Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

By Mr. HOEVEN (for himself, Mr. DONNELLY, Ms. MURKOWSKI, and Mr. MANCHIN):

S. 2823. A bill to require approval for the construction, connection, operation, or maintenance of oil or natural gas pipelines or electric transmission facilities at the national boundary of the United States for the import or export of oil, natural gas, or electricity to or from Canada or Mexico, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I rise today to present the North American Energy Infrastructure Act. It is a bipartisan piece of legislation that I think is very important to helping our country build the infrastructure we need to truly become energy independent or energy self-sufficient--energy secure, if you will.

This is bipartisan legislation. It is legislation that has already passed the House. It was sponsored in the House by Representative Fred Upton, who is the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. It was cosponsored on the Democratic side by Gene Green, a Congressman from Texas. I have bipartisan sponsors for this legislation in the Senate as well--on the Republican side, Senator Lisa Murkowski, who is the ranking member on the energy committee; and then I have two other members of the energy committee who are Democrats cosponsoring this legislation as well, Senator Joe Donnelly from Indiana and Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia. Certainly Senator Manchin is recognized as one of the leaders in the Senate on important energy issues. I am very appreciative of having him join me on this legislation as well. I am introducing this legislation now.

This is the sixth anniversary of the application by TransCanada for a permit to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. They applied for approval of a pipeline project--the Keystone XL Pipeline project--6 years ago as of Friday of this week. Can you imagine that? Americans fought and won World War II in less time than this application has been pending before the President of the United States, yet still no decision from this administration after 6 years.

This is vital infrastructure we need to truly make this country energy secure. Working with Canada, we can truly produce more energy than we consume and make our country energy secure, but we cannot do it without the necessary infrastructure--the roads, the pipelines, the rail, the transmission lines--the energy infrastructure we need to get energy from where it is produced, places such as my State of North Dakota, which is now the second largest producer of oil in this country, second only to Texas. We produce more than 1 million barrels a day of oil, but we have to get it to market. It is getting loaded and overloaded on rail. We have tremendous congestion on rail. Our farmers cannot get their ag products to market anymore because we have so much congestion on the rail. Yet here we have an application that has been held for 6 years by the President of the United States without a decision. That is after last year when he came to the Republican caucus and told us point blank that he would have a decision before the end of 2013. No decision. Here we are in 2014, the sixth anniversary.

Well, look, we cannot continue to have that problem.

We have to find a way to build this infrastructure. Even though we are working on Keystone on a separate track--and I believe we will have the votes next year to pass it. We will have the 60 votes in the Senate we need to pass it. We are at 57 right now. We are very close. I think by next year we will have those 60 votes to pass Keystone, and we will work to do that and attach it to legislation the President will not veto. So we will continue to work on Keystone on that track, but at the same time we have to avoid this problem in the future with oil pipelines, with gas pipelines, and with transmission lines.

We have to be able to build that infrastructure not only in this country, but we have to be able to cross the border with Canada. Canada is a huge producer of energy. So working together, we have this incredible opportunity if we can build the infrastructure to do it. It is not just for fossil fuels. It is not just for oil. It is not just for gas. It is for renewables as well. Canada produces an incredible amount of hydro, which, of course, is electricity. We need transmission lines to bring that renewable hydro across the border.

So this is about all forms of energy, and this is about working with our closest friend and ally to truly address that energy issue. It is a job-creation issue. It is a national security issue.

What does this legislation do, the North American Energy Infrastructure Act? What it does is it expedites, streamlines the approval process for cross-border construction of oil pipelines, gas pipelines, and electric transmission lines.

How does it work? First, oil pipelines. Right now, a Presidential national interest determination is needed for approval or authority to build an oil pipeline across the Canadian border. Of course, that is the problem we see with Keystone. That has been held up now for 6 years. So this changes that process for future projects. As I said, it has already passed the House overwhelmingly--overwhelmingly. I think it had pretty much all of the Republican votes and I think more than 50 votes on the Democratic side. They had very strong bipartisan support in the House.

What it does is it changes that approval process for crossing the border with an oil pipeline, moving it to the State Department. So the State Department will make that determination approving a cross-border transfer. It will still be subject to the NEPA process. You will still have to do an environmental impact statement. But the focus of that EIS--environmental impact statement--or the NEPA process, will be on the border section, not on the entire length of the project throughout all the States that pipeline may cross. It will focus on the border section. And the State Department has to come up with reasonable rules to determine what that distance is that constitutes crossing the border with Canada.

Then the rest of the NEPA process will continue just as it does today for any other project that does not come across the border. Right now States have their jurisdiction in some cases and the Federal Government has its jurisdiction in some cases, depending on whether it is private land or it is public land or Federal land. Maybe it is a body of water. Whatever. So the NEPA process continues as before, driven by the States or the Federal Government depending on what particular part of the country or the type of land or the body of water you are crossing.

