H-Prize Act of 2006

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5143) to authorize the Secretary of Energy to establish monetary prizes for achievements in overcoming scientific and technical barriers associated with hydrogen energy, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 5143, as amended, the bill now under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H-Prize, an exciting opportunity to do for hydrogen what the X Prize did for entrepreneurial space flight. First of all, it is important for us to get a handle on what our need is, why it is that we are aiming at hydrogen, why we must accelerate the drive for hydrogen.

Probably a picture is worth a thousand words. So here is a picture of a gas line in China. As you can see, if that is the future, our addiction to oil becomes a significant problem for us.

ExxonMobil predicts in their energy report at the end of last year that global energy demand will grow by 60 percent between now and 2030. The challenge, of course, for us in that is that that increase in global energy demand will necessitate a 40 percent increase in OPEC oil production. Even if they have got it, do we really want to be that much more dependent on countries in OPEC?

So the idea is to figure out a way to break our addiction to oil, to move away from this dependence that we are currently in.

The Ansari X PRIZE did for entrepreneurial space flight what the H- Prize can do for hydrogen. As you know, Burt Rattan's spaceship won, became the first private spaceship in commercial use and flew within 2 weeks successfully and back to the Earth. That is the idea; that is the model that we are using here in the H-Prize.

The H-Prize would basically set up three categories of prizes. The first is an every-other-year $1 million prize for breakthroughs in production, storage, distribution and utilization of hydrogen. Every other year, as well, we would issue a prize of $4 million for breakthroughs in prototypes. And

then, within 10 years, a $10 million prize for the team that can transform from well to wheels essentially, or as one of our colleagues pointed out, from water to wheels, if you are thinking about splitting water to create hydrogen. That team that can do that transformation would win a $10 million prize, augmented, we hope, by up to $40 million worth of private money that would be added to the prize amount. That private money would be matched dollar for dollar to the venture capital that was raised by the team that does the transformation.

So it is a way of testing the teams' ability to get us all the way to the government's objective, which is not to declare a winner in a science project, but rather, to get all the way to the marketplace. So if a team can do it, if they can break us through to the hydrogen economy, they would get the $10 million, but then they would get a dollar-for-dollar match of up to $40 million if we can raise that private money for their venture capital. And so they would have $50 million to get to the marketplace.

Now, along the way, we have had helpful suggestions from various members of the committee and other Members not on the committee. And it is true that there are other competing technologies. For example, a breakthrough in better batteries could supplant hydrogen. Better solar cells could replace or win out in this race to the fuel of the future. Those, I see, as the three big competitors: hydrogen, solar cells and then better batteries.

What we hope to do in the H-Prize is incentivize the breakthroughs, the creativity that can get us to a hydrogen economy. Along the way I think I am hearing from other Members of Congress about possible other prizes that would incentivize perhaps solar or perhaps better battery technology.

I think it makes sense to have prizes because the beauty of prizes, as we heard from Peter Diamondes, the founder of the X Prize, is, of course, if nobody wins, you don't pay the prize money. So the government basically gets the research done for free until somebody meets the metrics of the prize, and then we award the prize money. So I am very supportive of other prizes.

It is also true that it has worked before. We have actually done prizes in the past. In fact, the transcontinental railroad essentially had some prizes in it, both dollar-per-mile for the railroad companies rewarded by the Congress, appropriations from this body, and also a great deal of land that was offered to the railroads if they could do this, if they could complete the transcontinental railroad.

And, of course, the thing that I think we all need to be aware of is that this was done in 6 years. The transcontinental railroad was begun in 1863, completed in 1869. And you know, there was a lot going on during that time period. In fact, there was the Civil War under way. But the United States, with the support of the U.S. Congress, united east and west within 6 years. We can, because we have done it before.

Now, in 1927 Charles Lindbergh won a prize for being the first to successfully go in a transcontinental flight across the Atlantic Ocean. That is a transatlantic flight over the Atlantic Ocean. And that prize incentivized him and caused him to go for it. There was a lot of risk involved in that, but he won it; and the face of aviation was changed because of it.

