Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today on a sad note. Last week, a true American hero died, Richard Tuttle, at the age of 92. He was a gunner on a B-24 flying over Europe during World War II. He was shot down and spent 18 months in one of the prison camps. He was also a dear friend of my family.

He and Sally Tuttle lived in Mokelumne Hill. He became one of the very first commissioners of the California Energy Commission and went on to become a judge. He was a dear friend. His loss will be felt throughout the community. Our condolences go out to his family.

[From the Calaveras Enterprise,

Sept. 3, 2013]

WWII Veteran Honored for Heroic Bombing Raid--Moke Hill Man Was a B-24

Gunner

(By Joel Metzger)

Thousands of tracer bullets whizzed by as a battery of

anti-aircraft gunners targeted the B-24 Liberator in which

Mokelumne Hill resident Richard Tuttle was flying Aug. 1,

1943.

Tuttle was a 22-year-old staff sergeant at the time and he

flew as a radio operator and machine gunner with the 44th

Bomb Group, nicknamed ``The Flying Eightballs.''

``The German flak gunners were just blasting away at us the

whole time,'' Tuttle, now 92, remembered. ``They came at us

with heavy firepower. Every plane took hits.''

Tuttle's bomber was screaming along at more than 200 mph

only 20 feet above the ground. The operation's target was a

group of nine oil refineries in the area of Ploiesti,

Romania. These refineries were known as Adolph ``Hitler's gas

station,'' because they provided about 35 percent of the gas

and diesel fuel used by the Axis war machine.

The mission turned out to be one of the costliest for the

United States Air Force--53 aircraft and 660 airmen were

lost. Never had the Air Force lost so many men on a single

mission, which is why the day was later referred to as

``Black Sunday.''

Seventy years later, Tuttle was honored at the National

Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, for

his participation on the mission, which was called Operation

Tidal Wave. He had been awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross

for his heroism and extraordinary achievement during the

mission. The gathering commemorated the most highly decorated

single military action in U.S. history.

``There were only 75 men who were on that raid who are

still alive,'' Tuttle said. ``They wanted to put on a little

something for us.''

While in Ohio, Tuttle enjoyed activities at the Air Force

Museum, a celebratory dinner, big band music from the era,

meeting other veterans and a tour of a B-24.

``It was the first time I'd been in a B-24 since I was shot

down,'' Tuttle said with a big smile. ``I could see exactly

where I used to sit, complete with the little window looking

out. It was just as I remembered.''

``I enjoyed it to no end,'' Tuttle said of the event.

``There's nothing like being treated like a hero.''

Being treated like a hero was something Tuttle earned.

Surviving the harrowing mission of 1943 was no small feat.

Dust filled the desert air as motors roared to life at

airfields around Bengazi, Libya, in the early morning hours

of Aug. 1, 1943. Tuttle gravely took his position as radio

operator and gunner in one of the 178 B-24s and prepared for

the longest mission flight of his life--more than 2,400

miles, round trip. He sent and received coded messages during

the missions. On occasion, he would man the top turret that

housed twin .50 caliber machine guns.

Along with Tuttle, another Calaveras County resident,

Joseph ``Topper'' Huberty, of San Andreas, was on the

mission. He later became a Calaveras County Superior Court

judge.

The B-24s were equipped with extra fuel tanks in their bomb

bays to increase capacity to 3,100 gallons.

Of the 178 planes that took off, only 88 would return--55

of which were damaged during the mission.

The formation crossed the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas

and the Pindus Mountains in Albania before crossing into

Romania, where they dropped to low altitude to avoid

detection by German radar.

Mission commanders ordered complete radio silence for the

duration of the flight. Despite these precautions, the

Germans became aware of the approaching American planes. Due

to an inability to communicate effectively, the formation of

planes had become scattered and flew off course. Even though

everything hadn't gone according to plan, the mission moved

forward.

When nearing Ploiesti, a navigation error caused a group of

planes to follow the wrong railroad tracks toward the

objective. This caused the planes to fly through an extensive

air defense system around Bucharest before they even reached

the defenses protecting the oil refineries.

``It was supposed to be a surprise, but there was no doubt

they were ready for us,'' Tuttle said.

The mission has been described as an ``aerial Gettysburg.''

One pilot likened the raid to ``driving down the main street

of your hometown with everybody shooting at you.''

``In order to be on target, we followed railroad lines for

35 miles on the way in,'' Tuttle said. ``We were coming in on

a straight line, which made us sitting ducks for the flak

gunners.

``I was standing between pilot and copilot. The top turret

gunman was above me with his knees on my shoulders. I could

look out at the No. 3 engine through a little window. I saw

the tracer bullets going by, some making an impact.

``We were as low as we could get without crashing.''

With so much anti-aircraft fire directed at his plane,

Tuttle said he didn't know if he was going to survive, but he

was sure of one thing.

``This was it, this was what I joined the war for,'' Tuttle

said. ``I spent three years in the goddamned military to do

some good.

``I was scared,'' he continued. ``But that's what courage

is--even when you're scared, you go on fighting.

``We had all 10 machine guns firing at once and the entire

plane was vibrating,'' he said, adding the continuous fire

was so intense the gun barrels were in danger of warping from

the heat. ``One formation went in with 13 planes and only six

came out. They hit us hard. I had a 20 mm cannon shell lodge

in my radio transmitter right by my toe. It came within about

three inches of my foot.''

After running the railroad gauntlet, Tuttle's B-24 reached

the target refinery and he remembers seeing quite a few

cables holding up towers in the area.

``We snapped the cables with our plane,'' he said.

``Unfortunately, sometimes the cables snapped the plane. See,

we lost a lot of planes. We dropped all the bombs right on

it. That's why we went in low--so we could be accurate. Some

of the bombs had delayed fuses so they went off maybe 20 or

30 seconds later.''

After delivering the payload, Tuttle's plane peeled off and

``got the hell out of there.

``We stayed down low. This made it much harder for fighter

planes to hit us,'' Tuttle said. ``If they made a pass and

missed, they'd hit the ground. We had a long way to go--over

the Balkans, across the Mediterranean and back to Libya.''

A tally of the flight log totaled about 16 hours in the

air.

Looking back on the mission, Tuttle said it was unlike any

other.

``It was the greatest air-to-ground combat in history,'' he

said. ``There's never been another one like it, because

everything has changed.''

While it may have been one-of-a-kind, the mission was very

costly. During the mission, 310 airmen were killed and 108

were captured as prisoners of war.

Tuttle flew 19 other missions during his time in the

service--well 18 and a half, because he was shot down on a

mission to Wiener Neustadt, Austria, on Oct. 1, 1943.

``I dropped bombs on Germany all over the place,'' he said.

``I never got injured, but one time a bullet passed so close

to my big toe it raised a blood blister.''

On the day he was shot down, the pilot had just dropped the

plane's complement of bombs on a German fighter plane

manufacturing plant.

``We dropped all the bombs, which was good because the bomb

bay was clear when it came time for me to bail out,'' Tuttle

said, adding the plane was at about 19,000 feet. ``The co-

pilot gave me the thumbs-up and I rolled out of the bomb bay.

I was going to delay opening my chute, because it enhanced my

chances of surviving the jump.''

Tuttle said he watched his plane spiral downward until it

crashed in a fireball into the Austrian countryside.

``Four guys went down with the plane,'' he said, shaking

his head at how quickly his world changed from thinking he

might die to having hope for survival after he jumped out of

the plane.

``All of a sudden I'm over an Austrian meadow, two or three

miles up, floating gently in the breeze looking around at the

peaceful countryside, and I thought, `Hell, I might survive

this war.' ''

Tuttle touched down in the middle of a thicket, rolled up

his chute and concealed himself under bushes until enemy

soldiers started yelling nearby. Concerned they might begin

shooting into the thicket, Tuttle opted to surrender.

``I thought I better get out of there,'' he said. ``I came

out with my hands up and said, `You got me.' ''

Tuttle was taken to the infamous Stalag 17 camp and spent

19 months there as a prisoner of war.

``We were not treated well,'' he said. ``I got down to 137

pounds from 175.''

Tuttle remembers sleeping on burlap nailed to a wooden

frame without sheets or pillows. He and his compatriots

called the beds ``fart sacks.''

``We often ate what we called `wet dog soup.' It smelled

like a wet dog. It was a real favorite,'' he with a sarcastic

laugh. ``Sometimes we got a few turnips and potatoes. It was

not good.''

The occasional book that was sent into the camp and a

secret radio smuggled to him by allied forces that kept him

up to date on the war were small comforts to which Tuttle

clung.

When the war ended, Tuttle was released from the camp and

walked down a road in Austria. That's when he saw the first

American soldiers he had seen in many months.

``They were throwing German guns into piles. I was so glad

to see them,'' Tuttle said, his voice choked with emotion and

tears welling in his eyes. ``The war was over.''

Tuttle was taken to a hospital in England to ``get fattened

up'' and later returned to the U.S., where he had a long

career serving as a distinguished attorney and superior court

judge.

Just a few years ago, Tuttle wrote down his experiences at

Ploesti within the context of his autobiography, ``Nevada

City and Beyond, an Unscripted Life.''

Tuttle plans to live out the remainder of his days in

Mokelumne Hill with his wife Sally.

``During the war, I gained a better understanding of life,

what it means and why some values are worth fighting for,''

Tuttle said. ``Looking back, I'm proud of what I did. Damn

proud.''

Thank you for the opportunity to speak here.

Mr. Speaker, if this were only about work reforms, that would be something, but it's far, far more. These are devastating cuts. Hunger is real. In my northern counties, the counties along the Sacramento River--Sutter, Glenn, Colusa, and Yuba--20 percent of the citizens are hungry. They need food. This bill would dramatically affect that.

My daughter is a teacher. She has a community garden. She went to find a kid from her kindergarten class who wasn't getting on the bus. He was hidden underneath the cucumbers in the garden, stuffing his pockets full of tomatoes and cucumbers, so that on the weekend he would have food for himself and his brother.

Hunger is real--it's real in every one of our districts--and this particular bill devastates the food programs for seniors, for working men and women, and for those who desperately need help.

