Senate Proceeding on Jul 25th, 2008 :: 4:23:14 to 4:35:35
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4:23:01 to 4:23:14( Edit History Discussion )

but ut when they start looking at it from the macropoint of view as to how one community would handle after another community in an emergency management situation that sort of where the problems

4:23:14 to 4:23:25( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: m anifest themselves. we looked at the lar lgest urbanized areas over a million population 38, we did five case studies and then waited a sort of internet based survey of the plans of the rest

4:23:14 to 4:35:35( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: George Voinovich

4:23:25 to 4:23:39( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: and of them on case studies, those 33 was only seven we could find that really had any credible mention of the role of transit emergency evacuation. and further, the department of homeland security in

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George Voinovich: 2006 did their own look at all the states and territories and the 75 largest urbanized areas and they found that the vast v majority were 85% really didn't have adequate plans. >> host: our phone lines

4:23:52 to 4:24:11( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: are open and we are dividing the phone numbers regional week, -- >> we leave this reported washington journal to return to the senate. members headed the recessed subject to the call of the share. the

4:24:11 to 4:24:26( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: senate back in session now and our live coverage continues on c-span2 at m.c.f. in 2000 to $11,000 per m.c.f. today. the last two months ago -- four months ago my wife saw our heating bill from the gas

4:24:26 to 4:24:39( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: company. she just blew her stack. ta i mean, she just said, "i can't believe this." she said h are other people who don't have the money we have able to deal with this problem? so we've seen -- in fact,

4:24:39 to 4:24:52( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: there's one company in ohio right now, vectron, in the dayton area and they're so alarmed about the expected spike in the price of natural gas this winter it is warning customers for traoeuts increase

4:24:52 to 4:25:03( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: by as much as 15%. this would devastate a lot of ohioans living on fixed incomes om who already have got tight budgets. unfortunately, ohioans aren't alone. there are a growing number of families across

4:25:03 to 4:25:15( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: the country who will need help this coming winter. eup understand the need for this safety net liheap provides and supports its funding at reasonable levels. yet, when i look at the numbers, it becomes

4:25:15 to 4:25:31( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: clear that appropriating more and more funding for liheap is not the answer. the real reason some folks will be having such a hard time this winter making ends meet is that our nation has no energy

4:25:31 to 4:25:46( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: policy. for example, large-scale fuel switching from coal to gas began with the implementation of the 1990 clean air act. they encouraged utilities to burn natural gas instead of burning coal. these requirements

4:25:46 to 4:25:59( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: continue to be phased in and have become increasingly stringent. one can see a clear correlation between regulation and the increasing cost natural gas. more utilities are turning from coal to gas. a

4:25:59 to 4:26:13( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: major contributor to these skyrocketing energy prices are environmental policies that discourage the use of our abundant domestic energy supplies and the failure to harmonize our country's energy, environmental,

4:26:13 to 4:26:32( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: economic and national security policies. so this isth has resulted in the substantial unintended costs in the form of increased fuel, food, and, quite frankly, in my state lots of lost jobs and has

4:26:32 to 4:26:48( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: contributed to almost doubling of the liheap program. liheap is connected with the fact that, for example, in 1999, we exported some $19 billion worth of chemicals. now we awere an importer. why

4:26:48 to 4:27:02( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: is that? well, because the cost of gas -- natural gas had increased so much and the chemical industry used urea, part of its feed stock, for chemical products. when the price went up, we lost the business.

4:27:02 to 4:27:16( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: in fact, the man that runs bayer, the chemical company, out in germany several years ago, he said, "mr. stphorbgs if you don't do something about your natural gas price -gs, we are going to move jobs back

4:27:16 to 4:27:30( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: to europe." today at the time he came in, we had 22,000 jobs. i think they are down now to about 10,000 jobs. it's all got to do with natural gas. that fits in with the liheap program. why do we

4:27:30 to 4:27:50( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: need more liheap? we need more liheap because the cost of natural gas has just skyrocketed. so, it's been around for a long time and it really has, you know -- we passed the energy policy act in 2005.

4:27:50 to 4:28:08( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: it took us five years. i was on this floor for six weeks debating the bill in 2003. we never got it done. it ep couraged improved natural energy efish circumstance it promoted increased use of biofuels

4:28:08 to 4:28:20( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: but didn't go far enough towards increasing our domestic energy supply which has been hamstrung by moratorium kwrupls in exploration that would have given us increased natural gas. if our goal is to

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George Voinovich: help those who are less fortunate with our heating bills, weg should be treating the disease rather than the symptoms. we must increase our supply, reduce our demand through alternative energies and conserve

4:28:32 to 4:28:49( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: what we have, and we must be also careful to avoid -- i like to refer to them as smoke screens that cloud our path to real solutions. the debate here in washington over oil speculation is something

4:28:49 to 4:29:01( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: that's part of this what i call smoke screen. it's causing us to not face up to the situation where we have to increase the supply if we expect to deal with the problems in oil and in natural gas

4:29:01 to 4:29:13( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: here in the united states. and i think part of our problem has been what i refer to as the tail wagging the dog environmental policy. i've been on the environment and public works committee for ten

