[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 12858-12860]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Mr. SALAZAR. Madam President, let me first say my colleague from 
North Dakota does an incredible job in terms of leading our country 
with a voice that stands for fiscal discipline. When he talks about the 
mountain of debt that we are continuing to build in this country, and 
passing on that mountain of debt to our children and our grandchildren, 
the American people deserve more of this Congress and more of 
Washington, DC, and more of this President. I look forward to his 
continuing leadership on this issue to try and bring about fiscal 
integrity and fiscal honesty to the United States of America. The 
American people deserve no less than that kind of candor and integrity 
from the Senate.
  I rise today to talk about an urgent issue which we all ought to be 
very concerned about in the United States of America. That is the issue 
of energy. Last year, this Senate put together a bipartisan template on 
the National Energy Policy Act of 2005 which may go down in our history 
as being one of the most important achievements of the 109th Congress. 
Notwithstanding the fact that we put together energy legislation that 
did some great things for conservation, that stood out for renewable 
energy, that said that new technologies were part of how we could lock 
in the future of our Nation's energy independence, we have had many 
opportunities to move forward and to continue to address the issue of 
energy. Yet we have not done that as a Congress nor as a Senate.
  Six months of this year have already passed. It has been 5 months 
since the President of the United States, before the American people, 
said that we were addicted to foreign oil and we needed to take 
aggressive steps to move forward to get ourselves to energy 
independence.
  I had the honor of hosting the President at the National Renewable 
Energy Lab in Golden, CO, and we looked at the possibility of renewable 
energy. Yet some 6 months after that January speech, we still are here 
in this Senate without having moved forward with any significant kind 
of energy legislation. That is wrong. Part of the people's business, 
the highest priority, is for us to look at this energy dilemma we are 
facing in this country and to embrace in a real, honest, and ethical 
way the imperative that moves us toward energy independence.
  I will address part of what I think we ought to be doing with our 
movement toward energy independence in our country today. The time to 
get serious about growing our way to energy independence is long 
overdue. If Brazil, a Third World country, can do it, it is inexcusable 
for the United States of America, the strongest Nation on Earth, to do 
otherwise.
  Today in Brazil, ethanol substitutes for 204,000 barrels of gasoline 
sold every day. Over 40 percent of all the gasoline that is sold 
nationally in Brazil comes from ethanol, making that country energy 
independent today.
  In the last couple of months, we have had a lot of ideas discussed in 
this Senate and through multiple press conferences about how we can 
ease the pain at the pump for the American consumers. We have heard 
ideas to give $100 tax rebates. We heard ideas to create a tax holiday 
for gas, to enact a Federal gas price-gouging statute, to reduce the 
number of fuels that are currently on the market, to end royalty 
relief, and on and on. There are lots of ideas talked about that we 
should give careful consideration.
  We should also talk straight to the American people. We are a nation 
that relies on oil to power our economy. We

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import almost 60 percent of our oil from countries such as Saudi 
Arabia, Nigeria, Iraq, and Venezuela. We are hostage to a cartel of 
oil-producing countries that decide how much oil will reach the market 
at any given moment. Many Members of this cartel are unfriendly to the 
United States. They know how much power their oil has over our national 
security.
  The bottom line is that energy independence is important to all of us 
in the 21st century if we are to achieve national security.
  Without a reliable and affordable supply of homegrown energy, our 
dependence on foreign oil will only continue to increase, further 
warping our foreign policy and jeopardizing the stability of our 
economy. If we continue at our current pace, in two decades we will be 
importing 70 percent of our oil from foreign countries. We cannot 
afford to stay that course on our energy policy.
  Expanding our domestic production of oil and gas is an important 
component in our Nation's movement toward energy independence. We 
should continue to encourage the balanced development of the resources 
that we have. We should accelerate our development of clean coal 
technologies to produce clean-burning synfuel gases and jet fuels from 
coal, an abundant domestic resource. But none of the rhetoric can 
change the fact that we just don't have enough petroleum resources in 
this country to drill our way to energy independence.
  Today, we are the world's third leading producer of oil, but our rate 
of oil consumption--primarily for transportation--is almost three times 
our rate of oil production. Furthermore, the sad truth is that we only 
have 3 percent of the world's reserves in the United States of America. 
That 3 percent includes the proven reserves in the State of Alaska.
  We ought to look at our renewable energy future. If we make a 
dramatic, perhaps even a revolutionary new commitment to renewable 
energy, the fuel grown in American fields can help power our vehicle 
fleet. With a bold new commitment, we can produce enough fuel on our 
farm lands and ranch lands to meet 25 percent of our energy needs by 
the year 2025.
