Energy Policy Act of 2005 - Conference Report
ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2005--CONFERENCE REPORT -- (Senate - July 28, 2005)
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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to this Energy bill. Even though I am opposed to the bill, I first want to pay my compliments to both Senators from New Mexico, Mr. DOMINICI and Mr. Bingaman, for the work that they have done. While I am opposed to the Energy bill for a variety of reasons, which I will elucidate in a minute, it was Senator Bingaman and Senator Domenici who worked very hard to make the bill better.
The bill that left the Senate was considerably better. I thought the House bill could not have been much worse. The bill that comes back to us obviously is somewhere in between. Without the efforts of the two Senators from New Mexico, it would have been considerably worse.
I want to say one other thing. It was of monumental strength that the odious MTBE provisions that the House had clung so steadfastly to, that brought the bill down last time it came around, are not in the bill. That is because the Senate, on the Democratic and Republican sides, hung tough. The MTBE provisions were a disaster. To reward polluters and stick taxpayers who had lost their supplies of drinking water with a bill for what had happened would have been a disgrace. To pay the MTBE companies over $2 billion because they could no longer sell as much of their product as before was doing what we do for very few businesspeople who produce far more worthy products.
So I want to compliment my two colleagues for knocking out that provision. It is the reason we are sitting here with a conference report.
Let me talk about one provision in the bill that bothers me greatly but then talk about what bothers me more than that because what bothers me most is not what is in the bill but what is not in the bill. What is in the bill is an ethanol provision that will force people on the coasts, States that do not grow much corn, to buy ethanol whether they need it or not. I understand the need to help agriculture. I have voted for many of those types of provisions myself. I know the dairy farmers, apple growers and cherry growers in New York State, and they do need some help. I am not adverse at all to the Government helping. But this ``Gyro Gearloose'' way of helping the corn growers of the Middle West by foisting the costs upon drivers, particularly on the east and west coasts, at a time when gasoline is already $2.30, $2.40 or $2.50, makes no sense.
We want to keep the air clean, and we need to make sure that gasoline burns, but there are many ways to do it, not only with ethanol or MTBEs. To require the refiners throughout the country to use MTBE or at least pay for MTBE, even when they are not going to use it, is a disgraceful subsidy. We already subsidize ethanol heavily, and it is very unfair to do it.
If one wants to encourage ethanol, I have no problem with encouraging the creation of ethanol plants in places such as New York or maybe Nevada, where there is not much ethanol now. The real cost of ethanol is not in making it but in transporting it. While it is dubious, recent studies have shown that the energy cost into making ethanol exceeds the energy benefit into using it as a substitute for gasoline. Nonetheless, growing it near the source of use would make it far more efficient. I am very regretful that it is in here.
New York drivers will pay 5, 6, 7 cents a gallon more than they have to because of this ethanol provision. It is unfair to make the salesperson in Rochester who drives 500 or 600 miles a day and has enough trouble earning a living pay a direct subsidy to a corn grower in Iowa, however much that corn grower needs help. It is not a way to do business, and yet that is what we have done here.
So the ethanol provision is rotten. The ethanol provision is a boondoggle. The ethanol provision occurs only because of the political power of the ethanol makers and the growers of corn in the Middle West and some other parts of the country, not because it is right. It is indefensible on the merits. It should not be in the bill.
Having said that, what bothers me even more is what is not in the bill. I love this country, and I try to think what could make this country decline, what has made other great powers decline, whether it is the Roman Empire or Great Britain in the 19th century. When one reads history, it is that they became so preoccupied with enjoying things day to day that they were unable to look beyond the horizon a little bit and try to solve problems that might be upon them 5 or 10 years down the road. That is exactly what we are doing with energy.
Our dependence on foreign oil, our lack of being able to solve our growing energy needs is a crisis in the making. It is not a crisis today, but it is going to be a crisis 5 and 10 years from now. Even now, energy costs are akin to a slit on the wrist. We slowly bleed and it weakens our economy.
Yet, in this bill, we do some things but not close to enough, and nothing major and nothing of vision to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels in general and imported fossil fuels, in particular. Conservation--we know that we should do both things. I do not disagree with the far left or the far right. The far left, conserve only, get rid of fossil fuels; far right, produce more oil, forget about conservation. We should be doing both. I am not adverse to better utilizing fossil fuels, to figuring out coal gasification, even to looking at oil and gas reserves off our coasts, if it is done in a careful and pro-environmental way, as it was done when we sold some tract in the east Gulf several years ago.
