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“AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H2480-H2481 on May 10, 2006.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I request unanimous consent that I be allowed to claim the time of the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones).
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) is recognized for 5 minutes.
There was no objection.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise on the House floor tonight to talk about something that I think is one of the big solutions that we need to pursue here in the United States. And I would like to, first of all, talk about this first chart; and hopefully, Members can see it back in their offices. But this is a chart of the imports of petroleum as we have seen it from 1984 until 2005.
Back in 1984, we were importing less than 5.5 million barrels of oil a day; today, that number is over 13.5. In fact, I should say in 2005 it was about 13.5 million barrels a day. This is a scary chart because the direction is heading in the wrong direction.
Let's put some numbers on this. I am told that by this summer with
$70-a-barrel oil, we will be spending about a billion dollars a day to buy oil from countries, in many cases who are not particularly friendly to the United States. This is a serious problem. It is a challenge to our economic security and it is a challenge to our national security.
Now, renewable fuels are only part of the solution. I voted to increase the CAFE standards. I think conservation is an important part of solving our energy problems here in the United States. I believe in developing other kinds of energy. I voted consistently to develop the oil and the natural gas which we know is up in Alaska. I voted to expand the many uses of other energies.
But, Mr. Speaker, one of the things that we have not talked enough about, in my opinion, is our ability to grow more of our own energy. And so tonight I want to talk about renewable energy in general and ethanol in particular because I think there is huge misunderstanding, and it is not just among Members of Congress and the general public, it is among many of the policy-makers even in the Department of Energy.
Mr. Speaker, there is still a misunderstanding about how much it costs to produce ethanol. In fact, we had a hearing of the Science Committee about 6 months ago. We had three top energy experts who testified before the committee. I asked all of them, I said, How much does it cost to produce a gallon of ethanol? Well, they started to look at their watches and their shoes and it was clear they did not want to answer the question.
Well, I said, make a guess. And the low guess, and these are energy experts, the low guess among those three experts was $2 a gallon. The high estimate was $3 a gallon. And I said, Would it surprise you to know that we are actually producing ethanol in Minnesota for less than
$1.20 a gallon? In fact, some of the plants at that time with lower natural gas prices were actually producing ethanol for about $1 a gallon.
Today, with corn at about $2 is a bushel and with oil at about $70 a barrel, the cost right now to produce a gallon of ethanol at an efficient plant in the upper Midwest is about $1.20 a gallon. Gasoline, on the other hand, right now costs about $2.10 a gallon for unleaded gas.
Now, I have to be clear, though, and we want to be fair in this discussion. You do not get as many Btus, British Thermal Units, out of a gallon of ethanol as you do a gallon of unleaded gasoline. In fact, it is about 20 to 25 percent less. So you get less energy out of a gallon, partly because ethanol is 35 percent oxygen. That is good, though, because it means it burns much cleaner than gasoline.
Ethanol is better for our environment. It is better for our economy because that billion dollars a day that we may be spending this summer we are sending to countries that in some respects do not like us, and in worst cases they may be using part of that oil revenue to actually fund the terrorists.
The beauty of producing energy here in the United States, clean-
burning ethanol in the United States, is that all of that money stays here in America where it recycles through our own economy. A new plant, for example, recently opened just west of Mankato, Minnesota, in the little town of Lake Crystal, Minnesota, and they told us they will be employing, on average, 42 workers in that plant, and the average starting wage will be somewhere over $16 an hour plus benefits. These are good jobs that help our own economy right here in the United States.
But the point really needs to be made, not only is it better for our economy, it is better for our environment, but it is actually cheaper. So some people say, well, if it is better for the economy, if it is better for the environment and it is cheaper, why is more of it not available?
Well, the answer is simply this. The oil companies do not make any money on ethanol. I am not here to say that the oil companies are evil, but right now they have a 98 percent market share, maybe a little less than 98 percent market share. They are not interested in giving away market share to ethanol, which is why I have introduced a bill called 10 By 10. And what it says, and I believe that success leaves clues, and what it says is that by 2010, 10 percent of our gasoline supply should be renewable energy. It is an idea whose time has come.
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