Thomas Carper

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, how much time remains on either side?

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I yield to the Senator from Connecticut 3 minutes.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. With the combined heat and power facilities, we have the ability to generate energy almost twice as efficiently as we generate it from traditional utilities, traditional generating plants. With combined heat and power facilities, we see emissions that are roughly half those of traditional powerplants. The administration's national energy plan envisions a doubling and relies on combined heat and power facilities in this country because they are so energy efficient and also environmentally friendly. The downside, unfortunately, is that, inadvertently, the language of this bill before us takes away the ability for FERC to help ensure that these combined heat and power facilities have the opportunity to sell power at reasonable prices into the grid and to buy power, if and when they need to buy it, at reasonable prices. I think all of us would agree that to have the ability to create more facilities that are twice as energy efficient as traditional generating facilities and produce half the emissions is a good thing. That is why the administration has offered doubling these facilities in their plan. Unfortunately, if we leave the language as it is in the bill, we are going to find that the potential that is embodied in the generating capability of the combined heat and power facilities will not be realized. Nobody is interested in utilities having to sell electricity at rates that are above market. We want to simply make sure that a combined heat and power facility, which is twice as energy efficient, and twice as environmentally friendly, has the opportunity to expand. That is what we seek to do here. With that in mind, I ask our colleagues to oppose the motion to table. Again, I express my thanks to the Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, for joining me and a number of colleagues in offering this amendment today. I yield the floor.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Snowe be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, amendment No. 3197 is at the desk. I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. CARPER. Senator Collins of Maine joins me in offering this amendment. Mr. President, the issue that is before us involves cogenerating facilities which create both heat and power. They are highly efficient and environmentally attractive. They exist in almost all of our States. Unfortunately, section 244 of the Senate energy bill before us would eliminate the provisions in current law which support both existing combined heat and power generating systems and new ones that are being developed. I believe that until competitive conditions in electricity markets make these existing requirements unnecessary, the changes that are incorporated in this bill are premature. Today, combined heat and power plants, which typically produce electricity and deliver steam used for manufacturing purposes, produce about 7 percent of our Nation's electricity. Combined heat and power facilities are, on average, twice as fuel efficient as conventional utility plants and thus produce about half the emissions of conventional utility plants. The U.S. Department of Energy and our Environmental Protection Agency have set the goal of doubling the Nation's capacity from combined heat and power facilities by 2010. Section 244 of the Senate energy bill runs counter to this goal by repealing, perhaps inadvertently, statutory support for existing and new combined heat and power generating facilities. Under existing law, section 210 of PURPA, the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, has, since 1978, required electric utilities to purchase electricity generated by so-called qualifying facilities-- which includes cogenerators and renewable energy facilities--at the utility's ``avoided cost.'' ``Avoided cost'' is the cost the utility would have paid to generate the same electricity itself or to purchase it elsewhere. PURPA also requires electric utilities to sell qualifying facilities backup power at just and reasonable rates and without discrimination. So under current law, under PURPA, these qualifying facilities, cogenerating facilities, are permitted to sell the power that they create at a price that is agreed to at the utility's avoided cost. Also, they have the ability to purchase electricity power as it is needed at a reasonable rate and without discrimination. That is current law. They would lose that ability under the language of the bill that is before us. We do not want them to lose that ability. Section 244 of the bill would terminate the obligation of electric utilities, under PURPA, to enter into new contracts to either purchase electric energy from these qualifying facilities or to sell electricity to new qualifying facilities. Some would argue that these PURPA requirements are no longer needed because electricity markets are competitive. In many cases, however, electricity markets are not competitive. I realize in a number of markets they are. Delaware is among them. But in a number of other markets, electricity is not competitive, and these qualifying facilities do not have access to competitive options for buying or selling electricity. The existing PURPA protections should not be lifted, in my judgment, and that of Senator Collins' and our other cosponsors' judgment, until competitive electricity markets are found to render these protections no longer necessary. The amendment that Senator Collins and I offer today would modify section 244 of the bill before us by conditioning the termination of the PURPA obligation for utilities to buy electricity from these qualifying facilities on a finding by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, that the qualifying facility has access to an independent, competitive, wholesale market for the sale of electricity. A FERC finding of a competitive wholesale market assures that there will be real opportunities for a qualifying facility to sell its electrical output, including intermittent power, at a competitive price. This amendment would also modify section 244 in this bill to clarify that the termination of a utility's obligation to sell backup power to a qualifying facility under PURPA is conditioned on the qualifying facility having the ability to purchase backup power from competing retail electricity suppliers. Until a cogenerator can shop for backup power from competing suppliers, it is critical to maintain the current PURPA obligation for the local utility to sell backup power at just and reasonable rates and without discrimination. Let me say, in conclusion, I support reform of PURPA, but I do not think we should do it in a way that runs contrary to our other goals of generating efficient electricity and developing competitive markets. This amendment does just that. I urge my colleagues to join us in support of the amendment. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the pending amendment be laid aside.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my amendment No. 3198 be called up after Senator Harkin's amendment is reported and that my amendment then be immediately laid aside.

