[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 74 (Thursday, May 26, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3414-S3415]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ELECTRIC VEHICLES

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senator Corker and I had the privilege 
of being in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Monday for the opening of 
Volkswagen's North American plant. It was a great day for our country. 
Here is a major global manufacturer making in the United States what it 
plans to sell in the United States. We salute Volkswagen. I salute 
Chattanooga and Tennessee. One-third of the manufacturing jobs in our 
State are auto jobs. There was a new Volkswagen Passat that gets 43 
miles a gallon. That is good news for Americans who are paying $4 or 
more a gallon for gasoline.
  But as I was there at that celebration for these new fuel-efficient 
cars, and earlier this week at a hearing of the Energy Committee, I was 
thinking: What if I were to say to you or to anyone I might see, while 
you are worrying about $4 gasoline: Did you know that we have enough 
unused fuel sitting over here, that is not oil, to power 40 percent of 
our light cars and trucks at a lower cost?
  That is right. We have enough unused power every night to power 40 
percent of our light cars and trucks. Every night. We can do that by 
simply plugging them into the wall. I am talking about electric cars 
and light trucks that almost every major manufacturer is now beginning 
to make, and we do not have to build one new powerplant to do it.
  Last week Senator Merkley and I appeared before the Energy Committee 
to talk about our legislation, the Promoting Electric Vehicles Act. I 
said to the Committee: The main differences between the bill this year 
and the one the Committee reported last year by a vote of 19 to 4, a 
good bipartisan vote, is that the price of gasoline is higher than it 
was last year and our bill costs less than it did last year.
  Encouraging electric vehicles is an appropriate short-term role for 
the Federal Government. Our legislation establishes short-term 
incentives for the wide adoption of vehicles in 8 to 15 pilot 
communities. Our legislation advances battery research. The $1 billion 
that we save relative to last year's bill, we save by avoiding 
duplicating other research programs.
  Finally, if you believe that the solution to $4 gasoline and high 
energy prices is finding more American energy and using less of it, as 
I do, electric cars and trucks are the best way to use less.
  Electrifying half our cars and trucks can reduce the use of our 
foreign oil by one-third, saving money on how we fuel our 
transportation system and cutting into the billions of dollars we send 
overseas for foreign oil. So instead of making the speech for the rest 
of my time, let me tell a short story. It is a story of Ross Perot, the 
famous Texan, and how he made his money.
  Back in the sixties, he noticed that the big banks down in Dallas 
were locking their doors at 5 o'clock, and the banks had all of these 
big computers in the back room, and they were locking them up too. They 
were not using them at night.
  So Mr. Perot made a deal with the banks. He said: Sell me your unused 
computer time. And they did at cheap rates. Then he went to the States 
and talked to the Governors--this is before I was a Governor--and he 
made a deal with the States to use that cheap computer time to manage 
Medicaid data. He made $1 billion.
  In the same way, we have an enormous amount of unused electricity at 
night. A conservative estimate is that we have an amount of energy that 
is unused at night that is equal to the output of 65 to 70 nuclear 
power plants between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. If we were to use that resource 
to plug in cars and trucks at night, we could electrify 43 percent of 
our cars and trucks without building one new powerplant. It is a very 
ambitious goal, to imagine electrifying half our cars and trucks. It 
would take a long time to do it, but it is the best way to reduce our 
use of foreign oil.
  I suspect that is the greatest unused resource in the United States. 
What if someone proposed building 60 or 65 nuclear powerplants. 
Actually, I proposed

[[Page S3415]]

building 100. But if we tried to build 60 or 65 more, it would take us 
30 or 40 years and cost us $\1/2\ trillion. That is if we could even do 
it.
  Another reason I think this will work is because it is easy for 
consumers, and I am one. For 2 years, I drove a Toyota Prius, and it 
had an A123 battery in it. I increased my mileage to about 80 or 90 
miles a gallon. I just plugged it in at night at home. Very simple. I 
now have a Nissan Leaf. It is all electric. I have an apartment nearby 
the Capitol. I just plug it in at night. I don't even have a charger. I 
just plug it into the wall, and I can drive it about 2 hours every day 
and plug it in at night. I have not bought any gas since January, since 
I got my Leaf in Washington, DC.
  I have had no problems, either with the modified Toyota Prius that I 
drove for 2 years, or with the Nissan Leaf that I have driven now for 
about half a year. Almost every car company is making electric cars 
today or will soon have them on the market.
  So if the extra electricity is available--and electric vehicles are 
easy to use, and car companies are making them, then why do we need for 
the government to be involved? That is a good question. For one thing, 
it is the urgency of the problem: $4 gasoline is killing our economy. 
It is throwing a big wet blanket over it.
  The only solution is find more, use less. This is the best way to use 
less. To my Republican colleagues, I have said before our Committee, 
and I would say today what we have been saying for 3 years in our 
caucus: Find more and use less.
  We have criticized Democrats for wanting to use less without really 
wanting to find more, and we are subject to the same criticism if we 
want to find more--which I think we should--offshore, on Federal lands, 
and in Alaska, and then we do not have a credible way to use less. 
Electric cars and trucks are the best way to use less.
  Another criticism is that our bill interferes with the marketplace. 
It does, but in a short-term and limited way. Short-term incentives for 
new technologies--to jump-start nuclear energy, to jump-start natural 
gas truck fleets, to jump-start electric cars and trucks in 4 to 5 
years--I think are appropriate, given the urgency of the problem. If I 
am here in 5 years, I will be the first to say this should be the end 
of it. If I am not, I will come back and argue for its repeal.
  Finally, conservative groups across the country have said national 
security demands that we do this. Gary Bauer, president of American 
Values, as well as Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious 
Liberty Commission, endorsed our bill last year, saying that national 
security concerns overwhelm any opposition to it, and it is the best 
way to displace our use of oil. That was them talking.
  Can we afford it? Well, our proposal is $1 billion cheaper, it is an 
authorization bill, and we should be setting priorities.
  There is some suggestion that this committee should also appropriate 
the money. I would respectfully suggest that we are in a 2-year period 
where we have no earmarks because authorizers didn't like appropriators 
authorizing. Well, let's be consistent and say to authorizers, ``You 
shouldn't be appropriating.'' Let's just do the job of authorizing. 
Senator Merkley and I have agreed that we will not try to pass this 
bill when it comes to the floor unless we can agree to do it in a way 
that does not add to the debt.
  So, in summary, I would say it is time to address $4 gasoline and 
high energy prices. To do that, we need to find more American energy--
offshore, on Federal lands, and in Alaska--but we also need to use 
less. The single best way to use less is to jump-start the use of 
electric cars and trucks. Electricity is just a delivery system. The 
fuel comes from a whole variety of things: natural gas, coal, and other 
things.
  So we jump-start the use of that huge resource that we have just 
sitting there unused every single night. Our committee approved this 
bill once before. The problem is worse today than it was when they 
approved it last year. The bill costs less than it did when they 
approved it last year. It is an appropriate role for the Federal 
Government. We will work to make sure if this body were to pass it that 
it does not increase the debt.
  I urge my colleagues to report the bill to the floor and to consider 
encouraging electric cars and trucks as the single best way to use less 
energy and reduce the use and reduce the cost of gasoline.
  I thank the Senator from Alabama for his courtesy and for listening 
to my remarks.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.

                          ____________________