question is one of cost and competitiveness. There are also some emissions issues with some of the earlier versions of it. But I don't think we've tapped the potential of that by any means.

Senator CLINTON. I'd also like to ask Ms. McGinty, I know that you have spent some time abroad recently.

Ms. MCGINTY. Yes.

Senator CLINTON. And I am concerned about our national leadership on global environmental issues and our need to figure out ways of helping to control emissions, because, you know, the worst of all possible worlds, it seems to me, is that we would finally deal with, you know, sulfur dioxide and mercury and diesel and other things here but take CO2 off the table. Then, as we see China and India, for example, industrializing and people being affluent enough to buy automobiles, and we then are stuck in a situation. where whatever progress we've made domestically is overshadowed by the extraordinary global impacts of the failure to have any global agreements that control emissions elsewhere.

Would you comment on the role that you think the United States should be playing in environmental and air quality issues?

Ms. MCGINTY. Thank you, Senator. Yes. I think in this area, as well, what we are faced with is an opportunity, and there are two kinds of opportunities that come from looking overseas on the climate issue, in particular. One is that, as Linda can probably say better than I, some $25 trillion of energy capacity will be put in place in the developing countries between now

Senator CLINTON. Was that $25 trillion?

Ms. MCGINTY. Trillion, T-between now and the year 2050. Some country is going to be supplying that technology. If we partner with these countries, it increases the chances that it will be U.S. companies doing that.

The second reason I think it is important to open that kind of partnership with the developing world is, again, for something Linda referred to, which is, as we look at our own cost of reducing greenhouse gases, there is no question that it is cheaper in many respects for U.S. business to be able to invest in a country like India or China than simply to have to meet the requirements within the four corners of the United States, so we want to nurture those partnerships and it is an opportunity for us if we do.

Thank you.

Senator VOINOVICH. It's interesting that you mentioned that, because Senator Craig has a company in his State that has the best technology, and they said to him, "Unless this energy thing is worked out here, we're moving. We can take 8,000 jobs overseas. We can do that tomorrow." That's a threat that they're not going to put up with this.

I think that's something else that we need to look at. Even China, for example, used to provide oil. Now it is importing oil. As its economy grows, and other parts of the world, some of the things that we just take for granted are not going to be available to us. We need to look at that. I think your point is well taken on the environmental issue.

My good friend, Senator Carper?

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for bringing us together today around these issues.

I have a statement I'd like to ask unanimous consent be entered into the record.

Senator VOINOVICH. Without objection.

[The prepared statement of Senator Carper follows:]

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE

I am grateful to the chairman, my friend from Ohio, and the ranking member, my friend from Connecticut for calling this hearing. I understand that this is the first of several hearings this subcommittee will hold where we examine the nexus between clean air, the environment, and the nation's energy policy. I am looking forward to the testimony we will receive, and to working with my colleagues as we move forward.

The issues of clean air, and energy policy are important to Delaware. In my State, which has urbanized areas as well as rural farming communities, it is important that we have both a clean environment and a reliable energy supply. Delaware has come a long way toward achieving this, but we still have work to do.

In Delaware, in-fact throughout the mid-Atlantic and northeast, we are still faced with a clean air problem. In States like New Jersey, New York, and Delaware we have been working hard over the past decade to clean up the air by reducing or controlling the emissions from the sources ranging from automobiles to factories to power plants within our State borders.

This is not just a State problem however; it is a regional, and national problem. We need to be very smart about how we proceed on this. Last week, I had a chance to speak at a conference on energy policy.

I told that group, and I'll repeat it today, we need to be broad-minded and very creative. The link between this nation's energy use and our air quality is not the question. The question is what do we do about it? Clearly, we need to both protect our air and also provide an abundant, reliable source of energy. We need to think about incentives as well as regulations. The toolbox will need to be diverse.

Delaware is an importer of energy. The major power plants in the State generate the majority of our electricity, mostly from coal, but still we must import electricity from States such as Pennsylvania and New Jersey to meet demand. Thus, we need to have a dialog with our neighbors to determine what we can do to allow for both a reliable energy supply, and clean air.

