[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 33 (Thursday, March 17, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S2972]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


    TARGETED ENERGY INCENTIVES TO ACHIEVE A NATIONAL ENERGY STRATEGY

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, on March 9, 2005, President Bush went to 
Columbus, OH for one of his many town hall meetings. Besides attempting 
to sell his Social Security plan, he also spoke about the need for a 
national energy policy. Not surprisingly, he raised the specter of high 
gas prices, increasing natural gas rates, and electricity blackouts as 
a justification to pass his energy plan. However, this issue needs more 
than just rhetoric. It needs real solutions.
  The American people need look no further than the President's budget 
request to question that commitment to a serious energy policy. The 
President has cut funding for a number of important energy programs in 
his budget. For example, he has said that he supports clean coal 
technologies. He started professing his support on the campaign trail 
in October 2000, and he promised to commit $2 billion over 10 years for 
the Clean Coal Technology demonstration program. This is the very 
program that I started back in 1985. Yet, each of his five budgets has 
failed to meet that goal. This year, he only requested $50 million, 
instead of the promised $200 million. In effect, he has promised those 
in the coal fields one dollar but has only anted up two bits. 
Furthermore, he touts the need for the FutureGen project but cannot say 
where the funding for this facility is going to come from down the 
road. His only option right now is to raid other clean coal programs, 
and I will not stand by and let him rob Peter to pay Paul.
  The White House has proposed and the Majority has adopted just $4.56 
billion in energy tax incentives over five years in this Fiscal Year 
2006 budget. How much did the President include for clean coal tax 
incentives in this year's budget request, or in previous years' budget 
requests? Nothing! We cannot demonstrate and deploy the next generation 
of clean coal technologies based on what this administration is 
actually willing to put on the table. The administration's co-called 
support for the clean coal technology programs is indicative of its 
support for so many important energy programs. This administration's 
much narrower package of energy tax incentives is inadequate to achieve 
our national energy policy goals.
  I have long believed that the U.S. needs a comprehensive and balanced 
national energy policy. The looming concerns of electricity blackouts, 
energy prices, and increased dependence on foreign energy sources 
represent ominous clouds on the horizon. Sadly, our energy problems, 
like so many other challenges, are being addressed with ever shrinking 
funds and band-aid solutions. The pattern has been repeated over and 
over again. The Bush administration generates new initiatives, fails to 
fully fund them, and then simultaneously cuts other important programs. 
At the same time, we have witnessed attempts to put a moratorium on 
federal gas taxes, to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and to make 
secretive deals with Saudi Arabia to produce more oil. We have 
endeavored to treat the symptoms, rather than the core problem, for far 
too long. This President may talk a good game, but how are we going to 
fix our energy ills with this President's prescription?

  The United States needs affordable, reliable, and clean energy 
resources and technologies to support a growing economy and a healthy 
environment. We need a comprehensive, balanced, and diversified 
national energy policy that will promote a strong energy efficiency 
program and bolster our Nation's coal, natural gas, oil, renewable, 
nuclear, and other clean domestic energy technologies. A strong energy 
policy must help to maintain and upgrade these our critical energy 
infrastructure and support, retain, and create energy-related 
manufacturing and other service jobs that are an underpinning of our 
economy. A bipartisan energy strategy should encourage increased use of 
the most advanced energy supply and energy efficiency technologies and 
must support increased investments in an array of energy research and 
development programs.
  Our Nation needs to begin defining alternative pathways and new 
approaches that go beyond the extremist debates and simplistic 
solutions that define our very demanding energy security and 
environmental challenges. It is time to move along that path. I urge my 
colleagues in the Senate to support an appropriate, equitable, and 
diversified mixture of at least $15.5 billion in targeted energy tax 
incentives over the next ten years, and I urge the Finance Committee to 
find offsets so that this can be done in a fiscally sound way.
  In the 108th Congress, the Senate supported a similar level for 
energy incentives. The Senate's Fiscal Year 2004 Budget Resolution, the 
last budget that Congress passed, provided for $15.5 billion in energy 
tax incentives over ten years. In 2003, the Senate Finance Committee 
adopted and the Senate passed a balanced and bipartisan package of 
energy tax incentives in the amount of $19.8 billion over ten years as 
a part of the Senate Energy Policy Act of2003, part of which was 
offset. I supported that energy tax package as it provided an array of 
targeted energy incentives, including approximately $2 billion to 
deploy advanced clean coal technologies.
  Such an energy tax incentives package would help strengthen the 
economy, enhance our Nation's energy resources, promote an array of 
advanced energy technologies, increase jobs, and provide for a healthy 
environment. Is there a Member in this Chamber who is opposed to that? 
If there are going to be tax cuts in this budget, then we must increase 
funding for a range of energy tax incentives. Supporting at least $15.5 
billion in energy tax incentives will send a strong message that these 
incentives are necessary to develop a national energy policy, and I 
urge my colleagues to stand with me in this request. Unless we can 
increase the pie for all of these energy technology approaches, there 
will not be enough to achieve our energy goals in any serious way.

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