Farm, Nutrition, and Bioenergy Act of 2007

Floor Speech

FARM, NUTRITION, AND BIOENERGY ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - December 12, 2007)

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me begin by concurring with much of what Senator Salazar has said. I have a lot of respect for Senator Alexander. I have worked with him on some issues, and I look forward to working with him on other issues. But, unfortunately, on this one he is dead wrong, and the amendments on wind energy he has brought forth should be soundly defeated in a tripartisan vote.

Let me begin by quoting from an AP article that appeared on the front page of Vermont's largest newspaper, the Burlington Free Press, this morning and in papers throughout the country. Here is what the article says: ``Ominous Arctic melt worries experts.''

An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.

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Mr. SANDERS. In other words, what the scientists are telling us is the problem of global warming may be even more severe than they had previously told us. It seems to me what we should be doing in the Senate is become more aggressive, more bold in combating greenhouse gas emissions and not support amendments that slow down the growth of such sustainable energies as wind. That is what, unfortunately, the Alexander amendment would do.

In contrast to the direction Senator Alexander wants us to go, let me quote from a BBC article that appeared the other day. This is what that article says:

Wind ``could power all UK homes.'' All UK homes could be powered by offshore wind farms by 2020 as part of the fight against climate change, under plans unveiled.''

What they are doing in the UK, at the highest levels of Government, with support of the Tory Party--the conservative party--in the UK, is they are developing plans that would significantly increase the number of wind turbines. Some 7,000 wind turbines could be installed by the year 2020 to provide all the homes in the UK with electricity. They are going forward rapidly, boldly with wind, and we are talking about how we can cut back efforts toward sustainable energy.

I fully appreciate that my good friend from Tennessee has concerns about wind energy. He may not want a wind turbine at his home or on his property, and that is his right. We support that right. But I would respectfully request he not make that decision for the rest of America.

Wind energy is one of the fastest growing renewable technologies today and benefits families in my own State of Vermont and all across our country. I believe rural America and individual communities across this country deserve the opportunity to decide for themselves whether to pursue wind energy. Some may like it; some may not. That is a decision for them and not the Federal Government. I would hope some of our conservative friends who talk about all of the vices of a big Federal Government might want to heed that thought.

The truth is, today millions of rural Americans, in fact, want to pursue sustainable energy. They should be allowed to do so, and they should be able to utilize the support provisions in this farm bill that provide incentives for them to produce electricity that is renewable, that is cost effective, and does not emit carbon. That is what they want to do. That is what we need. We should support that effort.

Apparently, one of those people--and I applaud him for this--is the former Republican President of the United States of America, George H.W. Bush, who, in his summer home at Kennebunkport, ME, has recently installed a 33-foot tall windmill that can produce 400 kilowatts a month. I applaud former President Bush for pointing out to the country the importance of small wind turbines in providing electricity for homes. I hope all over this country people emulate what the former Republican President has done.

There is enormous potential for wind technology in the United States. We have a huge renewable resource base in our country, and yet only about 3 percent of the Nation's electricity supply came from nonhydroelectric renewable energy sources in the year 2006.

Other countries have already made significant strides toward using renewable energy. I point out that Denmark meets roughly 20 percent of its electricity needs with wind alone, while Spain is at 9 percent, and Germany and Portugal are at 7 percent. Despite having a much more robust wind resource than any of these countries, the United States meets less than 1 percent of its electrical needs with wind power today.

We can do better. We must do better. The Federal Government, through tax credits and other incentives, including small wind turbines, must help move our country in that direction.

Today, most wind turbines are currently located on mountain tops, mountain passes, and the Great Plains from North Dakota to Texas. That is not nearly good enough. Wind is the cheapest renewable energy, and it should be growing by leaps and bounds. We have to move forward in making that happen.

As a nation, we can--in fact, we must--do a better job of exploiting the freely available renewable resources that exist across our country. Small-scale rural wind turbines should be aggressively promoted as one of the solutions. We can no longer afford to ignore the rapidly maturing renewable technologies that can help address the critical challenges of energy independence, global warming, and high energy prices.

It should be heartening to know that new investments in renewable generating capacity in the United States has been accelerating in recent years. This is largely due to tax credits from States and the Federal Government. Wind power has been at the forefront of that growth. The year 2006 was the largest on record in the U.S. for wind power capacity additions, with over 2,400 megawatts of wind added to the grid. That is a good start, but we need to go a lot further than that.

I recently talked with a manufacturer of small residential-scale wind turbines to find out about the potential of this technology. What he told me was that with support from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory we are developing wind turbines all over this country where there is a reasonable amount of wind. Clearly, wind is not available all over the country. But everybody who is serious about this issue understands that the solution to global warming and the solution to sustainable energy, electricity generation, is going to require a mix of technologies. In some areas wind is strong, in some areas the Sun is strong, and so forth.

But in areas such as the State of Vermont, I am told that an average home can produce 40, 50, 60 percent of its electricity from a small wind turbine, which is becoming less and less expensive. They are now on the market for some $12,000--$12,000--including installation. If we can provide the type of tax credits and other incentives for these wind turbines, we can have a payback period in a reasonable period of time which will lower the cost of electricity for millions of Americans, break our dependency on Middle East oil, and stop the emissions of carbon into the atmosphere, which is causing global warming.

I have a lot of respect for my friend from Tennessee, and I know his concern is aesthetics, how these things look--that is one of his concerns--but let me say a word about aesthetics. I also am concerned about how things look. I am concerned when extreme weather disturbances such as Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and caused massive damage. That is an aesthetic concern I have. If we do not get a handle on global warming, we are going to see more and more extreme weather disturbances which can impact hundreds of millions if not billions of people.

Drought is an aesthetic issue. Seeing lakes dry up, and the repercussions of that, of flooding, and the impact that global warming will have on the loss of clean drinking water, and the desperation people will experience as a result of that, is also an aesthetic issue.

So I can understand that people have differences of opinion about how things look. I do not like the look of global warming, and I think we should reject soundly Senator Alexander's amendment.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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