Madam Speaker, I have an amendment in the nature of a substitute at the desk. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank the Rules Committee for allowing me to bring this…
Madam Speaker, I have an amendment in the nature of a substitute at the desk.
Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank the Rules Committee for allowing me to bring this amendment by making it in order. No matter what the motivation or the intentions, I appreciate that opportunity. And I want to make it clear this amendment is not an addition. It is an amendment in the nature of a substitute that would replace the current bill on the floor.
Madam Speaker, I would also like to make clear that this is not a Democratic amendment, obviously, and I think we will hear from the Democratic leadership in a few minutes to make that clear. It's not a Republican amendment, and we will probably hear from the Republican leadership to that extent in just a few moments. But it is an amendment that's overwhelmingly supported by the American people.
I never cease to be amazed at how day after day we come in this body, and as we enter this great Chamber, we somehow put on our adversarial robes and we pick up our adversarial clubs and then we go about our business. But, unfortunately, the adversarial process often leads us to be more concerned with scoring points than we are with winning solutions. In this debate I have listened to today there are good men and women on both sides, and there are smart men and women on both sides, and they all believe they are right. But there are limits to the good ideas that we can bring into this one Chamber about energy.
The reality is if you're from a coal area, the people back at home know you're going to be fighting for coal. If you're from a gas area, you're going to be fighting for gas. And if you're from an area with a lot of wind or solar technology, that's what you're going to be certain it's going to solve our energy problem. But even the majority can't always be right, and that's why only 33 percent of the people in America approve of what Congress is doing currently today.
This amendment, Madam Speaker, is the new Manhattan Project for energy independence. A lot of people have talked about doing something like this.
Today we have an opportunity to do it. And it has a novel approach. It says that instead of the 435 of us on this floor bringing our ideas and imposing them on the American people, what we do is bring together a commission of the brightest men and women in America, from government, from the private sector, from academics, and we have them create in the next year a plan of energy for this country that would get us 50 percent independent from foreign oil in 10 years and 100 percent in 20 years or tell us why we can't get there.
And this amendment also realizes that in this bill on the floor today, we are essentially redistributing another $800 billion of taxpayer money because we think we know what's best for Americans. The new Manhattan Project amendment would set seven goals for energy independence. They are goals that almost everybody agrees we need to reach energy independence: doubling vehicle fuel efficiency, cutting home and business energy usage in half, having solar power work as cheaply as coal, making biofuels work as cheaply as gasoline, safely and cheaply storing carbon emissions from our coal-fired plants, safely storing nuclear waste and producing electricity from nuclear fusion reactions. Then through grants and prizes it energizes an entire Nation to reach those goals through their innovation and their ideas and their imagination. But, Madam Speaker, perhaps the most important thing this amendment does is it restores American competitiveness by sending out two signals.
First of all, it sends a signal out across this country to the American people that we trust them and America is coming back on its competitive edge. And, secondly, it sends a shot across the bow of every country in the world, telling them we are not going to surrender, that we are going to come back, and we are going to compete, and we are going to win on a fair playing field, and we are going to restore a competitive advantage that is going to lead us for the next 50 years.
And then finally, Madam Speaker, it invigorates a whole generation of Americans to go into math and science and be a part of our energy solution for years to come.
And so with that, Madam Speaker, I hope that we will pass this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, the gentleman mentions those 8 years of bad ideas. That's why these similar concepts were endorsed in the campaign by President Obama, Senator McCain, Senator Clinton and also individuals like Newt Gingrich.
I would like to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Schock).
Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Inglis).
I would say to the gentleman, we have three, maybe four more speakers.
Madam Speaker, can you tell us how much time we have remaining.
Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).
Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlelady from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann).
Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Texas, the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Barton.
Madam Speaker, can you tell me how much additional time we have?
Madam Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.
Madam Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.
Madam Speaker, we have heard a lot today about how these ideas of a new Manhattan Project were stale ideas of this party. I stated at the beginning that, unfortunately, we get so tied up in this Chamber in our adversarial process that all we're concerned about is how many points we take from each other.
The reality is that a project like this, the new Manhattan Project, or you can call it a ``poppy project,'' were concepts that were talked about by President Obama during the campaign, by Senator Clinton during the campaign, by Senator McCain during the campaign and, as I mentioned earlier, by former Speaker Newt Gingrich, and many other people.
They're concepts that have been approved by 77 percent of the American people. And what they do is substitute for taxation of the American people the concept of innovation and trusting the ideas of the ingenuity and imagination of people across America.
We talked about what this bill can do if we reach just one of these goals. Just one of these goals, it could change and save us as much as $100 billion. But, most of all, Madam Speaker, this trusts the American people to do what they always do, and that is find a way to win, if we don't quit before they have a chance to win. And it sends a message to them at a time when they're back on their heels and they need some wins, that we trust that they, with their imagination and innovation, can do things that this body can't do and can't dictate to them.
Perhaps it was best said by Mr. Friedman in a New York Times article that he wrote--and I don't agree with everything he says, but I agree with this. He said, I want an energy bubble. I want so many people throwing crazy dollars at every idea and every garage that we have a hundred thousand people trying a hundred thousand things, five of which might work and two
might be the next green Google. But I don't want a Manhattan Project of 12 people in Los Alamos. I want it to be like the IT revolution: everyone becoming a programmer. Only, in this case, it's everyone becoming a green innovator. What IT was to the eighties and nineties, ET, energy technology, will be to the early 21st century.
Madam Speaker, this amendment gives us that opportunity. This amendment will birth that ability for Americans to create the energy solutions that we need as we go forward into the next several decades and to give our children and our grandchildren the competitive edge to compete in a world economy.
With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, may I request how much time is remaining?
Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes.
Madam Speaker, the distinguished minority leader just said that Americans must lead; and lead, they must. He also indicated that the cost of their failure would be passed on to our children and grandchildren.
As one of only 17 Members in this body that has voted against every bailout bill and stimulus bill we have passed, I ask the American people who watch here, what has been the enormous cost of our failure in spending all of those dollars, and what have you got from it? Also, Madam Speaker, I would say this--that the American people can lead. They're not stupid. Only 33 percent of them approve of what we're doing.
We have a choice. Only in this body could they believe that we could say words like, We're going to create jobs by destroying jobs. We're going to reduce your taxes by increasing your taxes. We're going to come in here with all your parochialism, and we can create a plan for you that is far better than the brightest experts on energy could do by having this amendment. We prefer taxation over innovation of the American people. Or we'll have a bill like this that only sets a 20 percent goal in 11 years for renewable energy, where in this bill we set a 50 percent goal of dependence from foreign oil in 10 years and 100 percent in 20 years. And, finally, that in this bill we know we're going to spend $800 billion that probably won't work.
In our bill and this amendment, Madam Speaker, we know that we only pay $24 billion, and we only have to pay it when we get the results.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the distinguished minority leader, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner).
Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.