Mr. President, energy independence is no longer an option for our Nation. It is an imperative. The clock is ticking. If we do not break the ties, our children and grandchildren will have to clean up…
Mr. President, energy independence is no longer an option for our Nation. It is an imperative. The clock is ticking. If we do not break the ties, our children and grandchildren will have to clean up our mess. It is not too late.
Today I introduced legislation to help U.S. companies and U.S. workers chart a new course. This is an energy bill. It is a jobs bill. It is an environment bill. It will help companies turn green energy research into green energy products. It will help workers build careers around green energy development and production. It will help our Nation break free of foreign oil and grow our economy by growing green energy. It is an important step that, along with comprehensive climate change legislation, will put our country on a path to energy independence.
While the first oil well in the United States was in the Presiding Officer's State of Pennsylvania, just a year later oil was being produced in Ohio. Before long, derricks dotted the landscape in every corner of our State. My bill begins to address what Ohio and Pennsylvania have known for years about energy.
The history of my State is also rich in coal. Frontiersmen discovered large deposits of coal in Tuscarawas County in the mid-1700s, long before Ohio became a State. Today, coal power is more than 90 percent of Ohio's electricity production.
Oil and coal powered this Nation through two World Wars. They helped
the United States win the Cold War. And they made America the world's largest economy. But today our economic future depends on our ability to move toward alternative energy development. Green energy just will not restore our energy independence, it will secure our global leadership.
In my 15 months in the Senate, I have held nearly 100 roundtables across Ohio learning about Ohio's capabilities and potential in leading the way in the alternative energy industry. From Ralph Dahl's farm in northwest Montgomery County and the technology he has employed, to high-tech companies in Cleveland looking for financing but fearing the so-called valley of death, to eager entrepreneurs in Athens who are installing solar panels and wind turbines all over their part of the State, to the work of Stark State on fuel cells. But we haven't gone nearly far enough. It is only the beginning.
The Germans have long supported the development of solar power, and today they lead the world in that technology. Just last week, China announced plans to set up trade protection laws, not to increase wind energy in China but to corner the market on wind-energy-related products.
While we are debating whether to punch more holes in the ground to drill for oil, the rest of the world is about to pass us by. But it is not too late. American ingenuity and innovation can and will give our Nation an edge over the competition. My bill creates an investment corporation for that purpose lead by the best and brightest from the business, labor, and environmental worlds. It will be charged with supporting the development and commercialization of new energy products.
Great ideas are being left on the drawing board these days or, worse yet, getting produced overseas. Investments will be aimed with this legislation at communities with high levels of unemployment, with excess manufacturing capacity, and with brownfield industrial cleanup sites--communities with enormous potential and significant needs. My State, as is Pennsylvania, is dotted with dozens of those communities.
Our green energy manufacturing future should build on our great manufacturing past, revitalizing flagging industries, and reenergizing manufacturing hubs.
This bill creates the Green Redevelopment Opportunity and Workforce Program that provides grants to companies a little further from commercialization than those that receive loans in the Green Markets Program.
These companies have green energy ideas that are a few years away from the market. Without these grants, they would never make it into production.
We cannot pick, and we should not pick, winners in the fight for the future of green energy, so we must explore as many ideas and inventions that get to the market as possible.
My bill would also establish grant money for pilot programs for green energy communities, colleges, and National Guard bases even. These pilot programs will serve as important resources for business interested in commercializing green technologies, as well as models for other communities that are trying to transition their economies to green energy.
The corporation will run a green energy internship and apprenticeship program that will help innovate green energy companies, hire new talent, and help students earn valuable industry experience in this new industry as it begins to take off.
My bill establishes a Green Energy Efficiency Grant Program that is a dollar-for-dollar match for energy producers, including municipal power companies and rural electric co-ops.
This provision helps by ending the conflict that energy producers often face with protecting the environment and growing their businesses. These energy producers try to encourage people to conserve, but at the same time they are saying don't buy our product, which obviously is not a good business decision. This provision in this legislation will help answer that.
By meeting these companies halfway, by matching their investment in energy efficiency, the Government cannot do it all, but it can help these responsible companies do right by the consumers and the environment.
