FRIEDMAN, GLAUTHIER, AND GROAT NOMINATIONS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1998 U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES, Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:40 a.m. in room SD366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Frank H. Murkowski, chairman, presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK H. MURKOWSKI, U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. I will call the hearing to order, the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources nominations hearing, and I apologize for starting late. I must have stayed at Dale Bumpers' party a little too long last night. In any event, we are privileged to have from the Department of Energy Mr. Theodore Glauthier, nominee to be the Deputy Secretary of Energy as the first nominee, Mr. Gregory H. Friedman, nominee to be the Inspector General of the Department of Energy, and we also have before us Mr. Charles G. Groat, nominee to be Director of the U.S. Geological Survey. And we have Senator Breaux with us this morning. Good morning, Senator. I am going to ask you to proceed, and then I will make my own opening statement afterwards. STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN B. BREAUX, U.S. SENATOR Senator BREAUX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will just take a moment. I was on time because I did not get invited to Senator Bumpers' party. The CHAIRMAN. That is fine. I will let you go ahead of me. Senator BREAUX. Thank you very much. I will just take a minute or two. I am here because I have known Dr. Charles Groat, Chip, as we know him, the nominee to be Director of the U.S. Geological Survey, and I just wanted to make a comment or two, because I think this is a good choice. I think it merits your favorable consideration. He spent 15 years as the State geologist for the State of Louisiana. Obviously, our State, like yours, that is a heavy and very important job. He also was executive director for the Center for Coastal Energy and Environmental Resources at Louisiana State University, and in that capacity he had the very difficult job of trying to balance carefully environmental concerns with legitimate energy development, something that I think is a goal that all of us in the Congress should share-good management and good policy in that area. Unfortunately, Texas then stole him away from us in Louisiana. I hope that that did not mess him up too much. But he served with distinction as the director of the Center for Environmental Resource Management at the University of Texas at El Paso as a professor and teacher and researcher. And so, the bottom line is, you could not find a better person for this job. I enthusiastically support him. I know that he will do a very fine job for our country in that capacity. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Breaux. We appreciate your comments, and I assume Mr. Groat, if he has not been, will get to Alaska. Senator BREAUX. I hope so. The CHAIRMAN. Well, I will send him a ticket up if you send him a ticket back, is that fair enough? Senator BREAUX. I will go with him. The CHAIRMAN. I am going to accommodate Senator Dorgan, who I believe has some comments to make and a committee hearing to go to. STATEMENT OF HON. BYRON L. DORGAN, U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH DAKOTA Senator DORGAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I am pleased to be supportive of the three nominees that are here today. Mr. Groat and Mr. Friedman are people of great distinction with the background to do a wonderful job. I am really pleased to support their nominations, and I especially want to say with respect to Mr. Glauthier, T.J. and I have been friends and have worked together for some long while on a range of issues, and there just is not anyone better in my judgment to be selected to be Deputy Secretary of Energy. I think he brings a great deal of skill and a background that fits very well with this job, and he is the kind of person who offers himself for public service, and I am pleased that he does. He will make a big difference, in my judgment. He has made a significant difference at OMB and will, I think, make an even bigger mark in the Department of Energy. But let me also just say, all of us get up and read the paper, and watch the news every day and in these times, I think it is important to tell the American people that there are still awfully good men and women, Republicans and Democrats, who offer themselves for public service. The three that come before this committee today offer themselves for public service in various roles, the USGS, and Inspector General, and Deputy Energy Secretary, and I am proud that they are obviously not discouraged by what is going on. Public service is still something very important and very honorable in this country, and I say to them, thank you for being a part of this process and offering yourself to be of service to your country. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Dorgan. I might add as well that we are doing business as usual in Washington, D.C., but it is not given the attention that perhaps your tie is. I noticed you have a rather bright tie this morning. You did not notice that? Senator DORGAN. No. I do not have a light in my closet. The CHAIRMAN. I do not think you need one. [Laughter.] The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Senator DORGAN. Thinking you were nearsighted, I sat close to you so you would see whatever I wore. The CHAIRMAN. Well, anyway, you got my attention. Senator DORGAN. Thank you. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Smith. Senator SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had a light on this morning in my closet. The CHAIRMAN. Do you want to pull your microphone over a little? You are in one of those odd seats. STATEMENT OF HON. GORDON SMITH, U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON Senator SMITH. I wanted to be here this morning. I have a statement I would like to include for the record, but let me just say to our nominees, I am pleased to be here. I intend to support them. I intend to focus on three issues in your service. Those are utility restructuring, the role of Bonneville Power Administration, and obviously cleanup of the Hanford site in the State of Washington. As to restructuring, I think it is crucial to me that we now increase the burden of Northwest residential users, and there are many proposals in Pacific Northwest right now with respect to drawing down or destroying the dams along the Columbia and Snake Rivers. This is obviously an issue of concern to me. I am opposed to such extreme measures, and we will watch carefully what is going on, and I look forward to working with these nominees. [The prepared statement of Senator Smith follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. GORDON SMITH, U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON Mr. Chairman, I want to express my appreciation for your leadership on energy issues, and for your willingness to expedite the confirmation hearing for Dr. Charles Groat to be the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey, Gregory Friedman to be the Inspector General of the Department of Energy, and T.J. Glauthier to be the Deputy Secretary of Energy. All of the nominees have long and distinguished careers, and I intend to support their nominations. I have three major issues that concern the Department of Energy, and, as I stated at the time of Secretary Richardson's