[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 76 (Thursday, May 8, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H3312-H3317]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 2419, FOOD AND ENERGY SECURITY ACT 
                                OF 2007

  Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, I have a motion to instruct at the desk.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Shimkus moves that the managers on the part of the 
     House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 2419 (an Act 
     to provide for the continuation of agricultural programs 
     through fiscal year 2012) be instructed to recede to the 
     provisions contained in section 9021 of the Senate amendment 
     (relating to the E 85 Fuel Program).

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) and the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Salazar) 
will be recognized for 30 minutes each.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  (Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, as many people who have observed the 
House floor over the past month, I have continuously come down to 
address the high cost of energy and the importance of bringing the 
supply issue to this debate.
  One of the things that we have been successful with, which is now 
under attack, it was once a success story, was E-85, ethanol and the 
entire debate of bringing more supply to this debate.
  This motion to instruct highlights the importance of E-85 fueling 
stations and developing that. For example, in my home State of 
Illinois, I am very fortunate. We have 171 E-85 fueling stations. In my 
congressional district, I can go all throughout my 30 counties and fuel 
up with my flex-fuel vehicle E-85.

                              {time}  1715

  There are States in the Union that cannot. An example, Maine, we 
couldn't get any information on. Rhode Island has zero, Vermont has 
zero, Delaware has one, where other States, like Minnesota, has 346.
  One of the issues of more supply is also more supply locations. When 
we move to new fuels, as other people talk about, if we move to a 
hydrogen economy, we are going to need hydrogen-fueling stations, and 
that's all part of the importance.
  This motion to instruct says let's do what the Senate did on the farm 
bill, and let's talk about developing an E-85 infrastructure around 
this country so we can help decrease our reliance on imported crude 
oil. Why? Because everything we talk about on this floor revolves 
around energy and the high cost of energy, especially for the producers 
of our food.
  For example, manufacturer inputs have increased 14 percent in 2008 on 
top of a 12 percent increase last year. That's inputs to grow our food. 
Corn fertilizer costs $140 per acre for 2008, compared to $115 price in 
2007, contrasted to $63 per acre from 2001-2005.
  What is driving up high farmers' input costs? No additional supply. A 
lot of fertilizers are affected, all buy natural gas. As we continue to 
restrict our ability to go after more supply, we push up the input 
costs, which drives up the price for food and this whole debate.
  I can go through all the huge increases that our farmers have had to 
do. DAP, prices rose from $252 per ton in January, 2007, to $752 gulf 
price. Urea rose from $272 to $415, muriate of potash rose from $173 to 
$252. We can just go on. It's a huge, huge increase.
  Now we don't want to come down to the floor without bringing 
alternatives and solutions. What's the solution? The solution is more 
supply.
  Look at what's happened. It's not disputable. Under this majority, 
crude oil has gone from $58 a barrel to $123. I come down almost every 
day. This price has not gone down. This price continues to go up.

[[Page H3313]]

