Volume 153, No. 94 covering the 1st Session of the 110th Congress (2007 - 2008) 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.
“CREATING LONG-TERM ENERGY ALTERNATIVES FOR THE NATION ACT OF 2007” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S7513-S7535 on June 12, 2007.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
CREATING LONG-TERM ENERGY ALTERNATIVES FOR THE NATION ACT OF 2007
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the hour of 2:15 having arrived, the motion to proceed to the consideration of H.R. 6 is agreed to and the motion to reconsider is considered as having been made and laid on the table.
Under the previous order, the Senate will proceed to the consideration of H.R. 6, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 6) to reduce our Nation's dependency on foreign oil by investing in clean, renewable, and alternative energy resources, promoting new emerging energy technologies, developing greater efficiency, and creating a Strategic Energy Efficiency and Renewables Reserve to invest in alternative energy, and for other purposes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
Amendment No. 1502
(Purpose: In the nature of a substitute.)
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have amendment No. 1502 at the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] proposes an amendment numbered 1502.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The amendment is printed in the Record of Monday, June 11, 2007, under ``Text of Amendments.'')
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to discuss one of the provisions of this Energy bill that is now before the Senate. This is the provision that would increase the fuel efficiency of our Nation's fleet of vehicles. These provisions were approved by the Commerce Committee with substantial bipartisan support. They are known as the Ten-in-Ten Fuel Economy Act.
I come to the floor in place of Chairman Inouye, who is ill today and has asked me if I would mind describing the provisions of this legislation, and, of course, I am delighted to do that. The legislation is supported by a bipartisan group of Senators, including Senators Stevens, Snowe, Dorgan, Collins, Durbin, Boxer, Cantwell, Carper, Klobuchar, and Kerry.
The basic premise of the legislation is to increase the fuel economy of cars, SUVs, and light trucks by 10 miles per gallon over 10 years--
that is the ``10 over 10''--and to do this by 2020. But the bill does do more than that. It continues beyond 2020 and increases fuel efficiency by 4 percent a year through 2030. This is with the addition of the Dorgan legislation which the Commerce Committee added to Senator Snowe's, Senator Inouye's and my 10-over-10 bill in the Commerce Committee.
Some would have liked this legislation to go further, perhaps to 40 miles per gallon or more. Others do not want any significant increases. But I think this legislation strikes the right balance, and it sets forward a significant, achievable standard for the future.
It would be the first major fuel efficiency increase in the past 25 years. Can you believe it? With all the talk and all the discussion in the past 25 years, nothing has been done to increase fuel efficiency. I have been working on this legislation in one form or another--first, it was with Senator Snowe as an SUV loophole closer. We have been doing this for more than a decade now.
But the simple truth is that today the technology exists to accomplish the goals of this legislation. It can be done without reducing safety and with significant benefit to our economy and our environment. It does so in a way that gives auto manufacturers the flexibility and the time they need. I hope they listen to this because I think they have a misimpression of the bill. This is not according to just us, but it is according to the experts--the National Academy of Sciences, the International Council on Clean Transportation, and experts at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. So it is time to break the logjam.
We all know our Nation faces stark energy challenges. Gas prices have risen to above $3 a gallon--more than doubling in the past 5 years. Global warming is real, it is happening, and it is having an impact on the world around us. The United States needs to address the transportation sector's emissions of carbon dioxide. Transportation, in 2004, accounted for 28 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. With a war in Iraq and tense relations with Iran, we need to move away from our dependence on foreign oil. Through this legislation, we believe we can have a significant impact in each of those areas.
By 2025, increases for cars and light-duty trucks would save 2.1 million barrels of oil per day. That is nearly the amount of oil imported daily from the Persian Gulf, so it would be a savings, by 2025, of about what we import each day now. That is consequential. It would reduce carbon dioxide emissions--which is the primary global warming gas--18 percent from anticipated levels in 2025. That is the equivalent of taking 60 million cars off the road in a year. And--and this is a big ``and''--it would save the consumer, the driver, the family, a net $69 billion at the gas pump. That is based on a $3.08 a gallon gas price. That is the recent average price nationwide. So with gas costing $3.08 a gallon, the net consumer savings--if this bill were in place--would be $69 billion. This would mean, if you go to the individual or the individual family, it is a savings of $700 to $1,000 a year for families with children, depending on the price of gas. So the time has come to act.
Now, here is what the measure would do. I hope people will listen. It would set achievable fuel economy standards for all vehicles, increasing fleetwide average fuel economy for all cars, SUVs, and trucks by 10 miles per gallon over 10 years--or from 25 to 35 miles per gallon by model year 2020. So 25 to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, and it is 2007 today. It would provide for an additional 4-percent annual increase after that until 2030. It would require the Department of Transportation to improve the fuel economy of medium and heavy-duty trucks over a 20-year period--not tomorrow, not today but over a 20-
year period--for the first time in history addressing this particular area of concern.
America, do something about your heavy trucks, and over the next 20 years try to see if you can't make them more fuel efficient.
The key to this bill is it changes the way automakers are allowed to meet these standards in fairly substantial ways. I wish to describe them.
The provision provides the time and the flexibility needed for automakers, we believe, to meet these standards. This is where Detroit does not listen. We believe--we sincerely believe--it creates a level playing field for all automakers. Let me describe how.
Under the existing CAFE system, each automaker must meet a 27.5 miles-per-gallon standard for their particular fleet of cars. This current system disadvantages American companies that build larger cars with lower gas mileage. So we admit the present system disadvantages American automobile makers.
But under the newly proposed system contained in this bill, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration would have broad discretion to divide vehicles into classes based on their attributes, such as size. So a small car in a small-car class is evaluated against other small cars--not a small car evaluated against a Navigator or a Cadillac but class-by-class evaluations. This requirement would no longer apply to each automaker. This is additional flexibility. Different automakers will meet different standards, depending upon the mix of cars they choose to make.
From 2011 to 2019, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration must set fuel economy standards that are the maximum feasible and ratchet these standards up at a reasonable rate.
By 2020, the total average must meet the 35 miles per gallon--the total average. Some cars will be below it, and some will be above it--
as long as the total average meets the standard. This gives Detroit the flexibility they say they need. I do not know why they will not understand it.
This effectively gives the automakers 13 years to get the job done, and it means fuel economy will increase across all classes--from the smallest sedans to the largest SUVs. It may be different by the class, but, nonetheless, it would increase, so that the average fuel economy would be 35 miles per gallon. At the same time, the measure establishes a credit trading program under the direction of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, known as NHTSA. NHTSA would design, run, and operate this credit trading program.
The provision was strongly recommended by the National Academy of Sciences in 2002. It would give an automaker a financial incentive to exceed the standards. If it does, it could sell credits to another automaker and profit from having a more fuel-efficient fleet. So that an automaker that makes a car that attains 37 miles a gallon can sell that differential to someone who cannot quite make it.
It would also allow the banking of these credits for up to 5 years--
insurance if a company falls below the standard in a later year. If an automaker cannot meet the standards in a given year, they can purchase these credits, use bank credits, or borrow from projected surpluses from future years. So the bottom line is this is a practical, workable system which ensures substantial increases in fuel efficiency. Quite frankly, it is a major improvement over the current system, which has a much more rigid approach.
I want to say something. In all the time I have been working on this legislation, nobody from the automaker community has ever come to me to say: Look, we like this, but we don't like this. If you just changed it this way, it would appeal to us.
We have bent over backward to try to accommodate a bill to meet what for the past years--every time this comes up on the floor, I hear them argue: You can't evaluate small cars against big cars. Well, we don't do that in this bill.
Another thing we have done--and this was pursuant to Senator Stevens' request and interest in the committee--this measure provides an off-
ramp in 2020 in the unlikely event that there are substantial unforeseen costs.
The measure would give NHTSA the authority to set a standard lower or higher than the 35 miles per gallon in 2020. The authority could be invoked only if a thorough review of the costs of putting new technologies in our automotive fleet exceeds the agency's best estimate of the value to the Nation of setting the standard at this level. So that is the off-ramp. There can be an evaluation, a kind of cost-
benefit look at the situation, and there would have to be clear and convincing evidence that the costs exceed the benefits. Obviously, we wanted to make it somewhat difficult--not a rollover so everybody could get out of it--somewhat difficult.
NHTSA would have to take into consideration billions of dollars in fuel savings, national security implications of reducing our dependence on foreign oil, the effect of global warming and air pollution, and, on the other side of the scale, additional costs to manufacturers and consumers. Given all of the clear and meaningful benefits, we believe automakers can and will be able to meet these standards, actually with little difficulty, but the provisions give NHTSA discretion in the event it becomes clear automakers cannot meet the standards down the road.
So that is what the bill does. The fact is, this legislation is past due. Our Nation has seen gas prices skyrocket over the past 5 years. It now costs $50, $60, or $70 to fill up a tank with gas. In my State of California, this is a big deal. People often have to use at least 2 tankfuls of gasoline, so instead of a tank at $20, if it is a tank at
$70, instead of 4 times 20, which is $80, it is 4 times $70, just to drive to work.
In the long term, a key to reducing gas prices is to reduce demand for gasoline. By increasing fuel efficiency, we can reduce consumption and thereby reduce demand. Americans understand this. That is why, in poll after poll, the American people overwhelmingly support increased fuel efficiency. A poll published in April of this year by the New York Times and CBS shows that more than 90 percent of Americans favor legislation for acquiring more fuel efficient vehicles. Ninety percent. That is amazing. People want more fuel-efficient vehicles. A poll commissioned by the National Environmental Trust shows that more than 80 percent of truck owners favor higher fuel economy standards. That was done between April 28 and May 1 of this year. These results are consistent all across ideologic and geographic divides. Simply put, Americans by large majorities want improved mileage on their automobiles.
Now, some question whether the standards in this legislation are achievable. You have only to look at what other nations are doing to see that, in fact, they are. Canada has proposed raising its fuel economy standard to 32 miles per gallon by 2010--32 miles per gallon by 2010. Australia's fuel efficiency averages 29 miles per gallon and is expected to rise to 34 miles per gallon by 2010. Europe's fuel efficiency currently exceeds 40 miles per gallon, and that is expected to increase over the next few years. Japan's fuel efficiency averages 46.3 miles per gallon and is expected to rise to 48 miles per gallon by 2010. Even China will have a new vehicle fleet averaging 37 miles per gallon--not in 10 years, not in 5 years, but next year. So these standards have to be met by American automobile manufacturers manufacturing in China next year. They will have to meet 37 miles per gallon.
In the United States, it is 25 miles per gallon. This is really unacceptable. These higher standards are being met abroad by the same automakers who claim it is impossible to do it here in the United States. This includes BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, General Motors, Porsche, Volkswagen, Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Subaru, and Toyota. All have agreed to push fuel economy well above 40 miles per gallon in Europe but say they cannot achieve these standards in the United States. Does that make sense to anybody in this body? I think not. Does it make sense to anyone in America? I think not.
Now, also, the simple truth is that the technology exists to achieve a 35-mile-per-gallon standard by 2020. Existing technology can do it. So as Detroit complains it can't do this or it can't do that, the National Academy of Sciences says it can.
This is what they tell us:
We can increase the fuel economy--
This is what they say can be done, the National Academy of Sciences--
of mid-sized SUVs to 34 miles per gallon with existing technology, large cars to 39 miles per gallon with existing technology, minivans to nearly 37 miles per gallon with existing technology, and large pickups to nearly 30 miles per gallon with existing technology. When you average all of this together, you will find that the fleet could achieve 37 miles per gallon, 2 miles more than this measure envisions.
This is a conservative estimate. The National Academy of Sciences study measured cost-effectiveness based on $1.50 per gallon as opposed to today's $3 per gallon. So now you can see how conservative it is. The academy didn't consider hybrids and other emerging technologies such as the popular Toyota Prius, just the standard American automobiles. So it is quite possible that even greater increases in fuel economy could be achieved.
Now, how can this all be done? By using existing technology and simple design improvements. Let me give my colleagues some of the things for which the technology already exists: better aerodynamics, alternater improvements, engine friction reduction, using more efficient transmissions, electric power steering, electric water pump, reduced engine friction, and using only engine cylinders that are necessary. These changes still could be made to great effect.
A 2006 study by the Canadian Government concluded that the cost-
effective technologies identified by the 2002 National Academy of Sciences report remain available and more cost-effective than ever. Our current fleet is more powerful, accelerates more quickly, and brakes more effectively. But with all of these advances, there is one critical design feature we have not improved at all in 25 years: Today's cars get the lowest number of miles to the gallon since 1988. That is 20 years ago--the lowest number of miles to the gallon since 1988. This has to change.
I would say to all of those who want to fight this because they think it is too strong and because Detroit objects to it that the handwriting has been on the wall for a long time and Detroit has not come in and made a suggestion. All of this scientific evidence indicates that Detroit can meet these standards, that the technology exists to meet these standards, that they are doing it in other countries but for some reason they have buffaloed the Congress of the United States into believing you can do it in China, you can do it in Europe, but you can't do it in the greatest economic power on Earth--the United States of America.
Some also say we can't increase fuel economy without reducing safety, but this also is simply not true. A recent study by groups, including the International Council on Clean Transportation, has concluded that no tradeoff--no tradeoff--is required between fuel economy and vehicle safety. The conclusion of this report is consistent with the conclusion of numerous other studies. Let me quote directly from the report:
Vehicle fuel economy can be increased without affecting safety, and vice versa.
That is on page 2 of their report.
Advanced materials allow vehicles to be both bigger and lighter, providing multiple ways to improve safety and fuel economy without sacrificing functionality. Fuel economy can be dramatically improved without compromising safety. Safety can be bolstered without sacrificing fuel economy.
That is on page 17 of their study.
There is technology in place today to be used to increase safety without sacrificing fuel economy. Let me just give my colleagues a few examples: seatbelt reminders, window curtain airbags, lower bumpers, electronic stability control, improved body structure, seatbelts that tighten if a vehicle were to roll over. It seems to me that is such a simple thing, that if automobile manufacturers wanted to improve safety, they would do that.
We saw what happened to a former colleague of ours who was not wearing a seatbelt. Nobody can challenge that seatbelts don't make one of the biggest safety improvements in the history of the automobile. When the Governor's crash took place, everybody else essentially was OK in the car except for Governor Corzine, and he didn't have his seatbelt on. If anything is clear evidence of the safety of seatbelts, this is it. So safety can be improved without an effect on fuel economy.
This legislation includes a provision that will help improve safety. It directs the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration to issue a rule that seeks to reduce incompatibility between SUVs and passenger vehicles. This could be done through measures which ensure that bumpers hit bumpers in the event of an accident. I just saw this coming to work today, where a Sedan had rear-ended an SUV, and you saw the difference because of the inequality of the bumpers. This happened just a few blocks away.
In response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Ford assembly plant in Richmond, CA, switched from making cars to assembling Jeeps, tanks, and armored cars. By July 1942, just 6 months after the bombing, the Richmond Tank Depot and the women who worked there were supplying our Armed Forces with the best military hardware in the world.
Technology, paired with American ingenuity and hard work, helped us prevail in that struggle and has been a key ingredient of America's unprecedented wealth and security.
Today, we face a much different threat. It is the threat of our Nation's addiction to fossil fuels--to oil--and what that will do to our economy, to our environment, and to our foreign policy if we don't change our ways.
These are serious questions and they deserve a serious response. Increasing fuel economy is not a silver bullet. I am the first one to say that. It won't solve problems by itself. However, it is a major piece of the puzzle. We have the best universities in the world, the strongest financial system, and the best workers. We can do this. We can make these improvements. We can lead the way. We have only to find the political will.
I am very proud the bill before us now contains this legislation. I believe, as I have tried to describe--and I apologize for the length of this statement--that it is compatible with the needs of Detroit; that the legislation is drafted to respond to those needs by the class-to-
class comparison, to avoid what always has been in every discussion on this floor the greatest threat to Detroit, which is to compare a small car to a large car and, therefore, make it difficult for them to manufacture large cars. This will not do that. I hope it will be voted on.
I very much thank the Chair. I know Senator Snowe was going to come to the floor and, hopefully, she will.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Amendment No. 1505 to Amendment No. 1502
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I call up amendment 1505 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Inhofe] proposes an amendment numbered 1505.
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. McCaskill). Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of Amendments.'')
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I want to explain this amendment, but first I will yield to the distinguished ranking member of the committee, the senior Senator from New Mexico.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I thank Senator Inhofe for yielding to me. I am going to take a very few minutes. I have not had a second round on this. I assume both of us will. I have to leave the floor shortly for another meeting. I will stay here up to the last minute. I want to make a couple statements about the bill, as introduced, and what it does in terms of the transportation, gasoline, and diesel consumption in the country.
We have just had the Senator from California explain an amendment that is no longer an amendment; it is in this bill. The Senator expressed in a very profound way, in a very lengthy explanation, this provision which the Senator from California originated. But we must understand that, today, it comes to us from the Commerce Committee, wherein the Feinstein proposal is encapsulated in the bill that was managed in committee by Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens.
I believe Senator Feinstein would join us in giving our appreciation and thanks to the Commerce Committee for the courage they showed. They met to try to help us put together a bill that would address the energy problems of our country and, obviously, immediately we ran into provisions of the law, or matters of law, that had to be changed, which were not part of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
The big one out there is what do we do about CAFE standards. What happened before is we had a big hoopla on that, and we will probably still have it, so the Senator from California ought to be ready. Obviously, even though she did not amend, it is in the bill. Those who don't like it will offer an amendment to the bill striking or modifying that provision of the CAFE standards of America that is in the bill.
