[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 100 (Wednesday, June 20, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8159-S8162]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CAFE STANDARDS
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, today we have been discussing in the halls
and corridors and rooms not far from where I many speaking what changes
we should make with respect to fuel efficiency standards for cars,
trucks, and vans. There are a lot of aspects of this bill that are
important. Few are as important as what we are going to do with respect
to fuel efficiency standards for cars, trucks, and vans, not just for
the next couple of years but probably for the next 15 years or so.
I want to begin my remarks by saying how important I believe
manufacturing is. We are neighbors. Both Delaware and Pennsylvania have
a rich tradition of manufacturing. It is an important part of our
economy and continues to be. If we are going to be successful as a
nation in the 21st century, it will be because we have retained a
vibrant manufacturing base, and we are in danger of seeing that slip
away. Part of the manufacturing base in my State has been, for 60 years
or so, a vibrant automobile manufacturing base. We have two auto
assembly plants in northern Delaware. Outside of Wilmington is a GM
plant where we manufacture the Pontiac Solstices and Saturn Sky. We
actually export some of those Saturn Skys to Europe, and we are about
to start exporting Saturn Skys to South Korea, something we are excited
about.
In Newcastle County south of Newark along the Maryland line is a
Chrysler assembly plant where they used to make tanks during World War
II. Today they make all the Dodge Durangos and all the Chrysler Aspens
in the world.
On a per capita basis, we build probably as many cars trucks, and
vans per capita in Delaware as any other State. We are not a big State,
but auto manufacturing remains an important part of our economic base.
With that as a background, I want to mention the approaching debate
on CAFE, fuel efficiency standards for our vehicular fleet. There are
three goals I see. The first goal for me--and I hope for us--is to
reduce the growth of our dependence on foreign oil, then stop the
growth of our dependence on foreign oil, and then reduce our dependence
on foreign oil. Over 60 percent of the oil we use comes from sources
beyond our borders. We have a trade deficit of about $650 billion.
Fully one-third of that is attributable to our dependence on foreign
oil. We need to reduce that dependence.
I was in Iraq the last weekend. We have over 150,000 troops there
exposed and in danger as I speak. Every time I fill up the tank of my
car with gas, I am convinced some of the money I spend in buying that
gas goes to other parts around the world where people take our money,
and I fear they use it to hurt us. We ought to be smarter than that.
One of the things we clearly need to do is to reduce our growing
reliance on foreign oil and eventually, sooner than later, reduce that
reliance.
The second goal for me is to reduce harmful emissions, the stuff we
put up in the air. Whether it is nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide,
carbon dioxide, which is the greenhouse gas that leads to global
warming, those emissions come out of cars, trucks, and vans. For me,
goal No. 2 is to reduce the incidence of those emissions. It will
improve our health and reduce the threat we face from climate change
from greenhouse gases.
The third goal for me and in the context of this legislation is to
accomplish goal No. 1, reduce our reliance on foreign oil; accomplish
goal No. 2, reduce the emission of bad stuff into the air; and to do
that by not further disadvantaging the domestic auto industry in our
State. So those are the three goals I have for us.
I want to take a moment and look back to 1975. In 1975, the average
mileage for cars, trucks, and vans was about 14 miles per gallon. For
several years leading up to 1975, there was a prolonged debate on
whether we should require more fuel-efficient vehicles. I have asked my
staff to see if we can find a little bit of what was being said back in
the mid-1970s as we debated whether to raise over a 10-year period fuel
efficiency standards from 14 miles per gallon to 27.5 miles per gallon
for cars and roughly 20 miles per gallon for light trucks and SUVs.
This is a comment from one of the senior officials at General Motors:
If this proposal becomes law--
The increase over 10 years of CAFE standards to 27.5 miles per
gallon--
the largest car the industry will be selling in any volume
at all will probably be smaller, lighter, and less powerful
than today's compact Chevy Nova.
The Presiding Officer and I are old enough to remember what a Chevy
Nova looked like. I want to tell you, when we were driving around the
streets of Washington, DC, or Delaware or Colorado, most of the
vehicles out there were a lot bigger than a compact Chevy Nova, and
they were in 1975 as well.
Here is another comment from the debate of the mid-1970s on raising
CAFE standards. This is from a senior official at Chrysler in 1974.
In effect this bill would outlaw a number of engine lines
and car models, including most full size sedans and station
wagons. It would restrict the industry to producing
subcompact-size cars, or even smaller ones, within 5 years.
