Date: 2007-10-17
Speaker: HERSETH SANDLIN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Madam Speaker. I rise today to talk about energy. about where this Nations energy should come from. and what form it should take. In my view. the answer is clear. Our energy should come from America. produced in America. by Americans. with the profits staying here at home. It should be clean. sustainable and renewable. These should be the overriding considerations for the energy policy that we are seeking to implement in this Congress. If we accept these criteria. and I think the American people already have. then an important part of the solution becomes clear. We must greatly increase our capacity to produce. distribute and utilize biofuels. Just yesterday. the price of a barrel of oil hit yet another alltime high. more than $88 per barrel. A few years ago. this development would have been shocking. Yet no one was surprised by the news. We have become accustomed to oil prices shattering records every few weeks. and $100 oil seems to be a virtual certainty in the near future. Even without all the other problems. geopolitical. environmental. supply. that flow from our addiction to oil. its price volatility alone dictates that we must move in a bold new direction. Yet since peaking at $3.20 a gallon in late May. gas prices at the pump have declined to an average of about $2.76 a gallon nationwide for regular unleaded. What accounts for this? A significant factor in bringing retail gas prices down for American families is ethanol. According to an article earlier this week in CNN.com. "Gasoline prices have been held down in part by rising supplies of ethanol. which has been coming down in price in recent weeks. Ethanol production jumped 34 percent to 13.1 million barrels a month in July. the latest month for which data is available. from July 2006." Even the Wall Street Journal. whose editorial board arguably has been biased against and relentless in its disparagement of ethanol. stated in a September 21 article that despite recent recordhigh petroleum prices. there is "another reason for steady gasoline prices: the use of ethanol as an additive to gasoline is on the rise. While crude prices have soared. ethanol prices have dropped as much as 30 percent in recent months. Ethanol costs more than 60 cents a gallon less than gasoline. and gasoline suppliers can offset some of the rise in crudeoil prices by blending their gasoline with small amounts of the cheaper fuel." The facts are clear: Ethanol is cleaner and less polluting than gasoline. It is grown right here at home with the benefits flowing to rural communities rather than foreign governments who may or may not be friendly. It is renewable and it is sustainable. Finally. it is cheaper than gasoline and helping to keep costs down at the pump for American consumers. Yet. despite its obvious benefits. since corn farmers started producing this product 3Q years ago. opponents of the industry. primarily Big Oil and its mouthpieces. have never stopped trying to undermine it. For many years. "energy balance" was the opponents rallying cry. They claimed that ethanol took more units of energy to make than it yielded when it was burned. If that was ever true. it hasnt been the case in at least the last decade. and countless reputable studies have confirmed that fact. With remarkable increases in corn yields and ethanol efficiency in recent years. there is no question that there is a tremendous net energy gain in the production of cornbased ethanol. Yet even the most biased naysayer can no longer make- that argument with a straight face. and that red herring seems finally to be dead. Industry opponents now have a new angle of attack. and we are again being told that the sky is about to fall. The new argument? Americans will go hungry because demand for corn is rising. While we are using more corn for energy than we ever have before and demand for that product has risen. we have seen only modest increases in food prices. and those are attributable to many factors. Just yesterday. Acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Connor indicated he expects food prices to increase next yearat a moderate rate. in line with where they have been in recent years. Because increases in food costs in the country have been well below the rate of inflation for many years. this bodes well for consumers. He also explained that there were many significant factors affecting the cost of food today. including disappointing wheat yields around the world and high energy costs. Finally. as the farmers in my State have repeatedly told me. there is one truism about American agriculture: The cure for high prices is high prices. In other words. when the value of a certain commodity goes up. farmers will rush to produce more of it. And this year has been as clear a demonstration of that as we have ever had in agriculture. Futures prices for corn were high this spring. and farmers took that into consideration when making their planting decisions. According to justreleased USDA estimates. corn production for this year is forecast at 13.3 billion bushels. 26 percent above 2006. When its in the bin. the 2007 corn crop would be the largest on record. with more acres harvested than any year since 1933. These facts clearly indicate that American farmers have the ability to produce enough corn to meet the needs of U.S. consumers. for both food and energy. This is a winning formula for consumers. for agriculture and the environment and will propel us toward our ultimate goal: Producing clean. sustainable. renewable fuel in America. by Americans. with the profits staying here at home.