[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 3738]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         SUPPORT THE DRIVE ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to speak about House 
Resolution or House bill 670, which is a bill called the DRIVE Act; 
that is, the Dependency Reduction through Innovative Vehicle and Energy 
Policy.
  It is a bill that Eliot Engel and I have cosponsored. It has almost 
an equal number of Democrats and Republican cosponsors, up to about 60. 
And its goal is to reduce your oil consumption by 20 percent in 20 
years. What we did is sat down and said, how could we achieve that goal 
and do something for national security, something for the environment, 
and something for mom and dad back home and their pocketbook?
  So we set out to try to stay true to those goals. We put fourth four 
things in it. To change consumer habits, we have doubled the tax credit 
for purchase of hybrids, flex fuel vehicles, and biodiesel, anything 
that would drive on something besides gasoline.
  Secondly, we have sent a message to Detroit that we would like to see 
80 percent of the cars made in 10 years be at least flex fuel so that 
Wall Street will also follow suit and invest in flex fuel vehicles and 
hybrids and ethanol, things like that. If Wall Street knows that the 
government is behind it and the market is going to be there, then the 
investment dollars will follow.
  Too often what happens when the price of gasoline goes up, everyone 
rushes out and looks at alternatives; then when the price of gasoline 
goes down, everybody forgets all about it. We want to have a permanent 
investment stream from Wall Street. That is why it is a good method 
when you follow what we did with air bags, the air bag model.
  Thirdly, we require the government to start scoring based on energy 
consumption. When the government goes out and buys fleets of vehicles, 
we want to know, are you buying innovative vehicles, flex fuels, 
hybrids and so forth. We believe it is important for the Federal 
Government to have a goal.
  One thing I point out, which is not in the bill; but we deliver on 
Saturday, mail which is 30 percent of the volume that you have Monday 
through Friday, but we use 100 percent of the fuel. So it would make 
sense if you are in the business place to quit delivering mail on 
Saturday.
  I understand that has some political ramifications, and thinking with 
our political minds instead of our business minds. I just say that is 
an example. Finally, we believe that a lot more research has to be 
done. But I want to point out, Mr. Speaker, that Toyota is already on 
their fourth-generation hybrid.
  Unfortunately, many of the Detroit American motor companies are not 
that far along. But there is a lot coming down the pike. The University 
of Georgia, for example is making ethanol out of sweet potatoes, left-
over Coca Cola and watermelon. There are all kinds of ways to make 
ethanol in addition to using corn.
  These are the things that our bill does. You know, in Washington it 
is actually easy to agree to disagree. My friend, Mr. Miller and I, we 
have no problem disagreeing agreeably. But what we need to do is agree 
to agree, which is much harder. Because when Republicans and Democrats 
agree to agree, we make progress, and sometimes the interest groups 
that surround us from both parties really do not want that, because 
they are not as empowered as they are when we are fighting.

                          ____________________