Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act

Floor Speech

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Madam President, I am pleased to join Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Murkowski on the floor of the Senate today. I want to sign up for the ``get it done caucus,'' because I think this is legislation we can get done. It has bipartisan support from I believe the majority of the Members in this Senate. I think if we can get some agreement to move forward on this legislation and on the amendments, we can show the public, which is very frustrated with what is happening here in Washington, that we can actually get something done.

I wish to thank Senator Wyden and Senator Murkowski for all of their great work on the energy committee. I had the opportunity to serve my first 4 years on the energy committee. It is a great committee. They have done a terrific job of showing what it is like to be able to get work done, to be able to get people to come together and figure out where they can get agreement and move forward. It was in that spirit that Senator Portman and I started working together 3 years ago, when we were both members of the energy committee, on energy efficiency legislation, working with the Alliance to Save Energy, and a number of members of the business community, and with all of these groups that have endorsed this legislation, to try and put together a bill where we could find some agreement. There has been a lot of division around energy issues in the last decade or so.

That is why it has been I think 6 years--actually since 2007--since an energy bill has come to the floor of the Senate, because there are those of us who believe the best way forward is to focus on fossil fuels and more oil and gas. There are others who believe alternatives and renewables, hydro and solar and wind, are the best way forward.

One of the aspects that is true in this entire energy debate, whether one comes from North Dakota, as the Presiding Officer does, or New Hampshire, as I do, is that energy efficiency benefits all of us. It doesn't matter which form of energy one supports or which region of the country one is from; this is a place where we can get some consensus. It is agreement that allows us to move forward on job creation; it allows us to move forward on saving on pollution.

We have had several Senators on the floor over the last couple of days talking about the challenges of climate change and what is happening with our weather. This is a way to save on those emissions. It is a way to address cost savings. I have been to businesses all over New Hampshire that have been able to stay competitive because they have reduced their energy costs. In a State such as New Hampshire where we have the sixth highest energy costs in the country, it is important for us to figure out how we can lower those costs. That is one of the things this bill does.

The other aspect of the legislation that we haven't talked about as much on the floor is it reduces our dependence on foreign oil and foreign sources of energy, so it is also critical to our national security. As we think about our energy challenges in the future, making sure we can produce the energy we use in the United States is very important. As we think about what is happening in the Middle East, as we think about the challenges we have to stay competitive in the world, energy, as Senator Murkowski said so well, is something that affects everything we do.

This bill has been criticized by some quarters for not being robust enough. I appreciate there are provisions in the legislation I might not have chosen to put in. There are others I would like to have seen in it we didn't get consensus on. But I think that is what we are talking about when we are talking about how do we reach consensus on a bipartisan bill and how do we get something done that can get through not only the Senate but the House. I think we have a good start in this legislation.

The bill would do several things. First, it would strengthen national model building codes to make new homes and new commercial buildings more energy efficient. We know about 40 percent of our energy used in this country is used in buildings, so making sure those buildings are more energy efficient is critical. It is particularly important for those of us who are in the northeast. In New Hampshire we have a lot of old buildings because we are an older part of the country, so we have a lot of buildings that have been there for a long time and we need to do what we can to make them more energy efficient.

Then the legislation would also train the next generation of workers in energy-efficient commercial building design and operation. It would expand on university-based building training and research assessment centers--something that is very important as we think about the future workforce.

Let me go back because when I talked about the national model building codes, I wanted to make sure everybody is clear that these building codes are voluntary; they are not mandatory. As Senator Portman has said so well, there are no mandates in this legislation. This is an effort to look at incentives, to look at how we can encourage the private sector and consumers to be more energy efficient.

Then the bill also deals with the manufacturing sector, which is the biggest user of energy in our economy. It directs the Department of Energy to work closely with private sector partners to encourage research, development, and commercialization of innovative energy-efficient technology and processes for industrial applications. That is a mouthful, but what it says is--and this is something we heard from stakeholders, from those businesses that work in the energy industry, which is they want to have a better working relationship with the Department of Energy. They want to be able to feel as though there is support there as they are trying to take technologies to commercialization. It also helps manufacturers reduce energy use and become more competitive by incentivizing the use of more energy-efficient electric motors and transformers.

About 4 percent of energy use in this country is through electric motors and transformers. I have been interested in transformers because we have a company in New Hampshire called Warner Power that has made the first breakthrough in transformer design in 100 years. If we can get their energy-efficient transformers, or something like them, into buildings and projects across the country, we could save significant amounts of energy.

As we look at the manufacturing sector, the legislation also establishes a program called Supply Star, to help make companies look at their supply chains and figure out how to make their supply chains more efficient. I can remember when I was on the energy committee and we were talking about this whole issue of supply chains and we were debating whether it was important to encourage companies to look at their supply chains, people were saying, It doesn't make that much difference in terms of the actual energy use. I pointed out that we have a company in New Hampshire called Stoneyfield Farm that makes yogurt--great yogurt. If my colleagues haven't had it, they should try it. But they have been very interested in being more energy efficient. They have looked at all of their processes and they have figured out how they can do the best possible job at saving on energy. What they discovered is their biggest problem isn't how they produce the yogurt, it is the cows they depend upon for the milk to produce the yogurt because the cows release so much methane. That was the problem in terms of their supply chain and with the amount of energy they were using. So helping companies take a look at their supply chain and figure out how to reduce the energy use through that supply chain is very important and it is an important piece of this bill.

Then the third section in the legislation deals with the Federal Government. I know all of us know this because we are here and we are working hard on energy. The Federal Government is the biggest user of energy in this country. Most of that energy is used by the military. About 93 percent is used by the military. The military understands it is important for them to figure out how to be more energy efficient. They have been real leaders in government--the Navy in particular, but all branches in the military have looked at how they can be more efficient in using energy. Our legislation tries to incentivize the rest of the government to catch up with the military. So we would ask agencies to look at data centers--and we have some very good amendments from Senators Risch and Udall and Senator Coburn to take a look at data centers because they are a big waster of energy in the Federal Government. It would allow Federal agencies to use existing funds to update plans when they are constructing new buildings so they can make them more energy efficient. We have a number of amendments which would also address how we can make the Federal Government more energy efficient and be a leader as we look at what is happening in the private sector to save on energy, so this bill is a very good start for how to address energy efficiency.

Senators Murkowski and Wyden have said we have over a dozen agreed to, bipartisan amendments that would make the bill even better. I hope we can get to those amendments. I think it is really important for us to do this.

But to answer those people who say that this is just a little bill, that it is not going to make much difference, I would point to a new study that just came out from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. They looked at this legislation without the amendments--and the amendments are going to make it better--and they said that if we can pass this legislation, by 2025 the legislation will encourage the creation of 136,000 new jobs, not just in businesses that are going to be more efficient and so they can create more jobs but in businesses that are producing the energy-efficient technologies that are going to allow us to be more energy efficient. By 2030 the bill would net an annual savings of over $13 billion to consumers, and it would lower carbon dioxide emissions and other air pollutants by the equivalent of taking 22 million cars off the road. That is a pretty good savings and solution.

So, as we have all said, this is a win-win-win. It makes sense for us to move on this legislation. It makes sense for what we can accomplish with the legislation itself. It makes sense in terms of other energy issues that are pending and what we need to do to make sure we position the United States and our businesses and our families to be more energy efficient to be able to compete in the new energy world we are entering.

We need to start now to address energy, and I hope we are going to be able to get by the impediments that currently face us so we can begin to vote, so we can adopt the great amendments that have been proposed, and so we can actually act on this bill.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

I am pleased to see my partner on this legislation on the floor to talk about why we need to pass this bill.

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