To provide for equal liability treatment of vehicle fuels and fuel additives.

ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2003

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of S. 14, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

A bill (S. 14) to enhance the energy security of the United
States, and for other purposes.

Pending:

Domenici/Bingaman Amendment No. 840, to reauthorize Low-
Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP),
weatherization assistance, and State energy programs.
Domenici (for Gregg) Amendment No. 841 (to Amendment No.
840), to express the sense of the Senate regarding the
reauthorization of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Act
of 1981.
Domenici (for Frist) Amendment No. 850, to eliminate methyl
tertiary butyl ether from the United States fuel supply, to
increase production and use of renewable fuel, and to
increase the Nation's energy independence.
Schumer/Clinton Amendment No. 853 (to Amendment No. 850),
to exclude Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts I,
IV, and V from the renewable fuel program.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sununu). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Under the previous order, the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer, is
recognized.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Amendment No. 854

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf
of myself, Senator Lugar, and Senator Cantwell.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from California [Mrs. Boxer] proposes an
amendment numbered 854.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that
further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To promote the use of cellulosic biomass ethanol derived from
agricultural residue)

On page 8, strike lines 16 through 19 and insert the
following:
``(4) Cellulosic biomass ethanol.--For the purpose of
paragraph (2), 1 gallon of cellulosic biomass ethanol--
``(A) shall be considered to be the equivalent of 1.5
gallons of renewable fuel; or
``(B) if the cellulosic biomass is derived from
agricultural residue, shall be considered to be the
equivalent of 2.5 gallons of renewable fuel.''

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am very delighted to offer this
amendment on behalf of myself, Senator Lugar, and Senator Cantwell. I
think it is quite a pro-ethanol amendment because what we are trying to
do here is encourage the development of ethanol that is produced from
agricultural residues.
This amendment will, in fact, promote the production of agricultural
residue ethanol. I want to tell my colleagues why this is important. I
believe that biomass ethanol derived from agricultural residue could be
a significant source of ethanol in California and also throughout the
United States. Every State has agricultural waste, including those
producing corn.
I hope my colleagues who have the production of corn, wheat,
sugarcane, rice, barley, beets, or oats in their States will realize
this amendment is very important to them. I also believe the use of
agricultural residue ethanol will make it easier for many of our
States--certainly for California--to meet an ethanol mandate without
price spikes and gasoline shortages as it increases the flexibility
that the country has to meet this mandate.
What is agricultural residue ethanol? I am sure if people are
watching, they are thinking: This cannot be interesting. To me, it is
very interesting because it is fuel made from the fibrous portion of
plants, as is ethanol, but it differs from conventional ethanol in the
following significant ways.
First, the manufacturing process does not consume fossil fuels but
rather uses plant byproducts and waste to create the energy to run the
process. So, in a time in our history when we are trying to lessen our
dependence on fossil fuel, I think this amendment is quite an important
statement for us to make. I am very proud that Senator Lugar agrees
because he is someone with much experience in this area.
Second, the raw material does not compete as a food source for humans
and is available today based on existing farm practices.
Third, it uses existing waste products, thus decreasing disposal
needs.
Ethanol made from agricultural residue, such as rice, wheat straw,
and sugarcane waste, can be locally produced and does not require that
corn and other commodities be grown just to make ethanol.
What we are talking about is using the residue, not growing food just
to produce ethanol at a time when we are throwing food away because we
have an overabundance in many of these areas. And, then we have been
very energy inefficient by using the fossil fuel to develop the
ethanol. What we are saying is the waste of agricultural materials is
going to be put to good use.
Is this a pie-in-the-sky idea? No, it is not. In 1999, Sacramento
Valley produced enough rice straw waste--500,000 tons of which is
burned in the field--to

[[Page S7422]]

produce 100 million gallons of agricultural residue ethanol.
By putting these agricultural wastes to good use, converting them
into energy resources, agricultural ethanol residue production reduces
landfill disposal and open-air burning. We are using the waste we
otherwise would dispose of either by burning, which dirties the air, or
throwing it into a landfill. This will improve air quality and water
quality.
Further, agricultural residue ethanol reduces greenhouse gases by
more than 90 percent compared to gasoline. I reiterate, agricultural
residue ethanol reduces greenhouse gases by more than 90 percent
compared to gasoline. And it also creates markets for unused
agricultural products that are generally expensive to dispose of.
Agricultural residue ethanol can give our farmers and our rural
communities enhanced economic security.
We clearly know that as a new technology, agricultural residue
ethanol faces an uphill struggle to break into the ethanol market.
Right now we know, when we look at the marketplace, that there is
much room to grow here if we look at the numbers. We only have a very
small number of gallons that are being derived from anything other than
corn. So we have a chance. This, again, is not a pie-in-the-sky idea.

Currently, the only commercial facility is the Iogen facility in
Canada which converts wheat straw into fermentable sugar and the sugar
into bioethanol. Iogen Corporation's goal is to produce 180,000 gallons
of ethanol annually. I believe we should promote these types of
facilities in the United States of America. Our amendment, I believe,
will ensure this.
We provide in our amendment more incentives for this type of
agricultural residue ethanol production in the United States of
America. As this mandate hits my State of California, and other States,
where they have to spend a lot of money to bring that ethanol into to
the State, it is going to be very cost competitive to import this type
of ethanol from Canada. Why do we want to do that when we have the
ability, if we have wheat, corn, beets, oats, barley, or rice, to name
a few? We can do this in our country, and we can have a whole new
industry. We can make ethanol more affordable to those of us who live
in States far away from the Midwest.
In the underlying bill, there is a 1.5-gallon credit for numerous
types of biomass ethanol. This means that a gallon of biomass ethanol
counts as 1.5 gallons in meeting the bill's mandate. So there is a
little incentive to use biomass ethanol, and I am very proud of that
because we worked hard on that issue in our committee.
What we want to do, it seems to me, is increase that credit to 2.5
gallons if the ethanol is made from agricultural residues. The fact is
that agricultural residues provide us with an amazing opportunity and a
promising opportunity to produce ethanol that has the potential of
providing many economic and environmental benefits.
We are very pleased to offer this amendment. Right now, up to this
point, we have seen amendments that people have viewed as anti-ethanol.
This is an amendment that should bring us together. It should unite us
because there are so many other crops that could be used--and, by the
way, are going to be used--but we want to incentivize those
agricultural crops.
That is what our amendment does. Senator Lugar, Senator Cantwell, and
I are very pleased to offer this amendment. We are very hopeful it will
be adopted. We are very hopeful we will not have opposition.
Mr. President, I retain the remainder of my time and yield the floor.
I also suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada does not control the
time.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call
I will call for shortly be charged equally to both sides.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the quorum call will be
charged equally to both sides.
Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I note the presence of the Senator from
California who has just offered an amendment which expands the
substances that can be used for ethanol conversion. I am willing to
accept the amendment. I favor the amendment. I understand the
distinguished minority manager would like to speak on the subject at
this point.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from
California on this amendment. It substantially improves this portion of
the bill and does provide additional opportunity for developing ethanol
from these other sources. It is good environmental policy. It is good
energy policy. I very much support the amendment.
As I understand it, most of those people who looked at this agreed to
it. I agree with my colleague from New Mexico that this is an amendment
we should agree to unanimously in the Senate and we should maintain it
in conference, insisting on it in our discussions with the House.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I cannot thank enough both of my
colleagues, my friends, from New Mexico, Senator Domenici and Senator
Bingaman.
I want to make sure Senators understand exactly what we do. We
increase the credit to 2.5 gallons if the ethanol is made from
agricultural residue. It is giving an incentive to our farmers who
produce rice, wheat, barley, oats, sugar beets, and others, an
incentive to use the waste.
I was going to have a rollcall vote on this, but given the assurances
of Senators Domenici and Bingaman, who have stated very clearly and
have told me they will not drop this amendment in conference--can I
rely on that commitment? I ask both my friends one more time.

Mr. DOMENICI. Yes, I say to the Senator, I will do my very best. I
indicated that to you and I will do my very best. I make that
commitment to you.
Mrs. BOXER. You will do your very best?
Mr. DOMENICI. Yes.
Mrs. BOXER. Meaning you will not drop it in conference, which is what
you told me?
Mr. DOMENICI. That is correct.
Mrs. BOXER. And my other friend, my ranking member, has made the same
pledge?
Mr. BINGAMAN. Let me respond, to the extent I am persuasive in the
conference, I will commit to keeping this provision in the law.
Mrs. BOXER. I see the Democratic leader is on the Senate floor. It
would be a wonderful thing if he could speak out on this amendment as
well. We have both Senators from New Mexico, and Senator Lugar. I am
trying not to put the Senate through a rollcall vote. If I have these
strong commitments, it will make me feel a lot better about it. I yield
the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, first let me thank the Senator from
California for her efforts to improve upon this legislation. I have
indicated to her privately that I support the amendment. I would
support it if there were a rollcall vote.
The fact that Dick Lugar, the initial cosponsor of this legislation
when we introduced it several years ago, is a proud sponsor of this
amendment is some indication of the degree to which the ethanol
community and those of us who support this proposal would be supporting
her amendment.
As my colleagues from New Mexico, both the chairman and the ranking
member, have noted, there is no reason, when we get into conference,
this

[[Page S7423]]

should not remain intact as part of the Energy bill.
It is a good amendment. It provides even more opportunities to meet
the targets set out in this legislation.
So I would do all I could as Democratic leader to ensure that at the
end of the day, when this legislation comes back in the form of a
conference report, we will continue to see the Boxer amendment
integrally a part of the bill itself and a part of this amendment.
Again, let me congratulate her, thank her, and indicate I will be
very supportive.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank Senator Daschle. I know he is
working endless hours to get this amendment finished. I think this
enhances the amendment, I really do. I am very grateful.
Before I ask for a voice vote, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. BOXER. How much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 8 minutes remaining to the Senator
from California.
Mrs. BOXER. I yield 6 minutes to my colleague from Washington,
Senator Cantwell.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from California for
her hard work on this amendment. I am glad to join Senator Lugar and
Senator Boxer as a cosponsor of this amendment. Senator Boxer has spent
an invaluable amount of time on the whole ethanol debate, but I think
the amendment she offers this morning goes a long way in adding
diversity and efficiency to our ethanol plan. It seems my colleagues
are enthusiastic about supporting this in the overall energy package.
I rise to support the Boxer-Lugar-Cantwell amendment. As we have
heard, this amendment would increase from 1.5 gallons to 2.5 gallons
the credit available to refiners who choose to use ethanol derived from
certain types of biomass to meet the requirement of our renewable fuels
standard. Senator Boxer did an excellent job, giving us all a lesson in
biomass 101 as it relates to ethanol and the products that could be
used as part of this biomass requirement.
This amendment ensures that as we strive to reduce our reliance on
foreign oil, displacing it with home-grown products that provide both
environmental benefits and economic stimulus to our nation's rural
communities, we also develop the renewable fuels diversity that is the
hallmark of what I think is a good energy policy.
My colleagues may have been told this, or they may learn it now for
the first time, but it was in 1925 that Henry Ford told the New York
Times that ethanol was ``the fuel of the future.'' But while 90 percent
of the ethanol produced in this Nation today was derived from corn,
Henry Ford's vision was much broader. He said:

The fuel of the future is going to come from apples, weeds
and sawdust--almost anything. There is fuel in every bit of
vegetable matter that can be fermented.

That is what he told the Times back in that period.
This amendment attempts to move forward on that vision. I believe it
is logical, and I believe Senator Boxer and Senator Lugar are right on
target in providing leadership on this issue.
While today the ethanol that is derived from corn more or less
dominates the renewable fuels market, this is not the circumstance for
every State in our country. The State of Washington, for example, is
much more a producer of wheat, which would hold significant promise as
a potential source for the biomass ethanol.
Despite the promise of these alternatives, the technology for
producing ethanol from these sources such as wheat and straw and other
agricultural products has lagged behind for a number of reasons. Yet by
providing appropriate incentives today with this amendment, and
promoting research and development, we can move this forward on a cost-
competitive basis.
The Boxer-Lugar-Cantwell amendment would increase the renewable fuels
standard credit for one specific type of material, the agricultural
residues such as wheat or rice or straw, from that 1.5 to 2.5,
reflecting what is really a recent DOE analysis on what we should
achieve.
So moving forward on these incentives for development of ethanol
production is simply a matter of good public policy. I say this for
four or five reasons.
We get the environmental benefits from this, we get the potential
energy gains, we get the long-term cost impacts of having fuel
diversity, and, of course, we get the spread of economic benefits to
all of our Nation's agricultural communities.
In our State of Washington, there is much going on in this area.
There are many farmers who have come together in a variety of ways to
join in thinking about ethanol production. With the construction of one
40-million-gallon plant, the State of Washington could become entirely
ethanol self-sufficient. According to a study conducted by our State
university, such a plan would have a significant economic impact,
particularly in our rural communities in the eastern part of
Washington.
A single 40-million-gallon production plant could create 104 direct
jobs and about 300 indirect jobs. Local communities could see an
economic benefit, according to the study, of about $19 million per year
with a statewide benefit of somewhere between $20 million and $30
million per year. With the construction of these various plants,
Washington State could reach self-sufficiency and could, under the
fuels standard proposal here today, become a supplier to other Western
States.
The State of Washington and agricultural communities want to help
meet the renewable fuels standard. They want to join with Senators
Frist and Daschle in their proposal. But we don't have the corn or the
abundance to make that happen. So we want to see this diversity. In
fact, a recent Washington State University extension program concluded
that we could produce 200 million gallons per year in ethanol if we had
improvement in technologies and diversification of resources.
In conclusion, to help this become reality, a broad coalition of
Washington agricultural and environmentalist interests have banded
together. They helped pass this package in our State legislature with a
variety of tax incentives and broad production of biofuels. These bills
were signed by our Governor last month and they have our State moving
forward on this agenda.
The Boxer-Lugar-Cantwell amendment adds a Federal dimension to these
efforts. This provision reflects good public policy from the Federal
Government and good energy policy, and helps those States that are
further away from ethanol diversity to participate in our national
energy goal.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Talent). The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I have a couple of minutes remaining. I
know we are going to set our amendment aside.
I wanted to close this debate again by thanking Senator Lugar for his
leadership, Senator Cantwell for her leadership, and both Senators from
New Mexico as well as Senator Daschle for their help.
I think any Senator who has corn in their State, wheat in their
State, sugarcane in their State, rice, barley, beets, oats, apples, or
any fructose-rich product is going to be very happy with this
amendment.
In order to use the agricultural residue and make it into ethanol, it
is going to require a little incentive. Although the underlying bill
has a slight incentive, experts tell us it is not enough to really move
forward on this very good way to make ethanol. I think it will really
help those States that are far away from the Midwest.
By the way, it does not hurt any State because corn will still be
used.
I yield the floor. I thank my colleagues very much.
I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be set aside.
Mr. DOMENICI. We have no objection to setting it aside.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is set aside.

Amendment No. 856 to Amendment No. 850

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

[[Page S7424]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from California [Mrs. Boxer], for herself, Mr.
Leahy, Mr. Durbin, Mrs. Feinstein, Mrs. Clinton, Mr.
Jeffords, and Mr. Lautenberg, proposes an amendment numbered
856 to amendment No. 850.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To provide for equal liability treatment of vehicle fuels and
fuel additives)

Beginning on page 18, strike line 16 and all that follows
through page 19, line 17, and insert the following:
``(p) Renewable Fuels Safe Harbor.--Notwithstanding any
other provision of Federal or State law, a renewable fuel
used or intended to be used as a motor vehicle fuel, or any
motor vehicle fuel containing renewable fuel, shall be
subject to liability standards that are not less protective
of human health, welfare, and the environment than any other
motor vehicle fuel or fuel additive.''.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I think for anyone in this Chamber who
cares about the health and safety of people--I know that is every one
of us--this amendment is very important.
A waiver of liability is in this underlying bill for renewable fuels.
My amendment to the renewable fuels portion of this Energy bill will
ensure that all motor vehicle fuels and fuel additives are held to the
same liability standards by striking the safe harbor and adding the
following language. This is the language of my amendment:
Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal or State law, a
renewable fuel used or intended to be used as a motor vehicle fuel, or
any motor vehicle fuel containing renewable fuel, shall be subject to
liability standards that are not less protective of human health,
welfare, and the environment than any other motor vehicle fuel or fuel
additive.
Is this not a fair idea? As we go into this whole new production of
ethanol, be it derived from corn or be it derived from agricultural
residues or municipal waste or wherever we wind up getting it,
renewable fuel should be subject to the same liability standards as any
other motor vehicle fuel.
We have expenses in this area--where we have added MTBE, for example,
to fuel. We found out later it was very dangerous. It hurt a lot of our
communities. I will get into that later.
The safe harbor language in this underlying bill waives all product
liability design defect claims, including the failure to warn the
people. Any claim that has not been filed by the date of enactment of
this section will be forever barred.
We should not be doing this. We don't know all the impacts of what we
are doing today. Why would we give a safe harbor to ethanol or various
refiners of ethanol?
I have to say to those who will oppose me--and there will be many,
and I know that, and I accept that--if ethanol is so safe--I pray it
is; maybe it is, by the way--if it is so safe, why have the companies
involved in its production transferred this liability provision in the
bill? I think anytime someone says my product is 100 percent safe, but
give me a waiver from liability, protect me from a lawsuit if something
happens--you have to say who wins and who loses in this situation.
Requests for this kind of special interest free pass require a very
close look. And I hope we will take a look.
The interests behind this bill have gotten a loophole that eliminates
a big chunk of the liability they would have under the law if they
damaged the public health or the environment. The exemption language in
the bill raises a red flag right away. It begins:

Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal or state
law. . . .

Mr. President, you and I have been around here long enough to know
that when we start off with ``notwithstanding any other provision of
Federal law,'' the public is going to be losing rights.
The bill goes on to say that ``Renewable fuel--ethanol cannot be
found to be defectively designed or manufactured.''
Imagine, the bill says ``Renewable fuels cannot be found to be
defectively designed or manufactured.''
Compliance with laws and regulations is not necessary for getting the
liability waiver. There is only a limited compliance requirement under
the Clean Air Act.
Again, we all pray and hope that there will be no danger from
widespread use of ethanol. The liability exemption, however, is
dangerous because there are many unanswered questions about ethanol. We
know there are real benefits to it, such as fewer carbon monoxide and
toxic air emissions, but there are questions about adverse effects.
According to EPA's ``1999 Blue Ribbon Panel Report on Oxygenates in
Gasoline,'' ethanol is extremely soluble in water and would spread into
the environment. It may further spread plumes of benzene, toluene,
ethyl benzene, and xylene because ethanol may inhibit the breakdown of
these toxic materials.

This isn't Senator Boxer talking. This isn't the people who want this
amendment talking. This isn't environmental groups talking. This isn't
the American Lung Association talking or anybody else. This is EPA's
1999 Blue Ribbon Panel Report on Oxygenates in Gasoline.
Studies demonstrate that ethanol increases the size and migration of
benzene plumes. Researchers say more ground water wells will experience
contamination from MTBE and benzene, a known carcinogen, if ethanol
leaks into water supplies. There are also questions about the impact of
ethanol on sensitive populations, such as children. We already know we
have seen in our children more and more problems lately, more and more
problems because they are so much more sensitive to pollutants in the
environment.
Questions surrounding ethanol's effect on public health and the
environment should be answered before Congress grants a broad waiver
from liability for its harmful effects. We should err on the side of
caution and we should err on the side of protecting the taxpayers.
Supporters of this liability exemption argue that immunity from
product liability design defect claims is not so broad. They are going
to tell you we keep every other claim in place but we only will limit
product liability design defect claims. But this ignores the fact that
product defect claims are the clearest way to hold accountable
manufacturers whose products cause injury to public health or the
environment. Litigation in California involving drinking water
contaminated by MTBE rests on claims that MTBE was defective in design.
In a landmark case, decided in April 2000, a San Francisco jury found
that, based on the theory that MTBE is a defective product, several
major oil companies are legally responsible for the environmental harm
to Lake Tahoe's ground water. The jury found that many of these same
oil companies acted with malice because they were aware of the dangers
but withheld information.
So here you go, Mr. President. You can see it, a jury of our peers--
not Senators, not people behind a microphone--found out that the
product MTBE, which is an additive to gasoline, as is ethanol, was
defective in design. The verdict came forward based on the product
liability issue.
In that case, the oil companies knew the risks of MTBE. They did not
warn anyone and--guess what--Lake Tahoe could have gotten stuck with a
$45 million cleanup bill. If it was not able to sue under the defective
product claim, that $45 million would have to come from the taxpayers
who live in Lake Tahoe. Let's see what the MTBE cleanup cost would be.
According to recent estimates, it would cost $29 billion to clean up
MTBE. MTBE, an additive to gasoline--when it was added, everyone stood
up and said: Oh, it is safe. It is wonderful. It will clean up the air.
It did. But it polluted the water. People can't drink the water.
If you ever smelled water that is contaminated by MTBE, you would
know no one could drink it. It has a foul odor and it is yellow in
color. This is what it is going to cost. If we waive the liability for
the companies that make MTBE, guess who gets stuck with the $29 billion
bill. The taxpayers, instead of the people who made that product. That
is not right.
By the way, in the House version of this bill, they not only give a
safe harbor to ethanol, they give it to MTBE, which is a total,
complete outrage. I

[[Page S7425]]

hope everyone understands that. It is in the House bill. I am happy it
isn't in the Senate bill. I hope we can get rid of it in the
conference.