Mr. CARPER. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I ask unanimous consent that my amendment No.----

Mr. CARPER. Under the previous order, I call up amendment No. 3198.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. If the Senator will yield, I say to my friend, our assistant majority leader, those words mean more than you know. I have been called any number of things as Governor, as a Member of Congress, and as a Member of the Senate, and studious is one of the kinder and more generous. It is an honor to work with the Senator. I thank him for his leadership.

Mr. CARPER. I would like to share some excerpts of it today during my own remarks: The issue of global warming has been vigorously debated for the past two decades. Is the climate on Earth getting dangerously warmer, and if so, is modern-day air pollution to blame? While many have exchanged rhetoric on the matter, two American researchers have trekked to the world's remote ice fields to dig for answers. Dr. Lonnie Thompson and Dr. Ellen Mosley-Thompson are husband-and-wife collaborators who study climate change and global warming. They have spent the past 25 years collecting and analyzing ice cores extracted from glaciers on the five continents. Their research has yielded a remarkable and priceless archive of the earth's ancient climate. What's more, their findings offer some of the most convincing evidence yet that global warming is real, and human activity is a contributing factor. . . . Dr. Lonnie Thompson is a professor of geological sciences. He has led some 40 international expeditions to collect ice cores from the mountains of Africa, South America and Asia. His wife, Dr. Mosley-Thompson, is a professor of geography. She has led similar field programs to Greenland and Antarctica. To understand the Earth's past and present climate, our honorees and their research teams analyze the chemical and physical properties preserved in ice cores. Lonnie Thompson's research is unique because it focuses on the ice fields of the tropics and sub-tropics instead of polar ice. He believes the hottest part of the globe is crucial to understanding global warming. Tropical glaciers, he says, are ``the most sensitive spots on Earth'' and serve as ``an indicator of the massive changes taking place'' in today's global climate. Cores have been drawn from mountain tops from throughout the world. New cores from two sites in central and southern Tibet reveal that the past 50 years have been the warmest in the last 10,000 years in that part of the world. Using two decades of ice core data and aerial mapping, the Thompsons offer proof that the world's tropical glaciers are melting faster and faster as the years pass. The icecap on Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak, has lost 82 percent of its area since it was first mapped in 1912. One-third of the area has disappeared just since 1989. Based on this dramatic evidence, Lonnie Thompson predicts that the snow cap of this storied mountain will be gone by 2020. He says the same fate awaits other mountain ice caps in Peru and around the world. These vanishing glaciers ``will have a massive effect on humanity,'' he says, posing an urgent natural and economic threat around the globe. I think it is important, as we come to the end of the debate on this energy bill, to remind ourselves that, yes, indeed, we import entirely too much oil from around the world from people who do not like us, in some cases, and who, I am convinced, use the resources we send to them to hurt us. I think it is important that we remind ourselves of the economic trouble we create for America by a growing trade deficit, a third of which is attributable to our dependence on foreign oil, on imported oil. Lost in this discussion are the points that Drs. Thompson have made, of which we were reminded in Delaware just this last Saturday; that is, there is global warming. The climate of the Earth has changed and is changing more rapidly as time goes by. Fully one-quarter of the carbon dioxide that we put into the air comes from the cars, trucks, and vans we drive. As we prepare to approach the end of this debate, I hope we will not only have done something to reduce our reliance on foreign oil, not only done something to reduce our growing trade deficit, but that we will have taken affirmative steps to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide we are putting into our atmosphere, that literally is destroying the icecaps of Mount Kilimanjaro and any number of other mountains throughout our tropics and subtropics. I used to think global warming was a figment of somebody's imagination. I don't see how any of us anymore can say that is the case. It is real. It is here. It is imminent. It is something we can do something about, and we need to do that in the context of this energy bill. I hope we will. I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, today marks, I believe, the 6th week during which we have been debating the energy legislation that is before us. In my own view, among the bills we will debate and discuss and vote on this year in this Chamber, few, if any, are as or more important. I am encouraged there is a growing likelihood we actually may vote on cloture and begin to reduce the scope of the amendments and the amount of time that remains for this critical debate, to get to