Volume 158, No. 111 covering the 2nd Session of the 112th Congress (2011 - 2012) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S5305-S5307 on July 24, 2012.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Mr. KOHL:
S. 3427. A bill to permanently extend the employer-provided child care credit under section 45F of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986; to the Committee on Finance.
Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, we know taxes are scheduled to increase for all Americans next year, and we know an across-the-board tax increase on all Americans would be very bad for our economy. What we disagree on is which tax cuts should be continued.
Unfortunately, this has become a highly partisan debate. Someone watching this debate would assume we cannot agree on anything when it comes to taxes, but they would be wrong. We do agree on far more than we disagree. We agree that middle-class tax rates should not go up. We agree that the alternative minimum tax should not affect middle-class taxpayers. We agree on a variety of tax breaks that help families raise children and invest in their education. Our disagreements elsewhere should not stop us from acting where we do agree. We should cut through the partisan gridlock and pass the policies we all support.
One policy we can all support is a tax credit for companies that provide childcare to their workforce. This is a powerful and proven incentive for business--especially small business--to arrange onsite childcare for their employees.
I originally introduced this tax credit after we passed welfare reform in 1996. The purpose of welfare reform was to move recipients off benefits and into jobs--a path of financial freedom that is too often blocked by the lack of quality and affordable childcare. After years of work, we finally passed the employer-provided childcare tax credit in 2001. Since then, it has offered businesses a tax credit for building and maintaining a childcare center. Businesses can also receive a smaller tax credit for helping their employees find childcare elsewhere in the community.
Childcare is a good investment for employee and employer alike. Businesses get employees who miss less work to deal with family issues and stay at their jobs longer. Parents know their children are safe, sound, and close by while their mom or dad is at work. They do not have to choose between putting food on the table and caring for their children.
Now is not the time to add another stress to overstressed working families struggling to survive in a down economy. That is why today I am introducing a bill to continue the tax credit for employer-provided childcare. We all agree the employer-provided childcare tax credit should not expire. It is included in both tax bills we are considering this week and we should extend it now.
But support for childcare isn't the only thing the Republican and Democratic tax bills agree on. In fact, these two bills offer the same exact tax cut extension for the first $250,000 earned by every American family. If a family makes $1 more than that, they still get the same tax cut extension on their first $250,000. Even millionaires get the same tax cut extension as everyone else. Everybody, including the wealthiest Americans, benefits from the tax cuts we all can and do support.
Bipartisan policies, such as a tax credit for employer-provided childcare or middle-class tax cuts, should not be held hostage because of a partisan debate about other tax cuts. When we all can agree on something, we should vote for it.
______
By Mr. CARDIN:
S. 3428. A bill to amend the Clean Air Act to partially waive the renewable fuel standard when corn inventories are low; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, today I am proud to introduce the Renewable Fuel Standard Flexibility Act. I am introducing this bill because I have grave concerns about the impacts the Federal mandate for corn ethanol production is having on the price of food in this country and the cost of domestic food production.
Corn is a staple of the modern American diet that has become a ubiquitous ingredient or additive in most of our food and it is fed as feed to nearly all livestock animals. The fact is, most meals Americans consume either has corn as an essential ingredient or consist of ingredients that required corn to produce. From milk, to eggs, to beef to poultry, to bread, to soft drink, and most prepared frozen meals corn--is essential to American food.
The first section of Michael Pollan's 2006 Best Seller The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals is titled ``Industrial Corn'' and it explains just how omnipresent corn, in some form or another, is in American diets. For better or for worse, the vast majority of the food found on American supermarket shelves is made from processed corn. When it comes to the animal proteins Americans consume most of these animals were raised on corn diets.
For decades, America's corn growers were out producing demand for corn and food producers, and consumers benefited from relatively low corn prices that ranged around $2 a bushel. While consumers may have benefitted from these prices, American corn and grain growers were hurting badly.
Since 2007, the tides have been turning significantly. National demand for corn is at an all-time high and corn futures project corn reaching $8 a bushel in the near future. A growing and hungry nation combined with new demands for corn that are the result of technological innovations have created new uses for corn in the form of ethanol as both a motor fuel additive and in plastics. These new uses, combined with expanded traditional uses have fueled the upward spike in corn prices.
Corn growers have benefitted tremendously from the increased demand and high corn prices. Ethanol producers have enjoyed a variety of government supports mandating levels of ethanol production which have helped them weather high corn prices paying a high price for corn feedstocks is relatively easy when you have enormous production tax credits and a federally mandated market for your product.
Food producers, including livestock and poultry producers, who use tremendous amounts of corn to raise their livestock and produce food, do not have the luxury of a mandated market for their products.
In Maryland, our number one agricultural product is poultry. Poultry production is far and away the top employer on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Maryland poultry is hurting and it is because they are competing with big oil, and other non-traditional users, for corn. Corn is vitally important to raising chickens. Unlike other livestock, like cattle or hogs which are ruminants that can eat a variety of different types of feed, chickens' diets are limited to corn. Feed makes up more than 73 percent of the cost of raising poultry and when corn reaches
$6.50 or $7.00 or even $8.00 a bushel that cost goes even higher.
