Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS -- (Senate - January 16, 2007)

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By Ms. MURKOWSKI (for herself and Mr. STEVENS):

S. 298. A bill to provide incentives for renewable energy production, to increase fuel economy standards for automobiles, and to provide tax incentives for renewable energy production; to the Committee on Finance.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a significant bill to improve energy efficiency in this Nation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The bill I am introducing will promote the development of additional forms of renewable energy and also pave the way for improved fuel consumption by vehicles. I rise to introduce the Renewable Energy, Fuel Reduction, and Economic Stabilization and Enhancement Act of 2007, or the REFRESH Act, for short.

I consider this a balanced measure, a companion to a bill introduced recently by Alaska's Senior Senator TED STEVENS who proposed to raise the fuel efficiency of automobiles to 40 miles per gallon within a decade, a bill I am proud to be a cosponsor of. This bill will promote alternative energy by providing grants and tax credits to promote development of geothermal power, all forms of ocean energy and small hydro electric development.

The bill also seeks to reduce American fossil fuel consumption by nearly 5 million barrels of oil a day by 2025 by not only supporting an increase in the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency Standard, CAFE, for automobiles, as proposed by Senator STEVENS, but by also requiring a study of whether to mandate that a CAFE standard to be imposed on commercial trucks. The bill also requires an improvement in the efficiency of replacement tires for all passenger cars, provides grants to States and local communities to encourage a reduction in traffic congestion by helping States to set up telecommuting and flexible-work programs to keep motorists off roadways during rush hours, and extends and removes a cap on tax credits to encourage the purchase of hybrid and advanced fuel efficient lean-burn vehicles. The bill also authorizes $100 million in additional research assistance for plug-in hybrid and battery storage technology development.

The bill also includes a truth in advertising provision requiring that the CAFE standards for vehicles be based on the actual fuel economy that the vehicles will achieve under real-world driving conditions, where acceleration, the use of air conditioning and stop and go driving is considered rather than on a three-decades old testing formula.

The bill will reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel usage by about 530 million metric tons in the United States by 2025--a 7 percent cut over what emissions otherwise are predicted to be that year. Coming from Alaska where there is no question but that warming temperatures have been in place in recent years, it only makes sense that we take common sense steps now to improve fuel efficiency, to promote the development of a wider range of alternative energy technologies and to encourage Americans to buy more fuel efficient vehicles, as long as their ability to drive safe and affordable vehicles of their own choosing is protected.

This bill is a careful balance of steps we can take to reduce fuel usage and thus greenhouse gas emissions, but also of provisions that are economic for Americans to undertake, and will pay for themselves in reduced fuel costs, sometimes in very short order. It will be good insurance for the environment, but also good for the pocketbooks of Americans.

Americans understand that we are in a current warming trend. Just this week, our government reported that 2006 was the warmest year worldwide in over a century. There are dozens of examples of the effects on the environment that the warming climate of the past three decades has caused. While I believe the ultimate cause of the climate change we are seeing is not yet certain, it is our responsibility to take affordable steps now to reduce fuel consumption, increase the use of alternative, non-fossil-fuel technologies, and to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.

This bill, paired with previous legislation by my colleague Senator Ted Stevens that specifically raises the CAFE standard by 2017, S. 183, will require automobile makers, if it is technologically feasible, to improve fuel efficiency. I am proud to be a supporter of that measure. The two bills will have a host of policy and economic advantages. They will make us less dependent on imported oil, improving our national security and reducing the money we spend overseas to buy imported crude oil. And they will produce more jobs in America through the development of new alternative-fuel industries.

The bill I introduce today, for example, will require all tire manufacturers to make and sell only low, rolling, resistance tires for replacement tire purposes within five years--the same tires found on new cars today. The tires, while they will add on average $20 to the cost of a set of two replacement tires, will improve fuel efficiency by 1.5 to 4.5 percent. Thus if the price of gasoline is only $2 a gallon, drivers will save from $87 to $260 a year in fuel costs per year, the change saving the typical driver money within the first year, according to estimates by the National Commission on Energy Policy that recommended the change in a 2005 report.

The bill also will require the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to study the savings that would result and the costs of imposing a CAFE standard on commercial trucks, a key requirement before Congress can actually impose such a standard. Commercial trucks consume between 1.5 and 2 million barrels of oil a day in fuel. According to estimates by the Department of Energy's 21st Century Truck Program and by Argonne National Laboratory, fuel economy for tractor-trailers should be able to improve by 30 to 60 percent by 2015 through use of a CAFE standard. While such improvements might increase the cost of a tractor-trailer by $7,000 at time of purchase, it would save some $11,000 in fuel costs over the life of the vehicle, achieving payback for the typical truck owner in less than three years. Imposing such a CAFE on trucks was proposed by the Energy Security Leadership Council in a report just last month.

The $50 million in grants to reduce traffic congestion could pay for themselves nearly immediately, since the National Commission on Energy Policy estimated that American motorists consume between 65,000 and 260,000 barrels of oil a day in wasted fuel because of urban traffic congestion, costing the Nation up to $13 million a day at current fuel prices.

And the tax credit provisions, making all forms of ocean energy: wave, current, tidal and thermal, and small hydro electric power qualified to receive the Federal Production Tax Credit that currently reduces the cost of wind, solar and biomass energy by 1.9 cents per kilowatt hour generated, would help to increase renewable energy production nationwide. Geothermal energy is already covered by the PTC, as are wind, solar and biomass projects.

Congress two years ago in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which I helped formulate, provided both grant and the tax assistance to encourage the development of wind, solar and biomass energy. But when you consider that large portions of the country, including 70 percent of Alaska, may contain geothermal resources, that there are thousands of lakes and small rivers and creeks that can power small-scale hydro electric development without requiring dams or affecting fisheries or the environment in the least, and that thousands of miles of U.S. coastlines and river systems can generate electricity from emerging ocean energy systems, it only makes sense to expand the scope of Federal assistance to encourage wider development and use of these other renewable technologies.

The Electric Power Research Institute has estimated that wave energy off U.S. coasts alone could conservatively generate 252 million megawatt hours of electricity, 6.5 percent of all energy now produced in America. Alaska has nearly 80 coastal and river communities that could benefit greatly by development of ocean energy systems. To facilitate ocean and geothermal development, the bill authorizes $100 million in Federal research and development grant assistance to both types of development.

This bill is not a cure all for all of our energy woes. I recently co-sponsored legislation by Senators JIM BUNNING and BARACK OBAMA that will provide additional incentives to develop fuel from coal and that will encourage the sequestration of carbon from coal processed in fuel-to-liquid plants. I will support additional assistance to promote wind, solar and biomass alternative energy development. I have supported and will continue to support development of the next generation of nuclear power that can produce energy without any greenhouse gas emissions. And I will continue to support research and development of biofuels, such as ethanol, especially celluosic ethanol, and of development of hydrogen-fueled vehicles and fuel distribution systems for the new fuels.

I also will support production of more domestic energy from conventional sources, whether it be more oil and natural gas from the ground onshore and from under some of our seas offshore where it can be done in an environmentally friendly way, or more novel forms of fossil fuels, be they from oil shales, oil sands, coal or from gas hydrate deposits. In my view we need to do everything we can to find economic forms of the energy we will need during the remainder of the 21st Century.

This bill only represents one piece of a balanced plan to improve this Nation's energy outlook. But it is an important piece. This bill has the ability to restore and refresh our environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It will encourage development of more renewable energy. We can't afford not to find the funds to pay for its provisions.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

S. 298

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