Manufacture Renewable Energy Systems: Make it in America Act of 2011

Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity to share with those folks that are watching C-SPAN--and hopefully there are many--some of the issues that really confront America today.

We just heard an hour discussion on the fate of the American family, and it comes at that issue from one specific point of view and one specific section of the total problem, and that has to do with the issue of marriage and how we define marriage here in the United States.

But there's also another way to, and other very, very important issues that define the fate of the American family. And I'd like to take that issue up tonight in the context of the economy.

The American family is faced with many, many challenges. One of the most significant challenges is income, jobs. How can the American family make it in America today? What does it take for an American family to make it?

One of the most compelling charts that I've seen over these last several months is this one, which really describes the fate of the American family compared to the fate of the top 1 percent of Americans. We've seen an enormous shift in the income and the wealth in America over the last 30 years, largely because of governmental policies.

This blue line indicates how well the superwealthy are doing. They've seen nearly a 370 percent increase in their annual income. Their wealth would see a similar enormous increase.

Down here on the bottom are the rest of Americans, the other 99 percent. If you took all of this together, you would see that the bottom 50 percent have seen very, very little increase in their annual income; and most of that increase is due to both husbands and wives working simultaneously.

This is the challenge for the American family. How do they make it in America when, in America, we've seen an enormous decline in the great American manufacturing sector, where the middle class really, really succeeded?

And so, tonight, what I'd like to talk about with my colleagues who will

shortly be joining me is how we can make it in America by, once again, ``Making it in America.'' We can do this. In America, manufacturing matters.

American manufacturing has been in deep trouble for the last 20 years. That trouble has been caused by a variety of issues, some of which are beyond the control of anybody in this Nation, and certainly any Member of Congress or the Senate and the Presidency.

But a far greater part of the American manufacturing issue has been governmental policy.

Let's see if we can lay the foundation for a discussion on what it takes to once again make it in America. This charts shows what has happened to American manufacturing since 1975. In the seventies, American manufacturing peaked out somewhere just under 20 million American jobs. Those were the good days. That's when the American middle class was at its peak, when more Americans were enjoying the greatest share of the wealth in this country. That was the time when America was at its ultimate strength, when we had the greatest economy anywhere in the world.

Beginning in that year in the mid-seventies, we've seen a steady decline of the American manufacturing base. We've seen that decline for a number of reasons. What we need to understand is that through the seventies and into the eighties, and even into the nineties, even though there was a slight decline from some 19 to 17 million manufacturing jobs, it was in the century of 2000-2010 that the great decline took place. We are now down to just over 11 million manufacturing jobs in this country. Why did this happen? Why did we see this great decline?

As we try to answer that question, we need to also understand that there was a great increase in one, two, and three sectors of the American economy, but it was not matched by the manufacturing sector. The manufacturing sector was headed downward from 19 million to just over 11 million jobs. At the same time, the American economy was on fire. The finance, insurance, and real estate economy took off in the United States.

I think all of us have heard the term ``financial engineering.'' I am a graduate of Harvard Business School. Financial engineering was their schtick. That's what they wanted to do. It wasn't over at the engineering or the nuclear engineering or the chemical engineering schools, it was across the river at the business school, and at every other business school in America. If you wanted to make it in America, you had to be a financial engineer.

We saw the economy grow in the areas of Wall Street finance, insurance, real estate. And throughout the nineties, it peaked out. The best and the brightest of America decided that they didn't want to be in manufacturing. After all, that was some sort of dirty, greasy job. They wanted to be financial engineers in real estate, insurance, and Wall Street finance. We know where that got us. What that did to us was get us into the great bubble of 2000-2007, and the great crash that occurred. Financial engineering turned out to be nothing but paper. We're not talking about dollars here; we are talking about worthless paper. That worthless paper nearly crashed the world economy. So there we have it. We became financial engineers rather than chemical engineers, manufacturing, and the rest. Where did our money go? Where did the American wealth go?

As we saw the decline of the jobs in manufacturing, we also saw the rise of imports. If you go back to the year 1976, you will see that we were running a very small trade deficit. We were importing and exporting approximately the same amount. What we were exporting was American-made equipment. We were exporting food that had been processed, food that had been grown. We were exporting machinery, machine tools, and airplanes. We were the great exporter of the world. Then Government policy began to shift, and we wound up here in 2008, the great exporters of American money, the great exporters of American wealth. We need to turn this around.

We've seen a slight improvement here in the most recent years, but all of this red is basically China. What's happened is that the United States has given up its manufacturing power to China, and to a few other countries. We can see this in certain industries, for example, the automobile industry. Thankfully, as a result of laws that were passed by the Democrats and signed by President Obama giving him the power, through the stimulus program, the American Recovery Act, to bail out the American automobile industry, he did. The President said, On my watch, I will not allow the American auto industry to die. And he took action. He bailed out General Motors and Chrysler. In so doing, he saved the American auto industry and the tens of thousands of small businesses that rely upon that industry for their jobs. However, that's only part of the story.

Here is the rest of the story. Other countries that are automotive manufacturers have been able to increase their supply chain. And while we still have an automobile manufacturing sector in the United States, we heavily depend upon imported parts for the assembly of automobiles here in the United States. So other countries actually manufacture the parts, and assemble the autos. But not in the United States. We assemble, but we also import many of the parts.

We can change this, and here is what the Democrats want to do: We want to change the trend line. We want to rebuild the great American manufacturing sector. And we can, with good, wise, public policies. We say make it in America so that America and Americans can make it once again. Manufacturing matters.

As my colleagues begin to join me, I want to share with you some of the ways in which we can do that. Here are the policies that we want to put in place: We want to seek manufacturing within the United States. We want jobs and income within the United States. We are targeting specific industries, and we want to align the trade and tax policies in the United States so that we can once again reignite the American Dream. We're going to go into these in somewhat more detail as my good friend from New York (Mr. Tonko) takes over for a moment.

Thank you.

Mr. Tonko, thank you very much for joining me. I needed a break.

Beyond that, let's talk about the specific policies that we've been discussing here in the House--legislation that has been introduced--that will bring back the American manufacturing sector because, indeed, it was specific laws that were written here over the years that were largely, in my view, responsible for that outsourcing of jobs.

It's an interesting word, ``outsourcing.'' Until December of 2010, an American corporation could receive a tax cut for every job it outsourced. That's largely over. There is a little bit more to be done, but most of those tax breaks have been eliminated by a law that was passed by the Democrats--not one Republican voted for it--eliminating the tax break for the outsourcing of American jobs.

The President said it so very well in his State of the Union. He said that we should not reward companies for sending jobs overseas; rather, we should reward them for bringing those jobs back to the United States. That can be done by some of the policies that we're talking about. The President signed a bill, authored by Democrats and voted on by all Democrats and a few Republicans, that actually encouraged that by giving companies a 100 percent immediate expensing of all capital equipment that they would invest in the United States.

Those are two examples. I know you've got some that you've been interested in, that you're actually authoring, and you may want to talk about those. Then we'll come back and talk about the specific things that we can do.

I'll give you another example of how policy can change what has happened.

For a long, long time, we would send our tax dollars overseas to buy buses, railcars, light rail, ferryboats, and the like. Every one of us who buys gasoline or diesel fuel pays a Federal tax on that--18\1/2\ cents for gasoline and 25 cents for diesel fuel. That money is used to build transportation systems--roads, bridges and the like.

And where does it go?

The Buy American laws were largely ignored. However, in the American Recovery Act, in the stimulus bill, money was provided for the additional purchase of railcars, buses, and ferryboats. Somehow, wisely, the Democrats, who authored the bill, put in a clause that said that that money could only be used--only be used--to buy American-made equipment. So what happened in Sacramento, California, is that Siemens, the large German manufacturing company, decided that they would like to have some of that stimulus money. They wanted to build streetcars, light-rail systems, so they opened and expanded their manufacturing plant in Sacramento to manufacture the streetcars for Austin, Texas, and San Diego--made in America because of a law that was passed. It is a prime example of what can be done when we pass the right law that says that our tax money must be used to buy American-made equipment.

Who represents that district? It is Tonko?

