[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 110 (Wednesday, September 15, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9268-S9269]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about energy 
once again. Here we are now, with record gas and oil prices, and 
several of the opponents of the energy bill produced by Senator 
Domenici, myself, and others--my Democrat colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle--are now claiming that the bill does little, if it were 
passed and if it were law, to reduce our dependence upon oil or other 
fossil fuels. Less dependence is something we all share.

  First of all, I challenge my Democratic opponents to pass the law. 
First pass the law, get it into production, see where it takes us, 
instead of simply carp and carp very loudly about energy prices and 
dependency on oil, and then do nothing about it except talk in 
political terms in a very political year.
  What I am going to suggest and show you in the next few moments about 
one aspect of the bill--one relatively small aspect of the bill--I 
think argues that if the bill were law today and if it were allowed to 
be implemented, it would give us the opportunity to rapidly begin to 
decrease our dependence on foreign oil and other fossil fuels.
  The one provision I am talking about in the bill by itself could 
reduce our dependence on gas and other foreign oils by as much as 12 
billion gallons. To understand how wrong my Democratic colleagues are 
on this issue, let's look at the provisions of the bill that would 
enable loan guarantees to help kick-start the cellulose ethanol 
industry. Cellulose ethanol could develop very quickly as an industry 
and have a major impact on rural incomes and the environment as well as 
our energy security.
  What is cellulose ethanol? Cellulose ethanol looks, smells, and acts 
like regular ethanol, but instead of being made from corn, it is made 
from what we call agricultural residues. Agricultural residues are a 
part of the plants for which we have no commercial productive use 
today. When a crop is grown--grain, for example--we use the grain for 
food, both animal food and human food. Some of the plant is often left 
on the ground to keep the soil fertile and from eroding. We call it 
straw. And the rest must be disposed of as a form of residue. Sometimes 
it is burned, sometimes it is bailed and used for livestock bedding, 
and a variety of other purposes. But residue is straw from which wheat 
and barley grow in my State and nearly every other State in the Nation. 
It is the corn stover, the stalks, the husks, the cobs from the Corn 
Belt. It is the sugar bagasse or cotton stalks from Florida or Texas. 
It is that residue that American agriculture produces.
  Farmers often pay to dispose of this material. We have known for a 
long time that cellulose in this material can be transformed into 
hydrocarbons. Now it seems that the technology to do so is closer than 
ever before.
  The Wall Street Journal reported on April 21 of this year that Iogen, 
a Canadian company, had begun to produce cellulose ethanol 
commercially. That ethanol produced from wheat straw is now being sold 
and used in small quantities in Ottawa and surrounding areas.
  The cover of the August 30 issue of Fortune magazine, a magazine I 
hold in my hand, says ``How to Kick the Oil Habit.'' The article 
mentions alternative fuels as one of the four ways to kick the habit. 
It also focuses on Iogen and cellulose ethanol in this article. So 
cellulose ethanol seems to be on its way.
  But why should any of us care about this? What does it have to do 
with our Energy bill? The Energy bill contains a provision that would 
allow commercial cellulose ethanol production to begin in the United 
States within a matter of a couple of years.
  Iogen has partnered with Shell Oil, and together they want to build 
the world's first full-scale cellulose ethanol production facility 
right here in the United States. But as long as the Energy bill is 
stalled, so is this project. A lot of lipservice can be given, but 
until this Congress acts and until my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle line up with us to allow this technology to come on line, 
there can be a lot of talk, but the dependence on foreign oil will 
continue.