So I submit to my colleagues here today that hydrogen is not as far away as we think it is. When we hear people talking about 10, 20, 30 years away, particularly when they get into the 30 kind of time frame, most Americans start putting that way on the back burner and maybe even off of the stove. But it really is not that far away if we get with it.

And the final example I would use for that is when President Kennedy announced in 1961 his goal of getting to the Moon before the decade was out, we did it in 1969. Within 8 years, the mission was accomplished.

It is important to remember that that mission was accomplished using slide rules, not the computers that we have today. So with the capabilities we have today, there is every reason to believe we can break through if we would but just get with it. And I look forward to the debate from colleagues who will share this view that we can get there faster than we think.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, with great appreciation for his skill and efficiency in moving the H-Prize through the committee, I am very happy to yield 5 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Science Committee, Mr. Boehlert.

(Mr. BOEHLERT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent), who is a cochair of the House Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from South Carolina (Mr. Barrett), whose district has one of the keys to this hydrogen future, Savannah River National Lab.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to thank Mr. Lipinski for his cooperative spirit and very helpful comments along the way. Mr. Lipinski is our chief cosponsor and someone who has improved the bill as it has worked its way through the process. Perhaps that is because of a pleasant personal relationship and also my respect for his expertise that made it easy for him to work with us, and I appreciate the work that he did to improve the bill.

Along the way we did make improvements through the committee process, and I appreciate the cooperative way that Mr. Lipinski and others on the Democratic side of the aisle worked with us in the committee. The result is a better bill and I am very appreciative of that.

Also, Mr. Speaker, I will introduce for the Record letters in support of the H-Prize from the National Hydrogen Association, the Hydrogen Advisory Council, the U.S. Fuel Cell Council, SAE International, Shell Hydrogen, BMW, General Motors, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., Enertech Capital, Ion America, Tiax LLC, Protium Energy Technologies, and professors from USC Davis and Purdue.

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to recognize the great work of our folks on the committee, particularly David Goldston was extremely helpful in making all this happen. He works closely with Chairman Boehlert. I also want to thank Mr. Gordon and, again, Mr. Lipinski and other members of our staff that made it possible for us to get this quickly to the House floor.

Let me close with this: We have an opportunity to solve America's challenge in energy. It is a Republican problem. It is a Democratic problem. It is an American problem. The good news is, it can have an American solution.

This is an opportunity for a triple play. If we do this right, we can improve our national security by ending our dependence on foreign oil. We will still use foreign oil; of course, we will use oil for a long time, but we can move away from the dependent state that we are in now, dependent on places that are very unstable. So it is an opportunity to improve our national security.

It is also, secondly, an opportunity to create jobs and economic development, because if we can reinvent the car, imagine the jobs we can create.

And then, third, for the third part of the triple play is an opportunity to clean the air. Because whether it is an internal combustion engine, the way that BMW intends to do it, or a fuel cell, the way that General Motors intends to do it, the only emission out of the back of the car is water. We want to incentivize those breakthroughs.

There are some technological hurdles ahead, but with an H-Prize, with the incentive from the Federal Government and the support of the Federal Government saying we are going to do this, we are going to get there, I believe that we will summon the creativity of inventors and investors out there in America and around the world to try to win this prize, and in the process, America will win with a triple play.

Mr. Speaker, the letters I referred to previously are as follows:

Hydrogen Advisory Council,

May 8, 2006.

Representative Bob Inglis,

Cannon HOB,

Washington, DC.

Dear Congressman Inglis: On behalf of the Hydrogen Advisory

Council, I want to congratulate you on the movement of H.R.

5143, the H-Prize Act of 2006, through the House Science

Committee. We look forward to working with your office in the

near future to move this crucial legislation to the

President's desk.

As you know, the U.S. spent almost $250 billion on oil in

2005 and 25% of America's trade deficit currently comes from

importing oil. These staggering numbers combined with growing

instability in the world's oil producing regions is very

concerning, and the need for a domestic solution to the

nation's future energy needs has never been more apparent.

