[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 184 (Tuesday, December 4, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H14139-H14145]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          THE ECONOMIC POTENTIAL OF A CLEAN ENERGY REVOLUTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, I have come to the House floor tonight to 
really share some great news, and that doesn't always happen in this 
Chamber, and the great news is that this week we hope to take a major 
step forward in our effort to revolutionize the energy economy of 
America to bring it to a place where we can use the genius of Americans 
to break our addiction to Middle Eastern oil, to stop global warming, 
and to grow millions of good-paying green collar jobs in this country. 
And tomorrow or the next day we hope to have on the floor a bill that 
will take major strides in that direction to start facing these 
challenges and really recognizing the economic potential of a clean 
energy revolution for this country.
  We have challenges associated with energy, but we who will bring this 
bill to the floor believe that we also have opportunities involving 
energy. And those of us who will be supporting this energy bill believe 
that we need to look at this from an optimistic, visionary, progressive 
can-do spirit. And if we hearken to the can-do spirit of Americans, we 
are going to revolutionize the way we create and use energy in this 
country. And when we do that, we are going to grow millions of jobs in 
the process.
  If I can briefly just talk about the challenges that we face, and 
perhaps they are obvious, but I think it is important at least to note 
them, about why we need a new energy policy in this country. And let me 
start with the one that perhaps is most obvious to us, and that is that 
our addiction to Middle Eastern oil threatens our security. It's not a 
very wise policy. And we were just being briefed by a vice admiral of 
the United States Navy retired just about 15 minutes ago on this 
subject. He pointed out that it's not a very good strategic decision to 
be sending just under $1 million a minute of our money to people who 
are attacking us in the Middle East.

                              {time}  2030

  Funding your enemies is not known as a particularly brilliant 
strategic move. And Americans know that our national security is at 
risk as long as we are on the addiction train for the oil coming out of 
the Mid East.
  So we know there is a security reason for our trying to move to a 
more energy independent position where we are less dependent on oil to 
run our economy.
  Second, we know that global warming is a challenge. I'm certainly 
aware of this. I represent a district just north of Seattle. My county 
got 9 inches of rain in 24 hours the day before yesterday. And you will 
turn on your TV tonight, and you will see these floods. These floods 
and precipitation events are consistent with the models of what we will 
see more frequently in the Pacific Northwest with global warming.

[[Page H14140]]

