Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2014
Floor Speech
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support S. 2262, the Shaheen-Portman Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2014. The reason I do so is because I have long felt we can't be for an all-of-the-above energy policy if we aren't promoting state-of-the-art approaches in terms of energy efficiency.
I think the Presiding Officer and I both know it isn't even a speech here in the Senate on energy policy unless the Senator says they are for an all-of-the-above at least three times every 15, 20 minutes. So I think what Senator
Shaheen and Senator Portman are doing is making it clear right at the start that an all-of-the-above energy policy is their approach and their effort to pull as many as possible colleagues into innovative approaches in terms of promoting energy efficiency.
Senators Shaheen and Portman have been tirelessly pursuing this legislation for 3 years now. I had a chance as the former Chair of the Energy Committee to watch what they have been doing. I will walk back a bit to make sure colleagues understand how constructive their efforts have been, both substantively and in terms of promoting collaboration here in the Senate, in hopes that these commonsense energy proposals for creating good jobs and a cleaner and healthier environment will prevail on a bipartisan basis here in the Senate.
With our colleague from Alaska, Senator Murkowski, I have had a front-row seat over the last couple years to watch Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman in action and support their efforts. I think we should all be very appreciative of the job our new Chair, Senator Landrieu, is doing--again, in concert with Senator Murkowski--because the two of them continue the committee's tradition, No. 1, of working in a bipartisan way but, No. 2, trying again to promote collaboration here within the Senate to promote an energy approach, which I think is not only common sense but it is absolutely essential in order to be able to go on to the other energy policy issues that surely are likely to be more contentious than energy efficiency.
To walk back a bit through what has happened, I think our colleagues know an earlier version of this legislation passed our Energy and Natural Resources Committee last year by an overwhelming bipartisan majority. It was then considered on the floor this past September, but it was blocked by demands for a vote on a health care amendment which had nothing to do with the premise of the underlying bill. I happen to oppose that amendment, but however a Senator feels, it has nothing to do with energy efficiency and productivity.
When the bill stalled on the Senate floor last fall, it looked pretty grim for the cause of energy efficiency, and essentially people were questioning the Senate's ability to consider an act on a range of energy issues which confront our country. I think a lot of people would have thrown in the towel at that point. They would have said: We put in all of this work and effort to win such a strong bipartisan vote in the Senate; then we were ready to go to the floor and faced unrelated issues. And I could see why the sponsors would give up. But Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman are not throw-in-the-towel type of Senators, and in effect they doubled down and went back to work on some of the most challenging issues.
So at that point, after the unfortunate setback of last September, they in effect doubled down and worked to bring an even broader range of Members and stakeholders together here in the Senate to form a consensus and make this bill even better, improve the array of commonsense approaches taken to promote energy efficiency, and increase the chance of the best possible energy efficiency bill becoming law.
I wish to highlight at this point how challenging this work was and how pleased I was the Senate was able to get together.
At that point one of the most challenging issues dealt with the question of the then-existing requirements that new Federal buildings be designed to phase out their use of fossil-fuel-generated energy by 2030. This is important for a variety of reasons. Of course, the Federal Government is a major property owner in our country, No. 1. And No. 2, I think we all look to the Federal Government at a minimum to try to set some examples in terms of trying to deal with these issues.
In other words, it is fine for Washington, DC, to say: Everybody else would do X, Y, and Z. But if they come back and say the Federal Government is not willing to set an example, it is pretty hard to have any credibility in terms of that particular field of public policy. The reality was that while well meaning, the existing requirement that new Federal Government buildings be designed to phase out their use of fossil-fuel-generated energy by 2030 was not working particularly well by anyone's calculus.
We had folks in the natural gas industry raising questions about whether they would be able to participate. They made the point--one that I think certainly has validity--that natural gas is 50 percent cleaner than the other fossil fuels. They were saying: Well, how are we going to be able to play a role with heating in Federal buildings, which, of course, as I indicated, is very significant both because the Federal Government owns so much property and because of the example the Federal Government sets.
So reaching an agreement on how to balance repeal of this provision in existing law--well meaning, but not working very well--with the addition of provisions to enhance efficiency in Federal buildings involved innumerable meetings--meetings that I participated in personally and others were involved in that went on literally for months with all of the stakeholders--the electric and gas utility industries, the environmental advocacy organizations, the energy efficiency groups--all of them in discussions that took place over conference calls and in-person meeting after meeting.
I would submit that had those groups not been able to come together--and I believe they deserve great credit because they did--I think it may have been right at that point very difficult to advance this bill because we would have generated, for the first time, significant opposition around the core issue. Whether it be environmental groups or electric and gas groups, we would have had significant friction over an important public policy issue, which is how to promote renewable energy to the greatest extent possible in new Federal Government buildings.
I will say to colleagues who may be following this, a number of times in these discussions I thought things were going to blow up. I thought one or more of these groups would walk out and say: We will take our chances on the floor; we believe we are going to win, and if it takes this bill down, so be it. But they stayed at the table and they worked out an agreement.
