--30 million barrels--and transferred to the refineries which are already operating at capacity because we haven't had any new refineries built in this country in the last 15 to 20 years. This is not the answer. I am going to talk a little bit about one of the answers that should be considered by this body and has been considered before. In fact, in 1995, the issue of opening up that small area of the Coastal Plain, known as ANWR, came before this body. We supported it. The President vetoed it. If we had taken the action to override that veto of the President, or if the President had supported us, we would know what is in this small area of the Coastal Plain. When I say ``small area,'' I implore my colleagues to reflect on the realities. Here is Alaska--one-fifth the size of the United States. If you overlay Alaska on the map of the United States, it runs from Canada to Mexico, and Florida to California. The Aleutian Islands go thousands of miles further. There is a very small area near the Canadian border. When I say ``small,'' I mean small in relationship to Alaska with 365 million acres. But here we have ANWR in a little different proportion. This is where I would implore Members to understand realities. This is 19 million acres. This is the size of the State of South Carolina. A few of the experts around here have never been there and are never going to go there in spite of our efforts to get them to go up and take a look. Congress took responsible action. In this area, they created a refuge of 9 million acres in permanent status. They made another withdrawal-- only they put it in a wilderness in permanent status with 78.5 million acres, leaving what three called the 1002 area, which is 1\1/2\ million acres. That is this Coastal Plain. That is what we are talking about. This general area up here--Kaktovik--is a little Eskimo village in the middle of ANWR. They say this is the ``Serengeti.'' There is a village in it. There are radar sites in it. To suggest it has never been touched is misleading. Think for a moment. Much has been made of the crude oil prices dropping $2 a barrel when the President tapped the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and released 30 million barrels of oil. While I believe the price drop will only be temporary, I ask my fellow Senators what the price of crude oil would be today if the President had not vetoed opening up ANWR 6 years ago. It would have been at least $10 less because we would have had another million- barrel-a-day supply on hand. What would prices be if OPEC and the world knew that potentially 1 to 2 million barrels a day of new oil was coming out of the ANWR Coastal Plain, and not only for 3 or 4 or 15 days, but for decades? Let me try to belie the myth of what is in ANWR in relationship to Prudhoe Bay. This area of Prudhoe Bay has been supplying this Nation with nearly 25 percent of its crude oil for almost two decades--2\1/2\ decades. We built an 800-mile pipeline with the capacity of over 2 million barrels. Today, that pipeline is flowing at 1 million barrels with the decline of Prudhoe Bay. You might not like oil fields but Prudhoe Bay is the finest oil field in the world, bar none. I defy anybody to go up there and compare it with other oil fields. The environmental sensitivity is unique because we have to live by rules and regulations. The point I want to make is when Prudhoe Bay was developed and this pipeline was built at a cost of roughly $6.5 billion to nearly $7 billion, the estimate of what we would get out of the oil field was 9 billion barrels. Here we are 23 or 24 years later, and we have gotten over 12 billion barrels. It is still pumping at better than 1 million barrels a day. The estimates up here range from a low of 5.7 billion to a high of 16 billion barrels--16 billion barrels. What does that equate to? It is kind of in the eye of the beholder. Some say it would be a 200-day supply--a 200-day supply of America's oil needs. They are basing their estimates on old data of 3.2 billion barrels in ANWR, ignoring the most recent estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey that there is a 5 percent chance of 16 billion barrels--that is at the high end with a mean estimate of 10.3 billion barrels. That is the average. For the sake of conversation, we might as well say a 10.3 billion barrel average. Under this argument, Prudhoe Bay, the largest oil field in the United States, has only a 600-day supply. That is assuming all oil stops flowing from all other places, and we have no other source of oil other than Alaska. So those arguments don't hold water. But the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club say it is only a 200- day supply. It is only this, or it is only that; and using that logic, the SPR is only a 15-day supply, in theory. Let's make sure we keep this discussion where it belongs. To give you some idea, in this 1002 area, in comparison to an eastern seaboard State, let's take the State of Vermont, and say that there are absolutely no other sources for oil in the entire Coastal Plain. If this 1002 area was designated to fulfill Vermont's needs, that 200-day supply is enough to heat homes and run equipment all over Vermont for the next 197 years. So don't tell me that is insignificant. For New Hampshire, for example, it would be 107 years. The U.S. Geological Survey says that it would replace all of our imports from Saudi Arabia for 11 years. If it contains the maximum estimate of recoverable oil, it would replace all of our imports from Saudi Arabia for 30 years. If the Arctic Coastal Plain could produce just 600,000 barrels a day, the most conservative estimate--more likely it would produce 2 million barrels a day--the area would be among the top 13 countries in the world; just this area in terms of crude oil production. At 2 million barrels a day, the Coastal Plain of ANWR itself would be among the top eight oil-producing nations in the world. I am sick and tired of hearing irresponsible statements from the environmental groups that are lying to the American people. We had a little discussion the other day on the floor. One of my colleagues from Illinois said he ran into a CEO of a major oil company of Chicago--he didn't identify who he was--and asked him how important ANWR was to the future of the petroleum industry. The man from the company said from his point of view it was nonsense, there are plenty of sources of oil in the United States that are not environmentally dangerous. Where? Where? We can't drill off the Pacific coast. We can't drill off the Atlantic coast. We can't drill offshore. We can only drill down in the gulf, and now the Vice President wants to cancel leases down there. He further said he believes, and the man from Illinois agreed, we don't have to turn to a wildlife refuge to start drilling oil in the Arctic nor do we have to drill offshore. If we are not going to drill offshore, where are we going to drill? They won't let drilling occur in the Overthrust Belt. Mr. President, 64 percent has been ruled out--Wyoming, Colorado, Montana--to any exploration. The idea that these people don't identify where we are going to drill, but are just opposed to it, is absolutely irresponsible. As a consequence of not knowing whether we have this oil or not, we are not doing a responsible thing in addressing whether we can count on this as another Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I have a presentation that I hope will catch some of the attention of Members because there is an old saying from some of the environmental groups: For Heaven's sake, there is 95 percent of the coastal plain that is already open for oil and gas development. Here is a picture of the coastal plain. It is important that the public understand this: 95 percent is not open. Here is Canada. Here is the ANWR area, 19 million acres, the coastal plain. This area is not open. It is open in this general area. Then we have the National Petroleum Reserve. This area is closed --this little bit of white area. From Barrow to Point Hope is closed. I repeat, 95 percent isn't open. The Administration prides itself on saying we have been responsible in opening up areas of the National Petroleum