final passage, and hopefully to enter a conference with the House and provide a compromise the President can sign into law. It is in our naked self-interest as a nation to finish our work and to do so with some dispatch. We have heard countless times about our growing dependence on foreign sources of oil, which is now approaching 60 percent. We have heard concerns from a number of Members related to the trade deficit our Nation continues to run, a trade deficit that exceeded $400 billion last year and roughly a third of which is attributable to the oil we import. I will take the next few minutes and share one other reason why we should feel a sense of urgency in passing this legislation and attempting to finalize a compromise with the House and the administration. That deals with what is happening in the atmosphere of our Earth: global warming. This past Saturday, in Wilmington, DE, the annual Commonwealth Awards were bestowed upon a variety of some of the most famous, remarkable people in the world. Among the people who received the Commonwealth this past weekend were a husband and wife team who are researchers who work out of Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. Their names are Dr. Lonnie Thompson and Dr. Ellen Mosley-Thompson. I ask unanimous consent the full statement of Calvert A. Morgan, who presided at that event, be printed in the Record.

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. The Presiding Officer and I, before we were hired on as Senators, used to earn our keep by serving as Governors of Indiana and Delaware. As Governors, we were mindful of the prerogatives of the States and our roles and responsibilities as chief executives of our States. We worked through our national and regional organizations to make sure the concerns of our region and the Governors and the States in general were respected. Whenever a group of Governors today raises a concern about an issue that is before the Congress, I listen. In this case, we have heard from a number of Governors from the western part of the United States raising concerns with respect to the electric reliability provisions that are in the underlying bill before us. We have had a chance to try to better understand what the concerns of the Governors are, and we have had an opportunity to try to understand how their concerns, if adopted as proposed, would affect the rest of us who do not happen to be from those 14 or so Western States that have banded together to present their message to us. That having been said, I nonetheless must feel compelled to rise in support of the electric reliability provisions that are in the underlying amendment. Senator Bingaman has sent out a Dear Colleague letter to all of us dated yesterday, March 13, on this issue. I urge our colleagues to take a few minutes to read it as we approach the vote at 2 p.m. The underlying language that is in the bill Chairman Bingaman has developed represents what I believe is a simplified approach that places appropriate authority for liability within the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which we call FERC. FERC is the proper body to address electric reliability issues. FERC has the expertise to harmonize reliability and to commercialize issues that States and utilities face. Under Senator Bingaman's proposal, FERC can objectively defer to regional and State solutions if FERC does not think they have the expertise and that the expertise lies elsewhere. They have the flexibility to look elsewhere for those solutions. I believe what Senator Bingaman has provided for us is a thoughtful compromise. It is based on the premise that a reliability structure should be both simple and dependable. The language in the underlying bill requires FERC to implement a system that applies to all regions in what I believe is a fair manner. It also includes a flexibility to defer, as I said earlier, where appropriate, to regional entities and to States. I believe this is a good solution to the important issue of ensuring the reliability of our electric grid. The electric grid is a national infrastructure, and the oversight of its reliability should be national in scope as well. This morning Senator Bingaman introduced into the Record a letter from PJM. PJM is the entity which coordinates the electric grid in Delaware and in five other States in the mid-Atlantic region. PJM is recognized, we believe, as the best in the country in ensuring the reliability of our grid. They said they support Senator Bingaman's efforts as well. So do I. I would be surprised if our colleagues, especially those from the mid-Atlantic or from the Northeast, voted for the amendment that is being offered by the Senator from Wyoming later today, particularly if they will take the time to listen to the input, as I have, from their PJM in their part of the country, and especially if they will take the time to read this letter. It is a Dear Colleague letter from Senator Bingaman. As Governors, we always tried to find solutions that were simple and dependable: The old ``kiss'' principle, keep it simple stupid. I often find that would underlie what we attempted to do. We would often seek, as Governors, to make sure what we tried to do for one region of the country did not somehow inconvenience or undermine the interests of another part of the country. My concern about what our friends from the West have proposed is it is not simple and it would undermine and put the rest of us at a disadvantage. I urge my colleagues to support Senator Bingaman's position in the underlying bill and oppose the amendment of Senator Thomas.