As a result of their agreement--environmental organizations, those in the advocacy of energy efficiency and a variety of industry groups--the effort produced a significantly better bill, and a bill that now includes some very important and powerful additions.
For example, as a result of rewriting the provision that new Federal Government buildings be designed to phase out the use of fossil-fuel-generated energy, very substantial financial savings were generated so as to be able to include some very sensible and potentially far-reaching changes in the energy efficiency field.
For example, as a result of that agreement it is possible to take some of the financial savings generated in that redo of the requirements for renewable fuels in Federal energy building and include in the legislation that is now before the Senate, the SAVE Act, a bipartisan proposal championed by our colleagues Senator Isakson and Senator Bennet. This provision would for the first time facilitate the accounting of energy efficiency in residential mortgages. A report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy and the Institute for Market Transformation estimates that this proposal alone would create 83,000 new jobs in home construction, renovation, and manufacturing by 2020. These are jobs for American workers that cannot be outsourced. The agreement on Federal building efficiency would also extend the 3 percent-per-year Federal building efficiency target through 2017 and expand the coverage of this efficiency target from new buildings to include major renovations as well.
So what we have is a good bill that got out of committee. It was a good bill last September that I would have liked to have seen pass this body at that time. After it was not possible to move it forward, we had the chief sponsors, Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman, work continually to try to advance this legislation and broaden its appeal. When they bumped up against a really serious problem, which was to fix this policy with respect to the requirements for renewable energy in Federal buildings, they worked with a variety of groups and organizations and were able to make the bill better.
I wish to thank a number of Senators who were behind this effort to redo the
requirements for new Federal buildings--in particular, our colleagues on this side of the aisle, Senator Manchin and Senator Whitehouse, and on the other side of the aisle I wish to thank Senator Hoeven. They were very involved in the nuts and bolts of redoing this legislation. Suffice it to say that the three of them would be the first to say they don't agree on every possible energy policy subject matter. Yet the three of them came together, worked with this coalition of groups I have described, and made significant improvements in the already good bill after September. As a result of their work, we have generated financial savings that made it possible to include the Isakson-Bennet legislation on residential mortgages, which is a very significant and positive development in the energy efficiency field.
This is not a small matter, taking bold steps to improve energy efficiency in residential mortgages the way our colleagues Senator Isakson and Senator Bennet have done in a bipartisan fashion. The reason this efficiency legislation is back is because it is sensible and has bipartisan appeal. It is about cutting waste and creating jobs. Passing this legislation would be the biggest step in years toward tapping the enormous potential of energy efficiency, which is the most sensible and cheapest energy source America has.
Here are the most relevant figures with respect to the benefits of this bill. The bill will save about 2.8 billion megawatt hours of electricity by 2030, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. To translate this into something people can put their arms around, if we are going to generate 2.8 billion megawatt hours--and that is the projection for this bill--our country would have to build 10 new nuclear powerplants, at a cost of billions of dollars each, and run them for more than 20 years. An additional provision of the bill updates and promotes voluntary model building codes, making residential and commercial buildings more efficient through the installation of new equipment, insulation, and other efficiency technologies. There is money to be saved and there is energy to be saved. That is the kind of work this legislation accomplishes.
What I have described is possibly not the most flashy of stories we might be contemplating here in Washington. It might not be at the top of every single account on the nightly news, but businesses understand how valuable this is. Businesses understand that there is money to be made here. That is why more than 250 companies and associations endorse the bill, including the chamber of commerce, which I think would be the first to state that they don't see themselves as a bleeding heart environmental organization. I was struck by a headline in forbes.com not long ago that read ``The Shaheen-Portman Energy Savings Act: It's the economy, stupid.'' Forbes, a prominent business publication, got it right.
If Congress can pass this bill, it would immediately become one of the largest job-creating efforts the Senate will enact this year, creating an estimated 192,000 new jobs by 2030. It can also make a tremendous difference in our country's economic competitiveness, bringing savings to businesses and families, reducing demands on our electric grid, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Having watched the development of this legislation as the former chair of the Energy Committee and now chair of the Finance Committee, I think every Member of the Senate understands how important it is to secure a cleaner, more efficient, job-creating energy future. This legislation provides that opportunity. It was a good bill when the Senate considered it last September, it is an even better bill tonight, and to a great extent it is made better because colleagues such as Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Senator Hoeven have worked together on a very contentious matter involving renewable energy in Federal buildings. It is the latest demonstration of good will and comity that has dominated this debate, at least as it relates to the substance of discussing energy efficiency legislation.
I thank our chair Senator Landrieu for the first-rate job she has done not only on this but on the matters before the Energy Committee. I also thank my good friend and colleague Senator Murkowski for the same sorts of efforts she made to work with me as the chair and Senator Landrieu. I think those efforts are going to pay off. Let's make sure they pay off immediately with the Senate this week moving forward and passing the bipartisan Shaheen-Portman legislation.
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