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“REAL SECURITY PLAN FOR AMERICA” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H5539-H5546 on July 20, 2006.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
REAL SECURITY PLAN FOR AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, tonight Representative Van Hollen and I will be discussing one of the core issues of national security, and that is energy independence.
National security is the core function of our government. For most of our history as a Nation, bipartisanship governed American national security policymaking. In the words of Senator Arthur Vandenberg, a Republican, ``Politics must end at the water's edge.''
A succession of American Presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Harry Truman to Dwight Eisenhower to Ronald Reagan guided this Nation through two world wars and the tense decades of the Cold War. Their leadership was based on asserting America's power in a way that advanced the ideals of our founders, and which made America a beacon to millions of people who were suffering under fascism and communism.
Most importantly, these men knew the limits of any one Nation's ability, and they saw the wisdom of marshaling our strength with that of other freedom-loving people. They listened to the counsel of our allies and members of both parties here at home.
The current administration has too often believed that it has the answers and does not need to pay attention to the ideas of others. This refusal to listen to other voices and an excessively partisan and ideological approach has resulted in an America that is more isolated than at any time in the postwar era.
Around the world, among nations that should be our strong allies, we are less often seen as a force for good in the world, and this has jeopardized the cooperation we must have to win the war on terror. This has been most clearly seen in Iraq, where insistence on invading the country without the broad international coalition we assembled in the Gulf War, and then our brushing aside offers of help from the international community, have seriously undermined the war effort and increased the burden that our troops and our country must bear.
But Iraq is not the only challenge facing our Nation. The ongoing crisis involving Israel, and Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, Iran's standoff with the international community over its nuclear program, and a similar faceoff with North Korea are all competing for the attention of American policymakers.
In each of those crises, America's ability to marshal international support and use the full range of our power to effect a positive outcome has been undermined by the administration's ineffective stewardship of our national security. Democrats have developed a comprehensive blueprint to better protect America and to restore our Nation's position of international leadership.
Our plan, Real Security, was devised with the assistance of a broad range of experts, former military officers, retired diplomats, law enforcement personnel, homeland security experts and others, who helped identify key areas where current policies have failed and where new ones were needed.
In a series of six Special Orders, my colleagues and I have been sharing with the American people our vision for a more secure America. The plan has five pillars, and each of our Special Order hours have been addressing each of them in turn: Building a military for the 21st century, winning the war on terrorism, securing our homeland, a way forward in Iraq, and achieving energy independence for America, the subject of Ms. Kaptur's recent 5-minute speech.
During our first Special Order we discussed the first pillar of our plan, building a military for the 21st century. To briefly summarize what we discussed 2 weeks ago, here are the elements of that pillar: Rebuild a state-of-the-art military; develop the world's best equipment and training, and maintain that equipment and training; accurate intelligence and a strategy for success; a GI bill of Rights for the 21st century; and strengthening the National Guard.
We next discussed a comprehensive plan to win the war on terror, which focused on a wide-ranging series of strategies to destroy the threat posed by Islamic radicalism. This involves destroying al Qaeda and finishing the job in Afghanistan; doubling special forces and improving intelligence; eliminating terrorist breeding grounds; preventative diplomacy and new international leadership; securing loose nuclear materials by 2010; stopping nuclear weapons development in Iran and North Korea.
The job of securing our homeland remains unfinished. In the wake of 9/11, there have been numerous commissions and investigations at the Federal, State and local level as well as a multitude of private studies. All of them, all of them, have pointed to a broad systemic and other flaws in our homeland security program.
Almost 2 years ago, the independent 9/11 Commission published its report, but most of its recommendations have yet to be implemented. Our homeland security plan requires the implementation of all of the 9/11 Commission recommendations. It provides for the screening of all containers and cargo.
It safeguards our nuclear and chemical plants. It prohibits outsourcing of ports, airports and mass transit to foreign interests. Trains and equips our first responders and invests in public health to safeguard Americans.
In early June we discussed our plan for Iraq, a new course to make 2006 a year of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with Iraqis assuming primary responsibility for securing and governing their country with a responsible redeployment of U.S. forces. Democrats will insist that Iraqis make the political compromises necessary to unite their country and defeat the insurgency, promote regional diplomacy, and strongly encourage allies and other nations to play a constructive role.
For the remainder of today's hour, we will discuss the fifth pillar of Real Security: Stable, reliable, affordable sources of energy are crucial to the U.S. economy and to the global economy.
To ensure such a supply, I believe developing cleaner sources of energy and encouraging energy efficiency and conservation must be among the Nation's top priorities. Members of both parties in Congress and the administration must work together toward a pragmatic and comprehensive strategy to secure American prosperity in the 21st century.
Democrats have long advocated increased investment in the search for alternative fuels and the development of energy-efficient technology. Today European and Asian competitors are already developing technologies that will reduce fuel consumption and lower the emission of green house gases.
