Marcy Kaptur: “the amendment I am proposing is very straightforward. Essentially what it does is it allows the Secretary of Energy at…”

“the amendment I am proposing is very straightforward. Essentially what it does is it allows the Secretary of Energy at this time of very high gas prices to take a portion of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, draw it down, and use the proceeds to purchase ethanol and biodiesel, adding those to the reserves that we have across this country. There is no budget impact to this proposal. Essentially what we are doing here is recognizing that rising gas prices, in fact, harm and create havoc within our economy. This is a great economic vulnerability and a great military vulnerability. We also recognize that we want to encourage domestic production of all fuels to the best extent possible. My colleagues should know that 92 percent of the fuels, the crude in the Petroleum Reserve, in the SPRO, has been imported. So it is not domestic. In fact, what fueled America this past year, over two-thirds of it is all imported. This is not a position that we should permit for our great country. This amendment promotes alternative fuels focused on biofuels, specifically ethanol and biodiesel. It is a very reasonable proposal. Even after being implemented, this would represent less than 2 percent of all fuel that is in the reserve.”