[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 28 (Friday, February 14, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2514-S2516]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Foreign Policy
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I was reading a piece in a newspaper this
morning that misquoted remarks I made on the floor of the Senate
recently. The journalist got it plain wrong in this case. He indicated
that Senator Dorgan feels that Saddam Hussein is not dangerous.
Of course, I have never said that, would not say that, and whoever
listened to my remarks previously either chose to reinterpret them in a
way that is not accurate or chose to ignore what I said. Let me
describe what I said.
I talked about the dangers presented by North Korea. I talked about
the importance of prosecuting the war on terrorism, and protecting this
country against terrorist attacks. And I said that while Iraq and
Saddam Hussein are a problem, we have to face these other issues as
well.
If today trucks are backing up to a plant in North Korea and moving
fuel rods that will become processed and become part of a nuclear
bombmaking process, and a bomb could be sold by North Korea to other
countries, and to terrorists, that is a serious problem. That could
come back in a year and a half or 2 years into this country in the form
of a nuclear bomb possessed by a terrorist. That is serious business.
We are told that the trucks are moving. We are told that is what is
happening in North Korea. And yet there does not seem to be the same
kind of attention paid to it as is now paid to the country of Iraq.
We are told there is an orange level of alert in our country today,
which suggests once again the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and his
fellow terrorist, who have not yet been apprehended.
So we are facing terrorist groups, Osama bin Laden, Korea, Saddam
Hussein, and Iraq.
My point is not that Saddam Hussein is not dangerous; he indeed is
dangerous. We ought to deal with him. Frankly, the credit of having
inspectors in Iraq at this point belongs to the President; otherwise
they would not have been able to enter Iraq and begin the inspections.
If Saddam Hussein does not disarm, he will be disarmed either by this
country or this country and other countries acting in concert. That is
just a fact.
My point is that is not the only challenge we face and not
necessarily the greatest challenge we face. If trucks are moving spent
fuel rods in North Korea today, then we better make a judgment to deal
with that.
If we have an orange alert in this country today because terrorist
groups have mobilized and intelligence suggests that an orange alert is
warranted, then we had better be concerned about that. And we had
better prosecute that war against terrorism as aggressively as we
pursue Saddam Hussein. That is my point.
Now I have come to the floor today to speak about a related subject,
and that is the subject of energy. We import oil in order to run our
country's automobile fleets, stationary engines, and so on. We import
20 million barrels a day. Saudi Arabia is our No. 1 importer--Mexico,
Canada, Venezuela, Nigeria--Iraq is No. 6 at 289,000 barrels. Our
country is very dependent on energy from a Middle East that is rocked
by turmoil. If tonight, God forbid, terrorists were able to interrupt
the flow of energy, the flow of oil to our country from Saudi Arabia
and Iraq, for example, our economy would be in trouble. That is just a
plain fact.
Does it make sense for us to continue to be so dependent on oil
coming from that part of the world? I don't think so. So what will we
do about that? Let me describe a couple of things.
Yesterday my colleagues from South Dakota, Senator Daschle and
others, Senator Johnson, myself, and Senator
[[Page S2515]]
Conrad, introduced a piece of legislation dealing with ethanol,
renewable fuels. Ethanol is a fuel in which you grow a crop in the
field, you harvest it, you take a kernel of corn, you extract from the
kernel of corn the drop of alcohol and you have the protein feedstock
left. You extend America's energy supply, you still have something for
cattle to eat, and you grow it year after year after year and you are
not dependent on Saudi Arabia or Iraq. It is a renewable fuel that you
produce year after year. Here is the way you produce ethanol. You grow
a crop such as corn, finely grind it, separate it into component
sugars, distill the sugars to make ethanol, and you put it in a
vehicle. It is very simple. You are growing crops to produce America's
energy. That is what ethanol is about. You can do it with barley. You
can do it with sugar beets, start with sugar beets. You can do it with
potatoes. You grow your energy.
We import 55 percent of the oil we consume in this country. That is
expected to grow to 68 percent by 2025. Nearly all of our cars and
trucks run on gasoline. They are the main reasons our country imports
so much oil.
I think this chart shows what is happening with respect to energy in
our country. We have a demand line that is going up. You will see that
the reason for that, by and large, is transportation. Mostly that is
vehicles--cars, trucks, other vehicles. This is where the demand is,
transportation.
