Habeas Corpus
Floor Speech
HABEAS CORPUS -- (Senate - June 12, 2008)
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Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of the distinguished Senator, my friend from California. She is an excellent Senator and a very good person. She certainly tries to bring both sides of the aisle together. Over the years we have had a number of disagreements, but that is part of the legislative process. However, that has never diminished the respect that I have for her.
Yet the fact is, I disagree with her regarding the Supreme Court's decision. This decision, written by Justice Kennedy, gives terrorists one of the most important rights enjoyed by the people of the United States.
We face difficult times ahead. Many have legitimate concerns about the prospect of closing Guantanamo Bay and then housing these alleged terrorists somewhere within the continental United States.
These are not easy questions. However, I do not believe that the Supreme Court has provided the correct answer.
Our government has publicly stated that there have been three instances in which waterboarding has been used. In one of those instances, it was used against a leading terrorist who actually masterminded the terrible incidents that occurred on 9/11.
These are interesting and difficult issues. I certainly appreciate the anguish and the feelings of those who believe, as the distinguished Senator from California does, that we should provide these alleged terrorists every right that the American people have, in spite of the fact that these terrorists do not represent a country, do not wear a uniform, are willing to kill innocent human beings, and are willing to have their own children blow themselves up. We have never before faced these types of events in our society. Yet it is important that we not ignore them. We are dealing with people who do not abide by the norms of the world.
Some concerned people ask, why should the terrorists have the rights that everybody else has? Are we not binding future Presidents who may face even greater terrorist threats? Will the next President be able to get the information we need to protect the American people? We know there are terrorists who would, if they could, not bat an eyelash as they used a nuclear weapon against the innocent.
Sometimes we have to take stern measures to deal with these types of people. It is always nice to be concerned about people's feelings and about people's rights, even those of terrorists, but sometimes we have to be practical and pragmatic and do the things that have to be done to protect the American people, and our citizens overseas.
These are tough issues. We should all work together to try to resolve them. There are many who will believe that the Supreme Court made the right decision and others, such as myself, who believe that the Court made a lousy decision.
However, I uphold the Supreme Court, even though it was a 5-to-4 decision. Nevertheless, it is a decision by one-third of the separated powers of this country, and must be recognized as such.
Having said all that, I admire my friend from California. She knows it. We have worked together on a whole raft of issues through the years. I appreciate her sincere leadership in the Senate and will always appreciate knowing her and having the experience of calling her my friend.
ENERGY
Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes to address arguments by my friends on the other side of the aisle related to energy production. Some Democrats are complaining that oil companies own tens of millions of acres of oil and gas leases on Federal lands that they are just sitting on.
Now, that is an interesting way of formulating an argument because some are obviously trying to paint a picture of oil companies holding back production purposely to raise gas prices.
Some Democrats have argued that the oil companies are purposefully holding back production to raise gas prices, and others are arguing that this fact makes it totally fine to close off all our good offshore oil and natural gas and all our oil shale and tar sands because there are undeveloped leases on public lands right now. Here we go again with the anti-oil agenda of the more extreme environmentalists, which the Democratic leadership has adopted as their own energy policy--or should I say anti-energy policy, which is what I believe it to be.
Take oil shale alone. We have an estimated 3 trillion barrels of oil in the tristate area of Colorado, Wyoming, and my home State of Utah. There is anywhere from 800 billion at the low end to 1.6 trillion barrels that are recoverable, and recoverable at a much lower price than the $135 we are paying for oil, but we're being told we can't develop it.
It is true that there are tens of millions of acres of leases held by oil companies. But it is also true that they are being developed as fast as possible. Guess what. You cannot develop a lease on Federal land unless you have a permit to drill, and there is a very large backlog in the permitting process on Federal lands. It is the job of the Bureau of Land Management to issue these permits, and I don't blame them for the backlog because they are working as hard and as fast as they can. All of the environmental work has to be done before one of these permits can be given. Our Nation happens to have very stringent environmental laws on oil and gas drilling.
In the Energy Policy Act of 2005, I supported an effort pushed by the senior Senator from New Mexico, who has been one of the most prescient forces in our Senate on energy and who was chairman of the Senate Energy Committee at the time, to put more funds toward the permitting process, and that has helped to a certain degree.
What proof do we have that our oil companies are trying their hardest to develop their leases? Let's look at the numbers. In the year 2000, the BLM gave out 3,413 permits for oil drilling. In 2007, just this last year, the BLM gave out 7,124 permits for oil drilling. In the year 2000, oil companies drilled 2,341 new oil wells. In 2007, again just this last year, they drilled 4,640 new wells. In other words, in the last 7 years, oil companies have more than doubled their effort to develop their leases on Federal lands. I am not sure how an industry that is literally doubling its efforts to supply our energy needs can be painted as ``sitting on their leases.'' I don't blame the liberals in Congress for not understanding this because it seems as if they get almost everything they know about energy from the most extreme environmentalists in our society who have no problem with seeing our people suffer as long as their anti-oil agenda moves forward. That is the best you can call it, an anti-oil agenda.
