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The energy issue is an extraordinarily important one for this country. We need a balanced, comprehensive energy program developed in public with broad support that does not sacrifice the environment to meet our energy needs. Such a program must be a balance of conservation measures, incentives for the development of alternative energy sources, and measures to ensure a reliable supply of conventional energy. The committee bill does not meet that standard and, therefore, we cannot support it.
The failure of this nation to have a comprehensive energy program has imposed large costs on our economy and our society as a whole. Energy producers have seen large fluctuations in prices, a cycle of boom and bust not conducive to necessary long term investments. The extraordinarily high electric prices faced by California and other regions early in 2002, followed by the collapse in such prices, is only one example. We are being asked to permit environmental degradation in a heedless rush to develop conventional sources of energy. We are increasingly dependent on oil imported from unstable regions of the world for our energy needs. Regardless of one's view about the current conflict in Iraq, there is no question that Saddam Hussein would not have had the financial resources to remain in power but for the world's need for his oil.
Vice President Cheney's energy task force developed its energy plan in secret at a time when electricity prices were soaring in California and crude oil prices were falling. It used those facts to justify its plan. Now we see dropping electricity prices and soaring crude oil prices, but the plan remains the same. Ideology and special interests, not facts, seem to be the driving elements.
The Committee bill, like Vice President Cheney's energy plan, was developed in secret without hearings or any significant public input. We thought that the Committee Democrats were the only ones excluded from the discussions leading to the development of the Committee bill. We were wrong. Assistant Treasury Secretary Pamela Olson, in an unscheduled appearance before the Committee, made it clear that the Administration had not been involved in the development of the Committee bill. She stated that the Administration supported the Committee bill in order to push the process forward, but was not willing to take a position on the substance of the bill because it had not been shared with the Administration.
The Committee bill contains a large number of unexplained changes to the energy tax bill reported by the Committee in 2001. Many energy conservation measures present in the earlier bill were dropped. New incentives were added without explanation, such as the tax credit for producing electricity from municipal waste or the new provisions providing accelerated depreciation for electric transmission lines. We do not know what influenced these decisions.
The Committee bill is not balanced. It contains relatively few energy conservation incentives and places the primary focus on oil and gas and other traditional energy sources. The Committee bill is deliberately organized in a fashion to hide its lack of balance. The conservation title contains two major provisions that have nothing to do with energy conservation, repeal of the excise tax on diesel fuel used in railroads and inland waterway barges, and extension of the sec. 45 energy production credits. A very small portion of the total cost of the bill is devoted to energy conservation measures.
We also are disappointed that the Committee is continuing its practice of using needed legislation as a vehicle for unrelated measures. Repeal of the excise tax on fuels used by trains and inland waterway barges may be justifiable but has nothing to do with energy policy. The more egregious unrelated provision is the provision that would grandfather from any restrictions those companies that reincorporated overseas for tax avoidance reasons. It is hard to imagine how the Republican members of this Committee can justify that permanent tax benefit for those companies. Those companies will have a permanent competitive advantage over the more patriotic companies that chose not to move their corporate mailbox overseas for tax avoidance. We are confident that the grandfathered companies will expect protection from our Government when they operate overseas and will expect to be able to profit from government contracts. At the same time, they refuse to contribute to the public good by paying their share of the tax burden.
CHARLES B. RANGEL
SANDER LEVIN
XAVIER BECERRA
JOHN LEWIS
JERRY KLECZKA
BEN CARDIN
JOHN TANNER
JIM MCDERMOTT
ROBERT T. MATSUI
PETE STARK
STEPHANIE TUBBS JONES
LLOYD DOGGETT
WILLIAM JEFFERSON
MICHAEL R. MCNULTY
RICHARD E. NEAL |
