[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 124 (Thursday, September 19, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6618-S6620]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ENERGY EFFICIENCY

  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I rise this morning to address the energy 
efficiency bill we have been attempting to take up in this Chamber, and 
in particular an amendment I would like to offer to this bill.
  I want to strongly urge my colleagues to please get on this bill. I 
really wish we would do some business here in the Senate. I think we 
are on our way to our second consecutive week where we have not had a 
single vote on a single legislative matter--at least not that I can 
remember--and we have important legislative issues to deal with. I 
happen to think this is one of them. There are many others. This is 
just not acceptable, that we go on and on without addressing the 
challenges we need to address for the sake of the people we represent--
the American people.
  I want to talk about one small particular but important aspect. I 
have an amendment I have filed--and I thank my cosponsors, Senators 
Coburn, Flake, Risch, and Ayotte for joining me in this effort--which 
is an effort to repeal the renewable fuel standard. I want to talk 
about why it is so important we do this.
  First of all, the renewable fuel standard is an old law that is on 
the books. It is a Federal Government mandate that we burn a certain 
amount, a certain volume of ethanol in our gasoline.
  We have gotten to the point where this year this mandate will require 
that over 40 percent of all the corn we grow in America be turned into 
ethanol and burned in the gasoline tanks of our automobiles. We are 
literally burning our food. That is what we are doing on a very large 
scale.
  The way this law works is it requires increases every year in the 
amount of ethanol we are forced to burn through our gasoline tanks. 
This policy is harmful to our environment, it is unambiguously raising 
food prices, it makes it more expensive to fill up at the gas pump, and 
it is threatening good-paying jobs in Pennsylvania and other States. It 
is time for this to go.
  What my amendment would do is completely repeal this renewable fuel 
standard, which is overdue. I know

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there is broad support for peeling this back, and I hope there is a 
majority in this body who would support this amendment if we could only 
get onto it. So I do very much hope we will.
  Let me explain how problematic this is. First of all, let's remember 
the history. The whole idea behind creating this renewable fuel 
standard--behind forcing people to take corn, convert it to ethanol, 
and burn it in their car engine--was that this was somehow going to be 
good for the environment. That was the idea at the time it passed. In 
fact, it is clear that this is bad for the environment. This is 
counterproductive from purely an environmental point of view.
  The Environmental Working Group put out this statement:

       The rapid expansion of corn ethanol production has 
     increased greenhouse gas emissions, worsened air and water 
     pollution, and driven up the price of food and feed.

  This is the Environmental Working Group that came to that conclusion.
  It is widely acknowledged that using corn ethanol instead of gasoline 
actually creates more carbon dioxide emissions--the greenhouse gas 
emissions about which many people are concerned. You have more of that 
when you burn ethanol than when you burn gasoline. In fact, the Clean 
Air Task Force estimates that carbon emissions from corn ethanol 
between 2015 and 2044, on the path we are on now, would exceed 1.4 
billion tons. That is 300 million tons more than if the energy were 
supplied by gasoline instead. So it is counterproductive from a carbon 
emission point of view.
  We have a chart here that quotes a conclusion from a study at 
Stanford University that indicates the harm that ethanol does directly 
to human health.

       Vehicles running on ethanol will generate higher 
     concentrations of ozone than those using gasoline, especially 
     in the winter . . .

  Finally, in 2011 the National Academy of Sciences stated:

       Projected air quality effects from ethanol fuel would be 
     more damaging to human health than those from gasoline use.

