Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, it's with great pleasure that I congratulate students from Redmond High School in my home state of Washington for winning a prestigious national honor, the President's Environmental Youth Award.

These outstanding students took it upon themselves to create and develop the ``Cool School'' campaign with the goal of reducing carbon emissions by 1,000 pounds per classroom. Their efforts went well beyond the initial goal and reduced their school's carbon footprint by 72 tons and saved the school $7,500 in its electric bill last year alone.

Led by science teacher Mike Towns, who is an inspiration to those committed to leading a zero-carbon lifestyle, these students exemplify the effort and ingenuity needed to launch a U.S. clean-energy revolution. I have no doubt that these bright minds will continue to be environmental leaders.

It's among the greatest honors as a member of the House of Representatives to meet and work with youth who are involved in their communities and deeply committed to making our world a better place. Our future depends on these young people who are making a real impact in the fight against climate change.

I commend the students and staff of Redmond High School for their efforts and look forward to working with them in the years ahead to beat global warming.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of an amendment I'm offering with Mr. Van Hollen. The amendment is quite simple. It will simply direct the EPA to report to Congress on how to mitigate the effects of climate change on recreation at our Nation's beaches.

I'm particularly partial to islands and beaches. I live in one, Bainbridge Island, Washington. It's a great place.

And like others, I'm concerned about the impact of global climate change on rising sea levels that can impact the quality of our beaches. And we need to get to the bottom of what those impacts will be so that we can help local communities respond to rising beaches.

Scientists have agreed that sea level is already rising across our coast. In my neck of the woods, the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group has predicted that sea levels in Puget Sound could rise by as much as 50 inches by 2100. This could have a $1 billion impact on waterfront investment.

Rising sea levels intensify flooding, we know. They intensify storms and the erosion associated with them. And they can impact the water quality of our Nation's beaches as they impact sewage disposal systems.

Already, under BEACH Act programs, the EPA does collaborate with government agencies to predict where and when this pollution can occur. My amendment simply directs the EPA to report to Congress on how climate change may exacerbate those problems.

We know how important recreation is on our beaches. In fact, beaches are the leading tourist destination. I was surprised to learn 85 percent of all U.S. tourism is associated with beaches.

They contribute over $700 billion each year to the GDP, and that's not just the Beach Boys.

In 2006, recreation brought in $948 million, just the Olympic and Kitsap Peninsulas where I live. So knowing about the problems we're going to have with climate change locally is a boost. You don't have to live on an island or near a beach to recognize that.

I want to thank the Chair, Mr. Pallone, and the Chair for their help in drafting and accepting this amendment. And I hope you'll join me in supporting a very commonsense measure to help respond to these problems we know we're going to have. And I hope we can prevent them. But we're going to have some of them no matter what we do.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise to show my dismay that it has been 3 months since the Department of Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service, FWS, missed an important deadline to determine whether they would give the polar bear protections under the Endangered Species Act.

Naysayers argue that the polar bear population is not at risk, but the studies show that an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears worldwide are threatened with ``losing their habitat over the next 50 years'' because of global warming and melting sea ice.

The U.S. Geological Survey, USGS, predicts that without action, ``11 of the 19 subpopulations will be extinct by the middle of this century, with an additional three subpopulations vanishing shortly thereafter.''

That same USGS study showed that Arctic melting is occurring faster than any scientific models have previously predicted.

Incredibly, at the same time we are seeing these sobering scientific reports, the Department of Interior has moved forward with leasing oil and gas exploration rights for almost 30 million acres of the Polar Bear Seas. Just off the northwest coast of Alaska, this environmentally sensitive area is home to about 16,000 polar bears.

This is not the time for drilling in prime polar bear habitat. It is the time for protecting polar bears and their habitat under the Endangered Species Act. FWS should act today to list the polar bear as a threatened, or even an endangered, species.

I rise in support of Mr. Grijalva's bill. I really applaud his leadership on this. It is long overdue.

This bill really takes care of the landscape conservation treasures that

we have come to enjoy. It protects 26 million acres of BLM's most exceptional landscapes. And to put it in perspective, that is a lot of territory, but it is only 10 percent of the BLM-managed areas. It is a very reasonable thing for us to do. And the reason is that it protects the heritage, the ancient Native American sites, pioneer ranches and pioneer homesteads. I am a fellow of the West. I enjoy looking at them. It preserves historic trails, rugged and remote mountains, deserts, prairies and rivers. These are the jewels in the crown of the BLM- managed property, and all Americans have a stake in them.

When you think about how expansive this is, there is something for everybody in America in this bill, those who like to raft, to hunt, to sightsee, to fish, to hike, to study, to bird-watch or to just hang around with their kids. This is an all-purpose bill. And it is a lot of places: Colorado's Canyons of the Ancients National Monument the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, Idaho's Craters of the Moon National Monument, California's Headwaters Forest Preserve, Nevada's Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, Montana's Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, Utah's Beaver Dam Mountain Wilderness Area, Oregon's Lower Deschutes Wild and Scenic River, and my kind of favorite, the Pacific Crest and Continental Divide National Trail System, a trail system that is in trouble and this bill can help preserve.

So this really is a universal bill. And I want to point out something that is kind of uniquely American. These systems really rely on volunteers to keep them healthy. And I want to commend the thousands of volunteers who spend their weekends working on these trails providing interpretive services. Thank you to all of you who are doing this. This bill will help them to have a more organized system, and I think it is a real economically sound thing to do.