Companies are responsible for this, not the taxpayers.
Now, this is the issue. Again, people will stand up and say: Oh, we
are only waiving this very small area in liability law. They say:
Product liability design defect is all we are waiving.
Well, let's look at what the judge said in the MTBE case. He threw
out the negligence claim. He said that did not apply. He threw out the
nuisance claim. He said that did not apply. The only thing that applied
was defective product liability--and that is what my colleagues are
going to waive for the makers of renewable fuels.
My colleagues, please listen to me. I know you want to have an
ethanol bill. Bless your heart. Go for it. But do not waive liability
for the manufacturers of ethanol because someday it could come back to
haunt you.
If ethanol is so safe, you do not need to do this. It makes no sense.
You talk to my colleagues: Ethanol is safe. It has been out there
since the 1970s. It is safe, it is safe, it is safe. I guess maybe they
have not read the 1999 special EPA Blue Ribbon Report, which says:
Danger, maybe there is a problem. But for them to waive defective
product liability and to say that is the only thing they are waiving,
when it is the only thing the courts have said is an opportunity, makes
no sense at all.
I had one of my colleagues come up to me yesterday and say: Well,
Senator Boxer, you voted for a safe harbor in the Y2K bill when the
computer companies had to do a very quick fix on computers. I say to my
friends, I did that. That only happens once in 1,000 years, and there
is no direct impact on health and safety. So let's not confuse one safe
harbor and another safe harbor.
So, clearly, we know this is kind of a shuck and a jive situation:
Oh, we are only going to throw out one little part of liability law.
But guess what. It is the only one that works. We do not want
communities to be left holding the bag if there is a problem in the
future because that is a pretty heavy bag for the local community and
the local taxpayers to pick up--its cleanup costs, its possible health
problems and its water pollution and possible air pollution.
I am going to get to the issue that the supporters will raise: That
this is a mandate and, therefore, the suppliers deserve this liability
exemption.
Congress regularly mandates that manufacturers meet a variety of
guidelines and requirements, but we do not exempt all manufacturers
from State and Federal product liability design defect laws.
When gasoline leaks today, there is no loophole. The polluter pays,
despite the fact that Congress regulates gasoline. Congress mandated
the installation of airbags in automobiles, made them mandatory.
Congress said: You must have airbags. You remember that battle. The
automobile companies said: We don't want them. (Of course, now they are
saying they are happy to have them.) But, in any case, we mandated
them. But if there is a problem with airbags, we did not give a
liability waiver to the automobile companies. If that product is
defective, the product is defective and people have to be held
accountable and responsible.
I thought that was what we stood for in the Senate. We talk about
accountability. We talk about responsibility. We talk about people
taking responsibility for their actions, and yet we are going to give
some of the biggest companies in the world a waiver from liability.
Shame on us if we do this. It is not as if we did not have experience
before, doing it with MTBE. It is not as if we do not know that the
cost to clean up MTBE is in the tens of billions of dollars. If the
companies were off the hook, it would be the local taxpayers who have
to pay.
Again, supporters of this liability loophole claim ethanol is safe so
no one needs to worry about this liability exemption. So, again, I ask
a question--a rhetorical question--if you are not worried about any
ill-effects from ethanol, why are you fighting me so hard on this? Why
not join hands with me and say we are going to treat ethanol like we
treat every other product?
I, again, want to read the language I have added in this amendment
which I hope will be adopted:
Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal or State law, a
renewable fuel used or intended to be used as a motor vehicle fuel, or
any motor vehicle fuel containing renewable fuels, shall be subject to
liability standards that are not less protective of human health,
welfare, and the environment than any other motor vehicle fuel or fuel
additive.
That is all I am saying. I am not holding ethanol to a different
standard. I just spoke in support of ethanol made from agricultural
residues. I think those folks have to meet safety standards, and one
way to make sure they do is to not take away their liability. Ethanol
should be subject to liability standards as strong as any other fuel
additive. No more, no less. We are not making it any harsher. We are
not making it any easier on them. We should not shift the burden of
cleaning up problems caused by ethanol to our local communities, our
mayors, our city council people, our Governors, and the rest.
No public policy is served by immunizing the refiners and chemical
companies from responsibility in the future if it turns out that this
was a problem and they knew it, and they didn't tell anyone about it.
How much time remains on my side, Mr. President?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 13 minutes 23 seconds.
Mrs. BOXER. I will take another couple minutes. Then I will reserve
the remainder and allow my colleagues to argue this case.
Let me tell you who is on my side. Who is on the side of making sure
that we don't give the safe harbor liability waiver for renewable
fuels? Many local and State governments, water utilities support my
amendment, public health, consumer and environmental organizations.
These include the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies; the
American Water Works Association, which together represent water
systems serving 180 million Americans across the country. Do you know
why they are with me on this? They may be stuck cleaning up the water
supply. They can't afford it. This is almost like putting an unfunded
mandate on local people if, in fact, there are problems with ethanol.
And that is why the American Water Works Association is for my
amendment.
Continuing the list of those who oppose the liability waiver:
Association of California Water Agencies; National Association of Water
Companies; South Tahoe Public Utility District. Do you know why they
are for it? Because they know if they didn't have the chance to sue on
this, they would have to bear the cleanup responsibility from MTBE
contamination. The City of Santa Monica and Orange County Water
District likewise know the effect that ground water contamination can
have. They are with me.
How about these groups? American Lung Association is for the
amendment; American Public Health Association; California Clean Water
Action; Citizens for a Future New Hampshire, Cahaba River Society;
Citizen's Environmental Coalition; Clean Water Action; the Consumer
Federation of America; Environmental Defense; Ecology Center;
Environmental Working Group; Friends of the Earth; League of
Conservation Voters; Mono Lake Committee; National Sludge Alliance; the
Natural Resources Defense Council; the New Jersey Coalition Against
Tonics; the New Jersey Environmental Federation; Physicians for Social
Responsibility; the Sierra Club; Rivers Unlimited; Spring Lake Park
Groundwater Guardians; and U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
That is just a partial list of the folks out there who are saying to
Senators: Please, if you are going to move ahead with a new product
like this--it is not a new product, but it is certainly going to be a
product that is going to now be ubiquitous across the country--if you
are going to do this, then make sure you take every caution and every
protection not to waive the protections the American people now have
from a defective product.
And, once more, just let's be clear on this. There are no other ways
for communities to recover costs if this turns out to be a mistake.
Negligence, out the window; nuisance, out the window. It is defective
product liability the courts have said is the only way people can go.

[[Page S7426]]

I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has about 10 minutes 4 seconds
remaining. Who seeks recognition?
The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, to respond to the question asked by the
distinguished Senator from California, why are we fighting it? One of
the biggest problems is, you get in this quagmire of lawsuits and
nothing ever gets done in terms of cleanup. This is something we have
been fighting for a long time.
This is going to be a more brief statement than it was going to be
before because right now we have a very significant piece of
legislation before the committee I chair on the clear skies
legislation, which is the most far-reaching reduction in powerplant
pollutions in the history of clean air. So it is very significant, and
I do have to get back.
I have stated on many occasions my concern about the fact that this
country does not have a comprehensive energy policy. I have also
criticized Republicans and Democrats alike. We didn't get a
comprehensive energy policy in the Reagan administration or the first
Bush administration or the Clinton administration. We are going to get
one with this. That is why this is so significant.
As Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said, it is a serious
strategic issue. This is a national security issue.
The amendment we are talking about, the underlying bill, the Frist-
Daschle-Inhofe amendment, represents a compromise on a lot of
contentious issues. As with all compromises, there are provisions I
like and I don't like. I am afraid there is a lot of misinformation
being circulated about the safe harbor provision. Time and time again,
we hear if the safe harbor provision is enacted into law, first,
citizens cannot take refiners to court under our tort system; and,
second, any responsible ethanol contamination that happens in the
future would not get cleaned up. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
First, let me address the statement that any tort claim that has not
been filed by the date of enactment of this section will be forever
barred. Even with the enactment of the safe harbor provision, if a
plaintiff makes a case, here are just a few tort theories that can be
used in environmental cases: Trespass, trespass is not affected by safe
harbor; nuisance, not affected by safe harbor; negligence, not
affected; breach of implied warranty, not affected by safe harbor; a
breach of express warranty, not affected by safe harbor. Safe harbor
does not affect any of these tort theories.
In fact, ethanol has been approved by the EPA as a fuel additive. Now
Congress is mandating the use of ethanol. So the Federal Government has
given ethanol its stamp of approval and now Congress is mandating it.
How can we now say that refiners and blenders are open to suits for
claims that the ``product has design or manufacturing defects''? Design
defect claims actually hamper cleanups by interfering with regulatory
agencies. Regulatory agency oversight--Federal, State, and local--is
frustrated by the product liability claims because these agencies lose
control of the remedy process. These agencies are supposed to be in
control of the remedy process. That answers the question asked, Why are
we concerned about this? We want to get these things cleaned up.
When product liability claims are permitted, the plaintiff's motive
becomes recovery of a large money judgment rather than a judgment
mandating a remedy to be performed by the party who released the
gasoline. Very often, the only thing getting cleaned up are the trial
lawyers' mansions purchased with the spoils of these settlements. In
fact, a recent report from the Council of Economic Advisors found that
using the tort system in this way ``is extremely inefficient, returning
only 20 cents of the tort cost dollar for that purpose.''
Now, I would like to address the rumors that sites will not get
cleaned up or that polluters will not pay. The Safe Harbor provisions--
in no way--affects liability, and therefore, cleanups under any Federal
or State environmental law. Any statement to the contrary is false.
Enforcement of these laws is by the authorized Federal agency and
States. If there were a spill, here are some examples of environmental
laws that offer cleanup and liability provisions:
1. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA); 2. Clean Water Act;
3. Oil Pollution Act (OPA); 4. Superfund. Generally speaking, Congress
intended that oil spills be cleaned up by the Oil Pollution Act.
However, the Inhofe Amendment to last Congress' Brownfields bill signed
into law by the President is taking hug strides in cleaning up nearly
250,000 petroleum contaminated sites, such as abandon gas stations.
No. 5, Natural Resource Damages (NRD), under the Oil Pollution Act,
Superfund, and the Clean Water Act.
So as you can see, there are enormous protections through the tort
system as well as through environmental laws. Again, I ask my
colleagues to oppose the Boxer amendment and support the motion to
table.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield to me for about 1 minute?
Mr. BOND. I am happy to accommodate my colleague.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I know the Senator is prepared to speak
against the Boxer amendment, as his colleague just did. I, too, have
come to the floor to speak against the Boxer amendment.
The underlying Frist-Daschle amendment creates a narrow prospective
safe harbor from liability for defect in design or manufacture of a
renewable fuel. There is no liability protection for MTBE in the
underlying amendment. I oppose the Boxer amendment. Many colleagues in
the Senate feel strongly in opposition, I believe, and we will be able
to defeat this amendment.
And, to qualify for the limited protection that is in the underlying
amendment, a renewable fuel must be evaluated by EPA for toxicity,
carcinogenicity, air quality impacts, and water quality impacts, and
must be used in compliance with any restrictions imposed by EPA.
Further, the burden of cleanup for environmental contamination would
not be shifted.
That is, the safe harbor provision that is in the RFS amendment would
not affect liability under Federal and state environmental laws, and
therefore would not affect response, remediation and clean-up.
Let me make this point clear: the underlying provision would not
affect in any way a company's legal responsibility to clean up the
contamination of any groundwater by gasoline, regardless of whether it
contained oxygenates or additives of any kind.
In addition, the safe harbor provision for renewable fuels does not
affect liability under other tort law provisions, including negligence,
trespass, and nuisance, and it does not prevent the award of
compensatory or punitive damages.
Importantly, defective product liability cases only make up 0.002
percent of all civil cases filed each year according to the National
Center for State Courts.
Finally, an amendment to change or strike the safe harbor provision
would destroy this long-standing renewable fuels agreement, and result
in the status quo and no national phaseout of MTBE, which has
contaminated some groundwater supplies.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for his fine statement.
Really, the fact that we are here today in a bipartisan effort reflects
the good work that has gone on. After intense negotiations between the
ethanol and oil industries, agriculture, the environmental community,
consumer groups, and the States, we have a historic agreement that is
embodied in the Frist-Daschle bill which will provide for significant
growth in the renewable fuels industries, including ethanol and
biodiesel.
Industry has been working for months to implement these
recommendations that are protective of the environment, provide
refiners with increased flexibility, and provide agriculture with
certain growth in market opportunities for ethanol and biodiesel.
Certainly, the occupant of the chair, who is from Missouri, knows how
great the growth of the ethanol and biodiesel industry is in our State,
as farmers are

[[Page S7427]]

coming together in cooperatives to build facilities to meet the need
for this clean, renewable fuel. These are tremendous opportunities for
improving our environment, reducing our dependence upon foreign oil,
and providing a strong economic base for rural America.
The key provisions of the bipartisan agreement, I think most people
know, are:
A Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) in which part of our nation's fuel
supply, growing to 5 billion gallons by 2012, is provided by renewable,
domestic fuels; eliminating the Federal reformulated gasoline, RFG, 2.0
wt. percent oxygen requirement; phasing down the use of MTBE in the
U.S. gasoline market over 4 years; and protecting the air quality gains
of the reformulated gasoline program.
These provisions will increase U.S. fuels supplies, promote more
U.S.-sourced energy, protect the environment, and stimulate rural
economic development through increased production and use of domestic,
renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.
The historic fuels agreement contained in the Reliable Fuels Act, S.
791, provides for a gradual phase-in of the use of renewable fuels,
beginning with 2.6 billion gallons in 2005 and growing to 5 billion
gallons in 2012. Some have expressed concerns regarding the bill's
renewable fuels ``safe harbor provision,'' arguing it provides
``sweeping liability exemptions for damage to public health or the
environment resulting from renewable fuels or their use in conventional
gasoline.'' This is a clear misrepresentation of the provision.
The safe harbor provision is intended to offer some protection to
refiners that are required to use renewable fuels under this bill. It
is aimed at as yet unknown and undeveloped renewable fuels, not
ethanol. Ethanol has been used in the U.S. safely and effectively for
more than 20 years. But without some limited safe harbor, refiners may
be reluctant to commercialize new fuels that may otherwise qualify for
this program.
Ethanol has received a clean bill of health. According to a report on
ethanol's health and environmental fate completed by Cambridge
Environmental, Inc., no health threat is expected from increased
ethanol use. The report concludes exposure to ethanol vapors coming
from ethanol-blended gasoline is very unlikely to have adverse health
consequences. Importantly, after an exhaustive study of ethanol's
impact on health, air quality and water resources, the California
Environmental Policy Council awarded ethanol a clean bill of health.
Ethanol is rapidly biodegraded in surface water, groundwater and
soil. Ethanol is a safe biodegradable and renewable fuel that does not
harm drinking water resources. A recent study by Surbec Environmental
concluded that ethanol poses no threat to surface water and ground
water According to the report, ethanol is a naturally occurring
substance produced during the fermentation of organic matter and can be
expected to biodegrade rapidly in essentially all environments.
The safe harbor provision is very limited. It applies only to claims
that a renewable fuel is defective in design or manufacture. These
requirements include both compliance with requests for information
about a fuel's public health and environmental effects and compliance
with any regulations adopted by the EPA. If these requirements are not
met, the safe harbor protection does not apply and liability will be
determined under otherwise applicable law. This provision does not
affect claims based on the wrongful release of a renewable fuel into
the environment. Anyone harmed by a release of that kind would retain
all the rights he has under current law.
Safeguards are provided for in the bill. The legislation requires EPA
to conduct studies of the long-term health and environmental effects of
renewable fuels. Under this bill, the Administrator has the authority
to control or even prohibit the sale of renewable fuels that may
adversely affect air or water quality or the public health. There is no
safe harbor if the Administrator's rules are violated.
A vote for the amendment may disrupt the historic agreement. The
bipartisan compromise on fuels issues in S. 791 represents a carefully
crafted agreement among the oil industry, ethanol producers,
agriculture groups, and environmental and public health interests,
including the American Lung Association, the Union of Concerned
Scientists and Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management,
NESCAUM, among others. An amendment to change or strike the safe harbor
provision would effectively dissolve the agreement, resulting in the
status quo and continued MTBE use.
MTBE use is a problem. MTBE has been shown to be harmful, and MTBE
must be phased out and replaced by the other renewable, benign
oxygenate--ethanol.
I will just say generally, on all of these amendments designed to
attack ethanol, there are tremendous economic benefits of this
renewable fuel standard.
Tripling the use of renewable fuels will have a significant positive
impact on both the farm and overall economy, while significantly
reducing our foreign imports.
According to an economic analysis of the legislation completed by AUS
consultants, over the next decade RFS would reduce the Nation's trade
deficit by more than $34 billion in 1996 dollars, increase U.S. gross
domestic product by $156 billion by 2012, create more than 214,000 new
jobs throughout the entire economy, expand household income by an
additional $51.7 billion, increase net farm income by nearly $6 billion
per year, create $5.3 billion of new investment in renewable fuel
production capacity, and displace more than 1.6 billion barrels of
imported oil.
One other canard that is often raised against ethanol is that it is
not a positive energy balance. Energy balance refers to the energy
contact of ethanol minus the fossil energy used to produce it. In 2002,
the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Argonne National Laboratories
concluded that ethanol contains 34 percent more energy than is used in
the production process, including the energy used to grow and harvest
the grain, process the grain into ethanol, and to transport the ethanol
to gasoline terminals for distribution.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, ethanol produced from
biomass generates 6.8 Btu for every Btu of fossil energy consumed. The
production of reformulated gasoline without ethanol generates only .79
Btu for every Btu of fossil energy consumed. Therefore, producing
ethanol produces roughly eight times more Btu than using energy-
produced reformulated gasoline. And it achieves a net gain in a more
desirable form of energy. It provides clean environmental benefits.
With the war we face on terrorism, we have to be more concerned about
U.S. energy. We need to reduce imported oil. We can develop and supply
that oil from our rich farmlands. It will increase the availability of
U.S. fuel supplies while easing an overburdened refining industry. No
new oil refineries have been built in the U.S. since 1976, but 68
ethanol production facilities have been built during that time.
As ethanol and biodiesel are blended with gasoline and diesel after
the refining process, they directly increase domestic fuel capacity.
Blending 10-percent ethanol in a gallon of gas provides an additional
10-percent volume to the transportation fuel market, easing the oil
refinery sector that is operating at capacity.
The environmental benefits have already been discussed. It can reduce
global warming. In 2002, ethanol use in the U.S. reduced greenhouse gas
emissions by 4.3 million tons, the equivalent of removing more than
636,000 vehicles from the road.
There is a long list of organizations that are supporting the fuels
agreement. Rather than take the time of my colleagues to read those, I
ask unanimous consent that this list of organizations supporting the
fuel agreement before us today be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

American Farm Bureau Federation, American Petroleum
Institute, Renewable Fuels Association, National Corn Growers
Association, National Farmers Union, Northeast States for
Coordinated Air Use Management, U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
National Biodiesel Board, American Bioenergy Association,
American Coalition for Ethanol, American Corn Growers
Association, American Lung Association, American Soybean
Association, Bluewater Network, California Farmers Union,
California Renewable Fuels

[[Page S7428]]

Partnership, Citizens Committee to Complete the Refuge, Clean
Energy Now (Greenpeace), Clean Fuels Development Coalition,
Climate Solutions, Cook Inlet Keeper, County of Ventura
Public Works Department, Earth Island Journal, Environmental
and Energy Study Institute, Ethanol Producers and Consumers,
General Biomass Company, Governors' Ethanol Coalition,
Illinois Student Environmental Network, Institute for
Agriculture & Trade Policy, Institute for Local Self-
Reliance, International Marine Mammal Project, Kettle Range
Conservation Group, Kinergy Resources, Mangrove Action
Project, Masada Resource Group, National Grain Sorghum
Producers, New River Foundation, New Uses Council, Northwoods
Conservation Association, Oceanic Resource Foundation, Oregon
Environmental Council, Pacific Biodiversity Institute, Plumas
Corporation, Renewable Energy Action Project, Save Our
Shores, Soybean Producers of America, The Brower Fund, The
Minnesota Project, Tides Foundation, Union of Concerned
Scientists, Waste Action Project, Waterkeeper Alliance, West
Coast People's Energy Co-op, and Women Involved in Farm
Economics.
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to oppose this
amendment and, just for good measure, I urge them to oppose all of the
other amendments which seem to be targeted at ethanol. The manager of
the bill, Senator Domenici, has pointed out that we see many attacks
coming on ethanol. I ask my colleagues to continue to support ethanol
and reject this and the other amendments.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 10 minutes remaining.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am going to yield a couple of minutes to
my friend from New Mexico. Before I do, I wish to point out that I
consider this an ethanol-friendly amendment because I believe there
will be much more confidence in ethanol as an additive to our gasoline
if people know there are no special waivers of liability, that this
fuel will have to be subjected to the same rigorous standards in a
court of law should something go wrong.
I do not envision this as an unfriendly amendment, although I know
some of my colleagues feel otherwise.
It is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the Senator from New Mexico,
Mr. Bingaman.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from California for
offering the amendment. I do support the amendment.
The general rule which has served us well in this country is that if
you design or manufacture a product that proves to be defective and
that product then injures someone, you can be held liable. That has
allowed us to protect the health and safety of the American people. It
is a substantial protection for all of us.
This safe harbor provision that the Senator from California wants to
strike says:

No renewable fuel shall be deemed to be defective in design
or in manufacture or no motor vehicle fuel that contains
renewable fuel shall be deemed to be defective in design and
manufacture.

