Maria Cantwell

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. This amendment neither assumes nor proposes an increase in CAFE standards. In fact, some have erroneously concluded that increasing CAFE standards is the only means of achieving the goal established by the Cantwell amendment. Multiple analyses by national security-related organizations and others have concluded that increasing CAFE standards is not necessary to attain savings of 7.6 million barrels of oil a day by 2025. In addition, it is important to note that some have circulated erroneous estimates of CAFE standard increases necessary to achieve the goal in the Cantwell amendment, attributed to the Energy Information Administration, EIA. The staff of the EIA has said that these flawed estimates have no grounds in analyses performed by the EIA.

Ms. CANTWELL. This amendment is technology-neutral. It simply lays out a vision that the United States should attempt to achieve over the course of the next 20 years. The only assumption underlying this amendment is that the United States has the ingenuity and innovative spirit to reverse the rising trend of American dependence on foreign oil imports. Today, foreign oil constitutes approximately 58 percent of our domestic supply, a figure that is projected to reach 68 percent by 2025. Because of the nature of world oil markets and the geologic fact that two-thirds of global reserves are located in the Middle East, the United States is on track to become increasingly dependent on OPEC to fuel our economy; and will be competing with developing nations such as China for access to these oil supplies. Because of the economic and national security implications of foreign oil dependence, this amendment simply states that it is in the national interest of the United States to attempt to curb our appetite for imported oil. The underlying bill provides a number of tools to help this country achieve the goal established by my amendment, and there are many potential pathways to its attainment. However, none of them are specifically assumed by the Cantwell amendment.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I am not objecting, but I am just asking for the yeas and nays on my amendment. I think moving to 2:30 is fine, given the markup.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Mexico for his fine amendment. I would like to take a minute to state that I am a cosponsor of the Bingaman amendment and very much believe in the renewable portfolio standard for our electricity grid. I guess if you looked at the Northwest, particularly Washington State, you would say we are already using 80 percent renewable energy because 80 percent of our electricity grid is provided by our hydro system. So we, in the Northwest, are very big believers in renewable power. But we also believe in the other technology that is in the underlying amendment and in the underlying bill that will help us support renewable technologies. We have a lot of wind farms. We have had a lot of discussion out here on the floor this morning about wind energy. We, in Washington State, are already employing wind energy in a variety of locations in our State and getting great response. In some areas, it is some of the best job growth we have had in rural communities. Farmers love it because, aside from providing an agricultural product, they get a second source of revenue from their land by having agriculture and wind technology on their farms. It works very well for our farmers, and the combination of hydro and wind technology works very well for Washington state and the Northwest. But we also have solar power. We are about to have one of the first demonstrations of wave power. We, in the Northwest, are using all sorts of renewable technology to meet these goals. Certainly, I want to endorse this particular amendment as a great step forward, saying we can do more with renewable technology. I would like to turn to the Cantwell amendment, on which we are going to have a vote I believe at 2:15, and summarize, for my colleagues who might have missed yesterday's discussion, a few points I think are important as we talk about our reliance on imported oil and the fact we want to diversify. In the New York Times, there was an article about OPEC and their increases in quotas for various OPEC countries. It is interesting, and every day Americans want to know what is going to happen with oil futures and gas prices. You look to find out what OPEC is doing. This article, I think, brings up the very point we were trying to make yesterday; that is, that China's demand for oil continues to grow. In fact, this article says that global oil consumption climbed 2.4 or 2.5 million barrels a day in 2004, the fastest growth rate since 1978. That is world demand for energy increasing. Basically, that was a result of China's increasing energy consumption. We know what the trends are, and we know what the challenges are that are facing us. I found it interesting, too, that the New York Times article talked about how OPEC was actually concerned that alternative fuels might affect their future price of product. They are almost telling us, yes, they are a little concerned about competition from alternative fuels. I welcome that. I think it is about time that America make an investment in alternative fuels and about time we give consumers a choice when it comes to the demand and supply of oil in the future and not continue to be held hostage by foreign governments. I would like to review for my colleagues what exactly the Cantwell amendment does because it is so important that we understand what the underlying bill does and what our challenges are as a country going forward. In 1973, we were importing only 28 percent of our demand--our U.S. demand--for oil. We were importing 28 percent of what we used as a country. Today, 2004, we are at 58 percent, a huge jump, a huge dependency by the United States on a foreign source to provide us an oil supply. When I look at the countries involved and I look at the instability in the Middle East, I don't want to be 58 percent reliant on foreign sources of oil. I want American ingenuity to be a driver in what we can provide to the American people in driving down the cost of energy. If we do nothing, in 2025, the United States will be importing 68 percent; nearly 70 percent of our oil supply will come from abroad. Who in their right mind thinks that 70-percent dependence on foreign oil is wise economically, to our national security, or internationally as we have to deal with international competition? Why would we want to be almost 70-percent reliant on foreign entities for something that is the backbone of our economy--energy? I am offering a simple amendment. My amendment simply says by 2025, instead of being reliant on foreign sources for 68 percent of our supply, we bring that down to 56 percent. That is not much of a change. We are at 58 percent today, and we want to go down to 56 percent. That is a modest goal. It is hard to achieve because our amendment assumes the growth and demand that will happen as our Nation grows. That is why we have to assume in 2025 we will be at 68 percent, and we want to see a serious reduction. That is the way my amendment is crafted. The underlying bill says we are currently at 58 percent and let's reduce our consumption of foreign oil by 1 million barrels a day. One million barrels a day by 2015 still has us importing 60 percent of our supply from foreign sources. In 2015, instead of consuming 58 percent of our oil supply from foreign sources, we would be at 60 percent. The underlying goal in the bill does nothing to get us off our overreliance on foreign oil. It is the status quo and a bump in an increase. It is too timid in responding to what has been a gouging of the American consumer on gas prices. This debate we have just had for the last couple of hours is interesting because a lot of my colleagues have said they refuse to support a mandate. They do not want to have a mandate in this bill. I am not proposing a mandate. It is interesting: Some Members do not support mandates. They do not even support goals. The American people deserve, on something as important as our national security and economic livelihood, to have this Senate, in transportation and energy policy, set a goal to get off our overdependence on foreign oil. Are my colleagues just giving lip service to this idea of a goal of getting off overdependence on foreign oil? Or are we willing to set a goal and do something about it? I have pointed out that the goals we have are doable. My amendment does not say specifically how or what