Rather than American entrepreneurs, it is our competitors who are prospering from these developments. By marshaling America's great strengths, our innovativeness, our technological prowess, our entrepreneurial spirit, we can better secure our Nation, save our environment, and become the world leader in this cutting-edge industry.
In pursuing energy security, we must use the Nation's resources effectively. The Real Security Plan directs the national investment to areas that minimize economic risk while maximizing the potential benefits. It also aligns incentives for American consumers with the goals of our Nation.
It makes transparent the true costs of energy and ensures that the easy choice for Americans is also the right choice for the Nation. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of energy as a national security issue.
To achieve this vision, the Real Security Plan offers fresh policy ideas. These ideas are drawn from a broad range of stakeholders, academic experts, government administrators, energy industry executives, environmentalists, and a vibrant grass-roots community.
The Real Security Plan pushes the Federal bureaucracy to overcome its business-as-usual approach and it encourages American entrepreneurs to innovate. While many of the ideas are new, some have been around for years. For example, experts have for many years recommended updating the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency or CAFE standards. This year even the majority on the Government Reform Committee stated in a report that the fuel economy standards have stagnated for years.
Unfortunately, while the President has talked about the Nation's addiction to oil, he has failed to take the simple action of updating the CAFE standards. The President may believe that fuel efficiency standards are a burden on American manufacturers, or a constraint on the American consumer, but, sadly, he has underestimated American ingenuity and the willingness of Americas to sacrifice in the war on terror.
In contrast, in 1961 President Kennedy announced his vision for the Apollo project to put a man on the Moon in one decade, by saying, ``I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out.
``But I think every citizen of this country as well as the Members of Congress should consider the matter carefully in making their judgment, to which we have given attention over many weeks and months, because it is a very heavy burden. And there is no sense in agreeing unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful. If we are not, we should decide today and this year.
``This decision demands,'' he said, ``a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, material and facilities, and the possibility of their diversion from other important activities where they are already spread thin.
``It means a degree of dedication, organization and discipline, which have not always characterized our research and development efforts. It means we cannot afford undue work stoppages, inflated cost of materials or talent, wasteful interagency rivalries or a high turnover of key personnel.''
You might recall, in speaking of the Apollo project, President Kennedy also said, ``We do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard.''
This is the sort of leadership we need today on energy, and the level of commitment that we must be prepared to make, and we must ask of the American people. Unfortunately, this President has not asked the American people to sacrifice in the face of war or in the face of our tremendous challenges.
I would now like to turn to my colleague, Representative Van Hollen of Maryland, who has been a very outspoken leader on national security, in general, on energy independence, in particular. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Mr. Schiff from California, for his leadership in bringing us together to discuss these very important national security issues. We are very pleased to be joined today by Congresswoman Kaptur, as well, who is very well versed in the issue of energy security and energy policy. It is wonderful to have her with us on the floor today.
Mr. Speaker, I think America understands that energy security is a very important part of our national security. But if we are going to address energy security in a meaningful way going forward, we need to do it in a new manner. We cannot just be doing the same old thing.
Now, I think many of us were pleased back in January when the President delivered his State of the Union address, and from the podium right behind Mr. Schiff, he said to the Congress assembled and to the American people that the United States was addicted to oil.
In fact, his exact words were: The United States is addicted to oil which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.
I am pleased that the President finally acknowledged that. That was kind of the headline in the newspapers the next day.
The confusing thing, I thought, was that most of America already knew that we were overly reliant on oil, especially on foreign oil. But it was news that this administration had begun to at least acknowledge that problem.
The question is, having acknowledged the problem, whether we are serious as a Nation about doing something about it. Unfortunately, if you look at the record to date from the Bush administration, despite the rhetoric he gave at the time he addressed the United States Congress, we have not seen the follow-through in terms of a new plan. And we need a new direction in energy policy.
For example, that night he talked about the fact that we need to do more in the area of renewable energy, which we do; as you, Mr. Schiff, have said, that many of us have been pushing for for many, many years. But I think we all remember that it was not long after the President gave his State of the Union address that he flew off to the National Renewable Energy Lab out in Colorado, part of NOAA, and discovered that in fact the budget that he was submitting the day after the State of the Union address actually cut about 40 employees who were working on renewable energy at that lab.
And so the difference is really the one between actually doing something about an issue or just talking about an issue.
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Because when you submit a budget the day after your State of the Union address, in which you say that the country is addicted to oil, and we have got to do something about it, and you submit a budget that cuts individuals' pay at one of the greatest national labs on that issue, in fact, the one that the President chose for his photo op on this issue, you know there is some kind of miscommunication between the guys who write the speeches and the guys that actually are putting the budget together which reflect the priorities of our Nation.