I oppose the bill. I would ask for compassion from our colleagues on the Republican side and to put this bill down and get on with decent legislation.

Mr. Speaker, earlier in the session today, we paused in remembrance of those who were killed here in Washington, D.C., yesterday, yet another tragedy for this Nation, another shooting, senseless rage by some individual. We heard on the floor here a few minutes ago a plea by some of our colleagues to call us to action so that we who represent the millions upon millions of Americans would find within ourselves the courage to take action on wise gun safety legislation, mental health, and other things that we know can help to address the problem that plagues this Nation. So today, as we start this one-hour, I want to just remind ourselves that we have work to do here.

Joining me tonight is Paul Tonko, a Representative from the State of New York. We often have had the opportunity to speak on the floor about the issues that confront us. Perhaps, Paul, you may want to comment on this tragedy, and then we'll turn to the other issues that we want to take up today.

I join you in those condolences.

Our subject matter for the evening was really going to be about the economy, about income within this Nation, or the lack of it.

I want to just start by referring to a statement that Franklin Delano Roosevelt made during the economic crisis of the 1930s. In fact, this statement is etched in the marble at the F.D.R. memorial here in Washington, D.C. He said:

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the

abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide

enough for those who have too little.

The test of our progress. Well, what has been our progress over these last several years?

This last week, the economic study of the progress of America since the great crash of 2007 was made public. There has been progress. There has been economic growth. There has been the creation of wealth. We have seen progress, but it's not the kind of progress that F.D.R. talked about in the thirties. What we have seen is exactly the opposite of what he called for: to provide more for those who have little.

Here it is, the tale of two Americans, a stunted recovery, but, nonetheless, a recovery.

Where did the economic growth go? Where did the wealth go that was created? Was it to those who have little? No. No. No. Ninety-five percent of all of the wealth that this economy created since 2007 in the great crash went to the top 1 percent. Ninety-five percent of all of the wealth went to the top 1 percent. The remaining 99 percent wound up with 5 percent of the wealth that the Nation's biggest economy created since the crash of 2007. Franklin Delano Roosevelt would not have stood for it, and he didn't. Nor did Bill Clinton.

From 1993 to 2000, the economy grew very rapidly. The distribution of the wealth that was created during those years went in a remarkably different way than what has happened over the last 5 years. During the Clinton period, 55 percent of all the wealth that this Nation created went to the bottom 99 percent. The top 1 percent did very well. They got 45 percent of all of the wealth. You can say that was not enough for the bottom 99 percent, and I would agree; but compared to what's happened over these last 5 years, it's a remarkable improvement on the distribution of wealth.

What is the distribution of wealth? It's not a class struggle. It's about the

men and women of this Nation that work hard, that get up every day, go to their jobs, as did those 12 people who were killed yesterday here at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. They got up. They went to their job. They worked hard for themselves, for their families, and for this Nation.

So men and women all across this Nation are doing what we want them to do: participating in this society, following the American Dream. They work hard, play by the rules, get on the economic ladder and climb.

Here's what happened to them: not much.

Something is desperately wrong here in America that the result of 5 years of labor by the 99 percent, that they would find their reward to be 5 percent of the wealth that was created. We need to address this, and tonight our subject matter is how we can do that.

Before we go to that, I want to put up one more chart and then ask my colleague to join in.

What does it really mean down home? What does it mean out there in the subdivision or in the tenements? What does it mean in America when 95 percent of all of the wealth created winds up in the hands of 1 percent?

Here's what it means:

It means that there's hunger in America;

It means that mothers and fathers are not able to have a job that they can provide their children with a meal, with food on the table;

It means that in this House of Representatives there will be this day, this week, an effort to provide even more hunger in America, more children going without food as the supplemental food program is slashed by $40 billion. That's $4 billion a year for 10 years, $40 billion, so that the 1 percent can have even more.

This is not right. It is not right in this Nation that we have hunger. It is not America as it should be, and it certainly is not the way Franklin Delano Roosevelt said America should be when the test of our progress is not whether we add more abundance to those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

We have a challenge here in America. We need to change things. We need to change the public policies that would deny food to hungry children, to parents, to our seniors, to our children in schools. It's time for us to put in place policies that create a real economic growth, real growth that the working men and women of this Nation can share in the economic progress of our Nation, and tonight we're going to spend some time talking about how we can do that.

My friend from New York, Paul Tonko.

Mr. Tonko, thank you very much. You are quite correct that we need to move in that direction. The American economy is about 60-70 percent based upon consumer purchases of homes and cars and all those other goods. Part of that reason that we're not seeing the kind of economic growth that would normally occur in a recovery is the 99 percent don't have money. They lost a great deal of their wealth. Trillions of dollars of their wealth was wiped out in the financial collapse, their pensions, their homes and equity in their home. As the economy has recovered, the creation of the

growth, the wealth, didn't go to them so they have not been able to really increase their purchasing power, which has dampened the economy.

Now, there are things that we can do. You were beginning that process. Let's go through them. I'm going to put this back up because this is not just a picture of the distribution of wealth in the economy, that is, the economic growth; it is also a picture of why the economy hasn't really returned. There are other factors, to be sure, but clearly the absence of purchasing power, that is, new wealth in the hands of the 99 percent, the absence of that has retarded the economic recovery.

This is something we have talked about here many, many times, and Mr. Tonko brought this up, many of these issues. We call it the Make It In America agenda. This follows along on President Obama's jobs program. Many of these elements are the same as he proposed. They are displayed a little differently here.

Tax policy; critically important. We need to redo our tax policy. Mr. Tonko talked about the tax policy and the effect that we've seen over these many years. But what I would like to do today is focus on these others issues, the issue of infrastructure, research, education, labor, and energy.

On the labor side, we have talked about that a great deal here. The working men and women, laboring as they are, are they getting a fair share of the economic growth? The answer is categorically, no. Are there policies that can change that? Yes. One of them has been of discussion here in Congress, which is the minimum wage issue. California has a minimum wage law that is before the Governor. He is expected to sign it, and that will push the minimum wage up to about I think $10 an hour, and that will cause the entire wage structure in California to move upward, shifting wealth to the working men and women in California. Whether the Nation will follow that, the President has called for an increase in the minimum wage, and that will certainly be helpful in shifting to the working population of this Nation a larger share, or at least a fair share of the growth of the economy.

Let's talk about infrastructure for awhile. I know this is an issue you were working on, Mr. Tonko, following the floods of a year ago. We see those same floods--different floods, but devastating floods, occurring in Colorado. You were one of the strong advocates for rebuilding our infrastructure. Why don't you pick that issue up, and let's talk about how we might be able to accomplish that.

Mr. Tonko, we were talking about this earlier before we came up here, and you may want to take up this issue. This is an issue of what an infrastructure investment needs to grow the economy.

We know there is an immediate return on investment in infrastructure. Mark Zandi laid it out there. You invest $1 in infrastructure now, and you get back $1.57, and you have somebody working immediately. They become a taxpayer rather than a

tax receiver. So there are some real opportunities here.

I want to just take a couple of seconds. I was reading The Wall Street Journal as I was flying from California today, and there was an article by Martin Feldstein, who was Ronald Reagan's chief economic adviser, and he focused in his article on several things and growing the economy. How do you get the economy growing? He specifically talked about infrastructure. He talked about infrastructure as a way to immediately employ people. We certainly agree with that. And it's also a way you lay the foundation for future economic growth because that infrastructure is then available for the future.

I was in Fresno, California, I guess 2 or 3 years ago, and went to the high school to talk at an educational conference there, and they are setting this conference in an auditorium that was built by the WPA, the Works Progress Administration in the Roosevelt period, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt period. So we were using this wonderful auditorium 70 years later. You go, wow, there's an infrastructure investment in education.

So it is by building this infrastructure we employ people immediately, and we then have the foundation for future economic growth.

You mentioned the water system, sanitation, electrical energy systems. Roads, highways and the like. And it's jobs today. I want to talk about how we can finance them.

Let's not forget, this is not new economics. George Washington in his first month in office, and this is the first President, folks, his first month in office, turned to his Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, and said, develop an economic policy. Hamilton came back a couple of months later, not with a report that we would have, several thousand pages, but maybe 50 or 60 pages, and he laid out an economic policy. Number one on his agenda was to build America's infrastructure--ports, canals.

I know you're going to launch into the Erie Canal now that I've mentioned canals, which is your favorite subject. And he also talked about roads. He talked about laying down the infrastructure for the growth of the economy.

Before we get to your Erie Canal, I want to talk about something that actually happened. This is a good thing. This is a very good thing.

In the stimulus bill, which by the way did work, not as robust as we would have liked, but it did work, there was a provision to build locomotives for Amtrak. I think it was about $800 million over a period of years would be spent on building locomotives for the east coast.

This is so you can get home, Mr. Tonko, on the east coast here. These locomotives were to be 100 percent American-made. I don't know who wrote that provision, but it was one of the very few provisions in the stimulus bill that said make it in America, 100 percent American-made.

Siemens, a German company, one of the big international industrial companies, said, $800 million. Oh, you have to make it in America. Okay.

Siemens had a factory in Sacramento, California, to manufacture light rail cars, you know, street cars and the like. They got this contract.

This is the first locomotive made in America by Siemens under that stimulus provision. They're going to make, I think, 80 of these over the period of the next several years, 100 percent American-made.

And now, across the United States, as a result of this infrastructure investment, we're beginning to see companies in a supply chain, some that are making the wheels, the truck underneath, which is where the wheels attach to the locomotive, the facility up on top that attaches to the electric lines. All of this, American-made, 100 percent American-made.

And by the way, I have a piece of legislation in that would continue that that says if you're going to spend your tax money on transportation systems, highways, bridges, locomotives and the like, it's going to be your tax money used to buy American-made equipment, just like George Washington said we ought to do it.

What was that canal?

Well, if you take a look at Superstorm Sandy--I don't know what they're going to call the storm that is occurring in Colorado, but we're also seeing the necessity to prepare for climate change and these new very strong, very dangerous storms that we now have seen repeated.

