30-Something Working Group

Floor Speech

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Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and thank you again to the Speaker of the House, Ms. Pelosi, for giving the opportunity to the 30-Something Working Group to come to the floor once again to talk about some of the great progress that we believe this House is making on behalf of our constituents, the American people.

We are going to have an abbreviated edition of the 30-Somethings today, and I am going to turn this over to Mr. Meek in a moment.

But suffice it to say that once again I think we did some justice when it comes to energy policy on the floor this week. We have passed, once again, a bill that will extend enormous tax benefits to thousands of Americans and, even more, small businessmen and the people who profit from those businesses, who work for those businesses, so that they can invest in the new American economy that is the green economy and do it through no additional cost to the taxpayers by simply repealing billions of dollars that we have given to the oil industry under the Republican Congress and turn those tax subsidies around to average consumers and average small businesses who are now going to do right by this new renewable economy that we are building.

It is a start. It is not everything. We have not done a 180 on energy policy, but we are beginning what will be a long but continuous path to energy independence.

And I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek).

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Thank you very much, Mr. Meek.

I want to quickly let people know what this legislation does that we passed here. We have talked about the amount that it invests in this new economy, but let's talk about how it does that.

There is $8 billion in this new bill in long-term, clean renewable energy tax incentives for energy accrued from sources varying from wind to solar to geothermal, biomass, hydropower, ocean tides, landfill gas. Overnight, this bill is going to invest in these types of renewable energy sources that are going to power the next economy.

We know that energy independence doesn't come easy. We have become addicting over a long period of misguided and shortsighted Federal policy so that we have an unreliable and unsustainable reliance on dirty energy, on energy produced by oil, produced by gas-powered plants, produced by coal-powered plant. You don't change that overnight. It takes time. Now, government can't do it alone. We can't suddenly decide that we are going to take the generosity of the Federal Government and start buying up renewable energy to completely replace those old, dirty sources.

What we can do is use a little bit of Federal incentive to give reason for private individuals and private businesses to make those choices themselves. That is what we have done here. My office went through a long and important process of becoming carbon neutral, becoming energy independent.

How we did that, we brought some energy auditors into our office and we assessed our carbon footprint and then we found a number of ways, a myriad of different efforts that we could undertake to reduce that carbon footprint. It included everything from changing all the light bulbs in our offices to putting on automatic timers where we could, to making sure that we were printing on both sides of the page.

We tried to reduce our individual carbon footprint, as individuals and businesses can do, seeing that they find that not only the right thing to do by our environment, but the right thing to do from a cost standpoint as well.

But even after doing all of those things, Mr. Speaker, we still found we had an amount of pollution from old, dirtier sources that we couldn't completely eliminate.

So what we did, we went out to offset that remaining dirty carbon footprint by purchasing tax credits for renewable energy. Basically going out and purchasing, putting renewable energy out there on the grid to make up for what dirty energy remained in our office.

What we found for us was that it still cost a little bit more to purchase those renewable energy tax credits, those renewable energy credits, than it would have to have bought oil or gas or coal credits. But it was not four times as much. It is not three or twice as much. It is still a little bit more expensive for an individual homeowner or an individual business to purchase renewable energy, but it is getting less expensive every day. Why is that?

It is getting less expensive every day because the economy, those that invest and fuel the economy from an economic standpoint are figuring out that there is money to be made in renewable energy, that there is a demand for it, and that every cent that they can lower the cost of that renewable energy resource, the more profit there will be built in because of the greater utilization.

And so that is what we are attempting to do here. Rather than putting $18 billion into more tax subsidies, more regulatory subsidies for the oil industry, we are saying let's take that $18 billion and let's put it into tax subsidies for homeowners and businesses and local and State governments to make up that little difference between the price of old energy and the price of new energy.

And that small, little incentive not just makes the difference for the bottom line for that particular company or for that particular homeowner, it then starts to increase the volume of renewable energy that we are producing. It starts to create more capital for those companies that are doing the research and development into renewable energy so that they can advance their efforts to create newer, cheaper technologies. That's how we are going to grow this renewable economy.

And for some reason for a very long time, for the 12 years that the Republicans controlled this House, and in particular for the past 7 years, the 6 of it where the President served along with the Republican House, they didn't get it. They didn't get that you can start to incentivize and create this new renewable economy, this green economy, not with the largess of the Federal Government but with targeted, direct incentives to make up that small difference between old and new energy. And this is about building that new economy and this is also about trying to right some wrongs that this Congress has perpetuated on the American people for far too long.

I hope that people will look at the facts that underlie this chart standing beside me right now. The price of gas, and this is looking at increases in commodities and profits from 2001 to 2008, a 113 percent increase in the price of gas. Much of that has come just in the last few years, as more and more motorists, more and more commuters have found it almost impossible to make their budgets meet now that gas prices seems to be staying above that $3 a gallon level.

We all feel this one. There is a 213 percent increase in the price of home heating oil. My wife and I are flabbergasted on a weekly and monthly basis as we look at the amount that we are paying to heat our own very small and modest home. Even with all of the different improvements that we have tried to make regarding oil efficiency and heat efficiency, we, along with millions of other American homeowners, have an old house. We cannot make it completely, totally energy efficient, and so we are paying through the nose, as are millions of other American homeowners, for this 213 percent increase in heating oil profits.

