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 19, 2007)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I have a few remarks as ranking member of the committee. I am going to speak first in favor of amendment 1628, the Bunning amendment, with reference to coal to liquids. Later on today--later on today, Senator Byrd--and I don't say this because you need to be on the floor or anything like that, but later in the day, when some other people have finished speaking in favor of this amendment, I will speak against your amendment and be very specific and precise as to why.
I do say to you and your very excellent staff that I think you will be interested in my reasoning, because I am not trying to be vindictive or pick one over another, but I think your amendment, when we finish talking about it, you ought to be worried about whether you have set standards in it that will never commit coal to be turned to liquids.
Mr. BYRD. I hope not.
Mr. DOMENICI. I think you have done that, by mistake or otherwise. The environmental requirements are too high for it to be achieved.
So the money can be used for things other than coal to liquid. That is what it will go for over time, because you cannot achieve the environmental standards. I don't know how I can do it later, but I will talk with you seriously about it.
For now I am going to speak to the Bunning amendment, and later I will do that other one, and if I have to do it in writing, because of my great admiration for Senator Byrd, I will write it up and show it to you, because I do not think you are going to get coal to liquid the way someone has drawn the standards for you. I do not know who drew those.
I rise today, in the absence of Senator Bunning--I hope everyone in the Senate and those who are wondering why this distinguished Senator, who is so strongly in favor of this coal to liquids, is not here, let's make sure everybody knows that what is going on right now is a very important aspect of this energy bill. It is the tax portion, and Senator Bunning is on the Finance Committee. They are writing the tax portion, Senator Byrd. So Senator Bunning can't be here because he is there writing this giant tax provision that is going to be affixed to this bill.
First, I ask unanimous consent that the letter Senator Bunning and I received this morning in support of this amendment that we have be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DOMENICI. Now I would look to repeat once again my opposition to the Tester-Bingaman amendment on coal to liquid fuels. I believe it does little to advance the domestic coal to liquid fuels industry, and could, in fact, harm that effort. But I will return to the floor later today and speak to it in more detail.
I wish to provide some context for my colleagues as we move forward to vote this afternoon on the issue of coal to liquids, because it is so important for our country that we create a situation which will generate incentives so those who will invest money and try innovative technologies will do so for coal to liquid.
We have an abundance of coal. We have an abundance of need for liquefied coal. We have a lot of people who do not want to see this happen because they are fearful of the environmental consequences of this transition.
First, we must increase our national energy security by decreasing our reliance on foreign resources of crude oil. Second, we must ensure that the fuels available to American consumers are affordable. Third, we must seek to improve the environmental performance of the energy resources we consume.
I believe coal to liquid fuels will allow us to accomplish all three goals, and that the Bunning amendment puts us on the right path to get there. In terms of the opportunities for increased energy security that are created by coal to liquids, the case to be made is a convincing one. Our country accounts for 26 percent of the world's proven reserves, 26 percent of the coal.
We have enough coal right here in America to meet our needs for more than 200 years. In every authoritative forecast of domestic and world energy consumption, coal use is projected to increase, not decrease. No matter what people say, you know they don't want coal because it is not clean, every projection says there will be more coal used, not less, in the next 10, 20, 30 years.
What we have to do is be sure that since we have so much in America, we are pushing that and pursuing that with a hand on the accelerator, that makes sure what we come out with is a fuel that is clean enough to sustain itself among the fuels we are permitted to use, where it is as good as any we are promoting for the American people for their future.
Here in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, we often talk about our Nation's increasing reliance on foreign sources of crude oil. We have included provisions in this bill that represent significant progress toward reversing this trend. I believe we should go further, however, and make better use of coal as our most abundant, secure, and affordable resource.
The facts in support of coal to liquid as a path to greater energy security don't only rely on the sheer abundance of this resource within our borders. It is because of this secure supply, but also due to the characteristics of coal to liquids as a fuel that the Department of Defense has undertaken an aggressive program to test, certify, and ultimately transition to meeting much of their demand with coal to liquid alternatives.
I want to repeat what I have just said about the fact that we are so abundantly blessed, and it is here and it is ours, and it is to be used by us. Because of this, the Department of Defense has undertaken an aggressive program to certify, ultimately to test and certify, to meet much of their demand with coal to liquid alternatives.
Last year the Air Force went through over 3 billion gallons of aviation fuel. That amount represents more than half of the fossil fuels consumed by the Federal Government. That is amazing. Half of all the fossil fuels consumed by the Federal Government was the 3 billion gallons of aviation fuel.
The goal of the Air Force is to certify their entire fleet by 2010, with a 50-50 mix of jet fuel with coal to liquid fuels and meet 50 percent of their demand for fuels with coal to liquids by the year 2016.