Over all these years, we have been going back and forth, never getting anything done--until this year. Clearly, this bill before us, which took the CAFE standards and finally said we are going to adopt the changes recommended in the Feinstein bill, which have been bantered around--we are going to adopt it in the language of the Commerce Committee and send it over to the leader, and it will be incorporated in the bill. So when the bill comes over, it has whatever was done in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, to save our consumption of gasoline and related products. It has the CAFE standards and a couple of other provisions. I want to say that I believe the bill before us includes the CAFE standards we have spoken of, which were put in the bill by the Commerce Committee, headed by Senators Stevens and Inouye.
In addition to that, which is by itself one of the biggest modifications of our gasoline usage in this country and, obviously, it has a ways to go because it might not clear the Senate later today, or tomorrow, or whenever we figure out that the Senators who want their amendments finally come up. But as before us, this is the largest transportation savings of fuel in history. CAFE standards all by themselves would have been a very big achievement. Everybody knows that. That is in the bill. So there is one.
Secondly, we adopted just about what the President spoke of in his State of the Union Address with reference to biofuels and a new standard for those set forth in the 2005 Energy bill; that is, the big bill. We started down the path of biofuels, but all we had in there was corn-produced biofuels. What we have done in this bill is mandated 21 billion gallons which has to come from cellulosic ethanol by 2022. So the total biofuel required in our bill is 36 billion gallons. Let's hope--I think it will--that we will produce the little, tiny, remaining technology breakthrough, which we are putting everything in, and if that works, we will be on our way to the breakthrough that will permit us to use the cellulosic ethanol I have been speaking of. That will permit us to reach this new high standard of 36 billion gallons.
Remember, we get the CAFE standards, which have been explained, which reduce the amount of gas and diesel used, and then we have this gigantic breakthrough that we expect, and this tremendous amount of fuel that will come from biomass, which I stated to you was 36 billion gallons. Then this bill has a giant set of mandated efficiencies, increases in efficiencies, the biggest we have ever had. In fact, $12 billion will be saved by our consumers from the efficiency provisions, the big items you buy at your hardware store or big chain store, the items you use in your kitchen and that you wash your clothes with--
those big items have the new efficiency standards, and we have been toying with them for years. Senator Bingaman has been trying to get them done. They are in this bill.
People might still take them out in the next week, but I don't think so. I think this bill will stay as it is. It is bipartisan. The provisions I am talking about, so far, came out of the Committee bipartisan. CAFE did not come out of our committee, but it came out of Commerce bipartisan, with a very huge majority.
I am pleased that right away when we finish that, we get on with the next thing the bill ought to have in it, and that is some new production. That brings the Senator from Oklahoma in, who has been for a long time trying to get us to do something about the refining situation in our country. I am not even totally familiar with the Senator's amendment. He has given it to us and submitted it to the Senate. Senator Bingaman and his staff are looking at it. We will be looking at it. I don't know when we will vote on it. With his permission, I assumed he would not be upset if we set it aside and go on to some other work and then call it up in due course in the Senate. We will do that after the Senator is finished. We don't think we are going to vote on it right away because we have to study it, and the Senator would not have wanted it otherwise. Senator Bingaman wants to look at it.
There is another matter that was also in this Commerce bill. It has been packaged. We have Energy matters, Commerce matters, and I note that Senator Cantwell is standing on the floor. She had something to do with an amendment in the Commerce Committee that has to do with trying to--if there is gouging taking place out there in the hinterland of America, this amendment she and I will talk about when we are finished with Senator Inhofe's amendment will tell everybody what is in the bill about antigouging that the distinguished Senator worked on. It is mostly hers. Others might have added something, but we will talk about it, so that we put together what will be the package we can all understand--that is, the Energy and Commerce package, plus whatever else came in through the Environment and Public Works Committee--a smaller portion. Put all that together and it is a pretty good bill.
With that, I yield the floor and thank the Senator from Oklahoma for having given me a chance to speak.
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, reclaiming my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I appreciate having had the opportunity to yield to the Senator from New Mexico for his explanation. I think it is very important that we understand there are a lot of good things we are looking at in this bill. But he so accurately points out that the big problem we have today--not 10 years from now--is supply. We need to do something about the supply. The bill doesn't adequately address that.
The amendment I have called up, No. 1505, is essentially the same amendment we considered in my Environment and Public Works Committee during the years I served as chairman. It is one of these things where it is very difficult to figure out why anyone could vote against it, because it is permissive, it allows States to do things; it doesn't mandate.
I was pleased to hear the majority leader recognizing that the United States has become too reliant on foreign sources of energy. Unfortunately, the majority's bill presently doesn't improve the situation. Indeed, it could actually worsen it. The fact is that Americans are paying more at the pump because we don't have the domestic capacity to refine the fuels consumers demand. So we are talking about two ways to resolve the problem of supply. One is production, and the other is you can have all the production in the world, but if you don't have the refining capacity, you cannot get it refined and into use.
Some Members' answer is more hybrids than SUVs, but that ignores the profound impact high fuel prices have on our economy. According to the Department of Labor's recent numbers, about 3 percent of the Nation's inflation is directly attributed to high fuel prices. That means whether your constituent drives a gas guzzler, a hybrid, rides a bicycle, or walks, they are paying the same for high fuel prices.
In order to lower those prices, we have two options. We can increase the capacity at home or import more from abroad. The LA Times wrote in May 25, 2007, that ``gas supplies are tight because the United States lacks refining capacity, and every time a refinery shuts down for maintenance, or because of an accident, prices rise. Americans are starving for affordable energy, and the majority's bill tells them to go on a diet. That is good. We want to have these things to help with our consumption. But the Energy bill really does nothing today in terms of taking care of the supply problem we have.
The good news is it is not too late to do something to improve the situation. It is in that good faith to improve the energy security position of our country that we are offering the Gas Price Act. The lack of domestic refining capacity is not new to many Members, the public, or even to the Federal Reserve. In May of 2005, Chairman Alan Greenspan stated:
The status of world refining capacity has become worrisome and the industry is straining to meet markets which are increasingly dominated by transportation fuels that must meet ever more stringent environmental requirements.
While chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, I held a series of hearings to look into this issue. The very same month I held one of those hearings, the senior Senator from California, who was on the Senate floor speaking a moment ago, Mrs. Feinstein, made this statement in a letter to the Governor of California. It says:
I can see where the cumbersome permitting process, with uncertain outcomes, would make it difficult to plan and implement projects . . . I encourage you to improve the speed and predictability of the permitting process, and believe that this will allow business and government to focus on their limited resources on actions that most benefit the environment.
That is the statement Senator Feinstein made in a letter to Governor Schwarzenegger. I wholeheartedly agree with that statement.
The amendment that Senator Thune and I are offering today will improve the energy security of the United States, and it will do so in complete compliance with environmental laws and in concert with State interests.
In her letter to Governor Schwarzenegger, the senior Senator from California was correct in recognizing much of the permitting decisions are by States and not by the Federal Government. That is why we work very hard to recognize the importance of State and local groups in making those decisions.
The Environmental Council of States, which represents State departments of environmental quality, said as much. Keep in mind, this is the council that represents all the different State departments of environmental quality, as well as noting that the Gas Price Act does not weaken the environmental laws.
Similarly, the National Association of Counties stated:
It goes a long way in addressing the concerns of local governments during a refinery siting, ranging from the importance of considering local needs, concerns, and honoring a county's land use authority.
It is important to point this out because it seems that time and time again, some of the Members of this body hide behind the vague concerns over the environment in defending their failure to improve U.S. energy security. After working with a variety of stakeholders, this bill achieves both goals. It increases energy while preserving local governments and environmental quality.
The fact is, like it or not, the United States needs to increase its domestic refining capacity if we are to solve the economic struggles facing every family.
The amendment we are offering today redefines and broadens our understanding of a refinery to be a domestic fuels facility. Oil has and will continue to have a role in the U.S. economy, but the future of our domestic transportation fuel system must also include new sources, such as the ultraclean synfuels derived from coal and cellulosic ethanol derived from homegrown grasses and biomass.
Expanding the existing domestic fuels facilities or constructing new ones is a maze of environmental permitting challenges. This is what the Senator from California was talking about a few minutes ago in trying to encourage Governor Schwarzenegger to streamline this permitting process.
This amendment provides a Governor with the option of requiring the Federal EPA to provide the State with financial and technical resources to accomplish the job and establishes a certain permitting process for all parties. The public demands increasing supplies for transportation fuel, but they also expect that fuel to be good for their health and for the environment.
To that end, the amendment requires the EPA to establish a demonstration to assess the use of Fischer-Tropsch diesel and jet fuel as an emission-control strategy. Initial tests found that Fischer-
Tropsch diesel significantly reduces criterion pollutants over conventional fuels and could easily be transported with existing infrastructure.
It should be noted that the ongoing tests at Tinker Air Force Base in my home State of Oklahoma found that Fischer-Tropsch, or coal-to-liquid aircraft fuel, reduced particulates 47 to 90 percent and completely eliminated the SOX emissions over fuels that are used today.
I might add, this is a technology that is here. It needs to be improved upon. We are currently flying a B-52 that has eight engines using this type of fuel.
Good concepts in Washington are bad ideas if no one wants them at home. As a former mayor of Tulsa, I am a strong believer in local and State control. This is something that is controversial in Washington. There are a lot of people in this body who don't think any decision is a good decision unless it is made in Washington. I am the opposite. I feel closer to the people. They should be more involved, and that is why we structured it the way we did.
The Federal Government should provide incentives rather than mandates on local communities. Increasing clean domestic fuel supplies is in the Nation's security interest, but those facilities can also provide high-
paying jobs to people in towns in need.
Our amendment provides financial incentives to the two most economically distressed communities in the Nation, towns affected by BRAC and Indian tribes, to consider building both liquids and commercial scale cellulosic ethanol facilities. Here we are talking about people who have gone through the BRAC process, people who have in their States facilities that were military facilities that were closed during the base realignment and closure process.
I am very proud my State of Oklahoma is the leader in the development of the energy crops for cellulosic biofuel. The key now is to promote investment, and nothing would speed the rapid expansion of the cellulosic biofuels industry more than investments by the Nation's traditional providers of liquid transportation fuels.
We have in the State of Oklahoma the Noble Foundation, Oklahoma State University, and Oklahoma University--all very much involved in the development of cellulosic biofuels. It is a technology that is coming. We know it is. I guess what we need to do is understand, while it is coming, we still need to run this great machine called America.
Many integrated oil companies have formed and substantially expanded their biofuels divisions within the past year to prepare for the eventuality of cross-competitive cellulosity biofuels. Oil companies invest in exploration because their stock prices are affected by their declared proven reserves. Creating a definition of renewable reserves would create a similar incentive for them to invest in cellulosic biofuels.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 directed the Department of Energy to accelerate the commercial development of oil shale and tar sands. Given the country's interest in developing renewable alternatives to fossil fuel, it is logical that the SEC would develop criteria in cooperation with biomass feedstock sources in its hierarchy at the same time.
This is Congress's least expensive way to jump-start the cellulosic biofuels industry. Increasing capacity to produce clean fuels at home is critical in making America more secure. Passing the Gas Price Act would be a material and substantive action toward this majority's stated goal of energy independence. To vote against it underscores something altogether. They like higher gas prices at the pump.
What we are talking about is something that is permissive. It allows States to opt out, if they want, and it streamlines the permitting process. It requires EPA to establish a demonstration to assess the use of Fischer-Tropsch diesel and jet fuels. It will help in our refining capacity, if we are talking about refineries for petroleum or refineries for biofuels or any other kinds of refineries.
To have a comprehensive Energy bill, we need to do what we have done, what we have already done in this bill, but the problem is here today, as was pointed out by the Senator from New Mexico. We have a supply problem, and that supply problem is here and now. The gas price amendment to expand our refining capacity would dramatically and immediately relieve that problem.
Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. INHOFE. Again, there are two supply problems--one in production and one in refining capacity.
I will be glad to yield.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I told Senator Bingaman that I have to leave the floor for about 20 to 25 minutes, and I need somebody here.
Mr. INHOFE. I will be happy to do it. Let me repeat what I told Senator Bingaman privately. I have no intention of bringing up this amendment for a vote now. We will set this amendment aside for other amendments and then hopefully we will have several lined up tomorrow. I think tomorrow we will start these votes.
Mr. DOMENICI. That is what I wanted to tell the Senator. Madam President, can the Senator from Oklahoma stay in my stead?
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I will stay in his stead.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I know there are others waiting to speak. I don't want to delay the proceedings greatly, but I do have some concerns. I would like to ask a couple of questions of the amendment sponsor, if I can.
Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield to me for a question?
Mr. BINGAMAN. Yes, I am glad to yield.
Mrs. BOXER. Because there is so much concern about this amendment from within this committee and others, I would like to have a vote on this amendment. I don't want to take a lot of time. But I am wondering if my friend will propound some type of unanimous consent request so that the Senators on the floor can respond to the presentation by Senator Inhofe, but then give him time. I just think it might make for a more even flow.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, let me respond. I think the simpler thing would be to have the Senator from California, who is the chair of the committee of jurisdiction, go ahead with any statement she wants, and I will withhold my questions at this point. I know there are others wishing to talk about CAFE standards.
The Senator from Oklahoma has indicated a willingness to set his amendment aside. He is not pushing for a vote at this time. Why doesn't the Senator from California go ahead and speak in response to the amendment at this point, and then perhaps we can have the other Senators who want to talk about CAFE standards talk about that issue, and we will see what other amendments we can also line up.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, of course, I support Senator Inhofe's right to offer this amendment, but, to me, it is a disastrous amendment because it is a taxpayer giveaway to the oil companies. And I will explain why it is a total taxpayer giveaway to the oil companies that are making more money now than ever in history.
It doesn't do one thing to expand energy supply--not one thing. It shortcuts many environmental laws, which I will not go into at this time, but if we get further time, I will do that. It shortcuts many environmental laws that protect the air quality which is so important to our families. In California, 9,900 people every year die of particulate matter in their lungs. We cannot afford to say we are going to forget about air quality. That is a disaster. We don't want to become a China where they don't care about their people and their people suffer. We don't want to go there.
In the Energy bill in 2005, oil companies got a huge break, and it was made very attractive for them to open new refineries. My staff informs me that not one company has taken advantage of this break. So there is nothing that I think suggests that even going as far as Senator Inhofe goes, which is a total giveaway, will result in increased energy supply.
This bill never made it out of our committee when the Senator was chairman. It was never offered in the committee since I have been chairman. And if it were to be offered, it would go down.
Let me tell a story about Bakersfield, CA, where Shell Oil owned a refinery. We were all saying how important it was to continue the production of gasoline. In California, 2 percent of our gasoline supply came from this particular refinery.
Guess what. Shell Oil announces they are shutting down the refinery.
We were stunned, and we said: Why?
They said: We are not making a profit.
Guess what we found out. They were making a huge profit.
Then they said: We can't find a buyer.
We said: Really?
We went to the attorney general. We said: Can you help us?
He got involved. At that time, it was Bill Lockyer. Guess what. Somebody stepped forward to purchase the refinery.
Shell Oil wanted to shut down the refinery because they wanted to manipulate the supply. It is as simple as that--more money in their pocket, vertical integration. These are the people we want to reward with the Inhofe amendment? I think not. I think quite the opposite. I think we ought to agree to Senator Cantwell's antigouging amendment. I think we would want automatic investigations by the FTC. That is what I think we would need.
I wish to address some other aspects of this bill. As I understand it, there is an aspect of this bill which I want to make sure my colleagues understand before they come to vote on it, if, in fact, we have a vote. When I say this is a taxpayer giveaway, I mean what I say. There are expedited permits, waiver of all kinds of environmental laws, there is access to Federal lands, free. I say to my friend from New Mexico, can you imagine any other industry that gets free access to Federal lands? Not only do they not have to pay for the land, but they get 88 percent of the costs of the refinery if they are on Federal land and 100 percent reimbursement if they are on Indian land. What a situation--at a time when oil company profits are going through the roof and CEOs are coming before us and putting their heads down as we look at the amount of bonuses they are getting--into the tens of millions of dollars. This is the time to give them Federal land for refineries, which they have shown they are not interested in building? Waive all environmental laws to the detriment of the health and safety of America's families? Reimburse them for 88 to 100 percent of the cost of building their plant? What a deal. If people vote for this, I have a little piece of land in a very rocky part of California I could sell you. This makes no sense at this time.
I say to my colleagues, it is very important that we have supply. I am supporting this new fuels mandate. I see wonderful opportunities in the area of cellulosics that I think are fantastic, very exciting. I am willing to invest in research so we can use coal in a clean way. These things are all exciting. This is an opportunity for business. We don't have to give away the store to the oil companies to build these refineries when, again, I have experience that tells me they are actually shutting down refineries.
In California, the case in point is the Shell oil refinery in Bakersfield, one of the biggest scandals we had there, with nontruths coming after nontruths.
``We don't really want to close it down, but we have to because it is not profitable.'' Oh, yes, it turned out it was profitable. They just want to manipulate the supply.
``We can't find a buyer, we are looking high and low and can't find a buyer.'' In 3 weeks, the attorney general found them a buyer.
Here is the point about this Energy bill which Senator Bingaman is managing. It is the product of three or four different committees, and the bills that are included in the majority leader's package are bills that came out of committee. They have gone through the committee. They have been debated, they have been discussed, and they have been voted out. This particular plan of my friend's--he has every right to offer his amendment. I defend his right to offer it. But it never passed our committee even when the Republicans were in control. It certainly would not pass out of committee today. It is a taxpayer giveaway with absolutely no proof that refineries would be built.
