Thursday, June 14, 2007

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on Energy Legislation
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

Mr. President, I thank both distinguished Senators from New Mexico.

I rise for a few minutes to talk about this bill and the renewable portfolio standards and the effects on my State of Georgia.

I associate myself with the remarks of the distinguished Senator from Idaho. I did not hear them all, but I heard the narrow stovepipe versus the broad approach, and that is one of the things I want to talk about because we have a diverse country with many assets that regionally are very different.

If we are going to have renewable portfolio standards that call on us to find renewable energy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we have to exploit and promote all those sources, not narrow those sources.

I also wish to quote from our prayer this morning from Pastor Sturdivant. Pastor Sturdivant called on all of us during this process of legislation, prayed for us to have patience. I do think we all need to have patience when dealing with this bill because I wish to tell my colleagues what the effect of the renewable portfolio standards are on the State of Georgia. We don't have the wind to meet the standards; we don't have it. The tax that would in turn be imposed on these utilities, all regulated, thus ultimately paid by the taxpayer, would be the following: On electric membership cooperatives it would be a half a billion dollars between now and 2020, and on Southern Company, it would be $7.6 billion.

Now, I know the bill attempts to exempt electric membership cooperatives, but when you analyze the bill, 7 of Georgia's 42 cooperatives would be included. Those 7 cooperatives produce 50 percent of all the energy generated by cooperative services in Georgia. So, therefore, because of the way it is worded in its current form, and as I understand the Bingaman amendment, 10 States, mine being one of them, would be in a position of not being able to meet the standard because of nothing beyond their control and would have an imposition of taxation that ultimately goes to our ratepayers, both to either the Southern Company or the electric membership cooperatives who are not exempt, to the tune of almost a total cumulatively of $8 billion.

Now, one of the things this bill talks about at its outset: It says this is to reduce our Nation's dependency on foreign oil by investing in clean, renewable, and alternative energy sources. I wish to talk for a minute about a clean, renewable, alternative energy source that we know exists, that we are currently utilizing, and that for some reason, we continue to stay away from reenergizing, and that is nuclear energy. We had great testimony by Vice President Gore before the EPW Committee earlier this year, and each of us on the committee got to ask the distinguished Vice President a question--or more questions--5 minutes' worth of questions. When it came to be my time, I asked the Vice President, accepting that every factor in the global warming argument is correct, how can we not seek to reenergize the nuclear energy in this country to help meet that demand of lessening carbon, having renewable sources of energy that are safe, efficient, and inexpensive? That is the question I pose today: How do we look toward meeting the challenges of removing or lessening our dependence on foreign petroleum, and yet not get back in the business of building nuclear powerplants? It is something I think is essential for us to do, and an energy bill that does not include it as a renewable source of energy is missing the boat.

My State of Georgia has nuclear powerplants. When I was in the State legislature, we were building plans for them. The Southern Company wants to get licensing to put another reactor on Vogle to expand its capacity. In talking about nuclear energy, most of the fears that resulted in the 1970s, although well-founded because of Chernobyl, have, in fact, proven American technology to be superior. The Three Mile Island accident that happened in the 1970s was a tragic accident, but it proved the redundant fail-safe mechanism of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission standards in the building of nuclear powerplants. That was technology of the 1970s and late 1960s. Today we have the knowledge we have gained from over 30 more years of the use, development, and understanding of nuclear power.

Today, we power our nuclear aircraft carriers, such as the Eisenhower returning from the Persian Gulf, on nuclear energy. In Georgia, the Trident submarines, where our sailors, at close quarters for months on end under the sea, live comfortably and with a nuclear reactor. Why is it, when we have petroleum prices running through the roof, when we want to sequester carbon and reduce its input, do we still look the other way on a source of energy that is reliable, that is safe, that is inexpensive, and that now we know its byproducts are recyclable for further use? This brings me to a second point.

Four Senators in this body, the two Senators from South Carolina and the two Senators from Georgia, along with the Governors of both of those States and the mayors and city councils of the City of Aiken, SC, and Augusta, GA, have gone to the Department of Energy and said: Why not take the Savannah River plant, which for years manufactured the warheads for our nuclear weapons, and turn it into a mock facility to recycle spent nuclear material back into productive energy-generating nuclear material. So you have two States volunteering to recycle. You have a process that allows it to become renewable. You have a Federal investment already at a site that has been used for years. These are the types of creative things we need to do as we pursue reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

Nuclear energy will not do it all. Wind cannot do it all. Solar cannot do it all. Hydro cannot do it all, and biomass cannot do it all. But collectively, together, operating as a team, incentivizing by the laws we pass, we have a chance to do exactly what the title of this bill portends.

I wish to associate myself entirely with the remarks of the Senator from Tennessee yesterday afternoon, Senator Alexander, who so eloquently expressed the punitive nature of the RPS standards in the Bingaman proposal as far as his State of Tennessee and my State of Georgia. I also associate myself with what Senator Craig from Idaho said. If we are going to seek alternatives, let's seek them all. Let's seek safety. Let's encourage them through tax policy, and let's reduce our dependence, but let's not make the reduction approach so narrow we penalize some and reward others.