Agriculture, Rural Development, Food And Drug Administration, And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I would like to take a few minutes this afternoon to speak to an amendment to the agriculture bill that has been introduced. This is amendment No. 1910. It has to do with the high energy cost grants. This is a program within the rural utility service.

I would like to lay out for my colleagues a bit about this program. The high energy cost grants are available for improving and providing energy generation, transmission, and distribution facilities that serve communities with average home energy costs that exceed 275 percent of the national average. So 275 percent of the national average--you have to see your home energy costs exceed this level in order to make yourself available to this High Energy Cost Grant Program.

These grant funds can be used for on-grid and off-grid renewable energy projects, energy efficiency, and energy conservation projects serving these eligible communities.

Some have suggested this is somehow an Alaska aid program. It certainly does help in my State, but it has provided aid to utilities in more than a dozen States, including Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, and Washington. In addition to these States, applications have been submitted by other eligible communities in more than eight States. This is in Colorado, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and also out in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa.

In addition, these are community-driven projects. They reflect the local priorities for addressing energy challenges. Some of the projects that are
currently underway with these high energy cost grants are replacing failing transmission and distribution lines that serve communities in my State and in Arizona, Idaho, Maine, and Nevada.

As we think about how we are going to move our energy, particularly our renewable energy sources, we have to do more within our transmission systems. This program allows us to replace our older or failing transmission and distribution lines.

Some of the other projects extend electric distribution lines to connect homes in rural communities in States such as Alaska, Arizona, California, and Washington, including some homes on Indian reservations.

The other projects replace old inefficient diesel generators in many of the remote Alaska villages with more efficient, less polluting units, with heat recovery systems. These funds from the high energy cost grants go toward constructing community-owned renewable energy projects, including wind and solar, small hydroelectric and biomass systems. Again, the States where you see these projects are Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, New Mexico, New York, Washington, to the Marshall Islands.

The last area of the program provides cost savings, energy efficiency, and weatherization upgrades for rural homes and community facilities in Alabama, Alaska, Florida Hawaii, Kentucky, and Massachusetts.

I go through this list of where these projects are to ensure that Members know we are not just talking about a benefit to a State such as Alaska, where our energy costs are enormously high, but States such as Alabama, where they might not be facing the cold winters but they are certainly facing the hot summers and how they, too, can be more energy efficient; how they, too, can benefit from programs that help to reduce the high energy costs they face in their State.

This program has been one of the smartest things Congress has done since the passage of the rural electrification programs back in the 1930s. It has provided assistance to run modern power lines on Indian reservations, helped to propel economic activity where it is needed most in this country. It has provided aid to towns off the interstate transmission grid and a number of towns in the West that are isolated and not so connected to that grid, thus more subject to the blackouts and brownouts.

This program also motivated many States to step up their individual efforts to increase funding for these programs. In my home State of Alaska, despite the very dramatic decrease in revenues, we are investing tremendous resources toward energy solutions. In the State's fiscal year 2010 capital and operating budgets, they include $25.5 million for Alaska energy authority projects; $25 million for renewable energy; $38 million for power cost equalization; and $26.4 million for heating assistance. That is a total of about $115 million in funding that is coming from the State to help, alongside funding for the high energy cost grants.

If funding sources continue to be eliminated or reduced, the Nation's efforts to address the high cost of energy by increasing energy efficiencies and renewable resource development are going to be severely hindered. This is at a time when we can least afford to do this.

This program has helped with installation of renewable energy systems, whether it be solar or wind or hydro, biomass or geothermal projects. These are generally financed through guaranteed loans. This is exactly in keeping with existing congressional intent and the intent of this administration to expand renewable energy and to reduce carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions and their potential climate impacts. It has done so economically. The program has a 4-percent cap on planning and administrative expenses. I wish all Federal programs did this.

The program has an excellent track record. According to the Congressional Research Service, it has such a low default rate on its loans that the guarantee program has a zero subsidy cost; loans being secured by the borrower's electric system and assets.

Earlier on the floor it was argued that this program is somehow duplicative of other existing programs, but it is not. The existing USDA Rural Utilities Service Loan and Grant Program cannot make loans to school districts or to Indian reservations, such as the Navajo projects that have been made in Arizona or to off-grid utilities. The program can only make loans for electricity programs, not for renewable energy projects to tie into grids.

This is exceptionally important, the fact that the programs currently can only make those loans to electricity programs and not the renewable energy projects.

The program was authorized, the High Energy Cost Grant Program was authorized by Congress back in the 2000 Rural Electrification Act, simply because it covered a gap in existing programs that desperately needed to be filled.

This amendment might not only kill this program in the future, but it also might pull the rug out from under the projects that have expended funds and which have started and which are waiting for the Federal funds to be delivered.

This program actually lowers Federal unemployment and economic assistance costs over time because helping to reduce our energy costs is one of the best things we can be doing in government to support sustainable economic development in a State or in the region.

I certainly support the need for fiscal responsibility--absolutely, especially given the size of our deficit. Cutting the High Energy Cost Grants Program is likely to not only lessen economic activity in rural areas but also worsen our overall economy and unemployment across the Nation. There is no reason to delete the continuation of funding that is proposed for this program.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment when the time comes.

I yield the floor.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I stand in opposition to this amendment. The funds contained within this High Cost Energy Program are designed to improve energy generation, transmission, and distribution. These are designed to do exactly what we are working so hard in this body to do: to improve our energy generation, our transmission facilities, our distribution facilities, and we are doing this through a program where the qualifications in order to comply are you have to serve communities in which the average residential home energy costs are 275 percent of the national average.

There are 14 States across the country that have projects that focus on these very high energy areas. We are trying to reduce our energy costs for renewables and through the standard energy mechanisms but, quite honestly, when your energy costs are 275 percent above the national average, it is pretty darn tough.

So these are funds made available to communities in the State of Alaska, but also communities in Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, Washington, and the Marshall Islands, and it allows them to have energy at a more affordable cost.

I urge defeat of the amendment.

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