[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15377-15386]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  CREATING LONG-TERM ENERGY ALTERNATIVES FOR THE NATION ACT OF 2007--
                           MOTION TO PROCEED

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 6, 
which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 6) to reduce our Nation's dependency on 
     foreign oil by investing in clean, renewable, and alternative 
     energy resources, promoting new emerging energy technologies, 
     developing greater efficiency, and creating a Strategic 
     Energy Efficiency and Renewables Reserve to invest in 
     alternative energy, and for other purposes.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Colorado is 
recognized.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for a 
period of up to 20 minutes on the legislation and that following my 
remarks, Senator Alexander speak for a period of up to 30 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I rise today to praise the progress this 
body is making toward reducing our dependence on foreign oil. In 5 
short months, we have assembled and advanced a package of energy 
proposals that will strengthen the foundation of a new, clean energy 
economy for our Nation.
  Senator Bingaman and Senator Domenici have led us to where we are 
today, as have the chairman and ranking member of the Finance 
Committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee, and the Commerce 
Committee. The bill before us today, H.R. 6, is a product of many minds 
and many good ideas.
  The extraordinary progress the Senate has made in the last 5 months 
responds to a seismic shift in how Americans are thinking about energy 
and about our world. At no time in our history--at no time in our 
history--has energy been so clearly a matter of national security, of 
economic security, and of environmental security. The issue before us 
is fundamentally about the security of the United States of America.
  Think back to 2000. At that time, it seemed that the threat of 
Islamic radicalism was confined to foreign soil. Few understood the 
urgency of combating climate change at that time. Gas prices at that 
time were $1.20 per gallon. That price cloaked the real costs and the 
real danger of our dependence and our addiction to foreign oil.
  Today, this is all different, and fortunately, today, the people of 
America and this Senate are recognizing it is all different. In every 
corner of American society, the conventional wisdom about our energy 
policy has changed. The fact is, our dependence on foreign oil affects 
the lives of Americans each and every day. It touches our security, our 
pocketbooks, and our conscience.
  Most strikingly, oil has become a major factor in global security. 
Our dependence--our dependence--our overdependence makes us vulnerable 
and weakens our standing in the world. Since 2001, China and Russia 
have partnered to lock up oil in central Asia, rolling us out of that 
region. Venezuela has wielded its resources to buy off its neighbors 
and to divide our hemisphere. Iran has used its oil resources to court 
Russia and China, convincing them to oppose our diplomatic efforts to 
stop Iran from building nuclear weapons.
  Countries that wish us harm know about our addiction. They know any 
disruption in supply sends gas prices through the roof and slows our 
economy. They are happy--they are happy--our enemies are happy to 
profit from our addiction. Oil money lines the pockets of terrorists, 
extremists, and unfriendly governments. It funds the Hezbollah rockets 
and militias in Lebanon today. It reaches bin Laden, it reaches al-
Qaida, and it finances the militants in Nigeria who kidnap and 
terrorize westerners.
  The sad truth is that today we are funding both sides of the war on 
terror. We spent over $100 billion last year to fight the extremists in 
Iraq and Afghanistan, extremists who are funded indirectly through the 
oil revenues we finance out of this country and around the world. This 
situation is absolutely crazy.
  To make matters worse, our oil dependence is causing economic pain 
for Americans. With gasoline over $3 a gallon and holding, $50 and $80 
visits to the gas stations for family members to fill their cars are 
straining family budgets and frustrating small business owners. Across 
my State, the farmers and ranchers whom I fight for every day here are 
budgeting for the harvest, and they are having to budget for numbers 
that are astronomical that they never saw before. The question they ask 
themselves as they go to bed every night is whether they are going to 
be able to make enough money to pay off their operating line at the end 
of the harvest season.
  Americans want affordable alternatives at the filling station.

[[Page 15378]]

  So far they have few. We must move forward in providing those 
alternatives.
  The third reason we are on the floor today with this legislation is 
our bill will help jumpstart a new energy economy. That new energy 
economy is based on the environmental security threats we see from 
global warming. Climate change now stands as one of the greatest moral 
challenges of our time. It is an issue we are obligated to confront.
  The desperation and disaster brought by Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane 
Rita, and a series of prolonged droughts, floods, and fire storms over 
the past several years have driven climate change to the center of 
American consciousness. We cannot afford to leave our children a legacy 
of an environmental disaster. We need to begin to work on that problem 
now, and this legislation begins to do that with respect to carbon 
sequestration.
  This is not the beginning of our efforts here. In 2005, this Chamber, 
with most of the Members who are still here today, worked in a 
bipartisan fashion to pass the 2005 Energy Policy Act. The bill before 
us today is a significant step forward toward tackling the national 
security, economic security, and environmental security implications of 
our oil addiction. The 2005 Energy Policy Act was a first step in 
moving us in that direction.
  We approached the 2005 Energy Policy Act much as we have this 
proposal today. It was a work Senators Domenici and Bingaman did--
Senator Domenici was chairman and Senator Bingaman as ranking member, 
and now their roles are reversed. They said we have an energy problem 
and we can craft a better energy policy, and that received nearly 80 
votes in the Senate. It is that same bipartisan approach that they have 
taken to this legislation. Other committees also contributed to the 
legislation before us today and have also taken that kind of approach. 
That is why, at the end of the day, we will succeed in moving forward 
with energy legislation in the Senate.
  The bill in the 109th Congress, the 2005 Energy Policy Act, was 
perhaps the most important energy legislation passed in 20 or 30 years 
in this country. During that time, I traveled to all 64 counties in 
Colorado and spoke to the people of my State about that bill. By and 
large, they appreciated the balanced approach we took to the 2005 act. 
The bill kick started a renewable energy economy, made big investments 
in technologies, took a cut at consumption with smart efficiency 
measures, and it made sensible additions to our domestic oil and gas 
supply.
  There remains much to be done, and that is why we are here today. We 
should not forget our bipartisan work of 2 years ago, which planted the 
seeds for our new energy economy; and today, in the week ahead, and in 
the following week, we will have an opportunity to build on the success 
of 2 years ago.
  The new energy economy is in fact taking root. I don't think you will 
find a better example of how quickly Americans can change their 
approach to energy than in my State of Colorado. We have sparked a 
renewable energy revolution in Colorado in just 2 years, and the 
benefits have already touched every corner of my State. Our farmers and 
ranchers are leading the charge. In Weld County, Logan County, and Yuma 
County, which are remote and far away from Denver, we are seeing 
biofuel plants spring to life, creating new markets and new 
opportunities for our rural communities. So the ``forgotten America,'' 
in fact, is having new opportunities created for them because of the 
fact that we are embracing the clean energy revolution. Today, we have 
three ethanol plants that are already in production, where there were 
none 2 years ago. We have several others that are under construction 
and are being planned.
  But it is not just biofuels. In the San Luis Valley, where my family 
has lived, ranched, and farmed for five generations, Xcel Energy just 
broke ground on the largest solar plant in North America. More and more 
wind turbines are turning on the plains of southeastern Colorado, 
powering front range homes, while providing incomes for the ranchers 
who own the land. Indeed, the current program with respect to the 
construction of wind energy farms in Colorado will mean that very soon 
we will be producing the same amount of electricity that is produced 
from three coal-fired powerplants in Colorado. That is enormous 
progress in a very short time.
  How did we spark that renewable energy revolution in Colorado? The 
Energy Policy Act of 2005 helped, but it is not the only force of 
change. The National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden is the crown jewel 
of our labs, and it is a hub for innovation for our clean energy 
future. The President of the United States has visited NREL. Many 
colleagues in this Chamber have visited NREL. We do all we can here to 
support the work that the researchers are doing there today. We have 
created the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory, which binds the 
National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden with the Colorado School 
of Mines, Colorado State University, and the University of Colorado. 
The collaboratory is an engine for ideas, technologies, and talent, and 
making sure those technologies are being deployed out into the private 
sector.
  I have held a renewable energy summit in Colorado in each of the last 
2 years. We have tried to connect the business community and those 
people with the ideas to make sure that deployment occurs. These 
summits have been a huge success and were attended by the business 
community, environmental interests, farmers, and ranchers. This last 
year, we had over a thousand people who attended that summit, which was 
sponsored by the Governor of Colorado, Governor Ritter, as well as 
mayors and other leaders throughout the State.
  In Colorado last year, 2007, we actually moved forward in enhancing 
our renewable energy standard, our renewable portfolio standard for our 
State. The renewable energy revolution underway in Colorado makes me 
all the more excited about the bill we are considering today. Its 
provisions are sensible and, by and large, they are bipartisan and 
should be noncontroversial.
  The bill includes 3 key components. First, it dramatically increases 
production and the use of biofuels. The bill will quintuple the 
existing renewable fuels standard to 36 billion gallons by 2022, 21 
billion of which must be advanced biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol. 
That is more than enough to offset imports from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and 
Libya combined. I will say that again. The 21 billion gallons of 
advanced biofuels, combined with what we produce from corn ethanol, 
will get us to 36 billion gallons. That amount of production from 
alternative biofuels is enough to offset our imports from Saudi Arabia, 
Iraq, and Libya combined. I make that point to underscore the 
importance of the biofuels and alternative fuels title in this 
legislation.
  Second, H.R. 6 also helps us reduce our dependence by making better 
use of what we have. The transportation sector accounts for a full two-
thirds of our oil consumption. It offers the cheapest and best 
opportunities for saving fuel. The bill helps automakers retool their 
vehicles by providing items such as loan guarantees for hybrids and 
advanced diesels. The bill will also make a reasonable increase in CAFE 
standards. The bill increases and incentivizes the engineering 
capabilities of our automakers.
  Finally, the bill before us also begins to address the environmental 
consequences of our energy policy. The debate about how to tackle the 
threat of global warming will have few easy answers. It will be a 
difficult challenge for us when we get to specifically addressing the 
issue of global warming later in this Congress. But one thing we can do 
today is to determine how we can store the carbon we are currently 
putting into the atmosphere. Carbon sequestration technology is neither 
new nor complicated. It has been around in the oil fields in America 
for 50 years. We need to take that technology and refine our techniques 
for storing it and determine where we can store the carbon that is 
currently being emitted from powerplants and other sources around our 
country. This bill will help start us in that direction.

