Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the bill H.R. 4.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Commerce be allowed to file a supplemental report on the bill H.R. 2587, the Energy Advancement and Conservation Act of 2001.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Today we do something in this House we have not done in a decade. We enact a comprehensive energy policy for our country. After years of indifference toward America's energy future, we are about to take a giant leap forward. The bill we are considering today, the Securing America's Future Energy Act, the SAFE Act, will be the first major energy legislation of the 21st century, and it reflects 21st century values and ideas. It advances a balanced approach to energy production and use by encouraging a responsible, diverse mix of energy sources along with a significant investment in conservation and increased efficiency. The SAFE Act charts a path to increased energy security and a cleaner environment; secure, reliable, affordable energy for Americans. Americans last winter saw their natural gas heating bills rise in the Midwest 73 percent, saw the Northeast heating bills rise 27 percent, saw gasoline prices rise 40 and 50, in some cases 70 cents a gallon. Americans are pleased to know that today we begin a short-term and long-term permanent energy policy to correct those security deficiencies. I am proud of the bipartisan work our committee did. The core of the bill passed the Committee on Energy and Commerce. It passed subcommittee by a vote of 29 to 1 and the full committee by a vote of 50 to 5. Big bipartisan support for the bulk of this bill. I owe a great deal of compliments and thanks to my subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), for helping to craft the legislation, and particularly to ranking members, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), and the subcommittee ranking member, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Boucher), for the extraordinary cooperation and assistance and hard work and the willingness to work together they exhibited. Today I hope this bipartisan spirit continues. This is not traditionally partisan legislation. This is about all Americans having affordable, reliable sources and supplies of energy, and all Americans believing enough in conservation and efficiency to play a role in making sure that our country is safe for the future. This bill does some amazing things in conservation. First of all, it does something we have not done literally in 17 years. It reduces light truck fuel consumption, the SUVs and minivans, by 5 billion gallons over the next 6 years. That is like parking 2 years' production of minivans and SUVs, for 2 years out of that 6-year period. This increases funding for programs to assist low-income families. I do not know if my colleagues realize it, but the number of families applying for LIHEAP help to pay their energy bills has been rising dramatically as the costs are going up, and more and more families are having trouble meeting those costs. This bill will provide incentives for cleaner energy sources and alternatively fueled vehicles. This bill will promote clean coal technologies. Coal provides 52 percent of our electricity. We want to make it as clean as we can make it, not just for the sake of America's environment but for the global environment. This bill will set stricter standards on energy use in Federal buildings. We will make the Federal Government a leader by requiring by the year 2020 a 45 percent increase in efficiency in the use of energy in Federal buildings. And we will simplify and streamline the reauthorization, the relicensing of vital plants in the hydroelectric and nuclear area. This bill will stabilize energy for our country, stabilize supplies, stabilize prices, stabilize markets. This bill is the answer to what is becoming a growing crisis in supply and demand in America, and I am pleased to bring it to the House as the main core of this bill that has been produced with the cooperation of four different committees. I want to stress one thing more than anything else before I yield my time, and that is over half of our bill deals with conservation, efficiency, and alternative fuels. We lead with this effort because we believe logically Americans need first to control demand. We need to manage the demand of energy in this country first before we know how much more in supplies, how much more in deliverability we need to focus on in subsequent bills. Later on, we will charge the subcommittee on energy and clean air, led by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), to deliver on electricity and nuclear policy for this country. Today we build the broad policy, the permanent policy that stabilizes and protects America's energy future. I commend this bill to my colleagues' attention. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume in closing on our Committee on Energy and Commerce time on this bill. Mr. Chairman, much has been said in the last 30 minutes about this bill, some of it critical. I want to make a point here that I hope all Members will pay some attention to: this bill does not do everything that this Congress needs to do. We are going to take up an electricity bill in the fall, we are going to take up a nuclear policy bill in the fall, we will hopefully renew Price-Anderson. We are going to do a number of other things in the fall which may carry forward some of our conservation efforts in this bill. But this bill is a giant step forward to securing America's energy future. I want to focus on two parts of it that I hope Americans will really appreciate. The first is this awful problem that boutique fuels have caused in our gasoline markets. To all Americans who found themselves, particularly in Chicago and Milwaukee a few years ago, paying incredible prices for gasoline because there was such a shortage, look to the boutique fuel market for your enemy. The boutique fuel market, designed to help clean air, unfortunately ended up with over 50 different formulations of fuel. It is a dysfunctional market that has raised the price in the Midwest from 30 to 35 cents a gallon. This bill begins to straighten out that dysfunction and sets in place a method to lower the numbers of those reformulations of gasoline, still keeping strict abidance with the clean air requirements of our great Nation. Secondly, I want to focus on the CAFE standards in this bill. The CAFE standards to be adopted in this bill will require for the first time in 17 years SUVs and minivans to begin saving fuel the way we require it to be saved in the car fleets of America. Today the SUVs and minivans consume about 2.4 billion gallons of gasoline a year. This bill will require a savings of 5 billion gallons over the next 6 years. That is the equivalent of parking two production years of all the SUVs and minivans that we produce on our highways in America, parking them for 2 years out of that 6. That is a significant floor upon which NHTSA will build its new CAFE requirements. This is only a floor. This is the minimum NHTSA must do, our National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. They can and should do more. We will be faced with an amendment later by several of our friends to dramatically increase that number in the bill. Let me warn all Americans, all of us in this room, the numbers we have, the report from the NAS, tells us if you move those numbers too fast, just because you want to, if you push those numbers too high, too fast, you will produce lighter vehicles on the road. History tells us you will have more deaths and injury. The industry can do a great deal with technology to move fuel efficiency up. This bill pushes them hard and we will get new fuel efficiencies in SUVs and minivans. You go too far, and you end up compromising safety. This a good bill, a great step forward. I commend it to a favorable vote of this body.