Dianne Feinstein: “I am 100 percent certain this is a big gas tax increase for our people. We have the longest commutes in the Nation now…”

“I am 100 percent certain this is a big gas tax increase for our people. We have the longest commutes in the Nation now with people commuting as much as 22 hours to get to work from Stockton to the Bay Area. This is going to be a real hardship. Our State is complicated because we do not have the refining capacity to refine the additional gasoline that ethanol is going to require. We talked about this yesterday. I went back and checked the figures, and our state will require 5 to 10 percent additional gasoline once we ban MTBE, but to force ethanol down our throats at the same time is a recipe for disaster. Therefore, we will not have the refining ability to refine that because our refineries are at capacity. So the infrastructure need of our State is much greater because it is going to mean additional refining capacity. That is not cheap or easy to produce, because you have to go through zoning, you have to go through local governments, you have to conduct environmental reports, to increase the refining capacity of our refineries. Additionally, our refineries are old and they break down. We have had two breakdowns of major refineries, as the junior Senator knows, and that spikes the price of gasoline. The Senator is right. All this amendment says is, give us another year. Instead of 2004, make it 2005.”