The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“GAS PRICES” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the Senate section on pages S2454-S2455 on April 10, 2000.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
GAS PRICES
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President I enjoyed listening to the majority leader. I have always worked well with him, although we have different perspectives and a different philosophy and opinion on some issues. I have worked with him both in the House of Representatives and here in the Senate. When I listen to him I am always reminded why I have always liked him personally. He is a good person. I appreciate his public service.
There are some things on the agenda, however, that we might not agree about. I want to comment about a couple of those issues, especially with respect to an agenda item this week dealing with the repeal of the 4.3-cent-a-gallon gas tax, which is set for a cloture vote tomorrow afternoon here in the Senate Chamber.
My expectation is that the cloture vote will fail. I am not certain of that, but that is my expectation. Just hearing some of the comments and some of the statements that have been made previously, I expect that cloture vote will fail, and I think justifiably so.
Let me describe why.
I think the price of fuel in this country is a pretty tough pill for the American people to swallow. What has happened is the price of gasoline has spiked up. It is not because the free market has caused that. It is because we have a cartel called the OPEC countries that are limiting production and increasing the international price for their product.
That is not the free market. That is monopoly pricing. They have the strength and, I guess, the opportunity to do that. What they have done is, of course, impose a significant new charge on American families, on family farmers, producers, manufacturers, drivers, and others.
There was no vote on that. That was something the OPEC countries did. We didn't have a chance to discuss that or vote on it in the Congress.
The question I ask with respect to the repeal of the 4.3-cent gas tax--which is, after all, rather small in the scheme of what has happened to the price of gasoline--is who would get the benefit of that? Is there a guarantee of any kind that the American people would actually get the benefit of the gas tax reduction? The gasoline tax is not imposed at the pump. The gasoline tax is imposed up the line. There is no guarantee at all that if the Congress would repeal the 4.3-cent gasoline tax, that that savings wouldn't simply be blended into the profits of the large oil companies. There is no guarantee that the American driver is going to pull up to a gas pump and find that gasoline prices are 4.3 cents a gallon less.
The other question is, What is going to happen to make sure we continue the building of the transportation infrastructure, roads and bridges, the programs we have already approved in the highway program that are done with this money? I am told by some: This money will be made up from the general fund. Where from the general fund? Where do we get that money? How do we know that will be the case?
Someone once said you should never buy anything from somebody who is out of breath. There is a kind of breathless quality about bringing this bill to the floor of the Senate to repeal the 4.3-cent-a-gallon gas tax.
One of the reasons we heard Members stand up last week and ask some very tough questions about this is, most of them understand, this is kind of an immediate, quick reaction that hasn't been thought through very well. It will not necessarily provide any relief to drivers. There is no guarantee this 4.3-cent-a-gallon reduction is going to show up at the pumps.
Secondly, where is the money? Where are we going to make up the money? Which roads aren't we going to fix or which bridges are not going to be repaired? Those are questions that need answering this week. Because they cannot be answered, I think the cloture vote will fail.
I think this is a pretty good discussion we are having with respect to energy policy. The majority leader indicated this country doesn't have much of an energy policy. I don't quarrel with that. We haven't had much under any administration, as a matter of fact. We are far too dependent on foreign sources of energy. There is no question about that. But in many ways this is a helpful discussion because we have had the discussion in recent years about the globalization of our economy. How can one stand in the way of the global economy? We are told this economy is a global economy. Understand it, they say.
Well, where are people going to produce energy in this world? In a global economy, they will produce energy where it is least expensive to produce. You can bring up oil under the sands in the Persian Gulf for a fraction of the cost of bringing up oil in the United States. That is the global economy, I guess. That is a decision the global economy helps make.
The majority leader asked the question--I think a very important question--do we have a national policy with respect to energy and our desire to be somewhat independent of foreign sources? That is a good question not just for oil. It is a good question for steel and for a whole series of things we know are important to the American economy.
We have been told until this time there is nothing that is more important than globalization of our economy; if steel moves and is produced elsewhere, so be it. Do the people who say that feel the same way about oil? Because that is where we are. The oil we consume is produced elsewhere. We now discover that when a cartel manipulates artificially the price of oil by restricting supply, Americans get overcharged. That is part of a monopoly in the global economy that we do not control.
We need to do a lot of things. This administration is proposing something I hope the majority leader and others will support in the area of domestic renewable energy. They are proposing significant new initiatives in wind energy, which I think make a lot of sense. We have new technology on wind-generation devices that is remarkable. If we put some in this Chamber on the right days, we could electrify New York.
In my State, North Dakota, I grew up walking outdoors in the morning with the wind and the breeze. If you take a map and evaluate what is the Saudi Arabia of wind energy, it is North Dakota, and a lot of other northern border States are right behind. Some will say, listening to me speak, they would have known we ranked high on wind energy. But seriously, we have an opportunity, with new technology, to capture wind energy in many parts of this country and extend our energy supply.
The same is true with biomass. The same is true with geothermal, and natural gas, which the majority leader suggested. Absolutely, we have wonderful new discoveries in natural gas and deep well finds. We are doing a lot of that.
We do need to pay attention to the development of oil and the development of coal, which are important in this country. We also need to get behind the proposals coming from the Department of Energy and this President's budget that call for the development of renewable energy resources and what is called green power--environmentally friendly sources of power. I mentioned one: wind energy. We need to fully fund these initiatives.
I hope no one comes to the floor later and says, ``We really care about our energy supply,'' if before that time they voted against these initiatives to extend our energy supply by investing in renewable energy sources. We need to do that.
This, in many ways, is a wonderful discussion. What does the global economy mean? Does it mean we don't have to worry about dependence on anything? We are now discovering it means we have to worry about dependence with respect to oil. What about steel? What about a range of other economic activities without which a country such as ours will not long remain a world economic power? This is a great discussion to have. It is right on point and right on time.
Yes, it is about oil and gas, but it is about much more than that. When we have this vote on cloture on the 4.3-cent gasoline tax repeal, I hope it will be preceded by a rather lengthy discussion of a whole range of these issues. I appreciate the majority leader raising them today.
I don't intend to support cloture. As I said, there is kind of a breathless quality of coming to the floor with a 4.3-cent gas tax repeal that consumers will probably never see, even if we take the 4.3 cents off. I expect it is going into other pockets long before it gets to the consumer. If it gets done, dye the dollars green and then look around for green pockets someplace. You won't find green at the gas pumps. You will find it somewhere upstream. Some bigger enterprise will pocket that money.
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