[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 153 (Monday, November 29, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8213-S8214]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     VOLUMETRIC ETHANOL EXCISE TAX

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise to underscore the need to invest 
in homegrown energy and to reduce our dependence on foreign energy. Our 
Nation's ability to produce a reliable low-cost domestic source of 
energy is both an economic issue and a national security issue.
  Two years ago, our Nation got a wake-up call. Gas prices exceeded $4 
a gallon, even $5 in some places. It was a chilling reminder that the 
United States spends more than $400,000 per minute on foreign oil. That 
money is shipped out of our economy, adding to our enormous trade 
deficit and economic woes, and leaving us reliant on unstable parts of 
the world to meet our basic energy needs.
  Some of our colleagues have called for the volumetric ethanol excise 
tax credit--known as VEETC--to expire at the end of December. This tax 
credit was created 5 years ago to help bring ethanol from our farms to 
our gas pumps. It has helped us start to invest in the farmers and the 
workers of the

[[Page S8214]]

Midwest instead of the oil cartels of the Mideast.
  My colleagues talk about how we need to let the free market solve our 
dependence on foreign energy. Well, I wholly support free markets, but 
I say: Let's have a level playing field and let the best ideas succeed. 
I would like to know if my colleagues truly think there is a level 
playing field for those trying to compete with the oil industry. We 
have an oil industry that has received decades of government support. 
Yet we have an emerging biofuels industry, powered by American farmers, 
that is starting to grow the crops, to improve the ethanol that is 
finally displacing our demand for oil. Over the last few decades, more 
than $360 billion worth of taxpayer subsidies and loopholes have lined 
the pockets of oil companies. This is nearly 10 times greater than the 
investments we have made in homegrown biofuels. Meanwhile, in just the 
last 5 years, the top five oil companies recorded $560 billion in 
profits.
  Since the ethanol tax credit was first adopted, it has helped the 
renewable fuels industry grow and grow not just with the same kind of 
renewable fuel but to begin to expand--as you know, from our home State 
of Minnesota--into cellulosic ethanol, into using water and, a better 
part of the process, into conserving water and into using all kinds of 
new ideas. But to pull the rug out from under this new growing 
industry, when it is competing against the big guys--against big oil--
is the wrong thing to do. In our State alone, employment and economic 
output from the ethanol biofuels industry has doubled. This year's 
biofuels production in Minnesota is expected to exceed 1 billion 
gallons, employing nearly 8,400 people and creating an economic impact 
of more than $3 billion. Instead, do we want to give all those jobs to 
the Mideast, to give them to countries we don't even want to be doing 
business with?
  Nationally, homegrown ethanol displaces about 5 percent of our oil 
consumption or about 350 million barrels. The ethanol industry employed 
nearly half a million Americans to produce the ethanol right here in 
our country. Letting this tax credit expire would almost certainly put 
thousands of jobs in jeopardy and would also increase our dependence on 
foreign oil, thereby hurting our national security. The oil spill in 
the gulf was a poignant reminder. Our addiction to oil comes with 
serious cost and it is time our Nation gets serious about investing in 
alternatives.
  We didn't see a windmill blow up in the middle of a corn field. We 
didn't see an ethanol plant blowing up in the middle of a corn field.
  Senators Conrad and Grassley have called for a 5-year extension of 
the ethanol tax credit, and I support their bipartisan legislation. 
Senator Johnson and I have introduced the Securing America's Future 
with Energy and Sustainable Technologies--the SAFEST Act--with similar 
provisions calling for an extension of the tax credit, but it also 
includes a strong renewable energy standard--something we need in this 
country and something Senator Snowe and I have worked on.
  I see Senator Kerry of Massachusetts is here. I was devoted last year 
to focusing on alternative energy and ways to focus on our homegrown 
energy industry. I know this ethanol tax credit will not always be 
necessary. That is why I have also been working to develop a new more 
cost-effective tax credit that would replace the existing VEETC credit 
and would more directly benefit and focus on the farmers who are 
growing our transportation fuel.
  No one is denying we can improve the tax credit to make it even more 
effective with investments in alternative fuels, but the ethanol 
industry, the biofuels industry, and private investors with billions of 
dollars in capital need to know our Nation is serious about supporting 
alternative fuels. Are we going to pull the rug out from under them? 
Are we going to put our heads in the sand and send all that money 
instead to the Mideast?
  Allowing this tax credit to expire before we can come up with a long-
term agreement about how to continue to invest in homegrown energy 
would send the wrong signal to investors. Letting this tax credit 
expire with no replacement would say America is not serious about 
finding alternatives to oil and we are not serious about reducing our 
dependence on foreign energy.
  Our Nation has an unemployment rate of 9.6 percent. To meet our basic 
fuel needs, we continue to send $730 million a day to foreign 
countries, many of which have been known to funnel money to terrorists. 
Now is not the time to pull that rug out from underneath the largest, 
most established domestic alternative to petroleum fuel. Now is not the 
time to put in jeopardy tens of thousands of jobs. Now is the time to 
extend the biofuels tax credit and invest in those farmers in the 
Midwest instead of those oil cartels in the Mideast. Now is the time to 
increase our support for alternative energy. These investments will 
help us to lower the unemployment rate, reduce the amount of money we 
send overseas to meet our energy needs, and these investments will help 
make our Nation less reliant on unfriendly nations--on those we don't 
want to be doing business with.
  I hope my colleagues will listen to this argument and look at these 
numbers--at how much money the oil industry is getting.
  I note the Senator from Massachusetts is here, and I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for such time as I will consume.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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