  We have had promises made by Democrat leadership. In 2006, I quoted 
them before, Speaker Pelosi saying, ``We have a plan to drive down 
energy costs.'' Majority Leader Hoyer who just spoke: ``We have a plan 
to bring down energy costs.'' Jim Clyburn: ``We have a plan to drive 
down energy costs.''
  The reality is, energy costs have gone up, not down, $58 a barrel to 
$123. What has that done for us at the pump? When the Democrat majority 
took over, the price for a gallon of gasoline was $2.33 on average. 
What is it today, on average, $3.66.
  Put in climate change tax, 50 cents, $4.16 is what we would be paying 
today with climate change. That's not a plan. In fact, it's a plan to 
fail. If you don't have a plan, you plan to fail, and that's the 
difficulty of our farmers getting into the field. Diesel costs have 
doubled, rising the price. Ethanol gets blamed. Ethanol gets blamed 
because energy costs to get the corn out of the fields has gone up. You 
want corn prices down? We have got to lower this.
  We have got to get back to the day of $58 a barrel crude oil. We 
can't get there with no plan. We can't get there by every week saying 
we have got a plan, and there is no plan.
  There is a plan. We have brought them onto the floor numerous times. 
What can we do? One is use our great natural resources on coal in this 
country, 250 years worth of coal to be used using coal-to-liquid 
technology. Get coal from our underground, build a coal-to-liquid 
refinery, pipe it, in this case, to an Air Force base, pipe it to a 
commercial airline. We have lost all these airline jobs because of high 
costs. This is what we do.
  Guess what you can make: Diesel fuel. Diesel fuel. What is the 
farmers' major input? Diesel fuel, because that's what goes in the 
tractors when you have got to plant the corn. That's what goes in the 
tractor when you have got to harvest the corn or the beans, and diesel 
fuel has cost. Truckers are going on strike. Independent truckers are 
going on strike.
  A lot of these independent truckers are hauling the beans, hauling 
the corn to the elevator. Without a plan to lower cost of energy, you 
plan to fail. Coal-to-liquid is a solution.
  What is another solution? See all this red area? We don't have Alaska 
on there. Off-limits. Off-limits for natural gas. Off-limits for crude 
oil. Let's open up these areas. The environmentalists will say, oh, no, 
we can't do that. One of our major areas for crude oil and natural gas 
is the gulf.
  Guess what happened here? Katrina, big storm, devastated New Orleans. 
A major oil spill in the gulf? No, no major oil spill.
  We can do it cleanly, we can do it efficiently, we can bring more 
supply to the market. You want to know how to lower prices for the 
farmers? Lower energy prices.
  But what's our policy here? Can we drill in ANWR?
  ``Forget it.''
  What about offshore?
  ``Are you crazy?''
  Clean coal?
  ``Out of the question.''
  Nuclear power?
  ``You're just joking.''
  Well, what are we going to do about the high price of energy? When 
you have no plan, you plan to fail. My farmers, who are getting accused 
for high prices, have high prices because we have high energy costs, 
and we have high energy costs because we won't get to supply.
  That's why we want ethanol to succeed. That's the only thing we have 
done to bring more supply to this debate.
  If we don't address the high input cost, what's going to happen is 
this fuel-food debate is going to go crazy. I was at the hearing. Guess 
what, there is a call to roll back the ethanol renewable fuel standard.
  Now, that really helps our energy independence, doesn't it?
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Madam Speaker, well, it appears that the gentleman's 
motion to instruct will direct the House conferees to accept the 
provision of the Senate version of the farm bill.
  The Senate farm bill contains a provision, section 9021, that would 
have created a grant program to install E-85 pumps. The Energy and 
Commerce Committee, who are also conferees in the farm bill energy 
title, indicate that had this plan is duplicative of section 244 that 
was included in H.R. 6, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 
2007. We tried to avoid this duplication of programs between the farm 
bill and the energy bill that was passed last year.
  While I agree with the gentleman that ethanol is a very vital part of 
our energy independence program, we still have to make sure that we 
continue to move forward and that we do not derail this current farm 
bill that we are presently working on. It is my understanding that my 
colleagues in the conference committee for the food conservation and 
energy act have already come to an agreement that is already to be 
reported.
  Nonetheless the chairman reminds us, all Members, that all motions to 
instruct are really out of order because the conference committee 
report is ready to be filed. I know that adopting this motion would 
obviously delay passage of the farm bill.
  With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, I would like to recognize my colleague 
from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, this is such a critical issue. You know, 
there are so many important things facing this country, whether it's 
the war on terror, the importance of FISA. But when you talk to people 
at home, it's getting desperate. It is getting very desperate, and they 
need help on the price of gasoline. They need help on the price of 
diesel fuel.
  What are we doing? We are hearing people say, oh, we couldn't 
possibly drill ANWR. I am from Texas. Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, we 
have got States where we are doing everything we can to pump up all the 
energy we can to help the rest of the country.
  We need some help. We have got all of these other resources, and they 
are being put off-limits. They are being kept off-limits, and we have 
heard from some on the other side, well, drilling doesn't really bring 
down the price of fuel.
  You know what? We are told from some of the experts, 20, 30 percent 
is speculation. These speculators are smart. They see that every bill 
that's come out of this House for the last 16 months does not provide 
any answers to getting us more energy any time soon.
  Talk about ANWR. Now, it was pointed out yesterday in our Resources 
Committee that really this area that is proposed for drilling is not 
part of ANWR. It was a section set aside by Jimmy Carter to make sure 
that we had an area that we could develop.
  Now we are told that perhaps once a year caribou may come through 
this area of ANWR, and, oh, my goodness, if we put a drilling rig out 
there, it may destroy our caribou. We heard the same thing back some 
years back, that if we put a pipeline through some of this area up 
north it was going to kill off the last 27 head of caribou.
  You know what happened? The pipeline went in, that oil is warm going 
through that pipeline, and what happened is it makes the caribou 
amorous. Now when caribou want to go on a date, they invite each other 
to go over to the pipeline. We are up to 30,000 head of caribou now 
because of what the warm pipe has done for the good of the caribou 
community, so it's going well.
  We are told we can't drill the Outer Continental Shelf. About 97 of 
our coastlines are unavailable. We heard the same thing in Texas years 
back. Oh, please, don't put a drilling rig, not a platform out in the 
water. Oh, my goodness, you get beyond 30 miles, nobody can see it from 
the beach.
  But what we found in the Texas coast is, despite all the naysayers 
saying it was going to kill off the fish, what's happened, if you want 
to go fishing and really go where the fish are, they go around the 
platforms because they have become wonderful artificial reefs. Man and 
environment can work together to help each other. The Outer Continental 
Shelf, we may have the highest second supply of natural gas in the 
world, some think we might even have the most, but we have put it off-
limits and won't go after it.
  We have lost so many wonderful union jobs because of the price of 
natural gas. I lost several hundred jobs out of my district when a 
paper mill closed

