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H.R. 6 - The Clean and Renewable Energy Legislation
House of Representatives - January 18, 2007

McDermott spoke on and managed the House consideration of H.R. 6, the
"CLEAN Energy Act of 2007"which was a part of Democratic "100 Hours."

We are here to take one small and bipartisan step toward making clean renewable energy a reality in America. And imagine my surprise, Big Oil doesn't think it is a good idea. But let's set the stage for this debate.

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Two years ago, Big Oil muscled their way into a corporate tax break they had never earned and didn't need. They are siphoning off $1 billion a year right out of the pockets of U.S. taxpayers, and they want it to last forever, right along with $10 billion in quarterly profits that they have been reporting.

Their answer to everything is more drilling and more money. The President completely agrees. He thinks it is unfair of us to expect Big Oil to actually earn money. He would actually just give it to them. That is what they think; that is what the American people face.

According to a report by the Department of Energy, it is expected that 86 percent of our energy supply will come from oil, coal, and natural gas in the year 2030. That is the same proportion of our energy consumption that carbon provides today.

That same report states that we should expect oil, gas, and coal prices to continually climb. In other words, if this country does not pursue a radically different approach to energy, we can expect dirty air, more pain at the pump, and more reliance on foreign oil.

The bill before us takes the vital first step in the pursuit of a new energy policy that looks to American innovation to provide renewable energy. This bill is a down payment, and only that, on a commitment to an energy policy that is fitting for the 21st century. The bill before us is fundamentally fair.

In 2004, the Congress sought to help American manufacturers better compete in the global economy, but in doing so they provided a 10 percent reduction in the Federal taxes owed by Big Oil. That translates into a tax subsidy for over $1 billion a year, a real boondoggle.

What is more, the Congress gave this subsidy to oil at a time when the industry was enjoying recordbreaking profits that were resulting from $60 a barrel oil. That is wrong. Today we take the first step back in the right direction.

Today we're taking the taxpayer money and putting it to better use. Today the House of Representatives will decide that it's wiser to invest in renewable energy, innovation, and a future for our economy and our planet.

McDermott Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter)

PerlmutterI thank the gentleman from Washington; I would like to ask him a couple of questions. It is my understanding that this legislation will save the American people billions of dollars. Will those savings be put into a fund?

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McDermott Yes. The bill before us directs some of the subsidies we currently give to Big Oil into a new fund which is created by this bill called the Strategic Energy Efficiency and Renewables Reserve.

PerlmutterCan you explain what the goal of this fund will be?

McDermott The purpose is really this, to accelerate the use of clean domestic renewable energy and to promote energy efficient products and conservation; and furthermore, we want to spur research, development and deployment of clean renewable energy.

Perlmutter Mr. Speaker, I think that is great news for America because it is going to change our energy priorities and bring a new direction for this country. It is especially good for Golden, Colorado and Colorado because we have the preeminent research facility in America in the National Renewable Energy Lab.

Madam Speaker, as I listened to my colleague from Louisiana, I would think that the end of the Western World as we have known it is about to descend upon us by these rather minor changes we are making in the tax policy of this country, by taking back subsidies to an oil industry that between January and September of 2006 has had $96 billion worth of profit reported.

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Now these are minor changes at the most and we know that. This is a down payment on the changes that must go on in this country. We know the American people have spoken on this issue. They are demanding change. That is why they voted the way they did in November. They saw what they got out of the White House and out of the Vice President's office, the records of which are still kept secret so we don't know what agreements were made with the oil companies at the beginning of this administration.

I spoke earlier, and after I spoke I went out of the Chamber and I bumped into some people from the National Wildlife Federation, and they gave me 30,000 signatures of people who want this bill to pass, people who care about the environment. People who care about global warming, people who believe in national security, who believe in economic security, signed this in the last 3 weeks. The American people obviously are way ahead of us.

Detroit didn't know what was going on. The Prius was on the street for 3 years in Tokyo, and they never saw it coming. When the Prius came to the United States, the waiting time was 18 months long. That is what we have to change. We have to change the thinking in this country about whether we are going to be addicted to oil forever or not.

Now global warming is real. The average temperature in the ocean has gone up 1 degree worldwide. In the Northwest, it is up more than 2 degrees. And the changes that means for salmon spawning and for the ecology that goes on are under way. Yesterday's New York Times had a story about the melting of the glaciers in Greenland. There is no question about whether global warming is happening. The question is whether this Congress will respond and lead the way.

Speaker Pelosi when she came in said she was going to do these things and set a new direction for this country. Today we are finishing up 100 hours of efforts in a whole series of areas, this being the toughest, this being the most complicated, the most costly, the one that is going to take us the most time.

We can change the health care system in fairly short order if we want to. We can change college loans in fairly short order if we want to. But changing the way we use energy in this country needs to start today.

No one says this bill is the be-all and end-all of what should happen, but we can see countries that have done it. In Brazil, they have gotten themselves off gasoline. They are using ethanol. We could do that. The Brazilians are not smarter than we are. They just decided as a country they were going to get off their addiction to oil.

The Danes, when we dropped our support for the wind industry, picked up the technology and now at every place you go to see a windmill in this country, it is made in Denmark. Why is that? We started that in 1994 with some amendments supporting the wind industry, and then we let them expire.

Last year, 2005, we suddenly woke up and said, Oh my God, the Danes are ahead of us. We better start again. There is a whole series of things that we should be doing if we are serious about what is going to be our future.

Now, I have hoped that we would have a day like this when we would start to make the change. This is one small step. The Chinese say a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. This is the first step.

Mr. Rahall has done an excellent job, and I want to congratulate the staff of the Ways and Means Committee, and particularly John Buckley whose idea this bill was. He came to me with the idea. It was not my idea. It was John Buckley's and congratulations to John.

Madam Speaker, I urge people to vote down this motion to recommit.

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Mr. McCrery sat in the other day when we had a forum in the Ways and Means Committee and we discussed this bill. We went over it fairly carefully with experts from two sources at least. And, clearly, we are making very modest changes. That was clear from the testimony we had, that these were modest changes to the law.

When we make the bigger changes, which we will have to do to give us a real source of money for this, and decide how we are going to allocate it in the most effective way for the country, there will be full hearings in the Ways and Means Committee, and I look forward to having your participation. You have been a real wonderful change in the Ways and Means Committee for us, and we are looking forward to working with you on the Tax Code to make this truly the first step, the first teeny step, and then we are going to make a lot of other big steps.