The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“ENERGY SECURITY TAX ACT OF 1999” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the Senate section on pages S13526-S13529 on Oct. 29, 1999.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
ENERGY SECURITY TAX ACT OF 1999
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, for the last 2 years I have been working closely with a number of my colleagues to develop a package of tax incentives to foster domestic energy alternatives and thus help reduce our growing dependence on imported oil. Along with those colleagues, I am pleased today to introduce the Energy Security Tax Act of 1999, and I am hopeful that Congress will enact this legislation in the near future.
Despite periodic efforts by Congress to address this problem, since the oil price shocks of the 1970s, we have seen our dependence on foreign oil continue to grow. Today, our Nation's energy supply is more vulnerable than ever to events taking place in countries far from our shores. Solving this problem will require the collective efforts of all our Nation's energy producers.
The legislation we have developed is correspondingly ambitious in its scope. It encompasses a broad range of technologies, representing the diverse regions and resources of the country. Farmers will benefit from the provisions modifying the existing tax incentive for small ethanol producers, so that farmer-owned cooperatives can utilize it, and by the establishment of tax credits for efficient irrigation equipment, conservation tillage expenses, and anaerobic digesters that convert manure and crop waste into useful gas. The legislation will encourage the development of biomass-based electric power industries, which will provide a market for wide range of biomass, including switchgrass, crops and crop residues, and wood waste.
We are proposing to extend the wind energy tax credit, so that we can more fully develop the wind power potential of States from California to the Dakotas to New England. Coal miners from West Virginia to Montana will benefit as a result of the tax incentives for repowering or replacing older coal-fired power plants with more efficient technology. Steelmakers will become more competitive through the use of tax incentives for more energy-efficient processes and for the production of energy from cogeneration. Hawaiian ethanol producers will be encouraged to utilize bagasse--a sugar cane residue--thereby converting a potential waste into a useful fuel.
Oil and gas producers in States like New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma will benefit from incentives for greater domestic production. Business owners will be able to use the new incentives to make investments in energy-efficient property, thereby reducing energy costs and improving competitiveness. Homeowners throughout the country will benefit from new incentives designed to encourage the installation of renewable and more efficient energy technologies, and by the construction of energy-
efficient homes. Americans from all parts of the nation will be encouraged to use environmentally friendly electric and hybrid vehicles.
There is an old saying: The time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining. While we are fortunate now to have adequate supplies of oil, our dependence on foreign nations continues to grow. It is incumbent on U.S. policymakers today to recognize the risks associated with this trend and to prepare the nation for a more secure future. As part of that effort, we should take the first opportunity that presents itself to enact the tax policies necessary to encourage the development of a more diverse and robust domestic energy portfolio, one that will reduce our vulnerability to future oil price shocks and supply shortages. This effort not only will result in greater energy security, it will reduce our balance-of-trade deficit, create domestic jobs, improve air quality, and help limit the emission of greenhouse gases.
I hope that all of my colleagues will consider cosponsoring this important legislation and will support its timely enactment.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I join with the distinguished Democratic leader and other colleagues in cosponsoring the Energy Security Tax Act of 1999.
I thank Senator Daschle for his leadership in crafting this targeted tax proposal that offers incentives for the more efficient use of a broad range of energy sources vital to the American economy. This targeted proposal has a multiplicity of economic and environmental benefits.
I have long been an advocate of programs that encourage the more efficient use of energy. This proposal does exactly that. The United States is a highly energy-intensive nation, and it depends heavily on energy for manufacturing, communications, transportation, and many other purposes. While the United States is currently enjoying the benefits of an expanding economy, that economy demands even more energy. The United States has already invested heavily in the research and development of many innovative clean and efficient technologies that will allow our Nation to help meet these demands, and we must continue exploring these opportunities.
This bill provides key incentives to demonstrate and to deploy these technologies, including clean coal technologies, a program that I have long supported. Now that we are at the threshold of a new millennium that begins the year after next--not next year; next year completes the current second millennium. Next year completes the 20th century. It is not the beginning of the 21st. So much for that.
Now that we are at the threshold, just a little over a year away, of a new millennium, Congress can and Congress should help to prepare a pathway for the new era of energy and resource use. New technologies should be part of that path. For example, with the use of clean coal technologies, it remains economically feasible to produce electricity in coal-fired powerplants while also improving environmental quality.
By demonstrating and deploying these technologies, coal continues to be a viable ``cleaner and greener'' fuel for power generation. Clean coal technologies are American-made technologies that provide a variety of positive benefits for the U.S. as well as other developing nations with large coal reserves.
