Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I want to, first of all, thank the gentleman from Texas because he did help make this bill and the Home Star bill a better bill.

There is a question here about why we provide this money in a time of a deficit, and there is an answer to that. America faces, right now, two great challenges. One is high unemployment--we have got to put people back to work--and the other is an energy policy that is not as clean as it needs to be. It is not as sustainable as it must be, and it is not as affordable as it is essential that it be.

This legislation addresses both of those challenges by investing in energy efficiency, and this is with people making their own decisions about how best to do that in their own rural homes. We invest in our economy. Over 90 percent of the materials are manufactured in the United States of America. By slowing our wasteful use of energy, we can save homeowners hundreds of millions of dollars. That is money in their pocket that they can spend on other things good for the economy. And by, of course, reducing the amount of costly oil we import from hostile nations, we can create clean energy jobs here at home.

So this is a practical approach to address persistent high unemployment, tight family budgets, and climate change. This is a win- win-win for families, for our economy, and for our energy future.

I applaud Mr. Clyburn and the other sponsors, Mr. Spratt, and I urge the passage of this legislation.

Madam Speaker, today, 40 of my colleagues are joining me to call on the Wall Street banks that are continuing to totally disrespect the American taxpayer to do the right thing.

In a report issued last week, compensation master Kenneth Feinberg identified 17 banks which paid out questionable bonuses, questionable in the sense that it was multimillion dollar payments for no good valuable work. These are banks that did this after accepting taxpayer assistance. To make matters worse, six of those 17 firms have yet to pay back the taxpayer money that was the lifeline to keep them going.

When the American public threw the lifeline, it was not for those banks and the benefit of the bankers. It was to stabilize the financial system and revive Main Street.

Why is it that when it comes to compensation on Wall Street, too much is never enough? Today, my colleagues are calling on these banks to put paying back the taxpayer ahead of paying off their executives.

I thank the gentleman from Florida.

The question of unemployment benefits being conflated with the debt that was caused by tax cuts that we couldn't afford--$2.3 trillion--by a war that was on the credit card, President Bush's war in Iraq that cost over $1 trillion and rising, a Medicare part D program unfunded, put on the credit card, that drove this economy into a ditch. If there's going to be honest discussion about what caused this debt, then we've got to go back in history--and not distant history--to acknowledge that it was the reckless spending policies of the Republican administration and George Bush that contributed more to this debt than any other administration in the history of this entire country.

George Bush, in 8 years, accumulated more debt by more reckless decisions than all of the Presidents who preceded him. All of those decisions, incidentally, were discretionary decisions: A war of choice--wrong war, wrong time--put on the credit card of the American taxpayers; tax cuts that did not stimulate the economy but burdened us with generations of debt; a Medicare prescription drug program where the choice was not only to put it on the credit card but to make it embedded in law the unwillingness of the Federal Government to negotiate bulk price discounts with the drug companies. It guaranteed high prices at the expense of the taxpayers and our consumers. That is the legacy of debt that brought us to this situation.

Then, there is some joint responsibility. This economic collapse we had as a result of the implosion of Wall Street that happened basically 2 years ago today, there were many reasons for that, but it was excess debt, reckless speculation on the part of the folks on Wall Street, and it led to this economic crisis that we have right now.

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to providing unemployment benefits for people who had no responsibility for getting us here, when it comes to the question of who is going to pay the price, should it be the victims of these reckless decisions, the squandering of choices that we had to make the right decision at the right time to build jobs? Should the people who are the victims of reckless policies in Washington--and in many cases by the Republican administration, in some cases because of joint lax regulation by both administrations, Democratic and Republican--are we going to impose the burden of those bad choices on the people who had no responsibility and are the victims? That would be wrong.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall 433, the McGovern-Obey amendment, I mistakenly recorded my vote as a ``no.'' My intention was to record my vote as a ``yes.''

Madam Speaker, America needs jobs. The unemployment is too high, and there are concrete things that we can do to create jobs. One is to pass the Home Star Energy Retrofit bill into law. The Senate has to act. The House passed it on a bipartisan basis last year.

It's a partnership between homeowners, the private sector, and government. It will create 170,000 jobs where we need them the most: in manufacturing; in retail, by getting customers to the local hardware stores; and in construction, by putting out-of-work home builders to work retrofitting homes.

This is a triple play. It will allow us to save $10 billion in energy bills, it will put 170,000 out of work folks to work, and it will help homeowners save on their energy bills.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of a practical, common sense bill: The Efficiency, Effectiveness and Performance Improvement Act.

