Energy

ENERGY

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, the economy, as has been noted, has been performing extremely well of late with 10 consecutive quarters of economic growth, with job creation at 4.5 million jobs created in the last 2 1/2 years. There are a lot of good things happening in our economy. One of the dark clouds that hovers over our economy right now, however, is the cost of energy. For several years, going back to the very first year of the Bush administration, there was an effort made by the administration to move a comprehensive energy bill through Congress, get it passed and put into law, that lessens our dependence upon foreign sources of energy.

Regrettably, in the last Congress, that bill, after it had been negotiated through the conference committee, was filibustered by the Senate Democrats and prevented from becoming law.

In this session of Congress, last July, the Senate and the House came together in a conference committee and reported out a conference report, an energy bill that was signed into law by the President that will make remarkable strides forward in doing what all agree is an important goal for this country, which is to reduce our dependence upon foreign sources of energy.

Statistics today show we are now 59 percent dependent upon imports for our U.S. energy demand. That is expected to be 60 percent not too far into the future. The Energy Information Agency says U.S. oil consumption will grow from 20.7 million barrels a day in 2005 to 26.1 million barrels a day in 2025. We are using more energy. Worldwide demand for energy is growing. Countries such as India and China are demanding more and more energy. We rely on energy that exists outside the United States in areas of the world that are unpredictable and unreliable and unstable.

We have a great solution. We have seen significant success in my State of South Dakota with renewable energy. The products we raise and grow right here in the United States, in States such as South Dakota, corn and soybeans, can be converted into energy that will lessen that dependence upon foreign sources of energy and, at the same time, create jobs. We are creating enormous numbers of jobs across this country, particularly in the Midwest.

New technologies will allow ethanol, cellulose ethanol, to be made from other products, from other feedstocks. This will be a trend that will continue to create jobs all across this country.

The ethanol industry and the economic gains we have seen have benefited our rural economy. Over the next year, ethanol will displace 2 million barrels of imported oil, create 234,840 jobs and boost American household incomes by $43 billion. Because of the ethanol requirement in the Energy bill we passed last summer, 34 new ethanol plants are under construction, 8 existing plants will be expanded today, and more than 150 plants are in the works. Each plant employs between 40 and 50 people directly and creates hundreds of jobs throughout the local economy. These new plants will add more than 2 billion gallons of ethanol to the Nation's fuel supply by 2007, a 50-percent growth in ethanol production.

This is a good story for the American economy because the American economy relies upon affordable energy. My State of South Dakota is a case in point. We are an agriculture intense economy, energy intense economy, and rely on tourism. We have long distances to cover. We need affordable energy to continue to grow the economy and create jobs in states such as South Dakota.

The ethanol success story could not have happened had it not been for the Republican leadership in the Senate and the House coming together last summer on a bill that would put in place a renewable fuel standard that guarantees a market for ethanol moving forward in the year 2012. As a consequence, we are seeing remarkable improvements in the economy in places that had been struggling economic areas in this country, in rural areas of America that had been losing jobs and suffering from outmigration. It is a success story and one that could not have happened had it not been for the leadership that moved forward with an energy bill last year, that put in place the renewable fuel standard for the first time as a matter of policy in this country.

There are lots of other areas in the Energy bill currently being developed. If you look at wind energy, solar energy, nuclear energy, the Energy bill passed last summer provides great strides forward as we strive to achieve energy independence in this country and deal with what is a fundamental issue for our national security; that is, our energy security.

I rise this morning to again take note of the fact that we are an economy that is in some respects growing, seeing job expansion and a lot of good things happening in our economy, but also acknowledging that unless we do something to decrease the amount, the 60 percent of the energy that we get from outside the United States, we run the risk of dramatically undermining and harming the economic growth we have experienced.

The energy policies we put in place last summer and some of the things currently under consideration in the Senate as we move forward will make great strides forward in helping America deal with what is an economic security issue, what is a national security issue, and that is the crisis of energy we see not only in the United States but across the world as more and more countries have an energy demand and the consumption continues to increase with a very limited supply.

We have a supply right in the Midwest. We grow corn each year, we grow soybeans each year. Other areas produce products that, as technology continues to improve, will enable us to convert those products into usable energy for America's future.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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