To ensure that ethanol is treated like all other motor vehicle fuels and that taxpayers and local governments do not have to pay for environmental damage caused by ethanol.

ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2005--Continued

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it is my understanding that I will be
recognized for the first 15 minutes and at 2:30, I believe, Senator
Domenici will be recognized; is that correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct, yes.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to make a brief opening comment
about the Energy bill on the floor of the Senate.
First, I think the product of the Energy Committee is a bill that
advances this country's interests. I think the work done by Senator
Domenici and Senator Bingaman is quite extraordinary. At a time when
there is so much partisanship and division and so much difficulty in
getting together, this bill was the product of two Senators--
coincidentally, from the same State--who decided to write a bipartisan
bill. So the result was a vote in the committee of 21 to 1 for this
Energy bill.
I think the bill is progressive and strong and advances our country's
interests. First, I wanted to say thanks to both of them. I think what
we have is a good bill. I am going to vote for some amendments that I
think will strengthen it. Such as one we did not include in committee
that would move us toward energy independence by requiring 10 percent
of the electricity to be produced from renewable sources of energy. We
call that a renewable portfolio standard. That needs to be in the bill.
I will vote for an amendment to deal with that. There are other issues
as well that would advance us toward greater energy independence that I
will support.
The question for us is how do we remove for America the addiction to
foreign sources of oil? If I were to have a barrel of oil on the floor
of the Senate--and we use over 20 million of them every single day--and
that barrel of oil were transparent, you would find out the first 40
percent of that barrel was oil we produced in this country, and the
next 60 percent is oil we get elsewhere. From where does it come? It
comes from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Venezuela--very troubled parts
of the world. We are hopelessly and dangerously addicted to oil from
troubled parts of the world. God forbid, tomorrow morning a terrorist
would interrupt the supply of oil coming into this country. Our
economy--the American economy--would be in deep trouble.
I remember listening and watching the Indianapolis 500 this year, as
I have done ever since I was a young boy. This year was different
because a woman was a race car driver, Danica Patrick, who drove her
race car 220 miles an hour. I believe it was seven or eight or nine
laps from the end of the race, and guess who was winning. The only
woman who was racing in the Indianapolis 500; this young 23-year-old
woman was leading the race. But they worried she was going to run out
of fuel because she had not had a pit stop, and they worried she would
not make it to the end. So she had to back off a little, worried about
running out of gas. I think she took fourth place in the Indianapolis
500, and she captured the hearts of the country. We are going to hear a
lot about her.

[[Page S6446]]

But her future in the Indianapolis 500 in the final laps had to do
with whether she had enough gas to finish the race? It is an
appropriate question for the country. Will we run out of gas? It is
dangerous for our country to be this addicted to oil from off our
shores. So we need now to find a way to change that. Every moment, from
the time we wake up in the morning until we go to bed at night, we take
energy for granted. Energy comes in the form of a light switch. It
comes in the form of pressing on the accelerator of your car. It is the
gas pump, the air conditioner, the furnace, the refrigerator. Energy is
all around us, and we take it for granted. We use it every day, and we
don't think about it.
But wonder for a moment what would happen if that energy were not
available. We use a prodigious amount of energy. We live on Earth and
we circle the Sun and there are 6 billion of us living on this planet--
6 billion. And every single month, we add to this planet the equivalent
of the population of a New York City. There is only one place on the
planet that resembles the United States of America, and we are lucky to
be living here and living now. But, we use an enormous amount of
energy. We use a great deal of energy--more per capita, by far, than
any other country on Earth.
Meanwhile the Chinese have 1.4 billion people. They now have 20
million cars and they are going to have 120 million cars by 2020, they
say. They want more energy and will need more.
So the question for this country is: Can we, and will we, maintain
the standard of living, maintain the kind of country we want to be, and
produce the opportunity we want for our children, being as dependent as
we are upon oil from sources outside our country? The answer clearly is
no. Things have to change.
They must change. We put gasoline in cars now the same way we did 100
years ago. Nothing has changed. This piece of legislation begins moving
us down the road toward change. This legislation has parts that include
production. We incentivize additional production of fossil fuels and,
yes, we are going to produce more coal, oil, and natural gas. Yes, we
will use more fossil fuels. But, if that is all we do--if all we do is
dig and drill, I call that ``yesterday forever.'' That is a strategy,
``yesterday forever,'' and every 25 years we will hang around this
Chamber and wear our blue suits and slough around the halls and come to
talk about an Energy bill that is ``yesterday forever''--dig and drill,
dig and drill. It doesn't work.
We are digging and drilling, and we have 60 percent of the oil coming
from off our shores. We must, and we do, incentivize additional fossil
fuels production in this bill. We want to get, through clean coal
technology, to zero emissions, coal-fired electric generating plants,
and I think we can and will. So fossil fuels are important--oil, coal,
and natural gas. This bill does much, much more than that.

This bill has a very robust conservation proposal. Saving a barrel of
oil is the same as producing one, and we waste an enormous amount of
energy. The bill has an efficiency title that is very important, with
standards on everything we use every day, such as appliances and so on.
It also has a renewables provision that is very important. We want to
support and encourage renewable energy. Growing energy in our farm
fields makes a lot more sense than requiring energy from under the
sands of Saudi Arabia. There are biodiesel, ethanol, wind, geothermal,
solar, and so many other forms of renewable energy.
Finally, there is a title that I played a significant role in helping
to write, in addition to ethanol and others, and that is the hydrogen
title. I believe we will ultimately have to pole-vault to a different
kind of energy future. If our grandchildren are still running gasoline
through carburetors, such as in the old cars or the fuel injectors that
are on the new cars, then we have failed. If the automobiles on our
roads are still consuming gasoline through the fuel injectors, then we
have failed. That is why I believe the hydrogen and fuel cell future is
our future. Hydrogen is everywhere. The fact is, with hydrogen and fuel
cells, you get twice the efficiency of power to the wheel and water
vapor off the tailpipe. We will get twice the efficiency of power to
the wheel, and we can escape the addiction to gasoline for our
vehicles. That is the futuristic approach to the title in this bill
that deals with hydrogen and fuel cells.
Mr. President, we have done some awfully good work here, in my
judgment. I will support an amendment that sets targets and timetables
to be even more aggressive and to reduce dependence on foreign oil by
40 percent in 2020. We went to the Moon in 10 years, so we can
certainly achieve this in almost 20 years. It is kind of a fixation
with this ``black gold,'' as they call it, that we have had in this
country, for a long, long time. We need it. We need it desperately to
run our economy.
I remember when I was a small boy--and I grew up in a town of 300
people--they drilled an oil well 2 miles outside of town. In a town of
300 people, there is not a lot going on, except on a Saturday night
when the bars are open and the barber gives haircuts until midnight and
the cafe; stays open until midnight and the town is full of cars from
farmers. There is not a lot going on in that town of 300 people, except
for that Saturday night, when an oil well was drilled, and they put up
the oil rig 2 miles from town. I remember that everybody from town
would drive out there almost every day to look at the oil rig and all
those lights. It was exciting. Nothing happened, nothing moved. It
shined. It was the only thing around that shined. So you would drive
out there and sit and watch that oil well. As they were digging with
that big rig and all of the flashing lights, we thought this is going
to change our life forever. It turns out it was a dry hole. I have
never forgotten the excitement of the search for oil, the building of
the rig, the lighting of the rig.
This country has been transfixed by that for well over a century and
a half now. But the fact is, we are living on borrowed time for the
kind of economy we have produced in this country, if we believe we can
continue without change. That is why this bill is such an important
piece of legislation.
I have mentioned a few of the areas in this legislation that are
important. I don't want to go into great detail, but ethanol is a
critically important alternative source of energy. As I said, growing
energy in the fields is a wonderful way to extend America's energy
supply. Biodiesel, exactly the same. Wind energy--taking energy from
the wind in this country and turning it into electricity, using the
electricity through the process of hydrolysis to take hydrogen from
water and use it in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles--what a wonderful
promise for this country's energy future.
That is exactly what we do in this legislation. We set targets and
timetables in this legislation to try to convert America's vehicle
fleet to hydrogen fuel cells. That is why this is so important. We have
had now several years of stop and start and kind of stuttering around
on energy. It is time for all of us, the President and the Congress and
both political parties to understand the urgency of the need to get a
workable energy bill. Not just any other energy bill, but one that
looks to the future and relieves this dangerous addiction that we have
for foreign oil. I would love, someday, to be able to tell the Saudis
you can drink your oil, we don't need it; we are no longer dependent
upon oil under the sands of the Middle East. I would love to have that
opportunity. But we cannot now. If we are smart, and if we write an
energy bill, including the one that now comes to the floor of the
Senate and one we can improve, one that came out of the Energy
Committee by a vote of 21 to 1--if we stick to this through conference
and get a bill to the President, a good bill, I think this country will
recognize good work, and this country will recognize that its future is
far more secure because of what we have done.
I know the White House, today, issued a letter that said they are
going to oppose what is called a renewable portfolio standard; that is,
the move toward independence by requiring 10 percent of your
electricity to be made from renewables. Look, we understand there are
people who are going to oppose everything. That is the way it is. Mark
Twain once said he would always be happy to debate as long as he could
take the opposing side. He said it doesn't matter what the subject is,
the opposing side will take no preparation.

[[Page S6447]]

We understand about all these people who oppose everything. The White
House is opposing this standard that would require 10 percent of our
electricity to come from renewables. That makes no sense. What are they
thinking about?
Let us just write the best bill we can write. We have an awfully good
start on that thanks to Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman. When we
are done, we will have done something very significant for this
country's future.
I yield the floor and 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.

Amendment No. 775

(Purpose: To provide a substitute for the bill)

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the committee substitute is at the desk.
I ask for its consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Domenici] proposes an
amendment numbered 775.

(The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of
Amendments.'')
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the substitute is
agreed to and is considered as original text for amendment.
The amendment (No. 775) was agreed to.
Mr. DOMENICI. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. I am going to depart the floor and let the managers manage
this bill, as they should. They are some of our most experienced
Senators. The only thing I want to make sure is that the record is
clear that following the offering of the amendment the Senator from New
Mexico, or someone in his stead, is going to offer an ethanol
amendment, and that the next amendment in order would be the Cantwell
amendment.
Mr. DOMENICI. Reserving the right to object, does the Senator
understand there may be some amendments to ethanol?
Mr. REID. Of course, I certainly understand that. I am only talking
about first-degree amendments.
Mr. DOMENICI. I have no objection.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. I am waiting now momentarily for the final text of the
ethanol amendment.
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 the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Amendment No. 779

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask
for its immediate consideration. This amendment is the ethanol
amendment. It is bipartisan in nature. I offer it in behalf of myself
and Senators Thune, Harkin, Lugar, Dorgan, Frist, Obama, Grassley,
Bayh, Bond, Nelson of Nebraska, Brownback, Hagel, Conrad, DeWine,
Dayton, Talent, Stabenow, Coleman, and Salazar.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Domenici], for himself,
Mr. Thune, Mr. Harkin, Mr. Lugar, Mr. Dorgan, Mr. Frist, Mr.
Obama, Mr. Grassley, Mr. Bayh, Mr. Bond, Mr. Nelson of
Nebraska, Mr. Brownback, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Hagel, Mr. Conrad,
Mr. DeWine, Mr. Dayton, Mr. Talent, Ms. Stabenow, Mr.
Coleman, and Mr. Salazar, proposes an amendment numbered 779.

(The Amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of
Amendments.'')
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am sure this matter will take a little
bit of time this afternoon, and from what we understand--I am not
assured--there may be one, maybe two, perhaps even three amendments.
But this is an amendment that has been worked on by Republican and
Democrat members of the Environment and Public Works Committee and the
Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Essentially, from the energy
and natural resources bill it has the 8 billion gallons, but the rest
of the language has been worked out with most of the jurisdiction going
back to the Environment and Public Works Committee rather than the
Energy Committee.
Let me say I am pleased with the agreement, the improvement that is
included in it. For that I am grateful to Chairman Inhofe and his
staff. They have helped immeasurably. Senators Talent and Johnson and
Feinstein and Cantwell have been very helpful during the Energy
Committee considerations. Chairman Inhofe's assistance has been
invaluable after we had done our work in our committee.
We now have before us what I think is a very important amendment, one
that helps us make a significant step forward in the development of a
domestic renewable resource.
This represents progress toward developing transport fuels made from
domestic sources that can lessen dependence on foreign oil to meet our
fuel needs. Congress has been working on the renewable fuel standard
for nearly 6 years. I hope this will be the year that it passes. I
fully support our raising the expectations that we have by including a
goal of 8 billion gallons of ethanol in the national motor fuel mix by
2012. It is my firm belief that we must take every opportunity
available in order that we help ourselves to produce more of the fuel
that is part of our transportation activity in this great country.
In addition to making us less dependent on foreign sources for
energy, increasing the production of domestic ethanol will help keep
within our economy dollars that would otherwise be spent acquiring
energy from overseas. And it will create jobs. One important analysis
suggests that an 8 billion gallon renewable fuel standard will benefit
the economy greatly. That analysis suggests it will reduce crude oil
imports by 2 billion barrels; that, coupled with the 1 billion we have
mandated in our bill, makes 3 billion, and it will reduce the outflow
of dollars to foreign oil producers by $64 billion. It would create
234,000 jobs in all sectors of the economy, and clearly in many of the
very large rural States of the West and Southwest.
It would add about $200 billion to the GDP between 2005 and 2012. It
could create $6 billion in new investments. That is a significant
infrastructure addition to our country. And it could increase--in fact,
this study says it would increase--household incomes by about $43
billion.
The amendment also makes provision for increasing our output of
biofuels from cellulosic biomass. Many in industry and the scientific
community believe that this area holds enormous promise for vastly
increasing domestic production of ethanol from this renewable resource.
The Energy Information Administration estimates that oil consumption
and crude oil and finished petroleum product imports will continue to
rise. Further, with gasoline prices hovering at record levels and
domestic crude oil production declining, it strikes this Senator that
we should be doing everything we can to maximize the production and use
of clean, renewable, domestically produced energy such as ethanol and
biodiesel.
Finally, I want to remind my colleagues that in our spirit of
bipartisanship on the Energy Committee that amendments were included
allowing a seasonal adjustment for California and increases in the use
of biofuels sponsored by Senators Feinstein and Cantwell, respectively.
Now, we are prepared to begin consideration of any amendments our
colleagues would like to offer to this amendment.
With that, I yield the floor and designate on our side that Senator
Larry Craig manage the bill.
I have checked this with the other side. There was a unanimous
consent request that this amendment would be introduced now as the
first amendment.
The unanimous consent request said then the Cantwell amendment would
be introduced. I ask that be vitiated.
So we know what will happen, instead of that, the record reflects we
will follow this tradition of the Senate, and after the ethanol
amendment we

[[Page S6448]]