Well, that reigniting of the American Dream will be dependent upon two factors, that is, the public, the small businesses, the entrepreneurs putting together their businesses. And at the same time, it's going to be dependent upon public policies.

You mentioned education. For the last 2 years, the Democrats have been proposing and pushing a series of pieces of legislation to enhance the ability of Americans to go to school. The Workforce Investment Board, very, very important. I suspect that that was one of the programs that your plastics company took advantage of in retraining. Our Republican friends last year, in the budget and in the appropriations, tried to reduce the workforce investment, but we wouldn't have that, and we've been able to at least maintain it.

We were able, on the Democratic side, to increase the Pell Grants so that kids can go to college. Now, I would hope they would go to college to be chemical engineers, process engineers, and not financial engineers, which I discussed early on. But I think that if we can just continue to support the educational system, including such things as vocational education--we used to do vocational education in America. We let it go. And as it went, we saw more and more dropouts. So supporting the educational system.

You mentioned--and I think we need to drive this point home tonight-- the research side of it. This is something, Mr. Tonko, that you know a great deal about. You headed up, as I recall, an organization in the State of New York that was specifically looking at how to enhance the research within the State. Share that and then also share about our policies, as Democrats, for enhancing research.

The Internet came directly from DARPA. DARPA is a defense research agency.

The reigniting of the American Dream is going to depend upon, once again, those small businesses out there, the entrepreneurs who are willing to take the risks, willing to take their concept and their idea and put it into a business.

Along the way, the history of America, as you well described it with the Erie Canal, we can look at all of the other great industrial advances that have been made. There has always been a partnership between the government and the individual companies and the entrepreneurs that are out there.

For example, the oil industry has enjoyed for more than a century over $13 billion a year of tax subsidies to encourage the production of oil. And there is an incredibly successful partnership between the government, not only with tax subsidies but making the public lands available for the exploration and the extraction of oil over the last 100 years, creating the wealthiest industry in the world.

Now once an industry has matured, as has the oil industry, we should remove those subsidies and use those subsidies for the new industries that we need.

We've been discussing since Carter and the first oil embargo the need for American energy security. Most people now believe that American energy security is going to be based upon the continuation of the oil industry and the coal industry at some level, using the natural gas that we now find is

more plentiful than we once thought as a bridge, let the oil and the coal industries wane while we build the renewable industry.

So if we took those tax subsidies that the oil and coal industry have enjoyed for a century, shifted them to the new industries, we could then see a blossoming of the green industries.

In California today, the solar and wind and biofuel industries employ some 320,000 people. It is a growing sector of the American policy. The policies that emanate from Washington, D.C., can either help or hinder that growth. That growth is not only new jobs here in the United States, but it's also energy independence.

The sun shines on the United States. Well, not at night, but it does shine during the day in most parts of the United States. So solar. The wind blows--and I'm not just talking about the wind in this Chamber, but across the Nation. Now, we have to couple that with public policies, and I want to speak to one specific policy, and that is shifting the subsidies that the oil industry has had for a century, shifting those subsidies over to the renewable side of it. Here again on the renewable side, this bill, H.R. 487, I happen to be the author, I'm kind of pleased with this piece of legislation. This bill would require that the subsidies be used to buy American-made solar and wind and other renewable energy equipment.

We should never use our tax dollars to buy a solar panel made in China. We should never use our tax dollars to buy a wind turbine manufactured in Germany. If somebody wants to go out and buy a solar panel using their own money, buy whatever you want. But if it's our tax dollars, buy American. Use our tax dollars to buy American-made equipment. Use that to reignite the American Dream, to build those machines, those solar panels, in the United States. Use our tax money to buy American-made equipment, whether it's a bus, a train, a plane, or a solar panel or a wind turbine. These are public policies that emanate from this House. We can change what's going on in the American manufacturing sector.

Mr. Tonko, why do we keep coming back to the 21st Congressional District?

There are so many pieces to this puzzle. You've talked about the research; you've talked about the support of new businesses, particularly in the clean energy sector. As we discuss those things, I keep thinking about what is happening, I think very unfortunately, in this debate. It's a political year, and we've got our elections. We have the election of the President and the Senate, all of those things are up, and so we take issues, and we may take a specific problem and drive that problem to the point of destroying other good programs that are under way.

This is happening right now. The Solyndra case, three times on the floor today I heard the word Solyndra come up. This was a problem, this was a company that was supported by a loan guarantee, and it failed. It largely failed because of China's policy of dumping--dumping on to the American market underpriced solar cells. That's why the company failed.

Now we have the opportunity to deal with this; but before I get to how we can deal with that China problem, I want to just ask my Republican colleagues to be very, very careful as they drive this political issue because they may succeed in making this a big political issue for this country; but by doing so, they may cause America to turn its attention away from renewable energy--the very issue you raised, Mr. Tonko.

We have to have energy security, and renewable energy of all kinds is going to be part of that. So we must be very careful. Whatever political advantage there may be to the Solyndra case, be aware, America, that underlying this is an extremely important policy in the United States to achieve energy independence, to free ourselves from the slavery of the oil barons and dictators around the world so that we can have a secure energy system in the United States.

It will, by necessity, involve renewable energy. Solyndra is a problem. Make it into a political problem, okay, but don't turn Americans' view and hopes away from the renewable, clean energy sector. It is vital, and we have to have policies in place to support that, just as we have supported the oil industry for more than a century.

Put that same support behind the batteries that you talked about, Mr.

Tonko; put that same support behind the bio-fuel industry; put that same support behind the solar, wind, and also the smart grid. Right now, in my district, Lawrence Livermore Labs is looking at developing a research program on how to integrate these renewable and variable energy systems into the grid so that they all mesh and provide the energy that is needed by America as it changes hour by hour across the United States--a very, very important research project. All of these things come back to government policy and support. So we must be very careful about that.

I do want to take up the China currency issue and the dumping of, in this case, solar cells on the American market. Would you like to start that discussion, Mr. Tonko?

Well, that American Dream is going to be held back by unfair trade policies that are seriously harming the American economy. Early on, I put this up. I don't know that you were here at the time. This is the American trade deficit. Much of this deficit is a deficit in trade with China. A lot of that deficit is caused by Chinese currency manipulation. The Chinese currency is undervalued somewhere around 20 to 25, maybe 27, percent, which gives their manufacturing sector a 20, 25 percent advantage because of the currency manipulation.

Thank you. I really hadn't noticed, but they almost parallel. One is right on top of the other. You can put that blue line, and it copies the red line that is the growth in the American trade deficit.

I want to just deal with this China thing quickly. We only have another 7 minutes here before we yield the floor. A year ago, this House, with both Republican and Democrat support, passed the China currency legislation that would require the Department of Commerce to put a countervailing tariff on imported Chinese goods if that currency manipulation were to continue.

It went over to the Senate. It did not pass the Senate. This year--I should say, this session, in 2011, the Senate passed a similar bill that would impose a countervailing tariff on Chinese goods as long as China maintained its currency manipulation. It came over to the House nearly 7 months ago. The Speaker and the Republicans have refused to take up that bill--the very same bill that a previous year we voted on bipartisan.

This is an important piece of legislation because it would deal with two issues: the loss of American manufacturing jobs and the extraordinary trade deficit, that is, the export of American money to China.

It is the policy behind many of the problems in the manufacturing sector, and it is policy changes that we have the power to put in place to reignite the American manufacturing sector, to rebuild it, and, simultaneously, put in place the ladders of success--education, research, entrepreneurship, support of the small businesses--all of those things that actually do reignite the American Dream.

Mr. Tonko, why don't you take the last 2 minutes and then we can wrap up.

Thank you, Mr. Tonko.

I notice that we still have a minute. I see my Republican colleagues are going to take the floor in a few moments. If I recall last week when they did this, they said the answer lies in doing away with regulations. Clearly, regulations are a piece of the issue.

I would hope that they don't want to eliminate the regulations that we put in place to bring Wall Street under control. But regulations are a small part of the overall problem.

There is a large number of other issues, some of which we've talked about today, others of which we will bring up as we discuss, for example, infrastructure, which will be our next piece. But those regulations that are in place today are there for the protection of key parts of the American economy--worker safety, the pollution regulations so that our streams and rivers are not polluted, our air is not polluted, so there's not mercury and other carcinogens in the air, and regulations dealing with the way in which business operates. Now, they can be modified; but be very, very careful if that is your only solution to the demise of the manufacturing sector, because it is but a small part of the overall issue.