Reserve, which is an old naval petroleum reserve. A reserve is there for an emergency. We don't know what is there. The areas that the oil company wanted to go in and bid Federal leases, the Department of Interior wouldn't make available. They made a few, it is a promising start, but let's open up a petroleum reserve and find out whether we have the petroleum there. They won't do that. They won't support us in opening up ANWR. Only 14 percent of Alaska's coastal lands are open to oil and gas exploration. Those are facts. I defy the environmental community, the Sierra Club, or the Wilderness Society to counter those statements. The breakdown: Prudhoe region, 14 percent; ANWR coastal plain, 11 percent; ANWR wilderness, 5 percent; naval petroleum, 52 percent; and Western North Slope, State, native private land, 18 percent. Ninety-five percent is not open. I am looking at ``The Scoop on Oil,'' Community News Line, Scripps News Service, written obviously by the environmental community. It says ``And yet oil spills in Prudhoe Bay average 500 a year.'' They don't amount to 500 spills a year. They amount to 17,000 spills a year--I see that has the attention of the Presiding Officer--because in Prudhoe Bay they don't mention they have to report all spills of any nonnaturally occurring substance, whether a spill of fresh water, a half cup of lubricating oil, or a more significant spill. The vast majority of spills at Prudhoe Bay have been fresh and salt water use in conditioning on the ice roads and pads--not of chemicals or oil. In 1993, the worst year in the past decade for spills at Prudhoe Bay, there were 160 reported spills involving nearly 60,000 gallons of material but only 2 spills involving oil. Those are the facts. And all 10 gallons went into secondary containment structures and were easily cleaned. Prudhoe Bay is the cleanest industrial zone in America. America should understand this. What the environmental community has done is found a cause, a cause for membership dollars. Our energy policy today in this country is directed not by our energy needs but by the direction of the environmental community. They accept no responsibility for the pickle we are in with this energy crisis. This administration has not fostered any domestic exploration program of any magnitude in this country, as I have indicated, whether it be the Overthrust Belt or elsewhere. They have limited excess activity to the Gulf of Mexico. They have prohibited exploration in the high Arctic, as I have indicated. They have moved off oil and said: No more nuclear; we won't address nuclear waste. My good friend from Nevada and I have had spirited debate, but we are not expanding nuclear energy because we cannot address what to do with the waste. Twenty percent of our power comes from nuclear. We have not built a new coal-fired plant since the mid- 1990s. You cannot get a permit. We are talking of taking down hydro dams because of the environmentalists, but there is a tradeoff, as the occupant of the Chair from Oregon knows-- putting the traffic off the barges on to the highways. There is a tradeoff. If we take no hydro, no coal, no nuclear, no more imports of oil, where does it go? It goes to natural gas. What about natural gas, the cleanest fuel? Ten months ago, it was $2.16 per 1,000 cubic feet; deliveries in November of $5.42--more than double. Where are we going for energy? We are going to natural gas. That is the next train wreck coming in this country. It will be severe. Fifty percent of the homes in this country heat by natural gas--56 million homes. Heating bills are going to be 40-percent higher in the Midwest this winter. We have a different problem on the east coast where we don't have natural gas. The train wreck is coming. When I hear these ludicrous statements, this thing is garbage, it is totally inaccurate. It says: The oil industry's definition of ``environmentally sensitive'' also differs quite radically from yours and mine. How can thousands of caribou, polar grizzly bear, eagles, birds and other species who survive in what has been dubbed ``America's Serengeti''. . . . If you haven't been up there, this coastal plain is pretty much the same all over. It is beautiful, it is unique. But it has some activity with the villages and the radar sites, and you wouldn't know where you were along this coastal plain because it is all the same. They talk about dozens of oil fields. They say the road and pipelines would stop the movement of wildlife from one part of the habitat to another, toxic waste would leak. Let me show something about the wildlife up here: This is Prudhoe Bay, and this is the wildlife. These are not stuffed dummies, these are live caribou. They are wandering around because nobody is shooting them. Nobody is running them down with snow machines. This is Prudhoe Bay. We can do this in other areas of Alaska. According to the Wilderness Society, rivers, streambeds, key habitat for wildlife, will be stripped by millions of tons of gravel roads. Let me show a little bit about the technology today because it is different. America should wake up and recognize this. This is a drill pad in the Arctic today. There are no gravel roads. We have ice and snow 9 months of the year. This is an ice road. That is the well. Let me show the same place in the summertime, during the short summer, which is 2\1/2\ months or thereabouts. This is after moving the rig. There is the Christmas tree; there is the tundra. Do you see any marks? Do you see any gravel roads? Do you see pipelines? No, we have the technology, we can do it right. We could if the environmental community would meet its responsibilities. As we look for sources of energy, particularly oil, do we want to get it from the rain forests of Colombia where nobody gives a rat's concern about the environment? They just want the oil and to get it at any price, lay a pipeline anywhere. Do you want to do it right here at home? I think it is time to come to grips with these folks and ask them to stand behind their assertions. They talk about millions of piles of gravel. We don't have to do that anymore. They are talking about the living quarters of thousands of workers and air pollution and death for the stunning animals. They talk about the polar bear. The polar bear don't den on land, they den on the ice. I could go right down the list and state what is wrong with this thing. It is irresponsible. They finish by saying it is a 90-day supply of oil. That is just not accurate. It is not factual. The reality is, if given the opportunity, we can turn this country around, keep these jobs home. I am going to tell you, one of the problems, of course, is with our refining capacity because we are going to have to increase that. The assertion is that some of these refineries were closed prior to the Clinton-Gore administration. That is fine. But what have we done to increase the refining capacity? Refining capacity has increased by less than 1 percent while demand has increased 14 percent in this country. What are the causes of price hikes? Let's go to EPA. We have nine geographical regions in this country that require reformulated gas. I am not going to question the merits of that, but I can tell you the same gas in Springfield, IL, can't be used in Chicago. It costs more. Is it necessary? I don't know, but it costs more because you have to batch it. We have talked about President Clinton's veto of ANWR 6 years ago, and what it would do. We are addressing the national security of this country as we look at depleting our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It amazes me that nobody is upset about our increased dependence on oil from Iraq, 750,000 barrels a day. Saddam Hussein finishes every speech: ``Death to Israel.'' If there was ever a threat to Israel's national security, it is Saddam Hussein. He is developing a missile capability, biological capability--what is it for? Well, it is not for good things. As a consequence of that, we are seeing our Nation's increased reliance on crude oil and refined product, increased vulnerability to supply interruptions, and we are pulling down our reserves, and the administration says it is doing something about it. But I would like to know what. It vetoed ANWR, the opening of ANWR. It says we will get a little bit out of SPR. It says we have a problem here, we have a problem there.