Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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I want to begin by thanking Chairman Simpson for his bipartisan approach in preparing this bill. We have a good committee, and we work together.

I want to thank also our entire staff, Donna Shahbaz and Taunja Berquam, the Republican and Democratic Clerks, as well as the rest of the Committee staff: Matt Anderson, Angie Giancarlo, Loraine Heckenberg, and Perry Yates; and in the personal offices, Sarah Cannon and Ryan Steyer. Their countless long hours, late nights, and thoughtful insight are so critical to help us prepare this legislation.

Thirty-seven years ago, President Jimmy Carter, after the first Arab oil embargo, as gasoline prices exploded and the U.S. fell into deep, deep recession, championed the creation of a U.S. Department of Energy. He equated the struggle for America's energy independence as the moral equivalent of war, and he was right. He set a goal to steer the United States toward energy independence by 1985.

Today, America still struggles to meet that challenge set out nearly four decades ago: reducing our imported energy dependence, curbing our voracious appetite for foreign oil, and growing a diverse domestic energy portfolio that invests in a self-reliant America and the job creation here at home that goes with it.

Containing our ballooning consumption topped President Carter's agenda. But while he successfully reduced consumption during his Presidency, his successors lost focus. Demand for gasoline increased by 40 percent in the 25 years after he left office, a troubling reality, as every economic recession since World War II has come on the heels of a sharp spike in gasoline prices. I have a chart here that so dramatically shows every time gasoline went over $4 a gallon, America, in the late seventies, in the early nineties, and then of course in 2008, fell into deep, deep recession.

Our work is important. Under the current administration, partnerships between the Department of Energy labs and automotive companies have finally helped level out demand for gasoline with increasing fuel efficiency.

President Carter also envisioned a new energy horizon for our Nation, including renewable energy and conservation. Solar electric capacity currently operating in our country is enough to power more than 3.5 million homes, on average.

Today, 90 percent of homes in our country are insulated. These are important achievements, milestones for our country, and America must push onward.

On the critical issue of reducing foreign oil dependence, President Carter's initiative strikingly reduced imports below the target of 6 million barrels a day, a cut of nearly a third, but imports, again, after his Presidency, went on the rise in subsequent decades. Vast energy imports continue to represent the single largest component of our overall trade deficit.

I brought a chart down here tonight that shows America has been in the depths of deficit in trade, but the portion of it that deals with petroleum is its most significant percentage, and it has been for a very long time.

That translates into millions and millions of forfeited jobs here at home. Still at $47 billion last year, crude oil imports were roughly equal to the next four largest trade deficit categories.

Around the world, the war over energy rages on. Look only to Europe's compromised position toward Ukraine and, of course, oil-rich but unstable Iraq. We must position our own Nation to a secure energy future.

Our bill's priority is to strengthen our Nation's energy foundation. This bill does responsibly invest in that effort, as well as in our nuclear security as well as our water infrastructure. But I must ask: At what cost does our bill do this? Our bill is among the first two to be considered. There are 10 bills that will follow, and, frankly, they were raided to pay for ours.

This Republican budget will mean that additional funding for this bill--1 of 12 appropriation bills on which Congress must act--comes at the expense of other vital national needs that will be shortchanged as subsequent appropriation bills are brought forward; in total, 12 of them.

For example, our bill funds incredible advanced scientific research. But it does so at the expense of the Health and Human Services bill that shorts support for our students who will be the next generation of scientists.

Our bill provides for the Department of Energy labs, whose new technologies will power our future. But why is the National Institutes of Health shortchanged in the Health and Human Services, Education Appropriations bill? Its discoveries will save and improve millions of lives.

In our bill, nuclear weapons funding will increase by $500 million. Meanwhile, in the Transportation, Housing bill, crumbling cities will lose even more resources, elderly housing will remain unfunded, and our poorest families will continue struggling to put food on the table.

Nuclear nonproliferation and environmental cleanup efforts in our bill will make our world safer. But on America's streets, police and fire departments will remain understaffed, insufficiently trained, and underequipped because the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill is shorted.

In our bill, there are no new starts for the Army Corps of Engineers infrastructure, whose $60 billion backlog of unfinished projects is astounding. But to fund the Corps in our bill, America's roads will be shortchanged and remain pothole-ridden, the rail lines clogged, with more bridges on the brink of collapse because the Transportation, Housing bill has been shortchanged too.

In our bill, the Bureau of Reclamation will continue to help our 17 Western States cope with record drought, yet severe underfunding of the clean water and drinking water funds in the Department of Interior-EPA bill will further threaten the fresh water supply of thousands more communities across our country. No amount of duct tape can fix all the leaking pipes.

This bill sacrifices the long-term strength of our Nation by raiding other bills that are essential appropriation responsibilities, but that is the game plan of the overall Republican budget that has been handed us. It is not a prescription for an American success story.

The Appropriations Committee's discretionary programs, at only 6.8 percent of our Nation's total economy, or GDP, are too thin a reed on which to balance our Nation's accounts.

The Ways and Means Committee must put its cards on the table too and open its vast jurisdiction to scrutiny. Mandatory programs must be put on the table. And then the preparation of America's budget will have an engine in which all pistons are firing and engaged.