the mandate is. We have simply said, that from various studies, we know we can get the savings my amendment calls for in a goal. Here are a variety of sources: Fuel efficiency for tires and motor oil. The encouragement of a biofuels industry. A big chunk of this comes from alternative fuels. That is why OPEC, in today's paper, says they are very concerned about this because they know it is competition. They realize it is competition. Why don't we realize it is competition and ensure we get about making an alternative product? Other countries certainly have this idea. One is Brazil and based on their overdependence on foreign oil they came to the same conclusions. They did not want to be in the same boat we are in today. In 1975, they were importing 80 percent of their fuel supply from foreign sources. They made a decision that was too much for them, both economically--I don't know if there are security issues--but economically they thought that was not wise so they started a process of taking steps. In 1990, they almost cut that in half. By 2003, they were down to importing only 11 percent of their fuel supply. Next year, they might achieve the great milestone of not only becoming self-sufficient but actually becoming an exporter of fuel to other countries. They have done this because they made an investment in ethanol. They made decisions about their transportation sector so they could run on biofuel products. They have changed the economic picture of their country. Is there something Brazil possesses that the United States cannot achieve? Are they smarter than we are? Do they have greater political will than we do? Do they have more consumers holding their politicians accountable than we do? What Brazil showed is they have a resolve because of their own national interests to get off the foreign addiction to oil. I applaud them for that. They are only one-eighth the size of our economy, but they are proven to be smart enough to figure out how to make sugar-based ethanol in a cost-productive way, so efficient they can send it to the United States cheaper than we can produce it to the degree that some of my colleagues want to put a tax on it so that it is on a more level playing field with what sugar-based ethanol in the United States costs. To me, the Brazilians have come up with something. I ask my colleagues, if you do not want mandates and you do not want goals and you do not want to get off our overdependence on foreign oil by setting a milestone or coming up with a goal or statement, what is it that you do want to do? The underlying bill increases our dependence by 2015 on foreign oil to 60 percent. We are at 58 percent today. It increases it to 60 percent. So we have accomplished nothing in the goal in the underlying bill. I would like to set, primarily for international reasons, a goal to get off our dependence on foreign oil because these are our suppliers. These are the countries where the majority of U.S. oil supply comes from: Saudi Arabia sits on the largest percentage of oil reserves in the world today. I wish geography and geology had been kinder to the United States and that we sat on more than 3 percent of oil reserves. But we don't. We do not have that product. We have a very small percentage of the world reserve for oil. That is a fact of life. These are the countries and this is the State ownership of companies that are part of OPEC and have the oil supply of the future. I didn't expect I would be in the Senate agreeing with George Shultz and James Woolsey and a bunch of neoconservatives who were espousing ideas about our national security, but I actually do agree with them that reducing our dependence on foreign oil should be a national priority and a national goal. That is why we have crafted this amendment this way. We simply want to say to our colleagues and to the President of the United States that we believe increasing our consumption of foreign products as a way to support our economy is not a wise decision, given what growth and demand and oil prices are going to be. Yesterday, the market closed at $56.20 for oil. Economists at various Wall Street firms are saying we could easily see an oil spike of $100 a barrel. They say that oil futures have a fear premium on them; that is, there has been lots of discussion about how the price of oil futures is basically impacting the price of oil on a day-to-day basis. That is right, the speculative market about energy futures in oil basically causes the price at the pump today to increase. I find that unfortunate because the speculative price of oil futures takes into consideration those nine countries I mentioned, the fact that you could have a terrorist attack, the fact that you could have unrest in a region and that somehow supply would be diminished, thus affecting the price of oil futures. Economists and people on Wall Street--Goldman Sachs and others-- basically say there is a fear premium on the price of oil futures; that is, we are paying more for oil because we are paying for the uncertainty and the instability in the political and geographic region where oil exists. That is what I am supposed to tell Washington State residents as to why they pay some of the highest gas prices in the country? That is why they should pay almost $2.30 a gallon for gasoline? That is why I should tell people they have lost their pensions in the airline industry because the airline industry has not passed on the high fuel costs? That is what I am supposed to tell the farmers who cannot keep their farms running because of high fuel costs, or somebody who has lost their job in a transportation-sensitive industry. I am supposed to tell them that I am going to continue to put an energy goal in legislation that makes us more dependent on foreign oil than we are today? No. We want to reverse the trend. That is what the Cantwell amendment does. It is not a mandate. It is a goal. It says that instead of being more dependent on foreign oil in 2015, as the underlying bill directs us, let's become less dependent. Let's go from 58 percent, where we are today, down to 56.5 percent. It is a goal we can achieve. It is a goal I am willing to set as a legislator for our country because I believe in the ingenuity of Americans to achieve this goal. There is nothing the country of Brazil can do that the United States cannot do. I guarantee you that if we set our resolve to do it as a nation, we will achieve this goal as well. The reason why we, as a government entity, need to set this goal is because the private sector is going to diversify at its own darn pace; that is, the oil companies will decide what their investment in new technology and alternative fuels is at their own pace, their own wishes, their own response to their corporate shareholders, not at the interest of individual consumers who are getting strangled by the high cost of gasoline. It is our job to set this goal and that is why we are on the Senate floor today. We are here to say we agree with the American farmers that they can produce a biofuel product in the future that can be competitive, that we agree with neoconservatives that the security risk of being 70 percent dependent on foreign oil is too great a security risk for our Nation, that we agree with technology and research experts that American ingenuity can get us to this 56.5-percent goal. I ask my colleagues, what is wrong with setting this goal? Let's not continue to give lip service to a goal of getting off our foreign dependence and then do nothing about it in a legislative proposal. Let's show the American people we are concerned about the economic hardship they are facing and that we believe in American ingenuity. We believe in our farmers. We believe in our technology leaders. We believe that we, as a country, can achieve this great goal. If the last generation of Americans were smart enough to put a man on the Moon in a decade, this generation of Americans ought to be smart enough to reach this goal. I ask my colleagues to have the courage to set it in a piece of legislation as a mark for us to achieve. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. CANTWELL. The Cantwell amendment establishes a national goal. As such, it directs the President to design and implement measures designed to help achieve the goal, and assumes that, if the President deems his existing authorities insufficient, he will propose to Congress legislation or recommendations that would help achieve the amendment's energy security target. At that time, it would be up to Congress to consider the merits of the President's proposals, via the typical legislative process.

