Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, you know, there's plenty of economic bad news around, coupled here and there, and we've had our share of those in the upstate of South Carolina, but there's also some bright spots, and those are very much worth celebrating.

Fluor Corporation's employment in Greenville, South Carolina, has gone from 2,500 in 2003 to 5,400 today. An additional 3,200 project- based workers help in projects around Greenville. Fluor is currently looking for 2- to 300 engineers to come help with significant new projects that they've won all around the world.

In fact, their growth has been so significant they've been a major cause of the drop in the vacancy rate in class A office space in downtown Greenville, going from 24 percent down to 11.9 percent in the central business district.

That's impressive, Mr. Speaker. It's worth celebrating, and especially worth celebrating is the fact that Fluor will now be taking over the contract at the Savannah River Site, where for 50 years, we've been producing and storing tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that will give us the opportunity to learn how to store hydrogen and break through to a hydrogen economy.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I'm not a scientist, but I play one occasionally at the Science Committee. And the good news is we have got some scientists at the Science Committee, great staff members and Members of Congress, like Dr. Baird, who is one of my tutors on this issue of ocean acidification.

Recently in a trip to the Galapagos, we had an opportunity to hear from Dr. Julian Sachs, who, along with Dr. Baird's tutelage, was able to explain to me finally why it is that the carbon sink of the oceans is going to create a problem for life in the oceans. And it has to do with that science experiment we did in high school with putting the egg in the vinegar, and a couple of days later, you come back and there's no shell on the egg. Well, that's the challenge. As carbon is absorbed into the ocean by higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere entering in the ocean, driving down the pH, making the ocean more acidic, you end up with that scenario where the calcium-based shells of the organisms begin to dissolve.

The big challenge is the phytoplankton part of the food chain. That dissolves. It's a terrible thing to open up a hole at the bottom of the food chain. Not so bad if you're at the top of the food chain, but if you're at the bottom of the food chain, it's a terrible thing to open a hole, especially when a billion people around the world depend upon the ocean for sustenance.

So what all that means is this is a serious matter and something worth our spending time and effort and money on to research. So I am very happy to support this bill.

I am also very excited about an aspect of the bill that has been mentioned by several speakers already. That is the international cooperation that's called for in the bill. On another trip with Dr. Baird to Antarctica and then Australia, we saw a wonderful example of this with the NOAA's Coral Reef Watch Project, where we actually have NOAA employing two Australians who are doing work for NOAA in Australia, coordinating with the Great

Barrier Reef folks. And the result is America is there lending a hand and cooperating, improving not only the science that we generate but also my other committee, Foreign Affairs, better foreign policy outcomes; that we are showing ourselves to be a friend to the Australians, trying to preserve the Great Barrier Reef, which is obviously very important to people on the eastern shore of Australia.

So the international aspects of this may be reason enough to support the bill. But for all of the above reasons, I am very happy to support the bill and urge my colleagues to support it, and hopefully we will have this cooperation, find some breakthroughs in the science, and then figure out ways to apply those solutions to begin solving the problem.

Madam Speaker, I submit the following:

Requesting Member: Congressman Bob Inglis.

Bill Number: H.R. 5658 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009.

Account: Research, Development, Test & Evaluation, Air Force-- Materials.

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Cytec Carbon Fibers LLC.

Address of Requesting Entity: 7139 Augusta Road, Piedmont, South Carolina 29673.

Description of Request: The purpose of the request is to provide an earmark of $3,000,000 to conduct research and development aimed at producing a domestic source of cost effective, high performance carbon fiber used to manufacture efficient manned and unmanned air and space vehicles for the military. Approximately, $250,000 (8%) is to continue R&D for scale process optimization to ensure equivalent or superior product performance through modified polymer chemistry; $200,000 (7%) is to continue R&D for scale process optimization to ensure equivalent or superior product performance through carbon fiber surface science for improved property translation in composites; $250,000 (8%) to produce (pilot scale) and test 12k versions of phase I defined advanced PAN-based carbon fibers; $200,000 (7%) to establish testing protocols with Greenville and York Technical Colleges; $350,000 (12%) to generate meaningful preliminary composite data for use by target program managers; $150,000 (5%) to establish training parameters for manufacturing and use of high performance carbon fibers; $300,000 (10%) to begin scale-up of production/commercial capability; $350,000 (12%) to produce multiple production-scale carbon fiber lots of selected 12k versions of advanced fibers; $600,000 (20%) to initiate qualification/ design allowable database test programs based on key military applications, and $350,000 (12%) for Air Force Research Laboratory project management.

