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   How do we do all of that? We will hear many statements about many facets of this energy policy. There are as many ideas about good energy policy as there are Members serving in the Senate. Emerson once said that common sense is genius dressed in work clothes. Common sense is what we need in putting together the components of an energy bill that work.

   Simply, do we need to produce more energy to meet future energy needs? The answer is yes. We need to produce more. Let's do it in an environmentally sensitive way. So produce more in an environmentally sensitive way, No. 1.

   No. 2, do we need to conserve more? Yes. We waste too much energy. Let's do that in a thoughtful way.

   No. 3, can we achieve greater efficiency with all of the appliances we use every day in every way in this country? Yes, of course. That also is an element of conservation.

   No. 4, and finally, turning to limitless, renewable sources of energy. That makes sense for this country as well.

   These policies combined will help wean us from the overdependence on foreign sources of energy, help us develop additional sources of energy at home, and also help us become more efficient and more conservation-minded as we use energy.

   Now, more than ever, we understand this is not just about energy security, but that energy security is about national security. That has to be part of this debate. Reducing our dependence on foreign oil and better protecting our energy infrastructure, that is about national security.

   Financial assistance in this bill would help improve critical energy infrastructure security. That is a part of this legislation that is very important.

   This legislation will increase domestic oil, gas, and coal production. It will do that in a thoughtful and environmentally sensitive way. It will help remove barriers to production on public lands in an environmentally sustainable manner, and it will authorize the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Alaska to the lower 48 States, helping to create hundreds of

   thousands of jobs and, more importantly, helping us move an estimated 32 trillion cubic feet of reserves of natural gas that exist in Canada, reserves that are leased and that can come into our inventory, when we are able to build the pipeline. That pipeline authorization is in this legislation.

   This bill will promote research, development, and deployment of advanced clean coal technologies, something very important, including, especially, opportunities for lignite coal, because coal is going to be a part of our energy future. Lignite coal is a significant part of that opportunity as well.

   One of the questions for us when we finish this debate will be: are we going to see the future through a rearview mirror? Is our energy policy a policy of yesterday forever? We have some who will come to the floor who will say: I have a new idea. Let's just drill and dig for more oil and coal.

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   What I say is: we support that. We need increased production. But if our strategy for tomorrow's energy supply is simply drilling and digging, that is a strategy of yesterday forever.

   We had someone from the Energy Department testify before the Energy Committee. I asked them a simple question that we similarly ask about a lot of programs. On Social Security, we ask the question: What will be the stability and the financial circumstance of Social Security in 25 or 50 years? Can you tell us what is going to happen 50 years from now?

   So we do charts and graphs and create the financial mechanisms to evaluate whether we will be on safe ground in 50 years with respect to Social Security.

   I asked the Energy Department officials: What is your plan for 35 and 50 years from now with respect to energy? What kind of energy will we be using? What will be the energy mix? How much will we be using?

   The answer was: We don't have a plan.

   The reason I asked the question was, I was trying to determine, are we going to wean ourselves from this overly dependent need for foreign sources of oil? Are we going to move toward technologies that will change our use of energy, our need for certain kinds of energy? Have we decided as a country, for example, if we want to change to a goal of deciding that in 50 years we want fuel cell cars driving on the streets of the Nation's Capital and all across the country using oxygen and hydrogen and throwing water vapor out the back end? That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

   The Energy Department's answer was: We don't have a plan. We will get back to you.

   My response was: We need a plan. America needs to decide its energy future, what it intends to do to with respect to energy supplies in the long term.

   If we do what some of my colleagues counsel at this point, we will be back here 25 years from now, and we will have exactly the same debate. People will wear the same color shoes and shirts and suits, and they will stand up and use the same tired, worn arguments.

   The solution 25 years from now? Dig more and drill more. This debate doesn't change. Only the calendar changes. The people change. You could have read this debate 25 years ago. You will be able to read it 25 years from now, unless we decide we are going to do some things differently.

   My first car was a model T Ford that I restored as a young boy. It was a 1924 Model T Ford that I bought for $25. It was in an old granary and had not been driven for decades. The rats had eaten off the seat covers and all the wiring. It was a tin shell with an engine that didn't work and tires eaten off and rotted off. My father owned a service station, so I pulled it in and put it up on a hoist. I worked on it for nearly 2 years. I restored that 1924 model T Ford. It was a great thing to do as a high school boy.

   Then I got interested in girls and decided a 1924 car was not the thing, and so I sold it--much to my regret. I have regretted that sale ever since. I got myself a new two-door car for a couple of hundred dollars.