Five years from this was 1979. In 1979, we were still making full
size sedans and station wagons. We were still making them in 1985. We
are still making them today. The idea that we would be producing
subcompact-size cars within 5 years or even 25 years, it never
happened. Those are a couple of comments that were made in 1974 and
1975, as we took up the debate.
The Congress decided in 1975 to go ahead and pass more stringent fuel
efficiency standards for cars, trucks, and vans. Over a 10-year period
we ramped up so that by 1985, the car fleet was expected to achieve on
balance 27.5 miles per gallon, and for light trucks and SUVs about 20
miles per gallon.
I put up these quotes because a good deal of what we have heard from
the auto industry in recent years, as we have debated whether to return
to raising fuel efficiency standards, actually sounds a lot like what
we heard in 1974 and 1975. You could almost take away the years that
are at the bottom of each of these quotes, and it would be deja vu all
over again.
For the past 22 years since we raised CAFE standards, what we have
heard mostly from the domestic auto industry is, if you raise fuel
efficiency standards further, four things will happen: One, the big
three--GM, Chrysler, Ford--will lose market share, will lose money.
They will close plants. They will cut or eliminate jobs. We have heard
that for pretty much the last 22 years, and for the last 22 years we
have not raised fuel efficiency standards.
This is a chart where we can see the market share for each company.
The orange share is Chrysler. The green is Ford. The blue is GM. This
is 1985. Here we have 20 years later, 2005. Let me just read it. From
Chrysler to Diamler-Chrysler, when you put that together, you get about
13.5 percent market share. In effect, Chrysler's market share has
actually dropped without any change in fuel efficiency standards since
1985. Their market share has dropped from 1985, if we actually backed
out Diamler.
From 1985 to 2005, Ford's market share dropped from 22 percent of
sales to almost 17 percent. That is without any change in CAFE. Over at
GM, we see market share dropped most precipitously from about 41.5
percent of the market in 1958 to 26 percent in 2005.
I would say these numbers are actually lower now. Ford is no longer
at 17 percent of market share. Regrettably, GM is not at 26 percent
market share. The market share didn't drop because of increases in
CAFE.
The plants were not closed because of increases in CAFE. Hundreds of
thousands of people did not lose their jobs
[[Page S8160]]
because of increases in CAFE. These companies, last year, collectively,
lost in the North American automotive operations--Chrysler, GM, Ford--
lost probably, collectively, about $15 billion. That was not because of
increases in CAFE, because we have not increased fuel-efficient
standards for 22 years.
We have had a lot of visits in my office in the last several weeks. I
am sure the Presiding Officer has had folks come to see him from the
auto manufacturers, probably domestic and foreign. One CEO said to me,
in a visit last week, his company would have to--if we adopted the
measure that has been reported out of the Commerce Committee, which is
the underlying language on CAFE in the bill before us this week--but if
we adopted that, his company would have to produce cars that got 50, 52
miles per gallon.
I said: Well, let's think about that. Let's talk about that. You will
recall the measure before us today says that by 2020, overall, NHTSA--
an arm of the Department of Transportation--would have to have overseen
an increase in the fuel efficiency standards of cars, trucks, and vans;
that, overall, cars, trucks, and vans put together would, beginning by
the year 2020, have 35 miles per gallon.
What most people do not understand is that trucks, light trucks, and
SUVs do not have to get 35 miles per gallon under the language in the
bill by 2020. But overall, when you combine cars, trucks, vans, and
SUVs from the different companies that sell cars in this country, they
have to get 35 miles per gallon.
Now, let's take a look at a chart that lists a bunch of auto
companies. It is a little hard to follow, but I ask you all to bear
with me. The effect of the legislation that is before us, the
underlying bill, would mean--DaimlerChrysler builds more light trucks,
SUVs. They are a truck-heavy company, as opposed to, we will say,
Volkswagen. Volkswagen builds mostly cars. They do not build much in
the way of light trucks or SUVs and sell that in this country.
But the car companies, the truck companies that tend to build the
trucks, light trucks, and SUVs, they would end up with a requirement--
between now and 2020--a requirement by NHTSA to have a fuel economy of
something less than 35 miles per gallon. For the vehicle makers that
are more heavily on the car side, as opposed to the light trucks and
SUVs, they are going to expect to have a fuel efficiency standard north
of, higher than 35 miles per gallon.