In an effort to reduce the Department of Defense's fossil fuel dependence, the DoD has recently given significant attention to lightweighting manned and unmanned ground and air vehicles through advanced materials, such as composite structures, which are currently only available from foreign suppliers. The military has demonstrated a need for access to a lower cost domestic source of new advanced carbon fibers and testing protocols. Cytec Carbon Fibers will provide a domestic solution and utilize its carbon fiber expertise to develop and manufacture high performance carbon fibers in its Greenville, South Carolina plant to be used for military applications including J-UCAS, UCAR, Global Hawk, Predator, F-18 E/F, JSF and V-22 as well as missile and satellite components. The ultimate goal would be for Cytec to work with local technical colleges, such as Greenville and York Technical Colleges to establish a knowledge base on the manufacturing, testing, repair and efficient use of advanced composite materials. This request is consistent with the intended and authorized purpose of the Research, Development, Test & Evaluation, Air Force--Materials Account. Since 2006, Cytec Carbon Fibers has invested $7 million to upgrade its R&D facilities and pilot plan capabilities.

Madam Speaker, I rise to highlight the accomplishments of Sagen Blackwell, a 15-year-old from Woodruff, South Carolina.

In 2006, Sagen visited Walter Reed with her family and saw the sacrifices made by America's heroic servicemembers. She felt called to service, so she started by sending care packages to Walter Reed.

In April 2007, Sagen became President of the South Carolina Society of Children of the American Revolution. For her State project, she chose to raise funds for the Wounded Warrior Project.

So far, Sagen has raised over $50,000 through a variety of fundraising initiatives, including the Carolinas Challenge Soldier Ride. She has touched the lives of over 500 families. Sagen's service is an example to us all.

She shows us the difference that one person can make, when we answer the call to service that we feel in our hearts. America's future is bright in the hands of a generation of Sagens.

Mr. Speaker, there's plenty of bad economic news around, and we've shared in some of that in the upstate of South Carolina. But there are also some real bright spots. One of them is on Garlington Road in Greenville, South Carolina, where General Electric is currently looking for 200 more engineers. That would add to the 3,000 employees they have at that plant. Half are engineers, roughly the other half are manufacturing staff.

One of the most exciting things they're doing there is wind turbines. In fact, General Electric is now the number two installer of wind turbine units in the whole world, and they're made, in significant part, in Greenville, South Carolina.

If the renewable production tax credit is extended, and that's an important ``if'' for us here in the House, we need to do that; if we do extend that credit, General Electric expects that the United States will surpass Germany as the number one producer of wind energy in the world.

Mr. Speaker, it's an exciting thing when we see new technology create jobs, especially when that new technology moves us away from dependence on oil and helps us break this addiction.

Mr. Speaker, there are plenty of challenging news stories about the economy, and we in upstate South Carolina have had some of those experiences ourselves. It is worth celebrating some of the successes.

On March 10, BMW announced an additional $750 million expenditure at their Spartanburg, South Carolina, plant, bringing their total investment to $4.2 billion. They will add 500 employees to the 6,300 already there and 1,500 employee jobs will be added among the suppliers. Those suppliers, by the way, have invested $2.1 billion in South Carolina and have 12,000 employees.

