Advanced Geothermal Innovation Leadership Act of 2019--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I am here on the floor this afternoon because we will very shortly have a vote on the motion to proceed to S. 2657. This is the vehicle for our bipartisan American Energy Innovation Act.

I am here today to kick things off and just let colleagues know some of the highlights of this measure that my colleague and ranking member on the Energy Committee, Senator Manchin, and I have been working on for some time. When I say ``some time,'' I think those here in the Senate know that when you take up substantive energy bills, whether they are focused on energy or whether they are focused on lands, we spend a lot of time giving good committee process to bring these matters to the floor.

The measure that we have in front of us is the American Energy Innovation Act. You will hear it referred to by its acronym, AEIA, which makes you want to do a joke about the vowels--a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y. I can give you that, but I am not going to do that today.

The reality is that we have been working on energy reform now for almost a dozen years. Twelve years is a long time, since we have last refreshed and updated our energy policies. This act contains priorities from more than 60 Members of the Senate. So to suggest that it is a bipartisan bill--it is more than bipartisan. It has Republican priorities and Democratic priorities and priorities from urban and rural areas. It is a package that really does help move the ball forward when we think about energy and energy innovation and energy security.

I want to extend my particular thanks to my good friend and ranking member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Senator Manchin of West Virginia. He is going to be on the floor in just a couple of minutes to speak, as we take up this motion to proceed. From the start of this Congress, he and I have really been focused on modernizing our Nation's energy policies, and this bipartisan package that we have assembled will do just that. So, again, I credit my ranking member.

I also credit the great work that both of our teams have brought to this very important national discussion. It has been a long process but one where I think Members will look critically at the package that is in front of them and realize that we have worked hard to address what more we could be doing to modernize our energy policy.

I have been framing this American Energy Innovation Act into two buckets, if you will--innovation and security. Innovation includes everything from the renewables to vehicle technologies, to carbon capture utilization, to efficiency. Then you have the security side, which is the security of your supply chain and what that means to make sure you have access to minerals that allow you to build out your renewable energy projects. You view that security from a defense perspective. How do we ensure that our grids are secure and modernized and, again, secure from the perspective of economic security, when we ensure good jobs for Americans, from Alaska to Arkansas.

So our bill promotes energy efficiency, renewable energy, energy storage--this is what so many of us have been speaking about for so long--advanced nuclear, industrial and vehicle technologies, carbon capture utilization and storage.

We review a number of broad-based support programs, including weatherization assistance. In so many of our communities, especially in our cold States, which we are thinking about right now--but also during the summer months, when it is hot--weatherization assistance programs are a key for so many of the people whom we work for.

We also renew ARPA-E. ARPA-E is that innovation hub within the Department of Energy that has really helped to build out so much in energy innovation.

We have also included timely provisions to strengthen our Nation's mineral security and cyber security, as we modernize the electric grid and bolster workforce development.

What we have worked to build are consensus policies that will help this country maintain its status as a global energy leader--and we are a global energy leader.

We also want to ensure that we are providing affordable energy for our families and businesses and know that all of this helps to strengthen our national security and increase our global competitiveness.

These policies will also lead to the development of low- and zero- emissions technologies that will help us address climate change and protect our environment.

Now, you are going to have some people who might say: Well, this measure doesn't solve climate change. You haven't worked to reduce emissions to zero.

I will stand before you and acknowledge that is the case, but what we are doing is recognizing that this is a necessary first step to update, to refresh, and to modernize energy policies that haven't seen an upgrade, if you will, in a dozen years, and to help incentivize these technologies that will get us to that cleaner energy future and really allow for a level of transition that will help protect the environment. These are the steps that we are taking today to focus on innovation in the energy space and the security of supply, economic security for the workforce, and physical security, when it comes to our energy grids.

The American Energy Innovation Act is a good bill. You are going to hear me say that a lot this week. It is a good bill. It was developed the right way, through regular order--something that we don't see often enough around here. It is one of those things that the Energy Committee has developed a reputation for--using regular order--and we will see that regular order demonstrated here on the floor.

This measure deserves to advance through the legislative process and to become law. We have an opportunity to legislate in a meaningful way for the American people. I think all of us have a little bit of pent-up energy, if you will, to get to legislating. We will have that opportunity in just a little bit.

I would strongly encourage every Member to vote in favor of the motion to proceed to this important legislation.

Mr. President, I see that my friend, the Senator from West Virginia, the ranking member, has come to the floor. I know he is going to give more extended remarks about the measure, speaking to some of the priorities.