This legislation will cut government waste by forcing every Federal agency to create a rigorous performance evaluation plan--and live by it.

Under this legislation agency heads will conduct evaluations of every program within their purview and report on goals to increase performance objectives.

The OMB Director will report to Congress on agency goals and suggested methods to improve program performance.

By forcing our agencies to create and adhere to strategic planning we will increase government efficiency and effectiveness.

As our deficit continues to grow, we must constantly strive to find ways--small and large--to get rid of government waste and inefficiency.

This bill does just that. I thank my colleague from Texas for introducing it, and I encourage my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster) and I are speaking to you today about credit card relief for small businesses and merchants, and as we are, credit card lobbyists are roaming the halls trying to water down a very key provision in the Wall Street reform legislation. They know that if the conferees keep the Durbin swipe fee amendment in the bill, small business and consumers will gain, and the monopoly pricing of the credit card industry will lose.

Just yesterday, several Vermont small business owners told me how much the credit card and debit swipe fees are hurting their business. Katy Lesser, who owns Healthy Living Market in Burlington, told me her business paid $250,000 in fees last year. This year it will be $350,000. And Sheryl Trainor, who runs a Mobil station in Queechee, told me she could plow the money she spends on swipe fees into better wages and more jobs.

I call on my colleagues in the conference committee to put small businesses before the credit card industry and maintain the Durbin amendment in the final package.

Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure listening to you and Mr. Ryan.

We have to acknowledge something, those of us who supported the stimulus as something that was necessary because of the collapse in the economy, those of us who decided to assent to the request by President Bush to stabilize the financial system and to do something we didn't really want to do but felt it was necessary to do. And that is that despite the gross domestic product increasing, despite the positive signs that have been cited by you and Mr. Ryan, this is still a depression for any American who doesn't have his or her job. And when you have 10 percent unemployment, which I think is the real measure of the strength of this economy, you know we have an economy that continues to struggle. And we have to do a number of things. Yes, we did have to have a stimulus, and it was focused where it would do the most good. We did have to stabilize the financial system, but that's going to add a burden until that is repaid.

But one of the things we have to do is understand what is the proper role of the private sector and what's the proper role of government. This has been an ongoing debate. In the United States, people who have been frustrated that the government has gotten it wrong have come to a conclusion that it can never get it right. People who have had faith in the private sector have had a view that they can never get it wrong. And, in fact, some of both is the case. Unless we have a cop on the beat, a government that's willing to make rules that give everybody a shot who play by the rules and work hard, and whose goal in doing it, running a business, is to provide good service, to provide a good product at a fair price, then we won't have the economy that we need.

Now I want to just give a couple of examples. The financial crisis was brought on by the recklessness, largely, of Wall Street banks. Let me give an example. The famous one, of course, is Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs made a lot of money on subprime mortgages, a lot of money on buying and selling commodities. They went from an investment bank that made most of its money by lending money to businesses and to people who had ideas about how to create jobs and create companies and create wealth, they transformed from doing that to buying and selling derivatives, currencies, commodities, and banking money on trading. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not banking. It's not putting money into the financial sector.

When they had a client, a hedge fund billionaire, who called them up and said, Hey, I've got an idea. I think that this explosion in real estate values is going to collapse. I want you to put together a package of subprime mortgages that you believe will fail, that I believe will fail, so that I can then sell those and bet against them, Goldman Sachs said, fine. It's a client. They are paying money. They paid big fees, and they had a request. Nothing illegal about it. Nothing useful about it, but nothing illegal about it. Goldman Sachs helped put that package together, and then they turned around and sold this package that was guaranteed--it was designed to fail, literally designed to fail.

They then went to the rolodex and called up other clients, like pension funds. Those are people like firefighters, like police officers, like teachers, and they said, Hey, we have a deal for you: AAA-rated, high-yielding subprime asset pool--can't go wrong. So Goldman Sachs literally provided a service to one client. That service was developing a product to fail. Then they called up their other clients and sold it to them where it was guaranteed to succeed. Not guaranteed. But obviously Goldman traded on its reputation. And the people they called, these pension funds--if Goldman was for it, it must be vetted, it must be good, it must be secure.

And what happened? Mr. Paulson, the hedge fund billionaire, made $1 billion more. And those pension funds, those municipalities, those other people who relied on the good reputation of Goldman Sachs lost $1 billion. It destroyed wealth. And what does that do to the American people? Legitimately and understandably, it erodes their confidence.

