Energy Policy Act of 2003-Conference Report-Continued

ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2003-CONFERENCE REPORT-CONTINUED

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. HAGEL). The Senator from Illinois.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, what is the order of the business before the Senate?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for 30 minutes on the conference report.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that period of time be extended to 45 minutes, if there is no objection.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?

Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. DURBIN. Thank you, Mr. President.

This is a bill that has been before Congress for quite some time. It is a bill that relates to America's energy needs. It certainly is one that is timely. Our energy supplies and use of energy are critical to the state of our economy and its growth.

This bill was first proposed by the Bush administration under the leadership of Vice President Cheney. Most people followed it in the news because Vice President Cheney called together a task force to write the administration's energy policy. When he was asked to identify who was in the room, the people who were involved in the task force, he refused. Despite the pleas of Members of Congress and requests for that information about the origin and creation of this energy policy, the Vice President basically said he was not going to disclose the identity of those who were part of the energy task force.

The General Accounting Office took the Vice President to court and the Vice President prevailed. He was allowed to conceal the names and identities of those who were on the energy task force. So this idea of an energy policy was conceived in secret.

Then there were lengthy debates on the floor of the Senate and House about Energy bills, both during the period when the Democrats were in control of the Senate and the period with Republicans in control. We spent many, many days going through Energy bill options and amendments, voting on them, and moving forward. The net result of it was we produced a Senate Energy bill which was sent to conference.

Conference committees, as defined under our Constitution, and by the practice and precedent of the Senate, usually involve both political parties sitting down, and the House and Senate conferees trying to work out some agreement or some compromise.

As has been the case more recently than not, this conference committee did not follow that standard. The conference committee met primarily with Republican Members only, and primarily in secret.

So ultimately the work product of this energy conversation or energy analysis that we have before us today was not only conceived in secrecy, it was produced in secrecy.

So today we have a great epiphany, a great opening, a great revelation. The bill is finally before us, and we have a chance to look at this bill, which was brought together with special interest groups and the Vice President at the outset, and which was hammered out in a conference committee with those same special interest groups.

Having considered the origin of this bill, and its maturation process, it is no surprise that this bill is heavily larded with giveaways to the energy industry. In fact, if you go through this bill you will find two things that stand out. The first relates to a question which we have to face as a nation: Is it possible for us to have a sound energy policy which allows for economic growth and sustains our standard of living without endangering our environment?

I think the answer to that is yes, and I think we have proven that it can happen. We have seen an expansion of the American economy over the past several decades while we have reduced pollution in our air and water. That is a positive. It shows we are thinking ahead, that we are not trying to enjoy the benefit of the moment with energy as an expense which our children will pay for.

But, sadly, this bill, by its contents, comes to an opposite conclusion. Because this bill finds, first and foremost, that in order to pursue the administration's energy policy, and the energy policy of a Republican majority in Congress, we have to basically sacrifice our environment. I think that is a horrible conclusion. I find it totally unacceptable, and it is the reason I stand today in opposition to this bill.

Secondly, aside from the question of whether we can have a sound energy policy and a safe environment, we are challenged with this question: Can you promote in America the energy we need for this generation and future generations without providing generous, lavish subsidies to private corporations?

Now, this morning, one of my colleagues from Oregon, on the Republican side, came to the floor and was critical of Governor Dean of Vermont for saying yesterday that we had to consider reregulation in America. This Senate critic said that is exactly what we do not need. We do not need Government regulation in America.

His argument was-and the traditional Republican argument is-let the free market work its will. Well, that, in the abstract, sounds like good medicine, but in reality it is far from the truth.

The market worked its will with Enron. The market has worked its will with the scandals involving mutual funds. The market is working its will every day when it comes to the cost of health insurance to businesses and families across America.

As we look at how the market has worked its will, it is clear the results are unacceptable. So the question before us in the Energy bill is, Can we rely on a free market, then, to develop sources of energy in America?

The answer from this bill is no. The answer from this bill is that the Government must inject itself into the energy sector of our economy and make substantial subsidies to certain elements in the economy in order for America to meet its energy needs. I will outline some of those subsidies in a moment.

So the two conclusions from this Energy bill are that America's energy supply and its growth are inconsistent with a safe environment; and, secondly, that giving the free market its rein, it will not produce the energy that we need in the future. Instead, we have to generously subsidize energy markets.