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I ask unanimous consent for another 5 minutes.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, here are the Iraqi oil exports into the United States. They have gone up. Let me show some more charts because pictures are worth a thousand words. People say we have to concern ourselves with the issue of the porcupine caribou herd. This is ANWR, Canada. This is the Demster Highway. These are oil wells drilled in Canada. These in the light color were drilled. They didn't find any oil, but this is the route of the caribou. They have gone through this area. They cross the Demster Highway with no problem at all. The caribou calve--where do they calve? Sometimes they calve in ANWR, sometimes they do not. We are not going to have any oil development in the summertime in the calving area. This is what it is like over in Iraq. This is what it was like during the Persian Gulf war. There we are trying to clean up the mess caused by Saddam Hussein. That is the guy we are helping to support today, now with biological capabilities. There are a couple of more points I wish to make. Talk about compatibility, here is something I think is fairly compatible. This shows a couple of guys out for a walk--3 bears. Why are they walking on the pipeline? The pipeline is warm. This is in the Prudhoe Bay oil field. Nobody is shooting those guys. They are happy. They walk over. I can remember 15 years ago when they said: You build that pipeline and you are going to cut the State in half. The caribou, the moose will never go over from the other side. It just did not happen. It will not happen because these guys are compatible with the environment, as long as you don't harm them, chase them, run them down and so forth. We have a lot of things going here, given the opportunity. If these Members would go back, if you will, to your environmental critics and say: What do you suggest? Can American technology overcome, if you will, our environmental obligation? Can we open up this area safely? Do we have the science and technology? There is nothing to suggest that we do not have that capability. This is where we are getting our oil from now, with no environmental conscience about how they are getting it out of the ground. That is irresponsible on their part. I am going to leave you with one thought. Here are the people with whom I am concerned. Those are the people who live in my State. This is in a small village. These are the kids walking down the street. It is snowing, it is cold, it is tough. It is a tough environment. One of my friends, Oliver Leavitt, spoke about life in Barrow. That is at the top of the world, right up here. You can't go any further north or you fall off the top. He said I could come to the DIA school to keep warm because the first thing I did every morning was go out on the beach and pick up the driftwood. Of course, there are no trees. The driftwood has to come down the river. Jacob Adams said: I love life in the Arctic but it's harsh, expensive, and for many, short. My people want decent homes, electricity and education. We do not want to be undisturbed. Undisturbed means abandoned. It means sod huts and deprivation. The native people of the Coastal Plain are asking for the same right of the Audubon Society of Louisiana, the same right this administration itself is supporting in the Russian Arctic Circle, and the same right the Gwich'ins had in 1984 when they offered to lease their lands. The oil companies should have bought it. There just wasn't any oil there. I recognize the public policy debate about this issue is complex and will involve issues at the heart of the extreme environmental agenda which is driving our energy policy. It certainly is not relieving it. At the same time, I think the issue can be framed simply as: Is it better to give the Inupiat people, the people of the Arctic, this right? These people live up here. This is an Eskimo village. There is the village. Do you want to give them the right, while promoting a strong domestic energy policy that safeguards our environment and our national security, rather than rely on the likes of Saddam Hussein to supply the energy? The answer in my mind is clear, as well as in the minds of the Alaskans.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, may I ask about the order and the unanimous consent that is pending?

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, if I may, I have been asked to announce speeches and I have just concluded one. On behalf of the leader, I ask unanimous consent, following the remarks of the majority leader, Senator Feingold be recognized for up to 25 minutes as in morning business, to be followed by Senator Sessions, under the previous order, to be followed by Senator Graham for up to 20 minutes in morning business.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, right now, all across America, Medicare beneficiaries are seeking medical care from a flawed health care system. Reduced benefit packages, ever escalating costs, and limited access in rural areas are just a few of the problems our system faces on a daily basis. For this reason, Congress must continue to move towards the modernization of Medicare. But as we address the needs of beneficiaries, we must not turn our back upon the very providers that seniors rely upon for their care. These providers are the physicians, the therapists, the nurses, and the allied health professionals who deliver quality care to our needy Medicare population. They are the backbone of our complex health care network. When our nation's seniors need care, it is the provider who heals, not the health insurer--and certainly not the federal government. But more, and more often, seniors are being told by providers that they don't accept Medicare. This is becoming even more common in rural areas, where the number of physicians and access to quality care is already severely limited. Quite simply, beneficiaries are being told that their insurance is simply not wanted. Why? Well it's not as simple as low reimbursement rates. In fact it's much more complex. The infrastructure that manages the Medicare program, the Health Care Financing Administration and its network of contractors, have built up a system designed to block care and micro-manage independent practices. Providers simply can't afford to keep up with the seemingly endless number of complex, redundant, and unnecessary regulations. And if providers do participate? Well, a simple administrative error in submitting a claim could subject them to heavy-handed audits and the financial devastation of their practice. Should we force providers to choose between protecting their practice and caring for seniors? I believe the answer is no. For this reason, I am introducing the ``Medicare Billing and Education Act of 2000.'' Co-sponsored by Senator Abraham, this legislation will restore fairness to the Medicare system. It will allow providers to practice medicine without fearing the threats, intimidation, and aggressive tactics of a faceless bureaucratic machine. Most importantly, this bill will reform the flawed appeals process within HCFA. Currently, a provider charged with receiving an overpayment is forced to choose between three options: admit the overpayment, submit additional information to mitigate the charge, or appeal the decision. However, a provider who chooses to submit additional evidence must subject their entire practice to review and waive their appeal rights. That's right--to submit additional evidence you must waive your right to an appeal! And what is the result of this maddening system that runs contrary to our nation's history of fair and just administrative decisions? Often, providers are intimidated into accepting the arbitrary decision of an auditor employed by a HCFA contractor. Sometimes, they are even forced to pull out of the Medicare program. In the end, our senior population suffers. Under my bill, providers will be allowed to retain their appeal rights should they choose to first