Domenici Floor Remarks on Energy Bill Prospects
October 29, 2007
04:34 PM
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Pete Domenici, ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, today spoke on the Senate floor regarding the prospects for a comprehensive energy bill.
Below is the prepared text of the Senator’s remarks:
“Mr. President, earlier today, I listened with interest as the distinguished Majority Leader spoke about his hopes for Congress to pass a bipartisan energy bill. I share these hopes.
As a member of the Senate Energy Committee for 30 years, I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to pass a comprehensive, bipartisan energy bill, and get it signed into law. As Chairman in 2005, I sheparded the most comprehensive energy bill in decades through the Senate. Over time, when fully implemented, this bill will have a positive impact across every sector of energy.
Strengthening America’s energy security does not have an overnight solution. It is not something that can be accomplished in a five second sound bite. Instead, it requires a long vision, and the courage to make difficult decisions.
Both the Senate and House have passed energy bills this year. While the Senate bill takes important steps to diversify our fuel sources and increase our energy efficiency and conservation, the House bill does little more than increase energy costs for Americans.
The distinguished Majority Leader has suggested that we simply marry these two bills. However this marriage of convenience would be an inconvenient burden on those who fill up their gas tanks and heat their homes.
The centerpiece of our Senate efforts on energy is a mandate that would require an increasing portion of our fuel to come from advanced biofuels like cellulosic ethanol. These new, advanced clean biofuels will eventually help make America less dependent on foreign oil.
The House energy bill contains no such provisions and in fact takes steps that will reduce our domestic energy supply. This led a former Democratic member of the Senate to write that “unless Congress includes provisions for increasing supply, this will remain an energy bill without energy.”
The House repeals numerous provisions from the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that are already increasing domestic energy production. Across the country, applications for drilling permits are on the rise. We will need to continue this rise to keep up with our nation’s demand for domestic oil and natural gas.
Instead of expediting the process of domestic oil and gas production, the House bill slows it down.
Instead of decreasing domestic oil and gas exploration and production costs, the House bill increases these costs.
The price tag is a $16 billion tax increase on American oil and gas production—on big and small businesses alike. This is a conservative estimate, and I fear one that will increase behind closed doors.
The House bill results in a punitive fee on deep sea production or in the alternative, a ban on future leasing altogether.
These types of measures will reduce our domestic energy supply, increase our domestic energy costs, and over time, play into the hands of large, state owned oil companies in unstable regions around the world.
The House passed energy bill is a gift to our global competitors in China, Russia and the Middle East. This is not just an energy issue, it’s a national security issue. The more we increase our dependence, the less secure we become.
The higher the price we put on energy here at home, the greater the costs we place on our strategic competitiveness abroad.
The House energy bill does not end at increasing costs for consumers at the pump. It also targets those of us who use electricity. By requiring states that lack natural resources to meet an unachievable, mandatory renewable portfolio standard, we increase costs.
Those who can’t meet this standard will simply pay a fee and pass it onto the consumer. You can’t increase the use of wind energy in regions that don’t have enough wind.
I have been a longtime supporter of renewable energy in both the Appropriations process and in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. I led efforts to protect an offshore wind project from unfair opposition. The bill I authored provided the largest and most important tax incentives for renewable energy in American history.
I support sound, smart policy on increasing our domestic renewable energy supply. I oppose tax increases on the American energy consumer.
Make no mistake, Mr. President, the next thirty years will bring a massive shift of American wealth if we continue to increase our dependence on foreign oil. Plain and simple, the Senate bill moves away from this trend. The House bill accelerates it.
For these reasons, we cannot simply marry these two bills in the dark of night. Instead, we need a bipartisan conference committee similar to the one we had in 2005. That committee met openly, in public, five times. Every member of the committee in both parties had the opportunity to fully debate the issues and offer amendments.
The result was a conference report signed by the Chairman and Ranking Members of the energy committees. The result was a strong bill that received a majority of support from both parties in the Senate.
We need a robust debate on these issues. We cannot simply marry a bill that strengthens America’s energy security with one that weakens it. There must be a willingness on the part of the majority to include Republicans in every step of the process, and on every issue addressed in these bills. I’m ready to get to work.”
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