So in my view, we have a lot of reason to be justifiably furious at Wall Street practices where they strayed from what would be done on Main Street. And I ask as I'm speaking, Any one of you, in your State of Ohio, in your State, Mr. Murphy, of Connecticut, or anyone out there from Montana to North Dakota, your local banker, can you imagine your local banker literally having one neighbor say, I want you to design something to fail, and then selling it to another neighbor where they knew they would lose? It wouldn't happen. But that was legal on Wall Street. It's wrong. It never should have happened.

Now there's a governmental role here where the government failed. The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve. This explosion in asset values and real estate values and subprime mortgages, where people were permitted who had no income, who had no job, who had no proof of assets, no proof of ability to pay were given loans for $400,000, $500,000 or $600,000. The regulators had a responsibility to apply the law of financial gravity and not permit that to occur. So this is a situation where people who point the finger of responsibility at government not standing up for right, but those same

people can't say that all we should do is destroy regulation altogether and let the private sector do what it wants, because it has led, in this case, to excess, to explosion, or destruction, of value. And a lot of individual people have suffered as a result of the loss of their hard-earned income. So there's a role. There is a role and has to be a role for government to be the cop on the beat and to help folks who are working hard and playing by the rules and trying to reinvest in their own community to be successful.

I would be glad at this time to yield to my good friend from Ohio (Mr. Boccieri).

Thank you, Mr. Murphy.

You know, when you are talking about the Chinese yuan and currency manipulation, that's far removed from most people on Main Street, but it has a real impact, especially on our manufacturing economy. And I am among many in this Chamber who believe that, for America to have strong long-term economic growth, we have to revive, not abandon, manufacturing. And in the stimulus there were commitments made to do it in the energy sector. And we know, I think if we are a confident Nation, we are not going to pretend that the energy policy that we have now, relying on a 19th century fuel where we have to send almost $900 billion of our money abroad to bring oil in, that if we take on the challenge of the new energy economy, we can create jobs.

And on the stimulus, you know, nothing worked, including the stimulus, for anybody who is still out of work. But there are very solid, very simple, straightforward examples of how it did make a difference for many people, and I want to tell one about Barre, Vermont, a small, hardworking, very proud town with a tradition of work in the granite quarries. And we are losing jobs and have been losing them for years to Chinese imports.

But we have a company called Sprague Electric. It's a small company that's been there for years, and it was really having a hard time staying ahead with the collapse in the economy. Their product was something that was used in Tasers. But the engineers there developed a product called a capacitator that could be used in electric vehicles, and of course that's all part of what we want in our new energy economy.

They had an immense amount of interest in this. They were getting interest from car manufacturers. And they had to decide whether to build a plant or expand their plant in Barre, Vermont, or to do it in China to take advantage of the lower labor rates. And these folks wanted to stay in Barre if they could, but the law of economics means they've got to be able to sustain themselves.

They were within 2 days of going ahead and making a commitment to develop this plant in China when the stimulus bill was passed, and it had in there the opportunity for companies to apply to get energy grants. They applied, and they put their decision to move to China on hold. They got the grant, several million dollars. And only a few months ago, the Republican Governor of Vermont and the Democratic Congressman from Vermont joined the people of Sprague Electric at a groundbreaking, where they were opening up the construction of a brand new factory with great jobs for the people in Barre, Vermont. That's real, and it took some governmental involvement.

And that's an investment of taxpayer money that's going to come back with taxpayer revenues, but real strength in that community where they're going to have a great new factory with great new jobs developing a product that's going to have ripple effects across Vermont.

I yield to my good friend, Mr. Boccieri.

Mr. Speaker, 2 weeks ago, small businesses and consumers scored a major victory, finally, against abusive credit card practices by big banks and Visa MasterCard. By a strong bipartisan vote of 64-33, the Senate passed an amendment to the Wall Street reform legislation, cracking down on those out-of-control credit and debit card swipe fees.

Known as the Durbin amendment, this practical, commonsense language prevents card issuers from endlessly increasing costs borne by small businesses, costs that for many stores add up to more than the cost of health care. It also restricts some of the industry's most anticompetitive practices, finally allowing stores to give you a cash discount.

I urge my colleagues in the House to stand up for small businesses, provide them the protection they deserve, and support inclusion of the Durbin amendment in the final package of Wall Street reform.