Ms. CANTWELL. Certainly other nations have begun the transition to more wide-spread use of diesel technology, and initiatives or programs in this regard may ultimately be consistent with the Cantwell amendment. But they are neither specifically assumed nor required.

Ms. CANTWELL. The amendment neither assumes nor proposes regulatory changes to the CAFE system. I view the debate regarding the efficacy of the existing CAFE program as beyond the scope of this amendment, which lays out a national vision for reducing American dependence on foreign oil imports. Certainly any changes to the CAFE system's regulatory regime would require additional legislative action, action that is not assumed in the Cantwell amendment.

Ms. CANTWELL. Certainly, tax incentives can help spur the development of markets for advanced technologies, and help expand the choices available to American consumers. But these are not specified or assumed within the Cantwell amendment.

Ms. CANTWELL. There is no question that hydrogen provides another potential pathway to achieving substantial oil savings in the United States. However, because the technology remains at a relatively early stage in its development, no specific estimates exist for the economic and energy efficiencies this technology may provide. It is not specifically assumed by the Cantwell amendment.

Ms. CANTWELL. Because the amendment lays out a vision rather than mandating specific measures, increased hybrid use is not specifically assumed. However, some have estimated that growth in the hybrid vehicle market can achieve oil savings of up to 2 million barrels a day by 2015, 10 years before the Cantwell amendment's ultimate goal. Taken together, biofuels production and growth in the market for hybrid vehicles could provide more than two-thirds of the energy security goal established by the Cantwell amendment.

Ms. CANTWELL. While advances in diesel engine technology are another potential tool for accelerating oil savings, they are not specifically assumed nor mandated by the Cantwell amendment.

Ms. CANTWELL. Again, increased use of biodiesel fuels and technology is not specifically assumed by the Cantwell amendment. However, these fuels can also help achieve the amendment's goal. It is worth noting that one of the barriers to achieving cost-effective biodiesel production is increasing the diversity of feedstocks from which biodiesel can be economically produced. The key to unlocking the potential of biodiesel is performing the research, development and demonstration of new technologies that will allow the co-production of biodiesel fuel and value-added bioproducts that lower overall costs. I was proud to add specific provisions to this underlying legislation that authorize an Advanced Biofuels Technology program, designed to accelerate the development of these processes. Again, while one of the potential tools the U.S. can use to achieve the goal, additional biodiesel production is not explicitly assumed by the Cantwell amendment.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I know the Senator from Michigan has given a great deal of thought to this issue and to the modified amendment, and I yield the floor to him.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and I call up amendment No. 784 and send a modification to the desk.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota for his comments. I wish I could take credit for the bold idea in the sense that I am happy to be the sponsor of this amendment, but there are many people in America who have been talking about this as an idea. I submit for the record another organization that has supported a blueprint for U.S. energy security, the Set America Free Organization, which is a collective organization of individuals, and they actually submit information that would be much bolder than a proposal to set a goal in number of barrels that could be saved by 2025. There are a lot of people out there who have their sights set even more dramatically than what we are talking about. Clearly, my colleague outlined that we are talking about something that is technologically agnostic. We are not declaring what technology is going to win. There are lots of great solutions that are provided in this bill. But I would like to remind my colleagues that today at 2 p.m., the price of oil per barrel was up to $56.50. So that is what we are dealing with, $56.50. I know my colleagues in the Chamber were involved in getting the original language of 1 million reduction by 2025. I think that language first emerged when the Senate was considering previous Energy bills 2 years ago. At the time we originally started thinking about this goal of how to get off our foreign oil dependence or to reduce it, we were talking about oil prices that were much lower, maybe as low as $23 a barrel. Now we are looking at $56 a barrel. It is imperative that we be more aggressive by setting this goal and by working together to achieve it. The underlying bill is a testament to bipartisan work in saying that there are a variety of ways to reach the goal. Some may ask: Senator Cantwell, why do you want to set this goal? You might actually find the United States pursuing more domestic oil supply as a result of this goal. I can't say what is going to happen. I just know I want to get off the foreign dependence that we are at today because our economy cannot continue to take that risk. With the concentration of oil supply in the Middle East, we are one mishap away from having our economy face a $100-a-barrel oil cost in the future. We cannot afford $56 a barrel. Some people say: Well, economies adjust to the high cost. I guarantee, in the meantime, a lot of people are going to suffer. There is not a week that goes by that I am not on a plane flying back to the west coast, to my home State of Washington, and a transportation worker doesn't come up to talk to me about their pension, the fact that they are laid off, the fact that they are losing their job because transportation fuel costs in aviation have not been passed on to the consumer. Consequently, it is being taken out on pensions. So there isn't a week that goes by where I don't see somebody who hasn't suffered from the high cost already, at $56 a barrel. We cannot continue this dependency or the race we are going to be in with China on competing for a limited supply. I am confident enough in American ingenuity that I am not even going to be prescriptive about how we get there as it relates to whether it is nuclear, another supply of oil, biofuels, what is going to win the day. I showed a chart because I am a big advocate of biofuels. If you can buy biofuels in Seattle now in the $2.60 range, $2.70 range, I know that we can create more incentive, as we are in this bill, more research and development to get that cost down. So I know I can get it competitive to what I think gasoline prices are going to be. I want to do that. I am gung-ho about that. I am gung-ho about what the Brazilians have done because they have turned their economy around by becoming almost net exporters of energy instead of net importers. That is an incredible story the United States should learn from. As my colleague from North Dakota said, there are many different technologies in the bill, but other countries are starting to gain the advantage. If we think about it, we are not the experts on fuel efficiency that the Japanese are. We are not the experts on wind energy that some of the Scandinavian countries are. We are not the experts on the production of sugar-based ethanol that the Brazilians are. It bothers me that we are losing the technology edge to other countries. I certainly am willing to take the risk of setting a goal of 2025 in reducing our foreign oil consumption by 40 percent and saying all the options are on the table. I believe that Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman did a good job of putting all those options on the table. I believe in the underlying bill. What I think we should reflect on is that the underlying bill includes language from a couple of years ago that may not be bold enough in the sense that if it doesn't reduce our dependence on foreign oil in 2015, we will be more dependent. We should reflect on that and see if we can get to a point where we are endorsing the underlying solutions in this bill and setting a higher goal so that we can say to the American people, we are reversing this trend. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL. Specifically, this coalition believes that domestic biofuel, something that we just debated as part of this energy strategy, can be used to produce a very significant amount of our future energy, and they are calling it an extraordinary opportunity for American leadership for job creation and economic growth. I think this group of individuals, who are part of a coalition that is interested in our country's national security, are pointing out that this very chart, showing the ownership by foreign entities, is of great concern to our future. I think this letter does adequately call on us to do our job in making sure we are getting off of our foreign dependence. I believe this underlying legislation gives us the tools to do so. That is especially true if you think about the framework that is in the bill and the debate we just had on biofuels, the 8 billion gallon biofuels goal by 2012. What is great about the biofuels amendment that was adopted and revised from the committee markup is that it includes both ethanol and biodiesel, and specifically ethanol research and development of what are called cellulosic ethanols--biomass-based ethanol materials. We know we have Midwestern States that are already producing ethanol and giving us a source of supply. But if you take those five Midwestern States and try to transport that product to the Northwest, as we do today--we are selling biofuels and ethanol in a variety of places in Washington State today, but you are adding a 30-cent to 50-cent transportation cost. What the amendment we just adopted does is make sure that various parts of the country can also be in the biofuels business; that we can start producing products in other parts of the country, closer to the source and consumers that are going to use them. So it is a very positive step forward. The bill also includes clean coal technology, that I know my colleague who is on the floor, the Senator from Tennessee, has worked on so diligently. It includes hydrogen fuel cells, and it includes next generation nuclear power, things I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have worked hard to perfect. It includes new research and development, to play a vital role in the commercialization of new technology. It promotes in, a bipartisan way, conservation initiatives. It is exciting to catch a sense of the new technology that will be in this bill to give us more efficiency in our homes and businesses. We will get a lot of savings from these programs and tools. There are many tools in the underlying bill to achieve the goals we set out for ourselves. We believe this underlying bill has the right technology answers; that is, it has all the various means by which we can get off our foreign oil dependence, but it is simply lacking a goal. That is what my amendment will provide. This legislation should reflect the resolve of the American people, who say that getting off our overdependence on foreign oil is a national priority, and we are going to stick to it. I know various Members are going to come down here and offer amendments on other issues, issues related to global warming and greenhouse gas emissions. We are going to have proposals regarding a renewable portfolio standard, which would basically mean that our electricity grid would use more renewable energy to provide supply. I think Senator Feinstein is still going to come down and offer her amendment to close the SUV loophole, to try to make SUVs more fuel efficient. We are going to have a lot of discussion to help improve the bill. But without setting a national goal, without saying our country has to get off our dependence on foreign oil, we will have missed an opportunity. This underlying legislation sets a goal that will actually make us, in 2015, more dependent on foreign oil than we are today. I think we need to set a goal as a legislative body, that we want to reverse that trend. In 2025 we want to actually be importing less foreign oil, and that is exactly what my amendment does. Why is this so important? First, we all know it is in the economic interest of the United States to diversify off foreign oil. We know our dependence has cost us, since 1970, something like $3.6 trillion. In 2003, imports cost us $10 billion every single month, and our oil imports count for about 34 percent of our existing trade deficit. Think about that, 34 percent of our trade deficit, just because of the cost of oil. In fact, Alan Greenspan has said that the high cost of fuel has basically caused 8 out of the 10 postwar U.S. recessions; they were related to high energy prices and spikes in oil. We know there is a strong relationship between energy costs to our overall economy. That is what we are trying to change. But a number of factors remain, and that is what is of great concern. Who actually controls those energy costs? We know the OPEC cartel, as well as international events and political events, have an impact. We know the growing demand in China and India for the same supply of oil has an impact. We know we need to do something about it. If you talk to economists about what is going to happen to the price of oil in the future, the signs are pointing to oil prices could reach $100 a barrel in the next 20 years. If that is the case, that would have a devastating impact on our national economy. Yet that is exactly what we are hearing from them. That is exactly what people are saying. There is a world economic outlook report that was issued this spring by the International Monetary Fund, and that report basically said that oil could spike to $100 a barrel between now and 2030. The Wall Street firm of Goldman Sachs also predicted that the price of oil could reach $105 in the next few years, and energy markets could easily be in the early stages of a superspike period. I know the United States has been through these periods before, where we have seen extreme spikes in energy costs. It has had a devastating impact on our economy. That is something we are trying to avoid by setting a national goal to diversify away from foreign oil. We have many economic reasons for this amendment. But as I stated earlier, we also have security reasons. Let me expound on that just a little bit because I think it is important to understand the demand for oil and, basically, who holds the reserves. The oil reserves of every area in the world are in decline except for the Middle East. That means if we continue to be dependent on foreign oil, we are going to be more dependent on OPEC and its member countries. Given that those reserves, let's just