There's going to be a major infrastructure investment rebuilding Colorado, just as there was a major infrastructure investment in rebuilding the east coast following Superstorm Sandy. As that investment is made, we will see the economy begin to pick up as men and women return to work, if we take--what I think we ought to do is to spend that money on American-made concrete and steel and the like. As we rebuild these necessary infrastructure works we will add to the economic potential of that rebuilding.

Now, how are we going to pay for it?

Let's get down to what has been, I think, the most common complaint here: oh, you're just going to borrow the money and we're going to run up the deficit.

Well, Martin Feldstein was very clear today that if you make an investment in infrastructure, you're going to immediately employ people, and you will be making a major step towards solving the deficit problem. You do that now, he said. Begin that investment now.

Yes, you're going to borrow the money, not all of it, and there are ways that we can get, that we'll deal with that.

But there is a necessity of enhancing the economy. His suggestion was the infrastructure as one of the principal ways of doing that.

Now, we have ways of financing this. It's been discussed forever, dating back to the mid- and early nineties, that we ought to have an infrastructure bank.

The Europeans have an infrastructure bank. It's proved to be very successful. The money goes out to build

infrastructure. The repayment is made by bridge tolls, by fees on roads, by canal fees, other kinds of fees. That money comes back. It's circulated.

The President has called for an infrastructure bank, taking an idea that's been before Congress for the last 20 years, and he said, let's do it. Let's do it. We can borrow money at the Federal level still, less than 3 percent, sometimes 2 percent, put that into an infrastructure bank, invite the private sector pension funds and others to become part of that bank, and then lend that money out to those projects that have a cash flow, toll bridges, sanitation projects, waterworks, other kinds of things, so that we can get this economy moving.

We also had a program coming out of the stimulus bill called Build America Bonds, BABs, Build America Bonds. Those lasted all of 2 years, and then our colleagues here refused to reenact the Build America Bonds. These are other ways in which local entities can borrow the money and build the infrastructure and get their economy going.

And, furthermore, laying the foundation for future economic growth: you can't build a city on yesterday's infrastructure. You need to replace it, to be sure; and this is part of the problem in our cities, the aging infrastructure, the waterworks, the sanitation system and the rest. We need to rebuild that, but you also need to expand the infrastructure.

One final way that we can talk about financing this is how we do spend the tax revenue that does come in to the American Treasury.

Right now, Congress is debating on how to spend money for the next fiscal year which begins on October 1, how are we going to spend it.

Part of that appropriation process is to appropriate $87 billion for the Afghanistan war in the coming year, October 1 through the 2014 year, until September 30, $87 billion for Afghanistan.

How much money for flood protection in Colorado, flood protection in my district, flood protection across the Eastern Seaboard to build the seawalls? Virtually nothing.

But $87 billion for Afghanistan. For what? For what? To build facilities that we will either destroy as we leave or will be destroyed shortly after we leave?

Seven billion dollars for the Afghan National Army, $2.5 billion of which is for good things to be done, no line items, no particular knowledge about what they're going to spend that money on. I suspect most of it's going to wind up in some bank account by some crook in the Bahrain banks. $2.5 billion.

What could we do with $2.5 billion here in America?

And by the way, we're drawing down the troops in Afghanistan. We're actually going to spend more money in Afghanistan next year than we are this year, even though we have 60 percent fewer troops in Afghanistan.

We're making choices. Your Representatives, 435 of us, and 100 Members of the Senate, are making choices about how your money's going to be spent.

And by the way, I haven't talked about the nuclear bombs, 5,000 of them. We're going to rebuild them. Now, there's a good investment. Really?

I don't think so, not when the levees in my district can't be rebuilt to protect my citizens from floods, to rebuild a nuclear weapon that we don't need in the first place. I don't think so.

So we're making choices. We're making choices for you, the American taxpayers, about how your money's going to be spent.

For me, I want to spend it in America. I want to spend it on American-made goods and equipment, not on products from China, as happened with the newly reopened San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridge-- steel from China, not from America.

I want that money spent here, and I want that money spent on our infrastructure, on our education, on research, energy projects.

We're going to make choices. We're making those choices right now. We're up against the wall. By the end of this month, September 30, the government runs out of money.

Where are we going to spend it?

Or are we going to spend it all?

Are we just going to shut down government?

I don't know. I'm worried. I'm worried about the choices that we're making. I'm worried about more expenditure in Afghanistan and not here at home. I'm worried about rebuilding all these nuclear weapons that, God willing, we'll never use.

Choices. Can we actually build America?

Can we find the willingness to create an infrastructure bank?

Can we find the willingness to bring the money back home and spend it here to build this economy?

Because, ultimately, as our Joint Chiefs of Staff have said repeatedly, it's the American economy. Without that strength, there won't be military strength.

I've gone on too far here. Mr. Tonko, let's begin to wrap this up.

Mr. Tonko, thank you very, very much. Indeed, our best days are ahead of us. Even in the dismal days of the Great Depression in the thirties, Franklin Roosevelt laid it out very clearly when he said:

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the

abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide

enough for those who have too little.

If 95 percent of the wealth that's been generated over the last 5 years winds up with 1 percent, we've got a problem, because the economy isn't going to grow and what will happen is this: hunger in America.

Later this week, we'll take up the nutrition bill for this Nation. There are those who want to remove $40 billion from the nutrition programs for our children, for our seniors, for those that are unemployed, and for those that are searching for work. We can do better; we really can.

The best days are ahead of us if this Congress and the Senate, together with the President, work together and lay out those plans that have informed us historically that they work.

Investment--investments are those things that make America strong-- infrastructure, research, education, those are things that are timeless and work year after year. They're also things that have recently been reduced and cut.

We can't let this happen in America. We cannot allow that to happen.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Sergeant Joel R. Orr as he retires after nearly 25 years of law enforcement service to the City of Fairfield.

Hired as a Public Safety Officer with the Fairfield Police Department on July 25, 1988, and served the community in various capacities that included Patrol, Investigations, and School Resource Officer. Sergeant Orr also took on ancillary assignments by joining the Crisis Negotiation Team and being selected for the first Street Criminal Apprehension Team (SCAT). In the course of teaching important skills such as Parent Project, Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) and driver awareness, he earned the City Manager's Commendation Award for outstanding leadership in developing and implementing the City's Driver Training Program. Sergeant Orr also assisted California's Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) with their Entry-Level Patrol Officer Job Analysis Project and then completed the distinctive Robert Presly's Institute of Criminal Investigation (ICI) certification course with a specialty in homicide investigation.

On December 5, 2003, Sergeant Orr was promoted to Police Corporal and then on August 18, 2006, he was promoted to Police Sergeant where he served in Patrol, Investigations and Professional Standards, and as a Public Information Officer. In 2008 and 2010, as the Police Department experienced changes in leadership and command staff, Sergeant Orr consistently stepped in and assisted City management in filling the gaps. Over the last five years, he has assumed the Police Lieutenant's position twice and managed Patrol Operations. Sergeant Orr has a can-do attitude and he consistently provided quality service to the community.

Sergeant Orr has been a valued employee and leader and his commitment to the community was evidenced on a daily basis. He was a loyal representative of the law enforcement community and admired for his hard work, dedication, and positive work ethic.

Mr. Chairman and my good friends who serve on these committees with me, this is not about the President and this is not about missile defense. This is about the unnecessary expenditure of a very important national asset--our money.

Testimony given in committee indicates that we may or may not need an east coast missile defense site. And we also know that the current missiles that are being used for these anti-ballistic missiles don't work. At least there's a failure, and there's been repeated failures just in the boost system, let alone if we can hit Iraq with a rock. So the problem here is this money should not be spent now for this site.

It is absolutely clear: the Department of Defense from last year's budget and appropriation has sufficient money to determine where to locate a site. With regard to the cancellation of the missile that was discussed a few minutes ago, it doesn't fit in the existing sites, and so they canceled it because it doesn't fit in the hole in the ground. So what are we doing here? This is $70 million, not a vast amount of money when considering the appropriation for the Department of Defense, but that's $70 million that could be used to--well, how about protecting a levee of some city in the United States? It could be used to much better effect.

There was another amendment that I understand that failed that took another $100 million or so out of this particular thing. We ought to be taking what money's available and putting it into something that actually might work, which would be directed energy. But an amendment for directed energy was refused an opportunity to be heard on the floor. So we really ought to be thinking seriously about how we move forward with this. I have great respect for my colleagues, but we ought not just throw money after other money.

I have great respect for my colleagues on the subcommittee. However, the argument that has been made is incomplete. We're talking about whether we're going to spend an additional sum of money this next year on a program that, A, has large questions about whether it works; and, B, the military doesn't need the money right now. If the gentlemen remember the committee hearing, Mr. Chairman, the general said he didn't need more money now. He had sufficient money from this year's appropriations for next year carrying on the studies that are necessary as to where to locate the site. It may not be on the east coast; it may be elsewhere.

Mr. Chairman, if you don't trust the Afghan Government, you should never give them $2.6 billion. This is on top of the $5 billion that they were to receive. This money was specifically added to the budget for the Afghan military to buy something--parts, airplanes. We have absolutely no idea what they're going to do with this money.

We would never, under any circumstance, give our own military a $2.6 billion blank check, but that's exactly what we're doing here. You're asking for fraud and abuse. We should bring this money back and make sure our own people are doing the work that the Defense Department needs.

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

Mr. Chairman, we've had a lot of discussion here in the last several minutes about Afghanistan. This amendment follows along the same line, but it's actually far greater in dollars.

Last year, we appropriated $5.1 billion to the Afghanistan National Army for their support. In this year's budget, an additional $2.6 billion was added for--who knows what? It was $2.6 billion of American taxpayer money for something--airplanes? supplies? support equipment? trucks? It was unspecified, unknown, to be used by one of the most corrupt governments--no, excuse me--the most corrupt government in the world. $2.6 billion of American taxpayer money for something, unspecified, to be used somewhere, somehow--I suspect, more likely, in some bank account in Bahrain.

What are we doing? What justification is there for $2.6 billion of additional expenditure for the Afghan National Army? Have we lost our minds?

