Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass), a distinguished member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, the Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana is a national asset, too, but there are 100 producing wells on it. And the people of California and the people of Massachusetts benefit from the fact that we produce a hundred wells in the Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge, a refuge that is much more abundantly full of resources than ANWR. What people forget is that inside ANWR, inside the area, 1002, that was designated for drilling, that is what 1002 is; out of this 19- million-acre ANWR, 1002 is the area we set aside for production. And inside it is 92,000 acres of private property. It belongs to the people who live there, and they cannot even produce their resources. Now, I understand if California does not want to produce or Massachusetts does not want to produce. If they want to depend upon the Mandalay Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana for oil and gas, I can understand that. We make that deal. We produce in Louisiana. We do it in an environmentally sensitive way, and we produce oil and gas for the rest of the country. If we shut down tomorrow, the country is out 25 percent of its oil and 25 percent of its gas. What do you think Massachusetts and California will do then? But the people of ANWR, 1002, the people who live on the 92,000 acres, want to produce their own private lands and you will not let them. Not government lands, their own private lands, and you will not let them; that is what this amendment does. It says to private property owners in America, the Native Alaskans who live on this private property, you cannot produce your own property, you cannot produce resources for the rest of the country if you choose to do so. Well, let me ask a simple question. Do you think the ANWR, the 1002 area where these people live, is any more precious than the Mandalay area in Louisiana? Do you think it deserves more attention, more protection, more sacred status than the Mandalay area, my district in Louisiana? It does not. It does not. We produce in Louisiana. It is time for the rest of you to do the same thing.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I want to disassociate myself from any of the gentleman's comments except the part where he said he supports the amendment of the gentleman from Virginia, because I do too.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the gentlemen from New York (Mr. Houghton and Mr. Reynolds), and I sympathize with our friend, who is going through a bad time. Mr. Chairman, the amendment would require the Secretary of Energy to develop a plan to transfer to the DOE all clean-up responsibilities at the Western New York Service Center in western New York. The West Valley site was owned by the State of New York. The West Valley site was once a nuclear waste processing facility where DOE sent some of its spent nuclear fuel for processing. In 1980, the Committee on Energy and Commerce helped pass the West Valley Demonstration Project Act. This act directed the Secretary of Energy to carry out a project to solidify and remove high-level radioactive waste from the West Valley site. Pursuant to that West Valley Demonstration Project Act, the State is required to pay a 10 percent share of the annual clean-up costs. To date, the State has met this financial commitment. Over the past several years, DOE and the State of New York have attempted to negotiate a comprehensive agreement to resolve all remaining radioactive waste clean-up issues at the West Valley site. Regrettably, the parties, as the gentleman has indicated, have not yet come to agreement. This amendment requires the Secretary to develop a plan to transfer clean-up responsibilities from the State of New York once and for all. In developing the plan, the DOE should consider any long-term stewardship issues, and DOE should work with the appropriate authorities in New York to determine what share of the total cleanup costs should be paid by the State. This is an important issue to the committee. I hope this amendment will encourage the DOE and the State of New York to finalize a plan to address these important cleanup activities at West Valley. So I rise, actually, in support of this amendment, Mr. Chairman. I encourage my colleagues to support it also.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter).

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, although I am going to speak in support.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman has a good point. We have a lot of work to do with the Committee on Appropriations. But if the appropriators were to find this new source of revenue, if this bill did pass and they found it and they appropriated money out of the royalty fund without us first having authorized it at our committee level, the gentleman from Massachusetts and I would be objecting to the appropriators authorizing on an appropriation bill. We would say in effect that we have not authorized it yet; they had better not spend it. So this is an important first step, I would tell the gentleman. The gentleman is correct we would still need the appropriation later; but if we do not do the first step, they cannot do the second step.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield again?

