Rod Grams: “I rise to introduce The Department of Energy Abolishment Act of 1999. I am pleased to include as original cosponsors…”

“I rise to introduce The Department of Energy Abolishment Act of 1999. I am pleased to include as original cosponsors Senator Spencer Abraham and Senator Jon Kyl and want to thank them for their support both this year and in past Congresses. I would also like to say that Congressman Todd Tiahrt will be introducing his DOE elimination bill today in the House of Representatives and I thank him for his continued leadership and cooperation on this issue. As many of my colleagues are aware, the effort to eliminate the DOE is not a new endeavor. In fact, since its inception, experts have been clamoring to eliminate the Department and to move its programs back to the agencies from which they were taken--agencies better suited to achieving specific programmatic goals. When we began to look into the specifics of DOE elimination in the 104th Congress, we considered three main issues. First, we examined the fact that the Department of Energy no longer has a mission--a situation clearly reflected by the fact that nearly 85 percent of its budget is expended upon 'non-energy' programs. The Department was created to develop a long-term energy strategy with an ultimate goal of energy independence. Sadly, we are now far more reliant upon foreign energy sources than we were when the Department was created. During the long oil lines of the 1970s, we were about 35 percent dependent on foreign oil. Today, it is more than 60 percent.”