The Bush administration has indicated its support for this bill. It's straightforward codifying legislation. As a member of the Resources Committee, I want to applaud Mr. Grijalva and all of those Americans who are going to take their kids out to these places and have a grand time. Congratulations on passing this bill.

Offered By: Mr. Inslee

Amendment No. 12: At the end of the bill, add the

following:

Madam Speaker, due to the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, we were able to experience a profound and moving time in Dharamsala, India, 2 weeks ago, and it was profound for two reasons. One, when you talk to a Buddhist monk who has walked for 5 days through the Himalayan mountains to escape suppression and obtain some modicum of religious liberty, it would move the hardest of hearts. And we talked to monks who had that experience, monks who couldn't even show a little medallion with a picture of the Dalai Lama on their chest without having to go to jail in Tibet under the control of the Chinese Government. It was profound in that sense, but it was profound in meeting the Dalai Lama, as well, a person of great humor, great grace, great courage and great nonviolence. And he has asked for an investigation of what has gone on in Tibet, to quash what the Chinese Government has been saying about him, saying that he has instigated this violence. Anyone who makes that claim couldn't distinguish between Mahatma Gandhi and Che Guevara.

And I take great umbrage at this assertion that somehow he has been the reason for violence. His position has been reasonable. He has asked for a dialogue with the Chinese Government. He has asked for an investigation to what happened in Tibet. He has not called for a boycott of the Olympics, an extremely reasonable position given what his people have undergone.

His aspirations for China I think should be the world's, that as China grows into a great economic power, let it seek to be a great power in the sense of morality and humanity. My district has a growing relationship with China selling jets, software and agricultural products. And we like to see the economic potential of China. But that has to be married, to become a great nation, with a commitment to humanity, morality and religious freedom. This is consistent not only with America's core values, but international values in the Olympic spirit. We hope we move in that direction.

Madam Speaker, Mr. Tiahrt of Kansas and I, and others may join us later, have come tonight to talk about an important issue with large national ramifications, and that is the decision by the United States Air Force to decline a contract for our next extremely important tanker and to give it to a consortium, a very significant portion of which will be manufactured in Europe through a consortium in part with EADS and the Airbus company in Europe.

I represent an area north of Seattle with thousands of Boeing workers; so obviously this is an important issue in my district. Certainly the hometown team is Boeing.

But our discussion tonight will be about why all America ought to be very concerned about this decision for several reasons. And it is an obvious situation where there is very significant employment in my district that any Congress person would be concerned about that, but what we want to

talk about tonight are the national ramifications and why we believe this is a very, very injurious decision that needs to be reversed one way or another.

For background in this regard, the very able and really spectacularly performing aircraft, the KC-135, that for decades have provided the very backbone of our United States Air Force capability, will soon be at some point entering their obsolescence. Herculean efforts have been put forward to keep those great airplanes in the air, but at some point we've got to have a new airplane, and we know that that is the case.

So we have been engaged in an effort to provide another replacement. A good United States product, Boeing, competed with subcontractors across the United States for a 767 airframe that we believed was perfect for the task, and by all information provided, the Air Force would provide the capability that was needed by the Air Force.

Unfortunately, the Air Force has decided to reject an American contractor on this extremely important contract. And obviously it's important for dollars. It's a $40 billion contract, with a ``b.'' That is a significant contract. But of more importance to Americans are the job and employment prospects, and obviously that's important in the aircraft industry. If we see what has happened recently in the last decade, we know why it's important to think about this issue.

If I can refer to a chart showing the decline in teal or blue, this shows United States aerospace industry employment from 1979 to 2007. We have suffered a very, very significant decline, just about 50 percent of employment jobs in the United States compared to what we had in 1983, a peak year. Now, that has corresponded with the rise of the Airbus aircraft deliveries that have gone up, as indicated in these red bars, pretty much every year since about 1979. So we have had a significant loss of employment in the United States already in our aerospace industry. It has been in sync with the rise of Airbus sales. And we respect competition in America and should not decry or shrink from competition, and we would congratulate Airbus in a legitimate competition in any of these sales. But we point this out to show that we have already suffered a significant decline of thousands of jobs in the United States. So now we have a situation where that loss will be exacerbated by this decision should it stand.

Now, what is at stake here potentially could be 44,000 American jobs. Predictions are in that range of jobs that would have been involved in this contract. We know that we get different stories about where the Airbus employment will be. I want to point out one of the curious things, if I can. We get certain different viewpoints about where the jobs would be if, in fact, this contract is ultimately granted to Airbus. I note a newspaper article here in Les Echos, and I may mispronounce that, in Europe when Airbus talked about the employment on this contract. The article says that 76 percent of the employment associated with this tanker contract would be European and only 21 percent would be combined United States and Canadian content. That's in the article as publicized in France. In the United States, the rather large public relations effort that has gone on through Airbus, in fact, says it will be 50 percent in the United States. So it appears, at least in one instance, Airbus suggests that only 21 percent of the product in this tanker will be in the United States, and in America they suggest it will be about 50 percent. Some could chalk that up to hyperbole, salesmanship, but it means tens of thousands of jobs to Americans across this country, not just in the Seattle area where I reside but contracts across this country. We think that's significant and it's unfortunate. So this is a very significant thing that we are here to talk about tonight. It's not only employment but it's capability as well.