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, for 2 weeks we have debated the comprehensive energy policy we should have for this country. Most Members and most Americans agree we need to do two basic things: One, we need to create more energy; two, we need to conserve more energy. Throughout the legislation we are debating, there are a variety of ways we will create more energy: make natural gas more readily accessible from northern Alaska; create renewable energy; more solar, wind, geothermal; interesting exploitation of biomass, biofuels, soy diesel, among others. On the conservation side, we are not doing so well. On the conservation side, we need to do a whole lot better. The Senator from Massachusetts has alluded to how much oil we consume. We consume a whole lot, given the size and population of our country, compared to the rest of the world. Our oil imports account for roughly 60 percent of the oil we consume. That is up from 30 percent when I came back to the United States at the end of the Vietnam war. By the mid-1970s, we did not have much of a trade deficit. Today we have a trade deficit of $300 billion a year. A good deal of that is oil. Roughly a little more than half of the oil we consume, we consume with cars, trucks, and vans we drive. To pass from the Senate and send to conference with the House energy legislation that does not make meaningful, measurable steps toward reducing the amount of oil we use for our cars, trucks, and vans is shortsighted and a mistake. A month ago I had an opportunity to participate in a meeting convened by our majority leader, Senator Daschle. At that meeting were Senator Levin, Senator Stabenow, Senator Kerry, Senator Carnahan, myself, and others. We were at the behest of our majority leader to see if we might try to find middle ground between the approach Senator Kerry wanted to take on CAFE standards and the approach of Senator Levin. I thought on that day and today I still believe there is a compromise, and a good compromise, between what each proposed then and what each proposes to do today. At that early meeting I laid out what I thought were five principles that should underlie any changes we make with respect to the fuel efficiency of our cars, trucks, and vans. I mention those again. Senator Mikulski alluded to them yesterday. No. 1, we need to reduce oil imports. That should be an embodied principle. No. 2, we should set clear, measurable objectives. No. 3, we should do our dead-level best to preserve American jobs. No. 4, we should provide reasonable leadtime to the auto industry for any changes that are going to be coming. No. 5, we need to think out the box. We need to be innovative. I have never been a big one for micromanaging. I urged Senator Kerry in his legislation to move away from the idea that the Congress would set these interim goals for fuel efficiency. It is appropriate for Congress and the Senate to set longtime goals for fuel efficiency, be it CAFE or a reduction, a measurable, tangible reduction in oil imports. I am not as comfortable for the Congress setting interim goals. I would have that delegated to an appropriate entity. Earlier today we debated the Levin amendment, for which I voted. I would like to be able to vote for the Kerry amendment not because I thought Levin was perfect, but there are a lot of elements that are good. Not because I think Kerry-McCain is perfect, but there is a lot that is good. If you put it together, we would have a good package. I mention a couple aspects of the Levin amendment that I think are helpful and ought to be in the final package that hopefully will go to the President for his signature. The Levin amendment focuses on three or four major things that the Government ought to do and can do well. One is significant investments of Federal dollars in research and development, for fuel cells, for hybrid technology, including diesel hybrid technology. The Levin amendment acknowledges there is a responsibility, and a good opportunity, a responsibility for the Federal Government to help commercialize the new technologies in fuel efficiency, vehicle efficiency that are coming along. The Federal Government has the opportunity to use its purchasing power to buy large numbers of cars, trucks, vans, jeeps, SUVs, trucks, semitrucks, others that are more fuel efficient. We should do that in the military and on the civilian side and use our purchasing power to help commercialize the new technologies. Another role for the Federal Government is with respect to tax policy. If we want producers of vehicles to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles, we need to include a tax incentive. The Levin approach provides that. Similarly, if we want to make sure the vehicles that are energy efficient are purchased by consumers, we need to provide incentives for consumers to buy. We do that under the Levin approach. The one element that is missing in the approach of Senators Levin and Bond is the biggest hole in the amendment: We do not set a clear, measurable objective. We can argue until the cows come home about whether or not we need to