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Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I want to go back a little bit to one of the issues that is before us that has to do with energy and energy policy.
Certainly, we are faced at the moment with some real difficulties in terms of winter use of heating oil.
There are differences of view as to what we do with the strategic storage. I understand that.
But aside from that, I think in one way or another we certainly need to help those people who will need help this winter in terms of price and in terms of availability.
We had a hearing yesterday with the Secretary of Energy. Quite frankly, I didn't get any feel for where we are going in the long term. What we have done here, of course, over the last number of years with the fact that this administration has had an energy policy--some have accused them of having no policy; I suggest there has been a policy--is to basically not do anything to encourage, and, in fact, discourage, domestic production. The result of that, of course, has been that since 1992, U.S. oil production is down 17 percent and consumption is up 14 percent. We have had a reduction since 1990 in U.S. jobs producing and exploring for oil. At that point, we had over 400,000 workers. Now to do the same thing, the number is down 27 percent.
We have had a policy that despite the increased use of energy, which is not to be unexpected in this kind of a prosperous time, we have sought to reduce exploration, and we have become more dependent on foreign oil. We are now nearly 57-percent dependent on OPEC for providing our energy sources.
There are a number of things we could be doing that would certainly help alleviate that problem.
One is access to public lands in the West. Of course, in Wyoming 50 percent of the land belongs to the Federal Government. In some States, it is as much as 85 percent.
As we make it more difficult for our oil exploration and production to show up on Federal lands with multiple use, then we see that production go down.
As we put more and more regulations on refiners and have reformulated gasoline, it makes it more difficult. Older refineries have to go out of business. We then find it more difficult to be able to process the oil that we indeed have which is there to be used.
We also, of course, have an opportunity in many ways to produce energy. We could have a very healthy nuclear energy system if we could go ahead and move forward with storage out at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. We have not been able to do that.
We could certainly use more low-sulfur coal.
But we continue to put regulations on the production of those things.
One of the things that seemed fairly clear yesterday was that the Department of Energy has relatively little to do with energy policy, even if they choose to. The policy is being made by the Environmental Policy Council in the White House. It is being made by EPA. It is being made by these other kinds of regulatory agencies. Obviously, all of us want to continue to work to have clean air. Air is much cleaner than it was.
I think what we need to recognize is one of the things that came out again yesterday. Vice President GORE announced some time ago that there would be no more drilling. That is the kind of policy that has been developed.
What we ought to be doing is taking a longer look at where we are going with energy and have some idea of what we will do over the years. It is one thing to be able to work in the next 2 or 3 months and argue about how you do that. But the real issue is where we are in the next year and the year after in those areas where energy is such an important part of our economy.
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I am hopeful that the outcome of what we have here with this current dilemma with respect to energy will result in a real, honest-to-goodness debate, discussion, and decision with respect to long-term energy policy and increased access to public lands for potential oil and gas in the Rocky Mountains, offshore, and in Alaska, and at the same time develop techniques where we can do it and also take care of the environment. It is not a choice between the two things.
We should develop tax incentives to try to encourage increases in oil and gas production, particularly in stripper wells. In old production wells, it really hasn't been economic to do that.
We can do some things with respect, of course, to research. We have been working now for a couple of years on a mineral management group to be able to clarify how those charges are made, and we have been unable to do that over a period of time.
There are a number of things: The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, we now have in my State a real activity going on with methane gas production--gas production that we need now under the Clean Water Act. Some Senators are pushing against insertions of fracture used to help with that production.
These things are all, of course, inconsistent with some kind of policy which will, indeed, move us forward in terms of energy development.
Refineries are already up to 95 percent of capacity or more. So to actually take oil out of the reserve, if there isn't a refinery capacity, makes it very difficult. Everyone recognizes the difficulty in the Northeast, the major user of oil for heating in the wintertime. That has traditionally been important. We do need to do some things there. We need to provide more fuel. We need also, I am sure, to do something about low-income users.
There are a number of things we need to do. I hope we don't totally get involved in making this a political issue. Rather than trying now to point out what everyone has done or hasn't done, we ought to say, all right, here is where we are; now what do we do? How much can we do to develop domestic production? What are the best ways to do that? How can we move in that direction? How soon can we move forward with that?
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is in morning business and the Senator from Vermont has up to 15 minutes.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, is the Senator from Vermont correct in understanding that morning business will not start until he has completed his 15 minutes?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Chair and my fellow New Englander.
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