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, my concern is that without this amendment, the reason why I think we ought to adopt it, is that there are laws on the books that provide for where royalty and bonus income goes, and without a provision that gives the appropriators a chance to say, no, this money can go to LIHEAP, in fact, on this date in the House Chamber the House authorized it; without that having been done, they may interpret the law to mean that they cannot use these moneys. I would urge my friend to at least give them that option.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I want to advise the gentlewoman that we support her amendment. In fact, as she well knows, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations chaired by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) has done some extraordinary work and uncovered some massive and seriously disturbing problems with inventory management and theft of government property at Los Alamos. The efforts of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) already demonstrate very clearly why this amendment is such a good idea. Our oversight has revealed the troublesome story of looting and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations has revealed what appears to be a lack of interest by senior laboratory managers to do anything about the theft and the fraud that is going on right under their noses. What we found most astonishing about the theft and fraud is that it took place at such a vital facility. Los Alamos is a facility that our Nation trusts with some of our most sensitive information. So we reviewed this abuse of purchase cards and found that DOE has been quick to distribute purchase cards to employees and contract workers, but very slow to implement management procedures to monitor and control abuse and to cut down on fraud. So, Mr. Chairman, the Schakowsky amendment is a clear sense of Congress that DOE should get its act together with respect to procurement and inventory control. I am pleased and proud to support her amendment.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for his cooperation with us. I appreciate his amendment. It is well written and well done. We support it, and I thank the gentleman for offering it.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment, and along with chairman of the subcommittee, we are going to work to perfect it as we go to conference. Let me point out that the problems Chicago and Milwaukee experience with boutique fuels could happen anywhere in America if you just had a few things happen simultaneously: a breakdown in a pipeline delivery of these boutique fuels; a problem of moving from one blend to another because you are going from winter to summer grade; a problem with just a little shortage, and all of a sudden the name-brand stations get their fuel and the independents do not, they start bidding against each other, and a small shortage exacerbates a rise in prices the likes of which drive consumers crazy. That is the problem the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) is going after, and while it is not yet perfect, I want him to know we are going to keep working with him until we get it perfect. But he is on the right track. This is the right thing to do to streamline this process, isolate it, until we have fewer, not more, different blends and varieties of boutique fuels, and we will have a much better regional market to deal in. Consumers benefit in the end as long as we do this in a way that keeps to the Clean Air Standards and requirements of the Clean Air Act. Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the gentleman on his persistence, and we will keep working with him until we get the job done.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this rule. Let me commend Chairman Dreier and the Members of his Committee for crafting a rule that will allow the House to work its will on the full range of energy policies that are contained in H.R. 6. This bill represents the very hard work of several committees of the House, including Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, Resources, Financial Services, and Science. It also includes provisions in the jurisdiction of a number of other committees, including Transportation, Armed Services, and Judiciary, with whom we have been working very closely. We have not enacted a comprehensive energy bill in eleven years. Much has changed in the world since then, and it's time that we reconfigure our energy policy to fit the 21st Century. Division A of the bill before you--the bulk of my committee's work product--does just that. We dramatically increase energy efficiency and conservation measures. The bill provides for increased oil, gas, and hydropower production, and a safer nuclear future. We also modernize the Federal role in electricity regulation. And we have crafted a delicate compromise on reformulated gasoline that will provide environmental and energy-savings benefits. Let me note for the Record that, if anything, this rule is even more fair than the one we employed two years ago during the comprehensive energy debate. That rule allowed just sixteen amendments, while the one before us allows over 20. All Members will have a full and fair opportunity to debate the energy policy of this nation.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes. Today we begin taking another step in doing what we have not done in over a decade, advancing a bipartisan, comprehensive American energy policy that will be signed into law. We came very close the last Congress to accomplishing that. Today, this year, with a strong vote on this floor, I believe we will go a long way to finishing the work of the last Congress. The bill we are considering today reflects America's 21st century values, its technology and certainly our security needs. It advances a balanced approach to energy production and use by encouraging a responsible, diverse mix of energy sources and options along with a significant investment in conservation and increased efficiency. The Energy Policy Act charts a path toward increased energy security and a cleaner environment, in short, secure, reliable, affordable energy for all Americans in a growing economy. I am proud of the bipartisan work our committee has done in writing several divisions of this bill. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), our Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality chairman, forwarded his work to our full committee by a vote of 21 to 9, and just last week, after considering over 50 different amendments, the Committee on Energy and Commerce reported the bill by a vote of 36 to 17. The House owes a great deal of thanks to the gentleman from Texas (Chairman Barton) and to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Boucher), ranking member, for the extraordinary cooperation, assistance, hard work and willingness to work together. Today, I hope that bipartisan spirit continues. There is no reason why it should not. The Committee on Energy and Commerce components of the bill are very diverse. They cover everything from energy conservation to hydropower to nuclear energy and electricity, but particularly combined with the work product of the Committee on Resources, the Committee on Science, and the Committee on Ways and Means, they are really about our national security and our economy. Indeed, apart from the appropriations directly related to our war against terrorism and our remarkable success in Iraq, and God bless those American heroes we have seen on television doing such a job for our country, this legislation may be the most important national security bill the Congress will vote on short of our national defense appropriations. The Committee on Energy and Commerce has pursued two broad and necessary approaches to energy policy. First, it is outlined in the oil and gas title, the hydroelectric title, the nuclear title, the vehicles and fuels, and the electricity titles. First is to increase domestic energy supplies, both the fuels and electricity. That is essential to reducing our Nation's vulnerability to the kind of disruption in the supplies of fuel that we use to power our way of life today. The other approach, covered in the titles on energy conservation, works on the demand side of energy by dramatically increasing energy efficiency by establishing energy efficiency goals for the Federal Government, by promoting new energy efficiency technologies, and other methods. This legislation will help close the gap between domestic energy supplies and consumption, and in the process, increase our security and our economic growth. Just as an example, according to the American Council on Energy Efficient Economy, our energy efficiency production features, these provisions to increase the conservation and efficiency, will save 2.8 quadrillion Btus by the year 2020, eliminating the need for about 130 new power plants by the year 2020. That is a remarkable savings in energy this bill will increase. The Members will hear a lot more about the incredible policy this bill advances, but let me conclude with this thought. Energy legislation has traditionally transcended party lines. What we did in legislating 2 years ago, we did on a bipartisan vote. We saw bipartisanship in the committees as they marked up these bills, and I hope and expect that spirit to prevail as we craft the energy policy for the 21st century. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his comments. I believe it is important that we provide flexibility to retailers who have to be responsible for the renewable fuels program contained in title VII of our bill. As the new renewable fuels program is implemented, consistent with the schedule and waivers available in this title, we should strive to make sure that the current regulations make common sense. We should not subject retailers to unnecessary requirements that do not provide discernible environmental or public benefit. As we prepare for conference with the Senate, I want the gentleman to know that we are going to work together to resolve this issue.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.