Washington, D.C. - Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the energy conference report before us. While the reliability standards and efficiency incentives in this legislation are not without merit, the entire package is, tragically, little more than a case study in missed opportunities and misplaced priorities.
First, and most astonishingly, this bill does nothing to wean the United States from its dependence on foreign oil. In failing to make meaningful progress on energy independence, the conferees scrapped a measure designed to reduce our oil consumption by a million barrels a day by 2015 – and refused to make long overdue improvements in our corporate average fuel economy (CAFÉ) standards for cars. The predictable result will be less security for the nation and continued pricing pressure at the pump.
Second, rather than making robust investments in the renewable and advanced efficiency technologies of the future, this legislation lavishes billions of dollars on the polluting industries of the past. Particularly during this period of record profits, does anyone really believe taxpayers need to be giving oil and gas companies another tax break? The conferees’ decision to abandon the Renewable Portfolio Standard called for in the Senate bill is a serious mistake – and I regret that a forward-looking alternative called the New Apollo Energy Project I championed with Reps. Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Rush Holt (D-NJ) was blocked from receiving consideration on the House floor earlier this year.
Finally, this conference report turns back the clock on decades of hard-fought, bipartisan environmental protection. The Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and National Environmental Protection Act are all undermined, while state authority over siting decisions for Liquefied Natural Gas importation terminals is preempted. Additionally, the legislation abdicates responsibility on the most looming ecological challenge of our time: climate change. Senate language calling for carbon caps to combat global warming was stripped from the final bill, and an amendment I offered with Reps. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD) and John Olver (D-MA) to take the modest step of establishing a national greenhouse gas registry was quashed in April by the House Rules Committee.
Mr. Speaker, this legislation goes further where it shouldn’t – and not nearly far enough where it should. It is content to see the world through the rear view mirror of a parked SUV while the rest of the world is flying down the road in hybrids passing us by. At the dawn of the 21st century, the United States deserves an energy policy worthy of its people and of the historic leadership we have always provided on the world stage. This is not that energy policy. I urge my colleagues to oppose the conference report.