We don't want to see that happen. We're seeing it, the last 2 years, 
we've had these things happen. Mount Rainier National Park was shut 
down for the first time in 100 years last year because of one of these 
horrendous rainstorms.
  We know that we've seen one million miles of the Arctic melt, just 
disappear this year, the size of six Californias disappear. We know we 
have a problem with global warming; we've got to face up to it.
  And third, we know that we have a loss of jobs in this country. We've 
seen a shrinking of our manufacturing base. We've seen outsourcing of 
our jobs across the world. We're seeing enormous imports coming in from 
China and exports not going back. So we need to reorient our economy so 
that we can develop products for export to the rest of the world. And 
guess what? We have the perfect opportunity to do that in developing 
clean energy technologies so we can rebuild our economy, and there is a 
great way to do it.
  I want to start by talking about the tremendous strides that 
Americans are making today in building a new clean energy 
transportation system for the United States. Now, I get really excited 
about this. For one reason, two days ago I was in Anaheim, California, 
at the electric car convention, the 23rd convention of the Electric Car 
Association in Anaheim, California; and I was blown away by the 
progress that's being made in the electrification of the automobile.
  Now, we have, frankly, not made much progress in increasing the 
efficiency of our cars since the early 1980s. We did a tremendous thing 
in the seventies and eighties: we increased our fuel efficiency by over 
60 percent in about 5 to 6 years, but then we stopped. Congress 
stopped, the President stopped, we stopped dead in our tracks from 
making any progress on fuel efficiency.
  Well, for 30 years now we haven't made one mile a gallon improvement. 
Think about how pathetic that is. Since 1983, we've started the 
Internet, mapped the human genome, we've even invented the cup holder 
for our cars; but we haven't improved the mileage they're getting by 
even 1 mile a gallon. Well, this week, tomorrow or the next day, we 
hope to pass on this floor a provision that will make the first 
improvements in 30 years in our automobile efficiency standards that 
were so incredibly successful in the early years. We need to simply 
start getting back up on that improvement train because that's what 
America is about, which is constant improvement.
  And we intend to raise it to 35 miles a gallon, which is certainly 
obtainable, and I'll talk about why we know it's obtainable in a few 
minutes. We know that's a very obtainable goal, and we hope to pass 
that. And this is why this is important. I did a little research on 
this; I've done a lot of research on this. I actually just recently 
wrote a book about this, so this is where I got a lot of this 
information. When you write a book about things, you tend to go out and 
ask a lot of people questions. And what I learned was that if we had 
simply continued making the same improvements in mileage that we made 
from 1976 to 1983, if we had simply continued on that rate of 
improvement, we would be free of Saudi Arabian oil today. Think of what 
that would have meant to our national security if we were free of that 
oil influence in our foreign policy. Well, we have to get back in that 
good habit of expecting more fuel efficient cars.
  Now, we know this is capable of happening because we know essentially 
the technology has become better in our cars; it has simply gone to 
power and some other things rather than fuel efficiency. But this 35-
mile-a-gallon standard I know is achievable because today I am driving 
a car that gets 45 miles a gallon. This car, it's convenient, it's 
safe, it carries five people comfortably. I'm 6 foot-2 inches, 200 
pounds. It carries me and a big cherry tree in the back very 
conveniently. So we don't even have to wait until 2020 or 2022 to do 
this; we have cars that can do this today. But we know that we're going 
to make transitions, both in cars and trucks of all sizes, to move to 
more efficiency.
  But I'll tell you what's coming. What's coming very shortly is not 
just these little incremental half-mile, one-mile, two-mile-a-gallon 
improvements. What is coming is wholesale giant leaps forward in 
automobile efficiency. And I want to show you why I know that's going 
to happen, or believe it's going to happen.
  This is a picture of a car, the GM Volt. The GM Volt is a car that 
General Motors hopes to put into mass production in 5 years or so. It 
would be the first American mass production plug-in hybrid car. The GM 
Volt is a plug-in hybrid car. And the way a plug-in hybrid car works is 
ingenious. It has a hybrid system which runs, essentially, the wheels 
with electric motors. And a hybrid system works partly on an electrical 
battery system and part on an internal combustion engine that right now 
is burning gasoline, and some day will burn cellulosic ethanol or 
biodiesel. But what a plug-in hybrid does is it allows you to charge 
your batteries at night, and then for about 40 miles all you use is 
electricity.
  So when the GM Volt comes out, you will be able to plug in your car 
in your garage, unplug it tonight, go about your business. For the 
first 40 miles, it's all electric; no carbon dioxide coming out of your 
tailpipe, no gasoline being burned whatsoever. And the daily usage of a 
car for 60 percent of Americans is less than 40 miles in one day. So 
when these cars become available in widespread availability, 60 percent 
of the trips of Americans could be all electric, without using a drop 
of gasoline.
  Now, what happens after 40 miles is you essentially then burn either 
gasoline, or at some point ethanol or biodiesel, with a combination of 
the remaining juice in the battery to go the rest of your mileage, with 
just as much total range as you originally would experience with our 
normal cars. And when you do this, the combination of that juice in 
your battery you're plugged in with, and if you run the whole tank dry, 
you're going to get over 100 miles a gallon of gasoline. And there are 
cars today doing this. There are several hundred cars already doing 
this on the road across the country, running these plug-ins. There is 
quite a number of them that are Toyota Prius conversions that have been 
converted into these plug-in hybrids.
  Now, this is not just some pipe dream. I asked GM to bring this car 
to Capitol Hill and they showed it to my colleagues a couple of months 
ago. It was at the car convention yesterday, and people were looking at 
it like it was the hottest thing on wheels at this convention, because 
it is. It gives us the opportunity to make a serious break of our 
addiction to Middle Eastern oil. And it gives Americans the ability to 
drive a car for 1 to 2 cents a mile for energy from electricity. 
Gasoline is costing anywhere from 9 to 12 cents a mile to operate a car 
right now.
  So this is a tremendous break for Americans, when these cars get on 
the road. And we'll be talking about 100 miles a gallon of gasoline, 
not just 35 in our CAFE standard. GM has hundreds of millions of 
dollars in investment in this vehicle, and we know that this is a very 
serious effort in this regard.
  Now, there are a couple of virtues I would like to talk about. This 
car gets better with age, and I'll tell you how. When you use 
electricity off the grid, you know, some of the electricity is produced 
with coal that is putting in carbon dioxide in the air and is adding to 
global warming gases. But as the grid becomes greener, which it will as 
we use more solar thermal power and as we use more wind power, the 
energy, the electrical juice we use, will become greener and your car 
will become greener. It will become a better car, a more efficient car. 
Now, there are only two things I know of in life that gets better over 
time, wine, and plug-in hybrid cars. So we're very excited about the 
progress of this.
  I'll give you another little bonus. When you have a car like this, 
you can rent your batteries to the utility companies. And the utility 
companies are very excited about being able to ignite, when you're 
charging your batteries, essentially store their energy in your battery 
and then draw it back out, if you're not driving your car. They call it 
a load-leveling service. And they will pay you money for the right to 
use your battery. And some economists have suggested it could be a 
value of $2,000 to $3,000 a year. So that's a pretty sweet deal, 
potentially being paid by your utility company to really move forward.