It is very exciting to have this kind of news. It is also exciting to see the technology that BMW plans to employ in Spartanburg. They are going to bring clean diesel for the first time to the United States. It is going to be in the brand new X-6, all of which will be made in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

That car will also get 30 miles per gallon. Frank-Peter Arndt, their board member, explained that even at 125 miles an hour on the autobahn, the X-6 with the deep clean diesel will get 30 miles per gallon. It is a wonderful success worth celebrating.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, especially since I am going to speak in favor of the bill. And the reason I am going to speak in favor of the bill and vote for it is because I think it is the beginning of a commitment to doing something about our energy dependence on foreign fuels.

Recently, I had the opportunity to be in Brazil. In the 1970s, Brazil made a commitment to move away from their dependence on imported oil and they developed ethanol from sugarcane. We don't have sugarcane, but we have something else that is in this bill. We have hydrogen, lots of it. In fact, it is the world's most common element.

So within this bill is the H Prize, which rewards entrepreneurs and inventors who can come up with a well-to-wheels transformation toward the hydrogen economy with a $10 million prize, hopefully augmented by $40 million worth of private money. This is patterned after the Ansari X Prize which incentivized entrepreneurial space flight.

So what we would hope to accomplish with the H Prize, which House Members have voted twice in favor of with over 400 votes both times, is to break through to hydrogen. I support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, our deepest sympathies go out to the families

and friends who lost loved ones in the fire that took seven young lives on October 28, 2008.

As parents, we grieve with the parents who grieve. As siblings, we mourn with those who mourn the loss of sisters and brothers. As friends, we weep with those friends who weep.

In the midst of grief, we point to hope. We hope that our words bring some comfort, and we pray that these everlasting words will bring peace to the family, friends and loved ones of Cassidy, Lauren, Justin, Travis, Allison, William, and Emily:

``Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our

sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by

him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our

transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the

punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his

wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53: 4-5).''

Thank you, Representative Clyburn, for offering this resolution. South Carolina and the nation unite in our sympathy and support for those affected by this tragedy.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of World Sight Day and the tireless leadership of organizations like the Christian Blind Mission headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina.

Christian Blind Mission is an international aid organization that specializes in improving the quality of life for the blind in the world's poorest countries.

Each year, organizations like Christian Blind Mission recognize World Sight Day as a time to focus global attention on vision and blindness. This year, World Sight Day will take place tomorrow, October 11, and will emphasize the tragedy of blindness in children. There are an estimated 1.4 million blind children in the world, the majority of whom live in Third World countries. Remarkably, 75 percent of all major blinding conditions are preventable or curable, and the Christian Blind Mission has taken the lead in performing over one-half million cataract surgeries and distributing over one-half million tubes of tetracycline eye ointment to combat trachoma.

Once again, it's an honor to recognize Christian Blind Mission-USA for their humanitarian efforts worldwide. Every day, thousands of children receive the gift of sight because of the hard work and initiative that organizations like the Christian Blind Mission provide.

Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 862 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, we have a huge challenge in Iraq. It is a challenge for Democrats. It is a challenge for Republicans. It is a challenge for the President and for the Congress. We need an American solution to that challenge. The question before us today is whether this resolution is going to advance that solution or it is actually going to make it more difficult.

I am one of the 17 Republicans that wasn't convinced of the surge; but I am aware now that we are doing it. It is underway, and the plan is clear to have General Petraeus report in September.

I am not certain why it is that we should be debating today a resolution prior to that time because, between now and then, rather than having a succession of political kind of resolutions, we could be working toward an American consensus on this. I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that that consensus is not that far away. I think we can start with two very clear observations. First, our military has done exactly what we have asked them to do. And they have done it very well.

Second, we need to use the American concept of accountability. We need to impose accountability on the Iraqi regime and say to them, we have these benchmarks and here are some rewards for success and some consequences for failure.

And between now and September 30, if we work in a cooperative way, I think we can find a whole series of success check points that we can lay out for the regime in Baghdad. We can say to them, Republicans, Democrats, the President and Congress alike, can say to them, here are the things that we want you to accomplish, and we have the right to insist that you accomplish them because after all, we are spending $2 billion a week. But even more important than that, far more important than that, we have American lives at risk. So we have the right as their protectors. We want you to achieve these things. If you do, you get these rewards. If you fail, these are the consequences. We can lay out a whole series of those if we work together in a cooperative way. The President, the Congress, Republicans and Democrats, we can come up with that American solution and we can find a way forward in Iraq.

