May 15, 1975
Page 14662
SENATOR HATHAWAY TESTIMONY ON SOLAR ENERGY
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, my colleague from Maine, Mr. HATHAWAY presided this week at hearings on solar energy, before the Select Committee on Small Business.
His opening remarks of Wednesday were for me most useful in summarizing the views of the small business community on the possibilities for, and roadblocks to, development of this alternative source of energy.
To share his statement with my colleagues, I ask unanimous consent that his remarks be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the remarks were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
OPENING STATEMENT FOR SENATOR WILLIAM D. HATHAWAY, HEARINGS ON ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AND SMALL BUSINESS,
PART 1. SOLAR ENERGY, SENATE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS,
MAY 14, 1975
It gives me great pleasure to continue the hearings that Senator McIntyre and Chairman Nelson began yesterday.
Today we will look into the problem of small business and Federal energy research with witnesses from the Administration.
Yesterday we heard of the problems that small business faces with respect to solar heating and cooling from manufacturers, installers, and researchers. Now we will hear how the Administration proposes to help develop the national solar energy industry.
Our witnesses today come from the newly created Energy Research and Development Administration, the Federal Energy Administration, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
ERDA is the lead agency with respect to solar energy research, development, and demonstration. It has assumed these duties from the National Science Foundation.
Together with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, ERDA will spend about $300 million in the next four years to help solar heating and cooling. HUD will concentrate on solar home heating, and. ERDA will conduct research and follow-up
Through its procedures, ERDA will be able to bring small business into the development
of solar energy, or it will be able to effectively shut it out.
ERDA, for instance, could write its proposals in such a way that only large corporations could bid.
We know this is not the case; one company in Virginia has already received a large grant from the ERDA procurement office. However, we want to make sure that ERDA continues with this record and does not fall back upon the ability of the Federal bureaucracy to feed research into large corporations or universities, exclusively.
Dr. John Teem will be the witness for the Energy Research and Development Administration. We look forward to his testimony.
We will also hear this morning from the Department of Housing and Urban Development which has authority for residential development of solar energy. Mr. Michael H. Moskow will represent the Department. He is Assistant Secretary of Policy Development and Research.
We will also have Donald Craven, an assistant administrator from the Federal Energy Administration, who will describe the FEA input into solar energy development.
At the hearings held yesterday, we heard from three small businessmen and how they believe solar energy should be developed.
Our first witness, Dr. Jerry Plunkett of Denver, Colorado, testified that a bias against small business exists in the Federal research establishment. He made several strong recommendations for development of solar energy by small business, including retraining the biases of the Federal bureaucrats who work for the gentlemen we will hear from today.
Dr. Plunkett, as President of Materials Consultants, Inc., has worked for several years to try to develop solar energy but has run smack against the Federal Government.
Our second witness yesterday, James Piper, the President of Piper Hydro, Anaheim, California, not only discussed the institutional constraints in developing solar energy with Federal help, but when to the extent of making positive recommendations on the National Plan for Solar Heating and Cooling that the Energy Research and Development Administration will tell us about today.
I think the most telling point in Mr. Piper's testimony was the figures he suggested that ERDA use for solar energy. ERDA plans to spend about $300 million to construct about 4,000 units to be heated and cooled by solar energy.
Mr. Piper suggests that this number could be jumped to almost 130,000 units, including multi- family dwellings that are not considered in the ERDA interim report – with NO increase in Federal funding.
Piper, as a small businessman, also suggested that the Energy Research and Development Administration should consider loans rather than direct grants for the development of solar energy. He suggested that the Federal Government should not be funding companies to compete with established solar energy companies. Nor, he said, should the government be funding companies that can roll research and development costs into rate basis as the utilities do today.
Our third witness yesterday, Barney Menditch, suggested that education is the most important point in the development of solar energy.
Menditch runs an air-conditioning and heating contracting firm, and suggested that code development and manuals to show contractors how to install solar energy would encourage builders to use systems that could be rapidly available.
In my home state, Maine, there has been considerable interest in solar energy. The Maine Times, a weekly newspaper has suggested development of solar energy, and a company in East Holden manufactures wind-powered systems.
Clearly, solar energy is something we should be developing. I hope our witnesses this morning will be able to inform us how the Federal Government will help to do it.