I stand so strongly against this bill, on behalf of the American taxpayer as well as in behalf of the American families who want their health protected and do not want us to waive every single environmental law that protects the quality of the air they breathe inside their bodies.
I yield the floor. I will be back to respond to the comments of my good friend from Oklahoma.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Let me respond.
I am not sure what bill the Senator from California is talking about. She didn't really describe this bill at all. Let's go through very quickly her four points, if the Senator from California would like to listen.
First of all, the EDA portion provides grants to local communities, not oil companies. This is not grants going to oil companies. Maybe the Senator from California has not gotten emotional in experiencing what has happened when there are BRAC closings and some of the bases have had to close. But when that happens, the EDA does have the function, and the EDA in this case can provide grants if local communities apply for these grants. If they do not want to apply for them, they do not have to do it. The fund seeks to promote development of future fuels, coal to liquids, cellulosic biomass, not just oil.
This is not the same amendment, I might add, as we tried to pass unsuccessfully by a one-vote margin in the Environment and Public Works Committee.
Second, this idea that there is a rollback in environmental laws--the association representing the environmental concerns of every State, the Environmental Council of States, clearly states this will not do any such thing. Here is the Environmental Council of the States. Every State belongs to this, including California. It says in here:
This bill does not weaken the standards and allows each State to choose its best course on most of the matters detailed in the bill.
So there you have it. On this matter, the organization that represents all the environmental groups is strongly supporting this.
Will do nothing to increase energy independence? The reason the United States is vulnerable, in a vulnerable position, is because we don't have an adequate supply to meet the demand. Supply--that is what I have been talking about since we started talking here. Reducing demand is only one part of the equation. We want to reduce demand. We also want to increase supply.
I would say probably the most damaging thing that has been stated by the junior Senator--here is a quote by the senior Senator from California. When she talks about streamlining permitting, yes, that is one of the big problems. So I used a quote by Senator Feinstein in a letter to Governor Schwarzenegger. I will read it again because I think maybe the junior Senator wasn't in the Chamber when I talked about this. This is a quote out of the letter:
I can see where a cumbersome permitting process, with uncertain outcomes, would make it difficult to plan and implement projects . . . I encourage you to improve the speed and predictability of the permitting process, and believe that this will allow business and government to focus their limited resources on actions that most benefit the environment.
That is exactly what we want to do. That is a very acute observation by the senior Senator from California.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I was not aware that Senator Feinstein was supporting your amendment. Is that what you are suggesting?
Mr. INHOFE. This is a quote. Would you like me to read it again?
Mrs. BOXER. I would like you to read it again.
Mr. INHOFE. I will read it again.
Mrs. BOXER. I would really like that because you are implying that she supports your amendment.
Mr. INHOFE. No, no; I am saying she is concerned about the permitting process.
Mrs. BOXER. We all are. That doesn't mean we support your amendment. Go ahead, read it again.
Mr. INHOFE. ``I can see where a cumbersome permitting process, with uncertain outcomes, would make it difficult to plan and implement projects . . . I encourage you to improve the speed and predictability of the permitting process, and believe that this will allow business and government to focus their limited resources on actions that most benefit the environment.''
This is exactly what this bill does. We have a section in here that allows States, if they want to do it--and there is nothing wrong with allowing States to do what they see is in their best interests. I agree with Senator Feinstein that this would allow States to overcome this cumbersome permitting process, as she states in her statement.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, if I might say, I appreciate hearing that. It has nothing to do with this particular amendment, which, basically, is a giveaway to the energy companies at a time when they are making a fortune.
We have a Federal Clean Air Act. We have it for a reason: Air goes from one State to another, one region to another. That is what we have. It is a Federal Clean Air Act. This was passed under Republican and Democratic administrations, over and over again. This is what the people want.
Do they want streamlining of permits? Yes. We all do. I was a county supervisor. I did a lot of my work streamlining permits. That doesn't mean backing off on protecting the people you represent and making sure you have an adequate timeframe to ascertain what are the pollutants that are going to come out of the smokestacks here. What are the diseases that could follow if these pollutants get into the lungs of the people?
This is an amendment which hides behind the word ``streamlining.'' But what it really does, it waives environmental laws.
Yes, I know a lot about this particular amendment. I have to say, the Senator from Oklahoma talks about these local redevelopment authorities--you could have 10 people from oil companies on those redevelopment authorities. You could. So you cannot stand here and tell me this is protective of the public interest.
We have an amendment which has been offered as some kind of a fix to the lack of refineries. You take a look at our refineries. I think the Senator from Washington is aware of this. They remind us a lot of the problems we had with Enron. They keep taking power offline, shutting down the refineries for so-called maintenance, at higher and higher levels. And when Shell Oil had a chance to expand a refinery or keep it going, they chose to shut it down.
My friend doesn't think the refinery companies, I guess, are making enough money. They are making record profits. He wants to give them land for nothing. He says it goes to a redevelopment agency. Yet there is no protection for the public there. At the end of the day, these companies are getting it for free, whether they are getting it from the Federal Government directly to them or the Federal Government through a redevelopment agency. Environmental laws are waived. People in this country will not be protected. It is a backdoor way to repeal part of the Clean Air Act at a time when people are dying of particulate matter.
Now, if you are on Indian land, you get that land, and you get reimbursed 100 percent for the plant. So my friend can get up and say: I didn't read it. And he could read me a quote from my friend, Senator Feinstein, who, as far as I know, is not supporting his amendment. I mean, it is a very tricky thing. I can hold up a statement from Senator Domenici and say: Look at this statement.
I can hold up a statement from every Republican from a speech they made saying how important it is that the people be protected from lung cancer. That has nothing to do with this amendment. It is a good debating tactic, but at the end of the day this amendment failed in the Environment Committee when the Senator from Oklahoma had the gavel, and this amendment would clearly have failed in the committee when I was holding the gavel.
So the fact is, what we are trying to do in this particular legislation is gather around amendments that have been voted out of committee in a bipartisan fashion, that were not contentious, like this one; that are not argumentative, like this one; and that are very unclear and are going in uncharted waters, like this amendment.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Let me respond again. The distinguished junior Senator from California can say over and over and over again as many times as she wants that it is giving money to oil companies. It is not.
Specifically, the EDA portion provides grants to local communities if they want them. If the local community doesn't want them, they don't have to have them.
At this point in the Record I want to have printed a letter from the EDA that says:
No for-profit entity is eligible to receive EDA assistance.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
United States Department of Commerce, Economic
Development Administration,
Washington. DC, October 21, 2005.Hon. James M. Inhofe,Chair, Committee on Environment and Public Works, U.S.
Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Inhofe: This letter responds to the Committee on Environment and Public Works' request on October 19, 2005 for clarification on the Economic Development Administration's (``EDA'') mission and entities that are eligible to receive EDA assistance, as well as additional information on EDA's past involvement in base realignment and closure (``BRAC'') rounds.
EDA's mission is to lead the federal economic development agenda by promoting innovation and competitiveness, preparing American regions for growth and success in the worldwide economy. To implement this mission, EDA is directed by its authorizing statute, the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965, as amended (``PWEDA''), to foster economic growth by ``empowering local and regional communities experiencing chronic high unemployment and low per capita income to develop private sector business and attract increased private capital investment'' (Section 2(a)(3)(C) of PWEDA).
EDA is authorized to provide assistance only to an
``eligible recipient,'' as that term is defined in PWEDA. An
``eligible recipient'' means a(n) (l) economic development district; (2) Indian tribe; (3) State, including a special purpose unit of a State or local government engaged in economic or infrastructure development activities; (4) city or other political subdivision of a State; (5) institution of higher education; or (6) public or private non-profit organization or association acting in cooperation with officials of a political subdivision of a State (Section 3(4)(A) of PWEDA). No for-profit entity is eligible to receive EDA assistance with one exception: EDA may provide a grant to a for-profit entity under its Training, Research and Technical Assistance program (Section 3(4)(B) of PWEDA). However, this relatively small program is not applicable to the provision of EDA assistance for the reuse of former military installations.
For the most recent BRAC round, beginning in FY 1994, Congress (Commerce-Justice-State appropriators) began adding a Defense Economic Adjustment line item to EDA's annual appropriations. In FY 1994, EDA received $80 million in defense economic adjustment funding. The high-water mark of this round came in FY 1995, with BRAC '95 underway, in which EDA received an appropriation of $125 million in defense economic adjustment funding that was subsequently slightly reduced due to an across-the-board rescission that year. Defense economic adjustment appropriations then slowly declined through FY 2001. The table below depicts actual EDA Defense Economic Adjustment appropriations (after any rescissions or adjustments) for the most recent BRAC round.
[Dollars in millions, after rescissions, if any]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Defense Economic
Fiscal year Adjustment
appropriation
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1994................................................ $80
1995................................................ 120
1996................................................ 90
1997................................................ 90
1998................................................ 89
1999................................................ 84.8
2000................................................ 77.3
2001................................................ 31.4
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Defense Economic Adjustment appropriations have been allocated among EDA's six (6) regional offices based on a variety of factors, including the number of major installation closures located within the regional office's designated region, the number of military and civilian personnel dislocations resulting from base realignments, the number of affected defense installation contractors (not relevant to the current round), and the relative economic distress level of the affected area.
Each fiscal year, EDA's regional offices have awarded assistance to BRAC-affected communities based on the policies and procedures in place at the time of each award. These policies and procedures are published in the Federal Register each year in EDA's Federal Funding Opportunity (``FFO'') notice. The FFO also specifies EDA's Funding Priorities for the funding available during that fiscal year. Funding Priorities include such items as investing in transportation, communications, or other sector-specific infrastructure enhancements. In no instance has any one funding priority utilized all of a regional office's defense economic adjustment allocation. Rather, investments are made across different priority areas based on the needs of the local and regional economy.
EDA Defense Economic Adjustment investments made during the most recent BRAC round, covering the period from FY 1994 through FY 2001, are depicted in the enclosed tables. As requested, the tables include the investment recipient, location, EDA grant dollars, and jobs and private investment realized when available.
Thank you for this opportunity to explain EDA's mission and its policies and procedures related to BRAC, and to provide additional information on EDA's past BRAC-related investments.
If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact David T. Murray, EDA's Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, at (202) 482-2900.
Sincerely,
Benjamin Erulkar,
Chief Counsel.
Mr. INHOFE. Then, also, the permitting process is a small part of this amendment, but it is a very important part. It is a part that we have, subtitle A, about 4 pages, talking about trying to make the permitting process more streamlined. And that is where I used the statement from Senator Feinstein, who certainly agrees when she says: I can see where a cumbersome permitting process with uncertain outcomes would make it difficult to plan and implement projects.
Well, that is just one of the many things that we are trying to correct with this bill. Again, I have responded to all of the other statements that were made. I would repeat in terms of the environment, I am going to go ahead and submit for the Record at this point, along with the letter on the EDAs, a letter from the Environmental Council of the States, when they state very specifically: The bill does not weaken the standards and allows each State to choose its best course for most matters.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Environmental Council
of the States,
Washington, DC, October 25, 2005.Re S. 1772 Gas PRICE Act.
Hon. James M. Inhofe,Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.Hon. James M. Jeffords,Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Environment and Public
Works, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Inhofe and Senator Jeffords: I am writing to provide comments on behalf of the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) on the above bill. ECOS is the national, non-partisan association of the States' environmental agency leadership.
We appreciate the Senate's desire to address the shortcomings of the nation's refinery processes exposed by the recent hurricanes and hope our comments assist you.
States implement most of the federal environmental statutes on behalf of the federal government, including most programs that regulate the nation's refmeries. These include the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. States issue most of the environmental permits pursuant to these Acts, as well as conducting the inspections, monitoring and enforcement.
While each State's opinions may vary over the details of the bill, we can agree that the bill takes an approach that we would like to see in more legislation. I speak here of the
``opt-in'' feature.
In this approach, the Governor of each State decides whether the benefits the bill provides are appropriate for the State. This includes the streamlined permits approach, the judicial review of such arrangements (Title II), and the fuels waiver (Title IV). Some concern remains about the special fuels provisions. We appreciate that within Title IV a state would be held harmless under section 110 to account for the emissions from a waiver granted by the Administrator at the request of that State. We would not expect such emissions to significantly contribute to another state's air quality issues, but would note that the protection afforded should be limited to that extent.
ECOS has long emphasized the need for the flexibility that allows each State to tailor its environmental programs according to its needs. This bill does not weaken the standards and allows each State to choose its best course on most of the matters detailed in the bill.
Our primary reservation is that the bill, if passed, not be conferenced with the recent Gasoline Security Act of 2005, passed by the House.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Hallock,
President.
Mr. INHOFE. I think there is a basic, as I said before, problem in disagreement on the floor of this body when there are a lot of people who do not think that decisions, good decisions, are made unless they are made in Washington, DC.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I just have one last response. I don't know how many of my colleagues ever sat on a redevelopment agency. I happen to have done so when I was on county board of supervisors. And it is disingenuous to say it is the redevelopment agency that gets the benefit. The redevelopment agency is the conduit to the private sector, and that is where the benefit goes.
Now, in many cases it is totally fine. When I sat on the redevelopment entity, it was because we had a very run-down part of our county that needed support. And so whatever it was we could give to them, any benefit in the Tax Code, et cetera, that is what we did.
But how about this? The benefit goes to the particular businesses now that are making record profits. I would tell you, the American people looking at this debate are going to say: Why aren't you protecting us from price gouging like Senator Cantwell suggests? That is the bill that is in the package, not this bill which essentially says we are taking away clean air protection, we are going to have 50 different standards here, 50 different permit processes. What a nightmare. We are giving away the money of the taxpayers to the biggest corporations in America that are making the most money ever--not only giving them the land but paying them back for all of their costs.
To me, to put this in this package will doom this package. I just hope if and when this does come up for a vote, there will be a resounding no. It was voted down in the committee, and it ought to be voted down on the floor of the Senate.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I would observe that the junior Senator from California is not going to support my amendment. However, I would also observe that you can't keep saying the same thing over and over and over again and make it true.
We have quoted the Environmental Council of the States. They all say there is nothing in here that is going to be damaging to the environment. Anyway, it is my understanding that I am going to be willing to set this aside for other amendments, so we can perhaps get in the queue and have several votes tomorrow, whenever the appropriate time is.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I wanted to follow my colleague, Senator Boxer, to talk just a bit about the automobile efficiency standards that are in this bill. I played a role in the Commerce Committee in helping to write a portion of that.
Before I do that, let me say it is often the case that a piece of legislation brought to the floor of the Senate dealing with an important issue is described as something that is very significant, earthshaking. And in most cases it does not turn out to be quite that significant.
My dad once told me: Never buy something from someone who is out of breath. There is always kind of a breathless quality to reform packages that are brought to the floor of the Senate. I must say, however, that I think what we have on the floor of the Senate, perhaps with some amendments, is a significant change with respect to an issue that we should address; that is, energy.
Let me talk about the automobile efficiency issues and the issues of renewable fuels and renewable energy. Now, I noted that the OPEC countries have weighed in the last few days. This is dated June 7. It says: OPEC--that is the cartel--those are the countries that have formed a cartel. They produce a substantial portion of our country's energy, the world's energy. About 40 percent of global oil production comes from the eight OPEC countries.
Here is what OPEC says. OPEC, on Tuesday, warned Western countries that their effort to develop biofuels as an alternative energy source to combat climate change risks driving the price of oil, ``through the roof.''
The Secretary General of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said: The powerful cartel was considering cutting its investment in new oil production in response to moves by the developed world to use more biofuels.
So let me say again what this is. This is the OPEC cartel, which, of course, would be illegal in our country, getting together and saying to the United States: If you begin to produce more biofuels, ethanol and so on, we may well cut our production of oil, which would have the capability of then putting upward pressure on oil and gas prices; almost certainly it would do that. An interesting and I think also disturbing message from the OPEC countries.
But this underscores why we need an Energy bill. I mean we are held hostage by a group of people sitting in a room, called OPEC ministers, deciding how much they are going to produce, at what price they want to produce it. They close the door, make judgments in secret in a secret cartel that would be illegal in this country. They say to us: Oh, by the way, if you want to get out of this box that you are in, by producing more of the energy yourself in the form of renewable fuels, good luck. By the way, tough luck, because we may well decrease our own production.
Well, if I might just point out that this bill itself, it has some titles. Let me read the titles of the bill. I am sure my colleagues have done that: Title 1, Biofuels for Energy Security, it is a very important title; title 2, Energy Efficiency, there is substantial energy to be gained in the efficiency standards; title 3, Carbon Capture, Storage, Research and Development; title 4, Cost-Effective, Environmentally Sustainable Public Buildings. All of this is important.
With respect to the biofuels, I was thinking as I was sitting here, about a young guy who came up to me one night. He was about 21 years old. He came up to me at a community meeting in North Dakota and said: I just came in from the west coast. I drove a pickup truck from the west coast on vegetable oil. He was fueling his pickup truck using vegetable oil.
Here is a kid that is working for alternative fuels groups out on the west coast someplace with stars in their eyes and dreams about finding alternative fuels that work.
I said: Well, how does it work when you use vegetable oil?
He had modified his engine in his pickup truck and drove across the Northern Tier using vegetable oil. He said: It worked great until they got to Montana, by the way, no offense to the Montanans here. He said it worked great until we got to Montana when it got kind of cold. Then the viscosity of that vegetable oil thickened up and they could not quite use it for a while.
