Pension Funding Equity Act of 2004 - Conference Report

PENSION FUNDING EQUITY ACT OF 2004-CONFERENCE REPORT

UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST-S. 2236

Ms. CANTWELL. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for yielding some time from this important debate on pensions. Obviously it has been a busy day in Washington talking about a variety of different issues important to our country.

One issue our colleagues ought to realize is pending business on our calendar that could be brought up for discussion is, what should we do in light of the fact that we finally got a recommendation on reports about the blackouts that happened in our country from New York through the Midwest? We now have a report saying that liability legislation is needed to ensure consumers can be protected from the transmission grid and the blackouts that have been occurring.

Many of my colleagues may think of the latest New York blackout that happened just several months ago as a great catastrophe. Some of them may have forgotten that since 1996, we have had many blackouts throughout the United States. In fact, all of the States in black on this map show the number of blackouts we have had in various regions. In our Northwest region, in Washington, we had a blackout several years ago that cost consumers not only inconvenience, but millions of dollars of impact.

The question is, What are we going to do to try to get consumers more reliability in electricity? While a lot of my colleagues would like to say we will pass an energy bill, it has been clear for some time that the Energy bill has gotten bogged down with a variety of items involving pork barrel spending. The most famous line my constituents remind me of in the Energy bill: Hooters, polluters and Enron looters. What are we doing about getting the energy policy this country needs and moving it forward?

One piece of legislation that has been hung up has been the reliability standards legislation. We have, this week, a report issued by the United States-Canada Power System Task Force, their final report, asking, Why did the blackout happen in the United States and Canada and what do we want to do?

The No. 1 recommendation from the report is make reliability standards mandatory and enforce them with penalties for noncompliance. That was the No. 1 recommendation out of that report. Why don't we do that? If we cannot agree on the rest of the Energy bill, why don't we take this stand-alone piece of legislation and pass it so we can give consumers the confidence that we have some rules and regulations in place for reliability.

A lot of Americans woke up after the New York and Midwest blackout and said, geez, how did this happen?

I think a lot of people assumed there were rules and regulations in place on reliability, but there are not. There is no rule in place that says: This is how much electricity you have to have as a backup. There is no rule in place that says: This is how you need to make sure Akron, OH, or Toledo, OH, or someplace in New York has enough electricity, given the kinds of demands and the peak we are going to see in those areas. Those rules are not in place.

You can ask yourself why those rules are not in place, and what has transpired on energy policy and been debated over the last several years, as we moved towards deregulation. But the bottom line is, now that a majority of States across the country since 1996 have had blackouts, we have had a demand for reliability legislation. We also now have a task force that has said the No. 1 thing you need to do is pass this legislation. Yet this legislation is being held hostage to passing a larger energy bill.

If my colleagues think I am overstating this case, I would like them to think about the legislative history here, because my predecessor, Slade Gorton, introduced similar legislation after Washington State had a blackout. We had a blackout and said: Gee, this is crazy. How can you not have reliability standards? How can you not have rules in place to make sure there is enough power for consumers at peak times? He proposed reliability legislation that actually passed the Senate, and got held hostage in the House of Representatives because people wanted to see more energy deregulation, so the legislation never passed. Now we have been through two more Congresses where no reliability legislation was passed.

The interesting thing is the majority of Members in both the House and the Senate actually support this bill, this stand-alone bill, that now is sponsored by Senator Bingaman, Senator Snowe, Senator Clinton, Senator Jeffords, Senator Schumer, Senator Daschle, Senator Reid, and myself. This legislation, I believe, does have the majority of support by both House and Senate Members. People want to see it pass, but it continues to be held hostage to getting a general energy bill.

I can tell my colleagues we have had enough of the energy debate, and I think even that this latest FSC/ETI bill, in which some of the energy package was added to that legislation, is a sign of recognition by my colleagues it is going to be very tough to get that comprehensive bill this year. So why not do the responsible thing? Why not do the responsible thing and have this energy legislation pass now as a stand-alone bill and give consumers the confidence there are rules and regulations in place before we have another blackout?

The issue has been clear for some time now, and has been debated and studied by U.S.-Canada Power System Task Force. In fact, the task force even went on to say:

If reliability legislation had been enacted when first proposed (in 1999), I believe that a blackout would not have occurred.

That is a statement from the chairman of the North American Energy Reliability Council. He testified before the Energy Committee. I asked him this very question. I said: Do we need to pass this legislation? And should we pass it as a stand-alone? He said: Yes, we should. He was, I think, then followed by the chairman of the committee, who said: Well, it is not time to do that yet. Let's keep pushing on the larger Energy bill.

How many more weeks are we going to let go by with the American consumer not having reliability standards in place, having their energy supply in question about whether they are going to have reliability?

I know some people think: Well, gee, things happen. There is too much demand.

You have an impact. Consumers, individuals, in various regions of the country have dealt with it. People should understand the New York blackout cost us between $4 billion and $10 billion for those days that businesses did not have power, when people could not conduct business, and could not continue with their livelihoods. That is merely what we ended up losing in terms of revenue. Not only is it an inconvenience to consumers and unsafe-an issue where we have left a lot of elderly people without the resources and reliability they have counted on-we also have negatively impacted our economy.

While we are here in Washington talking about national security and how we make everyone more secure, the clearest answer is-at least with regard to the electricity grid-to pass this legislation, and pass it now before we adjourn for another recess and leave these standards again hostage to this Energy bill, saying we have to have a comprehensive energy bill to pass it. It is not responsible to the citizens of this country to leave them without these standards.

The legislation specifically gives the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the authority to make sure, working with the North American Energy Reliability Council, that these rules and regulations are in place. Again, for some of my colleagues who may not be familiar with our electricity grid and how the system works, we do not have somebody right now who determines, in the various regions of the country, how much power supply an organization must have, or penalties for not having that supply.

The way regional transmission organizations have been formed, and the way they operate, is it is only one entity pushes the electricity out and puts more power onto the grid. These RTOs have no obligation or responsibility to make sure there is reliability in the system.

I think that is shocking that our country, with a large economic engine and so many people depending on things such as e-commerce that are absolutely dependent upon electricity for millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars, a day in transactions, can say that we have no reliability standards in place to protect consumers and businesses from these kinds of outages that have occurred in the past.