No. We're just going to lose our money. What is going on here? What are we doing? What is this all about?

This money should never be spent for some unspecified purpose. We take our Department of Defense, and we hold them to a very tight account. We don't let them spend money without a contract, without reviews by the inspector general, without reviews by our committee, but here is $2.6 billion, unspecified.

Oh, Mr. Karzai, use it wisely.

Come on. Come on. Let's not do this. This amendment would simply say, You can't have that money.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I request to know how much time I have remaining.

I find it difficult that our esteemed Appropriations Committee, which watches the taxpayers' money with such ardor and intensity, would increase by 51 percent the amount of support that the American taxpayers are giving to the Afghan National Security Forces-- the police, which are among--no, excuse me--they are the most corrupt-- and the army, which is questionable, and certainly the government, which we know to be the most corrupt in the world--that it would simply write $2.6 billion more money than we were giving them last year, for a total of $7.6 billion, for something--something--unspecified.

We would never do this for our own military. Never would we do that. We would have them lay out how they were going to spend the money before we would even consider giving them the money, and then we would hold them to tight account.

I cannot understand why we would do this. There is no justification other than, oh, we're leaving, and we've got to help them, so throw some more money at them. They already have been appropriated $52 billion, and only $40 billion of that has been spent. There is $12 billion left in the account, and you're going to add $7.6 billion to that.

What are you doing? What justification is there for this other than, oh, they may need it because we're leaving? They're going to use it for--let's see--other things--well, maybe for some field hospitals, maybe for some airplanes, maybe for some supplies--maybe, maybe, maybe--but there is nothing written. There is nothing written. Oh, yes. We know the American Army or the American military will somehow spend it wisely. There is a 10-year record of its being spent unwisely. $2.6 billion.

What could we do with it? Could we reduce the deficit? Could we build some levees? Could we educate some kids? Could we do some research in the United States?

Come on. Of all of the things we're doing here today, this is the most disgusting.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

How many times have I heard from this side that the President is wrong? The President is wrong in this case.

He most certainly is wrong in this case. There is no doubt about it.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to discuss this evening jobs, putting Americans back to work, building our foundation for economic growth.

For many, many days now, in fact, for more than 2 years, the Democrats in the House have been discussing a project which we call Make It In America. These are strategies that we're putting forth to develop more jobs in America, to rebuild our manufacturing industry, and to bring wealth back to the United States.

I would love to comment on the issues that I've heard earlier with just my colleagues on immigration, but I'll let that go. I would just say one thing. The last comment that was made about the earned income tax credit, I would remind my colleagues that that was a Ronald Reagan program. Take that for what you might.

Back to Make It In America. These are the basic issues. We talk about trade policy, fair trade policy, not giving away our opportunities; tax policy, to encourage manufacturing and jobs here in United States; energy policy, how we're going to renew our energy system, become energy independent, the role of clean fuels, the role of renewable fuels and gas; the labor market, education.

Perhaps the most important of all of these is a well-educated workforce. If we have that, many of these other issues would fall into place--the role of research in creating tomorrow's economy, tomorrow's businesses, the things that need to be made in the future.

But tonight we want to talk about, not the least on this, it just happens to be the lowest on this list, and that is infrastructure. It's one of those critical investments. It's the foundation upon which the economy grows or not. If we have a solid infrastructure--transportation systems, water systems, sanitation systems, communication systems, research facilities, educational facilities, that's all part of the infrastructure. Some of it is private; much of it is public investment. But this is one of the fundamental investments, along with these other issues here, that our economy has traditionally made over the years. And unfortunately, in the current situation, we seem to be falling off the power curve that created the foundation for the American economy upon which to grow.

So today, we're going to really focus on this infrastructure issue, not a new issue. Actually, George Washington, I think he was our first President, told his Cabinet Secretary, Treasury Secretary, to develop a plan to grow the economy, called, A Plan for Manufactures.

Alexander Hamilton came back to Washington with a plan. One of the many points that he raised and suggestions that Alexander Hamilton made was to create infrastructure. He said the Federal Government ought to build canals, ports, and roads, fundamental infrastructure upon which the American economy would grow. And those things were done right back at the very beginning of this country. So from the very earliest days, the Federal Government has been involved in building infrastructure.

Now, tonight, joining me are two of my colleagues, Mr. Delaney from the great State of Maryland and Mr. Castro from Texas. They're going to talk about infrastructure. And I'd like now to turn to Mr. Delaney, who has a proposal that, actually, the President of the United States suggested in his American Jobs Act program, a program that he put forth more than a year ago

that the Republican Congress has done nothing with. So Mr. Delaney has picked up one of the suggestions that the President made, made it whole, and has presented legislation on an infrastructure bank.

Mr. Delaney, please join us and tell us about how the infrastructure bank would work and what it would do for America.

Mr. Delaney, that is a fascinating way of bringing capital to this program. California has numerous high-technology companies, Apple and many, many others. All of them come to us, representatives from California, and they complain about the repatriation. They'd like to bring those earnings from overseas back to the United States. They've got maybe $1 trillion sitting out there, if I recall the number. Maybe that's about--I don't know. Whatever the number is, a lot of dollars. They want to bring it back, but they don't want to pay the 35 percent corporate tax.

So you're suggesting that they could bring that back in a way that they wouldn't face that tax, but the money that came back would be--at least a portion of it would be used to finance this infrastructure bank.

Have I got this pretty much correct here?

I understated it. Two trillion dollars sitting offshore.

That's this thing called taxes, number 2 up here.

I think you did. I was trying to grasp the totality of it. It is a process in which now this is a piece of legislation; it's here in the House. I would hope that our colleagues on the Republican side that control the passage of legislation, even the taking up of legislation in committee, would look at this and go, oh, you mean we can actually build $200 million or $2 trillion of infrastructure over a 50-year period without any appropriation, with no taxpayer dollars, other than some amount that's foregone in the repatriation.

Very interesting, a very, very exciting proposal; and I would hope we take it up.

I am sure that there will be questions about, well, who gets the money, who decides which projects are going to be selected.

California being the most populous State----

Oh, I like that already.

Mr. Delaney, thank you very, very much. Obviously, Maryland is very well represented with some innovative thinking from their Representatives.

Infrastructure banks are not new. This is a new way of financing it, and a very exciting one. Thank you so very much for joining us this evening.

We will continue to work on this, and we will talk about it again in the future.

California is the most populous State. I didn't say ``popular,'' although I would certainly say that. Texas being the second biggest in geography.

We now have our new Representative from Texas joining us, Mr. Castro. Thank you so very, very much. Texas likes to talk about all the good things they are doing. One good thing they did was to send you here. So, Mr. Castro, please join us and talk to us about Texas and infrastructure.

Mr. Castro, thank you so very, very much. Often, in fact,

I've talked about infrastructure in a physical way, that is, the physical features of roads and water systems. But your discussion of infrastructure being the infrastructure of opportunity, which does include those things, it also includes this one, which is education, a critical element in the process of education. If we are going to build infrastructure of opportunity, this is where opportunity starts for virtually everybody in this country: the opportunity to get a good education.

Part of that is the physical building itself. Obviously, it is the teachers, the way in which the subjects are taught, and access, access to not only K through 12, but also higher education. This is one of the things that when we talk about physical infrastructure, we need to talk about the classroom itself, about the facility, air-conditioning, as well as the communication systems, computers and other kinds of communication systems.

So the infrastructure of opportunity, what a wonderful theme, what a wonderful way of describing America and this discussion we've heard before we came on the floor about immigration. You could not be more correct.

I thought for a moment you were going to go into more detail about your own personal emotions as you stop in every one of these towns on your way to see your fiancee, but we'll let that go for another time.

There's much to learn about that. But, again, if you go back to our Make It In America agenda, these issues, the labor market and education, fit into that infrastructure of opportunity.

I've always said that if you're going to build an economy and have social justice, there are five things you must always do:

First, you must have the best education system in the world that's available to everybody so that they can climb that ladder, as you were saying earlier, that they have that opportunity;

Second, that you have a great research system, and we do. Actually, we have 10 campuses of the University of California. Some of the State universities are now picking up some of the research agenda also. But anyway, the research;

And then you need to make things coming out of that. That's the manufacturing. And that may be a computer program, or it could be an automobile. But you need to be making things, adding, creating value;

The infrastructure being the fourth;

And the fifth being you've got to be willing to change. You can't do what you did yesterday; you need to deal with things of tomorrow.

There are many other pieces to this. We talked a little bit about education here and the way it works.

This was a statistic that was given earlier. Mr. Delaney went through this very quickly. But for every dollar you invest in the physical infrastructure, you are going to get back immediately about $1.57 as that money churns through the economy as the concrete is purchased, as it is put in place, men and women are doing that work, and then that churns back through the economy, actually giving great stimulation to the economy. Not our words. These are Mark Zandi's words, the chief economist of Moody's Analytics.

This is a very, very well-known thing. So if we want to really move the economy, we can take Mr. Delaney's idea about an infrastructure bank, not an appropriation, invest and put people to work and give a boost to the economy; and in doing so, you also create better tax flow into the government.

The other thing, and this is something that I know Texas is working on, as is California, and that's rail transportation. If I recall correctly, Fort Worth is the headquarters of BNSF Railway. This is just a picture of a new Amtrak train that was manufactured in Sacramento. Part of the infrastructure investment that is now being made here in the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston, this new train is 100 percent American-made.

Back in the stimulus bill, about 80-some trains were proposed to be purchased, about a half a billion dollars, and they wrote into it ``must be American-made.'' So Siemens, a German company, came to Sacramento where they had a light rail shop, decided they could build a heavy-duty locomotive and make it 100 percent American-made.

So this one is now being tested--the first model out--and there will be some 80 of these on the Northeast corridor, increasing the speed, the movement, the transportation system. For all of America, rail transportation--light rail, heavy rail, and even high-speed rail--are ways in which we move our physical transportation, and if we cause those products to be made in America, we also increase our manufacturing base. Again, it's part of the American program of making it in America by using infrastructure.

