Jeff Bingaman United States Senator from New Mexico

WASHINGTON – The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee today held a hearing on legislation U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman wrote to promote the use of green technology. 

Bingaman's bill, called the 21^st Century Energy Technology Deployment Act, proposes the creation of a financial corporation to help promote investments to develop and use clean energy technology.

Because some commercial investors believe investing in new technologies is risky, it has been difficult to get some clean energy technologies to market.  The corporation created through Bingaman's bill would back riskier technologies that will address our climate and energy security needs.  The corporation would use a portfolio investment approach to mitigate risk and try and become self-sustaining over the long term by balancing riskier investments with revenues from other services and less risky investments.

"Promising technologies exist that can address our oil security needs, both in reducing our demand for fuel through efficient or electric drive vehicles, and in replacing gasoline with sustainable biofuels," Bingaman said.   "It's going to take significant and sustained investment to bring these technologies to a point where they can be deployed on the scale necessary to meet our needs."

"We will have to commit to, support and be willing to take some risk that some technologies won't pan out.  The failure of a technology or two to live up to expectations will inevitably be far less costly than the failure of imagination in declining to try," he said. 

The corporation would be governed by a board of directors, with a permanent role for the Secretary of Energy.  Like other previous successful government corporations, it would eventually be authorized to issue common stock to fund its operations, but an initial period is contemplated where it would be wholly owned by the government.  The corporation also will have a permanent Technology Advisory Council to advise on the technological credibility of projects and to set goals for the corporation. 

Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, used the hearing to begin building support for his legislation.