Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives For The Nation Act Of 2007
Floor Speech
CREATING LONG-TERM ENERGY ALTERNATIVES FOR THE NATION ACT OF 2007
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, last Wednesday I came to the floor and introduced legislation that would place the country on a path toward a better energy future by requiring that 25 percent of our Nation's energy, our Nation's electricity, come from renewable sources. This made sense to me because this is what we do in Minnesota. As my colleagues know, all good things come from Minnesota.
But today, Senator Bingaman has introduced an amendment requiring that 15 percent of our Nation's electricity come from renewable sources. I also support Senator Bingaman, and I am a cosponsor of Senator Bingaman's 15 percent standard by 2020. That is because I believe our country is headed down the wrong energy path, and we need to take it in a new direction.
I can't tell my colleagues the number of times I hear from businesses in my State, including manufacturing companies, about the high costs and how they want to get some new possibilities and a new direction with where their energy comes from. The money issue is one thing you hear about from individual consumers, that you hear about from businesses, but there is also the effect it is having on the environment. Both the Presiding Officer and I serve on the Environment Committee. We have heard countless accounts from scientists from all over this country, from major CEOs of large businesses in this country, about the change we are seeing in our climate and about the chance we have to do something about it.
So I have to tell my colleagues, in my State I also hear from regular people. I hear from hunters who see a change in the wetlands. I hear from people on Leech Lake who say it takes a month later, a month longer than usual to put their fish house out. I hear from kids wearing little penguin buttons. I hear from city council members in Lanesborough who are changing out their light bulbs. I hear from venture capitalists in Minneapolis who want to get some standards in place so they can invest in this new green technology. I hear from people up in Grand Marais, MN, where I visited 2 weeks ago. This area has had tragic fires. When we saw those fires going on in California, they were also raging in northern Minnesota and up into Canada. Nearly 200 buildings were downed by this fire in our State--some of them beautiful homes--homes that have been in families for years and years and years, rustic cabins and businesses. Of course, the people who gathered to meet with me had immediate problems. There was no phone service to many of these places. Many of the lodges that rely on tourism were having trouble even taking orders. But in the middle of all this, with these scarred forests surrounding us, there were people who wanted to talk about climate change, including ski resort owners who had seen a dramatic drop in their profits when we have had less snow and people who were very concerned about their businesses and the future of this country.
So this standard is not only important for investing in our country for more jobs and putting a renewable standard in place that will spur investment, it is also important for our country's future and our environment.
A strong renewable energy standard is good policy. Let's look at where our electricity comes from. Currently, we have 52 percent coming from coal. We have 15 percent coming from natural gas. We have 3 percent from petroleum,
20 percent from nuclear, 7 percent from hydro, and only
3 percent from renewables. Compare this with countries such as Denmark, where they are seeing something akin to 50 percent coming from renewables, and Great Britain and other countries. What a strong renewable standard can do is it can diversify our electricity sources so we are not so reliant on energy sources such as natural gas that are vulnerable to periodic shortages or other supply interruptions. A strong renewable energy standard can also save the American consumer money. According to studies, a 15-percent renewable electricity standard will save consumers a total of $16.4 billion on their energy bills by the year 2030.
Let's look at some of the savings. What are we going to get if we put in a national renewable electricity standard of the kind I have talked about, which is up to 25 percent, and the kind that Senator Bingaman and I have sponsored here today at 15 percent by 2020? We will get 355,000 new jobs, nearly twice as many as generating electricity from fossil fuels; economic development, $72.6 billion in new capital investment; $16.2 billion in income to farmers, ranchers, and rural landowners; $5 billion in new local tax revenues; consumer savings of $49 billion in lower electricity and natural gas bills; a healthier environment with reductions in global warming, as I discussed, equal to taking nearly 71 million cars off the road; less air pollution, less damage to land, and better use of our water.
I have seen it firsthand in my State, in southwestern Minnesota, where there are wind turbines coming up everywhere. They have even opened a bed and breakfast near Pipestone, MN, because they are so excited about these wind turbines. If you were looking for a romantic weekend and time away from your State of Rhode Island, you could actually go down there and stay overnight and wake up in the morning and look at a wind turbine. That is the package.
But the point is this: The people in that area are so excited about the development and the potential manufacturing that is going on, that they want people to come and see it. We also have individual homeowners and school districts that are trying to figure out how they can put a wind turbine up so they can bring that kind of homegrown renewable energy into their places of business and into their homes.
A strong renewable energy standard is going to save us money, and it is going to cause this kind of investment. It is going to open the door to a new electricity industry that will bring thousands of jobs and billions of dollars into our economy.
