Jeff Bingaman: “I rise to speak briefly in favor of the amendment by the Senator from North Dakota and give the reasons I believe this…”

“I rise to speak briefly in favor of the amendment by the Senator from North Dakota and give the reasons I believe this is a meritorious amendment that would strengthen the bill. First, I think everyone needs to understand the amendment is an amendment that just sets targets. It really says that the plan--this is the plan the administration is going to come up with to spend this $1.3 billion, I believe it is-- shall describe the activities of the Department of Energy, including a research, development, demonstration, and commercial application program for developing technologies to support-- and then it goes on to set these targets to support: the production and deployment of . . . 100,000 hydrogen-fueled fuel cell vehicles by 2010; and . . . 2.5 million hydrogen-fueled fuel cell vehicles by 2020 . . . As I say, this is an amendment that sets some targets. They are not mandates; they are targets. I think they add greatly to the bill. Unfortunately, the Senator from Tennessee, as chair of the Energy Subcommittee in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, does have the primary responsibility for the oversight of a lot of this activity. I would see this amendment, frankly, by the Senator from North Dakota as a way to give him more ability to perform that oversight.”