Clearly, the priority in that budget wasn't to follow through in a new direction on energy policy. In fact, unfortunately, what we have seen is the same old, same old. We have an energy policy bill that some people say will help wean us off our dependence on oil, but a major feature of that bill is to provide more taxpayer subsidies to the oil and gas industry.
Now, I have got to believe that the American people are scratching their heads and saying, what's wrong with this picture? I just went to fill up my car with gasoline. We have record prices at the pump. The oil and gas industry is making record profits, and yet you, the United States Congress, under this Republican leadership, you are taking some more of my taxpayer money and saying to the oil and gas industry, gee, even though you are making record profits and gas prices are through the roof, we are going to give you some of our constituents' taxpayer money as additional incentive for you to go out and explore and drill for oil and gas.
What happened to the free market? What happened to the notion that here we want to make sure that the market works? In fact, we are taking money from our taxpayers to subsidize an industry that needs absolutely no subsidy. They are making record profits. In fact, the President announced that we have to break that addiction. If you want to break an addiction, the first thing you need to do is acknowledge you got a problem. Then you got to do something about it.
Providing a greater subsidy or additional subsidies to the oil and gas industry, when you have acknowledged, as the President said, that we are addicted to oil, does exactly the opposite.
Mr. SCHIFF. This sounds a little bit about the equivalent, if you are dealing with someone with a substance abuse addiction, to give them a subsidy to buy the contraband that is the subject of their addiction.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Well, that is exactly right. Let us say you had an alcoholic. The last thing you want to do to help that person kick the habit is to provide a subsidy, for example, to the alcohol industry to make more alcohol at different prices. So we have got a real contradiction here between what we now acknowledge should be our national priority, a national priority, and what we are actually doing about it.
That is why I think it is very important that we are here today to talk about a new direction, because I do believe that if we want to really help break that addiction and reduce our reliance on oil, we need a large national effort. That is why many of us have joined together to introduce the new Apollo Energy Act, which says we need to harness the great potential of this Nation, the grant entrepreneurial spirit, and make sure that we commit ourselves to this real national effort, in addition to the fact that we need to encourage, not just more renewable energy, but in the immediate short-term we can also encourage greater energy efficiency.
We waste an awful lot of energy as a Nation through inefficient use of energy. So the Federal Government has tried and gave us a push to try to encourage States and local jurisdictions, the American people, to find ways to improve energy efficiency. But if you look at the President's budget with respect to energy efficiency efforts, you see dramatic reductions in the budget that he submitted for that purpose.
In fact, Diane Shea, who is the executive director of the National Association of State Energy Officials, has said that the assistance that the States received from the Department of Energy is not going to be available this year as it was in the past. This year, the year after the President stood at this podium right here in this Chamber and said this is a national problem, we have got a national addiction, we have got to do something about it.
Yet he reduced the efforts that we had put in place and were trying to develop to try to help people with energy efficiency, because we know that if we can use energy more efficiently, obviously, then we need less to produce the same output and the same quality of life.
So if you look at all of these different areas, you just find a growing gap between what the Bush administration says it wants to do and what it is actually doing. It is a credibility gap that is growing. I think the American people recognize that fact, and they are looking for an alternative that is real.
That is why we have developed what we call a real security plan, not a fake one, not one where you say one thing and do another, but a real plan, which really makes the national commitment to this effort in many, many different areas.
The new Apollo Energy Project is part of that. A project to provide greater efforts in the area of ethanol is part of that. A whole series of concrete steps that are in a proposal that is put together through a consensus by many experts is part of that. We need to act on that proposal, and we need to start acting today if we really want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, improve our national security situation, and improve our environmental situation and address the issue of global climate change, which we necessarily need to address as well.
I would be happy to yield to our colleague, Ms. Marcy Kaptur, and thank her for her leadership on this issue.
Ms. KAPTUR. I thank our colleague from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff) for their own energy and helping America shape a different century and different millennium in this 21st, and to say that there could be no more important dedication for us as public officials than to meet America's chief strategic vulnerability in imported petroleum with real answers. To do so, as Congressman Schiff reminded us, when President Kennedy helped to do what was hard and lead America to land a man on the Moon, it was done within 10 years.
At that time, I remember as a child, it seemed so impossible to land a man on the Moon. Yet now we see space shuttles. When you stand outside and look at the sky, and you watch the shuttle come before the Moon and then go back around again, you may see what this Nation has achieved since the 1960s.
But, indeed, we did land a man on the Moon in 10 years. I am troubled by the long-time horizon on new forms of energy, because if the government of the United States were serious, within 10 years it could use its own power to help convert this Nation.
I will just discuss two of the committees on which I serve that have major roles to play in this conversion. Both Congressman Schiff and Congressman Van Hollen have talked about the Department of Agriculture.