[[Page H3314]]

because it ran on natural gas, and we were paying the highest price in 
the world because we wouldn't utilize what we have.
  My friend has pointed out coal. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal, 
according to a lot of experts, and yet we put it off-limits. President 
Carter put a huge amount of our coal off-limits. We are the only 
advanced nation that takes our greatest resources of energy and puts 
them off-limits.
  Nuclear. Now I am not one to advocate mimicking France over anything, 
but they have about got it down on nuclear. We could follow their 
example and provide so much energy. Refineries, the bills we keep 
passing out of this Congress, out of this committee I am on, it makes 
it harder to open refineries. That makes the price go up. Speculators 
see that.
  If we had an announcement today, tomorrow, from Speaker Pelosi and 
Leader Reid that, by golly, next week we're going to drill ANWR, we're 
going to drill Outer Continental Shelf, we're going to start supplying 
more of our energy needs until we can bring all these alternatives on 
line, that 20 to 30 percent would go down.
  I would be willing to bet you that we would lose a dollar off the 
price of gasoline within a week's time because the speculators would 
say, whoa, they are really serious about providing their own energy 
needs.
  We had a report last week, that it turns out a lot of the experts 
believe that we may be able to get three to five times the amount of 
oil left in the entire Middle East from our shale in Utah, Colorado, 
and Wyoming, three to five times. They are saying there are maybe 900 
billion barrels of oil left in the Middle East, maybe a trillion, and 
we may get 3 to 5 trillion barrels recoverable from shale in areas so 
much of which is off-limits.

