Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006--Motion to Proceed--Continued

GULF OF MEXICO ENERGY SECURITY ACT OF 2006--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued -- (Senate - July 26, 2006)

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thought my colleague from the great State of Tennessee, Senator Alexander, made an excellent statement. Although I might disagree with some part of it, I really believe he is speaking to this issue in good terms. I was heartened by the fact that the first thing he said about energy was conservation. I believe that is a critical starting place.

I am going to give the Senator from Tennessee four numbers--not for the lottery, for the Powerball or anything, but four numbers to think about. The numbers are 3, 25, 4, and 3 again. Here is what they signify.

We have within our command and control in the United States of America 3 percent of the energy reserves of the world--3 percent. Everything we could possibly turn to and explore and bring out of the Earth, whether offshore or in the continental United States, is 3 percent.

Twenty-five: We consume 25 percent of the world's energy. It is clear that we cannot drill our way into energy independence. It just does not work. The numbers do not come together.

The next number is 4. Four represents the number of months of natural gas which we hope we can bring out of this offshore drilling for the United States--a 4-month supply of natural gas for our country.

The final number, 3, represents a 3-month supply of the oil our country consumes.

So as important as exploration is and finding new sources, you had the right starting point. You hit the nail on the head. We cannot drill our way out of energy dependence, looking at the 3 percent that we have, the 25 percent we consume, and we cannot rely on even offshore drilling to give us more than just a respite from the demands we are going to face in the future, the competition we face around the world.

So my feeling--and I think the feeling of many on both sides of the aisle--is what we should look for is environmentally responsible exploration.

I have made no secret of the fact that I think the notion of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a terrible idea. It has been rejected by Congress year after year. It is an act of environmental desperation that we would go to a wilderness area--a wildlife refuge area, I should say to be more specific--and say that after a few years, we have to start drilling there because there is no other place for America to go in order to give us confidence we will have energy sources in the future. So I haven't hidden my feelings about that particular project, but I am open to the suggestion that this may work.

I have not made a final commitment on the bill pending before us. I join with my colleagues in moving it forward. Let's move this debate forward. Let's bring this issue to the floor.

A couple of the things mentioned by the Senator from Tennessee are intriguing. Nuclear power--I am not sure nationally how much electricity is generated by nuclear power. It may be a third, it may be a little more.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, if the----

Mr. DURBIN. I am happy to yield to the Senator from Tennessee.

Mr. ALEXANDER. The answer is 20 percent of all our electricity in the United States and 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity is produced by nuclear power.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Tennessee. In my home State of Illinois, the number is 50 percent. Fifty percent of our electricity is generated by nuclear power. So for those who say: Get rid of it tomorrow, they better be ready to sit in darkness for a while in my State of Illinois if that is their option.

But I hope the Senator from Tennessee feels as I do, that the future of nuclear power is wedded to two issues we have to deal with forthrightly: what are we going to do with the nuclear waste that is likely to threaten us in some form or another for generations to come, for hundreds, if not thousands, of years; and secondly, how do we promote nuclear power without promoting the production of nuclear weapons?

We are facing that issue everywhere--in North Korea, in Iran. As we look at the world, we worry that countries moving toward nuclear power are, in fact, also creating an option for the production of nuclear weapons, which would make the world perhaps more self-sufficient when it came to electricity but in a more dangerous state if it led to nuclear proliferation.

Those are the two challenges with nuclear power as I see them.

I believe--maybe I am not being realistic here, but I believe they can be addressed and they should be addressed. If we address them in a responsible fashion, the day may come--and I hope it does--when we can say that the spent nuclear fuel rods coming out of the nuclear powerplants are no longer a threat to the health and safety of America and that the production of nuclear power is not an invitation to produce nuclear weapons. Those are two things I think we have to face head-on.

I am lured by the notion that this is carbon-free power--electricity--having seen a production of a documentary by a gentleman from Tennessee by the name of Gore. Al Gore's documentary ``An Inconvenient Truth'' was an unsettling experience as he laid out in an hour and a half or so, I thought with real clarity and precision, the challenge of global warming and what will happen if we continue to add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, increasing greenhouse gases and global warming, watching climate change, and all of the things that are likely to occur. It is a challenge to all of us. So I salute the Senator from Tennessee because there are many things he said with which I agree.

I am going to look at this bill carefully. I am troubled; I think the allocation of money to the States is very generous. It is a departure from where we have been in the past for offshore drilling to this extent, this far away from the coast. But I am going to look at it carefully and honestly to see if it is the right approach before I make a final decision. But I thank him for his statement on the floor here this evening relative to energy, and there is probably more that brings us together than divides us on this important issue.

(The remarks of Mr. Durbin pertaining to the introduction of S. 3744 are located in today's RECORD under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. DURBIN. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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