[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14312-14318]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           BLUE DOG COALITION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. MATHESON. Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to organize 
a special order this hour on the part of the Blue Dog Coalition. The 
Blue Dogs wanted to take advantage of this opportunity tonight to speak 
about energy policy issues.
  I think that there is no doubt that when it comes to domestic policy 
issues that this country faces, that energy policy is right at the top 
of the list. I think it is clear that this country should be looking 
for a comprehensive balanced energy policy, and I think that represents 
the type of politics the Blue Dogs in the House of Representatives have 
often supported.
  We have a number of issues that we really want to work through 
tonight, and I have a number of my fellow Blue Dog colleagues who are 
going to join me during this hour to talk about various energy policy 
issues. And I would like to start right now by recognizing my colleague 
from the State of Louisiana, one of the newest Members of the House, 
and someone who is prepared to really contribute on this issue, 
Representative Cazayoux from Louisiana.
  Mr. CAZAYOUX. Madam Speaker, I gladly join Congressman Matheson in 
our discussion regarding a balanced comprehensive energy policy that 
the Blue Dogs such as Congressman Matheson and others support.
  I believe that the high price of gasoline is an immediate problem 
that requires both swift action and long-term planning. It is the 
number one issue facing America today. It is one that hits home every 
time that we fill up our vehicles to go to work, when we attempt to go 
on summer vacation, and even when we go to the store to buy food.
  I support expanding domestic drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf 
and in ANWR. This will not only reduce our dependence on foreign oil 
and lower gas prices, it will help our economy and create jobs. In 
fact, in Louisiana it was recently announced that a new oil lease in 
the Gulf of Mexico would generate $78 million for Louisiana to restore 
its coast.
  I believe that one of the root problems of the high price of gasoline 
is our outdated refining capacity. That is why I support building new 
and improved refineries and updating old ones. We haven't had a new 
refinery built since 1972. We have to do a better job at allowing 
companies to build these refineries and incentivizing companies to 
build refineries so that we can expand our refinery capacity and stop 
importing refined gas and refined oil.
  In addition to the issue of supplying gas prices, a strengthening 
economy and subsequently a strengthened dollar will also go a long way 
to improving fuel prices. I believe, and the experts support this, 
deficit spending is one of the root causes of our reduced dollar, and 
that is playing a huge role, I believe, in the price of oil and the 
subsequent price of gas in our economy. If we can start spending within 
our means in Congress, we believe that the dollar will become a 
stronger dollar, we can buy more foreign oil, because we are now 
importing 60 percent of our oil, we can do that in a more effective way 
and, therefore, the price of gas should go down.
  But the talk of drilling, we should not stop there. That approach is 
a narrow approach. It is an approach I support, but it is not the end 
all. We have to have a multi-pronged approach to reach energy 
independence and security in the long term as well as the short term. 
That is why we voted to increase the oil supply by temporarily 
diverting oil shipments from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Experts 
estimate this will lower gas prices anywhere from 5 cents to 24 cents, 
and this just went into effect this past week and hopefully we will see 
some real lowered costs at the pump very shortly.
  Also, I personally voted for an amendment to the Congressional Budget 
Resolution that would open up drilling in ANWR and the Outer 
Continental Shelf.
  We as a body passed the Gas Price Relief for Consumers Act, and that 
allows the Justice Department to investigate foreign oil companies who 
conspire to drive up prices for American consumers.
  We passed the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008, which 
will

[[Page 14313]]

help reduce our dependence on foreign oil by providing tax credits for 
renewable energy, including solar, biomass, geothermal, hydropower, and 
wind. We need to be aggressive in making sure that we harness the 
technological energy of our Nation, and this bill goes a long way in 
doing that.
  We passed the Energy Markets Emergency Act, which directs the 
Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use all its powers, including 
emergency powers, to determine whether excessive speculation in energy 
futures markets is driving the price of oil up.
  We passed the farm bill, which included a strong provision for 
biofuel production. And we know, the experts suggest that, without the 
use of biofuels, we would see gas prices 15 percent higher than they 
are now.
  The bottom line is we need to work hard to create energy 
independence. That work must start today. In the words of one of my 
constituents: These cars just won't run on hope.
  So we need to act to continue to increase domestic drilling, to 
increase our ability to harness our technological energy that America 
has succeeded in solving most of our problems and all of our problems 
in the past. And so we need to bring relief to hardworking Americans by 
reducing gas prices now.
  Mr. MATHESON. I thank my colleague. And I appreciate the fact that my 
colleague from Louisiana highlighted the notion that there is not a 
single action that we need to take; that in fact we need a 
comprehensive effort, we need to look at a series of different 
opportunities to try to address both the supply and the demand side. 
And I appreciate his leadership on the issue and want to thank him for 
joining us in the Blue Dog hour.
  Right now I recognize my colleague from Kansas, a long-time Blue Dog, 
Congressman Moore.
  Mr. MOORE of Kansas. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah, 
thank you for presiding here. I want to talk for just a few moments 
about this energy crisis that our country faces.
  Madam Speaker, I am the policy cochair for a group called the Blue 
Dog Coalition, which is using some of the time tonight, and I 
appreciate my colleagues being here to discuss the energy situation in 
our country.
  Shortly after the last election when in fact there was a change in 
the majority in the House and the Democrats took control, the cochairs 
of the Blue Dog group and a group called the New Democratic Coalition, 
which I also belong to; I am not in the leadership there, but I have 
belonged to that since I have been in Congress for my tenth year now, 
we were invited over to speak to the President about policy. And this 
was the first time that we had been invited over to speak about policy. 
We had been invited for several other ceremonial things, but not about 
policy. So I really appreciated the opportunity to talk with the 
President.
  In fact, the four leaders of the Blue Dog group met up in my office 
to talk about some ground rules since we only had a 45-minute meeting 
with the President. So we talked about how long we would take each if 
we had a chance to talk at all, and we decided we would each take about 
2 minutes. And we talked and went through our items there.
  But when we were leaving after this 45-minute meeting, the President 
was walking beside me. We were walking out the front door of the White 
House, and I said, ``Mr. President, you have an opportunity to be a 
hero to people in this country and maybe a few people around the 
world.'' And he said, ``Well, how is that?''
  I said, ``Mr. President, do you remember, a little more than 30 years 
ago there was a man on television one night talking to the American 
people about the long lines at the gas pumps. He had a cardigan sweater 
on sitting in front of the fireplace. His name was Jimmy Carter.'' And 
the President said, ``I remember that.'' I said, ``Mr. President, 
President Carter said what we need is a comprehensive energy policy.''
  And, you know, President Carter was right then, and I have faulted 
every Democratic and Republican President since President Carter for 
not doing what he said we needed to do back then, because that was the 
right thing. And what happened was President Carter made a few 
recommendations to Congress, and Congress passed a couple little things 
like the solar panels tax credit and a few other things. But a few 
months after President Carter talked to the American people, the long 
lines at the gas pumps went down, and I have said that every American 
adult in this country got attention deficit disorder and forgot about 
what he said.