We believe that the solution is hydrogen. Not only does

hydrogen provide a clean and renewable source of energy for

the U.S., it will help create thousands of new jobs and

enhance our national security.

The H-Prize will help move the nation towards this goal. By

incentivizing key breakthroughs in hydrogen technology,

storage, production, and distribution, the H-Prize Act of

2006 will help speed the hydrogen economy to fruition.

Furthermore, the H-Prize will do this in a fiscally

responsible way by only awarding prize monies to technologies

that reach set performance metrics and by leveraging a

combination of federal dollars and private-sector investment

without impeding natural market forces.

The Hydrogen Advisory Council fully supports the H-Prize

Act of 2006 and will do all it can to assure its future

passage and utilization. Thank you again for your continued

leadership on hydrogen policy.

Cordially,

Robert S. Walker,

Chairman, Hydrogen Advisory Council.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 5143, the H-Prize Act of 2006, an innovative, forward-thinking bill that will spur the application of American ingenuity toward securing our energy future. I applaud Mr. Inglis for introducing this legislation, and I am proud to have joined him as a chief cosponsor of this bill.

Right now, every American is affected by high energy prices. Working families, small businesses and consumers across the country are feeling the pinch with no end in sight. People aren't just paying more to fill their gas tanks or when they pay for their heating bills for their home; they are paying more at the grocery store, on air travel and for many other daily expenses. Local economies are suffering as people spend more on fuel and less on consumer goods and travel.

The high prices also highlight the fact that the U.S. is too heavily dependent on fossil fuels that we import from unstable parts of the world. To protect our national security, we must become more energy secure.

As we explore ways to bring price relief and bolster our country's energy independence, one significant energy source has emerged as a potential solution, hydrogen fuel cells.

Hydrogen holds great promise to meet many of our future energy needs, and it addresses national security and our environmental concerns. Hydrogen is the simplest, most abundant element in the universe.

Hydrogen fuel cells have already been developed to power cars. Last week I had the opportunity to drive a hydrogen-powered car built by Honda. It did not drive much differently than any other car that we drive, a gasoline-powered car that we have right now, except for the silence of the engine, which I am used to, having driven a Ford Escape hybrid for a couple of years.

Although we do have this car that has been created, we could drive these few on the road, there are significant problems that must still be worked out before we can put a hydrogen car in every garage. For example, the weight of the fuel cells and batteries must be brought down. The range per fill-up must be extended. It is about 200 miles right now on the car that I drove. And most importantly, the price must be lowered very drastically. The car that I drove they told me cost about $1.5 million. So clearly, there are several significant technological advances that we must make. But these are within our reach.

And when these advances are made, hydrogen can fill critical energy needs beyond transportation. Hydrogen can also be used to heat and generate electricity for our homes. The future possibilities of this energy source are enormous.

By utilizing hydrogen, we can and will lessen our dependence on foreign fuels. Right now too much American time and resources are spent dealing with situations caused by our dependence on oil that we import from unstable countries. We must wean ourselves from these unpredictable energy sources while maintaining and strengthening our economy here at home. Hydrogen provides a way to achieve both.

The environmental benefits of hydrogen are also outstanding. When used as an energy source, hydrogen produces no emissions besides water. Zero polluting emissions, an amazing advance over the current sources of energy that we use.

H.R. 5143 seeks the development of needed advances in hydrogen technology by using our greatest national resource, our intelligent and creative workforce. To address our critical energy challenge we must bring our best and brightest to the task, and H-Prize does this.

An economy based on energy outside of fossil fuels is no longer implausible. But to get there, we must invest in research and development. Research grants are the basis of this process, but what we have is a responsibility to find creative and new ways to inspire researchers, business leaders, and our youth to solve the problems that society faces. The H-Prize will help expand the possibilities of hydrogen research,

promoting people not normally involved in Federal research and development to explore avenues for a more secure energy future.

