Date: 2006-07-20
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Well. that is exactly right. Let us say you had an alcoholic. The last thing you want to do to help that person kick the habit is to provide a subsidy. for example. to the alcohol industry to make more alcohol at different prices. So we have got a real contradiction here between what we now acknowledge should be our national priority. a national priority. and what we are actually doing about it. That is why I think it is very important that we are here today to talk about a new direction. because I do believe that if we want to really help break that addiction and reduce our reliance on oil. we need a large national effort. That is why many of us have joined together to introduce the new Apollo Energy Act. which says we need to harness the great potential of this Nation. the grant entrepreneurial spirit. and make sure that we commit ourselves to this real national effort. in addition to the fact that we need to encourage. not just more renewable energy. but in the immediate shortterm we can also encourage greater energy efficiency. We waste an awful lot of energy as a Nation through inefficient use of energy. So the Federal Government has tried and gave us a push to try to encourage States and local jurisdictions. the American people. to find ways to improve energy efficiency. But if you look at the Presidents budget with respect to energy efficiency efforts. you see dramatic reductions in the budget that he submitted for that purpose. In fact. Diane Shea. who is the executive director of the National Association of State Energy Officials. has said that the assistance that the States received from the Department of Energy is not going to be available this year as it was in the past. This year. the year after the President stood at this podium right here in this Chamber and said this is a national problem. we have got a national addiction. we have got to do something about it. Yet he reduced the efforts that we had put in place ahd were trying to develop to try to help people with energy efficiency. because we know that if we " can use energy more efficiently. obviously. then we need less to produce the same output and the same quality of life. So if you look at all of these different areas. you just find a growing gap between what the Bush administration says it wants to do and what it is actually doing. It is a credibility gap that is growing. I think the American people recognize that fact. and they are looking for an alternative that is real. That is why we have developed what we call a real security plan. not a fake one. not one where you say one thing and do another. but a real plan. which really makes the national commitment to this effort in many. many different areas. The new Apollo Energy Project is part of that. A project to provide greater efforts in the area of ethanol is part of that. A whole series of concrete steps that are in a proposal that is put together through a consensus by many experts is part of that. We need to act on that proposal. and we need to start acting today if we really want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. improve our national security situation. and improve our environmental situation and address the issue of global climate change. which we necessarily -need to address as well. I would be happy to yield to our colleague. Ms. MARCY KAPTUR. and thank her for her leadership on this issue.