To my mind, it is unwise public policy for us to be writing into law
this kind of exception to the general tort laws that we operate under
in the country. We do not know enough, frankly. We do not know what the
scientific and health experts are going to find when they fully
investigate the impact of tripling the use of ethanol on the air that
we breathe and the water we drink.
I certainly hope they will find there is no harmful health effect
from it, but to say we are going to prohibit anyone from recovering if
they are damaged from the design or manufacture of any of these
renewable fuels I think is a big mistake.
I compliment the Senator from California. I support her amendment. I
yield the floor.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise to support the amendment by my
colleague from California to strke the so-called ``safe harbor
provision'' in the amendment offered by the majority leader that would
shield ethanol producers and refiners from any liability if the fuel
additive harms the environment or public health.
Candidly, I find this ``safe harbor provision'' astounding.
I believe it is egregious public policy to mandate ethanol into our
fuel supply in the first place--and even worse to provide complete
liability protection to the fuel additive before scientific and health
experts can fully investigate the impact of tripling ethanol on the air
we breathe and the water we drink.
This is exactly the mistake we made with MTBE. Over the past several
years, we have learned that MTBE has contaminated our water and may be
a human carcinogen.
As exemplified by our Nation's experience with MTBE, there can be
severe environmental and health repercussions when we mandate the use
of any one fuel additive.
Last fall a California jury found there was ``clear and convincing
evidence'' that three major oil companies acted ``with malice'' by
polluting ground water at Lake Tahoe with MTBE because the gasoline
they sold was ``defective in design'' and there was failure to warn of
its pollution hazard. After a 5-month trial, Shell Oil and Lyondell
Chemical Company were found guilty of withholding information on the
dangers of MTBE. The firms settled with the South Lake Tahoe Water
District for $69 million.
This case demonstrates why we cannot surrender the rights of citizens
to hold polluters accountable for harm they inflict.
How can the Senate favor exempting the ethanol industry from this
kind of wrongdoing? I urge my colleagues to take a look at the so-
called ``safe harbor'' provision that will give the ethanol industry
unprecedented protection against consumers and communities that may
seek legal redress against the harm ethanol may cause.
Our amendment would strike this ridiculous exemption.
If we do not strike this provision, polluters will receive
unprecedented protection from damage to public health or the
environment.
If we do not strike this provision, what incentive will there be for
ethanol manufacturers and refiners to make their products as safe as
possible and thoroughly test their long-term effects?
If we do not strike this provision, how else can we hold
manufacturers accountable when fuel additives cause harm?
Mandating ethanol into our fuel supply raises serious health and
environmental concerns. What effect will an ethanol mandate have on our
environment? What are the health risks?
Although the scientific opinion is not unanimous, evidence suggests
that; one, reformulated gasoline with ethanol produces more smog
pollution than reformulated gas without it; and, two, ethanol enables
the toxic chemicals in gasoline to break apart and seep further into
groundwater even faster than conventional gasoline.
Ethanol is often made out to be an ideal ``renewable fuel'' giving
off fewer emissions. Yet, on balance, ethanol can be a cause of more
air pollution because it produces smog in the summer months. Smog is a
powerful respiratory irritant that affects large segments of the
population. It has an especially pernicious effect on the elderly,
children, and individuals with existing respiratory problems such as
asthma.
Just last week the American Lung Association named California the
smoggiest state by listing nine counties and six metropolitan areas in
California as having the worst conditions.
A 1999 report from the National Academy of Sciences found, ``the use
of commonly available oxygenates [like ethanol] in [Reformulated
Gasoline] has little impact on improving ozone air quality and has some
disadvantages. Moreover, some data suggest that oxygenates can lead to
higher Nitrogen Oxide (NO<inf>x</inf>) emissions.'' Nitrogen Oxides are
known to cause smog.
The American Lung Association report also noted that half of
Americans are living in counties with unhealthy smog levels. Why would
we want to take the chance of increasing these unhealthy smog levels by
mandating billions of unnecessary gallons of ethanol into our fuel
supply?
Thus, ethanol can be both good and bad for air quality. To me it
would make sense to maximize the advantages of ethanol, while
minimizing the disadvantages. This is exactly why States should have
flexibility to decide what goes into their gasoline in order to meet
clean air standards, and ethanol should not be mandated--certainly not
at this level. And if we are

[[Page S7429]]

mandating it, why exempt manufacturers and refiners from their legal
responsibility to provide a safe product?
Evidence also suggests that ethanol accelerates the ability of toxins
found in gasoline to seep into our groundwater supplies. The EPA Blue
Ribbon Panel on Oxygenates found ethanol ``may retard biodegradation
and increase movement of benzene and other hydrocarbons around leaking
tanks.''
And according to a report by the State of California entitled
``Health and Environmental Assessment of the Use of Ethanol as a Fuel
Oxygenate,'' there are valid questions about the impact of ethanol on
ground and surface water. An analysis in the report found there will be
a 20 percent increase in public drinking water wells contaminated with
benzene if a significant amount of ethanol is used. Benzene is a known
human carcinogen.
At a hearing held on the House side last year, Professor Gordon
Rausser of UC Berkeley commented on the potential harm of ethanol on
groundwater. Professor Rausser testified:

when gasoline that contains ethanol is released into
groundwater, the resulting benzene plumes can be longer and
more persistent than plumes resulting from releases of
conventional gasoline. Research suggests that the presence of
ethanol in gasoline will delay the degradation of benzene and
will lengthen the benzene plumes by between 25 percent and
100 percent.

This evidence on the potential harm of ethanol is extraordinarily
troubling.
I am at a loss to understand why the Senate would support sweeping
liability protection for fuel producers. Taking away the ability of
families and communities to seek redress for the harm caused by fuel
additives is NOT something I believe this Senate should be doing.
Let me read part of a letter sent by California Attorney General Bill
Lockyer opposing the ethanol safe harbor provision. Lockyer writes:

Congress should not enact the current safeharbor
provisions, which could be construed as granting oil
companies a very broad immunity. As exemplified by MTBE,
there can be dire consequences from the use of defective fuel
additives.

Lockyer continues:

If there is a defect with a particular fuel, the oil
companies should be held accountable under the common law
principles for using such a fuel. In addition, by including
fuels and not just renewable fuels, this section has a
extraordinarily broad reach. There is no reason to add
immunity for a fuel just because one drop of renewable fuel
is added to that fuel. For as long as automobiles have been
used, oil companies have been subject to common law product
liability rules. There is no need to change these fundamental
principles.

We need to protect the basic rights American families enjoy remain in
place to keep our air and water safe.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment to protect our
communities from harm caused by fuel additives.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, this debate is winding down and my
colleagues are here to offer other amendments. I am going to finish
shortly.
At this point in the debate, we ought to get real about what this is.
There are certain matters that are right in society and there are
certain matters that are wrong. It is not right to give special
protection to one particular manufacturing group in this country that
no one else gets. In a way, it is a subsidy given to those people
because if there is a problem in the future with ethanol, guess who is
going to pick up the tab? Guess who is going to pay the bill? Not the
people who caused the problem but the taxpayers. That is wrong.
If we had a wonderful history, if we did not have communities in
trouble because of MTBE and other additives we thought would be great,
it would be different.
I see my friend, the Senator from New Hampshire, is in the Chamber
for another amendment. The Citizens for a Future New Hampshire support
the Boxer amendment because they do not want to be left holding the bag
if something happens.
There is right and there is wrong. This issue, to me, is very clear:
It is right to protect the people; it is wrong to give a special
interest waiver to a particular manufacturer.
There is private special interest and there is public interest--
taxpayers versus those who would pollute.
Finally, when my colleagues say they are only banning one type of
option for citizens who are injured, namely effective product
liability, that is all they are doing. People can still use the
nuisance claim and the negligence claim and all of these other claims.

I hope they know they are forgetting recent history where there was a
court case on MTBE, also an additive to gasoline, and what did the
court say? The nuisance claim, denied; the negligence claim, denied.
The only claim that could hold up, the only claim that could save the
taxpayers of Lake Tahoe, who had a mess with MTBE, was defective
product liability.
My colleagues stand up and say that is the only thing we are doing.
They called it a narrow safe harbor. Well, it is an enormous safe
harbor because it is the only place people can go to get recompense if
ethanol turns out to be a problem.
My colleague from Missouri says there is a study in this underlying
bill. Well, I am glad there is a study, but he is ignoring the fact
that there has already been a study in 1999 by EPA's blue ribbon panel,
and this is what they said: Ethanol is extremely soluble in water and
would spread if leaked into the environment. It may further spread
plumes of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, and ethanol may
inhibit the breakdown of these toxic materials.
It says it may inhibit. That means it may be a problem. If my
colleagues, in their zeal to have ethanol in every single State in this
country--and, by the way, it will be--and if they are so sure it is
safe, then why on Earth are they saying ethanol should get special
treatment, and why do they close down the door on the only area where
people have found they have a chance to get cleanup money from the
polluters? The answer is, they do not know if it is safe.
We hope it is safe. We hoped MTBE would be safe, and it has poisoned
hundreds of wells in this country. Hundreds of water systems have shut
down because of MTBE. And if it was not for the product liability claim
being open to citizens, who would have to clean up the mess? Not the
companies that caused it but the taxpayers in those areas.
So it seems to me, if I might use the word ``disingenuous,'' to say
that ethanol is 100 percent safe, but we want a safe harbor so no one
can sue if something goes wrong.
I was not born yesterday. That is obvious. I know when somebody says
they have the safest product in the world but give me special
protection so that no one can ever sue me, my antenna goes up, just as
a person with common sense, and I say that is not right.
Researchers say that more ground water wells will experience
contamination from MTBE and benzene, which is a carcinogen, if ethanol
leaks into water supply, and there are the questions about the impact
of ethanol on sensitive populations, our children.
Now, there is not one Senator who does not want to protect kids. Come
on. We know that. Most of us are parents. A lot of us are grandparents.
We are aunts, we are uncles. We want to protect our children and we
want to protect the Nation's children. How can we close our eyes, then,
to what we are about to do if we do not agree to this Boxer amendment?
What we are doing is saying that the makers of this product do not have
to worry about a thing in terms of harming our kids.
Our kids, because of the developmental stage they are in--they are
growing, they are changing, their hormones are starting--they are very
sensitive to contaminants. We know that. That is why I wrote the
Children's Environmental Protection Act, and parts of it have been
passed by the Senate. I am so proud of it. Is it not better to say up
front to a manufacturer--any manufacturer--if they harm children, we
can take them to court and they are going to have to clean up the mess
and clean up their product?

Oh, no, not if they are making ethanol. They are going to have
special exemption. It breaks my heart to see us do this. I figure I
will lose this amendment only because we tried it once before and we
did lose it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair informs the Senator from California
her time has expired.
Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent for one additional minute, to
close.

[[Page S7430]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. BOXER. So there are unanswered questions surrounding ethanol.
There are unanswered questions according to the EPA special panel in
1999, and all the Senator from California is saying to her colleagues
is this: Just make sure this product, which is going to be a new
product in several States, that it does not have special advantages so
that if something happens, the makers of the product do not get off
scott-free. That is not right. It is un-American. It is not fair. It is
an unfunded mandate on our communities.
I was happy to hear Senator Bond say he does not support a waiver for
MTBE--good for him--because we need to strip that out of the House
bill. But this is a new day. This is a new additive, and we should hold
it to the same responsibility as we hold all other additives, all other
products. Because if MTBE had this waiver, communities all over this
country would be in trouble.
I thank my colleagues very much for listening to me. I feel very
strongly about this. I hope we will have a good ``aye'' vote.
I ask for the yeas and nays, and also ask the amendment be set aside
for a vote at a later time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mrs. BOXER. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President: May I ask the
managers of the bill approximately what time they expect to be voting
on the Boxer amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. At this point it looks as if we are not going to vote
on anything until about 3, and the Boxer amendment would be second or
third in line.
Mrs. BOXER. That is fine. I say to my friend, could I have 1 minute
at that point, and a minute on the other side, to explain the
amendment?
Mr. DOMENICI. Unless the Senator wants to seek that consent at this
point, there is no such arrangement.
Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent at this point.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair informs the Senator that 2 minutes
has already been provided in the unanimous consent agreement, so the
Senator will have that 1 minute.
Mrs. BOXER. I yield the floor.
Mr. DOMENICI. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Graham of South Carolina). Without
objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, with the consent of the minority, I make
the following unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent that--
I withhold until the minority whip is present, Mr. President.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, now I ask unanimous consent that at 3:30
today the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the Schumer amendment
No. 853, to be followed immediately by a vote in relation to the Boxer
amendment No. 856, to be followed by a vote in relation to the Boxer
amendment No. 854; provided further that following those votes the
Senate proceed immediately to a vote on the adoption of amendment No.
850, without further intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, also for the information of Senators, I have
spoken to the two managers of the bill. There are a number of people
who are ready to offer amendments. The Republican manager of the bill
has an amendment waiting to go. We also have a very important amendment
on which there has been an agreement on the time for that amendment. We
would want that set up for early next week. It is one of the most
important amendments in this whole bill.
But we are not going to be able to move forward until 3:30 on
anything, until the two leaders announce to the floor managers that
there has been something worked out on the amendment originally offered
by the Senator from Arkansas, Mrs. Lincoln.
It is my understanding that there has been work done to arrive at a
point where that matter can be disposed of, but until that is done, we
are not going to move forward on anything other than these.
As I indicated, the two leaders may even be talking as we speak.
Until we hear from them, we will be happy to fill in this time, until
3:30, with the amendment of the Senator from New Mexico, or whatever
the two managers think is appropriate. But until then, we are not going
to agree to set it aside to move to anything else.
So we have no problem talking about the bill or amendments that may
be offered. But until the matter involving the child tax credit is
worked out with the two leaders, we are not going to move forward on
this bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. For the information of the Senate, I might indicate
that the second of the Boxer amendments, which had been listed in the
unanimous consent, is probably not going to require a rollcall vote but
will be adopted by voice. Immediately after that, the underlying
ethanol amendment will be voted on, and a rollcall vote is being
required on that.
The Senator from New Mexico, the manager of the bill, intends when
appropriate, when matters have been agreed on between the leadership,
that we can proceed to offer an Indian amendment, which I think then
would be followed by a second-degree amendment by the Senator from New
Mexico, the minority manager of the bill.

We are also pursuing with a degree of vigor an effort to see if we
cannot get Senator Gregg and Senator Kennedy to agree to work out the
LIHEAP portion of this bill. There are two amendments there. If they
are able to work that out, that will put us in a position where we will
dispose of that entire matter sometime this afternoon, hopefully. It
seems they are very close to working that out, if the Senator is.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, in response, let me indicate my best
information is they are still insisting that we not deal with LIHEAP in
this legislation, which is of course not my position. I think we should
deal with it.
Accordingly, I would not agree to just a sense of the Senate on that
subject, which is their preference, as I understand it.
I hope we can persuade them otherwise. If not, then we will have to
have a vote.
Mr. DOMENICI. In any event, I am pursuing them so that there will be
a vote. Sooner or later we would like to dispose of it. If they insist,
they can have a vote on the first part of theirs. If they win or lose,
that leaves you in a position of whether you have the amendment on this
bill or not, depending upon the disposition of the first, the amendment
that precedes it, both of which have been set aside by consent and are
pending action by the Senate.
I see my friend Senator Wyden on the floor. I know we had been
talking about a proposed agreement with reference to a matter on
nuclear power. Let me suggest to the Senator, we are in accord as to
that. We will enter into it but not at this point. We are examining the
language carefully. But you have our assurance that at an appropriate
time today that agreement will be entered into and then we will be
ready to have a very important vote sometime on the day of Tuesday with
reference to nuclear power, with you being a proponent of a motion to
strike.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, if I could just respond, Senator Sununu and
I will be in the Chamber talking in a bit more detail. I always
appreciate the graciousness of the chairman of the committee in working
with me. I think we are going to get an agreement.

[[Page S7431]]

There are probably a lot more Senators who will want to speak on this
than first estimated.
So the Senate knows, originally Senator Sununu and I were prepared to
offer an amendment to strike the $16 billion for nuclear subsidies. The
amendment is supported strongly by the Taxpayers Union, but at the
request of the chairman of the committee, that vote will be put over
until next week.
I am very hopeful that we will be able to get a consent agreement
before long to have this debate. This is a significant exposure for
taxpayers. It is not a question of whether someone is pro-nuclear or
anti-nuclear. The Congressional Budget Office has said that there is at
least a 50-percent risk of failure with respect to these facilities.
The Congressional Research Service has indicated the taxpayers will be
on the hook for in the vicinity of $16 billion.
What I worry about is what happened in our part of the country. Four
out of five facilities were never built. In this case, if the
Congressional Budget Office is right and you have over a 50-percent
risk of failure at these facilities, this will be a huge exposure for
taxpayers.
I tell Senators there is no other source of energy in this
legislation which gets a direct subsidy for building a facility.
I am going to try to find a way to reach a procedural accommodation
with the chairman of the committee. I am a personal friend, and I want
to accommodate him. I hope we will be able do that.
This is a very significant taxpayer issue for the Senate. It is not a
question of whether someone is pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear. In my own
inimitable way, I have managed to make both sides mad over my career in
public service. But it is a taxpayer issue of enormous importance.
I hope Senators will read what the Congressional Budget Office and
the Congressional Research Service have had to say about this. The
Congressional Budget Office reports that there is more than a 50-
percent risk of failure with respect to these facilities, if
subsidized. The Congressional Research Service has talked about a $16
billion subsidy.
I would point out that this is even too rich for the blood of the
other body. The other body has not talked about anything like this.
We will work with the chairman of the committee. Senator Sununu and I
will be coming to the floor before long as well so that we can begin to
lay out the bipartisan support we have with Senator Bingaman, the
ranking minority member, Senator Ensign, and others.
I would just tell the chairman of the committee that I think there
are probably more Senators who want to discuss this than we thought. We
already have some indication that 90 minutes equally divided with an
up-or-down vote may not be enough. It is my intention to work with the
chairman of the committee, the ranking minority member, and others to
try to work out this unanimous consent so we can have that done
expeditiously.
I point out that this Senator and the Senator from New Hampshire were
asked to come today to have our amendment brought up. We felt pretty
good about it. We know there is going to be an awful lot of back and
forth with Senators between now and the time we vote Tuesday.
I ask that Senators look at the Congressional Budget Office report
and the Congressional Research Service report over the next few days as
the discussions go on and off the floor.
I look forward to working this out in terms of procedure with the
chairman of the committee probably over the next hour or so.
I yield the floor.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, we will have a great deal of time to
discuss what I believe is the most important issue for America's
future; that is, are we going to have an alternate source of energy for
electricity, aside and apart from coal and natural gas?
I believe the time has come. We ought to set in motion the
authorization--not the approval, not the appropriations, but the
authorization--to start down the path that says the United States may
be ready to build a nuclear powerplant. The arguments that have just
been made in anticipation of the agreement are not exactly as such.
This bill says America should have an opportunity to have a variety of
energy sources. We have provided subsidies for coal so that coal can be
made clean and delivered to our people as clean as possible. That is
subsidized. We have an enormous tax subsidy for wind and energy. In
fact, it is so big and so current that there will be windmills built
all over this country, and the amount is a direct tax credit. It is not
something that may happen. Every time one of those windmills is built,
the tax credit will apply and money will be used in large quantities.
In addition, we are talking about whether nuclear powerplants are
being built today. For instance, General Electric nuclear powerplants
are being designed and built in Taiwan right now at a cost--believe it
or not, and which we will show here to the Senate--that belies all of
the information that is submitted by the Congressional Budget Office,
which we believe is speculative. It will be shown that they are
constructing these nuclear powerplants at $1,250 a kilowatt. That means
they are perilously close today to producing nuclear powerplants that
will be competitive with natural gas in the United States.
We are not asking the Senate for any of this to happen. We are saying
that, as a matter of policy, we should put in the Energy bill the
opportunity for this to happen. We will go into great detail as to the
conditions, how it will happen, how it won't happen, and who has to
approve and who has to disapprove.
We think before we are finished, we will have convinced a majority of
Senators that the time has come to give a rebirth to this alternative
source so that if, as a matter of fact, in the next decade or so the
need arises, we will be ready, willing, and able to move ahead.
Having said that, I have just indicated nothing else is going to
happen in the Senate until sometime around 3 o'clock or 3:30. We will
try to get our unanimous consent agreement sometime this afternoon.
I yield the floor.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I want to be very brief. In fact, we are
going to get an agreement with the Senator from New Mexico to work out
the process for considering nuclear subsidies.
I just want to make sure Senators are clear with respect to what the
subsidy is all about. The Senator from New Mexico, the distinguished
chairman of the committee, said wind is going to get vast amounts of
subsidies. I wanted to point out to the chairman that if wind farms
produce power, they get a tax credit for the energy they produce. But
wind farms do not get any subsidy to build a facility.
What is unique about the $16 billion exposure for taxpayers is only
one energy source, under this legislation, gets a subsidy to build a
facility. That has troubled the National Taxpayers Union. That is why
they have been a strong supporter of the Wyden-Sununu amendment. This
is not going to be about whether you are pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear.
This is about whether Senators want to put at risk the taxpayers of the
country for the prospect that the Congressional Budget Office has said
has a 50-percent or higher failure with respect to constructing these
facilities.
We will have more to say about the bipartisan Wyden-Sununu amendment
before long, but I wrap up this part of the discussion by simply
saying, again, I hope Senators will look at what the Congressional
Budget Office and the Congressional Research Service have had to say
about that. Those are reports that lay out, in a frank and objective
way, what the risk is for taxpayers. I hope Senators will review it
carefully.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted
to speak for 15 minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The remarks of Mr. Akaka pertaining to the submission of the
resolution are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on
Submitted Resolutions.'')
Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time and
suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

[[Page S7432]]

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sununu). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, what is the business before the Senate?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is currently debating S. 14.
Mr. BYRD. What is the pending question before the Senate, Mr.
President?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending question is the Frist-Daschle
amendment No. 850.
Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, is the Senate operating under any time control at the
moment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no time control. There is no time
agreement.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I have one final question. Has the Pastore
rule expired?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Pastore rule expired 5 seconds ago.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the Chair.