[[Page 15379]]

  Mr. President, how much time do I have left?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Six minutes.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I want to say I am very proud of this 
bill. I know a lot of work has gone into this bill. It is an impressive 
and thoughtful next step toward reducing our dependence upon foreign 
oil. In the coming days, I hope we can find ways to strengthen this 
legislation in some specific ways.
  I want to speak very briefly about four amendments that several of my 
colleagues and I will be offering in the several days ahead.
  The first amendment I intend to offer is the 25x'25 resolution, which 
establishes a national goal of producing 25 percent of America's energy 
from renewable sources, like solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass, by 
2025. That resolution is a vision for where we want to get as 
Americans. It is sponsored by a great group of bipartisan Senators, 
including Senators Grassley, Hagel, Harkin, Lugar, Obama, and the 
Presiding Officer, Senator Tester. That legislation was introduced 
earlier this year as S. Con. Res. 3, and it has received widespread 
backing. It is endorsed by 22 current and former Governors and many 
general assemblies from across the country. Nearly 400 organizations, 
from the Farm Bureau and the Union of Concerned Scientists, to John 
Deere, to the Natural Resources Defense Council, have embraced 25x'25 
and the vision incorporated in that amendment. I hope we can include 
that in this legislation.
  The second amendment, which I will mention briefly, incorporates 
provisions from S. 339, the DRIVE Act. That is legislation which 
Senators Bayh, Lieberman, Brownback, Sessions, and 23 other Senators 
have been working on for a long time. It has a robust mandatory oil 
savings plan. The DRIVE Act aims to increase our Nation's energy 
security by cutting 2.5 million barrels per day from our Nation's oil 
use by 2016, and 10 million barrels per day from its oil use by 2031. I 
am hopeful these provisions will also be added to the bill.
  Third, Senator Bingaman and I and others will be introducing an 
amendment to create a national renewable energy standard. Many States, 
such as Colorado, already have a renewable energy standard and are 
reaping the benefits. I know there will be debate and discussion about 
how exactly we move forward with the renewable energy standard. But I 
believe the time has come for our Nation to adopt a renewable energy 
standard in the same way many States have done, including my State of 
Colorado.
  For example, a renewable energy standard of 20 percent by 2020 will 
reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by an estimated 400 million tons per 
year. That is equal to taking 71 million cars off of America's roads, 
or planting 104 million acres of trees. While we look at this renewable 
energy standard, I know we will have a debate about whether we can 
improve upon what we have done here. I look forward to that debate.
  Finally, the Presiding Officer, Senator Tester, from Montana, and I 
will be introducing an amendment to make better use of America's vast 
coal resources. Coal is to the United States what oil is to Saudi 
Arabia. The vast resource of coal from the great States of Montana, 
Colorado, Wyoming, West Virginia, and throughout our country, is 
something we need to use. But as we use our coal resources, we need to 
make sure we are using them in a smart way so it doesn't damage our 
environment.
  The amendment we will introduce will provide loan guarantees to build 
coal gasification facilities. We also will have standards in there with 
respect to life cycle greenhouse gas emissions from those facilities to 
make sure they are 20 percent lower than emissions from petroleum 
fuels. I appreciate the great work of my colleagues who have worked on 
that amendment.
  How we improve our energy security and reduce our dependence upon 
foreign oil is the central national security, economic security, and 
environmental security challenge of the 21st century. It will determine 
whether we will continue to be entrenched in conflicts over resources 
in every corner of the world. It will determine whether we will triumph 
in our fight against oil-funded extremists and terrorists. It will 
determine whether our economic fortunes will hinge on the price of oil 
that OPEC sets, or whether the United States will stand proudly and 
independently as the world's innovator for clean energy technologies; 
and it will determine whether we will succeed in leaving our children 
and grandchildren a world wrought with environmental dangers, or 
whether we can correct our path in time.
  I thank my colleagues for their great work on this bill, and I look 
forward to a productive and thoughtful debate and a successful 
conclusion to energy legislation in the days and 2 weeks ahead.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Colorado for 
his courtesy in arranging for me to speak next. The Senator from 
Colorado and I and the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Bingaman, who is 
here, the chairman of the Energy Committee, Senator Domenici, the 
ranking member, and Senator Lieberman, who has already spoken, were at 
breakfast this morning at our usual Tuesday morning bipartisan 
breakfast. And Senator Bingaman expressed the hope, as I am sure he 
will on the Senate floor when he speaks, that we can make the kind of 
progress this year that we made 2 years ago on the Energy bill. And I 
hope so too.
  He talked about how difficult it was and how impressive it was for 
four committees, plus the Finance Committee, all to make a contribution 
and how we might be able to make progress with alternative fuels, with 
energy efficiency. The more we learn about energy efficiency, such as 
with appliances and lighting, and the more we can do in accelerating 
research on how to recapture carbon, the better off we will be.
  Earlier this morning, Senator Lieberman of Connecticut said in that 
spirit of bipartisanship that he hoped one amendment would not be added 
to this bill, and that would be an amendment calling for the drilling 
for oil in the Alaska wildlife area. That is a controversial piece of 
legislation.
  I want to make a similar suggestion in the spirit of bipartisanship. 
I note my friend from New Mexico is on the Senate floor, and I hope the 
Senate would not agree to and maybe we would not even have to debate, 
the amendment that Senator Bingaman offered before in the last Congress 
and which he plans to offer again which would require a 15-percent so-
called renewable portfolio standard in every State. I wish to spend a 
few minutes this morning talking about why I believe it is important 
that we not adopt that amendment.
  I am reminded of a story about a Tennessee mountaineer who was 
convicted of murder, and the judge sentenced him and told him his 
choice was to be hanged or be shot.
  The defendant thought a minute and said: May I ask a question, judge?
  The judge said: Of course.
  My question is, Do I have another choice?
  Mr. President, we Tennesseans feel the same way about Senator 
Bingaman's proposed renewable portfolio standard which would require us 
to make 15 percent of our electricity from renewable fuels, mostly wind 
power. That would raise our taxes, it would raise our electric rates, 
it would run away jobs, and it would ruin our mountaintops. That is not 
the kind of choice we like to have.
  Forcing Tennesseans to build 40-story wind turbines on our pristine 
mountaintops or pay billions of dollars in penalty taxes to the Federal 
Government amounts to a judge giving a defendant the choice of being 
hanged or shot.
  In Tennessee, the wind simply doesn't blow enough to produce much 
electric power. Residential homeowners cannot afford these new taxes, 
industries will take their jobs to States with cheaper power, and 
tourists will spend their dollars where they can see the mountaintops 
instead of giant wind turbines.