submit additional evidence to mitigate the charge. Many providers receive an overpayment as the result of a simple administrative mistake. For cases not involving fraud, a provider will be able to return that overpayment within twelve months without fear of prosecution. This is a common sense approach, and will not lead to any additional costs to the Medicare system. To bring additional fairness to the system, my bill will prohibit the retroactive application of regulations, and allow providers to challenge the constitutionality of HCFA regulations. Further, it will prohibit the crippling recovery of overpayments during an appeal, and bar the unfair method of withholding valid future payments to recover past overpayments. These common sense measures maintain the financial viability of medical practices during the resolution of payment controversies, and restore fundamental fairness to the dispute resolution procedures existing within HCFA. Like many of our nation's problems, the key to improvement is found in education. For this reason, I have included language that stipulates that at least ten percent of the Medicare Integrity Program funds, and two percent of carrier funds, must be devoted to provider education programs. providers cannot be expected to comply with the endless number of Medicare regulations if they are not shown how to submit clean claims. We must ensure that providers are given the information needed to eliminate future billing errors, and improve the responsiveness of HCFA. It is with the goal of protecting our Medicare population, and the providers who tend care, that leads me to introduce the ``Medicare Billing and Education act of 2000.'' This bill will ensure that providers are treated with the respect that they deserve, and that Medicare beneficiaries aren't told that their health insurance isn't wanted. We owe it to our nation's seniors. I urge immediate action on this worthy bill. I ask unanimous consent that the text of my bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, today the Senate will be in a period for morning business until 10:30 a.m. Following morning business, the Senate is expected to resume postcloture debate on amendment No. 4178 to the H-1B visa bill. Under a previous agreement, at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, the Senate will begin 7 hours of debate on the continuing resolution. At the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate will proceed to a vote on the resolution. As a reminder, cloture motions were filed yesterday on the H-1B visa bill. Therefore, cloture votes will occur at a time to be determined later this week.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my time, which was the leader's time, not be taken out of my 20 minutes. I was asked by the leadership to announce the opening script for the day.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, it is my intention this morning to talk about natural gas and alert the American people to the crisis we have before us relative to this very important source of clean energy. Over the last several days, I have talked about our energy policy, the fact that, to a large degree, our energy policy is determined by environmental groups, environmental pressures, and the Environmental Protection Agency, as opposed to a balance which suggests, indeed, we need to face the realization that we need all our energy sources coming together to meet the crisis we have today, as we find ourselves 58- percent dependent on imported oil. I will also speak on the dangers of Iraq and the realization that we are now 750,000-barrels-a-day dependent on Iraqi oil. The interesting thing is that Iraq has a production of nearly 2.5 million barrels a day, a kind of leverage on the world's supply of oil. What I mean is that the capacity of the world to produce oil and the demand of the world to use that oil is very close. We are somewhere in the area of roughly 1 million barrels a day of excess capacity over demand. With Iraq producing better than 2 million barrels a day, one can clearly see the leverage Iraq has should they choose to reduce production. I have also talked about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the merits of pulling down 30 million barrels, which sounds like a significant relief, if indeed we can turn that into heating oil, but the reality is that we are going to get 3 to 4 million barrels out of that 30 million barrels in heating oil which amounts to a 2- or 3-day supply. I do not want to mislead anybody. It is simply my attempt to alert the American people; there is no panacea. We are going to need all our sources of oil. To blame big oil on profiteering is really shortsighted, and the American people are too smart to believe some of the rhetoric out there. Just look at where we were a year ago with the price of oil at $10 a barrel. Were the oil companies so benevolent then or was it supply and demand? Of course. Who sets the price of oil? We had a hearing yesterday. Secretary Richardson was there. I think we all agreed that the price of oil, without question, is being set by those who supply oil, who have an abundance of oil, and that is primarily OPEC, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Mexico. They have it for sale, and the price currently is somewhere in the area of $33 to $34. Last week, we had an all-time high in over 10 years of about $37.86. Tomorrow I am going to talk about ANWR. I know something about ANWR. That is the narrow area in the coastal plain of Alaska. It is that small area that has been set aside out of the whole area of ANWR. Few people really understand the merits and the magnitude of the land mass and what we have done with it by congressional action. There are 19 million acres up there. That is about the size of the State of South Carolina. We have taken 8.5 million acres and put them in a permanent wilderness. We have taken another 9 million acres and put them in a refuge, leaving 1.5 million acres of the so-called 1002 area to the determination of Congress as to whether or not we can open it up safely. Industry says, if the oil is there in the abundance it would have to be, the footprint would be about 2,000 acres. So I think we ought to keep this discussion in perspective. I am pleased to say, one of the Presidential candidates supports opening it, recognizing that we have the technology, we can do it correctly, we can make the footprint small. If the oil is there, we could very well produce another million barrels a day. We have the pipeline capacity. One can certainly imagine what kind of message that would send to OPEC. You would see the price of oil drop dramatically. Also, as we look at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, it certainly makes sense to know whether we have one sitting up in the arctic area adjacent to Prudhoe Bay. Today, I am going to talk about the natural gas crisis in America because that crisis is here today. To give you some idea, yesterday we were quoting gas prices for delivery in October at $5.34 per 1,000 cubic feet. How does that compare with 9 months ago? Nine months ago, it was $2.16 per thousand cubic feet. What is it for November of this year? The November figures are out. It is $5.45 for delivery in November. The significance of that can probably be reflected on who uses gas. The American public out there knows who uses gas. Fifty percent of our homes in this country rely on natural gas for heating. Natural gas provides 15 percent of our Nation's electrical power, and it is growing. The reality is, we are not going to have any new supply in place before this winter. The reality is, the administration isn't going to be able to go into a strategic natural gas reserve, because there isn't any. So what are we going to do? The projections are very clear. We are using about 22 trillion cubic feet of gas now. It is estimated we will be somewhere between 32 and 34 trillion cubic feet by the year 2010. This is going to be primarily the result of the utility industry in this country--an industry we take for granted because the lights usually work. We are an electronic society. We depend on computers, e- mail. This power has to come from