BACK TO FLOOR SPEECHES / BACK TO VIDEO
05.10.06

"Rep. Miller Supports Technology Incentive to Help Lower Gas Prices"

(Click on photo to see .wmv video of Rep. Miller's floor speech.)

"Mr. Speaker, I support this legislation, but there is so much more that we need to be doing. In fact, there is so much more that we should have done already. The task before us, the urgent task before us, is to develop a practical, sustainable energy source or array of sources that will allow this Nation to be energy independent without busting the budget of middle class families just to go to work, to take the kids to school, to go to the grocery store.

"We need practical, sustainable energy sources that do not emit the greenhouse gases that many scientists, really most scientists now fear will lead to catastrophic climate change, that will forever alter life on this planet, and we need practical, sustainable energy sources that will not so limit our options in foreign policy that we have to be uncritical friends to some of the most unattractive nations or governments in the world.

"Mr. Speaker, we do need to pursue research into hydrogen, but we need an effort comparable to the effort during World War II, the Manhattan Project. We need an effort, to use Mr. Inglis' analogy, like the effort that this Nation had in the 1960s to reach the Moon.

"That is the effort we need to put behind developing alternative fuels and conservation technologies and to move those energy and conservation technologies into widespread commercial use.

"I have sponsored legislation that Mr. Boehlert, the Chair of the Science Committee who spoke a moment ago, and Mr. Markey, my Democratic colleague, have introduced that would increase fuel efficiency requirements for cars and trucks to 33 miles a gallon by 2015.

"Mr. Speaker, that goal can be achieved now with existing technologies, without any technological breakthrough. I feel almost embarrassed at how modest that bill is, how lacking in ambition that bill is. But even that the leadership of this House has not been willing to bring to the floor for debate and for a vote.

"But, Mr. Speaker, in our hearing on hydrogen technology, in our hearing in the Science Committee on the H-Prize legislation, one of the witnesses said that we could achieve cars and trucks that average 100 miles a gallon in the relatively near future if we really put our minds to it.

"Why on Earth are we not doing that? Why on Earth are we not acting with the urgency that our energy needs require?

"Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the President's budget this year did increase funding for research into sustainable energy sources. Mr. Speaker, I regret that the President's budget found much of that additional funding from cuts to energy efficiency efforts. We need to proceed on several fronts at one time. We need to proceed without bias, without preconception.

"A hydrogen economy or hydrogen fuel cells may not be the winning technology. As several of the speakers have said already, there are huge obstacles to overcome. Yes, hydrogen is abundant, but not as hydrogen. We need to find hydrogen sources, and the present source of hydrogen is by stripping it out of other fuels. Yes, when hydrogen is combined with oxygen to produce energy, that is a clean technology, but stripping hydrogen from fuels now is not clean. It is a very dirty technology, and the usual source of fuels from which it is stripped are fossil fuels, not sustainable, renewable energy sources.

"Mr. Speaker, hydrogen technology, to have a hydrogen fuel cell car in every driveway, would make useless the infrastructure we now have, the pipelines, the tanks, the pumps, to transport, to distribute a fuel that is liquid on the planet Earth, which hydrogen is not.

"So let's proceed. Let's proceed to develop, to provide an incentive to the private sector to develop the kinds of technologies we are going to need if hydrogen fuel cells are ever to be a practical source of energy for us.

"But let us proceed on several fronts. I hope this Congress will be back soon. I will vote for this bill today, but I hope that Congress will be back soon to consider other prizes for energy, other alternative energy sources, other prizes for energy conservation, and that this Congress gives the urgent attention to energy independence, to sustainable energy sources that we desperately need, that the middle class families now paying $3 a gallon desperately need."

. . .