Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. We all agreed that the next issue, the next item is going to be an amendment on ethanol. It is being gotten ready. We would take it up, but you understand when you do ethanol it is not one person, it is both sides of the aisle and 10 or 15 Senators. They are almost finished. That will be the next item. If you are referring to a colloquy with respect to coastal offshore drilling, we are working on something with you and Senator Martinez, both sides, and I don't know when we will have that ready. It is being worked on right now. But this side does not have any desire to delay that. We have to bring Senator Landrieu and other Senators in on that-- Senator Vitter--and we will do that as soon as we can, I assure you.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, will the Senator yield without losing his right to the floor?

Mr. DOMENICI. Go ahead, Senator.

Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator. I was just wondering, we understand your genuine concern. You are going to have plenty of opportunity as this bill moves along to make sure that your State is protected. What I would like to do, since we are going to have to go out because of your caucus--we do not have ours today--I wonder if you might consider making this first statement of yours kind of abbreviated so Senator Dorgan could have a little opportunity before we break. Then we would take our break, and, hopefully, we would have ethanol ready. You would not lose anything, obviously. The floor is going to be open to you, and you can state what you wish to state beyond what you have spoken here today.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I wish to say to the Senate, the distinguished junior Senator from Florida, Mr. Martinez, has spoken with this chairman on numerous occasions about this issue. He continues to be as concerned as Senator Nelson about this issue. We are working with him--I am not sure how it is all going to turn out in terms of a colloquy, but we do not intend to do anything to harm Florida. We have already told everybody that. It is very hard to make broad-based commitments in advance, and it is not just up to me. There are other Senators, including Senator Bingaman. But we are doing our best. I want everybody to understand that both Senators are working very hard at this. Privilege of the Floor Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to members of staff who will be listed hereinafter. They are members of the committee who will have to spend time, from time to time, on the floor. And I ask unanimous consent that their names be printed in the Record.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I yield to the distinguished Senator, Mr. Dorgan.

Mr. DOMENICI. There is no objection, as long as it is understood I have the floor when we return.

Mr. DOMENICI. The Senator from New Mexico would have the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Yes.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I do not want the Senator to misunderstand, but I am going to object to the request, not because I do not want that to be the order. I would like very much to understand that is probably going to be the order, but I do not want to lock it in that way right now. What we are going to do, if the distinguished minority leader agrees, is I will make an opening statement. If, in fact, Senator Bingaman is ready, somebody will get him here to make his, and then, if the Senator from Florida desires, we will let him proceed. Then we will work with you to get the other two amendments lined up. The reason I say that, I say to the Senator, is there is going to be a long debate and many amendments with reference to ethanol, and I would like to get it out here and see how it is going. It will be ready pretty soon. Then you will be right after that in order, as we have been discussing. I hope that is satisfactory.

Mr. DOMENICI

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

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the committee substitute is at the desk. I ask for its consideration.

Mr. DOMENICI. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Reserving the right to object, does the Senator understand there may be some amendments to ethanol?

Mr. DOMENICI. I have no objection.

