Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, before I begin my remarks, I want to welcome the new pages to the Senate. We said goodbye to a great group of young men and young women from around the country last week, their last day being Friday. Here we are on Monday, and we have a whole new batch.
So to you all, through the Chair, welcome. Know that you are here at a most exciting and interesting time. We rely on our pages a great deal, and it is always nice to see these young ambassadors who come to us from around the country to serve us in the Senate. Welcome.
Mr. President, I wish to give an update as to where we are on the status of our broad bipartisan energy bill. Last week we started out a little rough because of the blizzard, the snow days. But once we began the debate, we heard some very strong statements in support of our Energy Policy Modernization Act.
We heard it from Members on both sides of the aisle, and that was very encouraging. We heard Members tout provisions that relate to supply, to innovation, to efficiency, really the whole gamut.
As we promised, we began an open amendment process, which has already drawn close to 200 proposals now. Last week we accepted 11 amendments. We had three rollcall votes, and we had eight voice votes. I think it is important to recognize that those amendments were sponsored by 10 different Senators. They were cosponsored by many, many others, and they really add to the Members whose priorities we have seen incorporated into the energy bill through the process that we had in committee. So the benefit of really getting back to regular order, where you have good, robust committee work, then being able to come to the floor, to go through the amendment process, and then to gain input from other Members is kind of good, old-fashioned governing. I like the fact that we are back to it.
We agreed to boost our efforts to develop advanced nuclear energy technologies. This came to us by way of an amendment from a very diverse group. Some might not have anticipated the collection of Senators that this advanced nuclear energy technology measure brought together. It was the two Senators from Idaho, Risch and Crapo, and we had Senator Booker, both Senator Kirk and Senator Durbin from Illinois, as well as Senator Hatch and Senator Whitehouse. With this amendment, we have all different perspectives in terms of political perspectives as well as geographic.
We also agreed to a proposal from Senator Daines and Senator Tester that will help facilitate the use of clean, renewable hydropower in their State of Montana.
Among others, we agreed to an amendment from Senator Capito and Senator Manchin to study the feasibility of an ethane storage and distribution hub in this country. I think that is a real possibility as a result of the shale gas revolution.
We moved through 11 amendments. Eleven is a good number, but, honestly, I would have hoped that we would have been able to process more amendments last week. What we are going to do this week--and I am going to put everybody on notice--is that we are going to redouble our efforts. I want to move forward and process even more over these next couple of days.
Our staffs have been extraordinarily busy over this weekend, as have I and as has been Senator Cantwell, my ranking member. We were going through all of the amendments that have been offered to the bill, determining which ones we can clear, which ones we need to bring up for a vote, and which may not be offered at all. We are moving right along, and that is good. We need to keep moving right along because we know that time on the floor is not unlimited. As important as the energy bill is and as important as modernizing our energy policies are, we are not the only show in town here. There are Members and there are other committees that are either on deck or want to be on deck. They are waiting for their turn and are waiting to move to advance their bills.
If we still have Members who are thinking about filing amendments, I strongly encourage that be done today. We have dozens of options to vote on. So at this point, unfiled amendments are really at a disadvantage, just given all that we are dealing with. Know that we are going to process as many amendments as possible, but the window for advancing them is closing rapidly.
Many of the amendments we are seeing would address opportunities and challenges from across the energy spectrum. I really am thankful for the Senators who have come forward with very, very constructive suggestions and for their work to make this bill even better.
As we resume consideration of this legislation today, I also want to explain how the provisions that are already within the Energy Policy Modernization Act will help our country. I want to do that today--to spend a few minutes this afternoon--by explaining how it will benefit my home State of Alaska, how it will help Alaskans produce more energy and more minerals, how it will help Alaskans pay less for their energy, and how it will boost Alaska's economy at a time when we really need a boost.
The most obvious place to start is with supply. Alaska, as all my colleagues know, is a producer for the rest of the country--really, for the rest of the world. That is our legacy. It is also our future. That is because we are blessed with an amazing abundance of resources that most States--and, really, even most countries--cannot even dream of. You name the resource, and there is a pretty good chance that we have it. In fact, there is a pretty good chance that we have a lot of it.
How will our bill help Alaska produce more energy and minerals? For starters, it boosts hydropower development. Hydropower right now provides 24 percent of our State's electricity, which is good and critically important. There are however more than 200 promising sites with untapped hydropower potential. So our commitment to this clean, renewable resource and our efforts to improve the regulatory process for it could benefit communities throughout the southeastern part of the State, the south-central part, and the southwest. It provides benefit for all.
Our bill also streamlines the approval process for LNG exports. The Presiding Officer knows full well the benefit that this will bring to the country, but it will also ensure that in Alaska our efforts to market its stranded natural gas can proceed in a timely manner without Federal delay, which is extremely important for us as we move forward with our efforts to move Alaska's natural gas.