[[Page H14141]]

  So this thing is knocking them dead at the convention, and for good 
reason. And it shows why this 35-mile-a-gallon potential is very, very 
achievable. And I'm going to be very excited when we get this bill up 
on the floor.
  With that, I would like to yield to my good friend, George Miller, 
who has been leading this visionary effort for years here in the U.S. 
Congress.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding. 
And, one, I want to commend him on the success of getting provisions in 
this legislation on renewable electrical sources that he just pointed 
out will make all of this better in the future as we see a convergence 
of transportation, as we see a convergence of energy efficiencies in 
our homes and our businesses, and then to have a clean, green, and 
renewable way to generate that electricity. This is going to be a 
remarkable gift to the American people, to the American economy, to 
American businesses.
  One of the things we've seen first and foremost is in so many 
instances the amount of money that is being saved by those who are 
investing in this effort in their businesses to make them more 
efficient, to make them greener, and to make them cleaner.
  I am very excited that this legislation, which you have led the fight 
on, is also going to include the CAFE standards, the improvements in 
the miles per gallon that people can expect to get from cars in the 
future, that we will provide for 35 miles per gallon by the year 2020, 
which will dramatically change the transportation picture in this 
country, and then joined with the hybrid, with the renewable energies, 
can change our dependence on imported oil. And combined with other 
provisions of this legislation, we know that we have the opportunity to 
dramatically impact for the good the American economy, our climate, our 
environment, and the health of our neighborhoods and our cities.
  So this energy bill, which many people said was not going to be 
possible at the beginning of this year, will be a major vote for those 
of us who are concerned about our dependence on foreign oil, our 
dependence on fossil fuels at all because of the impacts on the 
climate, the impacts on the health of our constituents. And it's going 
to be a remarkable vote when it takes place.
  This legislation also provides for energy efficiency and renewable 
energy worker training. We're now starting to see in this country, as 
more and more investment is made by the private sector, that we need 
skilled workers who know how to work in these facilities, who 
understand the technology, who understand the mechanics of these 
operations. And that's going to provide real opportunity to working 
people in this country to create jobs all over this country, not just 
on the coast, if you will, but in the Midwest and the Southeast, in the 
Southwest, where wind, where other renewable energy sources are going 
to be developed, are going to be promoted, and are going to be utilized 
by those communities.
  The gentleman from Washington has been in this struggle, started with 
the Apollo Project. This isn't quite the Apollo Project, but this is a 
major down payment, a major, major step, after 30 years of this 
Congress being shackled by the auto industry and the oil industry and 
others to continue a policy that has not served this country well and 
that continues to threaten our economic stability, our national 
security.
  I know how much energy the gentleman from Washington has put into 
this legislation and put into this issue to get the public to 
understand something like the GM Volt. We had the automobile on the 
Hill a few months ago. It's a rather impressive automobile, as you 
pointed out. I think we probably read the same articles about the 
recent auto shows where it's attracting a great deal of attention, a 
major commitment by GM. I'm delighted to see GM now make this thrust 
into these new technologies, and I think that that legislation will 
provide further incentives for them to do that.
  I read a rather interesting commentary. GM also developed a hybrid 
for the Tahoe, for their SUV. And in the comments about it, it's not 
the best hybrid in terms of mileage, if you're really concerned about 
mileage standards, but it's a major effort, certainly a major effort on 
behalf of a vehicle that's very popular with the American public.
  But the interesting thing was, because of the engineering that they 
had to do to deal with the hybrid technology, the commentary of the 
auto reviewers was that they made a better car, this Tahoe was far 
superior to those that weren't. And they were hoping that they would 
then transfer the technology, the design, the engineering over to the 
rest of the fleet because they, in fact, would be presenting a car of 
higher quality, be it hybrid or nonhybrid, to the American public. And 
I think it's interesting to see what the spin-offs are and what this 
kind of engineering develops.
  Mr. INSLEE. Would the gentleman yield for a minute on that point?
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Yes, I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. INSLEE. I think that's a really important point, that when you 
embark on a technological effort like this, like the original Apollo 
Project, we called our bill the New Apollo Energy Project because we 
understood when we embark on a technological journey like this, we 
develop all these new subordinate incidental technologies, and we've 
seen all the benefits from the Apollo Project.

