Keystone XL Pipeline Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOEVEN. I am very pleased to join my colleague this morning, the
chairman of our energy committee. The Senator from Alaska is doing a
fantastic job leading our energy committee. I so appreciate her
leadership on the committee, her knowledge of energy. Her words this
morning--very well spoken--I think really go to the heart of what we
are trying to do with this legislation: not only pass important energy
legislation for the country but have this open process, open dialogue,
have a real energy debate, and not just a debate but give people the
opportunity to vote.

Republican and Democrat alike, we are saying, come on down here,
bring your amendments, and let's have a serious discussion about energy
and about building the energy future of this country. Offer your
amendments, make your case, and then let's vote. If you can get 60
people to support your amendment, if you can get 60 votes, that gets
attached to the legislation. That is the way it is supposed to work
around here.

So we are encouraging our colleagues to join with us and get the work
done that the American people want done. So I thank our energy chairman
for setting that in motion. That is the right way to do business. That
is what we are elected to do. We are going to get something done for
the American people, who sent us here for that very reason.

When you look at what is going on in energy today, you have to feel
pretty good about it. If not, drive over to the gas station to fill
your car. Gas prices at the pump are about a dollar lower than they
were this time a year ago. If you equated that savings our consumers
are receiving at the pump to a tax cut, it would be more than a $100
billion tax cut for hard-working Americans. That is pretty exciting.
That did not just happen. It certainly did not happen because OPEC or
anyone else--Venezuela or Russia or anybody--decided they wanted to cut
us a break, cut hard-working Americans, hard-working taxpayers,
consumers, small businesses across this country a break. It happened
because we are producing more energy in this country and we are working
with our closest friend and ally in the world--Canada--to produce more
energy.

On a daily basis we consume about 18 million barrels of oil a day--
oil and oil equivalents--and produce about 11 million of those barrels
here domestically. We are up to about 3 million, so of the 7 million we
import, about 3 million comes from Canada. So we are down to only
importing about 4 million barrels a day from other sources. If we stay
on this track, if we build the necessary energy infrastructure--such as
the Keystone XL Pipeline--and we continue to build good business
climates and get our companies to invest, to create jobs, and produce
more energy, we can get to a point where we truly have North American
energy security, meaning we produce more energy here at home and with
Canada than we consume. Boy, then we will be in the driver's seat--not
OPEC; America will be in the driver's seat. If we don't do it, if we
block projects like we are debating right now, then we will put OPEC
back in the driver's seat. So when they hear our President say he is
going to continue to block this project, to veto this legislation if we
are able to pass it with a strong bipartisan majority, that is music to
OPEC's ears because that puts them right back in the saddle. That is
what they want.

But we work for America. That is why we need to continue to move
forward and build this exciting energy future for our country that we
are building. It is energy. It is jobs. It is economic growth. This
project will create hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue--State,
local, and Federal revenue to help reduce the debt and deficit. That is
a huge and important impact of the project. Of course it is about
national security with energy security. So I want to emphasize that
again because that is doing the work the American people sent us here
to do.

For the opponents--there are a couple of things that I heard this
morning and that I hear on an ongoing basis. One is that, oh, gee, we
should be doing renewable energy instead of fossil fuels.

Why not do all of it? Why are they mutually exclusive? How does doing
this project in any way prevent us from doing any renewable project we
ought to do? Let's do those renewable projects.

In my home State we use steam from coal plants to produce biofuels,
power biofuels plants. We use the wastewater from some of our
communities in those biofuels plants. We have wind energy. We have
geothermal, ethanol, biodiesel. We are now the second largest oil-
producing State in the country. We produce 1.2 million barrels a day--
second only to Texas.

They are not mutually exclusive. Let's do it all. How does holding up
one enable us to do the other? It does not. So when I hear the argument
that ``Well, we ought to do all of those other things,'' good--let's do
them. But doing this project helps us. It provides more energy. Heck,
let's do the others too. So arguing that we should do renewables is not
an argument against this project. Fine. Let's do it. Let's do them
both.

