Domestic Fuel Tax

Floor Speech

This morning I spoke on the floor and I talked about energy. I talked about the need for a States first, all-of-the-above approach to a comprehensive energy plan that will not only produce more energy for our country but will get us to energy independence or energy security within a very short period of time and will also help with environmental stewardship and will help us deploy the technology that will not only produce more energy--and do it in a dependable, cost effective way--but at the same time the same technology as we deploy it will help us produce that energy with better environmental stewardship.

That is the right kind of plan for America. We have legislation that I introduced along with my colleagues both on the Republican side of the aisle and the Democratic side of the aisle to accomplish that plan, including a good friend of mine, a Senator from West Virginia, a Democrat. I am a Republican, but we have been able to work together on legislation that will empower hundreds of billions in private investment into the energy sector to produce more energy more cost-effectively, more independently, more efficiently, more reliably, and with better environmental stewardship because it deploys the new technologies that not only will make a difference in this country, but will be adopted by other countries around the globe.

That means lower-cost energy. That means more energy, and at the same time better environmental stewardship. That is the right approach. That is the right approach to a comprehensive energy policy.

The fact is, we do not just have one bill to do what I am talking about--not just one big, monolithic Federal approach--but rather we have a whole series of bills that would create a step-by-step approach to a comprehensive energy plan for this Nation that would truly create a States first, all-of-the-above approach. That would create more jobs and economic growth. It would create tax revenue to help address our deficit and our debt without raising taxes through economic growth.

It would create more domestic energy, and more domestic energy means national security, not being dependent on oil from the Middle East. This country does not want to be dependent on oil from the Middle East and there is no reason that we should be. Together with our closest friend and ally Canada, we can produce more than enough energy for our needs. That means national security, and as I said, with the new technologies and better environmental stewardship.

As I said, I put forward legislation with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to accomplish just that. Again, this isn't one big, comprehensive 1,000-page bill that you have to pass to understand what is in it. These are individual bills that are very understandable, that are common sense--legislation that includes approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline. As I said this morning, the administration has been reviewing the Keystone XL Pipeline for more than 5 years. This Congress can approve it, and it should.

It includes items such as the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act, which has already been passed by the House. It includes a whole series of bills that would help us to develop a strategic, comprehensive plan and goals to make sure we are producing more energy in this country on public lands both onshore and off.

The Empower States Act makes sure that States have a primary responsibility for regulating hydraulic fracture. Hydraulic fracturing is enabling us to tap new areas of energy that we never thought we would be able to develop.

Coal ash recycling legislation. Together with my good friend from the great State of West Virginia, we have a coal ash recycling bill. This bill not only will help us recycle coal ash for building materials, for building roads, but it will also help make sure that when we landfill coal ash, it is done with good environmental stewardship. That is a win-win.

This is something the EPA is working on. They have to have a solution in place by the end of the year, and we have worked with the EPA to actually come up with something that is clear and understandable and works, not only to make the landfill safer but to make sure we can recycle coal ash in a way that reduces the cost of our roads and our buildings. Again, just another commonsense example of what is in the Domestic Fuels Act.

The Domestic Fuels Act allows marketers, gas stations, to not only sell oil and gas products but actually makes it easier for them to sell renewable fuel as well--ethanol, biofuels, hopefully hydrogen and other fuels of the future. It makes it easier for them to get permitted and to use the same equipment to sell a whole variety of different types of fuels. What does that mean? That means consumer choice. That means more competition to help bring down the price at the pump. Now this is the same kind of

comprehensive plan that we developed in my State of North Dakota. We called our energy plan EmPower ND--EmPower North Dakota.

The idea was to unleash all of our energy resources, both traditional and renewable. Our State is now an energy powerhouse for the Nation. The only State that produces more oil for this country now is Texas. We are closing in on a million barrels a day of oil, and producing it in new ways with new techniques that people thought were not possible a few years ago, and with a smaller footprint and better stewardship. That is what the technology does.

When you create an environment where you empower the investment, that technology unleashes the energy and does it with better environmental stewardship. We did that as a State, and we can do it as a country. It builds on the very foundation of how our government works.

The States in our great country are the laboratories of democracy. What I am proposing is that we also make the States the laboratories of energy development. We do that by giving them the primary role in how they develop energy, how they develop their energy resources and how those energy resources are regulated.

