[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 156 (Tuesday, October 16, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12891-S12893]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             THE OIL CRISIS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the front page of a recent New York Times 
article and front page of a Wall Street Journal issue said: ``Ethanol's 
Boom Stalling As Glut Depresses Price.'' Wall Street Journal article 
says: ``Ethanol Boom Is Running Out of Gas.'' Last night on ``NBC 
Nightly News,'' featured a piece about the closing of ethanol plants 
and the problem with the production of ethanol as a substitute for oil.
  Mr. President, I want to talk a moment about that because we are 
unbelievably dependent on foreign oil. If anybody thinks they should 
nap through this or sleep through this vulnerability, they are dead 
wrong because 60 percent of the oil we need in this country and use 
every day we get from outside of our country. We stick little straws in 
this planet of ours and suck oil out. We suck out about 84 million 
barrels of oil every single day. We use one-fourth of that in this 
country every day, or about 21 to 22 million barrels of oil. So of all 
the oil we suck out of this planet every day, we use one fourth of it 
just in this little space called the United States of America.
  The problem with using one fourth of it is that 60 percent of that 
oil which we use comes from other countries, much of it from troubled 
parts of the world, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Venezuela. 
Well, if tomorrow, God forbid, somehow the import of oil into this 
country were interrupted, we would be flat on our back economically.
  We get up in the morning and just take it all for granted. We get up, 
we get out of bed and rub our eyes, then flick a switch, and the lights 
go on. We get in the car, turn the key, and the engine starts. We take 
it all for granted. But what happens at some point if we shut off the 
petroleum, shut off the electricity, and see what life is like, see 
what our economy is like?
  So we decided to do something about that. If we are unbelievably 
dependent on and vulnerable when it comes to foreign oil, what do we 
do? We begin to produce energy in our farm fields.
  We produce biofuels. That is not a new thing. It has been around over 
a century. I was at a biodiesel plant the other day. It was a grand 
opening. I pointed out there that the first known use of vegetable oil 
as fuel for a diesel engine was a demonstration at the World's Fair in 
the year 1900. Rudolf

[[Page S12892]]

Diesel later experimented with fuel made from peanut oil or biodiesel 
for engines he was developing. So this is not new.
  All of a sudden our country has decided we should produce biofuels--
ethanol, for example--and we have begun to do that. Oil companies don't 
like it very much. The OPEC countries don't like it very much. The last 
thing they want to see is for us to begin to produce not only the 
fossil fuels in our country, including oil and natural gas, but also 
biofuels and the renewable energy that can grow in our farm fields. We 
can take a kernel of corn, and from that kernel of corn with various 
processes produce fuel that will substitute for fuel oil we now get 
from troubled parts of the world. That makes a lot of sense to me.
  We use about 140 billion gallons or 145 billion gallons of fuel a 
year. If every single gallon of fuel were blended with ethanol, our 
total market for ethanol would be about 14.5 billion gallons. The 
President says let's go to 35 billion gallons. I agree with that. So do 
most of my colleagues. The Senate has already voted on a bill to 
produce 36 billion gallons. But how are we going to use 36 billion 
gallons if we are only blending ethanol at 10 percent? We have to have 
the E85 pumps. They are producing flex-fuel vehicles in Detroit now, 
and they have said they are going to get to 50 percent of all the 
vehicles they produce being flex-fuel vehicles so we can run a fuel 
that is 85 percent ethanol. E85 they call it.
  You might have a flex-fuel vehicle right now--in my State there are 
about 16,000 to 18,000 flex-fuel vehicles--and there are 23 places in 
the entire State where you can pull up to a pump and get E85.
  In California there are over 270,000 flex-fuel vehicles, and there is 
one reported gasoline pump in the entire State of California that pumps 
E85. Think of that, one pump.
  Let me describe what some of the obstacles are. I have long been 
concerned if we are going to produce ethanol--and we should and we 
must--we have to not only produce it, we have to market it. We have to 
produce it, then we have to run it through the carburetors and fuel 
injectors of vehicles. If we don't have the market, that whole industry 
collapses.
  Let me give some examples of why we don't have more E85 pumps. No. 1, 
we have some folks in here who want to produce ethanol and support all 
that, but they don't support any kind of mandate that would require 
that we have an infrastructure out there to actually use the ethanol. 
We are now starting to see the results of that. Let me describe that 
with an article in the Wall Street Journal: ``Fill Up With Ethanol? One 
Obstacle Is Big Oil.'' April 2, this year:

       Oil companies employ a variety of tactics that help keep 
     the E85 fuel out of the stations that bear the company name. 
     For instance, franchisees are sometimes required to purchase 
     all the fuel they will sell from the oil company. Since oil 
     companies generally don't sell E85

  That is, 85 percent ethanol that you would use in a flex fuel 
vehicle--

     the station can't either.