Now, that is a lot different than what you have heard from the administration. They have talked about balance and they have talked about a forward-looking energy policy. But I will tell you, when you look at the specifics in this bill, it is clear that it is not balanced.

It is sad to report that this bill, as it is written, has turned out to be a piece of legislation which I believe this Congress should reject. This energy policy that is being promoted in this bill is a gush of giveaways to corporate special interests that is masquerading as an energy policy.

There is a way out of this embarrassment for the Senate. There is a way to come up with an energy policy that works. That way, of course, is to stop this bill and to ask our friends on the important committees dealing with energy to go back to work, go back to work to deliver a bill which, frankly, will be bipartisan, a bill which will be balanced, a bill that will not sacrifice the environment for energy, and a bill which would not be the gush of giveaways this bill has turned out to be.

Let me tell you some of the specifics included in this Energy bill when it comes to the environment, specifics that tell the story about how what was conceived as an Energy bill turned out to be the worst piece of environmental legislation that I have seen in the Senate.

Among the provisions in this bill are the following: It allows more smog pollution for longer than the current Clean Air Act authorizes. Under the existing act, areas that have unhealthy air are required to reduce ozone-forming smog pollution by a strict statutory deadline. If these areas fail to meet the deadline, they are given more time to clean up, but must adopt more rigorous air pollution control measures. The bill attempts to allow more polluted areas more time to clean up without having to implement stronger air pollution controls, placing a significant burden on States and communities downwind from the urban areas.

This bill exempts all oil and gas construction activities including roads, drill pads, pipeline corridors, refineries, and compressor stations from having to obtain a permit controlling polluted storm water runoff as currently required under the Clean Water Act. So in these first two provisions, this bill violates the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. It delays pollution cleanup in southwestern Michigan for 2 years while the EPA conducts a study, dramatically increases air pollution and global warming with huge new incentives, claims to promote clean coal, which I support, but inhibits its development by disqualifying federally funded clean coal projects as best available control technologies; threatens drinking water sources by exempting from the Safe Drinking Water Act regulation the underground injection of chemicals during oil and gas development.

Do you remember the squabble we had here in the Senate about arsenic in drinking water and whether or not it was safe, and how the Bush administration finally backed off of weakening regulations that would protect us from arsenic in drinking water? This so-called Energy bill is going to increase the danger in our drinking water by exempting from coverage by that act the underground injection of chemicals during oil and gas development. There is a whole section on MTBE, which I will speak to specifically. It encourages the mixture of hazardous waste in cement and concrete products as an alternative to safe disposal in permitted hazardous waste landfills. The list goes on and on and on.

When it comes to our public lands, this bill allows the Interior Secretary, by Secretarial order, to designate utility and pipeline corridors across public lands owned by Americans without any seeking public input through a land use planning process. It authorizes the leasing of the national petroleum reserve in Alaska for oil and gas production without protection for wildlife. It allows the Secretary to waive royalties, which means payments to taxpayers for those who are drilling for oil and gas on the lands that we own as Americans. It allows the Secretary to waive royalties so these companies can drill on our public lands for free.

The list continues. The list is overwhelming. In each and every page-and there are five of them-you will find 10 or 20 examples of environmental degradation, abandonment of environmental standards, endangerment of the air that we breathe and the water we drink. For what? So that someone can make a dollar. That is what it is all about. It is about profit taking at the expense of public health. That is what this Energy bill does.

Did anyone ever announce at the outset that was our goal? Did anyone ever conceive during the debate that what we were trying to do was to provide some more energy at the expense of the environment and at the expense of public health? That is exactly what this bill does.

Before I get into the MTBE issue, which I think is possibly one of the worst I have seen in the time I have served in Congress, let me tell you what this bill fails to do. What is the No. 1 use of oil that we import into the United States today? We use it to fuel our cars and trucks, of course. Of course, a lot of us own quite a few of them. And we know as well that if these cars and trucks are not fuel efficient, they will burn more gas and require us to import more oil. So if you want to have an honest discussion about energy security in America, would you not be pursuing goals which would reduce our dependence on foreign oil? Would you not want to find ways that America can ween itself away from its dependence on Saudi Arabia and its oil sources? Shouldn't that be front and center the main topic in our energy policy? Well, everybody I have spoken to in my State agrees, of course, that is where you should start the energy discussion.

