[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 69 (Friday, May 9, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5987-S5991]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                THE ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2003--Continued

  Mr. DORGAN. Well, Mr. President, now that I have that off my chest, 
let me go on to talk about energy.
  I am proud to be on the floor of the Senate in support of the ethanol 
amendment, which is bipartisan. It is interesting to me that this 
legislation dealing with ethanol is an amendment that comes to the 
floor by virtue of Senator Frist, Senator Daschle, myself, Senator 
Talent, Senator Johnson, and so many others, with strong bipartisan 
support. It is saying: At least one part of this country's energy 
strategy that makes sense is to take the starch and sugars from a 
kernel of corn, ferment that, and get a drop of alcohol and extend 
America's energy supply. You do a couple things with that: You expand 
the opportunity for markets for agricultural products and help family 
farmers, and you actually grow your energy supply in America's farm 
fields by producing corn that can be then used to produce ethanol. What 
a remarkable thing to do. It makes good sense to extend our energy 
supply by producing ethanol.
  Now, let me talk a bit about what sets us up to do this. First, we 
have to have a serious discussion about America's energy future. I have 
spoken of this before, but I wish to do it very briefly again.
  We need to use fossil fuels in this country's future. There is no 
question about that: coal, oil, natural gas. We use them, and we will 
use them. But if our energy strategy is only that--if America's future 
energy strategy is only a dig and drill strategy--then it is a 
``yesterday forever'' strategy. Every 25 years we can come to the floor 
of the Senate, we can have another debate about how much we are going 
to dig, how much we are going to drill, and probably satisfy our urge 
to speak. But we will not have satisfied this country's need for a 
different kind of energy strategy.
  So an energy bill that makes sense for this country's future is one 
that

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does dig and drill, with environmental safeguards, but it must do more 
than that. It should, first, include incentivized production, but, 
second, it should provide conservation measures, because a barrel of 
oil saved is a barrel of oil produced in our economy. Then, in addition 
to production and conservation, an energy bill that makes sense is an 
energy bill that has a title that deals with the efficiency of all of 
the appliances that we use in our daily lives. And, fourth, it should 
include a provision that deals with limitless and renewable sources of 
energy. That is what this amendment is about.
  So production, conservation, efficiency, and limitless and renewable 
sources of energy--that is what an energy bill is about, if it is 
balanced. Add in the limitless and renewable sources of energy, for my 
money, it means we should pole vault over all of these 25-year debates 
and say, we want to move to a new energy future.
  One hundred years ago, when you wanted to gas up an old Ford, a Model 
T Ford, you pulled up to the gas pumps, you stuck that hose in the gas 
tank and began pumping. One hundred years later, we do exactly the same 
thing. If you happened to have driven a Ford this morning, and stopped 
at a gas pump, you did exactly the same thing they did a century ago: 
You run gas through the car's carburetor. And God bless us, we have 
great cars, and we have fuel at every gas pump, and no waiting lines. 
That is the way we fuel our automobile, our transportation fleet.
  Let me describe what is happening with respect to energy in this 
country. If you look at the total demand for oil, and then look at 
transportation, you will see that the fastest rising demand for energy 
in this country, for oil particularly, is in transportation; it is in 
our vehicle fleet. That is where our demand for energy is rising.

  What I believe we should do is heed the words of President Bush, who 
said: Let's move to a hydrogen fuel cell future. When President Bush 
called for that in the State of the Union Address, I said: This makes 
great sense. I had previously introduced a piece of legislation 
suggesting the same. I suppose that is why I thought it made great 
sense.
  But the fact is, for this President to put his administration on the 
line in support of a hydrogen future with fuel cells is a very 
important step. To be sure, his plan is not very bold. I suggest that 
his plan is rather timid: in fact, it is $1.2 billion, half of which is 
new money, and part of which comes out of other important energy 
initiatives, particularly in renewables. But I don't want that to 
diminish the fact it is very important that this President--a 
Republican President, who comes from an oil State--says: Let's move to 
a different kind of energy future, especially with respect to 
transportation and the vehicle fleet.
  Let's see if your children, and our grandchildren, might not be able 
to turn the key on an automobile that uses hydrogen in fuel cells. 
Hydrogen is ubiquitous. It is everywhere. Hydrogen is in water. You can 
put up a windmill, with more efficient turbines, and take energy from 
the wind, produce electricity, and use that electricity--through the 
process of electrolysis--to separate hydrogen and oxygen from water, 
and then store the hydrogen, and use that to power our vehicle fleet. 
That is one application: using wind energy to produce electricity to 
produce hydrogen. But there are so many ways to produce hydrogen, and 
it is everywhere.