                              {time}  2045

  The secret of this car is the battery technology, really. Now, there 
is some really cool stuff. This glass weighs probably 70 percent less 
than normal glass. These tires are superefficient because of the way 
they are designed. There is a lot of weight-saving devices. But the 
real genius is in the battery. There is a company called A123 Battery. 
A bunch of folks started it from MIT in Massachusetts. Now they are 
manufacturing a lithium ion battery that you use right now in your 
drill. You are using your big drill. Those are lithium, the new hot 
ones. ``Hot,'' meaning they work, not meaning that they are physically 
hot. They've taken those batteries and now designed one to work in a 
car. And I point this out because I talked to a young man named Luke, 
and I am embarrassed I can't remember his last name, yesterday in 
Anaheim, and he was with this A123 Battery company. And I said what is 
the status of this? He said that it is going gangbusters. I am working 
in a way that all we have to do is put them in a rectangular situation 
rather than a cylindrical. But the look in this kid's eyes. He is in 
his upper twenties, and he is managing this project in his upper 
twenties. The look in his eyes were just glowing with this development 
of this brand new stuff. And he was jumping up and down being so 
excited. And that is the kind of spirit that we have the capability of 
igniting again.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. This bill, when we pass it and send 
to the President and he signs it, it is just the beginning of this 
adventure in energy technologies. Earlier this year we passed an 
innovation bill that dealt with new technologies and encouraging 
research and development and innovation and discovery, and when we were 
putting that bill together, we were talking to the CEOs from venture 
capital companies, from biotech industries, from the high-tech 
industry. And the question came from a lot of people, when you do all 
this innovation, you make all this effort, training all the engineers 
and scientists and others, where are the jobs that result? And Craig 
Barrett, the former CEO of Intel Corporation and other CEOs of the 
major tech companies of this country chimed in and said you make an 
investment, the government must make an investment in energy. That will 
drive the next generation of technology comparable to the kinds of 
technologies we saw with that investment in telecommunications, in 
computers, in the Internet and all the things that resulted from that. 
Their first choice for that, to drive that technology would be energy 
and the need that this country and other countries are going to have to 
develop these sources of energy.
  Again, I want to thank the gentleman for all of the work he did. I 
know how hard he worked, especially on that provision of the bill for 
the renewable energy standards that are in this legislation. I thank 
him for his effort on that and also on the Apollo project that kicked 
off a great part of this debate in the Congress.

[[Page H14142]]

  What a difference a year makes. Under Republican rule, it took three 
sessions of Congress just to finish an energy bill that subsidized 
pollution and Hummers.
  But after just 1 year of the new Democratic leadership, we are 
replacing those subsidies with groundbreaking steps to increase the 
efficiency of our vehicles, to lower energy costs, to create new jobs, 
and to combat global warming.
  Fuel Economy. The historic fuel economy compromise is supported by 
labor, the environmental community, and the automobile industry. This 
is the first increase by Congress since 1975.
  The bill will increase fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon 
by 2020 for new cars and trucks.
  These provisions will save American families $700 to $1000 per year 
at the pump, with $22 billion in net consumer savings in 2020 alone.
  It will reduce oil consumption by 1.1 million gallons per day in 2020 
(one-half of what we currently import from the Persian Gulf), and 
reduce greenhouse gases equal to taking 28 million of today's average 
cars and trucks off the road.
  Renewable electricity standards. This provision requires utility 
companies to generate 15 percent of electricity from renewable 
sources--such as wind power, biomass, wave, tidal, geothermal and 
solar--by 2020.
  Green Jobs. This package creates an Energy Efficiency and Renewable 
Energy Worker Training Program to train a quality workforce for ``green 
collar'' jobs--such as solar panel manufacturer and green building 
construction worker--created by federal renewable energy and energy 
efficiency initiatives.
  Major investments in renewable energy could create 3 million green 
jobs over 10 years.
  Thanks to the leadership in the House by Hilda Solis and John 
Tierney, we reported this legislation from the Education and Labor 
Committee. In the Senate, this important provision has been championed 
by Bernie Sanders and others.
  Energy efficiency. The bill includes landmark energy efficiency 
provisions that save consumers and businesses hundreds of billions of 
dollars through 2030.
  The bill will assist those who want to make their homes and offices 
more energy efficient, and it creates new energy-efficient appliance 
standards.
  This reflects the successful model pursued by the State of 