                              {time}  2000

  And I wish we had done that back then, and I wish we had done that 
and had concentrated on that every year since then because we'd be in a 
whole different position as a Nation on the energy issue right now in 
this world.
  I said, Mr. President, if you would do what President Carter said and 
appoint, I suggested to him, a commission, a bipartisan group of House 
Members, a bipartisan group of Senators and some experts on energy 
production and challenge them, Mr. President, to submit to you within 6 
to 8 months a written recommendation of a comprehensive policy for 
developing energy to make us maybe not totally energy independent but 
to reduce by 60 percent, say, within 8 to 10 years our dependence on 
foreign oil, Mr. President, that would improve our national security. 
Right now, we are so dependent on nations in the Middle East to provide 
our security, our energy interests to us, that that is a security 
issue.
  I said, Mr. President, I think drilling is an important part of this, 
but we cannot drill our way out of this problem. We have got to come at 
this from 40 different directions. I said, Mr. President, Kansas is in 
the top five States in the Nation in terms of potential for wind 
energy. We're not going to solve our energy problem by wind energy 
alone, but it can be a small part of a big solution to this problem. If 
we come at this from 40 different directions, including conservation, 
including just all kinds of different productions of energy, we could 
address this for the American people, and you would be a hero to people 
in this country.
  He said that's a good idea. I'll think about that.
  Well, unfortunately, he has got about 4, 5, 6 months left in his 
administration. I doubt seriously that anything is going to happen 
there now. He and the Vice President have been good friends, frankly, 
to oil companies, so I doubt anything is going to happen there now, but 
after this next Presidential election, whoever is elected, whether it's 
Obama or McCain, we need to ask him to do what President Carter talked 
about 34, 35 years ago. That is to appoint a commission. Come back with 
a national plan for reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
  We can drill, but that's not going to solve the problem in itself. If 
we do what I'm talking about here, what President Carter talked about, 
I think that would be the right thing for our Nation and the right 
thing for our world.
  Mr. MATHESON. Well, I thank the gentleman from Kansas for his 
thoughts, and I appreciate again the introduction of the notion that we 
need a comprehensive approach.
  There is just not one silver bullet that's going to solve this 
circumstance. It really is consistent with what the Blue Dog energy 
principles that were adopted at the start of the 110th Congress say 
about fuel diversity, the recognition that long-term U.S. energy 
independence is going to come from putting everything on the table, 
everything from conventional oil and gas and from alternative sources 
such as oil shale and tar sands, nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, 
coal, and biofuels. If we're really going to take this issue on, we've 
got to look at it in that comprehensive manner.
  Again, the Blue Dogs have adopted a set of principles that recognize 
the value of a diverse fuel mix within this country as a long-term 
solution of creating energy security for this country.
  With that, I now would like to welcome another fellow Blue Dog to 
speak, who is a fellow member of the Energy