somewhere. You have your air- conditioners, your heating. The demand is up. It is going to cost the industry somewhere in the area of $1.5 billion to put in more infrastructure. We are concerned about pipeline safety. As more gas is utilized, we are putting more pressure on our pipelines. This is a multiplier of demand, of price increases. The reason so much pressure is on natural gas is we do not have a policy on oil. Our policy is to import more oil. Before the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, after which we created SPR, we were 37-percent dependent on imported oil. To give you some idea of where we are going in that regard, today we are 58-percent dependent on imported oil. The administration has always favored clean gas as the alternative. But now we are using our gas reserves faster than we are finding new reserves. When you are in business, and you are selling your inventory faster than you are replacing it, you have a problem. This is an alert to the American people and, hopefully, my colleagues because we are facing a train wreck. It is coming. The signs are here. The administration has yet to address what they are going to do about it. Certainly releasing the crude oil in SPR isn't going to help the gas situation because the demand is there. The reason the demand is there is quite simple. I have indicated oil is not the answer, simply because we become more dependent on imports. So let's move to hydro. What do they want to do? They want to take down hydroelectric dams. The tradeoff of that, of course, is putting the barge traffic on the highways. Coal: We have an abundance of coal. We have clean coal technology. But you have not seen a new coal plant built in this country in the last several years. I think the last one was back in the mid-1990s. You can't get permits. Nuclear: Twenty percent of our power comes from nuclear energy. Have we built a new plant in this last decade or the last two decades? No one in their right mind would build a nuclear plant because the Government will not fulfill its contractual commitments to take the waste that it agreed to do and the ratepayers have been paying for the last two decades. So everywhere we look--everywhere we look--we are check-mated. We can't find an alternative source other than gas. That is why American consumers should care. According to the Energy Information Administration, Midwestern families will spend as much as 40 percent more on heating this winter because of higher natural gas prices; that is, expecting a typical winter. A real cold spike could cause some real problems. I am not suggesting you go out and sharpen your saw or put gasoline in your chain saw, but it isn't a bad idea. I know that is being done in the Northeast Corridor. So we have an increased demand, no new supply, and this adds up to higher gas prices for the American people this winter, make no mistake about it. What has the administration done about it? As I have said, it used to be that natural gas was kind of a seasonal fuel, stored underground in the summer, drawn down for winter use. But we now have a large summer demand for natural gas because more and more electric powerplants rely on natural gas. Here is the figure: Over 96 percent of all the new plants will be gas fired. If they all come on line, we simply do not have the gas supply. Again, permits are obtainable for gas, unlike coal and fossil fuel. We can't get enough natural gas from existing wells to fuel these new powerplants if they all go on line. I had one CEO of a major oil and gas company tell me: We are virtually out of natural gas. We can no longer store gas in the summer. Our winter stocks are low. With a cold winter, prices are going to go up. Reserves are not adequate to buffer surges in consumer demand. As I have stated, even if this winter is normal, we will still face natural gas prices--we know it already--they are going to be over 50 percent higher than last year--$2.16--and I indicated earlier they are currently $5.45 for November delivery. The simple reason is, the demand is strong and supply is not keeping pace. The market responds with what? Higher prices. It is supply and demand. The administration touts natural gas as its ``bridge to the energy future'': Our cleanest fossil fuel, fewer emissions; efficient end use; no need to depend on imports. Yet as they express this and encourage you to use gas, their actions simply do not match the rhetoric. Rather than encourage new supplies, they stifle supplies. Proof: This administration has placed Federal lands off limits to new natural gas exploration and production. They have taken the Rocky Mountain overthrust belt--that is Wyoming, Colorado, Montana--these States have a tremendous capability for producing oil and gas. Well more than 50 percent--about 56 percent--of the public land in those areas, the overthrust belt, have been taken off from any exploration or development for oil and gas. Now the Forest Service comes along with a roadless policy to lock up 40 million acres of national forest, eliminating any exploration for oil and gas. We have a moratorium on OCS leasing and drilling until 2012. The Vice President would even cancel existing leases. He made a statement in Rye, NH, on October 21, 1999: I will make sure that there is no new oil leasing off the coasts of California and Florida. And then I will go much further: I will do everything in my power to make sure that there is no new drilling off these sensitive areas--even in areas already leased by previous administrations. I do not know what that means to you, Mr. President, but it means to me that he is not going to support OCS activities of any consequence, and he is even going to attempt to cancel and negate some of the existing leases. Where is it going to come from? He conveniently ducks that issue. Al Gore claims to have invented the Internet, but he refuses to provide natural gas that is needed to provide electricity to power it. We use more electricity today. We are an energy consuming country--e- mails, electronics, computers. Even if we had access to more natural gas, regulation after regulation inhibits construction of new pipelines to get gas to the consumer. The Northeast Corridor: There have been nothing but delays--3 years of delay. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, that regulates and has to approve it, has been sitting on it. This would have given the Northeast Corridor a clean source of fuel. Most of this is Canadian gas. It has taken forever. This administration wants you to use more natural gas, but at the same time they make sure you can't get it. That sounds like a recipe for higher prices, if you ask me, higher home electric costs, heating costs. Then what happens to the problem? It is going to get worse. The demand is expected to grow from 22 trillion cubic feet to over 35 trillion cubic feet by the year 2010. Without new exploration and new production, natural gas prices are going to go even higher. We are going to pay more to heat our homes, run our businesses. When higher heating bills arrive this winter, we will want to thank the President and Vice President Gore for causing a natural gas crisis in America, one that was predictable, one that we knew was coming. We have been asleep. The train wreck is coming. The solution is obvious: increase domestic supply of gas. Increased domestic supply will obviously lower prices, reduce volatility, and ensure a safe and secure energy supply. I am all for alternative energy. I am all for conservation. But the reality is, transportation does not move on hot air. Members of this body don't go home on an airplane that flies on hot air. It flies on fuel. Our homes are not heated by hot air from Washington. They are heated by natural gas, 50 percent of all homes. That is 56 million homes in this country. We found 36 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Prudhoe Bay oil field while searching for oil. We never looked for gas. Now there is a possibility the economics will favor bringing that gas down from Alaska for distribution in the lower 48 States, but don't think it is going to be cheap gas. You have to amortize the cost of a pipeline that is going to run