California: cutting greenhouse gas emissions and investing in 
renewables will lead to economic growth.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me note that I agree with the excitement and the 
energy that I have seen here today, and I think that there is every 
reason for optimism that many of the challenges that we face can be 
overcome by the very forces that we are talking about. I believe there 
are more market-driven forces, because as the price has gone up, we 
have unleashed a whole new exciting effort that could be profit-making 
and also make changes. But, as we are discussing this, there is just 
one thing that has concerned me on this side of the aisle. And I 
certainly agree with trying to increase our development of sources of 
energy, as Mr. Miller was just talking about, you know, this is the 
type of investment we can make that will permit these entrepreneurs who 
respond to the market. I certainly agree that, but, as you were talking 
about it, we know that electricity is going to be a major factor in the 
success of the technologies that you are talking about, because each 
and every one of these we now bring electricity into play where we had 
internal combustion engines before. But why is it that we, when we face 
an energy bill like the one coming up, that we have basically written 
off nuclear energy as a role that it could play in providing that 
energy and providing us the self-sufficiency that we need in the 
future?
  Mr. INSLEE. Well, actually, the bill, as I understand, will not be 
writing off nuclear energy. It has been difficult to grow largely in 
cost. The utilities simply have not purchased it because of its cost 
even though it has been very heavily subsidized by the taxpayer to the 
tune of billions of dollars; it still has remained so expensive, the 
utilities have simply not ordered new plants. It was really not Jane 
Fonda that ended the growth of the industry; it was simply the cost and 
economics of it. And this bill does not eliminate that that will be on 
the floor in the next week.
  I want to address, I know, the gentleman from California, and a lot 
of these good ideas have come from California. Certainly Governor 
Schwarzenegger has been active in supporting this effort to move to 
more fuel-efficient standards, and many of them are in California.
  I want to address something electricity quick, and then I want to 
yield to Mr. Blumenauer if I can. The gentleman has pointed out that if 
you are going to have plug-in hybrids, then you have to have 
electricity to run the plug-in hybrids. But tonight we are going to 
have some discussion about the multiple systems of clean ways to 
generate electricity. I want to point to one of them, a company that I 
have learned about, a company called AUSRA Energy, and their name came 
up when we were debating the renewable electrical standard.
  In this bill, we have a provision that calls for 15 percent of our 
energy to come from clean, renewable sources by the year 2020, 15 
percent clean renewable sources, and a quarter of that can also come 
from efficiency standards. So I was talking some time ago to some of my 
colleagues about this from the State of Florida in August when we had 
the first version of this bill, and my colleagues were expressing the 
concern that we couldn't do solar energy, for instance, in Florida. 
Now, that surprised me, because I thought on the license plates it says 
``The Sunshine State.'' Nonetheless, Florida does not have as perfect 
solar energy as does Arizona. There are a few more clouds in Florida. 
It is maybe 10 percent not as productive as Arizona.
  But a week after that conversation, I found a company called AUSRA 
Energy had signed a contract with a Florida public utility for I 
believe it is in the nature of a couple hundred megawatts, enough for 
thousands of homes, both in Florida and in California. And what this 
company does, this AUSRA company, it uses flat panel mirrors which are 
in these long rows oriented toward the sun. They are inclined toward a 
pipe. There is a pipe that is elevated towards these mirrors. It 
focuses the rays of the sun on that pipe. It heats the water. The water 
develops steam, the steam turns the turbine, and presto, you have 
electricity with zero CO2 emissions, zero CO2 
emissions, and zero gasoline imports from the Middle East.
  And I have looked very carefully at their projections of cost. They 
have a very realistic path to get to a position to produce electricity 
as cheaply as coal within the next decade or so. Now, this company is 
real. It is not a bunch of people in teepees just thinking about this. 
They have signed commercial contracts for the production of this 
electricity using this technology.
  Now the reason this is so exciting to me is that previously, we have 
talked for years about photovoltaic energy. And most people who think 
about solar energy think of photovoltaic, which are basically panels 
that directly produce electricity from the silicone-based panels, and 
those are making strides that are very significant with what is called 
thin-celled photovoltaics. But here is an entirely new way of producing 
electricity using essentially radiant power, thermal power from the 
sun, heat to heat energy, and these work really well in tandem with 
natural gas producers. So we have multiple ways. We will talk about 
some of these others. And these new technologies just keep popping up.