We've discussed many of the other parts here today. We ought to be, all of us, Democrat and Republican, alike in dealing with the twin problems: the trade deficit, and the extraordinary and disastrous loss of manufacturing jobs. This is where the American middle class lost it when the American manufacturing sector declined. We can rebuild it with wise public policies. Wise public policies are what we ought to be doing, rebuilding the American manufacturing sector and reigniting the American Dream as we do that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

I'm always willing to help a sore throat get soothed.

Representative Garamendi, thank you for bringing us together in a manner that allows us to look closely at the American economy, the American Dream, and the decline of manufacturing, which represents a serious concern for workers across the country and which represents a serious concern for communities as we engage in this effort to grow jobs and retain jobs. It's important to look at the statistics out there.

Where was the focus? Where was the emphasis on job creation and job retention? Could we do a better sort of stewardship, if you will, of our resources and our policies? I believe the answer is a resounding, yes, we can do better.

As was made mention by Representative Garamendi, it is important for us to acknowledge that the work done here--the challenges, the crises that face us--can also be transformed into opportunities. The opportunity here for this great Nation--for the powerful force that we are in the global economy--is to reignite the American Dream, to reignite that dream with the underpinnings of support that come through three separate dynamics.

The first is engaging in a small business comeback, inspiring that comeback because small business, the pulse of American enterprise, is replete with a history of mom-and-pop operations, of ancestors that built their American Dreams into an ideas economy, into a service economy that enabled small business to become that very promising enterprise.

The second leg of the stool would be that of entrepreneurs--those movers and shakers, those builders, the dreamers, if you will--in our society who constantly inspire us with job creation that is driven by ideas and by the moving of ideas into a product and enabling us to again create that engine of ingenuity and creativity.

Then, finally, there would be a thriving middle class.

These are the basic principles: a thriving middle class that is driven to have additional purchasing power simply by policy that is done so that there is tax fairness, tax justice, in our outcome. Reigniting the American Dream is driven by those principles of small

business, entrepreneurship and of a thriving middle class.

It is a basic, simple approach that we have embraced as Democrats in the House, driven by a set of policies and goals that will enable us to look at all sectors of the economy and to understand that the manufacturing sector was grossly ignored. We focused primarily on service as a sector of the economy--ignored agriculture, ignored manufacturing. When the focus was on the service sector, it was primarily on financial services, which, when they were given free rein--when we turned our backs and said ``do as you like''--we found that that drove America's economy to its knees.

Now we look at the results. We look at the history of the last decade or two. The precipitous loss of manufacturing jobs from 1997 to 2009--a 12-year run--produced a loss of 6 million jobs in manufacturing alone, Representative Garamendi. What that meant--indicated, reflected, personified--was the largest such loss in world history. That is unacceptable.

So, when we talk about reigniting the American Dream, there is work to be done. There is work to be done, and it's time for us to engage in a set of policies, of resource advocacy and goals that are established to create those ladders of opportunity and to enable people to climb up the economic ladder as we had done from our humble beginnings as a Nation, where rags-to-riches scenarios were commonplace and where immigrants saw this land as the promised land. That's history that ought to speak to us, and we can bring it back through the appropriate advocacy here--a climate that creates manufacturing jobs and makes us competitive in a global economy.

Yes.

Absolutely.

I think my response to some of those changes that you just shared is that it creates this sea change. It creates the U-turn in the road, if you will, and it gets everyone's attention. People understand that.

Now we're operating under a different set of principles--you need to invest in America, invest in her workforce and in the job opportunities that will follow. That's what it basically says. When you look at machine tool operations and activity and when you look at it over the last, again, decade or so, you will find, in both categories, Representative Garamendi--of the consumption and production of machine tools--that we're not in the top three. That ought to be a flag that goes up that draws our attention, hopefully, expressing a dire sense of urgency. When you see Japan and China and Germany not only producing the machine tools but also consuming, it tells you where the activity is, and it is robust. That's all a matter of policy. Those are intentional outcomes that were driven by a very focused agenda in these nations, and America--the United States--needs to get back to that agenda.

I applaud the President for setting the tone in his recent State of the Union message. I applaud the leadership in this House, which is coming under the banner of the Democratic leadership, that has engaged in ``Make It In America'' as our mantra. Reigniting our American Dream is within our grasp if we begin to advocate a stand that brings back a robust quality to manufacturing opportunities in this country.

I agree that those are great incentives. If we can provide for employment-linked investments in R&D, in tax credits, that's a feather in the cap; that is a catalyst that draws a great response, a great reaction. Your indications here of procurement, with regard to Buy America, is very important as one of the cornerstones of our agenda. But also, I think we need to focus on the investments in infrastructure and energy and the investments in a different order of infrastructure, the human capital, the human infrastructure, making certain that we move forward with the training and retraining of the American worker, advancing higher education, certainly looking at pre-K through 12, and providing career path opportunities.

Now I mention that because the employment-linked investments in R&D-- bringing back R&D here because where research is, manufacturing follows. So I mention that. But I will use the real-life example of Wynn Kintz, and I have mentioned this before on the floor, but it's a recent example that is worth repeating.

Wynn Kintz of Kintz Plastics in Schoharie County in the 21st Congressional District in New York State----

Oh, I think it's Paul Tonko.

But I use that as an example because in order for Kintz Plastics to compete effectively in a global market, they needed to move to an automated portion of their assembly operations. They worked with the local higher ed infrastructure. And we have the partnerships in this country that have existed for a long time. There is this intellectual exchange of creative genius coming from campuses, working with the private sector, public sector. It happens. It happens to a great degree.

And while they developed this automated assembly process for his industry, they also needed to train the workers on this new equipment so that it brought with it an employment link. And it did that through one of the local community colleges, did an RPI automation design, and then did a Hudson

Valley Community College-driven training process so that you developed the workers you needed.

Now, these are the investments that then produce these very tangible results and very lucrative dividends that enable us to prosper. And that's just one small example, but I see it over and over again in the 21st Congressional District. We're a hub of innovation jobs that are coming: green collar, high-tech jobs, clean energy jobs. That's happening because there is a partnership with government, a partnership where government assumes some of the risk, as we do with ARPA-E, a Department of Energy program which has advanced research project moneys. They expedite some of the ideas, innovation concepts, move them along in much quicker stead so that we can develop the jobs associated with that.

So when you talk about the toolkit here, it's an investment in employment-linked R&D and tax credits; and it's an investment in procurement procedures that link themselves with Buy America; and then it's the work investing in infrastructure of a routine kind: wiring communities, wiring the businesses, making certain that our roads, bridges, and rail are state of the art; and then the human infrastructure: creating programs that train, retrain, and educate workers of the future. You need that in a cutting-edge fashion where we can maintain world leadership.

It takes investment. Other nations have shown us that when they invested, they were able to be the giants in the machine operations, the machine tool operation. So it's possible. It's within our reach, and it's all about reigniting the American Dream.

Sure. Before my involvement here in the House of Representatives, I served as president and CEO of NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. And it was there that I got to see policy put into action. I had worked in the State assembly. I had represented the 105th Assembly District in the State of New York for nearly 25 years, the last 15 of which I served as Energy chair. So I got to see that energy policy put into action at NYSERDA where there were very meaningful partnerships with the private sector, where they would retrofit machine operations, manufacturing assembly lines with energy-efficiency outcomes.

Number one, we're the most gluttonous user of energy, as a commodity. It is so important for us to become more resourceful. That should be a social economic goal that is embraced by the Nation. But beyond that, it saves money when we enable these companies to embrace these new technologies in a way that creates a more competitive outcome for them, especially as we move more and more to a global marketplace that is the competing ground.

Also, in so doing, there were opportunities to invest in research. Now, not every story in research is a success story; but the wonderful outcomes, when they are a success story, produce the sort of savings of the environment, savings of our energy supply, and savings of the green, the dollars. Those are quantifiable benefits that ought to be encouraged by policy. And here, what I see is us walking away.