You can search this bill, 1,400 pages or more, and not find a word that gives you comfort that we as a nation will even seriously consider improving the fuel efficiency of the cars and trucks we drive. Why? Because the big three in Detroit-General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler-have said they are not capable of producing more fuel-efficient cars to compete with those that are being imported from Japan. They have convinced the majority in the Senate-I know because I offered an amendment to improve fuel efficiency-that America is technically incapable of competing when it comes to fuel-efficient cars. That is such a sad commentary. It is one which I reject.

Let me tell you what fuel efficiency means for us. First, a little history: The year was 1975. Gas lines were long. People were concerned about the availability of energy in America. An argument was made that we had to do something about the efficiency of the cars and trucks we drive. Of course, there are two ways to achieve it: One is to raise the price of gasoline. If the price of gasoline at the pump doubled tomorrow, every American family would start asking how many miles a gallon do I get from this hog? Well, I don't want to see that happen, nor do most Americans. That imposes new financial burdens on families and small businesses and, frankly, is inflationary.

But there is another one. In 1975 Congress said: We are going to mandate doubling the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks. It is going to be a Federal mandate. It has to happen.

The automobile manufacturers in Detroit said: It can't be done. It is technically not feasible for us to double over 10 years the fuel efficiency of our cars. Secondly, those cars are going to be so small, they are going to be unsafe. Third, you are just playing into the hands of foreign automobile producers who will beat us to the punch.

Thankfully, Congress ignored them and passed a law. In a matter of 10 years, fuel efficiency went from about 14 miles a gallon fleet average to 27.5 miles a gallon. In a 10-year period of time, we virtually doubled the fuel efficiency of our cars, reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

What have we done since 1985, since we reached 27.5 miles a gallon? Nothing, except drive larger, less fuel-efficient vehicles, import more oil from overseas, and pollute our air even more in America.

What has Congress done? Absolutely nothing. This bill is silent on the issue of fuel efficiency. The Energy bill for America's energy policy is silent when it comes to fuel efficiency.

Let me correct myself. It isn't silent. It creates a new loophole that will be added to the process which will make it even more difficult in the future for us to even consider increasing fuel efficiency.

I offered an amendment which said, what if we went to 40 miles a gallon from 27.5 miles a gallon by 2015. Let's have 12 years. Look at the dramatic savings we would have in the barrels of oil that are consumed.

This is what drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is worth, this tiny little line down here. But just by increasing the fuel efficiency of our cars and trucks, we could answer a major part of the challenge of America's energy future. This bill sadly does nothing.

In addition, this bill excludes a renewable portfolio standard. It does not in any way encourage new ways to use energy from renewable fuels in a way that could make a sizable difference. I think we ought to be embarrassed by this. What an embarrassment it was to read in the Washington Post yesterday that China, a developing nation, now has higher fuel efficiency standards and fuel economy standards than the United States. Can you believe it? Can you believe that this growing economy, just developing, has decided they see the future, and the future is in more fuel-efficient cars and less dependence on foreign oil; and the United States, this great economic engine that we run, doesn't see the same? As a consequence, we find ourselves in a position where this bill is silent when it comes to fuel efficiency.

I think that is a terrible deficiency in this legislation. I cannot imagine it can be taken seriously in a conversation about America's energy policy. We know full well that we use a lot of oil. According to this chart, the global consumption of oil per capita in 1999, in gallons per day, the United States is 3; other industrialized countries, 1½; and the rest of the world less than ½. The U.S. continues to consume more oil than other countries.

The gasoline savings we realized going from 14 miles a gallon in 1970 to 28 miles a gallon in 1999 reduced, by 3.7 billion gallons, the gasoline we consumed in a given year. Less gasoline, less polluted oil, less pollution. This bill is silent on that issue, and that is unfortunate.

Let me speak for a minute to what I consider the single most outrageous part of this legislation.

Mr. President, I have been in Congress a few years. I have noticed that at the end of a session strange things happen. Some of these strange things involve massive giveaways to individual companies or interest groups. Over the years I have paraded out my personal award for this activity. I call it the moonlight mackerel award. It is given to that effort or amendment or bill in the closing days of the session which is the most outrageous. It goes back to a quote where someone said that a certain thing would shine and stink like a mackerel in the moonlight.

