North American Energy Security Act
Floor Speech
Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I rise this morning to discuss the North American Energy Security Act in a colloquy with my colleagues. Joining me will be our leader, Senator MITCH MCCONNELL of Kentucky, Senator KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON of Texas, Senator JOHNNY ISAKSON from the great State of Georgia, Senator MIKE JOHANNS from Nebraska, and Senator JIM INHOFE of Oklahoma. We are here to discuss a very solutions-oriented piece of legislation. It is about creating jobs. It is about creating energy security for our Nation. It is about good environmental stewardship. It is about all of these things and more.
We want to take this opportunity to discuss the legislation and encourage--to urge--our fellow colleagues to join with us to create jobs and opportunity for the American people. In a nutshell, this legislation clears the way for the Keystone XL Pipeline, which is a 1,700-mile pipeline that will run from Alberta, Canada, all the way down to the gulf coast region of the country, down to the refineries in the United States.
This blue line shows the route of the Keystone XL Pipeline. This red line shows an existing pipeline, the Keystone Pipeline, which was built very recently by TransCanada. It provides almost 600,000 barrels a day of crude to the United States. The Keystone XL Pipeline would provide more than 700,000 barrels a day of crude oil to our refineries. In addition, it will also haul domestic crude from States such as North Dakota and Montana.
It will put 100,000 barrels a day of our own light, sweet, domestic crude into the pipeline to bring it down for our needs in the country. It will also bring oil from places such as Cushing, OK, where we currently have backlogs to the refineries, as well. So it is also about moving oil within our country as well as bringing Canadian crude to the United States and to our refineries.
I mentioned it is a job creation bill. As our leader said just a minute ago, just the construction alone will put 20,000 workers on the job--20,000 workers on the job--just constructing the pipeline. The Perryman Group out of Waco, TX, has indicated more than 250,000 jobs. It is a huge job creator.
I yield to our leader, Senator MCCONNELL.
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Mr. HOEVEN. This is a project that is absolutely ready to go and will not cost the Federal Government one penny. It puts 20,000 workers on the job right away.
The hurdle was the route through Nebraska, but we have now worked with the State of Nebraska. They have had a special session. They have set up a process to clear that part of the route. Our legislation says within 60 days after passage of this bill the route is deemed approved. That is after 3 years of process through the EPA.
So we are ready to go. We have addressed the issues. We can put these people on the job now if we can get the Presidential approval.
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Mr. HOEVEN. I thank Senator Isakson and thank him for being here.
I will turn to Senator Hutchison from Texas.
We have actually 40 Senators already on this legislation--40 Senators. It is bipartisan. This is something we absolutely need to move on. I spoke with the Canadian Ambassador today, Ambassador Doer. He talked about how they are already looking at Western routes to send this oil to China.
So this oil is going to be produced. It is going to be produced. The question is, Does it come to the United States and help us reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil? Does it come here and create thousands of jobs or do we send it to China where there will actually be more emissions because it will be refined in refineries that produce higher emissions?
We will also have the emissions of shipping product all around the world, not only shipping this oil to China but then we are going to continue to have to ship oil from places such as the Middle East and Venezuela. So we actually increase CO
2 emissions without this project.
Now, in Texas, of course, we have refineries, and Senator Hutchison is here to talk about just how important it is we bring this product down to our refineries in the gulf coast region.
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Mr. HOEVEN. I thank the Senator from Texas. Senator Hutchison is, as usual, not only eloquent but has hit the nail on the head. Looking across our country from North Dakota to Texas to Oklahoma, across our country we need these jobs. This is the way to get them, and we can get them now. We need our President to act.
This legislation is a solutions-oriented bill.
It is about job creation. It is about energy independence. It is about good environmental stewardship. We need to do it. I would like to now turn to my esteemed colleague from the State of Oklahoma, Senator Inhofe, who is the ranking member on Environment and Public Works. He has a tremendous background in energy, as does Senator Hutchison. I would turn to Senator Inhofe for his comments.
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Mr. HOEVEN. If I may, I would like to ask the esteemed Senator from Oklahoma to talk for a minute on the subject of how we create that environment that gets job creation going. I think this project is a perfect example of what we are talking about. We have to create an environment--a legal, tax and regulatory environment--that empowers private investment, not government spending but private investment, to get job creation going.
Here we have a regulatory issue, where we just--TransCanada has worked for 3 years to meet the environmental process. Most recently, the problem was in Nebraska, the Sand Hills area of Nebraska, the Ogallala aquifer. But now we have come up with a solution to make sure we deal with that issue. So we have cleared that process.
That means this project is ready to go as we have just described. Leader McConnell just a minute ago talked about how the labor unions strongly support this project. I can go through that whole list as well. In addition, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says: Let's go. We support this project. So we have 40 Senators, bipartisan, labor unions, Chamber of Commerce.
Here is an another interesting statistic. This example is such a good example of what we are talking about. I ask the Senator from Oklahoma to maybe expand on the point. But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last year released a study identifying 351 stalled energy projects nationwide costing the American economy $1.1 trillion in lost income impact, and nearly 2 million jobs annually.
My point is this: We have to find a way to empower private investment to get job creation going. The esteemed Senator from Oklahoma is ranking member on Environment and Public Works. He sees this every day. But without more government spending, the secret to unlocking jobs in this country is to empower the investment. I would ask if the Senator from Oklahoma can address that for just a minute because I think this project is such a perfect example of what we are talking about.
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Mr. HOEVEN. I thank the esteemed Senator from Oklahoma. He is so right. That is what it is all about. It is about putting people back to work. It is about American ingenuity, private investment. It is about getting this economy going.
We have to find ways to save dollars, to reduce the spending that has gotten out of control. But a big part of getting out of the deficit and the debt is getting people back to work and getting this economy rolling. We are talking about a project that will create 20,000 construction jobs right upfront, 250,000 permanent jobs, $600 million in State and local tax revenues.
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Mr. HOEVEN. This is a project that reduces our dependence on oil from the Middle East. This is a project that provides better environmental stewardship, as we have described. This is a project where we need to move forward. This body needs to be about solutions. This is a solution. We need to act.
I yield the floor.
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