In this case, Volkswagen, if they continue to have the mix they have
of vehicles in 2005, they would have to have in their mix of product
about 38, 39 miles per gallon. So this is not a monolithic number. It
is not 35 miles per gallon for trucks, 35 miles per gallon for cars. It
is not 35 miles per gallon for each of these auto manufacturers.
But the idea is, when you put them all together, at the end of the
day, we want, in 2020, for NHTSA to have presided over a process that
gets our fleet of vehicles sold in this country, in 2020, to 35 miles
per gallon.
Now, for years we have heard our friends from Detroit say: Protect us
in this way. Protect us so we don't have foreign competitors--who build
a lot of energy-efficient cars--don't let them use the high miles per
gallon they get from their fuel-efficient cars to allow them to come in
and sell a whole bunch of trucks, light trucks, SUVs, and minivans that
are not energy efficient.
Meanwhile, companies such as DaimlerChrysler and GM and Ford, which
are selling a lot of trucks, if we are not careful, will end up with a
situation where other companies that are listed on this chart would be
able to sell a whole lot of trucks, a whole lot of minivans, a whole
lot of SUVs that are energy inefficient. Our automakers could not sell
anymore. They would be constrained because of the requirements in
legislation.
So here is what we have tried to come up with in response to the
concerns by our automakers. We have come up with a plan that says to
NHTSA: We do not care who is making real small cars, but we want you to
set the same fuel efficiency standards for real small cars, regardless
of who is making them. For midsized cars, we want you to set the same
fuel efficiency standard targets for midsized cars, regardless of what
companies make them. For larger cars, heavier cars, bigger cars, the
same fuel efficiency standard would apply for that category of
vehicles.
For pickup trucks, regardless of who is making them, light trucks,
the same standard would have to apply, whether it is Nissan that is
making them, Honda, or DaimlerChrysler. For a small truck, they all
have to be producing vehicles that get the same fuel economy standards.
For larger SUVs, the largest SUVs, whoever is making them--I don't care
if it is Toyota, Nissan, Chrysler, GM--NHTSA would be promulgating a
fuel efficiency standard that would be the same for all manufacturers.
Now, not everybody likes that. I suspect some of the folks who have
been making energy-efficient cars for some time believe they are not
getting the kind of credit they should get for their early work. But
this is a proposal that is in the underlying bill, and it is in
response to the domestic auto manufacturers who have said: Do not put
us in a situation where the only folks who can sell light trucks and
SUVs of any size are folks who happen to be building vehicles in other
countries. So we tried to be responsive to their proposal.
Let's go back to this chart I have in the Chamber, if we could. I
wish to return to the conversation I had with the CEO of one of the
companies who came to see us. We will call it company X. Company X
plans, in about 5 years, to be selling in this country a mix of
products that would be 60 percent truck, that would be 40 percent cars.
By trucks, I mean light trucks, SUVs, minivans. But that is their goal
in 5 years: 40 percent cars, 60 percent trucks.
If we assume for a moment that the fuel average requirement, the
minimum average requirement for light trucks and SUVs is going to be 30
miles per gallon--that is probably pretty close to what it is going to
be; it may be about what is doable--at the 60-percent market
concentration for the trucks: 60 percent times 30 miles per gallon adds
up to 18 miles per gallon.
If another 40 percent of what they build and sell is cars, the
question is: What miles per gallon would they have to achieve for their
car fleet, collectively--small, mid, large--what would they have to
achieve to roughly get to 35 miles per gallon overall for their fleet
average? The answer is: 42--not 52, not 62 miles per gallon. But this
is what they would have to be able to deliver in mileage per gallon in
2020 from their car fleet in order to come up with an overall fleet
average for this company of about 35 miles per gallon.
Now the question is, is it realistic in 13 years for a company to be
making cars that get 42 miles per gallon?
Well, I was at the Detroit Auto Show back in January. One of the
coolest cars I saw was a Chevrolet. It was a Chevrolet Volt, a flex-
fuel, plug-in hybrid vehicle that, hopefully, Chevrolet is going to be
making by the early part of the next decade. You plug it in, charge the
battery, and you are off.
Let me say, the leader is on the floor. I say to the leader, I do not
wish to get in your way, but if you want to jump in here, jump in.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar). The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have been listening to the Senator speak.