will go to the Democrat side, to the distinguished minority leader or
his designee, for offering of an amendment of their choosing.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coleman). Is there an objection to
vitiating the request?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. I yield the floor.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I encourage all of our colleagues who wish
to engage in the debate on this major national energy policy from the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to come to the Senate.
We have the ethanol section that came out of committee with some
identification now on the floor for debate and ultimately a vote that
allows anyone who chooses to come to debate this or the whole
legislation.
I will become involved with my colleagues over the course of the
afternoon and tomorrow in debating not only the total substance of the
bill, which is tremendously positive and puts this Nation on a path
forward toward an abundance of energy sources, but it also recognizes
all of the technologies are involved.
If I were to give this bill a title that the American public ought to
refer to it as, I would call it ``America's Clean Energy Act'' because
I think all we are about now and into the future as we adjust
technologies, as we improve old forms of energy, as we bring old forms
into the new economy, all of them by definition, we are going to ask on
behalf of the American people for the cleaner source, and in many
instances, very clean sources.
I yield the floor for any who wish to debate the issue.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Idaho for his
leadership and work on this issue.
I note the Senator from Florida is here. I will make my remarks on
the bill if he has time for me to do that. A lot of hard work has gone
into it.
I like the title the Senator from Idaho suggested, ``American Clean
Energy Act.'' I hope to explain why.
Let me step back a little bit and try to put what we are debating in
some context. September 11 was a terrible surprise for this country.
But we now know it shouldn't have been. During the 1980s and the 1990s
terrorists attacked American interests around the world. If we had paid
more attention then, we might not have been surprised on September 11,
2001.
The next big surprise to the United States will be to our
pocketbooks, to our ability to keep our jobs, and our high standard of
living in a more competitive world marketplace. We can avoid this
surprise if we pay attention to the warning signs. Many of these
warning signs have to do with energy. Suddenly, instead of the lowest
natural gas prices in the industrialized world, we have in our country
the highest natural gas prices in the industrialized world. Gasoline
prices at the pump are at record levels. China and India are increasing
their demand for energy and their purchases of oil reserves to supply
it, which drives prices up. Because of high natural gas prices,
manufacturing and chemical jobs are moving overseas, farmers are taking
a pay cut, and consumers are paying too much to heat and cool their
homes.
We can avoid this next big surprise, a surprise to our pocketbooks,
by enacting, as the Senator from Idaho called it, an American Clean
Energy Act that does the following things: First, lowers the price of
natural gas to American consumers. The price of natural gas to American
consumers is at about $7 a unit. Our economy was built on natural gas
that cost $2 or $3 a unit. If you work at Eastman Chemical in eastern
Tennessee, an area which has thousands of chemical jobs where blue-
collar workers and white-collar workers have had good wages for a long
time, this causes a massive problem because natural gas is the raw
material producing chemicals. If natural gas can be purchased overseas
at one-half, 60 percent, or 70 percent of the cost here, and if natural
gas is 40 percent of the cost of producing the chemical, where do you
suppose the 1 million blue-collar chemical industry jobs are going to
be 10 years from now? Not in Kingsport, TN. Not around this country.
First we need to lower the price of natural gas for blue-collar
workers. We need to lower it for farmers who are paying expensive
amounts for fertilizer. We need to lower it for homeowners.
Second, we need to help to increase the supply of oil worldwide and
reduce the growth of our dependence on oil. The Senator from North
Dakota mentioned earlier we need to get over our addiction to foreign
oil. It would be nice if we could just forget it, but we are not going
to be able to forget it. What we need to do, realistically, is to
increase the supply of oil worldwide because China and India and Brazil
and Singapore and Malaysia all look over here and see we have 5 percent
of the people, a third of the money, and we are consuming 25 percent of
the energy. They want some of the action, too. So they are buying up
oil reserves and keeping their smart people home and creating a demand
that raises our prices. And for the foreseeable future we will have to
depend upon some foreign oil. But we need to begin to reduce the growth
of our dependence on oil. This bill does that.
Third, we need to move our country toward a more reliable supply of
low cost, American-produced energy, especially nuclear power, which
produces 70 percent of all of the carbon-free energy produced in the
United States today. Let me repeat that: Nuclear power, a technology we
invented in the United States, produces 20 percent of our electricity,
but produces 70 percent of all of the carbon-free energy we have in the
United States today.
Coal gasification and carbon sequestration are such long words that
it took me a long time to figure out what we were talking about. We are
talking about taking coal--which we have a 400-year supply of in this
country--turning it into gas, and then making electricity out of the
gas.
For States such as Ohio, where the Presiding Officer is from, or
Tennessee, where I am from, and where we struggle with air pollution
problems, it gets rid of the sulfur air pollution problems and gets rid
of nitrogen and mercury and just leaves carbon. If we can advance our
research and development for carbon sequestration--that is, capturing
that carbon and putting it in the ground--then we will have for
ourselves and for the world a transformed way of producing electricity
that will provide a low-cost, reliable supply of American-produced
clean energy in the amounts we need.
Finally, we need to produce energy in a way that as much as possible
clears our air of sulfur, of nitrogen, of mercury, and of carbon. This
should all add up to an American Clean Energy Act of 2005, legislation
that puts our country on the path toward an adequate, low-cost supply
of reliable, American-produced clean energy.
To accomplish this goal we must have aggressive changes in policy--
and many of those are in this legislation as it is reported to this
committee--aggressive energy efficiency and conservation, aggressively
transforming the way we produce electricity, such as advanced nuclear
or coal gasification and carbon sequestration, aggressively researching
for new domestic supplies of energy, aggressively importing for the
time being liquefied natural gas and aggressive research and
development into new forms of energy.
I believe we were fortunate we could not pass an energy bill last
year because circumstances have changed, and they have made this a
better piece of legislation more likely to reach the broad goals I just
mentioned. Specifically, high natural gas and oil prices this year make
the situation more urgent.
Next, because of this urgency, perhaps we better understand the
threat to our jobs from the growing demand for energy in India and
China and other parts of the world. Next, because of the time we have
spent in hearings and debates--and Senator Craig and I and Senator
Martinez and Democrat members, Senator Domenici, Senator Bingaman, we
have had long hearings on coal, long hearings on nuclear, long hearings
on gas--we have a better understanding of the new technology and what
the emerging consensus is in this country, especially regarding nuclear
and coal gasification and carbon sequestration.

I think, in our committee, we have a near consensus about the
direction in which we ought to go on this very new way of going. That
is an important development. We also see more clearly

[[Page S6449]]

the essential relationship between a clean Energy bill, which this is,
and clean air legislation. So we come to the floor for debate not only
with a better clean Energy bill, but, as Senator Cantwell from
Washington said at the end of our marking up of the committee bill,
with a cleaner process.
Everyone on the committee has had his or her say. Now, not all of us
got our way, but all of us had our say. And we had many votes. As
Senator Bingaman said, they were almost never party-line votes. But
they reflected the different opinions and different regions of the
members of the committee. As a result, we come to this floor with only
one dissenting vote in the committee of 22.
This bipartisanship, which has been mentioned many times, is the
result of a lot of hard work and patience by the chairman and ranking
member of our committee, Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman. They
have shown patience, they have shown tolerance, they have swallowed
hard sometimes, and they deserve a lot of thanks for this legislation.
They have led us down a very good path.
Now we have a chance to make the bill even stronger. The Finance
Committee will recommend to us later this week tax incentives to
further our goals. We will debate those. Then there are some important
issues to be resolved about which we have some very different opinions,
such as the Senator from North Dakota said we need to get rid of our
addiction to foreign oil. Some people like CAFE standard increases.
Some people like, as I do, incentives for hybrid cars, the efficient
dispatch of natural gas; meaning encouraging States to send out of the
most efficient natural gas plants, first, the gas we use. The committee
did not adopt that, but I still think it is a good idea. We may hear
from it again, maybe in an amended form.
A proposed renewable portfolio standard: The Senator from New Mexico,
Senator Bingaman, may propose that or others may. He thinks it is a
good idea. I think it is a bad idea. I think it is a tax on lots of
people around our country who will not be building windmills and who do
not need to pay higher taxes. They cannot afford it. I think it is an
unnecessary Federal rule, when we have 17 States which, in their own
ways, already have renewable portfolio standards. But we will have a
chance to debate that and vote on it and come to a conclusion.
We will be talking about carbon and global warming. There are a great
many ideas afloat within this Senate about that. I think it is fair to
say there is a growing consensus about needing to produce carbon-free
or low-carbon energy. There is not a consensus yet on what to mandate
or what to order. There is a debate about the proper allocation of
resources to encourage renewable energy. Renewable fuel is about 2
percent of all the fuel we use in the United States. Renewable energy,
other than hydro dams--water over dams--is about 2 percent of all that
we use. It is not going to be that much more. So we need to make sure
that, within the renewable fuels, we equitably allocate the dollars
that are spent as between geothermal and solar, for example, or solar
and wind, for example, and that we make sure we are spending scarce
dollars for programs and policies and incentives that will produce the
largest amount of carbon-free or low-carbon energy.
So I am confident we can deal with these issues and create an even
stronger bill as we go to conference with the House of Representatives.
It is fashionable and correct to say these days that to help us get a
bill through our committee to meet our energy needs, we need every kind
of energy. I suppose if somebody proposed subsidizing building bonfires
in the front yard to heat our house, we would probably put it in just
to get a consensus in trying to move it all the way through.
But it is also correct, and I believe more important, especially when
we are challenged, as we are today, economically, to say we need
priorities. So let me say, briefly, after participating in these 2
years of discussions and hearings, what this one Senator believes our
priorities ought to be if we really want to have an adequate, reliable
supply of American-produced clean energy so we can keep our jobs and
our high standard of living and a more competitive world marketplace.
First, energy efficiency and conservation. Coming from the Republican
side of the aisle, someone might say: That sounds a little odd. Maybe
you don't really mean that. Maybe you are just saying that to make
Democrats feel better. No. Energy efficiency and conservation is the
best strategy for immediately moderating natural gas prices and
stabilizing longer term markets. In other words, if we really want to
lower the price of natural gas from $7, the place to start is
conservation and energy efficiency. It will do it quicker and faster
than anything else.
For example, the appliance efficiency standards in this legislation,
which are twice as strong as last year's bill, should avoid the
building of 45 natural gas powerplants of 500 megawatts each and will
save consumers and businesses more than $57 billion through 2030,
according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. So
45 natural gas powerplants avoided.
The legislation also includes a 4-year national consumer education
program that, when used in California, helped produce a 10-percent cut
in peak demand, the equivalent of power produced by another 11 500-
megawatt powerplants. If we were to strengthen the bill by adding a
provision to encourage utilities to use first the electricity most
efficiently produced from natural gas, we could save even more.
The oil savings amendment in this legislation will encourage the
savings of 1 million barrels of oil per day--per day--by the year 2015,
about the amount of energy produced by the projected drilling in ANWR.
It is also about the same amount of oil produced in onshore drilling in
the State of Texas. It is my hope that the tax incentive provisions
recommended by the Finance Committee will include the proposal of the
National Commission on Energy Policy, which Senator Bingaman has talked
about, to encourage the purchase of hybrid and advanced low diesel
vehicles with a $2,000 tax deduction, as well as tax incentives to
encourage the retooling of plants in the United States to build those
vehicles, which would add another 39,000 auto manufacturing jobs.
In other words, we do not want to create an incentive to build hybrid
vehicles and have them all built in Japan. We would like to have those
39,000 manufacturing jobs in Minnesota and Tennessee and other States.
A second priority would be increased supply of domestic natural gas.
The next section of this legislation that would have the most immediate
impact on natural gas prices is the section streamlining the permitting
of facilities for bringing liquefied natural gas, LNG, from overseas to
the United States. It gives the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,
FERC, we call it, the authority for siting and regulating these
liquefied natural gas terminals.
It preserves States' authorities under the Coastal Zone Management
Act and other acts. This would make it easier to import, for the time
being, LNG from overseas, which is then added to our pipelines. To do
this, requires large terminals in which to temporarily store the gas.
We only have four such terminals. There are nearly three dozen
applications pending for more terminals--some onshore, some offshore--
but the application process is laborious. This legislation accelerates
the decisionmaking process, while preserving a proper amount of input
from local governments about the location of these terminals.
In addition, I believe it is time to explore, where appropriate, more
of the vast natural gas reserves that we have offshore. This can be
done in ways that do not harm the coastlines or the landscapes.
Drilling rigs can be put far offshore so they cannot be seen. States
can be given the option of deciding whether they will permit such
drilling and, in the process, collect some of the revenues.
I see the Senator from Florida waiting to speak. I saw his map a
little earlier, and I know he is likely to talk about this subject. My
feeling about this is that if Virginia or North Carolina or Florida
agree that they would like to put oil and gas rigs so far offshore they
cannot see them, and use some of those revenues to build up their
universities or lower their property taxes, I think they should be able
to. But if the State of North Carolina

[[Page S6450]]

or Florida does not want to see those things and does not want them at
all, I think they should have that option as well. Those are a number
of things that would increase the supply of natural gas.

After conservation, after increased supply of LNG and domestic gas,
my third priority would be a new generation of nuclear power. This
legislation needs to include $2 billion for research and development
and loan guarantees to help start at least two new advanced technology
nuclear powerplants. The Senator from Idaho is a leader in this work.
So are both Senators from New Mexico. After conservation and increased
supplies of natural gas, expanding and building new nuclear powerplants
stands virtually alone as America's best option for an immediate,
substantial, and reliable supply of American-produced clean energy.
Why is that? One hundred and three nuclear powerplants today produce
20 percent of America's energy, almost 70 percent of our carbon-free
electricity. This is a technology we invented. Since the 1950s, the
U.S. Navy has operated dozens of reactors--does so today--without ever
a single incident, regularly docking at ports on our coasts. France is
today 80 percent powered by nuclear power. Japan is adding a nuclear
powerplant a year. Yet the Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry
plant is the first substantial nuclear startup since the 1970s.
If we are talking about carbon-free electricity, nuclear power is
already 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity. In an economy this
big, after we get through with conservation, after we import more LNG,
nuclear power stands alone as our best option to have large amounts of
carbon-free electricity, and we need to get on with it.
Fourth, waiting in the wings is coal gasification and carbon
sequestration. It is often said that America is the Saudi Arabia of
coal. We have a 500-year supply. Some say 400; some say 500. We have a
lot. We have the technology to turn the coal into the gas and then burn
the gas to make electricity in a way that eliminates most of the
nitrogen, sulfur, and mercury. That would put every county in Tennessee
in compliance with Federal clean air standards. The Smoky Mountains
would still be smoky, but they wouldn't be smoggy. It would clean the
air.
We are on the edge of being able also to recapture the carbon
produced in this process and store it underground. If we can add this
clean coal process to nuclear power, one, we will lower natural gas
prices for farmers, homeowners, and blue-collar workers because it will
not be as necessary to use natural gas to make electricity; and, two,
we will have an adequate supply of low-cost, carbon-free energy that is
much less dependent on foreign sources.
If we want to do as the Senator from North Dakota indicated earlier--
get rid of our addiction to foreign oil--we know the way to do it. A
lot of the provisions are in this bill: First, conservation and
efficiency; second, increased supplies of natural gas, which is clean;
third, nuclear power; and fourth, coal gasification and sequestration.
If we did that, we would transform the way we produce energy, and we
would have a true American clean energy bill.
Coal gasification and carbon sequestration would clean the air of
major pollutants and, importantly, show the rest of the world how to do
it. A point I learned not long ago was that some of the major
environmental groups support a coal strategy to clean the air. Because
if the United States perfects coal gasification and sequestration, then
China and India and Singapore and others will do it. If we do not, they
will go ahead building conventional coal plants which are dirtier. If
we are really interested in clean air, in carbon-free air around the
world, this is the strategy we will follow.
It is my hope that the loan guarantees and tax incentives in this
legislation will include $2 billion in tax incentives for the
deployment of six coal gasification plants by 2013 and loan guarantees
for industrial site commercial applications. For carbon capturing
sequestration from coal plants, we need $1.5 billion in research to
demonstrate commercial-scale carbon recapture and geologic
sequestration at a variety of sites. Substantially, these provisions
are in the legislation Senator Johnson of South Dakota and I offered
which we called the Lower Natural Gas Prices Reduction Act of 2005, and
many of the provisions are in this bill.
I have a couple of more priorities, and then I will be glad to yield
the floor. I see others waiting.
Fifth, research and development--if we are to transform the way we
make electricity, we have to accelerate research and development of
these projects. Developing advanced nuclear reactors with a lower
construction cost should be the first priority, if we really want
carbon-free electricity. Next should come demonstration projects for
large-scale carbon sequestration because if it succeeds, it could
transform clean energy not just here but everywhere. Accelerated
research into hydrogen production, as Senators Dorgan, Akaka, and
others have advocated, should come next, keeping in mind that it is
several years down the road. It will require nuclear or coal or natural
gas powerplants to produce the hydrogen. Then for the longer term
should come fusion.
Finally, a word on renewable fuels and energy as a final priority.
About 2 percent of fuel for our vehicles is renewable fuel, chiefly
from corn-based ethanol. About 2 percent of our electricity is produced
by nonhydro renewable energy, chiefly biomass, which we burn, wind,
solar, and geothermal, hot air coming out of the ground. Our objective
should be to encourage R&D and breakthroughs that help these small
numbers become bigger so that renewables make greater contributions.
This legislation includes authority for such research. For example, new
advances in solar technology suggest that solar shingles on house tops
and businesses may have significant potential.
It is important to make our financial subsidy for these renewable
sources equitable among themselves. For example, the renewable
production tax credit in the Federal Tax Code today has already
committed billions over the next 5 years--I believe the accurate figure
is about $2 billion for the next 5 years--almost all to wind power,
almost nothing to solar. That is not right. We should have advances in
solar. And to the extent we want to put money behind renewable energy,
solar and geothermal, as well as wind, should have an opportunity to
succeed. Hopefully, this legislation will correct that by creating a
new investment tax credit for solar energy such as the one Senator
Johnson and I introduced earlier this year which would make it
available to homes and businesses and would cost $380 million over 5
years.
We also need to make sure that these tax dollars are spent for
renewables to help launch new technologies, not permanently subsidize
them, and that the amount of money spent bears some relationship to our
total energy. For example, extending the production tax credit for 3
more years, as it is written, would mean taxpayers would be spending a
total of about $3 billion over the next 5 years building huge windmills
that when the wind blows provide little more than 1 percent of our
electricity needs.

