Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013
Floor Speech
Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, as bipartisan discussions go on over the next hour or two on the important Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency legislation, I wish to take a few minutes to outline where we are, why this bill is so important, and how it is going to affect energy policy deliberations generally.
I appreciate the work of colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I see Senators from both sides who I believe would very much like to see Democrats and Republicans work on an agreement to move forward on the Shaheen-Portman legislation.
When you look at this bill, it is almost the platonic ideal of how consensus legislation ought to work in the Senate. You have in effect a bipartisan Energy and Natural Resources Committee. We are very pleased the Presiding Officer has joined the committee very recently.
This bipartisan committee, taking a piece of bipartisan legislation authored by Senators Shaheen and Portman, two of our most thoughtful Senators--took their bill to the floor of the Senate and hour after hour the bill got more bipartisan, starting with the distinguished Senators Inhofe and Carper, who came with a thoughtful amendment with respect to thermal energy. The list went on and on. Senatorial pair after senatorial pair came to the floor and said they wanted to show law-making 101 is Democrats and Republicans working together in a bipartisan way and to respond to what we have heard Americans say all during the summer break. No matter what part of the country you are from, the message was the same: Go back and deal with the important issues for the economy. Let us expand the winner's circle in a middle-class-driven economy. That is what this legislation does. It is going to help create jobs, it is going to allow consumers to save money through practical energy savings, and it is going to increase American productivity.
It is an extraordinary coalition that has assembled for Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman's legislation: Business Roundtable, National Association of Manufacturers, and environmental groups, public interest organizations--an incredible breadth of support for this bill.
What I have been struck by in discussions, particularly over the last 24 hours, is this question: OK, the Senate is now finally on energy legislation. We actually did a major bill right before the August recess, the hydropower bill. Hydropower is the biggest source of clean power in the country right now, 60,000 megawatts, essentially, of potential production delivery out of that legislation. But this is the first bill to actually be on the floor of the Senate since 2007.
A number of Senators have said we have got this huge pent-up demand to work on energy, and now we have scores of amendments coming in on this bill--perhaps as many as 60 amendments that Senators want to offer. Obviously, we could probably be here until New Year's Eve working on this legislation if we have scores of amendments coming in. What I have tried to tell Senators is, We can't do everything under the Sun--literally and figuratively--with respect to this bill and still be able to move on to other subjects. We would not be able to deal with the continuing resolution and a whole host of other issues the Senate has to tackle. So there has to be some limits.
My hope is that agreement can be worked out on several of the issues Senators have felt most strongly about. Then if Senators Reid and McConnell can work out an agreement to have a finite number of amendments that will address energy issues, hopefully bipartisan, we can then move to a vote on energy efficiency. It seems to me there is no reason why, theoretically, that could not be done this week. If we have votes on a couple of these issues through a procedural agreement that would address what Senators have been debating over the last few days and then the leaders come up with a finite list of amendments on the other issues, we could finish this bill this week. I think it is important for the institution to do so.
I say to Senators who want to debate a variety of energy issues that deal with, for example, the EPA, we can't do all of those issues on this bill. The energy committee doesn't have jurisdiction over those issues. Those are going to come up. On some of what Senators are most concerned about, the government hasn't even acted yet. In other words, it is one thing to have a response from the Senate after an agency has acted. On some of these matters, the agency hasn't even acted yet. So it ought to be possible to find a path forward that would allow for votes on several issues that have been debated since the middle of last week. I think there is a way to do that if we can get an agreement on a finite list of additional amendments so both sides could have some other questions aired and we could vote on energy efficiency.
The reality is on the question of energy efficiency, those who are most knowledgeable on the subject say our country has plenty of room for improvement. As of 2011, our country ranked ninth out of the top 12 global economies in the amount of energy it uses to generate every dollar of goods and services it produces. This is what is commonly known as energy productivity. This is not a hypothetical exercise. As of 2008, industries consumed about one-third of the total U.S. energy use. The biggest users were chemicals and petroleum refining, pulp paper, iron and steel, and obviously other important industries are energy intensive as well. A lot of those employers know using less energy means lower costs and higher margins. Especially larger companies are in a position to take the steps that will allow them to tap those financial gains. But the small and medium-sized companies often don't have the technical expertise to know about which upgrades are going to make the biggest difference.
Here we have this bipartisan bill, and without putting any mandates on the private sector--not a single mandate on the private sector--this bill takes three steps that can help our small companies--the kind of company that dominates Oregon and Wisconsin and others as well. With this legislation, these small companies are going to be able to be more competitive.
First, the bill tells the Energy Department to reach out to the small and medium-sized businesses and make their experts available so the small businesses can learn directly what the commercially available energy-efficient technology is in their area that will allow them to become more competitive.