It will also help Alaskans harness more of our geothermal potential. We have enormous quantities of geothermal, but we have some challenges, as you know, with our extensive geography. But we are looking to develop a renewable resource that could potentially help power one- quarter of our States' communities, particularly in some very remote, high-cost energy States.
Our bill also reauthorizes a program to advance the development of electricity from ocean and river currents as well as tides and waves. I have mentioned before that Alaska has some 33,000 miles of coastline. That is a lot of area to harness the power of the tides and waves. There is considerable potential to generate electricity from our extensive river systems as well.
So working to do more with our marine hydrokinetic and our ocean energy could really provide a boost to projects that are showcasing some new technologies, such as those that we have proposed in Igiugig. Yakutat is looking at a project south of Kenai and along the Yukon River.
Within the bill we also promote the production of heat and electricity from the tremendous biomass resources within our forests, which could help the development of technology to aid the construction of wood pellet plants across the State, again taking that resource that is there and helping to reduce our energy costs. It will also renew a research program to develop Alaska's immense resources of frozen methane hydrates. This is something they sometimes call fire ice. It has significant promise as a secure, long-term source of American energy, but making sure that we are able to move out on that research is going to be important.
Then there is a subtitle on minerals, a very important part of our bill. I spoke on Thursday that we have incorporated much of the text of my American Mineral Security Act, which is designed to focus on our Nation's deepening dependence on foreign minerals and the concern that we do not want to get in the same place with our minerals that we once saw with oil, where we are reliant on foreign sources to supply the things that we need.
We are obviously known in Alaska for our oil production, but Alaska also has nearly unparalleled potential for mineral production. We had a hearing last year before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and we had the deputy commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Ed Fogels, testify. He said: If Alaska were a country, we would be in the top 10 in the world for coal, copper, lead, gold, zinc, and silver. He also noted that we have the potential to produce many of the minerals that we import from abroad. One example is our State government has already identified over 70 deposits of rare earth elements just within the borders of the State. As I mentioned last week on the floor, we use rare earth for everything from renewable energy technologies and smartphones to defense applications. Right now in this country we are not producing any of that supply--none of that supply on our own--yet we have the potential to do so in Alaska.
If we pass this bill, our Nation will begin to place a much greater priority on resource assessments so that we can understand what we have. If we have not done an inventory, if we have not done an assessment, how do we really know the extent of our mineral resources?
We will finally make some commonsense reforms to improve our notoriously slow Federal permitting system, which could benefit some of the projects that we have that we would like to get moving on. We have a project on Prince of Wales Island called Bokan Mountain that has rare earth potential. We also have a graphite deposit near Nome, and making sure that we help some of the changes that we see within this bill will be important.
As we produce more of our natural resources, Alaskans will benefit significantly. We will see new jobs created, new revenues will be generated for our State's treasury, and local energy costs, which is the next area I want to focus on, will decline, allowing Alaskans to keep more of their money for other purposes and needs. This is an issue when I am at home and I am talking to Alaskans about what their No. 1 concerns and priorities are. I do not care what part of the State I am talking to folks. It is all about the high energy costs and what we can do to make a difference. What can we do to bring down our energy costs?
The Energy Policy Modernization Act will not only boost our energy supplies, but it is also designed to help lower the costs of energy and to help lower the cost of energy for Alaskans. We are an energy and a mineral producer in the State, but due to our vast geography, energy is still extremely expensive in many parts of the State. It is always an eyepopper for people to do a comparison of what is going on with energy costs. Right now in the lower 48, people are enjoying going to the filling station and seeing prices that are less than $2 a gallon. I was in Nome, AK, just a few weeks ago, and they are paying over $5.50 a gallon at the pump. It is not unusual that in many of our communities around the State, we are still looking at $5 a gallon for fuel. This is not only fuel for your vehicles or your snow machine or your four- wheeler to move you around or for your boat. It is also your stove oil and how you are keeping warm.
So it is moving around, keeping you warm, and you are paying extraordinarily high costs. In many cases, our electricity costs are two to three times higher than in most other States. When we think about what it means to live in a community where effectively 40 to 50 percent of the household budget goes to stay warm and to keep the lights on--what does that leave for educating your kids, for feeding your kids, and for retirement? It does not leave you with much when you are spending half of your income to stay warm and to keep your lights on. This is part of the reality in Alaska that every day we work to address and every day we work to make a difference.
State Senator Lymon Hoffman is from the Bethel region and has been a voice for rural Alaska. He sent me a letter last year. He wrote that ``the high cost of diesel and home heating fuels are just crushing'' in rural Alaska and that he believes ``the energy situation is the single, most important problem facing the lives and well-being of rural Alaskans.'' I agree with him. That is why we worked so hard within the Energy Policy Modernization Act to make sure that as we are modernizing our energy policies, we are working to do everything we can to lower the costs of energy for Americans and for Alaskans. We reauthorized the Weatherization Assistance Program, which provides our State with funding to improve the energy efficiency for low-income families' homes. We also renewed the State Energy Program, which allows Alaska to invest in energy efficiency, renewable energy, emergency preparedness, and other priorities.