By comparison to that $3 billion over 5 years, the Budget Committee
has told us we can only spend $11 billion on the entire Energy bill. I
would suggest we seriously consider instead of allocating $3 billion to
windmills, we might spend $500 million to extend the $2,000 tax
deduction for the purchase of a million new hybrid and advanced diesel
vehicles, provide $750 million for retooling the plants in which to
make the vehicles and make sure they are here in the United States.
That is 39,000 new auto manufacturing jobs, according to the National
Commission on Energy Policy. We might provide a half a billion dollars
for carbon sequestration demonstrations, and we might have $1.25
billion left over to launch advanced nuclear reactors and a new
generation of clean coal gasification plants.
There are many ways to add up these dollars. We need to make sure the
numbers I am talking about are exactly right. But basically that is $3
billion for windmills. I am suggesting we might be able to spend it
more effectively if we really want carbon-free electricity.
These are one Senator's priorities for producing an American Clean
Energy Act of 2005. Only steps like these will produce adequate
conservation and an adequate supply of reliable, low-cost,

[[Page S6451]]

American-produced clean energy. Only steps like these will lower
natural gas prices, which we can and must do, reduce the growth of our
dependence on oil, and save the United States from the next big
surprise, the surprise to our pocketbooks if we fail to prepare for the
oncoming energy crisis.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, Senator Alexander,
for the tremendous level of involvement and importance he placed on
this issue of energy, as a full participant in the committee, there to
talk about, look at, research, and find answers for many of the
proposals that are embodied in this critical piece of legislation. I
thank him as a major contributor to this issue. He has well laid out
this afternoon the importance of this legislation and getting this
country back into the business of producing energy but also under that
critical new caveat of clean energy that we see and believe to be so
important to all of us.
I see the junior Senator from Florida on the floor, who, like the
Senator from Tennessee, has been a major participant as a new member of
our Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Already his important
fingerprints are on this major piece of energy legislation.
I yield to the Senator from Florida.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.
Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his comments. I
appreciate the opportunity that the chairman, ranking member, and other
members have given me to work on this important piece of legislation.
As the Senator alluded, I came late to the work of this committee on
this bill, having joined the Senate just this year. Much of the work
had previously been done. I am grateful for this opportunity and for
the deference the chairman has shown and for the opportunity to work on
these important issues.
I compliment the Senator from Tennessee for his comments. I thank him
for doing a thorough review of the entire bill. I appreciate the
comprehensive way in which he analyzed it. I have appreciated greatly
his passion on certain aspects of this bill and his great understanding
of all of the issues that it raises. I appreciate very much his review
of the entire bill.
Today, as he forecasted, I rise to speak on an issue which is of
great concern to the people of Florida. The people of my State are very
concerned about development of offshore energy resources in what has
been known as the Eastern Planning Zone of the Gulf of Mexico.
As my colleagues are aware, in this bill is an inventory amendment
that I will work to strike from the bill. There are also efforts to
attach additional language to the Energy bill that I believe would be a
poison pill and counter to what this bill is all about; namely, this
bill is about conservation, new technologies, and jobs.
I further thank the chairman of the committee, Senator Domenici, and
the ranking member, Senator Bingaman, for the fine work they have done
in crafting a bipartisan, comprehensive, and significant package that
diversifies America's energy supply, increases conservation and
production, and employs innovative technologies to meet America's
energy needs. I thank the chairman and ranking member for allowing me
to be part of this process and this legislation.
As the chairman himself has said, this bill will make a real
difference in America's energy landscape. I am proud to have voted for
this legislation in committee, and I look forward to voting for it on
the floor--if we can address some areas that are critical to my State's
future, environmentally, economically, and even militarily.
Mr. President, in the Energy bill that we are considering, there is a
provision that requires an inventory of oil and natural gas resources
on the Outer Continental Shelf. I opposed this amendment in committee
because it contains something we in Florida don't want, it starts
something that we in the United States do not need, and it opens the
door to a number of problems--environmental problems, economic
problems, and unnecessary challenges for our military. Why would we
inventory an area where we are never going to drill?
The inventory language in the Energy bill is a huge problem for
Florida. It tantalizes prodrilling interests. Allowing an inventory is
like saying to prodrilling States, ``Come and get it.'' I have received
assurances from my friends on the other side of this issue that States
such as Florida--States that do not want drilling on their coast--will
not have to take it. Fine. That is Florida's position. I can clearly
state that we do not want drilling now, and I do not see a scenario
anywhere on the horizon where we could change that position. So why,
given our objection to drilling, would we spend the resources and
damage the environment on the Eastern Planning Zone to do this
inventory?

An inventory is not a benign thing. It involves detonating
explosives, enough to shake the crust of the Earth, listen to what
comes back, and, in the meantime, we may also destroy fragile sea life.
Just briefly, if you look at the cost of this inventory, people in
the Minerals Management Service tell me that to use the most up-to-date
technology to perform any inventory of this magnitude, the cost
estimate would run between $75 million and $125 million for each
frontier planning area. Nowhere in this legislation can I find a
section that suggests how we recoup the cost of such an inventory.
So I look forward to working with Senator Domenici and my colleagues
to find a solution to this question of the inventory--something that
would preserve the inventory option for those States that want it and
let States such as Florida remain unaffected.
But worse than the inventory is what are being called the ``coastal
killer'' amendments. We don't know when these amendments will be
offered or if they will be offered, but the language first came up in
committee, eventually withdrawn, and the nature of these amendments
could be so devastating to Florida that I believe they ought to be
addressed today. I am pleased that my colleague, the senior Senator
from Florida, addressed them today. These amendments should be
explained, and I am here to argue that these amendments must be and
ought to be rejected.
The amendments aim at three things: drawing brandnew, unprecedented
boundaries for each State, allowing States to opt out of the
moratorium, and creating huge incentives for States to opt out of the
Federal moratorium. If these amendments were to become law, that buffer
zone shrinks to just 21 miles--well below what it is today. Let me be
clear: 21 miles is no buffer zone, and it is of no comfort to
Floridians.
If we open additional drilling in the Eastern Planning Zone, it will
damage the fragile ecosystem, Florida's economy, and it will pull the
rug out from under the military that has made the commitment--an
increased commitment--and made the investments and moved a majority of
their training operations from Vieques and other places to the clear
coastal waters of Florida.
Mr. President, to say that these coastal killer amendments are giving
States the freedom to choose is ignoring the fact that Florida will be
losing its choice. We will stay in the moratorium, but if Alabama opts
out, you bring drilling to Florida's shores--whether we like it or not.
It is this aggressive effort to wade into what has traditionally been
Florida's buffer zone that has drawn opposition. The Eastern Planning
Zone must not be opened.
For those who do not know the location of the Eastern Planning Zone
in the Gulf of Mexico, let me show you this chart. The Eastern Planning
Zone is in this area, which is clean and clear, as you can see. There
are active leases in the gulf. Note that this portion of the gulf is
literally tapped out. This is the area where drilling and leases are
active at the current time--off Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi,
where it is literally covered up. When we think about this area, the
Eastern Planning Zone, which is right here, we just don't care in
Florida to see this kind of encroachment on our pristine coastline, our
ecosystems, as it is over here. So for those of us who believe our
boundary is here and that east of this we should exercise some control
and some mandate, we simply do not care to see any change in the status
quo.
Oil and gas companies are now looking at this portion of the map--
Florida's coastal area--and thinking, Let's

[[Page S6452]]

open that area. To my colleagues, I say, as Senator Nelson said before
me, the answer to that is simply no.
Last year, more than 74 million people visited Florida to enjoy its
coastline and wonderful climate. Families return year after year to
their favorite vacation spots to relax under our brilliant blue skies,
at powdery white beaches, and our crystal-clear emerald waters.
The people of Florida share a love and appreciation of the Atlantic
Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, its coastal habitat and our wetlands,
which make a very complex ecosystem, and also a very special place to
live.

I share these facts for one reason: The people of Florida are
concerned their coastal waters are coming under increased pressure to
exploit possible oil and gas resources. The people of Florida do not
want that to happen. Floridians are adamantly opposed to oil and gas
exploration off our coastal waters. We have serious concerns that
offshore drilling will increase the threat of potential oil spills,
seriously damaging and threatening marine wildlife and their coastal
habitat.
In addition, Floridians are extremely concerned that drilling
operations would produce massive amounts of waste mud and drill
cuttings that would be generated and then sent untreated into the
surrounding waters.
Of the 74 million people who have visited the Sunshine State in 2004
to enjoy its beautiful beaches, exciting amusement parks, and
wonderfully abundant wildlife and natural splendor, I daresay not a one
of those people came to Florida without spending some of their hard-
earned dollars.
Here is what tourism means to Florida: 840,000 people directly
employed in the industry and an economic impact of $46 billion a year
to our State's economy. If the unforeseeable happens, whether it is a
hurricane, an industrial accident, an intentional or terrorist act, and
our coastlines become soaked with oil, there is no amount of relief aid
that can clean up the economic disaster that would be Florida's. Entire
communities would be totally devastated.
At the end of the day, what I would like to see is for us to codify
in law positions that are supported by me, the senior Senator from
Florida, Bill Nelson, and Florida's citizens. Our view is that we must
prevent any further encroachment into Florida's waters and coastline.
This is necessary to protect our tourism industry and the pristine
beaches and coastal areas that would be ruined if an unfortunate oil
spill or disaster took place.
Perhaps one of the most compelling arguments entails what drilling in
the area of the Eastern Planning Zone would mean to national security.
We cannot ignore the fact that lifting Florida's protections will put
our military at a training disadvantage. Let me repeat: Lifting
Florida's protections will put our military at a training disadvantage.
Let me highlight just some of the military operations that use this
platform-free zone for training. We have to allow our military to
continue training for battle preparedness. Our young men and women
deserve the best training we can afford. Vieques gave them that
capability. Now that Vieques in Puerto Rico is closed, Florida's
Panhandle plays an increasingly significant role. Oil and gas
operations must not be allowed to impede on that training.
Keep in mind, drilling in Florida's part of the gulf is not a new
argument. This is something that has been attempted for some time. Here
is what MG Michael Kostelnik, the base commander of Eglin Air Force
Base, said in May of 2000:

We continue to place the most severe restrictions in the
eastern portion of the proposed sale area where oil and gas
operations would be incompatible with military training and
testing operations.

If we allow drilling there now, the military will be set back in
their training, their preparedness, and moved back to square one in
trying to find an area suitable for this kind of massive military joint
operation.
This is a question of national security, and it is why in this area
of Florida, where there is great land mass available to the military,
as well as this entire gulf area, for training operations, that in this
BRAC process Florida did rather well, and in fact we saw increases of
training commands coming to this area of Florida for the very reason of
what we have to offer, the environment and the pristine and open areas
for them to train.
I want to take a moment to discuss how we arrived at the position we
find ourselves in today. The distinguished Senator from Louisiana, Ms.
Landrieu, has stated publicly that she wants to be very respectful of
States that do not want drilling off their coast--they do want drilling
in Louisiana. I appreciate that sentiment and I feel the same respect
for the rights and privileges of the various States. In fact, that is
why we are here today.
The coastal killer amendments will weaken Florida's protections.
Under these amendments, the will of the people of Florida, which is to
keep drilling away from our shores, will be thwarted.
Senator Landrieu says she also wants to leave an option open for
States that might want to drill off their shore. There is much work to
do, but we must work to solve our Nation's energy problems without
looking to Florida's coasts. They are not open for consideration.
As many of my colleagues know, Senator Nelson and I are working
together to engage a coalition of Senators to help beat back any
efforts to encroach upon our coastal waters. I am proud to say in doing
so I follow in the footsteps of our predecessors, former Senators
Connie Mack and Bob Graham, and a bipartisan Florida delegation, in our
firm opposition to drilling off our coasts.
Let me again take a moment to praise Chairman Domenici and Ranking
Member Bingaman for putting together a comprehensive, bipartisan, and
significant energy policy that is forward looking, forward thinking,
and a road map of where we as a nation need to go in order to address
the challenges that confront us today.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MARTINEZ. Yes, I will yield.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from
Florida for an excellent and comprehensive statement where he has
touched on the things that threaten Florida--not only the environment,
not only the economy, particularly the pristine beaches, or our guests
who come as tourists, the military, but he has given an overview that I
think is excellent, and why in the process of debating this very
important Energy bill we need to come to a resolution that the existing
moratorium in the Outer Continental Shelf will not be lifted.
Senator Martinez and I represent the State of Florida, but there are
many other coastal Senators--I will name one whom I had breakfast with
this morning, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who also has an
economy in part based on tourism, the Myrtle Beach area. It is well
known. Does he want oil rigs off the coast of South Carolina? Of course
he does not.
We will find on the Pacific coast, on the Atlantic, as well as us,
concern about this eastern planning area, which includes this lease-
sale 181, that there are a bunch of Senators who see this as a direct
threat to us. Interestingly, the geology shows that there is not much
oil and gas there. We have had innumerable dry holes in the attempts at
drilling out in the gulf.
So I wanted to take the opportunity to thank Senator Martinez for an
excellent statement.
Mr. MARTINEZ. I thank the Senator. I appreciate the kind comments. I
also would like to say that I know Senator Burr is greatly concerned.
We sat side by side in the committee, and he shares the concerns for
the State of North Carolina and its coastline. What we see is a number
of Senators who choose to protect their own interests, their own
economies, and I also know the distinguished Senator from Louisiana is
looking out for their own economy. So what we have to do is find a way
that we can live and let live, not encroach, and allow each of the
States to make decisions based on their own perceived self-interests.
For a long time, Florida has been keeping our coastline clear.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, will the Senator from South Dakota yield
without losing his right to the floor?
Mr. JOHNSON. Certainly.

[[Page S6453]]

Mr. CRAIG. I ask my colleagues to consider that the ethanol title is
now before us. I believe there are several amendments out there, and we
would like to move this through in the next day or so. We would hope
that some of our colleagues who have those amendments would come to the
floor this late afternoon and evening and offer those amendments. So
for those listening and for those staffs who are aware, we would ask
them to bring those amendments forward so that we could consider them
as we move, we hope, in a timely fashion through this legislation.
I thank my colleague from South Dakota.
Mr. JOHNSON. I thank my friend and colleague from Idaho.
Mr. President, during the last 4 months, the Senate Energy and
Natural Resources Committee, on which I serve, has worked diligently
toward completing a balanced and comprehensive Energy bill. Through the
leadership of Chairman Domenici and Ranking Member Bingaman, the
committee moved forward in a bipartisan fashion toward improving the
reliability of our Nation's electricity grid, adopting provisions to
encourage Indian tribes to develop clean energy projects and took steps
toward addressing past manipulation of western electricity markets, all
the while moving to improve the energy efficiency of our economy.
The committee also adopted an amendment I offered along with
committee members--Senators Talent, Dorgan, and Salazar--in a
bipartisan fashion, once again, to increase the amount of renewable
fuels used in the Nation's gasoline supply.
The amendment before the Senate today creates an 8-billion-gallon
renewable fuel standard, RFS, that will lessen our dependence on
foreign sources of energy while increasing the availability of a clean
gasoline fuel extender. Implementing a renewable fuel standard is part
and parcel of our goal in producing a balanced and forward-looking
energy bill.

Why must we do more to promote and develop renewable fuels?
In 2003, net imports of crude oil accounted for 56 percent of our
domestic petroleum consumption. Americans will spend over $120 billion
in 2005 on foreign imports of oil. According to the Department of
Energy's Energy Information Administration, petroleum imports are
projected to reach 68 percent in 2025. This is simply untenable. We
need to harness new supplies and conserve better if we are to break
this dangerous dependence on foreign oil.
Renewable fuels--ethanol, biodiesel, and cellulosic biomass--are
grown, produced, and refined here in the United States. Those on the
right and the left of the political spectrum agree that we need to
increase the production of renewable fuels as one important tool toward
lessening our dependence on foreign oil.
In 2004, the United States produced almost 3.5 billion gallons of
ethanol. That level of renewable fuel production directly replaces
millions of barrels of foreign oil annually and reduces our trade
deficit, all the while creating jobs at home in the United States.
As States look for solutions to reduce petroleum fuel use, renewable
fuels keep appearing as a critical component to any strategy. Thus it
is no surprise that a May 2005 staff report by the California Energy
Commission determined that increasing to 10 percent the amount of
ethanol blended into a gallon of gasoline in California would reduce by
28 percent the amount of petroleum used in that State by 2025.
In addition to displacing imported oil, renewable fuels also lower
retail gasoline prices--lower gas prices for Americans. Contrary to
some of the falsehoods that some have tried to peddle, if these clean-
burning fuels disappeared from the marketplace tomorrow, your
constituents would pay more at the pump for a gallon of gasoline. At
the end of April, the average nationwide price for a gallon of gasoline
was $2.25, and the spot market for a gallon of wholesale ethanol is at
a price of $1.24 per gallon of ethanol--$2.25 per gallon for gasoline,
$1.24 per gallon of ethanol. It doesn't take a genius to figure that
the more ethanol blended in the gallon of gasoline, the lower the price
overall to consumers.
Perhaps the better question to ask is not why gasoline prices are so
high, but why isn't ethanol used more widely in the marketplace?
Apparently, there are many starting to ask that question, and not just
farmers and ethanol producers. On May 5, the California Independent Oil
Marketers Association wrote to the California Air Resources Board
seeking approval to use up to 10 percent ethanol blended gasoline in
the California market. In the letter to the California Air Resources
Board, the Independent Marketers state that using a 10-percent blend as
opposed to California's current 5.7-percent blend would provide more
stability to the State's fuel supply.
It is not just marketers seeking greater use of ethanol. The Consumer
Federation of America, in a May 2005 analysis on the difference between
gasoline and ethanol prices, concluded that because of the difference
between the wholesale price of ethanol and the average wholesale price
of gasoline, the consumers purchasing gasoline blended with 10 percent
ethanol are saving as much as 8 cents a gallon versus fuels not blended
with ethanol, lowering the price at the pump by 8 cents a gallon.
Renewable fuels, therefore, extend supplies, reduce dependence on
foreign oil, and lower prices at the pump for consumers.
The amendment before the Senate would phase in, over 7 years, a
nationwide renewable fuels standard of 8 billion gallons. Let me put
that in some perspective. In 2004, the United States consumed about 160
billion gallons of gasoline, and the U.S. domestic ethanol production
topped out at about 3.5 billion gallons--160 billion gallons of
gasoline, 3.5 billion gallons of ethanol.
With nearly a billion gallons of production under construction, the
previous effort to implement a 5-billion RFS by 2012 is woefully
inadequate to meet growing production. Phasing in an 8-billion-gallon
renewable fuel standard over 7 years can be accomplished. Increasing
production will meet the requirement, all the while creating 234,000
jobs and adding $20 billion in gross domestic production between 2005
and 2012.
This amendment will also create opportunities for cellulosic ethanol
and sugar cane ethanol and spurs biodiesel production in the South and
Western United States. The amendment includes language championed by my
colleague and friend, Senator Cantwell of Washington, which will
further incentivize cellulosic ethanol.
With record-high gasoline prices, with an ever-growing dependence on
foreign sources of energy, our Nation must do more to promote and
utilize renewable fuels. Creating a strong renewable fuel program that
captures biodiesel, ethanol, and other renewable energy sources must be
a cornerstone to the comprehensive energy bill.