What Congressman Van Hollen has said is true, that although the President, in his State of the Union, talked about energy addiction and the importance of transitioning America to be energy independent, the cost-cutting budget of the Department of Agriculture, under his administration every single year, has cut funds for renewables.
Farmers struggle in the rural communities across this country to try to piece together the investment dollars and have the confidence that what they are doing will weather the kind of beating that they will take from the oil cartels, who command the marketplace and control the price in this country. Please don't try to convince me it is a free market. Oh, no, it is only a free market for those who control the spigots.
It isn't a free market for the consumer at all. Because in the community I represent, even if I want to buy a car that runs on ethanol, there is only one pump, and that was only put in after considerable pressure. Who has time to go way over to another part of the State or another part of the city to go fill up, with families having the pressures that they have on them in the workplace today?
No, the Department of agriculture, although I authored the first title to a farm bill in American history, title 9, that has the ability to invest some dollars in renewable energy through the farm community, it is such a pittance. It is almost laughable, except it is all we have. There isn't any major division over at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, even until today, that deals with energy independence and bringing up the full array of renewables.
We know about ethanol, because ethanol is derived from corn, and corn is heavily subsidized. So, of course, we are going to get more alcohol from corn. But you know the truth is, in terms of science, that isn't the crop with the most oil, with the most ability to be refined. There are other seed crops that have much higher oil content. We have just never developed them.
So the Federal Government isn't in the lead on this in agriculture. It is actually following in the wake of real progressive States like Minnesota, which I call the Thomas Alva Edison Center of the 21st century. What they are doing, they are viewing new energy production and new renewables and new investment there as economic development for the State of Minnesota.
We have a lot to learn from them. The Federal Government ought to just copy what the State of Minnesota has done and make it available across the country. But it is a tragedy now because even though Detroit makes dozens and dozens of vehicles that will run on these new renewable fuels, there are no gas pumps around the country.
There were a few incentives in one of the bills that we passed here in terms of tax credits and incentives for companies to put in tanks in the ground, but it is not serious. It is just sort of limping along. It isn't the kind of great challenge President Kennedy gave to us and the challenge that the Nation met.
If I could just say a word about the Department of Defense, it is incredible that the Secretary of Defense of this Nation would come before the Defense Appropriations Committee, when asked the question, what role did he see for his Department, the largest purchaser of petroleum in the United States of America, and petroleum-based products, to help erase this strategic vulnerability that we had due to the fact that we import three-quarters of our petroleum, he said, That is not my job. That's the Department of Energy's job.
I couldn't believe it. I went up to him afterwards, and I said, well, if it isn't our job, why do we have our Fifth Fleet porting in Bahrain holding up that government? You start looking around where we have put our defense forces to protect the oil lanes. We had a vote here today on Oman. It is pretty clear the Strait of Hormuz is very strategically important to us, because we are totally dependent on that oil lifeline.
To me, that is America's chief defense vulnerability. So why doesn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld know about it? He doesn't want to know about it. Know what, the generals know about it. The generals at the Air Force know it, the generals at the Navy Department know it. The generals over at Army know about it, and they know about the soldiers in the field.
We have research projects going on at DOD to try to have solar tents where the sun's rays are used if we have to move battalions around and try to provide alternative ways of powering these different defense systems that we have in theater. People on the ground know. The Guard and Reserve know. America has to change.
I hope the Secretary or somebody in his office will give him some of my remarks, because the Department of Defense ought to be in the lead. Then many of the other Federal agencies will follow.
The Federal agency that deserves the biggest star for doing what is right is the postal service. The postal service, with its vehicles, and some of them only get 12 miles a gallon, we ought to convert those, has done more than any other Federal agency to use its power to try to use vehicles that run on new fuels, batteries, new technology, hybrids, which Congressman Schiff and Congressman Van Hollen have referenced in their remarks.
The Federal Government itself, as major a share of the U.S. economy as it is, could do wonders. Would it not be great if the President had hybrids as part of the White House lineup? Wouldn't it be great if the Secretary of Defense could see his way to thinking about this and integrating the energy mandate into what the Department of Defense does?
Wouldn't it be great if the Secretary of Agriculture actually helped the farmers of this country become owners in the new energy industries that are being created across the fields of Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio, Indiana and so many other places, rather than making these farmers struggle and be threatened with bankruptcy because they can't, they don't have all the connections on Wall Street, and they can't get up to the $40 million level for investment?
So I thank the gentleman for giving me a chance to say a few words here this evening. I share your absolute commitment to energy independence by 2020 or even sooner than that.
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Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentlewoman for all her leadership on this issue, and you alluded to the free market and the operation of market forces. That is not always as free as it might appear, particularly in the price at the pump. But there have been several obstacles to our energy independence, what has been a lack of vision in terms of where we need to go as a country in the administration and in the Defense Department, as you point out, but there have also obviously been within the oil industry efforts to stop this from happening.