We had a hearing the other day on ARPA-E, on the Energy Department's programs that model themselves after DARPA, with the Defense Department, that gave us a lot of strength for our military, that brought about the application of science and technology, high tech.

Exactly. Right. And ARPA-E is the mimicking of that in an advanced research area of energy.

Now we're going to sit there and battle over--perhaps denying dollars to concepts like this when we found out at the hearing that it is expertly managed, very tight-fisted, very laser-sharp in its focus, and has outstanding results.

We should produce additional resources for a program like that that enables us to stay ahead of the curve, and that ought to be government's mission. If we are going to reignite the American Dream, if we're going to do it through the support of small business, which is the economic engine of our recovery and our comeback scenarios, if we're going to do it by partnering with entrepreneurs, who are the dreamers who develop the ideas for the future that grow into job opportunities, if we're going to do it through a thriving middle class, that takes investment. It takes focus, it takes policy, and it's what we're asking to have done here--reignite the American Dream, create the ladders of opportunity, the ladders that build us to success. It happened in generations past. We saw it driven by groups that came here seeing this Nation as the land of opportunity, a promised land. Why not bring that pioneer spirit back into the front line of our thinking, front and center of our thinking so that what we witnessed in the 21st Congressional District in the humble beginnings of this Nation--my district was the donor area to the Erie Canal that inspired the birth of a necklace of communities called mill towns that became epicenters of invention and innovation, inspired a westward movement--that's what we can achieve here if we stay focused and we believe in reigniting the American Dream.

Representative Garamendi, as you toss out pieces of the puzzle there, it conjures up all sorts of responses that I think we need to provide and share.

You talk about the intermittent nature of renewables. The sun not shining at night, the wind ceasing to blow, you name it. The hydro facilities perhaps if you have a dry season, whatever. We need to advance the notion of the battery as the linchpin to move forward aggressively with a sustainable agenda which renewables can provide. And so the advanced battery manufacturing that I see taking hold in the 21st Congressional District in Schenectady with the GE operation.

It seems to be the one that I know the best. But what I see happening there is, again, a great intellect being poured into design and the concepts of advanced batteries. Not only can these batteries move heavy freight, heavy equipment, they can also deal with storage of renewable, intermittent power. Once you do that, now you've solved the reliability issue, which is so important for our operations of energy.

But to your point, not only is it sustainable and not only does it create energy independence, it speaks to our policies from a national security perspective. We are purchasing from some of the most troubled spots in the world. If we're not doing that at the moment, we inspire, we cause the world market to do that, and a cartel controls our destiny. Is that smart? We are sending hundreds of billions of dollars into treasuries of unfriendly nations that can then use that to train troops against our own American forces. So it speaks eventually and very directly to our national security issues.

And beyond that, when you talk about job creation, when we go energy independent, when we become more resourceful, which we ought to pledge to do simply because no matter how it's generated, no matter what the mix of our supply of energy resources, we need to steward those resources in a very, very deliberate fashion, in a way that is resourceful and not wasteful. So we build alternative technologies, we build into a renewable market, and we do the linchpin activity with the advanced battery design and manufacturing all in the U.S., and then we also provide for the training of the workforce.

When we at NYSERDA had invested in our annual conference on workforce development, green collar job development, in one seminar we had the presentation of how they were training plumbers in Germany in a solar hot water agenda where they were able to put together the training that enabled homes in a very aggressive fashion to use solar panels on their house simply for their hot water purposes. What that could do for a State like California or a State like New York, and en masse cumulatively for the Nation, is an incredible savings to our environment, to our job creation, and to energy costs. Absolutely important. Households will do well. Jobs will be created. The environment will be better addressed, and isn't that the goal of a think tank like the House of Representatives?

Instead, why did we ignore manufacturing for a decade and a half? Why did we avoid dealing with agriculture? Why did we not get into sound energy policy?

I ran for this seat simply driven primarily by the lack of a comprehensive energy plan for this Nation. How can a Nation as great as the United States with all of its small business, all of its manufacturing, its industrial sector, its households demanding a better outcome for energy, how could we not develop a comprehensive energy plan?

It's what the President has asked us to do. He has challenged us, he's challenged us with fairness in the Tax Code, he has challenged us in a way that will inspire the reigniting of the American Dream driven by that notion of small business support, entrepreneur nurturing, and a thriving middle class. It's achievable, and what I would say, we have the format out there, we have the plan, we have work to do. Let's move forward.

Just on the grid thing, I would like to make a comment because sometimes it's like we're challenged so that we can walk away from the challenge of the moment, and it's not the best thing for us. In 2003, this Nation witnessed the blackout from Ohio right through southern Canada into the great Northeast, New England, New York and some of the eastern sea coast, all driven by failure in the grid system.

Now, never in that year that elapsed was there much discussion about public policy, and that was a Presidential year that befell the Nation. And it just does not get talked up. Now, finally, historic amounts of investment through the Recovery Act were made in the grid system and challenging us to step it up, do what's required to use state-of-the- art opportunities for smart grid, smart thermostats, and smart meters enabling people to have more control, more destiny over their energy usage and over their energy bills, making certain that, again, we pour ourselves into an investment of a unique type, a historic investment that enables us to go forward with the sorts of responses that we need.

We need the arteries and veins: the transmission and distribution system to wheel the electrons to the workplace and the home place as it's required. And in New York, again, in our bordering of Canada, if we want to import hydropower from another nation and wheeling now, we've moved well beyond the monopoly setting where you had regional situations. Now you wheel from region to region, State to State and nation to nation. We need upgrades in the system just to transport the electrons that are required.

It's not if we're going to do it; it's when we're going to do it. And the chance that we have right now is to move us forward in a way that strengthens this economy, cuts energy costs, provides for more wise use of those energy supplies, enables us to produce the energy ideas if it's alternative technology or energy efficiency or what have you, but this Nation is replete with a history of invention that has come through very thoughtful application of what is needed out there by society.

For us to have walked away from those challenges is unacceptable. And that's what the grid is telling us right now. You can lay back and say, hey, you don't need an upgraded train system, you don't need an upgraded grid system, you don't need broadband, you don't need all this technology, and you don't need the investment in R&D. Well, that complacency or the contentment that people might feel with the status quo will get us nowhere. In fact, it will push us farther behind as nations bulk up, invest and stretch their opportunities simply by committing to a progressive agenda. And that's what we call for here, to reignite the American Dream.

Representative Garamendi, would you yield to a point? I believe I saw earlier a chart that you had on manufacturing jobs. Could you just put that one up on the easel over that pattern there and point to the '97 to 2009 curve? And it's a startling mimicking; those two graphs absolutely mimic each other. I think you can draw a correlation there that deals with the loss of manufacturing jobs as it relates to the trade deficit. I think that is something that ought to guide our discussions, guide our policy development and actually address the sort of response we need in terms of job creation and job retention.

Right.

Well, what I hear here is that an election outcome is more important than the outcome for the American worker. And when political party benefit trumps the American worker or trumps America's manufacturing base and trumps hope into the future, that's a regrettable outcome.

What we need to focus on is the big picture. If there is upset and upheaval because we're coming back from what was a very long and deep and painful recession, if that's upsetting news to a political scene, then we have lost the spirit that is required right now to bring America back and to reignite the American Dream.

That reigniting of the American Dream I believe is what people want to see in action. They keep asking Washington to work together in a bipartisan, bicameral, spirited way, work in a way that will engage the policies and advocate for the resources that will build the hope back into the fabric of America's families, her individuals. And it's within our grasp.

These ladders of success, these rungs of opportunity, they are a very achievable goal. We saw what happened when you ignore manufacturing. We saw what happened when you avoid sound agriculture policy. We saw what happened when you didn't get aggressive about an innovative agenda for energy generation, energy alternatives, energy efficiency. These are the things that people are asking us to do as leaders. They say, We asked you to lead, not to sit content with the status quo, not to watch others pass us by.

Our best days lie ahead of us. I'm filled with optimism about reigniting that American Dream. I saw what happened in my district when there was a commitment. You know, the Erie Canal itself, that came about in response to tough economic times. The leadership then said, Let's do this. Let's wed the waters. Let's build a port on the coast out of New York. Let's wed it to the Great Lakes. Let's inspire progress.

