Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act of 2008--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

STOP EXCESSIVE ENERGY SPECULATION ACT OF 2008--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - July 23, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, in the next few days and weeks, the Senate has an opportunity to engage in real bipartisanship. We have a chance to adopt pragmatic solutions in the 25 or so remaining days we have in session this year. We can adopt concrete steps to address what many regard as the greatest energy crisis of our lifetime. I see an opportunity for Congress to act now to bring an end to the pain Americans are feeling each time they go to the pump.

As a Senator from Mississippi, I can tell you as I travel around my State, as I have town meetings and as I talk to people on the phone and engage them in any way a legislator does, that the No. 1 issue among my constituents is the ever increasing price of gasoline. We have some urban areas in Mississippi but not many. We have some suburbs, but we are mostly small towns and rural areas. We do not have the option of using public transportation. We know it is not possible for the farmers in Mississippi to park their farm equipment if they are going to try to stay in business.

Skyrocketing gas prices are hitting American families and communities and they are also hitting our government agencies. Police departments, fire departments, schools, and even our military are being squeezed by the high price of fuel. Yes, the price of fuel and our reliance on foreign sources even constitute a threat to our national security because of the effect they are having on our military. We are reaching closer and closer to a true emergency situation and it is past time for real legislative accomplishments. What the people of the United States need and what our Nation deserves is a comprehensive long-term plan for domestic exploration, conservation, and the introduction of renewable and alternative fuels into the energy marketplace. That is why I hope we can have an open amendment process on this legislation, to allow open debate in the Senate about this.

The average price of gas in my home State of Mississippi is currently between $3.80 and $3.90 per gallon. Only a year ago it was $1 less. Many people do not understand why these prices have risen so dramatically. There is a variety of viewpoints but it all comes back to our unwillingness to produce more energy here in the United States.

At this point I yield to my friend from Mississippi, the senior Senator.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I have long supported the efforts to lift the moratorium on energy exploration in the United States and Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which we commonly refer to as ANWR, and also on the Outer Continental Shelf. A lot of us in Washington, DC use the term ANWR and we bandy it about. I am afraid some people out in grassroots America may not realize what ANWR is. ANWR is an Arctic reserve that is the size of the State of South Carolina. It is a vast frozen area in the very northernmost part of Alaska.

What we have proposed is drilling for oil there in a small area, about the size of the typical metropolitan airport in this vast reserve. Congress sent President Clinton a bill in 1995 to provide for energy exploration in ANWR. We are told that if President Clinton had not vetoed that bill in 1995, we would today be getting the same amount of crude oil from ANWR as we are currently having to import from Saudi Arabia. This would have been American jobs. This would have been American dollars spent here in the United States to make us less energy dependent on foreign and unstable sources.

Last week, President Bush took a major step in moving us toward energy independence when he lifted the Executive ban on offshore drilling. We still have the obstacle of a congressionally mandated ban on offshore drilling, which we ought to be discussing in this legislation today. We ought to be voting on it in the next 25 legislative days that we have remaining.

The peak of pricing for a barrel of crude oil was $146 per barrel only a few short days ago. Yesterday it closed at $126.80 per barrel. There are experts who will tell you that the confidence injected into the markets by this simple step by President Bush caused a drop of some $19 per barrel in the price of crude oil.

If Congress would take the further step and actually pass the legislation to lift this ban or, more precisely, to allow the moratorium to expire at the end of the fiscal year, I think there would be even more confidence in the market, and the price of crude oil and gasoline would continue to drop.

We also need to eliminate the ban on oil shale. This has been discussed this morning. We have three times the amount of crude oil reserves in three Western States in the form of oil shale, three times the supply as we currently see in Saudi Arabia.

I think lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling, lifting the moratorium on ANWR, and lifting the moratorium on the exploration of oil shale in our own country, are steps we definitely need to take. Every moment we are idle we will be ever more dependent on foreign sources of oil. I think we need to act and act this year.

Again, I toss it back to my friend, the senior Senator from Mississippi.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, this is an immediate problem and it deserves immediate and comprehensive attention. Last week I sent a letter to Senate leaders, the majority and minority leaders, to say we should not leave Washington for the annual August work period without passing energy legislation that will make a true difference for the American people. There is no more important action that this body should be taking than to address this issue with pragmatic solutions to the problem. This is a critical time and this is an important debate, the most important debate we could have as elected officials.

I am encouraged to hear that there are bipartisan discussions going on even as we speak to adopt solutions on which we can all agree. I know that a bill I would craft might not receive a majority vote in the Senate, but there are common solutions that I believe a majority of us can and must agree on. The time to act is now.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WICKER. If I might continue to speak. I see we have no one who has asked to speak at this time. When another speaker arrives, I will be happy to yield at that point.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator may proceed.

Mr. WICKER. As I mentioned in my introductory remarks, this is an economic security issue. But it is also a national security issue.

Last week, the LA Times reported that the Pentagon will spend $16.4 billion on fuel this year--$16.4 billion as compared to $5.2 billion in 2003. The cost of fuel for our national security has gone up that much. This is a major concern for our military. They are having to budget for ongoing missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and all of the areas around the world in which we are engaged.

That same article in the LA Times mentioned another important point about the need to adopt alternative fuel sources, now more than ever. The Air Force, a branch where I served for some 4 years, and longer than that in the Reserve--the Air Force is already researching the use of coal to liquid for its fighter jets.

Their goal is to have half of the planes burning coal-based fuel by the year 2016, a substance which we have an abundance of in the United States of America.

At these record prices, commercial carriers are beginning to follow suit. The Federal Government should encourage and incentivize the ventures, doing research on coal-to-liquids.

Congress has an opportunity to be proactive. We could choose to boost our economy by producing more energy domestically, and I am proud to join my Republican colleagues in a clear message which I think also states an obvious truth: We need to find more resources and we need to use less.

That is the reason I have readily cosponsored the Gas Price Reduction Act. We offered it only a few weeks ago, and it gets to the very heart of our debate--increasing supply to keep up with increasing demand as well as using less through conservation and alternative fuel methods here in the United States.

Both Senator Cochran and I are cosponsors of this legislation. It is my hope that we can work together across partisan aisles to come up with a solution for America. We do not need political games. We do not need to have a limited structural legislative vehicle that allows our side only one vote on one proposal which probably cannot pass in its current form and allows one vote on the Democratic side for a legislative proposal that will also probably not ever see its way to the statute book. We need to do something about this problem. And this year, these few remaining days of this legislative session comprise the time to act.

Source