change CAFE, concerns of foreign and domestic production, are we fearful of exporting the building of small cars to other countries if we approach this the wrong way. Maybe the debate should not be about CAFE at all. Maybe the clear, measurable objective we ought to debate is an objective that reduces oil imports, reduces the consumption of oil by our cars, trucks, and vans. The House of Representatives has passed by a very narrow margin a flawed energy bill, flawed with respect to the measurable objective they set in reducing consumption of oil. But at least they have a measurable objective. And their measurable objective, as I recall, is over roughly another 5 or 6 years to reduce by, I think, 5 billion gallons the amount of oil that we consume. That is in their bill, with respect to our light trucks, vans, SUVs. If we actually consider how many miles per gallon that equates to, it says we are going to improve our fuel efficiency by maybe a mile or mile and a half per gallon over roughly the next half dozen years. That is not much. That is far too modest a goal and certainly far too modest a goal for the next dozen years. We are going to stay on this bill for a while longer. I wish very much we could vote for the Kerry-McCain amendment because it has changed a whole lot from what was originally envisioned and, frankly, what has been originally put in this bill, and it has been changed in ways that I think make sense. I thank them for the changes, including ones I proposed, that they have been willing to accept. Before we move off this bill, I hope we will come back to this thought; that while it is important that we preserve jobs and while it is important that we provide reasonable lead time for the auto industry, and while it is important that we think outside the box and invest in R&D and tax credits and commercialize the technologies that are coming along--those are all things that are important to do--it is also important for us to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. For us, today, to think we are going to have to cram into these tiny little cars like the purple people eater that was put on display by Senator Lott earlier is just not the case. We build Dodge Durangos in my State. They get about 17 miles per gallon. If they introduce a gas hybrid engine, they will increase their fuel efficiency next year by about 30 percent. That is just next year, by 30 percent. There are ways we can use diesel hybrids to increase that 30 percent to something like 60 percent, if the diesel hybrid is able to meet our requirements for tier 2 clean air standards, particularly for nitrogen oxide and particulates. We can do these things and we don't have to sacrifice comfort, we don't have to sacrifice space, we don't have to sacrifice safety in order to have the kind of vehicles people want to buy and want to drive and to be able to remove our country's future from the hands of the folks who control so much of the oil in the world. My wife has a Ford Explorer. She likes it a lot. It doesn't get very good gas mileage, but she likes it a lot. She likes the size and a lot of things about it. Probably the next car she buys will be a similar vehicle. I drive a Chrysler Town and Country minivan. I like it a lot, and with a young family, it meets our needs. I sure wish it got better gas mileage. I wish it got a lot better gas mileage. We can do those things. Senator Kerry mentioned--I will just close with this--when John Kennedy was running for President in 1960, he talked about a goal of putting a man on the Moon, an American on the Moon by the end of that decade. Today, that may not seem to be a very big undertaking, but in 1960 it sure was. The idea we could take a man and put him in a space suit, put him in a missile and send him up to the Moon and let him walk on the Moon and turn around and fly back safely, the idea somebody at the time could was almost incomprehensible. But he said we could do this as a nation; that we ought to do it before the end of the 1960s. And we did. If we could do that as a nation four decades ago, we can build cars, trucks, and vans that people want to buy and want to use in this country and at the same time reduce our reliance on foreign oil. When I filled up the tank of my Chrysler Town and Country minivan in Dover earlier this week, I know some of the $20 I charged on my credit card to fill that tank is going to people around the world, or will end up in the pockets of people in nations that do not like us very much anymore. They don't have our best interests in mind, necessarily. In some cases, they will use the resources we continue to ship overseas when we purchase the oil--some of them are committed to using the resources we give them against us, to hurt us and hurt our people here and in other places around the world. We should not continue to be so foolish as to do that. Before we leave this bill and vote on final passage next week, I believe we need to come back and address the issue of clear, measurable objectives and make sure as we go to conference with the House with respect to the use of oil, consumption of oil in our cars, trucks, and vans, that we have put in place some clear, measurable objectives that will reduce our reliance on that foreign oil. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota for yielding. Imagine that we are in a car driving down the road. We have an accelerator, and we have a brake. The Federal Reserve, having launched the most aggressive monetary policy in our lives to help us get out of the recession--which will probably occur later this year--is beginning to tap down on the breaks to slow down inflationary expectations. Meanwhile, we are preparing to put our foot on the accelerator. This plan made a whole of lot sense in October, November, and even in December. But in March, on March 8, with GDP having grown 1.4 percent in the last quarter, and is probably going to grow by 4 percent this month, this plan makes a whole lot less sense.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent floor privileges be granted to Commerce Committee fellows Charisse Carney-Nunes and Peter Fippinger for the duration of the debate on the energy bill, S. 517.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I simply begin by thanking you, first, for your statement in the Chamber today, but also, more importantly, for the leadership that you, Senator Murkowski, and others have demonstrated to bring us to this point today. I cannot speak for the rest of my colleagues, but I am delighted we are in this Chamber and have begun the debate. It has been long delayed, but it is a most important debate on whether or not we are going to have an energy policy for this country of ours. At the end of the Vietnam war, as a young naval flight officer, I moved from California to Delaware to enroll in the University of Delaware Business School. One of my earliest memories of coming to Delaware is sitting in line, waiting to buy gas for my car. We were in the middle of an oil embargo, and at that time you could only buy gas every other day. We did not have an energy policy in the mid 1970s. We do not have one today. Twenty-eight years ago, some 30 percent of the oil we used in our country was imported. We had a trade balance that was pretty much even. There was not much of a deficit. Greenhouses at the time were something in which we grew plants. We did not worry about greenhouse gases and whether or not we would have a hole in the ozone layer of our atmosphere. That was 28 years ago. Today, almost 60 percent of the oil we consume comes from other places around the globe. A lot of it we buy from people who don't like us very much and, I am convinced, use some of the money we send them to try, in some cases, to hurt us or our interests. Our trade deficit has ballooned to $300 billion, and not all of it but a good chunk of it is attributable to the oil we import. Today, when people talk about greenhouses, we still grow plants in them, but we also worry about greenhouse gases and what is going on with the hole in the ozone layer, what is going on with a rising global temperature, and what is going to happen to our sea level in this world over the next 100 years if we do nothing about it. The question we are going to be answering in the next couple weeks is, What kind of energy policy should we have in this Nation? Like most of my colleagues, I would argue that the answer to that question has two parts. One part says we create more energy. And while we work to do that, in a variety of ways, the second part says we need to conserve more energy. Let me talk a little bit about both of those issues: First, the creation of more energy and, second, the conservation of energy. I live in a State where, I am told, we actually grow more soybeans in Sussex County, DE, than any other county in the country. We also have more chickens in Sussex County than any other county in the country, including those in Arkansas. We can look to those soybeans for a source of energy. Frankly, we can look to those chickens as a source of energy, as well, as we go along. We raise soybeans in Delaware to feed chickens. We feed them the hull of the soybean. The oil that comes out of the soybean we do all kinds of things with in this country. We create soy foods, soy milk. We also can create something called soy diesel fuel: 20 percent soy, the rest is diesel. We can burn it in our diesel-consuming machines, and it works just fine. It is energy efficient. It works well in the machines, and the emissions are no worse, for the most part, than any regular diesel fuel. In some cases, they are actually better. We have too much soybean in this country; we have a glut of that commodity. It is a good alternative to use the soybeans that are in excess on our farms to help lessen our reliance on foreign oil. We have figured out how we can burn animal waste to derive the Btu value, including chicken litter, in ways that are environmentally friendly. In my State, we have the biggest independent producer of solar energy panels in the country. We are proud of the work they do at AstroPower. And it is not just at AstroPower; there are places all over this country that are relying more and more on solar energy in developing evermore efficient ways to create that solar energy. Windmill farms are becoming more common in this country. Hopefully, as we continue to perfect that technology, they will become even more efficient. Others have spoken, and will in the weeks ahead, about geothermal energy, how we can take hot air in the summer and run it 300 feet underground to cool it off, and then use it to cool our homes in the summer; and we can take cold air in the winter, run it 300 