And look what happened. That response to troubling economic times drew upon the leadership. It produced the leadership. It gave it a face and it gave it a voice. The message was: We're going to build. We're not going to cut our way to prosperity, cut our way to opportunity, cut hope. We're going to build hope. We're going to build and invest in America, her workers.

Our best days lie ahead of us, Representative Garamendi. Thank you for the chance of joining you this evening.

Were those regulations the same regulations we wanted to take away from Wall Street?

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

My colleagues, the short title of this bill, the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act, spells out the word D-E-J-A. But what we're seeing here is not just deja vu, the feeling that we've seen all these Big Oil giveaways before. No, this bill is a deja preview, a look ahead into what the Romney administration would do if elected and had a GOP House and Senate to fully implement the oil companies' legislative agenda and block all efforts to help clean energy.

There's been a lot of discussion of the DREAM Act recently, but the bill we have before us today is really the Big Oil dream act. This package represents everything Big Oil could ever possibly dream up to drill on our public lands and roll back public health protections.

As the world gathers in Rio de Janeiro right now to try to head off catastrophic global warming from the burning of fossil fuels, here we are in the House of Representatives looking for ways to give more benefits to fossil fuel industries.

And as America's wind and solar companies look to hire more American workers, here we are in the GOP-controlled House, where the Republican leadership refused to make my amendment in order to establish national goals for wind and solar, clean energy and energy efficiency. They won't even allow that debate to take place on the floor of the House of Representatives during what they say is the big energy debate for America. Can you imagine, it's 2012, we are having a big energy debate, big, big debate on the energy future of our country, and the words ``wind'' and ``solar'' are not going to be permitted by the Republicans to be out here on the House floor and being debated. And by the way, did I throw in biomass? Did I throw in geothermal? Did I throw in energy efficiency? They won't allow the words to be spoken. There's a gag order here, a big gag order by the Republicans. No debating that.

And then they have the temerity to call it an all-of-the-above bill. Oh, a comprehensive energy plan without wind, without solar, without geothermal, without biomass, without plug-in hybrids or energy efficiency debated out here because they have a gag order. They prohibit any debating of those issues on the House floor. And yet here they are, saying it's an all-of-the-above energy bill.

Great. Great. So fair. Fair and square. A real debate. Let all the Members decide what our energy future looks like.

But before the end of this year, the Republicans are allowing all of the tax breaks for the wind industry to expire. And what are they doing? They are actually going to continue the $4 billion a year that ExxonMobil and Chevron get. That's fair, huh? A gag order on even mentioning wind and solar out here as part of an amendment, a debate, $4 billion for the oil industry. And by the way, let's take a look at what's going on in oil production in the United States.

Oh, by the way, did you hear the news? It's now at an 18-year high. Obama, drill, baby, drill. Obama, what a great job. An 18-year high under Barack Obama, way better than George Bush. Way better. You have to go back to almost a time when a kid who's graduating from high school has no memory of. It's 18 years ago the last time there was this much oil drilling in the United States--Federal, State, private lands.

But if you listen to the Republicans, they're saying there's not enough breaks for ExxonMobil. No, no, no, we have to give them more. This poor, beleaguered company, and all of the other oil companies of the same size, they have been beleaguered as they are now at an 18-year peak in oil production in the United States. And you know who's beating them up--wind and solar, geothermal, biomass, plug-in hybrids. Very scary things to the Republican. So scary that because they control the Speakership, because they control the Rules Committee, we're not allowed to debate wind and solar. They're prohibiting it today. An absolute, all-out prohibition this week on the discussion of wind and solar. Huh?

When I asked to have an amendment be put in place that we could debate whether or not we had a national renewable electricity standard for the whole country, setting goals for what our country should have for wind and solar by the year 2020, you know what they said: No, we're gagging you. You can't have that debate out on the House floor. You can't even raise the words ``wind'' and ``solar.''

Yet they're going to keep coming out here saying we're for all of the above. All of the above that Exxon and Shell and BP want. Right on their list. And do you know where wind and solar are on the BP and ExxonMobil list? Oh, they just forgot to put it on their list. And that's what we get to debate out here, and it's going to be called an all-of-the-above energy future.

Well, let me tell you something--the American people deserve a lot better. They really do have a real sense that America has to be the leader in these new energy technologies. And President Obama has done his best or else we would not be at an 18-year high.

By the way, there are more oil rigs drilling in the United States for oil today--are you ready for this--than all of the other countries in the world combined. Barack Obama, drill, baby, drill. You are really doing the job. More oil rigs right here in the United States right now drilling than all the rest of the world combined.

But you're going to listen to these Republicans talk as though somehow or other, although ExxonMobil and BP and Shell are reporting the largest profits of any corporation in the history of the world, that they are being discriminated against.

What do ExxonMobil and BP expect? They expect there to be a gag applied out here on the floor so we cannot debate wind and solar, we cannot debate biomass and geothermal, we cannot debate energy efficiency. And yet we're supposed to sit over here in silence and listen to them say that they have an all-of-the-above energy strategy when we all know their entire strategy is oil above all--as a matter in fact, to exclude all else, exclude it, can't even debate it. They actually passed a rule here last night prohibiting us from debating wind and solar, from debating the future, from unleashing this technological revolution.

And why is that the case? I'll tell you why it's the case. Because in the last 5

years there have been 45,000 new megawatts of wind installed here in the United States. In this year, there will be 4,000 new megawatts of solar installed in the United States. Do you know who hates that? ExxonMobil hates that. Shell, BP, they hate it. Peabody Coal, Arch Coal, they hate it. They see this new clean energy future unfolding.

Out here on the floor of the House, as we debate the big energy bill here of 2012, I'm prohibited, as the senior Democrat, from bringing out an amendment that talks about wind and solar, that talks about geothermal and biomass, that talks about energy efficiency. I'm not allowed to bring it out here. So this is not an auspicious day for the United States Congress.

If there were any kernel of truth about Obama and his incredible work here, lifting us to an 18-year high in total oil production in the United States--by the way, since Bush left, since he left, we have dropped from being 57 percent dependent upon imported oil down to 45 percent dependent upon imported oil. Did Bush do that? No. Did Bush's father do that? No. Barack Obama did that, ladies and gentlemen. And what Barack Obama is saying, in addition to the dramatic decline in the amount of oil that we import from the Middle East, I would also like to add wind and solar and geothermal and biomass and energy efficiency. And they're saying, oh, no, it's already going too fast. This dependence thing is already happening much too fast for us.

And, by the way, this revolution in wind and solar and geothermal, people might start driving cars that are all electric and dependent upon wind and solar to give them the electricity so they don't even have to go into a gas station.

Do you know what they're really afraid of? They're afraid that what is going to happen to them is what happened to the typewriter, that in 20 years we went from everyone using a typewriter to everyone using a computer. People have to look into a history book to now find what a typewriter looks like. It only took 20 years. They can see this wind and solar revolution happening so fast that they're afraid that in 2030 a kid won't even know how to fill up a car with gasoline because they'll be plugging in the car at home with solar and wind-generated electricity. That's what they're most afraid of.

That's what this debate is really all about and that's why there's a gag on the Democrats, why we're not allowed to talk about wind and solar and geothermal and biomass and energy efficiency. Oh, I'm sorry, we're allowed to talk about it, we're just not allowed to have an amendment out here on the floor. We're just not allowed to put everyone on record as to where they stand on those issues. We're just not allowed to do that. You cannot have an amendment out here on the floor.

So this is the full extent of our ability to help those industries, those competitive industries, those Microsofts and Googles and eBays and Hulus and YouTubes of the energy industry get out there and reinvent the way in which we generate electricity here in our country. That's what this debate is really all about.

At this point, Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko).

I yield myself 1 minute.

I thank the gentleman from Colorado.

Yes, what the Republicans are saying is, in their bill, that they want a study for 4 years of wind and solar. A study?

Well, maybe they should study the fact that it's very sunny in Florida. It's very windy out in the Midwest and, as a matter of fact, so sunny and so windy that there have been 45,000 megawatts of wind installed over the last 6 years in the United States, that there's going to be 4,000 new megawatts of solar installed in the United States just this year.

