Surface Transportation Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE

Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I rise to speak on the issue of energy security for our Nation. I have filed legislation which would approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. I filed our bill as an amendment to the highway bill. That bill is the Hoeven-Lugar-Vitter-McConnell-Johanns-Hatch bill. But it actually includes 45 Senators as cosponsors of the legislation. As I said, I filed it now as an amendment to the highway bill.

The fact is Congress needs to act. The administration, after more than 3 years, has decided not to act--evidently will not act on this important issue. So we in Congress need to.

This highway bill provides a tremendous opportunity. The highway bill is about infrastructure, vital infrastructure for our country. That is exactly what the Keystone XL Pipeline is. It is vital infrastructure that is very much needed by our country.

Look at gas prices today. According to the Lundberg Survey or AAA, gas prices are now more than $3.50 a gallon. That is the highest they have been at this time of year ever--more than $3.50 a gallon.

Since President Obama took office, gas prices are up 88 percent. They are up 88 percent. That is even though demand is down. We are using less. Demand in the United States for gasoline is down by 5 percent. Yet we are seeing record high gas prices. AAA is now projecting that gasoline will go to $4 a gallon by Memorial Day.

Some are saying we could see $5 gasoline this year--$5 a gallon. Why is that? All we have to do is look to the Middle East to understand what is going on. With the turmoil there, Iran is threatening to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. Something like between one-fifth and one-sixth of all the seaborne oil in the world goes through the Strait of Hormuz. So we can imagine what would happen if Iran blockaded that strait.

Why are we continuing to get oil from the Middle East and places such as Venezuela? Nearly 30 percent of the crude we use comes from places such as the Middle East and Venezuela. Why? Why are we doing that when we don't have to? We don't have to. Why not produce that oil in this country and get it from our closest friend and our strongest trading partner, Canada?

The reality is, we can have North American energy independence. We absolutely can do it. I believe we can do it within the next 5 years. In my home State of North Dakota, we now produce 535,000 barrels a day of light sweet Bakken crude oil. But the problem we have is we cannot get it to market. In the last 5 years, we have increased production from about 100,000 barrels a day to more than 500,000 barrels a day, and it is continuing to grow. But we need pipelines to get that product to refineries in the United States. That is what the Keystone XL would do. More than 100,000 barrels a day of our oil would go into the Keystone Pipeline to get it to refineries.

From Canada, 700,000 barrels a day would go into the Keystone XL Pipeline. So we are talking about 830,000 barrels a day that would go through the Keystone XL Pipeline, which we would not need to get from the Middle East.

Between the United States and Canada, and some from Mexico, building infrastructure such as the Keystone XL Pipeline, we can produce more than 75 percent of the crude oil we need in our country, and that is growing. When I talk about North American oil independence or North American energy independence, that is very attainable. It is something we can absolutely do, but we need the infrastructure to do it.

Today, in North Dakota, light sweet Bakken crude is suffering a discount of $27 a barrel. Our oil is suffering a discount of $27 a barrel because we are constrained by pipeline capacity. In Canada, Syncrude is suffering a discount of $21 a barrel because of that pipeline capacity. Even in Cushing, OK, a hub for oil in this country, oil has been discounted because it cannot move to the refineries because we lack the pipeline capacity.

But even with these bottlenecks, as I have pointed out, these discounts at the pump, consumers and businesses are paying more than $3.50 a gallon. The bottlenecks create those constraints. Think of the impact on our economy and to our consumers. There are other impacts as well. For example, in North Dakota, we have more truck traffic on our western highways than ever before. That means more fatalities, more traffic accidents. It also means a lot more wear and tear on our infrastructure. So we are talking about a highway bill to maintain and improve our highway infrastructure throughout the country, and in my State our roads are getting worn out by all that truck traffic. The Keystone XL Pipeline alone would reduce the truck traffic on our highways just in North Dakota by 17 million truck miles a year. Again, that is 17 million truck miles a year--all that without one penny of government spending, not one penny of Federal Government spending. So it is a $7 billion private investment in enhancing our infrastructure that would not cost us a penny.

