Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2007

Floor Speech

FLOOD INSURANCE REFORM AND MODERNIZATION ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - May 08, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I thank Senator Dorgan for his leadership in this area. He was ahead of this. Before the crisis got to the pocketbooks of Americans, he was predicting what has happened. He has been proactive about this.

But can the Senator talk about the strategic reserve, the petroleum reserve? I know there is some bipartisan support for doing this, is that correct, for stopping putting our oil there?

Mr. DORGAN. It is the case. I have introduced legislation here in the Senate. Fifty-one Democratic Senators, including Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, signed a letter to the President saying stop sticking oil underground for the rest of 2008. Also, a couple of weeks ago our Republican colleague, Senator Hutchison, led on a letter to the White House saying, yes, we agree. We ought to stop sticking oil underground at this time. There were 15 Republicans who sent that letter. Further, Senator McCain said it was nuts to stick oil in the SPR while on the campaign trail. When you add that up, that is 67 people in the Senate. That is a veto-proof majority.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. How much is it expected to save? Is there an immediate impact we might expect in savings per gallon?

Mr. DORGAN. There are several views on that, but we know it is a lot more than zero like the Administration assumes. We don't know exactly what the savings would be. We do know this: If today 70,000 barrels, especially the sweet light crude--which is the most valuable subset of oil--were put back into this marketplace, then people have testified in the Senate that it could impact as much as 10 percent of the price of oil and gasoline.

We know it would impact the price. Some say 70,000 barrels is not very much given what is used in a day. It is true, 70,000 barrels is not all that much, but this is sweet light crude which is very different. We had an economist named Dr. Verleger testify before the Energy Committee and make that very point.

This is a more important point. There are plenty of Members of the Senate who have now joined on this.

I was just informed the markup starting at 2 this afternoon has been canceled. This is where I was going to offer this amendment, so the amendment I expect to be able to offer will now wait until next week. We will get this done. We cannot sit around and allow things to happen. We have to make things happen, good things happen for this country and for the economy.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

RENEWABLE ENERGY

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am going to speak on another topic
which is somewhat related to Israel's 60th anniversary. It is about energy security and climate change and the potential economic value to our country. The way it is related to Israel is this. As we look at the fact that we spend $600,000 a minute on foreign oil, much of that money going to countries that we might not want to be doing business with if we had a choice, Israel, like our country, is very interested in developing alternative energy. If we can cut our dependence on foreign oil, we will enhance our own security as well as Israel's security.

Last winter I visited the new headquarters of Great River Energy, one of the biggest electric co-ops in Minnesota, to talk about renewable energy.

Great River is building a new energy-efficient office complex in the suburb of Maple Grove, MN. But what I remember best about that day is the huge wind turbine that towers over the building, and the way its blades were rotating in the January winds. This is literally in the middle of a suburban shopping mall.

It might seem odd that a company would put up a wind turbine in the suburbs of Minneapolis--in fact, it has become a landmark for the commuters who drive past each morning and evening.

It might seem even more odd that an electric utility would erect that symbol of green energy in front of its new headquarters.

But what Great River understands--and what that wind turbine symbolizes--is that clean, alternative energy represents a huge opportunity for our country.

Great River is not alone among utility companies that can see the green future before us. Xcel Energy, based in the Twin Cities and in Colorado, already gets more than 10 percent of its power from wind. It has pledged to generate 30 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025 and reduce its carbon emissions by more than 20 percent over the next 12 years. In fact, Xcel was supportive of our state legislature which put in place one of the most aggressive renewable standards in the country.

Xcel's CEO, Dick Kelly, recently said that Xcel intends ``to push it to the max. But it would be nice to have a policy at the federal level, a national policy, so we all know what the rules are.''

As we prepare to debate the landmark climate-change legislation that will come before us in a few weeks, I hope we keep these two examples in mind.

Because here is what they show us: Global climate change represents a world of challenges. But it also represents a universe of opportunities--for American business to develop new products and technologies, for consumers to save money on their energy bills, for America to achieve greater energy security and independence.

First, there is opportunity for consumers.

The National Academy of Sciences has estimated that American motorists were able to cut their gasoline consumption by almost 15 percent annually as a result of the last fuel-economy standards that Congress enacted in 1975--standards that also reduced the emission of greenhouse gases. The new CAFE standards that we adopted in December will not only further slow the emission of greenhouse gases--but they will also save the average consumer as much as $1,000 a year at the gas pump.

We are developing the technology to take these efficiencies even further and they make savings at the pump even greater. The opportunities lie not only in producing cheaper and renewable sources of fuel, including cellulosic ethanol, the next generation of ethanol but in making our vehicles more efficient. Increased efficiency is perhaps our greatest opportunity to stretch a family's energy dollar--$4-a-gallon stretches a lot further when it will take your car 50 miles instead of 25. The next generation of hybrid cars, as well as the development of cars powered by other renewable sources such as electricity or hydrogen, open a new world of opportunity for the American consumer; an opportunity for innovative American companies to be at the forefront; an opportunity to reduce our environmental impact while reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

Then there is electricity. If every American household replaced just one light bulb with a compact fluorescent bulb, the country would save $600 million in annual energy costs, the nation would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year--and we would prevent greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars,

There is also opportunity for business.