So we are going to talk tonight about the ramifications of this decision, why we think it was inappropriately made, and what we may consider to reverse this decision.

And with that I would like to yield to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt), who been a stalwart and a champion on educating our colleagues about the importance of this, something we are going to talk about tonight at some length, which is the favorable treatment of Airbus by the European governments and why this has skewed this particular contract.

Will the gentleman yield just for a minute?

I want to point out about this cost. Even under the Air Force's own accounting, even with these what you may consider rigged accounting standards that Mr. Tiahrt talked about, even under the Air Force's accounting standards, they concluded that the 767 is about 24 percent more fuel efficient than the Airbus product. You're going to save massive amounts on fuel over the lifetime. In fact, the Air Force estimated the Airbus product will burn $30 billion more fuel over the lifetime, even under the rigged accounting standards.

So the point is that we need the Air Force from a taxpayer standpoint to be looking at the operational cost. We just had the executives of the five biggest oil companies today. Those oil prices are not going down any time soon. If anywhere, they are going up.

So this is why we are saying that the country, not just the place these planes are made, but the whole country has a stake in this to really look at the operational costs on that.

Thanks for yielding, Mr. Tiahrt.

If the gentleman will yield.

So do I take it that in the current situation we would be issuing a contract for up to $40 billion with no enforcement mechanism to enforce the American content situation. Is that a fair statement?

That's most disturbing because of that experience and because of reading that in France, they tell the French they are going to have 76 percent of the jobs in Europe. Then they come over in America and tell us they will maybe have 50 percent. This is one reason, just one of the reasons this contract has to be reviewed.

I want to mention one now just before I yield to Mr. Loebsack for a moment. There is another aspect of this that is outraging Americans, and certainly is in my State, and that is that we are issuing this $40 billion contract to a company that essentially one of the partners that the American Government itself says is acting illegally. Because according to our U.S. Trade Representative, who has initiated a legal action against these companies for receiving illegal subsidies, illegal subsidies that violate international law, and by extension, violate United States law, at the same time we have taken this almost unprecedented action to bring a case in the world courts, the World Trade Organization, against their illegal subsidies. That is one agency of the United States Government. Sort of the ``cop on the beat''

blowing the whistle. And at the same time, another agency, the Air Force of the United States Federal Government is bailing them out of jail and giving them a $40 billion contract.

That is hard to explain to any American, particularly those in the 300 companies around this country in 40 States that are going to be losing jobs as a result of this. If this isn't a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, one hand attempting to sanction these illegal subsidies, and I think anybody who reviews this would conclude there would have been billions of dollars of illegal subsidies to Airbus over the years, we will talk about those in detail, and then to turn around and reward them with $40 billion. They ought to be receiving a sanction from America, a punishment from America, some type of slap on the wrist, at least. Instead, they get $40 billion of taxpayer money. This is wrong by any sense, the code of the West, international trade treaties. This is something we all ought to be united about.

With this, I would like to yield to Mr. Loebsack from the great State of Iowa, who has a concern about this.

We thank the voice of Iowa. This is important across the country. The jobs that Mr. Loebsack is talking about losing would not have been lost if the Air Force had considered the fact that these companies are receiving these illegal subsidies. And it's not just we three Congressmen talking about it, it is the executive branch of the United States, which has fully evaluated this and come to the conclusion these were illegal subsidies.

These were not just small. They received $1.7 billion in launch aid to develop the new A-350. They received $3.7 billion in launch aid for the A-380. That is why our U.S. Trade Representative has started this enforcement action, blown the whistle on these illegal subsidies. Frankly, it has been years later than it should have been. But we have finally done it. It's one of these great sort of black comedies to think in the year period when we finally blew the whistle after all of these years of abuse of these illegal subsidies that disadvantage American workers, that that same year the Air Force ends up giving a contract for $40 billion.

These subsidies are not just an issue of dollars, they are jobs in Iowa as well. I want to thank Mr. Loebsack. I would like to yield to Mr. Tiahrt.

We should point out that this law, this international law against subsidization, has not been waived by Congress. This is sort of a backdoor way to waive an international agreement.

We have an agreement that now we are attempting to enforce that would prohibit this illegal launching. ``Launching'' basically is a situation where a European government assists the private manufacturer, in this case Airbus, by giving them essentially loan guarantees or essentially free money. You give them a loan that they don't have to pay back if the airplane doesn't do well. That is an enormous subsidy, to give free capital, in essence, or low cost capital, when you are manufacturing an airplane. Of course, when you develop an airplane, there are billions of dollars in development costs. Well, if a company like Airbus can go to their governments in Europe and say give us a loan we don't have to repay if the airplane doesn't perform as expected, we don't make money on it, that is an enormous subsidy.

Europeans with Airbus have been doing this for years. We have international laws against that, and those laws are in effect national laws in America. But somehow it is just like we ignored these. It is like they didn't exist.

Congress certainly never waived those laws, the courts have never waived those laws, the President has never waived those laws, the American people have never waived those laws. But somehow the Air Force did not take into consideration these enormous subsidies, and that is why this thing, this contract, has an odor about it, where we don't take into consideration that violation of international and American law.

