[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 154 (Monday, December 15, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6854-S6857]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 2126
Mr. PORTMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the energy committee be
discharged from further consideration of H.R. 2126 and the Senate
proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be read a third
time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and
laid upon the table.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Mr. COBURN. I object.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, this is with regard to the energy
legislation that passed the House and has four commonsense, simple
provisions we hoped to be able to pass by unanimous consent tonight,
and hopefully I will be able to convince my colleagues it is something
that is good for American jobs, American business, and for energy
efficiency. There are four or five speakers who would like to talk on
this. What I would like to do, if I could, is ask them to begin the
debate here and then I will wrap it up at the end.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I rise in support of my colleague and my
partner in this energy efficiency effort, Senator Portman, to support
his unanimous consent request that the Senate pass H.R. 2126, the
Energy Efficiency Improvement Act.
I am disappointed to hear Senator Coburn's continued objection to
this legislation and to energy efficiency measures. This bill is
identical to a more narrowly focused energy efficiency bill Senator
Portman and I introduced recently in the Senate. It tracks closely to
legislation we have been working on actually for 4 years, the Energy
Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act, also known as Shaheen-
Portman.
The legislation before us, H.R. 2126, is really a shortened version
of Shaheen-Portman. Unfortunately, as we know, the longer version, the
energy efficiency act, has stalled twice on the Senate floor--not due
to concerns about what was in the bill but because of disagreements
over other issues that were related to energy but unrelated to our
bill.
While we may not be able to pass the larger bill this session, the
Senate still has an opportunity to pass meaningful energy efficiency
legislation by passing H.R. 2126. This is bipartisan legislation that
was introduced in the House by Representatives McKinley, a Republican
from West Virginia, and Welch, a Democrat from Vermont, and passed the
House earlier this year with overwhelming support from both sides of
the aisle, 375 to 36.
That broad bipartisan support extends beyond Capitol Hill. It enjoys
the support of business groups and environmental organizations and
efficiency advocates who all recognize that energy efficiency is the
cheapest, fastest way to begin addressing the Nation's energy needs.
Supporters include everyone from the Natural Resources Defense Council,
to the U.S. Green Building Council, to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
and the Real Estate Roundtable. The list of businesses and
organizations that have endorsed this bill numbers over 200.
This bill contains several provisions that will encourage efficient
energy consumption, and as a result of this legislation, consumers and
families will save money. The legislation will grow our economy, create
jobs, and it will reduce pollution. It really is a win-win.
Even though it is not the longer version of energy efficiency
legislation Senator Portman and I have been working on for the last 4
years, it will do a number of things that are critical to address our
energy needs.
First, it will create a voluntary, market-based tenant star program.
This is modeled after the successful ENERGY STAR labeling program from
building owners. It sets up a voluntary certification system for
efficiency and commercial tenant spaces.
I see my colleague from New Hampshire Senator Ayotte, who I think is
going to speak to this provision in the bill.
I think it is important to remind people that what it does not do is
provide financial incentives or create new regulations. It does not do
that. It is a voluntary, market-based, business-friendly approach to
encourage energy efficiency in commercial buildings. It also will
establish a benchmarking and disclosure process for energy consumed in
federally leased buildings, so we will all know how much energy is
being consumed.
Third, it will require Federal agencies to implement strategies to
increase the efficiency of data centers that are operated by the
Federal Government--a huge user of energy.
Finally, it will remove a regulatory barrier to the manufacturer of
large-scale water heaters. It is something Senator Hoeven has been
working on for a long time.
These four commonsense, targeted provisions are widely supported. As
I said, they will grow our economy and help create jobs and demand for
the American-made energy efficiency technologies. They will save
businesses and families money on their energy bills, and they will cut
pollution.
I am pleased to join Senator Portman in this unanimous consent
request, and I am disappointed that once again we are going to be
prevented from moving forward with commonsense energy efficiency
measures. I do hope that with the continued support on both sides of
the aisle for energy efficiency, we will be able to come back before
the end of this year and pass this measure.
Thank you very much.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Ms. AYOTTE. Mr. President, first of all, I wish to thank my colleague
from New Hampshire for her leadership on this important legislation,
and I join her request, as well as the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Portman's
request for unanimous consent on H.R. 2126 that passed the House
overwhelmingly in March by a vote of 375 to 36. Why is that? Because
this is commonsense, bipartisan legislation that creates jobs,
increases energy efficiency, reduces the amount of energy we need to
use, and less pollution--and think about our overall goals of making
sure America remains safe, energy independent, and energy secure, and
it does it all in a way that is market-based, in a way that you have
seen overwhelming support from both the business community and the
environmental community.