So maybe the Republicans should study the studies that are already out there, and maybe they could actually look over and ask the coal industry what they're thinking as they've dropped from 51 percent of all electrical generation down to 36 percent of all electrical generation in the last 5 years.

Maybe they're looking at the wind industry. Maybe they're looking at the solar industry. Maybe you could call them. But you don't have to wait 4 years, because all you want to do is study it. What we want to do is give the incentive for the wind and solar industry to continue their revolution.

I yield 5 minutes, if I may, Mr. Chairman, to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), the ranking member of the subcommittee.

Would the Chair tell me how much time is remaining.

I yield an additional minute to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Again, I ask how much time is remaining on both sides.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison).

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

May I ask again, Mr. Chairman, that we review where the majority and minority are in terms of time remaining in debate?

I will yield myself 1 minute at this time.

I would just like to review, once again, the Republican ``all-of-the- above'' plan: One, light, sweet crude oil. Two, sour, high sulfur oil. Three, heavy oil. Four, tar sands oil. Five, oil shale. And oh, just to mix it up, a little natural gas. What they forgot was, of course, wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass. And they won't even allow us to have an amendment out here on the floor in order to have a debate over it.

But that ``oil above all'' agenda you have, it is very comprehensive, and I give you credit for figuring out every single way that we can help all the oil companies in the United States at the expense of all the renewable energy industries.

I reserve the balance of my time.

At this time I yield myself 2 minutes.

You know, I hate giving all the bad news to the Republicans. But I'll give you some more bad news. You hate to hear it, but I will give it to you anyway.

In 2011, in terms of new electrical generation in the United States, 33 percent came from natural gas, 29 percent from wind, 20 percent from coal, and 8 percent from solar. Got that again? Wind and solar were about 37 percent of all new electrical generating capacity in the United States in the year 2011. But you guys want to study it. You want to have more information about this technology.

And by the way, in that study, you should also throw a few other things--a single device from which you can talk to your family, send emails, and watch videos. That's a concept some people have. You might want to study that as well. Oh, no, we already have that.

Sending a man to the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. Oh, I guess that's something else we already did. How about studying the possibility of mapping the entire human genome so we can have an idea of what material humanity is made out of, to kind of break a breakthrough. Oh, I think we've already done that. And there may be many other things that we can throw into that solar and wind study that we also don't need to have studied that you can also throw in there as part of your technological and scientific phobia that refuses to have you admit that things are already happening.

And by the way, something else you are refusing to admit that happened--during Bush's term as President, the production of oil went down, down, down, down from 2001 2008. Do you know what happened once Obama took over? Up, up, up, up. So much oil drilling, in fact, that all the rigs in the world combined are not matching what Obama has done in terms of total oil rigs out there. And we are now at an 18-year high in oil.

Maybe you should study this. Maybe this is hard for you to understand. I've heard all the Members out here saying that there is a jihad against oil being waged by the Obama administration. It just doesn't match any of the evidence.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I will yield myself the balance of my time.

Let me just say that I know it's not anything that has been observed by the Republicans. But the price of gasoline has dropped for the last 11 weeks in a row, ever since the President threatened to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, because it was never about supply and demand. It was always about fear and greed. It was what Wall Street was doing and manipulating the price of oil and the commodities futures of the marketplace. It was about the fear that people had about a war in Iran breaking out.

But what's the response from the Republicans? Well, they have a brilliant amendment inside of their bill. What they say here is that if, God forbid, the Ayatollah ever attacked the United States, a Middle Eastern war ever broke out, and the President deployed the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, 10 million barrels worth of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, you know what their bill says? That we, the Federal Government--if the Republican bill passes today--would then have to sell to ExxonMobil and the other Big Oil companies 200 million acres of Federal lands for ExxonMobil and the other Big Oil companies to drill on.

Understand that? That the Ayatollah attacks us, there's a war in the Middle East, and who do we have to pay the ransom to? To the Big Oil companies of the United States, if we deploy the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Now how nonsensical is that? That is an absolutely crazy idea, that the oil companies become the beneficiaries of a Middle Eastern conflict. They get the public lands of the United States, 200 million acres that we have to sell them simultaneously. It's almost a trigger that occurs inside of their legislation. That's how meshuggah this all is.

This is an absolutely crazy set of concepts, where we can't have an

amendment on wind and solar, geothermal, biomass, plug-in hybrids, all new technologies and efficiency that back out the need for all this oil to ever come in in the first place. And as a penalty, the country will use this Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a weapon of our national security against OPEC, that if the President uses it, we have to sell 200 million acres of American land to the oil companies so that they can even drill for bargain basement prices here in the country.

This bill is absolutely the wrong recipe for our country as we head into the 21st century. I urge a ``no'' vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, when manager's amendments making technical changes to legislation are presented, such amendments are accepted and we move on to amendments making substantive changes to the bill. In this instance, however, among the technical changes made by this manager's amendment is a controversial provision flatly overturning an EPA ruling in Alaska. This change should not be made at all, but it certainly should not be made as part of a manager's amendment.

As part of the review process for beginning energy production in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, the EPA designated the Colville River, the largest Arctic river in Alaska, as an Aquatic Resource of National Importance. To be clear, this designation did not stop the proposed project. ConocoPhillips has already received approval to build a gravel road, including a bridge over the Colville to access their oil field. The National Importance designation simply required a heightened level of review before the project moved forward. For Congress to overturn this EPA finding through a provision buried in what is supposed to be a technical manager's amendment is not appropriate.

Mr. Chairman, I doubt a single Member of this House has an informed opinion regarding whether the Colville River is an Aquatic Resource of National Importance. But I will tell you who does have an informed position on that question, and that is the scientists in Alaska working for the Environmental Protection Agency.

This provision is an ill-informed sneak attack on an agency decision, and for the purposes of this debate, it has no place in a manager's amendment. It should be a stand-alone amendment that we're debating. Because of the inappropriateness of it being inside of the manager's amendment, I would have to oppose this provision.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and the underlying bill, H.R. 4480, the so-called Domestic Energy and Jobs Act, what is really a death and destruction act, an act that will directly lead to the death of American citizens from various health-related causes-- including cancer--and destruction. It is the destruction of not only our environment, but of our quality of life, including our quality of life in my home State of Colorado that is such an important part of driving our economy forward and creating jobs.

Here we are where several controversial, highly partisan bills have been packaged together. There are seven bills. While there is an attempt to dress this up as a jobs package, it's really a wish list for the oil industry that has no chance of becoming law. It's a huge giveaway to the oil industry at the expense of the health of American families, the health of our environment, and our enjoyment and recreational opportunities and economic opportunities on public lands.

Instead of allowing improvements to this drastic death and destruction bill, the House majority has blocked many amendments offered by Republicans and Democrats alike. Under this restrictive rule, commonsense amendments were blocked, including an amendment I offered that would have directed a study on the impacts of oil shale development on agricultural and municipal water usage. My colleague from California, Representative Napolitano, offered a similar amendment in committee.

Those of us in the West, where farmers, ranchers, and community leaders consistently keep us abreast of water issues--and water is our most precious resource--know that we need some commonsense and objective data with regard to how energy production impacts resources, particularly our most precious resource: water.

What lies at the heart of this death and destruction bill today is simply a false premise. It's the false premise that somehow the United States is failing to make good on its natural energy resources.

The fact is, as a result of President Obama's all-of-the-above energy strategy, our Nation's dependence on foreign oil has fallen drastically, and crude oil production in the United States is at an 8- year high. President Obama has increased production of crude oil substantially over the Bush administration lows. The President's policies are demonstrating that we can have an approach to energy in the United States that boosts oil and gas

production and invests in the next generation of cleaner, job-creating, renewable energy technologies, such as wind, solar, and geothermal.

In contrast to the President's all-of-the-above approach, which will lead to reductions in gas prices and a sustainable energy future for our country, this death and destruction bill before us today is an oil- above-all approach. This death and destruction bill hands public lands that we all value over to the oil and gas industry and undermines the laws and rules that have made our air and water cleaner and safer over the past 40 years.

One of the scariest provisions in this package would gut important health-based standards provided for in the Clean Air Act established on a bipartisan basis in 1970. The Clean Air Act-based standards are especially important for protecting children, the elderly, and others who are susceptible to harmful air pollution.