I thank the gentlelady from California. I appreciate her leadership in the committee and also in the Rules Committee. I want to thank Chairman Markey and Chairman Waxman for their leadership.

Let me talk a little bit about why Home Star makes sense. This is a partnership. Government is putting up some money but homeowners are going to make decisions about refitting their homes and insulating them. Businesses are going to make decisions about taking on those jobs. Our local retail outlets are going to sell the product. Ninety percent of the product they sell is manufactured in America. So it's creating jobs here.

It does the three things that need to be done. It helps us with economic recovery, putting 170,000 folks to work; helps homeowners save money; and it helps us move towards energy independence. A confident nation doesn't shrink from the challenges it faces; it attacks them directly. Energy independence, job creation, cleaning our air, those are all very important.

This is bipartisan, too. I want to acknowledge the extraordinary work that was done by Vern Ehlers in cosponsoring this legislation. I want to thank former Governor of Michigan John Engler, who was an outstanding advocate for this program. I also want to thank Mr. Barton and the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who made a good bill better by their contributions. Mr. Barton insisted that we engage in this bill. He made positive suggestions that we included. Mr. Shadegg suggested we add electric tankless hot water heaters. A good suggestion. We included it. Mr. Shimkus suggested geothermal heat pumps. We included it. Mr. Buyer included an important study to verify that this works. We did it. Mr. Whitfield and Mr. Murphy both supported this in committee. And I want to say that I appreciate the constructive engagement by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

There's been a concern expressed--and a valid concern--about spending. There's wise spending and there's wasteful spending. If we have a family that's on a tight budget and they blow what money they have to go on a vacation they can't afford, that's wasteful. But if that family foregoes the vacation and puts that money into renovating and insulating their home so that they can save some cash, not just this year but next year and the year after, that's wise spending.

This bill will be paid for. This is authorization only. The next step will require that we have a pay-for. The pledge is and the requirement on us will be to make certain that happens. So this will be paid for, but this is in the category, very much, of wise investment and solid investment.

I urge support for Home Star because it is a concrete step that's simple partnership between the government, with a light hand providing an incentive, a point-of-sale rebate that is going to give the upfront money to our homeowners that aren't buying new homes but want to save money by refitting and insulating the homes they have. It puts the local contractors to work. It's our local hardware stores that will make the sales.

Thank you, Chairman Markey, and thank you, Mr. Ehlers.

Madam Chair, a great nation does not shrink from its challenges. It faces them directly. We face serious challenges to create jobs in a tough economy, to move away from the dirty fuels of the 19th century into the cleaner fuels of the 21st, and using less fuel rather than more is a solid step that's going to help us accomplish that. We need to create manufacturing jobs in this country, where we're losing them by the day. Home Star does all three.

It's going to put our contractors back to work. There's a 25 percent unemployment rate. It's going to allow us to use less fuel rather than more. Vermonters are cheap. They like that. I think that's something that homeowners around the country will like. And it's going to be 90 percent produced--all the things used in Home Star, 90 percent are produced and manufactured in the United States of America.

So this is a partnership between the government, that will help a homeowner with the upfront cost with a point-of-sale rebate, and our retailers, our homebuilders, and our manufacturers. So we're going to be putting America back to work and addressing these challenges of creating jobs and clean energy.

If we're going to be successful in this challenge and others, we really should be doing them on a bipartisan basis. And this is a way of showing how it can be done. With the leadership of Mr. Ehlers, we have bipartisan support. But we have others.

Mr. Barton, in the committee, made very constructive suggestions on how we can improve this bill, and they were incorporated in it: A specific number about how much we're going to spend, not open-ended. A sunset, so we can kick the tires after a few years and see how the program is working. Former Michigan Governor, a Republican, John Engler, a strong endorser. Former Secretary of Energy in the Bush administration, Spencer Abraham, fully endorsing this. Why? Because it's practical. It's common sense. It's a partnership between the public and the private sector.

There's been a concern raised about spending, and rightly so. This bill must be paid for. All of us who support this legislation acknowledge that. And we will have to vote on how exactly we're going to have this paid for. And we will. But let's keep in mind that there is a difference between a wise investment and wasteful spending.

When you have a bill that's going to put our 25 percent unemployment rate folks back to work and it's going to allow homeowners to save money, not just this year but next year and the year after and the year after that, that's a wise expenditure of money, where we have our homeowners putting some of their money down and getting some taxpayer help to get the job done. Home Star is that solid investment that is going to achieve that hat trick of energy savings for the homeowner, of moving towards a cleaner environment, and of creating jobs here at home.

