Keystone XL Pipeline Act -- Continued
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the legislation before
this body, the Keystone XL Pipeline Act. I wish to address three issues
that have been brought up as we have continued this discussion.
I start out by thanking the Senator from Alaska and the Senator from
Washington who are leading this effort to bring forward amendments from
both sides of the aisle. I think they are doing great work. They are
heavily engaged in trying to make sure the people's amendments are
brought forward and that we have a vote. So I thank them for that and
again encourage everyone to work with both these bill managers who I
believe all of us feel are doing an excellent job. So let's get going.
Let's get voting on these amendments. Let's make them pending and have
that vote.
This is again, after all, an effort not only to advance this
legislation but also to reestablish regular order in this body and move
to an open amendment process--which is so important again not just in
terms of people being heard on this legislation, having votes on
amendments, but for other legislation that Senators want to bring
forward for the good of this country, to have the debate, to offer
their ideas, to get a vote, and to get things done for the American
people. That is what it is all about. We have to keep that in mind and
not lose track of that. This is truly about not just this legislation
but getting to regular order, which I think is so important for the
work we do, to accomplish the work we need to do on behalf of the
American people.
Let me touch on three aspects of the current legislation that have
been brought up. One is that it is a bill for Canada rather than for
the United States. It is something that is very much in the interest of
the United States, so I want to address that. I also want to talk about
some of the environmental aspects from the standpoint that there are
hundreds of millions of dollars being invested in new technologies by
major companies in the oil sands in Alberta, Canada, that are going to
help deploy and develop things such as carbon capture and storage, which can be used not only to reduce the environmental footprint and the greenhouse emissions of oil produced in the Canadian oil sands, but that is technology then that will get adopted in this country and around the world because it enables us to produce more energy more cost-effectively, more
dependably, and with environmental stewardship. So that is a win on
both counts, and here is a place where it is being developed. So let's
empower that investment that produces more energy with better
environmental stewardship as we go forward into the future.
Then the third area I want to touch on for just a minute is pipeline
safety because some of the recent spills have been brought up. It is so
important that we have the new infrastructure to replace older
infrastructure.
For example, the pipeline spill in Poplar, MO, near Glendive, MO, has
been brought up. It is a pipeline that I think was originally built and
put in place in the 1950s. So we are talking about a 50-year-old
pipeline with 50-year-old technology. Whether it is roads or bridges or
pipelines or transmission lines or any kind of infrastructure--we need
infrastructure for this country, but we have to update it. Think about
building a road 50 years ago and then not putting in a new one to
replace and update it with the new technologies that have been
developed to make it better.
When we talk about trying to get these new infrastructure projects
going--again, paid for 100 percent with private dollars--this generates
revenue for the taxpayer. This doesn't take one penny of taxpayer
money. This is an $8 billion state-of-the-art pipeline. It is important
for all the reasons we have talked about, but it also is the kind of
thing that will replace some of the older technologies and give us that
updated new infrastructure we need.
So I think when we hear about a spill, wherever it may occur, we want
to make sure it is taken care of and fully remediated and take
precautions so it doesn't happen again. But we have to understand we
have to put the new infrastructure in place if we want to reduce the
number of spills we have as we continue to rely on infrastructure that
is 50 years old--when we don't make or allow these new investments to
be made.
So I will touch on all those for just a few minutes.
Again, I know the bill managers are hard at work. They are having
great dialogue. If they come out and are ready to go, I will yield the
floor right away to do that. Again, the priority is to keep the process
moving and get amendments up and have them voted on.
The first issue: It is a Canadian project somehow, not a U.S.
project. The first point I would make, on its face, is it is going to
move domestically produced crude as well as Canadian crude. Everybody
talks about the fact that it starts up in Hardisty and says it is going
to move Canadian oil, and then they stop there. But it is not only
going to move Canadian oil, it is going to move oil from North Dakota,
Montana--light, sweet Bakken shale oil--out of this region of our
country. So it is going to move both domestic crude as well as Canadian
crude. So when somebody says it is just a Canadian project, that is not
true. That would be akin to somebody saying it is only a U.S. project
because it is moving U.S. oil.
For beginners, it is important that people understand it is not just
Canadian oil, it is oil we produce in our country that needs to get to
refineries as cost-effectively and safely as possible.
What is happening is because we are being blocked from getting these
kind of pipelines developed because they can't get through the
regulatory process, the oil production we are producing in our part of
the country, in North Dakota, Montana, and the Bakken area, as well as
other areas of the country is all having to move by rail.
For example, right now my State of North Dakota produces 1.2 million
barrels of oil a day, second only to Texas, and that number has been
growing. That growth I think will slow down right now because the price
of oil has come down so much. But the point is we are having to move
700,000 barrels a day by rail because we don't have the pipelines, such
as the Keystone XL Pipeline, approved.
That creates other problems as well. We produce a tremendous number
of ag commodities and ag products. We actually are the leader of 14
different major ag commodities in the country--things such as wheat,
for example, and many other farm commodities as well. All of those
things get backed up on the rail system because we are trying to move
so much oil on the rail that we can't handle all the congestion.
So it is not just an issue in terms of energy for our country, but it
is affecting our other commerce, our farmers, and other goods that are
trying to be shipped. It is not just goods that originate from our part
of the country but all the goods that go back and forth and are trying
to go through that bottleneck.