So whether it is oil or gas or nuclear or biofuels, hydro, wind, solar, biomass or whatever else may be an area of strength for that State, they decide and they figure out how to develop it. Who will be more concerned about good environmental stewardship than the people who live right there and deal with it every single day?

It is a States first, all-of-the-above comprehensive plan for energy development for this country instead of the current approach, an approach where there is too much regulation, taxation, and restriction by big Federal policies. This one-size-fits-all approach is, in fact, preventing investment in energy development in this country.

I will give you the Keystone XL Pipeline as a great case in point. There is $5.3 billion in investment and not one penny of Federal spending, but $5.3 billion that has been held on the sideline now for more than 5 years. In 2011 the Chamber of Commerce put forward a study. They cited hundreds of projects across the country totaling hundreds of billions of dollars that were being held up that would create energy and jobs and economic activity for our country. If you think about it, you cannot regulate it. The Federal Government cannot regulate our way to a solution--think about it--even if you put out regulations. If the Obama administration could say, OK, only these kind of energies can be produced and they have to be produced this way--even if that worked in this country, what about the rest of the globe?

This is a global issue. So instead of holding up the development and deployment of these new technologies with regulatory barriers, we need to empower that investment. As you empower investment and you produce energy and you deploy new technologies, you get better environmental stewardship.

It doesn't happen in just this country. It will happen in other countries too. Why? Because they will adopt the technology we develop. That is how it works. When somebody develops a better technology, then other companies, other countries adopt it.

So let me contrast what is going on right now. One of the things I worked on both as a Governor and now here in the Senate is getting the Keystone XL Pipeline approved. It has been more than 5 years--more than 5 years--and the administration still refuses to make a decision. That is defeat by delay, sidelining $5.3 billion of private investment that the administration's own studies show will create jobs. The final environmental impact study produced by the Department of State said that the Keystone XL Pipeline project will create 42,000 jobs without spending a penny of Federal money. The $5.3 billion in private investment would create 42,000 jobs at a time when we need to get the economy growing and creating jobs. It also will create hundreds of millions in revenue that will address the deficit and the debt at the local, State, and Federal level. It will also create hundreds of millions in revenue over many years at a time when we have deficit and debt without raising taxes. It also strengthens national security.

There is no question when you go to the public and say: Do we want to get our oil from the Middle East or would we rather get our oil from right here in the United States and Canada, if we can produce it ourselves and get it from Canada, is that what we want or do we want to continue to rely on the Middle East, obviously that is a pretty easy answer, isn't it?

In a recent public poll performed last week, March 7, by the Washington Post and ABC, two-thirds of Americans support building the Keystone XL Pipeline and 22 percent oppose. After 5 years and study after study, the administration still can't make a decision. Yet two-thirds of Americans know what we need to do. Two-thirds of the American people say: Build the pipeline. What are you waiting for? Only 22 percent oppose it.

The final environmental impact--I believe it is either the fourth or fifth environmental impact study--done by the Obama administration came out and again it showed there was no significant environmental impact. That was released at the end of January.

The inspector general's report that was released at the end of February said there was no conflict of interest by the company hired to do the environmental impact statement. Yet still we wait. There is still no decision. So you wonder why. You look at our economy and you say: Why isn't our economy growing faster? Why isn't our economy stronger? Why isn't unemployment going down? Why is there so much investment capital sidelined? Why aren't businesses growing? Why aren't small businesses growing? Why aren't small businesses across the country hiring people? Then we see regulations which are holding up approvals for more than 5 years. Maybe that is the answer.

America has always been the place where everybody came to do business because it was easier to do business. As a result our economy has always been the greatest economy in the world. When we have a government that can't even make a decision on a regulatory approval to approve a project billions of dollars after its own agency has come out time and time and time again and said there is no reason not to go forward, maybe that is the problem.

Obviously the people of this country know that. That is why when you go out and ask them a commonsense question, they give you a commonsense answer: Build the pipeline. We listened to the arguments about how we can't build the pipeline because of CO2 emissions because using oil from the oil sands in Alberta, Canada, will create CO2.

The reality is--and as the environmental impact study done by the State Department clearly shows--you have more CO2 emissions without the pipeline than you do building it. How does that make sense? How does it make sense to hold it up on the basis of CO2 emissions when you have more CO2 emissions without the pipeline than with it?

Of course the net result is instead of having the energy come to the United States, it goes to China. And what do we do? We keep importing oil from the Middle East.

