News Conference - Senate Energy Bill

Federal News Service

HEADLINE: NEWS CONFERENCE WITH: SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY); SENATOR JOHN SUNUNU (R-NH); SENATOR MARIA CANTWELL (D-WA); SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ); SENATOR BARBARA BOXER (D-CA); SENATOR DICK DURBIN (D-IL)

SUBJECT: SENATE ENERGY BILL

LOCATION: SENATE RADIO/TV GALLERY, U.S. CAPITOL, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:
SEN. SCHUMER: Well, thank you very much. And, as you know, I am joined by four of my colleagues here, and as you can see usually the only things that succeed around here are bipartisan efforts, and this was truly a bipartisan effort. We really didn't know until this morning that we were going to win. And even as people came into the well, we weren't sure, because there were all sorts of offers, counteroffers and everything else. I'd just make a few points, and I'm speaking for myself here. But I think this was one of the worst bills to come down the pike in 20 years, from some many points of view. There were many, many bad provisions in it, and what was missing was even worse than what was in the bill, namely an energy policy. We desperately need an energy policy in this country, especially now-post-9/11, post-blackout, post-Enron. And this bill seemed to feel that pork was a substitute for a policy. And that just can't be in America. You know, it's bad enough when you have to use pork to grease-it's bad enough when you have to use pork as grease to get policy done. But when you use pork as a substitute for a policy, then it can be disastrous, and in our judgment this bill had it passed would be disastrous.

I'll let everybody talk about provisions they care for. For my state, this would have raised gasoline prices by 10 cents. That's the ethanol provision. It's not that we don't want to encourage the use of ethanol, but we certainly don't want to mandate it for regions where it can't work. The MTBE provision was just a disgrace. It chose the large oil companies over the home owners. And there are thousands of home owners now. There will be hundreds of thousands of home owners shortly who will not be able to use the water in their homes. They won't be able to take a shower, they won't be able to drink water, they won't be able to brush their teeth with their water. And the only hope were these lawsuits, where people were at least bringing the oil companies to the table.

So, to say that you can't sue, when the MTBE companies not only knew the product was harmful, but didn't tell anyone-they didn't tell the gas station, Be careful, and here's what you do if it leaches-was a disgrace.

But, to me, even worse than what was in the bill was what was not in the bill-what was absent from the bill. And to have no policy basically. When any major special interest said, We don't want to do that, they said, Okay. And to say, you know spending a billion dollars to build a nuclear reactor in one place, and $8 billion for building something another place-that's not an energy policy. And so we felt obligated, many of us, to try to bring the bill down.

What will happen now? We are going to stick together as a coalition. We are going to do our best that no one is picked off by giving one little thing, because this is a bad policy. The only way we are going to craft a good policy is by working together in a bipartisan way to solve, to mitigate, the impending energy crisis that is upon us.

I'm going to call on John Sununu first. He's really been a true leader in this, and it was probably a lot harder for the Republicans to vote note than for the Democrats.

SEN. SUNUNU: Thank you. Suffice it to say this is, I am quite sure, the first press conference that Senator Schumer and I have done together. (Laughter.)

Chuck talked about a lot of the provisions that aren't good, that are problematic. Maybe they are problematic because they move money from the Northeast to the West Coast to agribusiness interests in the center of the country, and maybe they are bad because they didn't do enough protect environmental interests. And the group here will probably agree and disagree on a number of provisions in the bill. But the one thing we agree on is that on the whole this just wasn't good for America. It just wasn't good, sound energy policy. And from my standpoint it certainly wasn't good fiscal policy. This is an energy bill that busted the budget. This is an energy bill that had three times the tax provisions that were proposed by the president at the beginning of this process -- $25 billion in tax subsidies, where the president proposed only eight.

This is an energy bill that violated the Budget Act in four different ways. On the spending side, it violated the 302 provision of the Budget Act six different ways. It violated the spending limits for 2004, it broke the spending caps for the next five years, and it broke the spending caps for the next 10 years.