4:29:13 to 4:29:27( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: years, and during that period of time i have been working very hard to try and get everybody in a room and say, look, we have a symbiotic relationship. the environmentalists, the people interested in our

4:29:27 to 4:29:42( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: economy and energy, national security. can't we work something out on a bipartisan basis and get something done? and the fact of the matter is we haven't been able to. so, i think that what we have

4:29:42 to 4:30:00( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: to understand is these decisions that we make, we just had the climate change bill, the lieberman-warner, boxer cap-and-trade legislation on the floor of the senate. we had a vote on cloture. i worked very

4:30:00 to 4:30:16( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: hard to make sure ak that the cloture didn't occur on that legislation because i looked at it, and i want to do something about greenhouse gases, but the way that bill came down, it would have resulted in

4:30:16 to 4:30:32( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: my state, of individuals having the potential of paying 50% more for electricity, 80% more for natural gas and 30% more for gasoline. here's a problem we need to solve, but weso need to look at it in

4:30:32 to 4:30:44( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: terms of reality and not just say, well, we're going to do this and let's just ignore the impact that it's going to have on our economy and on our ordinary citizens. so, i think that, you know,

4:30:44 to 4:31:02( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: we defeated that legislation. i think that's a benefit for the average homeowner in this country. but, again, and i'm working right now with people on both sides of the aisle to come back with a bill

4:31:02 to 4:31:12( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: that will get the job done but that won't exacerbate our energy costs, move jobs overseas and not include china and india who are the major emitters as we are. that brings us back to liheap, and

4:31:12 to 4:31:23( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: i agree the program plays a key role in helping our neediest brothers and sisters with the high cost of heating their homes this winter. however, it is disconcerting to me that many of my colleagues who

4:31:23 to 4:31:39( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: support the increase in liheap like i have have also supportedpp environmental policies that have encouraged the use of natural gas at the same time -- the same time -- prevented the exploration for

4:31:39 to 4:31:55( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: new natural gas deposits. in other words, got to take care ofof liheap. we've doubled the a. money. we've got to keep going to do it, and at the same time some of the people that are for that are

4:31:55 to 4:32:11( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: saying, on the other hand, we need to encourage more use of naturall gas. and on the other hand, we have to make sure we s don't do exploration in certain areas that we feel are sank crow sank -- sacrosanct,

4:32:11 to 4:32:26( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: and that's where we get the moratorium. i think that some of these policies ignore the impact rising prices have on all of us.| particularly the middle class, elderly and pure. people in my state, what do

4:32:26 to 4:32:37( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: they think -- we're all rich? it doesn't make any difference what they do we keep paying the increased energy costs. doesn't anybody think about us? what is worse, the band-aid we used to temporarily

4:32:37 to 4:32:49( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: treat the symptoms of rising energy prices is bigger, in this case almost doubling the funding of liheap over what was appropriated this year, we are adding to our growing national debt. we cannot

4:32:49 to 4:33:07( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: continue to live in the united states of denial borrowing money for programs and putting the cost, including interest, on the backs of our children and grandchildren. all of this stuff ties together.

4:33:07 to 4:33:21( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: i think one of our problems here in the senate is that we put everything in silos. i have this silo, tha st silo, that silo aond thatha silo. how do the silos relate to each other in terms of national

4:33:21 to 4:33:32( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: policy for our country? so instead, those demanding more liheap should also be required to vote on increasing our energy supply or give the senate an up-or-down vote on lifting the ban on exploration

4:33:32 to 4:33:44( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: of the outer continental shelf. i'm going to insist on that. i'm telling everybody back home, i will vote for more liheap but i want a vote in the united states senate on whether or not we're going

4:33:44 to 4:34:01( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: to remove the moratorium on our going to the outer continental shelf and to some other places where we have natural gas deposits that could help alleviate and create a larger supplyer so that we'll

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George Voinovich: have impact on lowering those national gas prices for us. the mineral management service estimates that the undiscovered technically recoverable resources contained in the outer continental shelf could equal 420

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George Voinovich: trillion cubic feet, 40% of the total natural gas estimated to be contained in the undiscovered fields in the entire united states. so i think we owe it to our children, we owe it to our grandchildren

4:34:30 to 4:34:47( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: to take care of our larger energy problem and get to its the root. it's time to stop looking at the silos, each one of them. the environmental silo, the armed services, the debt silo, and look at the big picture.

4:34:47 to 4:35:02( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: how do these all relate to each other? that's going to be the challenge of the senate between now and wh we finally go home to campaign in november. the american people are watching us very carefully.

4:35:02 to 4:35:16( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: they're not going to go for a lot off mumbo jumbo but want us to stand up and be counted. if the majority decides we don't want to have -- or that the moratorium should stay, the majority rules.

4:35:16 to 4:35:35( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: or if the majority feels we ought to lift it, we ought to do it. the people of our states who send us here to this senate shou have a right to have us vote on some things that are very, very important

4:35:35 to 4:35:51( Edit History Discussion )

Bernard Sanders: to them not only in the short run but in the long run. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: mr. president, i agree with the previous speaker, , the distinguished senator from

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Speech By: Bernard Sanders