The one I am about to describe, I believe, may retire the trophy, the moonlight mackerel trophy, which has been coveted by special interest groups forever. Frankly, it is now being challenged by what may be the worst provision in this Energy bill. It is a provision that led me to oppose the bill. Even though I have had people from Illinois call me who support this bill and genuinely want to see it pass, I have told them that as long as this provision is in the bill, there is no way I will support it. I think it is that bad and that embarrassing.

The provision is on methyl tertiary-butyl ether, or MTBE. MTBE was an additive to gasoline so that engines ran a little smoother, called an oxygenate. Oil companies started adding that to our fuel and selling it across America. There are alternatives. They could have used ethanol, for example; but they said, no, we will use MTBE. So they used this MTBE additive, this compound, in gasoline and then discovered something. They discovered it a long time ago. This MTBE compound is dangerous. MTBE, when it leeched out of underground storage tanks, could get into the groundwater and into the public water supply.

If you took out a boat on a lake with MTBE mixed with gasoline and it discharged into the lake, it could contaminate the lake.

The contamination went beyond the foul-smelling additive itself to raise serious public health questions. According to the GAO, it has been detected in groundwater and drinking water all across the U.S. It is classified as a potential human carcinogen, a cause of cancer. At a level of 2 parts per billion, MTBE produces a harsh chemical odor that renders tap water undrinkable. Removing MTBE is difficult and costly. Water utilities must either blend contaminated water with clean sources to dilute the MTBE to acceptable levels, install systems to remove chemicals, or abandon certain water sources altogether.

The most effective argument of those who have been harmed and seek a day in court is a defective product argument. The fact is that the oil industry knew MTBE was, in fact, dangerous and they continued to use it and sell it, despite the danger it posed to public health. That was the basis for a lawsuit filed in California near Lake Tahoe, where the oil companies eventually paid $60 million, conceding their guilt.

The producers of MTBE knew the problems they had. I believe the producers of the MTBE should be held responsible. In fact, in one powerpoint presentation, the producers cynically dubbed MTBE as "most things biodegrade easier." They were making a joke of the fact that MTBE would stand for those initials, realizing that it did not biodegrade easily. It was a persistent, troublesome, and dangerous element, which stayed for a long time.

Who should pay for the cleanup for MTBE? According to this bill, not the polluters, not the producers, but the taxpayers of America. That is the conclusion in this bill. This bill provides the single most expensive immunity to litigation of any bill that I have ever seen before Congress. It says the producers of MTBE cannot be held accountable in product liability legislation for what they knew to be a dangerous product, and it doesn't stop there. It is retroactive, saying that lawsuits already being prosecuted in States across America cannot be pursued to verdict or settlement.

Think about that for a minute. This is the single biggest giveaway to a special interest group that I have ever seen in the time I have served in Congress. This jury in Tahoe, considering the contamination near the Lake Tahoe area, found that gasoline with MTBE is a defective product because of the risk of this additive, and because the oil companies failed to warn consumers of the risk to the environment and drinking water. The jury found "clear and convincing evidence" that the producer of MTBE acted with malice, and they are going to have a field day and a holiday with this Energy bill. They were found to have acted with malice in selling this product that endangered the lives of the people in the community.

MTBE producers know they are vulnerable to these lawsuits. If you are vulnerable for wrongdoing, if you created a product that endangers thousands of Americans, where should you turn? Come to Congress. Come to Capitol Hill. Come to mama.

That is what happened with this conference committee. They came to this conference committee and the conference committee delivered. This conference committee let the MTBE producers and oil companies off the hook. About three-fourths of the producers are located in Texas and Louisiana, and it has been the Congressmen from these States who have pushed this provision.

Let me tell you what it means to Illinois. We are hit, but not as hard as some. Only 26 to 29 communities in my State of Illinois have drinking water currently contaminated with MTBE, affecting over 200,000 people where I live.