The Safeway grocery chain decided recently to install solar panels on 23 of its supermarkets to provide energy for heating, cooling and electricity.

They estimate that they will cut their electricity costs by 20 percent and that they will remove 12.6 million pounds of carbon emissions every year.

General Electric, one of the biggest corporations in the world, has moved aggressively into what it calls ``green products'' such as energy-efficient appliances and components for wind turbines. Its sales of green products have doubled since 2005 to $12 billion, and the company aims for $20 billion of green products sales by 2010. This is our ``building a fridge to the next century.''

In my home State, the State of Minnesota, in the town of Starbuck, there is a small company called Solar Skies. There are just 10 employees at Solar Skies, but those 10 people decided to take a risk, to leave their jobs, and to go to work for a place that makes solar panels. Those employees are devoted to the idea that we can create a new energy future for all of us. They believe in their work and are now reaping the benefits of the opportunity created by this new energy economy. When I visited them, they actually had me jump up and down on the solar panels to show that they could withstand hail damage; I am sure they would welcome the Presiding Officer from the great State of Montana to do that as well.

Clearly, the people at Solar Skies are not the only ones to understand the opportunity. If you look at the leading indicator of American investment, venture capital, you will find that it reached $2.9 billion of investments in green technologies last year, up 78 percent from a year earlier.

Clean technology is not only the fastest growing portion of the venture capital market, it is now the third largest category, behind only biotech and computer software.

So today we have to ask ourselves, Does the United States want to be a leader in creating the new green technologies and the new green industries of the future or are we going to sit back and watch the opportunities pass us by? I am determined that we will be a leader.

As you know, this is my third speech on climate change every week up through the debate. The first was an overview, and the second one was about leadership and the need to push this country forward, to be a world leader on this climate change issue and on technology. Today, we are talking about the possibilities of new jobs for this country, for our country as a whole.

This is also an opportunity to create an energy-secure future, to free our country from its dependence on foreign oil. We spend literally $41 million every hour on imported oil, and much of the money simply goes back to countries that are not our friends.

The Council on Foreign Relations recently studied this question, and they said:

America's dependence on imported energy increases its strategic vulnerability and constrains its ability to pursue foreign policy and national security objectives. The lack of sustained attention to energy issues is undercutting U.S. foreign policy and U.S. national security.

But the report also concluded that a determined conservation effort could:

Unleash remarkable forces for innovation in this country. Entrepreneurs are seeking new ideas for products and services such as batteries, advanced oil and gas exploration and production techniques and biofuels.

By reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases through conservation and new technology, we can reduce our use of imported oil and leave our country in a stronger international position. This is not only wishful thinking. It has worked before. Conservation initiatives enacted after the first OPEC oil embargo reduced the oil intensity of our economy, saving our country the equivalent of 15 million barrels of oil per day. Today, a comprehensive policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including higher fuel standards for cars and trucks, development of clean alternative sources of energy, and better energy efficiency standards for buildings, can do this.

Look at the Chevy Volt. Two years from now, the Chevy Volt will be available for purchase. You can plug your car in, you go 30 miles, and then it transitions over to fuel. In other words, if you are driving through Montana or Minnesota and it is 10 below zero, you are done with your 30 miles, and it is not going to stop, it transitions over to fuel, and hopefully that will be alternative fuel.

We can cut our oil consumption by as much as 35 percent by 2030--more than offsetting the oil we import from OPEC today--just by putting in place these higher fuel economy standards for cars and developing clean alternative sources of energy and better energy efficiency standards for our buildings.

A study last year by the McKinsey Global Institute concluded that projected electricity consumption in American homes in 2020 can be reduced by more than one-third if high-efficiency measures were adopted nationwide, including lightbulbs, water heaters, kitchen appliances, room-insulation materials, and standby power. But here is what is interesting. The report warned that market forces alone, even with higher energy prices, would not be sufficient to make the most of these energy-efficient technologies. What is required is leadership from Washington, leadership from this Chamber, leadership from the White House, a new national strategy to wean the country from fossil fuels, to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases, and to set the stage for this new energy economy.

This is the heart of the climate change legislation that will come before us in the next few weeks: a strategy to cap and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then use a cap-and-trade system so that the private sector achieves these reductions in the most efficient way possible. The market is ready, but it needs leadership from us.

Last year, Minnesota's own Tom Friedman had a cover story in the New York Times Magazine, ``The Power of Green.'' It should be required reading for anyone who cares not only about the future of our environment but also our economic future and our future national security.

