OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Important Issues That Affect America

Floor Speech

Date: Oct. 6, 2015
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Transportation Business and Consumers Oil and Gas Trade Economy and Fiscal Government Budget and Spending Energy

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Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman from California for being an extraordinary leader on Make It In America and restoring prosperity to all corners of this country. The citizens of California really have sent an amazing Congressman to speak on behalf of the Nation and the importance of making items in America.

It is probably a tragedy, over the last three decades, that we have accumulated over $9 trillion in trade deficit, which translates into lost wealth, lost income for America's families, and, ultimately, a budget deficit that we just can't get under control because people aren't earning enough. So much economic activity has been outsourced that there are many who have forgotten how much manufacturing actually matters.

So I agree with the gentleman. Make it in America, grow it in America, use the technology of America to transform farm field products into ethanol and biodiesel.

Let us use the sun. Let us invent our way forward to become energy independent because, at some point, not in our lifetime, but at some point over the next 100 years, the oil wells will run dry, and even the natural gas fields currently being discovered in Ohio and Pennsylvania, which are mother lode supplies with horizontal drilling, those are finite and they will be gone. So the world with many more people is going to have to figure out how to sustain life.

The gentleman has addressed many of these issues in terms of energy production, America's need to become energy secure, which would create prosperity here at home, and also all the investments of hard infrastructure on rail, on over-the-road, air transportation.

I have to add, obviously, our ports and, in my part of the country, the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway so in need of infrastructure improvement, several billion dollars actually.

We are having a Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway meeting tomorrow morning, inviting in many of the business interests along the seaway and looking for ways in our transportation bill where we can make more investment in that region so it can sing fully economically again.

So I thank the gentleman for a moment here. And believe me, I unite with you in your efforts to make America fully strong again, and Make It In America can lead us down that path.

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