[[Page 14314]]

and Commerce Committee and who is cochair for communications for the 
Blue Dogs in this Congress--Congressman Ross from Arkansas--who has in 
his years in Congress been a real leader on trying to address energy 
issues in this country. I welcome him to participate in this 
discussion.
  With that, I will yield to him as much time as he would like to 
consume.
  Mr. ROSS. I'd like to thank the gentleman from Utah for leading this 
discussion this evening on energy.
  As the gentleman mentioned, I'm fortunate to serve on the House 
Energy and Commerce Committee and on the Energy and Air Quality 
Subcommittee. Through my work there, I've been working on ways to 
reduce our dependence on foreign oil and to address this energy crisis 
facing America and, quite frankly, facing the world, and I think there 
are several ways to do it.
  There is no silver bullet. It's going to take a multifaceted 
approach. As Congress, we can't control the demand for oil in the 
world, but as a Congress, we can make an impact on the supply, and 
that's what I believe that this Congress needs to do.
  Here is what we do know: In the next 8 years, there will be 100 
million new cars on the road, 100 million new cars on the road in the 
next 8 years, not here but in China and in India.
  Here is the other thing we know: If we do not change our current 
energy policy in this country, sometime in the next 12 to 20 years, 
depending on whose numbers you want to believe, we will go from being 
60 percent dependent on foreign oil to being 100 percent dependent on 
foreign oil.
  I've got a plan that, I believe, can go a long way toward fixing 
that. While we have a gasoline crisis today, in the next 35 years, it 
will be an electricity crisis. I've got a bill, H.R. 5437. It's called 
the American-Made Energy Act. It's 155 pages long. It's a multifaceted 
bill that takes a multifaceted approach to this energy crisis. Again, 
there is no silver bullet. Quite simply, my bill does this:
  I propose that we drill in ANWR. There are 19 million acres in ANWR. 
My bill proposes to drill on 2,000 of them--one-sixth the size of the 
Dulles Airport. We've already got a pipeline going to Alaska, to ANWR, 
that can handle 2 million barrels a day; we're only putting 1 million 
in it. Let's fill it up and put the other 1 million barrels in it.
  Additionally, we can drill off the coast. In fact, it was by 
executive order that Bush One chose to shut down drilling near the 
coast of Florida. That was a mistake. They're drilling much closer to 
the coast in Alabama than they are in Florida today because of an 
executive order issued by former President Bush, often referred to as 
Bush 41, I believe.
  So this is not a Democrat or a Republican problem. I think both 
parties, quite frankly, have some blame to share here, but we don't 
have a Democratic energy problem or a Republican energy problem; we've 
got an American energy problem, and we need to fix it as a Congress. I 
think it would be most helpful if we did it, quite frankly, in a 
bipartisan way.
  I'm not talking about drilling off the coast or in ANWR and utilizing 
1940 or 1950 technology, not even utilizing 1990 technology. I'm 
talking about doing it while utilizing 21st century technology that can 
allow us to do it, to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and yet 
remain good stewards of this environment, of this land that God has 
given us to care after.
  Then there are the lease and royalty payments from drilling in those 
areas. By drilling in those areas, we meet our short-term oil needs. 
We've got some great ideas. I've actually test-driven a hydrogen fuel 
cell car. You can drive it. It sounds like an electric golf cart, and 
it runs like a regular car, and when you stop, if you jump out and run 
to the tailpipe with a clean glass, in time, it'll pour you a half a 
cup of water. They tell me you can drink it. I didn't try, Madam 
Speaker, but they say you can.
  I mean these are not Star Wars-ish ideas. These are not ideas of the 
next century or of the next generation. They're here, but we need an 
energy policy that embraces them and that moves them from the science 
lab to every street corner in America where you see a gas pump today.
  So my bill does this: It says drill in ANWR, utilizing new 
environmental technology. Drill off the coast, utilizing new 
environmental technology. Then the revenue from the lease and royalty 
payments, it's estimated, will total $80 billion. I want to take that 
$80 billion and put every dime of it into alternative and renewable 
fuels to move these ideas from the science lab to the marketplace.
  This year, this administration will spend less than $4 billion on 
alternative and renewable fuels. Now, for a country boy from Hope, 
Arkansas, $4 billion sounds like a lot of money, but to put it in 
perspective, we will spend that amount in Iraq in the next 10 days. 
Bill Gates will spend twice that amount on research and development for 
Microsoft Corporation alone this year. When President Kennedy said he 
was going to put a man on the Moon, he didn't just say it; we invested 
in it. In today's dollars, it was $90 billion, and we did so much more 
than put a man on the Moon. We grew a new generation of innovators in 
this country who have created and who have invented a lot of the 
technologies that we're now beginning to take for granted.
  It's time for another President Kennedy ``let's go to the Moon''-
sized investment and, this time, with alternative and renewable fuels 
so we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil. That's exactly what I 
try to accomplish with the American-Made Energy Act, H.R. 5437.
  I'd like to thank the gentleman from Utah for allowing me to come and 
to speak on my bill for a few minutes this evening, and I appreciate 
his leadership on these energy issues.
  With that, I yield back to him.
  Mr. MATHESON. Well, I thank my colleague from Arkansas for spending 
time with us this evening but also for trying to take a thoughtful and 
comprehensive approach. That's really what Blue Dogs are about. I think 
we really try to discuss items in the context of policy.
  I'd just like to introduce one other factor into this discussion 
about the high gas prices that we face today and what we can do in 
terms of the price of oil, and it's consistent with what Blue Dogs talk 
about a lot. People probably didn't think I'd raise the issue of fiscal 
responsibility relative to oil prices, but it turns out that there is a 
significant relationship here. It has to do with the fact that, during 
the current administration, so much more money has been borrowed.
  When our current President took office, the national debt was around 
$6 trillion. We're approaching $10 trillion now. $4 trillion just in 
the last 7\1/2\ years. Do you know what that has done among many other 
things? It has created a weaker dollar. Now, oil is a global commodity. 
It's traded all over the world, and it's traded under one currency, and 
that's the U.S. dollar. That weaker dollar means that oil costs even 
more for us in this country than it does for other countries with 
stronger currencies.
  I've brought with me tonight this chart to graphically demonstrate 
the relationship, according to the Energy Information Administration, 
between the lower dollar--the weaker dollar--and how much the price has 
gone up in terms of dollars per barrel. It's pretty self-evident that 
we had a strong dollar for a number of years. Then in the early part of 
this decade, as the debt started to increase, the value of the dollar 
dropped precipitously, and the price of oil went up at the same time.
  It's not the only factor associated with how expensive oil is in the 
world today, but clearly, in all of the discussion that we've been 
having about why the oil price is so high in the world, in my opinion, 
this particular issue has not received much attention.
  The Blue Dog Coalition has this fundamental principle about balancing 
budgets and about living within our means. We tell people that you may 
not see the impact of this debt right away, but here is an impact 
because, with all of that increased debt, we've had to borrow so much 
money as a