  Farmers and ranchers and all of rural America are rallying behind 
this cry for a goal of ``25 by 25.'' Our farmers are growing corn, 
soybeans, and sunflowers to be used for ethanol and biodiesel. Ranchers 
are building windfarms and using animal manure for power. Rural 
business men and women are investing in biorefineries. New jobs are 
springing up in many places where they had no jobs. Rural economies, 
long forgotten, are starting to gather steam as part of the renewable 
energy chapter opens in America.
  It is time for Congress as a whole to embrace rural America's vision 
for this renewable energy future. Senator Chuck Grassley and I have 
introduced a resolution that would make ``25 by 25'' our national goal.
  I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this resolution because producing 
25 percent of our energy on agricultural lands by 2025 is, in fact, a 
fully achievable goal. We can do it. We can do it if we get on task and 
we make a bipartisan commitment to work toward this goal. We should 
begin on this goal immediately.
  First, we should raise the renewable fuel standards we set in last 
year's Energy Policy Act. That goal, in law today, is to produce 7.5 
billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2012. That goal is far too 
modest. We will easily meet this goal under current policies. Yet we 
will not be putting enough renewable fuels on the market to give 
consumers a real choice or to make a real dent in our oil dependence on 
foreign countries. We should increase this target so we are producing 9 
billion gallons of renewable fuel by 2012 and 30 billion gallons of 
renewable fuel by the year 2025.
  Second, we should extend the renewable energy production tax credit 
until 2012. The existing production tax credit is now set to expire in 
2007. That creates uncertainty for business people and investors who 
want to invest in renewable energy.
  We have legislation that I have introduced, S. 1093, the Research and 
Development Investment Act, which extends the renewable energy 
production tax credits through 2012, allowing more investment and 
quicker growth in the renewable energy market.
  Next, we should pass S. 2025, the Vehicle and Fuel Choices for 
American Security Act. This is an important piece of legislation with 
broad bipartisan support. S. 2025 will essentially do three simple but 
very important conceptual things.
  First, it will increase the amount of biofuels we currently are 
producing in America. Second, it will ensure there are filling stations 
that are available across the country that will provide alternative 
fuels to give that choice to the American consumer. And, third, it will 
also help transform Detroit to embrace alternative fuel vehicle 
systems.
  Right now, the United States consumes around 20 million barrels of 
oil every day. Twenty million barrels of oil every day are consumed in 
America. Two-thirds of those 20 million barrels a day are consumed in 
our transportation system--by our cars and our trucks--across this 
country. This is alarming: The massive amount of oil we are importing 
is barley enough to cover the needs of the transportation sector.
  S. 2025 tackles this problem head on. It brings more gallons of 
biofuels to the market. It gives consumers access to alternative fuels. 
It retools America's vehicle fleet to run more efficiently and to run 
on alternative fuels. By passing S. 2025, we will give consumers more 
choices of fuels and vehicles, lower and stabilize the cost of fuel, 
and reduce our reliance on foreign oil.
  This is not a Republican or Democratic agenda. This is an American 
agenda. And this American agenda toward energy independence is 
demonstrated by the group of Senators who are supporting S. 2025. They 
include Senator Brownback, Senator Bayh, Senator Graham, Senator 
Cantwell, Senator Lieberman, Senator Coleman, Senator Dodd, Senator 
Bill Nelson, Senator Isakson, Senator Kohl, Senator Lugar, Senator 
Obama, Senator Sessions, Senator Clinton, Senator Chafee, and others. 
We think this bill is effective, and we would hope the Senate can move 
forward and embrace this bill and pass it so the President can sign it 
yet this year.
  What S. 2025 does, in more detail, is it is aggressive in encouraging 
the increased production of biofuels. It provides loan guarantees to 
farmer-owned ethanol producers, to help them make investments in 
renewable energy systems and infrastructure. It also increases the 
ethanol infrastructure tax credit that we passed last summer in the 
Energy Policy Act so that credit is set at 50 percent. This will lower 
the startup costs for farmers and communities and businesspeople who 
want to build a biorefinery or a processing plant.
  These producers will benefit from the bill's investments in biofuels 
research. By doubling the funding for biofuels research, S. 2025 will 
improve yields and efficiencies and expand the range of feedstocks that 
can be used for biofuels production.
  Secondly, S. 2025 helps reduce our foreign oil dependency by giving 
consumers access to alternative fuels at filling stations. Currently, 
in the United States, we have 5 million flexible fuel vehicles. These 
vehicles can run on either gasoline or E-85, an 85-percent ethanol-
gasoline mix. We today are adding about 1.5 million of these flex-fuel 
vehicles to our national fleet every year. The trouble is, as you well 
know, there are only 485 filling stations in the country that carry E-
85. There are only 485 filling stations today in the country that carry 
E-85. We have the technology on the road that allows cars to run on 
biofuels, but because consumers cannot pump E-85 fuel at their local 
filling station, we are not taking full advantage of the oil-saving 
rewards of the flex-fuel technology, which is now being deployed into 
our national fleet.