But I want to talk, if I can, about the capability of these aircraft too, because obviously we want the best possible airplane for the job. There is possibly no more critical infrastructure, certainly to our Air Force, than the ability to refuel our planes. This is the absolute spine of the whole skeleton of the Air Force, to have this refueling capability.

There has been sort of a propaganda war that has been waged by the Airbus folks to sort of suggest that the Boeing airplane wasn't up to the job, and I just want to point out some of the facts about this aircraft that I think it is important to realize.

First off, if you want to look at the only company in this bidding that has essentially ever built an air tanker and has been building them for 50 years for America, it is Boeing. This is the hometown team that has been doing it for decades successfully, and I think we should maybe start the discussion from that point.

Second, the airplane that Boeing bid has some very distinct advantages that somehow were not considered, one of which is that the Boeing airplane can service about twice as many airfields as the competitor. The reason is it can land in shorter, not quite as equipped airfields. It can land fully loaded in 811 airfields around the world, compared to the competitor at 408. This is a distinct advantage, considering we don't know why where the next conflict is going to be. We don't know what sort of developing world airfield we are going to use. The airplane that Boeing proposes can be serviced and can essentially use twice the number of airfields.

Second, and this is critically important, the Boeing 767 is 24 percent more fuel efficient. In these days of a crunch with fuel and global warming we have to be concerned with and the enormous increase in costs that the Air Force is experiencing, this ought to be taken into consideration. That adds up to $30 billion, a distinct advantage.

Third, and this is one that I think is worth mentioning, this sort of propaganda effort that was started by the Airbus folks to suggest that the Boeing Company didn't score well just simply doesn't comport with the facts.

There were several factors, the first of which is called mission capability. When they compete these, there is a very sophisticated way of evaluating these. On mission capability, the Boeing airplane scored blue, which means exceptional, and low risk in the area of mission capability. That is the highest possible rating and I think can be considered the most critical factor in the whole competition. The Air Force concluded that the Boeing airplane met or exceeded all key performance parameters, which are also called thresholds and objectives. The Air Force concluded that the Boeing product actually had significantly more strengths, also called discriminators, than the competitor.

So you had Boeing receiving the highest rating possible for mission capability, it met or exceeded all of what is called KPP thresholds and objectives, and it was graded as having significantly more strengths than the competition, and somehow came up on the short end of the stick.

This deserves not only GAO review, but it deserves Congress reviewing this. As folks know, this is being evaluated now under the protest consideration, and we know it will be looked at carefully. But, frankly, if this does not get the thorough review we want, Congress is going to be looking at this, because these numbers just don't add up to say this was the right decision.

On factor two, proposal risk, just kind of from a commonsense standpoint perhaps we can look at the fact that we have one bidder, Boeing, that has been doing this for decades. They have an airplane, the 767, in the air, providing tanker services, ready to go, against a product that is going to be manufactured in this multi-nation system. To me, that would create significant confidence in the folks that have been doing it and have a plane that is in the air. In fact, the Air Force rated Boeing's risk as low, as it should be.

Surprisingly, the competitor was also rated as low, despite to me obvious risk where you have a multi-country, multi-facility, multi- build approach, contrasted with Boeing's integrated approach to design, build and certify with the existing facilities. So, at worst it seems to me that there is certainly no advantage of the competitors in that regard.

I would like to yield to Mr. Tiahrt. I have several more factors, but I want to yield to Mr. Tiahrt because I know he has a great idea.

Coming back, it is not just cost, it is capability. Bigger is not always better, and I am very concerned here that the Air Force has been lulled into the sense that bigger is always going to be better.

Frankly, when I found out that the Boeing tanker can serve in twice as many airfields, it can refuel the V-22, which is our tilt rotor aircraft, this aircraft they have can't refuel one of our aircraft, we are going with a company that has no boom experience, they have never built an airplane commercially with a boom.

We have decided to reject a company, Boeing, that delivered a 767 to Japan, one February 19, 2008, a second one March 5, 2008, they are flying, they are in the air, they are a known quantity. And we are taking this risk, an uncertain risk, just for this apparent decision that all of a sudden bigger became better, which is very interesting, because Boeing could have competed a larger airplane, an airframe of the Boeing 777, and didn't, essentially because they understood that this was a satisfactory size component to deliver.

It made sense when Boeing made that decision and when Air Force led them to that decision, because when you look at the loading, the range of loading and what it has done historically, the Boeing 767 is a perfect fit. If you look at the offloading potential, the Boeing 767 is significantly greater than the average offloading in any of either the Vietnam, the Iraqi Freedom or the Southwest Asia conflicts.

So we are concerned that this decision of this deciding bigger was better was, A, not fair to a bidder, Boeing, which was not told that that apparently was now the Air Force's brand new criteria; B, exposes American taxpayers to greater risk with an uncertain contractor, with an uncertain plan in multiple locations; C, causes significant loss of jobs; and, D, violates international law, or at least awards folks who are receiving illegal subsidies violating international law.

This is not a good thing for the American warfighter, the American taxpayer or the American worker, and that is why we are here tonight suggesting that this contract has to be redone one way or another, and we are going to be talking about ways to do that.

And I hope we don't have to vote. I hope this protest is successful. But we will be looking at the

right ways for Congress to exercise the will of the American people through the appropriation or authorization process. And the reason we intend to do that is that we think there were several mistakes made in this contract that essentially resulted in the Air Force selecting a larger, more expensive, and more operationally limited tanker, despite the fact that the domestic Boeing tanker met the requirements of the Air Force.