Today, most of Ohio's oil wells are dry, coal production is literally only half what it was in 1970, and Ohio's manufacturing centers from Steubenville to Lima, from Ravenna to Springfield, from Xenia to Findlay, are struggling to remain competitive. Our Nation's green future is more than using green energy or living in green houses or putting in green light bulbs. All those things are good, but we must build the green energy and its components in the United States. We know green energy is inevitable, but importing green energy from China and Germany, like we do today with oil from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, need not be inevitable, and it is not in our Nation's best interests. We need to end our foreign energy dependence, whether it is today, too much with Saudi Arabia, or in the future, too much with Germany.
The next green energy company that can change the world is out there waiting to happen. It could be the National Composite Center in Dayton, could be the cutting-edge fuel cell research ongoing in Mount Vernon,
Mr. President, earlier this week, I spoke on the Senate floor about Cover the Uninsured Week and a bill I was introducing that would increase access to health coverage for small businesses and self- employed individuals.
I will formally introduce the Small Business Empowerment Act today, and I would like to discuss the bill in a bit more depth.
First, why is it necessary?
It is necessary because 82 percent of the uninsured are workers, and the overwhelming majority work in small firms.
In Ohio, 99 percent of firms with more than 50 workers sponsor health coverage. About 44 percent of firms with less than 50 do.
And small employers that do offer coverage are struggling under the weight of it. According to the well-respected Rand Corporation, small businesses saw the economic burden of health insurance rise by 30 percent between 2000 and 2005.
The situation is even worse for the self-employed, who must contend with staggeringly high premiums for individual coverage, if, that is, they can find an insurer willing to cover them.
In the meantime, health insurers have been living large, their profits increasing by more than a third over the last 5 years. That's not revenue, it's profits.
Middle class families are shouldering the burden of skyrocketing gas prices and ballooning food prices, even as the equity in their homes erodes and the cost of putting their children through college explodes.
It would be ideal if they could also afford to pay a king's ransom for health insurance.
They can't. They shouldn't have to.
With those realities staring us in the face, inaction is the same as indifference.
My legislation attacks the issue of health coverage access from several directions.
To ensure widespread access, the bill would establish a national insurance pool modeled after the successful Federal Employees Health Benefits program.
FEHB, which enables enrollees to choose from a variety of health plans whose rates and benefits are negotiated by the federal Office of Personnel Management, has served members of Congress and federal employees well for many years now.
Under my bill, an independent contractor would manage a program that looks like FEHB, with a few modifications to accommodate the market segment it would serve.
A few of those modifications are designed to hold down costs:
The bill would establish a reinsurance program to pay claims that fall between $5,000 and $75,000. This approach minimizes premium spikes and makes coverage affordable for companies regardless of the age and health of their employees.
The bill would also establish what is called a ``loss-ratio'' standard for insurers. Basically this means that insurers would be required to spend most of their premium income on claims, and hold down their administrative costs.
And the bill would identify and apply strategies to ensure that providers employ ``best practices'' in health care, which means that they are providing the right care in the right amounts.
Finally, the bill would target ``price-gouging'' by drug manufacturers and other manufacturers of medical products. Price gouging occurs in U.S. health care when a company exploits American consumers by charging them dramatically higher prices than consumers in other wealthy nations.
Other modifications are designed to ensure that health coverage is non-discriminatory.
Think about it: If you develop a mental illness like clinical depression and I develop a medical illness like heart disease, why should you be denied health benefits while I receive them? We both have paid premiums to cover health care costs and we both need health care. Why is my condition more worthy of coverage than yours?
My bill charges a group representing providers, businesses, consumers, economists, and health policy experts with rethinking health care coverage to eliminate arbitrary differences in the coverage of equally disruptive, disabling, or dangerous health conditions.
The bottom-line is this. We have an opportunity to expand access to health coverage in a way that advances fundamental goals:
We can reach populations who can't find a home in the current insurance system.
We stand up for American consumers who are paying ridiculous prices for essential health care.
We can demand spending discipline on the part of insurers--they have chosen to play a pivotal role in the health of our nation; they can live with reasonable limits on their administrative costs.
We can clean up duplication and random variation in the delivery of health care services; and we can end arbitrary coverage rules that turn health protection into a health care crapshoot.
For the sake of small employers and their employees, for the sake of self-employed entrepreneurs, and for the sake of every American who didn't request a particular health problem and shouldn't be penalized for having it, I hope Members on both sides of the aisle will support my bill.