We want to produce an appropriation bill here tonight, but I find myself guilty in a way because I know what is being taken from those other subcommittees so vital to our Nation's future.

Though this Energy and Water bill is respectable, it is only one oar in the water pushing our ship of state forward. We can't reach our destination without the other 11 oars in the water too. For that reason, I urge my colleagues, as we move forward, to consider a ``no'' vote on this measure in hopes that a message will be sent strongly. The American people deserve all hands on deck and all oars in the water.

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I, as well as the chairman, appreciate the gentleman coming to the floor and pointing out some of the inadequacies of process here, but I wanted to just state for the record that a couple of the items that the gentleman targets, I think, would do damage to the country.

For example, the accounts that deal with cleaning up the cold war legacy, that means that communities across our country that sacrificed in the name of the country would have to wait even longer for a resolution to the contamination that exists.

It is astounding how much there is from coast-to-coast. When you start looking, you almost want to close the book because there is so much, and I think that the communities that have been dealing with these remediation problems over the years would not appreciate the gentleman's amendment this evening.

In addition to that, I wanted to say something about ARPA-E, where we have our advanced energy research going on. You know, the United States is not energy secure. We are still too vulnerable here at home on many levels, and ARPA-E provides us with a real global advantage.

I don't think we need to shave anything from ARPA-E because if I look at some of the competition that is coming at us from China, for example, it is even coming in very unfair ways, such as hacking into our intellectual property that any of our private companies hold.

We view ARPA-E as essential to our future, really, with what we are doing within the global marketplace. So I think the gentleman is very well-intentioned in trying to have regular order. I wish that it all worked so perfectly, but I don't think that we should hurt communities across this country nor the long-term energy interests of the Nation, because I think that is what would be done if the gentleman's amendment were to pass.

I just wanted to put that on the Record and rise in opposition, but I respect the gentleman for coming down here and for trying to perfect the way that we conduct the affairs of the Nation.

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Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the gentleman from Virginia's amendment. I wanted to point out--perhaps he doesn't have the full numbers--but the figure that we have, we had a request from the administration of $560 million, and we actually increased the administration's request by $45 million to a level of $605 million for fossil energy research, which is more than we spent in this fiscal year of 2015. We are spending $571 million this year, so I would say that the fossil energy accounts have been rather well provided for.

I also want to say to the gentleman that you are taking the funds from the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy account, and that account is not above last year. It is $266 million below last year. What is in the account, what remains there, is focused on American manufacturing--which is important in Virginia--and vehicle technology, which are really not partisan interests.

My own view is that, if you were to take the amount of funds that you are proposing out of the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy account, you would decimate these programs and further erode manufacturing which has taken such big hits.

Let me also mention that since 2003, our country has spent $2.3 trillion importing foreign petroleum. This shifts vast amounts of wealth abroad and squelches thousands upon thousands of jobs in our country in the energy sector.

I agree with the gentleman that a diverse energy portfolio is necessary to eliminate our reliance on imported energy, and we need an ``all of the above'' strategy. Our bill provides that in terms of not just fossil energy, but renewable energies. We should be leading investment in these technologies across the board and expanding jobs in our country.

Though I appreciate the gentleman's interest--and I know Virginia has coal deposits, so does Ohio--but I really feel that the bill that we have worked out on a bipartisan basis provides very, very well for fossil energy, certainly better than the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy accounts fared.

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I first want to invite the gentleman from Alabama to Ohio to see part of the new energy sector in our country. It is absolutely incredible, and it does involve high-level research to produce new energy technologies. I support nuclear, and I support fossil-based research, but I also support coal and tidal energy and wind and biofuels and geothermal--all of them--because we need them.

New investment in clean energy in our country in 2013 totaled $36.7 billion. The leading company in solar in our country and, frankly, globally is a U.S.-born company--born in Ohio--called First Solar. You mentioned nonproductivity. Their stock is sold on Wall Street. They benefited early on in that company's life by photovoltaic research beginning back in the 1970s and 1980s at the U.S. Department of Energy. It is really incredible to see the future being born, and I am hoping Alabama can take advantage of that kind of technology.

What concerns me, and one of the reasons I am on my feet at this point, is that they have competition from China. The first and second companies in the world that are being subsidized by the Chinese Government are in tough competition with the U.S.-born company, and we can't ignore the fact that global venture capital and private equity in new investment in clean energy increased from $1.4 billion in 2004 to $4.4 billion in 2013. The question is: Where is that going to be invested--in our country or someplace else?

So I would just say that we have made tremendous progress in an all-of-the-above strategy. Renewable sources now account for 23 percent of all electricity generation globally. That is amazing progress. We are learning how to work in conjunction with the Earth.

Who would ever have guessed that ethanol would now consume 10 percent of what you put in your tank? People said you can't even get to 1 percent. Now they are looking to 15 percent. It is unbelievable what is happening in these fields.

I appreciate the gentleman wanting to be responsible. I think we are being responsible in providing an all-of-the-above bill, including new energy technologies that will help our country in future generations so we no longer have to be dependent on imported energy, which I view as our chief strategic vulnerability.

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