This House bill on which we are asking unanimous consent is a
companion bill to the work done by Senators Portman and Shaheen in the
Energy Efficiency Improvement Act, of which I am proud to be a
cosponsor. This is an area where I believe we can find strong common
ground in this body--energy efficiency measures that are market based,
that move us forward to use less energy and create American jobs.
Within this bill is a provision called the Better Buildings Act,
which I was proud to introduce with Senator Bennet from Colorado, and
this is commonsense, no-cost legislation that would help boost energy
efficiency in commercial buildings through the design and construction
of efficiency improvements in leased tenant spaces in commercial
buildings. So one of the important pieces of this legislation that is
contained in the Better Buildings Act actually brings the tenants into
the discussion. It is voluntary. It creates a situation where we have
tenants and owners working together to reduce energy costs, save us
money, and create jobs.
So I am hopeful that this bill will be cleared, this legislation. If
you look at the list of groups that are supporting this legislation, it
is not often that these groups all come together, and it really speaks
to the commonsense nature of this legislation, the importance of it.
I, again, want to thank my colleagues for their leadership,
especially Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman. I hope as a body we can
get this done because this is just plain common sense.
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I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alaska.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I too want to join in the unanimous
consent that has been raised by my colleagues Senator Portman and
Senator Shaheen on this very important bill. I have to say it feels a
little bit like instead of calling it the energy efficiency bill, we
need to call it the groundhog day bill because it just keeps coming
back. It is a measure that, as my colleagues have mentioned, is so
commonsense. When we think about ways that we can do more to be
responsible stewards of our energy resources and do more to reduce our
costs, energy efficiency is just calling to us all.
What we have in front of us today is not the full-on energy
efficiency bill that Senators Shaheen and Portman have been working so
diligently on for so many years now, but it is a slimmed-down version
coming across from the House, a House-drafted, Republican-sponsored,
cost neutral bill that passed that Chamber on suspension back in March,
as was noted, by an overwhelming margin of 375 to 36. There are four
major provisions in the bill, but none of these provisions are
controversial. Probably the most important to us right now is the time-
sensitive provision that provides regulatory relief for our rural
electric co-ops. Under a consent decree from 2010, water heater
manufacturers have until just mid-April--April 16--of this next year to
meet revised minimum efficiency standards from the Department of
Energy.
So you have got a situation where, in anticipation of this deadline,
companies that make certain types of water heaters are already stopping
their production. As a result, you are going to have co-ops that will
effectively no longer have the ability to purchase them and use them in
their systems. So they are coming to us and saying, ``Help.'' We need
to have some certainty here and now.
What we do in this measure--what the House does is simply exempt
rural co-ops and creates a different, achievable standard for them. It
is a compromise that has been forged by the co-ops, the industry, the
Department of Energy. Senator Hoeven has been leading on this and has
been great. This is something that needs to be addressed and it needs
to be addressed now rather than later.
The remaining provisions within this measure are all voluntary
efficiency programs. One focuses on the efficiency of commercial office
buildings, another provides greater information about energy usage in
the buildings, and then the third looks at energy-efficient government
technology and practices.
Again, none of these are controversial. None of them impose mandates,
penalties, or taxes. CBO has deemed them to cost nothing. So there is
only benefit. There is only an upside. So, again, we have seen the
full-on energy efficiency measure before us now two separate times on
this floor. We have reported that bill from the energy committee on a
strong bipartisan basis.
We really should be moving to do right when it comes to energy
efficiency. Senators Shaheen and Portman have led that effort. The
House has now acted. It is unfortunate that we will not be able to
resolve this. But I am certainly committed to working with my
colleagues in the new year to advance what, again, is just simple
common sense.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I would like to thank the Senator from
Alaska for her leadership of our energy committee on this and many
other important energy issues. I want to follow along with much of what
she just covered and why it is important.
In this legislation, which is sponsored by Senator Portman and
Senator Shaheen, there are a number of energy efficiency measures. But
the one she emphasized and the one which I want to emphasize is the
water heater efficiency provision. This is a commonsense provision. It
is very important for people in rural areas across the country.
The rural electric cooperatives have been very strong on working to
get this legislation passed. They have gotten it passed in the House on
behalf of all of those people out there in rural America where this can
make a real difference in terms of quality of life, but at the same
time save energy and save money. So it is one of those measures where
everyone wins all the way around.
We have sponsored this in a number of different forms. We have not
been able to move it through the Senate yet. We will, I am convinced,
move it through next year. But as the good Senator from Alaska said,
there are some timelines here that make it very important that we get
the measure passed.
