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.
“STIMULUS PACKAGE” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the Senate section on pages S474-S476 on Jan. 30, 2008.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
STIMULUS PACKAGE
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, we will have a piece of legislation come to the floor, we believe tonight--and perhaps tomorrow morning--that deals with the economic stimulus package, as it is called, to try to stimulate the economy. We are either in a recession or near a recession.
The Federal Reserve Board today took additional action to cut interest rates by another half of 1 percent. That follows the three-
quarters of 1 percent cut recently by the Fed, within the last week and a half. So the Federal Reserve Board is using monetary policy tools to jump-start the economy, and the thought was that the fiscal policy side coming from the Congress and the President would require--or recommend, at least--some kind of stimulus package. So there is a stimulus package being developed that would provide payments--rebates of sorts--to American taxpayers. The discussion in the U.S. House is $600 per taxpayer. The Senate bill that has been proposed is $500 or $1,000 per couple.
One can make a number of observations about this, wondering about the advantage and the importance of a fiscal policy that has a stimulus package. I think it is probably necessary for psychological reasons, if not for economic reasons. It is about 1 percent of the GDP that is being proposed. We have a $13-plus trillion economy, and I don't know how about 1 percent of that--$130 billion, $150 billion--for a stimulus package is going to stimulate the economy so much, but I think it is probably psychologically important that we do something here, so I expect to support it.
There are a couple of things I intend to recommend. And I don't know how many amendments we will be moving on this bill, and I don't know what the circumstances might be. I know the bill will be brought to the floor with an unending appetite for amendments, so I understand and expect that we will have to limit some amendments. I want to suggest, however, two amendments that I think have some merit and that ought to be considered.
The first one ought to be really easy, in my judgment. The first one is a message we should put on every check that goes out. If we are sending checks to American taxpayers, we ought to have on this check this statement, in my judgment: ``Support our economy--buy American.''
Now, why is that the case? Well, because of the trade deficit we have in this country. You will see the hemorrhaging of red ink as a result of our trade deficits year after year. They have grown unbelievably. We now have roughly an $800 billion trade deficit in a year. We have so much in consumer goods that are being purchased from overseas, with cheap labor overseas, and being brought to the big box retailers in our country and purchased by American consumers. So the proposition of sending a rebate to American taxpayers, $500 or $600 per taxpayer, the purpose of which is to have them spend that and to boost consumer spending and, therefore, boost the economy--it does not do much to boost our economy if, in fact, we are providing a rebate, a check to taxpayers, and they spend it on imported goods. In my judgment, that is supporting foreign labor, not American labor.
This is American money spent in a way that is designed to boost the economy, and so it seems to me it ought to be sent with a check that reminds Americans: Support our economy--buy American. We are going to send, what, probably 150 million checks out in the coming months with the stimulus package? Why not have 150 million messages just to remind people, to the extent they can, that it is very important to buy American, because we are trying to stimulate the American economy, not the Chinese economy, not the Japanese economy, and not the European economy. We are trying to stimulate the American economy. So it would be very helpful if they pay a bit of attention to the notion of what this money is about: Support our economy--buy American.
I hope there isn't one person in this Chamber who would object to that. It won't cost anything. This would add no cost to the check that is to be printed, and it seems to me an important and timely message to American consumers. To the extent they can and to the extent they will, they should be reminded that spending these funds in support of the product of American workers is what invests in and expands opportunity in the American economy. That is an amendment which I think should be added. I hope it will be added by unanimous consent, absent a managers' package. It is something that should be easy to do, and I would suspect no one would object to the message: Support our economy--buy American.
Second, I wanted to make a point about another amendment that I think should be included. I think this is more problematic at this point, but it is a piece of legislation I will introduce as well.
Part of the economic difficulty in our country is the substantial runup in the price of oil and gasoline. It is interesting to me that even as we have seen the price of oil go up, up, up, we see that the Energy Department continues to put oil underground; that is, we receive royalties from certain oil wells, and they take those royalties in kind--that is, they take the royalties in the form of barrels of oil and they stick it underground in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Well, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is now about 97 percent full. Even though it is 97 percent full and the price of oil has gone to $80,
$90, and then $100, we are still taking oil and putting it underground. What that does is it takes oil out of supply and puts upward pressure on prices. It seems to me we ought to at least take a holiday during this calendar year, as long as oil is above $100 barrel. Why would you go into the market to purchase very high-cost oil and take it off the market and stick it underground? That puts upward pressure on gas prices, and it makes no sense for the Government to be doing that given the fact the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is now 97 percent filled.
So I hope--and I have encouraged the Energy Secretary to do this, but he has resisted. So my hope will be that either now or at some point in the future on some appropriate occasion, the Congress will decide to tell him: Do not be buying oil at these prices, taking it off the market and putting it underground. By ``buying it,'' I mean taking it as royalty in kind. That makes no sense to do that. You talk about stimulating the economy, the way to stimulate the economy is to help bring some of these energy costs down.
Now about 8.5 million barrels have gone underground in the last 6 months. Some will say: Well, that is a pretty small part of the amount of oil we have and the amount of oil we use. Well, we held a joint hearing between the Energy Committee and the Homeland Government Affairs Subcommittee on the issue of energy markets, and particularly oil markets. At that hearing we heard from Dr. Phillip Verleger, who is an investigative researcher and energy expert. He pointed out that even a seemingly small decision with this issue of putting oil back into the SPRO at a time when we are short can have significant consequences. He says the DOE is taking what is highly sought after, light sweet crude that is needed right now, and putting that underground in the petroleum reserve. He pointed out the volume of light sweet crude that they want to put into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve underground has only been three-tenths of a percent of the total global supply available, but it was adding as much as 10 percent to the price of light sweet crude.
Yet the Department of Energy insists and maintains that putting this royalty-in-kind oil underground has no consequence at all on the price of oil. Clearly it does. That is at odds with testimony we received before our committees. Clearly it has an impact on the price of gasoline. Filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve when we have market record-high oil prices, as I said, puts upward pressure on the price of oil because even small volumes of oil off the market can have a dramatic price impact. That is especially true with what is called light sweet crude.
In recent days we saw President Bush visiting Saudi Arabia to ask the OPEC countries, particularly the Saudis, to increase production to help ease oil prices in our country. Well, the fact is, the OPEC cartel is going to meet this Friday to discuss whether any change to production is warranted. Their decision will impact the price of gasoline in this country this spring.
But there is another decision that will impact it. That is the decision by the Department of Energy to continue taking royalty-in-kind oil off the market and sticking it underground. This is exactly the wrong thing to do at the wrong time.
I have always been in favor of a Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But with prices where they are, and an economy that is sluggish, it makes no sense to continue to do this. I believe what we ought to do is pass some legislation. If I were writing the stimulus bill, I would include this provision in the stimulus bill.
Those are two ideas that I think should be considered. The first I would hope would be considered by unanimous consent. I can't believe anybody would object to putting on a check that goes out to 150 million people: Support Our Economy. Buy American. I do not think anybody believes that we want to provide a bunch of money and hope they will spend it on goods made in China. That hardly expands opportunities and the economy in this country. I am not saying they have to spend it on American-made goods, but what I am saying is, we ought to remind them, to the extent we can, what we are trying to do here, and what this stimulus rebate check is all about.
(The remarks of Mr. Dorgan pertaining to the submission of S. Res. 437 are located in today's Record under ``Submission of Concurrent and Senate Resolutions.'')
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BOND. Madam President, I believe my distinguished colleague from Alabama has some comments and questions he wishes to raise, so I ask that he be recognized.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
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