But the point is, there are a lot of people doing inventive, interesting, fascinating things fueling their vehicles, creating modifications to vehicles. We are talking about creating a very substantial and aggressive standard for what are called biofuels, particularly ethanol and cellulosic ethanol, and so on.
Now, my colleague from California talked about automobile efficiency, and the automobile efficiency standards that we have created. Let me make the point first that there has been no change in 25 years to these standards. None. I have actually been persuaded in years past by those who say: Well, let's have NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration within the Department of Transportation, develop these new standards.
The fact is, that is an excuse for doing nothing. It is pretty evident to me now that nothing will happen if that is what we continue to do. So we, as a Congress, on a bipartisan basis, have said: We need more efficiency with respect to our vehicles.
We use about 145 billion gallons of fuel a year in this country, 145 billion gallons of fuel. If we blended every gallon with ethanol, that would be a market of 14\1/2\ billion gallons of ethanol. We have created a renewable fuel standard of 7\1/2\ billion gallons of ethanol by 2012. I was one of the authors of that just a couple of years ago. We are going to exceed that very quickly. We are probably at that level now, and going to be at 10 billion gallons in 2 or 3 years.
So now we are going to go to 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels. The OPEC countries say: Oh, this is awful. The roof is going to come in. We may decrease production of oil if you decide you are going to move in another direction.
Even as we do that, believing that with 70 percent of the oil that we import into this country being used in vehicles. And, understanding then we must make the vehicles more efficient if we are going to become less dependent on the OPEC countries and less dependent on foreign sources of oil from whom we now get over 60 percent of our oil, then we have a CAFE standard in this bill.
Now here is the result of the CAFE or the automobile efficiency standard in my State's newspapers, and I assume others by the auto industry. This is the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. They are putting full-page ads in the newspapers, and they are also doing direct mail to constituents: Say no to extreme fuel economy increases. Make sure you don't pass these increased automobile efficiency standards.
Well, that is what they have been saying for 25 years, and nothing has changed. I have told this story repeatedly, and I will again because I think it is important. The first car I purchased as a young boy in high school was a 1924 Model T Ford for $25. It had been sitting in a grainery for decades. A guy sold it to me for $25. I spent 2 years trying to get it to run.
I restored that old Model T Ford. What I discovered was you put gasoline in a 1924 Model T Ford exactly the same way you put gasoline in a 2007 Ford. Everything else about the vehicle has changed. Everything. There is more computing power in a 2007 brand new car than there was on the lunar lander that put the astronauts on the moon. Everything about these vehicles has changed except you still have to stick a gas hose in the tank and start pumping.
We did that in the 1924 model car, and you do it today in a 2007 model car. I would like to see us move and pole-vault to a new future. I happen to believe we ought to move to a hydrogen fuel cell future, where you have twice the efficiency of power to the wheel and put water out the tailpipe.
What a wonderful thing that would be. And hydrogen, of course, is ubiquitous. It is everywhere. You can take wind energy, produce electricity from the wind, use the electricity through the process of electrolysis, separate hydrogen from water, store hydrogen for vehicle transportation.
There are so many things we can do, but let's start, let's at least start, with the current vehicle fleet, saying to the automakers that we intend and expect you to produce more efficient automobiles.
The CAFE standards we have created that are in this legislation are called ten-in-ten. It is not unreasonable to believe that we should expect greater efficiency in these vehicles. Yes, we know the improvements that have been made in vehicles: better cupholders, more adept sound systems, all of the wonderful things that come with all of these new cars. But what about more efficiency? Nothing has changed.
A friend of mine looked at an identical vehicle they purchased 10 years prior. They loved the vehicle. So 10 years later they are ready for a new vehicle. They looked at the sticker on the window and discovered that in 10 years, the efficiency of that vehicle had not changed by 1 mile per gallon, not 1.
That describes the failure. We ought to certainly expect better than that.
Let me say also, in addition to supporting the automobile efficiency standards we will be voting on--standards that are bipartisan, standards that are reasonable, standards that have an off ramp so if they are not achievable, the industry will not have to meet them--they will have to demonstrate they are not capable scientifically of doing so.
In addition to that issue, which is so important, I wish to mention the issue of fossil fuels. We are, in fact, going to use fossil fuels in our future--coal, oil, and natural gas. I am a big supporter of renewable energy sources and renewable fuels. I believe that strongly. Whether it is wind, biomass, geothermal, renewable fuels, all of those are critically important. We will continue to use fossil fuels. It is important to me that we find ways to unlock opportunities to continue to use coal in a way that doesn't degrade the environment.
We have now finally come to an intersection. That intersection includes energy policy and climate change. We need to find a way, through clean coal technology and other issues--I will be working on that in the appropriations subcommittee which I chair--to continue to use those resources, particularly coal.
My colleagues have included, with my support, the efficiency titles of this legislation which are very important. Everything we do every day, from turning on a light switch to using appliances, everything we do every day and in every way uses energy. There are dramatic advances in lighting and dramatic savings to be had with respect to lighting standards in this bill. We fought for a long while about an obscure term called SEER 13 standards for air conditioners. We fought tooth and nail. The requirement for SEER 13 standards on air conditioners is very important and will require us to build fewer new energy plants because of the savings and the conservation that comes from that efficiency standard.
There is a lot to commend in this legislation. The next important step will be an amendment offered by Senator Bingaman that I will cosponsor with others called the renewable energy standard which will require 15 percent of our electric energy to come from renewable energy. That is an important standard and one I hope the Congress will embrace and support.
I am going to be speaking on other amendments as well. I again commend Senator Bingaman and Senator Domenici. We have a good start. I come from not only the Energy Committee but Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye on the Commerce Committee on which I serve, Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe and others who have worked on this legislation. We are off to a start that can be a very important policy change and a new direction for the country in energy policy.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut
Amendment No. 1508 to Amendment No. 1502
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, before the Senator from North Dakota leaves the floor, I would like to clarify something he said. He indicated his first car was a 1924 model car. I wanted to clarify that he did not purchase it in 1924.
Having done so, I now call up amendment No. 1508.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the pending amendment is set aside.
The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Lieberman], for Mr. Bayh, for himself, Mr. Brownback, Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Coleman, Mr. Salazar, Mrs. Lincoln, Ms. Cantwell, Mr. Kerry, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Kohl, Mr. Reed, and Ms. Collins, proposes an amendment numbered 1508 to amendment No. 1502.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To provide for the publication and implementation of an action plan to reduce the quantity of oil used annually in the United
States)
Strike section 251 and insert the following:
SEC. 251. OIL SAVINGS PLAN AND REQUIREMENTS.
(a) Oil Savings Target and Action Plan.--Not later than 270 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (referred to in this section as the ``Director'') shall publish in the Federal Register an action plan consisting of--
(1) a list of requirements proposed or to be proposed pursuant to subsection (b) that are authorized to be issued under law in effect on the date of enactment of this Act, and this Act, that will be sufficient, when taken together, to save from the baseline determined under subsection (e)--
(A) 2,500,000 barrels of oil per day on average during calendar year 2016;
(B) 7,000,000 barrels of oil per day on average during calendar year 2026; and
(C) 10,000,000 barrels per day on average during calendar year 2031; and
(2) a Federal Government-wide analysis demonstrating--
(A) the expected oil savings from the baseline to be accomplished by each requirement; and
(B) that all such requirements, taken together, will achieve the oil savings specified in this subsection.
(b) Standards and Requirements.--
(1) In general.--On or before the date of publication of the action plan under subsection (a), the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Transportation, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the head of any other agency the President determines appropriate shall each propose, or issue a notice of intent to propose, regulations establishing each standard or other requirement listed in the action plan that is under the jurisdiction of the respective agency using authorities described in paragraph (2).
(2) Authorities.--The head of each agency described in paragraph (1) shall use to carry out this subsection--
(A) any authority in existence on the date of enactment of this Act (including regulations); and
(B) any new authority provided under this Act (including an amendment made by this Act).
(3) Final regulations.--Not later than 18 months after the date of enactment of this Act, the head of each agency described in paragraph (1) shall promulgate final versions of the regulations required under this subsection.
(4) Content of regulations.--Each proposed and final regulation promulgated under this subsection shall--
(A) be sufficient to achieve at least the oil savings resulting from the regulation under the action plan published under subsection (a); and
(B) be accompanied by an analysis by the applicable agency demonstrating that the regulation will achieve the oil savings from the baseline determined under subsection (e).
(c) Initial Evaluation.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Director shall--
(A) publish in the Federal Register a Federal Government-wide analysis of--
(i) the oil savings achieved from the baseline established under subsection (e); and
(ii) the expected oil savings under the standards and requirements of this Act (and amendments made by this Act); and
(B) determine whether oil savings will meet the targets established under subsection (a).
(2) Insufficient oil savings.--If the oil savings are less than the targets established under subsection (a), simultaneously with the analysis required under paragraph
(1)--
(A) the Director shall publish a revised action plan that is sufficient to achieve the targets; and
(B) the head of each agency referred to in subsection
(b)(1) shall propose new or revised regulations that are sufficient to achieve the targets under paragraphs (1), (2), and (3), respectively, of subsection (b).
(3) Final regulations.--Not later than 180 days after the date on which regulations are proposed under paragraph
(2)(B), the head of each agency referred to in subsection
(b)(1) shall promulgate final versions of those regulations that comply with subsection (b)(1).
(d) Review and Update of Action Plan.--
(1) Review.--Not later than January 1, 2011, and every 3 years thereafter, the Director shall submit to Congress, and publish, a report that--
(A) evaluates the progress achieved in implementing the oil savings targets established under subsection (a);
(B) analyzes the expected oil savings under the standards and requirements established under this Act and the amendments made by this Act; and
(C)(i) analyzes the potential to achieve oil savings that are in addition to the savings required by subsection (a); and
(ii) if the President determines that it is in the national interest, establishes a higher oil savings target for calendar year 2017 or any subsequent calendar year.
(2) Insufficient oil savings.--If the oil savings are less than the targets established under subsection (a), simultaneously with the report required under paragraph (1)--
(A) the Director shall publish a revised action plan that is sufficient to achieve the targets; and
(B) the head of each agency referred to in subsection
(b)(1) shall propose new or revised regulations that are sufficient to achieve the targets under paragraphs (1), (2), and (3), respectively, of subsection (b).
(3) Final regulations.--Not later than 180 days after the date on which regulations are proposed under paragraph
(2)(B), the head of each agency referred to in subsection
(b)(1) shall promulgate final versions of those regulations that comply with subsection (b)(1).
(e) Baseline and Analysis Requirements.--In performing the analyses and promulgating proposed or final regulations to establish standards and other requirements necessary to achieve the oil savings required by this section, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Transportation, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the head of any other agency the President determines to be appropriate shall--
(1) determine oil savings as the projected reduction in oil consumption from the baseline established by the reference case contained in the report of the Energy Information Administration entitled ``Annual Energy Outlook 2005'';
(2) determine the oil savings projections required on an annual basis for each of calendar years 2009 through 2026; and
(3) account for any overlap among the standards and other requirements to ensure that the projected oil savings from all the promulgated standards and requirements, taken together, are as accurate as practicable.
(f) Nonregulatory Measures.--The action plan required under subsection (a) and the revised action plans required under subsections (c) and (d) shall include--
(1) a projection of the barrels of oil displaced by efficiency and sources of energy other than oil, including biofuels, electricity, and hydrogen; and
(2) a projection of the barrels of oil saved through enactment of this Act and the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (42 U.S.C. 15801 et seq.).
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for not more than 7 minutes on this amendment and then Senator Salazar be allowed to speak for up to 7 minutes also.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, this is the amendment I spoke about during morning business. I am proud to cosponsor it with Senator Salazar, as well as Senators Bayh, Brownback, Coleman, Feinstein, Lincoln, Cantwell, Kerry, Dodd, Collins, Kohl, and Reed of Rhode Island. It is a broadly bipartisan group.
This amendment would replace section 251 in the underlying bill which is the topic of our interest today. Section 251 in the bill sets forth gasoline savings targets as part of our move to help make America energy independent. We instead would put in title I of the DRIVE Act, which many of us introduced earlier this year, which sets oil savings plan requirements that are more ambitious and appropriately so.
We all know America is a nation addicted to oil and that addiction is hurting us and our people in many ways. It is saddling consumers with high gas and oil and other fuel prices. It is compromising our foreign policy. It is diminishing the quality of our environment. It is leaving our economy and our very national security subject to political instability in faraway places and to the malicious whims of foreign leaders of oil-producing nations, such as Ahmadinejad of Iran and Chavez of Venezuela. The only real and permanent solution to this problem is to substantially reduce the amount of oil consumed by our transportation sector, which consumes virtually all the oil, certainly the greater part of it, we consume as a nation.
The underlying bill before the Senate, managed by the chairman and ranking member of the Energy Committee but containing parts that came out of the Commerce Committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee I am honored to serve on, under the leadership of Senator Boxer, is a very admirable and responsive piece of legislation, a real act of leadership by this Congress, a bipartisan act of leadership. This is an institution, after the problems we had last week with the immigration bill, that desperately needs to show the American people and ourselves we can work across party lines to get things done, to solve problems that are real and present every day in the lives of our citizens. There are few one could say that would be more true of that than the energy crisis and challenge.
The savings targets in section 251 of the underlying bill are expressed in terms of American gasoline consumption and reduction of it, not oil consumption. The problem is gasoline usage can be reduced by increasing the use of diesel, but diesel is also made from oil, and oil is the substance to which we are addicted, with all the negative consequences I have described. So reducing oil consumption, in the opinion of those of us who are sponsoring this amendment, should be the express goal of the Senate bill's transportation provisions because oil dependence is what hurts us, is what drains the budgets of America's families and businesses. It hurts our national economy. It compromises our environment and undermines the independence of our foreign policy. This amendment would make that crucial correction from goals reducing gasoline consumption in the underlying bill to goals reducing oil consumption.
The gasoline savings goal in H.R. 6 amounts to a 20-percent reduction in projected oil consumption by 2030, if we try to transfer it to oil. The oil savings requirement in this amendment would amount to a 35-
percent reduction in projected oil consumption by 2030. That is significant and would go a long way toward solving the problems we have talked about. I believe there is broad bipartisan support in the Senate for these stronger targets. Indeed, the fuel economy and renewable fuels provisions already found elsewhere in H.R. 6 will themselves go a long way toward achieving the stronger targets.
The DRIVE Act, which is the earlier legislation 26 of us introduced, its title I comprises our amendment to H.R. 6. It would direct the executive branch to identify, within 9 months and then within 18 months, and to publish Federal requirements that will achieve the following real and significant goals: A consistent reduction in U.S. oil consumption by 2016, a 7-million-barrel-per-day reduction by 2026, and a 10 million barrel per-day reduction by 2031. Today we consume somewhat over 20 million barrels of oil per day. That would be significant to cut 10 million barrels off our oil consumption by 2031. The measure would also direct the Office of Management and Budget to publish an analysis identifying the oil savings projected to be achieved by each requirement to be created and demonstrating that the listed measures will, in the aggregate, achieve the overall specified oil savings. So we are setting goals, and we are asking the executive branch to come up with programs to show how existing statutory authority and regulatory authority they have can be used to achieve these goals which will make America much more energy independent or, in fact, to come back and say to us: We need more authority, some new statute to achieve these goals we have set.
The cosponsors of this amendment believe we need targets that will keep the pressure on our Government and on all of us to use the authorities Congress has provided to achieve the robust oil savings America and its people need. The DRIVE Act, which is the act from which this title I amendment is taken, has 26 cosponsors in the Senate, a broadly bipartisan group reflective of every section of the country and every ideology represented in the Congress. It shows there is a consensus of demand for change in savings in oil consumption. That is exactly what this amendment would do.
I urge my colleagues to adopt it overwhelmingly.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. SALAZAR. Madam President, I first acknowledge my good friend from Connecticut for his good work on the DRIVE Act over the last several years. It is no coincidence that he and a number of bipartisan Senators have been leading the effort to make sure we set America free. In fact, the coalition that helped in writing the legislation Senator Lieberman spoke about calls itself the Set America Free Coalition. It includes conservatives such as C. Boyden Gray and progressives such as former Senator Tim Wirth, who have come together and recognized that setting America free from our addiction to foreign oil is an imperative for the United States in the 21st century.
Similar to the good work that gets done in this Chamber, this is bipartisan legislation. This amendment also has the cosponsorship of Senators Brownback, Coleman, Lincoln, Cantwell, Kerry, Dodd, Collins, Kohl, and Reed of Rhode Island, and others. It is a good amendment that reflects the bipartisan composition of this body.
Let me say why I believe this ambitious set of goals for the United States is important. It is irrefutable that today about 66 percent of the oil being used in America comes from abroad. Of the oil we are importing from those foreign countries, 41 percent of it comes from underneath the sands or lands of hostile regimes. So that national security implication is we need to get off the pipeline to those hostile regimes that today essentially allows them to fund the war on terror against the United States and the free world.
The legislation we have before us with this amendment reflects the American dream of a more energy-secure future, with fewer oil imports and a strong renewable energy economy here at home.
We need to set high goals for oil savings because we know we can, in fact, meet them if we set them high--in the same way we set high standards in the 1960s, when President Kennedy said we would be launching an initiative that would get a man to the moon within 10 years, and we were able to do that; in the same way President Roosevelt said we would be able to move forward and develop the Manhattan Project, and we were able to do so within 4 years.