some 1,600 miles down through Alaska, follow the Alcan Highway, going through Canada and into the Canadian prebuilt system for distribution into the U.S. The fact is, we have proven gas, but the market has never been able to sustain the cost. At this range, the feasibility of that project is very costly. The most important thing we can do, however, is to increase access to proven natural gas that is likely to be found on Federal lands. We need to depend on all sources of energy--oil, gas, clean coal, hydro, and nuclear--and we need to conserve. That is why Senator Lott and others have introduced the National Energy Security Act of 2000, S. 2557. Briefly, it would increase the domestic gas supply by allowing frontier royalty relief; improving Federal gas lease management; providing tax incentives for production; and assuring price certainty for small producers. It would require the administration to develop a comprehensive strategy to ensure that natural gas remains affordable and available to American consumers. It would allow new exploration for natural gas in America's Arctic as well as the Rocky Mountain States and along the OCS areas. As I have indicated, we have substantial potential for new reserves, but if you don't have access to the areas, you might as well leave it in the ground because it will never be developed. We want to remove the disincentives for utilities to use natural gas, protect consumers against seasonal price spikes, especially with regard to Northeast heating oil use, and increase funding for energy efficiency and weatherization assistance to reduce winter heating bills. A noted economist, Daniel Yergin, stated that this current energy ``shock'' could turn into a world crisis--that is paraphrasing the exposure that we have today. You can ask Tony Blair from Great Britain about the price of energy that is threatening his Government. Unless we take the kinds of actions outlined in this policy plan of the Republicans that we have submitted before this body, as represented in the legislation, S. 2557, the National Energy Security Act, we very well will face a current energy shock that could turn into a world crisis. Just look at the stock market this morning; it is pretty shaky. There is probably more to come because of the uncertainty over where we are with regard to energy and the spiraling costs. It is referenced in a taxi ride to Capitol Hill; there is a surcharge. It is referenced in your airplane ticket now. You can't figure out the airplane tickets anyway; they are so confusing whether you fly on Thursday, Friday, or Sunday, or before a.m. or p.m. It is in there, all your truckers, all your delivery systems. Everybody is now facing the reality that energy costs are higher. It is going to have an effect. Finally, thanks to the failed energy policies of Clinton-Gore, we are going to pay more for gas this winter. We must increase domestic supply of natural gas to meet demand. This administration continues to make new exploration and production not just difficult but almost impossible. We pay the price. This GOP energy plan encourages short-term efforts to minimize spike hikes this winter and increase supply in the long term. Tomorrow, I hope to talk a little bit about where the oil and gas is likely to be found.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I object.

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

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, may I ask how much time I am allotted under the unanimous consent agreement?

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise to address the Energy bill which has been introduced by Senator Lott. We have had a good deal of discussion about this country's continuing dependence on imported petroleum products, particularly crude oil, to the point that currently we are about 58-percent dependent. As a consequence of the concern over the lack of adequate heating oil supplies, particularly in the eastern seaboard, the President, on the recommendation of the Vice President, made a determination to release about 30 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That is a significant event. I question the legality of that action. I question the meaning or significance of that action, but we can get into that a little later in my comments. I am also going to touch on our realization of the high price of natural gas, following our recognition of our dependence on imported oil. Oftentimes, we do not see ourselves as others see us. I am going to read a paragraph from the New York Times article of September 26 called ``Candidate In The Balance.'' It is by Thomas L. Friedman. I quote: Tokyo. It's interesting watching the American oil crisis/ debate from here in Tokyo. The Japanese are cool as cucumbers today--no oil protests, no gas lines, no politicians making crazy promises. That's because Japan has been preparing for this day since the 1973 oil crisis by steadily introducing natural gas, nuclear power, high-speed mass transit and conservation, and thereby steadily reducing its dependence on foreign oil. And unlike the U.S., the Japanese never wavered from that goal by falling off the wagon and becoming addicted to S.U.V.'s--those they just make for the Americans. I think there is a lot of truth to that. As we reflect on where we are today, I think we have had an acknowledgement at certain levels within the administration that they have been ``asleep at the wheel'' relative to our increasing dependence on imported oil. This did not occur overnight. This has been coming on for some time. We can cite specifics over the last 7 or 8 years, and in every section, U.S. demand is outpacing U.S. supply. We saw crude oil prices last week at a 10-year high--$37 a barrel-- twice what they were at this time last year. It is rather interesting to note the Vice President's comments the other day that the high price of oil was due to profiteering by big oil. That is certainly a convenient political twist, isn't it-- profiteering by big oil. There was no mention that last year big oil was very generously making crude oil available at $10 a barrel. You think they did that out of generosity? Who sets the price of oil? Does Exxon? British Petroleum? Phillips? Big oil isn't the culprit; it is our dependence on the supplier. Who is the supplier? The supplier is OPEC, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Mexico. They have it for sale. We are 58-percent dependent, so they set the price. With crude oil at a 10-year high, gasoline prices are once again above $1.57, $1.59, in some areas $2 a gallon. Natural gas--here is the culprit, here is what is coming, here is the train wreck--$5.25 to $5.30 for deliveries in the Midwest next month. What was it 9 months ago? It was $2.16. Think of that difference. Utilities inventories are 15-percent below last winter's level. How many homes in America are dependent on natural gas for heating? The answer is 50 percent, a little over 50 percent; that is, 56 million homes are dependent on natural gas in this country. How many on fuel oil? Roughly 11 million. What about our electric power generation? Fifteen percent of it currently comes from natural gas. What is the increasing demand for natural gas? We are consuming 22 trillion cubic feet now. The projections are better than 30 trillion cubic feet by the year 2010. The administration conveniently touts natural gas as its clean fuel for the future, but it will not allow us to go into the areas where we can produce more. I remind my colleagues, I remind the Secretary of Energy, and I remind the Vice President and the President, there is no Strategic Petroleum Reserve for natural gas. You can't go out and bail this one out, Mr. President. The administration has placed Federal lands off limits to new natural gas exploration and production. More than 50 percent of the overthrust belt--the Rocky Mountain area, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado--has been put off limits for exploration. We have a Forest Service roadless policy locking up an additional 40 million acres; a moratorium on OCS drilling until the year 2012. The Vice President said he would even consider canceling existing leases. You