[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 76 (Thursday, May 8, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H3317-H3319]
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. TERRY. 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. Terry 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 12312 subtitle C of title XII of the 
     Senate amendment (relating to a cellulosic biofuel production 
     tax credit).

  Mr. TERRY (during the reading). Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous 
consent to waive the reading of the motion.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Nebraska?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Nebraska (Mr. Terry) and the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Salazar) will 
be recognized for 30 minutes each.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Nebraska.
  Mr. TERRY. Madam Speaker, I rise today with my motion to instruct to 
make sure that we keep a tax credit that the Senate has in its version 
of the farm bill for cellulosic energy and the blending. It's a dollar 
tax credit, and that's important that we have the higher number because 
cellulosic energy or cellulosic ethanol, I think, is where we are going 
to move to for our midterm energy strategy in this country, and that we 
really are at the very embryonic stages of its development, as I'm 
going to show here in a few minutes, and that because we are at the 
beginning stages of cellulosic energy, taking it literally from the 
research laboratories to the experimental market, trying to produce it 
more than at 1 gallon at a time, that we will need to, more heavily 
subsidize these beginning processes.

                              {time}  1800

  Now, I'm going to build our argument here of why I feel that 
cellulosic energy or cellulosic ethanol is important and why we need 
the $1 credit versus the lower number that was in the House version to 
get to our ultimate goal here, which is energy independence.
  And by the way, I define ``energy independence'' as not relying on 
OPEC countries. We will need to use the natural gas and oil from 
Canada, and we will need to, for a variety of reasons, use the oil from 
Mexico; but wouldn't it be great if we were in a position that we 
didn't have to use the oil that's produced by countries that don't like 
us, that really hinders, as the gentleman from Tennessee, Zach Wamp, 
mentioned. Our foreign policy, we have to counsel, we have to do things 
for countries that really are trying to harm us economically, like 
Venezuela is right now.
  Now, the bottom line here, the bottom line here is that every citizen 
of the United States is paying higher prices at the pump. They are 
paying more of their family budget to get to and from work, to and from 
the grocery store, and they're upset and rightfully so. So I am asked 
frequently, what is the plan. Well, the problem is there really isn't a 
cohesive plan. We do know that it is an issue of supply and demand.
  Now, we've nibbled at the edges in an earlier bill this year that was 
signed by the President in December on the demand part. We did things 
to help incent electric cars, hybrids, battery technology; and probably 
the key component or foundation of that demand bill or lowering demand 
of oil was increasing the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks. 
That was called the Hill-Terry bill. So I was one of the co-authors of 
that bill, and we got that in there. And that will increase fuel 
efficiency by 40 percent, in stages, to 2020, where I really see that 
we're going to end up earlier meeting those goals because of battery 
technology and ethanol.
  We already have some vehicles out on the road today using ethanol 
blends as high as 85 percent that are hybrid. So you're combining 
ethanol, lowering the amount of oil that we have to use and refine, and 
battery technologies at lower speeds: for example, the Ford Escape.