The price of crude oil has gone up 215 percent during that time. And all the while, during that same period of time over the last 7 years, the profits of American oil companies have gone up 310 percent.

There aren't many things in this world in a 7-year span that increase threefold. Wages for the average Americans are lucky to creep up by 1 percent a year. Profits for most American businesses, in particular those small businesses and medium-sized businesses that power our economy, are lucky to grow by 5 or 10 percent every year. Even in robust economic times, 310 percent growth in profits over a 7-year period is unheard of.

And when those profits are derived in large part due to Federal policy through these $18 billion in Federal tax breaks that have gone to the oil companies, it should have a long time ago caused this Congress to step back and ask why.

Well, there are a lot of different reasons, and I am not here to suggest that those $18 billion in oil subsidies are the sole reason why you see a 310 percent spike in oil company profits. We have increased demand around the globe for oil, not just here in the United States but in India and China and in developing nations.

But I would also posit that another reason is not just because of the subsidies we have given these industries, but also because we have done almost nothing here in this Congress, before 2007 when the 110th Congress was sworn in, to really start to work with the competitors of the oil industry, to try to give at least the same benefit that we give to the oil industry to the wind industry, to the solar industry, the geothermal industry, the tidal industry, all of the other energy competitors who ultimately will make sure that we never see another 310 percent, 7-year growth in profits.

And so I think a lot of us are really excited about the direction we're going with energy policy. It's not just the bill that we passed today which shifts that $18 billion in oil company energy profits to incentives and tax subsidies to individuals and small businesses and governments that are prepared to do the right thing and invest in renewable energy sources. This is also about what we've done to increase the fuel efficiency of vehicles, the first time in 30 years this Congress has passed and signed by the President an increase in fuel efficiency standards so that the average fleet sold here in the United States will now have to be up around the 35 mile per gallon standard, still not what it could be, but a lot better than the level that we've been sitting at for the last 30 years.

A new investment in green technology and green jobs, grants now going to businesses and nonprofit organizations that are going to do the training necessary to teach a whole new workforce how to compete and how to win in a renewable energy economy; and legislation that will say no more going to the store and looking at one product that's energy star or energy efficient rated and another product that hasn't had any improvements on it in the last 20 years, now every appliance, every microwave, every toaster that you buy, by virtue of legislation passed in the House and the Senate and signed by the President will make sure that appliances that you buy are going to meet the highest energy efficiency standards.

We still have to go farther. There's still so much more we can do. We can pass a renewable energy portfolio standard to say that 15 to 20 percent of the energy produced in this country comes from renewable energy sources. We should pass a cap and trade system that limits the amount of pollution and carbon that we emit into the air. But these are monumental steps forward that would have never happened if we didn't have a change in control of this Congress, because you've got a whole new group of people here. Mr. Altmire and I are the two members of the 30-Something Group that are part of this new class of freshman Members of Congress. But you have a new group of Members here, in particular this freshman class, that really had a sense, from spending the last 2 years, 2005 and 2006, out campaigning for office but just frankly being on the outside of this institution for all of our lives, that the public got it; that the public understood that it was about time that we started shifting our resources, both privately and publicly, into a renewable economy. They understood that energy independence is the Holy Grail of Federal and State energy, of Federal and State policy, period, because it's not just about energy prices, the fact that by investing in renewable energy, increasing volume, increasing research and development, that you will eventually drive down energy prices.

It's also about the environment. We could talk for another hour about the benefit that investments in renewable energy will do to the air that we breathe around us, what it will do to combat the growing trend towards the warming of this planet.

It's also about our economy, as we've talked about. And we may not make rubber balls in this country like we used to. We may not have the large volume manufacturing base that we did 20 to 30, 50 years ago, but we can be the center of research and development for renewable energy technology. There are great strides still ahead of us on cellulosic ethanol, on photovoltaics, on the hydrogen economy. Our economic future here in the United States can be based in renewable energy.

And lastly, folks out there know that it's about national security as well. They know that by creating a dependence on domestically produced energy, rather than on foreign produced oil, that we will make decisions with regard to international policy, based not on our national energy interests but on our national security interests.

And so on behalf of the 30-Something Working Group, we're pretty excited about the bill that we were able to pass today, as we are about the entire trend that's happening here in Congress with regard to energy policy. We have farther to go, but the reason that we, as the 30-Something Working Group, talk about this is because the investments that we make today will pay off in 10 and 20 and 30 and 40 years, when our future children and grandchildren are living in this world. They might not have to deal with the consequences of a Congress that ignored the energy crisis in this country if we make the right decisions over the next several Congresses.

So I appreciate, as we always do, the opportunity for the 30-Something Working Group to come down here. It's a busy day and evening here, so Mr. Meek was only able to join us for a short period of time. Mr. Altmire had to leave before the hour started. We know when we come back to this floor next week, we'll make sure to have the full contingent of 30-somethings down here on the floor. We miss Ms. Wasserman Schultz as well.

With that, Mr. Speaker, again I thank you for the opportunity to speak before the floor today. I thank the Speaker for her engagement with the 30-Something Working Group.

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