David Wu

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Craig Prosser, retiring city manager of Tigard, Oregon. Craig has announced his retirement at the end of July, capping a 35-year career of distinguished service to our community.

Craig began serving Tigard in 1999 as finance director, and since 2005, as city manager. Craig's accomplishments include the formation of the city's first urban renewal district, the Tigard-Lake Oswego Water Partnership, as well as major improvements along Pacific Highway. He also oversaw the opening of the Westside Express Service Commuter line that runs through Tigard. Craig's foresight helped to make Tigard an attractive place to live and do business. Because of his leadership, Tigard was able to retain crucial city services through one of the worst financial crises in our country's history.

Craig has been a consensus builder who has always focused on the needs of the citizens, and he has worked tirelessly to address their concerns. He has approached his work with integrity and a true sense of dedication while empowering staff and those around him. In his retirement announcement Craig said, ``I would be willing to put the City of Tigard staff up against any public workforce in the state, if not the nation. The citizens of Tigard are fortunate to have such dedicated elected officials and public employees working on their behalf.''

Former Oregon Governor Tom McCall once said, ``Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say, this is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better.'' Craig Prosser truly is an American hero, for he has devoted much of his life to making his community better.

It is my distinct honor to recognize Craig for his outstanding service and for providing a heroic example to us all.

Madam Chair, on rollcall vote 585, I inadvertently recorded my vote incorrectly. On the amendment offered by Representative Gosar, I intended to vote ``no.''

Amendment Offered by Ms. Kaptur

Mr. Chairman, I would like to engage in a colloquy with the gentleman from New Jersey.

Throughout this debate on the Energy and Water appropriations bill, we have discussed the importance of research and development of new energy technologies. However, I would like to highlight the importance of demonstration projects that are carried out within the Department of Energy's Building Technologies Program.

The Department of Energy spends millions of dollars each year on research and development for new technologies. However, that R&D often reaches a point known as the Valley of Death. The Valley of Death is where promising new technologies fade into obscurity because they can't attract the capital investments to move from concept to commercialization.

In essence, on one side of the Valley of Death is research and development;

good ideas. On the other side is the actual deployment and commercialization. A demonstration project takes the research and development just a little bit further and bridges this divide so that private entities will be interested in deployment, private entities will be interested in commercialization.

This good use of federally funded demonstration projects is critical to reducing the risk to private sector investors and allows technologies to cross the Valley of Death and establish commercial viability for investors and, indeed, attract their interest.

I strongly believe that in the course of our discussion about funding for the coming fiscal year, it is important to highlight the importance of the Building Technologies Program's demonstration projects. I very much appreciate our previous discussions that I have shared with the chairman and ranking member, and I would be interested in the chairman's insight into this matter.

I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their engagement in this issue, and I look forward to working with them.

The chairman knows that fully 40 percent of total energy use in America is in buildings and fully 70 percent of electricity use is in buildings. So when we make buildings more efficient, this is indeed the low-hanging fruit toward future energy efficiency, and in fact the ability to bring new, innovative American-made technologies to market is key to rejuvenating our economy. Successful projects in the Building Technologies Program will result in the manufacture and sale of new products here in the United States and result in rejuvenating our economy and building good American jobs here.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the ranking member.