[[Page 15380]]

  There is, in this case, a better choice, fortunately, and that choice 
is for clean, reasonably priced energy in the Tennessee Valley from 
conservation and efficiency, from nuclear reactors--a new one of which 
just opened within the last few weeks in our region by TVA--and by 
clean coal. Because of its nuclear and hydro plants, Tennessee is 
already on the honor roll, ranking 16th among States in production of 
carbon-free electricity. But we are one of 27 States that would not 
meet the standards under Senator Bingaman's amendment, which he expects 
to offer during this debate.
  This is real money. The Tennessee Valley Authority suggests that by 
the last year that this new standard is in effect, it would cost 
Tennesseans at least 410 million new dollars a year.
  What could we do with that kind of money? If the goal were clean air, 
we could give away 205 million in $2 fluorescent lightbulbs per year, 
producing energy savings equal to the combined output of almost two of 
the three units of TVA's Browns Ferry nuclear plant. In other words, 
the $410 million could buy enough fluorescent lightbulbs to equal two 
nuclear reactors. Or the $410 million would be the equivalent of 3,700 
megawatt wind turbines that would span a 550-mile ridge line, more than 
twice the distance from Bristol in the northeast part of Tennessee to 
Chattanooga, which is about the only place in Tennessee that wind power 
could actually go, along those ridgetops. Or with $410 million, we 
could pay the $100 per month electric bill for Tennessee's 2.5 million 
residential TVA customers for 1\1/2\ months each year. Or if the goal 
is simply clean air, it would be better, I respectfully submit, to 
spend the $410 million purchasing one new scrubber each 9 months to 
clean emissions from TVA's coal-fired powerplants. I strongly back 
renewable power wherever it makes sense. In our State, I have worked 
hard to expand solar energy. The solar energy industry gave me an award 
last year for that work. I was the principal sponsor of the tax credit 
for homeowners to put solar panels on their homes. I have worked with 
the Tennessee Farm Bureau to encourage the use of biomass as a 
renewable energy. But this--and I will try to be a little bit more 
specific in the next 10 or 12 minutes--this proposal amounts to a wind 
portfolio standard which simply does not fit the Tennessee Valley nor, 
I submit, any other part of our region. It simply does not work in the 
Southeast.
  Why is there a wind portfolio standard? There are other forms of 
renewable energy, of course, but they don't all fit in the definition, 
nor do all types of clean, carbon-free energy fit within the 
definition. Seventy percent of our carbon-free electricity in America 
comes from nuclear power. About 33 percent of TVA's power is carbon-
free nuclear power. That doesn't count within the Bingaman definition. 
Neither does the existing 7 percent of clean, completely clean power 
that comes from hydro, from dams.
  That makes about 40 percent of TVA's electricity carbon, sulfur, 
mercury, and nitrogen free, ranking it 16th among all the States in 
terms of producing carbon-free energy. As I said, Tennessee is on the 
honor roll. Yet we Tennesseans would still be subjected either to these 
taxes or putting these wind turbines along our scenic mountains, which 
I will discuss.
  According to the Energy Information Agency assessment of the Bingaman 
proposal, 4 years ago, wind and, to a lesser extent, biomass are 
projected to be the most important renewable resources stimulated by 
the renewable portfolio standard.
  There is some other evidence that biomass will be stimulated, but I 
think it is a fair comment to say that this is mostly a wind portfolio 
standard. And my argument is, that may be fine in North Dakota--which 
the Senator from North Dakota says is the Saudi Arabia of wind--maybe 
it works there, and maybe North Dakotans want to see the wind turbines 
there, but it doesn't work in Tennessee and in most of the Southeast 
because the wind simply doesn't blow enough to produce much 
electricity.
  The National Academy of Sciences says 93 percent of potential wind 
energy capacity occurs west of the Mississippi River. We can see on 
this chart that in this white area, that is where there is the least 
amount of wind. There may be plenty of it somewhere else but not in 
Tennessee and not in the South. There is only one wind farm in this 
entire southeastern part of the United States. That is a TVA wind farm 
on Buffalo Mountain, which I will show in just a moment.
  TVA had hoped that the wind on Buffalo Mountain would blow to produce 
electricity about 35 to 38 percent of the time. They have been 
disappointed that it only blows about 19 to 24 percent of the time. And 
in August, when we are sitting on the porches sweating, perspiring, and 
wanting our fans on and air-conditioning on, the winds on the only wind 
farm in the southeast--Buffalo Mountain--blew just 7 percent of the 
time. That is not an estimate. That is an actual count from TVA and the 
wind farm.
  So the only places in the southeast region, if we can go to the next 
chart, that have wind resources are the ridges and the crests. Maybe 
unlike Iowa and North Dakota where they can have large wind farms, 
maybe even in Colorado they can have large wind farms, but in 
Tennessee, the only places that wind possibly works are on the ridges 
and the crests. In addition to being the places with the most wind, the 
ridges and the crests are also in the most visited national park in the 
United States, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Those are the 
highest mountains in the Eastern United States. They run up through 
Pennsylvania as well. They are the Great Smoky Mountains and the 
mountains around them. They are the reason most of us live in those 
areas.
  It is quite a sight to see when you put wind turbines on top of those 
mountains. It is a sight that I would rather not see. Here is West 
Virginia, which is north of the southeastern part of the United States. 
Basically it cuts off the whole tops of those mountains. In my opinion, 
it makes strip mining look like a decorative art. These are 400- or 
300-feet turbines. These are not your grandmother's windmills. They are 
white and large and have flashing red lights on top of them. You can 
see them for 10, 12, 14 miles away.
  Then, since they are on remote ridgetops, they have to dig large 
power lines down through whomever's backyard to get there. It is quite 
a dislocation in the scenery. So one would think there would have to be 
a big payoff before we would take some of the most beautiful parts of 
the United States and basically ruin the mountaintops.
  Here is what it looks like in Tennessee. You can get a little sense 
of how big these turbines are. In Tennessee, we like football and we 
can put things in perspective, sometimes putting things in football 
terms. Each of these wind turbines is twice as tall as the skyboxes at 
Neyland Stadium, which is the second largest football stadium in the 
United States. Penn State has one, I guess, about the same size. These 
rotor blades, which go round and round, stretch from the 10-yard line 
to the 10-yard line. I can see these turbines from the Pellissippi 
Parkway in Tennessee from about 14 miles away. This is at about 3,500 
feet. These are some of our most beautiful vistas in Tennessee.
  The problem is, even here, which ought to be a prime spot--this is 
the reason TVA put the turbines here--it didn't work very well. It was 
a disappointment. As I mentioned, in August, the wind turbines only 
operated 7 percent of the time. Wind tends to be strongest during the 
winter months and at dawn and dusk, but demand for electricity is 
highest during the summer and during the day. Basically, when we need 
the wind, it doesn't blow. And a point that many people often miss is 
that you can't store it. Unlike more conventional forms of power, you 
use it or you lose it. So it is of minimal help.
  Also, it is more expensive. I have a chart showing the expense. Let's 
take nuclear power which produces 70 percent of the carbon-free 
electricity in the United States today, and wind, which is also carbon 
free. Actually, both are completely free of carbon, sulfur, mercury, 
and nitrogen, which are