We need an energy policy, and I certainly felt that a number of the provisions on the regulatory side and on the electricity reliability standards were good provisions. But we can put together a bill that does the right thing for the country without busting the budget and without relying on a grab bag of interest provisions or tax subsidies that target particular areas of the country or particular industries in order to get votes. And that's just not the way to put together legislation, and it's wonderful to be part of a coalition of fair liberals, conservatives, moderate interests that were willing to draw the line and say, We would rather start all over again, try to get this right for the American taxpayer, then rely on legislation that distorts markets, distorts investment, and tries to micromanage American industry.

SEN. SCHUMER: I was just going to say Maria was incredible. I don't know if any of you saw her presentations with the charts or you should have seen her in the cloak room lobbying members with far more charm that I certainly could have.

SEN. CANTWELL: Thank you. Certainly I am sure a lot of people thought what do two senators from the Energy Committee from opposite sides of the country have in common, but certainly Senator Schumer and I felt it was important that we make a statement about this energy bill, and frankly about the administration's energy policy.

While the administration would like everybody to believe that they have an energy policy for the 21st century, this bill is much more about representing a fossil fuel industry that exists today, and a continuation of that policy. And the gravity and weight of this bill is what brought it down. The fact that it was not a concrete policy to move us forward, but instead a patchwork of subsidies, special giveaways, exemptions for Texas on the electricity title, and something quite offensive to me-actually sanctifying Enron contracts that have been known to be manipulative-in this bill was just more than I think members in a bipartisan fashion could tolerate.

I'm proud of what the Senate has done today, and I want to thank Senator Reid from Nevada for his help in counting votes on our side, because he certainly played a leadership role. And I'm proud that this institution is standing up on an issue that I don't think a lot of Americans understand. I don't think Americans understand what the federal government has to do with energy policy. I don't think they really understand that we have a responsibility on wholesale rates and on transmission rates, and that this administration wanted to continue to promulgate a policy that allowed special interests to stick their hands in the pockets of rate payers. While in a bipartisan fashion today we have taken a statement against that, and this is not the last battle.

There is much more to happen on this legislation. And while some may be pleased that if you take out the MTBE section that it might go; and others if you take out or encourage some further incentives it might go. But the bottom line is that this bill doesn't represent a step forward for this country. You cannot, as the vice president said in his own energy policy statement, promulgate an energy policy on the back of the environment. And if we are going to move forward on an energy policy, we have to do both: invest in new technology, create jobs, and protect our existing environment.

SEN. SCHUMER: John McCain has always been a leader fighting any kind of special and narrow interest. I'd like to call on John.

SEN. MCCAIN: Well, I want to thank all of my colleagues for their efforts. It was a victory that was not predicted. It is a victory that was brought about for several reasons, but one of them is that the closer this bill was examined the more unsavory it became obvious it was, chock full of things such as a facility to be put in New Mexico by an outfit that has connections with export of sensitive materials to foreign countries, relaxation of environmental laws. I mean, this bill will not pass, because the more people that examine it the more it becomes clear that it's a grab bag of special interest projects, and not an energy policy.

So, yes, the efforts are on right now. The store is open. One of our colleagues as we started up here said, What if we do this for it? Yes, the auction still goes on. But I never believed that it was accidental that we didn't receive this bill until a very short time ago, 1,200 pages. It still has not appeared on our desk -- 1,200 pages long, because it will not bear scrutiny. That's why I'm confident that they will not be able to purchase additional votes to get to 60. But we will keep fighting and make sure that we inform the American people of the provisions of this bill, some of which even we haven't been able to uncover yet.

Finally, I have never-it's on the rarest occasion-it was the rare occasion of Congressman Sununu and-excuse me, Senator Sununu and Senator Schumer having a press conference together. I have very rarely seen the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times on the same editorial position. I have never-on any issue, I have never on any issue seen editorial comment overwhelmingly-I have yet to see an editorial that favored this bill. I am sure there may be one or two. But I've never seen overwhelming editorial comment in opposition of a piece of legislation as I saw on this one. And, yes, the fight is not over. But I have a certain degree of confidence we will prevail.