Mr. President, it is with great satisfaction that I have this
opportunity to speak to the 8-billion RFS provision that was added to
the Energy Committee's bill which was voted out on a 22-to-1 passage of
the total bill and with great support of the ethanol provision in that
bill. I am confident that this body will maintain that 8-billion RFS
requirement.
All the more so, it is important because the House Energy bill
contains only a 5-billion-gallon RFS, a level that is simply
inadequate, that the ethanol industry is on the verge of outstripping
already even without an RFS. If we are going to be serious about
displacing billions of gallons of foreign petroleum, if we are going to
be serious about reducing the dependence on foreign petroleum, of
reducing our trade imbalance--which is imbalanced, in large measure,
because of the massive importation of petroleum--if we are going to
have a foreign policy and a military policy that is not impacted by the
need to protect and defend the oil lanes around the world in unstable
Third World areas, if we are going to create more jobs--not just in a
handful of communities but in rural communities across this country--if
we are going to drive up the prices that farmers get for their product
while at the same time giving them an opportunity to benefit from the
dividends of the stock they own in these ethanol plants, then it ought
to be obvious, whether you come from farm areas or urban areas, that
this RFS makes all the sense in the world, for the sake of our economy,
for the sake of clean air, for the sake of our foreign policy, for the
sake of trade policy, for the sake of jobs.
I am pleased this particular legislation with its broad-based
bipartisan 22-

[[Page S6454]]

to-1 vote out of the Senate Natural Resources Committee is on this
floor and within the coming week or so we will be able to pass this
bill, go to conference, and, I am confident, work out the differences
with our colleagues on the House side and get this bill to the
President's desk. Finally, after years of turmoil and effort, we will
have a comprehensive energy bill that will benefit the entire Nation.
I am pleased we have reached this point. I am pleased with the great
success of the 8-billion RFS amendment. I look forward to its passage
and urge my colleagues to be supportive of this RFS requirement
contained in the bill coming to us from the Energy and Natural
Resources Committee.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I congratulate the leadership of the Energy
Committee, the leadership of the Environment and Public Works
Committee, coming to an agreement on this particular amendment we have
under consideration here today. This, as my colleague from South Dakota
noted, is an issue of great importance to the energy security of our
Nation and to our economy.
We have an opportunity here today to put together a bill and meld on
the floor of the Senate a couple of different provisions that have come
out of different committees of the Senate. The Energy Committee and the
Environment and Public Works Committee, on which I serve, dealt with
the renewable fuel and ethanol provisions that we reported out this
year. What this does is enable us to reconcile, here on the floor, the
conflicting or competing, if you will, jurisdictions between those
committees. It puts into place an 8-billion-gallon renewable fuel
standard.
We are at this point, we are here, and it is long overdue. This
Energy bill has been kicking around for several years. Back when
President Bush was first elected, the task force was composed, they
met, came up with recommendations submitted to the Congress. The
Congress subsequently acted in the last session of Congress, only to
have the wheels fall off toward the end of the Congress in an
environment that probably was more highly politically charged than
anything else.
However, the reality is we are here today in the Senate--after the
House having passed an Energy bill--with an opportunity to pass an
Energy bill in the Senate, to get it into conference, and to come out
with a conference report that we can send to the President to be signed
into law.
This is an important piece of legislation for a lot of reasons, one
of which is the JOBS bill. This is about creating economic opportunity
for people in this country. We passed a comprehensive Energy bill which
is long overdue. We will have the opportunity to create a lot of jobs
for Americans across the country with the various provisions in the
bill by adding to the supply of existing energy sources we have,
creating new energy sources and diversifying our energy supply in areas
I am very interested in, such as renewable fuels. The conservation
incentives in this bill are good for America, both for people who
purchase cars and for manufacturers who produce cars. There are a lot
of things about this bill that are necessary, if we are going to get
our country back on track toward the path of energy independence.
Having grown up 30 years ago now, I remember going through an energy
crisis, with everyone wringing their hands about how dependent we are
on foreign sources of energy. At that time, we were over 50-percent
reliant on foreign sources of energy, saying we have to do something
about it. Here we are, 30 years later, at 55-percent dependent upon
foreign sources of energy.
We still have to get much of our energy supply from other places
around the world, places that are very unstable, which create
tremendous pressures on us not only in terms of our economy but also
our military commitments that are necessary in order to protect those
areas of the world that are primary conduits of energy for our country.
It is about the economy. It is about energy security. It is about
jobs and about reducing the cost of energy for Americans. Look where
gas prices are today. That is why we are where we are. This is a time
we have the impetus for getting an Energy bill passed because people
are frustrated and are looking to the Congress to act. They go to the
pump, and pay over $2 a gallon--in some places well over $2 a gallon--
for gasoline. They are looking for Congress to take action that will
help address the long-term supply problems we face as a Nation, which
are creating this demand today for energy that continues to push prices
higher and higher.
This comprehensive Energy bill is an approach which I believe
addresses many of the components. Parts of this bill address many of
the needs out there, one of which, of course, is additional supply. Not
too long ago I had the opportunity to join with a number of my
colleagues in the Senate and travel to the North Slope of Alaska.
Earlier this year, during debate of the budget, we authorized
exploration for energy in Alaska. In my view, when we have a million
barrels a day of additional production we could bring online with ease,
which will reduce the pressure we have on oil supplies in this country
and continue to lessen our dependence upon foreign sources of energy,
it is an important part of this debate. So additional supply is part of
this discussion.
More particularly, what this amendment deals with, is the
comprehensive need for diversifying our energy supply in this country
and moving more toward renewable sources of energy. In my State of
South Dakota, in the State of Minnesota, in the State of Iowa, and all
across the Midwest, we have rows and rows and rows of corn and rows and
rows and rows of soybeans. I look at that as a food source, and it is.
We feed it to cattle. We use it in a lot of different ways. However, it
can also be converted to energy. A bushel of corn can be converted to
2.5 gallons of ethanol. That puts energy in the pipeline for this
country that will lessen our dependence upon foreign sources of energy.

What this amendment does is create a market. It says we are going to
have, phased in over a 7-year period, an 8-billion-gallon market
opportunity for ethanol producers in this country. That is good for the
farmers of the Midwest, the farmers of South Dakota. It puts more money
in their pocket. They can take their corn down to an ethanol plant and
receive 10 or 15 cents a bushel more for it than they would if they put
it on a rail car headed to some terminal elevator somewhere. That is
good for the economy and for the farmers of this country. It is good
for the consumers of this country, the people who have to buy energy.
Ours is a State with long distances. We are very reliant upon tourism
and reliant upon the farm, ranch, and agricultural economy. We are very
reliant upon our small businesses who have to get to their
destinations. We are a State which is very energy dependent and energy
intensive. Our State, similar to many others in the Midwest, spends a
lot of money on energy. When gas skyrockets to well over $2 a gallon,
it has a profound impact on the ability of our State to attract
economic development, to bring the tourists to our State, and to
support the economy there. So this is an important issue not only for
those who are producing the crops that can be converted into energy but
also for those people across this country, those families, those small
business people, those farmers, and those ranchers who are faced with
higher and higher energy costs. This is an issue that is about our
economy.
I would also say that when an ethanol plant is created, it brings a
whole new vitality to rural areas. There are a lot of rural areas of
our country and many in my State of South Dakota. We have a number of
ethanol plants in my State. Each time another comes online, and every
time we build another ethanol plant that produces 40 million, 50
million, or 80 million gallons of ethanol a year, it creates 40, 50, or
60 new direct jobs. It also creates a lot of ripple-effect jobs
throughout the economy, indirect jobs that help restore and revitalize
rural areas of this country, which are struggling for their very
survival every day.
This is about the economy of rural areas. It is about the economic
impact that passage of this legislation could have on consumers in this
country. It is about the jobs that are going to be created in America.
That is why, from so many different perspectives, this is

[[Page S6455]]

good policy. This is something we, as a Congress, ought to be doing. We
ought to be looking at those rows and rows and rows of soybeans and
those rows and rows and rows of corn and the renewable things we grow
every year.
We have a finite petroleum-based product--hydrocarbons and fossil
fuels--that compose our energy supply today, but every year we can
grow, because of the good work of the farmers in this country. We can
continue to grow these products, these commodities, that can be
converted into energy sources that will make America more secure going
into the future.
An 8-billion renewable fuel standard--and as my colleague from South
Dakota mentioned earlier, the House is at 5 billion gallons in their
bill--it is important. I would like to see a 12-billion or 15-billion
gallon threshold, maybe to the chagrin of some of my colleagues in the
Senate who maybe are not as favorably disposed to renewable energy.
However, the reality is this is good, clean energy. This is energy that
lessens our dependence upon foreign sources of energy that makes our
country more energy independent. That is good for the economy of the
Midwest.
With all the jobs involved with this, with all the impacts I have
mentioned--I also add that it is good for the environment in this
country--this is good policy in creating a permanent 8-billion-gallon
renewable fuel standard market for ethanol in this country that will
put us on a path toward energy independence. It is something we ought
to have a lot more of in this country.
I hope, as this legislation moves forward in this process, the 8-
billion-gallon renewable fuel standard will be adopted by the Senate
and will be part of the bill we send into conference with the House.
And when we get to the negotiations with the House, I hope we will be
able to retain that level of renewable fuel standards because it is
important to America's future.
I urge my colleagues, not only on this amendment but as the bill
moves forward, to support this amendment and to resist other amendments
that could lessen, in any way, the commitment we are going to make to 8
billion gallons of ethanol for America's future.
It is about jobs. It is about the economy. It is about more dollars
in rural areas that will help our farmers and ranchers survive. It is
about keeping our small communities going. It is about energy
independence for America's future. It is about a stronger, cleaner, and
better environment. For all those reasons, I support this amendment.
I am happy to be a part of bringing this to the floor and working
with our leadership on the two committees--on the Energy Committee and
on the Environment and Public Works Committee--with Senator Inhofe,
Senator Jeffords, Senator Domenici, and Senator Bingaman, and with our
leadership in the Senate to get to where we are today.
I hope we can push this bill forward, get a bill through the
conference, on the President's desk, and signed into law so that the
American people will have what they have needed for some time and what
this Congress has failed to deliver--and it is high time we did
deliver--and that is a comprehensive energy policy for America's
future.
Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Martinez). The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I rise briefly to continue the
conversation my friend from South Dakota started about the importance
of renewable fuels. I thank him for his work on the amendment that is
going to be offered that I hope will not only be a bipartisan
amendment--I know it is going to be that--I hope it becomes virtually a
consensus amendment. It ought to be that for the reasons my friend from
South Dakota said. I am going to discuss them for a few minutes myself.
I also join him in congratulating the chairman of the Energy
Committee in bringing out a very strong Energy bill, a bill that is
designed, in its entirety, to be a pro-energy bill, a proproduction
bill, but also a proconservation bill and a pro-environment bill. I
believe very strongly that it is not a question of ``energy or
conservation or the environment,'' but a question of ``energy and
conservation and the environment.'' The American people want all three,
and they can have all three. I believe the bill is a long step toward
giving them all three.
The renewable fuels standard which is part of the bill, and will be
part of an amendment that is offered by the Senator from New Mexico, is
an important part of the bill.
We all know that America has been importing more and more oil from
foreign countries. In 1999, America was importing over 55 percent of
its oil and petroleum products. Just 2 years later, our dependency had
increased to over 59 percent. And by the year 2025, the Energy
Information Administration estimates that the United States will import
nearly 70 percent of its petroleum, unless something is done. And
something needs to be done.
We cannot continue in a world where we are fighting a war against
terror, in a world where there are many countries that, from time to
time, express their dislike for us, to rely on foreigners for our
energy. We do not rely on them for our food, and we should not rely on
them for basics such as energy.
The good news is that the same people who are producing our food for
us, and have given us the safest, highest quality, and most abundant
and least-expensive food supply in the world, are well on the way to
doing the same thing with regard to energy.
I am pleased to report that renewable fuels are not just the future--
although I think they are part of the future--but they are the present.
They are now. They are a ``here and now.'' This year, we will use 3.8
billion gallons of ethanol in the Nation's fuel supply. That is about 3
percent of the Nation's fuel supply which is being produced in scores
and scores and scores of ethanol plants around this country, many of
which are owned and operated by the same farmers who are producing the
corn which we then turn into ethanol.
Renewable fuels are here, and we need to make certain they are here 5
years from now and 10 years from now, and in greater and greater
supplies so we can protect our national security. That is what the
renewable fuels standard is about.
An amendment is going to be offered by the Senator from New Mexico.
It is going to be a thoroughly bipartisan amendment. We have worked it
out. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma, the chairman of the Environment
and Public Works Committee, for working out an arrangement with the
Senator from New Mexico to have a consensus amendment as between the
two of them. I appreciate the hard work of the Senator from South
Dakota. That amendment will reflect the basics of the renewable fuels
standard that we put on in committee with very strong bipartisan
support.

It will increase, from 4 billion gallons in 2006 to 8 billion gallons
in 2012, the amount of biofuels or renewable fuels that are in the
Nation's energy supply. That is not just ethanol. It is important to
make that clear. It is partly ethanol, and probably will be mostly
ethanol, but it will also be biodiesel, which we make from soybeans,
and it will be biomass. There are provisions to develop the technology
so we can turn sugar into energy. And I would expect, at 8 billion
gallons, all those various kinds of renewable fuels will be present in
substantial supply in the Nation's fuel supply by the year 2012.
Now, I said it was good for energy independence. I think that is
pretty clear. Which one of us would not rather be dependent upon our
farmers for their energy than upon, let's say, Saudi oil producers? It
seems to me to be pretty self-evident that we can rely more on our own
agricultural producers than we can on foreigners. I come from a farm
family. I know a lot of farmers. They can get stubborn now and then,
but they are not going to embargo us from energy.
The Senator from South Dakota mentioned the oil embargo in the early
1970s. I am glad he is old enough to remember that. I am barely old
enough to remember that oil embargo. I do not want my kids and
grandkids to go through what I went through as a stripling. And they
will not have to, to the extent we are relying on renewables.
It is also a tremendous hedge against rising oil prices. At the
current price for oil, $55, $56 a barrel, you can buy a gallon of
ethanol for less than you can

[[Page S6456]]

buy a gallon of gasoline. So this is exerting now a downward pressure
on the price of fuel, and will do so in the future. It is a hedge
against increased costs of oil, obviously, because it is an alternative
source--you increase the supply and you decrease the price over time.
It is important for that reason as well.
It is also important because it is good for the environment. Again,
common sense tells us, if we are burning in our engines what we are
growing from the ground, that is going to be better for air than
burning petrochemicals. And it is. The use of ethanol-blended fuels--
and this is the same for biodiesel--reduces greenhouse gas emissions by
12 to 19 percent compared with conventional gasoline. The American Lung
Association of Metropolitan Chicago credits ethanol-blended
reformulated gasoline with reducing smog-forming emissions by 25
percent since 1990. So again, this is an example not of ``energy or the
environment'' but ``energy and the environment.''
It certainly is good for jobs in the United States. I already
mentioned there are scores and scores of ethanol plants. We are
building biodiesel plants, as well, and building a new biodiesel plant
in Missouri. These plants are located, by and large, in the more rural
areas. They are good jobs for those communities. The plants are often
owned by people who live in the communities.
It is a tremendous hedge against lower farm prices. So people who are
concerned about the cost of the farm bill need to understand that this
amendment that is going to be offered on the floor of the Senate will
save us $1 billion over the next few years from the price of the farm
bill because this is an additional market for our commodities and,
therefore, it tends to sustain the price of corn and soybeans and the
other products that we use to make this kind of energy.
People who want us to use more solar energy, I ask them: Where do you
think we get the ethanol and the biodiesel? What is the energy that we
use to produce that? It is solar energy. The farmers grow the corn and
they grow the sugar and they grow the soybeans and they grow the other
biomass. They grow that using solar energy. You grow food by combining
sunlight and water, along with pretty good soil. We have a lot of good
soil in Missouri. So it is a way of getting solar energy into the
energy mix for the country as well.
I could go on and on about the advantages of this kind of fuel. I
think it is pretty self-evident. We can have it and have it without any
kind of significant market distortions. I believe this renewable fuels
standard that we are offering today is something that the market would
probably reach on its own. But what it does is offer an assured market
for this kind of product so that the investment in these plants and the
investment in the distribution network that we need to get this energy
out to people will continue. And it is going to continue.
I started off by saying that renewable fuels are the future. But they
are also the present. And that is true. There are hundreds and hundreds
of stations around the country that are already pumping an ethanol
blend. Those within the sound of my voice may be using ethanol now
almost without knowing it because you can use a blend of up to about 50
percent ethanol in gasoline without even changing the existing engines.
And there are millions of cars that have been purchased that can use up
to 85 percent ethanol. We just do not have enough stations pumping that
now, but that is coming as well for the future.
It is here and now. It is good for the environment, it is good for
creating jobs, it will hold down the price of oil and gasoline, and it
will help protect us and our national security and our energy supply
against foreign oil embargoes.
I congratulate everybody involved with this amendment. I am glad we
were able to save the 8-billion-gallon standard that we put on in
committee. I appreciate very much the work of the chairman and ranking
members of both committees. People look at what we do here and they
often see the conflict or the partisanship or sometimes the
personalities. We have all those things. But there is a whole lot that
goes on on the Senate floor that involves people working together.
Disagreements that may exist are honest disagreements. They are
honestly debated, and then we vote on them.
The renewable fuels standard is an outstanding example of that. It
was offered 2 years ago at a lower level in an amendment offered by the
majority leader and the Democratic leader jointly. I can't think of
anything else we did in the last Congress like that. It got almost two-
thirds of the vote. I believe this amendment will get a similar vote in
the Senate today. I am pleased to have been a part of it. Now we need
to pass the amendment, then go into conference, and hold this renewable
fuels standard for the future.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I congratulate Senator Talent for his
excellent work in the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. He was
the leader of a group that put together the new 8 billion barrels that
we are going to have as our new American goal for ethanol. That was not
easy to put together. It got a very large vote in committee. That
momentum brought it here. I think he is to be congratulated for his
effort.
I appreciate Senator Craig's managing the bill for me. I would like
to say to the Senate, there are two or three amendments that people
want to offer to this bill. I wish they would bring them to the floor.
We are prepared now, from what I understand, to debate amendments. I
understand Senator Boxer has one. Maybe Senator Feinstein has one.
There may be one other. If we could get them up, we are going to be
here for a while tonight. Even though we are leaving early, we could
get those debated and voted on, and then the next thing that we would
do would be to take up the amendment the distinguished minority leader
chooses to bring up. We hope that can come up tomorrow morning before
Senators leave for the Exon funeral, which means we might get the
amendment for Senator Cantwell offered that the minority leader wants
to have brought up, get that up tomorrow before we leave. That would
get two very major issues behind us, plus the amendments on this bill.
Again, if Senators have amendments on the ethanol provision, bring
them down so we can debate them. I ask the minority leader in short
order if he would help me try to get that accomplished.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me speak to the underlying bill and the
provision in the amendment that is before us now before yielding the
floor. The senior Senator from Florida is here to discuss the issue of
offshore drilling and a very important part of our overall energy
considerations.
First and foremost, the chairman has called our colleagues forward to
the floor on ethanol amendments. That is the provision that is on the
floor now. I thank the junior Senator from South Dakota for his
thoughts and laying out a comprehensive explanation as to the
importance of renewable fuels to our country as we strive toward a
greater sense of self-reliance. Self-reliance is security. Self-
reliance is national security. The ability to determine for ourselves
our own energy destiny is critically important, whether it is today or
tomorrow or for our children's future. To know that there is going to
be an abundance of energy of all types, both for transportation
purposes, electrical generating purposes--all of that is critical.
Finally, that is why we are here on the floor of the Senate with this
critical legislation.
Whatever we call this legislation--a few moments ago I called it
America's Clean Energy Act--the reality is that it has taken us decades
to begin to understand that the supply we had is not what we now have;
that as our country grew and we failed to meet those growth levels with
additional energy sources, we became increasingly reliant on other
nations for our energy, and energy prices began to go up.
We as a country, in the last decade, have had to make some critical
choices about our future and our job markets based on a supply of
energy. Could we afford to produce it in this country, creating jobs
here, or were those who invested in those kinds of jobs going to look
somewhere else in the world to

