Russ Feingold: “I was pleased to support the amendment offered by the Senator from South Dakota, Mr. Daschle, No. 3050. I support the…”

“I was pleased to support the amendment offered by the Senator from South Dakota, Mr. Daschle, No. 3050. I support the renewable fuels title of this amendment and the measures that increase the supply of ethanol. I also support language to consolidate the number of reformulated gasoline blends. I have worked closely with Congressman Paul Ryan in an effort to reduce the number of Federal reformulated gasoline blends and increase gasoline supplies. In recent years, fuel supply shocks such as pipeline problems and refinery fires have contributed significantly to gasoline price spikes in southern Wisconsin. Chicago and southeast Wisconsin use a specialized blend of reformulated gasoline to meet Federal Clean Air Act requirements that is not used elsewhere in the country. When supplies of this type of gasoline run low, Wisconsin is unable to draw on supplies of gasoline from other areas. I could not, however, support the amendment offered by the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Domenici, No. 2051. This so-called ``scaled down'' version of the energy bill consists of 900 pages and contains many of the worst provisions of the H.R. 6 conference report that failed to get cloture last fall.”