Jan 5, 2007- Energy Independence

I want to thank Representative Inslee for taking this special ordertonight on the very first night of the new Congress, the 110th Congress whichis going to be so historic. And Speaker Pelosi's remarks today aboutenergy independence for our country just rang so true. In a district like ours,which is a major new solar manufacturer, as well as wind turbine manufacturerand research region of the country. Coming from the auto belt, you don't thinkabout that. But yet we are a biofuels leader. We have four plants being builtnow, both soy diesel and corn-based ethanol within our radius of 25 miles ofour major community of Toledo,and in fact, some of them right in Toledo.

And I wanted to just take a few minutes, if Imight, and I thank Congressman Blumenauerand Congressman Holt. Thesegentlemen who are with us tonight are really the new age energy thinkers forour country, and I am really so happy to join you on this first night that weare here together.

And I just wanted to put on the record someinteresting information that I have been sharing in the committees that I serveon. This particular chart talks about total petroleum consumption in ourcountry, and looks at the growing share of imported petroleum as a percentageof everything that we consume.

And of course, since the beginning of the Bushadministration, is consuming one billion more barrels of oil per year, largelyimported. Imports now constitute nearly three-quarters of what we use in thiseconomy. Americans need to understand that. And over a period of time, from thebeginning of the 90s, the share of imports has just risen until where now itcomprises a majority of what we consume. This is a diminishing resource.Actually it is a dirty resource.

And I wish to place on the record tonight anarticle that was in The Financial Times back in December that lists the majorcompanies in the world that are privately held. And I won't read the whole listtonight, except to say, of the top 20 companies, three-quarters are all oilcompanies, and they are not based in the . So all this money that the isspending on an imported product could be invested here at home in the newtechnologies that these fine gentlemen and I are talking about tonight.

Just to give you an idea, Saudi Aramco is numberone on the list. Its value, estimated market value, is three-quarters of $1trillion. $781 billion. And of course, has been a very important back upsupplier to our country. I wish it were not so, but we have become veryaddicted to that supplier.

Petroleos Mexicanos, that oil and gas companyworth $415 billion, our hard earned dollars flowing to that privately heldcompany.

I won't go through all of them, but the next,Number 3 on the list, and the gentleman discussed LatinAmerica , is Venezuelan Petroleum, valued at $388 billion.

Go down to Kuwait Petroleum, Number 4, $378billion. Malaysian Petroleum, $232 billion. The idea is you go down and thenyou get into the companies financing this import, such as the Carlisle Groupwhich has moved up now at $71 billion to Number 22 on the list. So I would liketo submit this to the record. The top three-quarters of these companies, thetop 20 largest privately held companies in the world are all oil and gas. Iwanted to make sure this was placed on the record tonight, and to say that asthe author of the first title in any farm bill in American history, a biofuelstitle, Title IX, we have been incentivizing at a very small level, about $23million, not billion, $23 million dollars a year, efforts to try to helpagriculturalists across this country own the future. It has been such a fight.And I heard the gentleman saying earlier this evening, finally, I think Mr. Blumenauersaid, after 12 years, we finally have a chance to uncork this really developinganswer for our Nation. And we hope that with the new farm bill and with theleadership of Congressman Colin Peterson, who is the right man at the righttime in the right committee in the right country, from the Red River Valley ofMinnesota, in the farm bill that will be produced this year, that we will beable to piece together the solutions that we knowexist.       

I will attest and sort of end with this. In ourdistrict today, Dr. Al Campaan, the head of Physics at the Universityof Toledo , has a solar-powered house fromequipment made in Toledo . Hetakes his truck, with six batteries home, maybe eight, every night. He drivesit from the university back home and he plugs it into his house. The technologyexists in Toledo, Ohio. He drives it the next morning, a fully charged truck, back into the Universityof Toledo .

As we move to develop the technology of future, Iwould just recommend to those who are listening tonight, here in the Chamberand elsewhere, a wonderful book by a former decorated CIA agent, Robert Baer,for whom I have great admiration. He retired. He is in his 50s. We haveprobably had no better human intelligence officer throughout the Middle Eastand Central Asia . He wrote a book, Sleeping withthe Devil.

When I read that book, I thought I have to meetthis man, because he is speaking my language. The life he lived is verydifferent than the life that we have lived, but he looked the problem straightin the eye. The subtitle of the book is: ``How Washington Became Addicted toSaudi Crude.''

And I think it is important to note that theAmerican people know this. They want us to do something. They want us to helptransform the country. And I thank all my dear colleagues for allowing me thesefew minutes on the floor this evening. I was not intending to come here, butyou have hit sort of the bull's eye of what this Member of Congress has beeninvolved in for several years, and you could not be on a more important jobcreation, environmentally right set of initiatives for this country, and itwill be a joy to be here working with you on this.

I want to agree with what the gentleman is saying,and look back at the last century, which was the century of hydrocarbons. Thiscentury will be the century of carbohydrates and unlocking the power of thecarbohydrate molecule in a way we have never understood it before.

Those who came before us were on this track butgot derailed from it. In the early part of the 20th century, in our district,we had a car that was kind of famous called the Clydecar. It was built by the Clyde Bicycle Works, and it was built around 1898 or1902, somewhere in there. You see this Clyde car andyou look at the steering wheel and it has two levers on it. One lever is foralcohol-based fuel. You know, they knew how to build stills back then. And theother is for petroleum-based fuel. And I have been amazed to open the trunk ofthe car and see two different fuel tanks and think, my gosh, how did we movefrom that, which was what the gentleman was talking about, choice at the pumpsand choice of vehicles, and where we are today. Because certain people madecertain choices.

I just mention that particular example and saythat as our industries and our small businesses try to bring up these newtechnologies, what the gentlemen are saying tonight, Mr. Inslee, Mr. Blumenauer, and Mr. Holtabout financing and the tax aspects of this, if you look at certain farmers inOhio who have tried let's say to raise the capital to build a plant, amazingthings are happening that are not so good out there.

The big buck players come in and they offer peopleon the board money so they never bring up that production, because there is aneffort by those who are currently big buck dealers, in alcohol-based fuels,let's say, to want to control the market just like the oil companies arecontrolling the market. We see that some farmers do not have the organizationalstructure that they need in order to own some of this so that our ruralcommunities across America will be able to find new value added and liftthemselves to a new economic future.

I think, and I am not sure that everyone on theAgriculture Committee agrees with me on this yet, but we need some type of loanguarantee program or long-term financing in a structure like the Federal LandBanks or our Rural Electrics, which we started years ago, so that we have asystem that is long term and permits them to stay in business so that some bigbuck operator does not come in, drive the price down in a given small market,and not permit them to be able to bring up and let this industry flower.

So the tax and financing aspects that we have beentalking about are very, very important.

I also just wanted to say something about thescience, as a member of the Agriculture Committee. It is amazing that in 2007,we do not know, in terms of row crop production, how to get the most yield outof a carbohydrate-based plant and a planting system that does the least damageto the atmosphere and yields the most combustible product.

For example, everyone is into ethanol from cornbecause we have subsidized corn up to here. But what about beans that have moreoil? What about canola? What about castor? We stopped growing castor beansbecause of the by-product of ricin. But could we biogenetically take ricin outof castor beans and get more oil per acre?