SEN. SCHUMER: Barbara Boxer was always a strong leader on the MTBE provisions and on many other provisions in the bill. She had done the safe harbor amendment last year, or two years ago, and has been with us through this thick and thin.

SEN. BOXER: Thank you, Chuck. Let me start off by saying this is a very good day for the American people, because the public interests won out over the special interests. I'm so proud my chairman John McCain is here. I am so proud to be on the Commerce Committee with him. And he was the one who called this-what did you call it from day one?

SEN. MCCAIN: No Lobbyist Left Behind. (Laughter.)

SEN. BOXER: Indeed, indeed.

SEN. DURBIN: He had a lot of good ones.

SEN. BOXER: He had a lot of good ones. That's a good one.

SEN. MCCAIN: (Off mike) -- PHRASE 'budget busters.'

SEN. BOXER: So many things you could say about this very bad bill. In my heart today, I mean, I am just bursting with pride, because this is a rare occasion when I think the good guys win, and the good guys are the American people, American families all over the country who get up in the morning, and they deserve to be able to turn on the water and be able to at least bathe in it. And they deserve to know that there's an ability to get justice if somebody does you wrong, like big companies who put this MTBE in the water, in the gasoline and it leaches into the water, and they knew all along, and the court ruled there was malice involved. They deserve to know they have that door open to them. So I won't reiterate all of that.

I want to say that in October I wrote a letter, a very simple letter, to both Senator Domenici and Congressman Tauzin-simple: "We are writing to request that you oppose including a liability waiver for MTBE in an energy bill that comes out of conference." And it goes on to talk about how it's linked to leukemia and other problems. We got 43 signatures on this letter. This was a warning, red flags, to Domenici and to Tauzin. What did they do with it? They literally ripped it up and threw it away, and they are paying the price because they didn't listen to the people in the United States Senate. That's why.

And I want to make one more point, and then I will step down from my little stool here.

Let me tell you something else that really was breaking my heart through this whole thing. The ranking member on the Energy Committee is one of the most wonderful human beings in the United States Senate, and all of you who know him know it's true, that Senator Bingaman is one of the most-is one of the fairest people I've ever met. He's moderate, he works with everyone. He was shut out of that conference. You know, I never understood that from day one, because Jeff Bingaman would have walked down the bipartisan aisle on a bipartisan energy bill. So I hope that there are many messages sent out today-messages about special interests over public interests, messages about this being a bill for the 20th century, not the 21st century, a message about the fact that they repealed parts of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act in this bill, which is wrong; messages about the lobbyists, messages about issues that Senator McCain raised today which I wasn't even aware of-specific foreign corporations that were given huge deals. And I suspect you'll find out more of them as we finally get to look at the fine print of this bill.

And the last message is to the folks who run the United States Senate on a small-you know, by a small majority of a couple of seats: Let us in the room. If you let uss in the room, as John McCain does every single time, you will come out with legislation that will pass the Senate. Thank you.

SEN. SCHUMER: I mentioned this on the floor-I did want to underscore one thing Barbara said which was the system sort of works, and that's why we have conference committees and that's why we have debates on the floor. Well, this bill was pulled untimely from the floor, and then the conference committee was of two-and two who are both fine people, but they are from certain regions and certain viewpoints. And you can't have two people represent 100 senators or all of the United States. And I think that's one of the reason it failed. Had they been more inclusive, you wouldn't have had this product, but you probably would have had a bill that passed. And I say that with respect to both of them, whom I like very much.