What I am talking about is commonsense legislation. That was just one example. I can give you others.

Earlier this year we passed a bill I put forward with other Members. It is the BLM bill, Bureau of Land Management streamlining bill. It is a simple, commonsense bill. It simply says BLM offices can work across State lines. For example, the BLM office in Miles City, MT, can work across the State line in North Dakota. That just makes sense because we have so much oil activity in our State. Not only can they work in our State, they can also work on the reservation.

We have the three affiliated tribes reservations: Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara. It is a very large reservation in our State with incredible oil activity, but they have to get all these regulatory permits to drill wells too, and the Bureau of Land Management could not keep up in our State or on the reservation. Now they can bring their people from other offices in to help.

When we look at this, it is not just about producing more energy, is it? That is a simple, commonsense act which we passed in both this Chamber and the House. It is now law. It not only helps us produce more energy in our States, such as North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and other places, but it also helps our reservations.

We now have activity on the three affiliated tribes' reservations. They have tremendous employment and tremendous growth. They are getting revenue from their oil wells that they can use for social programs to help needy families, to pay for education, and to use for roads and vital infrastructure.

Tomorrow--along with Senator Barrasso and Senator Enzi of Wyoming--we will introduce another similar bill that makes it easier to build gas-gathering systems both on reservations and off. Instead of flaring off gas at the wellhead site, you are able to build gathering systems and get that gas to pipelines and get it to market and use it. Again, that is not just about producing more energy; that is an example of better environmental stewardship.

By putting these commonsense measures into place, we create economic activity and more energy, but as I said from the outset, we get better environmental stewardship. I mentioned that the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act is part of that comprehensive plan to have the States first all-of-the-above energy approach for our country; that legislation will help us produce more energy both onshore and offshore on our public lands.

Again, that is good for all the reasons I have identified but think about it in this context too: By producing more energy on public lands, we will also create more revenue for the Federal Government. Without raising taxes, we create more revenue for the Federal Government. That is important to address our deficit and our debt.

We have something else coming up that we are going to have to find a revenue source for; that is, a highway bill. In September the highway bill expires, and we are going to have to have a highway bill. We want a 5-year highway bill that is a very strong, well-funded highway bill to address the infrastructure needs in this country. Whether you talk to Republicans or Democrats in this Chamber, they will tell you we need to address infrastructure across this country.

In order to address infrastructure, we have to have a way to pay for it. How are we going to pay for it? How are we going to pay for that next highway bill? Right now the trust fund doesn't have the money to do it, so we are going to have to find a source. How about we tap into more energy on our Federal lands onshore and offshore? Without raising taxes, we have a revenue source so we can actually pass a 5-year highway bill. That is a long-term revenue source that we can actually use to fund the highway bill and address the infrastructure in this country.

It is about more than energy. This commonsense approach to building an energy plan for our country--and again it is not that big 1,000-page, one-size-fits-all Federal approach where everybody has to do the same thing. It is a step-by-step process to build a comprehensive plan that empowers the States to build on their strengths and make things happen. We can do it. It has all of those benefits. As I mentioned earlier, it even comes down to our national security.

I will close on this point: Think about what is happening in Western Europe. We have a situation where Russia--President Putin has decided he is going to invade Ukraine and he is going to take Crimea and put it under Russian rule and maybe more. We will see. So what do we do? What does the European Union do?

One of the decisions the European Union has to address is the energy situation. They are asking: What is the energy situation in Europe? Right now 30 percent of the natural gas the European Union utilizes comes from Russia and half of that goes through Ukraine. It is a particularly acute issue for West Germany.

What do they do? Are they going to be willing to get tough with Putin when they are dependent on Russia for their natural gas for their energy? What decision do they make?

The same thing for our country: What decisions do we make when we continue to get our oil from places such as the Middle East and Venezuela? We say no to getting oil from Canada and force our closest friend and ally to turn to exporting that oil to China.

How do we deal with China? How are we dealing in that situation with our allies, such as Canada, that want to work with us, and how are we dealing with countries that have different interests than we do?

All of these things tie together to a good energy plan and a good energy policy. We all want better environmental stewardship, but we want solutions. The American people want solutions. They want commonsense, real solutions to address these problems. We put forward an approach that can make a big difference for our country, and I call on my colleagues to join with me and to work to put that in place for the good of our country today and for future generations.

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

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