I wish to say one thing. I participated in an event today where we had
a car there that was a hybrid. Gee, it was fun. There were two vehicles
there, a Prius and a Ford. One of those--they would both get basically
the same mileage--but the man there who was promoting these batteries,
this past week, drove 177 miles on 1 gallon of gasoline. That is the
future. That is the future of our country, that we will be able to have
these hybrids driving across the country, pulling into a motel and
plugging it in. There will just be a cord, like an extension cord.
I wanted to say one thing. I want to comment on the Senator's
advocacy. The people of Delaware--I say this without any hype at all--
are so fortunate to have someone who is so into legislation. I don't
know of another Senator, in looking at an issue, who understands it so
thoroughly. I say that sometimes I wish you didn't know it so
thoroughly, because it doesn't allow me to have any wiggle room at all.
But I say that without any reservation. I am so admiring of the
Senator's talents to legislate. I am very partial to you because you
and I came here together in 1982 as freshmen Members of the House of
Representatives. But the
[[Page S8161]]
people of Delaware got a well-trained legislator when you came to the
Senate. Your experience in the State, as a Statewide officeholder, a
Member of the House of Representatives, a Governor, a Senator--you have
not only had the experience, but you still have the tenacity and the
will to be a good legislator, and the people of Delaware are very
fortunate, but so are we as a country.
I would ask my distinguished friend, there are a few closing matters.
Could you do those when you complete your statement?
Mr. CARPER. I will.
Mr. President, I was talking about the visit of last week with the
CEO of one of our major three automakers. The point I was trying to
make is the automakers don't have to come up with cars that get 52
miles per gallon or 50 miles per gallon, but if they have a fleet of 60
percent trucks and 40 percent cars in 2020, they are going to have to
do better, and better is 42 miles per gallon.
Our leader, Senator Reid, was talking about an event here today where
some vehicles were on display. I think they were jerry rigged--maybe it
was Ford Escape and some other vehicles, maybe Priuses--in order to get
very high mileage, I think he said 170 miles per gallon. We don't need
cars that get 170 miles per gallon by 2020 to make this standard of
roughly 35 miles per gallon for the fleet. We don't need cars that get
50 miles per gallon.
But in this case, Company X--which is a real company, it turns out--
is working toward 42 miles per gallon and they would meet the expected
requirements that would be set for them.
I said to my visitor last week, the CEO who was visiting me, You have
an obligation to your shareholders and you have an obligation to your
employees to try to get the best deal out of this that you guys can be
proud of and maximize your profits.
I said: As a Senator who cares about the economic development and job
creation in my State, I want you to be profitable. I want you to be
successful.
So I feel some obligation too. But I went on to add that we have an
obligation here, as does the Presiding Officer, my friend from
Pennsylvania, who is going to speak in a minute, we have an obligation
that goes beyond that which our CEO feels, or other CEOs feel. We have
an obligation to make sure we do reduce our reliance on foreign oil.
The car companies, in all honesty, don't have that obligation. We have
an obligation to make sure the air we breathe is cleaner. We have an
obligation to make sure the threat of global warming is diminished, not
increased. They don't have that requirement, as we do. That is our job.
It is not enough for us, though, to say to the car companies: You
have to eat your spinach. You have to go out there and make the tough
decisions all by yourself to raise fuel efficiency standards. I think
we have an obligation in the Federal Government and in other levels of
Government as well to help them. It shouldn't be them doing this all by
themselves; we have an obligation to help them. I mention maybe four
ways where we are trying to help them in the legislation that is before
us today and that we will be voting on tomorrow and during the next
couple of days.
With respect to making more energy efficient cars, here are some ways
we can help the industry. One is through basic research and development
investments. If we go back a few years, we have invested a lot of money
in fuel cell technologies, as my colleagues know. In the legislation
before us, the underlying bill on CAFE standards, we authorized the
expenditure of $50 million a year over the next 5 years for new battery
technology, for a new generation of lithium batteries, so the kind of
cars the majority leader was talking about a few minutes ago, so we can
actually build them, actually build the Chevrolet Volt. The Chevrolet
Volt, the car I was talking about earlier, the coolest car at the auto
show, a flex-fuel, plug-in hybrid, you plug it in, charge the battery
at night from your house, go out the next day, drive maybe 30, 40 miles
before you have to recharge again. If you get to work before that time,
plug it in at work. In the meantime, when you put on your brakes, it is
a traditional hybrid. You put on your brakes and recharge the battery.
