Bill Nelson: “I congratulate Senator Feinstein for her quest over a number of years and thank all of our colleagues on the Commerce…”

“I congratulate Senator Feinstein for her quest over a number of years and thank all of our colleagues on the Commerce Committee, Members and staff, for bringing this possibility about. It came about as a result of the other side not having the votes. All they had to get was 41 votes. Fortunately, that did not occur. It allowed us to come together and massage the bill a little bit more with these amendments. Thus, we get the end result. This Senator has filed an amendment for 40 miles per gallon. It simply wasn't practical. We weren't going to have the votes for that because we were trying hard enough to get the votes for 35 miles a gallon in 13 years, in 2020, and then with the compromises that were made, instead of thereafter being at a 4-percent increase in miles per gallon per year, which would compound, leaving it to NHTSA, with the criteria of what is practically feasible. That is a reasonable compromise. Then totally apart from that, on a separate issue, flex-fuel vehicles, wherever we can encourage that, it is certainly to our advantage because the more we can have a fuel that is something other than derived from oil, the better off we are. If we have the vehicles that use E85, then the question is, Do we have the gas stations that have the ethanol distributed to them in order to get E85? We have to start working on that.”