  I understand there was a time when we didn't know this, when we had a 
different impression about the health and the air quality implications 
of using ethanol, but we don't have that excuse anymore. It is now 
clear that using ethanol instead of gasoline is net harmful to the 
environment and harmful to human health. That all by itself is a pretty 
good reason to reconsider this, but there are more reasons.
  One is the fact that it is more expensive to produce ethanol than it 
is to produce gasoline. So not only is this harmful to our health, but 
it costs more to do it. The Wall Street Journal estimated that in 2014 
the renewable fuel standard will increase the per-gallon cost of 
gasoline by anywhere from 10 to 25 cents. That adds up. That could be 
over $300 a year on average for the average family. It is billions of 
dollars across our economy. That is a deadweight loss. No good comes 
out of that extra cost. It just reduces the standard of living of 
everybody who is forced to bear that cost.
  In addition to increasing fuel prices, it increases food prices--
which stands to reason. If you take 40 percent of all the corn produced 
in America and you burn it, there is that much less corn available for 
food. And corn is an incredibly basic and important source of food both 
directly and indirectly. This phenomenon alone--the diversion of corn 
for ethanol production--is deemed by many scholars who have looked at 
this as costing maybe as much as a full percentage point a year for the 
average family. That is on the order of over $150 per year that we 
force people to pay in the form of higher food prices alone.
  Another example is the indirect way in which higher corn prices 
filter into the rest of the economy. The fact is that feed grain is 
typically half the cost of raising livestock, and corn is the dominant 
feed grain in America. The USDA's Chief Economist stated that the 
renewable fuel standard increases corn prices between 30 and 40 
percent. And it got so bad, it got so absurd that in 2012 there were 
farmers feeding their cattle candy because it was cheaper to buy candy 
than to buy corn. How absurd is it that the Federal Government policy 
is driving this kind of behavior? It makes no sense at all.
  Another fact about ethanol is that it is harmful to motors. It is 
harmful to engines. The reciprocating piston engines we use in our 
vehicles--motorcycles, boat engines, and others--are designed to burn 
gasoline, they are not designed to burn ethanol. And the EPA has 
acknowledged that ethanol is harmful to these engines because ethanol 
is corrosive. The EPA acknowledged that ``unlike other fuel components, 
ethanol is corrosive.'' It is that water mixture that does damage to 
engines. AAA has warned that raising the ethanol content in fuel 
further--which is what current law has in store for us--will damage 95 
percent of the cars on the road today.
  The last thing I would point out is that this policy threatens good-
paying jobs. I visited a refinery in southeastern Pennsylvania, a 
refinery that employs hundreds of workers in good-paying jobs providing 
the gasoline we need to move our economy, to move our families, to get 
to and from work, and to do all the things we need to do in life. Their 
ability to be a viable, ongoing refinery is jeopardized, it is 
threatened by the renewable fuel standard.
  I wish to read a letter from the AFL-CIO business manager, a 
gentleman named Pat Gillespie whose concern is the job security of the 
workers he represents. And this is a refinery that was shuttered and in 
danger of never reopening. It took an amazing effort by the 
stakeholders in this community to make this viable, and it is viable 
right now and it is employing hundreds of workers in Delaware County. 
The point that he makes is this:
  Our resurrected refinery in Trainer, Pennsylvania once again needs 
your intercession. The impact of the dramatic spike in the cost of the 
RIN credits from four cents to one dollar per gallon will cause a 
tremendous depression in our refinery's bottom line in 2013. Of course 
in the building trades we need them to have economic vitality to bring 
about the construction and maintenance projects that our members depend 
on, and the steel workers of course need the economic vitality so they 
can maintain and expand their jobs with the refinery. We need your 
assistance, your help with this matter.

  I want to provide the help that they need, that Pennsylvanians need, 
that we all need from this ill-conceived policy that clearly has no 
place in the United States anymore. The help is in the form of this 
amendment. This amendment solves the problem. It repeals this ill-
conceived standard completely. It would go away. I know there is 
bipartisan support for this amendment. I have several colleagues who 
cosponsored this amendment. This is our opportunity to pass this 
amendment.
  To recap, this is bad policy on every possible front. The renewable 
fuel standard--forcing us to burn so much of our corn in the form of 
ethanol--is harmful to our environment. It is harmful to human health. 
It increases food prices. It increases fuel prices at the pump. It 
damages the engines on which we rely. It jeopardizes jobs. What more 
arguments do we need to bring an end to this misguided program? We know 
this. We have known this for some time. Now is the time to act.
  So I urge my colleagues, let's get on the bill. Let's have 
amendments. Let's have lots of amendments. If we had spent the last 
week mowing down amendments instead of arguing about them, we would be 
done by now. We could have processed many dozens of amendments easily, 
and one of them could have been this one.
  I don't think it is too late. We could still get on this bill. We 
could still do something that would be very sensible for our 
environment, for our economy, for consumers, for our health, and for 
the sake of our jobs. Let's repeal the renewable fuel standard. Let's 
do it by adopting my amendment, and let's do that by getting on this 
bill.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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