That is the same kind of vision and the same kind of boldness we need to have with respect to oil savings in America today. The amendment we have brought before this body today--which is the embodiment of the oil savings provision of the DRIVE Act--in fact, has that kind of boldness, that kind of courage within it. I, therefore, strongly encourage my colleagues in the Senate to support the amendment we have brought before you.
Let me, once again, say this amendment is broadly supported by both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate. I hope it is one of those amendments that can be adopted by our Chamber.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Amendment No. 1515 to Amendment No. 1502
(Purpose: To establish an energy efficiency and renewable energy worker training program)
Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up my amendment which is at the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I would like to talk to the Senator. We are still on the amendment. What are you asking? That we set it aside for what purpose?
Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I wish to offer an amendment to create a workforce for sustainable energy and energy efficiency. We are building on what was in the bill originally. We have boilerplate language.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, parliamentary inquiry: We have set aside only one amendment to proceed with another thus far; that is, the amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma was set aside; is that correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, now he is asking that be done again.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is also correct.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I ask the Senator, how long do you think you would be before we could return to the regular order?
Mr. SANDERS. Fifteen minutes or so.
Mr. DOMENICI. One-five?
Mr. SANDERS. Yes.
Mr. DOMENICI. I do not wish to restrict you. You talk long similar to myself. Would you rather have 20 or 25 minutes?
Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, 15 or 20. I think I can do it in 15.
Mr. DOMENICI. Twenty minutes is all right by me.
Mr. SANDERS. I thank the Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to setting aside the pending amendment?
There being no objection, the pending amendment will be set aside and the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Vermont [Mr. Sanders], for himself, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Kerry, and Mr. Biden, proposes an amendment numbered 1515 to amendment No. 1502.
Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of Amendments.'')
Mr. SANDERS. Let me thank my friend from New Mexico for the opportunity to go forward.
Madam President, I rise to offer an amendment on behalf of myself, Senator Clinton, Senator Kerry, and Senator Biden.
Our amendment would strike section 277 of the Senate substitute, which is very broad language directing the Secretary of Labor to work with the Secretary of Energy to develop workforce training for the energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors, and replace it with a clearer directive regarding workforce development in those same areas.
Before I get too far along in the description of the amendment, I would like to thank Senators Bingaman and Domenici for including section 277 in the underlying bill. I think we all recognize the need to provide more workforce training in the areas of energy efficiency and renewable energy if we are to truly meet the challenge in front of us.
The amendment I offer today simply builds upon the language already included in the legislation we are considering, and so I hope it will receive the resounding support of this body. In other words, we had boilerplate language already in it, and we have built upon that. Up to this point, we have had strong bipartisan support.
This amendment would create a sustainable, comprehensive public program to provide quality training for jobs created through renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives--an area of our economy that is in tremendous need of expansion to meet the demand for a skilled workforce in these sectors.
Fundamentally, the amendment would do two basic things: One, expand our Nation's capacity to identify and track the new jobs and skills associated with the growing clean energy technology sector; secondly, develop national and State training programs to address skill shortages that have already begun to impair the expansion of clean energy and efficiency technologies.
More specifically, the amendment would authorize funding for national and State research on labor market trends in the energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors. Additionally, the amendment would provide competitive grants for national and State training programs in the renewable energy and energy efficiency areas.
Entities eligible for grants are nonprofit partnerships that include equal participation of industry and labor groups, and there is explicit encouragement for the development of partnerships with other organizations such as community-based organizations, educational institutions, small businesses, cooperatives, State and local veterans agencies, and veterans service organizations.
Some of the target populations for the training programs include those who are veterans of the Armed Forces, those affected by national energy or environmental policies, those displaced by economic globalization, and those seeking pathways out of poverty and into economic self-sufficiency. The eligible industries include the energy-
efficient building, construction, and retrofits industry; the renewable electric power industry; the energy-efficient and advanced drive train vehicle industry; the biofuels industry; and the deconstruction and materials use industries.
Some may ask whether we even have reason to believe we need training to increase the number of workers skilled in the areas targeted by this amendment. The answer is a resounding yes. We know the lack of trained workers is a significant barrier to the growth of the renewable and energy efficiency industries.
A 2006 study from the National Renewable Energy Lab identified the shortage of skills and training as a leading nontechnical barrier to renewable energy and energy efficiency growth. This same study identified a number of critical unmet training needs, including lack of reliable installation, maintenance, and inspection services, the shortage of key technical and manufacturing skills, and failure of the educational system to provide adequate training in new technologies.
All of those issues are addressed in this amendment. I can tell you from talking to the people on the ground, there is a real shortage of trained workers in these areas. In Vermont, if a family wants to retrofit and weatherize their home, it could take a very long time to make it happen because there are simply not enough workers out there trained to do the work. The same thing goes for installation of solar panels or wind turbines.
The widespread adoption of these technologies is being stopped in its tracks because we simply do not have enough people to do the jobs. But instead of talking about a study or listening to my experience from Vermont, let me actually offer testimonials from some of those who are most familiar with the need for the workforce development concepts I am proposing.
Let me quote Tim Michels, from Energy Solutions, Incorporated, from St. Louis, MO:
We have been saving energy for institutions for over 30 years. We typically find that we can reduce energy use 25+ percent with less than a 4 year payback, so it is very economical and we have lots of case studies to prove it. The limiting factor to our growth as an industry is lack of qualified professionals to perform the analyses.
That is what we are trying to do: find the workers to do those types of efforts.
Lisa Mortensen, the CEO of Community Fuels, of Encinitas, CA, states:
Currently, we are constructing a 7.5 million gallon per year biodiesel plant at Port of Stockton, California. As a renewable energy start-up we have an intimate understanding of the need for a high quality workforce. Skills in mechanical operations, industrial hygiene and safety, quality control and a wider understanding of energy production are essential to a quality workforce. These skills are not easily learned. With funding opportunities like the one proposed, our company could work with local training institutions to help develop a workforce prepared for the changing U.S. landscape.
Christopher O'Brien, vice president for strategy & government relations, Sharp Electronics Corporation, of Mayway, NJ, writes:
Sharp Corporation is the world's leading producer of solar photovoltaic equipment and has been the No. 1 producer since 2000. Sharp's solar manufacturing plant in Memphis is the largest solar panel manufacturing facility in the U.S., with annual production capacity of 64 Megawatts, comprised of almost 400,000 solar panels. The 200 solar production workers in Memphis are represented by IBEW Local 474. Sharp supports the proposal for increased Federal funding for worker training in solar and other renewable energy and energy efficiency industries. . . . We have since 2003 trained and certified over 1,681 workers. Additional Federal funding support would help to accelerate the pace of this training and would assure Sharp and other solar manufacturers that there will be a reliable and professionally trained pool of workers to deliver and install solar energy systems on customers' homes and commercial buildings. . . .
Those are a few--just a few--of the testimonials that have come across my desk as I have worked on this amendment, but I do think they do a good job of making this issue real for those of us in the Senate.
Now, my colleagues may wonder why we need a specific program for training in energy efficiency and renewables. The answer is simple: While the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries use many skills that can be transferred from other industries, specific, additional skills are often needed to take maximum advantage of the newer energy technologies.
For instance, investments in training of building maintenance workers and building superintendents and engineers can improve the operation of today's heating and cooling systems by as much as 10 percent in large public and commercial buildings, according to the National Association of Energy Services Companies. Such training could save millions of dollars per year in energy costs in larger public or commercial buildings, not to mention reduce the emission of pollutants that add to global warming. Let me quote from two business leaders about the need for specific training in these areas.
Erik Larson, from Indie Energy, of Evanston, IL:
We are the first company in the Chicago area to develop geothermal systems for commercial and residential developments using in-house vertical drilling. . . . We recognized right away that the skill sets required for a geothermal operation were not available in current labor markets.
Robert de Grasse, senior vice president of technical standards, AIMCO--America's largest owner of apartment complexes--of Denver, CO, writes:
I personally support the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Worker Training Program. AIMCO is expecting that properly trained maintenance technicians will have significant and measurable benefits; in particular with HVAC systems and electric motors. Energy User News described the energy and financial savings on HVAC for community colleges in California was estimated from 6 percent to 19 percent of a typical community college's energy bill; a direct result of technical training.
There is no doubt in my mind this amendment could make a tremendous difference in our ability to implement concrete, on-the-ground strategies that help to address our energy challenges. Ensuring we have a workforce trained in the skills needed to implement bold energy efficiency and renewable energy policies will go a long way.
Before I yield the floor, I would like to read the long list of some of the organizations that support the Sanders-Clinton-Kerry-Biden amendment, and I ask unanimous consent that letters from the following groups be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
NAESCO,
Washington, DC, June 7, 2007.Re business leaders urge vote for Sanders-Clinton amendment to promote workforce training for a new energy economy.
U.S. Senate,Washington, DC.
Dear Senator: As a business association representing leading companies working to build a new clean energy economy, we strongly urge you to vote ``yes'' on an amendment to the Energy Savings Act of 2007 (SB 1321) that will be vital to our nation's energy security and to the fight against global warming. Offered by Senators Sanders and Clinton, the Amendment would establish an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Workforce Training Program at the Department of Labor to ensure our country trains the workforce needed to ensure continued robust growth of a new, clean energy industry.
NAESCO's current membership of about 85 organizations includes firms involved in the design, manufacture, financing and installation of energy efficiency and renewable energy equipment and the provision of energy efficiency and renewable energy services in the private and public sectors. NAESCO members deliver about $4 billion of energy efficiency projects each year. NAESCO numbers among its members some of the most prominent companies in the world in the HVAC and energy control equipment business, including Honeywell, Johnson Controls, Siemens, Trane and TAC/Tour Andover. Our members also include many of the nation's largest utilities: Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, New York Power Authority, and TU Electric & Gas. In addition, ESCO members include affiliates of ConEdison, Pepco Energy Services, Constellation, PP&L, DMJM Harris and Direct Energy. Prominent national and regional independent members include Custom Energy, NORESCO, Onsite Energy, EnergySolve, Ameresco, UCONS, Chevron Energy Solutions, Synergy Companies, Wendel Energy Services, WESCO and Energy Systems Group. NAESCO member companies have been delivering energy efficiency projects to residential, commercial, institutional and industrial customers across the country for the past twenty years.
The companies we represent are developing and deploying a wide range of innovative clean energy technologies, utilizing domestic biomass, wind, solar energy, geothermal power, fuel cells, energy efficient technologies and services, and much, much more. By 2025, these technologies could provide electric power equal to half of all the electricity that our country uses today. By 2030, our industries could replace 30% to 40% of the petroleum our country now imports. By doing so, our industries could make a significant contribution to curbing global warming pollution, enhancing our nation's energy security, and creating up to 5 million new jobs by 2025.
However, to achieve these goals, we must find enough qualified, trained people to design, manufacture, install, operate, and maintain a host of innovative renewable energy and energy efficient technologies. Across the country, our companies experience workforce shortages as one of the key barriers to growth. Indeed, a recent literature review from the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) identified the shortage of skills and training as a leading non-technical barrier to renewable energy and energy efficiency growth.
We believe that the $100 million dollars authorized by the Sanders-Clinton Amendment is urgently needed to develop national and state skill training programs that will prepare workers technically for our emerging industries, as well as to analyze market trends and demonstrate best practices. While the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries use many skills that can be transferred from other sectors, in many other cases, our companies require specific, new skills to take maximum advantage of the newer energy technologies. By establishing a pilot program specifically geared toward the renewable energy and efficiency industries, the Sanders-Clinton Amendment would enable us to build the workforce our industries need to achieve their maximum potential.
Our companies stand ready to help our country with new energy technologies that will make us all more secure, curb the threat of global warming, and create economic opportunity for millions of working Americans. We urge you to vote
``yes'' on the Clinton-Sanders Amendment as a crucial step toward achieving these vital objectives.
Sincerely,
Donald D. Gilligan,President.
____
Center for American
Progress Action Fund,
Washington, DC, June 9, 2007.Senator Bernard Sanders,U.S. Senate, Dirksen Senate Office Bldg., Washington, DC.Senator Hillary Clinton,U.S. Senate, Russell Senate Office Bldg., Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Sanders and Clinton: I write to express my strong support for the proposed Sanders-Clinton Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Worker Training Program that will be offered as an amendment to the upcoming energy bill, and to encourage other Senators to join in support of this provision as co-sponsors. This is a critically important energy and jobs measure that will help to ensure both America's future energy and economic security.
As our nation confronts the twin challenges of our escalating energy dependence and a mounting climate crisis, we are presented by a remarkable opportunity to meet these pressing demands with new more efficient and ever cleaner sources of energy. This ``energy opportunity'' represents a chance to rebuild our communities, to better train our workers, and to reinvest in the basic infrastructure of the nation. This amendment takes a significant step forward in meeting the practical need to ensure that American firms and workers have the cutting edge skills to participate in the growing market for clean and efficient energy, and to capture the jobs of the future.
Even as wind and solar energy experience explosive annual growth rates, the utility industry is facing retirement of half its workers within the decade, while the National Renewable Energy Lab has identified a shortage of skilled workers as a major barrier to deployment of renewable and efficient energy. This amendment strategically invests
$100,000,000 dollars into a more robust labor market and skills training that will prepare up to 30,000 workers to jump start these booming industries that America invented. This is a smart investment in a safer, more prosperous, and more competitive U.S. economy.
By enhancing the workforce investment system, and working with state governments, non-profit community groups, and both labor and management, this amendment offers an efficient path forward for the American economy. Targeting workers displaced by shifting energy policies, enhanced skills for returning veterans, pathways out of poverty for those most in need of work, and a reliable labor market for both small business and heavy industry represents a sound investment in the future. This amendment will help build a state of the art economy and expand markets for renewable energy, good jobs in construction and building trades, and job security for the U.S. auto industry. Thank you for your leadership on this issue. The Center for American Progress Action Fund salutes your vision, and offers its full support for this important measure.
Sincerely,
John D. Podesta,President and CEO.
____
June 11, 2007.Re support the Sanders-Clinton amendment on worker training for the clean energy economy.
U.S. Senate,Washington, DC.
Dear Senator: As representatives of the environmental, energy efficiency, and clean energy advocacy communities, we urge you to vote for an amendment to the Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007 (S. 1419) that will train working Americans for high-skilled jobs in the emerging, clean energy economy. Sponsored by Senators Sanders and Clinton, the amendment would create an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Workforce Training Program at the Department of Labor to train workers in the skills our country needs to make the most of new investments in clean, renewable energy and energy-saving technologies.
As Congress advances programs to enhance our energy security and address global warming, workforce shortages have emerged as one of the top barriers to the new energy economy. Indeed, a 2006 study from the National Renewable Energy Lab identified a shortage of skills and training as a leading barrier to renewable energy and energy efficiency growth.
The program established by the Sanders-Clinton Amendment would help ensure that our nation develops the best models for training workers in the new skills required to properly manufacture, install, maintain, and operate clean energy technologies. Grant funding under the program could, for instance, train wind-industry workers in such new skills as turbine siting, airfoil repair, and weather patterns that affect turbine performance. Investments in training of building maintenance workers, superintendents, and engineers could improve the operations of sophisticated heating and cooling systems by as much as 10 percent, saving millions in energy costs each year in large public, industrial, or commercial buildings.
Of crucial importance, the Sanders-Clinton amendment provides working Americans with a clear pathway to earn a family-supporting livelihood in the emerging, new energy economy. We enthusiastically embrace this amendment for signaling that America is, at last, ready to replace the old debate of ``jobs vs. the environment'' by investing in ``jobs for the environment.''
Thank you for considering our request to co-sponsor this vital amendment. If you have any questions about this legislation, please feel free to contact Jessica Maher in Sen. Sanders' office.
Sincerely,Kateri Callahan,
President, Alliance to Save Energy.Bill Prindle,
Acting Executive Director, American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.David Zwick,
President, Clean Water Action.Vawter Parker,
Executive Director, Earthjustice.Frances Beinecke,
President, Natural Resources Defense Council.Joan Claybrook,
President, Public Citizen.Carl Pope,
Executive Director, Sierra ClubKevin Knobloch,
President, Union of Concerned Scientists.
____
June 11, 2007.Re business leaders urge vote for Sanders-Clinton amendment to promote workforce training for a new energy economy.
U.S. Senate,Washington, DC.
Dear Senator: As business associations representing hundreds of leading companies working to build a new clean energy economy, we strongly urge you to vote ``yes'' on an amendment to the Energy Savings Act of 2007 (SB 1321) that will be vital to our nation's energy security and to the fight against global warming. Offered by Senators Sanders and Clinton, the Amendment would establish an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Workforce Training Program at the Department of Labor to ensure our country trains the workforce needed to ensure continued robust growth of a new, clean energy industry.
The companies we represent are developing and deploying a wide range of innovative clean energy technologies, utilizing domestic biomass, wind, solar energy, geothermal power, fuel cells, energy efficient technologies and services, and much, much more. By 2025, these technologies could provide electric power equal to half of all the electricity that our country uses today. By 2030, our industries could replace 30% to 40% of the petroleum our country now imports. By doing so, our industries could make a significant contribution to curbing global warming pollution, enhancing our nation's energy security, and creating up to 5 million new jobs by 2025.
However, to achieve these goals, we must find enough qualified, trained people to design, manufacture, install, operate, and maintain a host of innovative renewable energy and energy efficient technologies. Across the country, our companies experience workforce shortages as one of the key barriers to growth. Indeed, a recent literature review from the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) identified the shortage of skills and training as a leading non-technical barrier to renewable energy and energy efficiency growth.