I have to imagine the best and quickest way to bring oil prices down is to make other sources of energy competitive. If we can incentivize the development of these biofuels and make them more readily available, the oil companies are going to drop their prices in a hurry in order to undercut this new industry, if nothing more.
But what really kind of gnaws at me is when we look around the world at what China is doing with solar power and solar cities now, at what South American countries are doing at making themselves energy independent with biofuels, and what Japan is doing in terms of development of hybrid technology and how they are passing us by, that really grieves me because it hurts our national security interests. It hurts our economy.
Let me do a reality check with Mr. Van Hollen's district which is 3,000 miles from mine. If I ask my constituents, would you be willing to make a sacrifice so that you could tell the oil producing Nations of the world, many of which are not our friends, we do not want your oil, we do not need your oil, you can take your oil and whatever, my constituents would leap at that. How would your constituents feel?
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I think despite the fact there are 3,000 miles between the area you represent and the area I represent, that is certainly one of the things that brings our constituents together. I think what they are all looking for, regardless of where they live in this great country of ours, is some real leadership on this very important issue.
This House just a few weeks ago had another opportunity to send a statement on the fact that we wanted a forward-looking energy plan with a new direction or whether we just wanted to go the same old, same old.
Our colleague, Congressman Markey of Massachusetts, offered an amendment. It said let us put an end to another subsidy to provide for deepwater drilling for oil and gas. In other words, and I just want to make this clear, in other words, taking funds from our constituents and providing it to the oil and gas companies effectively in the form of a subsidy so that they can drill for oil and gas.
Now, even this administration said they were against this particular subsidy, but not the leadership in this House, not the Republican leadership in this House. It went right out of this House because, unfortunately, the Republican leadership is still in the old frame of mind that we can just keep doing what we used to be doing rather than moving in a very new direction.
I would like to pick up briefly on our point that our colleague here, Ms. Kaptur, made with respect to the issue of the Federal Government leading by example.
It is hard for all of us to ask people around this country to do things in the area of energy efficiency when the Federal Government itself has been such a deadbeat on this. The Federal Government, after all, is the largest single consumer of energy in the United States and yet, again, after the President gave his State of the Union address, he submitted the fiscal year 2007 budget, and that was the lowest request ever for Federal Government energy efficiency efforts. In fact, that was lower, despite the fact in 2004 the Federal Government consumed more energy than at any other time in the last 10 years.
So, again, I get back to the point, you got to say what you mean and you got to follow through.
Here was another example. This is the day of the State of the Union address, the budget came down, and yet the budget came down, the President, head of the executive branch, submitted a budget that reduced funds for energy efficiency programs in the Federal Government. That is not leading by example.
Part of our new directions program is we say we will ensure that the Federal Government will be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Mr. SCHIFF. I wanted to make one comment and I have a question for Ms. Kaptur.
When we talk about sacrifice during the War on Terror, really the only people in America who have been asked to sacrifice are the men and women in uniform and their families, and they are sacrificing big time; multiple deployments to Iraq, to Afghanistan, families left behind, wondering if their loved one is going to come back at all, come back in one piece, how to make ends meet while they are gone.
I met when I was in Iraq a young man serving there who was on his way back home. His wife was also in the service. She was on her way to Iraq. They were going to be like two ships passing in the night. The level of sacrifice of the men and women in uniform is nothing short of outstanding.
Outside of that group, though, Americans have not been asked to sacrifice for the greater good, but we are sacrificing in an unexpected way, and that is when we go to the pump. We are paying a heavy price. The problem is that the price we are paying is not going for any productive gain.
Yes, we are paying a lot more at the pump. But where is that money going? It is going in two places. It is going into the record profits that Mr. Van Hollen mentioned, which it is not just record profits for the oil industry. The oil companies have had the largest profits of any corporation in American corporate history, and these are the same companies that are enjoying the tax subsidies that we keep passing. And yes, the market is allowing them to take these profits. It is not compelling them to. It is not compelling them to charge that price at the pump, but it is giving them the opportunity to, and they are taking it. So part of the money is going there.
Where else is the money going? Well, a lot of the money is going to the Middle East. A lot of it is going to countries that, either openly or covertly, are funding people who are trying to kill us. That is not a worthwhile sacrifice for Americans to make. And the terrible tragedy of this is. And I think probably the biggest missed opportunity of this administration is if we had started 5 years ago, or even after 9/11, and we said we are going to make the sacrifice now to wean ourselves off of oil, we might have had to pay a little bit more in terms of our conservation measures, but that money would be an investment in our security. Now we are paying 10 times as much, and it is going to some of the people trying to kill us.