But in the Chevrolet Volt, it actually carries with it an auxiliary
power unit. The auxiliary power unit doesn't run the car, it charges
the battery. It can be fuel cell powered, it could be biofuels diesel,
it could be an ethanol internal combustion engine recharging the
battery, and the battery running the wheels.
I saw a headline in the local paper in my State a month ago. It was a
picture of one of the top folks at GM standing alongside the Chevrolet
Volt and talking about this vehicle, which they hope to have on the
road by the early part of the next decade, to get over 100 miles per
gallon. That is not the entire fleet, it is one vehicle, but that is
100 miles per gallon. If we can do that, 100 miles per gallon or even
80 or 90 or 70 for the Chevrolet Volt and the kind of things our
majority leader saw today, the fuel efficiencies there, if it is even a
half or a third of what he saw, the idea of getting 35 miles per gallon
for a total fleet in 2020 is not a pipedream, it is realistic. I am
convinced that to the extent our auto manufacturers are positioned to
build more energy efficient cars, to at least have some of them, they
make themselves more competitive in the world environment.
But I was talking about the ways we can help, the Federal Government
can help our industry to meet these higher standards. One, Federal
investments in basic R&D. Whether it is for fuel cells several years
ago or whether it is new battery technology, we are putting in about
$40 million this year. I hope next year it will be 50 and the next 5
years after that at $50 million a year.
Second, another way we can help is to use the Federal Government's
purchasing power to help commercialize these new technologies. We are
going to be building and putting out on the road a new generation,
next-generation hybrid Durango and a next-generation hybrid Chrysler
Aspen. Currently they are internal combustion engines. They don't get
20 miles per gallon. They are high teens for fuel economy. But starting
sometime by the middle of next year we will have on the road hybrid
Durangos and hybrid Chrysler Aspens, the fuel economy of which will be
increased by 40 percent over current levels--a 40-percent increase. I
want to see--and I know others of my colleagues want to see--when the
Federal Government goes out and buys--and we buy a lot of vehicles
every year on the civilian side and on the defense side--I want to have
included in the legislation we pass something that says some small
percentage, some modest percentage of the vehicles we are going to be
buying, anyway, should be invested in highly energy efficient new
technology cars or trucks or vans, and their reaction to have the
opportunity to do that in the context of the underlying legislation.
We are going to take up the Defense authorization bill in a couple of
weeks and we will have an opportunity to do the same thing in terms of
using the Government's purchasing power on the military side to
commercialize these more energy efficient technologies in the cars,
trucks, and vans that the military buys.
A third way the Federal Government can help the auto companies meet
these more stringent standards, in addition to investments in R&D, in
addition to the vehicular purchases of the Government to commercialize
technologies, is with respect to tax credits. In the Energy bill
adopted in 2005, we have energy tax credits that say if you buy a
highly energy-efficient hybrid vehicle, you get a tax credit of $300 to
almost $3,500 for your purchase. There is a similar provision in the
same bill that says to folks who buy highly energy-efficient, diesel-
powered vehicles with very low emissions that they can get the same
kind of tax breaks, $300 to roughly $3,500.
As it turns out, almost all of the hybrids, incentivized by those tax
credits, are made in other countries. So we have tax incentives to
encourage people to buy hybrids from other countries. Shame on us.
Hopefully, in the next couple years we will put American hybrids on the
road and incentivize people to buy American-made hybrids, such as the
Durango and the Chrysler Aspen that will be produced less than a year
from now. No American manufacturer is making today, nor will they next
year, diesel-powered vehicles with emission levels low enough to
qualify under the 2005 legislation.
[[Page S8162]]
One of the changes that has been agreed to and is in the Finance
Committee's package, Mr. President--and you are a member of the Finance
Committee--one of the provisions the committee adopted in the finance
language that accompanies the Energy bill allows the low-emission,
highly energy-efficient Chrysler products that are being manufactured
and sold in this country this year, for 1 year--that will be next
year--their products will qualify not for the full tax credit but for
about three-quarters of the tax credit just for 1 year. After that,
they have to be very low emissions starting in 2009, which is as it
should be.
That is something we can do to incentivize folks to buy vehicles made
in this country that have low emissions and are highly efficient. The
more energy efficient, the bigger the tax credit.