As we have heard talked about on the floor, we have an entire title of the bill--Senator Portman and Senator Shaheen have been working on this--devoted to efficiency for everything from voluntary building code improvements to the retrofitting of schools. As our vehicles, our appliances, and our homes are all becoming more energy efficient, that in turn works to reduce energy consumption as well as energy costs throughout the State.
This bill also has a provision to promote the development of hybrid microgrid systems. I get excited about this part of the bill because I can see the direct application in my State. It allows communities to utilize local resources and storage technologies. Microgrids are critical within the State of Alaska. We have multiple dozens of isolated communities that are not connected to anybody's grid. In fact, they are hundreds of miles from anything that could even be considered a grid. So how do they get their energy? They are basically burning diesel to meet their electricity needs. So what we are seeing come together are energy solutions where you take a little bit of wind and perhaps a little bit of hydromarine, hydrokinetic, coupled with battery and storage, and we are finding some solutions. It is innovative. In fact, it is so innovative we have a hearing scheduled over the Presidents Day recess up in Bethel, AK, so Members can see what we are doing when it comes to energy innovation and coupling things together to make them work.
We are never going to be part of a big energy grid in many parts of our State. We have had some great successes--such as Kodiak, a huge fishing port, which now produces 99.7 percent of its electricity from renewables. They have wind, they have hydro, and they have a storage system that has allowed it to work. But think about it. This is a major fishing port which, during the summer, needs a lot of energy when they are processing the fish. During the winter months, the local people there do not have energy needs that are as high as the demand during the summer. So how do you even this out? How do you make it meet during the highs and the lows? This is what Kodiak has done. They have taken themselves, as a community that was once 100 percent dependent on diesel for their energy needs, to being 99.7 percent on renewables.
One of the best provisions in the bill to help address energy costs is a modification that we make within DOE's Loan Guarantee Program. Instead of allowing only major corporations to apply, we allow States with energy-financing institutions to seek funding and to advance a range of energy projects.
Just to give a little context here, if the bill becomes law, the State of Alaska would be able to apply for a loan guarantee and then use those funds to help rural communities finance small hydropower projects, geothermal wells, MHK technology, marine hydrokinetic technologies, and the hybrid microgrids that I have been talking about. So instead of these top-down, government-driven programs, we would see the State DOE programs and other elements contained within this Energy Policy Modernization Act leveraging the innovation of local people-- leveraging the innovation of Alaskans, the American people, and the private sector--to improve our energy landscapes.
These are just a few of the ways that this Energy Policy Modernization Act will help Alaskans produce more energy, save energy, and reduce local energy costs. In the process, the extra gain and benefit is that we create new jobs, generate new revenues, and provide other economic benefits we sorely need right now.
I have talked about Alaska and the impacts on my State as a result of modernizing our energy policies, but know that as Alaska benefits, other States benefit as well. Many of the provisions I have mentioned in my comments this afternoon are just as applicable in Louisiana, Maine, Arizona, and Montana as they are in my State. This bill will fairly bring economic benefits to every State, and as it brings economic benefits, the energy security that stems from the economic security that leads to the national security makes us all stronger--yet another reason I encourage the Senate to work with Senator Cantwell and me over these next couple of days to move forward this broad, bipartisan effort to modernize our Nation's energy policies.
Mr. President, I know we have Members who are anxious to speak this afternoon. Again, I will make the same request I made earlier: If Members are interested in submitting any amendments to the Energy Policy Modernization Act, now is the time because we are going to be moving--and hopefully moving quickly--so we can proceed with some expediency and efficiency throughout this week.
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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we have had an opportunity to have a few speakers here this afternoon. Senator Cantwell and I have come to the floor and urged our colleagues to help us as we work to advance the Energy Policy Modernization Act. We have, for the information of colleagues, an order, in terms of several--a couple of votes tomorrow.
3023 by Senator Lee and amendment No. 3115 by Senator Franken; that on Tuesday, February 2, 2016, at 2:30 p.m., the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the above amendments in the order listed, with no second-degree amendments in order prior to the votes and a 60-vote affirmative threshold required for adoption; further, that the time between 2:15 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. be equally divided in the usual form and that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided prior to each vote.
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Ms. MURKOWSKI. We are now ready to process a handful of amendments with a series of voice votes.
2970; Reed amendment No. 2989; Inhofe amendment No. 2991; Daines amendment No. 3119; Murphy amendment No. 3019; Hirono amendment No. 3066; Udall amendment No. 3137; and Flake amendment No. 3056, as modified.
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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I know of no further debate on these amendments.
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