Iraq's WMD Intelligence: Where is the Outrage?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, with each passing day, the questions
concerning and surrounding Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction
take on added urgency. Where are the massive stockpiles of VX, mustard,
and other nerve agents that we were told Iraq was hoarding? Where are
the thousands of liters of botulinim toxin? Wasn't it the looming
threat to America posed by these weapons that propelled the United
States into war with Iraq? Isn't this the reason American military
personnel were called upon to risk their lives in mortal combat?
On March 17, in his final speech to the American people before
ordering the invasion of Iraq, President Bush took one last opportunity
to bolster his case for war. The centerpiece of his argument was the
same message he brought to the United Nations months before, and the
same message he hammered home at every opportunity in the intervening
months, namely that Saddam Hussein had failed to destroy Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction and thus presented an imminent danger to the
American people. ``Intelligence gathered by this and other governments
leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal
some of the most lethal weapons ever devised,'' the President said.
Now, nearly 2 months after the fall of Baghdad, the United States has
yet to find any physical evidence of those lethal weapons. Could they
be buried underground or are they somehow camouflaged in plain sight?
Have they been shipped outside of the country? Do they actually exist?
The questions are mounting. What started weeks ago as a restless murmur
throughout Iraq has intensified into a worldwide cacophony of
confusion.
The fundamental question that is nagging at many is this: How
reliable were the claims of this President and key members of his
administration that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction posed a clear
and imminent threat to the United States, such a grave threat that
immediate war was the only recourse?
Lawmakers, who were assured before the war that weapons of mass
destruction would be found in Iraq, and many of whom voted--now get
this--to give this administration a sweeping grant of authority to wage
war based upon those assurances, have now been placed in the
uncomfortable position of wondering if they were misled. The media is
ratcheting up the demand for answers: Could it be that the intelligence
was wrong, or could it be that the facts were manipulated a little
here, a little there? These are very serious and grave questions, and
they require immediate answers. We cannot--and must not--brush such
questions aside. We owe the people of this country an answer. Those
people who are listening, who are watching this Chamber, and every
Member of this body ought to be demanding answers.
I am encouraged that the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence
Committees are planning to investigate the credibility of the
intelligence that was used to build the case for war against Iraq. We
need a thorough, open, gloves-off investigation of this matter, and we
need it quickly. The credibility of the President and his
administration hangs in the balance. We must not trifle with the
people's trust by foot-dragging.
What amazes me is that the President himself is not clamoring for an
investigation. It is his integrity, President Bush's integrity, that is
on the line. It is his truthfulness that is being questioned. It is his
leadership that has come under scrutiny. And yet he has raised no
question that I have heard. He has expressed no curiosity about the
strange turn of events in Iraq. He has expressed no anger at the
possibility that he might have been misled by people in his own
administration. How is it that the President, who was so adamant about
the dangers of WMD, has expressed no concern over the whereabouts of
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
Indeed, instead of leading the charge to uncover the discrepancy
between what we were told before the war and what we have found--or
failed to find--since the war, the White House is circling the wagons
and scoffing at the notion that anyone in the administration
exaggerated the threat from Iraq.
In an interview with Polish television last week, President Bush
noted that two trailers were found in Iraq that U.S. intelligence
officials believe are mobile biological weapons production labs,
although no trace of chemical or biological material was found in the
trailers. ``We found the weapons of mass destruction,'' the President
was quoted as saying. But certainly he cannot be satisfied with such
meager evidence.
At the CIA, Director George Tenet released a terse statement the
other day defending the intelligence his agency provided on Iraq. ``The
integrity of our process was maintained throughout and any suggestion
to the contrary is simply wrong,'' he said. How can he be so absolutely
sure?
At the Pentagon, Doug Feith, the Undersecretary of Defense for
policy, held a rare press conference this week to deny reports that a
high-level intelligence cell in the Defense Department doctored data
and pressured the CIA to strengthen the case for war. ``I know of no
pressure. I can't rule out what other people may have perceived. Who
knows what people perceive,'' he said. Is this administration not at
all concerned about the perception of deception? The perception is
there.
And Secretary of State Powell, who presented the U.S. case against
Iraq to the United Nations last February, strenuously defended his
presentation in an interview this week and denied any erosion in the
administration's credibility. ``Everybody knows that Iraq had weapons
of mass destruction,'' he said. Should he not be more concerned than
that about U.S. claims before the United Nations?
And yet . . . and yet . . . the questions continue to grow, and the
doubts are beginning to drown out the assurances. For every insistence
from Washington that the weapons of mass destruction case against Iraq
is sound comes a counterpoint from the field--another dry hole, another
dead end.
As the top Marine general in Iraq was recently quoted as saying, ``It
was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we
have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward
dispersal sites. Again, believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've
been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti
border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there.''
Who are the American people to believe? What are we to think? Even
though I opposed the war against Iraq because I believe that the
doctrine of preemption is a flawed and dangerous instrument of foreign
policy, I did believe that Saddam Hussein possessed some chemical and
biological weapons capability. But I did not believe that he presented
an imminent threat to the United States as indeed he did not.
Such weapons may eventually turn up. I said so weeks ago; they may
eventually turn up. But my greater fear is that the belligerent stance
of the United States may have convinced Saddam Hussein to sell or
disperse his weapons to dark forces outside of Iraq. Shouldn't this
administration be equally alarmed if they really believed that Saddam
had such dangerous capabilities?
The administration took steps to protect the oil facilities in Iraq
from being damaged and set on fire. The administration took
extraordinary steps

[[Page S7433]]

to do that. Why did it not take equally extraordinary steps to protect
chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear weapons, possibly, from
being looted, from being stolen, from being taken away by those who
would sell them, possibly, to terrorists?
Saddam Hussein is missing. Osama bin Laden is missing. Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction are missing. And the President's mild claims that
we are ``on the look'' do not comfort me. There ought to be an army of
UN inspectors combing the countryside in Iraq or searching for evidence
of disbursement of these weapons right now. Why are we waiting? Is
there fear of the unknown or fear of the truth?
This nation--and, indeed, the world--was led into war with Iraq on
the grounds that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed
an imminent threat to the United States and to the global community. As
the President said in his March 17 address to the Nation, ``The danger
is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons,
obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their
stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of
innocent people in our country, or any other.''
That fear may still be valid, but I wonder how the war with Iraq has
really mitigated the threat from terrorists. As the recent attack in
Saudi Arabia proved, terrorism is alive and well and unaffected by the
situation in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the President seems oblivious to the controversy swirling
about the justification for the invasion of Iraq. Our Nation's
credibility before the world is at stake. While his administration digs
in to defend the status quo, Members of Congress are questioning the
credibility of the intelligence and the public case made by this
administration on which the war with Iraq was based. Members of the
media, Members of the fourth estate, are openly challenging whether
America's intelligence agencies were simply wrong or were callously
manipulated. Vice President Cheney's numerous visits to the CIA are
being portrayed by some intelligence professionals as ``pressure.'' And
the American people are wondering, once again, what is going on in the
dark shadows of Washington.
It is time that we had some answers. It is time that the American
people were given some answers. It is time that the administration
stepped up its acts to reassure the American people that the horrific
weapons that the administration told us threatened the world's safety
have not fallen into terrorist hands. It is time that the President
leveled with the American people. It is time that the President of the
United States demanded that we get to the bottom of this matter and to
follow every lead, regardless of where that lead goes.
We have waged a costly war against Iraq. American fighting men and
women are still dying in Iraq. We have prevailed. But we are still
losing, as I said, still losing American lives in that nation. And the
troubled situation there is far from settled. American troops will
likely be needed there for months, many months--even years. Billions of
American tax dollars will continue to be needed to rebuild that
country. I only hope that we have not won the war only to lose the
peace. Until we have determined the fate of Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction, or determined that they, in fact, did not exist, we cannot
rest, we cannot claim victory.

Iraq's weapons of mass destruction remain a mystery, an enigma, a
conundrum. What are they, where are they, how dangerous are they? Or
were they a manufactured excuse by an administration eager to seize a
country? It is time these questions were answered. It is time--past
time--for the administration to level with the American people, and it
is time for the President of the United States to demand an accounting
from his own administration as to exactly how our Nation was led down
such a twisted path to war. His credibility and the credibility of this
Nation is at stake.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I understand we are on energy.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. THOMAS. We need to talk a little bit about energy. I think that
is what we are on. That is what we are doing this week. I must confess,
I am a little disappointed that we seem to get off on other things that
are unrelated when it seems to me that doing something with an energy
policy to try and look ahead in this country as to where we need to be
on energy is among the most important things that we could possibly do.
I understand there are different views about how you do that, and
that it is legitimate to talk about those, but I do feel badly when we
move off on something that isn't related when we are trying to get this
done. I think it is important that we do it. We are obviously ready to
move on to health care and Medicare and pharmaceuticals the week after
next. But we have been over this now. Last year we worked very hard
trying to do something with energy. We passed it here. I think the
process that was used was not conducive to a successful finish and,
indeed, we didn't have one. But this year we went through the
committee. We have already discussed all these issues. We have argued
back and forth.
Obviously, not everyone agrees, but I think it is hard not to agree
that energy is one of the things that affects most of us more than
almost anything else that we can do here. It affects whether we have
lights. It affects whether we have heat. It affects whether we have an
opportunity to use our automobile. And, more importantly, it has a
great deal to do with security for this country. So I really feel
strongly that we should get on with it. We should come up with an
energy policy out of the Senate. We should go into conference committee
with the House.
Remember, one of the first things that the President and the Vice
President did when they came into office was to outline an energy
policy recognizing how important that is. Since that time, we have, of
course, had more and more unrest and more and more war and terrorism in
the Middle East. We have allowed ourselves to get into a position where
60 percent of our oil comes in on imports. We are that dependent, which
is very risky. We have seen it move up and down and have different
effects over the country when different things happen with regard to
energy. Yet we seem kind of lackadaisical about trying to deal with it
in terms of policy.
Let me emphasize that is what we are talking about here is a policy.
In my view, a policy normally indicates that you are trying to look
ahead at what you think the situation ought to be in the future with
regard to that issue, what it means to your family and to your
community and to the country, to try and get a vision of where we want
to be in 10 or 15 years with respect to energy. And having established
a policy of that kind, obviously, then it becomes much easier and more
effective and more useful to measure the things we do in the interim as
to how they affect the accomplishment and the realization of that
vision and policy that we have seen.
I must confess that I am a little concerned from time to time that
vision is not always something that has a very high priority in the
Senate, and that really ought to be our major concern--seeing what we
can do here to accommodate reaching certain goals in the future.
So we are talking here about an energy policy that has been drafted,
a rather general, wide energy policy that I think is very important. We
are talking in this policy about conservation, about ways to save on
the amount of energy we have and the needs we have. We are talking
about finding alternatives so that we can have access to different
kinds of energy than we have had in the past. We are talking about
research so that we can do things such as have more clean coal, so we
have better air quality with respect to generating electricity. We are
talking about the possibility of converting some of our fossil fuels to
things such as hydrogen so that we are able to move them about easier,
able to have a cleaner environment. And we are able to do all of these
things.

[[Page S7434]]

Of course, very important among all of these is to increase domestic
production. We have great opportunities for production in this country.
Much of it lies in the West. I happen to be from the West. Our State is
50 percent owned by the Federal Government. Many of these resources are
on those Federal lands. Now, we have to do that carefully so that we
have a balance between protecting the environment, on the one hand, and
using the resources for energy, or whatever, on the other hand. We can
do that. It is our responsibility to be particularly careful. We have
the largest resource of fossil fuel for this country in the future,
which is coal. We have an opportunity to do a great deal with coal. We
met this morning in the Environment Committee on finding new ways to
set standards for SO2, and for other air quality standards, including
mercury. We can do those things.
That is what part of this bill is about--moving us forward in being
able to produce energy and, at the same time, protect the environment,
which all of us want to do. But we need to move forward to be able to
do that. We need to have easier access to public lands and multiple-use
lands, and have all the other uses as well for energy extraction.
Certainly, we won't want to use some lands for that. We will set them
aside as wilderness and special use. We have more wilderness in Wyoming
than in any other State in the country--except perhaps Alaska.
In any event, these are the kinds of issues with which we are faced.
They are not insurmountable. As a matter of fact, they are problems to
which we have the solution, but we seem hesitant to move forward and
get this job behind us. So I hope we will.
We have to modernize our infrastructure. Many things have changed. It
is not as if energy production remains the same over the years. In
years past, in the matter of electricity, you had a distribution area
where an electric company generated the electricity for everybody. Now
we are finding more and more that we generate electricity one place and
the market is somewhere else. So you have to have transmission. We can
find more efficient ways for transmission with the kind of research
that we do and take the same transmission line and make some changes in
it, and it has much more capacity. But you have to move to do that.

We find that almost all the generation plants built in the last
several years are oil fueled. The fact is, if you really want to look
at the future, there are many more uses for oil than for coal. We ought
to be using coal for the generation of electricity and oil and gas for
other kinds of functions. That makes a lot of sense. But we fail to set
the incentives to cause ourselves to be able to do that.
After all of our needs for electricity, we find that absent hydro,
which makes it about 7 percent, the renewables represent only 3 percent
of our electric supply. People keep talking about renewables. The fact
is that until we do some more research, making them more efficient,
they are not going to be able to have a significant impact. But there
is a possibility of doing that. That is what this policy is all about.
That is what we need to be doing, is moving forward to find some ways
for transmission and to do those kinds of things.
We really have a lot of opportunities to move forward, and I think we
can do that. As I said, I come from a place where we have probably the
richest source of coal. We provide about 14 percent of the coal now of
the United States. We are seventh in oil production and fifth in gas
production. Those are challenges. And there is really kind of an
exciting opportunity to do some more with hydrogen. Take coal and
manufacturing hydrogen, which can be used for cars and homes and for
many things--probably the cleanest energy we have talked about.
There are some opportunities to do a better job with nuclear power.
We have States in which about 30 percent of the energy is produced by
nuclear power. We have to be able to do more work and research,
particularly on waste--probably the cleanest resource for the
production of electricity.
I am simply trying to say that I understand there are different views
about how some of these things are done. Obviously, that is legitimate
and we ought to talk about that. But we ought to move forward and get
the idea that this matter of energy policy is one of the most important
things we can do. We have done something on taxes, and we are going to
do something on health care. If we can do something on energy as well,
we will have one of the most productive periods we have had for a long
time. We have a great opportunity to do that.
So I certainly urge that we take a long look at what we are doing and
find a way to move forward. Everyone should be given the opportunity to
put in their amendments. That is fine. But you cannot keep waiting for
days and days to get all the amendments in. We have been talking about
this for several weeks, yet we keep hearing, ``We have not drafted our
amendment yet.'' If you are serious about an amendment, get it drafted
and get it out there. Let's deal with it and move forward in
accomplishing the goal we have before us, which is a great opportunity
to move forward in this country economically, to create jobs, and to do
more for security and make our life better over a period of time, which
is something we all seek to do.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. President, I wish to take a few moments in this
debate on the Energy bill to talk about an amendment that my colleague
from Oregon, Senator Wyden and I will offer next week. He is the lead
sponsor on the amendment. I certainly hope we can win strong bipartisan
support for what will be an effort to make this Energy bill better, to
improve it, and improve it in a way that does justice for the taxpayers
by eliminating what I think is an inappropriate and unnecessary subsidy
for the energy industry in general, and for the nuclear power industry
in particular.
Our amendment will strike one small section of the bill. It is a
section that provides federally backed loan guarantees for new nuclear
powerplant construction.
I strongly believe we should have a diversified energy supply in this
country. We should have competitive energy markets, and nuclear power
is a very important part of that mix. Nuclear power has proven itself
time and again. It has been cost effective and environmentally sound.
We have worked through tough, but important, legislation to deal with
the nuclear waste issue in the last session of Congress. In my own
State of New Hampshire, we have a powerplant at Seabrook that has had
an outstanding record, an excellent record for both efficiency and
safety, and it continues to generate a very substantial portion of the
electricity used not just in New Hampshire but throughout New England.
At the same time, nuclear power, like coal-fired electricity or gas-
fired power, wind, solar, or hydroelectric power ought to be competing
in the marketplace on a level playing field. However, there is a
provision in this Energy bill that provides Federal loan guarantees to
pay for up to half the cost of as many as six new nuclear powerplants.
That is a pretty significant financial commitment, and a level of
support will have to be made by the taxpayers of the United States.
If we look at the estimated cost of six plants--perhaps $3 billion
per plant, maybe a little bit less, maybe a little bit more--and take a
look at half the cost of the plant in the Federal guarantee, we could
conceivably be looking at a long-term cost of $10 billion or $15
billion. That is a cost that American taxpayers should not be asked to
bear. That is one of the reasons Senator Wyden and I are offering our
amendment.
A second concern is the simple precedent this would set: providing
Federal loan guarantees for any private powerplant construction. Again,
my concern is not directed at the fact that the loan guarantees are for
nuclear powerplants, or for large powerplants. It is about private
plant production. If it were gas-fired plants, coal-fired plants, or
new hydroelectric plants for which we were giving Federal guarantees, I
would have the same concerns. We are setting a bad precedent in public
policy when we offer this kind of tax subsidy.

[[Page S7435]]

We have to ask time and again, Are we being fair to the taxpayers?
Are we being fair to the marketplace? I do not believe we are. I think
this kind of a program, this kind of a tax subsidy would distort our
energy markets and would distort the performance of our capital markets
where private companies go out to borrow week after week, month after
month, and year after year.

We need an energy policy in this country that promotes a strong
diverse supply of energy and promotes competition. Sometimes that means
making sure the Federal Government treads very lightly in the
marketplace. This provision in the bill does not do that by any
stretch.
The amendment we will offer is a commonsense amendment, and in the
long run, our energy markets and even our nuclear power industry will
be better served by striking this unnecessary subsidy. If we are going
to have a healthy and strong nuclear power industry, what that really
means is we have to have commonsense regulations. We need to work hard
to streamline and to extend some of the relicensing capabilities so
those plants that have performed well can continue to operate for an
extended period of time. And, of course, we need to deal with the issue
of nuclear waste, which we have begun to do through our efforts last
year, and which I support.
The amendment that will be offered by Senator Wyden and me is an
amendment that has support from the National Taxpayers Union, from
Citizens Against Government Waste, and a number of groups that have
quite a reputation for looking out for taxpayer interest.
It also has support from a number of environmental groups, including
the League of Conservation Voters and USPIRG, groups that have tried to
look out for environmental interests that raise concerns for them as
well.
It is a broad coalition of groups coming at this from different
perspectives, but all recognize this section of the bill is not good
public policy, this is not the right kind of approach if we want to
have competitive energy markets, and it certainly is not the right kind
of approach for taxpayers.
I thank Senator Wyden for working with me on this amendment. We are
working on an agreement that will allow us to bring this amendment
forward on Tuesday with at least 2 hours of debate and an up-or-down
vote on the amendment.
I thank Chairman Domenici for working with us on that agreement and
allowing us to get this important amendment to the floor, give us a
vote, and see if we can save the taxpayers a lot of money and help
improve this bill.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, the Senator from New
Hampshire has said it very well. I will offer just a couple of
additional remarks. It is clear there is going to be an effort, as this
is discussed in the Senate, to simply make this an ``Are you for
nuclear power or are you against nuclear power?'' issue. I think that
would be very unfortunate.
I said earlier when we began to discuss this, I have inimitable
abilities that over the years have managed to make both sides of the
nuclear power debate unhappy with me. In a sense, I hope we can do as
Senator Sununu has done, which is to keep the focus on the taxpayer
question. I urge Senators, in particular, as they make up their minds
on this issue to look at two important reports. The Congressional
Budget Office report and the report done by the Congressional Research
Service are particularly illuminating in that the Congressional Budget
Office report talks about how, in their judgment, there is a more than
50-percent probability that these plants will not be successful, that
they will fail. And the Congressional Research Service, in their
analysis, indicates if that is the case, taxpayers would be on the hook
for in the vicinity of $16 billion.
In my part of the world, this is not exactly an abstract issue. In
fact, with the WPPSS debacle, which was the largest municipal bond
failure in the country's history, four out of the five facilities were
not, in fact, even built, and the people in my region and many
investors, of course, were on the hook.
If the scenario of the Congressional Budget Office were to come to
pass, all of our constituents--all of them--would, in effect, be
exposed to these very significant costs.
That is why Senator Sununu and I are going to try our best, between
now and the Tuesday vote, to make sure that for us this is first and
foremost a taxpayers' issue.
To try to drive that point home, we had a discussion about how this
affects other aspects of energy development. If this provision stays in
the bill, in other words the amendment that the Senator from New
Hampshire and I are offering is unsuccessful, nuclear energy would be
the only part of this field that would get a direct subsidy for
constructing a facility.
For example, the distinguished chairman of the committee, who has
been very gracious to the two of us in terms of working on process and
all of the issues towards getting this offered, talked at some length
about wind and talked about subsidies for wind. Well, in fact, when
wind is produced, there are various credits and incentives, which I
guess are very appropriate, but there is no subsidy for constructing
any other facility under this legislation other than in the nuclear
area.
In fact, right now there is nothing preventing any utility from going
forward with a nuclear project simply by going to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission and getting a license to build the plant.
Let me repeat that. Anybody who wants to build a nuclear powerplant
in this country simply has to go to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
and get the license. They can do that if they satisfy the safety
standards.
The issue, as propounded by Senator Sununu and myself, is whether or
not there should be these very large subsidies; whether or not the
taxpayer should be exposed, in the vicinity of $16 billion, with
respect to building these plants.
I do not think this is an issue about whether one is for or against
nuclear power, and that is why the National Taxpayers Union and a host
of other organizations that have been watchdogs for taxpayers have made
this a priority item. In their letter to me, they took the position
that they are neither for nor against nuclear power. They say that
explicitly in the letter. What they and a number of other taxpayer
watchdogs are concerned about is the $16 billion exposure for taxpayers
that is contained in this provision.
So I am very pleased that before long we will be able to enter into a
consent agreement for an up-or-down vote on Tuesday on the Wyden-Sununu
legislation. I think the chairman of the Energy Committee will be
leading us in that discussion with respect to a UC before too long.
The Senator from New Hampshire is still in the Chamber, and I thank
him for all of his involvement in this. He has a long record of being a
taxpayer watchdog, and that was, in fact, the special reason why I
thought it was so important for the two of us to try to do this
together.
I am sure between now and Tuesday, as this is discussed, to some
extent some will try to make this into a referendum on whether one is
for or against nuclear power. I will be doing my best to try to make
sure that it is a taxpayers' issue. That is central and critical to me,
and I look forward to the discussion that we will have on Tuesday. We
should have a UC ready to go before long. I thank Chairman Domenici for
his willingness to work out the procedure on it, and I am particularly
grateful to my cosponsor, Senator Sununu.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am quite sure that before we are
finished--if we finish, and I hope we will--the Senate and those who
are interested in energy policy will hear a lot about the various kinds
of energy that are provided, as a matter of policy, in this Energy
bill.
I am having a lot of difficulty understanding the Senate these days.
I regret to say that almost every amendment we talk about some Senator
is unable to be present. It is either they had to leave early or they
had a previous engagement or there is something else they had to do. So
it seems as if we cannot get the amendments done. But the Democrats are
going to help us try to convince Senators that

