Supporting Intermediate Space Challenge

Floor Speech

SUPPORTING INTERMEDIATE SPACE CHALLENGE

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and I do rise to support the Intermediate Space Challenge.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, many of the young people that are growing up and participating in this are going to find they are going to grow up in a very different America than we have grown up in because of the increase in taxes that are taking place every single day and the way this crowds out opportunity for young people.

Indeed, my colleagues across the aisle have become the party of punishment, and that is what I am hearing from my constituents as I traveled across the Seventh Congressional District this past week, and they are very, very concerned.

What they are telling me is they know that clean air and clean water and clean energy are important, and, Mr. Speaker, I think we as politicians would say we are even for clean mud. We are just not for taxing people out of their house and home to pay for clean energy. And that is exactly what this cap-and-trade bill, or cap-and-tax, as we call it, cap our growth, tax our people, trade our jobs, and that is what it is going to do, as the Democrats put a price on the very air that we breathe.

The cap-and-trade bill that came out of the Energy and Commerce Committee last week, the Federal building standards that are in that bill are of concern to our Realtors, to our commercial property holders, knowing that there will be these standards that are going to be very, very difficult for them to comply with, knowing that there are going to be energy audits put on their houses, knowing that they are going to have to buy carbon credits if they don't have solar panels on their roof or a windmill in the yard, knowing that they literally are going to see the air that they breathe taxed.

As my colleague from Georgia had previously said, you know, groceries don't grow in a grocery store. They don't grow in a grocery store, Mr. Speaker; they grow out in the fields. They require this carbon dioxide in order to grow and be green and be healthy and provide the food and the forestation that we need here in the United States and certainly around the globe.

The cap-and-trade bill is something that is going to limit opportunity. It is something that we are going to see affect jobs and future jobs. We know that it is expected to cost us over 1 million jobs lost and that we are going to see our unemployment numbers rise substantially, and we are going to see our electricity rates go up by 90 percent.

When we were in committee, we offered an amendment that would have ended cap-and-trade if gas went over $5 a gallon. Mr. Speaker, our colleagues across the aisle sought to defeat that.

We said, let's end it if unemployment goes past 15 percent, and our colleagues across the aisle said no, they were not going to end it if employment went past 15 percent.

We said, let's tell everybody what this costs, how much is it increasing the cost of your electric power, how much is it increasing the cost of the gas you buy, how much is it increasing the cost of the food you eat. And our colleagues across the aisle said no, they were not going to disclose that and vote for and support that amendment.

We even offered an amendment that would protect the innovators of tomorrow who are going to solve the energy issues that we have before us, and they sought not to provide that intellectual property protection for all these young boys and girls, many who are going through the Intermediate Space Challenge now, many who will be the innovators of tomorrow, who will solve the energy issues for future decades, who will create the electric cars.

Indeed, when you look at the electric cars and the lithium ion batteries, the three States that hold the most patents for furthering this invention are California, Ohio, and my great State of Tennessee. Intellectual property protection should have been provided for those. Many of those innovators of tomorrow are in this program that we are celebrating. It is very sad that the party of punishment doesn't provide the protection that those young men and women need to be the innovators of tomorrow.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source