  Let me describe some of the ways the major brand retailers are trying 
to prevent the widespread marketing of ethanol. ExxonMobil and BP 
require their franchise stations--and this is directly from the Wall 
Street Journal article--require their franchise stations to buy fuel 
exclusively from them. Neither company offers E85. So the station 
owners must apply for an exception if they wish to sell E85, or 85 
percent ethanol.

       A ConocoPhillips memo to franchisees says the company 
     doesn't allow E85 sales on the primary island, under the 
     covered canopy where gasoline is sold. Stations must find 
     another spot. As a result, it isn't quite as simple for a 
     driver to decide on the spur of the moment to fill up with 
     E85.

  ConocoPhillips says you can't market E85 with the same bank of pumps 
on the same island.

       Chevron says it requires Chevron-Texaco branded stations to 
     keep E85 off their primary signs listing fuel prices. To show 
     the fuel's price, and alert approaching drivers that E85 is 
     for sale, the stations have to erect a separate sign.

  BP will not allow its franchisees to offer payment by credit card for 
E85.
  Does anybody see a pattern? These companies sell oil and gas. I want 
them to do well. But I hope they want our country to do well at the 
same time. Our country will do well by becoming less dependent on the 
Kuwaitis and Saudis, the Venezuelans. And we do that by expanding our 
supply of renewable energy.
  Guess what. These companies say we are not interested in that. That 
is not our product. So, by the way, we have 170,000 gasoline stations 
in our country, about 170,000 gas stations on every corner of this 
country, virtually, and 1,200 of them have E85 pumps. There are 170,000 
places you can pull up to buy gasoline, and 1,200 of them have E85.
  If you drive a flex-fuel vehicle and you can run it on 85 percent 
ethanol--that is the way they sell the vehicle, you can run on either 
gasoline or 85 percent ethanol--and you want to choose one of 170,000 
gas stations in this country, 168,800 or so are not going to have E85.
  Assistant Secretary Andrew Karsner, who is the Assistant Secretary of 
the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Department 
of Energy, said at a hearing I chaired earlier this year that last year 
we installed around 450 E85 pumps across the entire country. As I 
calculate it, if we continue to install 450 E85 pumps a year, that 
means in about 100 years we will have almost 50,000 pumps, or in less 
than one-third of the stations where they are selling gas.

  My point is simple. I see these stories in the Wall Street Journal 
and the New York Times. I know, based on what is reported, what the 
major oil companies are doing. It is not just setting ethanol up for 
failure, it is setting this country up for failure. We cannot move from 
60 percent dependence on foreign oil to 69 percent dependence on 
foreign oil, and that is where the experts say we are headed.
  If we don't find a way to be less dependent on foreign oil, this 
country is in trouble. How do we become less dependent? We expand our 
opportunities for renewable energy, including ethanol. But if we do 
that, and when we do that, we are set up for failure if the 170,000 gas 
stations across this country have decided: You can't advertise E85. You 
have to erect a separate sign. You can't sell E85 at our franchise, we 
will not allow it. You can't pump it at the main island where you pump 
other gasoline, we will not allow it. With that sort of thing, it sets 
this country up for failure, in my judgment.
  What should we do about it? The Energy bill we moved through the 
Senate recently was an Energy bill that provides some grant programs--
not nearly enough--some grant programs to help some service stations 
install biofuels pumps. We are going to need to pump E85 percent 
ethanol. We are going to need to have blend pumps that blend 30 
percent, 40 percent, and 50 percent blends of ethanol and gasoline. We 
have to do all these things if this country is determined to move in a 
direction that makes us less dependent on foreign oil.
  But our country, it seems to me, is willing to sit back, and Congress 
is willing to sit back and say: Whatever happens.
  We have to make things happen. An infrastructure bill that says if we 
are going to produce biofuels--and we are, and if we are going to 
aspire to get 36 billion gallons of biofuels--and we should, then you 
have to have a plan by which you market that. If you produce it and 
don't market it, the market for that particular energy collapses, and 
it will set us back decades.
  What should we do? We should, in my judgment, as we move this Energy 
bill, have an infrastructure provision in the Energy bill that is 
strong, assertive, bold, and moves in the right direction and sets up a 
circumstance where either this happens by the market system or you have 
mandates.
  I know nobody likes mandates. But if we are going to be less 
dependent on foreign oil, we have to find a way to make this happen and 
make this work. I believe we have an opportunity to do something good 
for this country. We can just sit back and exhibit a posture somewhere 
between day dreaming and thumb sucking and just act as if we are 
thumbing our suspenders, smoking our cigars, and saying: Ain't it a 
good life? We are 60 percent on foreign oil. Ain't it a shame ethanol 
don't work somehow? I know you can't find it down at the local service 
station because they will not let them market it down there. Ain't it a 
shame?
  It is not going to be a good life if we find someday we don't have 
this energy