Domestic production of oil, as you can see, is fairly flat. If we
were to go up to ANWR in Alaska, as some would like us to do--I don't
happen to support it--you would see what would happen as a result of
ANWR--almost nothing. Or if we go on into the Gulf of Mexico, which I
do support--that will not solve all of our energy needs. We are just
not going to solve our problems with those approaches. We have to
produce more, and we will produce more--produce more coal, produce more
oil, and natural gas. We will do it in ways that protect our
environment as much as possible. But that is not enough. We need to do
much more than that.
One of the answers, in my judgment, is to have much greater
production of ethanol. And so we are introducing legislation, as my
colleague from South Dakota, Senator Daschle, said yesterday, with a
renewable fuels provision. It has been carefully negotiated over many
months. Twenty groups--National Corn Growers, the Renewable Fuels
Association, the American Farm Bureau, National Farmers Union--have all
sent letters supporting this legislation that we have introduced.
We now produce 1.8 billion gallons of pure ethanol. This provision
will add 3.2 billion new gallons. So by 2012, we will be producing 5
billion gallons of ethanol.
I think with this provision, the ethanol industry will continue to
grow. That translates to a new market, for example, for corn as the
feedstock for an ethanol plant--1.2 billion bushels. That is new
opportunities to farmers to invest in value-added agriculture, new
opportunities to extend America's energy supply, new opportunities to
make our country less dependent on Saudi Arabian oil, on oil from Iraq.
All of that makes good sense. There are substantial economic benefits
available with respect to this, and substantial security benefits for
our country that will accrue from our passing this legislation.
So I rise today to say the introduction yesterday by myself, by
Senator Daschle, and many others with respect to this major piece of
legislation dealing with ethanol is a significant step forward. My hope
is, on a bipartisan basis, we will be able to move this legislation in
this Congress, recognizing that having less dependence on oil from the
most troubled region in the world is advisable for this country.
How do you do that? By extending America's energy supply through the
production of ethanol, the production of something that is renewable,
year after year after year. It is not something that is depleting, it
is renewable. That is why this legislation makes such good sense.
There is something else we can and should do. I am going to introduce
legislation the day we get back from next week's break. I intended to
introduce it yesterday, but for a couple of reasons I have held it, and
will continue to refine it just a bit.
I will propose a project that deals with the hydrogen economy and
fuel cells. The President mentioned this in his State of the Union
Address to the Congress. I commend the President for it. It is exactly
the right idea. I have been working on this for some long while.
In fact, the bill that passed the Senate last year, the energy bill,
contained a provision I added that said by the year 2020 America should
aspire to have 2.5 million fuel cell cars that are using hydrogen--2.5
million fuel cell cars on the road.
Give or take, there are 700 million vehicles in the world. Give or
take, there are about 70 million vehicles produced each and every year.
Almost all of them are vehicles with carburetors through which you put
gasoline and you create power for the engine and you drive off in the
automobile. Nothing has changed in a century--nothing at all.
My first car was an antique 1924 Model T Ford. I restored it, then
sold it. I put gasoline in that little old antique Model T Ford the
same way you put gasoline in a 2003 Ford: You pull up to a pump, put
the hose in the tank, and start pumping gas. Nothing has changed in 100
years--nothing.
The question is, Are we going to pole-vault over all these
discussions and move to a new day and a new technology? Sure, we are
going to discuss ANWR and CAFE standards and all the other issues that
dominated debate last year. But if that is all we discuss, then every
25 years we will come back and discuss the same thing, and our policies
will be known as ``yesterday forever.''
Why don't we begin discussing new technology and a new day, a new
type of energy for this country's future, a hydrogen future with fuel
cells for vehicles?
I mentioned our energy security is threatened. We import 55 percent
of the oil. That is going to go to 68 percent by 2025. Most of our cars
and trucks run on gasoline. That is why we import so much oil. Two-
thirds of the 20 million barrels of oil we use each day is used for
transportation.
Now let me describe a car that uses fuel cells. This chart shows a
vehicle, a Ford Focus. It is a fuel cell vehicle, production-ready
prototype, unveiled in autumn 2002. I drove one a couple days ago,
drove one last summer. In fact, we have had fuel cell vehicles that
drove all the way from Los Angeles to New York.
This is a picture of a hydrogen fueling station at Powertech Labs.
Fueling infrastructure is critically important to make hydrogen fuel
cars a reality.
Hydrogen cars do not have to be compact. This is a picture of a fuel
cell vehicle, a Nissan Xterra, fueled by compressed hydrogen, tested on
public roads in California in the year 2001.
Finally, a picture of a more futuristic looking vehicle, the General
Motors Hy-Wire Fuel Cell Concept Car, unveiled in August of 2002.