[[Page S7436]]

they ought to start to list their amendments soon so we will have some
idea, sooner rather than later, the extent of amendments we are going
to have on this bill.
On the issue of nuclear power, before we are finished with this
debate, we will lay before the Senate what the Energy Committee, in its
markup of this bill, did so as to make sure the United States had an
array of energy sources during the next 10, 20, and 30 years.
We have tax credits for solar energy. We have tax credits for wind
energy. The Senator argues that is different. Well, maybe we ought to
change and have just plain tax credits for nuclear power. Maybe there
would be no objection to it. Perhaps we could convert what we thought
was a better way to do this to some kind of a tax credit, which would
mean that if they produced, and only if they produced, would they get
any credit.
What we did in the instance of nuclear power was to say if the
Secretary of Energy, at some time, finds that the United States needs a
nuclear powerplant because it needs a diversity of energy or it needs
it because there is some clean air problem, then to a creditworthy
applicant, a creditworthy builder, of a nuclear powerplant, they may
subsidize half the cost with a guaranteed loan.
Now, one can talk about that in terms of how much that is going to
cost. The Senator from New Mexico assumes we look at all of these from
the standpoint of the benefits, what are the benefits to America?
Twelve years ago, this Senator started looking at nuclear power. With
the passage of each year, as I studied it and wrote about it and
thought about it, I became more embarrassed and more ashamed of what
the United States of America had done with this superb technology that
we had invented, that was being used in the world and that we had set
on the shelf because a few people frightened us to death.
Do people know that today two nuclear powerplants are being built in
Taiwan? They are building a modern, General Electric design. Guess what
they tell us the cost is going to be. In fact, I believe we will
introduce a letter next week during the argument. The costs will be
very close to the equivalent costs of what we are now paying to build
natural gas burned, natural gas fed, powerplants. Who would have
thought it?
What has happened is, since natural gas is the singular source of
energy, the cost is skyrocketing because there is no competition. We
intend there to be competition, not only from nuclear but we have ample
money in this bill for great research in coal, too. We have over $2
billion in research for clean coal. It does not produce any coal. It
just says do the research to try to make technology work.
What we have done overall for the first time in the last 20 years is
to say, let us develop a nuclear policy for the greatest nation on
Earth and let us show the world that we have not abandoned the safest
way to produce energy, electricity for people in the world. Let us show
that we are not abandoning that. Let us show that we are going to lead
again. And so there is a three-pronged policy. The Price-Anderson Act,
which makes it possible for the private sector to be involved, is made
permanent.

This bill says, let's build a demonstration project in the State of
Idaho, a brandnew concept, so we will build a nuclear powerplant that
will be passive. By passive, we mean we will prove it cannot burn.
There are people who speculate a nuclear powerplant can burn. They have
spoken of its burning its way through the earth. This new powerplant
will be physically made so it is passive. It will produce high enough
temperatures so you can produce hydrogen for the new hydrogen economy
we are looking at.
America is close to being able to build a nuclear powerplant again,
like they are being built in Taiwan, like they have been built year
after year in France. France produces 80 percent of its electricity
from nuclear power. They do not run around frightened to death of
technology like the United States. If anyone wants to see France's
nuclear waste, they will take you to a gymnasium. You can walk into the
gymnasium, like walking into a school, and walk on a glass floor. One
might ask, where is the waste? You are walking on it. It is
encapsulated for 50 years at least, and nothing can happen to it while
they figure out what to do with it.
What does the greatest nation on Earth do? We sit paralyzed, waiting
around for something to happen in Nevada. I am sure we will hear that
argument before we finish the debate next Tuesday. We know that is an
engineering issue that will be solved.
What we do not know: Will the United States continue to remain
dependent upon natural gas almost exclusively or will we say it may be
time for American companies to build one or two nuclear powerplants? We
understand they are very close. They have experienced litigation and
other impediments. It is hard to get over the hurdle, over the hump. We
have asked, what would it take to start a couple of them? What a day,
when America starts a couple new nuclear powerplants. We would be
entering an era of cheap electricity, available to everyone, poor
countries and rich countries. Guess what. There will be no pollution
problem. The ambient air will be affected zero.
We knew it was worth the effort to get America going again regarding
its strength and power as the inventor of the safest energy ever
produced by mankind to this point. We could have put in tax credits: If
you produce something, we will give you a tax credit. Then our friends
would not be making the argument; you are giving them something before
they produce. We chose what we thought was most simple and least
expensive to the Federal Government, saying, if necessary, you can give
them half the costs in a loan guarantee, to get us going again.
That is the whole issue. Should we do that or should we not do that?
Before we are finished, the Senate will understand, in spite of it
having difficulty with this Energy bill--we cannot seem to get people
to focus on the Energy bill--but they will understand the significance
of this issue. They will understand that the fear regarding nuclear
power and nuclear fuel rods is about nothing but a red herring. They
are nothing that engineering competence cannot handle.
I close this opening argument on nuclear power and whether or not it
is safe by saying to everyone listening or worrying about nuclear power
versus the other power in America, there are over 100 American Navy
vessels on the high seas of the world with engines that are nuclear
powerplants. Nuclear powerplants run battleships, run aircraft
carriers. They have fuel rods in them. They carry them everywhere on
the seas. They are at every port in the free world, save one in New
Zealand because New Zealand has an agreement against it. They are so
safe, there are boats and ships all around the world that have nuclear
powerplants on board, with nuclear waste sitting right there in the
hulls of the ships.

When you add all that, it is the safest way to produce energy for the
world in the future. Our package includes the research facility we will
build in the State of my good friend who is sitting on my right. We say
to our executive branch, in the event you think it is necessary, you
can issue a loan agreement for half the cost of a nuclear powerplant to
get it going.
I understand there are those who will just add up costs under the
worst of circumstances. I would rather add up all the pluses and take a
risk that is worthwhile. If ever there was a risk that was worthwhile,
it is a plain and simple risk to revive nuclear power in America for
America and for the world. That is what is at issue in this bill.
Those who argue not to gamble any money on this will not raise a
pinky on spending $1.6 billion to research hydrogen, for a new hydrogen
economy. It may not work. It may be thrown away. But it is in this bill
to start the idea of engines that are going to use the new fuel. We are
spending that money. We are not guaranteeing it. We are spending it. We
are not guaranteeing General Motors. We are saying, enter into a
partnership. We will spend some money. We hope it works.
This is an issue of risk. When you look at the other kinds of fuels,
all of which we promote, none of which we shortchange, will we say
America is a coal country, spend money to make the coal clean so that
the ambient air of America is, indeed, clean? And spend plenty of it.
We say, build windmills

[[Page S7437]]

and give huge credits for them to such an extent that there may be too
many of them built in the next decade; we have to pass an national
ordinance so they will not build them too close to some of our cities
because there will be so many of them when this bill is passed with the
subsidy included, the tax subsidy that will be attached. Geothermal--
there are plenty of subsidies. Every kind of energy you can imagine, we
have said: Help it move along. At the same time, we have put into a
package that rare opportunity for the United States to face up to the
fact that, although we invented nuclear power, we hid from it. Others
didn't. It is time we come back and revisit it. It is time that, as a
package, coupled with all the other policies, we take a little risk in
terms of its future, for the future of the world.

Mr. President, I have a series of remarks that I delivered on the
nuclear subject on October 31, 1977, at Harvard University, which
summarizes my views to that point. I ask unanimous consent that they be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

A New Nuclear Paradigm

(By Senator Pete V. Domenici)

Earlier this week, I spent substantial time on the subjects
of nuclear non-proliferation, the proposed Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty, nuclear waste policies, and nuclear weapons
design issues. The forums for these discussions were open and
closed hearings of two major sub-committees of the United
States Senate, a breakfast where two Cabinet secretaries
joined 10 United States Senators, and private discussions
with specialists in these fields.
During the week before, I spent time on the question of
whether or not a 1,200 foot road should be built in a
National Monument, a monument whose enabling legislation I
authored almost a decade ago.
Without demeaning any person's sense of perspective, I have
to not to you today that for every person who attended the
nuclear hearings, 50 attended the road hearings. And, for
every inch of newspaper coverage the nuclear matters
attracted, the road attracted 50 inches.
Strategic national issues just don't command a large
audience. In no area has this been more evident during these
last 25 years than in the critical and interrelated public
policy questions involving energy, growth, and the role of
nuclear technologies. As we leave the 20th Century, arguably
the American Century, and head for a new millennium, we truly
need to confront these strategic issues with careful logic
and sound science.
We live in the dominant economic, military, and cultural
entity in the world. Our principles of government and
economics are increasingly becoming the principles of the
world.
There are no secrets to our success, and there is no
guarantee that, in the coming century, we will be the
principal beneficiary of the seeds we have sown. There is
competition in the world and serious strategic issues facing
the United States cannot be overlooked.
The United States--like the rest of the industrialized
world--is aging rapidly as our birth rates decline. Between
1995 and the year 2030, the number of people in the United
States over age 65 will double from 34 million to 68 million.
Just to maintain our standard of living, we need dramatic
increases in productivity as a larger fraction of our
population drops out of the workforce.
By 2030, 30 percent of the population of the industrialized
nations will be over 60. The rest of the world--the countries
that today are ``unindustrialized''--will have only 16
percent of their population over age 60 and will be ready to
boom.
As those nations build economies modeled after ours, there
will be intense competition for the resources that underpin
modern economies.
When it comes to energy, we have a serious, strategic
problem. The United States currently consumes 25 percent of
the world's energy production. However, developing countries
are on track to increase their energy consumption by 48
percent between 1992 and 2010.
The United States currently produces and imports raw energy
resources worth over $150 billion per year. Approximately $50
billion of that is imported oil or natural gas. We then
process that material into energy feedstocks such as
gasoline. Those feedstocks, the energy we consume in our
cars, factories, and electric plants, are worth $505
billion per year.
So, while we debate defense policy every year, we don't
debate energy policy, even though it already costs us twice
as much as our defense, other countries' consumption is
growing dramatically, and energy shortages are likely to be a
prime driver of future military challenges.
When I came to the Senate a quarter of a century ago, we
debated our dependence on foreign sources of energy. We
discussed energy independence, but we largely decided not to
talk about nuclear policy options in public.
At the same time, the anti-nuclear movement conducted their
campaign in a way that was tremendously appealing to mass
media. Scientists, used to the peer-reviewed ways of
scientific discourse, were unprepared to counter. They lost
the debate.
Serious discussion about the role of nuclear energy in
world stability, energy independence, and national security
retreated into academia or classified sessions.
Today, it is extraordinarily difficult to conduct a debate
on nuclear issues. Usually, the only thing produced is nasty
political fallout.
I am going to bring back to the market place of ideas a
more forthright discussion of nuclear policy.
My objective tonight is not to talk about talking about a
policy. I am going to make some policy proposals. Tomorrow
there are sessions on energy policy and nuclear
proliferation. I'll give them something to talk about.
I am going to tell you that we made some bad decisions in
the past that we have to change. Then I will tell you about
some decisions we need to make now.
First, we need to recognize that the premises underpinning
some of our nuclear policy decisions are wrong. In 1977,
President Carter halted all U.S. efforts to reprocess spent
nuclear fuel and develop mixed-oxide fuel (MOX) for our
civilian reactors on the grounds that the plutonium could be
diverted and eventually transformed into bombs. He argued
that the United States should halt its reprocessing program
as an example to other countries in the hope that they would
follow suit.
The premise of the decision was wrong. Other countries do
not follow the example of the United States if we make a
decision that other countries view as economically or
technically unsound. France, Great Britain, Japan, and Russia
all now have MOX fuel programs.
This failure to address an incorrect premise has harmed our
efforts to deal with spent nuclear fuel and the disposition
of excess weapons material, as well as our ability to
influence international reactor issues.
I'll cite another example. We regulate exposure to low
levels of radiation using a so-called ``linear no-threshold''
model, the premise of which is that there is no ``safe''
level of exposure.
Our model forces us to regulate radiation to levels
approaching 1 percent of natural background despite the fact
that natural background can vary by 50 percent within the
United States.
On the other hand, many scientists think that living cells,
after millions of years of exposure to naturally occurring
radiation, have adapted such that low levels of radiation
cause very little if any harm. In fact, there are some
studies that suggest exactly the opposite is true--that low
doses of radiation may even improve health.
The truth is important. We spend over $5 billion each year
to clean contaminated DOE sites to levels below 5 percent of
background.
In this year's Energy and Water Appropriations Act, we
initiated a ten year program to understands how radiation
affects genomes and cells so that we can really understand
how radiation affects living organisms. For the first time,
we will develop radiation protection standards that are based
on actual risk.
Let me cite another bad decision. You may recall that
earlier this year, Hudson Foods recalled 25 million pounds of
beef, some of which was contaminated by E. Coli. The
Administration proposed tougher penalties and mandatory
recalls that cost millions.
What you may not know is that the E. Coli bacteria can be
killed by irradiating beef products. The irradiation has no
effect on the beef. The FDA does not allow the process to be
used on beef, even though it is allowed for poultry, pork,
fruit and vegetables, largely because of opposition from some
consumer groups that question its safety.
But there is no scientific evidence of danger. In fact,
when the decision is left up to scientists, they opt for
irradiation--the food that goes into space with our
astronauts is irradiated.
I've talked about bad past decisions that haunt us today.
Now I want to talk about decisions we need to make today.
The President has outlined a program to stabilize the U.S.
production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases at
1990 levels by some time between 2008 and 2012.
Unfortunately, the President's goals are not achievable
without seriously impacting our economy.
Our national laboratories have studied the issue. Their
report indicates that to get to the President's goals we
would have to impose a $50/ton carbon tax. That would result
in an increase of 12.5 cents/gallon for gas and 1.5 cents/
kilowatt-hour for electricity--almost a doubling of the
current cost of coal or natural gas-generated electricity.
What the President should have said is that we need nuclear
energy to meet his goal. After all, in 1996, nuclear power
plants prevented the emission of 147 million metric tons of
carbon, 2.5 million tons of nitrogen oxides, and 5 million
tons of sulfur dioxide. Our electric utilities' emissions of
those greenhouse gases were 25 percent lower than they would
have been if fossil fuels had been used instead of nuclear
energy.
Ironically, the technology we are relying on to achieve
these results is over twenty years old. We have developed the
next generation of nuclear power plants--which have

[[Page S7438]]

been certified by the NRC and are now being sold overseas.
They are even safer than our current models. Better yet, we
have technologies under development like passively safe
reactors, lead-bismuth reactors, and advanced liquid metal
reactors that generate less waste and are proliferation
resistant.
An excellent report by Dr. John Holdren for the President's
Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, calls for a
sharply enhanced national effort. It urges a ``properly
focused R&D effort to see if the problems plaguing fission
energy can be overcome--economics, safety, waste, and
proliferation.'' I have long urged the conclusion of this
report--that we dramatically increase spending in these areas
for reasons ranging from reactor safety to non-proliferation.
I have not overlooked that nuclear waste issues loom as a
roadblock to increased nuclear utilization. I will return to
that subject.
For now, let me turn from nuclear power to nuclear weapons
issues.
Our current stockpile is set by bilateral agreements with
Russia. Bilateral agreements make sense if we are certain who
our future nuclear adversary will be and are useful to force
a transparent build-down within Russia. But I will warn you
that our next nuclear adversary may not be Russia--we do not
want to find ourselves limited by a treaty with Russia in a
conflict with another entity.
We need to decide what stockpile levels we really need for
our own best interests to deal with any future adversary.
For that reason, I suggest that, within the limits imposed
by START II, the United States move away from further treaty
imposed limitations and move to what I call a ``threat-based
stockpile.''
Based upon the threat I perceive right now, I think our
stockpile could be reduced. We need to challenge our military
planners to identify the minimum necessary stockpile size.
At the same time, as our stockpile is reduced and we are
precluded from testing, we have to increase our confidence in
the integrity of the remaining stockpile and our ability
to reconstitute if the threat changes. Programs like
science-based stockpile stewardship must be nurtured and
supported carefully.
As we seriously review stockpile size, we should also
consider stepping back from the nuclear cliff by de-alerting
and carefully reexamining the necessity of the ground-based
log of the nuclear triad.
Costs certainly aren't the primary driver for our stockpile
size, but if some of the actions I've discussed were taken,
I'b bet that as a bonus we'd see major budget savings. Now we
spend about $30 billion each year supporting the triad.
Earlier I discussed the need to revisit some incorrect
premises that caused us to make bad decisions in the past. I
said that one of them, regarding reprocessing and MOX fuel,
is ham-stringing our efforts to permanently dismantle nuclear
weapons.
The dismantlement of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons
in Russia and the United States has left both countries with
large inventories of perfectly machined classified components
that could allow each country to rapidly rebuild its nuclear
arsenals.
Both countries should set a goal of converting those excess
inventories into non-weapon shapes as quickly as possible.
The more permanent those transformations and the more
verification that can accompany the conversion of that
material, the better.
Technical solutions exist. Pits can be transformed into
non-weapons shapes and weapon material can be burned in
reactors as MOX fuel, which by the way is what the National
Academy of Sciences has recommended. However, the proposal to
dispose of weapons plutonium as MOX runs into that old
premise that MOX is bad despite its widespread use by our
allies.
MOX is the best technical solution. I challenge you to
develop a proposal that brings the economics of the MOX fuel
cycle together with the need to dispose of weapons grade
plutonium. Ideally, incentives can be developed to speed
Russians materials conversion while reducing the cost of the
U.S. effort. The idea for the U.S. Russian HEU Agreement
originated at MIT, and I know that Harvard does not like to
be upstaged.
I said earlier that I would not advocate increased use of
nuclear and ignore the nuclear waste problem. The path we've
been following on Yucca Mountain sure isn't leading anywhere
very fast. I'm about ready to reexamine the whole premise for
Yucca Mountain.
We're on a course to bury all our spent nuclear fuel,
despite the fact that a spent nuclear fuel rod still has 60-
75% of its energy content--and despite the fact that
Nevadeans need to be convinced that the material will not
create a hazard for over 100,000 years.
Our decision to ban reprocessing forced us to a repository
solution. Meanwhile, many other nations think it is dumb to
just bury the energy-rich spent fuel and are reprocessing.
I propose we go somewhere between reprocessing and
permanent disposal by using interim storage to keep our
options open. Incidentally, 65 Senators agreed with the
important of interim storage, but the Administration has only
threatened to veto any such progress and has shown no
willingness to discuss alternatives.
Let me highlight one attractive option. A group from
several of our largest companies, using technologies
developed at three of our national laboratories and from
Russian institutes and their nuclear navy, discussed with me
an approach to use that waste for electrical generation. They
use an accelerator, not a reactor, so there is never any
critical assembly. There is minimal processing, but carefully
done so that weapons-grade materials are never separated out
and so that international verification can be used. And when
they get done, only a little material goes into a
repository--but now the half lives are changed so that it's a
hazard for perhaps 300 years a far cry from 100,000 years. It
sure would be easier to get acceptance of a 300 year, rather
than a 100,000 year, hazard, especially when the 300 year
case is also providing a source of clean electricity. This
approach, called Accelerator Transmutation of Waste, is an
area I want to see investigated aggressively.
I still haven't touched on all the issues imbedded in
maximizing our nation's benefit from nuclear technologies,
and I can't do that without a much longer speech.
For example, I haven't discussed the increasingly desperate
need in the country for low level waste facilities like Ward
Valley in California. In California, important medical and
research procedures are at risk because the Administration
continues to block the State government from fulfilling their
responsibilities to care for low level waste.
And I haven't touched on the tremendous window of
opportunity that we now have in the Former Soviet Union to
expand programs that protect fissile material from moving
onto the black market or to shift the activities of former
Soviet weapons scientists onto commercial projects. Along
with Senators Nunn and Lugar, I've led the charge for these
programs. Those are programs a foreign aid, I believe they
are sadly mistaken.
We are realizing some of the benefits of nuclear
technologies today, but only a fraction of what we could
realize--
Nuclear weapons, for all their horror, brought to an end 50
years of world-wide wars in which 60 million people died.
Nuclear power is providing about 20% of our electricity
needs now and many of our citizens enjoy healthier longer
lives through improved medical procedures that depend on
nuclear process.
But we aren't tapping the full potential of the nucleus for
additional benefits. In the process, we are short-changing
our citizens.
I hope in these remarks that I have succeeded in raising
your awareness of the opportunities that our nation should be
seizing to secure a better future for our citizens through
careful reevaluation of many ill-conceived fears, policies
and decisions that have seriously constrained our use of
nuclear technologies.
Today I announce my intention to lead a new dialogue with
serious discussion about the full range of nuclear
technologies. I intend to provide national leadership to
overcome barriers.
While some may continue to lament that the nuclear genie is
out of his proverbial bottle, I'm ready to focus on
harnessing that genie as effectively and fully as possible,
for the largest set of benefits for our citizens.
I challenge all of you to join me in this dialogue to help
secure these benefits.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, the two managers and the two sponsors of the
amendment, the Wyden-Sununu amendment, agreed that I ask for this
unanimous consent, and I will do so: That on Tuesday, when the Senate
considers the Wyden-Sununu amendment relating to commercial nuclear
plants, there be 120 minutes equally divided in the usual form;
provided further that no amendments to the amendment or the language
proposed to be stricken be in order prior to the vote in relation to
the amendment; and if the amendment is not disposed of, the amendment
remain debatable and amendable.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. DOMENICI. There is no objection.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. We are also very close to working something out on the
matter that has been holding up the Energy bill today, and that is the
child tax credit. We are within minutes of being able to enter into an
agreement on that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, we have arrived at a time and a defined
period for debate on the Wyden amendment to subtitle B of this act. I
think it is critical that we bring this issue to the forefront and make
a decision on it.
The Senator from New Mexico, the chairman of the Energy Committee,
has done an excellent job in the last 20 minutes outlining the dynamics
of this major piece of legislation for our country and the kinds of
issues embodied in it that are so critical to all of us as we debate
the general issue of energy and this particular subtitle that relates
to