[[Page S12893]]

coming in, with 60 percent coming from offshore, and it is not going to 
be just a shame, it is going to be a catastrophe for this country if we 
don't put in place the infrastructure to expand our opportunities to 
produce renewable energy in this country and therefore make us less 
dependent on sources of foreign oil.
  We are going to use our fossil fuels. I support the production of 
domestic oil and natural gas. I support the continued use of our coal. 
I increased the President's request by 30 percent for the fossil fuels 
account, in the appropriations bill that is written in the Energy and 
Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee that I chair. The 
President talks a lot about this stuff, but he doesn't commit himself 
to it. I increased by 30 percent his fossil fuels account. Why? Because 
coal is our most abundant resource. We are going to have to use it. The 
question is not whether, it is when we use it, and how. We ought to 
invest in the research and technology to allow us to use coal in zero 
emissions plants. I believe we can do that. We can't do this with the 
baby steps coming from this President. He wants to just baby-step 
along; a little money here, a little money there. If we are going to 
make a commitment to use our fossil fuels, we have to make that 
commitment. But even as we do that, much more needs to be done to deal 
with the renewable side. We can't at the same time try to advance the 
interests of fossil fuels in a way that does not contribute to climate 
change and then say we are going to ignore the renewable side. We have 
to do both. We have to use the research and the capability of 
technology to unlock our opportunity to continue to use fossil fuels, 
but then we have to commit ourselves--our country has to commit itself 
to renewable energy and to the ethanol and biofuels industry.
  The reason I wanted to make this point is, I saw last evening on 
``NBC News'' a big feature story about this subject. I saw it in the 
New York Times. I saw it in the Wall Street Journal.
  You ought not be surprised. I mean, bowl me over? The major gasoline 
companies do not want to sell E85 because they believe it competes with 
them? The fact is, what competes with them is the solution to making us 
less dependent on foreign sources of oil.
  It is unbelievable to me that we have this little planet of ours. We 
circle the Sun, we have 6.4 billion neighborhoods, and half of them 
have never made a telephone call, half live on less than $2 a day, and 
we end up on this little spot called the United States. Our lifestyle 
is pretty unbelievable. What we have built is special. But we are 
prodigious consumers of energy, and now we have worked ourselves into a 
position where we use so much energy in the form of oil from outside of 
our country, and so much of it comes from very troubled areas of the 
world, that if we do not in a sober way understand our responsibility 
to address that, shame on us; and our future will not be very bright.
  This is not just some other issue. This is a big issue. The standard 
of living in this country rests on the issue of our being able to 
provide the energy. The quality of life in this country rests on our 
ability to get the energy and produce the energy and acquire the 
energy, even as we protect the airshed with respect to climate change. 
All of that is important.
  Mr. President, I think this is an important issue. I am going to work 
with my colleagues. Hopefully, we can get an Energy bill, and when we 
get this Energy bill we will get this resolved in the right way.
  Mr. President, how much time remains?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There remains 3\1/2\ minutes.

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