From the city and region of San Antonio.

There are so many different things that we could talk about in this process.

This is a piece of legislation that, actually, I've introduced for the last couple of years. This particular piece of

legislation, H.R. 1524, says, if it's your tax money--the American taxpayers' money--then it ought to be used to purchase American-made equipment. That's exactly what happened with the earlier stimulus bill in the manufacturing of these locomotives in California, but there are some 200 different suppliers all around the Nation who are supplying that.

We can really boost the economy in the transportation system but also in the energy system--solar, wind. All of those are subsidized, as is oil and coal, with American taxpayer money, either with a tax credit or a subsidy or a direct payment, and if we said, Okay, but you must produce that product in America--as with the wind turbines, make them in America, as well as similarly with solar panels and other kinds of equipment. So these are all things that fit into this.

The theme that you hit on early on, I think, is so very, very important, and that is the infrastructure of opportunity. I really like that. I think that, as we go about our business here of passing laws or not, we ought to keep in mind that our task is to create that opportunity.

Mr. Castro, you put that so very well. It's a critical investment that the American public makes in the next generation so that this economy can move forward.

There is also--we've been debating this on the floor--a bill that passed out of here that would set the student loan interest rate as a variable rate, much like a home mortgage variable rate. Watch out, as we know what happened with the variable rates that went on. It was interesting that that particular bill would actually create income, a large amount of income if I remember the numbers--some $30 billion over the next 10 years of income. So it was like wait a minute. Are we really just doing this to get the money back or are we looking at this as a profit center? I think it was a serious mistake, first, to do a variable interest rate. That would move it up, quite possibly, to more than what the doubling of the 3.4 percent would be to, maybe, 8, 9 percent, 10 percent. Bad idea--and it's looking at the problem incorrectly.

The way to look at it is just as you said. This is a way for the American public to make an investment in a student at a low-interest cost to the student but sufficient to repay the Federal Government, not as a profit center but as a repayment. There are some administrative costs to be sure. That's how we ought to look at this because it is a crucial investment, the most important investment of all--the educational investment.

And a very sound investment was made in you and your brother, who I believe is the mayor of San Antonio.

Indeed.

There is much to be said. I'm just going to share with you, and perhaps you have a similar situation from your own experience.

This weekend, I was back in my district in northern California, in Yuba City and Marysville. Now, the Feather River, which is one of the major rivers--tributaries--of the Sacramento River, goes right between these two towns, with Marysville on the east side and Yuba City on the west side. This is one of the most dangerous places in America. The Feather River and the Yuba River, which come together at that place, have a long history of deadly floods. What the citizens need there is the help of the Federal Government to complete the levee and enhance the levees around their communities.

We had a major debate here on the floor last week with the Energy and Water bill in which the Ryan budget--that is the Republican budget--was seen in its fullness for the first time. What that budget called for was a diminution--in fact, a very, very significant cut--in the infrastructure investment for the Army Corps of Engineers. The Army Corps of Engineers builds the levees, the locks and other major public works. Sequestration took $250 million of construction out of the Army Corps of Engineers, and right now construction projects that were scheduled are not taking place. In addition to that, the proposed budget in the actual appropriation bill even further reduced the money available to the Army Corps of Engineers to build the levees to protect communities all across the United States. At the very same time, money was shifted from the Corps of Engineers--from the levees and the things that are necessary to protect American citizens and others who are here from devastating floods--to build more nuclear weapons.

What in the world is that all about?

We've got 5,500 nuclear weapons now. The money was shifted. They all worked, and there is no way we would ever use all of them unless you want to end life on the Earth. Yet that was a priority issue--nuclear weapons versus levees to protect Americans. It is the wrong priority, but it is a fundamental example of the infrastructure needs and the wrongheaded priorities that sometimes find their way into legislation.

Unfortunately, that bill passed. That is the statement of the House of Representatives. Now, every Democrat voted against it, but it did pass the House. That now will go over to the Senate, and the Senate, I am sure, will never set that priority the same as this; but in a conference committee, we are now looking at a tug-of-war between nuclear weapons and levees to protect Americans. Hopefully, the levees will win. We'll see. That's one example.

When I went home this weekend, people asked me, ``What was that all about?'' I said, ``That was about bad priorities and an austerity budget working together.''

Also, without adequate levees, you clearly slow down economic development.

Now, not every city has a flood problem; although, certainly, in the great Midwest, you see this in all of the cities along the Missouri and the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. So, in that entire huge basin, which is more than 60 percent of the United States, there are serious flood issues. This extends--and certainly we see it on the east coast--to Superstorm Sandy, and you mentioned Katrina. All across this Nation the issue of flood protection is critical.

In my own district, Sacramento, there is a portion of Sacramento that, I think, is now rated as the most dangerous city in the United States. It is the Natomas area of Sacramento. With the rebuilding of the levees in New Orleans, I think now Natomas, Sacramento, is rated as the most dangerous. We are talking about a flood situation that could occur, because the levees are substandard, in which the river would break. We have floods in the winter, so the water temperatures are in the 45- to 50-degree temperatures. If that were to break, the inundation would be immediate, and it would be 20 feet. The survival time is measured in minutes, not in hours. When that water hits you, you get hypothermia and you're dead.

So it is an extreme problem. We need to rebuild those levees. The community is taxing itself to a fare-thee-well to do it, but the Federal Government is backing away from its previous commitment. The rest of the story is that the economic development potential in that community is stifled. It's not just housing. It's all kinds of economic development, as the Sacramento International Airport is in that area.

With the lack of money to build the levees, human life is at risk-- several tens of thousands of people--and economic development. So these things come together--infrastructure being the foundation upon which the economy grows and, in some cases, certainly in the case of levees, upon which people's lives depend.

I think it's about time for us to wrap up, but I want to engage the public. I don't know how many people are watching C-SPAN this evening. I would like to think there are some 300 million, but I suspect that's overstating it a ways.

I would ask the public to comment to you and me about their infrastructure in their communities. What do they need in their communities? How do they think it could be financed? As to Mr. Delaney's proposal for an infrastructure bank based upon the repatriation of foreign earnings, does that make sense?

Does it make sense to do what the President said, which is to appropriate $50 billion right now to build infrastructure? There are many different alternatives.

But I'd love to hear from the public, and here's how they can do it. I'm going to use yours down here too. Stay in touch, stay informed, stay connected. You can go to Facebook.com/RepGaramendi or RepCastro. Either way, RepGaramendi, RepCastro. Twitter: Twitter.com/RepGaramendi or RepCastro. Or you can go to our Web site, Garamendi.house.gov.

I think there's more than one Castro. There's only one Garamendi around. So probably JCastro.house.gov. That's the Web site, and they can get in touch that way and keep informed.

So I welcome people. If anybody out there is watching this discussion about infrastructure, how it can be financed, why it's important, what it means for economic development, education, what it means for social justice and opportunity--if you like the theme, the infrastructure of opportunity, you can contact me and I'll pass it on to Mr. Castro, or you can go directly to [email protected] or Facebook.com/RepGaramendi, RepCastro.

I want to thank you, Mr. Castro and Mr. Delaney, for joining me this evening.

Next week we'll take up one of the other issues that we have. We'll probably talk next week about energy and how we can improve the energy situation to meet the climate change.

Geothermal Energy

I do have one more thing that I really must do before I close down, and that is talk about geothermal energy and one of the communities I represent, Lake County.

We have a critical natural resource opportunity in this Nation, and it's beneath the soil, beneath the ground. It happens to be the heat of the Earth. It finds its way to the surface in many places around the world, and it certainly does in my district in Lake County.

That heat comes from the geothermal, and it is an extraordinary natural resource and it is clean energy. It's one of the most abundant natural resources that can be found anywhere, and it's often overlooked. It has the ability to become one of the key future sources of energy. We'll talk about it much more next week.

But I do want to talk about its use here in the United States. It is environmentally friendly. Dry steam and flash geothermal plants emit just 5 percent of the carbon dioxide and less than 1 percent of the nitrous oxide of traditional fossil fuel coal-powered plants. The binary geothermal installation emissions are near zero. More importantly, geothermal energy is cost effective.

Over the last two decades, the cost of generating geothermal power has decreased by 25 percent. Additionally, geothermal can be produced domestically. In California, the Imperial Valley, the Lake County area, are two of the most used geothermal resources. Nevada has enormous resources, and there are many other places within the United States. And it can be sent--the same resource is available in many parts of the world. So we as a world and certainly as a State and Nation ought to be moving more aggressively to harness our geothermal resources.

It's also a good jobs place, creating more than $117 million in annual wealth in the geothermal region of Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake Counties.

It's also a tax source. Lake County and Samoa County receive over $11 million in annual tax revenues directly from the geyser's geothermal field. And Lake County has saved millions of dollars in the disposal cost by funneling 8 million gallons of wastewater back into the ground for the harnessing of geothermal resources.

So I draw the attention tonight of the Nation to the potential of geothermal and the success that it's had in my district in Lake County and in my neighboring county of Sonoma.

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

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I think the gentleman who is proposing the amendment is missing some major points.

Before a wind energy project can continue or go into effect, it has to meet very stringent environmental requirements. Those environmental requirements, among other things, deal specifically with all types of birds. I will tell you that, in my current district and in my previous district, I had the major wind farms in California, and no project was allowed to go forward without addressing these issues. Under the Endangered Species Act, it is possible for incidental takes to take place if there is appropriate mitigation, and I know from the projects in my area that there had to be appropriate mitigation.

The modern wind turbines are far different than the old wind turbines, which were, in fact, deadly to birds. The modern wind turbines are far less so. And if there is an incidental take of a listed species, it can only occur with proper and appropriate mitigation.

The author's reference to the issue of a longtime take opportunity only occurs if there happens to be an adaptive management program in place that allows the Fish and Wildlife Service and other appropriate agencies to review the process and progress, or lack thereof, and apply different measures or stop the projects at that time.

So I would oppose the amendment. I think it is based upon incorrect facts. And I join the chairman in opposition.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I want to commend the staff, the Chair, the ranking member, and all of those who have worked so hard over the last couple of days to get this bill processed and to deal with all the amendments. It's been an arduous task and one that has created, I am told, far more amendments than have ever been presented on any such appropriation bill in the past.