  Now, let me broach into an area here that I think is important for 
people to understand because our midterm strategy, at least as I 
envision it, is going to involve ethanol. And for some reason, ethanol 
has been blamed for every ill that has occurred globally. There has 
been severe droughts that have affected rice crops, and yet I read in 
U.S. papers that that's caused by ethanol. It's baffling how they make 
this connection, and it's wrong; but yet it seems like ethanol is 
causing more problems, as related by the media, than President Bush is. 
Maybe President Bush is happy that ethanol is pushing him off the front 
page. I don't know.
  All I know is most of what you're reading about ethanol is completely 
bogus. And even people in the Corn Husker State are now starting to 
tell me, We can't rely on ethanol. We're learning that this is bad, 
because I am paying more at the grocery store. My eggs are more 
expensive because of ethanol. Huh? Well, okay. Maybe some of the grain-
related foods have been impacted by ethanol.
  I want to show you a few charts here. And by the way, these studies 
are done by the government. They've been reported in The Wall Street 
Journal and other major business magazines.
  First of all, the problem with the higher prices at the grocery store 
in total is because of increased energy costs. The price per barrel of 
oil closed short of a $124 today. It's grown dramatically, and ethanol 
is actually helping with those energy costs. Every report that I have 
seen, and we will use this chart, has shown that we would be paying 
much more at the pump today if it were not for the ethanol that we're 
blending.
  Here is a chart that shows today's average price at the pump of 
$3.65. That would be $4.20 at the pump today if we didn't have the 
ethanol to blend.
  Now, you're saying, well, that's great but, you know, it's driving up 
the food costs so I'm actually paying more. Well, that's not true, but 
we're not hearing about it in our media.
  The reality is that today, because of ethanol being blended into 
gasoline and that major difference of what you would pay at the pump, 
it would be as much as 40 cents more, maybe 60 cents more, according to 
that information. So actually the consumer is saving around $305 to as 
much as $420 a year because of ethanol.
  Now, every study that I have seen has shown that the direct impact of 
ethanol, that part of the corn crop that's diverted from feed or 
shipped to be manufactured into food, impacts about 5 cents on a box of 
cereal. Every study that I have seen from Texas A&M, the government, 
University of Nebraska has said it is about 3 percent on grain-related 
foods. 3 percent. But yet you're saving 15 to 20 percent at the pump, 
and it is helping you in today's world.
  Now, let's talk about cellulosic. Cellulosic is where you take a 
biofeed stock, it can be just about any living, growing thing, and you 
use an extra step in the process to take this and break down the 
gluten, kind of the glue that holds the cells together, that holds the 
sugars; and when we are able to dissolve those, then you can extract 
that and create ethanol.
  Now this type of ethanol, by the way, has a higher Btu rating and has 
more energy involved in it. So actually this ethanol goes further for 
us.
  What type of products can we use? Well, you can use things like 
switchgrass. You can use wood pulp. You can use sweet sorghum. You can 
use anything as long as it's a living, growing organism. You don't have 
to use food. So that's why it's important.
  Now, I'm going to say that ethanol is here to stay, but I do believe 
ethanol, based on corn, is going to hit a ceiling; and so cellulosic, 
if we can then use these types of bioproducts and create more energy or 
liquid fuel, then that is more that we can displace. And we will need a 
complete national energy strategy, and that's why I was curious when 
Zach Wamp came up here and talked about Lamar Alexander announcing

