[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15375-15377]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor, like many of my 
colleagues today, to talk about the direction--I should say new 
direction--we need in our energy policy. I know the President of the 
United States is coming up to meet with my Republican colleagues for 
lunch today and to talk about both immigration and energy policy. I 
hope the President will emphasize how important it is we get an energy 
bill but certainly that we get an energy bill that sets a new direction 
in America.
  Obviously, the history and strength of our Nation lies in our ability 
to continually invent new ways of doing things. We are great as a 
nation in doing that. Whether it is building the most reliable 
electricity grid in the world, laying down a massive Interstate System, 
or helping to create the Internet, our people have marched forward in 
new, breathtaking directions. These achievements have historically 
provided our Nation with immense prosperity and a quality of life we 
all cherish.
  The problem is our basic energy and transportation system is 50 to 
100 years old. Today, we are faced with two choices: whether we are 
going to continue to operate the energy system that is a relic of the 
past century or we are going to create a new roadmap for the future 
that will allow Americans to again be global energy leaders. It is that 
simple.
  Some will say our energy and transportation system is working fine 
and we should leave it the way it is. We have a lot of special 
interests swirling around Washington, DC, right now hoping we do not 
make much progress. But I would say we do not have to look any further 
than the pocketbook of Americans to know we are feeling severe impacts 
on our economy and our environment, and that doing nothing is not an 
option.
  We are selling out too much in saying we cannot make aggressive 
change. We are shelling out too much to fill up our gas tanks, and our 
local communities are losing too many jobs. All the while, we sacrifice 
more and more what is an engine to the U.S. economy; that is, 
affordable energy supply.
  We cannot continue to drive forward only looking in the rearview 
mirror and saying we are going to be dependent on foreign oil. We need 
to do better.

[[Page 15376]]

  Over 100 years ago, many of our homes were lit with kerosene. If you 
think about the early days, we traveled not by automobile but by foot 
or on horseback. Then a new industrial revolution took place, and it 
was, as the Presiding Officer knows, driven by newly invented coal-
powered steam engines. It played an incredible part in our country's 
history.
  Then a number of scrappy entrepreneurs came along, people such as 
Colonel Drake in Pennsylvania, who drilled the first oil well. 
Americans went on to capitalize on that new fuel to power our industry 
and provide great mobility for our people in this Nation.
  Other entrepreneurs, such as Thomas Edison and his colleagues, were 
working on ways to harness electricity for light, sound, telephones, 
and transportation.
  Shortly after that, Charles Baker and his daughter switched on the 
first electric power generation in the Northwest--something that still 
provides cheap, affordable electricity to us in the Northwest.
  Well, today it is time for a set of new, scrappy entrepreneurs, those 
who are going to lead in industry and help us get ready for a new 
energy infrastructure, and to take our country in a new direction. 
Improvements and changes are desperately needed to retain our standard 
of living and to make the United States an energy leader again.
  Just like 100 years ago, these entrepreneurs are working today 
throughout our Nation. Farmers, such as those in Minnesota, are now 
supplementing their income from farm products by putting wind 
generation on their farms. A California professor is inventing new 
technology to enable the manufacture, in any industrial park, of new 
alternative fuel from simple plant material. In Spokane, WA, energy 
investors are focused on building a smart electricity grid that is 
going to allow consumers to save more.
  What the Government did at the dawn of the last century was to help 
in the energy transformation. What we need to do today is to enable 
this energy transformation to take our country in a new direction. We 
need to embrace the new technologies that keep more energy dollars in 
America's pocketbook. The next chapter in American's energy story needs 
to be less about record oil profits and more about how we are going to 
help the American consumer keep energy dollars here in America and grow 
the American economy.
  It is time Congress and the Federal Government start leading. The 
longer we put up with the status quo, the farther and farther behind 
our people and businesses are going to fall, and the more 
unconscionable the profits oil companies and foreign interests make, 
the more challenging it is for the United States environmentally, 
internationally, and economically. America's goal--here on the floor of 
the Senate, our role as a Government entity--should be to set the goals 
where our Nation needs to go and how our constituents will benefit.
  We should not pick technology winners or losers, but we should make 
sure there is a level playing field so there is new investment in 
energy strategies. We are here to put those elements in place that will 
help catapult America into being an energy leader.
  I know many of my colleagues have talked about energy independence. 
But we are talking about keeping energy dollars in America's 
pocketbook. I say that because so many Americans are feeling the price 
at the pump. Right now, they are feeling that price at the pump because 
America spends $291 billion per year on importing foreign oil. Over 60 
percent of our total consumption is coming from foreign sources, and 
that is only going to increase.
  The production of 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022 would help 
us reduce foreign imports by over 1 million barrels a day. That is why 
this underlying legislation is so important.
  But what should our goal be? Our goal should be a 20-percent 
reduction in gasoline consumption by 2017. That is what this underlying 
bill gets at, and that would help consumers achieve a $2.50-per-barrel 
reduction in world oil prices because the United States would get into 
the homegrown fuel business. But we have to do more than just 
alternative fuel; we have to become more fuel efficient. That is why 
this legislation is so important, because it would actually help us 
save $25 billion annually to consumers from raising the fuel efficiency 
standard of automobiles from the current 25 miles per gallon today to 
35 miles per gallon.
  I know this will be one of the most contentious votes on the Senate 
floor: whether we have the will to raise fuel efficiency standards for 
our entire automobile fleet in the United States. But it is the fuel 
efficiency that will help deliver America that $25 billion in annual 
savings to consumers and help us achieve that 20 percent savings in 
foreign oil consumption.
  We need to keep putting more energy dollars into America's pocketbook 
by other means of efficiencies. The efficiencies in this legislation 
push for standards for appliances, to help make a smart electricity 
grid that will help us in delivering distributed generation; that is, 
generation closer to home, so we are not building a new powerplant and 
transporting that energy supply across several States or across 
sections of America but, instead, getting generation built and 
delivered in the closest areas to the consumers. Smart electricity 
grids and efficient technology will help us save $12 billion in 
improved efficiency for the U.S. household, which will save U.S. 
consumers about $100.
  These are important improvements. They may not sound like the sexiest 
parts of our energy package, but there are real dollars and real 
savings here for America in the long run. If we just take what 
California did as a State over the last several years--they, by 
mandating building codes and energy efficiency, reduced their energy 
consumption by about 20 percent and have one of the best energy 
efficiency systems in the Nation, and we in the Federal Government 
should follow.
  We should follow as a Federal Government by also achieving energy 
efficiency for the taxpayers because the U.S. Government is our largest 
energy user. The fact is, we have over 500,000 buildings in the United 
States. Making them more energy efficient would give us a 30-percent 
reduction in the Federal energy use. The President should lead that 
charge. But we are making sure in this underlying bill that we are 
mandating new energy efficiency titles led by my colleagues, Senator 
Boxer and Senator Bingaman, to make sure the taxpayers will get almost 
$4 billion in annual savings if we achieve these Federal energy 
efficiencies.
  Also, we must protect the consumers from price spikes. We all know 
that consumers have paid an increased price at the pump and that gas 
prices are at an alltime high related to where they were just 5 years 
ago. This underlying bill makes price gouging--the manipulation of 
energy prices--a Federal crime. To try to manipulate supply and 
artificially impact markets is something that should have strong 
criminal penalties, and that is what this underlying legislation does.
  We also make sure we are making the right technology investments. I 
said earlier that technology could help the United States achieve 
greater efficiency and keep more energy dollars in America's 
pocketbook. We believe that over $700 billion in increased economic 
activity can be the result of investment in good energy technology. It 
could also create more than 5 million jobs here in the United States by 
2025. But that means taking the investments that are given to the oil 
industry now, which is making record profits, and instead investing 
them in new energy technology that will lead to job creation and energy 
savings. I know that in the Finance Committee we will be discussing 
these ideas in the very near future, and I hope they can be implemented 
with the underlying bill we are going to be considering in the next 2 
weeks.
  But we have to keep in mind, as we look at the alternatives for 
creating energy, that we have to be smart about protecting our 
environment. We want to keep more energy dollars in the pockets of the 
American consumers