nomination, I intend to be actively involved in these issues during your tenure, Mr. Glauthier. These three issues are: energy utility restructuring; the future role of the Bonneville Power Administration; and the clean-up of the Hanford Site. Representing a state with lower electricity rates than most of the country, I want to ensure that any federal electricity restructuring legislation does not increase costs for residential consumers in Oregon. Universal access at reasonable rates and system reliability must also be ensured. I will be reviewing all legislative proposals with these goals in mind. With respect to the Bonneville Power Administration, the Pacific Northwest stands at a cross-roads. The Army Corps of Engineers is currently studying the possible drawdown or bypass of up to five major federal dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. These five dams generate almost forty percent of the electricity marketed by the Bonneville Power Administration. If this generating capacity is eliminated, I do not think it will be possible for BPA to survive as an agency. It certainly will not be possible for BPA to continue funding fish recovery efforts at even the current funding levels. Further, I am concerned that the pending 1999 decision will put so much emphasis on the long-term operation of the dams that other factors affecting salmon survival, such as marine mammal predation, will not be addressed. Let me be clear. I am opposed to the drawdown, breaching, or bypassing of these dams. During my questioning of Mr. Glauthier, I will ask him to commit to uphold existing law, which requires Congress to act before there can be changes in the authorized project purposes for these dams. Finally, this Administration must be committed to providing sufficient federal funding for Hanford Site cleanup. The health of Northwest residents and of the Columbia River ecosystem depend upon it. Again, thank you Mr. Chairman for scheduling this hearing. I look forward to hearing from the nominees, and will have some questions for the record. The CHAIRMAN. I had heard that the last dam the Secretary of the Interior attacked, he had an old sledgehammer. He broke the handle on it. I do not know whether that was a Republican sledgehammer or not. That did not get a rise out of anybody [Laughter.] The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. So we had better move back to the business at hand. There are some introductions to make of family members, but I am going to defer that until the individual nominees come before us. I think it is fair to say that ever since I have been associated with this committee 18 years ago there has been a good deal of assault from all directions, and there continues to be, even, I think, with a few members of the committee, that the Department of Energy be done away with. Some have looked at what the Department of Energy has and has not done, what it has cost and what it has saved over the last 16 years, and have concluded that it has basically no right to exist as a Cabinet-level agency. On the other hand, when discussions have taken place relative to the duties and responsibilities of the agency, why, it is fair to say the Department of Defense does not want anything to do with the nuclear waste issue, and we could go on from there and so forth, but I think a number of us, including myself and Senator Domenici, have led the charge to basically maintain the Department. We argue that there is a crying need for an advocate for sound science for the Nation's national energy security when administration policy is made. We seem to continue to be advocates of national energy security. We continue to point out our continued dependence on energy from foreign nations-I think we are about 53 percent dependent on imported oil. In 1973-74, when we created SPRO, we were about 34 percent dependent on imported oil, and I do not think there is any question about the volatility of our sources. As a consequence, I think the Department of Energy and the administration has done a poor job in that regard, and I have vocalized on that on numerous occasions, because it is a responsibility of advocacy within the Department of Energy to recognize the exposure that we have as we become more dependent. And it is interesting to note that the figures given by the previous Secretary suggested that somewhere in the area of 63 to 64 percent, almost two-thirds of our oil in the year 2005, 2007, 2011, will be from foreign sources. I know a little bit about the principles of leverage, and when you are that dependent on a single source, why, you can become very vulnerable. In any event, I am finding it, as I have enunciated, a little difficult from time to time to defend some of the policies of the Department of Energy, and as you both know, I think it is fair to say we do not have a real plan to stop our slide to near complete dependence on foreign sources of oil. Further, when other administration agencies take action to stop domestic production, there seems to be a deafening silence from the administration and, of course, it is easy to ignore the crisis because prices are low. There is lots of oil. But it is pretty hard to catch the rationale that when you need it you just do not turn on the pipeline. You have got to go out and find it, develop it—the tenure of that is anywhere from 7 to 10 years. Well, ignoring the immediate oil crisis, there seems to be an affinity to spend more time on carbon emissions and climate change. They are certainly important, but the policies lack, I think, a little logic. As we look to reducing emissions, particulates, we see the threatened veto of a nuclear waste bill. The nuclear industry is choking on its waste. The Government is under contractual commitment to take that waste this year. The suits are piling up. It is a full employment act for the lawyers. The sanctity of the contracts are significantly lacking in the sense that the Government made a contract and the Government has not been able to fulfill its obligation. I do not know what is going on upstairs. Pretty heavy steps. The CHAIRMAN. Could be. I do not know what the signal is for. We will have to stand by. There is something going on on your side of the window, so you can take care of that. In any event, we have not addressed the nuclear waste deal. We have a Secretary of the Interior, as the Senator from Washington indicated, who advocates tearing down hydro dams. That is our second largest source of carbon-free power. It is a noble resource. Now more than ever the American public and our economy needs, I think, effective advocates for reliable, affordable energy, for common sense energy policies that are not politicized. I am very optimistic. With our new Secretary, Secretary Richardson, I hope he will prove to be the energy policy leader that we need. We have had a number of discussions. I think he brings a breath of fresh air, and hopefully he will be able to overcome some of those that are involved in the executive branch that have been dictating, in my opinion, policy that should have been dictated by the professionals and the Secretary of Energy with regard to what this country needs in that regard. I think you can, from technology, balance the environmental concerns. I think as we look towards new energy sources, particularly gas, we have to be faced with the reality that if you are going to go out and find more gas you are going to have to have access to public lands, and this administration has a dismal record, whether |