say, are constantly under some scrutiny because of the challenges in that region of the world, some analysts, when looking at the oil futures market, basically describe what they call a fear premium. That is, the price of oil futures actually increases because people are concerned that international incidents may happen, terrorist threats and other things, that will damage that oil supply. So the cost of oil futures actually goes up, just on the fear of what might happen. That is troubling because as we all know, we cannot predict what is going to happen on an international basis. We do our best to protect that oil supply, but Saudi Arabia alone has about a quarter of the world's oil reserves and more than 60 percent of that country's total oil inputs are processed at a single facility. So if you think about it, it is the home to almost all of the world's spare production capacity. Again, we are putting all our eggs in one basket. I am simply saying lets set a national goal to get off that dependence on foreign oil because of this security reason, as well as the economic reason and who owns this supply and how important it is. I would like to talk for a second about the picture as it relates to other people interested in that oil supply. I mentioned China and India and the projections of the price of oil reaching $100 a barrel. Analysts agree that China, because of its growth and huge demand, is likely to shift the whole center of gravity for energy markets. That is, China has already moved past Japan in its global energy consumption. It is the second largest oil consumer and the third largest oil importer. In the next decade, China is going to continue to grow to about half of today's U.S. combined car and truck total, so they are going to be looking for lots of energy supply. It is expected that their imports are going to double by 2010 and quadruple, to 8 billion barrels of oil a day, by 2025. Imports will be 60 percent of China's total oil consumption. While we are looking at the picture, already knowing we are overdependent on foreign oil and that the challenges to security are there and that the American economy is already suffering, we also need to recognize there are other nations who are going to be bidding for that same resource. We need to get off our overdependence on foreign oil. How are we going to do that? First, we have to have the resolve. There are many times in American history this country has shown American resolve. We have put a man on the Moon. We have ushered in the nuclear age. We stood up in the OPEC crisis and got fuel efficiency standards for cars. We ought to have the resolve now. We need to bet on the ingenuity of American brain power to get us off our overdependence on foreign oil. If we are smart enough to put a man on the Moon, we ought to be smart enough to get off our overdependence on foreign oil. When John F. Kennedy made the declaration of wanting to put a man on the Moon in a 10-year period of time, I don't think he had the answer to every single element of how to do that. He left the details up to both the public and private sector in getting new technology developed so we could move forward. In this case we have an underlying bill that actually can achieve this goal of reversing the trend by 2025 and reducing 40 percent the consumption of the United States of foreign oil. How do we do that? Many people have talked about how we get there. I will show one chart with examples of the oil savings technology in this legislation. The biofuels amendment we talked about: Many organizations, including some of those security initiative organizations such as Energy Future Coalition and some environmental organizations such as Natural Resources Defense Council, have said biofuels can play a significant role. They could help produce 3.9 billion barrels of alternative fuel a day. I hope my Midwest colleagues and my colleagues from other parts of the country who are interested in biodiesel and ethanol are excited by that opportunity. It means an economic opportunity for all the regions of our country that can produce those fuels. It also has a higher national purpose, to help us get off our over-dependence on foreign oil. We can also improve efficiencies in various sectors such as aviation, residential applications, and various modes of transportation. I am very proud the Northwest has figured this out. At the Paris Air Show we are seeing a lot of news about future planes. One plane you will not see there today but is on the drawing boards and is getting rave reviews from people making purchase orders is the next generation 787. What is great about that is its whole design is based on a more fuel-efficient plane. Boeing estimates it can save between 20 and 30 percent on fuel costs. They figured out the marketplace is going to be very sensitive to the high expense of transportation fuel and have developed a plane to answer the call from the marketplace. What has the marketplace said? The marketplace is responding with over 200 orders for a plane that is not even finished yet. That is a great example of how we can get efficiencies in aviation and other sectors. This chart explains how we can make a big step forward in energy savings, which are aspects of this legislation. They are very important aspects to look at. A few of my colleagues who are anxious about this legislation want to know if it is a back door to higher fuel efficiency standards; that somehow this bill mandates CAFE. It does not mandate a higher fuel efficiency standard, although this Member would certainly support a piece of legislation in the Senate that suggested that. This amendment realizes there are hybrid cars in the marketplace that are likely to come onboard. There are estimates that you can increase the efficiency of our economy using hybrids and save up to 2 million barrels a day by 2015. That's just from the growth in the hybrid auto market. That is just American consumers buying hybrid cars and making that investment. It does not have to be CAFE, although I personally think we are losing a huge opportunity in the American marketplace by not being more aggressive about cars that can run on alternative fuels. I say that, mentioning the Boeing experience in aviation. The aerospace industry in the Northwest is responding to the demand of more fuel-efficient transportation. I wish the auto manufacturers would be more aggressive. Actually, as oil has hit $50 a barrel they have gotten more aggressive. They have gone over to Japan and said, okay, we want a technology deal with the Japanese auto manufacturers; we want to get more of these cars in the United States market. Maybe that will work. However, this amendment does not assume we are going to have a new CAFE standard. It simply says to the United States, if you are serious about this problem, you will set a national goal to get off our overdependence on foreign oil by 2025 and start reducing the trend. Instead of continually importing more, we should be importing less. This chart shows the trend we are trying to reverse. Today we are basically importing 13 million barrels a day; if we do nothing, by 2025, we will be importing 19 million barrels. This is the trend we are trying to reverse. This is the direction we did not want to go in. We want to make a change. Some of my colleagues ask, how can you set this goal? If you are not specific about how you get there, how are we going to achieve it? There is a lot I am sure that President Kennedy thought about when he wanted