feet underground to warm it up, and then use it to warm our homes and businesses in the winter. Those are just some of the ideas of renewable energy that we can use, that we can rely on, that we are more relying on, and need to do more so in the future. We also have, as Senator Bingaman said earlier, a lot of coal in this country. I think he said we are the ``Saudi Arabia of coal.'' I am privileged to represent the State of Delaware in the Senate. I was born in West Virginia. I know full well they have a lot of coal there and other places around our Nation. We ought to find ways to burn that coal without doing more harm to our environment. We can do that. Clean coal technology is very promising. We need to continue those efforts. There has been some discussion already today about natural gas. We are starting to rely more on natural gas from other places around the world. We have a lot of it in our country. But consumption is going right through the roof because we have such good environmental consequences compared to other fossil fuels we use. There are huge finds of natural gas in the northern parts of Alaska. We ought to bring it down here and use it. Similarly, in the Gulf of Mexico there are huge deposits of oil and natural gas that are available to us to be extracted safely and in an environmentally sound way. Those are sources on which we need to rely. A year or so ago, I reported back to my colleagues about a trip in which I led a bunch of Boy Scouts from Delaware on down to Norfolk Naval Station. The trip was on a weekend a year ago last January. We visited a lot of ships and submarines. It was a lot of fun for the adults and for the young Scouts. One of the ships we visited was the Teddy Roosevelt, a nuclear- powered carrier. It is about 1,000 feet long. It is about 25 stories high. It carries a crew of roughly 5,000 men and women. Underway, it has about 70 aircraft or so that it takes with it. It needs to refuel about once every 25 years--once every 25 years. For us to walk away from nuclear power as if it is from a day gone by I think is a mistake. I fully acknowledge the security concerns that revolve around nuclear power and terrorism. I acknowledge the legitimate concerns about disposal. But having said that, the potential is real, and we have only begun to realize it. I urge us not to walk away from that technology while we work to solve the issues regarding security, the environment, and disposal. Another very promising area for creating new energy is fuel cells. The idea that we can take hydrogen, which we have in abundance, and derive energy from that hydrogen and end up with a waste product that is H2O--what a bonanza, what potential. This is 2002. By 2012, we will have cars, trucks and vans traveling the highways of America powered by fuel cells. We will have homes, buildings, and factories that are going to be powered by fuel cells. In Government, if we are smart enough to, one, invest in the research and development; two, help commercialize those new technologies, including fuel cells; and, three, in addition to doing those things, if we will provide tax incentives to encourage producers to produce those more fuel and energy efficient, environmentally efficient, and friendly sources of energy, and to encourage consumers to buy them, we will do this country and this planet a real favor. Let me talk about a couple of efforts on the conservation side. We will have a substantial debate on CAFE standards in the next 2 weeks. That deals with the efficiency of the cars, trucks, and vans we drive. I would suggest we consider and keep in mind these principles as we go forward. As we seek to reduce the amount of oil our cars, trucks, and vans consume, one, let's work to find meaningful reductions in oil consumption by motor vehicles. Two, let's set measurable objectives so we actually know we are making progress and we can measure our progress against the objectives. Three, let's provide a reasonable time line for the auto industry to make the changes it needs to make to bring more energy-efficient vehicles to the market. Four, let's make sure we don't get rid of, as collateral damage, the domestic auto industry; but when we finish our work in 10, 15 years from now that we still have a strong and vibrant, even more strong domestic auto industry. Fifth, we ought to set some long-range goals for car makers and truck makers with respect to oil consumption. We should defer to other entities, to NHTSA, within the Department of Transportation, to actually do the intermediate setting of goals for fuel efficiency. Six, we need to think outside the box with respect to the auto industry so that they have some additional tools to work with to help them get to the target we are going to set. One of those I have already mentioned is fuel cells. Fuel cells is where we are going to be in 10 or 15 years. Today, we are, for the most part, the internal combustion engine. The bridge to the future with cars, trucks, and vans is with hybrids. We are starting to see the introduction of gas hybrid vehicles that are getting 50, 60 miles per gallon. I continue to be struck by a presentation I received from Daimler-Chrysler where they shared with us a model vehicle they could produce which gets 75 miles per gallon. It is a four-door passenger vehicle, the SX-3. They cannot sell them in this country. It