[[Page 15381]]

the problems for clean air in the Tennessee region. Let's compare a 
1,000-watt nuclear plant reactor and a 1,000-megawatt capacity wind 
farm. The 1,000-megawatts is about the size of a new nuclear reactor. 
The new Browns Ferry plant in Tennessee that opened the other day is 
1,280 megawatts. This column is the number of hours per year for both 
nuclear and wind. And this second column is the capacity factor.
  In plain English, this is how much they operate. For TVA, its nuclear 
powerplants, which produce about one-third of our electricity and most 
of our carbon-free electricity, the nuclear powerplants operate 92 
percent of the time. The wind turbines operate, at best, 24 percent of 
the time in the Southeast, in the area we know about. Remember, there 
is only one wind farm in the Southeast. We have it, and that is what it 
does.
  The cost of electricity is up to twice as much for wind over nuclear. 
That is what people in the utility industry call the all-in cost--that 
is, including the cost of building the facility and the cost of 
operating the facility.
  So the brief analysis is that wind is more expensive, on a per unit 
energy generated basis, and produces much less energy than nuclear 
power, for example. In addition to that, if we build the wind turbines, 
we still have to build and operate the nuclear powerplant because, as 
we pointed out, the wind turbines only operate about 22 percent of the 
time.
  My hope would be that we would not have a one-size-fits-all national 
mandate on States that are seeking to create clean energy. Tennessee 
wants to do its part. As I said, nuclear power creates 70 percent of 
the carbon-free energy in the United States. It produces 33 percent of 
the carbon-free energy in the Tennessee Valley through TVA, and TVA 
just opened a new reactor and they are planning more. Why would we 
impose on a State which is already leading the country in terms of 
helping to produce clean energy, carbon-free energy--why would we 
impose a mandate on that State that would raise its rates or impose new 
taxes and drive away jobs from industries that cannot afford to pay the 
higher rates and at the same time put on our mountain tops, from 
Bristol to Chattanooga, these huge wind machines that destroy the view?
  We have 10 million people every year who come to Great Smoky 
Mountains National Park, nearly three times as many as come to 
Yellowstone. They come to see the mountains; they don't come to see the 
wind turbines. I guarantee, if we continue to provide incentives and 
mandates to put up these 
300-, 400-, 500-foot-tall wind turbines with red flashing lights, that 
is all the visitors will see when they come to Tennessee. They will not 
be able to see anything else.
  I am eager to work with Senators Bingaman and Domenici on the Energy 
bill. I had the pleasure, the last 4 years, of serving with them on 
that committee. I admire the way they work together. They made a point 
2 years ago of saying that when we go too far in either direction, we 
will pull back a little bit so we can make sure we have a good, strong 
bill. I believe the bill in 2005 was underestimated. I believe the bill 
produced in 2005, produced by Senators Domenici and Bingaman and the 
Senate working with the House, literally set America on a different 
course in terms of producing large amounts of reliable, affordable, 
clean energy. It helped us do that in a way that would keep the costs 
of natural gas down, which was very important to us at that time and 
still is today.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from 
the Southeastern Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners 
expressing the same views I have just expressed, that such a mandate 
would cause us to end up paying higher electric prices with nothing to 
show for it. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record 
following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Casey). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Finally, I would like to reiterate what we could 
better do with the money. I see the Senator from North Dakota here. I 
mentioned a little earlier that he has said North Dakota is the Saudi 
Arabia of wind, and I admire North Dakota for that, I admire him for 
his outspoken advocacy of that, and I hope all the giant wind machines 
go to North Dakota. That is where I would like them to be, just not in 
Tennessee--not just because of how they look but because in our neck of 
the woods they do not work. They raise our taxes, or they raise our 
rates, or they destroy our mountains, or they run away jobs from 
industries and tourists who do not want to be part of that. I would 
rather see us look for better ways to spend those dollars.
  As I suggested earlier, we could take the same amount of money we 
would be taxed, if we choose not to build these, by providing 205 
million $2 light bulbs, which would be the equivalent energy savings of 
almost 2 nuclear reactors, or it would be the equivalent of 3,700 of 
these wind turbines, which would run along the ridge tops from Bristo 
to Chattanooga, or it would pay the monthly electric bill for 
Tennessee's 2.5 million TVA residential customers, every Tennessee 
residential customer, for a month and a half, or it would put a new 
scrubber on TVA's coal-fired powerplants every 9 month period.
  I am afraid this is an idea looking for a problem to solve. It may 
solve it in North Dakota, it might solve it in New Mexico and perhaps 
it does in Colorado, but it does not in Tennessee. It raises our taxes, 
raises our rates, ruins our mountains, and it sends jobs away, runs 
them away.
  I hope, in a spirit of bipartisanship, perhaps the Senator from New 
Mexico, one of our most thoughtful Senators, the leader of this debate, 
will decide there are other things we can focus on rather than a one-
size-fits-all mandate which may work in some States but does not in my 
State.
  I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