Hydrogen has the potential to reduce our Nation's dependence on foreign oil, improve our air quality and maintain our economic competitiveness. And the H-Prize will help take us there.

I thank Mr. Inglis for his leadership on this important issue, and I am proud to have joined him in this effort. This legislation has involved much bipartisan cooperation on the Science Committee, which I appreciate, and it exemplifies the usual relationship on our committee under the leadership of Chairman Boehlert and Ranking Member Gordon.

I hope that we can continue this cooperation on other critical issues related to America's future technological competitiveness. We must work together to encourage the creative talents that have made our country the world leader in technology.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support of this legislation which will provide some of the encouragement that will better our Nation and the world.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Miller).

Mr. Speaker, we have no more speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Speaker, again I would like to urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this bill.

Our Nation's future depends on finding a solution to our critical energy needs.

America has always been at the forefront of technological breakthroughs. We have responded to great challenges, perhaps most famously John F. Kennedy's challenge to land a man on the Moon by the end of 1960s. And we have seen that prizes have a great effect to inspire technological advances. As Mr.

Inglis stated earlier, he talked about Charles Lindbergh, a prize was offered and Charles Lindbergh made that first solo flight across the Atlantic.

The X Prize was put out there and we had the team put together a private flight of a spaceship 100 kilometers above the Earth. Challenges and prizes help spark the imagination of scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs who invest blood, sweat, tears and large sums of money to achieve a great goal. But perhaps the greatest role that the H-prize may serve is in spurring the imagination of our most valuable resource, our youth.

Back in the 1970s there was great interest in solar power as an alternative energy source. This was largely brought in by the OPEC crisis of the early 1970s, the high oil prices, just as we see today. So there is a great demand. We need something different and solar energy was the big thing that we were looking at.

In my 8th grade science fair project I examined solar energy. I was excited about the thought of moving beyond oil and moving to something that would make us more secure and something that would be clean. I read about it, and I moved forward; I did the science fair project.

Now, my science fair project in my own career as an engineer did not ever find that solution to an alternative energy source. And unfortunately it seemed that we got into the 1980s and what happened? We lost that interest. Interest waned in finding alternative energy.

We cannot afford to let that happen again. All the focus today on energy prices has probably helped to facilitate bringing this bill to the floor for consideration today. Unfortunately, we often only act during crises, which means we do not take the time to think big, to make big plans and to dream big. America has been built on big dreams and hard work. That is what has made America the greatest Nation on Earth. That is why we need to think big in changing the energy that we use today before it is too late, for our environment and for our security. The H-Prize will help in doing this.

Perhaps there is a student out there today whose imagination will be sparked by the H-Prize and he or she may become an engineer and some day help develop the much-needed answers to today's energy problems. I hope that that opportunity is out there today and this H-Prize provides that inspiration to them.

So I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill today, and perhaps one day we will look back on this day when the House passed the H-Prize, look at it as a catalyst that led to a better, cleaner and more secure America and world.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5143. And I want to congratulate Chairman Inglis for bringing forward this initiative and for pursuing it with both energy and open-mindedness.

This bill has moved swiftly through the Science Committee because Chairman Inglis has been, at the same time, relentlessly focused on his objective and open to compromise. That is how you get things accomplished in this town. We need more Members more able to pair those traits.

The H-Prize this bill creates would similarly allow the government and the Nation to be both focused and open-minded in pursuit of the hydrogen economy.

Establishing an H-Prize would encourage the Nation's most creative scientists and engineers and the public at large to focus on overcoming the many technical challenges that stand between us and a hydrogen economy.

At the same time, the H-Prize does not presume that any particular technological path will lead us to the hydrogen economy. The bill encourages any interested party to take on the technical risk needed to pursue their particular notion of how to improve their production, storage and distribution or use of hydrogen.

The National Academy of Sciences has encouraged the government to experiment with prizes for precisely this reason. Prizes can draw out new ideas from scientists and engineers who may not be willing or able to participate in traditional government research and development programs, while encouraging them, rather than the taxpayer, to assume the risk.

