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Floor Statement: Democrat Energy Bill Only A 20% Solution

Democrat Energy Bill Only A 20% Solution - Tuesday, July 22, 2008 View video | Can't view the video?

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, who is very knowledgeable on this subject. I do say to him that I do believe that I and others on this side of the aisle will vote to invoke cloture on the speculation provision. But I do have some questions about it. First of all, I ask the Majority Leader how much of the problem of the high price of oil was caused by speculation. He said some people say 20%. I cited to him Warren Buffet, a multi-billionaire, somebody who knows a lot about financing, and he said he thought it was supply and demand. T. Boone Pickens, one of my constituents, who has been -- made a lot of waves here recently talking about the importance of wind energy and talking about the importance of natural gas, he said that focusing on speculation is a waste of time.

Now, I don't know whether it's a waste of time or whether it's 20%, but I would ask the Majority Leader why are we only going to focus, assuming you're right and speculation is 20% of the problem, why are we only going to focus on a 20% solution? Why not focus on the 80% that he's leaving on the table by not talking about supply and demand? Of course, while Congress continues to do things that -- or not do things that might have an impact -- and we've seen since January 4, 2007, since the Democrat majority took power, the price of gasoline was $2.33 a gallon. Today it's dropped just a little bit, dropped a nickel to $4.06 a gallon. Here's what, as I said, what warren buffet said, the chairman and C.E.O. Of Berkshire Hathaway. "It's not speculation. It's supply and demand." Let's say Mr. Buffet -- I'm not saying this -- but let's say somebody would say he's wrong and Senator Reid's right; it's 20%, how come we're not talking about that remaining 80%? That's what this side of the aisle would like to talk about. We'd like to talk about a 100% solution, assuming that's humanly possible.

When I was in Texas this weekend, particularly yesterday, I hosted a press conference at the Flying J Truck Stop on IH-35 in Waco, Texas. And I must tell you, all I hear is how the high prices of gasoline are not only pinching their budget but making it harder for them to get by.

I also went to the North Texas Food Bank in Dallas. Of course, talked to a lot of the volunteers and other staff there who are doing great work providing food for people who are hungry and what they're telling me is that the high price of fuel is increasing the cost of food. Using ethanol, using corn for fuel is causing additional pressure on food prices and we are finding that not only are people suffering more at the pump when they fill up their tank but actually they are finding it harder and harder to put food on the table, putting more and more pressure on charitable organizations like the North Texas Food Bank.

Try as we might there is one law that we simply can no longer refuse to acknowledge: that is the law of supply and demand. We know that world demand is going up because rising economies like China and India, countries of more than one billion people each want more of what we have. They want to buy cars, they want to be able to drive those cars, they want the prosperity that comes with the access to energy that we in America have had to ourselves for a long, long time. It's important for Congress to realize that the one thing we do have the power of is, frankly, to lift of moratorium on the 85% of the outer continental shelf where we know there are vast supplies of oil and natural gas and for every barrel of oil that we produce right here in America, that's one barrel less we have to bay from the Middle East -- we have to buy from the middle east including OPEC which includes countries like Iran. Or from countries like Venezuela, from Hugo Chavez, somebody who obviously does not wish us well.

We know that there are ways to come up with new energy sources but unfortunately every time we bring up new energy sources, whether it is try to bring down the price of oil by producing more supply here at home, we're told we can't do that. That's the offshore exploration blocked. Oil shale which is reportedly accounts for about two million additional barrels of oil that we could produce right here in America in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, that's blocked. ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a 2,000 acre postage stamp in a huge expanse of land in the Arctic that could produce as many as a million barrels of oil a day, that's blocked. But it doesn't just stop there. We have said, well, we need to do something about rising electricity costs, as well, so why can't we build some nuclear power plants. We have been told we can't do that either. It's blocked.

We can't we figure a way to use the coal here that we have in America? We have been called the Saudi Arabia of coal but the problem is coal is dirty. We have the tehcnology, we have know-how, I believe, using good old fashioned ingenuity in our world-class institutions of higher education to do the research to learn how to do it cleanly. Clean coal research and technology. That's been blocked, as well. So increasingly it sounds like either we're engaged in a nonsolution, if you believe Mr. Buffet and the Majority Leader is confine us simply to a speculation provision or at best, according to the Majority Leader's own words, we're only going to be dealing with 20% of the problem. I think we ought to deal with 100% of the problem and unfortunately it seems like every time we bring up the issue of more domestic supply that our friends on the other side of the aisle who control the floor and control the agenda by virtue of their being in the majority have simply said "no, no."

And unfortunately no new energy means -- continues to mean higher prices for the American consumer. On this side of the aisle we have introduced a bill that has 46 Republicans. We have skinnied it down to eliminate controversial issues. And we said, yes, let's look at the speculation component, let's look at greater transparency, let's look at putting more cops on the beat, more human resources to make sure that we supervise and we analyze and we make sure we police the commodities futures market for abuses but we don't just stop there. We don't stop with a 20% solution. We provide a comprehensive solution by saying, yes, to domestic oil supply. Using what God has given us in this country in a way that will allow us to be left dependent on imported oil from the Middle East.

As we continue to do, and this is the other component, of the gas price reduction bill that I'm referring to that has 46 sponsors, we say that, yes, let's continue to do the research in renewable and alternative fuels because one day it may well be that we'll all be driving battery-powered cars that we literally plug into the wall socket at night to charge the batteries. That's what the major car companies are going to be introducing into the marketplace in 2010. As we continue to do research in wind energy, or solar to generate electricity, or continue to do research in how to use coal to transform it into liquids to turn it into aviation fuel. Believe it or not, that's what the United States Air Force is doing right now, flying some of the most sophisticated airplanes using synthetic fuel, from coal to liquids. The challenge we have of course, is to make sure we can sequester the carbon dioxide produced from that.

But I don't know that every time we try to find more and we try to talk about the importance of conservation, our Democratic friends including the Majority Leader say "no." And why they would offer a nonsolution or a 20% solution, depending on whether you want to believe T. Boone Pickens or the Majority Leader, T. Boone Pickens said just addressing speculation is a waste of time. Warren Buffet says it is not speculation, it's supply and demand is the problem. But say the Majority Leader is right and both of them are wrong, at best we have a 20% solution. I think America needs better than that and the strange thing about it is, I don't know why we would resist going on to this bill and offering amendments that would provide a 100% solution to America's energy problems. Find more and use less is the formula we would like to see enacted in this legislation.