[[Page S7439]]

the development of new technology but, more importantly, the deployment
of the concept of new reactor design into actual producing reactors in
the United States. The Senator from New Mexico is so accurate in his
overall review of where we are as a nation with energy or the absence
thereof.
My colleague from Oregon and I live in the Pacific Northwest, where
hydro is dominant as a part of our energy-producing capability. Even
that marvelous, clean resource today is under attack. Why? Because it
impounds rivers to produce hydro, and by impounding rivers, it changes
the character of those rivers. Certain interest groups want those
rivers, in large part, by some estimation, to be freed. So they wanted
to reshape hydro. In all instances, it has reduced the overall
productive capability of hydro facilities.
We have frustration in a variety of other areas. The Senator from New
Mexico outlined our problem with burning coal under the Clean Air Act,
and the ambient air as a result of that, and the cost now being driven
against retrofitting and new coal-burning designs to produce energy.
That is in part--not in total but in part--what has developed a
willingness on the part of our country, I believe, to renew our nuclear
option and possibly to renew it under a new design concept, under a
passive reactor design concept that the Senator from New Mexico has
talked about.
Passive reactor design means, simply, one that reacts on its own when
certain conditions arise. The human factor doesn't necessarily have to
be there to start throwing switches and making adjustments because
those kinds of things happen automatically. We believe our engineering
talent in this country is now capable of that kind of design
development. In doing that design, we would couple with it an
electrolysis process that would make the reactor itself so much more
efficient that it would run at peak load at all times, as reactors
should in performing best.
But power demand isn't always constant. When you can switch that load
to development of hydrogen fuels, through the electrolysis process, and
then convert it back to use within a power grid, you make for
phenomenal efficiencies and the cost of production goes down
dramatically.
In doing that, in bringing back to this country an abundant source of
electrical energy and a reliable supply to our grid system--a system we
are working to improve today through the development of regional
transmission authorities and a variety of other things that tie us
together--we found out a few years ago in the Pacific Northwest that it
has certain liabilities. If the energy in the system itself in other
parts of the grid isn't abundant, and it starts pulling power from us
and forcing our power rates up, it can be a problem. Where it is
produced with an abundance in the system and the system is fully
interrelated and interconnected all can generally benefit.
As a result of bringing some of these new concepts on line, where we
are actively subsidizing other areas of production, we thought it was
reasonable to bring to the floor of the Senate a similar concept, to
take some of the risk out of new design development for the commercial
side, and to do so in a way that our country has always done--to use
public resources to advance certain technological causes and, out of
those causes and their development, to generate phenomenal consumer
benefits.
There is no greater consumer benefit in this country today than
reliable, high-quality electrical energy at reasonable prices. Our
world runs on it. Our world's wealth depends on it. This country's
workforce depends on it.
What we have brought to the floor in this Energy bill is not a hunt
and a pick. It is not a political decision versus another political
decision. That is not the case. It is not green versus nongreen. That
is not the case.
What the chairman of the Energy Committee has said in this bill, and
what the committee itself has said, is that all energy is good energy
as long as it meets certain standards, and as long as it fits within
our environmental context, we ought to promote it and we ought to
advance it.
That is exactly what this bill does. As the Senator from New Mexico
characterized it a few moments ago, we have enough credit in this bill
to put windmills about anywhere they want to go, or are allowed to go,
to produce energy.
Some would say that is great, we don't need anything else.
Oh, yes, we do. The reason we do is you can put a windmill everywhere
you can in the air sheds that can produce wind energy, and you can only
get up to about 2 percent of total demand. That is about it.

But we ought to do it because it is clean and it is renewable and it
is the right thing to do. But what we are already finding out in my
State of Idaho that has a couple of wind sheds that fit, if this bill
passes, interest groups are stepping up and saying: Oh, I don't think
we want that windmill there; that is a spike-tail grouse habitat; there
are some Indian artifacts there and we certainly don't want them
damaged. And we don't.
What I am suggesting is in these most desirable of wind sheds for
windmills, there is going to be somebody stepping up and saying ``not
here.'' And they are right. They probably won't go there.
That is public land, by the way, not private land. On some private
land, the same argument will occur. Simply, they don't want in their
backyard a machine that goes whomp, whomp, whomp and produces
electricity. Something about the sound disturbs their sleep. As a
result, my guess is some city ordinance will soon suggest, ``not in my
backyard.''
But there are some backyards where we can put wind machines and we
will and we already have and we ought to promote it and we ought not to
be selective, and we are subsidizing them by a tax credit. You bet we
are.
We are going to pass that provision. That is the right and the
appropriate thing to do.
We have subsidized in most instances, in one form or another, through
a tax credit or through an easing of regulation or through the ability
to site on Federal lands, energy projects, historically, because our
country, our Government, this Senate for well over 100 years has said:
The best thing we can do for this country to make it grow, to make it
prosper, and to make it abundant to the working men and women of
America is a reasonable and available energy supply in whatever form
the marketplace takes.
We also know we can shape the market a bit by a subsidy, by a tax
credit, and we also do that.
We are going to do some wind. We are going to do some solar in here.
We hope we do clean coal technology. Certainly the coal-producing
States of our country want to keep producing coal, and they should. We
should use it, and we will.
There is a provision in here on which Senator Bingaman and I disagree
a little; that is, on the relicensing of hydro. We think it ought to be
relicensed and environmentally positive. When we can retrofit it and
shape it, we ought to do so as we relicense it into the next century.
But hydro produces a nice chunk of power in this country today. We are
going to relicense over 200 facilities in the next decade. That
represents about 15 million American homes and 30 million megawatts of
power. Any reduction in that productive capability means we have to
produce that power somewhere else.
Some of those old plants, when relicensed and retrofitted, may lose
some of their productive capability in the licensing process. We ought
to have new supplies coming on line.
Several years ago, this Senate became involved in a very serious
debate over an issue that we call climate change. We became involved as
a nation internationally in this debate because we thought it was the
right thing to do. We knew our global environment was heating, or
appeared to be heating, faster than it had in the past, and we didn't
know why. Some argued it was the emission of greenhouse gases which
created a greenhouse effect around our globe which was largely a
product of the burning of hydrocarbons and that we ought to do
something about it.
Many of us were very concerned that if we didn't have the right
modeling and the right measurement and the right facts to make those
decisions, we would shape public policy and head it in a direction that
was not appropriate and would allocate billions of dollars of

[[Page S7440]]

new resources that might put tens of thousands of people out of work if
we did it wrong. At the same time, there has been and there remains a
nagging concern as to the reality of this particular situation
globally, environmentally. Or is it simply the natural characteristic
of the changing world and evolving changing world?
We have known down through geologic time that this world has heated
and cooled and heated and cooled. Is it the natural cycle? We didn't
know that. But out of all of it, we generally grew to believe that the
less emission into the atmosphere the better off we would be.
This bill embodies that general philosophy--that clean energy and
clean fuels are better, that we ought to advance them, that we ought to
subsidize them where necessary, and that we ought to plot them through
the public policy which we debate here on the floor today. Out of all
of that, we knew one thing: Energy generated by nuclear-fueled
generating systems was clean with no emissions. It is the cleanest
source in the country other than hydro with no emissions.
As a result of that, there was no question that the popularity of
that consensus began to grow. Other nations around the world were using
it. The senior Senator from New Mexico spoke of France and their use of
it. Japan, a nation once very fearful of the atom, now builds almost a
reactor a year coming on line to produce--what? Power for its citizens,
power for its economy, and power for its workforce. We once led the
world in that technology. But we fell dramatically behind over the last
three decades because there was a public perception fueled by some and
feared by some that the nuclear-generating facilities of our country
were not safe. Yet they have this phenomenal history of safe operation.

Through the course of all of this, and as the facilities aged, as
they were relicensed and retrofitted, guess what happened over the
course of the last few years. As we spiked in our power demands at the
peak of the economy in the late 1990s and as electrical prices went
through the roof, the cost of operating reactors was stable; it was
constant. They became the least cost producers of electricity of any
generating capacity in the country other than existing hydro. The world
began to react in a favorable way to that.
All of that became a part of the production of the legislation before
us now--to once again get this great country back into the business of
the research and development of new reactor systems that not only are
in every way perceived to be safer and cleaner in the sense of waste
production at end of the game, but would do something else for our
country in a way that we think is the right direction; that is, the
development of hydrogen to fuel the next generation of surface
transportation and to start growing our economy into an age of
hydrogen-fueled systems, fuel cells, generating electricity, turning
the wheels of automobiles, trucks, and other forms of transportation;
and, on a case-by-case basis, the potential of a fuel cell to light a
home, to fuel and light a given industry by having one of those on
location. We believe all of those things are possible.
What I hope is that the Senate will agree with us that it is now time
to lead in all aspects of energy production in this country instead of
nibbling around the edges selectively and politically determining what
ought to be and what ought not to be because one individual thinks this
way is better than another.
I have dealt with the energy issue all of my political life. While at
one time I will honestly admit I was selective, I am no longer that. I
support it all. I am voting for wind. I am voting for clean coal. I
want to develop a responsible relicensing system for hydro. I am
supporting nuclear development and nuclear growth. I am supporting oil
production. Why? I don't want future generations of this country to be
fuel-starved and victim to the politics of a region of the world which
is unstable because this Senate didn't have the wisdom to produce when
it could have and create incentives and maximum energy production for
our country.
That is what this bill is about. The Senator from Oregon chooses to
be selective for a moment in time. I wish he wouldn't be. I understand
why he is. I think he is wrong.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. CRAIG. I would be happy to yield in just a moment.
I think the Senator from Oregon is wrong on this issue. I think it is
a form of selectivity as it relates to our willingness as a country to
use public resources in the advancement of all forms of energy
resources as the kind that is offered by the committee to, once a new
reactor design is developed, allow for loan guarantees to guarantee up
to about 8,400 megawatts of electrical development through nuclear
reactor construction.
I would be happy to yield to my colleague from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. I thank my good friend for yielding. I listened patiently
to him and to the chairman of the committee raising the concern that in
some way the opponents of the subsidies are engaging in scare tactics,
red herrings, and the like. This is not a red herring. This is a dollar
and cents issue.
I was curious whether the distinguished senior Senator from Idaho was
aware that the Congressional Budget Office ``considers the risk of
default on such a loan guarantee to be very high, well over 50
percent.''
Is the distinguished senior Senator from Idaho aware of that? I would
be curious about his reaction because to me--and as the Senator from
New Mexico said--this is about risk. The Congressional Budget Office
has given us an objective, nonpartisan assessment of risk here. They
consider ``the risk of default on such a loan guarantee to be very
high, well over 50 percent''--coupled with the Congressional Research
Service memo indicating the exposure is $16 billion. Is the
distinguished Senator from Idaho aware of that? I would be curious what
the distinguished Senator's reaction to that is.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for bringing up that
issue. There are red herrings. Maybe some of them are blue and some of
them are green, as we debate these issues. I don't know what a red
herring really is here.
I do know that when you sit a group of economists or accountants down
and say, project backwards over the last 20 years or 30 years as it
relates to the cost of developing nuclear reactors, and/or their
failure--and out in the Pacific Northwest we had some that were funded
and then brought down because the economy and the politics would not
accept them--if you do that, you might get to a 50-percent risk factor.
If you project forward to a new concept design that is under a new
Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing process that meets the demand
of the electrical systems, that is a cleaner process, that drives down
the cost--and my colleague, the senior Senator from New Mexico talked
about the new concepts in Taiwan; one of them may well be built here--
my guess is they did not factor that in. Because those are all things
you and I, as Senators, will insist upon and do over the next decade,
and that when we do that, the risk factors come down dramatically.
But this is what the Senator from Oregon and I need to look at. You
came to the Congress how many years ago?
Mr. WYDEN. We were both young; in 1980.
Mr. CRAIG. In 1980. In 1980, the United States was about 35-percent
dependent on foreign hydrocarbons, foreign oil. Now, there were some
folks out there saying: Boy, if we don't get busy here, we could
someday be 40-percent dependent.
Well, they were right. We did not get busy. In fact, we increasingly
restricted the ability to refine and the ability to discover and the
ability to produce, and by 1984 or 1985, we were at 45 percent. And
that kept going on.
What is the risk factor there? We know what the risk factor is. The
risk factor is, we did not do anything and we are now over 50-percent
dependent, and in some instances as high as 65 percent, give or take,
dependent on foreign oil sources.
You see what has happened at the pump. I don't know what you or I
were paying for gas in 1980 but it was well under $1 a gallon. Now we
are paying $1.55, $1.60 a gallon for regular fuel. The average
household is spending a great deal more on energy today than it did in
1980. We did not develop a policy. We did quite the opposite. We began
to restrict the ability to produce, whether or not it was hydrocarbons.

[[Page S7441]]

We have not brought on line a nuclear reactor, fire-generating system
for the purpose of electrical production in the last 10 or 12 years.
One got started under construction, and, of course, as we know in the
Pacific Northwest, we actually stopped construction on some.
Are there risks? You bet. There is no zero-sum game here. There isn't
anything you or I could possibly legislate. But there is a reality; the
reality is that energy prices in Oregon shot through the roof in the
last 3 years and the energy prices in Idaho went up dramatically. The
cost of living in the State of Oregon and the economy of the State of
Oregon reeled under the hit, as is true of the State of Idaho. I am
not, anymore, going to stand here and be selective on the production of
and the future opportunity to produce energy for this country because I
want to get your State's economy moving and my State's economy moving.
(Mr. CRAPO assumed the Chair.)
Mr. WYDEN. Will the Senator yield for yet another question?
Mr. CRAIG. I am happy to yield.
Mr. WYDEN. I thank my colleague.
Again, the Senator from Idaho has been critical of the Congressional
Budget Office report, saying that perhaps they did not look forward;
they just looked backward. I would urge my colleagues to look at the
report because the report does, in fact, look to 2011 and the future,
and that is what the Congressional Budget Office did make their
judgment on, where they said there was a risk of default that was well
over 50 percent.
But my question to my colleague is whether my colleague thinks it is
relevant about who assumes risk with respect to energy production.
Because he is absolutely right, there are no foolproof guarantees in
life. There is no question there is risk. Here, however, I see the
taxpayer being at risk. The taxpayer is on the hook for $16 billion.
I thought it was interesting that the distinguished chairman of the
committee talked about the credits for production.
Well, the fact is, when you get a credit for production, the producer
is largely at risk because in order to get the break, you have to
produce something. There is no tax credit, I say to my colleagues, for
failing to produce a successful wind venture. You get the credit if
your wind venture is successful.
My understanding is that here, with the subsidy, the person who
assumes the risk is the taxpayer, not the producer. I was wondering if
the distinguished Senator from Idaho thinks it is relevant with respect
to who takes the risk. This Senator does because the taxpayer is on the
hook rather than those who produce. I am curious of the reaction of the
distinguished Senator from Idaho.
Mr. CRAIG. I am pleased the Senator brought this issue forward
because you and I live in an environment in the Pacific Northwest that
was substantially subsidized by American taxpayers to produce a massive
electrical system known as the Bonneville Power Administration--direct
appropriations of hundreds of millions of dollars to build a hydro
system in the Snake and Columbia watersheds and in other places. These
were not loan guarantees. They were just outright expenditures to be
paid back. They have been paid back over a long period of time, and we
are continuing to pay them back.
So the American taxpayer, to our benefit, has always been on the hook
in the Pacific Northwest for the production of energy. In fact, you and
I worked to just get some borrowing capability for Bonneville to expand
its transmission system--a big chunk of money. We fought for that, and
we should have. Why? Because it will generally benefit the Pacific
Northwest. It is not a loan guarantee. It is an outright appropriation
to be paid back.
Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. CRAIG. I am happy to yield.
Mr. DOMENICI. I would like to comment on what the distinguished
Senator, Mr. Wyden, just raised, and say to my good friend, the
Congressional Budget Office is wrong almost every way it turns.
First, it uses forecast figures on plant costs of $2,300 per
kilowatt. The right number is $1,250 per kilowatt. How do I know? There
are two being built in Taiwan right now that General Electric
designed--brand spanking new. They came to our office. I don't know if
they had time to come and see you, I say to the Senator, but they
brought with them their experts and told us those plants will cost not
$2,300 per kilowatt but, rather, $1,250 per kilowatt. That is about
half, as this Senator sees it.
Mr. CRAIG. Yes.
Mr. DOMENICI. So they are half wrong right up front in terms of their
assessment.
Furthermore, the bill itself says that if this section that is being
debated is ever used, the Secretary will evaluate the creditworthiness
of any new project under this program. So they are already wrong by
half on the cost.
Then I would ask, Does the Congressional Budget Office really believe
the Secretary will approve a significant risk? If he approves a
significant risk, he would be in violation--direct conflict--of the law
that we are discussing that he would be acting on that the CBO assumes
will cost this extraordinary amount and impose this extraordinary risk.
I thank the Senator for his comments and his responses. I am quite
sure the Congressional Budget Office, as this Senator knows--I have
only worked with it for the sum total of 26 years on all kinds of
issues--I believe there is no subject they are more wrong on than their
estimates of the cost of matters nuclear. First of all, they assume
that everything that has gone wrong in the past is going to go wrong
again, while the world is out there proving that such is not the case,
while we are saying only under very limited circumstances would you
ever use these sections to begin with, which would eliminate part of
their reasoning, which would just leave the scene and would not even be
applicable as they attempt to make the risk estimate.
I thank the Senator.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the full Energy
Committee and the primary author of this legislation for making what
are extremely important clarifying points in relation to the Wyden
amendment that would strike this provision of subtitle (b) as it
relates to the deployment of new nuclear plants.
In another life, I once studied real estate and had a real estate
license. I know when you try to assess the value of a piece of
property, you do what is called a comparable appraisal. You find other
properties that are comparable in size, productive capability, if it is
a house in square footage, in age, in all of those features. You say
that in the marketplace, this house is worth about so much because the
comparables, one that has recently sold that is like it or near like
it, cost about this much.
When it comes to our ability to project the cost of a nuclear
powerplant in construction in 2011, there are no U.S. comparables. We
are talking about all kinds of new things. We are talking about a new
design, a GEN-IV passive reactor design. What size are we talking
about, 600-, 800-, 1,000-megawatt plant? Under what kind of regulatory
authority? Has the license been developed and what are the
peculiarities, the particulars, the specifications within the license?
We don't know that. You cannot effectively project.
What you can do is exactly what this subtitle does. It gives the
Secretary of Energy authority to examine, to make a determination based
on fixed criteria that we have placed in the law to protect the public
resource. We are going to make the assumption in 2011 that the
Secretary of Energy and his or her staff are bright, talented, clear-
thinking people who will have to operate under the law. The reason they
will have to operate under the law? Because if this is a loan
guarantee, it becomes a part of their budget, it becomes scored, and
the Congress of the United States has to appropriate the money or at
least offset it because it is a guarantee in the market.
That is how it works. I am not going to be here then, more than
likely, and others of my colleagues will not. But we will have written
into law the right kind of public policy to protect the citizens'
resource, his or her tax money. So the ultimate question is, Does this
portion of the title as it relates to nuclear energy fit for the
future? Is it the way we get this industry started again, obviously
dealing with the provision in the law that creates a liability shield
as it relates to Price

[[Page S7442]]

Anderson, as a new design concept that we think is the right design,
the safer design, the cleaner design, the more efficient design, and
the reality of a future energy source? And have we created the right
incentive to move us into the production of electricity from nuclear-
fueled powerplants of the future?