[[Page 14315]]

country that we've weakened our currency relative to the rest of the 
world. Therefore, because that's how it's traded all over the world, 
the price of oil on a dollar-per-barrel basis has gone up a lot.
  So I wanted to introduce this concept, which is very appropriate 
within a Blue Dog Special Order hour here on the floor of the House of 
Representatives, to talk about the linkage between the need for fiscal 
responsibility and how it affects energy prices, which is something 
that, I think, ought to be part of this debate as well.
  With that, I'd like to yield time to another one of my fellow Blue 
Dogs, another individual who is very thoughtful and measured in his 
approach, and that's the type of approach we need for a comprehensive 
energy policy. He is my colleague Mr. Scott from the State of Georgia.
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Thank you very much, Mr. Matheson. I certainly 
want to thank the gentleman from Utah for allowing me to share a few 
thoughts on what, I think, is the most urgent issue facing, really, the 
survival of the world, not just that of our country. I'd like to talk 
about this from an additional perspective.
  This issue is rolling along on about four or five major legs. One is 
supply. Another is the weakened dollar, of which you spoke. Another is 
do we do more drilling. Then this other of which we have not dealt as 
we should, of which I believe is that leg of which we have to deal if 
we are going to really address the issue facing the American people, is 
the high price of gasoline. That leg is called demand. We've got 
speculators who certainly need to be reined in, and we're doing that.
  I serve on the Agriculture Committee. We've had the Commodity Futures 
Trading Commission under Chairman Lukken to come before our committee. 
We want to make sure that we give him the resources and all that he 
needs to bring title regulation and transparency. We need to look at 
issues like swapping where these traders use others' pension funds to 
trade among themselves with little oversight. We need to close the 
Enron loophole. We need to make sure that everything trading with oil 
is done in the light and not in foreign exchanges that have very little 
regulation. All of that needs to be done.