Another great thing that you don't see enough about here is courage. You don't talk about. Well, Dick Durbin is the personification of courage. As you know, because he mentioned it on the floor, he has been one of the leaders in the view of ethanol. He even has a bottle of it in our refrigerator at home. But he has been stalwart in fighting for ethanol, and it means a lot to him. And yet when he saw how bad this bill was, he was one of the first ones who got up and said, "I can't support it." I remember seeing him on the floor-it came as a total surprise. And maybe without Dick Durbin having the courage to do what he did, maybe we wouldn't have won. So if you're looking for profiles in courage and you're looking for an example that is not politics as usual, look at him.

SEN. DURBIN: Please don't take a photo of my profile until I can lose a few more pounds. (Laughter.) But thank you --

SEN. BOXER: Stop drinking the ethanol. All the sugar --

SEN. DURBIN: If you look at the senators who have gathered here today after this vote, you understand the diversity-politically, geographically. And I come to this gathering as someone from the Midwest. I believe strongly in ethanol. I know my friend Senator McCain disagrees with me. But I believe in it. I think it's an important product for the energy future of America in terms of reducing our dependence on foreign oil and reducing population.

I hope that we can return to the debate about ethanol as part of our energy future.

But, quite honestly, I was very troubled by this bill. For more than 10 years, I've gone to press conferences with farm leaders from across the Middle West and across the nation, working hard for ethanol, and saying repeatedly that MTBE was an unacceptable alternative to ethanol, that MTBE was inherently dangerous, it could cause cancer and public health problems for generations to come. This is not just my point of view. It was a point of view expressed by virtually everyone who supported ethanol. We knew it, and we told America, and the oil companies ignored us and continued to sell hundreds of thousands of barrels of this MTBE additive, put it in the gasoline tank, see it leach into public water supplies, and see contaminations which threatened families and individuals and communities. We accepted it.

And that's why I was troubled when this bill came to the floor, and those of us who supported ethanol took a look at Section 1502, and realized that we were being asked to ignore what we had said for 10 years about the danger of MTBE. From my point of view, that's totally unacceptable. I'll work hard night and day for ethanol and its future, but not at the expense of 29 Illinois communities that currently have contaminated water supplies and would lose their day in court had this energy bill passed. T hat's unacceptable. T hat's unjust. It's unbefitting the United States Senate.

What did we learn today? I think we learned that we need to build an energy policy. But you don't build an energy policy by caving in to every special interest. Now, let me say the obvious: I don't know many senators who are allergic to pork. We all like earmarks when they help our states. But, frankly, this bill was a gusher of giveaways. Too many things disguised as an energy policy turned out to just be, as Senator Schumer said earlier, only a laundry list of pork giveaways and projects.

Secondly, we learned that you can't build an energy policy by trashing the environment. If that's the choice, between energy and the environment, there will be a fight every single time. Whether we are protecting public health and public water supplies or the air that people breathe, it's a reality, and we have to protect the environment.

And, finally, you can't build an energy policy without vision. How in the world can we stand here and say this is an energy bill and does nothing about the fuel efficiency of America's cars and trucks? An honest energy bill has to include that in the first section. This bill didn't include it at all. That's why it was defeated.

SEN. SCHUMER: Ready for questions.

Q What do you expect to go on in the next few days?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, you know, since they need two votes, what we worry about is that they will go to people, offer them certain things. Now, they can't do a new energy bill, because the rules of the Senate wouldn't allow that to happen, really in effect till next year. But what they can do, and what our worry is, that they will go to people and say, We will put something for you in the omnibus bill if you switch your vote on cloture. So that's our great worry.

On the other hand, it doesn't happen that often. Usually when there's one vote and the legislation doesn't change, it's rare that people change. So I think we have a pretty good chance to keep this, but don't count on it as money in the bank.

Q (Off mike) -- the president will weigh in -- (inaudible) -- ?

SEN. SCHUMER: I was told --

SEN. CANTWELL: I think the president did weigh in. I think there were phone calls made in the last 24 hours to members --

SEN. BOXER: From London.

SEN. CANTWELL: -- offering a variety of things, and I think the administration probably weighed in quite significantly to try to convince people that this was their energy policy.