Mr. DOMENICI. I am waiting now momentarily for the final text of the ethanol amendment. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. This amendment is the ethanol amendment. It is bipartisan in nature. I offer it in behalf of myself and Senators Thune, Harkin, Lugar, Dorgan, Frist, Obama, Grassley, Bayh, Bond, Nelson of Nebraska, Brownback, Hagel, Conrad, DeWine, Dayton, Talent, Stabenow, Coleman, and Salazar.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am sure this matter will take a little bit of time this afternoon, and from what we understand--I am not assured--there may be one, maybe two, perhaps even three amendments. But this is an amendment that has been worked on by Republican and Democrat members of the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Essentially, from the energy and natural resources bill it has the 8 billion gallons, but the rest of the language has been worked out with most of the jurisdiction going back to the Environment and Public Works Committee rather than the Energy Committee. Let me say I am pleased with the agreement, the improvement that is included in it. For that I am grateful to Chairman Inhofe and his staff. They have helped immeasurably. Senators Talent and Johnson and Feinstein and Cantwell have been very helpful during the Energy Committee considerations. Chairman Inhofe's assistance has been invaluable after we had done our work in our committee. We now have before us what I think is a very important amendment, one that helps us make a significant step forward in the development of a domestic renewable resource. This represents progress toward developing transport fuels made from domestic sources that can lessen dependence on foreign oil to meet our fuel needs. Congress has been working on the renewable fuel standard for nearly 6 years. I hope this will be the year that it passes. I fully support our raising the expectations that we have by including a goal of 8 billion gallons of ethanol in the national motor fuel mix by 2012. It is my firm belief that we must take every opportunity available in order that we help ourselves to produce more of the fuel that is part of our transportation activity in this great country. In addition to making us less dependent on foreign sources for energy, increasing the production of domestic ethanol will help keep within our economy dollars that would otherwise be spent acquiring energy from overseas. And it will create jobs. One important analysis suggests that an 8 billion gallon renewable fuel standard will benefit the economy greatly. That analysis suggests it will reduce crude oil imports by 2 billion barrels; that, coupled with the 1 billion we have mandated in our bill, makes 3 billion, and it will reduce the outflow of dollars to foreign oil producers by $64 billion. It would create 234,000 jobs in all sectors of the economy, and clearly in many of the very large rural States of the West and Southwest. It would add about $200 billion to the GDP between 2005 and 2012. It could create $6 billion in new investments. That is a significant infrastructure addition to our country. And it could increase--in fact, this study says it would increase--household incomes by about $43 billion. The amendment also makes provision for increasing our output of biofuels from cellulosic biomass. Many in industry and the scientific community believe that this area holds enormous promise for vastly increasing domestic production of ethanol from this renewable resource. The Energy Information Administration estimates that oil consumption and crude oil and finished petroleum product imports will continue to rise. Further, with gasoline prices hovering at record levels and domestic crude oil production declining, it strikes this Senator that we should be doing everything we can to maximize the production and use of clean, renewable, domestically produced energy such as ethanol and biodiesel. Finally, I want to remind my colleagues that in our spirit of bipartisanship on the Energy Committee that amendments were included allowing a seasonal adjustment for California and increases in the use of biofuels sponsored by Senators Feinstein and Cantwell, respectively. Now, we are prepared to begin consideration of any amendments our colleagues would like to offer to this amendment. With that, I yield the floor and designate on our side that Senator Larry Craig manage the bill. I have checked this with the other side. There was a unanimous consent request that this amendment would be introduced now as the first amendment. The unanimous consent request said then the Cantwell amendment would be introduced. I ask that be vitiated. So we know what will happen, instead of that, the record reflects we will follow this tradition of the Senate, and after the ethanol amendment we will go to the Democrat side, to the distinguished minority leader or his designee, for offering of an amendment of their choosing.

Mr. DOMENICI. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. There are 100 Senators. I am not trying to do anything but get the Senator a proposal as soon as humanly possible. Now, if you choose to delay us further, we are going to get nothing done tonight. I want you to know that accomplishes nothing. If you think it accomplishes something, just go right ahead. I would say you can have the floor back--I will ask consent that you can have it--as soon as the Boxer amendment is disposed of. Would you let us take it up, and then you can have the floor back? In the meantime, we are trying to get your language--not your language, the language so we can share with those Senators who have the concern that you have. If you let us do that, we will proceed in that manner. We have done everything bipartisan on this bill. There is no intention otherwise. I ask you one more time if you would do that, Senator. I would appreciate it.

Mr. DOMENICI. Senator, would you yield?

Mr. DOMENICI. Senator, you can talk all night. There will be no language for you tonight. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Yes, there is some language I have to give you to look at.

Mr. DOMENICI. Senator Inhofe will desire to speak. Let's put it all together, and then we can finish.