American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

Floor Speech

AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT OF 2009 -- (Senate - February 07, 2009)

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am honored to be here to speak out in favor of the economic recovery plan. Anyone in Minnesota can tell you that when it is 20 below, as it has been the last month, and your battery is dead and you need to get to work, your No. 1 priority is to get a jump-start right away, not stand around talking about it and debating and using the old ideas from the past.

That is what this economic recovery plan is about, a jump-start. Yesterday, we learned that the U.S. economy lost another 598,000 jobs and the unemployment rate jumped to 7.6 percent. We lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs last month--the largest 1-month decline in 26 years. Since January of 2007, we have lost a staggering 1 million jobs in the construction industry. Industries across the board, from retail, to transportation, to financial services are shedding jobs.

In my home State of Minnesota, the unemployment rate rose to 6.9 percent last month--the highest it has been in over 20 years. With each passing day we get more bad news: rounds of layoffs, dropping consumer confidence, and increasing debt.

Behind all the statistics and numbers are real families in Minnesota. They are families I have met across our State--families like the woman who wrote to us, saying she had inherited a little bit of money and she was going
to use it for her daughter's wedding, but it was all lost in the stock market; families like the one I met in Litchfield, MN, in a cafe, who said she was now working three jobs to be able to get her kids Christmas presents; families like the man's who wrote and said that when they put their daughters to bed, he and his wife sit at the kitchen table and put their heads in their hands because they don't know how they are going to make ends meet.

On Thursday, the President told us:

The time for talk is over. The time for action is now, because we know that if we don't act, a bad situation will become dramatically worse.

The President called on us to take immediate action. That is what this economic recovery plan is about--a bipartisan group of Senators--and, Mr. President, you and I were involved--who got together and said we need to get this done. I thank Senators Nelson and Collins for their hard work. It is not a perfect bill, and I don't agree with everything in it and with everything that came out, but literally we cannot afford to wait any longer to get something passed.

At the core of this bill is jobs. This bill is about jobs, jobs, jobs. It will put Americans to work by rebuilding our roads, highways, and bridges, which have been neglected far too long. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that for every $1 billion of highway spending, it creates nearly 48,000 new jobs and generates more than $2 billion in economic activity.

In Minnesota, we know a little bit about the need for spending on infrastructure. I live six blocks from that big bridge that fell that day in the middle of the Mississippi River. My 13-year-old daughter--who is up in the gallery today--and I would drive over that bridge every day when she would go to visit friends. One day, that bridge fell down and 13 people were killed. Many more were injured, and cars were in the middle of the river. It shocked America into realizing the situation with our declining infrastructure.

According to the Federal Highway Administration, more than 25 percent of the Nation's 600,000 bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. In his 1963 memoir, ``Mandate for Change,'' President Eisenhower famously said that more than any single action by the Government since the end of the war, the one that would change the face of America is this: transportation--its impact on the American economy, the jobs it would produce in manufacturing, construction, and the rural areas it would open up is beyond calculation.

He was right. That is why this economic recovery plan contains significant investment in infrastructure and science--in fact, $114 billion in infrastructure and science.

Another piece of the plan I want to highlight is the emphasis on energy jobs. I spent the last few months traveling around my State. I can tell you what I have seen. I have seen the little telephone company in Sebeca, MN, that needed a backup power structure because power was going out for their customers. They put together a packet with small wind and solar, and they sold it to the people in their area. They have been selling like hotcakes. The windmills in Pipestone, MN, became so popular that they opened up a bed and breakfast. You can go and stay overnight with your wife and wake up in the morning and look at the wind turbine. That is the package.

The point of this is that the people in our State see the value of these new energy jobs, whether it is a little solar panel factory in Starbuck, MN, or a big wind turbine manufacturing factory up in the Moorhead area. They see the value of new energy jobs. This energy technology revolution--or ET--is different than the information technology resolution--IT. When I saw the IT revolution, as big as it was, jobs tended to be segmented in certain areas such as the Silicon Valley, and they tended to be for people with graduate degrees and PhDs. This energy technology revolution will spread jobs across the country, in manufacturing jobs, green helmet jobs, and many other jobs for the people of this country.

As Van Jones said, a guy who has written a book called ``The Green-Collar Economy,'' when you think about the green economy, you don't think about Buck Rogers; you think about ``Joe Sixpack'' putting on a green hardhat; you think about ``Rosie the Riveter.'' Just think about Rosie the Riveter manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines. This is President Obama's plan: jobs, jobs, jobs.

Finally, this plan contains money, significant money for broadband and telecommunications infrastructure--$7 billion. When President Roosevelt said he was going to put rural electrification in place in 1935, we only had 12 percent of American farms with electricity. About 15 years later, 75 percent of the farms had electricity. That is what Government action can do.

Look at broadband. We have gone from fourth in the world to 15th. This is not the kind of progress that will keep our country moving and get us back on track. For broadband, there is $7 billion in this bill.

I ask my colleagues to support this important legislation. It is about jobs, jobs, jobs. It is time to get America moving again.

I yield the floor.

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