We believe that the $100 million dollars authorized by the Sanders-Clinton Amendment is urgently needed to develop national and state skill training programs that will prepare workers for our emerging industries, analyze market trends, and demonstrate best practices. While the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries use many skills that can be transferred from other sectors, in many other cases, our companies require specific, new skills to take maximum advantage of the newer energy technologies. By establishing a pilot program specifically geared toward the renewable energy and efficiency industries, the Sanders-Clinton Amendment would enable us to build the workforce our industries need to achieve their maximum potential.
Our companies stand ready to help our country with new energy technologies that will make us all more secure, curb the threat of global warming, and create economic opportunity for millions of working Americans. We urge you to vote
``yes'' on the Clinton-Sanders Amendment as a crucial step toward achieving these vital objectives.
Sincerely,Bradley D. Collins,
Executive Director, American Solar Energy Society.Randall Swisher,
President, American Wind Energy Association.Donald Gilligan,
President, National Association of Energy Service Companies.Robert Dinneen,
President Renewable Fuels Association.Rhone Resch,
President, Solar Energy Industries Association.
____
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial
Organizations,
Washington, DC, June 5, 2007.
Dear Senator: I am writing to request your support for an amendment to be offered by Sen. Sanders to S. 1419 the
``Energy Savings Act of 2007.''
The Sanders amendment would establish the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Worker Training Program to train workers for good-paying jobs in clean energy design, manufacturing, installation, construction, operation, and maintenance. This program would help U.S. workers get good jobs in an industry expected to experience rapid growth as our nation refits and rebuilds its energy infrastructure, and would help the U.S. economy take advantage of emerging environmental technologies.
To ensure that the benefits from new investments in our national energy infrastructure are distributed equitably, the Sanders amendment would give priority to partnerships that train veterans, workers displaced by globalization or environmental policies, and disadvantaged workers and communities. In addition, to allow for the delivery of training unique to specialized geographic and industry needs, the Sanders amendment balances grants between national, regional, and state workforce development programs.
As Congress considers legislation designed to reduce our country's reliance on foreign sources of fossil fuels, we believe it should also invest in the domestic workforce. American workers should have every opportunity to acquire the skills necessary for job opportunities that will be created by new investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy industries.
The AFL-CIO strongly urges you to support and cosponsor the Sanders amendment. To become a cosponsor, please call Jessica Maher in Sen. Sanders' office. If you have any other questions or need any further information, please contact David Mallino in the AFL-CIO's Department of Legislation.
Sincerely,
William Samuel,
Director,Department of Legislation.
____
June 5, 2007.Re co-sponsor the Sanders-Clinton amendment on workforce development for the new energy economyU.S. Senate,Washington, DC.
Dear Senator: I write to urge you to co-sponsor an amendment that Senators Sanders and Clinton will offer during the upcoming debate on S. 1419, the Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007, that would help America develop the specialized workforce skills needed to ensure robust growth of the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries. The Sanders-Clinton Amendment would establish an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Workforce Training Program to be administered by the Department of Labor (DOL) in coordination with the Department of Energy.
The purpose of this initiative is twofold--to expand our nation's capacity to identify and track the new jobs and skills associated with the growing energy technology sector and to develop national and state skill training programs that will demonstrate best practices in addressing skill shortages that have already begun to impair the expansion of energy technologies that are crucial to national security, economic competitiveness, and curbing global warming.
Industries eligible for training services under the program would include: energy-efficient building, construction, and retrofits; renewable electric power; advanced automotive drive trains; advanced bio-fuels; and the deconstruction and materials use industries.
As Congress advances programs to enhance our energy security and address global warming, workforce shortages are emerging in the utilities sector that could stymie growth of the renewable energy and efficiency industries. According to the American Public Power Association, half of current utility workers will retire within the next decade. However, our nation is not training enough new workers to fill their places. For instance, the number of high school graduates with technical training has declined by 35 percent over the last decade.
Already, the renewable and energy efficiency industries are feeling the pinch. A 2006 study from the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) identified the shortage of skills and training as a leading non-technical barrier to renewable energy and energy efficiency growth. In particular, the NREL study identified a number of critical unmet training needs, including lack of reliable installation, maintenance, and inspection services, the shortage of key technical and manufacturing skills, and failure of the educational system to provide adequate training in new technologies.
Leading companies in the renewable energy and efficiency sector experience lack of skilled workers as a key business constraint. According to Steve Cowell, CEO and Chairman, of Conservation Services Group (CSG), a leading provider of building efficiency and renewable energy services, ``the growth of the industry is constrained by the challenges of finding experienced, trained people. . . . CSG has identified this issue as our . . . industry's most significant constraint on growth.''
The program established by the Sanders-Clinton Amendment would help ensure that our nation has the best models for training workers in the many new skills required to properly manufacture, install, maintain, and operate clean energy technologies. For instance, grant funding provided under the amendment could train workers in such substantial new skills as wind turbine siting, airfoils and composite repair, and weather patterns that affect turbine performance.
While the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries use many skills that can be transferred from other industries, specific, targeted skill enhancements are often needed to take maximum advantage of the newer energy technologies. For instance, investments in training of building maintenance workers and building superintendents and engineers can improve the operations of today's sophisticated heating and cooling systems by as much as 10 percent in large public and commercial buildings, according to the National Association of Energy Services Companies. Such training could save millions of dollars per year in energy costs in larger public or commercial buildings.
The Sanders-Clinton amendment is unique among many of the new energy polices that Congress will consider for providing a pathway for working Americans to earn a family-supporting livelihood in our new energy economy. This Amendment honors the sacrifice of our veterans by including them among groups targeted for training. In addition, the Amendment helps to tap the full range of our nation's human capital by offering training opportunities to those displaced by national energy and environmental policy, economic globalization, individuals seeking pathways out of poverty, formerly incarcerated, adjudicated and non-violent offenders who seek to play a constructive role in society, and incumbent workers in the energy field needing to update their skills.
The $100 million authorized by the Sanders-Clinton Amendment is needed to implement programs of sufficient size and scale to achieve the dual goals described previously--enhanced labor market information as well as national and state demonstration training programs. The Amendment would authorize up to $40 million in grants on a competitive basis under a National Training Partnerships program and up to $40 million in grants to states to implement labor exchange and training programs. Preference would be given to states that show leadership in promoting renewable energy, energy efficiency, and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Eligible entities would include non-profit organizations that are composed of partnerships between industry and labor, taking advantage of established programs in order to ensure the highest-quality training possible. The Sanders-Clinton amendment also provides funding for national and State industry-wide research, labor market information, and labor exchange programs.
Using the average costs of attending a community college, we estimate that funding would be sufficient to train between 20,000 and 30,000 workers per year. These numbers represent just a small fraction of the 3 million workers that would be needed, according to our own estimates, if the country launched an ambitious ten-year Apollo-like effort to build a new energy future. However, we believe it is prudent to begin with a pilot program on the scale proposed by Senator Sanders to ensure we fully understand the kinds of training needed and future workforce trends before investing in a larger effort.
Worker training, we believe, will be crucial to the wider market penetration of innovative renewable energy and energy efficient technologies. With passage of the Sanders-Clinton Amendment, businesses can, for instance, have greater confidence that an expensive solar array or geothermal heat pump will be properly installed, reducing the perceived risks of investing in relatively unfamiliar technologies. As skills improve, costs will come down. That will, in turn, pave the way toward making renewables and efficiency a core component of our country's energy mix.
Thank you for considering our request to co-sponsor this vital amendment. If you have any questions about this legislation, please feel free to contact Jessica Maher in Senator Sanders' office or Dan Seligman, Apollo's National Campaign Director.
Sincerely,
Jerome Ringo,
President, Apollo Alliance.
Mr. SANDERS. Some of those groups are the Apollo Alliance; the Renewable Fuels Association; Wider Opportunities for Women; the Union of Concerned Scientists; the AFL-CIO; the National Association of Energy Service Companies, which includes many businesses and utilities that we all have heard of--Honeywell, Johnson Controls, Trane, and Pacific Gas & Electric, to name a few--the Sierra Club; the Alliance to Save Energy; the Solar Energy Industries Association; Clean Water Action; the American Wind Energy Association; Earthjustice; the American Solar Energy Society; the American Council for an Energy-
Efficient Economy; Public Citizen; the Center for American Progress Action Fund; and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
To conclude, this amendment has widespread support from the business community and from organized labor. It has support from the environmental community. What it says is if we are going to go forward in a bold way, breaking our dependence on fossil fuels, moving to energy efficiency, moving to sustainable energy, we are going to need a skilled workforce to help us move in that direction. I have always believed as we move to sustainable energy and energy efficiency, we have the capability of creating millions of new, good-paying jobs. This amendment is terribly important if, in fact, we are going to be able to do that.
I yield the floor and ask for support of this amendment.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I have conferred with my colleague and we are willing to accept the amendment offered by the Senator from Vermont, the one he presented to the Members, the one that is currently pending. Perhaps my colleague wants to speak to that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, we have reviewed the amendment, and actually we have similar activity already prescribed for in the bill. This modifies some, changes some, adds in other places, but all of it is authorizing to the extent that it expands--it is pretty much the kind of thing the bill contemplated. So we have no objection on our side.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I appreciate those comments, and the Senator from California who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee indicates it is acceptable to her committee as well. So at this point, I think the Senate is ready to vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no further debate, the question is on agreeing to the amendment.
The amendment (No. 1515) was agreed to.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. DOMENICI. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President and fellow Senators, I need now to bother you with a few minutes of time, because some very good Senators have come to the floor to speak in favor of a proposal that was brought to the floor by the distinguished Senator from Connecticut, and he was joined by the Senator from Colorado, Mr. Salazar. Between the two, they mentioned and enumerated a number of Senators who favored this--good Senators here who favor this proposal that was brought to the Senate's attention, as it was a freestanding amendment that has been floating around the Senate for quite some time as something that maybe we should consider. Now, it sounds good. Senators who spoke about it spoke eloquently about it, but I would suggest that maybe, just maybe, these goals in this amendment were necessary yesterday--maybe yesterday, Senator Bingaman--I am not sure, but maybe.
But I encourage my colleagues to look to the underlying bill and compare it to the goals that are set forth in that amendment. We don't need the goals, because we have already--the amendment they offer sets goals and then directs the administration to figure out how to get where they are supposed to go. I think that is sort of like outsourcing. That is outsourcing of the legislature duties and responsibilities to the executive, and then praising the bill because it tells the executive they have to reach these goals and save all of this oil. Well, if it were that easy, ever since we found out we were greatly dependent upon foreign oil, it would have been a cinch. There would have been nothing to it. We could have come to the floor and said we have an answer.
We want a dream. We want a dream, and the dream is a two-sentence bill that says the executive branch of Government shall have OMB proceed to direct goals that will get us to the point where we are no longer dependent. What a dream they could say that is. I am kind of paraphrasing my wonderful friend from Colorado who talked about the dream, that this was a dream to achieve big things. But you see, this is merely saying to the executive branch: You do what we ought to do, and when you do it, or if you do it, we are going to take credit today, because we told you to get OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, or somebody in your branch of the Government, to set the goals and then tell us how to do it, and then do it.
Let me get back to why we don't need it, if we ever needed it. I would have made this same argument in any event, but I want to say yesterday it was a little more relevant. My colleagues understand we have a bill before us, and we the Congress set goals on gasoline savings and then we set the policies that will attain the goals. They are tough, hard goals. They are not saying to the President: You reach these goals. We reach the goals. In fact, we will vote on this bill and when we do, if we do, and if we have enough courage, we will be voting on changing the automobile standards in a big way. For the first time in decades, we will have changed the standards for automobiles, for new automobiles, and made the automobile manufacturers make cars every year less dependent, more efficient so they use less gasoline.
But we don't say: Executive branch, You do it. Set the goals. And aren't we happy we dreamed big and we said to you, you set the goals for CAFE standards. We didn't say that. We said: Here, we changed them. And if anybody wants to vote to change the CAFE standards, they are already changed in this bill. If you want to change the CAFE standards and save a huge number of barrels, since they are talking about barrels, a huge number of barrels of crude oil, because all the gasoline for the most part comes from that, you will achieve those savings by voting for this bill. You don't have to vote for an amendment that says to the President: You set the goals, Mr. President, and then you achieve them. And, boy, when that gets done, we will have made a real dream come true.
Now, I figure we should stop dreaming. We dreamed so much on energy and we have been working so hard that today, for the first time in the transportation section, the section of our law that is transportation oriented, we took one big bite out of the use of transportation fuel, and we did not need the amendment I am opposing that was brought here today and that the distinguished Senators from Colorado and Connecticut and others spoke in favor of. We don't need it anymore, because we don't need anybody else setting the goals. We achieved the goals ourselves right in the bill.
In 1972, President Nixon set the goal of being energy independent by 1980. We were about 30 percent dependent on foreign oil at that time. Today, unfortunately, we are 60 percent reliant upon foreign oil. That tells me goals are not enough. We need action. Interestingly enough, this bill that they offer an amendment to is the action. It is the action per se. We have not had any action that makes us less reliant, substantially less reliant, as does this bill. By adoption of the changes in the laws that apply to new cars, we have dramatically reduced what Americans are going to spend on gasoline and diesel fuel in the forthcoming years because we have changed the law and have caused that to happen in a very good way. But we haven't asked anybody to do it for us. We haven't said: Mr. President, would you find in your administration somebody who could set these goals and achieve them? Boy, we have told you how to do it. We have set them very high so we can go home and tell the American people how high we have set the goals and how much we achieved. But we did nothing in the amendment. We did nothing; we just asked the White House to do it.
I know a lot of people have endorsed a bill that does this, that has these goals that asks the President to ask the OMB to achieve the goals, and we have everybody on it. We have people in ordinary life who are great citizens. We have former Senators, former members of White House staff. They all joined this bill. But the bill was nothing more than a set of goals, and it said the White House should go out and achieve them. It was sort of saying: We would like to be President, but we are not. Since we are not, we are going to adopt this amendment and it is going to tell the President that is what he ought to do. But I say that once again, the amendment, which I am going to call the Salazar amendment for a moment, would require the administration to develop a plan to reduce oil consumption by 2.5 million barrels of oil per day during the calendar year 2016, ramping up to 10 million barrels per day during calendar year 2031. But the bill we are considering already includes an ambitious gasoline savings goal. It goes on to achieve the goal. The bill itself achieves the goal by changing the law. Senators are going to be voting--not the President--to get it done. The bill we are considering already includes ambitious savings. The bill sets gasoline savings at 20 percent by calendar year 2017, 35 percent by calendar year 2025, and 45 percent by calendar year 2030.
Now, we did not ask the President to ask staff to come up with a goal and then today brag on the goal because the President is going to do it. What we did in this bill is we adopted these goals and then changed the law to achieve them.
As you know, we changed the law to achieve the savings, by changing the law on new automobiles and other things in this bill. These goals are consistent with what the President articulated in the State of the Union Address. But we didn't wait around to see how he was going to do it and let him call the shots and then brag that he set the goals. We did it ourselves. The President's Twenty in Ten Initiative calls for a reduction in gasoline usage by 20 percent in 10 years, or by 2017.
This bill not only includes these gasoline savings goals but establishes the programs that will put us on track to meet them. In particular, the bill includes an ambitious renewable fuel standard that will displace foreign oil with homegrown renewable fuel.
I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. Then we set the policies that attain the goals we are trying to achieve. Outsourcing our authority--we outsource it to the White House in the amendment that was put before us--Senator Lieberman first brought it up. I don't know who takes credit as its author. Perhaps it is the distinguished Senator from Colorado, Mr. Salazar, but we all know which three or four Senators first came up with it.
I wish to talk for a moment about this. On the biofuels part of the bill, we save 2.5 million barrels per day by 2017--I have converted some of this to barrels so they won't wonder what we are doing--4.5 million barrels per day by 2025, and 6.5 million barrels per day by 2030. This is just the renewable fuels section. If we add the CAFE standards from the bill, we probably will exceed these goals in practice by passing this bill.
This amendment is unnecessary. The amendment offered by Senator Salazar and others here today is unnecessary because we, as a matter of fact, already adopted law changes. We will be the ones who were courageous and did the work. We are not going to just set goals and put numbers there and say, now we have done our job, and say to the President, you go do it, and then come to the Senate and say, won't it be great. We set these goals, and the President will do it.
I don't believe that is the way we are going to do that. If that was the way we were going to do it--I told you about Richard Nixon and how far we were already substantially indebted to the world, 20 percent dependent. We were all trying to get a balanced budget in terms of the energy consumption. He wanted to have a zero difference. He wanted to make everything work, where we didn't have any excess use of oil, and he announced that. But, you see, he was President. He could have done whatever he wanted that was legal. He must have found that the President cannot do it. He didn't achieve it. The Congress tried but could not achieve it with him, and nobody could do it very easily.
We have been doing very well when you consider what we did in the bill we passed 2 years ago, the Energy bill, plus the two things which are in this bill which are gigantic, the likes of which we have never done--the CAFE change, which is giant. You heard the effects from Senator Feinstein. That is not set in stone. That is adopting the changes in CAFE standards, big changes. And then we did the dramatic thing the President recommended in terms of moving ahead with ethanol and beyond ethanol to the kind of cellulosic ethanol, which is going to be truly a magnificent substitute for the oil we are using. But we are not setting a goal; we are going to do it. The bill will do it. By the time we are finished, the bill will achieve almost as much as the Salazar amendment requested in goals.