Coal currently provides the energy to generate more than fifty percent of the electricity consumed in the U.S. The Energy Information Administration, an arm of the Department of Energy (DOE), projects that coal will continue to provide our nation with the energy needed to generate more than one-half of its electricity needs in 2020. Equally as important, the International Energy Agency has projected that coal will provide forty-six percent of the world's electricity in 2020. Significant growth in coal use to generate electricity is expected to take place in developing countries like China and India. The challenge associated with the continued use of coal, the nation's most cost competitive and abundant energy resource, is to preserve our nation's energy security while also meeting important environmental goals. There has to be a balance. Also, the opportunity exists to use better, more advanced technologies in those developing countries that will experience increases in the use of coal.
The current Clean Coal Technology Program has demonstrated a number of first-of-a-kind technologies that increase efficiency and reduce greenhouse gases and other emissions from coal combustion. As a result, a number of emerging clean coal technologies are ready to be deployed commercially. However, full commercial penetration first requires constructing and operating several early commercial-scale applications. In order to install these early commercial applications, all stakeholders including the designer, manufacturer, financier, and owner will have to face both the technological and economic risk associated with the ``not yet fully commercial'' technology.
Development of these early commercial clean coal technology applications will require a new program of limited tax and financial incentives to overcome the associated technological and economic risks that will complement continued research and development (R&D) funding. The required R&D funding has come under the DOE's Fossil Energy Program. The associated tax and financial incentives program proposed here would be limited in scope and timing and the proposed technologies would be required to meet ever-increasing performance levels to qualify for the tax incentives. The U.S. tax code would be amended to provide for: (1) a ten percent investment tax credit; and (2) a production tax credit. In addition, annual appropriations would be provided for a risk pool to offset costs, if any, for modifications resulting from the technology's need to reassess its design performance during start-up and initial operation.
Mr. President, another section of this bill provides tax incentives to encourage newer, more innovative steelmaking technologies. Although threatened by a flood of cheap, even illegal, foreign steel imports, the U.S. steel industry still employs some 160,000 workers and forms an important element in overall U.S. industrial strength. It is in the U.S. national and security interests, I believe, to ensure that U.S. steelmakers have the ability and encouragement to remain energy efficient, environmentally sound, and economically healthy.
By continuing to make investments in the steel industry through tax incentives, we will be helping to preserve high-paying manufacturing jobs in the United States. Of course the obvious other benefit is its effect on our environment and the preservation of our natural resources. The steelmaking provisions would provide incentives for investment in cutting-edge steelmaking technologies and allow the steel industry to work with other sectors in the production of more efficient energy through co-generation.
In conclusion, I strongly support this targeted tax incentive package. This legislation embraces the belief that the U.S. is a leader in developing energy efficient technologies as well as stressing the importance of fuel diversity. I support the adoption of these tax incentives, which demonstrate that economic growth and environmental protection can go hand-in-hand.
Again, I thank the distinguished Democratic leader.
Mr. REID. May I ask the Senator a question?
Mr. BYRD. Yes.
Mr. REID. Is the Senator aware that about 12 or 15 miles outside Reno, NV, the newest generation facility in Nevada is clean coal technology?
Mr. BYRD. Well, I am certainly aware of it now. I am heartened by this information.
Mr. REID. The only reason I mention that to the Senator from West Virginia is that these things actually happen. Clean coal technology actually exists, and it exists in a place such as Nevada.
Mr. BYRD. Yes. I thank the distinguished Senator. I am proud to say I have been fighting this fight for clean coal technology now for years. I was in the position to do it during the time I was the Senate Democratic leader. It may have been back when I was the whip. I was able to put money in appropriations bills for clean coal technology. I also thank the distinguished Democratic leader for his kindness and courtesy in allowing me to introduce this bill. I thank him for his drafting of the legislation, and I thank him for his leadership. I thank him for allowing me to be a cosponsor.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me begin by complimenting the distinguished Senator from West Virginia for his eloquence and his statement and for his willingness to take the leadership and to provide his name on this legislation. I can think of no one I would rather have in support of legislation of this kind than the senior Senator from West Virginia.
As has been noted, he is ``the'' leader, not just ``a'' leader, on coal and on clean coal technology. No one has committed more time, effort, and leadership to the issue than he has. So it was with that appreciation that I asked the distinguished Senator from West Virginia about his willingness to honor me as he did this afternoon.
