Senate Floor Speech
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
December 20, 2005 -- Page: S14146

MRS. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I am rising to say we now know we will get the votes on the reconciliation and we are going to have a vote on the Defense appropriations bill which includes the ANWR legislation as well as the Katrina hurricane relief and the Rita hurricane relief.

I rise tonight because I hope we now see the pathway to finishing a very productive year in the Senate. It is never easy to pass legislation in the Senate. We all know that. We have 100 Senators representing 50 States and everyone has a different idea. What we have to do is come together for the good of our country.

If ever there was a time when important legislation for the families of our country, for the military men and women of our country, for the children of our country, for the future, to have energy independence for America, this is the time when we must say, even if I don't like everything in this bill we must pass it. I don't like everything in this bill. Not one Member would say we liked everything in this bill.

However, what we have pending in the appropriations bill for our Department of Defense and regarding ANWR is essential for the future of our country. I hope my colleagues will look at this last opportunity we have this year to do what is right for our country.

On the appropriations bill, the chairman of the committee has done an incredible job. We are going to have a budget to which we will adhere. It is going to have an across-the-board cut to pay for the Katrina relief we all are seeking. We are trying to do the responsible thing. That is to meet the crises facing our country, the war on terror, doing what is right for our military men and women with boots on the ground as we speak, helping to make sure terrorists are stopped from disrupting Iraq and Afghanistan and coming back to America.

We are trying to do those things. We are trying to help the victims of Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. We are trying to make these important new expenditures in a responsible way with an offset of an across-the-board 1-percent cut in discretionary expenditures with the exception of veterans' health benefits. We are not going to cut those. We know the Veterans' Administration was running out of health care money, so we gave them an emergency supplemental to make sure veterans' health care needs are addressed.

Other than that, we have a 1-percent across-the-board cut in discretionary spending as an offset, because that is the responsible way to help rebuild the gulf coast that has been hit so hard this year.

We are taking up the Defense appropriations bill along with ANWR. Sometimes I hear on the other side of the aisle arguments as if we had not passed ANWR in the Senate. We have passed drilling in ANWR in the Senate because we know we must have an energy policy in this country that will produce more energy, more types of energy.

We have to employ conservation to conserve energy. At the same time, we have to promote solar energy; renewable sources, such as wind energy; research into other types of new fuels, which we are doing every day, so we have new sources; and increasing our domestic supply of oil and gas, which is the bread and butter of our energy needs for this country.

We are over 50 percent dependent on foreign sources for our energy needs in America. That is not a position in which the strongest Nation on Earth should find itself. We should have the capability to provide our own energy and depend on no one.

Drilling in ANWR would give us the amount of oil that we get from Saudi Arabia every day. We are looking at 4 billion to 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas in this area.

I will never understand why the people who are so opposed to this will not go and look at it. The Wildlife Refuge is an area the size of the State of South Carolina. The area to be drilled is under 2,000 acres. Because we have new technologies, you can now drill for miles underground without ever marring the surface.

So we are talking about an area the size of Dulles Airport that would be the drilling site in an area the size of South Carolina.

Are there trees in this area? No. There is not a tree in this area. It is grassy plains. Drilling is not going to harm the environment. It is going to be done in an environmentally safe way. It will increase the energy supply in our country. The people of Alaska, where this is to be done, want it. They have overwhelmingly supported it time and time and time again. They have supported it in polls. They have supported it in coming to Washington to seek the approval of Congress because they want the jobs. They want the economic boost. So this is something that is good for everyone, and it is the right thing to do for our country.

So I hope, as we start voting on these very important bills and finish the business of this year--I hope very soon because so many of our Members want to be with their families at this time of year, just like everyone in America does--I hope we will do the responsible thing.

We were elected to represent the people and to stay here as long as it takes. I hope we do that tomorrow and we deliver to the American people a reconciliation bill that sets the budget on a path to lower our deficit by half, as the President has asked us to do, over the next 5 years; a Defense appropriations bill that will give the Katrina and Rita victims the help they need and deserve, and to be able to drill in ANWR so we will be able to add one more new source of energy for our country that we control, that we do not depend on foreign sources to produce for us. That is another vote for the stability of the economy and the national security of our country.

I urge my colleagues to do the right thing as we start these important votes tomorrow.