You know, the oil industry is making $300 million a day, not because they planned on it, not because of great managerial expertise, but because of escalating world demand and therefore increasing prices for this commodity that they didn't create in the first place.
I think it's time that we made sure they put a fair share of their profits toward a sound energy future.
We need to reform our energy taxes so that large oil companies who reap huge benefits from unexpectedly high energy prices over the next two years will be required to pay a portion of their profits into the strategic energy fund.
Basically, if you take an average of their profits from 2000 to 2004, you add a 10 percent figure on top of that, then you can get to a point where those profits for just two years would be invested in the strategic energy fund.
Now, the oil companies would have the option: They wouldn't have to invest if they did this themselves, if they began making investments in biofuels, in other forms of renewable energy, in new, cleaner refining capacity, solar, wind. If they did it themselves, then they wouldn't have to pay into the fund.
With prices, profits and with these tax breaks in the fund, you could raise about $50 billion: more than enough to begin the energy revolution that we need.
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By 2010, we should require that the federal government purchase the most efficient cars made. That would create an annual market of more than 60,000 vehicles to spur continual improvements in technology.
By 2013, we should require that 10 percent of federal electricity purchases come only from renewable sources.
And by 2020 we should reduce federal oil consumption by 40 percent.
I'm very proud that in New York the Binghamton federal building was the first in the country to purchase 100 percent of its electricity from renewals.
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You know, wind and solar power are terrific examples. Right now there's a two- to three-month backlog of orders for solar cells like the kind that are in the Clinton Library in Little Rock.
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Now, we can also make a gallon of gas go a lot further. You all have been reading and hearing a lot about the use of home-grown energy, clean diesel and ethanol made from corn, sugarcane, cellulosic materials.
We have an underused resource, American farmland, and rural communities across our country eager to try something new and do their part to help solve our energy problems.
Today we have 97 biorefineries located in 19 different states with the capacity to make nearly 4.5 billion gallons of ethanol.
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We should start by requiring the big oil companies to install ethanol pumps at all the stations they own. We should also provide a tax incentive to the independents and other owners to do so over the next 10 years, and then a mandate to get it done immediately.
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The oil companies already got one delay, and we can't let that happen again, because companies like Cummins are investing billions of dollars in making sure that we have low-sulfur engines on the road. And if the oil companies won't step up to the plate on cleaner fuels, then they need to get out of the way and let innovative companies do that.
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We've been in a stalemate on CAFE standards for quite some time. I've worked with Senator Obama on legislation to offer auto companies assistance with retiree health care costs in exchange for them investing more in fuel-efficient cars.
That's a start. But we need the carmakers, the unions and the Bush administration to hammer this out. This is one of those moments that cries out for presidential leadership.