What I wanted to ask Ms. Kaptur, I know other countries in South America, for example, have gone a long way in terms of using biofuel, have made themselves energy independent, have done what we have not been able to do. If we did have the right package of incentives, if the government was a leader and worked with the agriculture industry, how much of our domestic consumption of energy could be supplied by biofuels?
Ms. KAPTUR. I think the honest answer to that is initially about 15 percent. If one looks at the current type of production where we have field crops, if we compare ourselves to Brazil where they have many fewer cars than we do but they are really heavily biofueled right now, they have got well over half of their vehicles that are running on alcohol-based fuels. Under current technologies and current types of plants that we use, and current refining capacity, I think we could get up to about 15 percent.
I do believe that with biotechnology and the introduction of more oil-rich seed crops we could push that number up, and that is part of the horizon of cracking the carbohydrate molecule, as we in the 20th century cracked the carbon molecule to produce gasoline and refine it off of petroleum.
We are really neophytes in terms of really using oil seeds in order to produce the maximum number of Btus per acre and per ton. So I think if one looks at the period of a decade, we could do an enormous amount surely in the areas where we have field crops already in production.
I would say that for the future, the Midwest would have a larger share of its vehicles that run on alcohol-based fuels than perhaps California. California might have more of a mix of hybrid battery technology, maybe hydrogen-infused systems. I do not think that there is just one answer here.
But right now, because the oil companies really lock out the biofuels at the pump, we cannot move the vehicles that are already being made and sell them. Most Americans who are driving these flex-fuel vehicles do not even know it. So I would say that biofuels is at least a fifth of the answer, and then we have to look to fuel cells. We have to look to hydrogen-infused systems.
I think that in the future, we are working on one project in the Midwest, we are taking the rays of the sun and converting them to hydrogen. Then we will have the plug-in vehicles, the experimental plug-in vehicles.
So there is a series of technologies being used and developed. But imagine if the Federal Government were a partner rather than just sort of a bystander in this effort. We could ratchet up the usage so much more quickly.
Mr. SCHIFF. I thank you very much for your leadership on this, and it seems to me there is maybe no other issue that is as cost-cutting, as energy independent and has such a positive synergy, since that to the degree we could wean ourselves off of foreign oil, that helps us with our national security and our foreign policy.
To the degree we can develop these new technologies, that helps us economically. There has been tremendous demand in China, India, and elsewhere that are energy-starved countries with strong GDPs. So it is an economic winner.
In terms of our environment, not sending all of those ozone-depleting gases and the greenhouse effect and the global warming, it is an environmental imperative.
In terms of rescuing the family farm and helping our agriculture industry, it could be a vital part of the answer.
Almost every challenge we face as a Nation intersects at the intersection of energy independence. Now, some people point at other solutions, and I want to ask the gentleman about this.
Probably the most prominent debate we have on energy kind of tells you where we are here is on drilling in Alaska. From my point of view, that does not make much sense, both in terms of how long it would take to extract the oil, the environmental costs, but I wanted to ask your thoughts on that.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Well, the gentleman is right, and I think the statistics on this are clear, that even if you took all the oil you could possibly drill out of Alaska, with all the costs and the environmental damage, it would deal with only a very short period of 1 year, less than 1 year, a couple weeks to months in terms of our total energy use.
So if you are trying to break an addiction, you do not keep feeding that addiction. What you need to do is have a different approach in general.
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As Ms. Kaptur has said, it is not just one different thing, it is many different technologies and different ideas that you need to work on. But what you don't do if you want to kick a habit is keep encouraging that habit to remain. And yet that is what we have been using so much of our natural resources to do. We should not be using taxpayer money to do the oil and gas subsidies. Rather, we should be using our efforts to encourage these other ideas that are in our national interest.
The President has said we have a problem. That is not the issue, apparently. But the issue is what are we doing about it. That is why I think this discussion is important.
I really do believe it is a terrible thing when so many of the others around the world are ahead of us in so many areas where we should be leading the way. We have a great entrepreneurial spirit. We have the resources and talents to do this. There is no reason why other countries should be beating us in the area of renewable energy development and energy efficiency technologies. And yet they are. I think that is because of a lack of national leadership. Other countries have made this a priority. In this country we have made it a priority for sound bites, but we have not made it a priority for policy.
Ms. KAPTUR. Coming from the industrial Midwest, I think I have more automotive plants in my district than the entire State of California has, so I come from an area where the automotive industry was born and hopefully is being reborn. But it is amazing to me the way in which the U.S. automotive industry chose to meet foreign competition. It was not to try to pry open Japan's market which remains closed to the goods of all countries. Even when the old Yugoslavia made Yugos, you couldn't get them into Japan. So less than 3 percent of the cars on their street are from anywhere else in the world, the second largest auto producer in the world.