The question that I think the proponents of this resolution need to answer is, if you simply set the withdrawal date of April 1, what went with all of that accountability? What went with all of those success check points? The question really for the proponents is: How do you know by April 1, such a date in stone, that you will have succeeded? Why not work cooperatively between now and September, awaiting the report, to prepare a series of very carefully thought out success check points with consequences for failure and rewards for success? And think through the plan. As it is, I think there is not much of a plan; and, therefore, I will vote against the resolution.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment as the designee of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton).

Mr. Chairman, we are very grateful for the opportunity to offer the amendment. It is on behalf of myself and Mr. Lipinski, the gentleman from Illinois, and the gentleman from Michigan Mr. Upton, and the gentlewoman from California Ms. Harman.

It is an exciting thing to see an opportunity to save money and to save energy by changing some light bulbs. So we hope that we see these energy savings, and we know that it is something that will benefit the country.

Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski). Even though we are very grateful for the chairman already accepting the amendment, he should say something about our bill.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his support. I very much appreciate the chairman and ranking member's acceptance of our amendment.

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

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

I thank the gentlelady.

I rise with the support of several Members of this amendment. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski), the gentlelady from California (Ms. Harman), and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton) and I are offering an amendment that would require that light bulbs purchased in the Leg Branch appropriations would comply with the ENERGY STAR and Federal Energy Management Program identifications. The idea here is to save some money easily and to save a lot of energy, and of course energy is money.

Most Americans are still using, and most of the light bulbs in my house are incandescent bulbs that Thomas Edison invented more than 100 years ago. But only 10 percent of the energy of those light bulbs turns out to be light; 90 percent is wasted as heat. So we've got something better. And like many, I'm switching to CFLs. Those lights provide much more efficient lighting. And it's amazing to think that if every American just switched one incandescent bulb to an energy-efficient alternative, we would collectively save more than $8 billion in energy costs, prevent the burning of 300 billion pounds of coal, and remove 2 million cars' worth of greenhouse gas emissions from our atmosphere.

This small step in this amendment is part of something else that Mr. Lipinski and I are working on, which is a Bulb Replacement in Government and High Efficiency Technology, BRIGHT we call it, Energy Savings Act, along with Representative Harman, that would require GSA to replace burned out light bulbs with more efficient options like compact fluorescent lighting.

The BRIGHT Act has 82 cosponsors, and we look forward to its adoption. This amendment is a good step toward that goal.

Madam Chair, I am happy to yield to the gentlelady from California (Ms. Harman).

Madam Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton).

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.

Madam Chair, we appreciate very much the committee's willingness to accept this amendment. It is a good step forward.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

I agree with the gentleman. I certainly hope that we can improve that procedure.

In the meantime, we're improving the bulbs, making us more energy efficient here in the Capitol, and hopefully throughout these appropriations bills in this season.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentlewoman yield?

I think that, as Ms. Harman just pointed out and as the Chair of the committee has pointed out, there are some issues involving the aesthetics. You've got to choose the right light bulb, that's for sure. We've heard some discussion this morning about how they glow moon glow, or whatever. Well, if you pick the wrong kind, they do glow moon glow. I've got some in my garage, and it's a really freaky kind of look in there. But I've got some in the house that look yellow and nice.

So you've got to pick the right bulbs. And of course in the historical context we have to pick the right bulbs. And we do have to deal with the recycling of these. Just like we don't have a sufficient program for recycling lead batteries around, we toss those in the trash, we have a problem with the mercury in these. But we can get there. We start by saving an awful lot of money and a lot of energy.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you and the ranking member for your work on this bill.

