Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, the Senator from North Dakota and I over the years have coalesced around a variety of issues we have been successful on on some occasions in causing to become public policy. Earlier this year--and Senator Dorgan has already mentioned it--we coalesced around three concepts we thought were critically necessary in a current and future energy portfolio and, therefore, the public policy that drives it. We recognized that efficiency would be and must be a part of the equation, that clean energy, the biofuels, must be a part of the equation for the future to make us less dependent. But also something that must be a part of the equation is production of current known and future sources of hydrocarbons. In other words--I will quote the Senator from North Dakota--you can't conserve or drill your way out of the current $3-plus gas we have and the greater dependency we have on foreign nations to supply us, but a combination of both into the future brings us to where this great country ought to be from the standpoint of a national energy policy.
The Reid bill, the Bingaman bill that has been introduced on the floor, S. 1419, is about the future. You can stand on a hilltop and see it out there 25 or 30 years into the future. But the man or woman of the American economy today who is at the gas pump and filling his or her car or truck wants to know about tomorrow and next week and next year. Are gas prices going to continue to go up? What is the problem here? Why isn't this great Nation more self-sufficient? And for those who study energy a good deal and see a 60-percent reliance on foreign production, shouldn't we be worried about national security? Shouldn't we be worried about the emergence of petronationalism, about a little dictator down in Venezuela jerking the tail of a great country because he supplies 17 percent of our total foreign imports? Yes, we ought to be concerned about that. We ought to be angry about it.
The reason we grew complacent, the light switch would always produce a light or the gas pump would always produce inexpensive fuel, is because it has always been there. What a large part of Americans didn't know is that politically and in a public policy way we began to set in place a series of things over the last 20 years that flattened production, made it less profitable, created self-reliance, and didn't compete and keep up with the amount of consumed energy we were requiring of a growth economy. As a result, we hit the wall. The wall is $3-plus gas. All power bills are going up. Energy is a part of America's disposable income and is becoming an increasingly bigger part. Americans are sitting now scratching their heads and saying: Are we going to have to change our lifestyles because energy is going to cost a lot more?
My wife and I and a group of Senators, the week before last, traveled in Europe. As we landed at Andrews Air Force Base, got in our cars and headed home, I turned to my wife and said: I see we are back in the land of the big cars.
That is part of our addiction. We love our big cars. We had been traveling in Luxembourg, France, and Italy, and by definition, it is the land of the little car. Why? Because gas over there from a gallonage point of view is about $7.50 a gallon. It is at least double plus a little more of what we are currently paying today. As a result, Europeans significantly over the last 20 years have changed their lifestyles because they couldn't afford the energy. I am not going to apologize because America consumes a lot of energy. We are nearly 26 percent of the world economy. We consume 26 percent of the energy base. Why? Because we are 26 percent of the world economy. It takes energy to produce jobs, to produce products, to create an economy. We are driven by energy. It is going to cost more to stay at 26 percent if we don't develop good public policy that gets us through tomorrow and takes us into the future in a way that the consumer can understand and appreciate.
Consumers are angry today, and they have a right to be. They look at very large profits on the part of the oil companies and say: Look, it is their fault. Those profits are driven by demand and the ability to supply. There are no gas lines today because there is energy at the pump, but we are paying more for it. The Senator from North Dakota is right, the politics of this issue would change again if there were long gas lines at the pump and they were paying $3-plus a gallon. So the supply is there in the current form, but 60 percent of it comes from a foreign nation somewhere in the world. Most of those supplies and those foreign nations are in very precarious political situations. It is a very unstable world out there from whence these supplies come. As a result, the futures market anticipates that and builds a margin in to offset the risk to deal with the demand.
What am I saying here? I am saying to the Senate today that S. 1419 is a piece of the total, but it isn't where we ought to be tomorrow. Tomorrow ought to be about energy security and energy production. You don't talk green, although you have to talk green and should talk green. You don't talk cellulosic ethanol being in production in 10 years at a rate of 15 billion gallons a year because it won't be, because the technology isn't there, although we are driving there. Energy efficiency, a CAFE standard, is a place we ought to go. I for the first time join with the Senator from North Dakota in a 4-percent mandatory efficiency. That takes us down the road. But that is out in the future. What about tomorrow? What about knowing where our current oil reserves are, the 15 or 20 billion barrels or more of oil that is in the Outer Continental Shelf that may be very accessible in a clean and environmentally sound way? What about expanding our refinery capacity? Because in this transitional period of the next two-and-a-half to three decades, where more cars will be electric, more cars will be hybrid, we will be producing 20 percent of our liquid transportation fuels from corn-based ethanol, cellulosic-based ethanol, to get to the 30 to 32 billion gallons a year. What about all of that? That is our future.
