Blue Dogs

BLUE DOGS -- (House of Representatives - September 09, 2008)

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Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Ross. I appreciate the gentleman from Arkansas sharing some of his time and all of the good work that you're doing, and particularly promoting the work of the Blue Dog Democrats, the coalition of the fiscal conservatives in the House of Representatives. It's a real pleasure to be a part of an organization like this that will concentrate on in part of the issues and look for common ground.

I think what we too often, unfortunately, we in the House have been best at producing is division, and it's time for that division to come to an end. It's time for us to start working for America. That's what I think this Blue Dog Coalition has stood for and so do many others.

It was out of a sense of, I guess, frustration of several weeks back when--Mr. Costa was talking about it a few minutes ago--when Members were watching what was happening on the floor of this body when there was an awful lot of finger pointing about who was to blame for the energy situation that we were in. But out of that frustration came a plan for many of us to go into a room and see what we could do to come up with a real solution.

And that real solution became H.R. 6709, about which Mr. Costa was speaking a little while ago. It's unfortunate that too often good things come out of a crisis. And we're in crisis. But what we've got to do is learn to work together in solving it.

What the public hears too often, Mr. Speaker and Members, is how divided we are. And we don't hear so much about how much effort is being made to pull us together, where there are good, reasonable commonsense solutions to the problems.

We know that only drilling is not a solution to our problem, and we know that only alternative energy is not a solution to our problem, but it's going to take a combination of them all. And that's what this bill 6709 sets out to accomplish.

And Mr. Costa talked about the first two sections. He talked about the offshore and onshore leasing and other energy provisions. He also talked about the title II, which was cleaner energy production and energy conservation incentives.

And what he left off at the title number III was the Strategic Petroleum Reserve modification and dedication of revenues to existing conservation and energy research programs.

The whole effort that we made in this bill was to find ways that we could get the resources necessary to pay for the research, development, and implementation of alternative energy. There is no question but that we have to grow our supply of energy if we're going to meet the continuing growing demand of this world for energy.

And you can't do that, typically right now, with what we have traditionally known. And certainly we don't want to continue to be dependent on other places in the world and ship our wealth off to other countries.

So what we knew that we could do is to develop something that would give us some short-term benefit to consumers by decreasing the price of gasoline at the pump, decreasing the cost of oil, and in the long term, give us continued independence and a long-term energy policy that would allow us to do the research to grow wind, and water, and solar, and other forms of energy so that we would have not only a growing supply of energy but one that would be cleaner made available to us in a different way. We can grow it rather than always pulling it out of the ground.

Well, our section number 3 of this bill had the plan of modernizing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Right now we have about 700 million barrels of oil, like sweet crude oil, in storage in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and we wanted to propose that 10 percent of that be taken and turn it into or replace it with a heavy crude which was of a lesser price. And the difference there would generate a profit, if you will, for the people of the United States.

And that money would be dedicated to the research, development, and implementation of a number of different areas of energy sources including advanced research projects, wind energy research, solar energy research, low-income weatherization, low-income home energy assistance program, marine and hydrokinetic renewable energy, advanced research vehicles development, industrial energy efficiency research and development, building/lighting energy efficiency research and development, geothermal energy development, smart grid technology development, nonconventional natural gas production and environmental research, hydrogen research and development, energy storage for transportation and electric power.

And those are the things that we know are some of what we have to do in order to expand our sources of energy.

We have great knowledge. We are a long way on our way toward having the knowledge to be able to implement so many of these different sources of energy and grow our ability to take care of ourselves, be dependent on us, us as America and the United States of America instead of other places in the world.

So it's wonderful when we have the opportunity to come together as colleagues and when we respectfully have discussions, as the one that we're having tonight, to be able to put the ideas that we can discuss, maybe compromise on because there's not everything in this bill that I like. I know there's not everything in this bill that other of my colleagues like.

But I believe it was our Founding Fathers who wanted us not to have polarization and partisanship but to have compromise through debate. That's why this Congress has been the strong body that it has been for so very long.

And to hear such finger pointing that we are not able to get the solutions that we need and want to make America great again, that's what has to end. That's what this coalition is about. That's what this bill is largely about.

I'm proud to be a part of the National Conservation Environment and Energy Independence Act, H.R. 6709. I hope many people will look at it and encourage Members of Congress from all over the country to sign on as cosponsors.

So I thank you, Mr. Ross, for the work that you're doing with our Blue Dog Coalition, for promoting these energy matters that are so critically important to the people of the United States. And I'm proud to be able to join my colleagues tonight.

I yield back my time.

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