Jeff Bingaman: “Let me make three brief points with regard to Senator Domenici's second-degree amendment. What that amendment does is it…”

“Let me make three brief points with regard to Senator Domenici's second-degree amendment. What that amendment does is it does three things to the renewable portfolio standard I have sent to the desk. First of all, it starts out by saying: Since it is a requirement that you produce a certain percent of the power you are selling from renewable sources, let's take the base amount of power you are selling and redefine it so it is smaller. It does that by saying: OK, if you are selling any power you produce from nuclear sources, that does not count in the base. So that automatically eliminates 20 percent of the electricity being sold in this country today. It says: OK, that way, you can suggest to people we have a 20-percent goal here--whereas the one I have sent to the desk is only 15 percent. But you do not need to be a mathematician to realize that after you take the 20 percent out, and you take 20 percent of 80 percent, then you are getting down to 16 percent. So, essentially, there is some smoke and mirrors going on there.”