They did not really choose a strategy of opening up closed markets or of converting here at home the largest automotive market in the world through the intervention of more fuel-efficient vehicles. They were forced to do that by CAFE standards and so forth here. But they fought that every step of the way and forced on the American people choices that were very, very oil-consumptive choices. So SUVs came on the market, and yet you could look over to Europe and see a Mercedes diesel run on biodiesel operating over in Europe.
Yet here we had something like the Hummer comes out, and it gets 9 miles to a gallon at a time when we know that we have to have more fuel-efficient vehicles.
I had an interesting experience a couple of years ago. I went up to the Detroit auto show, and I said I would like you to show me the floor with the new flex fuel or the biofuel vehicles, and the salesman just looked at me.
We really don't have the industry well focused yet in terms of, look, Americans want to change the country. These are the vehicles that are available to you. This is how we are going to make it easy for you to convert. They are still not there yet. They have globally forced on the American market the big gas guzzlers. But if you go anywhere else in the world, whether it is Brazil or Germany, anywhere you go, you see the more fuel-efficient vehicles being employed.
Think about your church parking lot or think about the supermarket parking lot that you shop in, and just go and look and see what is in the lot and what people are buying and what the miles per gallon is, and then do the same thing in Italy and do the same thing in Japan and do the same thing in Brazil and say to yoursel, What is wrong with this picture? Why aren't Americans being given the very same choices as consumers in other countries? Why have they been able to be more fuel efficient than we are?
And if I can say just one thing on solar energy, since I represent the solar energy research center of the Nation, we make solar panels at a third of the cost of the Japanese, and they are just as efficient. In fact, they are more efficient, but they are bigger. Because they are bigger, they are one-third the cost. All of the companies in my district that are making these solar panels, they are being exported to Europe because Europe has the special incentives for renewable applications. And the majority of the technology on solar roofing and solar panels is being shipped to other countries because we don't have those same incentives here.
So our government, those in the leadership here, can't see their way forward to help America convert when she wants to. The American people are with us on that. They know we have to change. Why don't we make it easy?
Mr. SCHIFF. That is one of the things that drives me crazy. One of my staff just got a Toyota Prius. She had to wait 6 months to get that Prius. There is a 6-month waiting time to get a hybrid made in Japan.
We don't have a nonSUV hybrid yet that I am aware of, an American car out on the road that competes with the Prius or with the Honda Civic hybrid. Why is it that some of the foreign automakers seem to know the American market better than we know ourselves?
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. If the gentleman would yield, I understand your confusion, and I share that. I think it has been so shortsighted that we as a Nation didn't take the steps that we needed to take many years ago in this regard in terms of updating in a significant way the CAFE standard, the corporate average fuel economy standards in this country.
When gas prices started going up over the last many months, all of a sudden you saw people running around with their heads cut off, trying to think of quick-fix solutions.
You had the majority leader of the Senate, Senator Frist, he floated this idea of a $100 rebate to every American, as if that was somehow going to solve the problem. Quick fixes are not going to solve the problem. We need serious solutions.
One of the things that should have been done years and years ago was updating the CAFE standardS. It is interesting to hear Members of Congress who have been here for a long time, I listened to Senator Lott and others on the other side talking about this. They said, Gee, you know, if we had known what we were going to see today in terms of gas prices, we would have supported an increase in the CAFE standards back then. Well, you know, we don't all have crystal balls, but we have to exercise our best judgment.
And the fact of the matter is that is a long overdue measure. And it is not a quick fix because it takes time for the fleet of cars to turn over. You can't just change the corporate average fuel economy standards today and, presto, have a result. It requires some forward thinking.
The fact that we didn't do it before was a big mistake, and I think people should hold people accountable for their mistakes. On the other hand, it is better late than never. We need to get moving on that, and we need to get moving on the whole menu of other options that we have been discussing today. There is no silver bullet to this. You need an array of options. You need a number of efforts going on at the same time.
But in order to get all of those things going, you need one essential ingredient, and that is some leadership and a commitment to this issue and a commitment to have a new direction and not just rely on the failed policies of the past that continue to get us into the mess we are in.
Mr. SCHIFF. The gentleman is exactly right. We have this choice. We have had this choice for several years. We can have more of the same, more of the same $3.50-a-gallon gas, maybe $4-a-gallon gas at the pump, more warming of the global environment, more production of greenhouse gases, more pain economically in terms of higher energy costs for businesses.
Or we can have a new direction. I think we have talked about several of the ingredients of that new direction tonight. The investment of biofuels: That helps our farms and it helps our economy, it helps our energy independence, and it helps our energy independence and our national security.
Investment in other alternative energy sources like solar power where the profit points are almost there, almost there for a great expansion of solar power. They just need a little incentivization before they can be broadly employed.
The development of windpower, geothermal, and the whole host of renewable energy sources. This is the new direction we need to take this country in. Otherwise, every time we have a flare-up in the Middle East, as right now we are having this tragic situation, Hezbollah has attacked Israel, kidnapped soldiers and prompted this conflagration of the region, gas prices are going through the roof.