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I will close in opposition to the amendment. I happen to believe, with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), that we should believe the National Academy of Sciences. They say that if the Boehlert amendment passes, Americans will die in increasing numbers on the highways because the automobile industry will have no choice with this extreme, radical change in CAFE numbers but to lighten up the vehicles and downweight them. The National Academy of Sciences just said that. They said to the gentleman, if they take the gentleman's plan and spread it out over 10 or 15 years, that might not happen. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert) wants to enact his plan in a short 4 years, a 46 percent increase in CAFE standards in 4 years, leading, as the National Academy of Sciences says, to increased death on our nation's highways. We ought to stand against this amendment. The debate is not about raising CAFE standards. The bill raises CAFE. It saves 5 billion gallons of gasoline in the 6-year period. That is equivalent to parking a whole year's production of SUVs and minivans for 2 years, parking them, not running them on the highways. It is equivalent to saving $100 billion pounds of CO2 emissions. That is what the bill does without this extreme amendment. This is the history of CAFE: regular, orderly, responsible increases. There was one increase that was too big and NHTSA had to roll it back. There were orderly, responsible increases. It is time for another orderly, responsible increase. That is what the underlying bill does. It sets as a floor the saving of 5 billion gallons of gasoline, and it tells NHTSA, If you think you can do more, do more. It is a minimum, not a maximum. This amendment will end up killing Americans. We ought to defeat it.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) if he has any additional speakers.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I will support the amendment. I do not believe there is anyone rising in opposition, but I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would say that I think it is relevant that the gentlewoman, representing an oil and gas State, is bringing forward an amendment that will promote a new, diverse energy source for America other than oil and gas. I hope folks watch that, that all of us have a common interest in diversity in this country, and in fuel supplies and in those who will produce those fuel supplies for America. I am glad the gentlewoman mentioned the work for the Spanish colleges. My mother, Mrs. Enola Martinez, appreciates that money.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, although I do support the amendment.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentlewoman from New Mexico.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from Utah.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the proposed amendment would prohibit the Department of Energy from selling into the open market approximately 85 percent of the Department's inventory of approximately 21,000 metric tons of uranium until after the year 2009. However, this amendment would not prevent DOE from selling approximately 3,700 tons of uranium, or 15 percent of its total inventory, that the DOE is required to sell by statute pursuant to the U.S.E.C. Privatization Act. Many domestic uranium mining companies have stopped production or are on the verge of bankruptcy. We do not want the Government to cause further deterioration in the uranium markets by selling its vast quantities of uranium inventories. The amendment seeks to prevent the further deterioration and downward price pressure on the price of uranium by restricting DOE from selling 85 percent of its inventory. It is my understanding the Department has already implemented a memorandum of understanding dating back to 1998 that restricts the sale of the same quantity of uranium it holds in inventory. Thus the proposed amendment seeks to codify sales restrictions that the Department of Energy has already determined were necessary. The amendment would not prevent DOE from selling or transferring uranium that it has already agreed to sell or transfer under existing contracts or agreements. There should be no disruption in those programs or activities as a result of this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I support the amendment; and I urge my colleagues to do so, too.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, although I support the amendment, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. TAUZIN. I thank the gentleman. I am going to make one other comment. Mr. Chairman, I hope Americans focus on this as they watch this debate. That is, while OPEC has an enormous influence upon prices and supplies of gasoline and diesel fuel and home heating oil and jet fuel in our economy, OPEC can meet tomorrow and devastate this economy, as they once did, because we are so dependent upon those sources. Our whole card, our defense, is in our coal program. We have enough coal in this country to last 400, 500 years, maybe 800 years, if we develop it properly. Moving toward cleaner coal does not just make good sense for energy security, it makes sense in this Nation's commitment to the effort in global climate change. As one of the designated co-chairs to the conference that will occur later in the fall on global climate, I am extremely interested in knowing that we are committed to a course not that is going to put anybody out of business or disrupt the American economy, but that we will find solutions to situations where we can reduce CO2 emissions through cleaner coal technologies and gasification projects, like the gentlewoman is sponsoring in this amendment. So I commend the gentlewoman for that. This has all kinds of pluses. This is win-win-win for the American economy, for American security, for our environment, and for our international position on global warming and global climate.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) in order to engage in a dialogue.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield the balance of our time to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, to close on this debate against this bad amendment. (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, there were an awful lot of committees that contributed to this effort today, and an awful lot of staff members, and I think we owe a great deal to staff on both sides of the aisle that contributed such a great effort to this bill. I particularly want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and his staff, and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Boucher) for the incredible cooperation that we got, and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), and all of the committee chairs and ranking members. Thank you for a job well done.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose), who is a principal sponsor of the price mitigation plan that FERC adopted.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. I thank my friend. I want to assure the gentleman that I agree that we need to address this issue very quickly in the Committee on Energy and Commerce in the fall, and I will be assisting him in every way possible to get this off-budget, because we need an energy future dependent upon nuclear energy in the future. I will work with him to accomplish that goal.