Energy Policy Act of 2003

ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2003

AMENDMENT NO. 854

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from California for her hard work on this amendment. I am glad to join Senator Lugar and Senator Boxer as a cosponsor of this amendment. Senator Boxer has spent an invaluable amount of time on the whole ethanol debate, but I think the amendment she offers this morning goes a long way in adding diversity and efficiency to our ethanol plan. It seems my colleagues are enthusiastic about supporting this in the overall energy package.

    I rise to support the Boxer-Lugar-Cantwell amendment. As we have heard, this amendment would increase from 1.5 gallons to 2.5 gallons the credit available to refiners who choose to use ethanol derived from certain types of biomass to meet the requirement of our renewable fuels standard. Senator Boxer did an excellent job, giving us all a lesson in biomass 101 as it relates to ethanol and the products that could be used as part of this biomass requirement.

    This amendment ensures that as we strive to reduce our reliance on foreign oil, displacing it with home-grown products that provide both environmental benefits and economic stimulus to our nation's rural communities, we also develop the renewable fuels diversity that is the hallmark of what I think is a good energy policy.

    My colleagues may have been told this, or they may learn it now for the first time, but it was in 1925 that Henry Ford told the New York Times that ethanol was "the fuel of the future." But while 90 percent of the ethanol produced in this Nation today was derived from corn, Henry Ford's vision was much broader. He said:

    The fuel of the future is going to come from apples, weeds and sawdust—almost anything. There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented.

    That is what he told the Times back in that period.

    This amendment attempts to move forward on that vision. I believe it is logical, and I believe Senator Boxer and Senator Lugar are right on target in providing leadership on this issue.

    While today the ethanol that is derived from corn more or less dominates the renewable fuels market, this is not the circumstance for every State in our country. The State of Washington, for example, is much more a producer of wheat, which would hold significant promise as a potential source for the biomass ethanol.

    Despite the promise of these alternatives, the technology for producing ethanol from these sources such as wheat and straw and other agricultural products has lagged behind for a number of reasons. Yet by providing appropriate incentives today with this amendment, and promoting research and development, we can move this forward on a cost-competitive basis.

    The Boxer-Lugar-Cantwell amendment would increase the renewable fuels standard credit for one specific type of material, the agricultural residues such as wheat or rice or straw, from that 1.5 to 2.5, reflecting what is really a recent DOE analysis on what we should achieve.

    So moving forward on these incentives for development of ethanol production is simply a matter of good public policy. I say this for four or five reasons.

    We get the environmental benefits from this, we get the potential energy gains, we get the long-term cost impacts of having fuel diversity, and, of course, we get the spread of economic benefits to all of our Nation's agricultural communities.

    In our State of Washington, there is much going on in this area. There are many farmers who have come together in a variety of ways to join in thinking about ethanol production. With the construction of one 40-million-gallon plant, the State of Washington could become entirely ethanol self-sufficient. According to a study conducted by our State university, such a plan would have a significant economic impact, particularly in our rural communities in the eastern part of Washington.

    A single 40-million-gallon production plant could create 104 direct jobs and about 300 indirect jobs. Local communities could see an economic benefit, according to the study, of about $19 million per year with a statewide benefit of somewhere between $20 million and $30 million per year. With the construction of these various plants, Washington State could reach self-sufficiency and could, under the fuels standard proposal here today, become a supplier to other Western States.

    The State of Washington and agricultural communities want to help meet the renewable fuels standard. They want to join with Senators Frist and Daschle in their proposal. But we don't have the corn or the abundance to make that happen. So we want to see this diversity. In fact, a recent Washington State University extension program concluded that we could produce 200 million gallons per year in ethanol if we had improvement in technologies and diversification of resources.

    In conclusion, to help this become reality, a broad coalition of Washington agricultural and environmentalist interests have banded together. They helped pass this package in our State legislature with a variety of tax incentives and broad production of biofuels. These bills were signed by our Governor last month and they have our State moving forward on this agenda.

    The Boxer-Lugar-Cantwell amendment adds a Federal dimension to these efforts. This provision reflects good public policy from the Federal Government and good energy policy, and helps those States that are further away from ethanol diversity to participate in our national energy goal.

    I yield the floor.

LIHEAP

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise to enter into a colloquy with the distinguished Chairman and Ranking Member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. I am pleased, colleagues, that we have been able to reach consensus on the need to include in this bill an increase in the authorization level for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) program from $2 billion to $3.4 billion. With power costs on the rise around this nation, it is imperative that the Senate act now to respond to the needs of the 85 percent of eligible families that today do not receive the help they so desperately need, due to the perennially under-funded nature of the LIHEAP program.

    There is another issue relevant to the LIHEAP program, however, that I hope the Senate will soon consider. I believe that we must address the manner in which the Department of Health and Human Services—and, of course, the Office of Management and Budget—have traditionally administered the "contingency" portion of the LIHEAP program. While the bulk of LIHEAP dollars are distributed to states via block grants and in accordance with a statutory formula, Congress has also authorized—and appropriated funds to—a contingency fund, designed to "meet the additional home energy assistance needs of one or more States arising from a natural disaster or other emergency." This money is not released according to formula—but solely at the discretion of the HHS Secretary.

    Unfortunately, recent history suggests that there are problems with the way the "contingency" portion of LIHEAP is administered. In essence, there seem to be widely varying eligibility rules applied to the release of these contingency funds—leading to instances in which HHS has overlooked very real energy emergencies, including the recent power crisis in my home state of Washington.

    I believe that clear rules for the release of these dollars will ensure that, in the unfortunate event of an energy emergency, low-income families will receive much-needed assistance in keeping the lights and the heat turned on—which is precisely what Congress intends when it appropriates money to the LIHEAP contingency fund. During mark-up on this bill in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Sen. Smith and I added language—adopted unanimously-seeking to put guidelines around the release of these emergency LIHEAP funds.

    However, I understand that the distinguished Chairman, Senator Gregg, and Ranking Member, Senator Kennedy, intend to reauthorize the LIHEAP program in their Committee this year and examine very closely the administration of these contingency funds. I believe the language that Senator Smith and I authored would go a long way toward adding clarity to the process, and I would be exceptionally pleased to work with the Chairman on this and other proposals to reform the LIHEAP emergency program to ensure it is as responsive as possible to the very real needs of low-income Americans.