Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Madam President, I wish to commend my colleagues Senators Shaheen and Portman for their work to bring this legislation to the floor. I commend as well Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Murkowski for their leadership in the energy committee.

Fully half of the energy we use in this great country is wasted. That is a fact we can no longer afford to ignore. Each one of us is able to make changes in our daily lives to increase our energy efficiency. There is no kilowatt hour, no Btu more valuable than the ones we do not actually use in the first place. But it is clear that we are going to have to do a lot more than turn the lights out when we leave home to be a leader in the world in this field.

As the largest energy consumer in the United States, I think the Federal Government has not only an obligation but also an opportunity to lead by example when it comes to energy performance. We know that buildings are the largest energy consumers in the United States today. Accounting for over 40 percent of our use, they offer the greatest opportunities for energy savings.

Over the summer I had the opportunity and the privilege of joining the Department of Energy in presenting the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility--that is a mouthful, I know. It is an important research facility in New Mexico, in my home State. We presented them with a Better Buildings Award on behalf of the DOE. The Federal Energy Management Program designed those awards, the Better Buildings Awards, to encourage significant reductions in energy usage in Federal buildings all across the country--reductions that go above and beyond the current codes and mandates that exist.

What the team at the desalinization research facility accomplished was nothing short of truly impressive and an example of what is possible with legislation such as this and in the field of energy efficiency. They were able to save approximately 300,000 kilowatt-hours per year--an annual savings of $42,000. That is a remarkable 53.6 percent of their former energy footprint at a time when that research facility was actually increasing the amount of research going on. They did this through thoughtful analysis, by implementing both active and passive energy conservation techniques, and with a capital investment of literally less than $800. For $800 and some engineering expertise, this research facility was able to save the taxpayers over $40,000 last year--$40,000 next year, $40,000 the year after that and into the future. That is a window into why this kind of legislation is so important and why we ought to be able to find common ground when it comes to energy efficiency.

I would also like to touch on another area of rapid energy innovation that is relevant to this legislation--the lighting sector. Lighting consumes 22 percent of the electricity that is generated in this country. That is $50 billion per year for consumers across the United States. In Albuquerque, Sandia National Laboratories is accelerating advances in what is called solid state light, or SSL, which is a rapidly evolving technology with the potential to reduce energy consumption in lighting by a factor of three to six times.

My colleagues may have seen some of the new solid-state lights if they have been to Home Depot or Lowe's or their locally owned hardware store. These light bulbs are so efficient that when I was installing a couple in my son's bedroom a few weeks ago, I could literally put my hand on the light bulb because they make such good use of the energy they use.

Sandia has worked in solid-state lighting for a long time and their SSL Science Center is exploring new energy conversion techniques in tailored photonic structures. Drawing on their long history of research and development in this area--and, frankly, working closely with both university and private sector partners--they are working to understand the mechanisms and the defects in SSL semiconductor materials so they can make these already incredibly efficient light bulbs even more efficient.

Sandia is also investigating the basic conversion of electricity to light using radically new designs that can take these things even further--things such as luminescent nanowires, quantum dots, and even hybrid architectures that may be the bright light bulb of the future. This is progress driven by basic research and science--the kinds of investments that, frankly, have made our country great and made our economy so strong.

The Shaheen-Portman bill will spur the use of energy efficiency technologies such as these, where all of us live and work and, in turn, will lower utility bills for consumers and save money for taxpayers. Furthermore, this bipartisan bill will strengthen U.S. competitiveness by stimulating significant private sector research and development investments in manufacturing innovation and productivity.

Investing in energy efficiency is one of the fastest as well as the most cost-effective ways we can grow our economy. It is estimated that this measure alone--just this piece of legislation--would help create 136,000 new jobs by 2025 and, by 2030, the bill would net an annual savings of over $13 billion--billion with a ``B''--for consumers, and lower CO2 emissions and other air pollutants by the equivalent of taking over 20 million cars off the road.

My home State of New Mexico is already capitalizing on a highly diversified but rapidly transforming energy sector. It stands to benefit from leveraging investments and efficiency projects and native technologies.

Through American ingenuity we can slow the effects of climate change and unleash the full potential of cleaner homegrown energy, creating a stable and healthier nation for future generations of Americans.

So instead of transforming this debate about what is fundamentally supposed to be a debate about energy efficiency into another tired battle over ObamaCare, I urge my colleagues to embrace the fact that this bill truly represents the culmination of years of bipartisan work to craft a smart, effective energy bill with a good chance of actually becoming law.

I know when I go home--and I have spoken to many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who say the same--one of the complaints we hear the most right now is: Why can't you guys just get something done? Why can't you work together on something? This is an opportunity to show we can still legislate, we can come together on the things we agree on, even while agreeing to disagree on many other issues.

Again, I thank Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman for working so tirelessly on this bill, I thank the chair and ranking member of the energy committee for making it a priority, and I thank all of the Senators who serve on that committee for working together on both sides of the aisle to see this move forward. I hope as a Senate we will seize this opportunity.

I yield the floor.

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