  So what we have to do is begin to solve this problem of moving to a 
hydrogen future--the problem of production, the problem of 
transportation, storage, and infrastructure. But the fact is, although 
these are problems, they are not insurmountable.
  I drove a hydrogen car yesterday that was here on Capitol Hill. It is 
the second one I have driven. This was a General Motors car. One was 
United Technologies. Hydrogen vehicles are twice as efficient in 
getting power to the wheel as the internal combustion engine. Do you 
know what they put out of the tailpipe? Water vapor. What a wonderful 
thing: You find an engine that is twice as efficient, using a fuel 
cell, and you clean up the environment by putting water vapor out of 
the tailpipe of a vehicle. What a wonderful thing to do.
  Now, I can't tell you how important it is to have the President's 
support on this. I nearly tripled what the President wanted by pushing, 
along with Senator Domenici, and others in the Energy Committee, to 
say: Let's substantially increase the amount of resources we are going 
to put towards moving in this direction of a hydrogen future. This 
requires bold, big initiatives. So the bill on the floor is slightly 
over $3 billion. I would like it to be $6.5 billion. I would like 
targets and timetables. I would like to see 100,000 vehicles using fuel 
cells on America's roads by 2010.
  I would like to see 2.5 million vehicles on America's roads by 2020. 
Targets and timetables is the way we drive this issue. With research 
and development in a whole range of areas, and development of 
infrastructure, we can do this. We won't do it if we just revert back 
to what we have always done.
  When I was a little boy growing up in a town of 350-400 people, they 
decided to try to dig an oil well 5 miles from my little town. It was 
the biggest thing in the world. We were so excited when somebody said 
they would try to dig an oil well on Bon Woodruff's farm. We thought it 
was the biggest thing. I remember driving out there. We used to drive 
out there all the time, the whole town. We would all drive out to see 
where the oil well was. We would watch the rig being put up. When it 
got up, it had lights all over it. They were drilling day and night. 
People were driving out and parking, watching. There was nothing going 
on, just lights and a rig. In my town that was a big deal. It was a dry 
hole. They never got oil. But it was a pretty interesting several 
months.
  As a little boy, I thought about the drilling for oil, where we find 
oil abroad, and how we use oil to power our vehicle fleet. Fifty-five 
percent of that which we use comes from outside of our country. That 
doesn't make sense. Much of it comes from troubled parts of the world, 
a third from the Middle East. We could wake up some day and discover 
the supply of oil is cut off because of terrorists. Then America's 
economy would be flat on its back. The 55 percent foreign oil we are 
now dependent on is going to rise to 68 percent if we don't do 
something.
  What is the greatest demand? Transportation. We have to do something 
big and bold. We have to have an energy policy that says to the people: 
We will get out of this. We may never be completely independent, but we 
will sure be a whole lot less dependent on foreign sources of energy.
  That brings me to the amendment. The amendment dealing with ethanol. 
I am a big fan of growing part of our fuel in the farm fields. You grow 
that corn, take that ear of corn, take the kernels off, and with those 
kernels of corn you produce alcohol. It is important to farmers. It is 
a new market for their crop. It is important to our country's energy 
needs because it extends America's energy supply.
  MTBE, a fuel additive, will be phased out in this legislation. We are 
discovering when MTBE shows up in America's groundwater, it is harmful 
to health. We will get rid of it. When we do, it will dramatically 
increase the demand for ethanol across America. That demand will 
increase to nearly 5 billion gallons. That means we will see more and 
more plants built around the country that will use the agriculture 
feedstock, take the alcohol from it. You still have the protein 
feedstock left to feed to the cattle, and you have grown some energy in 
America's fields. It is, therefore, renewable. We are not using it up. 
It is renewable year after year.
  I am pleased that now for the first time we see a robust bipartisan 
group. It is not that it has not always been bipartisan; it has always 
been a bipartisan debate. But when you have the majority leader and 
minority leader leading an amendment, that is a big deal. Those of us 
who care about ethanol understand this is a moment in time in which we 
register strong support for moving in a different direction, for being 
bold. I talked about hydrogen and fuel cells. That is one part of being 
bold. The other part of renewable and limitless sources of energy is 
ethanol. There is more, including biodiesel, among others. So there is 
much to do.

  The legislation we have brought to the floor from the Energy 
Committee

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is imperfect. But it has some good features. We will add some 
additional features. Senator Domenici should be commended. He is a 
pleasure to work with. Senator Bingaman on our side of the aisle, 
ranking Democrat, is the same, a terrific Senator who has done a great 
job. The energy bill needs some strengthening. We need a Renewable 
Portfolio Standard to improve the future for renewable energy for 
electricity. We need a Renewable Fuels Standard, which includes the 
ethanol amendment.