Essentially what we are dealing with is in 2010, the Department of
Energy issued a rule on water heaters that will effectively ban the
manufacture of large electric water heaters beginning in 2015--so next
year--which could greatly affect consumers in rural areas and hurt the
effectiveness of some of our demand-response rural programs.
Many of our rural areas are not serviced by natural gas, and
geothermal water heaters can cost many thousands of dollars. So this is
a practical win-win amendment that improves the efficiency of electric
water heaters but still lets our rural areas have access to affordable,
efficient water heaters that can supplement renewable energy.
Electric cooperatives and other utilities have voluntary demand-
response programs that use electric water heaters to more effectively
manage power supply and demand. In those areas where renewables are
part of the electric generation system, those water heaters facilitate
the integration of renewable energy that can be stored for use during
peak hours, like wind and solar energy.
So this provision would allow the continued manufacture of large
grid-enabled electric resistance water heaters only for use in electric
thermal storage or demand-response programs, meaning you are using
offpeak load. So you are using lower cost energy, energy that otherwise
would be lost. So, again, it really is a win for everybody involved.
This provision would require grid-enabled water heaters to have a
volume of more than 75 gallons, be energy efficient, and work on grids
that have a demand-response program. It is that simple. It is that
straightforward. It is that commonsense.
But it affects a tremendous number of people across rural America,
people in States such as Indiana, North Dakota, Ohio, across the
country. I am convinced we are going to get this. The issue is when. We
are facing this timeline, as I say, in 2015.
I will conclude with some of the organizations that support this
legislation. I do not know of anyone opposing it. We have got a
tremendous number of organizations that support it, including the Air
Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, the American
Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, the American Public Power
Association, Edison Electric Institute, the General Electric Company,
National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, the National Resource
Defense Council, the Northwest Energy Alliance.
The bill saves money, it saves energy, it benefits the environment,
it benefits consumers. Look, we need to get it passed. This bill on the
floor easily gets more than enough to pass on a bipartisan basis with
flying colors.
I would certainly yield the floor to our leader on this important
issue, the good Senator from Ohio.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from North Dakota.
He has done a great job of talking about the importance of the overall
bill, and then these four small provisions we are trying to do tonight.
But specifically he made a great point about the importance of dealing
with this water heater issue. He feels it every day, because in North
Dakota he is hearing from his rural electric co-ops saying: This is
crazy. Why would we not go ahead and pass this legislation?
In effect, what he just said was: We need to pass this legislation to
be able to keep the Federal Government from imposing a regulation that
makes no sense for anybody, whether you believe in energy efficiency or
not. It makes no sense for anybody.
I am hopeful we can get this done. I know we had an objection earlier
in the
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process this evening. I am hopeful we can convince the colleague from
Oklahoma who objected that this is commonsense legislation that has to
get passed.
We have heard from Senator Shaheen also, who has been the Democrat
leader on this with me. We also heard from the chairman of the energy
committee come January, Senator Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska.
She is a strong supporter. We have heard from Senator Ayotte, also a
Republican from New Hampshire, who is an expert on energy efficiency as
it relates to what is called Tenant Star and better building programs.
This is one thing that we ought to be getting done here during this
lameduck session of Congress. We are doing other things that I think
could be improved, but this is one where it is so simple.
Just to be sure people understand what we are talking about tonight,
these are four provisions that have all passed the Senate committees,
have all passed the House committees--unanimously, by the way, these
four provisions passed unanimously in the Republican House of
Representatives. It has come to the floor twice here in the Senate.
For other reasons which had to do with process and not allowing
amendments, the overall bill was objected to, but not these four
provisions. Then these four provisions went to the House floor for a
vote. They were passed overwhelmingly 375 to 36. This is the sort of
legislation that has been fully vetted. Everybody knows what is in it.
It is being supported across the spectrum. We could help people right
away.
There is also an urgency here, because these manufacturers that are
making these water heaters that the Department of Energy, under their
regulations, wants to prohibit, those manufacturers are telling us the
deadline is right now. Even though it is not until March-April that the
regulations have a deadline, the manufacturers are already stopping
production of these water heaters because it takes that long to get
them manufactured and get them distributed out to those rural co-ops.
It is urgent that we do this now and not wait until January. If we do
not, we are going to hurt a lot of consumers and we are going to hurt a
lot of these rural electric co-ops, and again do something that makes
no sense. You want to encourage these water heaters to be built,
because these water heaters are part of a program where, because they
are not used during peak times, called the demand-response program,
they actually save energy. This is a good thing. I am hopeful that
provision will be able to get through, along with the others.
This is a bill, again, that has already passed the House, unanimously
out of committee, overwhelming vote on the floor. All we have to do
tonight is say yes and it goes to the President for his signature. The
administration has indicated they will sign it. It will then become
law.