Many nonpartisan public health and medical organizations have recognized that this bill would override clean air standards that have protected American people and families from harmful pollution in the past 40 years. That is why on this bill, which the majority purports deals with energy, we've heard from pediatricians, we've heard from doctors, we've heard from health care providers that this would lead to death, as well as the destruction of jobs, as well as the destruction of our environment and recreational opportunities.

Another controversial partisan provision in this bill would open up vast quantities of public lands to drilling. The bill sets an arbitrary requirement on the Department of the Interior to offer oil companies at least 25 percent of onshore areas that industry nominates each year. Let me say that again. The Department of the Interior wants to open up more lands to industry, even though oil and gas companies hold more than 25 million acres of public lands on shore where they're not producing oil and gas. In addition, these companies are sitting on 6,700 drilling permits that have been approved that they are not using. They need to explore lands where they already hold energy leases.

This is not a sensible energy policy. It's called an old-fashioned land grab and an old-fashioned water grab. They're coming after our land in the West, and they're coming after our water in the West. We're not going to take it sitting down.

Another extreme provision is that this bill would overturn the Federal Land Policy and Management Act to elevate energy production above other public land uses. My constituents in Colorado are tremendously concerned that somehow oil production would trump job- creating activities, including hunting, fishing, recreation, grazing, conservation, mainstays of jobs and the economy in my district that would be overridden in the name of oil, which would destroy jobs and destroy the health of Colorado families and families across the United States.

Another provision in this bill turns the review of applications to drill into nothing more than a rubber stamp. The bill says that if the Secretary of the Interior doesn't make a decision within 60 days, it's automatically approved. It will be automatically approved with no process.

At the same time, many of the proponents of this bill are attempting to gut the budget of many of the agencies that need to review these applications, effectively ensuring that no application can properly be dealt with and evaluated within 60 days, and therefore they would all be automatically approved regardless of the impact on people's health or economic opportunities and jobs.

Now there are so many troubling provisions in this bill. Another one--and this one would likely violate our Constitution, which we began this session of Congress by reciting very publicly in this body--it would limit a citizen's right to participate in the discussion of leasing and drilling by making all dissenters pay a $5,000 fee.

Now imagine you are a Coloradan, an Arizonan, a Pennsylvanian, a Texan who's concerned about drilling near your home or near your school or near your ranch. Now under this death and destruction bill, opening your mouth would cost you $5,000. Free speech would no longer be free, if this bill passes.

Madam Speaker, public lands are just that, public. We all own a share of them. We all benefit from them. They're not the private playground of oil and gas companies. They're owned by all Americans. And all Americans should have a say in how they're used, not just Americans who cough up $5,000.

Well, this bill would grant the oil and gas industry's wish list by opening up public lands and rolling back public health safeguards, hurting health and killing American families. But one thing this bill will not do is lower the price of gasoline. Economists agree: this bill has no impact on the price of gasoline.

There are actually now more drilling rigs in operation in the United States, thanks to President Obama's leadership today, than the rest of the world combined. In addition, the number of drilling rigs has doubled, doubled since 2009. President Obama's leadership has doubled the number of drilling rigs since 2009.

Now research going back more than three decades shows that there is very little correlation between the volume of domestic oil and the price of gasoline at the pump.

Go ahead and tell the American people that we want oil and gas companies to drill anywhere they like with no regard for public health. Is that the message that we want to send? This bill, this death and destruction bill, would not only lead to the deaths of Americans but would destroy jobs, destroy economic opportunities, and destroy recreational opportunities. It's nothing short of a Federal land grab and a Federal water grab.

Representing my constituents in Colorado, I encourage my colleagues to say, ``Heck, no,'' on both the bill as well as the rule.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor).

If we defeat the previous question, I'll offer an amendment to this rule that will allow the House to consider the Stop the Rate Hike Act of 2012, legislation that would keep the student loan interest rate low and reduce the deficit. If Congress fails to act, more than 7 million students across this country will see their student loan interest rate double come July 1, just around the corner. It's outrageous that at this time of slow and painful economic recovery the majority continues to refuse to work on this issue in a bipartisan way.

To discuss this proposal, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney).

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

Madam Speaker, this is a rare time when we are talking about energy, when we are hearing from the Academy of Pediatrics, the Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the Public Health Association, the National Association of City and County Health Officials, and a number of other signatories on this letter which says, very simply, that we should make sure that the EPA can determine whether our air is safe to breathe and not do it based on how much it costs to reduce air pollution.

June 18, 2012.

Dear Representative: The undersigned public health and

medical organizations

write to express our strong opposition to H.R. 4480, which

includes dangerous provisions that would block and delay

important public health safeguards under the Clean Air Act.

Gutting the Clean Air Act will not address rising gas prices,

but it will needlessly weaken the Clean Air Act's life-saving

protections and delay much-needed air pollution safeguards.

Title II of H.R. 4480 indefinitely delays three overdue air

quality safeguards, including standards for tailpipes

emissions and gasoline sulfur content (Tier 3), air emissions

standards for petroleum refineries and ground level ozone

standards. Most egregiously, H.R. 4480 also repeals the

health premise of the Clean Air Act.

In 1970, an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress

agreed that to adequately protect public health, the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must set air quality

standards to protect health with an adequate margin of

safety. These standards are based on the best available

health science. This system has worked for more than 40 years

to let people know if the air is safe to breathe, and

motivate action to improve air quality when it is not safe.

EPA must retain this authority to establish health-based

ambient air quality standards.

The Clean Air Act fully considers cost and feasibility in

determining how to meet air quality standards. States and EPA

consider these factors during the implementation process as

strategies are implemented to meet air quality standards.

Just as a doctor does not diagnose a patient based on the

cost of treatment, EPA should not determine whether the air

is safe to breathe based on how much it costs to reduce air

pollution.

The Clean Air Act is one of the nation's premier public

health laws. Since its establishment in 1970, the aggregate

emissions of criteria air pollutants decreased 71%, while

Gross Domestic Product increased 210%. Given the enormous

contribution of the Clean Air Act to public health, we urge

you to reject all efforts to weaken and delay it. Please vote

NO on H.R. 4480.

Sincerely,

American Academy of Pediatrics.

American Heart Association.

American Lung Association.

American Public Health Association.

American Thoracic Society.

Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.

Health Care Without Harm.

National Association of City and County Health Officials.

National Environmental Health Association.

Trust for America's Health.

Madam Speaker, I'm proud to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Madam Speaker, it's my honor to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi).

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 20 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

And here we are. While we're debating this death and destruction, oil above all bill, the clock is ticking on student loan payments that will cost middle class families millions and millions of dollars.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney).

I would like to inquire of the other side if he has any remaining speakers.

Very good. Then I'm prepared to close, and I will yield myself the balance of the time.

Now, this rule only provides for consideration of certain amendments. Why are the Republicans so concerned with letting the House work their will on such an important bill?

Now, a number of these measures have been brought forward by Representatives from Colorado. I want to be clear that these are policies that are not universally supported in Colorado and that many of us believe that the policies contained in this set of bills would destroy jobs as well as the quality of life and health of not only Colorado and the West, but the entire country.

In Colorado, we've created a balanced approach to energy policy that's worked. In some areas we lease, some areas we use for other purposes, some areas we protect. Many Colorado small business owners agree, our parks and public lands are critical not only to the economy and job growth, hiking, fishing, hunting, the outdoor industry, but also to our quality of life and our health.

This job-destroying Federal landgrab, Federal water grab bill would put tens of thousands of Coloradoans out of work and destroy the quality of life for our entire State. This bill puts the wish list of the oil and gas industry above all the other users of public lands, above the interest of hunters, above the interest of fishermen, above the interest of hikers, above the interest of tourism, above the interest of skiers, above the interest of conservationists. This bill is out of touch with the citizens of Colorado and will destroy jobs in Colorado and throughout the country.

Look, companies are able to drill. They've been drilling the last 40 years. President Obama's leadership has led to twice the number of drilling wells. Our energy production is at an 8-year peak from oil and gas, and we continue to increase our energy production on public lands, and there's a responsible way to do it.