The Keystone XL Pipeline will create needed infrastructure, tens of thousands of jobs, more energy security for our Nation, and millions in tax revenues, all with no government spending. The U.S. Department of Energy said the Keystone XL Pipeline will lower gas prices--not ``may'' but ``will''--for the east coast, the gulf coast and the Midwest. But the Obama administration says no.

So the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, goes to China last week. While there, he met with President Hu Jintao of China about selling Canadian oil to China. Prime Minister Harper said this in The Gazette:

We are an emerging energy superpower. ..... We have abundant supplies of virtually every form of energy. And you know, we want to sell our energy to people who want to buy our energy. It's that simple.

He also spoke of ``a new era in a strategic Canada-China energy partnership.'' To the United States, he said:

If you don't want Canadian oil sand crude, China is a waiting customer.

To back it up, he returned with a memorandum of understanding from China to develop energy sales from Canada to China.

To those who don't think the Canadian oil sands are going to be produced, that is wrong. They are going to be produced. This oil will be produced. The issue is whether it is going to go to China or come to the United States. The reality is, if it goes to China, it will be worse environmental stewardship. If it comes to the United States, there will be better environmental stewardship.

Let's talk about that for a minute. First off, if it comes from the United States in a pipeline instead of going to China, we don't have to haul it in tankers across the ocean, which produces greenhouse gas. The oil going to China creates more greenhouse gas because we have to haul it to China.

Second, if we are not getting it in the pipeline, we are going to have to continue to have tanker loads coming here from the Middle East and Venezuela--again, producing more greenhouse gas.

Third, we have the best refineries in the world. We have the highest standards and the lowest emissions in our refineries. Instead, this oil will go to China, where they have more emissions and more greenhouse gas. That is worse environmental stewardship by sending it to China, not better.

Another point. Eighty percent of new production in the Canadian oil sands is in situ. That means drilling down to bring up the oil, as we do with conventional oil, not excavating, as they have done historically but drilling or in situ, which has the same impact on greenhouse emissions as conventional drilling. So 80 percent of the new development is in situ, with the same impact as conventional drilling.

That is the real solution. The real solution is using better technology to not only produce more energy but with

better environmental stewardship. That is the real solution, and it means jobs and energy independence for North America.

Finally, on the issue of reexporting the oil, the issue has been brought up that, OK, if we bring the oil in from Canada, it will just get exported to some other country and not be utilized in the United States. But 99 percent of the crude in the United States is refined here; 97 percent of the gasoline refined in the United States is used in the United States; 90 percent of the transportation fuel refined in the United States is used in the United States. We need this oil. We need the refined product.

The reality is, for the small amount exported--think about that. For that, we get jobs, and we get dollars for our economy. Think about it like manufacturing for just a minute. Refining is a process. We take crude oil, refine it, and we have a finished product, a refined product. Similar to manufacturing, we take inputs and manufacture and we have a finished good. Would anybody, for a minute, argue that we don't want to manufacture products in the United States and send them overseas? Of course we do because we get jobs and wealth from that, don't we? In other words, we want to manufacture and process goods in the United States, and when we export them, we get value, we get jobs, and we get a growing economy.

What is going on with this argument? If we think about this argument in the simplest form--for those who say we don't want to build the pipeline because some product might get exported, stop and think for a minute. If we don't build the pipeline, all the oil goes to China; none of it comes here. So we are worried that some might get exported? That makes no sense. None.

I will wrap up. The reality is this: Whether we measure it by jobs or whether we measure it by energy security for this Nation--national security with what is going on in the Middle East--or whether we measure it from an environmental stewardship standpoint, it absolutely makes sense to develop this infrastructure. This is an important step in the right direction toward North American energy security. There is a lot more we need to do, but the reality is we can get there with this kind of private investment by creating the right environment for that. With the infrastructure and steps we need to take, we can get to energy security. It is time for Congress to step forward and act.

This is vitally important infrastructure for our country. This is a vitally important step in terms of national security for the American people.

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

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source