Energy

Floor Speech

ENERGY -- (Senate - July 29, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President I rise in support of the comments of my colleague from New Mexico, who has done an excellent job, along with the Senator from Montana, in putting this together.

We have heard a lot of talk on the floor about drilling. That has gotten a lot of the heat, but the light is right here with the extenders. I say to my colleagues, these tax extenders, which are focused on energy alternatives, are far more important to reducing gas prices than drilling. Whether you are for drilling or against it, we all know you cannot drill your way out of this problem; that just by drilling, by focusing on drilling, we are telling both Saudi Arabia and ExxonMobil that they are going to continue to control our destiny for decades to come. And look what that has brought us to now--$4-a-gallon gasoline.

The only solution is to wean ourselves from oil and, to a lesser extent, natural gas and to move to alternatives such as wind and solar for electricity, and battery-powered cars, electric cars, and gas-powered cars to deal with automobiles, and other kinds of efficiency-enhancing measures. If we ever want to be free of big oil, this is the place to go.

So for all the speeches we are hearing from the other side about drilling, which won't bring any more oil for 7 to 10 years--and, of course, we are for a plan of increasing our domestic production and drilling that is more efficient and quicker, but no amount of drilling is going to solve our problem.

We know why they want drilling. Big oil wants drilling. Well, I say that the American people don't want ExxonMobil or OPEC or Saudi Arabia controlling our destiny any longer because that brought us $4-a-gallon gasoline. We want alternatives. We want a car that can run by electricity--just as powerful, just as long a ride, just as smooth, if not a smoother ride, than gasoline-driven cars and a heck of a lot cheaper. We want our homes powered--heated and cooled--by wind power and solar power and biomass and so many of the other alternatives--cellulosic ethanol--and this bill takes the first large step to doing that. The tax extender bill will increase focus on solar.

Talk to the people who do these alternatives. They say that unless we extend the tax cuts, particularly for a longer period of time, they cannot make an investment. Germany is way ahead of us in this area, as is France, and China is leaping ahead of us in this area, and all because my colleagues don't want to close some tax loopholes primarily dealing with people who put their money overseas and defer their taxes, which no American should have the right to do.

So I say to my colleagues, you want to bring down gasoline prices? You want to bring down the cost of home heating oil? The best thing to do is move this extender package. It is far better than drilling--whatever your view on drilling. Let's see what happens when we vote on these proposals this afternoon and tomorrow. All the talk about $4-a-gallon gasoline--less important than defending those who hide their money overseas and won't pay taxes. That is what the votes are going to show here.

This bill is a vital bill. This bill has so many good provisions in it that will wean us from oil.

I say to my colleagues once again, we know we cannot drill our way out of the problem. We have twiddled our thumbs for 7 years. It is about time we started giving the tax incentives to alternative energy and freeing our country of OPEC, of Saudi Arabia, of ExxonMobil, and of $4 gasoline.

I yield the floor.

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