Bill Flores: “I want to respond to what my amendment really does, and let me read a letter from the Department of Defense general…”

“I want to respond to what my amendment really does, and let me read a letter from the Department of Defense general counsel to Senator Inhofe from July of 2008. I quote: ``It creates uncertainty about what fuels DOD can procure, and will discourage the development of new sources, particularly reliable domestic sources of energy supplies for the Armed Forces.'' Let me go on. Let me give you a practical, real world example as to what section 526 does. Our closest neighbor with stable energy supplies is Canada. We import 650,000-plus barrels a day of oil that is produced from oil sands in Canada. That oil makes its way throughout the refinery system throughout the United States and gets blended into jet fuels, gasoline, and diesel fuel. A literal interpretation of section 526 would say that the U.S. military, the United States Government, more broadly, cannot utilize any of those fuels. There is no technical or commercial way that the military of the United States Government can make sure it is not using any fuel source that came from that crude oil. Let me go on and wrap up like this. You are going to hear a lot of remarks from the other side of the aisle regarding the claims about section 526 or about my amendment. My amendment does nothing, nothing to remove the ability of the Federal Government to use alternative fuel sources. It can use whatever fuel source it wants to under my amendment. Section 526 increases our reliance on Middle East oil.…”