STATEMENT OF CONGRESSMAN JOHN D. DINGELL
RANKING MEMBER
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE

I am pleased that Chairman Tauzin and Chairman Domenici have promptly called this meeting of conferees on the energy bill. My comments will be brief, but I want to make clear that I agree that the country needs and deserves a good energy bill.

I want to acknowledge up front that my approach to the conference differs in one important respect from that of the chairman. Yesterday, I introduced an electricity reliability bill that would address our most pressing, immediate energy concern -- preventing a recurrence of the kind of widespread electricity blackouts that affected 50 million Americans, including the people of my District. The blackout was more than a mere inconvenience, threatening public health, closing factories, and costing billions of dollars to the economy.

My reliability bill is virtually identical to the provisions in the House and Senate energy bills before this conference. Electric reliability is perhaps the only electricity issue on which there is widespread consensus, and is a sorely needed reform. After two days of hearings into the blackout conducted by our Committee, not a single witness disagreed.

As someone whose state was severely affected by the blackouts, I want to do everything possible to prevent another blackout. While we are not yet certain exactly what caused the crisis, it is clear that the North American Electric Reliability Council's reliability rules need to be mandatory and enforceable. We may later choose to take additional steps in this field. But I appeal to the conferees to reconcile the relatively minor differences between the House and Senate bill's reliability provisions, and support passage of the resulting agreement as a separate bill to be moved on an expedited basis.

I want to assure my colleagues that this does not indicate any unwillingness on my part to roll up my sleeves and get on with the remaining work before this conference. I want to offer both chairmen my cooperation and best efforts to reach consensus on the difficult matters before us. In that spirit, I would offer a few observations and, if my colleagues will indulge me, a few suggestions.

Some of the issues before this conference will be relatively simple to resolve in light of the progress made during last year's energy conference. Other issues are more difficult, such as the broader range of electricity issues, including PUHCA repeal, deregulation, and matters concerning hydroelectricity. The insistence upon the inclusion of all of these controversial measures has been the reason that Congress has failed to pass any broad energy laws for eight years.

I trust the conference will build on today's example of a fair and open process. I understand that Chairman Domenici is anxious not to hold an excessive number of meetings. I do not think it is inconsistent with that goal for me to commend the model Chairman Tauzin adopted last year, in which major issues were debated in meetings open to the public. There is grave danger in pursuing a course in which all the important work is done behind closed doors, with limited and unknown participants, and the appearance of partisanship. I have been somewhat disturbed by reports that meetings already have been held to resolve matters of concern to the conferees. I trust, however, that any such meetings were of only a preliminary nature, and that actual consideration of matters of substance will be made by the conferees themselves.

Finally, and I am sure the chairmen will agree with me, the prospects for a comprehensive energy bill would be prolonged and imperiled should issues that have not been considered by any committee, or by either chamber, become involved in this conference. For example, recent press reports suggest that amendments to the Clean Air Act, a matter of considerable complexity, might be brought into this energy conference. The injection of this or similarly untested issues would turn this bill into a veritable Christmas tree, and slow if not decimate hopes for any real progress by this conference committee. It would also represent a terrible misuse of the legislative process, and the Rules of this body.

In closing, I urge the chairmen to make the swift and separate enactment of the reliability matter our first priority. I also pledge my support in addressing the remaining issues before the conference, and urge that extraneous matters that do not appear in either bill not be permitted to slow the progress of this conference committee.

I thank my colleagues.

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(Contact: Jodi Bennett, 202-225-3641)