I thank the gentleman.

Two things: one, the concern about weatherization versus this program. This is different. It is a direct engagement by the homeowner. They make the decision, and then they go to the existing infrastructure of retailers and contractors. So there is not layers of government. This is something that Governor Engler of Michigan said made this program very practical and user friendly.

Second, I want to remind folks of the broad basis of support from unusual allies--the National Association of Manufacturers, a key vote; U.S. Chamber of Commerce, key vote; National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association--that's 6,000 retail businesses; National Association of Home Builders, 175,000 members; the Alliance to Save Energy; the Home Star Coalition; Efficiency First; and the Retail Industry Leaders Association. This has broad support because it's practical and addresses a real-world problem by creating jobs and letting folks save money on their energy bills.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time we have remaining.

Mr. Speaker, we have a common goal here, and that is to put the 25 percent of construction workers who are out of work back to work. Home Start helps them do that. It will help homeowners who want to save energy and save on their fuel bills to do that. This bill accomplishes that. And we want jobs in America. Mr. Speaker, 90 percent of all the materials that go into refitting and insulating homes are manufactured in the United States of America, a common goal. This is a good bill.

Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge that it is a better bill because of the active contributions and participation of our colleagues on the other side. I can name numerous additions. Mr. Barton, thank you for the specific sunsets so that we can kick the tires after 2 years. Mr. Shadegg, electric tankless hot water heaters are in this bill because of you. Mr. Shimkus, geothermal heat pumps are a good idea that we incorporated into this bill. Mr. Buyer, you included a study so we can learn from the success of this program. And I want to thank, of course, Mr. Ehlers, who understands that less is more. The less energy we use, the better.

The difficulty with this motion to recommit is all that good work that was done on your side to make this a better bill will kill the bill. It will impose enormous burdens on the homeowner. What makes sense here and why the former Governor of Michigan likes this so much is that it is simple. A homeowner who wants to retrofit, insulate his or her home, all they will have to do is go down to the contractor. They don't have to hassle with paperwork and with government. That's the reason why we designed it this way, to make it easy for people to use and contractors to use.

We have a chance in this legislation to take a practical step to move to use less energy rather than more; and whether you're from a coal State, a nuclear State, a hydro State, that's a good thing. We have a chance to put folks who are out of work back to work. We have red districts and blue districts, but we've got carpenters and plumbers and heaters who are out of work in both districts. We share the goal of those folks going back to work. We've got manufacturers in this country that have capacity and that want to put people back to work in their communities. We can do it with this legislation.

I urge a ``no'' vote on this motion to recommit and to take that step together in building this country and this economy.

We have a debate on health care, but the fundamental question that we face is whether we were going to stick with the status quo or we were going to put a stake in the ground to have a health care system where all are covered and all help pay. We did this, unfortunately, without bipartisan support. The question we now have is making this work. The status quo was broken. We're spending two, three times the rate of inflation, the rate of wage growth. Our businesses can't afford it. We spend more and get less, with 45 million Americans uninsured. Now, folks want to repeal it. That includes provisions where your child can be on your health care policy until age 26; where the doughnut hole is going to finally be closed so seniors can get the prescription drugs they need; where folks who need preventive care and long-term care are going to have access to the care that they need; where there won't be a lifetime cap on coverage, so that if you get really sick and need that, you're going to be able to get access to it.

So now the debate is: Are we going to improve this health care system and this health care bill, and do it together, or are we going to repeal it? I say: move ahead.

Mr. President, last week we saw two stories about Goldman Sachs. It made record profits of $1 billion a month for the past 3 months and it was sued for civil fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission for the manner in which it made that money misleading its own clients.

Goldman has transformed itself from one of the most respected institutions on Wall Street to one of the most reviled for putting itself ahead of its clients and the American people. The $1 billion designed-to-fail Abacus deal for the benefit of a hedge fund billionaire who needed to get richer did not create a single new job in America. It did not provide a single American family with a new mortgage. It didn't help a single new business get started. It did more to damage the economy than it could possibly have done to have helped it.

But the only difference with this Texas Hold'em new poker game that Goldman fuels is that when Goldman makes a bad bet the American taxpayer is the loser.

