[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 84 (Monday, June 13, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3724-S3726]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                ETHANOL

  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I had a good time this afternoon listening 
to the debate on the amendment I have offered and visiting with 
Senators. I think there is an important distinction that needs to be 
made in the arguments that have been brought forward.
  The first is we have a mandated level of ethanol that has to be 
produced and blended into gasoline, and it grows from now on. There 
will be zero job losses if this amendment is approved.
  The second thing is, my colleague--and I love him to death--from 
South Dakota says we are going to save $1 billion. We can save $3 
billion if we eliminate the VEETC blending subsidy.
  Now, why should we do that? Here is a subsidy that goes to all the 
blenders of gasoline in the United States--all of them--and they all 
have called and written and said: We do not want the $3 billion for the 
rest of the year. We do not want it.
  We actually have a letter from the National Petrochemical and 
Refiners Association, which they are all members of, saying: We do not 
want this money. So the best way to get money against the deficit is to 
not give money to people who do not want it on something that is 
already mandated anyway.
  I spent a great deal of time listening to my colleague from Iowa, 
Senator Grassley, and his figures were very good. But they were only up 
through 2008.
  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 40 percent of last 
year's corn crop was utilized, converted to ethanol. Why would the 
American Bakers Association, the American Frozen Food Institute, the 
American Meat Institute, California Dairies, the Grocery Manufacturers 
Association, the International Dairy Foods Association, the Milk 
Producers Council, the National Chicken Council, the National Council 
of Chain Restaurants, the National Meat Association, the National 
Restaurant Association, the National Turkey Federation, the National 
Wildlife Federation--which is just about one-third of the people who 
are endorsing this--why would they be for this?
  Because it is not just less than 3 percent of the cost of food, it 
has been, this last year, the significant driver. Corn prices are at 
$7.65 a bushel. They are 2\1/2\ times what they were 3\1/2\ years ago. 
And I am not against the farmers. I am for ethanol. I do not want to do 
away with ethanol blending. I do not want to do away with ethanol as a 
substitute. But we have a way to get the same amount of ethanol 
produced and put into our cars without spending $3 billion between now 
and the end of the year--$5.8 billion is what it has averaged over the 
last few years.
  We spent $34 billion of money we didn't have subsidizing something 
that

[[Page S3725]]