                              {time}  2015

  Speculation and speculators play a vital role as well. So that we 
have to make sure that whatever approach we take there, that's a part 
of the infrastructure. And still we're not addressing the issue facing 
the American people until we address the issue of demand.
  The only way we're going to bring down the price of oil, and 
subsequently the price of gasoline, is to reduce our demand and our 
dependency on oil. Oil's not in our future if we're going to have one. 
If we continue with oil, this earth is going to eventually burn up. 
We're getting to that point now. It is the oil and other matters that 
are causing global warming at such an epidemic rate that even if you 
drill for more, that creates more demand. And drilling is where we are 
now. That is not where we need to go for the future.
  We have got to erase the high demand or else we're going to be in a 
footrace with China and India. If we continue at our pace on our 
current demand for oil, it will go up 22 percent in the next 10 years, 
China's will go up 160 percent, India 110, and developing countries in 
the Middle East will go up 125. Increase. The more oil you drill for, 
the more the demand, the higher the price.
  Let me tell you something that happened. Just before we left, in 
Jidda in Saudi Arabia they had a conference. And at that conference, 
Saudi Arabia said, Okay. I tell you what. We're going to increase 
during the month of May by 300,000 barrels per day. Then in July and 
June, last month, they added another 200,000 barrels a day, increase, 
because we felt the more the supply, then we'd lower the price. No, no, 
no. Less than 24 hours. That happened on a Sunday. That very Monday, 
when the first market opened in Singapore, the price went up from $134 
a barrel to $137, and now it's rolling along at $145. Does more oil, 
does more production, does it drive it up? It creates the demand.
  So what do we do? We've got to move forthrightly on getting off of 
oil, getting off of dependency on it. We've got a great chance to do 
that. We have the means to do it. There is no country that has the 
technology, that has the smarts to be able to get alternative sources 
of energy to survival.
  If Brazil can do it, why can't we? I went down to Brazil last year, 
spent a week down there going into the factories, into the production 
plants, and 85 percent of their automobiles are running on what is 
called flex fuel. In other words, ethanol made from sugarcane. Why 
can't we do that? No. We blindly want to go with ethanol, but we want 
to go make it on corn.
  For every unit of energy that it takes to produce a unit of ethanol 
from sugarcane, they can only yield less--they yield 8 units of energy. 
That's a great yield. With corn, for every energy it takes to produce 
it they can only produce less than 2 units of energy. It's not 
efficient. Plus, it drives up the price on food because corn is the 
basic for livestock. So corn ethanol is not the future. Nor should it 
be on any basic food.
  But now our technologies say we can make ethanol from kudzu, from 
pine straw, from pinecones, and yes, sugarcane.
  Now I ask you, here is a question that we need to ask and the 
American people need to ask Congress. Why can't we begin to offset our 
demand for gasoline to run our automobiles, offset, removing our demand 
bit by bit from importing oil from the Middle East and on oil to making 
up for that by pouring in ethanol? And why is it that we have a 54 
cents-per-gallon tariff on every gallon of ethanol we would import from 
Brazil? It doesn't make sense. Why would we not want to import ethanol 
made from sugarcane, the most energetic, the most productive kind of 
ethanol, into this country from Brazil to offset the loss from 
importing oil from there as we build up our own capacity for ethanol?
  And let me just share with you what we're doing in my great State of 
Georgia. Georgia is at the leadership--and I would like to say, Mr. 
Matheson, in my own district in Clayton County, for example, we have in 
Clayton County in Ellenwood, a plant that makes biodiesel fuel. And you 
know what they make it from? Not oil, not petroleum. They're making it 
from the fatty parts that you throw away from the chickens and from 
pork. And they're taking it. And this year, this plant, it's called the 
BullDog BioDiesel--you can tell we're from Georgia because it's the 
``Bull Dog''--but it's the BullDog BioDiesel plant in Ellenwood. They 
will produce 18 million gallons of biodiesel fuel.
  And it is not going to have to go on the world market like oil would. 
That's another thing we need to clarify because people think if we were 
to drill and get oil, that that oil will come straight on back here and 
it stays in this country. No. That goes to the world oil market and 
comes out at $145 a barrel if it was today. The price is there.
  So my point is this: We need to understand that we are at a critical 
point in our history, quite honestly, as a civilization, and America 
must lead in this direction, and that leadership means cutting this 
demand and dependency on oil and moving to renewable areas. We're 
already moving with the battery cell automobile. Why can't we put 
greater emphasis on those things and those items?
  And as I said, we certainly have to look at ethanol as a future 
because it would make up for the shortfall we would get once we are 
able to cut our dependency on oil, especially from the Middle East.
  So I think that among all of the other things that we've got to do, 
and there are many things we've got to do, but essentially it comes 
down to the bottom line: You want the price of gasoline to go down? You 
want the future of the world to go up? Then what you do is you've got 
to cut the demand on that petroleum as a base of energy and move to 
another base of energy that does not threaten our economy or our 
environment.
  Mr. MATHESON. Well, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for his

[[Page 14316]]