So, we intend to go forward. We hope that our colleagues will join us in this effort. It is the right thing to do. It may take some time to do, we regret that, but America deserves this and deserves better than what happened here.

I want to thank Mr. Tiahrt and Mr. Loebsack.

Madam Speaker, we yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, from time to time, we are called to, again, define what it means to be an American. And this is never more so than when security concerns threaten our commitment to liberty. And at those moments, at this moment, we need to be imbued with the spirit of 1776, a spirit against tyranny, a spirit that recognizes that the rule of law is the ultimate bulwark of liberty.

A Nation that threw off the shackles of King George should never yield to an executive who seeks to trample on the rule of law. Whether it was inconvenient, whether it was bothersome, whether it was frustrating, we should never yield to an executive who believes himself above the rule of law. We should never yield to an Executive that, instead of coming to Congress to change a law, simply decides to ignore it.

We are nothing without this commitment. We are everything with it. Stand for liberty. Pass this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise with Mr. Sarbanes to offer an amendment today that will establish an energy conservation corps program. This will provide green collar training and educational service grants to nonprofit organizations, universities, and State and local governments. This is really an exciting opportunity for us to create opportunities for young folks to be engaged in this new revolution of clean energy in this country.

The energy conservation corps we envisioned will help revitalize communities and preserve and restore the environment, while also preparing young people for the responsible and productive lives we know they are going to have.

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 will create hundreds of thousands of new opportunities for Americans. It will give low- income young people training to fill these green collar jobs that we are now excited about and hope for a prosperous and successful future.

The conservation corps will fund energy conservation installations in public spaces, energy efficient green housing for elderly and low- income people, and restoration of historic structures on public lands. It would also provide funding for and repair, renovation, and rehabbing of existing infrastructure facilities, and transportation enhancements and recreational trail improvements. It is going to help a lot of places that we need energy conservation. It also establishes a competitive grant program to fund National Senior Service Corps programs that will involve seniors in providing meaningful volunteer opportunities.

Now, there are multiple organizations that can participate in this, one of which just as an example is the Student Conservation Association. Under this grant program, they will be able to deploy sustainable community projects which engage disadvantaged and other youth to help communities learn energy saving and water conservation techniques and strategies to prevent pollution.

In this program, SCA corps members will be able to provide a variety of energy-related services to homeowners, schools, and businesses, and communities. These services include outreach and education, facility audits, development of energy reduction strategies, and implementation in support of these programs. As part of this program, corps members will receive training, career development, and life skills while helping communities benefit from these sustainable programs.

I am familiar with this organization, the SCA. My parents led Student Conservation Association efforts with young people in Mt. Rainier National Park back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and I saw how important these programs were both to help these communities, and to help the young folks themselves. Because what we have learned is, and what I saw firsthand when my folks worked with the SCA kids, once kids get involved in volunteer programs, once they get involved in their communities, once they get involved in clean energy, they are never going to turn back. This is going to be a lifetime pursuit, and there is nothing better we can do to help both kids' lives but this clean energy revolution we are going to launch in this country.

So, by establishing the energy conservation corps, we will help make our

Nation's volunteer programs into a true 21st century program, and we will also help solve one of the most pressing challenges of this century, global warming, while helping our kids as well.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to Chairwoman McCarthy.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 10 seconds to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy).

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes).

Mr. Speaker, Americans across the country are infuriated today that the administration yanked a contract away from Boeing, an American company, for our air tankers and gave it to a consortium dominated by Europe, and they're infuriated for several good reasons:

Number one, why are we giving a $40 billion stimulus plan to France? It is our economy that is in danger.

Second, why, when we are suing this consortium for violation of international trade laws because of illegal subsidies, do we turn around and award them with a $40 billion contract? One agency says they're illegal; the other agency's giving them $40 billion of our taxpayer money.

Number three, and this was an insulting thing when I heard this award, the person making the award says, well, this is an American airplane. It's got an American flag on the tail. Well, you can't just go out and buy a one nickel sticker, slap it on an Airbus airplane and call it ``America.''

We have got to have a policy of procurement that's good for our economy and our security. We need to fix this disastrous administration decision.

Mr. Speaker, it is not day 11 of FISA. We have passed FISA. It is day 2,593 of the Bush administration that has allowed us to remain addicted to oil, has allowed the price of gas to be doubled during his administration, and has allowed us to continue on a course of being insecure because we are wrapped around the axle of oil because of these tax subsidies. It is time to turn course.

This side of the aisle believes the status quo in energy is acceptable. We don't think that's good enough. We believe that Americans are smart enough, creative enough, and innovative enough to launch a new Apollo Project in energy so that we can do for energy what Kennedy did for space, and this bill is step one in that regard.

All over this country Americans are inventing a new energy future for us: the OSPRA solar energy company in Florida with clean solar thermal power; the Nanosolar Company that made the first commercial sale of thin cell photovoltaics last month; the Imperium Company in my State of Washington with biodiesel that powered the first jet airliner flight with biodiesel with Virgin Air last weekend; the Altarock Company, the first enhanced geothermal company now growing in the State of Washington; the Janicki Company, which is opening up a new wind turbine blade construction project.