is a diesel hybrid vehicle. They can sell them in Japan and Europe. We need to work with the auto industry to help them achieve the next tier of standards, tier 2 standards, for emissions that include nitrogen oxide. We need to be mindful that diesel-powered vehicles, which now account for about 40 percent of the sales in Europe, can do a lot to help us reduce our reliance on foreign oil and reduce carbon dioxide emissions which lead to greenhouse gasses and global warming. The last topic I want to address is what the Government can do: One, we can invest our money, our taxpayer money in research and development in ways that will help us to create more energy and to conserve more energy. We can use the buying power of the Federal Government on both the civilian and military side to help commercialize new technologies. If companies, particularly in America, are building more fuel-efficient vehicles, whether they are gas hybrids, diesel hybrids, and eventually fuel cells, we should use our buying power to commercialize those technologies in the marketplace. Lastly, if manufacturers are going to build hybrid vehicles, fuel- cell-powered vehicles, that will enormously reduce our reliance on foreign oil and that are good for the environment, we should provide a tax incentive for producers to produce them and for us, as consumers, to buy them. Two general points with respect to conservation: Air conditioners, we have the technology to build air conditioners that will cut our reliance on electricity or reduce our consumption of electricity by 30 percent. We can do that. We have the technology. We need to commercialize the technology. We ought to build them, and we as consumers ought to buy them. On transmission lines, we have seen presented in our Energy Committee transmission lines which are able to transmit electricity across the country and reduce the loss of energy through those transmission lines by some 30, 35 percent below what is currently occurring. That is another thing we can do and ought to do in order to conserve energy. Let me close with this: I am troubled, having felt for 28 years that we need a comprehensive energy policy, by the voices I hear inside this body, and outside, who say we are not going to agree on an energy policy. In the wake of September 11, we must develop the political will to hammer out an agreement on energy policy that conserves more energy and produces more energy at a time when almost 60 percent of our oil comes from overseas, comes from some of the people who don't like us and who use the resources we give them to threaten us. How can we not pass an energy policy bill? We are smarter than that; we are better than that. The American people deserve better than that as well. I yield the floor.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise today in recognition of Richard Weldon upon his retirement from the New Castle Conservation District Board of Supervisors. Dick served on the Board for twenty- three years. He has been a respected colleague and remains a trusted friend. In his twenty-two years as Board Vice Chair, Dick was an effective liaison between Delaware's State legislature and State agencies, promoting water and soil conservation. He was a strong advocate for the role of conservation districts and the driving force behind the construction of a new conservation office for the New Castle Conservation District and the U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies. I had the pleasure of serving alongside Dick's brother, Curt Weldon, in the House of Representatives from 1987 to 1992. We all share a passion for protecting the environment, an enthusiasm that ensured we remained focused over the years to protecting our area's historic and open spaces. Together, we worked across party lines to ensure that a balance between progress and preservation was struck. Today that balance appears precarious without Dick. Dick held a position of leadership within the National Association of Conservation Districts for many years. As Delaware's Governor, I appointed Dick to the Soil and Water Advisory Council. He was also Chair of the Coastal and Urban Committee from 1994 to 1997. Dick led the Committee to hold the National Urban Conservation Conference, the first successful coordination of Federal agencies with urban conservation programs. His leadership brought Federal agencies to the table, harvesting the support of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Resource Conservation Service, and the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The successful conference pooled their interests, goals and resources and resulted in efficient and productive initiatives. After thirty-eight years of service, Mr. Weldon retired from Star Enterprises in 1993, having also retired as regional chair of the Republican Committee in Delaware in 1978. Dick and his wife Fay continue to be active members in their community, particularly within their church. The joy of their four children and nine grandchildren will undoubtedly keep their days full. Richard Weldon defined his career working for clean and practical energy solutions, earning a reputation for promoting conservation while protecting resources. Upon his retirement he leaves a legacy of commitment to public service for both his children and grandchildren and the generations that will follow.