Peter Visclosky: “The gentleman talks about the burden. The gentleman talks about the requirement. I would talk about our requirement to…”

“The gentleman talks about the burden. The gentleman talks about the requirement. I would talk about our requirement to ease the burden on the American people as far as our continued dependency on fossil fuel, on overseas options as far as how we secure our carbon, and as I have said a number of times during the debate during the last 2 days, we should never foreclose options for our military. There is a purpose for this requirement and this policy because the Department of Defense is the largest entity on the planet Earth relative to the purchase of fuel, and it is a perfect way to begin to wean ourselves from some of these foreign sources. Some argue that section 526 harms our military readiness. This is simply not the case. In July, the Department of Defense stated very clearly that the provision has not hindered the Department from purchasing the fuel we need today, worldwide, to support military missions, but it also sets an important baseline in developing the fuels we will need in the future. The Department, itself, supports section 526, recognizing that tomorrow's soldiers, sailors, air personnel, and marines are going to need a greater range--more options--of energy sources. In fact, the Department of Defense says that repealing this section could complicate the Department's efforts to provide better energy options to our warfighters and take advantage of the promising developments in homegrown biofuels.…”