We essentially are ready to launch a rocket of clean energy innovation in this country. But this side of the aisle and my friends, unfortunately, have put a hold on the countdown, and we're about 2 seconds away to really having a burst of economic growth in this country. But they are allowing these tax breaks to expire, which are strangling the birth of these new industries.

In the last several weeks I've got scores of phone calls from people all over the country ready for these new companies to start. But they're strangling them. We've got to keep this growth going. Launch a clean energy revolution.

Madam Speaker, my colleague Norm Dicks and I would like to pay tribute in remembrance of Shannon Harps, one of Washington's finest young environmental advocates. She was killed on December 31, 2007 by an unknown assailant as she was returning to her Capitol Hill apartment in Seattle from the grocery store. Shannon's death is a tremendous loss to our community and the many issues to which she devoted her life. We join with Shannon's family, friends, and colleagues in the Sierra Club in mourning the loss of this wonderful person and fine community organizer. Though her life was cut short, she was able to make a large impact on the quality of the Northwest environment.

Shannon came from her home State of Ohio to Seattle, Washington in February 2004 to join the staff of the Northwest Office of the Sierra Club. This move joined two of Shannon's strongest desires--to work to protect our environment and to live in the Northwest where she could more vigorously pursue her strong love for the outdoors.

Shannon had a wonderful sense of humor and a style of working with people that immediately put them at ease and made it easy for them to join her in protecting our environment and quality of life. Shannon particularly enjoyed working with high school and college students to help them develop their interests and talents in working to create a better world. While Shannon's work was directly focused on protecting our environment, from wilderness to global warming, her values were deeply embedded in a strong sense of fairness and justice for all people.

In the four years that Shannon lived in Washington State she helped to protect some of our finest lands. Shannon worked with several groups in a local coalition effort with Congressman Norm Dicks to add key lands in the Carbon River drainage to Mt. Rainier National Park. She worked with Sierra Club volunteers and staff from the many groups to help move the Wild Sky Wilderness proposal through the various steps of its arduous journey through the congressional process. She was a leader in the State of Washington, and worked with colleagues around the country, to help thwart the various ill-considered efforts to open up America's Arctic Coastal Plain to oil and gas drilling. She was a lead organizer in the successful effort in 2006 to pass the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard for Washington State assuring that Washington will be a leader in developing a clean energy future and creating good jobs. And, in the recent two years, much of her work focused on building relationships with local officials and creating public support so they too would endorse the Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement making sure we are stepping up to the challenge of global warming.

In her all-too-short life, she made contributions that benefited our community, State, and world. She lived her life as an example of living lightly on the planet, and engaged the people and world around her with grace, humor, kindness, and respect. Everyone who worked with her admired her style, tenacity, and sense of purpose, along with her sparkling smile and laugh.

Shannon loved living and working in the Northwest. She reveled in the outdoors and nothing made her happier than to participate in a competitive run or to hike the Northwest's high mountain trails. Her death is a loss for us all but her spirit still resides with all of those with whom she worked and walked the trails. We will remember her as we continue the struggle to protect our lands and environment and to create a more just and fair world for us all.

Mr. Chairman, due to unexpected circumstances, I missed the vote on the College Opportunity and Affordability Act, H.R. 4137, important legislation to reauthorize and strengthen key Higher Education Act programs aimed at making college education more affordable and accessible for American students. Had I been present, I would have voted in favor of the legislation that will keep America's economy competitive.

Overall, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act will address major issues facing our Nation's students from simplifying student aid forms to addressing rising textbook and tuition costs. The bill will increase assistance for Veterans and military families and bolster students' interest in science and technology by partnering with businesses and other stakeholders.

I commend Chairman Miller and Hinojosa for their diligent work on the underlying legislation and for their support for my amendment that was passed to improve key education grants by setting higher environmental standards for recipients. The amendment ensures that Sustainability Planning Grants are awarded to projects aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, guaranteeing that Federal funds make a meaningful impact on global warming and requires that certain Federal grantees demonstrate that they meet or exceed American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, ASHRAE, energy-efficiency standards when designing new facilities. Finally, the amendment would add a Sense of Congress to reject the President's FY2009 budget proposal to eliminate the important Perkins Loan Program, a critical educational program for high-need students who will become a modern green workforce.

Additionally, I applaud Representatives Blumenauer and Ehlers for their work to include provisions to support green higher education efforts. Many of our Nation's 4,000 colleges and universities are taking action to reduce greenhouse-gas pollution, which currently accounts for 7 percent of U.S. carbon emissions. Federal grants should be available to give a boost to such projects, like the state-of-the- art, carbon-neutral science laboratory being planned at Cascadia Community College in my district.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to have helped add a little green idea to our higher education bill. I want to thank Chairman Miller for incorporating an idea that I have proposed into this manager's amendment, which will really help colleges in some of the terribly exciting work they are doing to green up their campuses.

I visited Plymouth State University in New Hampshire a while back, which has built the Langdon Woods dormitory. It's a 100,000 square-foot dormitory. It's a beautiful dorm, and they are saving enormous amounts of energy because they built it green with good insulation, co- generation, triple-pane windows. It's a great idea.

We have an amendment that has been incorporated that is going to help colleges move forward in three ways. First, it will call for those who use these Federal funds for the colleges to meet or exceed minimum energy efficiency standards for their new renovations or construction as developed by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air- Conditioning Engineers, two other ways we are going to do it.

