SENATOR HUTCHISON DISCUSSES ENERGY ISSUES

In my State of Texas, my husband took our van to fill it this weekend and he came home with sticker shock, similar to every husband or wife in every family in this country. It is $100 to fill a tank in many places in our country. So the American people have a right to look to Congress for leadership, but what have they gotten in response? The bill that is before us today does not reduce a single drop of oil, not a cubic foot of natural gas, and not a single watt of electricity. There is nothing in this bill before us that will address the issue of producing more and using less.

What we have is addressing one very small portion of what might be a part of the problem, and that is speculators. We should be looking at speculators, I agree. We all support transparency in speculation. But we have an energy bill and an opportunity on the floor today. Why don't we open this bill so we actually are doing something about the price of energy? The long-term solution is the short-term solution. Bringing down the price of oil and gas at

the pump is a long-term solution that will have short-term consequences that will help every American small business and every family in this country.

We could be looking at conservation. We have already done something in the last Energy bill we passed. We increased CAFE standards to 35 miles per gallon by the year 2020. That is conservation, and it will make a big difference. We have time to get to that point. We have included in the Gas Price Reduction Act that the Republicans put forward a provision that will help America's transportation sector transition into advanced hybrid and electric vehicle technology more quickly.

But what is missing? What have we not addressed that would make a difference? Increased production, that is what. By refusing to pass any bill that would produce more energy inside our country, we are left to wonder: Do our colleagues want to bring down cost? Do they understand the plight of the American people? Or is it an exercise to deal with something that is very much on the fringes and which is not going to make a consequential difference and certainly not a long-term solution.

Does anyone think Congress can take an action on a speculation bill and say: Oh good, we have done something for the American people? The Republicans do not believe that is the case. Here is what Republicans want to do: We want to apply common sense and expand access to drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf.

According to the Minerals Management Service, the OCS--the Outer Continental Shelf--could produce 14 billion barrels of oil and 55 trillion cubic feet of gas. Advances in technology have made it possible to conduct oil exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf that is out of sight of tourists, and it protects against oil spills. States should have the option of opening the OCS resources off their own shores, and the Federal Government should allow States to have a share in the leasing revenues.

State leaders in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia have expressed support for this concept. Why won't Congress give it to them? Because we are being blocked by the Democratic majority, I am sad to say. We can do this, and we can do it right now. There are four provisions that prevent us from using those resources. All we have to do is delete that moratorium that has been put in place by Congress. The President has asked Congress to do this, and we could move forward.

I was disappointed yesterday to learn that the Senate Appropriations Committee canceled the markup on the bill that was scheduled to be marked up tomorrow, the Interior Appropriations bill, and it appears the reason is that last week, Senator Domenici, Senator Bond, and myself announced we would have an amendment that would strike the congressional moratorium on Outer Continental Shelf options for States. The markup on an Appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior was canceled because they didn't want to vote on an amendment that would open the Outer Continental Shelf based on a State option.

The initiative also would tap the potential of oil shale. Now, I heard the Senator from Colorado say we shouldn't be acting because we don't know enough yet. The other Senator from Colorado says: Yes, we should act because we know there is shale in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming that is controlled by the Federal Government, and the estimates by the experts are there is 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil, which would be three times the reserves of Saudi Arabia. Again, the President has called on Congress to lift the moratorium. If we don't take the first step, we will never know. We will never know how much is there, and we will not be able to start the process of increasing supply so the price will come down. For those who say we can't drill our way out of the energy problem, I agree. We can't drill our way out of it. But drilling should be part of the solution. The oil and gas we have in places such as the OCS can be used as a bridge to cross into the next generation of energy technologies, including solar power, wind, and nuclear power. The American people see this. Thank goodness the American people have the common sense to see through the argument it will take too long to do it; that we shouldn't be looking at our own natural resources, that we should be ranting about other countries not using their natural resources for our benefit.

We should take control of our own resources and we should solve this problem the way Americans have always solved the problems of our country over the last 200 years and that is to look to ourselves--look to our natural resources, which are abundant, let's use technology, let's use our brains, let's use solar, wind, and the new energies we know can be found if we put our minds to it--and oil and natural gas are the first step. They are the transition. They are what we know now, and we know we can do this in an environmentally safe way.

Some question: Well, what about the environmental impact of drilling offshore? We had one of the worst hurricanes, with the worst damage aftermath in the history of our country--Katrina--in 2005, which was followed immediately by Hurricane Rita, and it struck the gulf coast hard. We have oil rigs in the gulf coast. Yet there was not one major spill. There was no damage to the environment. The technology has improved so much for offshore drilling, that we know we can do it and protect our environment and also help our people, our economy, and our national security by controlling our own energy supply and destiny.

Our country will spend hundreds of billions of dollars this year to import energy from foreign countries, many of which do not wish us well and could shut us off in a moment. Those dollars should be spent right here in America, giving jobs to Americans and giving an energy supply to American small businesses and families that will bring the price down.

That is what the Republicans are offering.

It is time for Congress to act in a bipartisan way with a policy that is balanced, that will give us a transition into the next generation of energy. We have the chance. I implore the majority to give us that opportunity.

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