  I want to yield to Mr. Blumenauer, a leader from Portland, Oregon, 
which has been a great city to demonstrate how to use energy 
efficiently. It is the first city in America to develop a 
transportation system that gives people choices about how to move 
around the city, and as a result, it is the first city in America where 
people have driven less in 1 year ever in American history, and that is 
because of, in part, Mr. Blumenauer's leadership helping develop some 
of the land use planning and public transportation systems, besides 
being a great advocate for bicycle riding.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy and 
his continued focus on the opportunities we face with the energy 
legislation that is coming before us this week, and the bigger picture, 
the new Apollo project.
  I wanted, if I could just elaborate on one point, because I think as 
you were talking about the compelling opportunities for new technology 
that are harnessed in the car of the future, I was thinking back to the 
situation that we faced as some of us were growing up when the United 
States Department of Defense was paying $100 for a transistor when they 
could have spent 79

[[Page H14143]]

cents for a vacuum tube. But that investment in technology for the 
future made possible the first Apollo project, sending a person to the 
moon, miniaturization, the electronics that harness that power. But it 
also spoke, I think, to the power of having strategic Federal 
investment and incentives.
  I heard my friend from California a moment ago talking about the 
power of the market. Well, we are all interested, I think, in 
harnessing market forces wherever possible. And your response about the 
issue of nuclear energy, that despite massive subsidies, there hasn't 
been a new plant in the last 30 years because the private sector didn't 
think it penciled out.
  I am interested in opportunities that we can have harnessing this new 
technology and perhaps using it in sectors like national defense where 
we can jump-start new technology and we can make a difference for our 
national security. That, as you know, has been one of the cornerstones 
of the Speaker's initiative. The first hearings we had on the Global 
Warming Committee that we both serve on were from national security 
experts that talked about how our dependence on expensive foreign oil, 
on traditional energy sources, put us at a strategic disadvantage in 
terms of oil supply, and it is also having an operational disadvantage 
for our national defense.
  The current war in Iraq is the most intense, most energy-intense 
military operation in the history of the world. It is four times more 
energy intense than the first Iraq war. We are delivering gasoline to 
the front that we are heavily dependent on in great big tankers that 
might as well have bull's eyes on them at a cost of over $100 a gallon.
  What you're outlining here in terms of fuel-efficient vehicles, in 
terms of new techniques for generating electricity, has the potential 
of revitalizing American defense posture to make our troops safer and 
more efficient as well as making battles in areas to secure oil supply 
less likely.
  I just wanted to commend you for dealing with us today in terms of 
the big picture and what a difference that can make for the lives of 
everyday Americans in terms of where they shop, how they move, where 
they work and live, as well as the international arena as well where we 
are going to be spending $1 trillion in Iraq. This type of technology 
could be harnessed to make a big difference in terms of national 
security and technology.
  Mr. INSLEE. I really appreciate Mr. Blumenauer's observation because 
it is so true. What we have seen, where we do have military product 
development then spins off into the civilian sector to all of our 
benefit. We are going to see that now. Right now the Pentagon is 
helping to develop a biofuels-based airplane fuel. They are very 
excited about not being dependent on Middle Eastern oil for the 
security operations of our own military, and they want to develop a 
biofuels-based airlines fuel. Boeing is doing the same thing on a 
civilian basis. They have entered into a consortium with Sir Richard 
Branson to develop a homegrown biofuel so you can run a jet engine. And 
the reason it is right to be optimistic about these things is the 
phenomena that Mr. Blumenauer talked about, and that is that things get 
cheaper as we build more of them and we learn more about technology.
  Solar power, every time we have increased the number of units we have 
sold of solar power, the prices come down 20 percent. There is a curve. 
You can watch the price come down. It has come down over 80 percent in 
the last 2 decades. Over 80 percent. And the reason is, besides the 
fact you discover new techniques, you simply have scales of economy; 
the more you make of this stuff, the less it is per unit. And that is 
going to be true predictably for solar thermal as well as the 
continuation of the photovoltaic world. When we do that, the thing I 
want to focus on is we want to sell this technology to China.

                              {time}  2100

  We want to start putting stuff in boats and shipping it to China and 
India. We want to take the GM Volt and ship it to Japan. Let's start 
exporting these things that we grow here with homegrown technology. We 
know we can do that. We have done it in the past because of good old 
American know-how.
  I want to tell one story about good old American know-how. This is a 
guy I got to know. We talked about electricity as a source of fuel for 
transportation. But there are others. There's a guy named John Plaza I 
met in the course of working on this. John Plaza was an airline pilot 4 
or 5 years ago.
  Mr. Blumenauer, any closing comments before you go?
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. I just wanted to express my appreciation for what 
you're doing. I have the Rules Committee meeting now for the Energy 
package. I need to go represent Ways and Means. I depart, hanging on 
your every word.
  Mr. INSLEE. We know you're going to produce a great bill for us 
tomorrow or the next day. Thank you for joining us.
  The story of John Plaza is, to me, just a perfect example of what 
America is about and why this is such a great economy and a great 
Nation. John was an airline pilot several years ago and he said he got 
a little tired of flying across the country and reading a book in the 
cockpit, to the extent that is allowed. He decided to look around for a 
new opportunity to sort of do something creative.
  He started to think about the ability to use biofuels to run our 
transportation system. John was one of the first people to make 
biodiesel. He started to essentially brew up biodiesel almost in his 
garage just a few years ago. Then he decided to make a commercial 
operation. So he went out and raised some money from a fellow named 
Matthew Tobias, who did well at Microsoft. They went out, and this is 
one of the part of the stories I like, they bought two big vats that 
were used at the Rainier Brewing Company to brew beer. They took those 
vats and they started to brew biodiesel in a little warehouse on the 
shores of the Duwamish River in Seattle.
  That went so well that they went out to the capital markets and 
raised tens of millions of dollars to build a real first-class 
biodiesel facility. Now, in Grays Harbor, Washington, and this is a 
picture of the Imperium Energy Biodiesel plant, you will see these 
large tanks used for storage. The Imperium Biodiesel Company now has 
the capability of producing 100 million gallons a year of biodiesel. It 
is the largest biodiesel refinery in the world, and it started because 
one fellow, John Plaza, had this idea and a can-do spirit and optimism 
and courage enough to go out and start a business to do this.
  Now, this is what America is all about. When we pass an energy bill, 
the kind of things we are going to do are going to help these small 
business people to start businesses and grow them in the field of clean 
energy. Now, this company has plans to build perhaps 20 refineries 
around the country. It is a realistic, a realistic goal to believe that 
we can produce 25 percent of our transportation fuels in the next 20 
years or so by having homegrown biodiesel-advanced forms of ethanol and 
really make a dent in our oil addiction.
  Now I want to, if I can, address for a minute the prospects for these 
biofuels because I know people have heard about corn ethanol and people 
have raised concerns that it's not the last word in ethanol. And it is 
true. Twenty-three percent of our corn now goes to the production of 
ethanol. It's producing high quality, effective fuel and it's working 
very, very well. It has some limitations in that we only use the kernel 
of the corn now. We only use a small percentage of the total fiber that 
the plants produces.
  But on the horizon is an advanced form of ethanol called cellulosic 
ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol is an ethanol where you take the entire 
plant, kernel, leaves, shoots, roots, stems, stalk, corn stover, wheat 
straw, everything you can get your hands on, you mash it up, you mix it 
with an enzyme that helps break down the fibrous structure of the 
plants, freeze the carbohydrates. You then use the carbohydrates to 
distill it into alcohol or ethanol, and ethanol is an alcohol, and 
basically make high-quality fuel.
  Now, cellulosic ethanol, the first plant in America for commercially 
produced cellulosic ethanol, ground was broken for it the week before 
last. The Range Company in Georgia is the first one that has the 
capability of building this advanced form of ethanol. When we do that, 
we will improve the amount of fuel we produce per acre by a factor of 
four to five times, potentially, over what we are producing in