                                       Southeastern Association of


                             Regulatory Utility Commissioners,

                                    Little Rock, AR, May 31, 2007.
       Dear Senators Bingaman and Domenici, and Congressmen 
     Dingell and Barton: The undersigned state utility 
     commissioners are writing to express our concerns about the 
     nationwide, mandatory federal renewable portfolio standard 
     (RPS) being discussed/introduced by Senator Bingaman. As 
     state regulators, we are responsible for ensuring that retail 
     electricity consumers receive affordable, reliable electric 
     service. We are concerned that a uniform, federal RPS mandate 
     fails to recognize adequately that there are significant 
     differences among the states in terms of available and cost-
     effective renewable energy resources and that having such a 
     standard in energy legislation will ultimately increase 
     consumers' electricity bills.
       The reality is that not all states are fortunate enough to 
     have abundant traditional renewable energy resources, such as 
     wind, or have them located close enough to the load to render 
     them cost-effective. This is especially true in the Southeast 
     and large parts of the Midwest. Even in regions of the 
     country that do have access to wind energy, there is 
     frequently stiff local opposition to building huge wind 
     turbines, significant costs for the additional transmission 
     needed, and reliability concerns. As a result, some wind 
     renewable energy projects do not get built, while others take 
     years to build. The availability of other renewable energy 
     resources, such as geothermal, is even more limited.
       Because of the limited availability and cost-effectiveness 
     of traditional renewable energy resources, we are deeply 
     concerned that our utilities will be forced to buy renewable 
     energy credits from the federal government or from renewable 
     energy generators in other regions of the country. 
     Correspondingly, our retail electricity consumers will end up 
     paying higher electricity prices, with nothing to show for 
     it.
       Renewable energy resources may be able to make a 
     significant contribution to energy production in those 
     regions of the country that have abundant renewable 
     resources. In fact, over 20 states and the District of 
     Columbia have already seen fit to approve their own RPS 
     programs based on the resources available to them. Moreover, 
     those states have included a wider array of energy resources 
     in their definitions of eligible renewable resources than the 
     proposed federal RPS mandate, Some states consider power 
     produced from municipal solid waste, small hydroelectric 
     facilities or coal waste to be renewable energy. Other states 
     count expenditures on demand-side management or alternative 
     compliance payments toward meeting the state RPS 
     requirements. None of these alternative renewable energy 
     resources, however, would receive credit under the Senate 
     version of a federal RPS program.

[[Page 15382]]

       While state public service commissions and energy service 
     providers should certainly consider available and cost-
     effective renewable energy resource options as they make 
     long-term decisions for incremental energy needs, the 
     imposition of a strict federal RPS mandate, as contrasted 
     with a state-driven cost-effectiveness determination, will 
     only result in higher electricity prices for our consumers. 
     Because the availability and cost-effectiveness of 
     traditional renewable energy resources varies so widely among 
     states and regions, we believe that decisions regarding 
     renewable energy portfolios should be left to the states. If, 
     however, the Congress desires to address renewable energy 
     objectives in the upcoming Energy Bill, we urge you to 
     expressly allow each individual state to determine the extent 
     to which renewable energy can be reliably and cost 
     effectively utilized within that state.
           Sincerely,
       (Signed by Members of the Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, 
     Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and 
     Tennessee commissioners.)

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I see my colleague from North Dakota 
wishes to speak.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to be here supporting a piece 
of legislation which I think advances this country's energy interests. 
I am a member of the Senate Energy Committee. I have worked with 
Senator Bingaman and Senator Domenici not only on the previous Energy 
bill in 2005 but on this Energy bill, and I think this is a good bill. 
We are going to improve it some on the floor of the Senate, but it came 
out of the Energy Committee as a bipartisan bill and one I think will 
improve the energy policy in this country.
  Energy is a very important policy. We don't think about it much. I 
know most all of us get up in the morning and we just flick a switch 
someplace in our house. That switch turns on lights and we turn on the 
television set, it turns on all the things we use all day. While we are 
sleeping, the air-conditioner is running. We have all these 
conveniences, and we do not necessarily understand that all of it comes 
from somewhere beyond a switch. So energy has been pretty easy for this 
country. Now we are running into some interesting questions and 
challenges. We have to develop a more thoughtful, more sensible energy 
policy for the long-term future.
  There is an airplane which is now parked in a museum. I believe it 
was tail No. 27,000, an old 707 that used to be Air Force One. It was 
the Air Force One that flew President Reagan around, and others. It was 
the Air Force One that was in Dallas, TX, in fact, the day John F. 
Kennedy was assassinated. One of its last trips before it was retired 
to a museum was a trip to Asia. I was a member of that delegation, 
going to meet with the President of China and others.
  In a cabin on that little old airplane flying over the Pacific one 
night, about 10 or 11 o'clock at night, one of our Senate colleagues, 
John Glenn, was sitting there with us. I was peppering John Glenn with 
questions about his circling the Earth as an astronaut back 40 years 
prior to that time. I was a young kid and I had been listening to the 
radio that day, and I listened to this account of this astronaut 
circling the Earth. The whole world was focused on what this astronaut, 
up alone in Friendship 7, a tiny little capsule, was doing.
  I asked him a lot of questions about it that evening. I had the 
opportunity as a new Member of the Senate with my colleague John Glenn 
to pepper him with a lot of questions. One of my questions was this. I 
said: My understanding back then was that the city of Perth, Australia, 
when you were orbiting the Earth that night, turned on every light in 
the city as a signal to the astronaut flying alone orbiting the Earth. 
Do you remember the ability to look down and see the lights from Perth, 
Australia?
  He said: I do, I do. I remember this brilliant light coming up from 
Perth, Australia, where all the citizens decided to shine up a light to 
this astronaut flying alone on Friendship 7.
  The only evidence of life on Earth as he orbited the dark side of the 
Earth was energy, light--human beings turning on a light switch and 
lighting a city to light the way for an astronaut orbiting the Earth.
  Energy is a significant part of our lives every single day and 
virtually in every way. As I said, we take it pretty much for granted.
  Let me talk about the challenges, if I might. One of the significant 
challenges is oil. We have this big old planet of ours. We have roughly 
6.5 billion neighbors on this planet. We circle the Sun. We have this 
prodigious need for oil, so we stick straws in the earth, called 
drilling rigs, and suck oil out of the earth. We suck about 84 million 
barrels of oil a day out of this planet of ours--84 million barrels a 
day we suck out of this earth.
  We use 21 million barrels in this country alone. In this little patch 
of ground called the United States of America, we have built an 
unbelievable economy, dramatically improved the standard of living over 
a long period of time, and we have an unending thirst for oil. So one-
fourth of all of the oil used on this planet is used in this country, 
this place on the globe.
  Unfortunately, a substantial amount of the oil is under the sands of 
the Middle East and in unstable parts of the world. Here is what 
happens. When we import oil, here is what we use the oil for: 67 
percent is used for transportation. So nearly 70 percent of the oil we 
use in this country is used in the vehicle fleet or for transportation. 
One of the things we are discussing here in the Energy bill is this 
issue of trying to make these vehicles more efficient. If we use 70 
percent of the oil in this country for transportation and we have had 
very little change in efficiency of vehicles, then the question should 
be and is, Should not we make vehicles more efficient?
  Here is an example. This is a chart you can't see particularly well: 
Auto Fuel Efficiency Versus Performance. Do you see what has happened 
on the blue line, performance--zero to 60 in a nanosecond? Increased 
performance, more power, more speed. What has happened with respect to 
miles per gallon? Just like that, right flat across.
  Part of that is the consumer. The consumer wants to buy big, heavy 
cars, fast cars. I understand that. In fact, here is a survey. I was 
very surprised. CNW Research pointed out that overall fuel economy--
this is a couple of years ago--is No. 12 in concern by consumers. I am 
sure it has changed now. But cupholders and sound systems ranked above 
the issue of overall fuel economy. I expect that is not the case now 
when you are driving up to the gas pump and in some vehicles putting in 
$40, $50, $60 or $70 worth of gasoline into that vehicle. So perhaps 
that has changed.
  But this legislation does a lot of things with respect to energy. It 
requires an improvement in the efficiency of vehicles. I know 
automobile companies came here last week. I had a chance to talk to the 
CEOs of the three big U.S. auto companies. I know they are taking the 
same position they have always taken--not now, not us, not today.
  The fact is, we must, it seems to me, insist that our vehicle fleet 
be more efficient. Because nearly 70 percent of the oil we use in this 
country is being used in our vehicles, the only way we are going to try 
to extract ourselves from being addicted to foreign oil is to begin to 
make changes in a range of areas, and that includes making cars more 
efficient. That means a higher mileage per gallon standard.
  We have a circumstance, as I indicated, where a substantial part of 
the oil is put in one place on this planet and the dramatic need for 
oil is in another place. Much of where we get our oil is in very 
troubled parts of the world. We could, one day, wake up with terrorists 
attacking a refinery somewhere and a shutoff of the oil to this country 
from foreign sources, and this country would be flat on its back. This 
country would have its economy in tatters. That is why we need to be 
much less dependent, we need to find a way to be independent of the 
need for oil from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela--all 
the places in the world that are unstable, where we have a great 
reliance on oil. That is at least part of what this bill is about.