Thank you, I appreciate very much, and I think all of us do, you having this hour to talk about Wall Street. You know, there are a couple of things about it that are obvious to everybody on both sides of the aisle.

The salaries are totally out of control; $145 billion in bonus pool to the banks after they have been bailed out by the taxpayer is not acceptable. Everybody, I think on both sides of the aisle, is concerned about greed being too much a part of the culture on Wall Street. On that we agree. But the threat in the long term, as lamentable as the greed is, as not acceptable as $145 million in bonus money is, what Goldman Sachs and others are doing is destroying what banks are about.

Our American economy needs a financial sector that's strong and vibrant but that lends money to entrepreneurs, to businesses that are going to create new products, that are going to allow for manufacturing to occur in this country, to families that are trying to buy homes. This recent case about the filing of an SEC lawsuit of civil fraud against Goldman Sachs highlights that they have gone from being an agency, an entity that lends money to a gambling casino.

And let's just talk about the structure of this abacus deal that is the subject of the SEC litigation for civil fraud charges against Goldman Sachs. This is a situation where a hedge fund investor figured that the housing market was going to go south and not only put his own bets against the housing market but he asked Goldman Sachs to create an investment vehicle that was not distributing mortgages, it was not originating mortgages, it was just creating a pool where one side of the transaction bet that the underlying securities would go down in value and then other parties bet that they would go up in value.

You know, you might say, well, they are just betting. And you know what? That's true, but what they are not doing is investing. What they are not doing is lending.

And then as these collateralized debt obligations accelerate out from one buyer, one seller, one buyer, one seller, at the end of the day, or the end of the month or at the end of the year, when the music stops and somebody doesn't have a chair to sit in, it's the taxpayer that's left holding the bag. There is a vast acceleration of risk with no investment in any productive activity. Not a single mortgage was created by the abacus deal.

Not a single new business deal was financed by the abacus deal. Not a single new company got seed capital or venture capital. There was no banking done. Why is it--what is the social purpose that is achieved by allowing this type of casino gambling to occur with the sanction of law and ultimately with the backstop of the taxpayer?

So what this whole challenge to us is is not just about the personal habits in overreaching on greedy salaries that many of those folks have on Wall Street, and it is even more than about getting our taxpayer money back, which we want to. It's about are we going to have a banking system that's going to be there to lend money to folks and to businesses and to entrepreneurs that need it, and are about creating jobs.

I want to contrast the Goldman approach with the banks in Vermont. We have got community banks, and I know you do in California as well, I know Mrs. Dahlkemper does in Pennsylvania, Ms. Speier in California as well.

There is one in St. Albans, Vermont, where when you go into that big lobby of the old-style banks, and there are the teller windows and there are some desks for loan officers, there is a desk that's slightly bigger than the others. It's the president of the bank. He is sitting right in the front hall.

And anybody at St. Albans who wants to talk to him about a car loan, about service, about their checking account, they can go talk to him right away. At the end of the day he feels good if his bank has made a loan to a farmer, to a family, to a small business.

And you know what? That's the culture that I value that I think Americans value. The Goldman culture is whatever it takes, as much as they can get.

Mr. Speaker, many communities in Vermont remain on the wrong side of the digital divide--sidelined in a nation that increasingly demands high-speed Internet access to engage socially, politically and economically. I believe that unused spectrum will be part of that solution, and accounting for that spectrum is the first step. We can't afford to ignore this opportunity to connect millions of people--especially in rural and low-income communities.

In addition to connecting our most rural and disadvantaged communities, wireless spectrum has the potential to greatly impact our nation's competitiveness. As access to wireless technologies becomes more widespread, we are already seeing 3G transmission speeds being surpassed by newer fourth generation (4G) offerings. 4G wireless services offer increased speed but also require considerably more spectrum than their predecessors.

To quickly and efficiently address these concerns, a bipartisan effort has been launched in Congress. H.R. 3125, the Radio Spectrum Inventory Act, would direct the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the FCC to create and maintain an inventory of each radio spectrum band of frequencies used in the United States to better assess the underutilized bands. H.R. 3125 sets a deadline of two years after enactment for the first inventory and four years for the first report recommending which spectrum should be reallocated for wireless broadband.

Passage of this bill will ensure that the U.S. wireless industry will be in an excellent position to meet the ever growing and evolving needs of individuals and business users, while fostering further economic growth and American competitiveness. This is an issue of national importance and one that must be addressed now. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this bipartisan effort by voting in support of H.R. 3125.