Congratulations to these colleges.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Cynthia ``Cindy'' Harrison for nearly twenty years of hard work and dedication as Bainbridge Island's head librarian. After two decades of extraordinary service, Cindy is retiring from Bainbridge Island Public Library. In 2006, Cindy was recognized with the highly-coveted New York Times Librarian of the Year Award, bringing her library national recognition

through her tireless efforts. Cindy was a public face for the library during a period of growth when more than $2 million was raised solely from private donations. Under Cindy's leadership, more than 75 percent of Bainbridge Islanders have library cards, with the Island's 8,000 households, borrowing more than one-half millions books and materials last year.

Cindy has made the library a better place in every way. Her stewardship and leadership has ensured that the building and programs have adapted to the changing needs of Bainbridge Islanders. Her imagination and dedication to learning have made the Library a magnet for all the citizens of Bainbridge Island and have endeared her to the community.

I offer my praise to Cindy Harrison, for her devotion to the Bainbridge Island library and community.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the House floor today to address the two issues that we have a chance to really move forward on, and that is the difficulties in our economy and the difficulties in our energy policy; and we think we have an opportunity, and I met this afternoon with a good number of my colleagues about how to do something about both, the slow-down in our economy and our need to rejuvenate our economy by adopting some new clean energy strategies for the country. We think this is an ideal opportunity for the House of Representatives to lead a short-term plan economically to help stimulate our economy, while at the same time directing our economy towards a clean energy future which can really grow jobs, millions of jobs in our country.

What the group of my colleagues and I discussed is the hope that in our upcoming stimulus package, which is now under development, that our stimulus package can hew to the values set forth by Speaker Pelosi of being timely, targeted, and temporary. We think if we follow those three guidelines, we can do things to help our short-term clean energy revolution really take off in the United States.

I have come to the floor to talk about that night, about some options that are available to us. We know that we want to make sure that our stimulus package is timely, that it in fact gets into the economy very quickly, because that is what we need. This is not something that can wait 5 years. We need to have a stimulus now. But we also need that stimulus to be targeted. This is not a moment where it would be wise for us to simply sort of spread butter across America very thinly in the hopes that somehow it will help the economy blossom.

We need to target our strategies so that it will be really driving economic growth in the United States and, importantly, make sure that that economic growth takes place in the United States. It won't do us much good to just short of spread a thin layer of relief, because a lot of that would end up buying products from China, frankly.

We want to look for targeted stimulus that will really help the growth in the American economy and create jobs in America. If we have a choice between two activities, one of which would be simply to allow buying retail products from China, and one which would really grow jobs in America, we should pick the latter.

A group of my colleagues and myself want to make a proposal that will ensure that we target some of the stimulus into a clean energy future for America that really grows jobs in this country and doesn't simply buy retail products from China. So we are going to make a proposal that will suggest that we adopt some measures that in a very timely fashion can inject growth into the American economy this year and will ensure that we target that strategy to the development of clean energy jobs, and I want to talk about some of the things that can accomplish that in our stimulus package.

The first thing that we will propose is a very down-to-Earth, extremely commonsense expansion of an existing program that helps low- income Americans weatherize their homes. We currently have a program that is working very well, very efficient, and extremely popular to help Americans put in insulation, fill in cracks, get energy-efficient windows, essentially just quit wasting heat that filters out through the cracks of our homes. That right now is a $250 million program to help Americans do that.

We suggest we boost that by $100 million this year in a program that can immediately put people to work. We know we have people that are losing their jobs today because the home construction industry is slowing down,

something I am familiar with. My oldest son is in the home construction industry, and he is doing okay in Washington State, but we know in other areas, particularly, they have had a real slow-down in the home construction industry.

We can put those people that are being laid off back to work in the home weatherization industry, and we can do that today if we boost the funding in the home weatherization industry. If we do that, and we have checked with the Department and it can easily accommodate another $100 million right away so that we can get that work being done in the next several months.

So we are proposing that we add $100 million. It sounds like a lot of money, but in the course of a 50 or $100 billion stimulus package, it is actually a very small amount of money. It can make a big difference for people to make their homes more weather efficient. They reduce their energy costs. At the same time, we are putting people back to work who are being laid of in the construction industry. This is really a golden opportunity for us. It's the first thing we'd propose.

The second thing we'd like to propose is that we stop the hemorrhaging that is going on right now in the renewable energy industry. Now, we allowed, in a huge failure by our Congress, frankly, the lapse of some tax incentives which have created thousands of jobs in this country in the renewable energy industry. Those lapsed this past December, essentially. Any project that is not done this year would not be able to take advantage of them. We have projects right now that are just crying out for this tax relief as an incentive in the wind industry, in the solar energy industry, and several of the other renewable energy industries.

Because those tax credits lapsed, and I just got off the phone this afternoon with a leader in the solar energy industry who told us we are already seeing a decline already in the number of orders for some of these renewable energy industry projects, and that is a terrible mistake at the very moment where we need to stimulate growth, and we know we need to do it in these advanced energy growth segments of our economy.

So we would propose that we have a short-term, a 1-year extension of the production tax credit and the investment tax credit, which would allow these industries to again get on the growth track that they have been on with such great success. These industries are tremendously beneficial in creating jobs. They actually create twice as many jobs. For every $1 of economic growth, they create twice as many jobs. They are very, very labor intensive in growing these technologies.