  We need protections on the electricity title that do not now exist. I 
chaired hearings in the last year and a half with respect to what Enron 
Corporation did in the State of California and on the West Coast. When 
I said during that time that it looked to me like it was massive 
manipulation of electricity markets, and grand theft going on to the 
tune of billions of dollars for consumers in California and the West 
Coast, that was pooh-poohed by everybody. All the conservative 
columnists and others, Mr. Krauthammer and others, would write: Who are 
you kidding? There is no manipulation. Every time something likes this 
goes on, the Democrats claim there is manipulation.
  We now know there was grand theft going on. Massive criminal 
investigations are occurring. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 
which for a long while did its best imitation of a potted plant and 
decided it would not do anything while the people were victimized, has 
now said it was not just Enron, but there were a number of companies on 
the West Coast that decided to take the opportunity to shut down the 
electricity plants, short the load, drive up prices, and profiteer as a 
result of it.
  Strategies like Death Star, Get Shorty, Fat Boy. You don't know what 
Fat Boy is? Fat Boy was a strategy by which energy traders working for 
the Enron Corporation colluded to try to see if they could steal from 
consumers. Death Star, same thing; Get Shorty, there were a dozen of 
them and more. Even more than the strategies, which were written in 
memos that we now have, we also have the transcripts of telephone 
conversations in which they talk about how they will shut down the 
plant in order to short the load and drive up price. They moved 
electricity in and out of a couple of States in order to increase the 
price, in some cases tenfold in 24 hours. What is that called, except 
stealing?
  There are going to be people who go to jail for it. The electricity 
title in this bill must address these issues, wash trades, and others. 
It addresses a couple of them, but not nearly enough. We need to put 
consumer protections in here so what happened to the people in 
California does not ever happen again. We have a lot of people running 
around the country saying: We need to restructure the electricity 
title. We need to restructure electricity issues so there is massive 
competition.
  We have a bit of experience with that which tells us that when you 
have very big players who have the ability to control and monopolize 
markets, and you also have a consumer, if you don't have a referee in 
between making sure the big interests are not cheating, the little 
interests get trampled. That is what happened on the West Coast. It is 
not just petty theft. It is billions of dollars.
  My colleague who will speak following me, Senator Nelson of Florida, 
was a member of the subcommittee where we investigated these issues. 
Frankly, it made you sick to see what was going on.
  Finally FERC stepped in and imposed a price cap. Finally an 
investigation was undertaken. The Justice Department is involved. The 
fact is, we should not and will not pass an energy bill through the 
Congress without an electricity title that provides protections to make 
sure this never happens again.
  There will be other amendments. I am proud today to support this 
amendment, a bipartisan strong amendment on ethanol. We will also need 
to include a Renewable Portfolio Standard in the bill. We need to put 
in provisions that deal with consumer protections with respect to 
electricity. There is much yet to do. It is a pretty good start. This 
bill will advance America's energy interests, if we can add the 
amendments and add some protections.
  Following the war in Iraq, what we know exists in the Middle East, as 
well as all of the uncertainties around the world, if anybody still 
wonders whether we need an energy policy, they have been asleep. This 
country needs to make sure its economy, its way of life, the future for 
the American people is not held hostage by the whims, confrontations, 
tragedies and conflicts in other parts of the world. That is what a 
good energy strategy, a balanced energy strategy, will do for our 
future.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a 
question?
  Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield for a question.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. The Senator from North Dakota and I are joined 
at the hip on so many of these issues he has just raised regarding 
energy. This Senator was particularly intrigued by the compelling 
argument the Senator from North Dakota made about a hydrogen engine 
being developed.
  Does the Senator know, will there be an attempt to increase the 
amount of funding for research and development for a new hydrogen 
engine that will be in this particular bill?
  Mr. DORGAN. The Senator from Florida should know that I offered an 
amendment in the Energy Committee that failed, I believe, by one or two 
votes. I intend to offer it again on the floor. It is similar to 
legislation introduced in the Senate that creates an Apollo-like 
program on hydrogen and fuel cells. My belief is we ought to do for 
this as we did with respect to going to the moon. President Kennedy 
said let's put a person on the moon by the end of the decade. Sure 
enough, Neil Armstrong stepped off that ladder running and planted his 
foot on the surface of the moon by the end of the decade.