  S. 2025 would solve this problem. It would solve this problem by 
helping to build the pumps and filling station infrastructure needed to 
deliver biofuels to consumers. The bill provides loan

[[Page 12860]]

guarantees and tax incentives to farmers and business owners for the 
construction of pump stations to dispense fuels. It also uses CAFE 
penalties that have already been collected by the Government from 
foreign manufacturers to expand funding for grants to finance 
alternative fueling infrastructure.
  One of the DOE grantees from this year alone, the National Ethanol 
Vehicle Coalition, will be able to build 300 stations with its $2 
million grant. With at least 10 times the amount of that funding 
available, we should be able to equip at least 3,000 filling stations 
across America with the infrastructure that delivers biofuels to 
consumers who are in search for these alternative fuels.
  The economic benefits of giving these fuel choices to consumers are 
clear. If consumers can rely on filling their tank with E-85 fuel 
wherever they go, demand for the fuel and demand for cars that run on 
E-85 will increase dramatically, cutting demand for petroleum-based 
fuel. Not only will this help us deal with gas prices, but it will also 
stabilize them. We can count on our farmers to harvest their crops, but 
we cannot count--we cannot count--on Iran or the Middle East to sell us 
their oil.
  Finally, S. 2025 will help us retool our national vehicle fleet. S. 
2025 sets goals for improving the efficiency of our vehicle fleet and 
for getting more advanced vehicles on the road. It sets these goals and 
then helps manufacturers retool their vehicle fleets to meet them.
  The bill sets targets for manufacturers to produce alternative fuel 
vehicles, plug-in hybrids, fuel cell vehicles, flexible-fuel vehicles, 
and other technologies which can run on regular gasoline or biofuel 
alternatives. By 2012, 1 in 10 vehicles produced will be advanced 
vehicles. By 2016, 1 in 2 vehicles produced will be advanced vehicles 
that can run on these alternative fuels or these advanced technologies.
  We will help manufacturers make these changes to their fleets. The 
bill establishes a tax credit for the costs the manufacturers incur 
when they are retooling or expanding their facilities to produce 
advanced vehicles. The bill also authorizes support for research that 
will provide lightweight materials to the auto industry and for 
technology for electric drive trains, batteries, and plug-in hybrids.
  The bill closes the SUV tax loophole, limits idling by buses, and 
requires that fuel economy standards be set for heavy duty vehicles so 
we can stop burning fuel we do not need to burn. For each 1 mile per 
gallon efficiency we find in this country, we save 1 million barrels of 
oil per day, or $20 billion a year.
  These are sensible, easy-to-implement solutions. Many of them, many 
of these ideas, have now been included in two bills that Senator 
Bingaman, Senator Chafee, Senator Lieberman, Senator Coleman, Senator 
Cantwell, and I and others have introduced. These are the Enhanced 
Energy Security Act of 2006, which will push the Federal Government to 
save 2.5 million barrels of oil per day by 2016, and at least 10 
million barrels per day by 2031, and the new energy tax bill, which 
provides multiple incentives to manufacturers, businesses, and 
consumers alike to utilize energy-efficient programs and alternatives 
themselves.
  The provisions of S. 2025 and the energy tax bill will give consumers 
more choices at the pump and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
  Each of us should be asking: What if we do nothing? What if we do 
nothing? What if we continue our malignant neglect of the long-term 
energy policy of the United States of America? If we do continue this 
malignant neglect, we will become increasingly vulnerable to the 
instabilities and whims of countries across the globe. The American 
consumer will continue to suffer, and the American economy will have 
lost an opportunity that has come its way.
  We have devoted a lot of time to many issues over the last 6 months 
of this year in this Congress. We have not devoted enough time on this 
floor to the issue of energy and of energy independence. We need to do 
so because to do otherwise is to neglect the national security of the 
United States.
  When you have a system that starts to break down, you have to address 
the cause as well as the symptoms of the problem. If your roof keeps 
springing leaks, you don't just put more and more buckets out. What you 
do is you eventually build yourself a new roof. We need to build a new 
energy policy in America, one that is built on the promise of renewable 
energy, technology, and conservation.
  I believe Americans are eager for us as a Senate to do this. In 
States across the country, people are enacting renewable portfolio 
standards and demanding access to alternative energies. They imagine a 
renewable energy future that harnesses the business and work ethic of 
rural America and which breathes new life into sagging rural economies. 
They look at fields of corn, soy, and sunflowers and see the raw 
materials for biodiesel and for ethanol.
  The renewable energy revolution is already underway in America thanks 
to farmers and ranchers and businesspeople who have been leading it, 
who have been doing their part. We now, as a Congress, need to do our 
part to push the renewable energy revolution forward.
  I urge our Senate, in a bipartisan fashion, following the template of 
last year's national Energy Policy Act, to move forward to secure 
America's renewable energy future by making ``25 by 25'' our national 
goal.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thune). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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