Make It in America

Floor Speech

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Mr. TONKO. Thank you Representative Garamendi, and thank you for introducing on this House Floor some of the concepts that have been presented by the President in his budget presentation to Congress.

Certainly, I have been waiting with great anticipation as to what the energy portion of this budget might look like. Why?

Because I think it is a cornerstone. Energy policy, energy resources are those cornerstones of rebuilding our American economy, to grow the economy, and to strengthen the prospects out there for job creation in the private sector by creating that partnership, public-private partnership where the private sector will grow those jobs.

Also, I am curious because of my past roles as energy chair, the energy committee chair in the New York State Assembly, a role that I held for some 15 years, and also my leadership in NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, prior to my coming to Congress.

Now sitting on Energy and Commerce as a committee assignment, I have great, great interest in where the President wants to take us on the energy issues, and I am very favorably impressed by some of the down payments that he wants to make.

Certainly, with the $2.3 billion that he is offering for the Department of Energy in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, that effort, I think, is going to launch us into a new series of innovation that allows for job creation and a reduced cost of electricity and, certainly, a drawing us down on this gluttonous dependency on fossil-based fuels as the cornerstone of our energy economy.

So I think that this effort will, within EERE, the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office, provide for that growing effort to promote efficiency. That ought to be our fuel of choice. This investment allows us to accept that notion and then, also, to work on efforts that will enable us to focus our efforts out there that are required for energy.

Renewable energy, no fuel costs with the sun, the wind, the soil, the water, that is part of our environment. Utilizing that in a way that generates electricity and does it in a benign way is a very strong cornerstone advanced by the President in this effort.

And also, the $4.2 billion that he brings forth in efforts to provide for innovation and to create new outcomes for energy purposes not only with efficiency and generation, but the transmission of that energy supply and looking at efforts to expand and make permanent the production tax credits that are so important for renewable energy in this country, so those are two good, very valuable investments.

Let me then just highlight a few others that I believe will be a progressive outcome, if we are to accept this notion here in Congress. One would be to address a clean energy research program, and the President does that with a major down payment for clean energy research.

He also addresses the Advanced Research Projects Agency in the energy capacity, acronymed out as ARPA-E. It mimics DARPA from the Defense Department, and what it does is commit a very laser-sharp focus on research as it relates to innovation in the energy sector.

Will all those outcomes be successful? Perhaps not. In fact, the character--the quality of research is that failure can be the down payment to success. So where the failure will be realized, we will retest, we will recommit our energies to fine-tune and come forth with the success stories that are required.

ARPA-E, in its short 5 years, has proven to be a very valuable investment in energy innovation. The President makes a major investment in his budget for ARPA-E. I was just with over 2,000 representatives from the ARPA-E network who came to town--came to Washington to discuss the future of the program.

I am impressed with the leadership, coming both in EERE and ARPA-E in the Department of Energy, and the President acknowledges that--recognizes it by making these commitments in his budget.

And finally, if I might, Representative Garamendi, I will talk about the advanced fuels agenda, where $700 million will be invested in the transportation sector, so that we have advanced fuels. We need to be weaned off of this gluttonous dependency on fossil fuels.

So these are very promising investments suggested by the President and the administration, those that will take us into a cutting-edge, new millennium sort of thinking that enables us to continue with that pioneer spirit in this country, which has always guided us and lifted us out of tough economic times.

I am encouraged by these commitments and look forward to the budget work that we need to do here in the House of Representatives and working with our partners in the United States Senate, but I think the President has set a good tone.

He has ushered in some good thinking, and he is looking at a new wave of energy concepts that will guide this Nation in job production, in sound energy policy, and will have benign impacts on our environmental resources. As stewards of the environment, I think that is important for all of us.

So I thank you for leading this discussion this evening, and I am impressed with the energy portion, so I thank you, Representative Garamendi.

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Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, just in closing, I would state that three very important underpinnings to a modern economy--a transitioning economy, one that drives innovation--would be the investments in research, the investments in infrastructure, the investments in education; and we begin to see that in this budget.

I think the efforts here are a good challenge and a charge to this Congress to respond accordingly. That will lift us into a cutting-edge thinking that enables us to compete effectively in what is a worldwide race, as it relates to clean energy innovation and high tech.

We need these investments in order to be strong. We won the global race on space back in the sixties because we committed to winning that race, and that was just against another nation, Russia.

Now, there are dozens of nations competing to be the kingpin of the international economy. The President rightfully sees that as the opportunity for this Nation to invest accordingly, so that we can move forward; and again, with his efforts in advanced manufacturing, with the NNMI, the manufacturing initiative, there is great promise there.

That gives you a very sharp focus on specific needs of manufacturing, developing those sorts of intellects and human infrastructure, workforce development, that will give us that cutting-edge technology.

I strongly support the NNMI initiative in the budget that the President had introduced last year. I think it shows us to be in an advanced sort of thinking and is giving manufacturing a shot in the arm. Our best days in manufacturing lie ahead. We need to invest so as to make that possible, and this budget does that.

So I thank you very much, and I look forward to many more discussions on the budget as we go forward in the ensuing weeks.

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