The other argument that I heard this morning and that I hear, of
course, a lot from the critics is the environmental argument. Again, I
say look at the facts. Go back to the science. The report itself says
``no significant environmental impact.'' That is the report done by the
Obama administration, the environmental impact statement that was
designed to look specifically at the environmental impacts. That has
been done over the course of 6 years; not one, not two, not three, but
five reports--three draft reports, two final reports. The results are
right in the report: The Keystone XL Pipeline will have no significant
environmental impact.

In fact, we will have higher greenhouse emissions without the
pipeline than we will with it because it would take 1,400 railcars a
day to move all of that crude into our country, which is what will
happen. If somehow the critics manage to block that, then it would go
to China. We would have pipelines built to the west coast of Canada.
The oil would go to China in tanker ships and be refined in refineries
that have higher emissions. So however you slice it, without the
pipeline, we would have higher greenhouse gas emissions.

But here is what I want to touch on for just a few minutes today. I
will talk about it more next week. Canada is working aggressively to
get investment in the oil sands to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions.
Exxon has a major project up there. Shell has a major project up there.
The Exxon project is the Kearl project. The Shell project is the Quest
project. In both cases they are bringing down the greenhouse gas
emissions of the oil sands buy investing in new technologies, in
cogeneration, and in carbon capture and storage. Hundreds of millions--
billions of dollars are being invested along with the Canadian
Government in carbon reduction technologies. Not only does that reduce
the carbon footprint of the oil sands, but think about it--as that
technology is developed, what happens? It is adopted in other places.
It is adopted here in this country. It might be adopted in China and
other places around the world. So the advances they make in technology
in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in reducing the footprint of this
oil production and finding better ways, more cost-effective, more
efficient ways, more environmentally friendly ways to produce that
energy, that technology then is adopted around the world.

In other words, they are finding solutions to some of the concerns
that are being raised on the environmental front by the very critics of
this project. So instead of stopping that investment and that
advancement, why don't we find ways to continue to develop that, which
is not only a benefit in the oil sands in Alberta, but it is a benefit
that we can utilize to produce energy in this country and other places
around the world. That is true for oil. That is true for gas. That is
true for all fossil fuel energy.

See, that is how America has always worked. We create that business
climate. We encourage the investment. We get American ingenuity. We get
American companies to use their entrepreneurial genius to make those
investments to not only create good jobs but to produce more energy,
giving us energy security, and deploy the very technologies that give
us the better environmental stewardship that we want. But when we block
these projects, when we prevent the investment, when we will not let
them build the infrastructure, we bring all of that to a grinding stop.
Why would we do that? It does not make sense.

There is not one penny of U.S. taxpayer money going into this $8
billion project. It is private investment. Why would we not want the
private investment that helps build the infrastructure and develop and
deploy the technology that gives us better environmental stewardship?
Isn't that what it is all about? Isn't that why our powerplants and our
energy production in this country are light-years ahead of what they
are doing in countries around the world, where in many cases they are
still using third world-type energy approaches? Let's lead the way
forward in technology. Let's empower that to happen.

Because I note that the time is wrapping up here, I will come back to
the floor next week. But I am going to talk about the hundreds of
millions that are being invested in the Kearl project--Exxon is doing
that project--and also in the Quest project, and Shell is doing that
project. They are working with the provincial government in Alberta to
develop carbon capture and storage. That is something we talk all the
time about wanting to do. Here we have private companies working to put
hundreds of millions into developing that very technology.

Since 1990 the greenhouse gas emissions for the production of oil in
the oil sands has come down 28 percent--been reduced almost by one-
third. They are continuing to find ways to improve the environmental
stewardship and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. Isn't that what we
want versus continuing, for example, to import oil from Venezuela that
has as high or a higher footprint, and you do not have that kind of
investment in new technologies, that kind of investment in better
environmental stewardship.

So as we talk about this issue, let's talk about it in a way where we
advance the ball and we do it the right way; where we get the energy,
the jobs, the economic growth; where we build our relationship with
Canada rather than saying: No, we are not going to work with you guys.
At the same time, we will get better environmental stewardship. We can
do it. Let's do it.

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

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