ENERGY INDEPENDENCE AND SECURITY ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - December 13, 2007)
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Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, at the beginning of this Congress I introduced a bill to achieve a 40-mile-a-gallon goal by 2020. As I have indicated before, I became engaged in the CAFE debate because I believe the only way our Nation will achieve energy independence is through a combination of initiatives. Conservation, domestic production, and the development of alternative sources of energy are all parts of the broader solution. Setting fuel economy standards is one avenue toward limiting our Nation's dependence on foreign oil and significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The Senate passed unanimously a CAFE amendment based upon the attribute concept I authored. The fuel economy provision that has been placed in the bill is a good first step toward addressing our energy crisis. I thank Senator Inouye and Senator Feinstein for their insistence that the fuel economy provision be a product of bipartisan discussions. Their commitment to instituting strong and achievable policy goals was instrumental during the negotiation process of fuel economy standards.
The compromise we negotiated mandates the fuel economy of cars and trucks to be evaluated separately based upon this attribute system. The mandate ensures reasonable fuel efficiency goals for trucks and cars. In addition, the requirement will guarantee the continued availability of various sized trucks and cars in the market, which is important--very important--to our home State of Alaska.
Our bill requires annual increases to the nationwide average fleet fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks to achieve a fleetwide average standard of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. As Senator Inouye said, this will be the first statutory fuel economy increase for passenger cars since 1975.
The bipartisan fuel economy provision will help save, as Senator Cantwell has indicated, a significant amount of fuel over the next decade. I thank the Senate for supporting this bipartisan measure.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of Senate Commerce Committee staff on the Republican side who worked on the fuel economy compromise be printed in the Record.
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