Senate Floor Speech
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
May 8, 2007 -- Page: S5679-80

SENATOR HUTCHISON SPEAKS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF DOMESTIC ENERGY PRODUCTION


MRS. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, actually, that is absolutely right, and I will say to the distinguished Senator from Arizona that is only one of the problems we have, and it is the reason my husband walked into the house this weekend and said: I just spent $70 filling my gas tank; what are you going to do about it? Like every one of us, I am sure, who has this same experience, I think we should be doing something about it. We should be doing a variety of things about it.

Senator Kyl specifically asked about the refinery capacity. We are very tight on refinery capacity. We did pass legislation in the last Congress that would try to ease the regulatory burden and therefore the timetable that it takes from either starting a new refinery or adding critical capacity in an existing refinery, but the regulations had not yet been put out as of a couple of weeks ago.

One of the refiners in my State that wants to add capacity asked me if I would help and at least say to the Department to please issue the regulations so they can go forward, knowing they would have the guidance to move forward with expansion plans and add more refinery capacity.

In addition to that, I have to say that one of the things we see continuing to be blocked on the other side of the aisle is the ability to explore and drill in our own waters. The Department of the Interior, just last week, put out a lease-sale proposal in eight areas, including the Gulf of Mexico, the Outer Continental Shelf, Virginia, and Alaska.

In Virginia, the legislature is taking the first steps to production--by supporting the exploration of gas. The capability for earning money for the treasury of Virginia caused the Virginia Legislature to say: Yes, we want to do it, but there has to be a waiver of a previous extension of the moratorium in drilling. We're hearing signals that the Congress is not going to allow that, even though the Legislature of the State of Virginia and the Governor have said they want to be able to explore to see what is out there, 50 miles out.

The people who represent the people of Virginia have seen, as so many of our legislatures have, that technology today is not what it was 25 years ago. You can drill and explore in an environmentally safe way and we can do something about the price of gasoline at the pump if we will take these kinds of measures. The Department of the Interior is now trying to do that. Yet we are seeing already the signs of obstruction on the other side of the aisle. So I guess we are going to let these prices continue to go up without any regard to what we have in our own resources, under our own control, which could alleviate some of this.

It is not just drilling and production and exploration, either. We are also trying to put forward nuclear power, which is the cleanest, most efficient form of energy. The French have proven that it can be very effective as a clean energy source. Yet we are thwarted from the opportunity by the other side of the aisle to explore that avenue, and then lawsuits crop up, which have stymied our efforts to increase nuclear capacity in our country.

So I would suggest to my friend from Arizona, or my friend from Texas, if we are going to continue to be stopped from using our own natural resources and if we are not going to be able to increase our refinery capacity, then I think we are looking at the capability for countries that have denounced America and said they want the destruction of America to, in fact, be able to hurt our economy by cutting off the oil supply.

I would ask my colleagues, what should we do if we are not going to have cooperation?


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