  It seems to me if this country really wants to effect substantial 
change, then you have to set goals and timetables. My proposal, which I 
introduced with a number of colleagues in the Senate--actually prior to 
the State of the Union Address in which the President announced his 
support for this initiative--is a $6.5 billion authorization over 10 
years that sets targets and timetables and puts this country squarely 
behind an aggressive Apollo-type program, saying let's get there and, 
as a nation, let's aspire to reach a goal. Yes, I intend to offer it as 
an amendment to the energy bill.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. This Senator will be one of the Senator's 
cosponsors on the amendment. It is interesting that you have described 
it in terms of an Apollo-type program, which is exactly what this 
Nation needs. If we put our minds to something, as we did in the 
1960s--announced by the President that we were going to the Moon by the 
end of the decade, and then return safely, and the Nation marshals its 
will and resources to do a technological feed as we did in going to the 
Moon, if we apply that same kind of will to addressing the energy 
crisis by the development of a hydrogen cell, a hydrogen engine that 
can propel most of our vehicles in this transportation sector--and the 
Senator's chart shows that transportation is the largest consumer of 
energy in the United States--if we did that, then clearly, as the 
Senator from North Dakota says--and I second it--we are going to wean 
ourselves from the foreign oil that we find ourselves so dependent upon 
today.
  I will just offer as support for the Senator's statements that 
onboard the space shuttle we produced electricity from a hydrogen fuel 
cell. It is the mixture of hydrogen and oxygen that then produces 
electricity. What does it have as a byproduct? Water. As a matter of 
fact, onboard a mission of the space shuttle, so much excess water is 
produced that it needs to be released into space; a water dump is done, 
usually after each flight day.
  It is there, it is technology we understand, and we are using it 
today in space aboard spacecraft. There is no reason we cannot bring 
down the per unit cost of a hydrogen engine if we put our minds and our 
technology and resources into it. What it would do for us is lessen our 
dependence upon foreign oil, which would lessen some of the kinds of 
things that we have to do in that region of the world that gets us 
inextricably involved in our military and foreign affairs.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I know the Senator wants to take the floor 
in

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his own right. I think it is important for people to know he is the 
only Member of the Senate who has actually flown on the space shuttle. 
Many people know that. Many years ago, he was part of the crew of a 
space shuttle. He knows of what he speaks.
  I was originally going to call the bill I introduced--trying to move 
us in a bold, aggressive way toward a hydrogen future and fuel cell--
the Manhattan Project, which was another successful project that dealt 
with something different. The Manhattan and Apollo Projects were both 
projects that had this country saying let's do this with targets and 
timetables. I think that is what we should do with respect to the 
President's call for a hydrogen economy and fuel cell, especially 
having this President's administration behind this initiative.
  It is no small thing to have a President from an oil State say to the 
country: Let's see if we can move toward a future with hydrogen and 
fuel cells.
  Good for him. That support is going to be very important. I will 
indeed offer my amendment to the energy bill at some point in the 
coming days, and I am happy to have the support of the Senator from 
Florida.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. President, this week we began debate on the energy 
bill, a vast and complex piece of legislation, arguably an important 
piece of legislation, that deals with an issue that touches every 
American in some way, shape, or form. Access to stable, reliable 
sources of energy is central to the strength of our economy.
  I have real concern, as we take up this bill, that it not simply be a 
piece of legislation where we look to include every element, every 
fragment, every idea ever considered that might, in fact, alter energy 
markets around the country or around the world. I am concerned that in 
our effort to craft an energy policy, we simply look for ways to aid or 
to assist particular businesses, industries, or areas of research.
  This bill currently includes very substantial loan guarantees to 
successful private corporations around the country; it includes 
research subsidies for investment in fossil fuel research, oil and gas 
development; and it includes a very complex and sizable tax package, 
some of which I think is questionable as to whether it will achieve the 
kind of fairness, equity, and efficiency in the energy markets we would 
like to see.
  This morning, however, I wish to speak about one particular provision 
that is before us in the form of an amendment, an amendment that has 
been offered to dramatically increase the size and the scope of the 
Federal ethanol program. It not only expands the size of the ethanol 
program in America, but it effectively makes it mandatory, taking us 
from a 2-billion-gallon-a-year ethanol program to some 5 billion 
gallons a year over the next 8 years.
  I can understand there are a lot of supporters of the ethanol program 
in this Chamber. A lot of the Members of the Senate have farm economies 
back home and see income or productivity that comes from this Federal 
program. But I do not think it is right to provide a subsidy at the 
taxpayers' expense for a program that cannot stand on its own feet.