                              {time}  1730

  In some cases they say, well, we'll give you an 8-year lease, but it 
will take over 7 years to get the permits. Folks, we have to help our 
people. They are crying out, and we need to do something now.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Madam Speaker, I just wanted to remind the members on 
the other side of the aisle that the Future Gen project which was 
actually on track to be built in Illinois was actually pulled from 
being built because of its costly forecast.
  So I would remind our Members on the other side of the aisle that 
coal is a very large part of our energy independent America formula; 
however, we have to do it in a clean way to make sure that we use clean 
coal-burning technology. However, that technology has not been 
perfected yet.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Would the gentleman yield since you mentioned Future Gen 
which is in central Illinois?
  Mr. SALAZAR. I will yield.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I appreciate your yielding.
  I was one of the few Members who actually talked to the President 
registering my disgust, frustration and anger. I will say it is now up 
to my friends on your side of the aisle, both in the House and on the 
other side of the Capitol to help move on a strategy to keep Future Gen 
on track.
  We have a strategy. We are working in a bipartisan manner. Coal is 
critical to our national security, low cost fuel. I am begging the 
legislative leaders on your side, which they can do by putting Future 
Gen legislation on must-pass legislation, funding it, and Future Gen 
can stay alive. But I am not in the majority now. I am glad you 
mentioned it, and I call upon your side to make it so.
  Mr. SALAZAR. I agree with the gentleman. I agree this is something 
that we have to move forward on, and it can be done in a bipartisan 
fashion, making sure our environment is taken care of.
  We also have to employ other nations as well. In China, they are 
building a coal-fired plant once a week, that's what I hear. Maybe even 
more. So we have to do it in a worldwide fashion type of legislation 
that would actually create that clean coal burning technology.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have 
remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 16 minutes.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I yield the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) 10 
minutes.
  Mr. WAMP. Madam Speaker, the reality of 2008 is that the nexus 
between national security, energy, and the environment is the most 
important public policy issue that we face in this country. The nexus 
has a lot of different angles to it, but these three issues together is 
the greatest policy challenge that we face.
  The farm bill is now in a sense an energy bill. The national security 
challenges that we face are indeed tied to the cost of oil. 
Unfortunately, these are the realities of what we face today.
  Tomorrow in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, at the Oak Ridge National 
Laboratory which is one of the lead laboratories in our country on 
alternative fuels, biofuels, research, mostly looking at cellulosic 
ethanol research and how to best bring that about, tomorrow at that 
laboratory my senior Senator, Senator Lamar Alexander, will lay out a 
Manhattan Project style approach to energy.
  I don't want to preempt what he is saying there tomorrow, but he is 
joined tomorrow by Congressman Bart Gordon, a Democrat from our State 
who happens to be the chairman of the Science and Technology Committee 
here in the House on a Manhattan-style approach because of this nexus, 
because there is a lot of clamor about global warming and because 
people are looking to our country to take some leadership, and the 
President of the United States has said we do need to lead. I believe 
this is an opportunity for us.
  But I will tell you what my position is on energy, and this is after 
8 years as the Republican co-chairman of the Renewable Energy and 
Energy Efficiency Caucus in the House of Representatives, which is over 
half of the House, it is about 60 percent Democratic members and 40 
percent Republican members. I have chaired it for 8 years with Mark 
Udall. I am the chairman of that, but my position on energy is an all-
of-the-above position. It has to be an all-of-the-above position. We 
cannot pick winners and losers. They did that in California and the 
lights went out. You can't pick winners and losers, not when we have 
the capacity challenges that we have today. And we do have capacity 
challenges everywhere.
  At $122 a barrel, this is a supply-and-demand problem. If the people 
who don't like us around the world that produce oil would increase the 
supply, the price would go down. Or if the demand would reduce by 
conservation and not so much growth in India and China, the price would 
go down. But this is a supply-and-demand problem. We have to have an 
all-of-the-above solution.
  Let me talk about a few things because transportation is the big 
driver, and gasoline is the most painful thing for the average 
consumer. I would suggest to you today, and Members say this a lot, but 
I know a lot about this, alternative fuels are only a bridge to the 
future. They are not the end all. That is not where we are going to end 
up in terms of transportation.
  We have such quick development in ion lithium batteries that the 
people in the auto industry will tell you that we will be plugging in 
our automobiles very, very soon at a cost-competitive price point, not 
like the hydrogen fuel cell which is a 25-year proposal because the 
cost is prohibitive today, we can't pay $300,000 for a car, so we can't 
have hydrogen fuel cell cars yet, but that technology is out there. And 
maybe it will work.
  But I will tell you what will work right now in the marketplace is 
electric cars, and they are coming quick. Plug-in hybrids, GM and 
Toyota, the year after next, will be commercially viable at a price 
point such that consumers will use them. So fuels are important, but 
technology is going to develop. Transportation is two-thirds of our oil 
consumption, and we have to move quickly there because this is very, 
very painful.
  But here is the technology opportunity for the United States of 
America, and I call this the in-tech agenda. How did the budget get 
balanced for 4 years here? I was here. I think Shimkus was here. Four 
years ago, Lee Terry was here. For 4 years in a row it got balanced, 
not by cutting spending. We did slow the growth of spending below 
inflation for 4 years which was very admirable because that hadn't been 
done in 40 years. But what we did do is we

[[Page H3315]]

