Keystone XL Pipeline Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I appreciate this opportunity to engage in
a discussion with my colleague from Massachusetts on the important
issues. He has raised several issues in regard to oil export and then
also in regard to the environmental aspects.

If I could take a minute to address both of those, for starters, I
would point out that it is interesting that the Senator, my good friend
from Massachusetts, is opposed to this pipeline project and talks about
our need to import oil, and therefore we should not allow any exports,
because we need to import oil. Yet he is opposed to a project that
would not only bring Canadian oil to our country, 830,000 barrels a
day, but also would help us move 100,000 barrels of oil a day from my
State of North Dakota and my neighboring State of Montana--light sweet
Bakken crude. So he objects to that, and he talks about our need to
import oil. The irony here is that if he is successful and he and the
other critics or opponents of this pipeline and the infrastructure are
successful, then what Canada will do is they will build a pipeline to
the west coast of Canada, and they will export that oil to China--100
percent of it.

So it appears that his argument is that because some portion of this
oil may be exported if we build the pipeline, somehow it is better to
force Canada to export 100 percent of it to China. Now, I do not begin
to understand that argument. So if we cannot have 100 percent--every
single drop--stay here, then we are better off to send all 100 percent
to China. That is my opponent's argument. I do not understand it. It
does not make sense to me.

The second point I would like to make is if he goes to the
environmental impact statement issued by the Obama State Department,
the environmental impact statement says that the oil would be used in
the United States. If he looks at the Obama administration's Department
of Energy report, he will see that the report also indicates that this
oil is going to be used in the United States.

Now, that does not mean that we use every drop of it. I will give you
some statistics. The United States retains 99 percent of all crude oil
within the country that we produce. The United States uses 97 percent
of the gasoline that we refine in this country. So, remember, this oil
comes to refineries in Patoka, IL, and to the gulf coast. It goes to
Cushing, and it gets refined.

The statistics are that we use 97 percent of that gasoline from oil
that is refined in our country. The other thing I would point out is
that the oil that comes in on this pipeline, along with the crude that
comes from the Bakken, is both Canadian and domestic oil. That cannot
be exported without approval from the Secretary of Commerce of the
Obama administration.

So here again, my good friend from Massachusetts is putting forth an
amendment that absolutely no oil in this one pipeline can be exported
at any time to anywhere from the country, yet they already have
provisions in law that it cannot be exported without the Secretary of
Commerce's approval. The Secretary of Commerce is appointed by
President Obama.

So, again, if you look at the administration's own reports, and they
have been done over more than 6 years that this project has been
pending--the administration now has had 6 years to review this project,
has done so, and has produced five environmental impact statements. The
conclusion of those environmental impact statements is ``no significant
environmental impact.'' That is the administration's own environmental
impact statements produced by the State Department.

But after 6 years, they have come out and said: This oil will be used
here, and to be exported, it would have to be approved by the Secretary
of Commerce, as other oil exports are handled in this country.
Furthermore, if we do not build the pipeline, it is either all going to
be sent to China--so then we would not get any of it--or we are going
to have to move it via railcars--1,400 railcars a day, creating more
congestion on our railways.

So at this point, I would inquire as to how much time I have used of
my 10 minutes.

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Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I appreciate this debate. It is an
important debate to have. Clearly, the Senator from Massachusetts and I
have very different ideas about how this should be addressed, but this
is the debate we should have. This is about the energy future we are
building for this country.

I am pleased we are engaged in this debate. Let's work to build the
kind of energy plan that is going to truly make our country energy
secure.

To do that, we not only need to produce energy domestically, we need
to work with our closest friend and ally, Canada. At the same time, as
we produce that energy, we need the infrastructure to move it to our
markets rather than sending it overseas.

So it is ironic on the one hand the Senator is proposing an amendment
saying: Oh, no. If we get any of this oil, we have to have all of it.
He is making an argument that doesn't work in a global economy, where
he is saying if we can't have 100 percent of it every single day--not
one drop leaves--then export all of it. I want 100 percent or nothing.
That doesn't make sense.

The whole point is we have just finished showing that the oil will be
used here, and for any of it to be exported we need the Secretary of
Commerce's approval. But we have to talk about it in a larger context
because this debate we are having isn't only about the Keystone
Pipeline, it is about the future of energy security for our country.

Are we going to work to produce oil and gas domestically? Are we
going to work with Canada to bring their oil and gas that they produce
as well to us, rather than having them export it to China, so we are
energy secure?

What I mean by that is we produce more oil and gas in North America
than we consume. When we do that we become energy secure. As far as
this argument about any kind of other source of energy or renewable,
that this somehow precludes it, it doesn't. Let's produce all those
other energy sources as well. They are not mutually exclusive.

Preventing us from producing more oil and gas and working with Canada
to produce more oil and gas so we don't have to get it from OPEC in no
way excludes any other type of energy development. They are not
mutually exclusive.

So, yes, let's do it all but don't block this effort to make us
energy secure in oil and gas so we don't have to depend upon OPEC. That
is the real issue underlying this debate. That is why we have to build
this vital infrastructure. Right now when Americans go to the pump,
they are paying--I think I saw today the national average is about
$2.05 for gasoline. Why is that?

As I have said before on this floor, it is not because OPEC decided
to give us a Christmas present. When OPEC can, they will try to push
those gas prices right back up. The reason gas prices at the pump are
down now for all our consumers and for all our small businesses is
because we are producing more oil and gas at home and we are getting
more from Canada.

The United States uses about 18 million barrels per day of oil. Right
now we produce about 11 million barrels in the United States. We import
another 3 million from Canada. That gets us up to about 14 million, so
we are down to only importing about 4 million a day.

If we continue to work with Canada and develop our own energy
resources, pretty soon we will be at that point where we produce more
energy than we consume, but we have to have this discussion about
needing the infrastructure and also our ability to operate in global
markets.

I will talk more about that, because if we produce more oil and gas,
it puts downward pressure on oil prices on the world market. Most of
those world markets are priced off of Brent crude.

As we produce more oil, we not only help ourselves, we help our
allies. So we have to understand what it takes to build an energy plan and do it the right way rather than blocking the very infrastructure and doing
the very things that have led to incredible benefits today for our
consumers at the pump.

If that were a tax cut, that reduction of more than $1 in the gas
prices is $100 billion in our consumers' pockets. That is the impact.

So it is about jobs. It is about energy, it is about jobs, it is
about growing our economy, it is about national security--but not by
blocking these efforts that are benefitting our consumers, making our
country stronger, safer, and helping our allies but by continuing to
move forward with them.

I look forward to discussing that more and the environmental impact.

One more statistic before I turn to my good colleague from Nebraska.
Since 1990, the greenhouse gas emissions from oil sands-produced oil
have gone down 28 percent, almost one-third, because in Alberta they
are taking huge steps to continue to improve the environmental
stewardship of this production.

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Mr. HOEVEN. I would like to make a couple of points. One is that in
regard to this amendment, to my knowledge, they are talking about
situations where a project is publicly funded, funded with taxpayer
dollars. In this case, I would point out by way of closing that this is
roughly an $8 billion project, but it is privately financed. This isn't
a publicly funded project; it is financed by private companies and, in
fact, will create hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue--State,
local, and Federal Government level--to provide dollars back to the
taxpayers, with absolutely no tax increase.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor

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