CNBC Interview - Transcript

Interview

CNBC Interview - Transcript

CNBC INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR BYRON DORGAN (D-ND)
SUBJECT: ECONOMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE INTERVIEWER: BECKY QUICK

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MS. QUICK: We are talking energy and economic recovery this morning.

Our next guest is calling for aggressive support of clean coal and increased energy infrastructure in his home state.

Joining us right now is Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota. He is the Democratic Policy Committee Chairman. He is also a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and sir, we appreciate having you here today.

SEN. DORGAN: Thank you. Good to be here, Becky.

MS. QUICK: We've been talking about energy all morning long, green jobs and what needs to come in some sort of an energy package that we're expecting soon from Congress.

Why are you here today?

SEN. DORGAN: Well, we have a Center for American Progress summit of sorts talking about energy, especially clean energy today, but you know, the price of energy, the price of oil has virtually collapsed from the $147 day trading level some while ago. That doesn't remove the urgency of this country to become less dependent on foreign oil.

So the question is: How do we become less dependent on foreign oil? And what kind of new sources do we develop? How do we use our fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas? How do we do wind and solar and all the renewable resources? And we'll talk a lot about those green energy and the renewable sources this morning.

MS. QUICK: There are people who have pushed back and say that this is not the time to be doing that, they're worried about how much money we're already spending, how much went into the stimulus package before that. What do you say to critics who push back and say not now?

SEN. DORGAN: Well, listen, there are a lot of reasons that our economy is vulnerable; we all understand that. One of the significant vulnerabilities has been and is today that 70 percent of the oil we need to run this economy of ours comes from other countries, I mean, that's an enormous vulnerability, and you know, we can do several things at once here. It makes a lot of sense to me for us to continue to find ways to use our most abundant resource, clean, coal technology because coal is our most abundant resource, do more drilling so that means produce more. But we also should find ways to move very aggressively into these renewables, solar and wind and maximize the potential of renewable energy in this country.

MS. QUICK: You've called North Dakota, I believe, the Saudi Arabia of wind.

SEN. DORGAN: It is. Yeah.

MS. QUICK: The Saudi Arabia of wind because of all of the things that are happening there. Transmission -- very important to you, though?

SEN. DORGAN: It is. Well, the Energy Department says North Dakota has the greatest wind potential, you know, we're born leaning to the Northwest because of that prevailing wind, but the Energy Department says we are the Saudi Arabia of wind.

My point is, and I think the point that Boone Pickens and many others make is that in order to maximize renewable energy, produce the wind in the heartland from Texas and North Dakota or solar across the Southwest, you have to produce it where you can get it in renewables and then move it to where it's needed. That means you need a modern transmission grid. We need an interstate highway sort of system of transmission; we don't have it and we have to begin to develop it.

MS. QUICK: John Podesta said that you can use public funds for some of that, but the private sector would also step in. Who is going to be stepping in from the private sector?

SEN. DORGAN: Oh, the utility companies will easily build the transmission system, I mean, they have a rate base of customers, but look, in order to do the kind of transmission work we have to do, you have to solve the siding problem and the pricing problem. That's what prevents --

MS. QUICK: What's the sighting problem?

SEN. DORGAN: Well, it's hard to site transmission lines. We've built something like 12,000 miles of pipeline to transport other products, oil and so on, natural gas, in the last nine or so years. We've built something like 600 miles of interstate between states, transmission lines. It's very hard to site them.

We've got to solve the sighting problem and the pricing problem and the transmission lines will get built and the utility companies will build them.

MS. QUICK: You know, we've been talking about this idea of bipartisanship. When it came to the stimulus package that didn't really hold true, there were only three senators in the entire Congress who voted for it. What about green energy and the energy package? Is that something that attracts more Republicans?

SEN. DORGAN: Well, I hope so and I think it would, I mean, we have to, as I said, we have to do a lot of things. We have to produce more energy here at home and that includes the fossil energy and then developing the ability to protect our environment while we do that. But I would hope that Republicans and Democrats would both agree that we need to maximize the potential of renewable energy in our future.

MS. QUICK: Okay. When you say you would hope that, does that mean you think you can count on the votes or is that kind of Kermit the frog?

SEN. DORGAN: Yeah, I think so. I'm a senior member of the Energy Committee; we're working with the Republicans. We want to do a bill this year that would be bipartisan and move this country very aggressively in a better direction, in a new direction. That doesn't mean we don't use fossil fuels. I want to continue to emphasize -- we need to continue to invest ways to ultimately have coal-fired generating plants that are zero emission plants.

I believe we can do that, but it also means that we have to especially maximize renewable energy, wind and solar and the biofuels and so on.

MS. QUICK: You know, when we look back at the stimulus package, you inserted two amendments, one of those was a Buy American amendment that you wanted to make sure that any money being used was going to support the United States-based jobs. That's something though that business leaders and President Obama and his administration have said they wanted to be very, very wary of affecting world trade.

SEN. DORGAN: Well, let me mention the first amendment first and that was an amendment that says anybody that gets any of this, has to report quarterly to say, here's what we use it for and here's how many jobs we created it. I want accountability with this money.

Second, with respect to the Buy America provision, if we're building roads and bridges and buying steel and iron and other manufactured products, I hope that we're buying products that will put people to work on the manufacturing floors of this country, but the amendment also included a proviso that it shall not be applied in any way that would abridge any trade agreements that we have with other countries.

MS. QUICK: But protectionist rhetoric is something that a lot of world leaders are very worried about and a lot of business leaders, too. They worry that just even by saying things like this; you stoke the flames that lead to Smoot-Hawley, which is why things fell apart after the Great Depression.

SEN. DORGAN: Well, Smoot is dead and so is Hawley and I hope the term protectionist is dead one of these days. The fact is, we have a $700 billion a year trade deficit. When will people understand that is part of what has caused this economic collapse? The trade deficit, the budget deficit, subprime scandal, all of these issues, together, have helped cause this collapse. If we don't address --

MS. QUICK: Well, that sounds like protectionism.

SEN. DORGAN: Well, it is not protectionism to believe that we cannot continue consuming three percent more than we produce and we can't continue with the $700 billion a year trade deficit. I hear all these governors this weekend talking about deficits. No one mentions the unbelievable trade deficit that's going on every year and it's a big problem for our country.

MS. QUICK: Okay. Well, Senator --

SEN. DORGAN: And I'm not suggesting to be protectionist or build walls or keep products out. I am saying we should expect of our trading partners some sort of balanced trade.

MS. QUICK: If that means that Buy American, if that means we get pushed back and they say we're going to buy French only, we're going to buy U.K. only, you do see bits of protectionism rising around the globe.

SEN. DORGAN: No, no, what I see is a $700 billion trade deficit that helped cause this economic harm to this country that we have to fix. That means we buy a lot from other countries, $2 billion more a day than we are actually able to send to them. It means saying to them, look, you need to do your part. We need some sort of balanced trade because this is hurting our country.

MS. QUICK: I hope you'll join us on set some day to talk more about this.

SEN. DORGAN: I'll be happy to do it.

MS. QUICK: All right. Senator Dorgan, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it.

SEN. DORGAN: Thank you.

END.

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