[[Page H3318]]

his energy plan using one of our biolabs that's doing work on the 
cellulosic area. And I think their focus in that lab has been on 
switchgrass and wood pulp. And so that will be interesting.
  But the beauty of cellulosic is not only that it gets us much closer 
to energy independence but that every region of the country has 
something to offer, whether it is wood in the northeast or northwest, 
or algae; switchgrass, and even in my State you can go from switchgrass 
in the Missouri Valley area where I live to corn to sweet sorghum out 
in the dry parts because sweet sorghum grows stalks 12 feet tall and 
requires less than 12 inches of rain.
  Where are we, and I'm getting back to my friend from Colorado to why 
we need the higher, the $1, the higher amount for the blending credit.
  USDA and Department of Energy are partnering together--it's nice to 
see two of our agencies actually working together--to open up several 
cellulosic ethanol plants over the next 2 years. They will produce a 
small amount, maybe 10 million gallons to start with, but if we can't 
use this product in the market and blend it, because we all know this 
is first generation so it's going to be expensive. It's going to be 
about $5.50 a gallon to produce this with the first-generation 
technology. They will get it down to $3, but if we can't get past this 
first generation stage, we're never going to get to second, third, 
fourth generation. So we need that higher level of subsidy or blending 
credit to make sure that the product that comes out of the new 
cellulosic ethanol plants is being used within the market.
  Now, my expectation is while maybe 2 to 3 years from now we're 
producing maybe 50 million, that's a drop in the barrel, by the way, 50 
million gallons; I really think that with this type of a blending 
credit that we can then double and triple and quadruple and maybe 
tenfold that 5 to 10 years later. And then we couple that with hybrid 
and electric technology, and man, I really am optimistic about the 
future of our country.
  Now, the gentleman from Colorado, I have one speaker that would like 
to say a few things. Do you want to take some time right now or let us 
finish up and you can have some time and I will take 1 minute for 
close?
  I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. SALAZAR. I appreciate the gentleman.
  Let me just say I agree with you on everything that you have said to 
this point. Ethanol is being blamed for the high cost of food prices. 
But what the news media forgets to tell you is that we've had the 
shortest wheat crop on record worldwide for many, many years. They also 
forget to tell you that because this country continues to borrow money 
from China, the value of the dollar continues to go down, and so 
developing countries, like China and India, can now afford American 
food products. So it creates a larger demand.
  The Congressional Research Service issued a report that shows that 
between 40 and 50 percent of the price of food at the grocery store is 
dependent, directly dependent on the cost of transportation. I agree 
with you on that.
  You also talked about the issue of holding the $1 tax credit, which 
the Senate has approved. It is my understanding that the Conference 
Committee has agreed upon that. As a matter of fact, what has been 
created is $1.01 per gallon cellulosic ethanol tax credit through 2010. 
The $1.01 per gallon is based on the 56-cents-per-gallon producer's 
credit, and then the 45-cents-per-gallon blender's credit. This should 
incentivise people to start or companies to start producing ethanol 
from cellulosic material.
  I believe that the Nation is capable of producing a sustainable 
supply of about 1.3 billion tons of biomass per year. As you know, 
across the Western States of America, many trees have died because of 
the bark beetle problems. This is biomass that we can actually utilize 
to produce alcohol to fuel our vehicles.

                              {time}  1815

  I believe that the 1 billion tons of biomass would be sufficient to 
probably displace 30 percent of our country's present petroleum 
consumption.
  So I do agree with the gentleman.