Last year, Delaware joined with the EPA and other eastern States in urging the Midwest power utilities to clean up their emissions. As others today have mentioned, those of us downwind from the Midwest utility plants are faced with trying to clean up the air in our States by controlling the emissions within our borders, while at the same time facing penalties for pollutants imported from other regions. We have to work together with States such as Ohio to achieve results, and I am ready to work with everyone here to find a solution. I was pleased to hear that recently the Supreme Court indicated that utilities need to abide by provisions of the Clean Air Act, but I recognize that this will be expensive and that the costs imposed on States and companies with older power plants will be significant. That being said, we must begin to find out how to address those costs, instead of how to avoid them.

Generation of electricity releases more than two thirds of the sulfur dioxide emitted, and close to half of U.S. carbon dioxide. The bottom line is that we are accustomed to burning fossil fuels to generate electricity and as long as we burn fossil fuels, we will have to be mindful of the impacts on air quality. Through application of various technologies, we've probably done the easy part in cleaning up the majority of pollutants. Further progress will be difficult. But we must keep moving. I look forward to today's discussions, and to working with my colleagues this Congress on this issue.

Senator CARPER. I was looking through my school yearbook last night

[Laughter.]

Senator CARPER [continuing]. I was reminded, when I was at Delaware graduate school in the mid-1970's that we were in the

throes of an energy crisis, concerned about clean air, as well. I'm tempted to say sometimes it seems like we never learn, but we can-we're always learning, I suppose.

I want to ask each of you the same question, and I'm going to ask each of you to take about two or two-and-a-half minutes or so to answer it for me, if you will. It's not a hard question, but an important one.

Our friend, Senator Murkowski, and maybe this week or next week Senator Bingaman will lay out their energy proposals for our country. I talked with Senator Bingaman about it a little bit yesterday to get a feel for what was coming from his proposal.

I'm reminded that—and he shared with me a graph that showed consumption of energy, particularly oil, that is attributed to our transportation sector. I've had some interesting conversations of late with friends from the auto industry about hybrid technology that is coming in vehicles that are literally in the pipeline they're going to be out, are out, are coming out-and about fuel cell vehicles, as well.

Here's what I want to ask you to do. Just help us briefly piece together part of an energy policy for our country that would encourage Americans to actually purchase hybrid vehicles, fuel cell powered vehicles, other energy-efficient, clean-operating vehicles in the years ahead. So that's No. 1. Give us some thoughts on how do we actually encourage people to buy them? I think they are going to be produced. The question is whether anybody is going to buy them.

Second piece I want to ask, Senator Clinton has already talked to you about coal, so I'll skip over that one, but I do want you to give us some thoughts on nuclear power, and particularly the environmental problems with nuclear power and how maybe in 2001, maybe in this decade, we're better able to deal with those problems.

The last piece, just some thoughts, if you will, on renewable fuels, not so much photovoltaic or solar or wind, but more biostuff that we grow, whether soybeans or ethanol, that sort of thing.

Just those three components, if you will, for an energy policy, and if each of you would take a couple minutes and share some thoughts with us it might be helpful as we grapple with these issues. I would be grateful.

Ms. MCGINTY. Thanks, Senator. I think you've outlined several major pieces of the kind of comprehensive approach that is being talked about here.

In terms of buying clean vehicles, several thoughts I would offer. First, I think on the front end the Government has a very important role to play in helping to reduce the cost of those technologies up front by promoting research and development partnerships. A fine example along these lines is the current partnership for a new generation of vehicles. I think it has shown this win/win we are struggling for in terms of energy and environment and the transportation sector.

On the back end, in terms of a pull for those technologies to help consumers afford them, proposals have been made to offer tax credits to consumers or to businesses that would buy fleets of these ve

hicles, for example, to again ease the up-front cost of affording some of these vehicles.

I would add to this mix, in terms of the transportation sector, I think it is very important not only to improve the automobile but to offer consumers choices, and that means that, again, what the Federal Government can do to invest in and provide local communities resources for transportation alternatives-mass transit, highspeed rail-those kinds of investments are very critical to our infrastructure and to our future.

I think as the sprawl issue demonstrates, there is a quality of life issue there, too, where some people want to get out of their car and out of traffic jams.

Nuclear power-I think the issues have been touched on here. There is an opportunity to increase the operating life and usefulness of our nuclear power plants, and the Federal Government has made investments in partnership with industry along those lines, but the waste issues, the storage issues, and the proliferation issues are tough ones that need to be wrestled with.