[[Page 15383]]

  I am going to talk about several other things as well, but I, along 
with my colleague, Senator Larry Craig, a Republican--I am a Democrat--
we joined in introducing something called the SAFE Energy Act, Securing 
America's Future Energy. The Energy Security Leadership Council is a 
group of really interesting people including some CEOs of major 
corporations and flag officers in the U.S. military. They studied these 
issues for several years and put together a plan.
  That plan is recommendations to the Nation on Reducing Oil 
Dependence; trying to make this economy of ours less oil intensive.
  I introduced a piece of legislation with Senator Craig that 
implements most all of these recommendations. I would commend it to my 
colleagues because I think it makes a lot of sense. It talks about 
expanding the supply of energy, especially renewable energy; also talks 
about finding additional supplies. We believe we ought to be able to 
explore and drill more in expanded areas, particularly in the Gulf of 
Mexico, because there are substantial reserves of oil and gas in the 
Gulf of Mexico that are attainable without ruining anybody's view or 
creating other problems.
  We believe that in addition to renewable energy and the production of 
renewable energy, all of the biofuels are necessary. We believe that 
CAFE standards, or at least automobile efficiency standards, are 
necessary as well. This piece of legislation brought to the floor of 
the Senate includes all of them.
  Let me continue to talk about oil for a moment and say that when I 
was a little boy, I remember they drilled one oil well near my hometown 
in southwestern North Dakota. I lived in a town of 300 people. There 
wasn't a lot to do, obviously, in a town of 300 people.
  So when they brought in a drilling rig and constructed a drilling rig 
and started to drill for oil about 3 miles from town, I will never 
forget as a little boy going out there in the evenings in my parent's 
car. We saw all these lights on the oil rig at night. We sat there and 
looked at it. That was entertainment.
  We did that night after night. We figured at some point they were 
going to strike oil. We didn't want to be too close to the rig, because 
the movies showed that when you strike oil, you get a gusher.
  But we watched. We would drive out there and park, the whole town 
would go out there and park. We would watch that oil well. Nothing was 
happening, of course, nothing you could see. We saw the lights. That 
was a whole lot more than was going on in town.
  Well, it turns out it was a dry well; never drilled another one. But 
that was my experience. As a young boy, my father also managed a 
gasoline station. So I pumped a lot of gas as a young boy. Some say 
that my occupation hasn't changed so much being in the Senate, but I 
contest that, of course.
  My point is this: Oil is central to our lives and will remain central 
to our lives, but we need to find a way to reduce our dependence on the 
sources of oil that come from very troubled parts of the world.
  In North Dakota, for example, in western North Dakota, we now have 
what is called the Bakken Shale, which could, we hope--the U.S. 
Geological Survey will determine this--but it could contain dramatic 
amounts of recoverable oil.
  Incidentally, I was in western North Dakota visiting with Marathon 
Oil that is now drilling. It is unbelievable what they are doing. They 
drill 2 miles down--2 miles down--then take a giant bend and drill 2 
miles out. One drilling rig. They go down 2 miles and then bend it and 
then drill 2 miles out. It is unbelievable technology.
  We hope there is additional production here in this country. That is 
one way to be less dependent on foreign sources of oil. We can take a 
look at where you can get additional oil. I mentioned the Gulf of 
Mexico is a substantial opportunity for us as well. But there are a lot 
of things for us to do and do well, if we are going to be less 
dependent on foreign sources of oil, also, if we are going to have an 
energy policy that has much more credibility than our current policy.
  Now, the Congress passed what was called the Energy Policy Act of 
2005. We did a number of things there. I was one of the Members of the 
Congress who, at that time and since that time, one of I guess four or 
five of us in the Senate who tried to open up what is called Lease 181 
in the Gulf of Mexico. We succeeded in doing that. It is a smaller 
tract than we had hoped, but that also will contribute to the 
production of additional energy here at home.
  Some say our energy strategy for the future must be ``digging and 
drilling.'' I call that yesterday forever, digging and drilling. Yes, 
we are going to dig and, yes, we are going to drill. But if that is all 
we do, we lose. Everything we use in this country every day needs to be 
more efficient. Our refrigerators, our air conditioners, our vacuums, 
everything needs to be more efficient. That is No. 1.
  We have had very big debates on strange-named things such as SEER 
standards. I mean how many people have heard of SEER 13 standards for 
air conditioners. But it makes a big difference in the number of 
powerplants you have to build in this country based on the standards 
for efficiency for all the things we use with respect to appliances.
  In addition to all that, we at the same time have to rely on other 
sources and other types of energy; wind energy as an example. Well, my 
colleague from Tennessee apparently does not like wind energy. God 
bless him. He has a right not to like wind energy.
  It seems to me it makes a lot of sense with a turbine, the much more 
improved turbines and technologically capable turbines, to extract the 
energy from the wind and turn it into electricity. Yes, it is an 
intermittent source of electricity because you do not produce it when 
the wind is not blowing. But in some States, my State in particular, 
which is ranked by the Department of Energy as having the largest wind 
energy potential, taking energy from the wind and producing electricity 
with that energy makes a lot of sense.
  We have an exciting experiment going on in North Dakota that I have 
been involved in: taking energy from the wind through a wind turbine, 
turning that energy through a turbine into electricity, using 
electricity through the process of electrolysis to separate hydrogen 
from water. You use an intermittent energy source to produce hydrogen 
and store the hydrogen. That is pretty unbelievable. Yet we can do 
that. We can do that, and it is going make us less dependent on foreign 
sources of energy.
  Now one of the proposals that will be offered by my colleague, 
Senator Bingaman, which I intend to be here and support, and I believe 
several have spoken in opposition to it, is what is called a renewable 
portfolio standard. Not a very sexy name, in fact we should rename it, 
renewable energy standard of some type.
  But it is simply this: With respect to electricity that we are 
creating in this country, 15 percent of that electricity should come 
from renewable sources. Establishing a national standard, a goal, what 
is it we want to meet? Where do we want to go? An old saying: If you 
don't care where you are, you will never be lost.
  Well, I mean, if we do not care where we are, we will never have a 
standard that we will miss. But how about ascribing a standard for this 
country that forces us to reach a little bit and says that, for every 
kilowatt hour of electricity we are going to use, 15 percent of what we 
produce is going to come from renewable sources of energy.
  Once again, it relieves and begins to withdraw our heavy dependence 
on foreign sources of oil because a substantial amount of our 
electricity now comes from fossil fuels, from natural gas and coal and 
so on.
  Now, the issue of the renewable portfolio standard, I understand, is 
going to be controversial because some do not want the Federal 
Government to be involved in requiring something such as this. But, 
frankly, I don't think we have much choice. The other issue that will 
be involved in with this bill, which I support, is a renewable fuels 
standard. That renewable fuels standard is