That is what this subtitle is all about. That is why it is important.
I don't know that the detail of it has been written, or I should say
read or understood specifically. It is very clear. It is very short.
The requirements are particularly important. Let me read them:
Subsection (b), Requirements:

Approved criteria for financial assistance shall include
the creditworthiness of the project--

that is, the responsibility of the Secretary and his or her team to
make those determinations--

the extent to which financial assistance would encourage
public-private partnerships and attract private sector
investment, the likelihood that financial assistance would
hasten commencement of the project, and any other criteria
the Secretary deems necessary or appropriate.

That is a totally open-ended clause that says the Secretary can, in
fact, develop more findings if necessary to protect the safety and the
security of this kind of loan guarantee.

The Secretary, under the confidentiality provision, shall
protect the confidentiality of any information that is
certified by the project developer to be commercially
sensitive. The full faith and credit of all financial
assistance provided by the Secretary under this subtitle
shall be a guaranteed obligation of the United States backed
by its full faith and credit.

That is fairly boilerplate language. What that says is very clear. If
the Secretary makes that determination, that becomes a part of a
decision that the Appropriations Committee and the Budget Committee in
the Senate then deal with. This is not locking in the money. This is
simply authorizing the ability of the Secretary in the future to move
in a direction that the Congress can make a decision on. That is what
this provision is all about.
I believe, we believe, and that is why the Energy Committee in a
bipartisan way brought this to the floor for the whole Senate's
consideration, because we think it is the right thing to do. It is the
right thing to look forward, not just a year from now or 2 but 30 and
40 and 50 years from now and say that we have developed a public policy
that will produce the kind of energy that a growing, expanding U.S.
economy needs, that it is of high quality, and that it fuels our
factories, lights our homes, cools our homes, and in the new age of
technology it keeps the Internet humming, by then probably such a
wireless communication system that it keeps, if you will, cyberspace
vibrating.
A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to visit China, a huge
nation, a nation that is expanding by leaps and bounds, a nation that
is pushing all sides of development and technology. My wife and I had
the opportunity to stay in a beautiful hotel in Shanghai, a state-of-
the-art hotel. In this city of Washington, DC, it would probably be
called at least a four-star hotel, absolutely a marvelous facility.
When we got to our room, the finest of facilities, there were all kinds
of places to plug in your computer. It was wired for the state of the
art. But it had a problem. The power kept going out. The lights kept
blinking. The air-conditioning kept shutting off and turning on.
The problem that beautiful, new, state-of-the-art hotel had that made
it nearly impossible to plug your computer in and go online and, with
your e-mail, talk to the United States is that China doesn't have a
power grid.
China doesn't have adequate electrical power. China has developed its
electrical resources on a city-by-city, county-by-county basis. They
are now striving ahead at a phenomenal cost to create a national power
grid to tie themselves together because they know that to compete with
us, to put their people to work, and to hopefully some day generate a
lifestyle comparable to ours, and an economy comparable to ours, they
have to have a power system that is reliable, stable, productive, and
that is connected.
No matter how beautiful the building, no matter how high-tech the
facility, if it is not turned on, if it is not wired in, if it is not
lit up, it doesn't work. Boy, have we learned that in this country.
California has learned that in the last couple of years.
If all goes well, I am going to be in the heart of the Silicon Valley
on Saturday. I will tell you what the conversation is going to be about
with some of the high-tech producers down there: Is the Energy bill
going to pass? Are you going to get us back into the business of
producing energy? We are large consumers of it and we need a high-
quality, stable supply of energy that doesn't blink, shut off, or put
our production at risk. If you are building chips in a high-tech
factory today, known as a FAB, and the power blinks, you lose the whole
production. You may lose millions of dollars in a blink of the power
connection. So high-quality, stable power is extremely valuable, and if
it is not priced right, if it is not competitive, and somewhere else in
the world they can provide that high-quality power that is priced
differently and in the competitive market, the great tragedy of our
economy today in a world environment is that the chips will go
elsewhere.
That is one of many examples that can be used. That is why, finally,
when President George W. Bush was elected and came to town, his first
priority, among so many, was to assign the Vice President to assemble
as many bright thinkers in the energy field as he could and to produce
for us, the Congress, a challenge--a national energy policy and a list
of criteria that we ought to develop in the form of public policy for
this country. There were well over a hundred points in that proposal.
Two-thirds of them have already been implemented by rule and regulation
by the Secretary of Energy and other agencies of our Government to get
this country back on line and producing energy. But about 30 percent of
them, or 30-plus, are not. They have to be legislated. It requires new
public policy to fully implement what our President envisions as a
national priority, what America envisions as a national priority, and
what I trust the Senate of the United States clearly understands to be
a national priority.
We tried mightily in the last year or so. The politics, for a variety
of reasons, would not allow us to get there. There are factors not in
this bill today that were in the bill of a year ago that are highly
controversial. There are some changes in this bill. But it was crafted
in the committee of authorization. It was voted on piece by piece. It
does have a new bipartisan base of support, and we believe it is the
kind of energy policy on which we can work out our differences with the
House and put on the President's desk and two decades from now look
back and say we did the right thing for our country, the right thing
for young people today who will be in that labor force 10, 15 years
from now, who will demand and require an abundant supply of high-
quality energy that is environmentally sound and at a reasonable price
for their homes, for their recreation, but, most importantly, for their
work site, for the job they are going to seek. That is why this
legislation is so important.

We may differ and we are going to have more amendments to come, but I
hope our leader and the minority leader recognize the high priority we
have here and give us the time to debate this thoroughly and
responsibly and deal with all of the amendments that are necessary to
get us to that point where we can vote up or down and let the American
people clearly understand that the Senate of the United States does
support a national energy policy, and that the one we have, in the form
of S. 14, is a quantum leap forward into America's future of an
abundant energy and a robust economy.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Vote on Amendment No. 853

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous unanimous consent order,
the hour of 3:30 p.m. having arrived, the question is on agreeing to
the Schumer amendment No. 853.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, have the yeas and nays been ordered?

[[Page S7443]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The yeas and nays have not been ordered.
Mr. CRAIG. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 853. The clerk will call
the roll.
The senior assistant bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign)
and the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski) are necessarily absent.
I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from Nevada
(Mr. Ensign) would vote ``yea''.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Florida (Mr. Graham), the
Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye), and the Senator from Connecticut (Mr.
Lieberman) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 26, nays 69, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 207 Leg.]

YEAS--26

Akaka
Allen
Bennett
Bingaman
Boxer
Clinton
Collins
Corzine
Enzi
Feinstein
Gregg
Hollings
Kennedy
Kyl
Lautenberg
Leahy
McCain
Murray
Reed
Santorum
Schumer
Specter
Sununu
Thomas
Warner
Wyden

NAYS--69

Alexander
Allard
Baucus
Bayh
Biden
Bond
Breaux
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Byrd
Campbell
Cantwell
Carper
Chafee
Chambliss
Cochran
Coleman
Conrad
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
Daschle
Dayton
DeWine
Dodd
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Edwards
Feingold
Fitzgerald
Frist
Graham (SC)
Grassley
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Johnson
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Levin
Lincoln
Lott
Lugar
McConnell
Mikulski
Miller
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Nickles
Pryor
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Sessions
Shelby
Smith
Snowe
Stabenow
Stevens
Talent
Voinovich

NOT VOTING--5

Ensign
Graham (FL)
Inouye
Lieberman
Murkowski
The amendment (No. 853) was rejected.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. DOMENICI. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 856

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
Mr. REID. I have cleared this with the Republican manager of the
bill. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from California have 90
seconds to speak on the next amendment and the opposition have 90
seconds, an extra 30 seconds on each side.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senate will be in order. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, the Senate is still not in order. It is a
complicated amendment. I would like to be able to explain it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will please be in order.
The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, in 90 seconds I want to tell you why this
amendment is so important. I offer it on behalf of myself and Senator
Durbin, a strong supporter of ethanol, Senators Leahy, Feinstein,
Clinton, Jeffords, and Lautenberg.
My amendment simply removes the safe harbor provision in the bill,
which treats ethanol like no other fuel, giving consumers and
communities no legal recourse if it turns out that the water is
polluted or the air is polluted or people get sick from this increased
amount of ethanol. Believe me, I hope ethanol is totally safe. But no
one is sure. Just read the 1999 blue ribbon EPA panel. They raise some
serious questions. Of course, the ethanol manufacturers say ethanol is
100 percent completely safe. Then I ask why they demand this safe
harbor provision. Look at what happened to the last gasoline additive
we promoted, MTBE. This is the cost to our people because of MTBE
pollution: $29 billion. My friends, if we had had the same safe harbor
for MTBE as some of us are seeking for ethanol, this would not have
fallen completely on your taxpayers and your communities. I call this
an unfunded mandate.

People who oppose this say they only are putting forward a very
narrow safe harbor. They say everyone will have a lot of ways to go.
But the truth is that defective product liability is the only remedy.
The courts have said no to negligence and no to nuisance. The only
claim they have is defective product liability.
All we do is say treat ethanol as we do any other additive.
I urge an aye vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, what we are doing here is not giving our
stamp of approval on ethanol. We are not mandating. The vast majority
of Members here feel more strongly about this than I do.
I know the Senator from California would not deliberately mislead
you. What she is saying is just flat wrong.
I keep hearing it over and over again: If a safe harbor provision is
enacted into law, No. 1, citizens will not be able to take refiners to
court under our court system; and, No. 2, any possible ethanol
contamination that happens in the future wouldn't get cleaned up.
It just isn't true. Even with the enactment of the safe harbor
provisions, if a plaintiff makes his case--that is a very significant
part of this--there are just a few court theories that could be used in
environmental cases: Trespass, not affected by safe harbor; nuisance,
not affected by safe harbor; negligence, not affected by safe harbor;
breach of implied warrant, not affected by safe harbor; breach of
express warranty, not affected by safe harbor.
As far as cleanups are concerned, if there were a spill, here are
some examples of environmental laws that are on the books right now
that would take care of the problem and are not affected by safe
harbor: No. 1, Resource Conservation Recovery; No. 2, Clean Water Act;
No. 3, Oil Pollution Act; No. 4, Superfund; and it goes on and on.
Neither of these assertions is true. They would be able to have their
day in court, and at the same time we have adequate laws in the court
system and environmental laws to accommodate any cleanup that would
take place.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
The question is on agreeing to the amendment. The yeas and nays were
previously ordered on the amendment, and the clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign)
and the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski) are necessarily absent.
I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from Nevada
(Mr. Ensign) would vote ``Yea''.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Florida (Mr. Graham), the
Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye), and the Senator from Connecticut (Mr.
Lieberman) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 38, nays 57, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 208 Leg.]

YEAS--38

Akaka
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Byrd
Cantwell
Carper
Chafee
Clinton
Collins
Corzine
Dayton
Dodd
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Gregg
Hollings
Jeffords
Kennedy
Kerry
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
McCain
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Reed
Reid
Sarbanes
Schumer
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Sununu
Warner
Wyden

NAYS--57

Alexander
Allard
Allen
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Bond
Breaux
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Campbell
Chambliss
Cochran
Coleman
Conrad
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
Daschle
DeWine
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Edwards
Enzi
Fitzgerald
Frist
Graham (SC)
Grassley
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Johnson
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Lincoln
Lott
Lugar
McConnell
Miller
Nelson (NE)
Nickles
Pryor
Roberts
Rockefeller
Santorum
Sessions

[[Page S7444]]

Shelby
Stabenow
Stevens
Talent
Thomas
Voinovich

NOT VOTING--5

Ensign
Graham (FL)
Inouye
Lieberman
Murkowski
The amendment (No. 856) was rejected.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, how long did that last vote take?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Twenty-four minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Chair.

Amendment No. 854

The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are now 2 minutes evenly divided before
a vote on the second Boxer amendment.
The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am pleased to say that the Boxer-Lugar-
Cantwell amendment, which encourages production of agricultural residue
ethanol, is going to be accepted by a voice vote with a promise to
fight for it in conference.
Our amendment says that if you produce ethanol from the residue of
agricultural crops, you get a special incentive. So if your State grows
corn, rice, sugar, apples, wheat, oats, barley, and other crops high in
fructose, this amendment would help your farmers, your rural
communities, and your States meet the ethanol mandate. Again, it simply
gives an incentive to produce ethanol from agricultural residue.
I am grateful to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for
accepting the amendment. I am happy to take it by voice vote.
Mr. DOMENICI. I have no objection.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
The amendment (No. 854) was agreed to.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. HOLLINGS. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to support the amendment offered
by the majority and minority leaders, Mr. Frist and Mr. Daschle, on
renewable motor fuels. Others may support this amendment for different
reasons, but I support the amendment because of its potential to
increase motor fuels supply, especially in the Federal reformulated
fuels, or RFG, program. This amendment includes provisions that I, and
my Wisconsin House colleagues, Congressman Paul Ryan and Mark Green,
have long advocated to address supply shortages that the Midwest has
experienced in recent years.
This amendment makes significant changes to the Clean Air Act motor
fuels programs that will increase the supply of cleaner fuels
nationwide. It bans methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, which is no
longer used in my home State of Wisconsin. MTBE, as others will likely
discuss in detail, is a reformulated gasoline additive that has
contaminated drinking water supplies nationwide.
The amendment also contains a mandate to increase the supply of
ethanol to 5 billion barrels by 2012 both to replace MTBE as an
oxygenate in reformulated gasoline and to reduce our dependence upon
foreign oil. It also would allow Governors the ability to increase
reformulated gasoline supply by opting their entire State into the
reformulated fuels program, and increasing the market demand for RFG in
their State.
The amendment also has a provision to increase the amount of
reformulated gasoline by reducing the number of boutique fuel blends.
The bill reduces the number of Federal reformulated fuel blends by
creating a single set of standards. This would broaden the supply from
which Wisconsin could draw in times of tight supply.
If enacted, this amendment would improve fungibility of RFG
nationwide, by standardizing volatile organic compound, VOC, reduction
requirements. In practice, when combined with the renewable fuels
mandate, this would enable States like Wisconsin that use Federal RFG
to draw on supplies of Federal RFG from other areas, such as St. Louis
and Detroit, if necessary. The ability to rely on other sources of RFG
is especially important when sudden supply shortages arise due to
unexpected events such as refinery fires or breakdowns which the
Midwest has also experienced in recent years.
This amendment is important because, at present, southeastern
Wisconsin cannot draw on RFG from other areas because the Chicago/
Wisconsin RFG formula is not used elsewhere in the country. This
amendment would help address this boutique fuel problem by bringing
other areas that use Federal RFG in line and standardizing VOC
reduction requirements and requirements for the production of renewable
fuels such as ethanol--the Chicago/Wisconsin area is the only part of
the country that uses solely ethanol in its blend of RFG.
As the use of ethanol blended RFG becomes more widespread, supply
problems will become easier to address. This benefits Wisconsin drivers
because easing supply shortages will help put an end to severe price
spikes, and drivers nationwide by continuing to supply them with RFG
that meets Federal Clean Air Act standards in light of State bans on
MTBE.
So far, Mr. President, in light of military conflict in the Middle
East, we have been lucky that we have avoided significant increases in
gas prices so far this year. But, for folks in Wisconsin, the thought
of another approaching summer unfortunately dredges up memories of the
high gas prices that have plagued our families in recent years. The
Senate must take preventative action today to make sure gas prices stay
under control, and our this amendment will help do that. By scrapping
the multiple Federal fuel blend requirements and replacing them with a
more simplified, streamlined system, this measure will work to make gas
supplies more stable and keep prices at the pump within reason. This is
a good amendment, and it deserves the support of the Senate.
Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes to
address the Frist-Daschle amendment and the Energy bill in general.
Now, do I think there is a way to soundly and responsibly increase
our use of alternative fuels? Sure. Do I think that we should increase
our use of alternative fuels? You bet. I am just not convinced that the
provision we are considering today is the best way to make that happen.
And I am not convinced that it is the best way to make that happen for
a State such as New York.
I think that an Energy bill has the potential to be a win for us not
just on energy and the environment but also on economic development and
job creation. An Energy bill could truly be an engine for developing
new technologies, manufacturing new products, building new facilities,
and with all of that--creating new jobs, while at the same time
increasing our energy security and improving the quality of our
environment.
I commend my colleagues Senators Domenici and Bingaman, for their
efforts in bringing this bill to the floor. They have worked arduously
to tackle many complicated and controversial issues.
But with all due respect to my colleagues, in many cases, I am afraid
that this bill unfortunately still falls far short--in terms of energy
policy, environmental policy, and economic policy. We need a
comprehensive and balanced energy policy that strengthens our energy
security, safeguards consumers, protects the environment, spurs
economic development, and create jobs.
Yet this bill does not truly harness our potential for greater energy
efficiency and for newer, cleaner sources of energy. It too often looks
to the past to try to solve the energy challenges of the present and
turns a blind eye to all that our energy future could be.
For example, it looks to possible oil and gas resources on the Outer
Continental Shelf--areas of the ocean that have been under drilling
moratoria for years in an effort to preserve precious ocean and coastal
resources and the coastal tourism economies of a number of our States.
It also apparently requires an inventory of oil and gas resources on
Federal lands, as well as an inventory of restrictions or impediments
to development of those resources. Now my colleagues in New York and I
have been fighting for years to protect the Finger Lakes National
Forest from drilling, and so I have a difficult time with provisions
like this.
The bill permanently extends the authority of the Nuclear Regulatory

[[Page S7445]]

Commission to indemnify nuclear powerplants against liability for
nuclear accidents under the Price-Anderson Act, and provides other
substantial subsidies to the nuclear power industry. Yet the bill does
not do enough to increase the diversity of our energy supply, which
would also create new business and economic growth opportunities.
I am pleased that the bill contains provisions related to the
increased use of fuel cells and hydrogen fuel because this is a key
example of how we can be working to increase our energy security, while
also improving the environment and creating jobs. And it is places like
Upstate New York, where we have many companies and universities doing
exciting work in this area, which will emerge as world leaders in his
technology. That is why I have joined with Senator Dorgan, Senator
Lieberman, and others in supporting legislation that would go even
further than the bill we are currently debating in supporting fuel
cells. And that is in part why, when we debated the renewable fuel
provisions in the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee,
Senator Boxer and I fought to include provisions that would provide
Federal support for the construction of waste-to-ethanol plants and
other cellulosic biomass ethanol production facilities.
Because these projects would help States such as ours produce more
renewable fuel--produce fuel from waste products, which would therefore
also help the environment--and at the same time produce more jobs as
well.
We are grateful for the committee's support for our amendments, and
we are pleased that these provisions remain in the amendment that is
before us today.
But many of my colleagues and I still have reservations with respect
to this amendment. That is why some have pushed to have their States
exempted entirely from the renewable fuels requirements in this
amendment, while many others have voted to require States to
proactively opt-in to the renewable fuels program.
Despite the many outstanding questions regarding the renewable fuels
requirements in this amendment--whether it is transportation or storage
or other infrastructure issues, market concentration concerns, impacts
on gasoline prices for consumers at the pump, air quality impacts, you
name it--there is a seeming unwillingness to consider even the
slightest changes to the provisions before us--at least for some
States.
While certain States are exempted all together, other States that
have special considerations, such as my State of New York which has a
State ban of MTBE that goes into effect in just a few months, which has
certain air quality issues, and very little existing ability to produce
significant quantities of renewable fuel--our special needs go unmet.
With all of the concerns I have regarding the amendment before us, I
have even more concerns about the provisions passed by the House, which
I believe in many respects are greatly inferior to the provisions we
are considering here today. So that gives me even further pause in
taking up this issue.
For example, whereas the amendment before us contains a welcome and
long-awaited Federal phase-out of the use of MTBE over the next 4
years, the House bill does not phase out MTBE at all. Even more
disturbing, it includes a liability safe harbor for MTBE.
Now, there is no question that the time has come to take action at
the Federal level on MTBE. New York is on the front lines of this
battle. We have banned MTBE use in the State as of January 1, 2004.
There are a number of other States that have taken action to phase
out or limit the use of MTBE as well, including: California, Colorado,
Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine,
Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, and
Washington. Now, those are the States that have actually passed State
laws. But here are a number of other States that have tried to pass
laws and are still trying to pass laws to phase out or ban MTBE.
In the absence of any Federal action, States have been forced to take
action on their own to limit MTBE use in motor vehicle fuel because it
has wreaked havoc on the environment--in particular, on drinking water
sources. Unfortunately, those State actions are now being challenged in
court.
Yet the States are acting for good reason. New York has experienced
first-hand the impact of MTBE contamination on our drinking water--
particularly on Long Island.
According to testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee offered recently by Mr. Paul Granger, superintendent of the
Plainview Water District on Long Island, ``New York has identified some
1970 MTBE spill sites with 430 of them on Long Island alone.''
That is why New York, once again out in front on the issue of MTBE,
has probably the toughest standard in the Nation for the amount of MTBE
allowed in surface and ground water--10 parts per billion.
But according to Mr. Granger's testimony, ``At least 21 states have
reported well closures due to MTBE groundwater contamination.'' It is
estimated that more than 500 public drinking water wells and 45,000
private wells throughout the country are contaminated by MTBE.
According to testimony recently offered by the American Lung
Association before the Environment and Public Works Committee, millions
of Americans are being served by drinking water sources contaminated by
MTBE.
As we are far too familiar now, the cost of cleaning up this MTBE
contamination are significant. According to the testimony of Mr. Craig
Perkins, director of Environment and Public Works for the city of Santa
Monica, CA, ``Current estimates for the total cost of nationwide MTBE
clean-up are $30 billion and counting.'' That is why we have lawsuits
pending in New York regarding MTBE contamination of ground water,
because these communities, these water suppliers, and ultimately their
customers, cannot meet the financial burden of these cleanups.
So while having clean air to breathe is important, so is having clean
water to drink. We should not have to trade one for the other.
Phasing out the use of MTBE as a fuel additive is the right thing to
do from a drinking water perspective, from an overall environmental and
public health perspective, and from a fuels perspective. That is why
such a phase-out of MTBE was recommended over 3 years ago by the EPA
Blue Ribbon Panel on Oxygenates in Gasoline.
The State-by-State approach to MTBE that we are currently operating
under does not work. It does not work for the markets, the refiners, or
the distributors to have this patchwork of States that do or do not
allow the addition of MTBE to gasoline.
I am very pleased that the Frist-Daschle amendment includes such a
phase-out but I am concerned about other provisions of this amendment
pertaining to renewable fuels, including the safe harbor provisions. I
am deeply concerned that the House bill does not include a phase-out of
MTBE but does provide a liability safe harbor for MTBE.
The reality is that we can phase out MTBE and repeal the existing 2
percent oxygenate requirement under the Clean Air Act while still
ensuring that we meet current clean air standards. And I support
legislation that will do these three things.
After banning MTBE and removing the oxygenate requirement, there
would still be an increase in the use of ethanol in this country--with
or without the mandate we are contemplating here today.
Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise today in support of Senate
amendment 850, an amendment to add a renewable fuels package to the
energy bill.
This language establishes a nationwide renewable fuels standard of 5
billion gallons by 2012, repeals the Clean Air Act's oxygenate
requirement for reformulated gasoline and phases down the use of MTBE
over 4 years.
This language has strong bipartisan support and is the result of long
negotiations between the Renewable Fuels Association, the National Corn
Growers Association, the Farm Bureau Federation, the American Petroleum
Institute, the Northeast states for Coordinated Air Use Management,
NESCAUM, and the American Lung Association.
Passage of this ethanol language will protect our national security,
economy, and environment.