With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I want to get it clear in the Record who this amendment belongs to. It was introduced by Senator Bayh some time ago. It had as sponsors Senators Brownback, Lieberman, Coleman, Salazar, Cantwell, Kerry, Dodd, and Kohl. The amendment was also proposed by Senator Reid. I now have it straight that these were the Senators on this amendment.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. COLEMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. COLEMAN. Madam President, I rise today to speak in favor of the Bayh amendment No. 1508 that is rooted in one of the most basic responsibilities we have as Members of this body, and that is to preserve the security of the American people. For over a year, I have been working with a bipartisan group of Senators, including Senator Bayh, Senator Lieberman, Senator Brownback, and Senator Salazar, on a plan that will create oil savings for this Nation.
By the way, the bill before us does that. Senator Domenici is right. Congress needs to do the hard work, there is no question about that. This bill has already been strengthened, and there have been provisions with CAFE that will add to the strength of this bill.
The approach we are offering is a more aggressive approach than the savings target in the bill. It is a more aggressive approach than CAFE or other oil savings that we see.
We offer this amendment today to replace the gasoline savings goal in H.R. 6, the underlying legislation we are now considering, with title I of what we call the DRIVE Act, which we have offered as an amendment. It would direct the executive branch of our Government to identify within 9 months and to publish within 18 months Federal requirements that will achieve a 2.5-million-barrel-per-day reduction of U.S. oil consumption by 2016, which is the amount of oil that we currently import from the Middle East. The amendment goes on to achieve a 7-
million-barrel-per-day reduction by 2026, and a 10-million-barrel-per-
day reduction by 2031. That is about 50 percent of the per-day oil consumption in the United States today.
The amendment would also direct the Office of Management and Budget to publish an analysis to ensure the Government's action plan will achieve the oil savings targets, and the amendment will hold the Government accountable by including specific requirements to the executive branch to evaluate, review, and update the plan.
The question that is probably on the minds of most Americans is, Can we do this? Is America up to the challenge? Can we summon the leadership and resources for a task of this magnitude? The simple answer for us as Americans is: We can because we must.
The handwriting is on the wall. Failure to address our energy dependence will mean a future for our kids which is less prosperous, less safe, and less free.
We should be motivated not by fear, however. We need to dream of the better America we can build.
This bill before us does that. It moves us in that direction. This amendment moves us more aggressively in that direction. It makes sure the Federal Government has all the tools at its disposal, the tools that the underlying text provides.
The American people will make it possible. For every voice of concern I hear about foreign oil dependence, I hear about another instance of Americans' innovative spirit. All I have to do is look at my home State of Minnesota where entrepreneurs are inventing new renewable fuel processes, hydraulic-powered vehicles, new revolutionary energy-saving technologies, the list goes on and on.
The DRIVE Act, upon which this amendment is based, includes a blueprint of a plan for oil independence that centers on three principles: energy conservation, vehicle technology, and renewable fuels. H.R. 6, the underlying text, has included many components of our plan, and, again, I give great credit to both the chairman of the committee, Senator Bingaman, and the ranking member, my friend, Senator Domenici, for the work they have done and all that they have pulled together to help America lessen its dependence on foreign oil. We need an oil savings target that is bold. We need one that will hold Government accountable to achieving cuts to our foreign oil dependence.
We have the tools, but now we need the leadership. We need to give the leadership direction, and that is what this amendment does. This amendment would express that leadership in terms of what we think is a more relevant standard, one that focuses on our problem--oil consumption. The underlying bill will reduce gasoline use, but it is possible it could result in an increase in diesel which is, of course, made from oil. So our amendment, which is based on oil reduction, is, in our opinion, the more appropriate goal for this law, and that is why we are offering this amendment to H.R. 6.
The gasoline savings goal currently in H.R. 6 amounts to about a 20-
percent reduction projected oil consumption by 2030, 23 years from now. But the oil savings in our amendment amounts to a 35-percent reduction in projected oil consumption in 2030. That is a significantly greater reduction, and I believe it is one we can achieve if we set the goal as high as it should be--high enough to cut our dependence on foreign oil and free America from dependence on the oil of tyrants. We put petrodollars--oil is a malleable product. We may not buy directly from Iran, but the fact is, the addiction we have to foreign oil puts petrodollars in the pockets of thugs and tyrants such as Chavez in Venezuela and Ahmadinejad in Iran.
The reality is that 97 percent of transportation in the United States is fueled by oil we buy from a unified global oil market. Saudi Arabia holds 20 percent of the world's oil reserves, Iran 10 percent, and Venezuela holds 6 percent of the world's oil reserves. It is time to stop funding Hugo Chavez and start sending that money to America's entrepreneurs.
Madam President, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bipartisan oil savings amendment. Again, I applaud the chair and the ranking member, the Senators from New Mexico. They have strengthened this bill. There will be a CAFE piece that we know will achieve greater savings. But, clearly, what we are doing is about oil consumption not just about gasoline. I think we should set the higher standards. If we tell Americans this is the goal we have to reach, they will get it done, and we will benefit from it.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, we probably are going to enter into an agreement to have a vote this evening, but I didn't want the good Senator to leave the floor without me making three points.
I do not seek now to have an argument about his approach. I will do that before the vote when we set that up. But when the Senator from Minnesota talks about a goal of saving oil and the bill before us has savings of gasoline, I just wonder if he knows that most of the crude oil goes to gasoline in the United States. That is a fact, isn't it? Most of the crude oil we import, that we bring into our country to go to refineries, is turned into gasoline and used by automobiles.
Mr. COLEMAN. Madam President, most of the fuel we consume, I think over 60 percent, is gasoline. But the issue is dependence. Our concern is not just about gas. It is about oil, oil dependence. So we push a little further on the large issue.
I certainly agree with my distinguished colleague from Mexico that gasoline is a major part of what we are consuming.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I am going to yield the floor in a moment. I just want to say, if my colleague thinks carefully, the amendment that was offered that was spoken to by my good friend sets goals to be achieved by the White House, by the executive department. We have a bill before us that I am so proud of because for the first time, we did it right. We put in the bill the kinds of law changes that will save gasoline and oil because we change the law. We don't have to ask the President to find ways; we did it. When Senators vote for it, they will not be voting for a goal that asks the President to do something. They will be voting for a change in the law that makes cars more efficient in the future if produced and used in the American market.
That same bill will save tremendous amounts of electricity and whatever is used with electricity because we are going to become so much more efficient on appliances and the like.
And, third, there will be some enormous savings because we are going to make gasoline from something other than crude oil and other than by making it out of corn. We are going to make it out of switchgrass and other products that are part of the biomass approach.
I am proud that just those three will do more than we have ever done, and we won't be asking a President to set goals to achieve, which a President has never been able to do. If they could, they would do it without us asking them. We are doing it in this bill.
I yield the floor and will return when we have a vote on this matter.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, first, I thank my friend from Minnesota, Senator Coleman, who has been very active in the construction of the so-called DRIVE Act. I thank him for his cosponsorship of this amendment. I appreciate very much this is a bipartisan measure.
I say to Senator Domenici, if I may, I wish to respond to his statement. The aim of this amendment is to build on--and I mentioned this earlier in my statement--all the extraordinary steps forward that are in the bill that has come out of the Energy Committee and the Commerce Committee.
In other words, we are trying to do basically a couple of things with this amendment. One, it is true we are moving from the goal in the bill that just says gasoline to oil so that it includes all oil usage in the country.
Second, basically, we are saying to the executive branch that over the time ahead, here are some national goals we are setting. You have authority in law, and if this bill passes--thanks to the work that Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman have done, and our friends on the Commerce Committee--the Government will have more authority. Put all those authorities together in a package and tell us how you are going to use those authorities to achieve the real goals in this bill.
So this is not in any way intended to undermine the very progressive steps in the committee's proposal, H.R. 6. It is intended to put a requirement on this administration and following administrations to make sure that all the authorities they have in the law are used to achieve these goals. If they don't feel they can do it with the authorities they have, they can come back to us and ask for more.
I yield to my friend from Minnesota.
Mr. COLEMAN. Madam President, I second what my colleague has said. I applaud the underlying work on this bill. It is progressive. It is going to make a difference.
What we are doing is simply building on that foundation and understanding that the issue of oil dependence is about oil dependence, and if we can move the ball forward, if we can give some specific tools to the administration--Congress is going to do the hard work. The Senator from New Mexico has done the heavy lifting. This is a very broad-based bill. There is a lot in this bill. I believe this amendment certainly has some responsibilities, and the executive branch needs to be part of the solution. I believe it is appropriate for Congress to give them this kind of direction. We will all benefit. But it certainly builds on a very steady foundation that the Senator from New Mexico has put forth, and I applaud him for doing that.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I will add, unless Senator Domenici wishes to speak, I will suggest the absence of a quorum but not quite yet.
Senator Coleman has a good point. We are supporting the bill. It is a very significant step forward coming out of the committees. Again, I thank Senator Bingaman and Senator Domenici for their bipartisan leadership on this bill. This amendment sets good, significant goals for savings of oil consumption by America over the next 23 years.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 5:45 today be for debate with respect to amendment No. 1508 and the time be equally divided and controlled in the usual form and no second-degree amendment be in order prior to the vote and that at 5:45 p.m., the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the amendment, without further intervening action or debate.
Mr. DOMENICI. Reserving the right to object, what were the last two lines?
Mr. DURBIN. The Senate proceed to vote in relation to the amendment, without further intervening action or debate, at 5:45.
Mr. DOMENICI. I have half the time?
Mr. DURBIN. Yes, you do.
Mr. DOMENICI. I have no objection.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, if there is no one here to speak directly to the amendment at this point, I would like to speak to the bill under this unanimous consent request. I will yield if someone comes to the floor to speak directly to the amendment, No. 1508.
This week in the Senate we are considering an energy bill, the Renewable Fuels Consumer Protection and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007. This legislation is built upon a goal we believe in, the goal to move America in a new energy direction which will enhance our national security and strengthen our economy while protecting the Earth on which we live.
This new energy direction calls upon the strength of America: innovation, ingenuity, creativity. We are calling for improvements in energy efficiency, development of cleaner alternative fuels, investment in research and development for new technology, improvements to fuel economy, and stronger consumer protection.
If we do not take steps to use our energy resources more wisely and instead continue on the path we have followed, we threaten our Nation's future, we risk our economic security, and we fail to protect our country and our children from the growing threats of global warming. If we continue on the path from where we have been, we will be left behind as others around the world who recognize the growing demand for energy make their own advancements in harnessing renewable resources and improving energy efficiency. We will fall behind as a nation and, instead of being leaders of innovation, we will be followers, reliant on others.
Business as usual will not improve our economy or make our Nation more secure. A new energy direction for our country will create jobs and grow our economy. Here are some facts, for a moment, to put it in perspective.
Every day, we consume 20.8 million barrels of oil, 14,000 barrels per minute, over 10,000 gallons per second--25 percent of all the oil produced in the world consumed here in the United States. Over 60 percent of the oil we use is imported. This figure may grow to 70 percent over the next two decades, with about half of the increase coming from members of the OPEC oil cartel, many with whom we have relationships that are shaky at best. The thirst for oil costs us $291 billion annually on oil imports, with 38 percent of this money going to OPEC.
In 2006, the top five integrated oil companies made $119 billion in profits. Making money is not a bad thing, but that is a recordbreaker. Since 2005, when the Senate last considered energy policy, gasoline prices have gone up 45 percent. Since the election of this President, gasoline prices in America have doubled. In my State, 2 years ago, we paid $2.19 a gallon. Today, the average is $3.35; in Chicago, $3.50. The cheapest gasoline I could find 10 days ago in Chicago, $3.75 a gallon. In the past 5 years, we have witnessed a 136-percent increase in gas prices and an 83-percent increase in diesel fuel prices. Think about the added shipping costs, manufacturing costs, and agricultural costs associated with this.
Three factors are at work here: the industry's failure to reinvest enough of their profits to expand refinery capacity, the increasing global demand for world oil resources, and our failure to reduce consumption. In order to help reduce our dependence on imported oil and break us from these ever-increasing costs, this bill calls for strengthening renewable fuel standards.
A century ago, Henry Ford's Model T was the first flex-fuel vehicle. It could run on both gasoline and ethanol. Ford knew that fuel could be found in many places, even fermented.
Here we are today, a century later, encouraging the production of bio-based renewable fuels in order to displace a portion of our petroleum thirst. This Energy bill calls for an increase in the domestic production of clean, renewable fuels to 8.5 billion gallons in 2012 and 36 billion in 2022. It specifically calls for an increase in advanced biofuels, those not derived solely from corn. This provision would save 1.4 million barrels of oil a day and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Another provision in this bill will save us 1.5 million barrels of oil a day and also reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
For the first time in 30 years, this bill raises fuel economy standards for cars and trucks to 35 miles a gallon by the year 2020. I offered an amendment 2 years ago that would have called for these higher fuel economy standards. The Senate was not ready for that amendment. I think America was. My amendment did not pass, but it was a starting point for the legislation we have today.
Title V of this bill reflects a true bipartisan compromise and addresses many concerns about CAFE standards. It authorizes NHTSA to establish tailored fuel economy standards based on vehicle size and weight, which removes the disparity between large-car manufacturers and those that produce smaller vehicles.
I would like to say a word about this. I still hear that many of the American automobile companies oppose these CAFE standards. It is truly unfortunate. The time for debate has come and gone. Unfortunately, some of the leaders of these companies have failed to make the right decisions about the products they sell in America. They have failed to invest in the kind of technology that would have brought us better miles per gallon with safe cars, cars that serve our families and the needs of our economy. They failed to do this. Sadly, other automobile companies have not failed. They have stepped in with more fuel-
efficient cars that are now extremely popular. There are long waiting lines for hybrid vehicles and other cars that have real fuel economy. It is a sad day for Detroit, and I feel bad for an industry which once used to lead the world, and I feel even worse for the workers who were not part of these management decisions which unfortunately brought them to this moment today, decisions which resulted in cars and trucks that are being sold that do not serve the needs of America and its future as they should.
Now we have to change. We really have to move beyond this. We have to urge Detroit to move beyond their current thinking. Instead of just selling us more of last year's model, bring us fuel efficiency, bring us fuel economy so we can save money at the gas pumps and stop pumping all of these greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, destroying the climate on our planet.
Two years ago, BusinessWeek published a story that said:
As Congress puts the final touches on a massive new energy bill, lawmakers are about to blow it. That's because the bill
. . . almost certainly won't include . . . a government-mandated increase in average fuel economy.
That was 2 years ago. That is when I offered my amendment. That is when it failed. We cannot fail again. If we fail again, shame on this Congress, shame on the Members who will not look to the reality of our future, which is with more fuel economy and fewer emissions from vehicles.
We also need to move for energy efficiency in so many different areas--in the appliances we use and the machinery we build, certainly in the cars and trucks we drive. We have to realize our reliance on foreign oil does not make us safer but, in fact, weaker in a world of real danger. We need to reduce our demand for foreign oil and increase domestic sources so we do not find ourselves drawn into countries around the world primarily because we depend so much on the energy from that country or that region. We have seen it happen over and over again.
A New York Times article from April 20 cited a report issued by 11 retired admirals and generals. This report argued that climate change could be a ``threat multiplier'' in already fragile parts of the world. Rising sea levels could threaten the livelihoods of a billion people living within 45 miles of Asia's coastlines; in Africa, recurring heat waves, causing widespread shortages of food and water. So our dependence on foreign oil and the energy we consume not only sends more American dollars abroad, sometimes to countries that do not share our values, but it tends to change the world we live in, change it in ways that destabilize us and make the world less safe.
We want innovation to be the driver of our future, not oil. We want more American jobs, a stronger economy, and a cleaner environment. We want a secure future for America.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, since I last had the opportunity to speak, a unanimous consent was entered to vote on the amendment, No. 1508, which has been introduced by the occupant of the chair, Senator Salazar, by Senator Bayh, Senator Coleman, Senator Brownback--who is, unfortunately, not here today but is a cosponsor--myself, and others.
I do wish to say that this bill sets strong targets for a reduction of oil consumption by America and the American people and American businesses. It does so by way of breaking what we all agree is a harmful dependence we have.
I wish to make clear that the underlying bill as proposed by the committee includes targets. So we are not doing something different by having a target; we are just saying the target ought to be to reduce oil consumption, not just gasoline consumption, as the underlying bill indicates.
That is because we all know the problem we have in America is an addiction to oil. It is oil dependence, not just gasoline dependence. It is all of the various uses of oil we have. To get a bit technical, if we only talk about reducing gasoline consumption, that might be accomplished by greater use of diesel, but diesel comes from oil. So we would not, even if we went to diesel, decrease our dependence on foreign oil. So we think this is building on not just the targets in the bill but building on all of the good work for energy conservation and energy efficiency in the bill. It would strengthen the bill.
The targets are a bit more ambitious and would, by our calculations, reduce American consumption of oil by 35 percent from what it would otherwise be in the year 2030. That is substantial.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and ask unanimous consent that the time be charged equally to both sides during any ensuing quorum call.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, fellow Senators, let me say, we are getting close to the end of a good day on the bill. This is a three-
part bill that came to us from the Energy, Natural Resources Committee, the Commerce Committee, and the Environment and Public Works Committee. Then the majority leader put them together, and I was very proud to be able to come to the floor and tell the Senators and the American people what an outstanding bill this was. We had not heard much from anybody, and people were not quite sure what happened. But people kept saying: We had an energy bill. Well, we can, at the end of the first day, say we still have it. It has not been changed any. We accepted one amendment. It was an authorizing amendment, and it enlarged upon some pieces of the bill. But essentially it is intact.