After we complete the vote here in about 15 minutes on the motion to proceed, I will have an opportunity to speak more fully about some of the details, but, again, I want to repeat, while my friend is here with me, that this opportunity to really shape legislation in a space that is so needed is one that he embraced from the minute he assumed the role as ranking member. The two of us asked: What is it that we can build?

We are not interested in messaging. We are not interested in having hearings to have hearings for hearings' sake. We are interested in making a difference when it comes to our Nation's policy, and I think that we have done it. We have done it because of a good, cooperative process. So I want to thank my colleague.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, here we are; we have successfully voted to proceed to S. 2657, which is our vehicle for the American Energy Innovation Act. We are now at the point that many of us have been waiting for for some time; that is, the opportunity to debate, to offer amendments, and to pass this measure, hopefully on a strong bipartisan basis.

I want to encourage all Members to look at the bill that is now before us and to ask those questions and look at how, with this update to our energy policies, we will be moving forward with innovation; we will be moving forward with energy security, grid modernization, cyber security, workforce security. We are at a good place this evening.

As I mentioned in my very brief remarks before the vote, it has now been more than 12 years--more than a dozen years--since Congress enacted comprehensive legislation to update our energy laws. When you think about what has happened in a time period of a dozen years--12 years ago, we didn't have iPads. Twelve years ago we weren't even thinking about this shale revolution and what that would mean to America, turning us into an energy superpower. Over the course of 12 years, the costs of renewable resources have come down dramatically. New technologies are emerging.

What hasn't kept pace are our policies. When they don't keep pace, we miss out on opportunities to further our energy leadership, and we are failing to adequately address what I think are some very significant challenges.

That is why the innovation package that Senator Manchin and I have put forward is so important at this time. What we are seeking to do is to modernize our energy laws to ensure that we remain a global energy leader. We seek to keep energy affordable, to strengthen our security, and to increase our competitiveness. We do all of this while making our energy cleaner and cleaner, to protect the environment and to reduce the impacts of climate change. Within this measure--this American Energy Innovation Act--we have included more than 50 related measures that reflect the priorities of more than 60 different Senators.

What we have done is gone through this committee process, and, as I mentioned, it has been a very robust, very thorough committee process. We have arranged these 50-some-odd measures into two titles. The first is focused on technological innovation, and the second title is focused on security and workforce development.

Starting with the first title, which is innovation, we really start with the first fuel. First fuel is energy efficiency, which has tremendous potential to lower energy bills and to meet growing demand. We certainly know and understand that in a place like Alaska, a cold State. It helps our families, our businesses, and the environment alike when we can be more efficient in our energy consumption.

I think we recognize that efficiency is often the easiest and often the cheapest option. That is why, within our bill, we take steps-- reasonable steps--to improve the efficiency of everything from schools to data centers.

I mentioned also that we will renew vital programs like Weatherization Assistance. Again, that is so key to so many in States that are cold or very warm in the summertime.

The second subtitle in the bill is focused on renewable energy. When you think about what has happened in the energy sector in a 12-year period, the progress we have made with renewable energy is remarkable. With this provision, we focus on resources like wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, marine, and hydrokinetic energy, which offer the potential of virtually unlimited energy. Again, as I mentioned, the costs of these technologies have come down in recent years. What we aim to do with our bill is to keep that going so that as we make our energy cleaner and more renewable, it is also more affordable.

The third subtitle in the innovation package focuses on energy storage. We talk a lot about energy storage, and folks look at that as being the holy grail. It really is critical to overcoming the variability of certain renewable resources.

I want to recognize a colleague, my friend here, Senator Collins, from the State of Maine. She has been a real leader on this issue. We have taken her legislation and called it the Better Energy Storage Act, the BEST Act. We took the BEST Act and included four other bipartisan bills, all focused on storage, to advance these technologies.

Another subtitle within the innovation space is carbon capture, utilization, and storage--technologies that reduce, and even eliminate, greenhouse gas emissions from coal and natural gas plants. Within this subtitle, we reflect both the EFFECT Act, which was sponsored by Senator Manchin, as well as the LEADING Act from Senators Cornyn and Cassidy, and this will help us build on the work that Congress has done to promote CCUS through the Tax Code.

Another area of great focus within the bill is nuclear energy, which is clearly our largest source of emissions-free energy. Here in this country, we created nuclear energy. American ingenuity created nuclear energy, but conventional reactors are closing. What has happened is we have ceded our global leadership in recent decades. Through my Nuclear Energy Leadership Act, called NELA, the Nuclear Energy Renewal Act from Senator Coons, as well as the Integrated Energy Systems Act from Senator Risch, we seek to restore that leadership for next-generation reactor concepts.

We also support innovation and smart manufacturing for industrial and vehicle technologies, which will help create good jobs in America's heartland. These are some of the toughest sectors for emissions reductions. So in this space, particularly, innovation is really key.