  Also stalled today would be an opportunity to begin to fill the gas 
tanks of Americans with a fuel that would be grown in the heartland of 
America. Certainly, we have and will continue to use corn-based 
ethanol, and the Energy bill I talk about would go a long way toward 
bringing more of that into production. But there is a limit as to how 
much corn we can dedicate to energy production.
  On the other hand, with cellulose ethanol, we are not talking about 
small quantities. This summer, Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman 
announced the results of a study that showed there is enough 
agricultural residue produced on our farms to support 200 of these 
types of ethanol plants and that those plants could displace 7 to 10 
percent of the gasoline we consume today. That is a reasonable 
guesstimate.
  You have heard me right: If we get this industry going by simply 
using waste materials from America's farms, we could knock almost 10 
percent off our gas imports. What does that say as to our ability to 
negotiate in a world market? It says a great deal because now we have 
leverage, and the leverage is a product being produced right here at 
home.
  This will not happen unless we are able to implement this bill and 
bring it on board. Just one cellulose ethanol plant would enhance 
energy security by replacing a gasoline component of the crude oil 
imports from 2.4 to 2.9 million barrels per year; increase farm income 
by $25 million per year by creating economic value for residues that 
currently, as I said, have little to no value or are simply viewed as 
waste;

[[Page S9269]]

create economic development by creating over 1,000 new jobs during peak 
construction, and almost 200 new permanent jobs and about 450 spinoff 
jobs.
  That is positive economics when you can talk in those terms, and 
those terms are not just talk. That is reality if we implement the 
Energy bill.
  It would reduce net emissions of carbon dioxide by 355,000 metric 
tons annually and would reduce emissions of major air components 
targeted by the Clean Air Act.
  A mature cellulose ethanol industry based on agricultural residues 
alone would multiply these benefits: Enhance U.S. energy security by 
displacing up to 10 to 12 billion gallons of gas annually, which 
represents 7 to 10 percent of current U.S. gas consumption; provide 
approximately 200 to 300 rural communities with more jobs and farmers 
with more income, and certainly a stronger economy for American 
agriculture; reduce carbon dioxide, CO2, emissions from 65 to 100 
million metric tons.
  We are talking about putting money into U.S. farmers' pockets instead 
of the pockets of the oil sheiks of the Middle East.
  About 29 States currently produce ethanol, and those States clearly 
have the ability to produce cellulose ethanol in a tremendous way. 
Chart 1 shows the States that are capable of doing that. Can you 
imagine, instead of having only a few oil-producing States in our 
Nation, we would have nearly 25 States capable of producing? That is 
the value of this program, and adding nearly $25 million a year to the 
local economy. That is what we are talking about with regard to this 
Energy bill and what it could do.
  So not only are we talking about that, but our second chart shows 
what is extremely important, and that is in carbon savings reported by 
various studies by bringing this kind of production online. Reducing 
demand on gasoline from foreign oil from 15 to 20 percent creates 
anywhere from $5 billion to $7.5 billion annually in economic growth in 
rural America. That is what we are talking about, and that is what I 
think chart 3 represents so clearly. It is tremendously important.
  Here is today's gas engines, in relation to greenhouse gas emissions. 
Here is the diesel hybrid that we are all excited about today in hybrid 
production, again a decline. Here is the hydrogen fuel cell car. Our 
President has been leading and talking about the new hydrogen 
technologies for surface transportation. Then we have today's ethanol 
engine, today's ethanol fuel cell engine.
  As a country, we are simply on hold at this moment because for 5 long 
years this Congress has debated but has refused to pass a comprehensive 
national energy policy that not only advances these technologies but 
incentivizes the marketplace to go after these technologies.
  So when our colleagues on the other side of the aisle simply say the 
Energy bill will do nothing for the American consumer, I say 
politically and in reality, shame on them. They know better. They 
worked with us in trying to develop this bill over the last 5 years. It 
has become a bipartisan working piece in a very comprehensive way.
  Today, I have taken just a small piece of that bill, the cellulose 
ethanol production capability of this country, and to suggest that it 
would reduce our dependence by 12 percent or even more, that it would 
improve American agriculture and put $25 million a year into the 
heartland of America, oh, my goodness, we cannot as a country look 
forward in that way, shame on us.
  I hoped we could have passed a national energy bill this year. We are 
certainly going to in the future because the American public, I trust, 
is going to get fed up with paying $2.10 or more a gallon for their 
fuel and finding themselves increasingly dependent upon the Middle 
East. That is something the American consumer should not tolerate and 
that the American politician ought not stall out or block from 
happening.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana is recognized.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up 
to 10 minutes.

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