[[Page 15384]]

one that calls for 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022. Now, 
I helped write the last renewable fuel standard. It was the first one 
we ever established. It was 7\1/2\ billion gallons by 2012.
  We are going to be at 10 billion gallons, exceeding that standard in 
a year or two. We believe we should aspire to achieve much more; a 
renewable fuels standard, using the biofuels; yes, the production of 
ethanol; growing energy in our farm fields on a renewable basis, you 
can do that year after year; the ethanol that can come from cellulose 
that I believe has great capability in our future. All of that is good 
for this country.
  It is good for our farmers, good for our consumers, it is good for 
beginning to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of oil. Now, we 
have a lot of issues we are going to be discussing, some controversial, 
some perhaps not, but my hope is that in the coming week and a half or 
so we can finish this Energy bill.
  I wish to show a couple of charts again. First of all, the amount of 
oil we use in this country. Those are million barrels per day. I 
mentioned we suck 84 million barrels of oil out of this little planet 
of ours. Look at what we use in the United States. Our population uses 
one-fourth of all the oil that is taken out of this planet every single 
day.
  I mean, that is an oil intensity for our economy that, in my 
judgment, needs to be changed. Then, finally, let me say again, if 70 
percent of that oil, nearly 70 percent is used in that vehicle fleet. 
If in that vehicle fleet we have seen all those improvements in 
acceleration, for example, and no improvement with respect to miles per 
gallon, then we better figure out how we address this in a different 
way.
  One other item I am going to talk about for a moment is something 
called SPR. One of the problems with this life is there are so many 
acronyms and so many shorthand names for things, the Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve. We are doing something that makes a lot of sense to 
me. We are taking oil and sticking it underground and saving it for a 
time when we might need it, a security reserve of oil. The Strategic 
Petroleum Reserves makes sense to me. In fact, we increased the amount 
of that SPR authorization in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. But with 
respect to our original goal, we are 97 percent there--97 percent. I do 
not think it makes any sense at this point to increase it, despite the 
authorization, I do not think it makes any sense, when the price of oil 
is where it is, very high--the price of gasoline is extraordinary--I do 
not think it makes sense to be taking any oil out of the supply chain 
and sticking it underground.
  Yet our Government continues to do that. I know we have not been 
purchasing oil at this point. They suspended that through the summer 
driving season. But we are still taking about 8 or 9 million barrels of 
oil and putting it in SPR as part of the payment for royalties in kind. 
I do not support that either.
  The President is asking for a near doubling of SPR in the next 
appropriations cycle. I am not going to support that. I am going to 
write the bill. I will be writing the bill as chairman of the 
appropriations subcommittee that funds that. I am not going to increase 
that because I think at a time when gas prices are going through the 
roof, the last thing we ought to do is take oil out of the supply, 
because all that does is put upward pressure on gas prices. So I 
believe that is another thing we might wish to consider in this 
discussion.
  Finally, the issue of energy is one that I know consumes perhaps less 
attention from time to time than others, because we take it for 
granted. We turn the light switch on, we get in our car, we do all 
these things, all of it powered as a part of our energy need, and we do 
not think much about it. But if, God forbid, somehow all of it were 
turned off, and we had an example a few years ago, I think we were out 
of energy in the capital region for 5 or 6 days, then all of a sudden 
we understood what energy means to our daily lives.
  If ever we would see gas lines around the block again, we would 
understand what this addiction to oil means for our daily lives. Now, I 
said earlier that if our entire approach with respect to energy is 
digging and drilling, that is yesterday forever. I do not mean we will 
not continue to use fossil fuels, I believe we will. Fossil fuels will 
be a significant part of our future.
  That means oil, coal, and natural gas. I am going to spend a lot of 
time and money as chairman of the appropriations subcommittee dealing 
with this issue of clean power and clean coal technology because we 
have to be able to continue to use that resource. But it is also the 
case that we have so much more to do. Because for decades we have been 
told that you cannot do renewables, renewables are a pat-on-the-head 
sort of thing. If you are talking about renewables, good for you, God 
bless you, but you ought to go to a library someplace and visit with 
your two or three friends about these things; it does not matter to 
America's future. That is total nonsense.
  Renewable energy is very important for this country. It is long past 
the time that we get about the business of dealing with it. Yes, it is 
hydrogen and fuel cells, which I feel very strongly about. It is wind 
and solar. It is geothermal. It is a wide range of issues dealing with 
renewable energy that I believe will contribute to this country's 
energy security. I believe it will give us a much better and a much 
stronger energy policy.
  I see my colleague from Idaho is here. As I indicated earlier, he and 
I have introduced a piece of legislation that a fair part is included 
in the bill that was reported out of the Energy Committee. I am also on 
the Commerce Committee, which has reported a portion of this bill as 
well.
  I believe we need do a lot of things well in order to make this 
country less dangerously dependent, as we now are, on foreign sources 
of energy. That is our goal.
  I believe our plan does that. I believe the bill that is brought to 
us from the Energy, Commerce, EPW, and Foreign Relations Committees 
advances this country's interest.
  My hope is, in the coming week or two, perhaps a week and a half, as 
this is being considered, we can improve the bill even more.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, the Senator from North Dakota and I over 
the years have coalesced around a variety of issues we have been 
successful on on some occasions in causing to become public policy. 
Earlier this year--and Senator Dorgan has already mentioned it--we 
coalesced around three concepts we thought were critically necessary in 
a current and future energy portfolio and, therefore, the public policy 
that drives it. We recognized that efficiency would be and must be a 
part of the equation, that clean energy, the biofuels, must be a part 
of the equation for the future to make us less dependent. But also 
something that must be a part of the equation is production of current 
known and future sources of hydrocarbons. In other words--I will quote 
the Senator from North Dakota--you can't conserve or drill your way out 
of the current $3-plus gas we have and the greater dependency we have 
on foreign nations to supply us, but a combination of both into the 
future brings us to where this great country ought to be from the 
standpoint of a national energy policy.
  The Reid bill, the Bingaman bill that has been introduced on the 
floor, S. 1419, is about the future. You can stand on a hilltop and see 
it out there 25 or 30 years into the future. But the man or woman of 
the American economy today who is at the gas pump and filling his or 
her car or truck wants to know about tomorrow and next week and next 
year. Are gas prices going to continue to go up? What is the problem 
here? Why isn't this great Nation more self-sufficient? And for those 
who study energy a good deal and see a 60-percent reliance on foreign 
production, shouldn't we be worried about national security? Shouldn't 
we be worried about the emergence of petronationalism, about a little 
dictator down in Venezuela jerking the tail of a great country because 
he supplies 17 percent of our total foreign imports? Yes, we ought to 
be concerned about that. We ought to be angry about it.

