RSS
By Robert Pore
From: Grand Island Independent
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said Wednesday he supports President Obama’s energy goals, but he said some members of Congress could make achieving those goals difficult.
With gasoline prices on the rise in an economy in recovery and with U.S. forces engaged in a civil war in a major oil-producing country, President Barack Obama Wednesday called on the U.S. to reduce its oil imports by one third by 2025.
According to Nebraska AAA, Grand Island regular unleaded gas prices Wednesday averaged $3.61 per gallon, which is an increase of 83 cents per gallon from a year ago.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, to reach Obama’s goal of reducing oil imports by a third by 2025, U.S. petroleum imports would need to drop by at least 3.7 million barrels per day (mbd) by 2025, compared with 2008 imports of 11 mbd.
One way Obama suggested reducing those imports is to increase biofuel production. In Nebraska, there are 24 operating ethanol plants producing more than 2 billion gallons of ethanol annually. According to the Renewable Fuels Association, ethanol production now replaces 10 percent of America’s petroleum gasoline needs.
But, according to Nelson, some members of Congress are battling efforts to increase ethanol production, such as repealing an ethanol tax credit incentive and not funding infrastructure needs for E15, which will be approved later this year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for cars made since 2001.
Nelson said repealing the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) that provides a 45-cents-per-gallon tax credit for gasoline blenders would be an “unwise approach.” The legislation is being pushed by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.
“We can’t let Sen. Coburn win,” Nelson said. “It is just that simple. When he wins, I think the country loses in terms of our ability to make continued gains in being self-sustaining when it comes to energy independence.”
He said Congress needs to make the needed budget cuts in a manner that “facilitates energy policy in a positive way in the country, national security in a positive way for the country. We have to know what we are doing.”
A large part of the oil the U.S. imports comes from the western hemisphere, with Canada and Mexico the top oil importers to the U.S. Canada, which has the second largest oil reserve in the world with its tar oil sand deposits in the western provinces, is looking to increase the amount of oil it supplies the U.S. via a proposed oil pipeline that would cross through a section of Nebraska’s Sandhills. Because the Sandhills is above a huge underground aquifer, the project is being criticized as a potential threat to the aquifer.
While Canada has a large oil reserve with its oil sands, to extract that oil requires a lot of water and natural gas to recover and process it. It is estimated that a barrel of oil sands oil costs roughly 20 times more to produce than from a more traditional oil field, making higher gasoline prices a necessity for that type of oil extraction.
Nelson looks at oil the U.S. imports from the Western Hemisphere differently than oil that comes from political hot spots in the Mideast and Africa.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the top five exporting countries accounted for 70 percent of United States crude oil imports in January. The top five countries are Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Venezuela. In January, Canada was exporting 2,149,000 barrels per day, compared to Mexico at 1,216,000 barrels per day.
Nelson said the U.S. spends nearly $1 billion per day to import oil.
“I think we have to be cautious and careful in whatever we do and in terms of the pipeline,” he said. “I have made it clear that if that is going to be built, then it is going to have to be done in a safe manner because of the aquifer and that the Sandhills are fragile and we need to take care of them.”
According to Nelson, “What we need is a plan in place for the development of our own resources to the extent that we can so that ultimately we are not only not required to rely on oil from the Mideast, but maybe not oil from our neighbors.”
To achieve that goal, Nelson said, the U.S. must continue to expand its biofuel development.
“And any kind of effort that hampers our ability to be able to be successful in the development of biofuels, not just from corn but from other products as well, from soybeans to switchgrass to garbage, has to be reviewed and should be rejected,” Nelson said.
###
Search: Issues, Economy, Budget, Environment, Labor, Rural Affairs, Agriculture, Energy, Ethanol, Science and Technology, Nelson in the News