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WASHINGTON – Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) submitted the following testimony yesterday at a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on the Enhanced Energy Security Act, a bill based on the legislation that Lieberman introduced last November with Senators Bayh (D-IN), Brownback (R-KS), and Coleman (R-MN) to reduce America’s dependence on oil.
Statement of Senator Joe Lieberman
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Hearing on S. 2747, the Enhanced Energy Security Act of 2006
June 22, 2006
“Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am grateful to the members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee for allowing me to testify in support of the Enhanced Energy Security Act. I was proud to cosponsor this bill with Senator Bingaman last month.”
“As you know, the Enhanced Energy Security Act is based on the Vehicle and Fuel Choices for American Security Act, a bill that Senators Bayh, Brownback, Coleman, and I introduced with six other colleagues last November. Twenty-six Senators, including Senator Bingaman, have now cosponsored that bill, which I like to call the Set America Free Act. Seventy-nine Congressmen and Congresswomen have cosponsored its companion bill in the House of Representatives.”
“The Set America Free Act’s core provisions fall within the jurisdiction of this committee. Senator Bingaman has taken that core, has slightly amended and supplemented it, and has reintroduced it as the Enhanced Energy Security Act. He also has taken those of the Set America Free Act’s provisions that fall within the Finance Committee’s jurisdiction and has introduced them as the Enhanced Energy Security Tax Incentives Act, of which I am also an original cosponsor.”
“As the Ranking Minority Member of this Committee, and as someone who has earned the respect of Senator Domenici, the committee’s esteemed Chairman, Senator Bingaman has had the wherewithal to bring about today’s hearing. I commend him and Chairman Domenici for doing so. It is an unmistakable sign of the momentum that continues to gather behind the Set America Free Act.”
“Like that bill, the Enhanced Energy Security Act requires the Executive Branch to use means readily at its disposal to save, by 2016, 2.5 million barrels per day from projected oil consumption in that year. It goes on to require 7 million barrels per day in savings by 2026 and 10 million barrels per day in savings by 2031. Currently, we import just over 10 million barrels per day of crude oil and consume just over twice that amount.”
“Americans are alarmed both by the steady rise in gas prices and by the increasing volatility in those prices. The main reason fuel prices are high and volatile is that the price of oil is high and volatile. The fundamental reason for that, in turn, is the narrowness of the margin between global oil demand and global oil production. We might never again see a comfortable margin, because while we have not yet drained all the oil deposits in the world, the demand of countries such as the US, China, and India is growing just as quickly as production.”
“Many Americans are also concerned that the US is being thrust into increasing competition over oil with nations such as China, and they do not like seeing our economy held hostage to the caprice of those unstable and even hostile countries that supply much of the world’s oil.”
“The US can not drill its way out of this bind. Oil is a commodity that trades in a global market. Any modest amount of oil produced by new wells in the US would be merely a trickle in the stream of global production, and thus would not have any appreciable effect on the price we pay for oil.”
“The only permanent solution to high fuel prices is to end our oil addiction. The Set America Free Act would do just that. What is more, in the process of making our cars, trucks, and busses more efficient and increasing the use of fuels derived from crops, the act would reduce greatly the amount of global warming pollution that our vehicles add to the atmosphere.”
“Energy independence, economic security, and curbing global warming – the Set America Free Act advances us toward each of those vital goals. So I am honored to testify today in favor of Senator Bingaman’s Enhanced Energy Security Act. I respectfully ask this committee to schedule a vote on the bill and to report it favorably to the Senate floor.”
“Thank you, Mr. Chairman.”
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