[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13150]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             ENERGY POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE. Madam Speaker, I want to talk about the energy policy this 
Congress has passed recently. This Congress has decided to spend a lot 
of taxpayer money and subsidize this concept of corn-based ethanol in 
the United States.
  We are sending a lot of money to farmers to grow corn so that it can 
be burned in our vehicles. Now, I don't blame the farmers for what they 
do. After all, we have encouraged them to produce corn-based ethanol.
  But the problem with corn-based ethanol is it is a pollutant. Now we 
are finding out from Science Magazine that it's a pollutant more so 
than was first thought from the beginning. Because of the subsidies, we 
are encouraging corn-based ethanol.
  It also has raised corn prices throughout the world because no longer 
are we eating corn, we are burning it in our vehicles. It has increased 
the amount of land that we are tilling up, grasslands, for example, 
forest, for example, and turning it into agricultural land where we 
produce corn-based ethanol to burn in our vehicles.
  It's also expensive. Everything that has to do with corn products has 
raised in prices over the last 2 years because we are not using corn in 
our foodstuffs, we are burning it in our vehicles. But probably the 
greatest problem with corn-based ethanol is how it's produced. Corn is 
one of those commodities that takes a lot of fertilizer. In fact, it 
takes more fertilizer to produce corn than any other product that we 
eat, such as rice or wheat or even the grasslands.
  Because that fertilizer is being dumped in the Midwest, it drains off 
in the rivers down the Mississippi River and comes into the Gulf of 
Mexico. One would argue, so what? Well, the problem with that is, 
fertilizer has nitrogen in it and phosphorus. That nitrogen and 
phosphorus, when it goes into the Gulf of Mexico, has created what is 
called now a dead zone.
  It's called a dead zone because nothing lives there except algae. The 
fish, the ones that are there, have died unless they have moved way 
offshore, you know, out there off the continental coast where we don't 
drill for crude oil any more.
  This map here shows, this is a NASA map, satellite photo, shows that 
it's about 470 miles along our gulf coast, Texas, Louisiana, 
Mississippi. It even goes all the way to Florida, but it also extends 
out in the gulf about 178 miles.

                              {time}  2030

  It's a dead zone. Nothing grows there. Nothing lives there but algae, 
and it's all because Congress with unintended consequences is 
encouraging the production of corn-based ethanol, and the fertilizer 
goes down the Mississippi River and kills everything in this area. 
Madam Speaker, it stays for years. It gets bigger every year, this dead 
zone. It kills off the fish, and all of the fishermen along the gulf 
coast are having to go way out in the Gulf of Mexico out there where we 
don't drill for crude oil anymore, and they have to fish to get fish 
for Americans to eat.
  Congress needs to reevaluate its policy of depending on some product 
that now not only is a pollutant but is an expensive pollutant, and it 
also creates havoc in the Gulf of Mexico by causing a dead zone. We 
need to be aware of such unintended consequences when Congress passes 
legislation.
  Madam Speaker, we need an energy policy. We need an energy policy 
now--Americans demand it--but we also need some common sense in what we 
do, and maybe we should rethink the whole concept of corn-based ethanol 
because, after all, Madam Speaker, it's not going to save us all.
  And that's just the way it is.

                          ____________________