[[Page S6457]]

create that new production plant for the purposes of supplying our
consumer needs? All of those became a necessary and important part of a
decisionmaking process in America's business because America's
Government was increasingly standing in the way of our ability to
produce.
And Congress--and I was a part of it--for the last decade
consistently looked at these issues but failed to come to the necessary
agreements to produce a comprehensive policy that put us back into the
business of exploring for hydrocarbons on public lands, enhanced our
ability to produce renewable sources, caused us to look at nuclear as
an important part of our overall electrical blend, and allowed those
plants to be built, and so on and so forth.
Finally, as a result of extremely high gas prices, as a result of
blackouts, as a result of catastrophic meltdowns in energy markets, and
a lot of finger-pointing--and some of it justified--we find ourselves
on the floor of the Senate today debating what most can call a strongly
provided-for bipartisan national energy policy. It begins this
country's effort to march again toward self-reliance. It causes us to
look at a variety of options, of alternatives, to recognize that it
isn't just one source of energy that will fuel the future, it is
multiple sources; that it is a balanced portfolio that is going to be
critically necessary to assure, whether it is transportation needs and
it is hydrocarbons or it is hydrogen or a combination of all of those,
and electrical power certainly for our base loads--and those are
electrical loads that don't just for a moment light your house but for
a long period fuel your production facilities and plants--that we are
going to have to have those kinds of generating capacities that
ultimately produce that type of energy.
Natural gas is a critical hydrocarbon fuel, a cleaner hydrocarbon
fuel than any available today. It was once thought to be the ideal fuel
for drying and space heat, but under the Clean Air Act we didn't have
clean coal technologies, and we wouldn't build nuclear. So we began to
say: Gee, we can run this through turbines and provide electrical
power. And we began to do so, at a time when we weren't bringing new
gas to the market.
Over the decade of the 1990s, as electrical companies were trying to
meet the demand of their consumer ratepaying base, they built gas
turbine electrical generators. Gas went from $2 a gallon until early
this spring to over $7 a gallon--excuse me, $7 per thousand cubic feet.
We are not talking gas at the pump; we are talking gas in the pipe, and
we are talking thousands of cubic feet. Now it is, as of today,
$6.66. And those marvelous gas turbines we built have been turned off
because their cost of operation, feeding power into the national power
grid, is simply too expensive. We should not have gone there in the
first place, but the absence of good, well-thought-out national energy
policy for this country caused, in large part, that to happen.

Now we are scrambling as a country to find new gas sources. We have
just recognized and facilitated the building of a national gas pipeline
out of Alaska to feed the lower 48. We are trying to look at how we
bring gas ashore in the form of liquefied types, and all of that in
blend, but recognizing that we desperately need it. We now recognize it
and are moving in that direction.
Coal powers over 50 percent of our generation today. And we have, as
many have stated, hundreds of years of supply. But it is not as clean
as we would like it. This particular piece of legislation incentivizes
cleaner coal technology and the gasification of coal in the generation
of power. All of it is moving in the right direction.
You just heard a robust discussion about renewables. It is not just
ethanol that renews. I believe hydropower renews--that little flow of
water through the pin stock that turns the turbine, that turns the
lights on in the Pacific Northwest. Nearly 75 percent of all of the
lights in the Pacific Northwest are generated by hydropower. Yet over
the last good number of years, we have been very frustrated because
almost all of these dams on rivers that produce hydropower are
federally licensed. In 1986, we created legislation that began to bog
down the licensing process, or make it so complicated that in a few
instances, as the licenses were attempted to be renewed, they simply
were not. We have had a few dams torn down, which were no longer viable
under certain scenarios. We have said we are going to change that and
create a better process, and we are. It is in this legislation and it
is important because, over the course of the next good number of years
in the States of California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana,
over 92 hydro facilities need to be relicensed. We want them to be
efficient and environmentally sound, but they are an important part of
the overall electrical base load of this country.
Well, there are a good many issues that I will talk about over the
course of the next several days as we debate this critical piece of
legislation. I am going to spend some time with alternative sources and
a good deal of time with nuclear. Why? Because the world has awakened
to the fact. As the Senator from Tennessee so clearly said, in this
country nearly 70 percent of our electrical base that is carbon free,
nonemitting, is generated by nuclear power. It is the only true clean
source today of energy, outside of hydro, and we all recognize we are
probably not going to be damming up a lot more rivers in our country to
produce hydropower to meet that base load.
Every major utility in this country that has a responsibility to the
consuming public to turn on the lights in the home and fuel the
production plants of the facilities of our country is looking forward
for 10 years now and saying: How do we build a base for 10 years out?
It takes that long in the construction process. All of them recognize
there is largely only one source with which you do that, and that is
nuclear. We recognize it in this bill. I do believe our Nation and the
world are in what some could call, and what I hope is a nuclear
renaissance, a recognition of this very clean and very safe source of
energy. This legislation recognizes it and begins to facilitate it in
ways that we have not done in the past. There seems to be a growing
general acceptance to the recognition of the importance of nuclear in
our national energy base and the role it plays.
A good deal more can be said about a very bipartisan piece of
legislation. I thank Senator Pete Domenici and Senator Bingaman. Both
have worked as chairman and ranking member of the Energy Committee, on
which I am a senior member, to craft and create balance in this
legislation. There are going to be a good many amendments. Some will
fail, some will not. But they are a general expression of a concern, I
do believe, and a recognition of the very important nature of this
piece of legislation that can become public policy and put this country
back into the business of producing energy. We are no longer able to
afford the selectivity that some have argued for some time--a little
bit of this but none of that; some of this but never go there--in the
general debate about energy.
Largely, the American consuming public today is saying: Congress, get
your act together. Five years of debate is long enough. Get this
country back into the business of producing energy--all forms, all
types, an abundant market basketful of it. Keep it clean, explore new
technologies, provide for conservation. But in the end, Congress, get
it together and get it to the President's desk.
I believe this bill embodies that philosophy. It was clearly
recognized in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, on which I
serve. I hope that over the course of the next several weeks, as we
work ourselves through the amendment process, we will have a bill, that
we can work out our differences with the House in conference, and see
it on the President's desk and be able to very proudly and responsibly
say to the American consumer: We have heard you. We recognize the needs
of this country, and we are creating public policy to put this country
back into the business of self-reliance for national security purposes,
for future economic purposes, but most importantly, a clear recognition
that we must, as a country, stand on our own two feet in the business
of producing energy.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, we have been discussing this
Energy bill. At 10 o'clock this morning, I

[[Page S6458]]

had discussions with the chairman of the committee and the ranking
member. They were trying to work out some language to solve the problem
with regard to drilling off the coast of Florida, and it is 6\1/2\
hours later, and I still don't see any of that language. So I was going
to go on and continue to explain the background on this amendment,
unless the chairman of the committee had something he wanted to share.
I will yield to him without giving up my right to the floor.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator's attitude and
his willingness to cooperate. I remind the Senator, in all
graciousness, that we are going to be on this bill for about 2 weeks.
So nothing is going to happen. We have our own initiative, and we have
prepared something. There is a Senator who wants to see it from my
standpoint before we submit it. It is en route to her now--Senator
Landrieu. She has been working in our committee. She is looking at what
I suggest. It is what I have in mind. We should be ready soon.
I thank the Senator for inquiring, and I hope he will let us take up
an amendment on ethanol. It will not take very long, and we will be
back to the Senator very soon.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I am glad the Senator clarified
that. I think it is curious why, since this Senator made the initial
request and did so last Thursday when I told the chairman of the
committee I would not object to the motion to proceed, and did so
yesterday in my conversation with the Senator on the telephone, and I
did so in a personal conversation with Senator Bingaman. Again, at 10
o'clock this morning, I renewed both of those requests. I think it is
curious that language is being shared with other Senators and not with
this Senator. It is 6\1/2\ hours after we had these conversations on
the floor.
So one starts to wonder, is someone traipsing around trying to avoid
showing this Senator from Florida the language which was going to be
agreed to by all of us? So it is my intention--if we are not going to
have the sharing of this information with this Senator, then this
Senator clearly wants to continue explaining the emergency nature for
the 18 million people of Florida.
So I would just continue to do that. I wish to show again what--
Mr. DOMENICI. Senator, could I say to you, please let us proceed. The
reason I am showing it to a Senator is to try to make sure you get
something quicker rather than later. It is not an effort to avoid you.
We are not just discussing Florida. We greatly respect you, but some
other Senator would like to look at this, which would make it easier
for you.
I can make a deal with you, Senator, and I have to show it to some
other Senator. I am trying to show it to one who I know wants to see
it. Now, we cannot just drop everything. I very much am sorry about
that. I am going to do my best, but if you would like to talk tonight,
we will all leave and you can talk tonight. If you would like us to get
a little bit of work done, please relax. We know you are going to win.
Nothing is going to happen to Florida. How many more times do you want
us to say it? We are hiding nothing from you. We have some other work
to do. You are terrific. You are a great advocate. You are going to win
for Florida. You have got the most terrific Senator. Please understand
you are going to win.
Senator Martinez, you are going to win. You do not have to come down
here every minute. You are going to succeed. Floridians, do not worry.
This bill will be here 2 more weeks. It cannot pass without you two. So
would you give us a little leeway? I just beg you.
Now having said that, I ask the Senator from California to offer an
amendment that is relevant.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I believe the Senator from
Florida has the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. DOMENICI. The Senator from New Mexico has the floor. I did not
ask him to give me the floor. I got the floor.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. The Senator from Florida has the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida obtained consent that
he might yield while retaining his right to the floor.
Mr. DOMENICI. I do not care if I have the floor or not. You can have
the floor.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. I thank the Senator, and I thank the
distinguished chairman.
I take the distinguished chairman at his word, but this Senator
cannot evaluate any language unless he sees it. For some reason, it is
being shared with everyone in the Senate except this Senator from
Florida. So the Senator from Florida is going to proceed with the
explanation of why this is so critical to 18 million Floridians.
Mr. DOMENICI. Senator, I want to tell you one more time, I cannot
share--Mr. President, I ask if he would yield for a moment without
losing his right to the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Without losing the floor, yes, I yield.
Mr. DOMENICI. There are 100 Senators. I am not trying to do anything
but get the Senator a proposal as soon as humanly possible. Now, if you
choose to delay us further, we are going to get nothing done tonight. I
want you to know that accomplishes nothing. If you think it
accomplishes something, just go right ahead. I would say you can have
the floor back--I will ask consent that you can have it--as soon as the
Boxer amendment is disposed of. Would you let us take it up, and then
you can have the floor back? In the meantime, we are trying to get your
language--not your language, the language so we can share with those
Senators who have the concern that you have. If you let us do that, we
will proceed in that manner. We have done everything bipartisan on this
bill. There is no intention otherwise. I ask you one more time if you
would do that, Senator. I would appreciate it.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. The Senator from Florida will yield the floor
when I see a good-faith effort of sharing the language. The Senator
from Florida has been waiting for 6\1/2\ hours. I have made innumerable
requests to the Senator's staff, both majority and minority. It has not
been provided to me. The Senator from Florida is going to continue to
talk until it is.
Mr. DOMENICI. Senator, would you yield?
Mr. NELSON of Florida. I would yield without losing the floor.
Mr. DOMENICI. Senator, you can talk all night. There will be no
language for you tonight.
I yield the floor.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, this is what we have in
Florida, and it is one of the things we are trying to protect.
This is one of the things that could result.
There is a $50 billion-a-year tourism industry. This, we cannot
withstand.
This is what we want to protect--some of the most pristine waters,
some of the most pristine beaches.
That is what can happen to our tourism industry. That is not what we
want.
As has been stated before by the Senator who is the Presiding Officer
and this Senator, we also have a military conflict. Drilling for oil in
the eastern gulf is incompatible with weapons testing and combat
training.
We have a statement that has been made by the Secretary of Defense.
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld stated to the Senate Armed Services
Committee:

Encroachment is a problem that is real, it is serious. The
United States needs bases, it needs ranges, it needs test
ranges. And it cannot provide the training and testing that
people need before they go into battle unless those kinds of
facilities are available.

To further quote:

Each year that goes by, there are greater and greater
pressures on them.

This was testimony by the Secretary of Defense to the Senate Armed
Services Committee. It is, in fact, the case. This is where major
military training occurs. It is in the Gulf of Mexico off the eastern
seaboard, just with regard to our State. There are other places in the
country. One can see all of this eastern area of the Gulf of Mexico is,
in fact, restricted airspace for military aircraft training. This has
taken on an increased importance since the Navy Atlantic Fleet training
that used to occur down in the little island of Vieques off of the big
island of Puerto Rico--at the request of the Puerto Rican Government,
the Navy shut that

[[Page S6459]]

down, and a lot of that training has come here. A lot of that training
is occurring out of these military bases. Plus, the aircraft carriers
come into the Atlantic region for training as well as they come into
the gulf and do training with other surface warfare ships, coordinated
with U.S. aircraft.
It is this Senator's contention, and has been stated likewise by my
colleague from Florida, Senator Martinez, that it is an incompatible
activity to have oil and gas rigs on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico
underneath where all of this military training is occurring. That has
been recognized all the more in plans by the Department of Defense.

Whereas, the student pilot training is now being concentrated at
Pensacola Naval Air Station and at Whiting Field, northeast of
Pensacola, north of Milton, the training for the Joint Strike Fighter,
which will be used by all branches of the military, that F-35, they
will train those pilots at Eglin Air Force Base, near Fort Walton
Beach. The new stealth fighter, the F-22, will have its pilots being
trained out of Tyndall Air Force Base, near Panama City.
Why are those three major training commands--one Air Force, one a
joint military fighter, and then student pilots, where they train not
only Navy but Coast Guard, as well as Air Force--why is that in that
location?
It is because of this national asset that we have, which is called
restricted airspace, which has become so much more important now that
the Navy is denied training down in the Caribbean and that training, in
large part, is being done right there.
So is it any wonder, then, that drilling for oil in the eastern Gulf
of Mexico is incompatible with weapon testing and combat training? It
is.
I would not have to underscore, very much, the delicacy of Florida's
environment to tell you about the extraordinary sensitivity of the
mangroves, the sensitivity of the estuaries, the bays where the rivers
flow. Here in the State of Florida, down in this portion, Ten Thousand
Islands--they are all mangrove islands. They border the Everglades.
Up in this section of Florida, the Big Bend--again, no sand beaches
because it is a part of our ecology that is so delicately balanced,
where all of the water life comes in and reproduces in those shallow
waters. It is a place where one of Florida's major rivers, the Suwannee
River, dumps into the Gulf of Mexico.
Likewise, up here near Apalachicola, a place where the major river of
Florida, the Apalachicola River, comes in and dumps into Apalachicola
Bay, is a place where it produces extraordinary, world-famous
Apalachicolan oysters because of the unique environment and brackish
water that allows these delicacies of oysters to be able to grow and
then be harvested.
In fact, there is a reason why this part of the gulf you see does not
have any drilling in it, when, in fact, an imaginary line, directly
down from the Florida-Alabama line, everything to the west of there is
where you see the drilling. One of the first reasons for that is that,
in fact, that is where the oil and the gas is. That is where the mother
load of oil has been and is being drilled. You can see the color here
on this map. Less so off of Texas; very much so off of Louisiana;
likewise off of Mississippi; and likewise off of Alabama. It was this
1.5 billion acres, in what was a part of Lease Sale 181, that was
agreed to by the Governor of Florida, back in 2001, that it would not
cross the longitude line that separates the border of Alabama and
Florida.
Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. NELSON of Florida. The Senator will be glad to yield to my
leader, without losing my right to the floor.
Mr. REID. I ask the Senator to yield so the Senator from California
can offer an amendment. She will speak for up to 20 minutes. In the
meantime, Senator Domenici has a piece of paper you are probably
interested in, and that would probably move this thing along rather
quickly.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Is it my understanding you are saying there is
some language at which the Senator would be able to look?
Mr. DOMENICI. Yes, there is some language I have to give you to look
at.
Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent Senator Boxer be allowed to offer
her second-degree amendment to the legislation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is objection?
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Without losing my right to the floor. I thank
the leader. It is merely what I had asked. I have been waiting for 6
hours and 45 minutes from when this request was initially made and was
not provided any language. I thank the distinguished Senator from
Nevada.
Mr. REID. Let me say, through the Chair to my friend from Florida,
the Senator from New Mexico has worked very hard on this bill. Both
Senators from New Mexico worked very hard. This is an issue that is
difficult for reasons it probably should not be, but it is a difficult
issue. I know the Senator from New Mexico has done everything he can.
I appreciate everyone's cooperation. This is an important bill to
Republicans and to Democrats. One reason I feel some anxiety is there
is an event downtown tonight that is going to cause us to have a short
night. Unfortunately, when people die, it is always at a bad time.
Senator Exon's funeral is tomorrow. It will make us have an afternoon
without any votes. And we have a longstanding Senate retreat this
Friday. So we need to get as much done as we can.

