Energy Policy Act of 2003-Conference Report-Continued

ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2003-CONFERENCE REPORT-CONTINUED

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise to join many of my colleagues in strongly opposing this Energy bill. The opposition is not reserved to only Democrats; the opposition is for those people who think about the implications of this bill and the serious concerns it raises.

For one thing, it is terribly lopsided. It is out of balance. It is heavily weighted toward the industry because it was written by just a few select individuals with almost no conference input by Democrats.

The bill is an embarrassing example of the public's worst fears about Washington power politics, and those power sources are the oil and gas lobbyists downtown. Though it is called the Energy Policy Act of 2003, this bill promotes the outdated policies of a generation ago. It should be called actually the Energy Policy Act of 1903. The policy here is simple: Drill for oil, drill for natural gas, dig for coal.

While the country needs oil, natural gas, and coal, we also need leaders with a vision to promote clean sources of energy that won't harm the health of our children, our grandchildren, and future generations. It is the 21st century, and we have the technology to do better.

According to the Congressional Research Service, between 1948 and 1998 the Federal Government subsidized the energy industry by well over $100 billion. Unfortunately, less than $1 in $10 was used to promote renewable energy, that which you can find relatively easily and without the pollution that our present energy sources convey to the public.

Now, in this single bill, we are being asked to spend another $50 billion to $100 billion on tax credits and loan guarantees to the oil, gas, and nuclear industries. How will all of those taxpayer dollars be spent? They will be spent on a long list of brazen giveaways to polluting uranium companies, Archer Daniels Midland, to MTBE producers, and for a smattering of goodies and pet projects.

Taking care of special interests has become a hallmark of this Congress. Peter Jennings highlighted it in a perfect example on the evening news the other night. He reported that taxpayers have so far contributed $1.3 billion to subsidize wealthy individuals who buy the biggest gas guzzlers sold in America. As he pointed out, one couple received $17,000 in tax breaks on their new SUV and boast: "We have decided to take two extra vacations this year with the money we saved." But for the energy they used, they pose a whole different kind of issue.

Why is the answer around here always to hand over cash to rich people and successful companies? Can we really justify turning over the hard-earned tax dollars of Americans, who do not earn enough to benefit much from the Bush tax cuts, to companies flush with cash?

Here is an issue that was announced August 1, 2003: "Chevron Quadruples Profits." It goes on to say:

Oil giant Chevron Texaco increased quarterly profits four times to $1.6 billion.

Their revenues soared to $29 billion in the quarter. Do these companies really sound as if they need Government subsidies to do their job? Not to me.

We have the perfect opportunity to guide the country toward clean, renewable energy. Yet most of the bill's tax credits for efficiency and renewables last only 2 or 3 years. Any business person knows this is not a sufficient time period to encourage significant investments and technology development.

We Americans have always set ourselves apart by our ingenuity and creativity. Today, amid an avalanche of promising scientific discoveries in the field of energy, the majority can see no further than the lobbyists' interests which this bill follows to the letter.

Recently, I read that in Amsterdam, a major European chip manufacturer has discovered a new way to produce solar cells that will generate electricity 20 times cheaper than today's solar panels. ST-Microelectronics, Europe's largest semiconductor maker, says that by the end of next year it expects to have the first stable prototypes ready. If a decade ago we had been serious about promoting renewable energy, that discovery could have been made by an American company, but such breakthroughs are unlikely with the minimal incentives offered in this bill for development of better ways to be less dependent on the energy sources we have now.

It is also disheartening that this bill grants exemption after exemption to the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and other protective laws. I do not really understand it. Is boosting the profits of giant companies really more important to the bill's authors than the health of the American people?

Let us talk about just one of the riders slipped in by House Republicans without a vote from either the House or the Senate. This was snuck in during conference. This rider amends the Clean Air Act, gives cities an easy out if they find meeting the new ozone standard is difficult due to transboundary pollution. It requires EPA to grant them an automatic extension. It does not say for how long. It fails to define the conditions that would precipitate such an extension.

The result of this rider, of delaying implementation of the ozone standard for just 1 year, is severe. That rider is estimated to cause 390,000 more asthma attacks, 44,000 of those in my State, 5,000 more hospitalizations, and 570,000 more missed schooldays. That is the result of just one of the many exceptions carved out of our environmental laws by this bill.

Among my nine grandchildren, I have two who are asthmatic. The rate of asthma among juveniles is growing substantially. I lost my sister to an asthma attack. It was obviously a devastating event in our family's history. To those who see kids with asthma get fatigued after participating in sports or otherwise, it is the kind of anguish that drives parents to all kinds of anxieties.

The bill fails the American people on every level. It fails to boost our energy security, it fails to safeguard electricity consumers, and it fails to protect the environment.

It is astounding to look at what this bill does not do. While automobiles account for a whopping 40 percent of our Nation's growing oil addiction, the bill does not address fuel economy at all. The bill comes at the very time when fuel efficiency has arguably never been more important. America's fuel economy is at a 22-year low. Today, the United States spends $200,000 every minute on foreign oil. But the economic costs of weak fuel efficiency requirements go far beyond just the cost of oil. If we include the major oil price shocks of the last 30 years and the resulting economic recessions, the cost goes up at least $7 trillion.

Given these hard facts, one would naturally expect a national energy policy to aggressively pursue decreases in oil. It does not. Just the opposite. It generously promotes increases in oil use while tossing what I would call petty cash toward energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy.

We never hear a word-and this has happened in Democratic as well as Republican administrations-about sacrifice, conserve, think about what happens when more fuel is ground into toxic emissions. It is terrible that we cannot understand there is a mission attached to saving oil and gasoline use.

It is amazing what this bill fails to do on electric policy. This bill contains only one of three provisions the country must enact to prevent another massive blackout such as the Northeast experienced last August. We are being asked to support a dirty Energy bill in order to get one of the fundamental regulatory reforms to our electric grid system. I say the bad outweighs the good, and I cannot support it.

Around here, it is often said that the perfect is the enemy of the good, but I say the bad far outweighs the good as an alternative.

The administration's energy and environmental policies reflected in this bill are so utterly transparent in their goal of more corporate welfare that the consultant, Frank Luntz, warned the party:

Watch your language-

And here he is, the fat cat-

A caricature has taken hold in the public imagination: Republicans seemingly in the pockets of corporate fat cats who rub their hands together and chuckle maniacally as they plot to pollute corporate America for fun and profit.

Unfortunately for many, that is no caricature. From where I am standing, that picture is pretty accurate. If one wants proof, look at this bill. It is filled with little but big breaks for those who need them the least. Yet rather than change their policies, Luntz offers them protecting language. He wrote a memo to Republicans instructing them on how to use the language tested on focus groups to hide their deplorable environmental record.

This Energy bill is a great disappointment. It might have been acceptable at the beginning of the 20th century, but it is indefensible at the beginning of the 21st century.

Mr. President, you know true patriotism is more than waving flags. It means putting the interests of the American people before the powerful special interests, the very thing this Energy bill fails to do. I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill.

I yield the floor.