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Show Synthetic fuels development bill passes in House "The House of Representatives has passed an important and essential milestone in achieving energy independence in-dependence for the United States," said Congressman Gunn McKay (D-Utah). McKay issued the statement as the House passed the so-called "Moorhead-McKay "Moorhead-McKay Bill" that paves the path toward development of the nation's synthetic fuels, including oil from shale, tar sands, and coal. "The House has sent OPEC a message, and the message is that the United States is ready to reclaim its own energy destiny." In testimony, McKay told his colleagues, "Our country faces a severe energy crisis and our bill may well provide the means to get us through this crisis." The Moorhead-McKay bill is central to a McKay initiative, announced earlier, to move synthetic fuel development "out of the discussion phase and into the pipeline." It amends the Defense Production Act of 1950, which gives the President authority to require the production of strategic commodities essential for defense or in time of national emergency. The Moorhead-McKay Moorhead-McKay bill uses loan -guarantees, procurement contracts, or government-owned corporations to achieve an output of at least 2 million barrels of synthetic fuels per day by 1985. Two McKay amendments were added to the bill during debate of the measure on the House floor. McKay included tar sands within the specific definitions of synthetic fuels in the measure. The Utah Democrat said many billions of barrels of crude oil from tar sands remain untouched in the country. "My state of Utah has an estimated minimum of 30 billion barrels of oil from tar sands, and at least 22 other states have significant deposits. We are dealing with a resource which potentially holds more oil than all of the Middle East countries combined," McKay asserted. The other, McKay's "action" amendment, makes performance of the bill's provisions mandatory by the President and other federal officials. McKay told his colleagues, "I feel it is absolutely necessary that we make the efforts of the President and Secretaries of Energy, Interior and Defense absolutely ab-solutely mandatory. The original language of the bill stated that the President 'shall' attempt to achieve a national production goal. My amendment amend-ment recognizes that we must require the Administration to move forward on this problem in times of apparent plenty as well as in times of short supplies and long gas lines," McKay said. With passage of the Moorhead-McKay Moorhead-McKay bill, McKay says he will now move forward as a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee to. provide the necessary funding to carry out its provisions. McKay already has authored a new section of the 1980 Interior Appropriations Ap-propriations bill to accomplish this. "It is absolutely vital to our national security that we move ahead to bring on new sources of energy," McKay continued. "This is the only way to end the threat of OPEC blackmail and to assure our energy needs for years ahead!" "With approval of this bill tonight by the House, the fight over a national energy policy has ended, and the fight for a national energy policy has begun," McKay said. The House vote on final passage of the bill was 368-25. |