Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I have been here for about 20 years now and I have been through various crises, in the 1970s with energy and gas prices and, of course, one that we just faced within the last year or so.
The bottom line is that we need energy independence. We can't continue to depend on Middle East oil. At the same time we have a global climate crisis. Anyone who denies it is just kidding themselves.
So basically what we are doing here in the House is coming up with a bill that will probably come to the floor within the next 2 weeks that tries to achieve energy independence and also addresses the problem of global warming, but at the same time creates a lot of jobs. Because as we move towards renewables, whether it be solar or wind or geothermal, there are a lot of jobs in research and development. There are jobs in actually building those facilities. There are jobs in trying to create more energy efficiency.
And these jobs that would be created, these are the kinds of high-technology jobs, if you will, as well as construction jobs, that we really need, because a lot of people are out of work and are not working in similar industries. Their activities can be basically transferred to these new kinds of job opportunities.
So I want to stress that this energy bill is a job creation bill.