Conservation has to be part of any plan to reduce our energy dependence. CAFE standards, not in the bill; major incentives for conservation, not in the bill, even mild provisions, such as the Senator from Oregon offered to raise CAFE standards a mile per gallon a year were rejected. That is because of the cloud of the big three auto companies in America and, frankly, I regret to say, the unions that serve them. They have been arguing for the status quo for years. For that reason now, I hate to say it but foreign automakers are again overtaking them.
We have to look to the future. I am happy to help our auto industry with new incentives to figure out ways to burn less fossil fuel and have alternative sources, but we are not doing it. It is no good for the auto companies, it is no good for the autoworkers, and it is no good for America.
So conservation is not in the bill, nor is a dramatic program to reduce our energy independence. There are some subsidies here and there for wind power, solar power and biomass. There are subsidies for coal, gas and oil. But the emergency that we face to really engage in crash programs, to use hydrogen better, to use fuel cells better, to find other alternatives, is virtually a necessity or will be a necessity 5 years or 8 years from now, lest our economic vitality continue to be sapped.
It is amazing to me that China, a country not regarded for its fealty to the environment, has stronger CAFE standards, stronger incentives for alternatives to gas and oil than we do. That is a sign that this great American experiment, this noble experiment, as the Founding Fathers called it, may be at least in this area losing its bearings. If we are more interested in providing immediate subsidies to the powerful few in the energy industry who are around us than figuring out a grand plan to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and on fossil fuels in general, we are not serving the people of America.
The amazing thing is I think the people of America are ready for a vision, if we look at all the surveys, finding a way to be independent of imported oil.
I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SCHUMER. Dependence on foreign oil gets our foreign policy twisted in a knot, which, of course, saps our country of wealth every minute, every second, 365 days a year, and the American people want some change. They are willing to make some sacrifice and tighten their belts. As China is ahead of America in this area, the American people are ahead of this Congress. Again, we seem more concerned with feeding particular special interests, some good, some bad, than we do with coming up with a vision as to how we are going to reduce our energy independence.
So is this bill an evil, horrible bill? No. The ethanol provision is odious, but the bill on balance may take a small, few steps forward, but not close to what is needed. I cannot think of an area, in a large policy way, where the needs and the political possibilities are not far ahead of what we have done tonight.
I regret to say I am going to vote against this bill, not only because of the ethanol provisions in it, but because at a time demanding vision, at a time demanding foresight, at a time demanding an effort to solve problems that are only problems today but could become crises 5 years from now, we have done mostly the prosaic, the mundane, the expected. That is not what a great power does. That is not what true leaders do. That is what this bill does.
So despite my respect for the leaders of the bill and the wonderful, harmonious way in which they worked, I have to say, to me, this bill is a serious disappointment and I have no choice but to vote against it tomorrow.
I yield the floor.
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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise today to engage my friend, the Senator from New Mexico, who serves as the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and who acted as the ranking Senate conferee, in a colloquy regarding the conference report on the Energy Policy Act of 2005. I thank my friend for his service in this body and hard work on this bill, and particularly his efforts in resolving the contentious issues surrounding MTBE remediation litigation. It is my understanding that the language contained in section 1503 of the conference report addresses this issue in a matter consistent with current law on three vital fronts. First, it would in no way preclude or abrogate the right of citizens and local governments to pursue all available State and Federal remedies where there is environmental harm and other injury that results from contamination of MTBE into groundwater and public water supplies. Second, nothing in the language will alter the substantive law that courts currently apply in these cases and that they will apply to future claims. And finally, it is not intended to provide Federal courts with exclusive or subject matter jurisdiction or grant Federal courts jurisdiction over nonproduct liability cases, such as environmental cleanup and cost recovery cases involving general petroleum spills initiated by State governments and private citizens. Rather, it is intended that under section 1503, cases involving general spills will remain in State court, where many of these cases are currently handled. Does the Senator from New Mexico share my understanding of this language and its intent?
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I share the understanding of the language expressed by my friend from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. I thank the Senator from New Mexico for sharing his understanding of section 1503.
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