had such a robust, export-driven U.S. economy that revenues surpassed 
expenses. That's how the budget got balanced.
  Now what drove the revenues up? Well, guess what, we led in an area 
of the economy, and it boomed with our leadership, called the 
information world. Bill Gates and people like him so led the world that 
if you wanted the best in software and computers, for a long period of 
time they were from this country. I grew up when you didn't want to 
drive an American-made car. You didn't want to have an American-made 
television; for a while it had to be Japanese. Cars had to be German. 
Things changed. We led in the information world, and revenues surpassed 
expenses.
  Guess what can happen early in the 21st century if we get off our 
tails: we can lead in energy technologies. We can solve the world's 
problem by being proactive and not even beat a retreat on climate 
change. I don't want to argue about how much man contributes to climate 
change because, frankly, the science is not clear on that. But it is an 
opportunity for us because if we provide these technology solutions to 
the world, the budget will get balanced again with a robust 
manufacturing-driven U.S. economy. Part of an all of the above.
  We should provide the nuclear solutions to the world and not be 
afraid of it because, like the speaker said, in France and Great 
Britain and the Netherlands and other countries, nuclear is very much a 
part of their portfolio because they have a balanced portfolio, because 
they know they need to do these things in order to reduce their 
emissions.
  While we are going to vigorously debate next year this issue of 
global warming, anybody in this place who says they are for cleaning up 
the air globally and making progress on zero emissions and carbon 
sequestration and reducing the carbon footprint and they are not for 
nuclear, they are kidding themselves because it has got to be a part of 
the portfolio given the capacity demands of today and tomorrow.
  And if we are going to plug our cars in, capacity has to increase on 
energy. It is an all-of-the-above strategy.
  Just today in the House, Congressman Steve Buyer, with me as an 
original co-sponsor, introduced the Main Street U.S.A. Energy Security 
Act. It opens the Outer Continental Shelf to responsible energy 
production. It allows energy development within the ANWR. It 
streamlines the refinery permitting process assisting new refineries to 
be built in the United States for the first time in 30 years. It 
supports the development of coal-to-liquid plants. It supports the 
building of more nuclear plants. It provides a 3-year production tax 
credit extension for wind, biomass, geothermal, and many of the 
renewable investments. It invests in research and development programs 
for the energy needs of tomorrow.
  You say, What are you doing introducing that today? Well, that is 
just a package of things that we are reintroducing again that we voted 
on in this House over and over and over and over again in the last 14 
years because I counted, and it is dozens and dozens of times that we 
have had these votes, and the people who were for more capacity lost. 
On the floor of this House, on the floor of the Senate, we lost.
  Bill Clinton vetoed the bill to open up oil production in Alaska. I'm 
not picking on him. Maybe that is what people wanted then, but they 
sure don't now. Why are we not responding? Why is our head buried in 
the sand? We have to have an all-of-the-above policy to compete. And we 
can balance the budget again. It is good for us. The world sees us 
reducing our carbon footprint, leading with new energy technologies and 
solving the world's problems.
  We sat on the couch from 1973 to 2008. Since the oil embargoes of 
1973, we sat on the couch as Americans and didn't make the changes we 
needed to make. And now we are in a mess. A $122 a barrel mess. But we 
sat on the couch. Guess what happens when you sit on the couch and you 
don't exercise and you don't get ready; that's where we are. We have to 
change.
  You cannot vote against energy capacity in any segment of our economy 
or energy production without ending up either the lights go out or the 
price is too high, access is not there, and people are hurting. That's 
where we are today. It is an all-of-the-above strategy.
  Let me close on this note. I am a conservative, and conservation is a 
good thing. People can begin to reduce demand by conserving, and 
consumers can join us. We need to do better, and so does the consumer 
in this country. Use less, be sensitive to lights, drive less, move to 
smaller vehicles; demand goes down and price goes down. We need to do 
that, and it is not wimpish to propose that. It is a good, solid, pro-
American thing. Let's be more efficient, let's move to alternatives. 
But I'm saying an all-of-the-above strategy. Don't say we can do all of 
this with renewables. It is not there to meet tomorrow's demand. We 
have to have all of the above. Some things are long term and I know 
that, but right now we have to respond. This takes a balanced approach.