Congress has been following the academy's lead. For example, the NASA Authorization Act that was enacted last year created a prize program, and the space agency has been implementing it. All of these programs draw on several centuries of successfully using prizes to help spur technological development, from the prize to invent a way to measure longitude, a key to improving shipping, to the prize Charles Lindbergh won for his transatlantic flight. Our hope is that the H-Prize will result in a similar landmark achievement in the history of transportation.

I want to emphasize, though, that the prizes are just one tool we need to use to kick our Nation's addiction to oil.

Prizes need to be part of a balanced portfolio of measures to advance technology, a portfolio that needs to include regulations and tax incentives to create demand for new technologies, and traditional R&D programs to ensure a steady stream of work on a range of short and long-term technological questions.

Moreover, prizes are not the best tools to apply to all problems, but they are especially well suited to hydrogen, because we need to solve major long-term puzzles if the hydrogen economy is to become a reality. We need to elicit every possible idea from every quarter to do that, and we know it is going to take time to figure out what might work.

The bill structures the prize program to attack hydrogen questions in several ways: With biannual prizes for advancements to encouraging ongoing efforts and incremental progress, with biannual prizes for prototypes to encourage continuing work on integrating technologies as they develop, and with a grand prize to encourage work on the toughest show stopper, if you will, problems that could prevent us from using hydrogen as a fuel.

No one knows how all of this will turn out. That is the nature of research and the nature of a prize program. But we know that the potential benefits of hydrogen are worth the rather small investment required for a prize program. Hydrogen holds out the promise of becoming a clean, domestically produced fuel that could displace or even replace gasoline as the way we power our cars and trucks.

To achieve this, we still need to figure out how to affordably produce hydrogen using renewable energy, nuclear energy or coal with carbon dioxide sequestration, how to affordably store hydrogen on board a vehicle, how to make fuel cells and batteries more cheaply and have them operate more efficiently and how to distribute hydrogen economically.

That is a tall order, but it is exactly the kind of long-range effort we need. It is an effort that needs to be combined with proven short- range ways to reduce the use of gasoline like tighter fuel economy standards, which this House is likely to debate next week.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support for this bill, which was approved by the committee by voice vote. It is the right way to help see if we can radically change our energy future. Our dependence on foreign oil is a national security threat.

We have ways to use every weapon in our arsenal, and we need to use them to counter it.

Mr. Speaker, I support this legislation, but there is so much more that we need to be doing. In fact, there is so much more that we should have done already. The task before us, the urgent task before us, is to develop a practical, sustainable energy source or array of sources that will allow this Nation to be energy independent without busting the budget of middle class families just to go to work, to take the kids to school, to go to the grocery store.

We need practical, sustainable energy sources that do not emit the greenhouse gases that many scientists, really most scientists now fear will lead to catastrophic climate change, that will forever alter life on this planet, and we need practical, sustainable energy sources that will not so limit our options in foreign policy that we have to be uncritical friends to some of the most unattractive nations or governments in the world.

Mr. Speaker, we do need to pursue research into hydrogen, but we need an effort comparable to the effort during World War II, the Manhattan Project. We need an effort, to use Mr. Inglis' analogy, like the effort that this Nation had in the 1960s to reach the Moon.

That is the effort we need to put behind developing alternative fuels and conservation technologies and to move those energy and conservation technologies into widespread commercial use.

I have sponsored legislation that Mr. Boehlert, the Chair of the Science Committee who spoke a moment ago, and Mr. Markey, my Democratic colleague, have introduced that would increase fuel efficiency requirements for cars and trucks to 33 miles a gallon by 2015.

Mr. Speaker, that goal can be achieved now with existing technologies, without any technological breakthrough. I feel almost embarrassed at how modest that bill is, how lacking in ambition that bill is. But even that the leadership of this House has not been willing to bring to the floor for debate and for a vote.