Currently, there are four lawsuits in Illinois that this waiver in this bill would eliminate-in the communities of Crystal Lake, Island Lake, Village of Alton, and Woodstock. The lawsuits currently underway will be eliminated by the language in this bill. So where does that leave the community with the contaminated water supply? Where does it leave the families who cannot live in their homes because of this MTBE contamination? It leaves them, frankly, at the mercy of those who would turn and give them money. Should you not hold the polluters accountable? Not according to this bill. This lets the polluters off the hook.

The community of East Alton, with a population of 6,500 people, was faced with a MTBE plume that threatened its drinking water supply. A million dollars was spent to clean it up, and the community went to court to recover the cost of that million-dollar expenditure.

In the town of Island Lake, individual wells were affected.

In Kankakee County, Oakdale Acres subdivision and two other small subdivisions were forced to shut down their groundwater systems and connect to a nearby community's public water supply, after a pipeline rupture contaminated the subdivision's aquifer.

Roanoke, with a 2,000 population-like you might find in Nebraska, New Hampshire, and all across America-has had to use one of their wells as a hydraulic containment area with treatment and discharge to surface water in order to protect their well field from an MTBE plume with a concentration exceeding 1,000 parts per billion.

These communities and others deserve a fair and reasonable hearing. They deserve a judge and jury. They deserve their day in court. This Energy bill locks the courthouse door and says to these communities that they will not have their day in court.

With the defective product liability waiver which reaches back to September 5, 2003, this conference report meddles with the courts at the request of the oil companies. At least 35 States have problems such as I have just described in Illinois.

By 1986, the oil industry was adding 54,000 barrels of MTBE to gasoline every single day. By 1991, the number was up to 100,000 barrels of MTBE per day. Yet oil company studies conducted as early as 1980 showed that the oil industry knew that MTBE contaminated ground water virtually everywhere it was used. There was a $60 million settlement in Lake Tahoe.

Some have analyzed this and said the reason this provision is in here is if the oil companies were going to accept the expansion of ethanol, they had to be given something.

I have been a strong supporter of ethanol for over 20 years, and I will continue to be, but if that is what it is all about, if the only way to increase ethanol is to provide this kind of immunity from liability for the producers of MTBE, it is too high a price to pay, as far as this Senator is concerned.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 16½ minutes.

Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Chair.

Let me say another word about this MTBE. In these lawsuits that have been filed, it has been shown that these oil companies knew what they were getting into. You would think at some point in time they would have at the Federal level banned MTBE perhaps long ago. It took State leadership for this to happen. In California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, South Dakota, and the State of Washington, they took the initiative, when the Federal Government didn't move quickly, to ban MTBE. They know what it is all about, and they understand the damage that has been done to their communities.

In the State of New York, in Liberty, after fighting for 11 years because they found MTBE in their local well water, they finally got the State to move forward to establish new standards for public water supplies after a lot of families there had serious health problems. That is just a story that is going to be repeated all over, not just in New York.

In New Hampshire last spring, they filed a string of lawsuits against 22 oil companies. If these lawsuits are being brought on product liability theories-the ones that are the most successful-they will be thrown out by this legislation. These lawsuits will be eliminated. The businesses, the families, the individuals who have been damaged by this deadly additive are going to lose their day in court because we are going to mandate it in this legislation.

How does this enhance the energy security of America? It certainly adds to the bottom line of profitability of the oil companies which would be held responsible for their misconduct, I will agree with that. But is it just? Is it fair? Is it something we should be doing, giving blanket immunity to companies that, by their wrongdoing, endanger the health of families and individuals across America?

In the State of New Hampshire, the State sued 22 major oil companies on October 6 because of MTBE. According to Governor Craig Benson, they claim the oil companies have added increasing amounts of MTBE to the gasoline, even though they knew years ago it would contaminate water supplies.

The General Accounting Office told Congress what this was all about. In the year 2002, John Stevenson, Director of GAO's Natural Resources and Environmental Division, testified before a House subcommittee and said that MTBE created health risks which he described as follows:

Such health risks can range from nausea to kidney or liver damage or even cancer.

He pointed out that a school in Roselawn, IN, discovered students had been drinking water with nearly 10 times the Federal recommended level of MTBE. Officials are trying to determine if the additive came from a nearby tank and whether it is causing the students to have an inordinate number of nosebleeds. These are real health issues, real health problems.

