Press Release - Spoof final

Press Release                                                                                  3 a.m. - November 14, 2003

Domenici’s statement:

“Listen, I'm tired of everybody telling me how this energy bill does nothing for energy security, for the long-term development of new domestic technologies, or for reducing the environmental impact of our primary energy sources.  I've spent years on the thing, and if I'd wanted to hear all of that complaining, I would have let Democrats actually sit in for the meetings.  Hey, I might have even given people more than 48 hours to read my 1,200 pages of pure gold before sending it for a conference committee vote.

"But as I tell my Democratic colleagues, this is all water under the bridge now. And while I can't really keep a straight face as I say that the Energy Policy Act of 2003TM is good energy policy, I can certainly say that this baby will mint jobs in the finest Keynsian tradition.  It's not just me saying that either; the groups who will benefit directly from our programs do too.  The Nuclear Energy Institute, British Petroleum, and the Coal Utilization Research Council (did you know coal dust tastes great in soup?) all agree that our investment in their industries will mean jobs, Jobs, JOBS!

"How many jobs will we create?  10,000 brand new jobs.  No, 100,000.  Wait, still too low -- it is a pretty expensive bill.  Here it is:  The Energy Policy Act will create ONE MILLION NEW JOBS, and  for a measly $50 billion or so.*  Mr. Jobs' will be teaching those big-wig Silicon Valley VCs Jobs Creation 101 in no time at all.  ONE MILLION new jobs, and at only slightly over $5,000 a pop.  Um, I mean $50,000.

"But these are good jobs, not burger flipping for the lunch crowd at the Envirocare Landfill in Utah [sec. 634].  Sure, lots of them will only last a few years as we build expensive infrastructure that may or may not be useful, but these will be good jobs, union jobs.  Like coal plants in taconite-producing regions of Minnesota [sec. 413] and in special deregulated energy markets that (ahem), only I and my buddy Billy T. know where they are [sec. 412].  No way, people, Mr. Jobs is just getting started.  There is so much more to come...

"We're investing $2.15 billion in hydrogen research to create more than 2,000 jobs in math, science and engineering. These jobs will all pay in excess of $100,000, meaning $200 million in new wages.  And you all know what that means:  only $1.95 billion to be spent on large scale experimental science equipment that doesn't really give us many jobs.  Not bad:  a 200 to 1.95 ratio of wages to other stuff!  And boy, does that equipment look cool -- the envy of the world.  Not to be overlooked is that this investment also moves us closer to the day when this society is a carbon-free society -- though we do say in our bill that maybe things won't work out so well on the hydrogen thing when we get a report on it in 2010.  Come to think about it, I guess we sort of say that about the advanced nuclear reactor atom smasher machine thing too [sec. 654(e)], though no delays are acceptable without a really good note explaining why first.  Can't be too careful managing a project of this size and complexity, you know.

"But it's not just hydrogen from nuclear reactors where Mr. Jobs is jumping, no siree!  We've got new jobs all through the our non-hydrogen nuclear program too.  We've got new plants we're subsidizing (first time in over 20 years, folks) to start a chain reaction of job attraction.  We've got security at old plants we're subsidizing to make jobs as well, since you and I both know that if you want new cash, Homeland Security is the place to crash.  Gosh, we can even count the nearly 62,000 jobs that would have been lost (well, okay, maybe some would have just shifted to plant cleanup and closure) if we stopped helping all those struggling nuclear reactors by making them buy enough of their own accident insurance.

"To those of you who keep e-mailing me nasty notes about losing on ANWR yet again, let's give it a rest, can we?  So there was no ANWR, but move on.  As I like to say to my staff after a good game of softball on the mall, there ain't nothing in ANWR anyway but caribou and a bunch of Murkowski bumper stickers on rusted out Chevies.  Don't get me wrong:  Mr. Jobs hasn't forgotten the Murkowskis.  Mr. Jobs likes Alaska and Mr. Jobs likes the Murkowskis.  It's just the ANWR thing that's getting a bit old.  After all, we've got a new pipeline (38,000 new jobs, and special language [sec. 373(d)] to keep them away from Canadians).  Costs a bit more, but hey, I think it's worth it.  And, we're only giving $18 billion in guarantees -- it's not like the independent subsidiary that will be set up by the big oil companies on this project with no other assets will actually go bankrupt!  "Too big to fail," my good friend Ken Lay always told me, and I believe him 100 percent.  Don't forget - the pipeline is but one of the things we did to celebrate Murkowski appreciation day this year.  We've also got a range of provisions that make oil and gas drilling in Alaska cheaper, faster, and easier [sec. 316, 317] to say nothing of a special $125 million loan helping out our friends at the Healy Coal Project -- I mean the Healy Clean Coal Project -- and the Usibelli mine next door [sec. 411].  

"It's all about jobs.  That's why we agreed to have the federal government reimburse oil, gas, even geothermal developers who have to spend money on pesky environmental assessments under the National Environmental Policy Act [sec. 217, 326].  If we pay, their projects go faster, making more jobs, and of course creating more consultants.  We open more public lands faster, and, yes, you've got it now, more jobs than you can count.  New uranium enrichment?  It's about jobs, not only at Louisiana Energy Services [sec. 637], but overseas as well, when the technology handled by consortium member URENCO leaks out to foreign governments.  Mr. Jobs likes jobs, even if they are not all in New Mexico.  From California, to the New York Island, from the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf Stream waters (especially the Gulf Stream Waters [sec. 314, 315]), you can count on me - Pete 'Mr. Jobs' Domenici."

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*Well, since you actually followed the asterisk, here's the scoop:  we were going to reduce our ONE MILLION NEW JOBS by the number of jobs that the economy loses when we suck such a vast sum of money away from taxpayers and businesses to pay for our plan, but it was just too complicated pull off given the very fast track I'm sending this bill through.  It's probably just rounding error anyway.  As for the cost, our friends at CBO and JCT said $30 billion -- but I'm coming clean.  There is lots of stuff that doesn't cost much money until after 2013, which, coincidently, is when the Washington bean counters stop counting.  And, they don't even add up all the little programs we've authorized spending on (and that are going to give us all those jobs) because they think we won't not actually appropriate funds when the time comes.  But that $100 billion number being floated about by an unnamed DC rag - pure fantasy, that's all I can say.