  Among the concerns I have with the current program, first and 
foremost is the supposed environmental benefits of ethanol. It is true, 
as an oxygenate, ethanol reduces the volatile compounds that are 
emitted into the atmosphere from fuel, from gasoline, but it does not 
do anything substantively to reduce the level of NOx in the atmosphere 
that contributes to the ozone problem, to the smog problems. I think as 
this debate goes forward, we will hear a lot of discussions from some 
of those Senators who represent urban parts of the country that have 
tough, real problems with ozone and smog. They have grave concerns 
about this program that provides a huge taxpayer subsidy without 
dealing with those important environmental issues.
  From an energy perspective, we will hear a lot of discussion about 
the amount of energy that will be produced from this renewable resource 
because it is corn based, but from most proponents we will not hear a 
lot of discussion about the energy it takes to produce this ethanol in 
the first place. It takes nearly a gallon of fuel to produce a gallon 
of fuel. So at the end of the day, you may have ethanol that you can 
blend in gasoline and put in your car, but you have used quite a bit of 
energy to get there in the process.
  From an energy perspective, energy efficiency, energy independence, 
even then, in the best case, the benefits are marginal, if they exist 
at all.
  Finally, of real concern is the subsidy itself. There is an enormous 
taxpayer subsidy that is used to provide viability to this industry. As 
everyone goes to the pump, they pay 18.3 cents in tax for every gallon 
of gas they put in their car. If that gallon is blended with 10-percent 
ethanol, it is exempt from 5.3 cents of that gas tax. That represents a 
53-cent-a-gallon subsidy for the ethanol itself--53 cents. At the end 
of the day, that means a billion dollars less going into our highway 
trust fund.
  We are going to deal with the highway reauthorization bill later this 
year, and there are a lot of supporters of highways who are pushing for 
more money. I think we need to take a long, hard look at what the right 
amount to spend on infrastructure is in this country. But we certainly 
do not need to be subsidizing a questionable effort such as this 
ethanol program in a way that takes money out of our highway trust 
fund, a billion dollars a year today, and with this expansion that will 
go to $2 billion a year by 2012. That means $2 billion a year lost from 
the highway trust fund.
  Now, for years the argument that was made by House Members, Senators 
or legislators all across the country to support this subsidy, was that 
we need the subsidy in order to encourage people to use the ethanol 
fuel. That is why we have the subsidy. We need it if we are going to 
get people to use this fuel.
  That subsidy has not been very successful in getting people to use 
that much of the fuel. So now they are going to go to a mandate.
  Well, I can understand why one would want to force a mandate on the 
American people if they are determined to force them to purchase the 
fuel. But if it is going to be mandated, why is the subsidy still 
needed?
  That is one of the central issues we are going to have to deal with 
in this debate, and we need to at least put people on the record as to 
why they think we still need to subsidize this industry, in many ways a 
very concentrated industry.
  There are about half a dozen very large, successful businesses, that 
are responsible for about 70 percent of the ethanol produced in this 
country. Why do we ask taxpayers to continue to subsidize this industry 
when we have a mandate in place that forces them to buy the product? 
That makes no sense. I do not think it is fair in the first place to 
force them to buy the product, but I certainly do not think it is fair 
to force them to subsidize the product at the same time. It has got to 
be one or the other. If a subsidy is to be provided because it is the 
only way to get people to purchase the product, at least that is a 
rational argument--not one I support but it is a rational argument. If 
the only way to get them to buy the product is to mandate it, to force 
them to buy it, that is also a rational argument, although not one that 
I support. But it cannot be both ways. A subsidy cannot be forced on 
the American people, the money cannot be diverted from the trust fund 
and have the mandate at the same time.
  If the mandate is going to be that 5 billion gallons of this fuel has 
to be purchased every year, the least we can do is then treat it the 
same way we treat any other fuel in this country with an appropriate, 
fair, and well-thought-out excise tax. The American people deserve 
consistency and fairness in this matter.
  I think it is a shame that we have a program such as this ethanol 
program that really has not proven its worth, that unfortunately 
channels huge taxpayer subsidy to a small number of very successful, 
profitable companies around the country. I would rather see a bill that 
did not have this taxpayer subsidy in it in the first place, but if we 
are going to take up this issue, let us at least be fair and equitable 
in the way we deal with it.
  We need a good, thoughtful energy policy in the United States. This 
kind of subsidy ought not to be part of that program and that policy.
  I have a number of other concerns with the legislation before us, but 
I

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hope when the time comes we can work to craft an amendment that would 
right this wrong, that would ensure that ethanol is treated the same as 
any other fuel that we have in the country, and that would improve the 
quality of this legislation before it passes the Senate, if it is able 
to do so.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Dole). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRIST. Madam 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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