have a situation with increased demand and no new supply. What does this add up to? Higher energy prices for consumers this winter--a train wreck. This is going to happen. Yet the administration sits idly by and hopes the election can take place before the voters read their fuel bills. So there we are. We now have situations in California, in San Diego, of electricity price spikes. We have possible brownouts. The reason is, there is no new generation. You can't get permits for coal-fired plants. It takes so long to get new generation on line. Heating and fuel oil inventories, as I have indicated, are at the lowest level in decades, leaving us unprepared for winter. It is a lack of overall energy policy. As to nuclear energy, 20 percent of the total power generated in this country comes from it. We can't address what to do about the waste. This body stands one vote short of a veto override to proceed with the commitments that we made to take that waste from the industry, waste that the consumers have been paying for the Federal Government to take for the last two decades. Consumers have paid about $11 billion into that fund. The Federal Government was supposed to take the waste in 1998. It is in breach of its contract. The court has ruled that the industry can recover, and they can bypass anything but the Court of Claims. That is how far that has gone. Let's look at crude oil and SPR. With crude oil prices on the rise again, the administration has had to go back to OPEC time and time again to ask for more foreign oil. The assumption is, if they ask for 800,000 barrels, we get 800,000 barrels. We get 17 percent of that. That is about 130,000 barrels. That is our portion. Everybody gets some of OPEC's increased production. Foreign imports into this country in June were 58 percent. Compare that with 36 percent during the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Recall the gasoline lines around the block at that time. The public was outraged. They blamed everybody, including Government. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Ask Tony Blair from Great Britain how he feels about the protests in England and everywhere else in Europe. It is threatening some governments. To ensure we have a supply to fall back on, in 1973, 1974, 1975, we created the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or SPR. That was our response to the Arab oil embargo. We have about 571 million barrels of storage in SPR. SPR was set up to respond to a severe supply interruption, not to manipulate consumer price for a political effect. We can only draw down about 4.1 million barrels per day from SPR. Remember something a lot of Americans, a lot of people in the media, do not understand: The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is not full of heating oil or gasoline or kerosene. It is full of crude oil. The crude oil has to be transported to a refinery. Our refineries are running at 96 percent of capacity. The Vice President wants to release 30 million barrels from SPR to ``lower prices'' for consumers. I question the legality of that at this time because a drawdown can only occur if the President has found that a severe energy supply interruption has occurred. The Secretary released oil without any such finding. His excuse is that this is not a drawdown; it is a swap or an exchange. This is the largest release of oil from SPR in its 25-year history, larger than during the gulf war. Secretary Richardson stated today that the 30 million barrels of crude released from SPR may produce 3 to 5 million barrels of new heating oil. The U.S. uses 1 million barrels of heating oil per day. So the obvious increase is 3, 4, 5 days' supply. That is not very much, is it? The Secretary's action regarding SPR may have an impact on price but may not have a significant impact on the supply of heating oil. That is just the harsh reality. What about others? Well, Secretary of the Treasury Summers has indicated it is bad policy. He felt so strongly, he wrote a letter to Alan Greenspan. We have a copy of the memorandum that went from Mr. Summers, Secretary of the Treasury, to Alan Greenspan. I will refer to it in a moment. Releasing SPR now weakens our ability to respond later to real supply emergencies. That is obvious to everyone. But I do want to enter into the Record this letter, a memorandum of September 13 from Lawrence H. Summers, Secretary of the Treasury, to the President. The memorandum is entitled ``Strategic Petroleum Reserve.'' Page 2, top paragraph: Using the SPR at this time would be seen as a radical departure from past practice and an attempt to manipulate prices. The SPR was created to respond to supply disruptions and has never been used simply to respond to high prices or a tight market. I don't think there is any question about the intent of that statement. It is bad policy. Alan Greenspan has indicated an agreement, or at least that is the impression we get. The action that I indicated was illegal is illegal because it requires a Presidential finding. It is contrary to the intent of the authority for the transfer. And besides, we have not reauthorized the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It is held up in this body by a Senator on the other side who is objecting to the reauthorization of EPCA, which contains the reauthorization for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Releasing SPR oil now, as I indicated, weakens our ability to respond later to real supply emergencies. Where were we 7 years ago with regard to SPR? We had an 86-day day supply of crude oil in SPR. Today, we have a 50-day supply. The administration has previously sold almost 28 million barrels. They sold it at a loss of $420 million, the theory being you buy high and you sell low. I guess the taxpayers foot the bill by making it up with the increased activity. I don't know what their logic has been, but that is the history. Earlier this year, the Vice President stated: Opening SPR would be a compromise on our national energy security. He made that statement. Obviously, he has seen fit to change his mind. Everybody can change their minds, but nevertheless I think it represents an inconsistency. What we need is a real solution, reducing our reliance on foreign oil by increasing domestic production and using alternative fuels, incentives, conservation, weatherization. I could talk more on that later. Also, it is interesting to note that the Vice President indicated his familiarization with SPR, that he was instrumental in the setting up of it. As we have noted, he was not in the Senate under the Ford administration when it was established. That is kind of interesting because it suggests that he is happy to get aboard on the issue and, again, may have had a significant role, but it is pretty hard to find the record showing him having an active role. Another point is our increased dependence on Saddam Hussein and the threat to our national security in the sense that we are now importing about 750,000 barrels of oil from Iraq a day. Just before this administration, we carried out Desert Storm, in 1991-1992. We had 147 Americans killed, 460 wounded, 23 taken prisoner. We continued to enforce, and continue today to enforce, a no-fly zone; that is, an aerial blockade. We have had flown over 200,000 sorties since the end of Desert Storm. It is estimated to cost the American taxpayer about $50 million. Yet this administration appears to become more reliant on Iraqi oil. What we have is a supply and demand issue. Domestic production has declined 17 percent; domestic demand has gone up 14 percent. Iraq is the fastest growing source of U.S. foreign oil--as I said, 750,000 barrels a day, nearly 30 percent of all Iraq's exports. We have been unable to proceed with our U.N. inspections in Iraq. There is illegal oil trading underway with other Arab nations; we know about it. Profits go to development of weapons of mass destruction, training of the Republican Guard, developing missile delivery capabilities, biological capabilities. This guy is up to no good; there is absolutely no question about it. The international community is critical of the sanctions towards Iraq. But consider this: Saddam Hussein