[[Page H14144]]

corn today, using advanced enzymes and using potentially some 
additional crops besides corn.
  A company called Mendel Biotechnology in Hayward, I visited a few 
weeks ago, they have developed a plant called miscanthus. Miscanthus is 
a relative of sugar cane, which can grow through wide, wide areas of 
the Midwest. It's 10 to 12 feet tall. It uses less fertilizer than 
corn, it uses less water than corn, and it can produce three to four 
times as much fuel per acre using the cellulosic ethanol technique. 
They are now growing test plots of that to see how far north basically 
this can be grown and in what conditions.

  That is not the only plant. There are several other plants. In Idaho, 
the first loan guarantee has been given to the Iogen Company, among six 
counties across the country to use essentially wheat straw left in the 
field as waste. They are going to bundle that up, bale it up, expose it 
to an enzyme, and do cellulosic ethanol using what was previously a 
waste product.
  By the way, I misspoke. The Range Company in Georgia does not use an 
enzyme; they use a reactive process. It's a little different than that 
use of an enzyme to break down the cell structure. Both of them use 
basically the entire fibrous part of the plant.
  The point is that corn ethanol can perhaps be considered as the first 
generation of biofuels. It is successful, doing a great job, with 
certain limits that we need to get past, and we can and will get past 
them if we simply use our know-how. That is what we are doing across 
the country in these companies, which reminds me of kind of a basic 
principle. The idea of our energy bill, in part, that we will be 
passing we hope this week, takes a position that we need to make a 
fundamental shift on how we think about energy. In the past, all we did 
was look below our feet for energy. Now we need to start looking above 
our shoulders and between our ears because ultimately it's intellectual 
capability and intellectual capacity that is the only infinite power of 
energy in the universe. That is what we are starting to use. And that 
is why America is going to do so well in the clean energy revolution, 
because when there is a transition technologically, America wins. When 
there is a transition to aeronautics, we win, as we have done with 
Boeing. When there is a transition to software, we win, as we have done 
with all our software businesses in this country. We are going to win 
in this clean energy transition because we do well in developing these 
technologies, some of which we have talked about tonight.
  Now, besides biofuels, there's additional fuels under consideration. 
We know fuel cells have the potential to use hydrogen, which is under 
active consideration. At least one company will be bringing a 
commercial hydrogen fuel cell car to the roads in the next 2 years. 
There are fleets now using hydrogen fuel cells.
  This is a bus transit system in the East Bay area of San Francisco. 
This is one of the first hydrogen fuel cell buses. They run it over a 
catalytic bed and they produce electricity and water. That is it. The 
only thing coming out of the tail pipe of this bus is water. I got the 
honor of the first Congressman to ever drive a bus, and I didn't hit 
anything. So it was a success. And I can warrant these are clean, 
wonderfully quiet, and people are enjoying them today down in the East 
Bay area.
  These fuel cells, because there is an issue about the distribution of 
hydrogen; it's going to cost money to build a distribution system for 
hydrogen. They are probably going to happen first in large fleets like 
buses and transportation systems. But I think there is good reason to 
believe that we are going to see a lot more use of this in the next 
decade or so, particularly in these fleets, further application. So we 
have lots of alternatives.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Would the gentleman yield for one moment?
  Mr. INSLEE. Yes.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. On the issue, first, I'd like to compliment the 
gentleman on obviously his vast knowledge and research that he had done 
on these energy issues. I am very impressed with the presentation 
tonight.
  Let me note that in California I worked very closely with Governor 
Schwarzenegger on a number of these energy issues. One of the new 
technologies that has emerged is the actual production of hydrogen on a 
portable basis. There is an inventor in California that has come up 
with an attachment that can go on any internal combustion engine that 
actually attaches to the alternator of the engine and creates 
electricity that goes into a liquid into the small container, which 
then, as we know, electricity through liquid produces hydrogen and 
oxygen gas, which is then put into the air intake of the engine.
  The Governor, when I described this to him, and we had a lot of 
trouble with private companies unwilling to actually test this product 
out, the Governor put it on his Hummer. He said, Dana, I am giving you 
my Hummer. Put it on the car and I will pay for the test. The Governor 
actually reached out.
  This type of creativity and what you're discussing tonight and a 
broad array of approaches to our energy challenge, I think, will carry 
us through. I want to compliment the gentleman on his great 
presentation tonight.
  Mr. INSLEE. I appreciate Mr. Rohrabacher's comments. I won't make any 
cracks about the need to improve the imitation. Your Governor is doing 
great work on this. I appreciate your sentiments.
  I want to mention a point. There is a technology I had not heard of. 
You have mentioned this inventor who's working on this in California. 
One of the things that is so much fun is you learn about people doing 
this great work around the country. That particular invention, who 
knows, it may not go anywhere. Some of the things we have talked about 
tonight may not pan out to be commercially available. But if we have a 
strategy that spreads our bets and looks at multiple sources like any 
good investor does, you spread your investments around, some are going 
to work out really well, some are going to be just kind of okay, and 
some of them are going to be duds. And we are going to experience that 
in this. But because of the genius around the country, we are going to 
have a lot of successes. So I appreciate your comments Mr. Rohrabacher.
  I just want to point out a couple of other new cutting-edge 
technologies people may not have heard about that can help fulfill our 
need for a 15 percent renewable electric standard. This is a picture of 
wave-power buoys that are now going off the coast of Oregon, the first 
ones in the country to harness the power in waves. There's enormous 
energy in waves. If you have ever seen a big freighter go up and down, 
you understand how powerful the sea is just going up and down.
  There's enough energy in a stretch off the coast of the Pacific in 
just a 10- by 10-mile square. If you just took a 10- by 10-mile square 
and captured the energy from those waves, it would produce all the 
electricity for California. Now we are not talking about doing that, 
but what is under investigation right now is the ability to use this 
type, and there are two or three types of these buoys, and as they bob 
up and down, they pressurize a column of water or hydraulic fluid or 
air and turn an electrical generator that runs in a wire to the shore, 
and you have got electricity. One of these buoys could power 
potentially a thousand homes. They are quite powerful.
  Ultimately, they are being tested right now and we're finding there's 
actually more energy than we even thought. That means more stresses. We 
are learning a lot about the stresses, on how you deal with those 
stresses. But the Department of Energy has testified to us that they 
believe that wave power could produce 10 percent of our entire 
electrical needs in this country in the next couple decades. Now that 
is very significant. It's just this new idea.
  Tidal power is a similar effort. I have a picture of that. We have 
tidal power that also uses a turbine that looks like a wind turbine and 
also can produce electricity.
  One more comment I want to make about the best source of energy, and 
that is energy that we don't waste. Energy conservation and energy 
efficiency is what we need to call the first fuel. Energy that we don't 
waste is always the cheapest energy to buy.