But, Mr. Speaker, in our hearing on hydrogen technology, in our hearing in the Science Committee on the H-Prize

legislation, one of the witnesses said that we could achieve cars and trucks that average 100 miles a gallon in the relatively near future if we really put our minds to it.

Why on Earth are we not doing that? Why on Earth are we not acting with the urgency that our energy needs require?

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the President's budget this year did increase funding for research into sustainable energy sources. Mr. Speaker, I regret that the President's budget found much of that additional funding from cuts to energy efficiency efforts. We need to proceed on several fronts at one time. We need to proceed without bias, without preconception.

A hydrogen economy or hydrogen fuel cells may not be the winning technology. As several of the speakers have said already, there are huge obstacles to overcome. Yes, hydrogen is abundant, but not as hydrogen. We need to find hydrogen sources, and the present source of hydrogen is by stripping it out of other fuels. Yes, when hydrogen is combined with oxygen to produce energy, that is a clean technology, but stripping hydrogen from fuels now is not clean. It is a very dirty technology, and the usual source of fuels from which it is stripped are fossil fuels, not sustainable, renewable energy sources.

Mr. Speaker, hydrogen technology, to have a hydrogen fuel cell car in every driveway, would make useless the infrastructure we now have, the pipelines, the tanks, the pumps, to transport, to distribute a fuel that is liquid on the planet Earth, which hydrogen is not.

So let's proceed. Let's proceed to develop, to provide an incentive to the private sector to develop the kinds of technologies we are going to need if hydrogen fuel cells are ever to be a practical source of energy for us.

But let us proceed on several fronts. I hope this Congress will be back soon. I will vote for this bill today, but I hope that Congress will be back soon to consider other prizes for energy, other alternative energy sources, other prizes for energy conservation, and that this Congress gives the urgent attention to energy independence, to sustainable energy sources that we desperately need, that the middle class families now paying $3 a gallon desperately need.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague for yielding.

Next week, Mr. Speaker, the House will convene on Tuesday at 12:30 for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will have several measures under suspension of the rules, a list of which will be sent to Members' offices by the end of the week. Any votes on those measures on Tuesday will be rolled until 6:30 p.m.

On Wednesday and the balance of the week, the House will likely consider H.R. 5122, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2007 from the Armed Services Committee. As Mr. Dreier just mentioned, the committee reported the bill yesterday, and I expect this to be considered on Wednesday and Thursday.

Now, there will be no votes next Friday, but Members should be aware that Thursday we could go well into the evening. And so while Friday is already scheduled for a day in session, I think we can complete our work on Thursday, and that will be our goal.

We expect that H.R. 5143, the hydrogen relief bill, which was reported by the Committee on Science, could be up next week. And we can expect additional energy votes in the coming weeks.

I would have hoped it would have been up this week, but there is a jurisdictional dispute that is being sorted out; and until it is, we are unable to schedule it for floor action.

I hope so.

I hope so. We are continuing to work with our Members, some of whom want to spend more money, some of whom want to spend less money. And until we come to some resolution of those talks, I cannot give you any further information on when the budget resolution will be up.

I do too.

Mr. Speaker, there is a tentative agreement on the tax reconciliation bill between the House and the Senate, tentative to an agreement on a second bill that would consider the extender items, issues that clearly would not fit within the tax reconciliation bill. There is no agreement on that second bill, and so all of this is still under discussion.

There was a meeting of the principals, both Democrat and Republican, members of the conference on pensions last night. We are continuing to work on that, and it is my hope in the next several weeks that both of those issues will be ready for floor action.

I think the gentleman realizes that I have spent about 6 years trying to bring real pension reform to protect American working men and women's pensions. And the House and Senate have acted. There have been several months of conversations that have yielded, frankly, little results.

Now, I remain very optimistic that there will be a bill, but some of the principals involved are also involved in the tax reconciliation and the tax extenders conference which is complicating a lot of the discussions on the pension bill.

But I do expect, over the next couple of weeks, a lot of this to be sorted out.

The glass is always half full.