We must be encouraging progress along these lines, and the Bunning amendment is a step in the right direction. Coal is affordable. If we consider historic price trends, based on nominal dollars per million Btu's between 1980 and 2005, the cost of petroleum fluctuated between $6 and $16; natural gas fluctuated between $2 and $10; retail electricity fluctuated between $14 and $24; and coal between $1 and $3.
Is that not incredible? Now, if we can find a way through our technological advances and technological genius to make more coal usable, think of that, we will inject into this stream of usable resources that are used in the place of energy a fuel that is the cheapest and most stable fuel we have. I told it to you in incredible numbers. These are accurate. Coal, between $1 and $3 during the same period that retail electricity has been $14 to $24. You got that, my good friend from Montana? Incredible.
Petroleum fluctuated from $6 to $16, and here is that good old coal, $1 to $3. The problem is, we haven't figured out ways to use it for enough of the uses for which these energies I ticked off are used. Coal is secure. But it represents one of our most stable and affordable energy sources.
It should be our policy to ensure that this feedstock shares an equal footing with others that are available for production of alternative fuels. Of course, we must ensure that we continue to reduce the environmental impacts associated with energy resources we consume. Here, too, the ability of coal-to-liquid fuel to achieve this significant improvement is impressive. By virtue of the process coal must undergo in producing a liquid fuel, nearly all of the criteria pollutants are removed by virtue of the processes coal must undergo in the process of liquid fuel. I am repeating it. Nearly all the criteria pollutants are removed.
This represents a significant improvement relative to conventional diesel and includes a reduction in unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, particulate matter, and others.
I wish to direct the attention of my colleagues to the chart behind me which represents an average of the findings on the national renewable energy laboratories and other Government entities. It shows the percentage reductions achieved in the categories I have mentioned, by using coal-to-liquid fuels instead of conventional diesel.
Fuels are virtually sulfur free and dramatically reduced the emissions of other harmful pollutants. There it shows it to you right on the chart. Environmentally, what remains is a concern about the emissions of greenhouse gases. This too can be effectively addressed by coal-feeding biomass, utilizing a plant's carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery or through future efforts to achieve reliable and safe geological sequestration.
Those seeking to build coal-to-liquid fuel plants believe they can meet the same standard of 20 percent better than gasoline that is included in the underlying bill for ethanol. I believe no single one of the priorities I laid out as important to the consideration of the fuels legislation should overshadow the other. Coal to liquid meets all three priorities.
On this basis alone, I believe the Bunning amendment is the right approach. Now, some may ask, if this alternative fuel is such a good idea, why have we not already begun to produce it? The Department of Energy has testified that as long as the price of oil remains above roughly $50 to $60 a barrel, the first few gallons of coal-to-liquid operations will be economically viable. So as long as energy remains at that high price, from there, commercialization will further improve the competitiveness of coal-to-liquid fuels. It is a concern that oil-producing nations will increase production to lower oil prices, thereby undercutting the viability of alternative fuel production. That has created an unwillingness in the private sector to finance these plans.
I believe the most proven approach to addressing concerns of alternative fuel developers is to provide a guaranteed market and assurances that the market for these fuels will remain present. This is what the Bunning amendment does. This is all it does. This is all we need to do. Specifically, and starting in the year 2016, it will require that three-quarters of a billion gallons--that is all, three-quarters of a billion gallons--are produced a year. That gets us to a level of 6 billion gallons by 2022. Now, I would remind my colleagues that biofuels are mandated at a level of 36 billion gallons that same year under the base bill. We have required that coal-to-liquid fuels have lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions that are at least 20 percent better than gasoline. That is how we make sure that greenhouse implications are not something we need to worry about.
This is the same standard required of biofuels in the base text of the legislation that is currently before the Senate. We have seen the utility of a mandate in the current success of ethanol. In fact, currently the use of ethanol has even exceeded the mandates set forth in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. I believe the time has come to embark upon a similar success story in coal-to-liquid fuels.
If the environmental obligations are the same as the mandate for biofuels--and the coal-to-liquids mandate is one-sixth the size of a biofuel mandate--there is no reasonable basis to vote no on the Bunning amendment. The choice given by the amendment is coal from Wyoming, West Virginia, Connecticut, and North Dakota versus oil from the Middle East or Venezuela. The choice is an easy one. I encourage colleagues to vote for amendment No. 1628. It is not a huge amount of production we are going to assure the use of, but it will push producers and inventors, technocrats and people with money that they will all be working toward a new way to do it because by that point in time, they want to be able to say: Ours is ready. Please buy it. That is what the law says you are supposed to do.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source