Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008

Floor Speech

HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY ACT OF 2008 -- (Senate - July 25, 2008)

Mr. THUNE. Absolutely, the Senator from Tennessee is correct. I appreciate his leadership on the energy issue. I think putting it in very simple terms--finding more and using less--is something the American people understand and something that is seriously missing in this debate.

The Democratic leadership, by filling the amendment tree, has prevented the opportunity for Senators on our side or Senators on their side to offer amendments that would address the very basic issue of finding more and using less. What we have before us on the floor is a very narrow solution that does nothing to address America's dangerous dependence upon foreign sources of energy, does nothing to add to our domestic supply in dealing with the ``finding more'' side of the equation, and, frankly, does nothing to deal with the ``using less'' because all the good amendments--and I have looked at the list of amendments here on our side, at least--we have 24 ``finding more'' type of amendments, 14 ``using less'' type of amendments. We have a number of people who would like to offer amendments with regard to conservation and renewable energy.

As the Senator said, I am very much supportive of renewable energy. We are just going over--South Dakota will eclipse now the 1 billion-gallon level annually in ethanol, biofuels. We think there is a tremendous upside in the potential future in advanced, what we call next-generation biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, which would geographically diversify ethanol production in this country. So, I say to the Senator from Alabama and the Senator from Tennessee, their States might be able to participate in that as well because they would be able to make it from other forms of biomass.

I am very much for having a wide-ranging debate that includes opportunities to offer amendments on conservation, on renewable energy, on biofuels, on wind. South Dakota is home--maybe second to Washington, DC, because there is a lot of hot air in Washington--but when it comes to wind energy, South Dakota and the upper Midwest, the Great Plains States, probably have more of an abundance of wind than about anywhere in the country.

Everybody says: Well, wind is intermittent, and it does not blow all the time. That is true, although you would have an argument from people in South Dakota because it does seem to blow all the time there. But we have very consistent wind which can be converted to energy and help address the ``find more'' part of the energy solution in this country.

But here we are in the Senate, the world's greatest deliberative body, having amendments being blocked that would do anything to address this issue of supply and demand. In fact, as to the Energy bill we voted on in 2005, we adopted 57 amendments and we spent 10 days on the floor debating amendments. As to the Energy bill we passed in 2007--late last year--we spent 15 days of time on the floor of the Senate and adopted 49 amendments. So we have a history on big issues such as this of allowing the Senate to work its will, and here we have probably the most important economic issue affecting America, not only currently but in the future, and the pocketbooks of every single American--and that is this incredible toll and economic hardship that the high price of fuel is taking on our economy and on Americans' pocketbooks. And we are being cut off from even offering any debate that would address these issues of conservation.

We have some great ideas on conservation, renewable energy, advanced battery technology. The Senator from Tennessee talked about--and so did the Senator from Alabama--having these electric hybrids that run for 40 or 60 miles on electricity and then convert over to fuel. I would like to be able to talk about and offer some amendments that would--once they get to that, where they start kicking in and running on a gasoline engine, making those flex-fuel vehicles because then you could run on any type, whether it is gasoline, whether it is E85. You could use blends that could be used to not only run the cars but also move us away from dependence upon fossil fuels and petroleum and more toward biofuels.

But in any event, the point of all this is, we are standing on the floor of the Senate with an opportunity to do something about an issue that is incredibly impacting Americans in this country, and we are being blocked from even having an opportunity to have some of these amendments that would impact the ``finding more'' side of the equation in additional domestic production and also the ``using less'' side, which is the conservation component.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. THUNE. There is no doubt the folks I represent in South Dakota, as well as the people of Tennessee and the people of Alabama, are speaking loudly and clearly about this. They want this addressed. They think all this finger-pointing and playing the blame game in Washington isn't doing anything to solve their problem, which is the tremendous toll and impact this is having on their pocketbooks. I would hope we would be able to have a wide-ranging debate, be able to vote on amendments, look at a balanced, comprehensive approach that includes more production, that includes conservation, that includes use of renewables.

That is not happening in the Senate, and it is not happening because the Democratic leadership has decided they don't want to take votes. They don't want to take votes on additional production, and so they have done what they call in Washington ``filling the tree.'' In simple terms that basically prevents anybody--including Members on their side but Members on our side as well--from offering amendments that would actually solve the problem.

It is unfortunate where we are, but the Senator is exactly right.

Source