Iran thumbs its nose at the international community and says we are going forward with our nuclear program, gas prices go through the roof.
Hurricanes in the gulf take out refining capacity. We can't predict, as you say. We don't have a crystal ball. We don't know next year if it is going to be a hurricane, or next year it is going to be the Middle East, or the Venezuelan head of state who is anathema of the United States, but we do know it will be something. And if we don't take action to change the direction of our country to a new direction, we are going to be continuing to be funding a lot of the people that are bent on our destruction.
Ms. KAPTUR. I just wanted to add that if one looks at the automotive industry, and I have all major companies in my district and in my State, and talking about their focus along with our focus, we have to continue to open closed markets of the world. That's where markets expand. You have to put some energy there. You can't just kind of put it on the back shelf.
Many years ago President George Bush the first went to Tokyo. I still remember he got very sick at a dinner, and he was there for auto parts talks, market opening talks. And ever since that day, there has never been an aggressive effort by any administration to open up the second-
largest market in the world. So we have failed on the trade front significantly.
And the major automotive firms have chosen a low-wage strategy rather than an innovation strategy. So they have been moving plants around the globe seeking cheap labor, whether it is China, Mexico, wherever it is, rather than focusing on the innovation that is inherent in the American people that was responsible for the dawn of the automotive age in this country in the first place.
Those kind of minds are still out there, but we are kind of wed to old technology and the fact that if you sell a very large vehicle in this country, you make a little more profit than if you sell a smaller vehicle. The larger vehicles use more gas and petroleum-based products. We were stuck in that mold for a very, very long time.
And if you go out and ask the average consumer what they are looking for, and the lines are showing it, they are looking for the new technology, and it just was not brought on.
So the strategy that was chosen in the 1980s and 1990s has not led our Nation toward energy independence in vehicles. Now we see ads on television by the big companies saying we are trying to catch up. Well, we really need to catch up very, very quickly or they are going to become another segment of our wealth that are purchased by foreign interests and no longer belongs to us. We are seeing a lot of that as we pawn off pieces of America to try to cover our long-term debts and what we owe to the future, which I am very upset about, but alone can't solve.
Nonetheless, I think our automotive companies really need to focus on innovation, listen to what the consumer is saying, give them what they want, and open up the closed markets of the world. That would go a long way to helping this industry revive. And then we have the legacy costs of the companies that have been in existence for a very long period of time that this Congress could do something about in order to make whole the pension and health benefits that workers were promised. That is a whole other Special Order.
I thank Congressman Schiff and Congressman Van Hollen for allowing us to speak about such an important subject and one that is at the top of the list in terms of domestic security, and that is energy independence.
Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership on this issue and on so many other issues here in the Congress.
I want to wrap up by bringing this back to where we started, and that is the integral nexus between energy independence and national security. You can imagine what a positive to our national security policy it would be if in our dealings in the Middle East, our dealings with Russia and China and our dealings with South America, if energy was not an issue in the sense we were not dependent on other parts of the world, and particularly the Gulf States. What a transformative effect that could have in a positive way on our national security policy. Energy independence is really key.
Our new direction, as outlined by real security, is energy independence by 2020. This is an achievable goal. It would require the kind of commitment that President Kennedy talked about when he talked about the Apollo project, but it can be done.
I have great confidence in the American people and the American entrepreneur. We can do this. It would eliminate our reliance on Middle Eastern oil. We would increase production of alternative fuels in America. We would promote hybrid and flex-fuel vehicle technology in manufacturing, and we would enhance energy efficiency and conservation incentives. This is the direction Democrats feel we need to bring this country in order to make sure that our security is in fact very real.
I want to yield to my colleague from Maryland for his closing remarks and once again thank you for not only this evening, but for all of your work on the national security plan.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank my colleague, Mr. Schiff from California, again, for his leadership. And I think we have covered a lot of territory in this hour. I think we will have a continuing conversation here in the Congress, and I am sure we will have a continuing conversation throughout the country about this very important issue.
And, again, it goes to the question about whether we take our words seriously in terms of moving the policy of this country forward. And you can't have a situation where you have the President say this is a national priority, on the one hand, and then have a budget that comes down the next day that sends a very, very different message because, if you do that, number one, you lose credibility with the American people; and, number two, you obviously can't achieve your objective if you don't harness some of our national resources to this very important, very important effort.
So I want to thank my colleague for his leadership on this issue. And I hope that in the days ahead, this Congress will move from a position of rhetoric on these issues to actually doing something meaningful and taking this country in a new direction when it comes to energy policy, which, as we have discussed tonight, is such an important component of our national security policy as well. So I thank the gentleman for his leadership on this issue.
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