Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Mark Dayton today delivered the following remarks from the Senate floor on the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006, which is currently before the Senate.

Mr. President, I rise today to offer an amendment to the energy legislation that is before us. It should be my right as a Senator to offer such an amendment. It should be the right of any Senator to offer an amendment to legislation pending before the Senate. But, unfortunately, because of parliamentary maneuvering by the Majority Leader, Senators, including myself, will not be able to offer our amendments to this offshore drilling legislation. In the Senate vernacular, “the tree has been filled” with such gimmicks as changing the bill's effective date and then changing it back again. Those gimmicks restrict this legislation to mean nothing more than a special interest boondoggle for the oil and natural gas industries and for four Gulf States, which would, for the first time, get a direct cut of that bonanza.

Now, it's one thing to limit debate on a measure, as the Senate has chosen to do in this instance. And even though I voted against cloture, I can understand the desire of over 60 of my colleagues to proceed. But to prevent additional amendments related to our country's domestic energy production and consumption is uncalled for and unwise. It makes a mockery of the Republican Leader's promise, on May 1 of this year—just three months ago—that the Senate would vote this year on comprehensive energy legislation.

His exact words were, and I quote:

“We, the Republican Leadership, have presented a strong package that will give consumers relief at the pump and help bring down the high cost of gas. I'm hopeful that we'll vote on this package in the coming days.”

Well, as we all know, the remaining days in this session of Congress are coming and going. In fact, they are almost gone. If the Senate were going to take up the Republican energy package or a Democratic energy package or, best of all, an American energy package, this would seem to be our chance to do so. Instead, we get a special interest boondoggle, and we are not even allowed to offer amendments that could make it the comprehensive energy bill that the Republican Leader promised us.

This bill's authors have entitled it the “Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006.” What that title says is that our future energy security is more of the same. More of the same energy sources, at ever higher prices, with ever greater profits to the major oil and gas companies, and, for the first time, with 37.5 percent of the public revenues going to just four Gulf States. Under this legislation, 50 percent of the public revenues would go into the federal treasury, 12.5 percent would go to all of the states under the program, and, as I said before, 37.5 percent would go directly to the four states—Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi.

Now, this virtually unprecedented arrangement is a great deal for those four states. No wonder their eight Senators strongly support it. And I have to begrudgingly congratulate the Senators from Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi. They've done an excellent job in writing this legislation to benefit their states. So I certainly understand their support for this brand of revenue sharing. What I don't understand is why the other 92 of us would agree to it.

The offshore waters of the Gulf Coast belong to all Americans, as do the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Great Lakes, and other natural resources. This is a terrible precedent to allow a few states to benefit at the expense of all the rest, simply because of their proximity to a national resource. Not their ownership of it; just the proximity to it. If Congress opens this door, watch for the stampede of parochial claims for a cut of every other federal natural resource.

Also, sadly lacking from this bill is any kind of windfall profits tax on the major oil companies, which are its principal beneficiaries. It is appalling that, at a time when Americans are paying $3 or more a gallon for their gasoline, and the oil giants like ExxonMobil are enjoying record-high profits, there is no attempt in this bill to recapture any of those profits for the American people or for the public purposes that would benefit them.

This legislation opens up a public resource, gift wraps most of its value, and hand delivers billions and billions of those dollars to special corporate interests, at the expense of the American citizens in 46 states. How the elected representatives of those 46 states could allow this to happen is astonishing. But I hope the residents of those states will demand some answers.

Those citizens should also ask why nothing in this so-called Energy Security Act provides any energy security at all. At best, it will provide a relatively small additional supply of oil and natural gas for a relatively few years starting, at best, several years from now—supplies for which consumers will likely pay even higher prices than they are today.

Someone once said that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and hope for a different result. If so, this continuation of a national energy strategy is insane. We cannot produce our way to energy self-sufficiency when consumers have no alternatives to those traditional energy sources. And this bill does nothing to provide Americans with any of those energy alternatives, not today, not tomorrow, not ten years from now. And none of us in the Senate are being given the opportunity to offer any of those alternatives to this bill.

Mr. President, I’ve introduced legislation that would encourage the additional production and use of biofuels, specifically ethanol and biodiesel. My amendment to this bill would help give more Americans a choice, every time they fill up their fuel tanks, between gasoline or diesel and lower-cost alternatives, such as E-85, comprised of 85 percent ethanol; biodiesel, made out of soybeans or other agriculture commodities; and even out of animal renderings. These energy sources are not buried under miles of water or ocean floor, located miles and miles away. They're right in our agriculture states. They're renewable every year. They're cleaner burning than traditional fossil-based fuels. And they provide additional boosts to farmers in rural communities around this nation, whose local economies depend upon a healthy agriculture economy. They boost the market prices in the marketplace for those commodities, meaning they lower tax payer subsidies. It is a win-win-win for all Americans, and yet we're not allowed to offer these additional kinds of incentives and expansions of these and other energy fuels, conservation, and other ways that we can truly, truly enhance our energy security.

For those reasons, I oppose this legislation. And most of all, I oppose the tactics that were used in this bill to prevent it from becoming what it should be, what the American people need, and what they certainly deserve, which is comprehensive energy legislation that will provide real energy security for our country, lower cost energy supplies, now and for years to come.

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