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U.S.
Senator Member of the Agriculture, Energy and Veterans Affairs
Committees |
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For Immediate
Release Wedesday, September 12, 2007 |
CONTACT:Stephanie Valencia – 202-228-3630 Cody Wertz 303-350-0032 |
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WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, United States Senator Ken Salazar addressed the National Legislative Conference of the National Association of Automobile Dealers to address a clean Energy Economy for the 21st Century. Below are Salazar’s remarks as prepared for delivery. “Good morning. It is an honor to be here today. Thank you for inviting me to speak, and in particular, thank you to the Colorado dealers who have welcomed me. Tim Jackson, Jeremy Cottrell, Jeff Carlson, Nancy Ariano, Michael Faricy, Robert Ghent, and all the other Coloradans in the audience – it is great to see you out here. And, of course, thank you to Philip Brady, the national President, for giving our dealers another strong voice here in Washington. To all of you, representing some of the 20,000 member dealers across the country, you have come to Washington at a moment of intense debate over our national security. Six years after the September, 2001, attacks on the Pentagon, in Pennsylvania, and at the World Trade Center, the Congress, the Administration, and top military officials are discussing whether we are doing enough to guard against future attacks. Are we positioning our troops effectively to defeat potential terrorist threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Are we capable of responding to nuclear developments in North Korea or Iran? Are the efforts we are making to improve security in Iraq going to be matched by political progress by the Iraqi government? These are some of the most pressing national security questions of the day. Today, I want to touch on them, but not by way of debating benchmarks, the success of the surge, or where our forces should be deployed. Instead, I want to talk about our energy dependence, and how importing 60% of our oil compounds the grave security challenges that this country faces. Over the last few years, oil has become a major factor in global security. More countries are competing for the resource, prices have shot through the roof, and our influence in key oil regions is waning. Since 2001, China and Russia have partnered to lock up oil in Central Asia, rolling us out of the region. Venezuela has wielded its resources to bully its neighbors and oppose our interests in South America. Oil money lines the pockets of terrorists, extremists, and unfriendly governments. It helps the Syrians buy rockets for Hezbollah in Lebanon. It reaches Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. It funds militants in Nigeria who capture and terrorize westerners. The sad truth is that we are funding both sides of the War on Terror. We spent over $100 billion last year to fight extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan – extremists armed with weapons purchased with oil revenues. It is absolutely crazy. If we are going to successfully confront terrorist threats to America and our allies, we must cut our addiction to foreign oil. The “Greening of America” For three decades, politicians in this country have talked about energy independence, but have been unable to deliver real results. Presidents beginning with Richard Nixon have talked the talk. But we’ve failed to walk the walk, and our addiction to foreign oil has only grown more severe. What is different this year, you might ask? Who is to say Congress and the American people have the political will to change our energy habits? I would make two points. First, the clean energy revolution is already under way. In Colorado, our farmers and ranchers are leading the charge. In Weld County, Logan County, and Yuma County, we are seeing biofuel plants spring to life, creating new markets and new opportunities for our rural communities. In the San Luis Valley, where my family has lived for five generations, Xcel Energy just built the largest solar plant in North America. Our rural economies are being reborn as the engines of our clean energy economy. Secondly, the conventional wisdom about our energy future is changing. Some call it the “Greening of America.” That may be. But regardless of the catch-phrase, the fact is that Americans are seeing our oil dependence as an issue of national security, economic security, and environmental security. They are demanding new products, new ideas, and new policies. 2007 Energy Bill Energy independence is not a Republican or a Democratic issue, it is not a conservative issue or a progressive issue: it is an American issue whose time has come. Our work started in 2005, when we passed the Energy Policy Act with broad bipartisan support. That measure helped expand domestic production, plant the seeds of a renewable energy economy, and foster research and development. In 2006, we passed S.3711, a bill to expand oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico. It was a sensible addition to our domestic resources and will help us reduce our oil imports. We are writing the third chapter this year. In the Senate we have been hard at work on legislation that will usher in a clean energy future for this country. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Finance Committee – I am a Member of both – along with the Commerce Committee and the Environment and Public Works Committee, have assembled legislation that would take great strides toward reducing our dependence on foreign oil. On June 21st, the Senate passed H.R. 6, the Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007 by a vote of 65 – 27. This bill is the largest step this country has ever taken toward building a clean energy economy for the 21st century. I want to briefly discuss four pieces of this bill. First, H.R. 6 sets goals and standards for reducing our oil consumption. I helped strengthen these oil savings standards, so that by 2016, we are saving as much oil as we are currently importing from the Middle East. Second, H.R. 6 dramatically increases our production and use of biofuels. The bill will quintuple the existing renewable fuels standard to 36 billion gallons by 2022, 21 billion of which must be advanced biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol. That’s more than enough to offset our imports from Saudia Arabia, Iraq, and Libya combined. I also succeeded in getting the Senate to agree to an amendment, called the “25x’25” resolution, which establishes a national goal of producing 25% of America’s energy from renewable sources - like solar, wind, geothermal and biomass - by 2025. The resolution is endorsed by 27 current and former governors, a dozen state legislatures across the country, and some 570 organizations, from the Farmers Union and the Union of Concerned Scientists to John Deere to the Natural Resources Defense Council. Third, the energy bill we passed out of the Senate helps automakers retool their vehicle fleets to incorporate technologies that reduce fuel consumption. The bill provides loan guarantees for hybrids, advanced diesels, and other high-efficiency vehicles. Consumers are demanding these advances, and Congress sees a national interest in helping automakers make these technologies available and affordable. We want to help get these technologies into your dealerships. CAFÉ standards Finally, the Senate bill includes achievable increases to vehicle efficiency standards. I know these are controversial and are opposed by many of you. Raising CAFÉ standards is not easy politically. It would be far easier for Congress to do what it has done for two decades: ignore the issue. But given the importance of reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and given the technological advances we have made in recent years, the time for reasonable CAFÉ increases has come. We cannot escape the fact that the transportation sector accounts for two-thirds of our oil consumption. Two-thirds. The Senate decided that if we are to push for oil savings, renewable fuels, and technology investments, the oil savings that result should be supplemented with fuel economy improvements. The bill we passed took meaningful, but not unrealistic, steps to improve vehicle efficiency standards. Under the Senate-passed version of H.R. 6, CAFÉ standards for cars and light trucks will increase to 35 mpg by 2020. Many of the cars that you sell are already there. But for vehicle classes that will not easily meet those goals, we provided manufacturers flexibility. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will set a national fleet-wide average fuel economy standard that will be tailored to the weight, size, type of use and towing capabilities of each car type. Under this flexible system, the standards for light trucks will be significantly lower than the standards for passenger cars, and standards will vary for passenger cars: smaller cars will have higher standards than larger cars. The bill also exempts work-trucks to limit impacts on farmers, small businesses, and other jobs that require the use of the heaviest vehicles. Not everyone agrees with these increases to CAFÉ. But we will not succeed in reducing our dependence on foreign oil unless we set objectives that are worthy of the cause. I hope that when the House and Senate get together to iron out the differences between the bills they passed, that they will do what is hard and what is right. As I listened to General Petraeus testify on Monday and Tuesday, I heard him ask Congress and the American people for more time for the surge in Iraq. This is understandable. He is a soldier; he wants to win the battle on the ground. But our efforts in Iraq, like our efforts in Afghanistan, require more than military might. They require political solutions. They require the commitment of the international community. They require diplomacy. They also require sacrifices on the home front. When the generals who are leading our efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere come before Congress and the American people to report on the progress being made and to ask for resources for our soldiers in the field, I wish they would make another request. I wish they would ask us – in language plain and simple – to cut our addiction to foreign oil. I wish they would ask us to stop sending money to mullahs and sheiks, to oligarchs and militant leaders. I wish they would tell us grow our own fuel, to discover new technologies, to cut our consumption. Building a clean energy economy for the 21st century will not be easy. It will take time, it will take patience, and it will take sacrifice. But the opportunities that it will yield, and the securities that it will afford, require that we pursue, with the moral imperative of war, the dreams of a clean energy future. Thank you very much.” ###
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