[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 72 (Thursday, May 20, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S5897]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ORDER OF PROCEDURE

  Mr. BIDEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Democratic side be given an additional 10 minutes of morning business, 
with the time equally divided between Senator Carper and myself. Before 
the Chair acts on this request, I am told it has been cleared by the 
Republican side.
  Mr. DOMENICI. We have no objection.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I wonder if the Senator will yield for 
30 seconds?
  Mr. CARPER. I yield.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I say to the Senator, I heard your 
remarks, and I do want to say to the Senator, that while I do not know 
your overall feelings about an energy bill, I will say on a couple of 
very difficult issues that I think are very important that were 
contentious--and many people on your side did not think we ought to 
do--you stood tall because you understand that we need diversification 
and you are not afraid to make votes. And I thank you for that.
  Mr. CARPER. I thank the Senator.
  Madam President, on a brighter note, with respect to energy policy, a 
week or so ago we passed a major bill called FSC/ETI. Some people call 
it the JOBS bill or a trade bill. But provisions of the Energy bill 
were incorporated in that legislation, important provisions that 
include incentives for renewable forms of energy--solar, wind, 
geothermal--and incentives to encourage people to buy more energy-
efficient vehicles, hybrids, fuel-cell vehicles, to make them more 
affordable, to get more of them out on the road, and using less 
gasoline and diesel fuel, and also incentives for us to begin 
converting to a greater use of what I call biofuels--ethanol--and 
something we do in Delaware a lot on the Delmarva Peninsula where we 
take soybean oil and mix it with diesel fuel.
  They were able to do something good for the environment and actually 
reduce significantly our use of diesel-powered vehicles.
  While it is still mid-May, we have a fair amount of time to go before 
we finish here. Before we finish, I hope we will find common ground on 
the rest of the energy policy, and that it is also respective of our 
environment and the clean air concerns we have, and gives the States 
the ability to recover damages for their drinking supply that has been 
damaged by MTBE.

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