Mike Levin: “I am speaking this afternoon in support of the pending Bond-Levin amendment relative to fuel efficiency in our…”

“I am speaking this afternoon in support of the pending Bond-Levin amendment relative to fuel efficiency in our automobiles and how we achieve that fuel efficiency. Our amendment will increase fuel economy in automobiles. It will protect the environment. It will decrease our dependence on foreign oil. But it will do this in a way that will not harm the U.S. economy or put hard-working Americans out of work. Our amendment achieves the goal of better fuel economy with greater reliance on positive incentives to advance leap-ahead technologies such as hybrids and fuel cells. That includes promoting these technologies with greater increases in joint research and development and Government purchases. Our amendment requires the Department of Transportation to increase the CAFE standard. It is a mandate, but the key difference between our amendment and some of the alternatives is that our mandated increase will be left up to the Department of Transportation and will not be just an arbitrarily determined number on the part of the Senate. Let me go through some of the goals and how we achieve those goals in the Bond-Levin amendment. First, we need to improve fuel economy. We can, and we should, do it in a way that protects the environment, that diminishes our dependence on imported oil, and that allows the U.S. economy and our domestic manufacturing industry to thrive. Those goals are not in conflict with each other.”