   My point about the Model T Ford is that you put gasoline in that 1924 car exactly the same way you put gasoline in a 2002 car. Everything else in our lives has changed. Everything has changed around us, except you drove a 1924 Ford up to the gas pump the same way you drive a 2002 Ford up to the gas pump. You take the cap off, you stick the hose in, and you start pumping. Seventy-seven years later, nothing has changed. Should it? Will it? The answer is, yes,

   if we decide as a matter of public policy that we want to put in place energy policies that will advance a different kind of energy future in this country.

   Now, let me talk a bit about some features of this bill that I think are very important. This bill contains a series of goals that I think almost everybody would or should agree with: To ensure adequate and affordable supplies of energy from renewable sources, as well as oil, gas, coal and nuclear; improve the efficiency and productivity of energy use, including energy reliability and productivity of electricity; and to improve energy use in industry vehicles, appliances, and buildings.

   I am particularly interested in renewable energy. Last week, I brought up on the floor of the Senate the 5-year extension of the wind energy production tax credit. That tax credit expired at the end of last year. The result of Congress allowing that to expire means projects are put on the shelf that are ready and funded. They are put on the shelf. There is a company that has a 150-megawatt project for North Dakota. They have the money for it--$150 million. The project is ready to be launched. However, the company shelved the project until Congress passes the extension of the wind energy production tax credit. That makes no sense. But taking energy from the wind with highly-efficient, new wind turbines and producing electricity, and putting it on lines and moving it across the country makes great sense to me.

   On transmission issues, we have new technologies, such as the composite conductor technology, which can double or triple the efficiency of existing transmission lines. Putting up a wind turbine, producing electricity from this turbine, and transmitting that electricity makes great sense. I come from a State that is No. 1 in wind. The U.S. Department of Energy says North Dakota is the ``Saudi Arabia of wind.'' The potential to develop wind energy from my State is exceeded by no other State. We are last in trees. North Dakota ranks 50th in native forest lands. But it ranks first in wind.

   So, we want to put up some wind towers in North Dakota and be able to move some of this energy around the country. Renewable, limitless sources of energy--that makes good sense to me.

   What we have now is all of these projects that are stalled, because Congress has not done its job. This bill contains a five-year extension of the wind energy production tax credit. And while I support it in this bill, I would like to get it done apart from this bill because, as we know, when we complete the bill in the Senate, we will be in conference with the House. This will take months.

   My colleague from Wyoming, the other day, said--after I gave this presentation on extending the wind energy production tax credit--he said, yes, but we are taking that up as part of the energy bill. That is of little solace to me. It will be months and months before this energy bill is completed. Meanwhile, projects in many States will languish on the shelf when, instead, those projects should be helping to create jobs and energy.

   With respect to electricity, I have just described the reliability of the transmission grid and the opportunity in this legislation to help facilitate access to and reduce constraints of the grid. This bill will help create a more seamless and national grid, and it will help States like North Dakota use its vast resources, such as coal and wind, to be able to move electricity around the country.

   We also are going to repeal PUHCA and PURPA in the context of this comprehensive energy bill, while we will still retain sufficient consumer protections and safeguards, which are included in this legislation as well.

   And, this bill is going to facilitate energy production and transmission on tribal lands.

   It also includes measures to research and deploy transmission technologies--which I am very high on--including composite conductor wire that can dramatically increase the efficiency of existing wires to improve the efficiencies of existing lines and alleviate transmission bottlenecks.

   We are going to hear a lot about the energy efficiency of appliances, such as residential air conditioners. We put into this bill what is called a SEER 13 standard with respect to air conditioners. This bill contains a number of provisions designed to save energy in buildings and save energy with more efficient appliances. The SEER 13 air conditioner standard would save an amount of energy equivalent to that produced by nearly 70 power plants. This standard also would save $3.6 billion in electric bills for consumers over a 12 SEER standard.

   The Energy Department received more comments on this standard than on any other rulemaking in the agency's history. The vast majority were in support of this 13 SEER standard, and that is why we have put this standard

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   I want to talk for a moment about transportation, which is the sector in which we consume the most amount of energy in this country. If you look at the demand for energy, you see that the transportation sector is where the largest demand occurs and where that demand is increasing.

   My colleague, Senator Bingaman, has used this chart on a good many occasions. There will be a debate in the Senate on the issue of CAFÉ standards. I come from a State that uses pickup trucks, SUVs, and four-wheel-drive vehicles extensively. It is not a convenience for someone in a northern State, which experiences rough weather, to need a four-wheel drive. These vehicles also are not a convenience for people that are out there operating a ranch, a farm, or living in a small town and are 50 miles from a hospital. It is not unusual for these people to want to drive a vehicle with some weight, a vehicle with four-wheel drive. I don't think any of them want someone to tell them they can't do that.