  I thank Members from both sides who have that attitude, and I look 
forward to tomorrow at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Madam Speaker, I commend the gentleman for his 
leadership in the Renewable Energy Caucus and his efforts to try and 
develop future products that come from renewable energies.
  Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 5 minutes to my good friend from 
New York (Mr. Hall).
  Mr. HALL of New York. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman and I 
thank my friend from across the aisle for his comments on conservation 
and the sharing of the same root between conservatism and conservation. 
Perhaps he would be willing to tell our Vice President who said a few 
years ago that conservation may be a personal virtue, but it is no way 
to build a national energy policy, that he is wrong. I am pleased to 
hear Members of this body on both sides of the aisle voicing that 
opinion, that conservation efficiency in effect has to be part of our 
national energy policy.
  I also was happy to hear his comments on electric cars. In Israel, 
which I visited last August, and which I would like to wish a happy 
60th birthday to, Israel is leading the way on not just solar energy in 
which they are collaborating with a California company on a huge solar 
photovoltaic project which will provide today, this is not some distant 
time in the future, today will provide enough electricity for 400,000 
homes. Solel, Inc., is the Israeli company and Pacific Gas and Electric 
is the partner here in the United States. Not only are they a leader in 
photovoltaic solar electric power, but they are pioneering in Israel, 
as we could be in this country, electric cars that travel from one 
station to another and instead of charging the battery, they just 
switch it. They are working on a battery that will be interchangeable 
between all cars. So one can drive up to the gas station which will now 
be an electric station or whatever fuel one moves toward, remove the 
old battery that is run down, immediately get a new one installed and 
drive away in a matter of minutes rather than waiting for it to be 
charged up.

                              {time}  1745

  All these options are available, and I'm here to say they're 
available today.
  I would also dispute, however, the assertion that nuclear power is 
non-emitting, that nuclear power is clean. First of all, nuclear power 
does give off greenhouse gas emissions because, in the process of 
mining and milling and transporting nuclear fuel, there are fossil 
fuels burned.
  There are, in my very district, in fact, strontium, nydium, tritium, 
among other cancer-causing radioactive particles being released into 
the groundwater and even under normal operations, into the air.
  And lastly, of course, the spent fuel has to be transported, again 
using fossil fuels, to a repository, which may be Yucca Mountain 
whenever that happens to be opened.
  In the meanwhile, every nuclear plant and every nuclear shipment is a 
potential terrorist target. We know that Mohammad Atta wrote, for 
instance, in the papers that were found after 9/11, about canvassing 
New York City, flying on commercial airliners, and that he took notes 
about a nuclear plant that he flew over as a potential target that we 
believe to be Indian Point.

[[Page H3316]]