thoughtful comments tonight. And it is no surprise. He's always been 
someone who tries to understand issues well. His comments really 
reflect a couple of the basic principles. You know, as I mentioned 
earlier in my remarks, the Blue Dog Coalition published a set of energy 
principles at the start of this Congress, and I think my colleague, Mr. 
Scott, really touched on two of the important components of those 
principles.
  The first is that the Blue Dogs believe in the value of technology 
development, and energy policy should build on American strengths. One 
of the great things about this country is its ability to innovate. 
Research and development capability of this country surpasses any place 
in the world. Whenever this country has applied itself to solve a 
problem, it succeeds so well. And that type of innovation is what is 
going to allow technology to take us to a different place than we are 
today.
  And I think Mr. Scott discussed some of those potential technologies 
in which he's familiar, and there is no question in the long run, if we 
are going to get to a position where this country is not as dependent 
on foreign oil, we need technology to take us to a new place in terms 
of particularly how our transportation and infrastructure are going to 
operate.
  And the second Blue Dog energy principle I think Mr. Scott touched on 
very well is this notion of efficiency. You know, if you can do more 
with less, we all win. We use less energy, we save money, it's good for 
the environment. Energy-efficient technologies and energy conservation 
are other pieces to this puzzle.
  I think an overriding thing we've said throughout this discussion 
tonight is that there is no single option here. There is no silver 
bullet. We, as Blue Dogs, support the furtherance of energy-efficient 
technologies. We think that we can continue to make progress and push 
the envelope and that, again, as a country that leads the world in 
innovation, we can also lead in terms of continuing to be more 
efficient in how we use energy.
  Again, I thank Mr. Scott for his comments. As usual, very consistent 
with Blue Dog principles, and again, it helps further this debate about 
how we ought to move ahead in our national energy policy.
  With that, I would like to recognize another of my fellow Blue Dogs, 
someone who has invested a lot of time and effort to develop an 
understanding of the energy issues and is a real substantive 
contributor to the policy debate, and that is my colleague from South 
Dakota, Representative Herseth Sandlin.
  I will yield her as much time as she may consume.
  Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank 
him for his leadership on the Energy and Commerce Committee and in 
other capacities and with the Blue Dog Coalition on energy issues.
  And in citing our energy principles that the Blue Dogs stand by, we 
have a number of those that have been addressed already this evening, 
but fuel diversity is certainly one that I think deserves emphasis.
  The representative from the State of South Dakota, an at-large 
district, a very rural district, as many of the Blue Dogs represent 
rural districts, the impact of these high gas and oil prices are having 
a disproportionate effect in many respects on my constituents who have 
to drive great distances to work, who have to drive great distances to 
get children to school, who have to put nitrogen fertilizer on crops, 
and who have to use great amounts of diesel and gasoline to plant and 
harvest those crops to maintain a safe, abundant cheap food supply.
  So much has been made in recent weeks of high commodity prices. We 
just recently passed the farm bill. Overrode the President's veto twice 
to pass a farm bill that preserves the safety net. And as people point 
to those high commodity prices and think that farmers and ranchers have 
never had it better, one thing that I would hope that my colleagues, 
Madam Speaker, would keep in mind is that nitrogen fertilizer, which 
depends on natural gas, is an essential ingredient, and the high cost 
of gas and diesel are the input costs that are dramatically higher than 
they've ever been, that cuts into any profits, dramatically, that 
farmers and ranchers may be experiencing now that they're finally 
getting decent commodity prices that are saving taxpayers dollars 
because those are higher than the target prices and loan rates that 
we've set into law. And therefore we aren't making countercyclical 
payments and loan deficiency payments to farmers across the country 
because they have another buyer for that grain rather than just one 
buyer putting it on the export market at a lot less than the cost of 
production.
  That other buyer is the local ethanol plant. And as my colleague from 
Georgia pointed out, we know that we're just maybe less than 2, 3 years 
away from the technology available to make commercially available not 
just corn ethanol and the dramatic increases we've seen in the 
improvements and the production process to make the efficiencies in the 
production process even better, but cellulosic ethanol. Cellulosic 
ethanol that can be developed in every region of the country given 
biomass sources, given other nonfood and feed crops that can be grown 
in every region of the country. And it's the importance of those 
technologies that can only be facilitated by the financing and some of 
the loan guarantees that we've recently passed, but the financing and 
the private market that are essential.
  Which is why I strongly argue that, Madam Speaker, that it's not corn 
ethanol that should be blamed for high food prices; it is the high cost 
of energy, which is the focus of our discussion here tonight, and the 
transportation and the production and the marketing of the food to 
Americans across the country. We need corn ethanol as a bridge to 
cellulosic ethanol. And that is where the financing will follow, that's 
where the capital will follow to get us to second-generation ethanol 
production.
  And we also have to look at other sources that currently aren't 
available. For example, woody biomass off the national forests which, 
in my opinion, should be able to be used for cellulosic ethanol 
production. It not only reduces the wildfire hazard based on the 
hazardous fuels that are lining the bottoms of our forests, but it is a 
proven technology for a use for cellulosic ethanol. If we don't use it, 
it sits there and rots and releases methane into the atmosphere, which 
is worse than carbon, or it burns and releases carbon into the 
atmosphere.

                              {time}  2030

  So the bottom line--and I think this is back to the Blue Dog 
principle of diversity of fuels--we shouldn't be so quick to take 
energy sources available domestically off the table. We shouldn't be 
reluctant to reevaluate long-held positions on a particular energy 
source in light of new technologies that can help us extract resources 
in an environmentally sound way; new technologies that can facilitate 
wind energy development, biofuels development, a whole host of other 
technologies on the electricity side, whether it's clean burning coal, 
hydroelectric power, solar power; and of course, in the transportation 
side, with vehicle technology and engine technology for flex-fuel 
vehicles and hybrid vehicles.
  Already this Congress we've taken a number of important steps, not 
the least of which is the renewable fuel standard that we passed in 
December that, by many analyses, shows that is moderating the price of 
gasoline at 15 percent less than it would be otherwise without that 
increased biofuels production. So biofuels production is saving 
consumers money at the pump.
  But obviously, we know that consumers are suffering with $4 gasoline, 
higher in some areas. We know that there are ways that we need to get 
at speculation that may exist in the marketplace for oil and other 
commodities, that we have the weak dollar that my colleague from Utah 
pointed out at the top of the hour that is affecting the increased 
costs per barrel of oil.
  We, in addition to the renewable fuel standard, passed CAFE standards 
that

[[Page 14317]]