I understand the important role domestic ethanol production will play in helping our nation achieve greater energy security. However, the nurturing and growth of our domestic biofuels industry must not come at the expense of our domestic food supply. In other words, we cannot sacrifice U.S. food security for energy security. That is why I do not support the use of food based feedstocks like sugar and corn to be commercially produced into ethanol.
I also believe that as global demand for oil increases, driven by increased mobility and affluence spreads in the developing world, renewable biofuels will compete well with oil and that the government supports we have in place will not be necessary because pure market demand for less expensive and cleaner burning fuels like ethanol will drive growth in biofuel production, not government mandates.
Because domestic food production is reaching a state of crisis driven by the increasing cost of inputs, like corn, that the food producers have to unfairly compete with industries that are operating with under government production mandates I am introducing legislation today that offers a simple change to the Renewable Fuel Standard that will help provide our domestic food producers access to corn.
This legislation will link the amount of corn ethanol required for the RFS to the amount of U.S. corn supplies. This legislation sets up a process so that when the USDA reports on U.S. corn supplies towards the end of each year, based upon the ratio of corn stocks- to expected use, there could be a reduction made to the RFS mandate for corn ethanol. This is a common sense solution to make sure that we have enough corn supplies to meet all of our corn demands.
Once a year, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency will review the current corn crop year's ratio of U.S. corn stocks-to-
use ratio in making a determination of the RFS.
By the end of November the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency will make an official determination of the Renewable Fuels Standard, RFS, corn ethanol mandate for the following calendar year, based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's November World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate report to determine the U.S. corn stocks-to-use ratio. The administrator shall provide for a waiver for the RFS for the following calendar year according to the calculated stocks to use ratio as directed. Such a waiver, if required, shall be included in the Environmental Protection Agency's Federal Register notice regarding the RFS for the following calendar year. The required waiver, if any, will take effect January 1 of the new calendar year.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Waiver to the Renewable
Stocks-to-Use Ratio Percent Fuels Standard for Corn
Ethanol
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Above 10.00............................... no adjustment
10.00 to 7.50............................. 10 percent reduction
7.49 to 6.00.............................. 15 percent reduction
5.99 to 5.00.............................. 25 percent reduction
Below 5.00................................ 50 percent reduction
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I believe the future of biofuels must be in the development and production of cellulosic and advanced biofuels that are not derived from feedstocks that are part of essential food sources. As a supporter of bringing cellulosic and advanced biofuels to market, my legislation explicitly states that it ``shall not affect the volume of advanced biofuels required under'' the Renewable Fuel Standard. This will leave intact the advanced biofuels production mandate which I believe is critical to growing this still nascent and beneficial fuel product to commercial viability.
Because of corn's many uses it has become a commodity that is in high demand. Assuring our domestic food producers' access to this valuable and increasingly scarce crop is so important to controlling the cost of food in America and maintaining the economic viability of our U.S. food companies. I urge my colleagues to support U.S. food producers and families working to put food on the table by co-sponsoring the Renewable Fuel Standard Flexibility Act.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
S. 3428
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Renewable Fuel Standard Flexibility Act''.
SEC. 2. PARTIAL WAIVER OF RENEWABLE FUEL STANDARD.
Section 211(o)(7) of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7545(o)(7)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
``(G) Consideration of corn inventories.--
``(i) Determinations regarding corn stocks-to-use ratio.--Not later than November 30 of each year, the Administrator shall determine and publish the estimated United States corn stocks-to-use ratio for the applicable crop year--
``(I) in consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture; and
``(II) based on the most recent publication of the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate or other similar authoritative estimate issued or used by the Secretary of Agriculture.
``(ii) Waiver.--Based on the most recent determination of the Administrator under clause (i), the Administrator shall waive the requirements of paragraph (2) by reducing the national quantity of renewable fuel otherwise required for a period as follows:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
``United States Corn Stocks-to-Use
Ratio for the Applicable Crop Year Reduction in national quantity of
(percent) renewable fuel required
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Above 10.0 No adjustment
10.0-7.5 10 percent reduction
7.49-6.0 15 percent reduction
5.99-5.0 25 percent reduction
Below 5.0 50 percent reduction
------------------------------------------------------------------------
``(iii) Duration.--A waiver under clause (ii) that is based on a determination under clause (i) that is made not later than November 30 of a calendar year shall--
``(I) take effect on the date that is 30 days after the date on which the determination is published; and
``(II) remain in effect for the following calendar year.
``(iv) Adjustment of renewable fuel obligation.--On granting a waiver under clause (ii) that reduces the national quantity of renewable fuel required for a period to which paragraph (3) applies, the Administrator shall adjust the renewable fuel obligation determined under paragraph (3) in proportion to the reduction.
``(v) No effect on required volume of advanced biofuel.--
``(I) In general.--A waiver granted under this subparagraph that reduces the national quantity of renewable fuel required for a period shall not affect the volume of advanced biofuel required under paragraph (2).
``(II) Applicability.--The Administrator shall not allow any volume of conventional biofuel to be used to satisfy the requirement for advanced biofuel under paragraph (2).
``(vi) Publication.--The Administrator shall publish each waiver under clause (ii) in the Federal Register, including an explanation of the basis for the waiver.''.
____________________
Alerts Sign-up