My consumers in Idaho want to know about tomorrow. The Reid-Bingaman bill has nothing to do with tomorrow. We simply cannot ignore the next 10 or 15 years and jump into the future. We have to continue to produce and we need to produce. We have to continue to refine the hydrocarbons to supply the gas, and we need to expand that capability. It better be on shore. It better not be in Venezuela or in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia or someplace else that is at this moment, at best, politically unstable, let alone Iran and Iraq. That is where our dependence lies today. To fail to address that in the Senate is to fail to address the No. 1 question of a great nation: How do we stay great? How do we stay at 26 percent of the world GDP? How do we stay generous to the rest of the world? We produce and push a lot of new technology, and that is in part what the Reid bill is about. That is all going to be transparent and giveable to the rest of the world. When we lead on energy in all aspects, the rest of the world benefits because we share it.
Therefore, as this bill comes to the floor, there is a great deal that has to be done. We need a new RPS, renewable portfolio standard, wind, solar--a great idea, an old concept. Today's energy world is about cleanliness. Why not a new standard? Why not a clean portfolio standard instead of a renewable portfolio standard? Include wind, include solar, include sequestration of carbon, include efficiencies, include nuclear, include hydro. Let's get on with the business of being clean. If Senator Reid wants to come to the floor and talk about climate change, then he ought to be talking about all of those other things that drive the economy toward a cleaner energy future, not command and control but incentives, creativity, bringing off the laboratory shelf and into production the kind of things we know are already out there.
Coal to liquids, what is wrong with that? Some environmental groups are wringing their hands and saying: There might be a problem there. We know it will burn 90 percent cleaner. That is not a problem. It is only in the mind of some idealist that it isn't perfect. How do you get to perfection? You start by adjusting and changing and improving. Today we are tremendously proud of our ethanol production in corn. But it has been 20 years in refinement and development to the distillery that is set up tomorrow somewhere in the Midwest. It is going to be so much better than the distillery that went into production a decade and a half ago. That is what this bill ought to be about, and it isn't there today.
What about the tax incentives, and what is the Finance Committee going to do? None of that is there.
This chart illustrates the problem. Here is the line for demand; here is supply. This is the hydrocarbons. That is pretty simple. Where does this margin come from? Offshore, foreign countries. High risk, less national security. Why do a lot of military leaders and those who look in broader terms support what Byron Dorgan and Larry Craig did today in the SAFE bill and those three factors about production, efficiency, and biofuels? They support it because of national security, taking this out of the equation, getting us back into production.
You have heard me talk a lot over the past about the Outer Continental Shelf and the billions and billions of gallons of oil that is out there. We have allowed States to say no even though it is a national, Federal resource. Last year we picked up a little bit right here in lease sale 181, but here in the eastern gulf are phenomenal resources, billions and billions of barrels of oil that are very accessible, achievable in a sound environmental way, and we are still saying no. We are still saying, let a tinhorn dictator in Venezuela jerk us around.
Here is another problem. The Cubans have said: Come drill us. The world is coming. The world is drilling in Cuba today. Vietnam came in last week. Spain, Norway, Malaysia, and Canada are 45 miles off our shore drilling for oil, but we can't drill. It is the ultimate ``no'' zone of politics. The ``no'' zone went up decades ago when the technology wasn't there to achieve the environmental standards upon which we demand and insist. The technology is here today. But the politics of Florida won't allow us to touch this. So the American consumer simply says: OK. I am going to pay more. I am going to pay another 50 cents a gallon so Florida can have its political way or anywhere else, for that matter, along the eastern seaboard or as it relates to this equation over here, the western coast, Alaska. Or have we come to a turn in the road where technology allows us to go there in a clean way and bring down that dependency, allows us to thumb our nose, if you will, at the foreign sources?
Here is the other side of the equation. Nearly $300 billion a year leaves our shore to go to another country to buy their oil, and some of those countries are buying guns and shooting at us. How smart we aren't to allow that policy to continue to prevail.
That is part of the debate in the coming weeks as it relates to 1419. It is not a complete package. It is way out into the future. It is not about tomorrow. It is not about national security. It is not about production. If we don't have those factors in a bill, this Senate will not serve its public and the American consumer in a responsible way in sustaining and building a great nation.
I yield the floor.