Joe Lieberman: “I do wish to say that this bill sets strong targets for a reduction of oil consumption by America and the American…”

“I do wish to say that this bill sets strong targets for a reduction of oil consumption by America and the American people and American businesses. It does so by way of breaking what we all agree is a harmful dependence we have. I wish to make clear that the underlying bill as proposed by the committee includes targets. So we are not doing something different by having a target; we are just saying the target ought to be to reduce oil consumption, not just gasoline consumption, as the underlying bill indicates. That is because we all know the problem we have in America is an addiction to oil. It is oil dependence, not just gasoline dependence. It is all of the various uses of oil we have. To get a bit technical, if we only talk about reducing gasoline consumption, that might be accomplished by greater use of diesel, but diesel comes from oil. So we would not, even if we went to diesel, decrease our dependence on foreign oil. So we think this is building on not just the targets in the bill but building on all of the good work for energy conservation and energy efficiency in the bill. It would strengthen the bill.”