go to the heart of conservation energy efficiency and the additional 
technologies that we know exist to help maximize those efforts.
  We have passed legislation to ensure that the President no longer 
adds oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and we know that that 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve is yet another tool that we need to 
consider using as we move forward to give some relief to consumers at 
the pump.
  We passed a bill that looks at the issue of how many leases are 
currently outstanding and how many millions of acres perhaps where 
there is natural gas and oil where we can facilitate production of 
those sources on public lands.
  But we also know, as I stated, that we can't be taking energy sources 
off the table, and we have to be looking at where else, whether it's in 
the deepwater gulf or other parts of the Outer Continental Shelf, 
elsewhere on public lands, where it can make sense both economically 
and from an environmental perspective to be able to extract those 
resources, particularly natural gas, which does not pose the same types 
of environmental problems in drilling on the OCS. Although I think that 
technology, again, has brought us to a point that can minimize those 
types of spills. The oil shales that we know exist in a number of 
States, whether it's in Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and of course, the 
other States, working with our trading partners and allies to our north 
in Canada as it relates to a natural gas pipeline, as it relates to oil 
pipelines that are being sited and under construction across South 
Dakota, to be able to get more oil into the Midwest where we oftentimes 
are at a disadvantage in being at the end of the line.
  So I think that it's important tonight that we focus on not only what 
we've already done but what more we are prepared to do to enhance the 
diversity of fuels, to enhance the diversity of options both in the 
transportation sector and the electricity sector to make us less 
dependent on foreign oil, to create jobs, to enhance technologies that 
create the jobs for the future, for the young men and women that are 
looking into careers in science and environmental engineering and 
mechanical engineering and a whole host of opportunities it affords to 
every region of the country, if we take the steps that we need to take, 
reevaluate those long-held positions, look at information with a fresh 
look and glance, and be willing to take some risks because that's what 
it's going to require to do right by our constituents.
  And I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. MATHESON. Well, I want to thank my colleague from South Dakota 
who is always a very substantive participant in any public policy 
discussion we have here in Congress, and I know she's invested a lot of 
time and effort when it comes to the energy issue. I really appreciate 
her participating in this Blue Dog discussion.
  There are a couple of points that were raised by my colleague from 
South Dakota that I think merit one more mention. The discussion of 
what we've done in this Congress, there have been some actions that 
have been taken, and one of them is going to bear fruit in the long 
run. We're not going to see a result right now. It's a process that 
came out of the Science Committee, of which I'm a member.
  The chairman of that committee, Mr. Gordon, another Blue Dog, pursued 
a really aggressive effort to invest in basic research, in R&D, tried 
to put Federal funding out there to really get things going in a more 
aggressive way than it has in the past. He created a program called 
ARPA-E. It's designed after a previously created program within the 
Defense Department that's called DARPA, which created a lot of research 
that's helped us with technology advancements in the defense arena. And 
this legislation created a comparable effort in the energy policy 
arena, and our Blue Dog colleague, Mr. Gordon, has been a real leader 
on that. And that is another action this Congress has taken that is an 
important step to take. And I know we're frustrated by $4 gas today, 
and that program, the ARPA-E program, is not going to reduce the price 
of gas next month. I understand that.
  But the point is there are a series of steps we need to take. There's 
some short-term, some mid-term, some long-term strategies, but we need 
to put them all on the table now. We need to do what we can do to make 
progress on this issue.
  The second point that my colleague from South Dakota said--and I just 
want to emphasize--is she talked about opportunities and activities 
that we can work with our partners, including in Canada. When she 
mentioned Canada, it reminded me of the fact that as a country Canada 
has placed a tremendous emphasis on developing their tar sands 
resources.
  Now, I represent the State of Utah and a significant amount of the 
oil that is refined in refineries located right in the Salt Lake City 
area comes from Canada. It comes from the tar sand resource in Canada, 
and it is piped to the United States.
  Now, we can do that here, too. We can maybe take a page out of the 
Canadian book on how they, as a country, made efforts to develop that 
resource. It's an unconventional resource, and they took the steps and 
they made a significant commitment. It has not been without costs. It 
has not been without setbacks. There are lessons to be learned there, 
too, which we as a country should do.
  And I understand that the tar sand resource we have in the United 
States--and we have it in my own State of Utah--is a little bit 
different composition than the Canadian tar sands. I understand that 
there are differences, but there's so much that we can learn from that, 
and it's a viable source of production today in Canada.
  And so I appreciate the mention of how we can learn from others and 
learn from our partners, and I don't know if you had something you 
wanted to add to that point.
  Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Well, not specifically to that point, but I did 
want to mention--and I know you have the gentleman from Georgia who 
wants to make another point, too, so I will be quick.
  The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott) and I are both on the 
Agriculture Committee, and you may have mentioned this. One of the 
bills that we'll be taking up tomorrow is a bill that you have 
introduced, and so I think it's important for our constituents who, 
understandably, don't feel like they're getting a fair shake every time 
they go up and fill up their vehicle, that they understand that we are 
doing something here in Washington.
  We are having a set of three different hearings in the Agriculture 
Committee this week. There are other committees having hearings. This 
is a complicated issue, and we are determined to get it right and to do 
what we can to get the speculation out of the market and to give the 
Commodities Futures Trading Commission the authority it needs and to 
understand this problem, whether it's over-the-counter, whether it's 
swaps, whether it's what's going on with the foreign exchanges, the 
issue of transparency, and your bill is one of those that we'll be 
taking a look at which we think makes an important step in addressing 
that issue.
  Mr. MATHESON. I appreciate that. I'd like to hear from Mr. Scott.
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Absolutely. And I just wanted to complement 
what my colleague from South Dakota, Ms. Herseth, has said because I 
serve on the Agriculture Committee with Ms. Herseth.
  And this agricultural farm bill, in my estimation, in my 6 years here 
I've dealt with many bills, but as far as our future and our domestic 
and international needs, this farm bill is by far one of the absolute, 
most impactful bills we've had that touches on this. And I think we 
would do well to share with the American people--and you have alluded 
to so much of that already, very eloquently I might add--but let me 
just also point out that what's in this bill because this is so 
important.
  We've mentioned ethanol, but it's so important that the people of 
America know that we have $4.2 billion in loan

