[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 193 (Monday, December 17, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15768-S15769]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the energy 
legislation Congress is on the brink of passing in these last days of 
the first session of the 110th Congress. I voted against this 
legislation in the Senate because it contains numerous provisions that 
will distort competitive markets for energy through subsidies, 
Government mandates, special projects, and irresponsible increases in 
Federal spending. This bill will not promote the goal of energy 
security but will likely increase fuel and food prices and reduce 
consumer choice for everything from cars to light bulbs.

[[Page S15769]]

  First, I want to talk about ethanol. It is difficult to understand 
why Congress continues to believe that ethanol is a desirable 
substitute for gasoline. It is widely reported that even if all of the 
300 million acres--500,000 square miles--of currently harvested U.S. 
cropland produced ethanol, they wouldn't supply all of the gasoline and 
diesel fuel we now burn for transport, and they would supply only about 
half of the demand for the year 2025. We are not going to grow our way 
to energy security. We are also starting to see the devastating effects 
our current ethanol production is having on our scarce water supply, 
the environment, and human health.
  Despite these facts, one of the bill's most prominent features is a 
five-fold increase in the ethanol mandate from the currently required 
7.5 billon gallons by 2012 to 36 billion gallons by 2022. Meeting this 
mandate will require even more corn-based ethanol and the production of 
other so-called advanced biofuels, largely made from cellulosic 
ethanol. Although cellulosic ethanol production is in its infancy and 
does not exist commercially today, the bill specifies that 21 billion 
gallons of the 36 billion gallons mandated be cellulosic ethanol. This 
is nothing more than a congressional gamble with American taxpayer 
dollars.
  If Congress is serious about moving away from oil to alternative 
fuels it cannot, as it has done here, subsidize political favorites and 
engage in statutory prescription. This will actually slow energy 
innovation and may even retard the gains we have made. An excellent 
example of this point is the exclusion of woody biomass material from 
our Nation's overgrown forests from the production of advanced 
biofuels. Companies throughout the West, including many small 
businesses, are working in partnership with the Federal Government to 
help restore our national forests by removing this woody biomass 
material and using it to produce energy. This oversight in the bill 
complicates these efforts and could seriously slow the gains my home 
State of Arizona and other Western States dominated by Federal lands 
have made to combat catastrophic wildfire.
  Now, let's turn to the other major feature of this bill--federally 
mandated increases in corporate average fuel economy, CAFE, standards. 
This bill requires each manufacturer's fleet to average 35 miles per 
gallon by 2020, a roughly 40 percent increase over current standards 
for cars and trucks. What this proposal seems to overlook is that more 
fuel efficient cars and trucks already exist on the market for those 
who want them. And as gas prices rise, my guess is increasing numbers 
of consumers will buy smaller, more fuel efficient cars without being 
told to do so by Congress. The point is that this is a consumer choice 
issue. By federally mandating these increases there will be less 
choice, increases in car sticker prices, and the very real possibility 
of more unnecessary highway deaths due to the increases in lighter 
vehicles, which generally are less safe in collisions on the road. A 
National Academy of Sciences study concluded that vehicle downsizing 
costs 1,300 to 2,600 lives per year.
  Another major problem with the CAFE provisions in the bill is the 
failure to clarify the regulatory responsibilities of the National 
Highway Transportation Safety Board and the Environmental Protection 
Agency over the regulation of tailpipe emissions and fuel economy 
requirements. The administration in its Statement of Administration 
Policy makes this point. Failing to address this issue will likely 
leave industry to sort through layers of contradictory regulation.
  Beyond the biofuels and CAFE provisions, the bill includes a full 
assortment of new efficiency mandates for appliances and buildings and 
even takes measures to phase out incandescent lightbulbs. Industry in 
the private sector has already brought to market alternative lighting 
technologies to the traditional lightbulb, and as prices drop consumers 
are switching over to them. Provisions like these are nothing more than 
Congress's attempt to take credit for something the market is already 
doing and accomplishing far more quickly and efficiently than the 
government can, I might add.
  In sum, instead of enacting poor energy policy, Congress should focus 
on what it must do before we leave here this year--fund the Government 
by enacting fiscally responsible appropriations bills and ensuring our 
troops have what they need.

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