October 7, 1978
Page 34492
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a statement by the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. BROOKE) on the Interior appropriation conference report be printed in the RECORD at an appropriate place before passage.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR BROOKE
This Conference Report contains language on the residual oil entitlements program. It represents an agreement that I worked on with my distinguished colleague from Louisiana Senator Johnston and many of my colleagues from New England. It provides for an equalization of industrial oil prices between New England and the rest of the country, and thus puts a stop to injustices that were built in to the Energy Policy Conservation Act of 1975. As a result, New England will realize a $50 million price break on residual fuel oil. Half of that will go to Massachusetts. Of the $25 million we will save compared to what industrial oil would otherwise have cost, $12.5 will be saved by electric utilities and will thus keep those onerous fuel adjustment charges down. Nothing could be more welcome than this price break as another hard winter approaches.
However, the formula contained in this report is the first part of the package. The second part is Administration action to suspend the 63-cent import license fee scheduled to become effective this year. Secretary Schlesinger personally assured me of his intention to recommend such action to the President upon passage of this Conference Report. Kitty Shirmer of Stuart Eisenstadt's staff personally assured my office that Mr. Eisenstadt would support that recommendation. I would hope that these important steps would be initiated tomorrow morning.
Mr. MUSKIE. The passage of this carefully worked-out package represents a victory for many more Americans than just those in New England. It is a major reconciliation between energy-producing areas and energy-consuming areas showing that each recognizes the special needs and problems of the other. It is going to be on this basis of mutual cooperation and only on this basis, that a long-term national energy program can be built. I ask that the letter my colleagues from New England and Louisiana and I, as well as other Senators, wrote Secretary Schlesinger about our mutual concerns be printed in the RECORD following my remarks.
The letter follows:
WASHINGTON, D.C.,
August 9, 1978.
Hon. JAMES R. SCHLESINGER,
Secretary, Department of Energy,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR MR. SECRETARY: As you know, a number of Senators representing several regions of the nation have been negotiating at length over a proposed amendment to the FY 1979 Department of Interior appropriations bill concerning oil import regulations.
In the course of these deliberations we have discovered collectively what we have known individually for some time, that the United States needs a national policy for domestic refineries. We have agreed to the following general principles which we believe should be included in comprehensive legislation regarding this subject:
(a) A policy providing certainty over the long term is required.
(b) When new refinery capacity is constructed to serve the United States market, it should be constructed within the United States.
(c) Government policy should encourage construction of new independent refinery capacity.
(d) A program should be developed to encourage new and existing refineries to refine heavy, high sulphur oil.
(e) State and local governments should be encouraged to develop responsible refinery siting policies consistent with Federal clean air and water standards.
(f) The disadvantage faced by independent refiners in obtaining adequate supplies of crude oil at equitable prices should be taken into account in the policy.
We look forward to working with each other and with you to develop such legislation early in the next Congress.
Sincerely yours,
J. Bennett Johnston, Edward W. Brooke, John A. Durkin, Edward M. Kennedy, Edmund S. Muskie, James B. Pearson, John Melcher, Patrick J. Leahy, Thomas J. McIntyre, Alan Cranston, Henry M. Jackson, Charles H. Percy, Lloyd Bentsen, Floyd K. Haskell, and Howard M. Metzenbaum.
Mike Gravel, Mark O. Hatfield, Wendell H. Ford, Jennings Randolph, Adlai Stevenson, Frank Church, Claiborne Pell, William D. Hathaway, H. John Heinz III, Stark M. Matsunaga. John Tower, Wendell R. Anderson, Abe Ribicoff, Charles McC. Mathias, Jr., Daniel K. Inouye, S. I. Hayakawa, and Walter D. Huddleston.