The fourth and last point we can do in the way of helping the
industry is, there is a flex-fuel mandate that says some of the
vehicles we build in this country have to be capable of running on
ethanol or some kind of fuel other than traditional petroleum. However,
as my colleagues know, today, if you drive around this country and have
one of these vehicles that can run on ethanol, it is hard to find a
pump. It is hard to find a pump in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Delaware, or
any other State, except Minnesota where I think they have 400 gas
stations that actually have ethanol. But it is hard to find a fueling
station where we can actually fill up with something other than
gasoline.
There needs to be included in this legislation something that
mandates the oil companies, just as we did 20, 25, 30 years ago on
unleaded gas, so the people who have vehicles that are capable of
running on renewable fuel can actually find a place to fill up.
Similarly with hydrogen, as we move to the point of building more
hydrogen-powered vehicles. It doesn't do us any good if we don't have
hydrogen fueling stations in this country. The Federal Government has
an obligation to make sure that fuel is available too.
Those are four actions the Government can do, and I hope will do, in
the context of this legislation before us: One, investments in R&D, in
this case new battery technology; two, use Federal Government
purchasing power to help companies to commercialize this new
technology; three, use tax credits to incentivize people to buy the
vehicles once they are produced, more energy-efficient vehicles
produced; and, finally, hydrogen infrastructure so people who buy flex-
fuel vehicles can find the product, the stations where they can fill
up.
The last point I want to make, and it goes back to my conversation
with my friend who is a CEO of one of these domestic auto companies. I
mentioned he has an obligation to his shareholders and employees. I am
sure he cares about the quality of air. I am sure he cares about our
dependence on foreign oil. That is not his day job. That is our day
job, so we should focus on it as we debate these issues.
My colleague from Colorado who is presiding, and my colleague from
Pennsylvania who is waiting patiently for me to wrap up--and I have
been to funerals for people from our State who have died in Iraq or
Afghanistan. We have tried to console family members. I was in Iraq
over the weekend. We have 160,000 men and women there today. They are
in harm's way as I speak. We are so dependent on troubled parts of the
world for oil, unstable parts of the world for oil, where we have men
and women at risk, where we lost lives yesterday and probably lost
lives today and probably will tomorrow.
I think of a member of my staff, Sean Barney, who worked with me
since 2000 when I ran for the Senate. Sean decided he wanted to go into
the Marines. He joined the Marines and went through basic training.
This is a guy with an undergraduate degree from Swarthmore and a
graduate degree from Columbia who decided he wanted to be a marine.
A couple years ago, he went to basic training and became a PFC and
ended up in Anbar Province, in the streets of Falluja, shot by a sniper
in the neck which severed his carotid artery. He, by all rights, should
be dead. He lived, miraculously. He has some degree of disability in
his right arm, right shoulder, right hand, but he is alive.
When I have visited in Iraq, I had a chance to visit with a bunch of
National Guard troops. We have them over there from Colorado and
Pennsylvania too--folks from the 198th Signal Battalion. I was their
commander in chief when I was Governor for 8 years. I have a special
affection and devotion to them. I wanted to make sure they come home
safely.
When I got home early Monday morning, I went to a sendoff for 150
members of one of our military police units. They were heading on to
Fort Dix. They are at Fort Dix today and then on to Iraq.
I guess the point I am making is, while we want to make sure our
domestic auto industry is successful and is profitable, and we have a
good, strong auto manufacturing base, I want to make sure we stop
sending men and women around the world to these troubled spots that
have large amounts of oil deposits. And we are concerned about that
situation. That is something of which we need to be mindful. For me, it
figures into this equation and this debate.
I close by saying, we will have a chance to debate these issues
tomorrow morning, and we will have a chance to vote on the language in
the underlying bill, maybe with a change from an amendment Senator
Stevens and I have offered and maybe will be adopted, or maybe with the
more far-reaching change negotiated and developed by our colleagues,
Senators Pryor, Levin, Stabenow, and Bond. At the end of the day,
though, when we pass this legislation and send it on to the House, it
is so important that it moves in a meaningful way toward reducing our
dependence on foreign oil; that in a meaningful way it reduces the
emissions of harmful matter into our air; and in a real way it also
enhances and doesn't undermine the competitiveness of our domestic auto
industry.
It is not easy to do all three of those goals, but those are the
three things we need to do. If we can send from the Senate to the House
at the end of this week or early next week legislation that is actually
faithful to those three goals, we will have done our work and done good
work.
Tomorrow and the next day will be the test to see if we can measure
up to those standards. I hope we can.
I apologize to my colleague from Pennsylvania for going on as long as
I have. I thank him for his patience.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
____________________