And there's a reason for that. The reason is that this appropriation bill is a direct result of the, what we fondly call--or not so fondly call--the Ryan Republican budget. This is really the first opportunity that America has to see the effects of a very austere budget, one that really decimates programs all across America, programs that are of great value and great utility.

This particular subcommittee was presented with the mark, that is, the amount of money that it had available to it as a result of that budget that was passed by the majority in this House. Now, that budget's not law. There has been no conference committee. In fact, the majority in this House has refused to set up a conference committee, that is, to put in names for that conference committee. So this is really a one-House budget that is being carried out here with this legislation.

It is a remarkable and an extraordinarily important moment in which the American public has a chance to see exactly what austerity, as presented to us by the majority, means. It means that those research programs that allow America the opportunity to advance its energy programs, to take control of the energy programs of the future, the renewable energy programs, the nuclear energy programs, and on and on, those opportunities are lost.

I know the committee was faced with a very stringent budget, an austerity budget. They made decisions that are, in my view, extraordinarily detrimental to America. Specifically, the committee-- the majority, that is--made a decision to take the money that was available and remove it from those programs that are the energy future of this Nation--wind, solar, conservation, biofuels, automobiles that are efficient, houses that are efficient, programs that are absolutely crucial to this Nation's future and to the world's future because they deal specifically with climate change--and move money from those programs to the Nuclear Weapons program and to programs that are not needed.

Consider for a moment that the United States has over 5,500 nuclear bombs, which are sufficient to end life on this planet. It's over if those were to be used. And the military says we don't need them. These are programs that are inefficient, ineffective, and are the sinkholes of American taxpayers' money. The majority decided to move the money there. Okay. Who are we going to use those things on? We can't. We don't need them for deterrence. But yet that's where the money goes. Not only does the money come from those energy programs that we absolutely need for our future and for our economy's future, the money comes from programs that are absolutely essential for the well-being of Americans today and tomorrow.

The Army Corps of Engineers protects our citizens with its levees and with its flood control projects. We've heard this over and over again for the last 2 days. And yet the majority continues to insist to spend the money on these nuclear weapons, not on those things that are essential for today's life and essential for the well-being of people now, as the storm season arrives here on the east coast with hurricanes, in the Gulf States with hurricanes, and in my State of California, in my district, where I have more than 1,500 miles of levees. People are at risk.

This amendment would take $100 million from these weapons systems and put that money directly into the Army Corps of Engineers Construction account so that the Army Corps of Engineers can protect our citizens today.

I ask for an ``aye'' vote on this amendment.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

The rapidity with which this process is moving, we might be dealing with the Transportation rather than the Energy and Water appropriations; therefore, my amendment apparently passed without an opportunity to present it.

We just heard our colleague from Oregon speak to the issue of flooding. I represent 200 miles of the Sacramento River, yet this bill ignores the need for this Congress to protect human life. This bill spends $7.67 billion on nuclear weapons and cuts the money for levee protection.

Human life is at risk in my district, and yet this bill ignores the reality of flooding. When a flood occurs in my district, it's not in the summertime; it is not warm water. It is very, very cold water and thousands of lives are at risk. Yet the majority cannot seem to find the money necessary to protect human life, but plenty of money for nuclear weapons. Is this the priority, $7.6 billion for nuclear weapons and not enough money to protect the lives of the citizens of this Nation from real danger, real floods? It's really going to happen, gentlemen and ladies of the majority.

The Corps of Engineers' budget is decimated, and for the last 3 years we have not been able to get one new project even though human life is at risk. Is that the priority? Apparently, human life is not.

Projects in my district: the Hamilton project for the last 3 years has been in the President's budget, yet no New START prohibitions place us in a dangerous situation in my district. Apparently, we need more nuclear weapons but not more levees. Is that the majority's position? $7.6 billion for nuclear weapons, and not enough for a $15 million project to protect the citizens of Hamilton City. You should be ashamed that that's your priority.

This particular appropriation bill is an abomination. It is a disgrace. It is a representation of the wrong priorities. But yet that's what you want to do. I suppose if this had not been a railroad and you weren't moving things so fast, I would have had an amendment opportunity to simply say that New START vital to the life and well- being of citizens in this Nation should be in this bill, but I didn't have a chance to do that because of the railroad you're operating here.

Run it as you will, but at the end of the day there will be human life at stake, at risk, and, quite likely--quite likely--floods in the 200 miles of the Sacramento River and its tributary that I represent.

This is wrongheaded. This is wrong. Your priorities could not be worse. You should be ashamed that this is the priority you put. Levees will not be built. Human life will be at risk. But, presumably, that's what you want.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.

I would be happy to address my comments through the Chair.

Madam Chair, the priorities that are in this bill are dead wrong. Natomas in Sacramento, 20-foot potential water in the wintertime, with the water temperature somewhere in the 40 to 50 degree range, perhaps human life can last 10 minutes--maybe--but that's the priority.

Hamilton City, the same situation. Yuba City, Marysville, the same situation. A winter storm in California and a levee break is deadly. This is not New Orleans, where you can stay in the water for a few hours. This is cold water temperature. And yet, Madam Chair, the majority's position is to build more nuclear weapons and not to build levees.

When the flood occurs, and it will, what will happen? Could we not take $100 million out of the nuclear weapons account and put it into the levees account in the Army Corps of Engineers? Apparently not.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, a few moments ago, I talked about priorities; $7.6 billion plus for nuclear weapons.

We just heard the gentleman discuss the issue of locks and levees and ports, projects in my district for the ports, for deepening the channels, for rebuilding and expanding. The economic activity in this Nation is not going to be funded.

Do we really need to spend an additional $7.6 billion-plus on nuclear weapons when we have over 8,000 of them--Russia 7,000, China 250--do we really need to spend the money there, or do we need to spend it on our economic activity, as the gentleman just said?

There is not enough money in the Corps of Engineers' budget to provide for all of the ports, all of the improvements that are needed, so that our ports on the west coast, the east coast, gulf coast can be competitive. Apparently, we have enough money.

Why don't we take some money out of this program and put it where it will be immediately beneficial? It's a matter of priorities. Where your money is is where your heart is. Okay. That's not where my heart is.

You talked about all-of-the-above energy. We ought to talk about all- of-the-above energy. Yet, ARPA-E, where we create the new science, the new technology, the new programs that will provide us with new energy sources, improved energy sources, and the improvement of all energy sources--gutted, gutted; an 87 percent reduction. The Office of Science, where we do real research, where we really can do all-of-the- above, whether it is coal or oil or renewables--gutted; a 73 percent reduction.

Where are our priorities? Where are the priorities of the House of Representatives? Is it to build more nuclear weapons that by the grace of God we will never use--8,000 of them? Or is it to build a levee? Or is it to make sure the researchers at our universities and laboratories have the money that they need to really deal with the problem of the future, which is climate change?

It's about priorities.

Madam Chair, it's about priorities, and through you, of course, I ask my colleagues: What are the priorities? They are listed very clearly in your legislation.

Thank you.

I might just point out that, with sequestration this year, we took $250 million out of the Corps of Engineers' budget, so we're building on a lower base. This is going to be tragedy and tragic--but, Madam Chair, these are our priorities. Oh, excuse me. These are not my priorities. These are the majority's priorities.

Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for raising opposition to the amendment. I'm glad he gave me a few moments, Madam Chair, to slow down a bit before I would comment on the amendment.

The author of the amendment would probably want to take a few steps more. To carry out the full intent of what he's proposing would be to eliminate all subsidies for everything. Then where would we be?

I suppose if we're going to be consistent in this, if we were to adopt this amendment, we ought to go to the oil and gas industry and eliminate all of the subsidies that they have, which are tax breaks, direct subsidies, by reducing their taxes to the tune of well over $10 billion a year. Probably not a bad idea. And then to go on, as the chairman of the committee has suggested, to take on all of the other subsidies.

Where would we be?

It's a long history of America, dating back, really, to the Founding Fathers, in which Alexander Hamilton presented to the Congress, at the request of George Washington, a plan on manufacturers in which was stated a policy then and carried forward ever since that time, some 230-plus years, in which the Federal Government has been directly involved in the development of the American industries.

For example, at that time, Alexander Hamilton suggested that the Federal Government ought to support the development of roads, ports, and canals, and, in fact, one not far from here received that assistance, the Potomac Canal. And ports were built, eventually lighthouses were put up, all of them to benefit commerce.

Abraham Lincoln subsidized, with the consent of Congress and the Senate, the Transcontinental Railroad that has helped the gentleman's State of California, and my State of California.

There's a long, long history of America in which the Federal Government has directly, indirectly, subsidized the creation of industry. We went to the Moon, but we created enormous numbers of businesses as a direct result. And in the gentleman's pocket is an iPhone or some other device that was directly subsidized by the Federal Government.

Now, if you want to go back and simply forget about progress, then carry out this amendment to its fullest extent. I don't think any of us want to go there.

I'd ask for a ``no'' vote on the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Nevada is on to a very, very important issue here: What are we going to do with spent nuclear fuel? Our current light water reactors consume maybe 3 percent of the energy in the nuclear fuel. You can reprocess it once and you get another 3 percent, and so now you've got 93, 92 percent, or 94 percent, of the energy that you now consider as waste, in this case to be permanently stored at Yucca Mountain.

We actually have a 20th century solution. We spent some $10- to $12 billion on it in the '60s, '70s, '80s, and in 1993 we put that solution aside. We need to bring that solution back into place, and the gentleman's amendment would further us in dealing with this issue of spent nuclear fuel. It is not a waste; it is an extraordinary asset, and it's one that we should be utilizing. In doing so, we can dispose of it through multiple recyclings, all of which has been proved by the United States, readily available today.

We need to take it out of the closet, put it back on the front burner, and use the accelerator technologies in our reactors to adequately dispose of these very dangerous wastes. In doing so, we can not only dispose of the total longevity, we can take it from a couple of hundred thousand years down to a couple of hundred years of dangerous radioactive emissions.