And, lo and behold, without this amendment that is before us, which I urge the Senate not pass, that they not vote for it--it is harmless, but I do not think we ought to pass it. I wish to tell you all why. To do that I have to talk a little bit about the bill, because the bill changes the law. If all of the things in this bill get adopted, we will save huge amounts of crude oil and gasoline.
The other side keeps mentioning that the bill saves more gasoline and not enough crude oil. But I guarantee you that if we could get the kind of savings that could be forthcoming from transportation fuels, America would be safe, America would be happy, and we would not be dependent, because we would be using much less crude oil also.
So there is no difference. They are almost the same. Nonetheless, the truth of the matter is that never in the history of the Congress have we saved so much gasoline--that is the thing that moves transportation in America: diesel fuel, transportation, and related products. Never have we changed America so much in terms of how much of that fuel we would use. What fuel? The fuel everybody says makes us more and more dependent, the transportation fuel. Right.
Now, what happened is we did not adopt a bill in the Energy Committee or the Commerce Committee, headed by the Senator from Hawaii and Senator Stevens from Alaska. Those bills that produced that came from these committees and are actually changes in the law.
Let's talk right off and say the biggest change is the CAFE standards. The Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction, had the courage and the guts to adopt a long-standing amendment sponsored by the Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, and it had been regularly known as the bill that changes the CAFE standards. We adopted it. It is in here. The changes we have been yearning for are here. We adopted them, and they are now before us. We don't have to ask anybody to make the changes that will cause the biggest single savings in transportation fuels that we ever did.
Then right on top of that, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee adopted a huge multiyear program to use more ethanol but ethanol that would not be produced by corn but, rather, by switchgrass and come out of that whole area we are now researching and just almost over the hurdle in terms of a new kind of production of ethanol. When you add the two together, it is the biggest reduction in transportation fuel we will ever get.
I wanted to make the point that we did not set any goals; we did not adopt any targets; we did not ask the President to find any savings. We asked the President to sign a bill that will make the savings because we change the law.
When oil savings amendments were offered in the past, people would say this was a hidden CAFE standard. They were correct. When you direct the executive branch to save oil in such a dramatic way, one of the only ways you can do it and reach that goal is to change the CAFE standards. So whenever you were telling the President to make these savings, everybody would say: In transportation, the only way you can do it is to change the CAFE standards. Isn't that interesting? But we didn't do that here today. We changed the CAFE standards and saved oil and gasoline over the next 30 years, calculated as it is in the bill, because we got that done.
We don't need a hidden CAFE in this bill, which essentially is the only way you could get to your targets in oil is to do something to transportation consumption, and that means you would have to do something with the so-called hidden CAFE standards that would be incorporated in your suggested targets. In the bill we have, there are real increases in the CAFE standards that are adopted and they were articulated by Senator Feinstein and talked about at length. Perhaps when we pass this amendment asking the President to save oil, perhaps when we do that--and I know my good friend, the occupant of the Chair, thinks that amendment I am talking about is a great thing because it sets targets and let's us dream, as he says, but I think all the President would have to do, if we adopt and sent to him the Bayh amendment--that is properly the name of it because he was the first name on this many months ago--I would venture to say, without fear or trepidation, if we had the bill we have before us today, Senator Bayh wouldn't be introducing this amendment with these kinds of targets, because he would look down and say: The biggest target for crude oil that is used in gasoline is already done because they have changed the CAFE standards. They don't need another target.
If we continue this way and we adopt the Bayh amendment, then when the President signs our bill, he can send it back to us and say: This is my plan, to do what you asked me to do, because in this bill we have already accomplished the things you were talking about.
Let me say, there isn't any rancor. I am not trying to belittle anybody. The truth is, when you have to set targets and tell the President to achieve the targets, you have accomplished nothing. Because if that is the way you could have saved crude oil in the past, every President would have done it himself, would have taken us out of this crisis by doing just what your targets say, go out and find them and do them. But you can't do them. You have to have Congress. You have to change laws.
I want to sit down for a moment and reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. BAYH. Mr. President, if I could ask a question of my friend and colleague from New Mexico, I am informed that the time on our side of the aisle has expired. Is it possible I could prevail upon him to request 2 minutes, perhaps?
Mr. DOMENICI. How much time do I have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico has 7 minutes 57 seconds. The Senator from Indiana has 1 minute 33 seconds.
Mr. DOMENICI. What do you want, five total?
Mr. BAYH. If I go beyond three, it will have been an imposition.
Mr. DOMENICI. I will say five.
Mr. BAYH. I thank the, Senator. I appreciate that very much.
I want to begin by complimenting you for the excellent work you and Senator Bingaman have demonstrated on this bill. I know it is a matter of great concern to you and, frankly, I am pleased to see your cooperation from your State can cross party aisles just as mine with Senator Lugar crosses the party aisle in my own State.
I thank all of our colleagues, starting with Senator Lieberman for his hard work and leadership. I thank Senator Salazar, who occupies the Presiding Officer's chair today; Senator Brownback, who could not be with us. He is in the process of returning to the floor but is supportive and helpful. I thank Senator Collins, Senator Norm Coleman, and all others who have been instrumental. Our leadership group on this bill extends from Senator Brownback to Senator Kerry. It includes Democrats, Republicans, and even independent Democrats, suggesting the breadth of our support and, more importantly, the justice of our cause.
I don't speak often on the floor. Frankly, I don't find utility in it that often. But the magnitude of this issue is important to our Nation. Its importance to our Nation compelled me to come here today to speak on behalf of this amendment. It is a friendly amendment designed to improve what is a good work product in the underlying bill. We offer this amendment for several reasons.
First, because the issue of oil dependency is one of the defining challenges of our time. Our ability to grapple with this issue will affect our Nation in profound ways. It will affect finances, our economy, our environment and, most importantly, the quality of the world that one day we will leave to our children.
Unfortunately, today we are not doing nearly enough to meet this challenge. We can and must do better. This is brought into stark reality when you realize that since the attack on 9/11, we import more oil to this country today than we did on that day. Clearly we must do better. The expected consumption of petroleum is projected to increase from 20 million barrels per day this year to 26.8 million barrels per day in 2030. This is unacceptable. We have gathered here today to do something about it, to move us as far and as fast as we can to reduce this dependency on imported petroleum.
This is affecting the quality of Americans' daily lives. I was looking at some statistics before coming to the floor. American consumers in the first 6 months of 2006 spent $38 billion more on gasoline than they did in 2005, and $57 billion more than they did in 2004. This is an alarming trend that we don't need to bring to the attention of anyone who is filling up at the pump. Clearly we have to do something about this. Our amendment is designed to be robust and aggressive in doing so.
We have worked with a coalition of 26 of our colleagues to form the DRIVE Act. It spans the ideological spectrum. Our goal is to reduce oil imports by 2.5 million barrels per day over the next 10 years, an equivalent of everything we currently import from the Middle East. Along with the authors of this bill, we propose that we move America in a better direction to find a better future for our children and create a legacy of which we can be proud. I believe we can do that in material ways, getting there further and faster than the underlying bill envisions.
Our approach targets oil, petroleum, not just gasoline. Gasoline is an important subset of the challenge. But dependency on oil and particularly imported oil gets to the heart of the challenge facing our country. That is what our amendment does. We propose an additional reduction of 3.8 million barrels per day, a further reduction in our dependency of 15 percent, a material step in improving our situation. Finally, we hold the administration accountable, requiring the Office of Management and Budget to work with the Departments of Energy and Transportation to come up with a specific plan, not just a goal but a specific plan with concrete steps to achieve that goal and to revisit that plan, to evaluate its effectiveness every 3 years, to make sure we do more than pass this amendment or pass this legislation but, in fact, we translate this legislation into concrete results for the American people.
Let me conclude by saying this is a good bill. It begins to take us in the right direction. But now is the time to do something more than just good steps. Now is the time to take bold, transforming steps to meet the challenges, particularly one of the defining challenges of our time. Now is the time to invest in American ingenuity, to build an American future that is more prosperous, more healthy, and more secure. Now is the time to forge a legacy that will enable our grandchildren one distant day to say that we were both good stewards of our Nation and, most importantly, good stewards of their future.
That is what this bill will accomplish. That is what this amendment will accomplish. That is why I urge colleagues to vote in support of the amendment.
I yield the floor and thank the Senator from New Mexico for his indulgence. He has been very kind.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, that was an eloquent statement and I want to acknowledge it. But I want to make sure those who are worried about America's energy crisis know a mere statement, whether it be verbal or written down on a piece of paper, that says we ought to achieve this doesn't achieve anything. Or we in the Senate think our goal should to be save 3.5 million barrels of oil and then say how proud we are that we are going to achieve this great goal; that doesn't do anything. All you have is, if you have a bunch of targets and goals and they are high and they are big, you can say: We are a better dreamer than the other side, because we have these great dreams about how much we should save and what our target should be. But think for a minute, what do they accomplish?
The truth is, the underlying bill, for a change, saves on crude oil consumption and gasoline, because we have changed the CAFE standards permanently. As anybody in here remembers, every time we were talking about saving large quantities of gasoline, if we could just change the CAFE standards. Remember? Well, we changed them. The biggest way to save on gasoline is to change them. We changed them. We don't need a target in the bill that says we should save on gasoline. Maybe you should say by changing the CAFE standards, but the President can't change the CAFE standards. Only we can, and we did.
They have some auspicious goals, some magnificent targets. They can speak eloquently about what will be required to do them. But the point is, they don't save one single penny's worth of gasoline. They don't achieve 10 cents' worth of savings. They are merely goals, things we wish to do. I guarantee you that the bill they are attaching this amendment to for a change will truly save by changing the CAFE standards permanently. By changing the standard for ethanol and the second generation of ethanol, we will save more on gasoline and then on crude oil, which it comes from, than we have ever done before. So we don't need an amendment to a terrific bill. The bill is something we can be very proud of. Three committees participated. They did it bipartisanly.
Now we have bold and high words about what the President should do because it says the President shall find ways to achieve these goals. That is essentially the plan: Mr. President, we have these goals. Mr. President, you go talk to OMB and you achieve them.
That is it. I do not believe anybody thinks that will work. But I would say, if it passes, I do not know what it does, and I do not know what we would do with it because I do not know how you get any savings from that kind of proposal.
But I kind of know where we are. A lot of Senators and non-Senators got together before we were here with this bill and decided they would introduce a bill that sounded good, that set high goals, and they did. Then we come along with a bill that actually does it, and they want to amend it to get in on the action, which I do not believe would accomplish much.
I compliment the Senators for the way they have worked, and in particular Senator Bayh, whom we do not see very much, but I see him a lot, and I am pleased always to see him. I say to the Senator, I thank you for the way you have responded.
I wish to say again, I don't believe with the bill we need your bill. With the bill that is underlying, we do not need another bill.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 1508.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant journal clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Dodd), the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Johnson), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Obama) are necessarily absent.
Mr. LOTT. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Menendez). Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 63, nays 30, as follows:
YEAS--63
AkakaAlexanderBaucusBayhBidenBingamanBoxerBrownByrdCantwellCardinCarperCaseyClintonColemanCollinsConradDorganDurbinEnsignFeingoldFeinsteinGrahamGrassleyGreggHarkinInouyeKennedyKerryKlobucharKohlLandrieuLautenbergLeahyLevinLiebermanLincolnLugarMcCaskillMenendezMikulskiMurrayNelson (FL)Nelson (NE)PryorReedReidRockefellerSalazarSandersSchumerSessionsSmithSnoweSpecterStabenowSununuTesterThuneVoinovichWebbWhitehouseWyden
NAYS--30
AllardBennettBondBunningBurrChamblissCochranCorkerCornynCraigCrapoDeMintDoleDomeniciEnziHagelHatchHutchisonInhofeIsaksonKylLottMartinezMcConnellMurkowskiRobertsShelbyStevensVitterWarner
NOT VOTING--6
BrownbackCoburnDoddJohnsonMcCainObama
The amendment (No. 1508) was agreed to.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. DOMENICI. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me propound a unanimous consent agreement with regard to tomorrow morning.
I ask unanimous consent that on Wednesday, June 13, when the Senate resumes consideration of H.R. 6, the time between the end of morning business and 11:45 a.m. be for debate with respect to the Inhofe amendment No. 1505, with no amendment in order to the amendment prior to the vote, and that the time be equally divided and controlled between the Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Inhofe, and the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer, or their designees; and that at 11:45, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the amendment without further intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, last Wednesday I came to the floor and introduced legislation that would place the country in a new direction, a path toward a better energy future, by requiring that 25 percent of electricity be provided by renewable sources in this country. For me, this is not that radical an idea, since my State, the State of Minnesota, just enacted this plan this past year. It was brought into law by an overwhelming majority, a bipartisan majority in a Democratic-
controlled legislature, and signed into law by a Republican Governor. In fact, it is even higher for Xcel Energy, which is our largest electricity company. They are bound to a 30-percent standard. In fact, the CEO of that company came and sat in my office and told me that he felt they could meet that standard without increasing rates.
Part of this is that Minnesota has been on the front end of renewables. We have done it with fuel, with biodiesel, and with ethanol--in fact, we have about a third of this country's ethanol that comes right in our State. And we have done it with wind. We have so many wind turbines right now down in southeastern Minnesota, in the Pipestone area, that they have actually opened a bed and breakfast. If you are looking for an interesting weekend, you can go to the bed and breakfast in Pipestone, MN, and wake up in the morning and look at a wind turbine.
But this is serious stuff. I was proud to introduce that 25-by-25 standard, but I also want to say that I support the standard the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Bingaman, is introducing in the next few days, and that is a 15 percent by 2020 standard.
Our current path has led us to record-high electricity and natural gas prices. These prices are not only hurting ordinary families, but they are also hurting businesses that see their own costs going up dramatically. The growth of energy-intensive industries, such as manufacturing, is actually being stunted due to skyrocketing energy costs. We already know the negative impact this situation is having on the environment. It is clear that we need a new direction, that we cannot continue down the energy path we are on anymore. A strong renewable energy policy is good for this country.
Currently, I will say, we do not have a diversified electricity portfolio. Mr. President, 52 percent of our electricity comes from coal, 20 percent is generated using nuclear power, 15 percent natural gas, 7 percent hydro, and only 2.5 percent from renewable energy. A strong renewable electricity standard can actually diversify our energy sources so we are not so reliant on one energy source, such as natural gas, that could be vulnerable to periodic shortages or other supply interruptions.
A strong renewable energy standard can also save the American consumer money. According to several studies, a 15-percent renewable electricity standard will save consumers a total of $16.4 billion on their energy bills by the year 2030. An aggressive national standard will also open the door to a new electricity industry that will bring in thousands of jobs and pump billions of dollars into our economy.
Over the last 20 years, America's renewable energy industries, and the wind industry in particular, have achieved significant technological advancements. The industries for solar, wind, and biomass energy systems are expanding at rates exceeding 30 percent annually, and the clean energy revolution is still in its infancy. So the question is, Does the United States want to be a leader in creating new green technologies and the new green industries in the future? Are we going to sit back and watch the opportunities pass us by?
We are no longer the world leader in two important energy fields. We rank third now in wind production between Denmark and Spain. We are also third in solar power installed, behind Germany and Japan. Ironically, these countries surpassed us by using technology that was actually developed in our own country. We came up with the right ideas, but we didn't have a plan or the standards in place to adequately fund the deployment of these technologies. That is because the Federal Government has been complacent and let the States take the lead. That is good in some ways. The States, as Justice Brandeis noted, are the laboratories of democracy. He always talked about, in that one opinion, how an individual State can have the courage to experiment and bring us new ideas on a national basis. But I don't think he ever meant this should mean inaction by the Federal Government. Sadly, that is what has been happening.
Twenty-two States now throughout the country have already demonstrated the value of establishing renewable electricity standards. As I mentioned, Minnesota has been one of the most aggressive with its 25-by-25 standard.
The way that bipartisan standard was set, with a Democratic legislature and a Republican Governor, should be a model for national action. The courage that we have seen in the States must be matched by courage in Washington. We have an opportunity in the next 2 weeks for the Federal Government to act. It is time for the Federal Government to begin moving toward an aggressive national standard on power with State standards.
We have everything we need, we just need to act. I have talked to many investors and businesspeople, and part of the issue is we never think in the long term in government. We don't set these standards out because when you set those standards out, the money is going to follow in terms of investment. But they think the standard is going to change or maybe we just set it for the next 2 years instead of setting it out as Senator Bingaman has suggested in his amendment for the year 2020, when we get stronger investment confidence in what we are going to be doing in this country and the new direction in which we are going to be headed in this country.
We have the fields to grow the energy that will keep our Nation moving, and we have the wind energy to propel our economy forward right here in the United States. We have the science, we have the universities, we have the technological know-how. We always believe in science.
In my State, we brought the world the Post-it note and the pacemaker. We have always been on the front end in science. That is why the people who are committed to a strong, renewable standard in our State are not just limited to the people who might be investing in it. It is students at the university who see the potential. It is kids who wear little buttons about ``save our penguins.'' It is the city council down in Lanesboro, MN, that recently changed out all of their lightbulbs because they are concerned about climate change. It is farmers who are putting up wind turbines in their backyard because they know it is going to save them money. It is school districts that say: Maybe I will get a wind turbine. It is governments across this land, with mayors and city councils that are installing solar energy, that see the future and see this new direction.
It is our job in the next 2 weeks to lead the new direction. And that is why I support a strong renewable standard. That is why I urge my fellow Senators to support the amendment, which I am already cosponsoring, for a 15-percent renewable standard for electricity in this country. We have to start now.
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