  Mr. TERRY. Thank you. I do appreciate those comments. It's good to 
know that that is what is in the report. Many of us have not been able 
to see the report language yet to know what's in or what's not. So I 
appreciate you letting me know that's in there.
  At this time, I would like to yield to the gentlelady from North 
Carolina (Ms. Foxx).
  Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding, and I 
really appreciate the good work that was done by my colleague from 
Tennessee, Zach Wamp, and my colleague from Illinois, John Shimkus, on 
this issue of what do we do about energy independence, what do we do 
about ethanol, what do we do about the alternatives that we have.
  And I think it's important that we continue to point out the problems 
that we're facing in this country on achieving energy independence and 
to point out that we are dealing with basically a do-nothing Congress 
in terms of this issue. We are not dealing with this issue now, and I 
share the concern that my colleague from Nebraska Mr. Terry expressed 
about how everything's being blamed on ethanol and George Bush.
  The Congress likes to blame George Bush for everything, thinking 
that's the mood of the American people, and the leadership thinks it 
can deflect any responsibility for the problem that we're seeing now.
  But I want to point out that right now gasoline is $3.64 a gallon on 
average. That's 56 percent higher than when Speaker Pelosi was sworn 
in, and it is 745 days after she promised this: ``Democrats have a 
commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices.'' And that 
was when gas was just about $2 a gallon, not $3.64.
  It's also 948 days after Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said, 
``Democrats believe that we can do more for the American people who are 
struggling to deal with high gas prices.''
  And it's 653 days after Democrat Whip Jim Clyburn said, ``House 
Democrats have a plan to help curb rising gas prices.''
  All of these statements were made in 2006 when the Democrats were 
making statements to fool the American people on what they could do to 
make things different.
  Well, they got elected. They're now in leadership and what do we 
have? Blaming. We're looking for this secret plan that they have. 
They've never brought it forward, and we're still waiting for it, 
months, years after they promised it, 2 years actually after Speaker 
Pelosi promised that they had a plan to do this.
  We have all the quotes on this and the dates. Again, April 2006, 
October 2005, July 2006 are the dates, but what they've done is they've 
raised taxes four times since they've been in office on energy in this 
country, and what they do then is blame the President.
  Most people know, I think, that the President can't pass laws. All 
the President can do is sign them or veto them. It is our 
responsibility to do something about the way this country is operated 
in terms of laws. We operate under the rule of law, and it's no 
coincidence that article I of the Constitution is about the Congress 
and about our responsibilities, but the Democratic leadership has 
failed miserably in dealing with those responsibilities.
  I also agree with Congressman Wamp that this is a national security 
issue, and that in addition to providing additional supplies of energy, 
we must do conservation and we must be more efficient. I don't think 
anybody on our side of the aisle disagrees with that. However, we have 
to do something to increase the supply.
  We are dealing with a short-term and mid-term and long-term issue, 
and part of the problem that we're dealing with is the fact that in 
1995 President Clinton vetoed the bill that would have allowed us to 
drill in ANWR. We have radical environmentalists who basically believe, 
if all the human beings in the world were to disappear, the world would 
be a better place because we're the ones to blame for all of the 
problems that we have in this country and in the world.
  I don't believe that. I believe the good Lord gave us the resources 
that we need and the brains to use those resources and extract them. We 
should be drilling in ANWR. I've been to ANWR, I've been to Alaska, 
I've seen what happens there. The people who are opposed