to put a man on the Moon, and maybe his original projections were not accurate. There is a lot of research and development we are going to do on a variety of these technologies. One country that has taken this challenge and embraced it is Brazil. It is a country which looked at this same dilemma the United States has, from the economic perspective. They said, we cannot afford to be dependent on the high cost of imported oil. In fact, in the 1970s, Brazil had about 80 percent of its supply from imports. That was a big challenge. As it exists today, Brazil has, because of its biofuels initiative, changed that trend. In fact, Brazil has gone from 1975 being 80 percent dependent on foreign oil to 1990 being only 45 percent dependent on foreign oil, and in 2006, Brazil actually plans on being an energy self-sufficient country and maybe even being a net exporter of fuel. That is very interesting. As it stands today, they are only importing about 11 percent of their supply. How do you go from 1975 at 80 percent to 11 percent in 2003? The country took the initiative and said they were going to produce a competitive product to fossil fuel. That competitive product happened to be sugar-based ethanol. They got good at producing sugar-based ethanol. They got so good at producing sugar-based ethanol they actually can produce it and ship it here cheaper than we can produce it today. I don't like losing the competitive edge to somebody else on the production of an alternative fuel source. I want the United States to be a leader in the production of alternative fuel sources. It holds a lot of promise for the United States. One might say, well, Brazil is only one-eighth the size of the United States economy and we have much more demand than Brazil. That is true, but Brazil has learned about the efficient production of ethanol. Are we saying somehow the United States does not have the raw material supply for ethanol, whether it is sugar-based ethanol or biomass-based ethanol? We actually are trying to put the American farmer in the fuel business. If there is anything we ought to be sure we have its agriculture. We know we only sit on 3 percent of the oil reserves in the world, so we know we are not going to get it from there. We are talking about importing liquified natural gas, so we know we are challenged there. But we sure know that the American farmer can produce a lot of product as it relates to ethanol, whether it is sugar based or biomass based, and we can produce a lot as it relates to biodiesel products as well. That is exactly what this legislation does. It is very specific about the research and development that needs to take place to get us into the alternative fuels business. I am so certain of the well-crafted nature of that section of the bill that I am willing to say that I think we really can achieve our goal of decreasing our energy dependence by 2025. So it is a very positive step for us to look at what we have seen around the globe as far as other countries trying to get toward energy independence or becoming less dependent on foreign oil. Now, I have another chart that shows examples of what we are trying to reach. This chart basically demonstrates how we can reduce, by 7 million barrels a day, U.S. consumption. It does not have to be the exact mix as shown on the chart of how we achieve that. This is just one of the proposals. You have market growth in hybrid cars; industrial improvements, efficiency improvements in aviation; efficiency gains in trucks and heavy-duty equipment. One of our National Laboratories in the State of Washington, the Pacific Northwest Labs, is doing great research on lightweight trucks, lightweight materials, transportation efficiency, for the trucking industry in our country. Other areas to reduce consumption: how to make the movement of goods and services more efficient, saving transportation costs; the replacement of tires, you can get more fuel efficiency just by having better balance of your tires to get better gas mileage; and there are transportation choices; and biofuels. Again, biofuels is a big opportunity for us. So I hope all my colleagues are listening who are very supportive of the biofuels section of this legislation--which I hope there are many because I think it is a great opportunity. If you are supportive of that biofuels section of the bill, you ought to be very supportive of setting a goal because you really ought to believe the national goal is achievable. You ought to believe that the economic interest of our country in getting that new production of biofuels is not only an economic and security matter, it is also just plain good job creation for our country. You are putting the American farmer back in business with a product that now will see huge demand. Now, I do not know if we have it here on the floor, but I took great note that the Economist magazine wrote a piece on biofuels a few weeks ago. In fact, it was a front-page cover story article that week about biofuels. What was interesting about it is that it discussed the fact that we are at this point where biofuels make so much sense because of the price of oil. Now, several years ago, when we were talking about oil at $20 a barrel and people were talking about biofuels, maybe it did not make much sense, the economics did not make much sense. But we have hit, as Andy Grove would say, an inflection point, and that inflection point is that now we are seeing prices over $50 a barrel for imported oil. So the article basically says that it is no longer the ``blue sky'' stuff that people talk about, but it is an idea whose time has come. It is a very substantive opportunity for anybody who can produce biofuels because at anywhere around $50 a barrel, instead of $25 a barrel, biofuels can be competitive. Now, in Washington State, we are selling biodiesel and alternative fuels. A few weeks ago, we had the opening of one of our first biofuels stations. It was actually at the same location as a previous traditional petroleum-based station. So they changed over from serving customers gasoline to now serving biodiesel. Right now, the product is something that is shipped from the Midwest, refined at a production facility in Seattle, and then sent over to what was this particular station, Laurelhurst Oil. They are producing a biofuel in Seattle, even though the oil is still imported from another state. That biofuel, I think at the time, was about 30 cents more than what you could go around the corner and get to fill your car up with gasoline--30 cents more. And you ask: Well, how are you expecting to be competitive if it is 30 cents more? It was 30 cents more because we had the transportation cost of bringing that agricultural product to the Northwest, having it processed, and then sold. The production facility that is actually producing this biodiesel in Seattle believes it can reduce the cost by 30 cents--they could be selling the biodiesel at the same cost we are buying gasoline per gallon in Seattle--by simply producing the product in the State of Washington. So that is what this bill allows us to do. I think the Economist was right, that the private sector is starting to respond to this and starting to come up with solutions. So then you say: Well, if the private markets are responding, why do we have to set a national goal? Well, let me address that because as a former businessperson, I understand that businesses are responsive to their customers and they are responsive to their shareholders. I do not blame a national