Statement of Congressman John D. Dingell, Chairman
Committee on Energy and Commerce

Dingell Floor Statement on Energy Independence Security Act

December 6, 2007

Washington, DC - Rep. John D. Dingell (D-MI), Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, delivered the following remarks today on the House floor in support of the Energy Independence and Security Act, which passed by a vote of 235-181.

I rise in support of the Energy Independence and Security Act.

It will come as no surprise to anyone in this body that I have some reservations – to put it mildly – about how this legislation was assembled. Many have been complicit in the curious process that has yielded an imperfect product.

Further, I will probably agree with some of the substantive criticism that we will hear from the other side of the aisle. This is not a bill I or the members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce would have written if we had been permitted to follow regular order. But it is probably the best product achievable from a process in which the Senate could not go to conference and in which the White House chose not to engage.

I will be voting for this legislation because it contains several landmark achievements.

It will raise fuel economy standards by 40 percent, to 35 miles per gallon – and do it in a way that preserves American jobs and gives manufacturers flexibility in achieving our goals. It closes what has been misleadingly called the “SUV loophole.” It expands incentives for the production of cars and trucks that can run on renewable biofuels. And it will help American factories retool to build the cars and trucks of tomorrow. I especially want to thank my colleagues, Mr. Hill from Indiana and Mr. Terry from Nebraska, for their contributions to this part of the bill.

This legislation includes efficiency standards for buildings and appliances that will remove more than 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, an amount equal to five times the annual emissions of all of the cars on the road in America today.

For those who are concerned about the portions of this bill dealing with renewable fuels and renewable electricity generation, I would say that this is far from the final word on those subjects.

As soon as this bill has passed, the members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce will return to their offices and begin working on comprehensive climate change legislation that will address those subjects in a much broader and appropriate context.

This bill is not the ultimate answer to our dependence on imported oil, to high energy prices, or to climate change. But it is a major and important step toward those goals, and for that reason, I will be voting for it.