Energy Policy Act of 2005

ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2005 -- (Senate - June 15, 2005)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 6, which the clerk will report.

The legislative clerk read as follows:

A bill (H.R. 6) to ensure jobs for our future with secure, affordable and reliable energy.

Pending:

Domenici amendment No. 779 (to amendment No. 775), to eliminate methyl tertiary butyl ether from the United States fuel supply, to increase production and use of renewable fuel, and to increase the Nation's energy independence.

Schumer amendment No. 782 (to amendment No. 779), to strike the reliable fuels subtitle of the amendment.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I will address this amendment. Let me say, this amendment is one that still requires all the Clean Air standards to be met but removes the ethanol mandate. That is what this amendment does.

The underlying Domenici amendment on ethanol is so wrong. The amendment is a boondoggle. It hurts drivers and it hurts the free market. It is a boondoggle because it takes money out of the pockets of drivers and puts it into the pockets of the big ethanol producers.

The bottom line is very simple. In places where they need ethanol, there is a mandate, and in places where they do not need ethanol, there is a mandate. This is nothing less than an ethanol gas tax levied on every driver: the employee driving to work, the mom driving the kids to school, the truckdriver who earns a living. Gas prices are high enough. It is utterly amazing that in this body we seek to raise the prices even higher than they are now because that is what this amendment will do--particularly if you are on the coasts or in large parts of the South. If you are not in an area that has a lot of ethanol production, make no mistake about it, the underlying amendment will raise your gas prices. The Schumer amendment will make sure that gas prices do not go up any higher because of an ethanol mandate.

The bottom line is this boondoggle not only hurts drivers and puts money in the pockets of the big ethanol producers, but this amendment puts a dagger in the heart of the concept of a free market. We have lots of my friends, particularly on the other side of the aisle, who praise the free market all the time--as they should. But then they fold to the ethanol lobby and vote for one of the most anti-free-market amendments that has come on this floor in decades, because not only do we subsidize ethanol, which we do, and not only do we deal with ethanol in terms of imports, not only do we require ethanol in this amendment whether you need it but, amazingly enough, this amendment says: If you do not use the ethanol, you still have to pay for it.

So somebody driving in New York or Philadelphia or

Boston or Bangor, ME, somebody driving in Seattle or Portland or Los Angeles or San Francisco--areas where there is not much ethanol--is going to pay 5 cents, 10 cents, 15 cents more to go into the pockets of the ethanol producers, even when the drivers do not use ethanol.

It is so unfair to do this. It is wrong to do this. If you come from Iowa or Illinois, and ethanol is good for your gasoline and it is the best way to make it cleaner, that is fine. But if there are other ways to do this, then why do we require ethanol?

We know why. Some say it will help the corn grower. When was the last time the little family farmer benefited from a policy where three or four big companies control the show? They do not benefit when it comes to meat, they do not benefit when it comes to milk, they do not benefit when it comes to wheat, they do not benefit when it comes to corn. So to put a few pennies--and that is all it will be--in the pocket of the family farmer, we charge drivers around the country billions of dollars.

Make no mistake about it, most of those billions will not go to the family farmer, they will go to the Archer Daniels Midlands of the world--a company that was once accused of price fixing. There will be no free market here at all.

There could not be an amendment that does more damage--damage to drivers, damage to the free market, damage to the system that says we do not force things on people they do not need. It is hard to believe.

I know the political forces here. We have coalitions. We have big industry and people from the corn-growing States on one side. But if we required every person in New Mexico or Georgia or West Virginia or Montana to buy New York milk, no matter how much it cost and whether they needed it, you would be on your feet hollering. But to require New York drivers and drivers from Maine and Florida and Texas and Arizona and California and Washington to buy Middle Western corn-based ethanol is equally outrageous.

We have had this amendment around for a while. I have been fighting it as long as I have been here. I understand the political forces, but the political forces should not mitigate what is right. If you believe in the free market, if you believe in protecting drivers, do not vote for this amendment. If you would not vote for a gas tax, why vote for an ethanol tax? It is the same thing. It is the same concept. There are many other ways to make the air cleaner.

Talk to refiners on the coasts. They can crack the petroleum to meet the Clean Air standards. They are not going to buy the ethanol, anyway, but they are still going to have to pay for it.

I urge my colleagues to defeat this poorly conceived, unfair amendment that puts a dagger in the heart of anything that we might consider the free market.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

http://thomas.loc.gov