Two weeks ago the House passed the H-Prize Act of 2007. The H-Prize was overwhelmingly supported here in the House with a vote of 408-8, and last year 416-6. The H-Prize is a nonbureaucratic way for government to achieve its goal of harnessing America's entrepreneurial spirit to tackle our energy challenges. The best part is, if no one wins the government doesn't have to pay.

We need $6 million, Mr. Chairman, to fund the H-Prize at its inception. Of that amount, $1 million would be used to fund a prize for advancements in components or systems related to hydrogen storage, $4 million would be used to fund a prize for development of prototypes of hydrogen-powered vehicles or other hydrogen-based products, and $1 million would be used for administration of the prize competitions.

The Secretary of Energy was granted authorization for creating prizes in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The H-Prize gives structure to this prize authority in accordance with recommendations from industry, academia, government and venture capitalists.

I would ask the chairman if he would work with Mr. Lipinski, the gentleman from Illinois, and me to provide funding for the H-Prize as we move forward in conference with the Senate.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to one of the co-chairs of the House Hydrogen Caucus, Charlie Dent from Pennsylvania.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).

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

First of all, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski) for his work on a number of energy initiatives that we're collaborating on. This is one of those. I think it's a very exciting bill that won't solve all of our challenges, but it will get us down the road toward a brighter energy future.

And it's always helpful to have a picture tell a thousand words. This is a picture of a gas line in a province in China on August 17, 2005. That's a line of cars waiting to buy gas.

ExxonMobil tells us the global energy demand is expected to grow by 60 percent between now and 2030. So we've got to find something to do in order to get to a brighter energy future, one that does not involve the restricted supply that we have when it comes to petroleum. So what we've come up with is an idea of using the incentives of a prize to make it happen, to make some breakthroughs happen when it comes to hydrogen.

Well, the good news is we've done prizes before. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh won a prize for being the first to make a successful transatlantic flight. It worked with flight, and it worked again here more recently when the Ansari X-Prize was created to incentivize space flight. On October 4, 2004, Burt Rutan's Spaceship 1 became the first private spacecraft with commercial potential, succeeding in going into space twice within 2 weeks; and the result was they won the Ansari X- Prize.

So the concept here is to build on that kind of legacy and create the H-Prize. The good news for our colleagues is this shouldn't be a terribly controversial vote. The last time we did it, we got 416 votes in favor of the H-Prize. So it's a do-over with a 416-6 margin last time. So we're hoping that it's going to be successful here today on the floor.

As my colleague from Illinois just said, Mr. Lipinski was telling us that the concept is to incentivize breakthroughs in hydrogen technology; and, as he said, technical breakthroughs would be rewarded with a $1 million prize and then prototypes every other year, $4 million. And then the transformational technology prize, the big one, would be a $10 million prize, hopefully augmented by up to $40 million of private money that's authorized under the bill.

So the concept is to, basically, create the most nongovernmental way to achieve a governmental purpose, which is to break this dependence on oil. So we've created the H-Prize. It's a way of incentivizing entrepreneurs and inventors to come together and to create teams that can make this breakthrough.

The beauty of a prize, two beauties of the prizes to point out here to our colleagues, one is, if nobody does it, you don't pay the prize money out, so they've got to win it in order for us to incur the obligation to pay the money out. That's a good thing about prizes.

The second thing that's very important about prizes is the breakthroughs may come from way outside the normal realm that you would expect; and it could be that it's not the normal people or the normal suspects that might come forward with a breakthrough. It may be somebody way afield.

For example, hydrogen breakthroughs may come from biological agents that create hydrogen as part of their metabolism. That's way outside the field of where a lot of people are expecting hydrogen production to come from. But if you have a prize that isn't restricted as to how you create the hydrogen, then you get a lot more entrants, and you get interest from a broad range of fields that may come in with the out-of- the-box thinking that can transform our energy supply.

So I'm very pleased that we've got it on the floor today. I thank the gentleman from Illinois once again for his collaboration on these topics. I'm hopeful that today we'll pass it with a large margin and that we'll be successful with the other body and then a signature by the President, and this will be one of the ways that we can break this addiction to oil and move to a more stable energy future for America.

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