Now, it would be a terrible moment to allow us to go backwards in solar and wind and other associated technologies. The reason is we are just starting to lead the world in these technologies.

Last Friday was the first commercial shipment of what we call thin cell photovoltaics by the Nano Solar Company in Palo Alto, California. Thin cell photovoltaics are extremely cost effective. It's a new type of photovoltaic cells. People are now familiar with the silicone-based cell. The thin cell photovoltaic cells, as its name suggests, it's thin, and it can be made with great cost advantages. The very first commercial sale in world history took place a week ago last Friday.

So we hate to see these breakthroughs taking place and not see the possible expansion of their application. The very first permit for a wave power buoy, and we have buoys now that can generate electricity as they bob up and down in the waves, the very first permit off the Washington State coast was issued in the last two weeks to the Finavera Company, a company with offices in the Northwest.

So at the moment we see these technologies, we'd hate to see a decline in the orders for these technologies taking place, which is now taking place because we allowed these production and investment tax credits to lapse. We should simply restore them and renew them for at least another year, short-term relief, and this is very timely if we do this, because if we do this, there's an immediate, an immediate demand by people when we know these tax credits will be available to go out and order these projects that get these jobs going, putting the pedal to the metal. You don't have to wait.

The third thing we would propose is a renewal and partial extension of the solar tax credit for residential homes. That also expired, and it has been historically limited to $2,000. Frankly, it hasn't cut the mustard. It simply hasn't been enough to really get residential customers engaged to get going on ordering these products. If we simply renew that for 1 year, we recommend expanding it to $4,000 per consumer. If we do that, we are going to have an immediate burst of orders and at least continuation of the growth in orders in solar, as we have had historically.

Fourth, we propose to essentially extend the otherwise lapsed consumer credit for solar for the same reasons that we just talked about. It just makes a lot of sense. Fifth, we'd suggest extending the expired energy efficient credit both for homes and commercial buildings. It makes no sense to have allowed these tax credits to expire. When they exist, they create this demand for the type of work we talked about in the weatherization program, only it's larger in its application, because this is not just low-income people. It's now the entire United States, folks who can take advantage of it. It creates a demand. It happens immediately, because once people know they are going to be able to have access to these tax credits, they can go out and make the orders right away to get this done.

We also hope to propose a Green Fund proposal. Frankly, we are working on this right now to discuss how we can create ``green collar jobs'' in this country, and a ``green collar job'' proposal is something we think we ought to pursue.

We want to find a way to do that to make it timely.

But as a package, these proposals as a package have the capacity to make sure that our stimulus package is targeted to something that is really going to get spent in America. Frankly, a lot of the other proposals out there are going to get spent buying retail products from China. You know, that is fair and Americans do that. But if we want to stimulate the economy, these proposals we have now proposed have the added advantage of spending money right here.

This will happen immediately, and we know it works, because all of the things we have proposed have been tested. These are not avant-garde proposals. These are things we know that work because they have been in the field, we know the economic growth they have produced, we know they create jobs. The weatherization program is doing it today. The production investment tax credits for several years we know created great growth. The most rapidly growing part of the economy right now has been the wind turbine industry, and we hate to see that slow down, and the same can be said about the solar industry.

So we simply want to continue apace the success we have had, and we are going to urge our colleagues to include at least a portion of our proposal in this package.

We also want to note that we don't want to bust the bank on this. The proposals we have talked about, cumulatively, if this is a $100 billion stimulus package, this would be about 1 percent. We are proposing just maybe 1 percent of the package would include the provisions we have included. If it is $50 billion, it would be 2 percent. So the items we have suggested today are relatively modest portions of this package, but they are very important, because we are going to lose the momentum the United States is starting to develop as a world leader in clean technology.

We have just started to gain that momentum. We don't want to give it up. It would be a shame to see these industries start to plateau just when they are on the growth curve of new technological development. That is not the American way. The American way is to innovate, to grow and have a confidence in our economy and our inventive talents. This is part and parcel of that, and in the spirit of the New Apollo Project, something I have been advocating for a long time, that we should have the same confidence that Kennedy had in the original Apollo project that took us to the moon, we ought to have

the same confidence in a clean energy economy.

I am not the only one talking about this. I was listening to Senator Clinton talk about this the other day in the Senate, about the need for an Apollo project. She has made some proposals about a stimulus package that are very similar to some of the ones we are proposing in the House. I think that is the right attitude we should have, because it is based on confidence.

Her larger program for clean energy also tracks the New Apollo Project that I have proposed in the House that would really on a major league basis propose major investments in clean technology. She has proposed a major league weatherization program to weatherize 20 million homes, and that is the scale that we ought to be thinking about. She has proposed 55 mile per gallon standards for our cars, and a $50 billion pool of funds to be financed by transferring some of the tax benefits that have been given to the oil and gas industry and put it back into the clean energy industry and create a multi-billion dollar fund for the research to expand this technology. That is the type of thing we need. We appreciate that going on in the Senate, and we are going to continue to push these ideas in the House.

But let's start on the stimulus package. It is one small step for man, maybe not quite a giant leap for mankind, but it is commonsense for Americans that we do this. I appreciate my colleagues working with me, Lloyd Doggett, who has been a long time leader on this, Tom Udall and others. We are going to push this ball. We hope we are successful.