In Utah, we have leases, and we have a lawsuit every time somebody tries to develop anything. It is ironic because the extreme environmentalists know perfectly well that oil companies are drilling as fast as they can on these leases. How can they be so sure, one may ask. I know for sure because I have watched these groups do everything in their power through protests, lawsuits, and policy changes to slow the oil companies down. The oil companies could do a much greater job if they did not have all of these lawsuits, slowdowns.
The Federal Government spends a large portion of its public land management budget fighting these lawsuits. I have heard estimates that during certain periods, up to 50 percent of the Bureau of Land Management budget has gone to litigation costs. That is pathetic. Can you imagine what could be done for our habitat, our forest lands, BLM lands, and so many other things if we didn't have all of that money being spent on lawsuits?
It is ridiculous for these radical groups to do everything in their power to stop energy production on our public lands and then sell an argument to liberal Members of Congress that oil companies are not trying hard enough to drill on their own leases. They would drill a lot more if they had the leases and no lawsuits in areas where they actually have leases.
I have said it before and I will say it again: Our country simply cannot afford to promote an anti-oil agenda. It is an agenda that will cause the most harm to our poorest citizens. The poorest among us spend 50 percent of their income on energy prices mainly to get to work or to buy groceries. I hope my well-intentioned but sometimes misguided friends in Congress keep that in mind.
We have it within our power to alleviate a lot of pressure on the price of oil. If we just announced tomorrow that we are going to go forward and do more oil and gas exploration offshore and developing our oil shale in that tristate area, the price of oil could drop simply from the announcement. The problem is that Saudi Arabia and the other countries do not have the ability to flood the world with oil and to bring the prices down anymore. There is such an insatiable demand for the current oil that is being developed.
I heard familiar arguments against oil shale during the Clinton administration in 1995: It will take 10 years to develop oil shale, they said. Here we are 13 years later, and now they are saying: It will take 10 years to develop oil shale. What if we had started to do it then in a realistic fashion and we were able to get that 100,000 to 1 million barrels of oil out of each acre of oil shale in the productive areas of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming--keep in mind, abiding by very stringent environmental concerns? It is mind-boggling to me.
Yesterday, I was on a radio show in my State, one of the most popular radio shows. The announcer said: Why aren't you for the Democratic Energy bill? I briefly said: Well, it is not an energy bill, it is a regulatory bill that will stifle energy development.
Back in the last years of the Carter administration, they put on a windfall profits tax that cost us 129 million barrels of oil and sent this country into a downward spiral. If you tax something, you get less of it. That is just a simple fact of life. But that is what my colleagues are doing in their ``energy'' bill.
I am the author, along with some other wonderful colleagues on both sides of the aisle, of the CLEAR Act. It took us 5 years to get the CLEAR Act through, if I recall it correctly, something that should be a no-brainer for anybody.
We now have the Freedom Act, which will give economic incentives for the development of plug-in hybrids and other kinds of battery-operated electric cars. I just saw one today that is all electric, it goes more than 200 miles on a charge and goes from zero to sixty in less than 4 seconds. The problem is it costs around $100,000 to buy. But future models will be cheaper, and plug-in hybrids will be affordable for average citizens.
But today, and tomorrow, and for quite a while, we're going to need oil. I cannot believe we in this body cannot acknowledge that for many years from now, we are going to have to use our oil, our coal, our natural gas, and we are not going to be well off if we do not.
I am proud to tell you that I believe we have some 22 natural gas-providing gas stations in Utah for natural gas-driven vehicles. We could do that all over the country. We have 22 of them, and those people are driving their vehicles--mainly Honda Civics--at a rate of 68 cents per equivalent gallon of gas. If we would move into these types of situations--yes, it would take us years to get there, and it takes oil to fill up those intervening years--if we would move that way and acknowledge that this is what we have to do, within 10 to 15 to 20 years, we would become very energy independent.
If we would develop our offshore oil instead of letting China and Cuba and other countries come offshore and take our oil because we will not allow it to be done--let the States have control over it. The distinguished Presiding Officer comes from Florida. If Florida does not want energy development offshore, that is Florida's concern, as far as I am concerned. But we stop it here. There are a number of other places, such as Virginia, that would love to be able to do this and would help alleviate the dependency we have right now in our country.
I wish we could get around these extremists who seem to control the liberal agenda. I wish we would work together to provide a means whereby we can overcome these problems together and keep our country strong.
We are sending upwards of $700 billion every year to other countries for foreign oil, much of which comes from countries that are not all that friendly to us, and it is ridiculous. It is time that we wake up and do something about it.
Mr. President, I thank my colleagues. I am sorry to have gone on. I yield the floor.
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