oil company for setting its own agenda on when it wants to get into new energy technologies. That is their prerogative. You see lots of commercials on TV all the time about how existing fossil fuel companies are going to generate biofuels, how they are going to diversify. They would make you think they are doing that in a rapid fashion. I am not so sure it is rapid enough for the consumers of Washington State, who are paying a very high price for gasoline, have paid a very high price for electricity recently, and are reeling from a hard-hit economy because of high energy costs. We would like to see a much more aggressive effort. But those companies are not going to set a national goal and they are not going to diversify until it is in their financial interest. So the question is whether this body is going to set a national goal, which I think this underlying bill can achieve, and whether we, as a country, are going to diversify off of that overdependence on foreign oil. It is not their job; it is our job. And we should get about showing the American people that we have the will to do it and that we are betting on American ingenuity to achieve it. I have to believe that putting a man on the Moon is a lot harder than discovering how to be as efficient as the Brazilians are in the development of ethanol. I have to believe that was a tougher challenge. So I think about the things we have achieved in our country's history. I think about the fact that, in response to the threat of what other countries might be doing with the nuclear bomb in World War II, FDR ushered in the nuclear age in 2 years. He shifted our spending in the development of energy in 2 years from about $8,000 to 86 million dollars and ushered in the nuclear age. Why? Because he saw a threat, and he wanted to set a national goal. We have had these instances where our country has decided it was in our economic interest and our security interest to move ahead. That is what we need to do today. So I am glad to offer this amendment that simply says that we should take the underlying legislation and change its goal. The underlying bill already has a goal. It says that our goal should be to get off of foreign oil by 2015 by reducing it a million barrels a day. What we need to do is reduce our oil supply in a much more aggressive fashion. We need to reduce that 40 percent by 2025. That is what my amendment calls for. I am happy to hear from my other colleagues on this issue. I hope that my colleagues will take this issue as an amendment to improve the underlying bill. The underlying bill has the tools and the framework we need. What we need to do is have the resolve as a country to set a national goal. The private sector is not going to do that. We are not going to have consumers make market choices that don't exist. They want more market choices. What we have to do is set the wheels in motion. The good news is, once the Government sets a goal, it is amazing how many people respond to that. Our country has set lots of goals. We set goals for more homeland security. I have seen more security technology companies come through my office in the last 2 years than imaginable. Why? Because we said we want more homeland security. So we have every imaginable aspect of homeland security being addressed by thousands of companies across America. If we want to be serious about getting off our overdependence on foreign oil, we will pass this amendment, and we will be on the track for setting a goal that both the private sector and public sector will respond to. I think with that we will be able to say to Americans that we are on the right track, that we are not going to let consumers continue to pay high transportation costs, and that we have a plan for the future. We are not going to continue to be so singularly dependent on the fossil fuel industry. We are not going to continue to have transportation-sensitive industries caught in a stranglehold by high energy costs. We are going to say to them instead that our national security interests, our economic interests, our environmental interests are being met by a new national goal that all of us will participate in making a reality.

Ms. CANTWELL. I yield to the Senator from Illinois.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from Set America Free be printed in the Record.

Ms. CANTWELL. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Louisiana for her comments and for her focus on the fact that the amendment is basically agnostic about where we get future supply. You can get it from more domestic production of oil or natural gas. I have been a big supporter of more natural gas production, particularly from Alaska, because I think it is so important to our country moving ahead. I appreciate her chart showing what States are involved in energy production because we in Washington State are getting 70 percent of our electricity from a hydro system. She mentioned, yes, you can get energy from damming rivers. Well, that is exactly what we have done in the State of Washington and many parts of the Northwest. It has cost our environment, but yet we get 70 percent of our power from that. We have one nuclear powerplant in our State. We have one coal plant in our State. We have a few natural gas-fired plants in our State. We have four major refineries that take crude oil and convert it to petroleum products, such as gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, and asphalt. So we in Washington State are involved in all those activities. The fact is, we do not have significant oil and natural gas off the coast of Washington. I know that is something that is being discussed. But the Minerals Management Service Report that was conducted basically says there is not a lot of natural gas off the coast of Washington. So I am not in the same position as the Senator from Louisiana. I think you have to take into consideration in this debate what some of my staff call the ``accidents of geology;'' that is, that Saudi Arabia happens to sit on 25 percent of the world's oil reserves, and we in the United States only sit on 3 percent. That is a fact of geology. So the fact that Louisiana has oil and gas and Washington does not is another fact of geology. But I tell you that we do play our role in Washington State. We help keep the lights on in California. We were forced to do so by emergency order by the U.S. Government during a drought, at a cost to ratepayers in Washington State. So we do play our part in providing energy supplies around the region. But this is an issue about regional diversity and about getting off our overdependence on foreign oil. I think the Senator correctly articulated what this amendment does; and that is, it basically sets a goal and says it is most important to get off the foreign dependence, to start reducing it. I appreciate that because she came up with the original language and I think is concerned that we do set goals. So I appreciate her comments. I would like to add to the record, if I could--I know my colleagues from Colorado and Illinois are on the floor and want to speak. But we have had questions about whether we can get a supply of biofuels. I know a lot of my Midwestern colleagues believe in the biofuel section of this bill. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the Executive Summary of the USDA and Department of Energy report entitled ``Biomass as Feedstock for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry: The Technical Feasibility of a Billion-Ton Annual Supply.''