[[Page S7446]]

The amendment that the majority leader has introduced--a compromise
that will triple the amount of domestically-produced ethanol used in
America--is one essential tool in reducing our dependence on imported
oil.
President Bush has stated repeatedly that energy security is a
cornerstone for national security. I agree. It is crucial that we
become less dependent on foreign sources of oil and look more to
domestic sources to meet our energy needs. Ethanol is an excellent
domestic source--it is a clean burning, homegrown renewable fuel that
we can rely on for generations to come.
Ethanol is also good for our Nation's economy. Tripling the use of
renewable fuels over the next decade will:
Reduce our National Trade Deficit by more than $34 billion;
Increase U.S. GDP by $156 billion by 2012;
Create more than 214,000 new jobs;
Expand household income by an additional $51.7 billion;
Save taxpayers $3 billion annually in reduced government subsidies
due to the creation of new markets for corn.
The benefits for the farm economy are even more pronounced. Ohio is
6th in the Nation in terms of corn production and is among the highest
in the nation in putting ethanol into gas tanks, over 40 percent of all
gasoline sold in Ohio contains ethanol. An increase in the use of
ethanol across the Nation means an economic boost to thousands of farm
families across my State:
Currently, ethanol production provides 192,000 jobs and $4.5 billion
to net farm income nationwide;
Passage of this amendment will increase net farm income by nearly $6
billion annually;
Passage of this amendment will create $5.3 billion of new investment
in renewable fuel production capacity.
Phasing out MTBE on a national basis will be good for our fuel
supply. Because refiners are under tremendous strain from having to
make several different gasoline blends to meet various State clean air
requirements--and no new refineries have been built in the last 25
years--the effects of various State responses to the threat of MTBE
contamination--including bans and phase-outs on different schedules--
will add a significant burden to existing refineries. The MTBE phase-
out provisions in this package will ensure that refiners will have less
stress on their system and that gasoline will be more fungible
nationwide.
Expanding the use of ethanol will also protect our environment by
reducing auto emissions, which will mean cleaner air and improved
public health.
Use of ethanol reduces emissions of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons
by 20 percent;
Ethanol also reduces emissions of particulates by 40 percent;
Use of ethanol RFG helped move Chicago into attainment of the federal
ozone standard, the only RFG area to see such improvement;
In 2002, ethanol use in the United States reduced greenhouse gas
emissions by 4.3 million tons--the equivalent of removing more than
630,000 vehicles from the road.
Our farmers can meet the ethanol standard. For 2003, the ethanol
industry is on pace to produce more than 2.7 billion gallons. The
amount of ethanol required under the FRS begins at 2.6 billion gallons
in 2005. Adequate ethanol supply is simply not an issue.
Currently, 73 ethanol plants nationwide have the capacity to produce
over 2.9 billion gallons annually. Further, there are ten ethanol
plants under construction, which when completed will bring the total
capacity to more than 3.3 billion gallons.
California has been cited as a major problem area; however, all but
two small refiners have already transitioned from MTBE into ethanol.
California will use close to 700 million gallons of ethanol in 2003
after consuming roughly 100 million gallons last year. The California
Energy Commission has concluded the transition to ethanol ``is
progressing without any major problems.'' The U.S. Energy Information
Administration found the transition went ``remarkably well.''
Individual States are banning the use of MTBE, but they cannot change
the federal RFG oxygen content requirement. The collision of these two
elements under current law will likely lead to higher costs.
Under current law, California's required ethanol use in 2005 would be
895 million gallons. Under this amendment, fuel providers supplying
California will be required to use far less ethanol in 2005--291
million gallons. And more importantly, they will benefit from the
bill's credit banking and trading provisions.
With the State MTBE ban set for January 2004, New York faces a
similar situation. Under the status quo, fuel providers will be
required to use 197 million gallons of ethanol in New York in 2005.
However, if this amendment is enacted, refiners, blenders and importers
would be required to use or purchase credits for even less--111 million
gallons of ethanol in 2005.
A study conducted by Mathpro, a prominent economic analysis firm,
found that, compared to a situation where States are banning MTBE and
the federal RFG oxygen content requirement is left in place, this
amendment will lower the average gasoline production cost: by about
two-tenths of a cent per gallon.

In addition, this language provide safeguards. In the event that the
RFS would severely harm the economy or the environment or would lead to
potential supply and distribution problems, the RFS requirement could
be reduced or eliminated.
Ethanol is already blended from Alaska to Florida and from California
to New York. Ethanol is already transported via barge, railcar, and
oceangoing vessel to markets throughout the country. The U.S.
Department of Energy studied the feasibility of a 5 billion gallon per
year national ethanol market and found that ``no major infrastructure
barriers exist'' and that needed investments on an amortized, per-
gallon basis are ``modest'' and ``present no major obstacle.''
Both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Congressional Budget
Office have recognized the benefit of the investment of the ethanol
program on the overall health to the nation's economy. Recently, the
USDA stated the ethanol program would decrease farm program payments by
$3 billion per year. In its analysis of this amendment, CBO stated the
provision would reduce direct spending by $2 billion during 2005-2013.
The RFS agreement includes strong anti-backsliding provisions that
prohibit refiners from producing gasoline that increases emissions once
the oxygenate requirement is removed. A Governor can also petition EPA
for a waiver of the ethanol requirement based on supporting
documentation that the ethanol waiver will increase emissions that
contribute to air pollution in any area of the state.
The fuels agreement would benefit the environment in a number of
ways:
reduces tailpipe emissions of carbon monoxide, VOCs, and fine
particulates,
phases down MTBE over 4 years to address groundwater contamination,
and since ethanol biodegrades quickly, it will not have the same
problem,
provides for one grade of summertime Federal RFG, which is more
stringent,
increases the benefits from the Federal RFG program on air toxic
reductions,
provides states in the Ozone Transport Region and enhanced
opportunity to participate in the RFG program because of unique air
quality problems,
includes provisions that require EPA to conduct a study on the
effects on public health, air quality, and water resources of increased
use of potential MTBE substitutes, including ethanol.
The use of ethanol-blended fuels also reduces so-called greenhouse
gas emissions by 12-19 percent compared with conventional gasoline,
according to Argonne National Laboratory. In fact, Argonne states
ethanol use last year in the U.S. reduced the so-called greenhouse gas
emissions by approximately 4.3 million tons, equivalent to removing the
annual emissions of more than 636,000 cars.
I also want to point out that the California Environmental Policy
Council recently gave ethanol a clean bill of health and approved its
use as a replacement for MTBE in California gasoline.
A similar provision has already passed the House of Representatives
this year. Virtually the same agreement passed the Senate in April 2002
with 69 votes.
The fuels agreement is supported by the American Petroleum Institute;
the

[[Page S7447]]

Renewable Fuels Association; the Northeast States for Coordinated Air
Use Management (NESCAUM); U.S. Chamber of Commerce; US Action; the
Union of Concerned Scientists; the Environmental and Energy Studies
Institute; the Governor's Ethanol Coalition; General Motors; the
Governors of California and New York; and all of the major agricultural
organizations in the United States.
It is time to pass an ethanol bill, and I urge my colleagues to vote
yes for America's farmers and this amendment.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, it is important that Congress make
available all possible options for refiners to ensure compliance with
the renewable fuels standard and decrease chances for gasoline price
and supply volatility. One such option for meeting the renewable fuels
standard that has shown promise is ethyl tertiary butyl ether ETBE.
ETBE is a High-octane, low-vapor pressure, gasoline-blending
component produced from a combination of ethanol and butane. Because
both of these raw materials are produced in abundance domestically,
ETBE will help expand US gasoline supplies, moderating possible
gasoline price volatility.
ETBE is fully fungible with gasoline. This allows ETBE to be blended
into gasoline at any point in the gasoline logistical chain and
transported in gasoline pipelines to regions of the country where it is
more costly to transport and blend ethanol into gasoline. Moreover,
ETBE does not have a negative impact on gasoline vapor pressure, making
it easier and more cost-effective to blend ETBE into gasoline--
especially during the summertime ozone control season when gasoline
vapor pressure is restricted.
ETBE reduces more gasoline evaporative and tailpipe emissions, lowers
air toxics and carbon monoxide, and provides 20-percent more carbon
dioxide emission reduction than other gasoline-blending components.
ETBE is 75 percent less water soluble than MTBE. This means use of
ETBE substantially reduces the risks to ground water resources should
gasoline leak from an underground storage tank. ETBE also has other
physical properties which make it migrate slower and shorter
distances--and easier to remediate--should a gasoline spill or leak
occur.
I support the development of ETBE because of the benefits it provides
for cleaner air, enhanced gasoline supply, and the ability to transport
the fuel in the current infrastructure. Congress, in enacting a RFS,
should not do anything to preclude its use. The marketplace should be
allowed to determine how it will meet the requirements of the RFS.

Vote on Amendment No. 850

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No.
850 as amended. There are to be 2 minutes evenly divided on the
amendment.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, we yield back our time.
Mr. DOMENICI. Yes.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign)
and the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski) are necessarily absent.
I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from Nevada
(Mr. Ensign) would vote ``no''.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Florida (Mr. Graham) and
the Senator from Hawaii (Mr.Inouye) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cornyn). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 68, nays 28, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 209 Leg.]

YEAS--68

Akaka
Alexander
Baucus
Bayh
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Breaux
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Byrd
Campbell
Cantwell
Carper
Chafee
Chambliss
Cochran
Coleman
Collins
Conrad
Craig
Crapo
Daschle
Dayton
DeWine
Dodd
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Edwards
Feingold
Fitzgerald
Frist
Grassley
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Inhofe
Jeffords
Johnson
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lott
Lugar
McConnell
Mikulski
Miller
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Pryor
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Shelby
Smith
Snowe
Stabenow
Stevens
Talent
Voinovich

NAYS--28

Allard
Allen
Bennett
Boxer
Clinton
Cornyn
Corzine
Enzi
Feinstein
Graham (SC)
Gregg
Hollings
Hutchison
Kennedy
Kyl
Lautenberg
Leahy
McCain
Nickles
Reed
Santorum
Schumer
Sessions
Specter
Sununu
Thomas
Warner
Wyden

NOT VOTING--4

Ensign
Graham (FL)
Inouye
Murkowski
The amendment (No. 850) was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.

Change of Vote

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, on rollcall vote No. 209, I voted no.
It was my intention to vote aye. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent
that I be permitted to change my vote since it will not affect the
outcome.
(The foregoing tally has been changed to reflect the above order.)
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. FRIST. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Unanimous Consent Agreement--H.R. 1308

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now
proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 52, H.R. 1308; that
immediately upon the reporting of the bill, Senator Grassley be
recognized to offer a substitute amendment on behalf of himself,
Senators Lincoln, Snowe, Baucus, and Voinovich; provided further that
there be 30 minutes for debate equally divided between Senators
Grassley and Baucus or their designees prior to a vote in relation to
the amendment, and that no other amendments be in order; provided
further that if the amendment is agreed to, the bill be read a third
time, and the Senate proceed to a vote on final passage of the bill as
amended.
Further, I ask that if the amendment is not agreed to, then H.R. 1308
be placed back on the calendar and that no points of order be waived by
this agreement. I further ask consent that following that vote, the
Senate then insist on its amendment, request a conference with the
House, and the Chair then be authorized to appoint conferees on the
part of the Senate with a ratio of 3 to 2.
Finally, I ask unanimous consent that following passage of the bill,
the amendment to the title be agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, for the benefit of my colleagues, we will
have further announcements later in this evening. We would expect to
have a final rollcall vote for the week approximately 30 or 40 minutes
from now. Although we will have no more rollcall votes after that, we
will stay and be available to debate amendments tonight, and we will be
in session tomorrow. We expect not to have rollcall votes tomorrow. We
will have further announcements later tonight with regard to the
schedule tomorrow, as well as Monday.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, first let me compliment the distinguished
majority leader for the effort he has made to bring us to this
point. Were it not for his effort, we would not have accomplished what
we have with this unanimous consent agreement. I appreciate his
efforts.

Let me also single out in particular the distinguished Senator from
Arkansas. Without her persistence and her effort, now weeks long, we
would not be here. She has spoken out with courage and conviction and
empathy on behalf of 12 million children, 8 million families who
otherwise would be left out of tax relief. The argument that she has
made from the beginning has been without this legislation those
millions of children and those working families would get no tax relief
on July 1. The passage of this legislation today will accommodate that
concern, that need.

[[Page S7448]]

This will give us an opportunity to send the recommendation to the
House. It will send a clear message to working families that we are
serious about providing the kind of tax relief that is so necessary for
these families if we are going to provide it to others; that it will be
available. The refundable child credit assistance can be made available
in time for tax relief provided to others as well.
I commend the Senator. I commend the majority leader. I thank my
colleagues for this agreement.
I yield the floor.
Mr. DOMENICI. I ask the majority leader, would it be appropriate to
dispose of the pending LIHEAP amendment to clear the record for the
evening in spite of the unanimous consent request?
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I assume it has been cleared by the
distinguished leader. I have no objection.
Mr. FRIST. We will proceed with that. It makes the most efficient use
of everyone's time.
Mr. DOMENICI. We have a Senator who still wants to speak on the
pending bill. I assume after the time just provided has expired, we
will be back for the distinguished Senator from Colorado to speak to an
amendment; is that correct?
Mr. FRIST. Yes.

Amendment No. 841 Withdrawn

Mr. DOMENICI. For the record, under the bill, I withdraw amendment
No. 841.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment (No. 841) was withdrawn.

Amendment No. 860 To Amendment No. 840

Mr. DOMENICI. I send a new second-degree amendment to the desk on
behalf of Senator Bingaman.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from New Mexico [Mr. DOMENICI], for Mr.
Bingaman, proposes an amendment numbered 860 to amendment No.
840.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading
of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To reauthorize LIHEAP, Weatherization assistance, and State
Energy Programs)

In lieu of the matter proposed to be inserted, insert the
following:

TITLE XII--STATE ENERGY PROGRAMS

SEC. 1201. LOW-INCOME HOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM.

Section 2602(b) of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance
Act of 1981 (42 U.S.C. 8621(b)) is amended by striking ``each
of fiscal years 2002 through 2004'' and inserting ``fiscal
years 2002 and 2003, and $3,400,000,000 for each of fiscal
years 2004 through 2006''.

SEC. 1202. WEATHERIZATION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM.

(a) Eligibility.--Section 412 of the Energy Conservation
and Production Act (42 U.S.C. 6862) is amended--
(1) in paragraph (7)(A), by striking ``125'' and inserting
``150'', and
(1) in paragraph (7)(C), by striking ``125'' and inserting
``150''.
(b) Authorization of Appropriations.--Section 422 of the
Energy Conservation and Production Act (42 U.S.C. 6872) is
amended by striking the period at the end and inserting ``,
$325,000,000 for fiscal year 2004, $400,000,000 for fiscal
year 2005, and $500,000,000 for fiscal year 2006.''.

SEC. 1203. STATE ENERGY PLANS.

(a) State Energy Conservation Plans.--Section 362 of the
Energy Policy and Conservation Act (42 U.S.C. 6322) is
amended by inserting at the end the following new subsection:
``(g) The Secretary shall, at least once every 3 years,
invite the Governor of each State to review and, if
necessary, revise the energy conservation plan of such State
submitted under subsection (b) or (e). Such reviews should
consider the energy conservation plans of other States within
the region, and identify opportunities and actions carried
out in pursuit of common energy conservation goals.''.
(b) State Energy Efficiency Goals.--Section 364 of the
Energy Policy and Conservation Act (42 U.S.C. 6324) is
amended to read as follows:

STATE ENERGY EFFICIENCY GOALS

``Sec. 364. Each State energy conservation plan with
respect to which assistance is made available under this part
on or after the date of enactment of this title shall contain
a goal, consisting of an improvement of 25 percent or more in
the efficiency of use of energy in the State concerned in
calendar year 2010 as compared to calendar year 1990, and may
contain interim goals.''.
(c) Authorization of Appropriations.--Section 365(f) of the
Energy Policy and Conservation Act (42 U.S.C. 6325(f)) is
amended by striking the period at the end and inserting ``,
$100,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2004 and 2005 and
$125,000,000 for fiscal year 2006.''.

LIHEAP

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise to enter into a colloquy with the
distinguished Chairman and Ranking Member of the Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions Committee. I am pleased, colleagues, that we have
been able to reach consensus on the need to include in this bill an
increase in the authorization level for the Low-Income Home Energy
Assistance (LIHEAP) program from $2 billion to $3.4 billion. With power
costs on the rise around this nation, it is imperative that the Senate
act now to respond to the needs of the 85 percent of eligible families
that today do not receive the help they so desperately need, due to the
perennially under-funded nature of the LIHEAP program.
There is another issue relevant to the LIHEAP program, however, that
I hope the Senate will soon consider. I believe that we must address
the manner in which the Department of Health and Human Services--and,
of course, the Office of Management and Budget--have traditionally
administered the ``contingency'' portion of the LIHEAP program. While
the bulk of LIHEAP dollars are distributed to states via block grants
and in accordance with a statutory formula, Congress has also
authorized--and appropriated funds to--a contingency fund, designed to
``meet the additional home energy assistance needs of one or more
States arising from a natural disaster or other emergency.'' This money
is not released according to formula--but solely at the discretion of
the HHS Secretary.
Unfortunately, recent history suggests that there are problems with
the way the ``contingency'' portion of LIHEAP is administered. In
essence, there seem to be widely varying eligibility rules applied to
the release of these contingency funds--leading to instances in which
HHS has overlooked very real energy emergencies, including the recent
power crisis in my home state of Washington.
I believe that clear rules for the release of these dollars will
ensure that, in the unfortunate event of an energy emergency, low-
income families will receive much-needed assistance in keeping the
lights and the heat turned on--which is precisely what Congress intends
when it appropriates money to the LIHEAP contingency fund. During mark-
up on this bill in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Sen.
Smith and I added language--adopted unanimously-seeking to put
guidelines around the release of these emergency LIHEAP funds.
However, I understand that the distinguished Chairman, Senator Gregg,
and Ranking Member, Senator Kennedy, intend to reauthorize the LIHEAP
program in their Committee this year and examine very closely the
administration of these contingency funds. I believe the language that
Senator Smith and I authored would go a long way toward adding clarity
to the process, and I would be exceptionally pleased to work with the
Chairman on this and other proposals to reform the LIHEAP emergency
program to ensure it is as responsive as possible to the very real
needs of low-income Americans.
Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator from Washington for her comments. I
agree that the manner in which LIHEAP contingency funds are distributed
should be examined. I would be happy to work with the Senator on this
important matter as the H.E.L.P. Committee works towards
reauthorization of this program in the coming months.
Mr. KENNEDY. I also believe the Senator from Washington makes a very
good point about the administration of LIHEAP emergency funds. I too
would be happy to work with the Senator on including language to
address her concerns when the Committee debates LIHEAP reauthorization
later this year.
Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent that the second-degree
amendment be adopted and the underlying first-degree amendment No. 840,
as amended, be agreed to.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask consent following the disposition of
the unanimous consent agreement dealing with the child tax credit, the
Senator from Louisiana, Ms. Landrieu, be recognized to speak on LIHEAP.
She

[[Page S7449]]

wanted to speak before the vote but this would be fine.
Mr. DOMENICI. Five minutes?
Mr. REID. Probably 10 minutes. I am sure she can complete a statement
in 10 minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. Senator Campbell has been waiting for a long time. He
has an amendment on the underlying bill.
Mr. REID. She can speak after he offers his amendment. He will not
speak that long.
Mr. CAMPBELL. That is all right.
Mr. REID. How long will you speak?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I am going to speak for 15 or 18 minutes.
Mr. REID. She has waited around here all day to speak on LIHEAP. Why
not limit her time to 5 minutes; that should be adequate.
Mr. DOMENICI. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment (No. 860) was agreed to.
The amendment (No. 841), as amended, was agreed to.
Mr. DOMENICI. I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. REID. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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