is mandated. I mean, it even goes beyond the Reagan quote, which was 
that the government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few 
short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If 
it stops moving, subsidize it.
  We have the incentive to blend the ethanol, and that incentive is you 
by law have to blend it. They do not have a choice. So we are going to 
use ethanol in this country.
  Another factor the American people ought to take into consideration 
when they go buy a gallon of fuel today--you already have $1.72 worth 
of subsidy in there. That does not have anything to do with oil and gas 
drilling; that has to do with the subsidies that go to this program for 
ethanol. And I am for using cellulosic. I am actually for using corn 
ethanol. I just do not think we ought to pay twice for it. I think we 
ought to pay once.
  The number the Senator from Minnesota talked about in terms of 
subsidy, there are--I have worked on the President's commission on 
debt. I have worked with the Gang of 6. You cannot be for changing the 
Tax Code to get rid of tax expenditures and vote against this 
amendment. I mean, how do you explain? Here is one we do not need the 
incentive for and we are going to pay for, and yet you say you want to 
solve the problems of the country. But the first time we have a vote to 
really eliminate one that will make no difference in terms of the 
amount of ethanol that is produced in this country--it will just save 
us $3 billion--you can't be on both sides of that issue.
  Let me address the oil and gas industries for a minute. They get 
accelerated depreciation and writeoff. That is true. And that amounts 
to taking legitimate business expenses and saying: You can write them 
off sooner. Why did we do that?
  It started in 1903, by the way. That is when we started. We started 
it because it is a capital-intensive business in terms of the 
exploration. It is associated with a lot of dry holes.
  Now, the very companies that we say we want to take some of their 
``subsidies''--there is a big difference between a subsidy that is a 
tax credit and allowing someone to advance depreciation because they 
are going to get to write it off anyhow. The net effect to the Federal 
Government's revenue, if you take all of those away, is still zero. The 
Federal Government does not get any additional money because under 
accounting standards they get to write off those expenses anyway; they 
just do not get to write them off fast.
  So the body has already chosen to not do that because they are 
legitimate business expenses. We are not saying: Take away legitimate 
business expenses from the ethanol distilleries or the blenders. We are 
just saying: Do not pay them money for something that they are going to 
have to do anyhow that they have already said to us they do not want.
  Tomorrow during the debate, I will add to the Record the statement 
from the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association.
  The other point I would make: There is no question we are not energy 
independent, and there is no question that biofuels and cellulosic 
ethanol can contribute to what our results can be in terms of 
maintaining that independence. But we are the only Nation in the world 
where we as citizens own more oil and gas than Canada, China, and Saudi 
Arabia combined, and our Government will not let us have it. Think 
about that for a minute. According to the Congressional Research 
Service, there is more oil, gas, and gas liquids untapped in the United 
States than is known in all of Canada, all of China, and all of Saudi 
Arabia combined. So the reason we are in trouble and importing oil is 
because our own government will not let us have our own resources. Why 
would we continue that? That is a debate for another time.
  No matter what we believe in terms of green energy, what we do know 
is that we are 30 years away from getting away from carbon-based 
fuels--at the earliest. So we can either pay a price or we can buy from 
the Saudis or buy from other Middle Eastern countries or we can develop 
our own. Talk about jobs. The estimate is that if we would truly go 
after our own energy, we would generate over 100,000 jobs a year the 
next 10 years in the oil and gas industry in this country--cleanly.
  The other comment I have heard is that this amendment was not brought 
up properly. Well, let me talk about something for a minute. When the 
Senator from South Dakota and I came to the Senate, the first 2 years 
you could offer an amendment on anything, on any bill at any time 
because that is the way the Senate was intended to operate. As a 
Senator, a Member of this body, you had the right to offer an 
amendment. Now, you may lose it or it may get tabled, but you had to 
right to do it. That is not a majority leader's prerogative; it is a 
prerogative of every individual Senator that you ought to cherish and 
protect because if the majority leader is the only one who will decide 
what amendments get offered and when they get offered, this is no 
longer the Senate. There is no longer an ability to offer what is in 
the best interests of our country or our constituency.
  The very fact that we do not want to have controversial amendments 
that we have much disagreement on coming to the floor because we do not 
want to have to go home and defend them or we do not want to vote on 
them because we might lose--the Senate ought to be a free place to 
offer ideas and get them voted down.
  In my first 2 years in the Senate, I had tons--in fact, I had every 
amendment voted down. There was not an amendment I won. But I had the 
freedom to offer the amendments. And do you know what. We passed 10 
times as much legislation in that Congress than we have the last two. 
So limiting amendments is not the prerogative of the majority leader. 
Deciding what bills come to the floor is the prerogative of the 
majority leader.
  If we want to go home and tell our constituents that we have voted 
against saving $3 billion, that we are going to borrow 40 percent of it 
from outside of this country because we do not like the way an 
amendment was brought up--how else do you bring up an amendment if you 
cannot in the Senate?
  Every true and proper procedure was followed in bringing up this 
amendment, and had this amendment been allowed to come up, if other 
Members had not objected to it, we would have never used cloture to 
bring up an amendment. You should not have to use cloture to bring up 
an amendment. You should be able to bring up any amendment you want and 
let Senators have the courage to vote the way they want on it rather 
than to say: I am going to hide behind not having to vote, so I am 
going to object to having a vote on an amendment.
  Well, if we start down that process, we are never going to have any 
amendments and every amendment is going to end up having 60 votes just 
to be brought up. If we are going to move to that procedure--and I know 
procedure in this body pretty well--then I will insist that we do it 
all the time. That will dead stop the Senate.
  So the idea that you can hide behind the excuse that even though you 
want to save the $3 billion but you do not like the way the amendment 
was brought up is a pretty flimsy excuse to go home and explain to your 
public that you think we should not ever have cloture motions on 
amendments. We ought to be able to bring any amendment up at any time.
  I see the majority leader coming to the floor. He is a dear friend of 
mine. He has the hardest job in Washington, there is no question. But 
the privilege to bring an amendment to the floor ought to be protected 
for both sides of this aisle, and you vote it down, you table it, but 
you do something with it.
  Let me just finish by saying that I agree this is supposed to expire 
at the end of this year. I hope it does because we do not need it. Our 
corn farmers do not need it. The worldwide demand for corn is high. We 
are going to continue to produce ethanol. We have a federally mandated 
requirement that we produce ethanol. This amendment does not touch 
that, never intended to touch that.
  But ethanol as a fuel should be processed to the next stage, which is 
methanol, because methanol is not water soluble and it has the same 
octane rating as gasoline. Ethanol is not a great fuel. It is not an 
economical fuel. But we can take that same carbon atom and add to it 
and create methanol from corn and get a much better fuel that can be 
transported much easier and

[[Page S3726]]

have much greater effect on our economy and have much better gas 
mileage and less effect on the engines and drivetrains and all of the 
other--the smog prevention we have on automobiles today.
  So let me say it again. I am not against using biocrops. I am for 
biocrops. I am not against cellulosic-based. I am not against ethanol. 
I am not against algae. But ExxonMobil has spent a couple of billion of 
their own money on algae-based biofuels without the government's help, 
which is one of the points with this amendment. We no longer need to 
help. We no longer need to spend the money.
  So I look forward to the debate tomorrow. I will be on the floor all 
day to answer questions and to debate the pros and cons of this 
amendment.
  I yield the floor.

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