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Tennessee for his comments and for his diligence in following energy policy both on the committee and on the floor. I know he cares greatly about this issue and has spent many hours on the details in various sections of this legislation. I appreciate his interest and unique focus on clean coal technology. He has great interest and knowledge about clean coal technology, and has articulated his views about that numerous times. I know my colleague from North Dakota is here so I want to give him an opportunity to talk, but I want to respond. The 7 million barrels reduction is an achievable goal. If you believe in the underlying technology the Senator from Tennessee just discussed, which is the various ways we can get to that goal, he and I are in agreement. Where we seem to be in a disagreement is whether we want to set this goal. I believe the American people deserve to have a goal set that is achievable. The underlying bill that says in 2015 we will be more dependent on foreign oil than we are today doesn't seem the goal we should be putting forth. While the committee passed that out of committee, we knew we were going to come out here and discuss a variety of issues. Now that we have the perspective of the entire bill with a lot of different technology solutions, I would say it is time for the Senate to be more bold about this. I commend to my colleagues this report, ``Securing America; Solving Our Oil Dependence Through Innovation.'' There are two different organizations, the NRDC and the IAGCS, that basically outline in their report how we can save close to 7 billion barrels of oil per day. We have a submittal to the Record from the Committee on the Present Danger, on our oil security. It, too, talks about how we can achieve this goal and what some of the sources are. I ask unanimous consent to have that printed in the Record.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the Senator from Tennessee, Senator Kerry be recognized to speak.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I know there are many Members who want to speak. I ask unanimous consent that Senators Feinstein and Reid be added as cosponsors of the legislation.

Ms. CANTWELL. The Senator is correct. In the underlying bill, we have language that says we should reduce our dependence on foreign oil by 1 million barrels a day by 2015. The problem with that goal is, when you are currently importing 58 percent of your oil supply from foreign sources and you calculate in the growth of demand--obviously, our economy continues to grow--there is demand for more oil. Even with that amendment, in 10 years, in 2015, we will be importing 60 to 62 percent of what our Nation consumes in oil supply from foreign sources. So the underlying amendment does nothing to stop this trend. In fact, we will continue to be more dependent on foreign oil. I know the White House has sent some communication to Senators saying they oppose even that milestone in the bill which does attempt to try to reduce oil consumption. But the provision in the bill doesn't take into effect the fact that the economy grows. I guess it is saying: We don't want to have any goal to actually try to decrease the amount of foreign oil coming into this country. I want to have a goal for decreasing the amount of foreign oil coming into this country. I want to reverse the trend. I want to go from what we are expected to have, 68 percent in 2025, and say, let's switch that down towards 50. Let's get to 56 percent. Let's start doing as the Brazilians did, which is an amazing story, if you think about it. Here is a nation that basically went from 80 percent, now, today to 11 percent, and is on the verge of becoming an exporter. When you think about the economic opportunities our country has in actually being an exporter of new energy efficiency technology, it is a great opportunity. The Senator is right that the administration opposes any goal setting in this bill. Why would somebody oppose goal setting? All the tools are here in this legislation. I am not saying which technology is going to win. Basically, our amendment is technology agnostic. It doesn't say: You are going to have CAFE; you are going to have nuclear power. A lot of my colleagues are betting on nuclear power. There is new language in here for new nuclear technology. A lot of people think it will provide us hydrogen sources, and we will have hydrogen fuel cells. We will move to having a more fuel-efficient economy that way. I am not being prescriptive because 2025 is a long time from now. But I know if we look at specifics, we can get there through these various means, but we won't get there without a goal.

Ms. CANTWELL. The Senator from Illinois brings up an important question, which is with China's interest in global oil supply and the demand, is it going to drive up the price. I don't think an oil company really cares whether the price of oil is driven up or not. What do they care? Somebody is going to pay them, whether it is $50, $55, $60, $80, or $100. With an increase in demand, that is good news for them. Oil supply costs just go up. They reap the benefits; they reap the profit. But what it is not good for is the American economy. So the Senator is absolutely right, China's entrance into the demand for foreign oil should be seen by this country as an economic and security risk. China's consumption and growth rate is staggering. China is going to be consuming I think I said 8 million barrels of imports. They have already overtaken Japan, and they are fast on our heels to catch up to our consumption, and they will get to a point where they are the 800-pound gorilla in the dynamics of world oil supply. Even our underlying bill says you can try to ramp up different sources of U.S. production. But we all know with the United States being situated on 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, it is not a likely scenario for us in the United States to be able to drill our way to energy security. So the Senator is right, China is a unique concern in this. We ought to take that, along with the other national security factors, and the fact that the oil supply is located primarily in these Middle Eastern countries--if we can put the chart back up there. If you look at where the supply is already, the countries and state ownership, that is already worrisome enough. Now, when you throw into the equation that China is going to be demanding more supply from these entities, it is going to lead to a higher price. I am not sure any of these countries are worried about the U.S. consumer and what they have to pay for transportation costs. I don't think they are responsive to the needs of U.S. consumers. The United States might be responsive to our own consumers if we were the owner of these companies, but we are not. So this is about setting a national goal that recognizes the hardship the American economy is going to encounter, and that we are going to be under in the future if we continue to pay these prices. We might, in 10 years, be happy we were talking about $50 a barrel prices, if some of the expectations of Wall Street come to pass--the predictions that we could see superspikes and get to $100 a barrel. We are already feeling the pain now. Americans are losing jobs, pensions, like the pensions of transportation workers, where there are issues because of high fuel costs; and people are curtailing economic activity because of high transportation costs. We ought to take the Chinese part of the equation and realize this goal needs to be set and we need to make it a reality, just as we did to reach the goal of putting a man on the Moon. My colleague from Tennessee is also on the floor. I want to give him an opportunity to add whatever comments he wants to add about this. Amendment No. 784