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U.S.
Senator Member of the Agriculture, Energy and Veterans Affairs
Committees |
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For Immediate
Release Novemeber 26, 2007 |
CONTACT:Stephanie Valencia – 202-228-3630 |
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| Sen. Salazar Discusses Future of US Energy Policy, Nation’s Energy Security at Denver World Affairs Council DENVER, CO – Today, United States Ken Salazar addressed the Denver World Affairs Council/Institute of International Exchange, discussing the future of U.S. energy policy and its effect on our changing world, particularly our Nation’s energy security. Senator Salazar highlighted the importance of moving away from our overdependence on foreign oil and continuing to invest in a “clean energy economy” that is rooted in Colorado’s farms and fields. Below is Senator Salazar’s speech in its entirety, as prepared for delivery. “It is an honor to be the guest of the Institute of International Education and the World Affairs Council. This is a forum that contributes so much to developing a better understanding of our world and the challenges we face. Today I want to focus on our national security and our energy policy. “Before doing so, I want you to know that I am blessed and privileged to serve as one of Colorado’s United States Senators. For twelve generations, my family has farmed and ranched the soils on the banks of the Rio Grande River and its tributaries in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. My father and mother were proud soldiers and civil servants in World War II. They shared the experiences of their lives and history to raise eight first-generation college graduates. They believed strongly in the potential of humanity, and they saw that potential unfolding within the context of the American dream. “In my view, that American dream borne of the sacrifice of the World War II generation has been tarnished by this Administration as America’s standing around the world is now at an all-time low. We therefore must recommit ourselves to rebuilding the American covenant that will create a better and safer world for all the children of America and the children of the world. “We must find a way to establish peace in the Middle East, including the costly conflict in Iraq. It is my hope that we can begin bringing our troops home and find an American way forward that includes the world community in salvaging a peaceful future for Iraq and the region. Of this I am confident: America should never again allow its foreign policy to be dictated by America’s addiction to oil. “It is no secret that our overdependence on foreign oil poses grave challenges for our economy and for our environment. Americans feel it at the pump when they pay over three dollars a gallon for gasoline. And American farmers are at the brink of disaster because diesel has approached $3.50 a gallon. And American businesses, including our airlines are having increasingly difficult times dealing with the very high cost of fuel. Beyond the economic realities of $100 per barrel oil, we also know that our environmental security is jeopardized through global warming. The debate on whether or not global warming exists is over. We must now fashion a national and global response that addresses the serious danger of climate change. “But in my view, what we don’t talk about enough are the national security consequences of our failed energy policy. We don’t talk enough about the degree to which our dependence on foreign oil erodes American standing and good will in the world, contributes to unrest and violence in countries with which we trade, and makes us highly vulnerable to those who want to do us harm. I want to focus on this. I also want to offer some ideas for how we move beyond this addiction and toward a clean energy economy that is more stable, cleaner, and rewards ingenuity and innovation. “I just spent the last few days with my family on our ranch down in the San Luis Valley. We first settled there five generations ago, before Colorado was a state. The Valley is both spectacular and humble. Our house didn’t get electricity until 1981, and there are many parts of the Valley that are still very poor and very remote. But even in the San Luis Valley, so far removed from many things, you can clearly see the effects of our energy policy. You can see how farmers struggle to pay their bills and worry about whether they will be able to farm this Spring. When oil is at $100 a barrel and diesel is almost $3.50 a gallon, it is hard to make ends meet. I saw the fear in the eyes of farmers and ranchers I spoke with in Conejos County. But not everybody loses when oil is at $100 a barrel. “The world’s biggest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, is using its oil riches to build four new cities in the desert. Venezuela is using its new riches to dispense patronage around South America and compete for influence in the Hemisphere. Russia is using the oil windfall to increase its federal budget tenfold, buy up currency reserves, and challenge Europe and the U.S. on everything from NATO expansion to missile defense. And in the Sudan? The Sudanese are building new skyscrapers and