Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I am delighted to be on the floor today, again, with my good friend from Ohio, Senator Portman, to discuss our energy efficiency bill, the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act, which is almost entirely now a part of the broad Energy Policy Modernization Act that is on the floor today.

The Energy Policy Modernization Act is a broad bipartisan approach to improve our Nation's energy policies on efficiency, infrastructure, supply, and accountability. I wish to thank the chair of the energy committee, Senator Murkowski, and Ranking Member Cantwell for the good work they have done to put together this bipartisan piece of legislation that is going to address a number of our energy challenges and also permanently reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Now, as I said, a fundamental component of this bill started out as Shaheen-Portman. Now we call it Portman-Shaheen. But as my colleagues know, Senator Portman and I have been working on this energy efficiency legislation since we first introduced it in 2011.

I am a proponent of energy efficiency because it is the easiest, cheapest way to reduce energy costs, to combat climate change, and to create private sector jobs. In addition to being affordable, energy efficiency benefits aren't confined to a certain fuel source or to a particular region of the country. You can like efficiency if you are a supporter of fossil fuels or if you are a supporter of new alternative energies.

Our piece of this comprehensive bill represents nearly 5 years of meetings, negotiations, compromise, and broad stakeholder outreach. The end result is an affordable, bipartisan approach to boost the use of energy efficiency technologies in manufacturing, in buildings, and across the Federal Government.

According to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, when fully implemented, our efficiency bill will create nearly 200,000 jobs, reduce carbon emissions by the equivalent of taking 22 million cars off the road, and save consumers $16 billion a year. And it does this with absolutely no mandates.

Critical to the negotiation of this legislation has been the joint effort between Senator Portman and myself, and between our staffs, to work out with stakeholder groups the concerns they had in the energy efficiency legislation and to come up with compromises that we all thought not only helped build support for the legislation but that actually make it a better bill.

So on buildings, which use about 40 percent of our energy in this country, the proposals in our legislation would improve energy savings by strengthening outdated model building codes to make new homes and commercial buildings more energy efficient. Again, I point out that it does that without any mandates. It is a carefully crafted agreement that has been negotiated with everyone, from the home builders to the realtors to a number of our friends in labor. So I think this is a compromise, and the language in the bill is a compromise for which there is broad support.

The bill also encourages energy efficiency in the industrial sector, which consumes more energy than any other sector of our economy. Again, the provisions in the legislation would encourage the private sector to develop innovative energy efficient technologies for industrial applications and to invest in a workforce that is trained to deploy energy efficiency practices to manufacturers, and they would encourage the Department of Energy to work more closely with stakeholders on commercialization of new technologies.

Finally, the energy efficiency piece of this legislation would encourage the Federal Government, the Nation's largest energy consumer, to adopt more efficient building standards and technologies, such as smart meters. With stronger efficiency standards for Federal facilities, we can save taxpayers millions of dollars.

Senator Portman and I have introduced our bill three times. Each time, this legislation has received broad bipartisan support from our Senate colleagues, broad bipartisan support in the energy committee, and it has received strong support from a diverse group of stakeholders--everyone from trade associations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the National Association of Manufacturers, labor organizations, and the environmental community--all, I think, because efficiency is something that we can all agree on.

At long last, I am excited to see that the full Senate is again taking up this legislation as part of a bigger, more comprehensive bill.

Before I turn it over to Senator Portman, who is here, I would also point out that two other provisions I have been working on are included in this comprehensive bill. One is smart manufacturing legislation, which uses technology to integrate all aspects of manufacturing so that businesses can manufacture more while using less energy. The other provision deals with grid integration, because, as we know, this is one of the issues that the committee took up as part of this bill: How do we address our aging transmission and distribution infrastructure? The grid integration bill will ensure the broader deployment of clean and efficient technologies, such as solar, combined heat and power, and energy storage. I think that is important to strengthen this Nation's energy security.

Finally, I will close by saying that the Senate is working this week on a comprehensive energy bill for the first time since 2007, if it becomes law. Since then, we have seen a dramatic change in our economy, and we have seen a dramatic change in the world economy with respect to energy. The United States has greatly reduced our energy imports. We are now the world's top producer of oil and natural gas. In many places around the world, electricity generated by renewable sources, such as wind and solar, is cheap enough to compete effectively with electricity generated by fossil fuels. Just at the end of the year, we saw more than 180 countries come together to form a global plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change. So we are truly experiencing a revolution in energy production and energy technology. It is way past time for our energy policies in America to catch up with that revolution.

I, again, thank the chair and ranking member and the entire energy committee, and, again, my colleague Senator Portman for the great work he has done and that we have done together to bring this portion of the bill to the floor.

I yield to Senator Portman.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source