   We can't address energy without addressing efficiency and without addressing the opportunity to make this transportation sector more efficient. So, some say, let's go to the old CAFÉ standard. I happen to prefer a pull rather than a push. Some say, let's push to 37 miles per gallon or whatever number that is being used today. I think we ought to say to consumers that we are going to empower them when they buy their vehicles. We are going to give them a very substantial tax credit to purchase more efficient vehicles--a per car credit of $4,000 or $5,000 depending on the value of the car.

   So, a consumer would be able to go to a car dealership, knowing that such a credit would only exist if he or she were to buy a car that meets certain efficiency standards. If one manufacturer is not making that type of car, then the person would be able to go to another manufacturer.

   I want to ``pull'' manufacturers to be making the kind of

   products that consumers would want to buy, given certain tax credits. But I don't want people, because of where they live, or because of their needs, to be penalized, if they drive a four-wheel-drive pickup truck or SUV. We are going to debate that. So, I will have more to say about that in the future.

   We have a difference of opinion on whether we should provide a legislative push or pull. I believe that our future with respect to vehicles is to be able to expect that we will see the manufacture of more hybrid vehicles and hydrogen-powered fuel cell cars. I drove a demonstration car on the Capitol grounds, which was running on oxygen and hydrogen, and it was emitting water vapor out the back end of the car. That is the future. But we won't get to that future unless as a matter of public policy we pull very hard in that direction. Otherwise, we will be consigned to yesterday forever. We will keep doing what we have done forever. The past is our future. That is not what I want for an energy policy.

   If that is going to be the end of this debate, we should not have it. If this is going to be the same debate we had 25 years ago--the names have changed on the floor of the Senate--but if this is our debate, then it is a thoughtless debate. This country needs to understand it has a world class economy, the strongest economy in the world. It uses a substantial amount of energy. That use continues to increase.

   We are overly dependent on foreign sources for that energy, especially from areas of the world that are inherently unstable, and we would do well to remember that--especially now more than ever.

   There are some who say, well, that is all really interesting. You folks who talk about renewable and limitless sources of energy, that is really great because, they will say, look at this chart. Look at the renewables used in the United States, compared to other countries. We are not doing much.

   It is a very small part of our energy supply. They will say, you are focusing on the mouse in the corner rather than the lion at the door.

   The fact is, this country has the opportunity right now to describe an energy policy that really does turn the corner and move us in a very new direction. If we are moving in the right direction at the end of this debate, then we will have probably passed the kind of bill that was brought to the floor of the Senate and perhaps even have improved upon that. Then we will especially be able to say: We are doing something different.

   Think about this. I just described that, in over 75 years, nothing has changed with respect to the way we put a gas hose in a 1924 Model T Ford versus a 2002 Ford Explorer--nothing. Think of this country. We have, as people, written, split the atom, spliced genes, cloned animals, and invented radar, the silicon chip, and plastics. We have built airplanes and learned how to fly them. We have built rockets and flown to the Moon. We have cured polio and smallpox, and invented the telephone, television, computer and the Internet. And now we are hearing from some that perhaps, as a new energy policy, we must just adopt the same old energy policy and put it in place for the next 25 years. That is the legacy we want for our country? I do not think so. Our country will go much further, if we summon our manufacturers, scientists, and geniuses to work on this problem in the context of national security needs.

   I indicated at the outset that this might not be the best time to debate energy policy, because gasoline only cost $1.08 a gallon this morning. When gas is $1.08 a gallon, there is not a lot of urgency for change. A year and a half ago, we experienced some rolling brownouts and blackouts, and price spikes in California. We had a lot of problems. There were a lot of reasons for those problems.

   At the moment, though, there does not seem to be a sense of national urgency. When gas is $1.08 a gallon, there is just not that kind of urgency. As I said, I was thinking of this old country western song: ``When gas was 30 cents a gallon, love was 60 cents away.'' When I was pumping gas at my father's service station many years ago, it was 30 cents a gallon. In constant dollars, gasoline costs about the same now. In fact, it is slightly cheaper now.

   We must, it seems to me, take the product that Senator DASCHLE and Senator Bingaman have brought before the Senate, and work on this with an eye toward dramatically improving this country's energy future.

   This Earth, according to scientists, was formed somewhere around 4.5 billion years ago. Some say that in the first nearly 4.499 billion years nothing happened, but that in the last million years, man invented use for his arms, legs, and his cave and, in the last 10,000 years, he invented language, tools, the wheel, fire, primitive warfare, and agriculture. Five thousand years later, he invented recorded history and chariots. In the past 500 years printing occurred, the steam engine was invented, and the industrial revolution occurred. But nearly everything else has been invented in a very short period of time the last 100 years or so. Yet, we tend to think that our existence on Earth is the only existence; that this Earth was placed here for our convenience.

   If we take the long view of energy policy, we will understand that this is not the case. The long view of energy policy says: Let's change what we are doing. Yes, let's produce more; but, let's also disconnect in the long term and pay more attention to opportunities for limitless and renewable

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