Mr. President, "60 Minutes" on January 16, 2000, brought the MTBE issue to the attention of America. They noted at the time there was contamination in some 49 States-as I said earlier, about 35 that we can directly link MTBE to contamination of water supplies. They estimate that MTBE is a contaminate in 35 percent of the Nation's urban wells. A single cupful of MTBE in a 5 million gallon reservoir is sufficient to render the water in that reservoir undrinkable.

In 1995, an Italian study on the effects of MTBE showed high doses of this chemical caused three types of cancer: lymphoma, leukemia, and testicular cancer. We are saying to those hapless innocent victims of MTBE contamination of their water supply that we are closing the courthouse door for their recovery in product liability suits. How in the world can we do this in good conscience? How can we turn our back on these innocent victims across America, these communities forced to pay millions of dollars for the wrongdoing of oil companies, and give them this sort of special giveaway and special break?

I, frankly, don't understand how we can. I don't understand how what started out to be an Energy bill has become something much different. I don't know how a bill which was supposed to give us energy security could be so damaging to our environment in so many specific ways. I don't know how a bill that was supposed to be giving Americans peace of mind about their energy future instead in community after community and in State after State is going to close the courthouse doors to holding oil companies accountable for their misconduct.

This is the worst. This retires the trophy in the Moonlight Mackerel Award. I cannot recall a time when we have gone this far, and that is saying something. There is a way out of our embarrassment, and it is a way I would encourage colleagues on both sides of the aisle to take very seriously. We will have an opportunity on a cloture motion soon to decide whether this bill goes forward. If we can gather 41 Senators to oppose it from going forward, then the bill will stop and be returned to conference or perhaps back to committee for further consideration.

I think that is the way it should be, and the sooner we do that the better. If enough of my Republican colleagues will step forward with Democratic colleagues, we can make that difference.

In case you think this is a partisan issue, the Wall Street Journal, which is not known to be friendly to many Democrats, including this one, went after this bill and criticized it on Tuesday, November 18, calling this Energy bill one of the great logrolling exercises in recent congressional history. In the words of the Wall Street Journal:

The Republican leadership has greased more wheels than a NASCAR pit crew.

They go on to say:

The bill's total price tag of new outlays is a tidy $72 billion according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. That's not counting $23 billion in tax giveaways to nuclear, oil, gas, and coal concerns all over the country, 3 times more than the President said he would accept.

The Washington Post, November 18:

. . . producers of MTBE, another gasoline additive that is believed to pollute drinking water, have not only been exempted from product liability, they also have been retroactively exempted, a change that cancels out lawsuits . . .

Across America.

They go on to say:

This bill does not, for example, provide a clear direction for the development of the electricity grid . . . it does not encourage the U.S. car industry to manufacture vehicles that consume less fuel . . . and it does not significantly encourage energy conservation.

The New York Times says this bill is:

. . . hardly surprising in a bill that had its genesis partly in Vice President Dick Cheney's secret task force.

It creates:

. . . exemptions for the Clean Water Act, protection against lawsuits for fouling underground water and an accelerated process for leasing and drilling in sensitive areas at the expense of environmental reviews and public participation.

The list goes on. The Anchorage Alaska newspaper calls the Energy bill a setback.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution, quoting Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, says:

[T]he legislation is "a smorgasbord of subsidies to big companies masquerading as energy policy."

The Atlanta Journal Constitution concludes in its editorial:

This bill is about as bad as it gets. When it comes up for a vote, members of Congress who remain committed to more rational energy policy for America and still believe in the dignity of the legislative body in which they serve shouldn't hesitate to reject it.

The Chicago Tribune, from my home State, said the Democrats were virtually locked out of the final negotiations and we were given some 48 hours to digest and evaluate this lengthy bill.

The Patriot News in Harrisburg, PA, says:

The energy issue is an upside-down world for sure when they look at this bill.

They say there is no more blatant example than the 100-percent tax credit available to business owners who purchase gas guzzling Hummers and more than 30 other models of large SUVs. The tax credit was enacted as part of the President's economic stimulus package and was intended to help farmers and other small business, but the tax break is so attractive it has caused a run on vehicles that average 9 to 15 miles per gallon.

We are going to have energy security and energy independence with a tax policy that encourages the purchase of these gas guzzlers?