[[Page H3319]]

to drilling there won't even go to Alaska to see the situation there. I 
think that's terribly, terribly shortsighted.
  We could have started doing that many years ago, and we wouldn't be 
in this situation that we're in now because that, along with other 
things that we could do, such as drilling in the outer continental 
shelf, such as creating other resources, such as cellulosic ethanol, 
would be providing us what we need.
  And I also agree, again, with Representative Wamp that energy 
independence means to me we are not going to be dependent on OPEC 
countries. We don't want to be dependent on people who hate us. We 
don't want to help fuel the terrorists. One of the things that we're 
doing is providing money for the terrorists to fight us, and we don't 
need to be doing that.
  We do need to conserve. We do need to use every resource available to 
us in this country, and it is time that the Democrats exert some 
leadership in this area instead of blaming George Bush and blaming 
others for the problem that we're facing. They absolutely refuse to 
take charge of what's happening here.
  I heard today on a radio program that there is a theory that they 
want to make the American people as miserable as they possibly can 
because President Bush is still our President, and they are so good at 
blaming him for things rather than accepting responsibility for their 
own actions. I think that has to be one of the most cynical things that 
anybody could possibly be doing in this country. It's our 
responsibility here to do everything that we can to help the American 
people, not do everything that we can to make them miserable.
  I want to give you a quote from Investors Business Daily from April 
29, 2008. The title of the article is ``Congress vs. You,'' and one of 
the quotes, ``The current Congress, led on the House side by a Speaker 
who promised a `common sense plan' to cut energy prices 2 years ago, 
has shown itself to be incompetent and irresponsible.''
  Again, we have quote after quote after quote from business journals 
and from responsible people to show us that the problems that we're 
facing now are not based in our situation with the war but is based in 
the incompetence and the do-nothing of this Congress.
  And again, let me point out, President Clinton vetoed H.R. 2491, the 
Balanced Budget Act of 1995, which would have allowed environmentally 
responsible exploration for an estimated 10.4 billion barrels of oil in 
a tiny sliver of ANWR. Senate Democrats have twice blocked energy 
exploration in ANWR via the Energy Policy Acts of 2003 and 2005. They 
have voted ``no'' on the American-Made Energy and Good Jobs Act which 
would open ANWR to exploration, over and over again. They've said no to 
new refineries. They've said no to the Energy Policy Act. As others 
have pointed out, they've said no use to using coal. They've said no to 
using nuclear. Everything they've done is say no, while Republicans 
have repeatedly said yes. Yes to Americans who drive to work and 
school. Yes to gasoline prices that Americans can afford. Yes to 
American oil. Yes to American common sense in the rules, and yes to an 
American future of abundant, affordable energy that working people can 
afford to buy.
  I don't think the Democrats are going to be able to continue to fool 
the American people that someone else is responsible for the problem 
that we're now facing. They're squarely responsible. They continue to 
say no, Republicans continue to say yes, and I think the American 
people are going to understand that in the short-term and in the long-
term.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time either side 
has?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Hirono). The gentleman from Colorado has 
30 minutes remaining. The gentleman from Nebraska has 3\1/2\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Is the gentleman prepared to close?
  Mr. TERRY. I have closed, and I will probably use my 3\1/2\ minutes 
for closing.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Madam Speaker, today I couldn't agree more with many of 
the comments that my friend from Nebraska has made. He comes from 
farming country like I do. We understand the value of the fuel that 
goes into your tractors and the value of the fuel that goes into your 
pick-up trucks to run a farming operation.
  I believe that ethanol is a temporary fix to our energy independence 
in America. We need to start looking at new technologies such as 
cellulosic-based technology. We understand that relying on corn-based 
ethanol is only a short-term solution.
  Everything that I believe that my colleague has in his motion has 
been addressed in what the conference committee has brought forward, 
the higher $1 per gallon cellulosic ethanol tax credit. I think that 
these are provisions that Mr. Terry's motion has.
  I only have one concern, Madam Speaker, is that if we were to adopt 
this motion, I believe that it could potentially delay the passage of 
the farm bill, and so I would ask my colleague, Mr. Terry from 
Nebraska, to consider withdrawing his motion.
  Mr. TERRY. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SALAZAR. Yes.
  Mr. TERRY. I plan to mouth those words at the end of my ending 
comments.
  Mr. SALAZAR. I would thank the gentleman, and with that, Madam 
Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. TERRY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado.
  In closing, what we're faced with is restricted supply, ever 
increasing demand on oil products, on oil and gasoline, $124, just shy 
of $124 per barrel today, and my friends, it's just going to keep going 
up. And we need a plan to make sure that we protect our economy and 
your budget.
  We know that we can't continue to pay these type of prices at the 
pump. We know that what we're experiencing with our inflation at the 
grocery store is about 80 percent related to those high costs of 
energy.
  We have a solution before us with ethanol, corn-based ethanol. Again, 
just in a summary here, the ethanol that is blended into the gasoline 
today is actually making it cheaper. That's allowing you to save more. 
You're not going to be spending as much on gasoline if it were not for 
the blend of ethanol in it.

                              {time}  1830

  The argument that food has increased because of ethanol is not 
accurate. In fact, these are just several of the publications that have 
gone on record, Wall Street Journal, CNN, have all said that it's a 
fallacy that food prices are going up because of ethanol.
  So net, it's helping our citizens, but the future isn't with corn-
based ethanol, it's with cellulosic. Cellulosic is going to supplement 
this ethanol. And its potential is immense.
  So I'm proud to learn from the gentleman from Colorado that the 
dollar producers credit--I think I called it blenders credit a couple 
of times during the statement--but that 101 producers credit, coupled 
with the blending credit, is what's going to lift cellulosic ethanol 
for us into the market and make it a viable way that we can secure our 
independence from the OPEC producers.
  Knowing that that is in the farm bill conference report, I feel 
comfortable, then, not instructing the farm conference, especially 
since there is no more conference.
  I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my motion to instruct.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the motion is withdrawn.
  There was no objection.

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