I think that is why it garnered such strong bipartisan support. We continue that process and those protections, but we do not allow the determination on the cross-border process or the cross-border piece to be held up by all of the NEPA process and all of the sitings that may be covered in all the respective States that pipeline crosses. Those processes are already in place. Do not use crossing the border as an excuse to tie up all these other processes and basically usurp the authority of the States that are affected by that project.

I think it is a very reasonable process, and it is one that I think we should be able to come together on in a bipartisan way to say: It is open. It is fair. That is why we have bipartisan support in the sponsorship--Senator Donnelly, Senator Manchin, Senator Murkowski, myself, all people who work on energy--because we have struck that balance. It is about creating a good business climate that will encourage that investment to create the infrastructure we need to move the energy from where it is produced to where it is consumed in the safest way possible--in the safest way possible--in the most economic way possible.

That is what it is about, the best environmental stewardship. Isn't that what we all want? Obviously it is. But if we don't do this, where are we? Well, right now we are waiting 6 years for a determination on the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Here is another example I will give, the Bakken North pipeline, a pipeline that goes from North Dakota to Cushing, and they have been waiting for 1 1/2 years on an ownership name change from the Department of State, 1 1/2 years to change the name. Really? Does that make sense to anybody? If it takes that long for something that simple, what do we do when we actually need to build this infrastructure that is so important to the energy future of our country?

What about gas pipelines? Gas pipelines will be covered by FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. What we say is: Look, they will go through the NEPA process too. Just as we describe with the Department of State on an oil pipeline, they will take that cross-border piece and do the same thing, do a NEPA process so you have an environmental impact statement and cover all the bases. But then 30 days after, they have to make a decision. They can't just sit on it, and the rest of the NEPA process continues as we described on an oil pipeline. Again, very simple, very straightforward, and it comports with the free trade agreements we have with Canada and with Mexico.

On the third piece, electric transmission lines, that process will be overseen by the Department of Energy. We simply streamline the process. Right now there are two permits required, one that is driven by the administration, one that is congressionally driven. We combine those and make it one process; again, cover all the bases, as I have described, with an oil pipeline or a gas pipeline, but we make it one process instead of a duplicative process.

When we look at what is going on in the world today, we see why this legislation is so important. Look at ISIL. Look at ISIL in the Middle East and what is happening there. We are right now confronting how we need to address this very significant challenge, how we need to work with allies in the region to take out ISIL. Do we really want to continue to be dependent on oil from the Middle East? I think we could ask every single American that question and the answer would be a resounding no. There is no way we want to have to get oil from the Middle East. But we still are today. Yet we can produce more oil and gas in this country, particularly with Canada, than we can consume.

Why would we continue to want to be dependent on the Middle East or Venezuela or any other place that is antagonistic or hostile toward our interests? We don't. This is a national security issue. It is an energy issue. It is a job creation issue. It is an economic growth issue. And it is for darned sure a national security issue. Which is why every time we ask the public about it, more than two-thirds say: Yes, build that infrastructure. Build that Keystone Pipeline. Let's work with Canada, our closest friend and ally in the world, to get our energy.

Look what is going on in Europe. Look what is going on with Russia and Ukraine. Look at the situation a country such as Ukraine or the European Union is in because of Russian aggression. Where do they get their energy? Where does Ukraine get its energy? Where does the European Union get their energy? They get a third or more--from? Russia. Russia, the same country that is invading Ukraine, the same country occupying Crimea and the eastern part of Ukraine.

Then when we try to get the European Union to join with us to push back, what do they say? Geez, I don't know. We can't, because Russia is going to cut off the gas and it is fall and it is getting colder.

Does that make sense to anybody? Is that the situation we want to be in? I think it is pretty compelling. Do we want to be in a situation where we have to try to get oil out of the Middle East with ISIL over there operating the way they are? I don't think so.

These issues are all interrelated, and they are not short-term issues. We can't start building that infrastructure today and have it done tomorrow. These are billion-dollar investments. They don't cost the government a single penny, but they are billion-dollar investments that private enterprise is willing to make and put people to work, provide that energy more safely, more securely, with better environmental stewardship, and address our national security challenges. That type of energy plan is a long-term plan for this country, and it is one we need to start now.

For six years we have been waiting for a decision from the President on a multibillion dollar pipeline project that will not only bring oil from Canada to the United States but will move 100,000 barrels a day of oil from my home State to refineries in this country, that by the State Department's own admission will create more than 40,000 jobs, that will create hundreds of millions in tax revenue, that will help us create energy security for our country, that will allow us to work with our closest friend and ally, Canada, rather than telling them: No, we are not going to work with you. Send that oil to China. It is something the American people overwhelmingly want by about 70 percent in most of the polls that I guess is being held up by special interest groups.

This is about how we run this country. This is about who we work for. This is about having a long-term plan to build the kind of energy future for America that I believe the American people very much want.

Let's go to work and pass this bipartisan legislation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source