I appreciate everyone's cooperation, especially the two managers of
the bill and Senators Martinez and Nelson and Landrieu, for helping us
work through this.
I ask my unanimous consent request be adopted.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Since the Senator from Florida still has the
floor, I thank Senator Reid for working this out. I acknowledge that
the chairman of the committee has had enormous pressure. But as the
Senate Rules provide, each Senator has an opportunity to stand up and
fight for the interests of his or her State. That is what this Senator,
as well as my colleague, intend to do.
I agree to the Senator's request, and I yield the floor.
Mr. DORGAN. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, in order
that we might reach a conclusion, my understanding is that Senator
Boxer will offer the amendment, speak for 10 or 15 minutes or whatever
she speaks. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 4 minutes in
opposition to her amendment following that. Then, my guess is, it will
be disposed of.
Mr. DOMENICI. Senator Inhofe will desire to speak. Let's put it all
together, and then we can finish.
Mr. INHOFE. If the Senator will allow me to speak for 4 or 5 minutes
after he speaks?
Mr. DOMENICI. And then we will vote on or in relation to it.
Mrs. BOXER. I want to make sure, since it is my amendment--I don't
want to lose total control of this. I would like to get to close after
I have heard the opposition. I would love to have 2 minutes to rebut.
If I could have 15 minutes to speak in favor of the amendment, have my
colleagues lay out the argument against it, and if I could have 4
minutes to wind up, that will be good for me.
Mr. DOMENICI. Do we understand the unanimous consent request? After
all of that has happened, the Senator from New Mexico would be
recognized.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Before the Senator proceeds--but you have the floor--
could you yield to me for 1 minute?
Mrs. BOXER. Yes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. I want to say the distinguished Senator from Florida,
who has been speaking, submitted a proposal quite a few hours ago, an
idea, a thought piece. I want everybody to know that was not acceptable
not only to the Senator from New Mexico, it was not acceptable to
Democratic Senators on his side of the aisle. So we have not tried to
hide anything.
I regret the Senator has even implied that we tried to do that. It is
not right. We have been working as hard as we can. It is not much to
take 4 or 5 hours. Sometimes around here you have to take a dictionary
when you are working on something because people do not understand
words. That is how hard it has been in the past.

[[Page S6460]]

Having said that, I yield the floor, and I will give the Senator this
statement. I hope he understands--the senior Senator and the junior
Senator--I would like both of you to read it. I don't think it is
anything fabulous, but I hope the Senators will feast their eyes on it.
Mr. REID. Do we have consent on the vote?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Consent has been granted for the Senator to
offer her amendment, and a series of Senators will be recognized for a
set amount of time in the said order. Then the Senator from New Mexico
will be recognized.
Mr. REID. It is my understanding there will be a vote after that on
or in relation to the amendment.
Mr. DOMENICI. The Senator is correct.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is that part of the request?
Mr. REID. That was Senator Domenici's request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from California is recognized.
Mrs. BOXER. My understanding, after that, I have 15 minutes at this
point; is that correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Once the amendment has been sent up, yes.

Amendment No. 781 to Amendment No. 779

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and I ask
for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from California [Mrs. Boxer] proposes an
amendment numbered 781 to amendment No. 779.

(Purpose: To ensure that ethanol is treated like all other motor
vehicle fuels and that taxpayers and local governments do not have to
pay for environmental damage caused by ethanol)

Beginning on page 20, strike line 25 and all that follows
through page 22 line 3.

Mrs. BOXER. As you can tell from the clerk's reading, it is a very
straightforward amendment. What I am offering in this amendment is to
recommend to my colleagues we strike out the liability waiver granted
to the makers of ethanol.
The purpose is stated very clearly in the beginning. It says: To
ensure that ethanol is treated like all other motor vehicle fuels and
that taxpayers and local governments do not have to pay for
environmental damage caused by ethanol.
The amendment before the Senate, to which I have authored this
second-degree amendment, brings, once again, to the Senate an ethanol
mandate. Some think mandates of ethanol are a good idea. Others think
it is a bad idea. I hope we all agree taxpayers and local communities
should not have to pay to clean up any mess caused by ethanol.
The point of the bill is to force States--whether they want to or
not, frankly--to utilize more and more ethanol, not as a crowning blow
to the States that did not want to do this, by virtue of the fact there
is a safe harbor for ethanol, meaning that no liability can be found
for the makers of ethanol, but we are saying to cities, States, and
communities, even if you do not want to use it, A, you are forced to
use it; and, B, if there is a problem, we, the ethanol makers, will not
be there to help you. It will fall to the local communities to pick up
the tab.
A lot of people say ethanol is totally safe. I ask a commonsense
question to the people of the United States of America who are going to
have to make sure they are pumping their cars with ethanol in greater
and greater proportion: If it is so safe, why are the companies seeking
a liability exemption?
I have been around enough years to know if somebody says, Step right
up, step right up, try this product; this product is completely safe;
it can bring no harm to you; it is perfect, never a problem; but, by
the way, before you ingest it or use it, sign a form that says you
won't hold us responsible if you choke or you get cancer or you die. If
somebody does that to you, I will say as the daughter of a lawyer, the
wife of a lawyer, and the mom of a lawyer, do not sign away your
rights. Do not sign away your rights. A light bulb should go on: What
is wrong with this picture? If this product is so safe, why should I
sign this liability waiver?
That is what is happening in this bill. We have had a vote on this
before, and we have gotten anywhere from between 38 and 42 votes. It is
important to go on the record again.
Why do I say that? We have had a terrible problem with MTBE where,
thank goodness, there was no safe harbor. Communities such as Santa
Monica and Lake Tahoe, communities in New Hampshire, and all across
this country have been able to go back and hold the companies
accountable for MTBE. The courts have said yes, communities, you have a
right to hold these companies accountable for the damage done by MTBE.
Now we have a new mandate--ethanol. My colleagues who love ethanol,
who want ethanol, who dream of ethanol morning, noon, and night--and
this is not a partisan issue; it cuts across party lines--are giving
the makers of ethanol a pass. This is a special interest loophole.
The exemption language starts off with this: ``Notwithstanding any
other provision of Federal or State law''--and then they talk about the
waiver. When you see that in the bill, put up your antenna. It raises
red flags. You know then the public is losing rights.
``Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal or State law''--and
then they do harm and put the waiver in there. It goes on to say that
renewable fuels--that is ethanol--cannot be found to be defectively
designed or manufactured.
This is the Senate of the United States of America. I did not know we
were expert scientists and doctors who deal with environmental damage.
We are saying renewable fuels--ethanol--cannot be found to be
defectively designed or manufactured. Compliance with laws and
regulations is not necessary to getting the liability waiver except for
limited compliance requirements under the Clean Air Act.
My colleagues are going to say--I am sure the Senators from North
Dakota, from Oklahoma--Senator Boxer is wrong. This is a narrow waiver.
Not true. The special interests and the people who represent ethanol
will say the waiver is not really broad. It only protects these makers
of ethanol from one type of lawsuit.
But let me state the type of lawsuit they are protected against. It
is the only lawsuit that has standing in the courts of the United
States of America. How do we know this? Look at MTBE. Lake Tahoe won
their MTBE suit. Why? Because they were able to use the defective
product liability claim. The judge, as a matter of fact, threw out the
negligence claim, the nuisance claim.
So when my colleagues get up here and say, Senator Boxer is
exaggerating, we are not throwing out the ability of people to sue--
yes, we are because the only pathway for the public, for our cities,
for our counties, for our States to hold people accountable for a
defective product is the defective product cause of action. Losing that
right to bring defective product liability lets the polluters off the
hook entirely.
Again, I will talk about a San Francisco jury in a landmark case
decided in April of 2002. The 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 groundwater. The
jury also found many of these major oil companies acted with malice
because they were aware of the dangers but withheld information. We did
not have this safe harbor provision when MTBE was, essentially,
mandated. Therefore, my communities in California and communities
across the country are able to recover the damages.
Not so with ethanol. The makers of ethanol have made sure they are
going to be covered and protected. It is an embarrassment we would do
this. This is the place we are supposed to protect the public interest.
This is the place we are supposed to protect our people from defective
products, not put in language that waives all the ability of people to
sue on a defective product claim.

It is a scary thought if this were in place for MTBE--by the way,
there is still a move to do that on MTBE, which is another issue for
another day. It is a scary thought if we had done this for MTBE. My
people in Lake Tahoe, the good people there, could be left holding the
bag, and your towns and cities could be left holding the bag. If
ethanol

[[Page S6461]]

harms public health or the environment, the loophole in the Energy bill
risks leaving our communities with a mess. Polluters, not taxpayers or
victims of pollution, should pay for harm to public health and the
environment.
When gasoline leaks today, there is no loophole. The polluter pays.
Why should the oil companies and the ethanol producers get off the hook
if they cause harm? They should not.
So again, you are going to hear a lot of doubletalk when people stand
up. They are going to first say ethanol is safe, there is no problem.
And I say you say to them: If ethanol is so safe and you feel so
comfortable with it, why do you need a liability waiver for the makers
of ethanol? And then they are going to say: Oh, don't worry, we are
only saying you can't sue because of a defective product. That is all.
You can still sue for nuisance, negligence, all the other things, when,
in fact, we know from legal history that the only claim that has
standing here is a defective product lawsuit.
Now, to talk about ethanol's safety--Mr. President, I ask, how many
minutes do I have of my 15, please?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 4 minutes 45 seconds remaining.
Mrs. BOXER. Thank you, Mr. President.
According to EPA's Blue Ribbon Panel on Oxygenates in gasoline, which
include ethanol and MTBE, ethanol is extremely soluble in water and
should spread if leaked into the environment at the same rate as MTBE.
It may spread plumes of benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, and xylene
because ethanol may inhibit the breakdown of these toxic materials.
Although ethanol contributes some clean air benefits, it also increases
the formation of nitrogen oxides, which lead to increases in smog.
So I think if you listen to the experts and you forget the special
interests, you will support my amendment. We need to ask ourselves, are
we in the business of letting people off the hook, people who have a
responsibility for what they are putting into our gasoline, into our
air, into the ground?
We mandated airbags, and we did not say to those manufacturers that
they should not be liable. If there is a defective product problem with
an airbag, people can hold the companies responsible if it does not
work or it harms them. Why would we give a free pass to ethanol? There
is only one answer: special interests, powerful, powerful special
interests. There is no other answer that you can come up with.
If we do not learn from our mistakes, we are doomed to repeat the
mistakes of the past.
My amendment will eliminate the special interest liability exemption
for ethanol in this amendment. It means that ethanol will not be
treated any better or any worse than other fuels. It will mean ethanol
will be treated the same way as any other fuel. We should not shift the
burden of cleaning up any problems caused by ethanol to our
communities. The polluters should pay. The safe harbor liability
exemption for ethanol should be taken out of this amendment.
I have to say to my friends, I know how anxious you are to have
ethanol. I know it means a lot to the corn producers, and, frankly, it
means a lot to my agricultural people. I have some good language in
this bill dealing with ethanol made from other materials. But I still
believe that my people who will produce this ethanol should not be left
off the hook if there is a serious problem to the health of the people
of the United States of America.
So the amendment is simple. I hope we can have a good vote, a solid
vote on this amendment.
I yield the floor with the understanding that I will close the
debate. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cornyn). The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the amendment by my
colleague from California. I regret that we are on different sides on
this issue, but this amendment is unnecessary. It addresses a problem
that does not exist, in my judgment. And my guess is, the Senate will,
as it has in the past, vote to oppose this amendment. But I do wish to
make a couple of comments about the issue of ethanol more generally.
I was listening to my colleague, and I was thinking about energy and
thinking about that old country western song that was titled ``When Gas
Was 30 Cents a Gallon, Love Was 60 Cents Away.'' We are a long way from
30-cent-a-gallon gas, and I don't expect we will ever see 30-cent-a-
gallon gas any longer.
Sixty percent of the oil we use in this country comes from off our
shores, much of it from very troubled parts of the world--Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, Iraq, Venezuela, and more. It is estimated that it is going to
grow to 69 percent in a relatively short period of time. We are
hopelessly addicted to foreign oil, much to the detriment of this
country.
The use of ethanol is not going to solve that, but it moves us in the
right direction in addressing it. Ethanol is a simple proposition--it
is being able to grow our energy in our farm fields. Think of it: Take
a kernel of corn, extract a drop of alcohol from the kernel of corn,
and still have the protein feedstock left to feed the cows.
This is about growing our energy. It is about making us less
dependent on the Saudis and the Kuwaitis and the Iraqis. I have
indicated we have this huge addiction to foreign sources of oil.
Now, I did not know too much about ethanol before I came to the
Senate. I have learned a lot about it since and have been involved in
trying to make certain that we support ethanol production. But I
learned enough about it from a full-page ad that I read by a major oil
company one day in a daily newspaper. This major oil company had spent
enough money to take out a big old advertisement saying how bad ethanol
was for America. I looked at that and I thought: Well, now, if this big
oil company thinks it is bad, maybe I ought to take a good, hard look
at it because I figure it is probably good for this country.
You see, they do not want competition. They have been trashing
ethanol for a long time. But the fact is, we are not only addicted to
foreign oil, we have this enormous growth in the size of energy
companies through mergers and acquisitions, and so now there are just a
few companies left. And between OPEC and the few larger energy
companies these days, I do not have any great confidence that there is
not market manipulation going on. However, I don't know, but I saw what
happened in California with electricity because they could, because
that kind of market power allowed them to do that.
So I am very interested in trying to see if we can diversify the
production of fuel. This capability, through ethanol, gives farmers a
new market, allows us to grow fuel in our farm fields and rely on less
of it from under the sands of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Iraq, for
example. It is a winner all the way around, in my judgment.
This 8-billion-gallon requirement that we have in this bill is
carefully constructed. It moves this country in a very important
direction. It will reduce crude oil imports by 2 billion barrels. Think
of that--a 2-billion-barrel reduction in crude oil imports. It will
reduce the outflow of dollars largely to foreign oil producers by $64
billion. It will create about 240,000 new jobs, it has been estimated.
It will increase U.S. household income by $43 billion.
The fact is, this makes sense for everybody. And so I stand here to
support ethanol, as I have on many occasions in the past. I was able to
be here earlier today to give an opening speech on energy and touched
on it. But my hope is we will turn back the Boxer amendment and
strongly support the ethanol provisions in this bill.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, let me say that I agree with
my friend from North Dakota, although I do not agree with him on the
whole idea of the mandated ethanol. We have talked about that. We had
that debate. That is already behind us now, and this is where we are.
I would suggest that many years ago, when I was in the State
legislature, my first trip to Washington was to protest Ladybird
Johnson's Highway Beautification Act of 1965. So I do not like mandates
to start with, but what I don't like more than the mandates is the fact
that you mandate something and then open them up to exposure and expose
them to lawsuits. We drafted in my committee this very narrow safe
harbor provision which is included in