But we need a balanced approach that doesn't throw out the safeguards and protections that protect the health of children and the health of families, to protect our jobs in the outdoor industry, that protect our jobs in the recreation industry and protect our quality of life across the Western United States, and laws that protect our water and laws that protect our air.

This bill, this series of omnibus death and destruction bills, simply fails that test. The American people deserve more than the death and destruction, oil above all omnibus package that's being offered here today. While millions of Americans are waiting in the unemployment lines, we need a bill that creates jobs rather than destroys jobs.

An increased concentration of toxic chemicals can harm the health of American citizens and Coloradans. Now there is great promise and opportunity in technology that will allow companies to drill with less of an impact on

human health and the environment. That's why we have a regulatory framework. It is to ensure that there is incentive to make sure that American families are safe.

This package of job-destroying bills that has been brought before us today would harm our sensitive lands and constitute a Federal land grab and Federal water grab, all without lowering the price at the pump and destroying tens of thousands of jobs in the process.

This death-and-destruction bill is simply not what this country needs to move forward. I urge my colleagues to oppose the rule and to oppose the bill. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule and to defeat the previous question.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, the legislation that we are debating and considering today is a clear all-of-the-above plan to increase American energy production, to lower gasoline prices, and to reduce our dependence on unstable foreign energy. But more than anything else, Mr. Chairman, this is a bill about creating jobs. The Domestic Energy and Jobs Act creates good-paying permanent jobs that will put people back to work and help grow our economy.

The only thing that the Obama administration has been more hostile to than American job creation, Mr. Chairman, is American energy production. Frankly, that shouldn't surprise anyone because the two do go hand-in-hand.

President Obama likes to talk about an all-of-the-above energy plan. But in reality, it's a nothing-from-America energy plan. This administration has consistently said ``no'' to new American energy production while happily forcing hardworking American taxpayers to spend over $1 million a minute on foreign energy.

President Obama doesn't want to drill for oil in Utah; perhaps he'd rather get it from Venezuela. President Obama doesn't want to drill for natural gas in New Mexico; perhaps he'd rather get it from Yemen.

President Obama doesn't want to develop our oil shale in Colorado; perhaps he'd rather get oil from OPEC.

President Obama doesn't want to import oil from our friends in Canada by approving the Keystone pipeline; perhaps he'd rather import oil from countries that aren't our friends in the Middle East.

Finally, President Obama doesn't want to drill off America's coasts, but he doesn't seem to mind Fidel Castro drilling 60 miles from America. And he doesn't seem to mind giving Brazil billions of dollars to help them drill off their coasts and then promise to be their ``best customer.''

The American people need to understand that this administration has

taken this country in exactly the wrong direction when it comes to developing our vast energy resources. While President Obama has been digging the United States into massive fiscal deficits, he has also gotten America into an energy deficit on Federal lands from which it could take years to recover.

Energy production on Federal lands is one of our best opportunities for job creation and energy security. But time and again, that production has been blocked or delayed by this administration. Under this administration, from 2010 2011, oil production on Federal lands fell by 14 percent. And natural gas production on these same lands fell by 11 percent. Mr. Chairman, this is in stark contrast to the oil and natural gas production on State and private lands because that production has boomed.

American energy equals American jobs. It's a simple formula for job creation and economic growth, but clearly it's one that this administration doesn't seem to understand. Maybe that's because they just don't know how desperate Americans are for jobs. Just a few weeks ago, with unemployment above 8 percent and 23 million Americans looking for work, our President told the American people that the private sector is doing ``just fine.'' Well, if you don't know what the problem is, how can you possibly know how to fix it?

Mr. Chairman, in summary, this is the same President that has issued the lowest number of onshore energy leases since 1984. This is the same President who talks about an all-of-the-above energy plan, but actively blocks ability to produce more oil and natural gas and coal, and specifically doing so on public lands. For President Obama, ``all of the above'' is just a politically convenient slogan. But for House Republicans, it's a real job-creating energy policy.

So I urge my colleagues to vote for the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act to put Americans back to work and make us less dependent on foreign sources.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I'm very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn), author of one of the provisions in this.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tipton), an author of one of the provisions of the bill.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), whose State has tremendous resources.

(Mr. YOUNG of Alaska asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina, a member of the Natural Resources Committee, Mr. Duncan.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to another member of the Natural Resources Committee, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Gingrey, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Roe).

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Nunnelee).

Mr. Chairman, I will advise my very good friend from Massachusetts that I am prepared to close if he is prepared to close.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, it is hard to know where to start as I close the debate on this portion of the bill because there's been so much information out there and so much information that, frankly, I won't say it's untrue, but it's not exactly accurate.

Let me start with the idea that the price of gasoline has dropped with this administration. In January of 2009, the average price of gasoline in this country was $1.82 a gallon. Now what is magic about January 2009? Well, that was the month that the President was inaugurated and the price of gasoline was $1.82 a gallon. Today, the average price of gasoline is $3.48. Now if your math is such that the price of gasoline drops when it starts at $1.82 and ends at $3.48, you've got fuzzy math. But that's what we keep hearing.

Furthermore, we have heard I don't know how many Members on the other side speak, but I dare say every one of them said that this is a giveaway to oil and gas. If they didn't say it, they implied it, trying to get that message across.

Now, I wondered when I heard the debate here about there's no reference to renewables if they read the bill. I am now convinced they did not read the bill, Mr. Chairman. And let me tell you why. Because when we talk about renewables, we're talking about Federal lands and we say that the Secretary--and I'm reading from page 15, title III, section 44, paragraph 3. It says:

The Secretary shall determine a domestic strategic

production objective for the development of energy resources

from Federal onshore lands.

Now that's the directive.

So on page 16 we make reference to renewable energy. And they said, Oh, it's just a study. What do you mean it's just a study? Well, if you read, Mr. Chairman, we are asking for a study for the estimates of what? On subsection A, it's oil and natural gas. What? We're asking for a study of oil and natural gas on Federal lands. Then, you go to C. It talks about the critical minerals. Then it goes on to renewables.

In other words, the point I'm making, Mr. Chairman--and this is very important--if this is a giveaway to oil and gas companies and not helping renewables, then why is it the precise same language for the type of production of energy on Federal lands? You can't have it both ways.

So I think, Mr. Chairman, that this is a very good bill because we're focusing on where the greatest resources we have in this country are on Federal lands. That's where the greatest potential resources are. This bill is aimed at those resources. That's why this bill is so important.

Let's set production goals on all energy development. And that means all-of-the-above. That means above ground. That means underground, as my friend from Mississippi said. That's what we are attempting to do. But to suggest that this is a giveaway when precisely the same language applies to all energy production, frankly, is inaccurate.

So with that, Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support this piece of legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, the Natural Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, or NPR A, was specifically designated as a petroleum reserve back in 1923. It's a place that we can develop our resources for energy and national security. Title VI of this bill will ensure that production can occur on NPR A by requiring at least one annual lease sale, streamline the permitting process to ensure lease sales lead to energy production, and ensure a right-of-away plan to allow for the transportation of the product out of NPR A.

In addition to making technical corrections, this amendment aims to accomplish two vital goals that are imperative for facilitating development at NPR A. First, it would require, at the request of the State of Alaska, up to two additional rights-of-way planned in and out of NPR A. This would prepare for future development by providing approved rights-of-way in and out of this area.

Secondly, it would repeal the designation of the Colville River as an Aquatic Resource of National Importance. This designation was blatantly used by the anti-energy EPA as nothing more than a tool to stop energy development on this area.

While the President touts his energy record and speaks of his support for leasing and energy development in the NPR A, he fails to mention that due to red tape from his administration, Alaskans have waited for years and years for approval to build a simple bridge across the Colville River to begin production in NPR A. What you do not hear is that the EPA has paid no attention to the Colville River until after ConocoPhillips filed its application for a bridge. It was shortly after that application that EPA declared it was an Aquatic Resource of Natural Importance. And it was that action that stopped the development and production for nearly a decade before approval of this simple bridge and pipeline.

What the Obama administration says and what the administration does to promote energy development in Alaska are entirely two different things.

So those two things that I mention in this amendment would give Alaskans the assurance they need to create jobs and encourage development of the NPR A.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I advise my friend that I have no more requests for time, and I am prepared to close if the gentleman is prepared to close.