[[Page 14318]]

guarantees in this bill for the construction of ethanol plants, and we 
are putting the emphasis, as you said, on cellulosic. This is why it's 
particularly, in my part of the Nation, in Georgia, we are so excited 
about this bill. We not only have the biodiesel plant in Ellenwood in 
Clayton County, but over in south Georgia, in Soperton we have a 
cellulosic ethanol plant that is producing energy off of wood chips, 
just what you talked about.
  We have scientists and engineers and chemists working right now at 
the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech fine-tuning how we extract 
cellulosic ethanol from pine straw and pine trees. I mean, these are 
renewable areas, and we're putting the incentives in.
  Also in the farm bill what we've done, we recognize, as she spoke so 
eloquent, too, about the corn pressure, that we wanted to also give 
some emphasis to the cellulosic ethanol. So we have increased the tax 
credits for ethanol made from cellulosic means, while we slightly 
decreased it from corn to take some of that pressure off.
  So I did want to talk for a moment about the leadership of the 
Agriculture Committee in the future of our energy needs, particularly 
when it comes down to our renewable fuels, but I also wanted to talk 
for a moment about this is a world issue, and it's a complex issue.
  The question that I'm pondering with and I think we all should is 
this one. Fifteen years ago, just 15 years ago, the price of oil was 
less than $15 a barrel. Now here we are, 15 years later, and it's 
busting at about $150 a barrel. Somewhere, somehow we need to ask the 
question, how and why, because clearly if we're going to find our way 
out of this mess we have got to examine how we got into this mess.
  Well, I did a little bit of examining, and it comes down to this. 
Right now, the world uses 85.4 million barrels of oil per day. Now, I 
ask Mr. Matheson, you might want to know, that's good, well, how much 
does the world produce? They produce 85.6 million barrels per day. And 
as I mentioned earlier, Saudi Arabia just like that said we can 
increase production just like that, 500 barrels a day.
  Now, what I'm talking about here is that a lot has happened, but one 
of the most significant things that has happened has been China and 
India and the underdeveloped world that is putting tremendous pressure 
here and an OPEC cartel that tends to want to play like Russian 
roulette with us.
  So this is why I am saying and I am concerned that if we move towards 
drilling, wherever it may be, I am just one voice here. There are all 
areas of leadership, and my leadership is going to be in trying to get 
alternative energies on the market, trying to bring down the 54-cent 
tariff that we have for keeping ethanol out so that we can have some 
competition.
  Even as we're speaking, I believe the world is listening, and they're 
listening to what America is saying. And if America is saying we're 
making moves to get you out of the back pockets of the American people 
and we're going to move into a situation where we don't need you, we're 
going to bring that price down. You watch what we say. If it takes 
drilling, if it takes a threat of drilling, if it takes moving it and 
getting the oil companies finally to move on the 68 million acres that 
we've already leased to drill on--and that is the other question, Mr. 
Matheson. Not only the other question about what happened in the 15 
years, but why is it that we've given the oil companies 68 million 
acres to drill on and everybody is saying drill, drill, and not one 
drill has hit the ground in those 68 million acres?

                              {time}  2045

  The American people ought to get an answer to that. If they want more 
drilling, why haven't the oil companies drilled on the 68 million acres 
that's there to drill? Those are some very serious questions that I 
think we need to ask and examine thoroughly.
  But I will say this, this Congress is speaking with a loud, precise 
voice. And I believe the more energetic we speak with this voice, the 
more precise we speak with it, the more action-oriented we speak with 
it, both Democrats and Republicans, all of us speak in a loud voice 
together, saying enough of this, we're not going to take it anymore and 
move forward with some alternatives, that will get these oil folks out 
of our back pockets. That's what the American people want. And that's 
what is going to bring down these oil prices, shaking the demand.
  Mr. MATHESON. I again thank my colleague for his comments. I think 
that he has helped describe the global picture. We haven't discussed 
that enough about we're part of a global market. And it's important for 
us to take the lead and develop fuel diversity and try to develop some 
level of greater independence, because outside of that, in some 
respects our actions are the tail wagging the dog. And we need to get 
beyond that as a country. That's not a comfortable position for this 
country to be in.
  The first sentence of the Energy Principles Document that the Blue 
Dogs created at the start of this Congress is that energy independence 
is a matter of national security and economic security. This country 
faces so many great opportunities if technology does take us to a new 
place. We will be in such a better position in terms of our economy, in 
terms of our foreign policy, in terms of our position in the world. And 
we can make the world a better place with that technology development, 
too. That's the exciting opportunity for beyond our borders as well.
  Blue Dogs supports promotion of a forward-looking, market-based 
comprehensive national energy strategy. As we've discussed many times 
tonight, there are short-term, mid-term and long-term issues. It's a 
complicated issue. In fact, each of the sub-issues on their own are 
complicated in their nature. And sometimes in the world of politics the 
rhetoric gets really simple. But on this one, it's time for us to roll 
up our sleeves and act in a way this body is supposed to act, in a 
deliberative, thoughtful way to generate comprehensive legislation that 
truly tries to solve problems and achieve progress. That's what we're 
elected to do. I think the Blue Dog Coalition approaches most issues in 
that way. I think we really don't care about if it's a Democratic idea 
or a Republican idea, we're trying to make progress.
  And so as I close this hour and this discussion of energy issues, I 
suspect that we will be back talking about this again. This issue is 
not going away. It's something that we all need to learn more about and 
we all need to work together. None of us have all the answers, but we 
need to work together as a Congress to try to find solutions as best we 
can.
  With that, I thank all of my Blue Dog colleagues for joining me 
tonight.

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