Senator Amy Klobuchar: Keynote Address at the DOE Bioenergy 2015 Conference

by Senator Amy Kolbuchar (Biofuels Digest/Bioenergy 2015) I want to spend a moment looking at the badness in our energy policy, with a look back in history. Our first bad moment was after 9/11, we were united and the President could have said “we need a policy to reduce our reliance on these energies and the relationships and conditions that they have forced on us. Then, there was the moment we were one vote short on renewable energy standard. One vote!

Then, there was the hour when President Obama, took office in the worst downturn in recent times, when we were losing more jobs in one month as a country than we had people in Vermont. We knew we had the votes for a Renewable Power Standard from the summer before, but we went for cap and trade but it was not the right time.

Now is the moment to govern from opportunity, and we know from the energy successes that we are having that where we sustained long term policies, those decisions are paying major dividends.

First, we don;t tear down good policies. We’ve had a major battle over the Renewable Fuel Standard and I felt really strong about that. When I go home and meet with voters, it has recently begun to remind me of back in the days of the “freedom to farm” rallies. People show up and are so mad that our own Administration would think about peeling that Standard back when we had come so far and the oil companies are doing so well.

We have had so many meetings, and we have pushed back on RFS, and finally the EPA released a long-delayed rule. It did reflect a slight improvement especially for biomass-based diesel, but falls well short of the goal. For the first time we have committed to decrease the amount of renewable fuel in the US.

At age 15 my grandfather’s parents died and he quit school and went to work in the mines to support 9 siblings. Every day he went down into the dark world of the mine, and he never complained, and I have wondered what he thought of as he watched the world above recede. He was a man who loved to walk in the woods, who liked to hunt, and pick blackberries and make jam.

I grew up with this early example of the tension between the environment and industry, he loved the outdoors and saw the environment and industry as things that could work together.

I know that what you can do, what you are doing, is putting people like my grandpa to work but protecting the environment. So, put your helmets on and your boots, and I promise you there are these little rays of hope, there is change on the way and you are doing good, so I want to thank you. READ MORE and MORE (DomesticFuel.com; includes audio of speech)