It troubles me, as I know it does him, that this country continues to depend on foreign sources for energy to a far greater degree than it is in our Nation's best interest. If we are ever going to deal with that real dilemma, it seems to me we have to continue to find ways in which to utilize more effectively our own resources. That has been the argument made so passionately and so ably by the Senator from West Virginia now for so long.
This legislation would allow us to move closer to the goal that one day we can be more energy self-sufficient, and that we can do so with the recognition of the importance of the environment. It combines two national goals: a clean environment and energy independent. I am hopeful we can see careful consideration of this legislation, and other ideas that we offer in good faith with the expectation that the Senate recognize the importance of these goals and this contribution to those goals.
Again, let me thank the distinguished Senator for his kindness, for his leadership, and for the commitment he has made with this legislation.
I yield the floor.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the distinguished minority leader yield?
Mr. DASCHLE. I am happy to yield.
Mr. BYRD. I thank the Senator.
Clean coal technology also provides a very important key to the problem of global warming. I hope that we can interest other countries, such as China. China is in the process of constructing many new powerplants. They are new in the sense that they are newly constructed. But they are old in the sense that they use the old technology, if I may use that word. They depend on the burning of coal in ways that contribute to the deterioration of the environment.
I hope these countries such as China and Brazil and India will join with the developed countries of the world in the attempt to do something about global warming.
I have lived a long time--82 years, Saturday 3 weeks from tomorrow. And I have seen changes in climate. I don't know much about the science and global warming, but I know that I have seen changes in the climate. When I was a young man, when I was a man in my middle ages, I never saw storms of the frequency and the intensity, floods and droughts that we are seeing today, and seemingly increasingly. There is something going on out there.
As I say, I am not a scientist. But there is something going on, and I am concerned about it. But whatever it is, whatever the part may be that it is manmade, can be limited considerably if the developing countries would utilize the technologies that our country through its research and demonstration projects, through the millions--yea, billions--of dollars that this country has spent on research, if those countries would utilize these technologies in the building of their powerplants, they would diminish the emissions of carbon dioxide and the other gases that I think are having some considerable impact upon climate worldwide.
I congratulate the leader for this legislation. I hope that we can continue to do research on clean coal technology. I hope, as I say, when countries meet in various places, such as Bonn and Buenos Aires, to discuss global warming, that they will somehow be able to persuade the developing countries in the world to use our technology, because while we are plugging the holes in the front of the boat that we have helped to create through two world wars--by defeating Hitler, and the German Kaiser, and others in the interest of the freedoms that these developing countries enjoy to some extent--I hope that the developing countries would not be in the back of the boat drilling more holes, and thus increasing emissions which affect all of us. It is not a boat only part of which will sink. The entire boat will sink.
We need the cooperation of the developing countries. We can help them through clean coal technology and other technologies.
I thank the distinguished leader.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from West Virginia for his very important additional comments.
We talk a lot about globalization, a globalized economy. We have a globalized diplomatic infrastructure today due to the fact the cold war ended. We have had a globalized environment from the very first day of creation. A globalized environment means that what happens in China, what happens in Asia, what happens in Europe, or Africa, or Latin America, has an effect on what happens here, and vice versa.
The Senator from West Virginia makes a very important point. If we are, indeed, globalized, then it seems to me that we ought to share our technology with those countries that may be contributing both favorably and unfavorably to that globalized environment. We ought to provide leadership. They ought to recognize the importance of involvement. He has made that point for some time. I have heard some of his excellent speeches to that effect on the Senate floor.
Let us hope we can continue to make progress, and let us hope that maybe this legislation will help us do so even more successfully.
Again, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bunning). The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Thank you, Mr. President.
Let me join a chorus thanking Senator Byrd and Senator Daschle for their leadership. Illinois has a history of being a great coal-
producing State. Environmental standards have changed, and I hope we can find ways to develop technology so that this almost infinite energy resource can be tapped that now sits in the ground. Many unemployed coal miners drive over it every day asking policy leaders in Washington what they are doing. The legislation Senator Byrd is proposing is a step in the direction of finding new technology to use this domestic energy resource to create jobs in America, to be responsible to the environment, and to lessen our dependence on foreign fuel.
As always, I salute Senator Byrd for his leadership on this.
Mr. DASCHLE. I yield the floor.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished majority leader.
Mr. LOTT. Will the Senator from Arkansas allow me to proceed briefly with a unanimous consent request?
Mrs. LINCOLN. Certainly.
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