Y 4. G74/9:S.hrg. 101-853 S. Hrg. 101-853 HOME HEATING FUELS CRISIS HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ONE HUNDRED FIRST CONGRESS SECOND SESSION JANUARY 16, 1990 Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs Hon. John H. Chafee, U.S. Senator from the State of Rhode Island. John J. Easton, Jr., Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Energy Emergencies, U.S. Department of Energy, accompanied by Helmut A. Merk- lein, Ph.D., Energy Information Administration Administrator. James S. Rill, Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division, U.S. Depart- Paul Hegland, Senior Attorney, Office of Regulations and Rulings, U.S. Cus- Charles J. DiBona, president, American Petroleum Institute, Washington, DC. Glenn F. Tilton, president, Texaco Refining and Marketing, Houston, TX Robert W. Wesson, president, William S. Wesson, Inc., Waterbury, CT, ap- pearing on behalf of Petroleum Marketers Association of America. Philip K. Verleger, Jr., visiting fellow, Institute for International Economics, Rutherford S. Poats, director of research, Energy Futures Group, Inc., Bethes- Michael Lem. Kennedy, Chairman, Citizens Energy Corporation, Boston, MA.. Lawrence Kelly, executive director, Tri-County Community Action Agency, Hon. Donald W. Riegle, Jr., U.S. Senator from the State of Michigan Hon. John R. McKernan, Jr., Governor of the State of Maine. Senator Lieberman to Hon. Wendy L. Gramm, Chairman, Commodity 243 HOME HEATING FUELS CRISIS TUESDAY, JANUARY 16, 1990 U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, the Hon. Joseph Lieberman, presiding. Present: Senators Glenn, Lieberman, Levin, Cohen, and Rudman. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN Senator LIEBERMAN. Will those who are not seated try to find seats and we will begin the hearing. The Chairman of the Committee, Senator John Glenn, may be with us in a while, but he asked me to begin. I want to begin by thanking Senator Glenn for his characteristic generosity and inclusiveness in giving me the opportunity to hold this hearing today. I thank my colleagues, Senator Cohen and Senator Levin for being with me. Others may be in as the morning progresses. This is a hearing that I know is important to a lot of people throughout this country. About 12 million households in America heat their homes with heating oil. Millions of others use propane. When unusually cold weather hit last month, many of those families found themselves scrambling to get fuel to keep warm, and all of us were forced to pay top dollar to get it. In Connecticut, the average price rose dramatically. I have two bills given to me by a consumer in New Haven, my home town; December 12, paid 88 cents a gallon, January 5, paid $1.47 a gallon. As a result of those increases, Connecticut residents alone will pay about $70 million in additional heating costs this winter, and the State will need an additional $4 million in Federal energy assistance funds to help those who cannot afford to heat their homes even under normal circumstances. The burdens suffered by the people in Connecticut are obviously shared by those in every other State that relies on heating oil or propane in the winter. To make matters worse, consumers throughout the country probably will pay higher prices for food and other products because of higher diesel and aviation fuel prices. Now that the bitter cold has subsided, at least temporarily, the average person has a lot of questions about what happened last month, and so do I. Why were stocks of heating oil so low coming into this winter? Inventories of heating oil have steadily declined (1) |