                              {time}  2115

  Finding a way not to let energy escape from our house is almost 
always the cheapest way to save money on energy.

[[Page H14145]]

  I just want to point out a couple, Mike and Meg Town. Mike is a 
teacher at Redmond High School near the Seattle area. Mike and Meg a 
couple years ago decided to build a home that was essentially a net 
zero user of electricity, in part because Mike, who was a science 
teacher, was always talking about this, and one day his kids said, Why 
don't you go build a house that does this? So he did.
  Mike and Meg built a house in very wet, soggy Redmond, Washington. It 
is one of the wetter areas around. And what they did was they 
incorporated some sort of commonsense measures into their home to make 
it very energy efficient, with extra insulation, good windows, just 
sort of commonsense things, not to let air leak out from your doors, a 
decently insulated hot-water heater, some planting to allow solar 
energy to come in to heat up the home. They then put on some panels. 
You see these black panels on the roof, Mike actually put these on 
himself.
  Now this is a home in wet, rainy near Seattle, Washington, that is a 
zero net electricity user, saving money, because his meter runs 
backwards. When these photovoltaic cells are producing electricity, his 
electric meter runs backwards. That means he is getting a credit 
against his electricity bill. Now he has essentially, taking into 
consideration some of the credits he is receiving, a zero electrical 
bill.
  His heat, he has a very small little heater that one of these days he 
is going to burn wood chips, and wood chips are a biosustainable fuel, 
because when you burn a biological product, all you do is return 
CO2 to the atmosphere that the tree or the grass took out.
  I point this out because here is people doing real things in a rainy 
climate, saving energy the old-fashioned way, just doing kind of 
commonsense things, and our bill calls for provisions that will 
increase the standards in our homes and our appliances so that we will 
not waste energy. It is the first fuel, and we are going to use it in a 
very commonsense American way, and it is going to be a major, major 
part of our effort to revolutionize our energy system.
  So I look forward this week to making a major step forward in the 
field of energy. We are going to unleash the forces of market and the 
entrepreneurs around the country, and the homeowners who want to save 
on energy bills, and the people who are getting tired of paying $3-plus 
for a gallon of gasoline, and the people who do not want to be addicted 
to Middle Eastern oil so we don't have to be exposed to security 
threats from that region, and the people who don't want to fund the 
terrorists who are attacking us, and the people who see the future of 
global warming as being a threat to our grandchildren.
  This is something that you can unite the Nation, red and blue States, 
rural and urban. This helps inner-cities, it helps rural communities. 
It is something I hope we get broad support for.
  It is going to be a great day for America when we start this clean 
energy revolution. It is truly something in the American can-do spirit.

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