Over the last 20 years, America's renewable energy industry, and the wind industry in particular, has achieved significant technological advancements. The industries for solar and wind and biomass are expanding at rates exceeding 30 percent annually. Now, some of this is because the States--and I will talk about this in a minute--have shown foresight and have been ahead of the game, but we need to do more. The question is: Does the United States want to be a leader in creating new green technologies in the new green industries of the future, or are we going to sit back and watch the opportunities pass us by?
Tom Friedman, who actually comes from Minnesota, wrote a cover story for the New York Times Magazine about a month ago about the power of green. He talked about a new green deal--not like the old New Deal; not necessarily the kind of money we are talking about there, but that the Government's role should be to set those standards and industry will meet them. The Government's role should be to seed new research and to promote green technology and direct us that way; otherwise, if we don't do that, if we don't have the kind of 15 percent standard we are talking about on a national level, I can tell you what is going to happen because we are already seeing it happen. We no longer are the world leader in two important clean energy fields. We rank third in wind power production behind Denmark and Spain. We are third in photovoltaic power installed behind Germany and Japan. Ironically, these countries have surpassed us using our own technology. They used the technology we developed in our country. We came up with the right ideas, but we didn't capitalize on the innovations with adequate policies to spur deployment. The Federal Government, in fact, has been complacent. They have been watching the opportunities go by.
Now, this is not so of the States. I know Senator Salazar borrowed my chart about an hour ago, but I like this chart because it shows the progress that is going on across the country. You can see it is not limited to one area. It is not limited. We have heard about what California has done and how aggressive they are. I am always telling the Senators from California it is great what you have done, but it is important to talk about what is going on in the rest of the country.
You look at what is happening in my own State of Minnesota: 27.4 percent mandated renewable standards by 2025. We have what is happening in New Hampshire: A 23.8 standard by 2025. We have Maine, which actually has a standard and goal, as opposed to a standard, of 30 percent by 2000; Virginia, 12 percent by 2022; We have New Jersey, which has been a leader in this area, at 22.5 percent by 2020. If you go all the way out to Montana, you see a 15-percent standard by 2015; if you go up to Washington, 15 percent by 2020. If these courageous States are willing to do this with no direction from the Federal Government, I think it is time for us to act.
It was Louis Brandeis, the judge, who once in one of his opinions wrote about how the States are the laboratories of democracy. That is what you see going on here. The States are the laboratories of democracy, and you talk about how one courageous State can make a decision to set policy and can be used as a laboratory for the rest of the country. I don't think he ever meant, when he wrote that opinion, that that should mean inaction by the Federal Government. In fact, it should be the opposite. The States experiment, the States show, such as our State has, you can put high standards in place, you can start developing these industries, and it is a good thing.
It revitalizes our rural economy. It is cleaner for our environment. It allows us to invest in new jobs. Now it is time--we have seen the story across the country--for the Federal Government to act.
What I want to see when we vote on Senator Bingaman's amendment is a bipartisan effort, bipartisan support for this kind of amendment.
Let me tell you what happened in our State. In February, the Minnesota Legislature--it is a Democratic State senate, Republican statehouse--passed nearly unanimously this 2025 standard. In fact, for Xcel Energy, our biggest energy company, it is 30 percent. They passed that nearly unanimously, a Democratic house, a Democratic senate, with a number of Republicans, a majority voting for it, and then they sent it to a Republican Governor, and that Republican Governor signed it into law. It is considered the Nation's most aggressive standard for promoting renewable energy in electricity production. I think Minnesota's aggressive standard is a good example, but I also think the bipartisan way in which it was set should be a model for Federal action.
The courage we are seeing in States such as my own should be matched by the courage in Washington. We should be prepared to act on a national level, especially when the States and local communities are showing us the way.
There is now an opportunity for the Federal Government to act, and this Energy bill has many good things in it. I love the standards for appliances, the standards for buildings. I like to call it ``building a fridge to the 21st century.'' But I also would like to see some even bolder action. That bolder action comes in many forms, but one that is most important to me is putting this renewable standard into law.
We have everything we need. We just need to act. We have the scientific know-how in this country. In my State, we are so proud of the work that is going on at the University of Minnesota and the State colleges across the State. It is going on everywhere.
We have the fields to grow the energy that will keep our Nation moving, and we have the wind to propel our economy forward. The wind is at our back, and it is time for us to move. It is time to act. The only thing that is holding us back is complacency.
In my office in the lobby, I have a picture. It is a picture of someone holding a world in their hands. The words on it read: The angel shrugged, and she placed the world in the palm of our hand. She said if we fail this time, it is a failure of imagination.
We in the Senate in the next 2 weeks have the opportunity to show this country and the world that we have the imagination for a better world and we have the imagination that we can start having our energy and our electricity produced by the wind and the sun, that we have the imagination that we can have a better environment.
This is the time to act, and I urge my colleagues to support the 15-percent standard for renewable energy.
Source