In the article, Tom Friedman asks: How do our kids compete in a flatter world? How do they thrive in a warmer world? How do they survive in a more dangerous world?

The answer is, in making the most of the economic and technological opportunities to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and the greenhouse gas pollution that comes from it, we do better.

Friedman said that clean energy technology is going to be the next great global industry. He went on to propose the Green New Deal, one in which the Government's role is not funding projects, as in the original New Deal, but seeding basic research, providing loan guarantees where needed, and setting standards and incentives and taxes that will spawn all kinds of new technologies.

We are trying to do that right now with the wind tax credit, the renewable tax credit, for geothermal and for solar and other kinds of renewable energy. I believe this is not all about cutting back or hunkering down, it is about seizing opportunity.

In his words:

It's about creating a new cornucopia of abundance for the next generation by inventing a whole new industry. It's about getting our best brains out of hedge funds and into innovations that will not only give us the clean-power industrial assets to preserve our American dream, but also give us the technologies that billions of others need to realize their own dreams without destroying the planet.

It is about making America safer by breaking our addiction to a fuel that is powering regimes deeply hostile to our values. And, finally, it is about making America the global environmental leader, instead of a laggard.

Oponents of the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill say we cannot do this because it will somehow cripple our economy. I say we cannot afford not to enact climate change legislation because global warming will cripple our economy.

A recent economic study commissioned by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change concludes that, under at least one scenario, higher temperatures could cut more than $100 billion off American economic output over the next century, largely because of damage to agriculture, forestry, and commercial fishing.

Now, look at this. The temperature in the last 100 years is up 1 degree. That does not sound like much until you realize it has gone up only 5 degrees since the height of the ice age. Our EPA, using data, well-founded scientific data, projects that temperatures in the next century will go up 3 to 8 degrees.

So this idea that we can lose $100 billion off American economic output over the next century is not some farflung idea, it is based on scientific research. Unless we can confront this problem and confront it now, those costs will simply go higher and higher. We will also miss the opportunity for new jobs, for new products and technologies, new consumer savings, and a more responsible climate change policy. It is a big challenge. But meeting challenges is what our country does best. Just look at history.

When the space race began with the launch of sputnik in October 1957, American citizens listened with indignation and fear as the first manmade satellite, a Soviet satellite, beeped its way around the Earth. Yet it inspired our Nation and its universities to make a historic investment in math and science education. Within a decade, our country tripled the number of science and engineering Ph.D.s--tripled them.

In 1961, President Kennedy issued a challenge to our Nation: Put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. We answered the call. On July 20, 1969, what seemed impossible became reality when Neil Armstrong took that giant leap for mankind.

But the space program was not only a success because we put a man on the Moon before the Soviets, it also spurred countless other innovations in industry. I love saying this in front of our pages because I think they were not born when this happened. To them, this is commonplace, but back then we did not have these things. This is what it has spurred. It spurred industries and innovations such as weather satellites, solar technology, digital wristwatches, ultrasound machines, laser surgery, infrared medical thermometers, programmable pacemakers, satellite TV broadcasts, high-density batteries, high-speed long distance telephone service, automatic insulin pumps, CAT scans, radiation-blocking sunglasses, GPS devices, and the little chocolate space sticks my family would take when we went on camping trips in the 1970s. That all came out because we had a President who said we have a national goal, we are all part of the same Nation, and we are going to reach the goal. We can do the same thing with climate change and energy independence.

Today, it is not a Russian satellite streaming across our skies that should galvanize our Nation into action. It is the multiplying smokestacks in China, it is the receding glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica, and it is the rapidly rising global temperatures, and it is being leapfrogged by countries like Brazil that are now fuel independent because their Government put in place a policy for alternative biofuels.

But just as sputnik sparked a new age of prosperity and opportunity, these trends can lead to opportunities for the strengthening of our economy and renewing our leadership in the world. In doing so, we will create a better economy for the next generation by developing whole new industries, which will not only help us preserve our American leadership in the world but will also help to deploy technologies billions of others need to realize their own dreams without destroying the planet.

I believe we have the responsibility to confront a grave threat to our environment and our health. I believe we have the opportunity to do a great service to the people of this country. I believe that before us now we have the opportunity to make our economy stronger and more efficient. But it is rare that we have the opportunity to accomplish all three at once, to accomplish so many good things in one bold stroke. This rare opportunity will come before us in a few weeks when we take up the landmark Lieberman-Warner bill to address the challenge of global climate change. We must seize that opportunity.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2 p.m. today, the Senate resume the DeMint amendment No. 4710, as modified, and that there be 20 minutes of debate prior to a vote with respect to the amendment, with 15 minutes under the control of Senator DeMint and 5 minutes under the control of Senator Dodd or his designee; that no amendment be in order to the amendment prior to the vote, and that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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