[[Page S6462]]

the underlying amendment. It was a product of very careful
deliberation. It was a compromise. It was a piece of the overall
package.
The amendment requires the use of a set and increasing amount of
renewable fuels. Because the Government requires the use of a
particular additive, the Government should not allow compliance with
that requirement to be the basis of a lawsuit. That is just common
sense.
I have a great deal of respect for my colleague from California, but
when she talks about the powerful interests we are protecting, is a
farmer from Gage, OK, or from Woodward, OK, a powerful special interest
group? No, he is not. He is someone who has a law. There is a law out
there. He is complying with the law. He says: I guess I will have to go
ahead and supply the corn for ethanol. Then he finds out, down the
road, he is being named in a lawsuit. We know this happens. It may not
be the intent of the law, but it is the effect of the law. That is what
happens.
On April 22, trial lawyers in the City of Merced v. Chevron have
already filed an MTBE-style case attacking ethanol. The plaintiff's
drafting in their lawsuit is purposely different and includes the term
``other oxygenates and ethers.'' This careful inclusion necessarily
includes ethanol because the only other ``oxygenate'' per se is
ethanol.
Any of those trying to use the argument that if you do this, this
somehow affects MTBE and would reduce their responsibility, it does not
affect them. The renewable fuels safe harbor does not relate to MTBE.
The text of the renewables liability provision is clear. Only renewable
fuels, as defined elsewhere in the amendment, can qualify for the safe
harbor. MTBE is not within the renewables definition.
I would hope, as people cast their vote, they would keep in mind
there is one great issue, and that is a fairness. For Government to
come along and mandate something is bad enough. But for Government to
come along and mandate something and then say there is no protection
for complying with the law, that is not right. It is a fairness issue.
I believe we should defeat the amendment.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
Mr. INHOFE. Reserving the right to object----
Mrs. BOXER. I am not asking unanimous consent. I am asking for the
yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The request is not subject to an objection.
Is there a sufficient second?
At this time, there is not.
The Senator from California is recognized.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Does the Senator withhold the quorum call request?
Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. I object.
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 that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. NELSON of Florida. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The clerk will continue the call of the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk continued with the call of 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. Parliamentary inquiry: What is the status of the bill
now?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 2 minutes remaining to the Senator
from California on her amendment.
Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Chair.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I won't take the 4 minutes, but I had
asked for 4 in the unanimous consent request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the quorum call was charged
against the Senator.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am glad we are going to vote on my
amendment. I understand that Senator Domenici will move to table. That
is fine with me, as long as we have a vote.
Again, this is a very interesting issue in terms of what our
responsibility is. As Members of the Senate, we have a responsibility
to protect the health and safety of the people of our country. Why on
Earth would we give a waiver of liability to the makers of ethanol
when, in fact, we are not sure what is going to happen with heavy use
of ethanol? We are not sure whether it is going to cause a problem for
our people and who is going to have to pay to clean up the mess.
We know what happened with MTBE. We know it was in communities such
as Lake Tahoe, Santa Monica, and communities in the Northeast and all
across the country. I remember I had a map that showed where MTBE was a
problem. It is practically in every State in the Union. The courts have
made it clear that the people who made the MTBE have to come into these
communities and clean it up. Now we are saying with ethanol, on the one
hand, it is safe. Well, if it is so safe, why do we have to give it a
special safe harbor and people give up their right to recover in their
community in Tennessee or communities in California?
The fact is, they will say the waiver of liability is very narrow
but, in fact, what they have waived is the only course of action a
community can pursue.
Then you will hear: This is different because we are mandating
ethanol. Therefore, we should protect the people who make it. We
mandated airbags, and we didn't give a liability waiver to the people
who make airbags. We mandate pollution control devices, but we don't
give a liability waiver to the people who make it. So this is about the
sheer power of special interests.
Let's not put our communities at risk. We could debate whether we
ought to have this ethanol mandate. As we will see how it comes out,
some people favor it, some don't. We should agree to protect our
people.
I hope my colleagues will vote against the motion to table the Boxer
amendment. I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I move to table amendment No. 781 and
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 the motion. The clerk will call the
roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senator was necessarily absent: the
Senator from Ohio (Mr. DeWine).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Corzine)
and the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) are necessarily
absent.
I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from
California (Mrs. Feinstein) would vote ``nay.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are they any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 59, nays 38, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 137 Leg.]

YEAS--59

Alexander
Allard
Allen
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Bond
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Burr
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Coleman
Conrad
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
DeMint
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Enzi
Frist
Graham
Grassley
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Lincoln
Lott
Lugar
Martinez
McConnell
Murkowski
Nelson (NE)
Pryor
Roberts
Rockefeller
Salazar
Santorum
Sessions
Shelby
Smith
Stabenow
Stevens
Talent
Thomas
Thune
Vitter
Voinovich

NAYS--38

Akaka
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Byrd
Cantwell
Carper
Chafee
Clinton
Collins
Dayton
Dodd
Durbin
Ensign
Feingold
Gregg
Inouye
Jeffords
Kennedy
Kerry
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
McCain
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Obama
Reed

[[Page S6463]]

Reid
Sarbanes
Schumer
Snowe
Specter
Sununu
Warner
Wyden

NOT VOTING--3

Corzine
DeWine
Feinstein
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. DOMENICI. I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.

Amendment No. 782 To Amendment No. 779

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise to offer an amendment which is at
the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from New York [Mr. Schumer] proposes an
amendment numbered 782 to amendment No. 779.

Mr. SCHUMER. 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 strike the reliable fuels subtitle of the amendment)

Strike subtitle B of the amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the
amendment that has been put before the Senate by my good friend and
colleague from New Mexico and offer a second-degree amendment to it.
Now, I do so not only out of the sincere belief that the provision will
hurt consumers in New York, but that it will hurt consumers throughout
the country, and that it is anticompetitive and not the way a free
market ought to go.
The amendment of my good friend from New Mexico is one of those
amendments that, while well-intentioned, could come back to haunt every
one of us. I have been in Congress for 23 years, and every so often
there is an amendment that people vote for, confident on the surface
that it seems like the right thing to do, and a few years later it
turns out to be a big disaster. Then our constituents turn to us and
say: What the heck have you done? How could you have done this?
This is one of those amendments, like a catastrophic illness. My
colleagues, beware. If there was ever an amendment quietly put in a
bill that should really have a skull and crossbones label on it, at
least to those of us from States without a large amount of ethanol,
this amendment is it.
So today I rise to join my colleague from New York, my colleagues
from California and elsewhere, mainly on the coasts, but not
exclusively so, to debate an unprecedented new ethanol gas tax that
would be levied on the American people by the amendment we are now
considering.
So many are against any kind of gas tax. I understand that. I have
opposed many gas taxes, too. But why, when the gas tax comes in the
form of an ethanol mandate but has the same effect--causes the price of
gasoline to those under its yoke to rise--do we not oppose it?
The amendment offered by Senator Domenici does accomplish two goals
that I consider very worthy and which my amendment would let stand. One
is restricting the use of MTBEs, which has resulted in groundwater
pollution all over the country. The second is scrapping the oxygenate
mandate that led so many States to make such heavy use of MTBE in the
first place.
The proposal in the amendment also provides an antibacksliding
provision to require continued efforts on clean air. That is another
goal that I support. The number of people who are living longer and
living better because our air is cleaner is enormous. We all benefit
from that. So the antibacksliding proposal is a good measure, and I
applaud it.
I believe that eliminating the oxygenate requirement and letting each
region meet clean air standards in the way that suits it best is smart
energy policy. If that is all my friend from New Mexico did, I would be
on the floor supporting his amendment and cheering it on.
But as they say, Mr. President, there is always a catch. This
amendment adds an astonishing new anticonsumer, anti-free-market
requirement that every refiner in the country, regardless of where they
are located, and regardless of whether the State mandates it and
whether the State chooses a different path to get to clean air, must
use an ever-increasing volume of ethanol.
If they do not use the ethanol--and this is the most amazing part of
the bill--they still have to pay for ethanol credits. If your State
does not want to use ethanol because it is so expensive to transport
it--there are no pipelines--on the barges and on the boats and in the
trucks--so let's say it is too expensive to do that--you still have to
pay for it.
If there were ever an onerous, anticompetitive, anti-free-market
provision, this is it. Where else do we mandate that people pay for
something when they do not use it? Why are we saying to the car drivers
of America, the motorists of America, You have to pay for this stuff
even though you do not use it? It is nothing less than an ethanol gas
tax levied on every driver--the employee driving to work, the mom who
is driving kids to school, a truck driver earning a living. Every
gasoline user in this country will pay.
Now, in 2003, the United States consumed only 2.8 billion gallons of
ethanol. Starting in 2006--a mere year away--they would be required to
use 4 billion gallons of ethanol. Where are my friends from the free
market when we need them? We hear about the free market. Is this a free
market? Are we letting everyone decide how to meet a worthy clean air
standard? Absolutely not. So 2.8 billion last year; in 2006, you have
to use 4 billion; and by 2012, you have to use 8 billion gallons of
ethanol and increase it every year by a percentage equivalent to the
proportion of ethanol in the entire U.S. gas supply after 2012 in
perpetuity.
If production does not happen, if we do not have enough ethanol--I
don't know how the sponsors came up with 4 billion or 5 billion or 8
billion--guess what happens. We get a big price spike. At a time when
gasoline is expensive enough, do you want to be accused of passing
legislation that will raise the price more? I know there are corn
growers in some States, and I know that Archer Daniels Midland and all
these other ethanol producers are pretty powerful. But what about all
the drivers and motorists throughout the country? What about them?
There are many more of them than the rest, and every one of them will
be at risk. Even in the Middle West where there is plenty of ethanol,
if there is not enough to meet the mandate, there is going to be a
price spike for everybody.
Now, there are a lot of estimates out there that try to predict what
the new mandate is going to cost motorists at the pump. In some of the
more conservative estimates, it is a few pennies a gallon. But others
have pegged the cost significantly higher. Even though the size of the
increase may be open to discussion, it is generally agreed that this
mandate is going to cause an increase in the price of gasoline.
Last year when we had a bill, gasoline was about $1.60 or $1.70 a
gallon. Now it is $2.25 a gallon. Do we still want to do this? Aren't
gas prices high enough? The fact that we do not know how severe the
increase is going to be should give us pause. As we have seen time and
time again, there is not much more of an effective way to stifle an
economy or place burdens on families across America than by causing a
price spike, a hike in gasoline prices.
I know the supporters of this ethanol gas tax are going to argue that
the claims I am making are not accurate, and the cost of forcing the
entire country to use 8 billion gallons of ethanol is a mere pittance.
Remember, ethanol is very hard to transport. It cannot be carried
through our existing pipeline infrastructure. It must be put on a
truck, a barge, sent down the Mississippi, then sent by boat all around
the country, then loaded back into a truck, taken to a local refinery,
and put into the gasoline. That will be the added expense passed on to
the driver. That is why this is a regional proposal more than it is a
party proposal.
To forecast how much a 6-year, 8-billion-gallon ethanol mandate is
going to cost consumers across the country, you first have to look at
the interplay of a host of complex factors--the growth in auto travel,
gasoline prices, corn prices, ethanol prices, how many ethanol plants
will come on line--and all of these are inextricably linked to how high
the price of ethanol is going to go.

[[Page S6464]]

If ethanol prices are high and manufacturing ethanol profitable, the
private sector will build ethanol plants. If ethanol prices are low,
they will not. So I think the numbers my opponents are using make an
unrealistic set of assumptions, basically that ethanol prices will be
unusually low for the next 10 years, and yet at the same time the
private sector will be building new plants all over the country. You
can't have it both ways. If the price is high, yes, there will be more
ethanol plants. If the price is low, there are not likely to be any,
and the price is going to go up either way. But in truth, whether it
costs a penny a gallon or a dollar a gallon, consumers should not be
forced to pay an ethanol gas tax at all.

There is no sound public policy reason for mandating the use of
ethanol, other than political might of the ethanol lobby. The new
ethanol tax will contribute to market volatility and price spikes,
especially because the ethanol industry is highly concentrated within a
few large firms located in the Middle West. In fact, ADM alone controls
almost 30 percent of the market, according to CRS.
My opponents also argue that the ethanol gas tax is needed to help
family farms. I take these arguments seriously. I know how many of my
colleagues from the Middle West want to help family farmers who are
struggling. I want to help those farmers, too. I have stood by my
Senate colleagues and voted for billions of dollars in agricultural
subsidies to help the farmers in the South and West, even though those
commodity subsidies don't help my farmers in New York. But as I have
said, the ethanol gas tax money will not be going mostly into the
pockets of family farmers, it will go into the pockets of ADM and the
other big ethanol companies. All of a sudden, are the farmers going to
get the big benefit? They don't get it for milk. They don't it for
corn. They don't get it for meat. Is the beneficent rule of ADM going
to give our corn growers the benefits of this or do you think ADM and
the other big companies will take the benefit for themselves?
If you want to help our family farmers, take the money you are using
that will cost this and give it to them, and you will spend a lot less
money and help the family farmer a lot more without all the middlemen
who don't need the help.
The final argument my opponents will make--and this is a cynical
one--is that if New York and California and other States want to clean
up their water by banning MTBEs and maintaining clean air, they should
have to pay the price of an ethanol gas tax, and it is political
naivete to think otherwise. My State has already banned MTBE. So have
others, such as California, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois,
Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska,
Ohio, South Dakota, and Washington. Every one of these States has
enacted its own MTBE bans or taken steps to restrict its use. A number
of other States are in the process of taking action as well. Because
what we have learned is that MTBEs pollute the ground water.
Every one of those States that has banned MTBE is going to find
itself in an impossible dilemma. Their citizens are demanding they ban
MTBE, but with the oxygenate requirement in place, they can't do so.
Recently, the EPA denied the application of New York and California for
a waiver from the oxygenate requirement, putting States with MTBE bans
between a rock and a hard place. Our citizens' health and the
environment are being held hostage to the desire of the ethanol lobby
to make ever larger profits. Why didn't the EPA grant the waiver? It
didn't affect clean air or clean water. Raw politics, trying to suck
money out of one region and put it in another. That is not fair. That
is not right.
Our citizens' health and environment are being held hostage to the
desire of the ethanol lobby to make ever larger profits. The
administration has already gone along. Will this Senate?
It is an outrage. For Congress to tell Americans across the country
that we refuse to clean up the air and water unless they pay off ADM is
unconscionable. There is no public policy reason on Earth not to allow
States to ban MTBEs and remove the oxygenate requirement and keep clean
air standards in place without requiring them to buy ethanol.
In New York, we have been forced to for over a year and a half. Our
gasoline prices are too high already, and the unnecessary ethanol
requirement we face is not helping.
In conclusion, I ask my colleagues to support my amendment to strike
the ethanol mandate. If you believe that Congress has the obligation to
protect the health of our citizens and the environment, support banning
MTBE, getting rid of the oxygenate requirement, and maintaining clean
air standards. Don't support forcing American consumers to pay for
ethanol in exchange. If you believe the Congress has an obligation to
protect consumers and keep our free market running as efficiently as
possible, then, again, I ask Members, please, do not support forcing
American consumers to raise their gas prices and to pay for ethanol.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. HARKIN. Will my friend yield for a question?
Mr. SCHUMER. I am happy to yield for a brief question to my good
friend from Iowa.
Mr. HARKIN. Since my friend mentioned----
Mr. DOMENICI. I believe I have the floor. I am pleased to yield.
Mr. HARKIN. I thought he still had the floor.
Mr. SCHUMER. I didn't think I had yet yielded the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York still has the floor.
Mr. SCHUMER. I was about to, but I am finished with my statement.
Mr. HARKIN. I just wanted to respond to my friend from New York. Is
my friend from New York aware of the fact that right now, the price of
gasoline is around $2.03, or $2.05 a gallon? Ethanol right now is about
$1.60 a gallon. My question to my friend from New York is, if the free
market is at work, why aren't the oil companies blending more ethanol
since they would make more money?
Mr. SCHUMER. Well, let me answer my friend. The cost of ethanol
varies greatly depending on what region of the country the ethanol is
produced in. What makes it so expensive for New Yorkers is not the cost
of actually making it in Iowa or Illinois or Kansas. What makes it so
expensive is there is no cheap way to get it from the cornfields of
Iowa to the gas stations of New York and, as a result, the cost of
transporting the ethanol. Sure, it can be made out there. We don't have
many ethanol plants in New York. They have to put on it barges. They
have to ship it slowly down the Mississippi. They have to unload it
onto boats. The boats have to go round the gulf coast, go around Key
West, up the east coast. They have to dock in New York City. It then
has to be loaded onto trucks and sent to gas stations--a lengthy and
expensive process.
Let me say in all seriousness to my good friend from Iowa, I have
talked to some of the major refiners in the Northeast. They are able to
meet the clean air standard more cheaply and better without ethanol
than with it. And by our requiring them to put the ethanol in the
gasoline is the only reason they do it. If we didn't require them but
kept the clean air standard, we would have gasoline that is just as
clean but a lot cheaper for constituents.
I want to help your corn farmers, but I don't want the housewife who
drives the kids to school or the salesman who has to go door to door to
be subsidizing your corn farmers. Let the whole government do it.
Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield for another question?
Mr. SCHUMER. I am happy to yield for another question.
Mr. HARKIN. My friend talked about the transporting of ethanol going
down the Mississippi and then on barge around this and that. Has my
friend ever considered how you get the oil from the Mideast over here?
You have to go over there with a big tanker. You have to load it up.
Then that tanker has to go across the oceans, and it has to come into
New York or wherever the port is and unload it. Then it has to be
shipped to a refinery to refine it.
Then, in order to protect that oil pipeline from the Mideast, we have
to send 130,000 troops, our military. We have to protect our sea
lanes--the billions of dollars that it costs to protect