is known to put Iraqi civilians in harm's way when we retaliate with aerial raids. Saddam has used chemical weapons against his own people in his own territory. He could have ended sanctions at any time--by turning over his weapons of mass destruction for inspection; that is all. Yet he rebuilds his capacity to produce more. He cares more about these weapons than he apparently cares about his own people. That he is able to dictate our energy future is a tragedy of great proportion. Still, the administration doesn't seem to get the pitch. Saddam gets more aggressive. His every speech ends with ``death to Israel.'' If there is any threat to Israel's security, it is Saddam Hussein. He has a $14,000 bounty on each American plane shot down by his gunnery crews. He accuses Kuwait of stealing Iraqi oil--here we go again--the same activity before he invaded Kuwait in 1990. Saddam is willing to use oil to gain further concessions. The U.N. granted Kuwait $15 billion in gulf war compensation. Iraq has retaliated and said it will cut off exports. OPEC's spare capacity can't make up the difference. He has the leverage. We really haven't focused in on that. The U.N. postpones compensation hearings until after U.S. elections for fear of the impact on the world market. He is dictating the terms and conditions. He says: You force me to pay Kuwait and I will reduce production. We can't stand that because that is the difference between roughly the world's capacity to produce oil and the world's demand for that oil. And Saddam Hussein holds that difference. I ask unanimous consent to proceed for another 7 minutes.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair. I will try this approach because I think it references our foreign policy. If I get this right, we send him our dollars, he sells us the oil, we put the oil in our airplanes and go bomb him. Have I got that right? We buy his oil, fill our planes, and go bomb him. What kind of a foreign policy is that? He has us over a barrel, and it is a barrel of oil. Another issue that is conveniently forgotten is refinery supply. Supply of crude oil is not the only issue. Even if we had more, we don't currently have the capacity to refine it. That is what is wrong with releasing oil from SPR. We don't have the ability for our refineries to take more product currently. That is unfortunate, but it is a reality. We had a hearing this morning. The industry said they are up to maximum capacity with refinery utilization at 96 percent. We haven't built a new refinery for nearly a quarter century. We have had 36 refineries closed in this country in the last 10 years. This is due to EPA regulations. We have the issue of reformulated gas. We have nine different geographical reformulated gasolines in this country. The necessity of that is the dictate from EPA. I am not going to go into that, but fuels made for Oregon are not suitable for California; fuels made for Maryland can't be sold in Baltimore; Chicago fuels can't be sold in Detroit. We are making designer gasoline. The result: Refiners do not have the flexibility to move supplies around the country or respond to the shortages. The administration's response? Well, it is pretty hard to identify. They are trying to duck responsibility, hoping this issue will go away before the election takes place and the voters get their winter fuel bills. They are trying to keep this ``train wreck'' from occurring on their watch. They blame ``big oil'' for profiteering. Think this thing through. Big oil profiteering: Where was big oil when they gave it away at $10 a barrel last year? Who sets the price? Well, it is OPEC, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Mexico, because they have the leverage; they have the supply. I think the American people are too smart to buy the issue of big oil profiteering. And the issue related to the industry is that during the time that we had $10 oil, we weren't drilling for any gas. We lost about 57,000 gas wells, and I think 136,000 oil wells were taken out of production. Many were small. So if we look at the areas where we get our energy, it is pretty hard to assume that there is any support in the area of domestic production and exploration because there is a reluctance to open up public land. We have seen 17 percent less production since Clinton-Gore took office. They oppose the use of plentiful American coal. EPA permits make it uneconomic. We haven't had a new coal-fired plant in this country in the last several years. They force the nuclear industry to choke on its own waste. Yet the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals now says the utilities with nuclear plants can sue the Federal Government because it won't store the waste. That could cost the taxpayer $40 billion to $80 billion. They threaten to tear down the hydroelectric dams and replace barge traffic on the river system by putting it on the highways. That is a tradeoff? They ignore electric reliability and supply concerns, price spikes in California, no new generation or transmission. They claim to support increased use of natural gas while restricting supply and preventing new exploration. The Vice President indicated in a speech in Rye, NH, on October 21, 1999, he would oppose further offshore leasing and would even look to canceling some existing leases. Where are we headed? Downhill. It means higher natural gas prices, higher oil prices, higher gasoline and fuel oil prices, plus higher electricity prices. That equals, in my book, inflation. We have been poking inflation in the ribs with higher energy prices, driving all consumer prices higher. One-third of our balance of payments is the cost of imported oil. We are a high-tech society. We use a lot of electricity for our activities--computer activities, e- mail, and everything else. All this boils down to the makings of a potential economic meltdown. What we need is a national energy strategy which recognizes the need for a balanced approach to meeting our energy needs. We need all of the existing energy sources. We have the National Energy Security Act before us on this floor. We want to increase energy efficiency, maximize utilization of alternative fuels/renewables, and increase domestic oil supply and gas production. We want to reauthorize EPCA, reauthorize the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Our bill would increase our domestic energy supplies of coal, oil, and natural gas by allowing frontier royalty relief, improving Federal oil/gas lease management, providing tax incentives for production, and assuring price certainty for small producers. We want to allow new exploration. Twenty percent of the oil has come from my State of Alaska in the last two decades. We can open up the Arctic Coastal Plain safely, and everybody knows it. The reason is that we want to promote new clean coal technology, protect consumers against seasonal price spikes, and foster increased energy efficiency. Regardless of how you say it, American consumers really need to understand that this train wreck is occurring and it is occurring now. We have to develop a balanced and comprehensive energy strategy, one that takes economic and environmental factors into account at the same time, and one that provides the prospect of a cleaner, more secure energy in the future. We have this energy strategy. We have it proposed. It is on the floor of this body. This administration does not. They are just hoping the train wreck doesn't happen on their watch. The consequences of over 7 years of failed Clinton-Gore energy policies are now being felt in the pocketbooks of working American families. Mr. President, we deserve better. I yield the floor.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, I ask unanimous consent that Senator McCain, Senator Breaux, and Senator Murray be recognized to speak on the issue of pipeline safety for up to 15 minutes, followed by Senator Reid for 9 minutes; Senator Murkowski to be recognized to speak for 20 minutes on energy policy; Senator Durbin for up to an hour on postcloture debate; and that all time be charged to the postcloture debate. Further, I ask unanimous consent that no action occur during the above described time.