Let me describe what Europe is doing in fuel cells. The European
Commission has invested significantly in fuel cell cars, and industry
is commending them for it. Herbert Kohler, director of Environmental
Affairs at DaimlerChrysler, said political support was vital for the
car industry to move to fuel cells. They can do a lot for themselves,
but at a certain point they need fuel, and that means involving others.
It means the development of a supply of hydrogen, which is
ubiquitous, by the way. Through electrolysis, you can separate the
hydrogen and oxygen in water, develop the hydrogen supply, and put
water vapor out the tailpipe of the car. You have the tailpipe of a
vehicle that emits water vapor. What a great thing for the environment!
The European Commission, the executive body of the Europe Union, has
earmarked more than 2.1 billion Euros, $2 billion, for research over 5
years. A central focus will be hydrogen fuel cells.
Let me tell you what Japan is doing. Japanese carmakers are flooring
it on fuel cells. Tokyo's fuel cell initiative has all the hallmarks of
a far-sighted strategy, Business Week says, and calls to mind Tokyo's
blossoming success in hybrids. Americans are snapping up these fuel-
efficient, environmentally friendly cars, and fuel cells could turn out
to be a bigger, more important chapter in exactly the same book.
I don't think we ought to stand around here and continue to debate
[[Page S2516]]
small issues so that every 25 years we can have a repeat of the same
debate. I think we ought to debate big issues. I think we ought to have
a world view change here, with respect to how we want to power our
vehicle fleet. I think we want to convert to hydrogen fuel.
That ought not scare those who produce oil, natural gas, and use
coal. In fact, those same companies are some of the companies in the
lead, in the forefront of moving to a hydrogen economy.
You can produce hydrogen from fossil fuels. We are always going to
need and use fossil fuels. But wouldn't it be great to power our
vehicle fleet with hydrogen and fuel cells so that we don't need Middle
East oil?
Wouldn't that be a wonderful future for this country and at the same
time improve our environment, because we are going to use hydrogen and
fuel cells and put only water vapor out of the back of the car through
the tailpipe?
That is exactly what we ought to do. How you do you get that done? I
have met with representatives of the hydrogen and fuel cell industries.
They are anxious. They are engaged in substantial research. But the
fact is they cannot do this alone.
The conversion of the vehicle fleet in our country to the big idea of
the hydrogen economy and fuel cells will not and cannot happen without
the support of the Government. I propose an Apollo-like program. When I
say Apollo program, I am talking about the program by which John F.
Kennedy said, ``We are going to go to the Moon by the end of the
decade.'' I think our country should decide to move to the hydrogen
economy and fuel cell vehicles with a big idea and in a big way to help
make it happen as public policy. The Europeans and the Japanese are
moving in that direction, and we should, too.
As I indicated, last year I put a piece in the energy bill that says
we aspire to have a goal of 2.5 million vehicles on the road in 2020 in
this country using fuel cells.
Now, the President proposed a $1.2 billion hydrogen fuel cell
program. Only half of that is new money. That is not a big idea. It is
the right idea. But it is not big and bold.
I propose a $6.5 billion 10-year program that is really going to move
this country to say we want to enact change. We want to move to a
hydrogen economy and develop fuel cell vehicles to help create the
infrastructure for the production of hydrogen and the storage and
transportation of hydrogen. We want to provide incentives for people to
buy the fuel cell vehicle.
This will be one of the best things this country has done. It will be
one of the big ideas of the century. That is why I think it is so
important.
We talk about this with the backdrop of a troubled world--substantial
problems in the Middle East, Central and Southern Asia, terrorism,
North Korea, and Iraq. When you think of the difficulties that exist
and the small thread our economy hangs on, making sure that tonight,
tomorrow, the next day, and every day of the week and every month we
get enough oil into this country from places like Iraq, like Venezuela,
like Saudi Arabia, and Algeria in order to power our vehicle fleet,
then we ought to understand this economy is held hostage by forces we
don't control.
It is dangerous for this economy to be dependent on things we cannot
and will not be able to control in the long term. But we can--as we
have in many other areas--create incentives and new technology and new
opportunities to solve old problems.
That is exactly what I propose with this initiative. I intend to
introduce this the day we get back. I expect and hope it will be
bipartisan. I have been talking to some Democrats and some Republicans.
The President has said this is a good idea. Good for him. I commend
him for it. I think he proposed a step in the right direction. And,
frankly, having the Bush administration be supportive of this kind of
technology change is excellent. It is good for this country. But the
Administration's approach is more timid and less bold than it should
be.
I am going to propose an Apollo-type program that says let us really
move and get this accomplished. I hope to have substantial bipartisan
support as we begin to write an energy bill this year in the Senate.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennett). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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