But the biggest reason it is very much a U.S. project is because it
is about getting to energy security and energy independence.
Right now the United States consumes about 18 million barrels of oil
a day. We produce about 11 million barrels a day--which is up
tremendously in recent years because of production on private and State
lands in places such as North Dakota. That means we still import about
7 million barrels a day. We use 18 million barrels of oil a day. We
produce 11 million barrels a day. We import 7 million. The amount of
oil we get from Canada is increasing. We are up to more than 3 million
barrels a day that we import from Canada. So if we take the 11 million
we produce plus the 3 million we get from Canada, that is 14. That
leaves us 4 million short of what we use on a daily basis. We get that
from places such as OPEC, Venezuela, and other parts of the world that
have very different interests in many cases than our own.
I think the American people very much want to get to a position where
we don't have to rely on OPEC anymore for the oil we use. In fact, we
are getting there. We are getting there. As I say, we are at the point
now between ourselves and Canada where we have 14 million of the 18
million a day we use covered.
If we can continue to develop our energy resources and work with
Canada, we can truly have North American energy security--meaning we
don't have to rely on OPEC anymore for our oil. That is a national
security issue. It is an energy issue. It is a jobs issue. It is an
economic growth issue. It is a national security issue. Look at what is
going on in the Middle East. Americans do not want to rely on OPEC for
their oil anymore.
Look at the benefit. As we produce more energy in this country and
work with Canada, look at what is happening at the pump. Oil prices are
down more than $1 from 1 year ago because we are producing so much
more. Basic economics: More supply helps bring prices down. So it is
not just about energy independence and energy security for our country,
it is about lower energy costs for consumers, for small business. It is
not only good for our hard-working Americans as they pull up to the
pump and benefit every day from those lower gas prices, but it helps
make our economy grow because energy is a foundational industry.
When we have low-cost energy produced in this country that we know we
can rely on, that makes us competitive in every other industry sector
in a global economy.
So when somebody says: This is just about a pipeline or it is just
about a Canadian issue, it is not the case. This is very much about our
energy future in this country and how we are going to build it, both to
be energy secure and to make our economy go when we have to compete
globally.
The second issue--and I often show this chart because it makes the
second part of that energy security point. If we don't work with Canada
so that this oil comes to us and we control that oil and control our
energy future, Canada is going to make other arrangements. They are
going to build pipelines to their west coast, and that oil is going to
China and we will continue to import oil from OPEC. That is how life
works. We either take advantage of this opportunity with our closest
friend and ally in the world or somebody else will.
The next one I want to touch on for just a minute is the
environmental. We hear about this so much, the environmental aspects of
this project. I have been on the floor and I have talked about various aspects of the project based on the science and based on the fact that there have actually been five environmental impact statements produced. The
environmental impact statements produced by the Obama administration
say there will be less greenhouse gas emissions with the pipeline than
without it because we will be able to move that 830,000 barrels a day
of oil by pipeline, rather than moving it by either 1,400 rail cars or
sending it to China where the refineries have higher emissions than
ours do.
But I would like to go beyond that and talk for a minute in a broader
sense about our energy future and how we not only produce more energy
more cost-effectively from all sources, from all kinds of energy, but
how we can do it with better environmental stewardship. And the way
forward there is really technology. It is the American ingenuity, the
investment in technology, and the creativity of our companies and our
entrepreneurs. That is the real key to success in the future in terms
of producing more energy more cost-effectively, more independently, and
with better environmental stewardship--by leading the way forward with
technology development. We cannot export our regulations, but as we
develop technologies, those, in effect, get exported around the world
because other countries adopt those technologies.
So I will talk just a minute about the technology development that is
going on in the oil sands. Since 1990 the greenhouse gas emissions on a
per-barrel basis in the oil sands have gone down by 28 percent, almost
one-third. On a per-barrel basis they have reduced their greenhouse gas
emissions by 28 percent since 1990. They are engaged in major projects
now to develop and deploy new technologies that will help them produce
oil in the oil sands region with a smaller footprint--which is what I
am showing here--through in situ development and also through carbon
capture and storage.
We talk so often about developing carbon capture and storage in this
country. That is being developed and deployed in the oil sands right
now. The Quest project, which is a project Shell Oil Company is
undertaking--let me read from a bit of a summary on their Quest
project, which is a project for carbon capture and storage they are
developing right now.
This is a picture of it. It is in situ--which means drilling and
using steam to bring the oil out rather than excavation, which is the
old style--so it has a much smaller environmental footprint, but it
also reduces greenhouse gas emissions because they capture the
CO2 and they store it.
A point of inquiry, Mr. President. I would like to ask the bill
managers if they are ready to move forward or make any announcement. If
we have any amendments, I would gladly yield the floor for that
purpose.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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Mr. HOEVEN. I will wrap up in 2 minutes and will then yield the floor
to the Senator from Alabama.
I have been talking about a number of different points, but right now
I would like to defer. I will be back on the issues as we continue this
debate. Again, I thank the bill managers, and I am very pleased to see
that Senators are coming down and making these amendments pending. That is what we need do now. I thank Senators on both sides of the aisle for
doing that.
With that, I yield the floor to the Senator from Alabama.
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