Senator Ron Wyden

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Statement of U.S. Senator Ron Wyden
on the 2005 Energy Bill Conference Report

July 29, 2005

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) made the following remarks last night as the Senate debated the 2005 energy bill conference report. Wyden was a conferee on the legislation but did not sign the conference report; he intends to vote against the measure when it comes before the Senate today.

Remarks as prepared
July 28, 2005

M. President, sometimes the standard in this place is: Did we arguably do less harm than good?

Some might say, by that standard, this bill is worth voting for.

But that standard should never apply when we have a rare opportunity, a rare obligation, to avoid the terrifying human cost of future wars.

In those rare cases, the standard must be: Did we meet our obligation?

I have concluded that in this energy bill, we did not.

We will not reduce our dependence on foreign oil one drop as a result of this energy bill. As a result, we have not reduced the prospects of going to war again in the Persian Gulf next decade.

I do not understand how we will explain to every man and woman fighting bravely in Iraq and Afghanistan, how we explain to every veteran who fought in the Persian Gulf last decade, how we failed today to meet our obligation to avoid future wars.

For this reason, I want to express my deep, personal regret to those soldiers and veterans because your children are now no less likely to be asked to fight a very similar war.

I want to express my deep regret to the families of those soldiers and veterans because their children may some day face the very same burdens.

I want to express my deep regret to the American public which is spending hundreds of billions to prosecute this war, and may some day be asked to spend far more on the next war – because the energy bill Congress is about to pass is pre-9/11 energy policy.

After 9/11 it became clear that energy policy was a national security issue, and that reducing our dependence on foreign oil had to be a national security priority.

That has not been done. And so today Americans continue to pay what I call a “terror tax” on every American – the price we pay in insecurity, for our dependence on foreign oil.

I call it a terror tax because when each of us pulls up to the corner station and pays $2.40 a gallon or so for gasoline, a portion of that money goes to foreign governments that in turn send it out the back door to Islamist extremists, who use that money to perpetuate hate and terrorist acts.

But in this bill, Congress is squandering a golden opportunity to dam that river of terrorist funding. It’s not good enough to accept business as usual when our citizens pay record prices at the gas pump only to see foreign governments wink and nod while terrorist groups make off with substantial amounts of the money and use the funds to target America. The recent bombings in London and Sharm el-Sheik have been a sober reminder of just how vulnerable America, our allies and our strategic partners remain to terrorism. In my view, there is an indisputable link not only between the American dependence on foreign oil and the price our citizens pay at the pump, but between our oil addiction and our vulnerability to attack.

What I’ve come to learn as a member of the Energy Committee and as a conferee on this legislation is that any energy policy proposed should be required to be accountable for ending the terror tax – with a statement describing how that policy would reduce our dependence on foreign oil for the short term and for the long term.

If that had been required for this bill, there’s no way it would get a passing grade.

This bill does practically nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. The country would be almost as well off in that department if the Congress didn’t pass anything. In my view, this conference report is not substantially different from the 2003 conference report – and in that go-round the Energy Information Agency told Senator Sununu that bill would have led to an 85 percent increase in our imports of foreign oil by 2025, just about two percent less than doing nothing at all. The Senate version of this year’s bill would have cut oil imports by less than one percent over the next 7 years.

There was an opportunity in the conference to at least take a baby step – a baby step! – on energy independence. M. President, it’s a basic fact of energy policy: you will never get energy savings if you give the auto industry a free pass.

Because most foreign oil goes to the transportation sector, I proposed that the automobile industry be required to increase auto fuel efficiency by just 1 mile per gallon each year for the next five years. Think about what a modest step that is -- just 1 mile per gallon, just five years. Yet it would have had a huge impact in terms of reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

In its 2001 report, the National Academy also found that the technology exists today to raise the average fuel economy to nearly 40 miles per gallon by 2012 without sacrificing safety. My proposal was much more modest than what the leading scientific experts in the country found was both technically feasible and affordable to consumers.

However, the conference rejected this modest proposal out of hand. I could not believe that I was going to hear that five miles a gallon over five years was too much. Certainly the facts don’t support that claim. But that’s the kind of modest advance that couldn’t even make it into this bill.

As a result, Americans are getting no relief on the terror tax brought about by our addiction to oil. And at the same time, their hard-earned dollars are also flooding out the back door of this bill – straight to the entrenched energy interests.

Even the President has said that when oil is trading at upwards of $55 dollars a barrel, the oil companies do not need incentives to produce more. When this President says the oil companies don’t need a deal from the government, that ought to tell you something. You’re going too far.

But even so - this bill is still stuffed with a smorgasbord of subsidies for energy industries like oil, coal, nuclear and ethanol. The buffet of subsidies is so generously larded that in many cases it allows second and even third helpings from the buffet table.

Loan guarantees are letting these industries double-dip and even triple-dip on their projects. Projects that would already be subsidized in other provisions of the Energy Bill would also receive loan guarantees under the Incentives Title. They’re already getting tax credits in the Finance Title; that’s dip one. Then they’re getting loans under the Incentives title: that’s dip two. And then come those loan guarantees for dip three.

Those guarantees are some of the largest subsidies in the Senate Energy bill. The Congressional Budget Office estimates they will provide $3.75 billion in loans for the first 5 years. However, after that 5 years, there=s no limit on how many more loan guarantees there may be. The incentives title provides loan guarantees to an unlimited amount of projects for an unlimited amount of time. That’s a blank check for boondoggles that will be cashed at taxpayer expense.

In closing, M. President: the most patriotic thing this Congress could have done in the summer of 2005 was to write an energy bill that did three things: reduced our dependence on foreign oil; lowered gasoline prices for working families and businesses; and ended the subsidy smorgasbord that has offered heaping helpings of taxpayer dollars to the energy industry for decades.

As a conferee on this bill, I’m sad to say that the final product does not do any of those three things. It does not reduce our dependence on foreign oil – and you don’t have to take my word for it; that was front-page in the Washington Post this week. It does not lower gasoline prices – and you don’t have to take my word for it; the President admits that. And it does not end the subsidy buffet for big energy interests. You don’t have to take my word for that either. You’ll hear them breaking out the champagne bottles all over town.

My constituents at home in Oregon have been hit hard on energy issues for years, and time and again, Congress has failed to step up to the plate and act for them and for all American consumers. Congress could have done much better than this. Many of my colleagues know this bill is literally a series of missed opportunities. It’s right to vote no on this legislation.

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