I want to thank our colleague from Rhode Island, Senator Whitehouse, who just left the floor, for his leadership on the Clean Industrial Technologies Act.

The last part of our first title will provide updated direction and authority to the Department of Energy, which is really at the heart of Federal efforts to promote energy innovation. To give a couple of examples here, we renew the popular ARPA-E program, and we improve the Office of Technology Transitions.

Then the second title of the bill is more broadly focused on security and workforce development. We start off with focusing on supply chain issues as they relate to minerals themselves. I have included the American Mineral Security Act, which recognizes that our foreign mineral dependence is really our Achilles' heel. Right now in the United States, we import at least 50 percent of 46 minerals, including 100 percent of 17 of them.

What we have seen is a foreign dependence that has grown significantly over the recent years. What we seek to do is to take some real steps to reverse that and rebuild our domestic supply chain. If we can do that, everyone from our military to our manufacturers will benefit.

When we think about the securities space, we also have to focus on cyber security. We all understand a successful cyber attack against our Nation's critical infrastructure, including the electric grid, could have devastating and far-reaching consequences. To guard against that, we provide new mechanisms and incentives to protect our cyber security and modernize the domestic grid.

Then again, when we think about security, we think about economic security through good jobs. We recognize the importance of a well- trained, highly skilled workforce. That is essential to our ability to produce energy, to develop clean technologies, rebuild our domestic supply chain, and ultimately remain a global energy superpower.

To address workforce challenges, we have incorporated several bills from colleagues that will meet the needs of companies and our national labs alike. We are going to focus almost all of the debate on title I, ``Innovation,'' and title II, ``Security.''

Title III is really my favorite. It is the last title. We call it ``Cleaning up the Code.'' That is not very fancy, but we are working to repeal a number of sections of law that are either duplicated by the American Energy Innovation Act or simply outdated. We don't do this often enough. We need to take the old stuff off the books. There are reports that are no longer required that are parts of provisions of law that are just not in place; yet somebody out there still does the reports because we haven't taken them off the books. Let's get rid of things that are redundant or outdated.

We repeal old studies. One of the items that we repeal is a requirement for motorists to purchase at least $5 worth of gas; we actually have on the books a requirement that motorists have to purchase at least $5 when you go to the fuel tank. We are getting rid of that.

We have some other provisions in there that we believe are no longer needed. We did this very carefully. It was not just quickly going through things. We checked with the Department of Energy during both the last administration and this one to ensure they agree these are outdated or duplicative.

As proud as I am of the substance of our innovation package, I am equally proud of the process that we followed to put it together. I mentioned earlier that, on the Energy Committee, we developed somewhat of a reputation for doing things the old-fashioned way, through regular orders, spending some time in committee, and really trying to build consensus products so that, when we can come to the floor, we have measures that enjoy broad support from both sides of the aisle.

I think our bill is a textbook example of the benefits of working together across the aisle in a regular order process. It is not quick to do it this way. This is the result of a full year's worth of hearings, business meetings, and bipartisan negotiations. I think that it shows what is possible when we focus on what most of us agree on, rather than those things that will serve to divide us.

I am certainly aware that, even with the strong vote that we just had to move to proceed to this bill, not all Members plan to support the measure. Some think it has gone too far; others think it doesn't do enough. I heard from Members who want to add energy tax provisions. I will have an opportunity to have that discussion, but I will remind colleagues that, when we originate here in the Senate--if there are any tax measures--that results in a blue slip from the House and effectively kills our bill. This is too good a bill to kill.

A few would like to reduce its authorization levels, while others would have us multiply them by 10 times. I think by doing either of this, what you lose is the balance that we have worked very hard to achieve with this.

Last point I am going to raise--and just very briefly because I will have plenty of time on the floor and I see we have colleagues here. One criticism I find disappointing is that we are not doing enough in this bill to tackle climate change. I think what is important for Members to know is this package, without question, is a good step, a strong step, a necessary step in the right direction to continue to reduce our Nation's greenhouse gas emissions.

When you say we need to tackle climate change, you can't get there without innovation. You can't get there without technology. That is exactly what this bill promotes. To say that perhaps we should not pass a good bill because it doesn't go far enough, in my view, is a mistake that will result in absolutely nothing happening, and that is not good for anybody.

I am excited to be here. I am proud to be managing a strong bill with the Senator from West Virginia. It is a strong bill that will benefit our economy, our security, our competitiveness, and our environment. I want to thank all the Members who have contributed to it and who will help us move this forward. I think we have a lot to be proud of. I hope that we will have a productive week in front of us as we begin to work through possible amendments.

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