[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Page 21012]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           CLEANER, SECURE, AND AFFORDABLE THERMAL ENERGY ACT

  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the Cleaner, Secure, 
and Affordable Thermal Energy Act, which I introduced with Senator 
Bingaman. This bill will add diversity to the fuel usage of Americans 
who are forced to use home heating oil, a heating source that has gone 
through wild price swings and last year reached historic prices. While 
I strongly believe that we must invest in weatherization and energy 
efficiency, I also believe that we must create diversity for thermal 
energy.
  In my home State of Maine, roughly 80 percent of the population 
utilize heating oil to keep warm in the winter. In New England, 40 
percent of homes use heating oil. As a result, on average nearly 4.7 
billion gallons of heating oil are consumed by New England. This is not 
only an enormous cost to families across the region, but it creates 
massive greenhouse gas emissions and increases our country's demand of 
foreign oil. This is not merely a regional issue, this is a national 
issue and it should be a priority of Congress to reduce heating oil use 
in New England.
  This bill builds on the current credits for nonbusiness energy 
property to provide an additional credit for conversion of homes using 
home heating oil to natural gas or biomass. Specifically, the bill 
provides a tax credit of $3,500 for natural gas conversion and $4,000 
for biomass conversion. While natural gas is not available throughout 
the United States and is not widely available in Maine, I am hopeful 
that these incentives will provide an additional incentive to expand 
usage in regions that have access to natural gas supplies.
  In regions that the rocky geology does not allow natural gas to be 
utilized, the bill includes a tax credit for biomass for thermal 
energy, such as wood pellets. Just this past July, International 
WoodFuels announced plans to construct a 100,000 ton per year pellet 
plant in Burnham, ME. This is from wood product that is harvested in 
Maine and can be used to replace home heating oil in the State. While I 
strongly believe that we must carefully develop policies to ensure that 
the expanded use of wood pellets will not undermine existing forest 
industries, I strongly believe that we must encourage additional 
diversity of our home heating oil energy sources and wood pellets 
provide a viable pathway to energy diversity for the State of Maine.
  I strongly believe that reducing the current consumption of home 
heating oil in the State of Maine, New England, and the country should 
be a major priority as we move forward with overhauling our energy 
policy, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass the 
Cleaner, Secure, and Affordable Thermal Energy Act into law.

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