There are three other provisions we should also talk about. One is
called the Tenant Star provision. It was talked about a little bit
earlier tonight. Let me be sure people understand what it is.
Some of you are aware of a program for appliances called ENERGY STAR.
That is so you, as the consumer, can go into an appliance store and
determine whether something meets the standard, the Good Housekeeping
Seal for energy efficiency. When we bought a dryer recently, that was
nice to be able to know whether it had the stamp of approval. Some
people like energy-efficient appliances. Why? It saves you money. It is
also good for the environment. So that is not a mandate. It is not a
tax incentive. It is not a grant program. It contains no regulatory
authority. There is nothing in it that requires any new spending. But
it does give a boost and a powerful branding opportunity to commercial
real estate owners to market their buildings to tenants, investors, and
other key audiences. It says, just as the appliance Good Housekeeping
Seal says, it says to a business owner: This tenant space is efficient.
It meets the Tenant Star requirements. That is why this provision is so
strongly supported by the commercial real estate industry,
organizations such as the Real Estate Roundtable, the International
Council of Shopping Centers.
By the way, the industry considers this provision as an important
alternative to onerous regulations. They like this because this is
voluntary. As consumers, we should all like it, because it is something
that gives us more information to be able to make a good decision.
The third provision we are talking about tonight has to do with the
Federal Government. Let me make this very clear. The Federal Government
is the biggest user of energy in the world, and one of the
most inefficient, unfortunately. So the Federal Government said:
Everybody needs to be more focused on energy efficiency.
As I looked at this, we ought to get the Federal Government to
practice what it preaches. That is what this provision does. It does it
with regard to information technology. We hear constantly from outside
groups that this is one area that is ripe for savings. In other words,
there are lots of energy savings that could be accomplished in the
energy area through information technology being used more efficiently.
We have had hearings on this, had testimony on this. We know this is
an area where we can have a lot of savings. This would require the
Federal Government, again, to coordinate with the Office of Management
and Budget, with the Department of Energy, with EPA, to develop an
implementation strategy that includes best practices, measurements,
verification techniques for the maintenance of IT, the purchase of IT,
the use of energy-efficient information technology.
There is so much more we can do here with regard to IT. We know that.
That is why it passed the House unanimously in committee and
overwhelmingly on the floor, because we know this is an area where the
Federal Government--your tax dollars being spent can be much more
efficient, good for the environment, good for taxpayers, less energy,
and overall good for our energy policy in this country.
Finally, the fourth provision. Remember, four simple provisions have
to do with an existing requirement that commercial buildings leased by
the Federal Government have to disclose their energy usage. This
modifies that provision. It says you have got to provide more
information with regard to what the actual energy usage is in these
buildings.
Again, the Federal Government--recall, largest energy user in the
world--to make them more efficient with regard to their buildings makes
all the sense in the world. These are commercial buildings leased by
the Federal Government. So, again, this is not a mandate on the private
sector. This does not cost anything. It does say that we need to modify
the requirements of commercial buildings leased by the Federal
Government to disclose their energy usage data.
This would help all of us. These are commonsense proposals. They are
bipartisan. They are long overdue. They can go to the President after a
vote tonight for his signature. They could become law.
I want to thank everyone who has been involved in this small bill,
getting it to the floor, including Senator Murkowski, whom we heard
from earlier, who is the ranking member, soon to be Chair of the energy
committee; also Senator Landrieu, the current Chair of that committee.
Also Senator Ayotte we heard from, Senator Shaheen, Senator Hoeven,
Senator Bennet were on the floor earlier to speak on this issue.
I want to thank the many industry groups, the businesses, the energy
efficiency organizations out there that have helped us to craft
legislation with such broad support.
The least expensive energy is energy we don't use. Yes, we should
produce more energy. I am for that. We should also use the energy we
have more efficiently. It helps create jobs. It helps make our country
safer because it is a national security issue to make America energy
independent.
It ensures that we will have a better environment, and it ensures
that every dollar a small business or manufacturer is spending on
energy is used most efficiently. It makes us more competitive in this
global economy we find ourselves in. That leads to more jobs, higher
wages, all the things we should be doing in this Congress.
I thank the Presiding Officer for listening tonight. I thank the
American people for listening, and I hope they
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will strongly support the legislation we are putting forward tonight
and the broader bill that will come to the floor we hope after the
first of the year, because after the first of the year we will have a
chance to take up this issue, not only these four provisions if they
aren't passed over the next couple of days but a broader bill that will
be broadly supported by Republicans and Democrats alike that will help
our country become more energy efficient.
I yield back the remainder of my time and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Warren). The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WALSH. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call
be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________