[[Page S6465]]

shipping that oil from the Mideast and all that. I can assure my friend
from New York that they will never have to send our young men and women
to Iowa to fight.
Mr. SCHUMER. We would like to send them to Iowa on vacation to help
pick the corn, but, certainly, we hope that this ethanol fight, as
fractious as it is--I can state that the citizens of New York will not
declare war on the citizens of Iowa.
Mr. HARKIN. You will never have to worry about that.
Mr. SCHUMER. Although the bill declares economic war on the citizens
of New York, Connecticut, California, and other places which don't have
the ethanol.
By the way, I say to my good friend from Iowa, I would not make the
analogy that what the ethanol producers are doing is the same as what
OPEC is doing with the oil, both causing the price to go way up. I
don't like the big oil companies in terms of what they do, but I don't
think Archer Daniels Midland is much better.
Mr. HARKIN. We have 16 ethanol sites in Iowa; 11 are predominantly
owned by farmers. There is one that Cargill owns, and ADM owns one.
Almost all of the new ethanol plants being built in the United States
are owned and operated by farmer-owned enterprises. It so happens that
ADM was there in the beginning.
But what is happening now--and especially with this legislation--is
you are going to see more and more farmer-owned plants. That is what is
happening. My friend is talking about the past. We are talking about
the future.
The way to break the OPEC cartel is to get a lot of farmers around
the country, using new technologies, making ethanol out of corn and
cornstalks, and a variety of other feedstocks--and we will soon be
making ethanol in the State of New York, as well as in New England.
That is what this is about. It breaks the back of the OPEC cartel.
Mr. SCHUMER. I say to my friend, I would like nothing better than to
break the cartel. Some say one of the ways to break the cartel is to
put a tax on gasoline. The higher you tax the gasoline, the less you
will need OPEC. That is true. But the reason we reject that high tax on
gasoline is the burden it puts on average people. Well, if that burden
is placed on the average driver in New York to pay a lot more to the
ethanol producers rather than OPEC, what have we gained? Fifty cents
out of your pocket? If faced with a choice, I would rather have it go
to an American company--although there is ExxonMobil and others--I
would rather it go to an American producer in the cornfields in Iowa
than to the oilfields in Saudi Arabia. But neither is a very good
choice. Both of them cause huge hardship on the consumer by raising the
price.
So all I say to my friend from Iowa, who I know has the interests of
the average worker at heart--all I say to him is, if ethanol is better
than gasoline and cheaper for people in Iowa or Illinois, God bless
you, use it.
Let me ask my friend a question. Is it fair--because we won't use the
ethanol in a lot of instances--to say to us, as this amendment does,
you have to pay for it whether you use it or not?
Mr. HARKIN. I respond that that is not the case. I will say more
about that in my remarks following my friend. That is not the case at
all. I wanted to correct something. I made a mistake. In all good
faith, and in making sure that I speak correctly, I said earlier that a
gallon of gasoline was $2.03 and ethanol was $1.60. What is it in New
York?
Mr. SCHUMER. It is $2.25.
Mr. HARKIN. I was wrong about ethanol. A gallon of ethanol is only
about $1.22. I point out that it would be great if more people used it.
It is only $1.22 and $2.25 for gasoline.
Mr. SCHUMER. If my colleague can get the price of whatever it takes
to drive a car down to $1.22 in New York and have the same efficiency--
it is almost as efficient, not quite, at 90 percent--and the same level
of cleanliness in the air, I would be all for it. But everyone knows,
again, whether it is $1.20 or $1.60, the basic cost for us is the
transportation cost.
My colleague from New Mexico has been waiting very patiently. I
appreciate the spirit of my good friend from Iowa in this dialog, which
we have disagreed on over the years. I don't know if we will ever agree
on it.
I am happy to yield the floor so my colleague from New Mexico can
make his comments.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I say to my friend from New York, maybe
on this one we disagree, but we have another big issue that we agree
on. We are going to do something about the art community in your State
and collectible items.
Mr. SCHUMER. Maybe under the chairman's leadership--if the chairman
will yield--we should add that wonderful amendment to this bill and
pass it right now.
Mr. DOMENICI. I don't know what would happen if we went to the House
with it. Maybe we could hurry it up that way. In any event, a number of
Senators want to speak. I will not address the issue that was spoken to
because many others are going to--except I remind everybody that
something was said here about a monopoly, lack of competition. The
Senator from New York made the case for lack of competition. When we
use gasoline, let's not forget we have been subjected to the most
monopolistic control mechanism for the price of almost anything this
country has ever seen. The cartel is strangling us.
As we drive down the road, we are driving on gasoline that is indeed
noncompetitive. It is competitive for a few cents because the filling
stations might be competitive, but the basic price is the monopolistic
issue.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the energy bill that we
will consider over the next 2 weeks. Senators Domenici and Bingaman
should be commended for their bipartisan work in the Energy and Natural
Resources Committee to bring us to this point today.
The events over the last 4 years have highlighted what Americans have
known since the 1970s--our national security and our economic security
depend on our energy security. Americans need and deserve an energy
bill that truly moves us toward energy independence.
Seriously addressing our national security means kicking our
dependence on foreign oil.
Today, we import 58 percent of our oil.
Our dependence on imported oil poses a risk to our national security
and our economic well-being.
We will consider a number of additional proposals that can help make
greater energy security a reality for future generations of Americans.
There will be amendments offered to the bill regarding energy
security, renewable energy, biofuels, climate change, and fuel economy.
We must reduce our dependence on foreign oil and make a commitment to
clean, renewable energy.
If we choose to invest in energy efficient technologies and renewable
energy, we will create thousands of new jobs . . . we will protect our
environment . . . and we will bolster our national security.
That is the vision our Nation needs. That is the leadership we must
provide.
Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I first thank Chairman Domenici and the
ranking member, Senator Bingaman, as well as both of their staffs on
the Energy Committee for all of their hard work in preparing an energy
bill. Their leadership has allowed the Senate to come together today
and discuss an issue that is paramount to our Nation's quality of life
and our homeland and economic security.
As this body considers omnibus energy legislation, it is crucial that
we formulate an energy bill that meets several criteria. The
legislation must reduce the United States' unhealthy dependence on
foreign oil; address the United States' skyrocketing gas prices; invest
in environmentally friendly technology and research; protect the
moratorium on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf; address global
warming; and promote energy efficiency.
The Department of Energy currently projects that coal and natural gas
will be used to meet most of our Nation's increasing electricity energy
demand over the next 20 years. It is my firm belief, however, that as
we increase generation, the United States must ensure that its energy
portfolio is well diversified. New Jersey, which is already suffering
from the effects of poor air quality--one-third of which is traced to

[[Page S6466]]

out-of-State sources--would not be well suited by increasing our
reliance on coal. In addition, considering the spiking price of natural
gas, this source is not the cure-all that it was envisioned to be a few
years ago. We must, therefore, consider all forms of electricity
generation to meet our demand, including other clean and domestic forms
of energy.
I am proud to note that New Jersey currently generates 75 percent of
its electricity from low-polluting sources. Nuclear energy contributes
almost 53 percent of the electricity on New Jersey's power grid.
However, the need to protect diverse electricity generation is
particularly profound in New Jersey. In addition to rapidly increasing
electricity demand, seven generation facilities are scheduled for
retirement and the license of one nuclear facility expires within the
next 5 years--leaving a huge void, since this facility currently meets
10 percent of New Jersey's peak demand.
Promoting renewable energy will help the United States increase its
energy security by reducing our dependence on foreign energy sources.
Expanding our renewable energy resources will also allow us to rely on
cleaner, more diverse sources of energy. It will also allow us to
decrease our reliance on fossil fuels, which in turn could protect
energy prices from the volatility of fossil fuel markets. Finally, we
can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution and encourage
economic development around renewable energy industries. It is truly a
win-win for our country.
New Jersey has been a national leader in renewable energy. My State
already has its own 20 percent renewable portfolio standard. New Jersey
is not only the first mid-Atlantic State to adopt renewable energy
requirements for all retail energy suppliers, but it also has one of
the most aggressive funding mechanisms in the Nation for promoting
renewable energy.
Protecting our coastlines is another priority of mine when
considering our energy future. Jersey shore tourism, the second largest
industry in my home State, generates $31 billion in spending. This
spending directly and indirectly supports more than 836,000 jobs--more
than 20 percent of total State employment--generates more than $16.6
billion in wages, and brings in more than $5.5 billion in tax revenues
to the State. I am, therefore, deeply concerned about a provision added
in committee that would allow an inventory of the offshore oil and gas
resources. While on the surface, an inventory sounds harmless, the
explosive impulses associated with seismic exploration of sensitive
coastal waters threatens marine life and can be detrimental to
fisheries. Even more concerning is the fact that the inventory is sure
to be just a first step on a slippery slope toward offshore drilling.
With so much of my State's economy dependent on the cleanliness of our
beaches, it is imperative that we stop all efforts to weaken the
moratorium on OCS drilling. I am prepared to fight any amendment that
would threaten it, including those allowing States to opt out or
opening up designated areas off our coast. Senator Martinez, Senator
Nelson, and I plan to offer an amendment that would remove the
inventory provision, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of our
amendment so that we can protect our Nation's coastlines as well as our
States' economies.

It is also my hope that we create an energy policy that adequately
promotes a clean and healthy environment. It is time that our Nation
confronts the serious problem of global warming. Increasing CAFE
standards for automobiles and reducing powerplant emissions can go a
long way in reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions. I was a leader
on this issue during the 107th Congress when the Senate included in the
Energy bill the greenhouse gas registry amendment that Senator
Brownback and I offered. The registry was also a part of the Senate
Energy bill that was agreed to by the Senate in the 108th Congress.
I was, however, disappointed that an amendment offered by my friend
from California, Senator Feinstein, to close the SUV loophole and
improve the fuel economy of passenger vehicles failed in committee. I
believe this amendment would have been effective in reducing our
dependence on foreign oil, cutting global warming emissions, and saving
consumers thousands of dollars annually at the gas pump.
Another way we can start reducing greenhouse gas emissions is by
promoting energy efficiency standards for homes and appliances. I am
proud to say that this bill includes language that I successfully added
to the 107th Congress Energy bill encouraging the Department of Housing
and Urban Development and the public housing authorities--PHAs--it
oversees to increase energy efficiency in public housing projects. HUD
and the PHAs currently oversee approximately 1.3 million units of
residential low-income public housing across the country. The Federal
Government spends approximately $1.4 billion total for utility usage in
these units. HUD has conservatively estimated that improved energy
management processes throughout all of its public housing programs
could save between $100 and $200 million annually.
In addition the Department of Energy has estimated that if energy
management was improved in all public and assisted housing programs the
Federal Government could save between $300 million and $1 billion
annually.
My provisions address the absence of resources at HUD to help PHAs
manage their utility expenditures and the lack of incentives for
implementing energy efficient systems and technologies both contribute
significantly to high energy expenditures. I again thank the chairman
and ranking member of the Energy Committee for working with me to
include these important energy efficiency provisions in the bill.
While there are many issues we need to address in this bill, I also
want to make clear my opposition to several amendments that have come
up in the past in this body. I am adamantly opposed to any special
favors for oil and gas producers that would be harmful to many of my
constituents. I am especially concerned, therefore, about a provision
that was included in the House bill that would shield from
accountability the manufacturers of MTBE.
Finally, when it comes to the renewable fuel standard--RFS--I am very
concerned about the 8-billion-gallon RFS included in the Senate bill.
With the cost of living in New Jersey being one of the highest in the
Nation, an increase in the mandate would essentially be a gas tax for
my constituents.
I look forward to the debate on this important bill. It is time that
we passed an energy bill that will take the vision of future U.S.
energy policy in the right direction--toward energy independence,
innovation and conservation.

moratoria for oil and gas drilling

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, under the chairman and ranking
member's leadership, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee
produced an energy bill that passed out of the committee by a vote of
21 to 1. It is a bill that has a lot going for it. I continue to have
concerns about it, including a major concern about a provision that
requires an inventory of oil and gas reserves in the Outer Continental
Shelf, which my colleague from Florida and I will attempt to remove.
And I am aware of other important amendments that will be offered by my
colleagues to improve the bill. But I want to indicate to the
distinguished chairman that I think he has gotten his bill off to a
good start.
However, the progress of this bill would be jeopardized if we begin
to debate amendments that would change the status quo with respect to
the sale of leases for oil and gas drilling in the Outer Continental
Shelf. Vast areas of the Outer Continental Shelf are under moratoria
for oil and gas drilling, and other extremely sensitive areas, such as
Lease Sale 181 in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico off of Florida, have been
made unavailable for leasing by the Department of the Interior.
I am aware that there are differences of view among my colleagues on
how we should proceed with respect to the Outer Continental Shelf. My
good friend and colleague from Louisiana, Senator Landrieu, and I have
debated our different views on this at length, and have agreed to work
together on a plan to increase the flow of revenue to States that
currently allow drilling off their coasts, without opening up new areas
for drilling. I can tell my colleagues that in Florida, this is a
consensus issue. Florida's pristine beaches

[[Page S6467]]

and clean coastal environment are so important to our State's tourism-
based economy that there is no support--zero--for drilling in the
waters off Florida in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. For that reason, I am
compelled to ask the chairman and ranking member for their commitment
that they will oppose, and work to defeat, any amendments to this bill
that would change the status quo in the Eastern Planning Area. That
commitment would apply to amendments proposing any change in the areas
now under moratoria, any additional leasing activity in Lease Sale 181,
beyond what was agreed to in 2001, and includes opposing the drawing of
lateral seaward boundaries into the Eastern Planning Area.
Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. President, I thank the chairman and ranking member
for their leadership and for engaging us in this colloquy. For
Floridians, there is simply no margin for error when it comes to
offshore oil and gas drilling. Our $50 billion tourism industry is the
lifeblood of our economy, and our tourism is based on people coming to
enjoy the clean water, sugar-white sands, and excellent fishing that
can be found up and down our coasts. The risk of even one offshore
drilling accident to this economic engine is simply too great for us to
take.
I will seek to strike the section that permits an inventory of oil
and gas reserves in the Outer Continental Shelf. We are very concerned
in Florida that an inventory is simply the first step down a slippery
slope toward expanded drilling. But I will also join my colleague in
seeking the commitment of the distinguished chairman and ranking member
to oppose any amendments that would change the status quo in the
Eastern Planning Area.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, it is my position that it is unfair to
prejudge any hypothetical amendment, ruling it in or out without
knowing the substance of the provision. Furthermore, I do not want to
be in a position to preclude any of my colleagues from offering what
they think are improvements to this legislation.
That having been said, I assure my colleagues, Senator Nelson and
Senator Martinez, that I will not support any amendment that alters
current OCS moratoria with respect to submerged lands off of Florida's
coast or that affects lands in Lease Sale 181, not so much because of
the substance of any amendment of the sort, but because it would bog
down this bill.
I want it to be clear that restricting development of our natural
resources is not a policy view that I share, particularly in these
times of severe shortages and high prices. I am on record supporting
the principle that individual States should have greater input in
petitioning the Federal Government to allow oil and natural gas
production on the OCS. I am also on record stating that I believe that
the time has come for the executive branch to draw boundaries and
publish these boundaries as previously required under the Outer
Continental Shelf Lands Act. I also believe that it is imperative that
we increase our production on the OCS in order to decrease our
dependence on foreign sources of oil. Finally, I think that it is
important that we work toward recognizing, in real financial terms, the
sacrifice that certain coastal States make toward helping our Nation
meet its energy needs.
Having said all of this, I understand the importance of this issue to
my colleagues from Florida. Although we do not agree, I respect their
difference of opinion. I respect their passion on this issue and I make
this concession because I understand the necessity of moving forward
with this energy bill. This bill in its totality is more important than
any one part. And, to that end, I extend this offer to my colleagues.
It should be noted, however, that this position does not apply in any
way to any provision currently contained in this bill as reported out
of the Energy Committee, including the comprehensive OCS inventory.
While I will assist Members in working toward what I think are
improvements to the inventory section, I will strongly oppose any
attempt to strike the section. Furthermore, I will oppose any amendment
that I think weakens any of the OCS provisions already contained in
this bill. I thank my colleagues for their attention to this issue and
look forward to working with them on this in the future.
As I said at the outset, I will not support any amendment that alters
current OCS moratoria with respect to submerged lands off of Florida's
coast or that affects lands in Lease Sale 181.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I join the chairman in his reluctance to
prejudge amendments that we have not yet seen here in the Senate. We
are trying very hard on this bill to consider and work out issues on
their merits, which is how I think energy legislation should be
considered in the Senate.
I can assure my colleagues, Senator Nelson and Senator Martinez, that
in order to move forward expeditiously with this legislation, I will
likewise not support an amendment that alters current OCS moratoria
with respect to submerged lands off of Florida's coast or that affects
lands in Lease Sale 181, and that I will work very closely with them on
any amendment that they believe affects Florida's interests with
respect to the Outer Continental Shelf. Senator Nelson has been a
strong leader and advocate for preventing oil and gas development off
of Florida's coasts. He is a passionate defender of the pristine
beaches, estuaries, and native mangrove ecosystems of Florida. I am
keenly aware that he and his colleague, Senator Martinez, have
considerable rights under the Senate rules to impede the progress of
this bill if amendments threatening these important Florida resources
were in fact offered. But, I think it is unlikely that any Senator will
offer an amendment to lift OCS moratoria off of Florida, or open areas
otherwise unavailable for leasing, during our consideration of this
bill.
I have somewhat different policy views than those of Chairman
Domenici with respect to the role of States and the OCS. I certainly
agree with his desire to see additional environmentally responsible
energy development on the Outer Continental Shelf. Any policy
differences regarding how that is to be accomplished are probably best
left to another occasion. I also have a very different policy view on
Lease Sale 181 from the Senators from Florida. I have supported
drilling in the Lease Sale 181 area in the past and am likely to do so
in the future.
I do believe that oil and gas production on the OCS can and will play
an important role in meeting our Nation's energy needs, and that we
need to craft appropriate national policies in that regard. For that
reason, like the chairman, I support the inventory proposal contained
in the bill now, and would support attempts to improve it. But I do not
think that such provisions necessarily would operate to the detriment
of Floridians. I appreciate the diligence being shown by our colleagues
on these topics, given the importance that Floridians place on
maintaining a pristine coastal environment. I look forward to
continuing to work with them on these issues as this bill progresses.

____________________