Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendment to House Amendment to Senate Amendment to H. R. 5, Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007

Floor Speech

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF SENATE AMENDMENT TO HOUSE AMENDMENT TO SENATE AMENDMENT TO H.R. 6, ENERGY INDEPENDENCE AND SECURITY ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - December 18, 2007)

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Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman from Vermont.

Ladies and gentlemen, today is an historic day. It is the day when we begin to take seriously the issue of energy dependency and the issue of global warming.

The legislation that we have before us today is the culmination of a vision which Speaker Pelosi had as she was sworn in almost 1 year ago. She announced at that time that her goal was to make a huge down payment on the issue of energy independence and global warming. Today, we vote to pass the legislation which will send a signal not only to the citizens of our country but to the citizens of the world that our Nation is now serious about these issues.

I want to compliment Chairman John Dingell of the Energy and Commerce Committee for his statesmanship and leadership on these issues throughout this year.

I want to compliment all of the Members on both sides who have worked so hard to bring us to this point. It has not been easy.

For this decade, I have worked very hard in order to raise by 10 miles per gallon the fuel economy standard of the vehicles of our country. Back in 1985 we reached a peak of about 27 miles per gallon. Since that time, we have gone backwards. In fact, during that period of time we have actually seen an increase in America's dependence on imported oil go from 27 percent of the oil which we consume in our country to 61 percent of the oil that we consume in our country. That is since 1985. And that has sent the wrong signal to OPEC and to the rest of the world.

Today, in this legislation, we increase to 35 miles per gallon the fuel economy standard of the vehicles that we are going to drive by the year 2020. In conjunction with the cellulosic fuel component, the biofuel component that is built into this legislation, by the year 2030 this bill will back out the equivalent of twice the amount of oil which we import from the Persian Gulf today.

What we have today, is this whirlpool within which the United States has caught itself where we send nearly $150 million a day to the Persian Gulf to purchase the 2.2 million barrels per day that we import out of the Persian Gulf to bring to the United States. That is $55 to $60 billion a year that we are sending over to parts of the world which we should have no business in. And caught in that whirlpool are our young men and women in our military who are over in the Middle East protecting this oil supply so it can come to our country.

And for the first time the American people are now going to be made part of this effort. We no longer are going to pretend that the efficiency of the vehicles which Americans drive has no relationship to this amount of money that we send to the Middle East and the number of troops that we have to send to the Middle East.

So this is going to be a very powerful message: 2.7 million barrels of oil a day from the Middle East not having to be imported by the year 2030 because of the increase in fuel economy standards; 1.8 million barrels of oil per day in equivalence of oil in now biofuels, cellulosic fuels, that will substitute for the oil that we otherwise would have to import from the Middle East.

Together that is over 4 million barrels of oil a day equivalent. What a tremendous victory for the American people here today. Everyone in our country will now be part of it. Rather than in the Middle East, we will produce the fuels in the Middle West in our country and stop pretending that we can't improve the efficiency of the vehicles we drive.

Secondly, this legislation will in fact reduce by nearly a quarter all of the greenhouse gases that the United States has to meet as a goal by the year 2030. So on climate change, energy efficiency will play a huge role in reducing the amount of greenhouse gases that the United States sends up into the atmosphere. The buildings will be greener. The lighting and appliances will be better. And because of fuel efficiency and renewable fuels, we will reduce by the amount of 100 coal-fired plants the amount of greenhouse gases we will send up into the atmosphere. What a victory. What a day the United States Congress will enjoy today.

I congratulate Speaker Pelosi for her work on this legislation. I congratulate my colleague Todd Platts, and all of the Members who have worked on it. I salute President Bush for saying that he will sign this legislation. It is an historic signal. And I urge all of the Members who are here to realize that this is a moment that will be remembered forever as the energy revolution day, as the climate change revolutionary day where we changed course and sent a signal to the world that we mean business.

So, ladies and gentlemen, please today vote ``aye'' and join with Speaker Pelosi, with Harry Reid and President Bush in this effort to change the direction of our country. It is a monumental day.

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