SEN. SCHUMER: I know of a good number of senators who were offered things they very much wanted, and still voted no. And I think that speaks extremely well again of them and of the Senate.

SEN. BOXER: And I have to say one senator was approached-I was standing next to him in the well while they kept the vote open, and was offered all kinds of things. I was standing right there. And he turned to me and said, "You know, the more they do this, the more I'm not gonna"-he was offended by it. So you can-you just-the Senate should not be for sale, and I think today we proved maybe-maybe-maybe we're not.

SEN. SCHUMER: We're going to have to stay vigilant. That's the bottom line.

Q Senator Daschle said right after the vote that if they strip out the MTBE provision that this thing can pass this session.

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, you know, to strip out the MTBE provision involves two things: number one, a new bill which has to have-be amended and voted upon and subject to cloture all over again; and, B, I don't know if the House would accept it. There are ceratin people in the House who have powerful positions who really put the MTBE provision in. As you may remember, Senator Domenici argued against going as far as they did on MTBEs-at least I saw that reported in the papers. And so I don't think it's that simple.

Q He mentioned putting it on the omnibus spending bill.

SEN. SCHUMER: You mean the whole energy bill without the MTBE provision? I don't think that would be wise policy, and I don't think-I think there are a whole lot of Democrats who wouldn't like that.

SEN. BOXER: Well, if I could say, even Senator Sununu in his remarks right here a couple of minutes ago talked beyond the MTBE. Now, his state is one of-his state and New York are two for sure that lawsuits fall if this was to pass. But he went beyond that and said he was very worried it was a budget buster, that it wasn't a good policy for America. So I am encouraged by that. I mean, to me it seems like the opposition to this bill cuts very deep.

SEN. SCHUMER: John Sununu and Judd Gregg, the six Republicans, were offered a whole lot of things beforehand, because I talked to them. And they said, no, they didn't like the bill.

Q Senator-maybe this is a question for Senator Byrd, but is it true that if the conference committee's been dissolved that you guys just can't reconsider the bill on the floor?

SEN. SCHUMER: The only thing they can do to move things along without keeping us here for another week or two-which I think is not going to happen-is to re-vote cloture, just as they did here. Even there every senator is allowed to speak for an hour. That's what the rules are. So that would take some delay. But they could do that. And how would they get people to switch their vote? By saying put something in the omnibus. Now, I'd have to check that theory of putting the entire energy bill in the omnibus. But, as somebody said, this bill has been so widely reported on so negatively that I think that's a really-I think that might be the weight that would break the camel's back.

Q On MTBE again, to what degree do you all think that that provision was instrumental in today --

SEN. SCHUMER: I'd just speak for myself and say it was clearly instrumental, you know, with 58 votes. You could say without it, maybe the bill would have passed. But I think it served to be the lightning rod of many-there were many other provisions in the bill that were wrong, and I think it would be too simple to say now, maybe if they never put it in the bill would pass. But that doesn't mean if you just take it out that the bill would pass tomorrow.

SEN. CANTWELL: I think you have 150,000 sites around the country in probably every state that is affected by MTBE, and there were lots of concerns by members. But I think if you look at the bipartisan effort that we got from the Northeast, I think that they had multiple concerns. And so I don't think it's the single issue.

SEN. BOXER: If I could talk on MTBE, two things on that. Forty- three states are impacted by MTBE; 29 actually have it in their drinking water. And the last point I would make to you is 43 people warned the conferees -- 43. So, you know, it doesn't feel good to be that ignored. We sent them a warning on the point. But I think Chuck is right in looking forward. The only thing they can do is reconsider this. And that takes time and effort. We're leaving on Tuesday. Then they could take the leap and try to weigh that omnibus down. They've got enough trouble with the omnibus right now deciding what to do about overtime pay. Now they load this ugly ducking into it, and this thing could sink, and we could find ourselves just with the continuing resolutions.

Anyway, thank you very much for covering this MTBE part. Thank you.