Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2005

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005 -- (House of Representatives - June 16, 2004)

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

The Clerk read as follows:

Amendment offered by Ms. Kaptur:

On page 87 after line 21, insert the following provision:
ETHANOL AND BIODIESEL FUEL RESERVE

The Secretary of Energy may annually acquire and store as part of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve 300,000,000 gallons of ethanol and 100,000,000 gallons of biodiesel fuel. Such fuels shall be obtained in exchange for, or purchased with funds realized from the sale of, crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Ms. KAPTUR (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be considered as read and printed in the RECORD.

The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Ohio?
There was no objection.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order against the amendment.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, this is a very simple amendment that would allow the Secretary of Energy the opportunity, but without requirement, to purchase ethanol and biodiesel as part of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I even hate to use the word "petroleum" because, in fact, it is not a very strategic reserve since over 92 percent of it is imported.

America has to become energy independent here at home. Every single one of us, including the instrumentalities of this government, have to be part of this great transformation inside this country to become energy independent again.
There is no cost to this amendment because any of these new fuels that would be obtained would be obtained through funds realized from the sale of crude from the strategic reserve or in exchange for that material that would be sold from the existing reserve.

Let me say, 3 years ago I offered this amendment to reduce America's severe dependency on foreign oil, and it is a small step. At that time the Congress did not have the political will to do it. So today America again is in the throes of even a greater fuel shortage with prices rising. While we let the opportunity of 3 years ago slip away from us, today the price of crude oil is nearly 50 percent higher than it was when this amendment was first offered. In fact, oil has been hovering around $40 a barrel compared with about $24.90 a barrel when I first offered it. Meanwhile, the retail price of 85 percent ethanol fuel, called E-85, is about $1.40 a gallon, now well under what we are paying for refined fuels off of
crude petroleum.

This government subsidizes the petroleum-based industry, over 60 percent of which is imported, to the tune of $100 billion a year. Had we adopted this amendment when I first offered it, the American people might have saved billions of dollars in these new fuel costs they are paying. We would have helped a real, new domestic industry gain a firmer foothold here at home. Real jobs would have been created, and our strategic vulnerability which grows greater every day of addiction to imported oil would have begun its journey to finally ending.

Today in this amendment I am not even proposing that we mandate the acquisition of these fuels, but merely allow the Secretary of Energy to use authority to figure out a way to purchase it and store it, not in existing sites, but however the Secretary may designate. We do not prescribe that.

Again, I ask the question, How strategic a reserve is it when 92.5 percent of it is imported? It is really not a lifeline at all. We are dealing with a tourniquet that actually has with each passing day less and less value to us.
Every single person in this country should be thinking about how we can change our habits in order to become independent again. We should be encouraging the development of new fuels here at home, and we already have technology that can be brought up all over this Nation. We simply do not have the will and, sometimes I fear, the imagination to do this. The benefits of transforming this reserve as well as others over time would provide us with energy security again.

Certainly we can manufacture ethanol and biodiesel. Certainly we can bring renewable fuels online. Certainly we can use even existing petroleum infrastructure that can be transformed. We are not talking about a new probe to Mars. We are talking about doing something that we know how to do, but becoming energy independent as a national priority, and to do so immediately. It would bring us great economic security. Every year we are running over $60 billion in trade deficit in greater amounts of imported petroleum. In fact, the current reserve, 92.2 percent from foreign sources, includes nearly half from Mexico, a fifth from the OPEC nations like Saudi Arabia, look how stable that is, and about a fifth from the United Kingdom. It is not even U.S. oil in the reserve, so what kind of a strategic reserve is it? It is fool's gold.

Mr. Chairman, I would ask that perhaps the chairman of the full committee and the ranking member could find a way for us to allow this discretionary authority to the Secretary of Energy and help America find her way forward.

POINT OF ORDER