  So I would remind those on both sides of the aisle that our 
diplomatic stance around the world has been one of trying to stop other 
countries from taking a ``peaceful nuclear program and turning it into 
a military nuclear program.'' It's a very gray area and a blurry line 
once one learns how to enrich fuel. It's only a matter of how far one 
enriches that fuel.
  So there are some things that we agree about. I totally agree that we 
need a moon shot technology revolution. We need to put all the 
resources of this country that we can behind this, and that American 
ingenuity can solve these problems.
  But speaking as one who's burning 20 percent biodiesel in my home 
heating oil, who's getting 1,500 kilowatt hours a month from wind 
power, who's driving an American-made hybrid today that gets 33 miles 
per gallon, and an SUV with 4-wheel drive, not a little tin can, but 
actually a pretty sizeable vehicle, I think these technologies are 
available if they're given the proper incentives, tax breaks and 
subsidies today, and if we lead the way in government with preferential 
purchasing and the decision-making that we make as the powerful 
government that we are.
  So I'm happy to be a part of this exciting time in our energy 
history.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, I would like to save my time to close, so 
I would reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Madam Speaker, I would also like to thank my colleague 
on the other side of the aisle for many of his comments. I understand 
that this is a very important issue here in America today moving 
America forward towards an energy independent America.
  Madam Speaker, however, it is my understanding that my colleagues on 
the conference committee for the Food Conservation and Energy Act have 
already come to an agreement that is ready to be reported. We have a 
title, which is the energy title of the farm bill, which directly deals 
with agricultural issues and renewable energy and cellulosic-based 
ethanol.
  As a matter of fact, the energy title creates a $1.01 per gallon 
cellulosic ethanol tax credit to 2010. It also has in $1.01 per gallon 
is based on a 56 cents per gallon tax credit, producers credit, and it 
has a 45 cents per gallon blenders credit. The total tax benefit is 
$400 million.
  And as the gentleman knows, we are currently in a budgetary strain. 
We have PAYGO rules which we must abide by. I think that adopting this 
motion would delay the passage of the farm bill. And the chairman 
reminds all Members that motions to instruct are basically out of order 
at this time, being that my colleagues in the conference committee have 
come up with an agreement and they are ready to report this.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, I want to commend my colleague from 
Colorado. I'm an aggie. I don't serve on the committee. And the 
agricultural sector is one of the few sectors that we have increased 
supply. So I do this with all due respect.
  My concern is that when we disincentivize the E85 fuel stations, the 
cellulosic debate, which is the next bridge to get us to the RFS 
standard that we passed in December, we can't get there without RFS, 
without cellulosic. And we're sending a bad signal when we have States 
without any fueling stations and we have States that do. And so that's 
what brings me down.
  And I'm glad my colleague from New York talked about nuclear power. 
The former head of Greenpeace now supports nuclear power. The former 
head of Greenpeace now supports nuclear power.
  Coal generating electricity is 50 percent of our electricity 
generation in this country. 50 percent. Nuclear's 20. Our demand's 
going to increase 30 percent in the next 20 years.
  Texas tried wind power. They had brownouts. Zack Wamp is right. We 
need more supply. This is what China's doing. China is building 40 
nuclear plants in the next 15 years, not one. We haven't done one in 
30. China's going to build 40.
  China's invested $24 billion in large scale coal liquification 
technology. China is rapidly expanding its refining capacity. One of 
the reasons we compete is because we had low cost power. We don't have 
low cost power anymore. Those days aren't here. Renewable fuels aren't 
going to fill the gap that we have.
  So we have to do, as Zach said, all of the above. In a column, Robert 
Samuelson said, what to do about oil? The first thing, start drilling. 
It's the easiest, quickest thing we can do. Unless you want to put up 
with this. Unless you want more, and, you know, you're a rural farm boy 
in Colorado.
  I try to remind people here that in rural America we like big trucks. 
We have to have working trucks. We can't haul a horse trailer with an 
electric engine, with a four-cylinder engine. It won't go anywhere. We 
need powerful trucks. We need trailers. We need working trucks.
  That's fossil fuels. That's diesel. We can't pay these gas prices 
anymore. And we're going to. Don't get me on climate change. All I want 
is transparency.
  If we're going to tax the American public they need to know they're 
going to pay 50 cents more a gallon. And my charts are way over.
  Why can't we go here? Why? Why can't we access these areas to get 
natural gas? Anhydrous ammonia, the Number 1 commodity input, natural 
gas.
  And what has your majority done? You put areas off-limits. We've got 
areas in your State in the last year we put off-limits. We didn't bring 
on more supply.
  Great solution. China's doing it, taking coal, gasifying it. When you 
gasify it you can burn electricity. You can capture the carbon. It's a 
clean way to do it. We can't do it.
  For every dollar increase in a barrel of crude oil, do you know how 
much the taxpayers have to pay to fund the Air Force? 60 million 
additional dollars. Our Air Force is the number one jet fuel user in 
the world. They're begging for help. It's crazy.
  We are relying on imported crude oil. Our national security depends 
on aviation fuel, and we are constrained by imported crude oil. Don't 
you think it'd be better to use our known natural resources to help our 
Air Force to fly our planes?
  Coast Guard authorization bill, $1 increase. $1 dollar increase in 
Coast Guard authorization diesel added $24 million to the cost of the 
Coast Guard to protect our border.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Yes, sir.
  Mr. SALAZAR. I just wanted to ask the gentleman, what does this have 
to do with the farm bill?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. These are input costs. You know the diesel price has 
doubled. I mean, my farmers, when they plant the corn, they're in a 
tractor. When they harvest the corn or the beans, they're in a tractor. 
It's run by diesel fuel.
  There's an attack on ethanol today. I was in committee today, I mean, 
2 days ago, let's stop the RFS. It's the only thing that we have. And 
why is it under attack? Because input cost to production of commodity 
grain has gone up because we can't get low price diesel fuel.
  When we harvest the corn we take it to a grain elevator. We do that 
with a big diesel truck, a big tractor trailer. We have independent 
truckers striking. They drove around here a couple of weeks ago, big 
signs. We can't afford the high cost of diesel.
  And we know costs get passed on. What's some Democrats' response? Oh, 
we've got a great idea. Let's tax the energy companies more.
  My challenge is, when have we ever raised a tax that's lowered the 
price to a consumer? And I've challenged people; give me one example 
where we raised the tax and costs went down. No one's challenged me. 
And I'm sure people will look at that.
  Another thing is let's demand that the people we're reliant on, pump 
more crude oil. Oh, that helps us not become reliant on imported cried 
oil. Let's demand that the people who are providing us oil pump more. 
That's why I'm so frustrated with this. I hope you understand. We need 
to lower prices.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion to instruct.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.

[[Page H3317]]

  Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

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