[[Page 15385]]

  The reason we grew complacent, the light switch would always produce 
a light or the gas pump would always produce inexpensive fuel, is 
because it has always been there. What a large part of Americans didn't 
know is that politically and in a public policy way we began to set in 
place a series of things over the last 20 years that flattened 
production, made it less profitable, created self-reliance, and didn't 
compete and keep up with the amount of consumed energy we were 
requiring of a growth economy. As a result, we hit the wall. The wall 
is $3-plus gas. All power bills are going up. Energy is a part of 
America's disposable income and is becoming an increasingly bigger 
part. Americans are sitting now scratching their heads and saying: Are 
we going to have to change our lifestyles because energy is going to 
cost a lot more?
  My wife and I and a group of Senators, the week before last, traveled 
in Europe. As we landed at Andrews Air Force Base, got in our cars and 
headed home, I turned to my wife and said: I see we are back in the 
land of the big cars.
  That is part of our addiction. We love our big cars. We had been 
traveling in Luxembourg, France, and Italy, and by definition, it is 
the land of the little car. Why? Because gas over there from a 
gallonage point of view is about $7.50 a gallon. It is at least double 
plus a little more of what we are currently paying today. As a result, 
Europeans significantly over the last 20 years have changed their 
lifestyles because they couldn't afford the energy. I am not going to 
apologize because America consumes a lot of energy. We are nearly 26 
percent of the world economy. We consume 26 percent of the energy base. 
Why? Because we are 26 percent of the world economy. It takes energy to 
produce jobs, to produce products, to create an economy. We are driven 
by energy. It is going to cost more to stay at 26 percent if we don't 
develop good public policy that gets us through tomorrow and takes us 
into the future in a way that the consumer can understand and 
appreciate.
  Consumers are angry today, and they have a right to be. They look at 
very large profits on the part of the oil companies and say: Look, it 
is their fault. Those profits are driven by demand and the ability to 
supply. There are no gas lines today because there is energy at the 
pump, but we are paying more for it. The Senator from North Dakota is 
right, the politics of this issue would change again if there were long 
gas lines at the pump and they were paying $3-plus a gallon. So the 
supply is there in the current form, but 60 percent of it comes from a 
foreign nation somewhere in the world. Most of those supplies and those 
foreign nations are in very precarious political situations. It is a 
very unstable world out there from whence these supplies come. As a 
result, the futures market anticipates that and builds a margin in to 
offset the risk to deal with the demand.
  What am I saying here? I am saying to the Senate today that S. 1419 
is a piece of the total, but it isn't where we ought to be tomorrow. 
Tomorrow ought to be about energy security and energy production. You 
don't talk green, although you have to talk green and should talk 
green. You don't talk cellulosic ethanol being in production in 10 
years at a rate of 15 billion gallons a year because it won't be, 
because the technology isn't there, although we are driving there. 
Energy efficiency, a CAFE standard, is a place we ought to go. I for 
the first time join with the Senator from North Dakota in a 4-percent 
mandatory efficiency. That takes us down the road. But that is out in 
the future. What about tomorrow? What about knowing where our current 
oil reserves are, the 15 or 20 billion barrels or more of oil that is 
in the Outer Continental Shelf that may be very accessible in a clean 
and environmentally sound way? What about expanding our refinery 
capacity? Because in this transitional period of the next two-and-a-
half to three decades, where more cars will be electric, more cars will 
be hybrid, we will be producing 20 percent of our liquid transportation 
fuels from corn-based ethanol, cellulosic-based ethanol, to get to the 
30 to 32 billion gallons a year. What about all of that? That is our 
future.
  My consumers in Idaho want to know about tomorrow. The Reid-Bingaman 
bill has nothing to do with tomorrow. We simply cannot ignore the next 
10 or 15 years and jump into the future. We have to continue to produce 
and we need to produce. We have to continue to refine the hydrocarbons 
to supply the gas, and we need to expand that capability. It better be 
on shore. It better not be in Venezuela or in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia or 
someplace else that is at this moment, at best, politically unstable, 
let alone Iran and Iraq. That is where our dependence lies today. To 
fail to address that in the Senate is to fail to address the No. 1 
question of a great nation: How do we stay great? How do we stay at 26 
percent of the world GDP? How do we stay generous to the rest of the 
world? We produce and push a lot of new technology, and that is in part 
what the Reid bill is about. That is all going to be transparent and 
giveable to the rest of the world. When we lead on energy in all 
aspects, the rest of the world benefits because we share it.
  Therefore, as this bill comes to the floor, there is a great deal 
that has to be done. We need a new RPS, renewable portfolio standard, 
wind, solar--a great idea, an old concept. Today's energy world is 
about cleanliness. Why not a new standard? Why not a clean portfolio 
standard instead of a renewable portfolio standard? Include wind, 
include solar, include sequestration of carbon, include efficiencies, 
include nuclear, include hydro. Let's get on with the business of being 
clean. If Senator Reid wants to come to the floor and talk about 
climate change, then he ought to be talking about all of those other 
things that drive the economy toward a cleaner energy future, not 
command and control but incentives, creativity, bringing off the 
laboratory shelf and into production the kind of things we know are 
already out there.
  Coal to liquids, what is wrong with that? Some environmental groups 
are wringing their hands and saying: There might be a problem there. We 
know it will burn 90 percent cleaner. That is not a problem. It is only 
in the mind of some idealist that it isn't perfect. How do you get to 
perfection? You start by adjusting and changing and improving. Today we 
are tremendously proud of our ethanol production in corn. But it has 
been 20 years in refinement and development to the distillery that is 
set up tomorrow somewhere in the Midwest. It is going to be so much 
better than the distillery that went into production a decade and a 
half ago. That is what this bill ought to be about, and it isn't there 
today.
  What about the tax incentives, and what is the Finance Committee 
going to do? None of that is there.
  This chart illustrates the problem. Here is the line for demand; here 
is supply. This is the hydrocarbons. That is pretty simple. Where does 
this margin come from? Offshore, foreign countries. High risk, less 
national security. Why do a lot of military leaders and those who look 
in broader terms support what Byron Dorgan and Larry Craig did today in 
the SAFE bill and those three factors about production, efficiency, and 
biofuels? They support it because of national security, taking this out 
of the equation, getting us back into production.
  You have heard me talk a lot over the past about the Outer 
Continental Shelf and the billions and billions of gallons of oil that 
is out there. We have allowed States to say no even though it is a 
national, Federal resource. Last year we picked up a little bit right 
here in lease sale 181, but here in the eastern gulf are phenomenal 
resources, billions and billions of barrels of oil that are very 
accessible, achievable in a sound environmental way, and we are still 
saying no. We are still saying, let a tinhorn dictator in Venezuela 
jerk us around.
  Here is another problem. The Cubans have said: Come drill us. The 
world is coming. The world is drilling in Cuba today. Vietnam came in 
last week. Spain, Norway, Malaysia, and Canada are 45 miles off our 
shore drilling for oil, but we can't drill. It is the ultimate ``no'' 
zone of politics. The ``no'' zone went up decades ago when the

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technology wasn't there to achieve the environmental standards upon 
which we demand and insist. The technology is here today. But the 
politics of Florida won't allow us to touch this. So the American 
consumer simply says: OK. I am going to pay more. I am going to pay 
another 50 cents a gallon so Florida can have its political way or 
anywhere else, for that matter, along the eastern seaboard or as it 
relates to this equation over here, the western coast, Alaska. Or have 
we come to a turn in the road where technology allows us to go there in 
a clean way and bring down that dependency, allows us to thumb our 
nose, if you will, at the foreign sources?
  Here is the other side of the equation. Nearly $300 billion a year 
leaves our shore to go to another country to buy their oil, and some of 
those countries are buying guns and shooting at us. How smart we aren't 
to allow that policy to continue to prevail.
  That is part of the debate in the coming weeks as it relates to 1419. 
It is not a complete package. It is way out into the future. It is not 
about tomorrow. It is not about national security. It is not about 
production. If we don't have those factors in a bill, this Senate will 
not serve its public and the American consumer in a responsible way in 
sustaining and building a great nation.
  I yield the floor.

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