Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act of 2007

Floor Speech

CREATING LONG-TERM ENERGY ALTERNATIVES FOR THE NATION ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - June 21, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I congratulate Senator Feinstein for her quest over a number of years and thank all of our colleagues on the Commerce Committee, Members and staff, for bringing this possibility about. It came about as a result of the other side not having the votes. All they had to get was 41 votes. Fortunately, that did not occur. It allowed us to come together and massage the bill a little bit more with these amendments. Thus, we get the end result.

This Senator has filed an amendment for 40 miles per gallon. It simply wasn't practical. We weren't going to have the votes for that because we were trying hard enough to get the votes for 35 miles a gallon in 13 years, in 2020, and then with the compromises that were made, instead of thereafter being at a 4-percent increase in miles per gallon per year, which would compound, leaving it to NHTSA, with the criteria of what is practically feasible. That is a reasonable compromise.

Then totally apart from that, on a separate issue, flex-fuel vehicles, wherever we can encourage that, it is certainly to our advantage because the more we can have a fuel that is something other than derived from oil, the better off we are. If we have the vehicles that use E85, then the question is, Do we have the gas stations that have the ethanol distributed to them in order to get E85? We have to start working on that. As a matter of fact, in my State of Florida, we have one company that is seriously thinking about ethanol plants all over the State so that it could then have the ability to get the ethanol distributed to the gas stations.

While the chairman of the Commerce Committee is here, I wanted to say, in handing out all of these congratulations, under his leadership, under his tutoring, under his mentoring, and under his encouragement, he has allowed the committee to come forth with this work product that is a signal achievement. Now if we can get the Energy bill passed on final passage and then if we can survive the process, if the House can pass an energy bill, in conference committee, then, of course, if we can survive not having a veto by the President, this is all doable now because we are where we are thanks to the leadership of the chairman of the Commerce Committee.

I wanted to make another comment on another subject in response to my colleagues, Senator Dorgan and Senator Craig from Idaho. Senator Craig puts up a chart there as if all the oil in the United States is in the Gulf of Mexico off of Florida. That is not what the geology says. To the contrary, over the last 50 years where they have drilled, they have come up with a number of dry holes.

That was why last year this Senator was willing to compromise for those who wanted a lease sale called 181 that basically had boiled down to about 2 million acres, to be able to expand that to 8.3 million acres but to keep it away from the coastline of Florida, where we happen to have a $50 billion-a-year tourism industry that depends on pristine beaches, but equally as important, that kept it away from the military mission line, which is the edge of the largest testing and training area in the world for our military. It is there where we are doing significant testing of weapons systems and new sophisticated technology, often with live ordnance. Over and over, the Secretary of Defense has issued letters and said: You can't drill in this area because oil rigs are incompatible with live fire and testing of live ordnance on new weapons systems.

Senator Craig in his comments would have us believe the answer is drill, drill, drill. By his chart, he was suggesting drilling off the coast of Florida. That simply is not true. It is interesting that he said that at the very time in which we are on this Energy bill through which we are now doing something about lessening the consumption of oil by the amendment we just adopted, an amendment that goes to the very heart of where we consume most of our oil, and that is in the transportation sector. Where in transportation is it most consumed? It is in our personal vehicles. Thus, we are doing something about that tonight.

I wanted to add these comments while we are still on the Energy bill.

I yield the floor.

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