five-star luxury hotels in Khartoum while thousands upon thousands are dying in the western region of Darfur. “We are currently witnessing one of the biggest transfers of wealth in history. Oil consumers – like the farmers in the San Luis Valley who fill their tractors with diesel fuel -- are paying almost $5 billion more every day for oil than they did five years ago. This translates to over $2 trillion in revenues this year for oil companies and oil-producing states. Much of the windfall is going not to private companies like ExxonMobil or Chevron, but to national oil companies who control more than 75 percent of the global proven oil reserves. These are companies like Saudi Aramco, Petroleos de Venezuela, and the Iranian National Oil Company. While some national oil companies operate like private ones, others have agendas that go far beyond the production and sale of oil. Heads of state are using petro-profits to prop up political support at home. They skim money for bribes, hide it in foreign banks, or buy an election. “Sadly, the money that flows to these oil exporting countries rarely gets to regular citizens or strengthens public institutions. People who live in oil-exporting countries are more likely than those in non-exporting countries to have corrupt leadership, no elections, fewer protections on human rights, and a lack of accountability in government. For citizens of an oil-rich country, oil can be a curse. “The leaders of these countries, meanwhile, often use energy as a weapon of foreign policy. Iran is an excellent example. The U.S. recently announced a set of sanctions aimed at curbing foreign investment in Iran, including investment in new oil fields. But with oil at $100 a barrel, Iran’s government revenues are higher than expected and the regime is better able to withstand U.S. and allied financial pressure. The government will likely use the additional revenue to mitigate the impacts of the sanctions, spending money on programs that rally the public to its side. Iran is not the only country that uses petrodollars to defy the United States or muster political support domestically. Venezuela, Syria, and Russia also come to mind. “But states do not always just use oil as a tool for foreign policy; oil is often the object of policy. Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait to secure Kuwaiti oilfields is an example. So too is the competition between Russia and China to lock up oil resources in Central Asia. “We have our strategic oil interests as well. Alan Greenspan recently noted that stabilizing the oil supply from the Middle East was one of the factors the Administration discussed in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Meanwhile, as countries like ours exhaust easily recoverable oil supplies in the West and in developed regions, we will become more reliant on countries that are struggling with political turmoil, ethnic or religious strife, or terrorism. As we are finding in Iraq, it can be very difficult to protect infrastructure and defend against supply disruptions in these areas. “In Iraq, we have not even been able to spend the tens of billions of dollars required to bring the country’s oil output back up to its pre-war levels. There have simply been too many attacks on the country’s infrastructure and work force, not to mention the uncertainty that surrounds Iraq’s political and legal structures. Today, Iraqi oil production is still almost 20% below prewar levels. The vulnerabilities of our oil infrastructure are no mystery. Al Qaeda has threatened to attack what Osama bin Laden calls the “hinges” of the world’s economy, meaning infrastructure like pipelines or shipping lanes. “It is disconcerting to think about all the chokepoints where an attack could cause significant disruption to worldwide oil supply and prices: the Bosporus Strait, the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Canal, and the Strait of Malaca are just a few. We deploy our sailors to help protect these lanes so that commerce may proceed unharmed, but the mission, of course, is not free. It keeps our sailors away from their families and puts them in harms way. And it costs huge American taxpayer dollars. “So, we don’t need to tell Washington or Houston that we have a problem. We have a major problem on our hands and we must move forward with the moral imperative of a clean energy economy for the 21st Century. In short, we must improve our energy security so that our people, our economy, and our Nation are better protected from the liabilities of the oil game. Daniel Yergin, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for a book about oil, reports that Winston Churchill was the first to make an energy policy choice based on national security interests. Wanting to make the Royal Navy faster than the German fleet on the eve of World War II, Churchill decided that the Royal Navy needed to switch from Welsh-produced coal to Middle Eastern oil. With the increased speed and efficiency on the seas, though, came the problem of ensuring a steady stream of foreign oil. The question that he faced, and which we still face, was: How do you guarantee delivery of oil over long supply lines, from regions that are not always friendly? Churchill’s answer: “Safety and certainty in oil lie in variety and variety alone.” There are two lessons in Churchill’s story. First, he is right that we must diversify. “This means we must broaden our list of suppliers of oil, as Churchill suggests, but also expand our supply of energy sources that can substitute for oil. This means growing more renewable fuels here at home. The renewable energy bill that cleared the Senate this year included an amendment that I added that enables the United States to meet 25% of its energy needs from renewable resources by 2025. This bill also quintuples the existing renewable fuels standard to 36 billion gallons by 2022, 21 billion of which must be from advanced biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol. That’s more than enough to offset our imports from Saudia Arabia, Iraq, and Libya combined. Diversifying our supply also means tapping into the cheapest and most readily available source of energy that we have: the billions of barrels of oil we would save through increased vehicle efficiency and mileage standards. Transportation accounts for over two-thirds of our oil consumption in this country. It is high time that we make some reasonable increases to CAFE standards. “There are also steps we can take to ensure that the oil that we are importing comes from a broad range of allies. We need the assistance of other nations to help protect the energy infrastructure that helps supply U.S. demand. The U.S. military cannot and should not be the lone security guard for the world’s energy infrastructure and lanes of commerce. Just as we need allies who will help provide stable supplies of energy, so too do we need friends who can help us with security. Unfortunately, the last few years have not been helpful in this regard. “The second lesson that we should draw from the story about Churchill is just how quickly and profoundly he was able to change an energy policy to respond to strategic objectives. If we can agree on the premise – which I think Americans now do – that our addiction to foreign oil is a threat to our economic security, environmental security, and national security, then the next step should be clear: it is time to build a clean energy economy for the 21st century. “The project of building this clean energy economy is already under way in many parts of the country. And Colorado is already out front. In just two years, we have sparked a renewable energy revolution, and the benefits touch every corner of the state. Our farmers and ranchers are leading the charge. In Weld County, Logan County, and Yuma County, we are seeing biofuel plants spring to life, creating new markets and new opportunities for our rural communities. In 2004, there were no ethanol plants in Colorado. Today, three plants produce more than 90 million gallons per year, and a fourth plant will come on line in 2007, adding another 50 million gallons per year. “But it’s not just biofuels. In the San Luis Valley, Xcel Energy just broke ground on the largest solar plant in North America. We’ve added 60 megawatts of wind capacity in Colorado in the last two years, and by the end of 2007, we will add another 775 megawatts, more than tripling the state’s production of wind power to more than 1,000 megawatts. We’ve created the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory, which binds the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden with the Colorado School of Mines, Colorado State University and the University of Colorado in a cooperative research effort. The Collaboratory is an engine for ideas, technologies, and talent. “I’ve held a renewable energy summit each of the past two years to connect these ideas with entrepreneurs and business people, so that the technologies get out there as quickly as possible. The summits have been a huge success. We had over 500 people there in 2006, and over a thousand earlier this year. “Around the state and across the country, the seeds of clean energy revolution are sprouting. Washington, though, needs to do more to cultivate this revolution. We need to pass the renewable energy bill that cleared the Senate earlier this year. We need to raise CAFÉ standards. We need to pass a tax package to encourage investment in clean energy infrastructure and production. And we need to pass the Farm Bill, which includes a robust energy title. “We cannot fail
to meet these objectives. How we improve our energy security and reduce
our dependence on foreign oil is the central national security, economic
security, and environmental security challenge of the next decade. It
will determine whether we will continue to be entrenched in conflicts
over resources in every corner of the world. It will determine whether
we will triumph in our fight against oil-funded extremists and terrorists.
And it will determine whether our economic fortunes will hinge on the
price of oil that OPEC sets, or whether the U.S. will stand independently,
as the world’s innovator for clean energy technologies. With the enthusiasm
and ingenuity that I see around our state, and in this room, for a clean
energy future, I think we can get there. And when we do, our country
will be a better place and a safer place.”
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