They go on to say that hybrid cars which offer 50 to 60 miles a gallon are subject to a $2,000 tax deduction, and that is in the process of being phased out. The list goes on and on of editorial comments across America.

I hope we can return to this bill and do it in a sensible fashion. I hope we can put conservation and energy efficiency at the forefront as we discuss energy security. Though there are many good things in this bill, the good things are outweighed by the negatives.

This exemption from MTBE liability is the absolute worst. To say to these families, these individuals, and these communities that we are going to lock the courthouse door to them no matter what damage they have sustained is a new low.

I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Washington for yielding.

Consider this: You buy a home in a neighborhood and you start hearing about people around your neighborhood who are getting sick. It turns out it is not just a common, ordinary sickness. It is serious; it is cancer. Then you are puzzled and start wondering: Is there something in the water. Isn't that the first thing you ask? Then you find out there is something in the water. It turns out it is something called MTBE. You never heard of it before. They explain to you, it is in the gasoline in your car. Incidentally, at that service station on the corner-the one where they dug up the tank-that tank was leaking. The leaking gasoline from that tank contained MTBE, and it got down so low that it got into the water supply of the village in which you live. The water you have been drinking and giving to your kids contains MTBE.

Studies have shown that MTBE can be cancer causing. Think about that. Totally innocent and unsuspecting, you have now learned that a public health hazard that threatens your family, the value of your home, and your community is linked to something you had never seen before and never heard about.

So what do you do? You are concerned about the health of your family. But you turn around and say: Whoever is responsible for that additive that threatens my family and my home and my community needs to be held accountable.

That is what America is all about. Nobody gets off the hook. So people go to court. They say to the oil company: Did you know that MTBE in your gasoline could threaten public health? Well, it turns out they did. They knew for a long time.

They also knew that if that MTBE got in the environment, that didn't disappear, it stuck around forever. A tiny amount of it could be dangerous to thousands, if not millions, of people. They knew it. They continued to make it. They continued to sell it. They knew all along that people would get sick and some would die as a result of that product.

Should they be held accountable or should they be let off the hook?

Turn to our Energy bill and look at section 1502 which answered that question for America. The makers of MTBE are given safe harbor. It sounds great, doesn't it. Here is what it means. You cannot sue to hold that oil company or maker of MTBE accountable for that deadly additive that is poisoning people and causing cancer if it is a product liability lawsuit-can't do it. But we have decided that in order to strike a political bargain here, we are going to let the oil companies off the hook.

What does the family do? What are they supposed to do about water they can't drink, where people are sick in their neighborhood and where houses are losing value in a community that is scared to death? We tell them to read the Energy bill we are producing here. That is the best we can do for you. We can't answer your problems. We can tell you that we passed a good bill and the oil companies love it.

The Senator from New Mexico came to the floor earlier and very candidly-I salute him for this-said you had better understand the deal. If you want to help ethanol, you had better let the MTBE polluters off the hook. Otherwise, there is no deal.

We have spent 20 years producing ethanol. My State produces more than any State in the Union. I have proudly stood behind this product because I believe it is good, it is healthy for the environment, and it reduces our dependence on foreign oil. But I have said to my friends back home who support ethanol and I will say it on the floor: If the bargain I have to strike for ethanol is to turn my back on families who are dying from disease because of MTBE, the deal is off. The deal is off. That is unjust. It is immoral. It is wrong. If that is what it takes to promote ethanol in America, I will not be part of it; absolutely not. Count me out.

That is a basic injustice, to say those oil companies would not be held accountable for their wrongdoing in order to promote the ethanol industry. It is a deal with the Devil. It is a Faustian bargain, and I don't want to be a part of it, and no Member of the Senate should either.

If this is as good as it gets on the floor of the Senate, shame on all of us. This bill should be stopped in its tracks. We ought to send the people back to the committee and say start over and get the work done. America's energy future depends on thoughtful, visionary policies. It doesn't include this kind of a deal with oil companies to let them off the hook.

How in the world can you turn your back on these families who, through no fault of their own, are facing these terrible health problems? These families can't go to court now to hold the oil companies that knew better accountable. That is what this bill does.

The Senator from New Mexico has been very candid. I admire his candor. But his candor tells the story. We can do a lot better.

I thank the Senator from Washington for her leadership on electricity and protecting our public lands, and other areas.

I yield the floor.