We need to move on this. The gentleman's amendment allows us to do that.

It solves a major problem that the entire world has. Spent nuclear fuel is an international problem.

The United States Government in the 1960s recognized this as a problem, set out to solve it, did solve it with what is known as the integral fast reactor--integral fast reactor. That is the accelerator reactor integral in that the reprocessing is a metallurgic process, not an aqueous process that can only be used once. This can be used multiple times, and in so doing eliminate much of the problem that we have with spent nuclear fuels.

I urge an ``aye'' vote on this very, very important amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment together with Mr. Polis. We've heard discussion repeatedly about the value of science. But if we back up a few moments, we also need to understand our values as Representatives of this Nation.

There's been an interesting subset of debates here over the last several hours and, on the one hand, it's the issue of, we must maintain our nuclear weapon superiority, and the committee has taken up that value, that goal, and has put a lot of money into that area while moving money out of the science.

Unfortunately, the committee couldn't take a larger view of the overall budget and the appropriations and deal with, perhaps, the fact that we're spending $82 billion in Afghanistan this year and maybe move some of that money over into these accounts. But that wasn't possible.

But if you stand back and take a look at what has happened throughout the course of this day, you'll see that there have been repeated efforts on the part of the Democrats to rebuild the science, the research budget of the United States.

This appropriation bill simply decimates that budget, that critical investment in today and tomorrow, and in the economy of the future. Our ability to deal with climate change, our ability to deal with energy, are just stripped, gutted and actually set aside as a result of this appropriation bill.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, a $2 billion reduction, 73 percent, ARPA-E, the subject of this amendment, a $329 million reduction, an 87 percent reduction. The Office of Science, 25,000 researchers across this Nation are likely to be laid off, thousands of research projects will simply not be funded. They will simply die on the vine.

The Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, an $80 million reduction. It goes on and on.

This is so backward, this is so backward. What this Nation needs to do is to build its research capabilities, build its science. We do not need to build more bombs. But yet, that's what we are doing here.

This amendment replaces the $329 million dollar cut to the ARPA-E program, a program that has actually created many new opportunities, which my colleagues will be discussing here in the next few moments, but a program based upon the Defense Department's DARPA program, that has, through arguments that we've heard over the last several hours, developed extraordinary technology that has now found its way into the world's economy, for example, the Internet.

We really must restore this money, and we must restore the science budget and research budget for the Department of Energy. We can't fail. If it's a choice between building more nuclear weapons and replacing our nuclear weapons or creating tomorrow's economy, it's a simple choice.

But this bill doesn't do that. It deals with yesterday. Yes, we're going to need nuclear weapons, but not 5,500 of them. We don't need to rebuild all of them. We don't need to spend $7.7 billion on that enterprise while gutting the research and the science future of this Nation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, the committee has done a considerable amount of work on one of the very expensive facilities we have in the nuclear arena. This is the MOX facility in South Carolina.

In the current report language, the committee deals with the problem that this facility has. It's over budget, isn't going anywhere, will ultimately produce a product that nobody wants. So what I'm trying to do with this amendment is to take this thing one step further in order to try to find a solution to this very, very expensive problem. If I might just quote the committee's report here:

Despite the influx of additional funding, the NNSA has been

unable to recover its schedule and is now facing another $2.8

billion in additional costs. Instead of its fulfilling its

responsibility to address these rising costs through

reforming its management of the project and conducting an

independent cost estimate to quantify these cost increases,

the NNSA wrote ``TBD''--which I suspect means ``to be

determined''--in its budget justification and removed all

project funding from its 5-year plan while it carries out a

strategic pause.

This program is in deep trouble, and it is a hole into which the U.S. taxpayers continue to pour money. I am pleased that the committee is taking steps, but I'd like the bill to take an additional step, and that's what this amendment does. Let me explain what it is all about.

Technically, the bill takes $1 million from the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation and reinserts the same amount into that account. This is done in order to avoid a point of order. The legislative intent of the amendment is therefore to remove the $1 million from the funding from the MOX facility at the Savannah River site and then direct the NNSA to instead use these funds for:

One, an independent report to analyze the potential cost-effective alternatives for plutonium disposition, including a detailed assessment of technologically feasible costs; and, two, a study examining whether there are other potential uses for the facilities already built and for the Savannah River site more generally.

While not legally binding, the Agency should comply with this legislative intent if this amendment is adopted.

The amendment is consistent with an amendment that I offered earlier with regard to the NDAA, and the language would be similar. I would urge the adoption of this. We really need to try to figure out the very best way to deal with this sinkhole of taxpayer money.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

I appreciate the respect. You and the chairman have made a very good argument for my amendment, and I thank you for that.

My amendment doesn't do anything that you're not already trying to do. It simply gives some more specific direction to the Department, specifically to seek outside analysis of the alternatives that might be available.

Clearly, the Department has not been successful in running this project, and they are not in the process of seeking outside help. They're going to try to do it inside. I think that would be a mistake. There are people out there--there are companies and there are actually researchers outside--who could provide that outside view of what's going on.

Secondly, there are other ways of dealing with this problem. This is an aqueous process that's being used there, and it simply isn't working. There are other ways of disposing of the plutonium and of the highly enriched uranium that are proven to work--I discussed this earlier this day--and we need to study whether that can be used at this facility. We're not talking about jobs. We are actually talking about making this facility work and possibly using a different technology, but we really need to have somebody outside take a look at this whole thing.

Both you and the ranking member and the chair have adequately explained why my language should be adopted. I thank you for the committee's looking at this thing in a very hard, structured way. It has to be dealt with.

Offered By: Mr. Garamendi

Amendment No. 33: Page 30, line 6, after the dollar amount,

insert ``(reduced by $1,000,000) (increased by $1,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Garamendi

Amendment No. 27: Page 30, line 6, after the dollar amount,

insert ``(reduced by $1,000,000) (increased by $1,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Garamendi

Amendment No. 28: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to congratulate ACDI/VOCA on

the occasion of their 50th anniversary. This outstanding organization was founded in 1963 with the mission of empowering people around the world to take advantage of economic opportunities and improve quality of life for their families and communities. To this date, ACDI/VOCA continues to fulfill this mission, as they help millions of individuals and families fight their way out of poverty. Their notable accomplishments include contributing to the launch of the Green Revolution in India, strengthening Ethiopian co-ops to bring their coffee into global prominence, and pioneering grassroots financial services across the former Soviet Union. With a staff comprised of 90 percent locally-hired employees, and working through a network of over 3,000 local partner organizations, ACDI/VOCA combines the best in international development expertise with powerful grassroots capacities to implement effective programming that has a real and sustained impact. Congratulations to ACDI/VOCA President and CEO Carl H. Leonard, as well as to the esteemed members of the Board of Directors: Mortimer Neufville (Chairman), Honorable Timothy J. Penny (Vice Chairman), Deborah Atwood, Dr. G.N. Saxena, Charles F. Conner, Kurt M. Ely, Jerry Fenner, Patricia Wilkinson Garamendi, William Harris, James. K. Hoyt, R. Bruce Johnson, and David Cobb. I commend ACDI/VOCA on their history of outstanding service and am confident that they will continue to make a difference in people's lives around the world long into the future.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity for this hour. Joining me tonight will be Mark Takano from the State of California.

We just heard 4 or 5, maybe 10 minutes of talk about the energy issue. I would like to put a slightly different face on it. It's not the main subject matter of this hour, which is really about jobs and how education fits into that, but this is sort of along the line, and it follows directly on what my Republican colleagues are talking about: denying that there is real climate change going on.

We can no longer deny the fact that we as human beings have, over this last century, been putting into the atmosphere a vast amount of carbon dioxide that is changing our environment. But what I want to spend just a moment on here is to discuss how education fits

into this issue of climate change. It's an area in which the institutions of higher learning and students play an enormously important role combating climate change and developing a clean energy economy.

Today, as we just heard from our Republican colleagues, President Obama outlined a plan to address the threat of climate change. He recognized what the scientists have said, which is during 2013--this year--we'll have another record year for climate problems. Deadly flooding, superstorms, droughts, and impacts on sensitive species are just a sampling of the dire consequences that climate change is already bringing to America and the rest of the world.

In my district, home to the University of California, Davis, vitally important research is already being carried out to rise to the challenge of climate change. This research ranges from how changes in our climate are going to negatively impact agriculture and native California fish, flora, and fauna, and what we can do about it.

Just this month, Dr. Daniel Sperling of the University of California, Davis Institute of Transportation Studies was one of two recipients of the 2013 Blue Planet Prize for his monumental work in clean transportation, hydrogen fuel infrastructure, and research into how we can achieve a 100 percent renewable energy economy for the globe and for America. The expansion of the clean energy section would also play a very, very important role in what we will fundamentally discuss here today, which is creating jobs and spurring economic growth.

Recent research indicates that the revenue generated from clean energy globally within the next 5 years will create $1.9 trillion of revenue. Studies also show that States with larger green energy sectors are much more economically sound postrecession. We're on the right track. Last year, California led the national record for the most jobs created in the green energy sector, with over 26,000 new jobs being created. It's evident that we have the building blocks in place to make the changes that are needed for our future, especially in my home State of California. As Dr. Sperling said, solutions are all around us, and indeed, they are.

Let me just go into how that fits into our common agenda here, an agenda that we speak about nearly every week. We're talking about Make It in America. There are these seven things that are involved in the Make It in America agenda.

Trade policy is critically important. It's not the subject for tonight, but it's the trade policy of the United States as it affects jobs and bringing jobs back to America.

Taxes. Tax policy is exceedingly important. I don't think the American public knew that prior to 2 years ago, American corporations were rewarded for offshoring jobs. When the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, we eliminated some $16 billion annual tax deductions that American corporations had to offshore jobs.

Energy issues. That's not the subject for tonight, but given what our Republican colleagues were talking about and my little 1-minute here, that is a major issue. And we know that the green energy economy creates jobs. The old coal economy doesn't.