Second, it creates rebate programs to encourage manufacturers to replace some of their inefficient equipment, particularly motors and transformers. These are two pieces of equipment in particular that have long service lives and often get rebuilt instead of replaced because of the high cost of replacement.
Finally, the legislation establishes a program called Supply Star to recognize companies that have successfully made their supply chains more efficient--once again, voluntary, modeled after the ENERGY STAR Program. I offer that in this debate about what the role of the government is in an ``all of the above'' energy policy, these kinds of approaches that have a market-driven orientation, that are voluntary in nature, are ones that I think are going to allow our country in the days ahead to keep ahead of the competition.
In wrapping up, we do have, apparently, over 60 amendments filed. A significant chunk are them are not on the topic of energy efficiency. I see that the distinguished Senator from Ohio is on the floor, Senator Shaheen is on the floor, as are others who have strong concerns and are going to look to see if we can put together a bipartisan approach over the next few hours. I ask Senators to focus on what is doable, which is to have votes on the several issues that have been debated over the last few days, and then come to a finite agreement on the rest of the issues that would be offered--hopefully by colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Then we can vote, quaint as the idea might be, on an energy efficiency bill, which is the topic that has been before the Senate since the middle of last week.
I note that the Senator from Ohio is on the floor. He brought a good bill, with Senator Shaheen, to the floor in the middle of last week. It got better with the Inhofe-Carper amendment on thermal energy; the Landrieu-Wicker amendment, which helps us make better use of the green building certification system; the Hoeven-Pryor amendment that allows the continued use of grid-enabled water heaters to make utility management programs more efficient; the Sessions-Pryor and the Landrieu-Wicker amendments that reduce regulatory burdens on testing consumer products; the Bennet-Ayotte amendment on commercial buildings; the Pryor-Alexander amendment to look at how the review process works in terms of planning our energy future; the Isakson-Bennet amendment to look at home efficiency during mortgage underwriting.
When you think about this, the reality is you seem to know more about the energy efficiency of the products you have around your house, such as a toaster, than you do about a major--really an extraordinary purchase, such as a home. So we have a bipartisan duo in the Senate, Senator Isakson and Senator Bennet, wanting to address it. It is a terrific amendment, in my view.
Then there is the Bennet-Coburn amendment and the Udall-Risch amendment--saving taxpayers money by saving energy in the Federal computer data centers--and Senator Klobuchar and Senator Hoeven trying to make our nonprofits make better use of their energy because with that tax status it is hard to qualify for some of the opportunities to save energy.
I could go on, but it just highlights how a bipartisan committee took a bipartisan bill from Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman and then a big group of bipartisan Senators made it better. And that is what we could pass, and we could do it this week.
For all the Senators who have said there is this pent-up demand since the Senate has not been dealing with energy since 2007, I say the only way we can really get to all those topics is to pass a bill such as this that does have a finite list of amendments, and then let's vote on Shaheen-Portman.
Several of my colleagues are on their feet.
I yield the floor.
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Mr. WYDEN. Is it the view of the Senator from New Hampshire that the amendments that have been offered--the bipartisan amendments--take her bill, the product of all those negotiations, more than 3 years' worth of work, and actually make the bill even better?
I look at some of the amendments, particularly the one offered by the Senator from Georgia and the Senator from Colorado--the Isakson-Bennet amendment--and I realize we know more in America about the kind of common energy-efficient products that one might use, whether it is a toaster or something else around the house, than we do about the actual house itself. So we have two thoughtful Senators coming together and they have worked with a whole host of commercial building interests and they are going to make it possible, in my view, to save a lot of energy that will result in savings for homeowners and other Americans.
I would be interested in the Senator's take on the various amendments that have been filed because I think those amendments take the very fine bill she and Senator Portman have and make it even better.
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Mr. WYDEN. Let me wrap up with one last question to get a sense of the Senator's intent. My sense is the Senator is very open, as is Senator Portman, that there will be votes. I see our colleagues on the floor who have also been here since Wednesday, but the Senator from New Hampshire, I believe, is open to giving them votes on the several issues that have come up in connection with this debate, that have been debated over the last few days, and then she would be open to the leadership on both sides agreeing to a finite list of amendments and then actually voting on the energy efficiency bill this week.
My hope is that is what the Senator would like to do because that is what I have tried to tell colleagues, as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
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Mr. WYDEN. I just came back from an excellent visit to North Dakota with Senator Hoeven. There are a lot of other issues the Senate wants to tackle in the energy area to make sure we fully tap the potential of natural gas. There are win-win opportunities that are also good for the environment. We would like to resolve the nuclear waste question. We have a bipartisan bill here in the Senate.
Is that the intent of the Democratic sponsor of this legislation, that in the next couple of hours we get a finite list of the additional amendments In other words, we have the Senator's bill, and we have several amendments that have been debated at length already. Those would be part of the vote, and then in the next couple of hours we would have a finite list, and then we could address those and finish the bill this week?
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