Senator CARPER. Take 30 seconds on waste. Is there anybody in the world who is doing a better job than we are with respect to the waste recycling and that sort of thing?

Ms. MCGINTY. Well, I wouldn't present myself as any kind of expert on that. I think that the French consider themselves to be quite advanced in handling these issues. This country has experimented with technologies like vitrification, which tries to encase that waste in glass. So there are different approaches that are being pursued.

We maybe have suffered from too single-mindedly pursuing just things like Yucca Mountain, which need to be examined, but maybe we have too single-mindedly focused on that.

I can't present a more-thorough analysis of that.

Finally, in renewable fuels, I think you are right to point to biomass sources of fuels, in part because not only does it offer us an opportunity for some more degree of autonomy, since we have plenty of biomass that we can put toward fuel production, but it is one of these things that improves the environment, but also offers promising new economic opportunity, even in depressed areas of the country like our farming and rural sectors, where they could have whole new business opportunities that they could pursue with Federal Government support for biomass, both research and deployment.

Senator CARPER. Ms. Stuntz, before you respond, for the past year in Delaware we have been conducting an experiment in Sussex County-actually, throughout that State where we take soybean oil and we mix it with diesel fuel, and we use it to provide power for our vehicles in our Department of Transportation, and we find that their performance is good, energy efficiency is good. They burn more cleanly. The emissions smell like kind of a cross between popcorn and french fries.

[Laughter.]

Senator CARPER. When people drive to the Delaware shore this year or to Ocean City, Maryland, they're going to be driving through these fields of soybeans. They can maybe think of not how just we use that soybean to feed chickens and raise chickens on the

Delmarva Peninsula, but maybe some day to provide power for our vehicles.

Ms. Stuntz?

Ms. STUNTZ. Yes, Senator.

On hybrid vehicles, I think first the issue is performance. If they don't provide the basic services-reliable, taking you to the grocery store, dropping the kids off at school, or whatever you need-I don't think it will work. But I believe we are close on that. I, personally, am very excited about hybrid vehicles. I would agree with Katie the keys would be perhaps tax incentives to buy down any price differentials, and maybe trying to get creative, maybe to give them access to HOV lanes. Unlike some of the things we've discovered now, you let dual-fuel cars in some places, fuel-flexible cars access, and then they run on gasoline all the time, so is it just kind of a cute way to avoid HOV requirements.

Those kinds of things in urban areas, which is where I think some of these vehicles have their greatest potential, might really encourage people to do that, because they're getting some benefits they otherwise wouldn't get.

Nuclear power—I think it is a tragedy what this nation has done in the area of nuclear power. In my views the issues are not technical, they are political. I think, you know, France is not known for being careless about its citizens' health and well-being, and it is virtually entirely dependent on nuclear power and it is very low cost and it is very reliable.

Our industry a great success story. The nuclear plants in this country now operate at something over 90 percent capacity. Their utilization, their performance, with very few exceptions, has been extraordinary. It is one of the reasons that the air in the northeast and elsewhere, even California, is better than it otherwise would be with anything else, and yet we seem, as a nation, not able to deal with the political issue of what to do about the waste. We don't even have an EPA that can get out a standard to allow people to determine whether Yucca Mountain can meet it, and I just think that's wrong.

Renewable fuels-I am not as big a devotee, I guess, of biomass. Certainly there is a role for biodiesel and ethanol. Where it is available, close at hand, it play make a real role, but I, personally, in the area of renewable fuels am most excited about wind. I think wind is really taking off. I think the Federal Government has played an important role.

Senator CARPER. There's a pun in there somewhere.

Ms. STUNTZ. I didn't mean one, but it is possible.

The Federal tax credit, production tax credit that came about as part of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 and has been extended by the Congress since then, along with some of the State initiatives on renewable portfolio standards-in Texas, for example, under the President has made a huge difference. There are wind farms of not just a few but hundreds of megawatts worth popping up in Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, even Ohio, West Virginia, wherever there is a good resource. We're getting a lot smarter about, yes, it is intermittent and you can't always count on it, but now that we've got wholesale deregulation-and this is a good side of it—people are learning to firm it up by matching it up with