Labor issues. The value of labor, rebuilding the middle class. Research is critically important, but not the subject for tonight. And infrastructure, which is often our subject, we'll put off until next week.

What we want to talk about tonight is education. We want to talk about the role of education in rebuilding the American economy. A critical, critical part of the education issue is something that's going to happen in 5 days.

At the end of this month, on July 1, 2013, thousands upon thousands, indeed, millions of students across the United States that have received Stafford loans are going to see a doubling of their interest rate, an interest rate that will go from 3.4 to 6.8. It's an incredible burden on the students across the Nation. Some who have finished school, others who are about to finish school or maybe just finished their graduation ceremonies are going to be greeted with a doubling of their interest rates.

On the Democratic side of the aisle, more than 200 of us have put forth and already signed up for an effort to bring to the floor a solution to this problem. So we want to talk about that tonight. We want to talk about the Democratic solution to avoid this extraordinary problem that will be faced by millions of students who have graduated and have just picked up their degree this month.

Joining me tonight for this discussion is Mark Takano, a newly elected Representative from the State of California, who represents the University of California, Riverside campus.

Mark, please join us. Take up that microphone in front of you and tell us how this affects your district and the students in your district.

We can just take a very quick look at the math. If it's a $100,000 debt and it's 3.4 percent--and you're paying just the interest rate, not the principal of the loan--you're talking about $3,400 a year that you would be paying at the current rate. Double it, you're talking $6,800 a year. So just that alone, without paying down the principal, you're looking at a very significant burden on a person that's leaving school, graduating just this year. We need to deal with that. And the effort that's under way here by the Democrats in Congress--and also by President Obama, who's put forth, I think, a very solid program--gives the students an opportunity.

This is a very interesting chart here, Mark. And I think it's one that you're aware of. I know you've paid off your loan now, but that group hasn't.

Well, then you're one of these students--ex-students. $1 trillion, this number, the total student loan, is well over $1 trillion today. This is greater than the total credit card debt of every American. So we're looking at a situation where student debt is now larger than the credit card debts of all Americans. This is an enormous burden.

But what this also does--and perhaps you have not only personal experience, but other--is that when a student graduates, their first obligation is to pay off this debt. You can't go into bankruptcy. This debt is going to follow you. With or without bankruptcy, you've got to make these payments.

Now, last year we passed a bill that tends to modify how much you can pay. I think it's no more than 10 percent. The President's proposal takes

that further and applies the 10 percent not just to the new loans that are taken out, but to all existing loans. So as your income from a teacher, you would be required to pay no more than 10 percent of your income to pay down this debt. But if this debt has an interest rate of 3.4 percent, well, you can get it paid off more quickly. But if it's 6.8 percent, it's going to take longer and be more difficult.

Well, certainly that. And then a young person graduating from college, sometimes they want to get married. They may have to delay that. They want to form a household, buy a house, rent a house, buy the furniture. They can't because they've got to pay this off first.

I'm going to put up another chart here that speaks to what you just said. This chart talks about our colleagues' proposal. That was one that we passed here. We like to say that this is really about making education more expensive. Here's how it works.

Our proposal is to keep the interest rate--and this is a person that's maxed out. They've borrowed the maximum amount from the Stafford loan; this is the subsidized portion of it. This is the total interest that they pay over 5 years of a subsidized loan. The proposal that we put forward would be $4,174 of interest. What's going to happen, unless we pass a law, is that that number will go to $8,808. That's the doubling of the interest rate from 3.4 to 6.8 percent.

Now, the thing that I'll never understand--and this bill passed the House of Representatives a couple of months ago--was the proposal by our Republican colleagues that would actually force the students to pay more than just the doubling. You go, What's that all about? Why would they do that?

So under the proposal that we say actually makes education more expensive, the Republican proposal would go to $10,109, as opposed to our proposal, which would keep it at $4,174. Or even allowing the rate to double, the Republican proposal is actually more expensive. It doesn't make sense. I would say nonsense is probably a better way of describing it--no sense. But it just creates a serious problem.

Now, the proposal that the President has made is somewhere between these two numbers--actually, just a little over $4,000. That proposal is based on a 10-year note, the 10-year Treasury bond that would then set the floor.

This one is also based on a Treasury bond--that's the GOP proposal-- but it is like an adjustable-rate mortgage on your home. So every year, as the interest changes, you're going to pay more and more. And we know that right now interest rates were, just 3 weeks ago, at an all-time low. But now you're looking at a situation where we're looking at those interest rates going up, and the Republican proposal would automatically adjust upward. It's one of the adjustable-rate mortgages that got this country into such great trouble.

I notice that Rush Holt is here from New Jersey. Rush Holt, please join us. I know that this is an issue that is very important to you.

If I recall correctly, you represent a university. What is that university?

Let me see if I understand what you were saying.

The Republican proposal--which has passed the House of Representatives, is over in the Senate, and hopefully will die there-- by their proposal of allowing an adjustable rate on the student loans, they will actually bring money into the United States Treasury to reduce the deficit, or are they going to use that money for education?

We certainly have seen this many, many times over here on the floor.

Mark, maybe you want to comment on this.

That's very interesting.

Mr. Takano, you're absolutely correct about the role of immigration and the comprehensive reform. There are some pieces that we often talk about: the DREAMers, the young men and women that came here as children, brought here. They don't have their papers, but they also do not have the opportunity to really get the kind of education. So we have the DREAMers.

But here's what I think Mr. Holt was talking about that's really important, and this is part of what you were saying, Mr. Takano, about immigration reform--access to all the benefits of the economy and what it means.

If you happen to be a person that has less than a high school education, which is where you started your discussion on the immigration act, you're taking a look at perhaps as high as 14 percent unemployment and the average median--or excuse me, not average, but the median weekly earnings, less than $500 a week, $451 a week. If you get a high school degree, you may get $638, the median weekly income, but you're still looking at 9.4 percent unemployment.

Here's where the issue of education comes in at the post-high school education and here's where the Stafford loan issue comes in. If you're able to go to college and get that bachelor's degree, your income is going to be more than double if you don't finish high school and nearly double what you would have if you were able to finish high school.

So getting that education--and this is part of the immigration issue, and it's the facts that you were laying out so very well, Mr. Takano. If you're able to get that education with borrowing money, a Stafford loan, subsidized or unsubsidized, with a low interest rate, you're going to be looking at a median weekly earnings of well over $1,000 and your unemployment rate will be less than 5 percent.

If you go on to get that professional degree--and here's where you and your own history have been able to get that professional degree, that master's degree---you're looking at $1,600 median weekly income and the unemployment rate is down.

So here you begin to see not only how immigration fits into education, but how an individual, an immigrant or not, will be able to improve their life. And as they improve their personal life, they are improving the economy; they're bringing greater wealth to the economy, greater productivity, effectiveness, and efficiency to the economy.

All of this is dependent upon immigration reform, as you pointed out so very well, as well as how we finance education.

Now, if we allow this situation that's going to occur in just 5 days--we're coming up against a crisis for the education for those men and women, immigrants or not, for those who want to get an education, who want to move beyond high school--they're looking at a doubling--at least 6.8 percent--of the interest rates on their Stafford loans. So they're going, Well, maybe I can't finish college; maybe I can't even start; and maybe I'm not going to be able to get that master's degree or that doctorate when I know that I will be able to be more productive to the economy and earn a higher living.

So these things fit together, and I thank you so very much for pointing out the way in which the immigration issue fits into this. We really must have comprehensive immigration reform.

This is the Make It in America agenda. As you say, you could easily add to this immigration reform as one of the things we need to do. These men and women--some 12 million who are here without documents--are unable to really rise up into these more highly skilled jobs. In many ways, their educational opportunities and their children's educational opportunities may be limited. This is the fundamental investment in any society; and giving access to people with that education, immigrant or not, allows us to build the American economy.

It's really true. The comprehensive immigration reform bill that's being discussed does bring into our economy those people who have the high skills, many of whom came here and got an education but who under the current law have to leave and go start their businesses in China, India or somewhere else around the world. Part of that comprehensive immigration reform would allow those men and women who have taken their education in the United States--gotten their degrees, their doctorates in engineering or electrical engineering or whatever--to stay in the United States.

It turns out that our State, California, is the great engine of economic growth. Some of it is in southern California with the entertainment industry and the way in which it is now merging into the electronic industry and all of the things that are going on with Google and the use of the smartphones for disseminating content--movies and the like. In the Silicon Valley, many of those start-up companies are immigrants. In fact, the majority of start-ups in the Silicon Valley are immigrants--a very interesting fact that goes back to the issue of immigration reform.

We want to bring to America the talent. We want to bring--we want to be able to use--in America these extraordinary workers and make sure that they have access to the education system that then is the fundamental investment and make sure that they are able to participate and move our economy forward.

All of that is true, and we've got 5 days. The Congress of the United States has 5 days in which to make a fundamental decision about how we treat those who are participating in the most important investment that any society makes, which is the investment in education.

Right now, we are asking most students to pay for their own education through loans and through some grants that are given through Pell Grants, but they've taken on enormous amounts of debt. Students in the United States have taken on $1 trillion of debt. A large portion of that debt is the Stafford loans, subsidized and unsubsidized. The loan rate on those programs is going to double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent in just 5 days, creating an enormous burden on the students on whom we rely to grow our economy.

They've made the investment, and this society has made the investment in them. We need to free them so that they can participate more fully in our society--so that they can participate as consumers and so that they can participate as small businesses men and women, the entrepreneurs. All of this is possible if we take action, and we must. We owe it to those students. We owe it to the economy. We owe it to our ability to make it once again in America. All of these things come together with immigration reform, as you've pointed out, Mr. Takano. I really appreciate you being with us tonight.

I think we've pretty much closed off this subject. We'll be back next week to talk about Making It in America--about jobs. Today, we've talked about how education fits into the jobs agenda. We've got 5 days to solve a very, very serious problem for millions of Americans who have gotten their educations or who have just graduated who are now going to be faced with a doubling of their interest rates. We can do this. We have the power, we have the ability, and we have the proposals--the President's proposal and the proposal here from the Democrats--and we ask that those proposals be acted upon.

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