[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 26404]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    ENERGY INDEPENDENCE IS THE GOAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Jindal). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I come from agriculture country in 
southeast Georgia, and it is always remarkable to me that 2 percent of 
our population feeds not just 100 percent of the American population 
but a great deal of people all around the world. In fact, one thing 
that is even more interesting is that our ag production outpaces our ag 
consumption. We have more food than we can eat because our farm supply 
is so strong. Very vital of course to have food, but it is also vital 
in our society to have energy and fuel for our cars. Yet the world 
demand and the world supply are almost even. And the gentleman knows 
from the gulf coast what havoc Katrina played not only on the 90,000 
square miles of the gulf coast, but when it comes to energy and 
gasoline supply, indeed all of America. In fact there was a world 
disruption because of that.
  In the United States, we consume over 20 million barrels of crude oil 
a day, nearly 25 percent of the consumption for the entire globe; and 
yet the United States only has about 3 percent of the world's oil 
reserves. Worse than that, we import from countries about 60 percent, 
and these countries are not always our friends. A lot of it comes from 
the Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait. We have got some 
from South America, Venezuela. We all remember last week what Hugo 
Chavez of Venezuela did to the President when he was down there to give 
him a warm welcome.
  Because energy is a national security risk, I have introduced today, 
along with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel) and a number of 
Republicans and a number of Democrats, the Fuel Choice American 
Security Act of 2005. And what this bill does is it seeks to get us off 
Middle East oil by the year 2015. We will not be free from importing 
oil from around the world; but when it comes to the Middle East, we 
will be able to say, We can buy from you, but we do not have to buy 
from you.
  Our bill does a number of things. Number one, it sets a goal. It says 
that by the year 2015 we will have reduced our oil consumption 2.5 
million barrels a day. That is a 10 percent reduction and that would 
get us free from the Middle East.
  It also requires that the General Accounting Office scores energy-
related bills that we consider on the floor of Congress, and it gives 
Members of Congress a clear idea does this bill make you more dependent 
on foreign oil or less dependent; and does it move you closer to that 
goal of energy or fuel independence by 2015, or does it move it further 
away.
  Secondly, what this bill does is it provides incentives to automobile 
manufacturers and to consumers to buy more and produce more energy-
efficient automobiles. We double the tax credit for the purchasing of 
hybrids. We encourage automobile manufacturers to use light materials 
in the manufacturing of their cars. We put money, or incentives into 
municipalities to move towards the plug-in flexible fuel fleets when it 
comes to automobile taxicabs and so forth.
  We give incentives to gasoline companies so that they will switch 
pumps so that when a consumer pulls in, they can have their choice of 
fuels for their automobiles. We also say that when you purchase tires 
you ought to know how many miles per gallon those tires should help you 
get. People do not even realize it, but if you inflate your tires 
right, you get more miles per gallon. And our consumers do not know 
that.
  The third thing our bill does is it increases energy choice by 
investing more money into biomass, and that could be any kind of 
biomass there is. It also takes the import tax off of ethanol from 
other countries. In Brazil today, 40 percent of the cars run on 
ethanol. In America, only 3 percent do. Brazil actually has surplus 
ethanol. We have a goal, we call it E 10 by 10. The gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) is one of the champions of it. It says 10 
percent of the gasoline will have ethanol in it by the year 2010. We 
are in agreement with that.
  But the domestic production of ethanol through the corn supply alone 
will not get us there. We need to have corn, we need to have sugar, we 
need to have pine needles. We need to have whatever can get us that 
ethanol supply. But in the mean time, why are we taxing a source of 
energy from a country like Brazil? What we need to do is take that 
export tax off there, and that is what our bill does.
  And finally, we ask the Federal Government to audit their agencies to 
figure out what can you do to save gasoline. One example, I will close 
with this, Mr. Speaker. Think about Saturday mail delivery. We pay 100 
percent of the fuel cost to deliver 30 percent of the mail that we do 
on Monday through Friday. In this day of e-mail, do we really need 
Saturday mail delivery anymore?
  Those are just some of the things the bill does, Mr. Speaker. It does 
move us towards energy independence by the year 2015, which is what we 
need. And I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) for letting me get 
in front of him.

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