[[Page 15377]]

and American businesses, but we will not achieve that if we look for 
solutions that are actually going to add to our CO2 problems 
in the United States.
  Let's be clear: There are great technologies that will help us in 
reducing greenhouse emissions. There are others that will be less 
appealing. I know it will be hard for my colleagues in areas where 
technology has not yet reached this point to be a market driver. More 
work needs to be done. But we should not be, in looking at our 
incentive policies, chasing technology that will not help us achieve 
the leadership the United States would like to see in fuel technology.
  We know that cellulosic ethanol, which is the goal of this underlying 
bill--and I was proud, in the 2005 act, to write the cellulosic mandate 
as part of the underlying legislation. Cellulosic--plant-based 
ethanol--plant-based ethanol from gasoline today would be a 90-percent 
reduction in our CO2 footprint. We want to go in that 
direction as a nation, using plants to create a fuel source for 
America. We want to do that not only for what it achieves for us in 
reduction of CO2 but because it also doesn't compete with 
our food source in America and drive up food prices.
  Biodiesel, another great reduction in greenhouse impact at 67 
percent, is an area in which we can, for our large industrial users, 
provide an alternative fuel to help our economy grow. Sugar-based 
ethanol, at 56 percent, as the country of Brazil is doing, is again a 
reduction in the CO2 and an opportunity to scale a 
technology to help an entire nation.
  We also know that for us, electricity, or plug-in hybrids, could see 
a 46-percent reduction.
  We know we will have a very interesting debate on the Senate floor 
about corn-based ethanol, and we will have to be honest about where 
corn-based ethanol can take us in the future. It is not the alternative 
fuel that will help drive our economy.
  We know corn-based ethanol will not be the technology that continues 
to have the opportunities for us that these other advanced fuels do. So 
we need to be smart about the investment strategy.
  I need to say a little about the coal to liquid or carbon 
sequestration issues. That technology does not yet exist for the 
breakthrough we would like to see. It will actually add--add--to our 
CO2 emissions if people deploy this technology today as a 
solution for us in trying to get off foreign oil.
  So we need to be smart about our plans. We need to make sure we are 
keeping more energy dollars in America's pocketbook. We need to make 
sure we get on to this next chapter in American history and make sure 
we are not continuing 3 years from now to talk about record oil prices 
but about how American consumers are paying less at the pump, getting 
more alternatives, and that new jobs are created by the new direction 
in an energy economy we are about to see unfold.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

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