No More Solyndras Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to H.R. 6213, the ``No More Solyndras Act.'' This hyper-partisan legislation would prevent Department of Energy loan guarantees for the most promising energy technologies and commit our country to the technologies of the past.

American renewable energy is thriving, with many success stories demonstrating the value of continuing the Loan Guarantee Program.

One example is Prologis, a company that received a partial loan guarantee of $1.4 billion through the 1705 program to complete Project Amp, an effort to install solar panels at 750 buildings across the country which will add reliable energy to our electric grid. The project will employ more than 1,000 workers nationwide, including in my home state of Illinois, and have the capacity to power 90,000 homes once completed.

Another promising example is First Solar, an Arizona-based company that has partnered with leading private investors--including Berkshire Hathaway--to finance and build a 290-MW solar power plant. That project is supported by a DOE loan guarantee and will soon be providing clean, renewable electricity for the taxpayers who helped fund it.

All told, the DOE's existing loan guarantees will put 60,000 Americans to work and will prevent millions of tons of CO2 from being emitted into our air. H.R. 6213 could prevent the next Prologis or First Solar from taking off, and it would put our country at an incredible disadvantage compared to China, Germany, and a number of other countries that are making substantial investments in clean energy.

Solyndra has been used as a red herring to attack DOE loan guarantees and thus undermine America's commitment to clean energy. But H.R. 6213 would not end the DOE Loan Guarantee Program. It would restrict DOE loan guarantees to proposals submitted before 2012. That would not save taxpayers a dime, but it would prevent the most promising technological advances from receiving consideration for DOE loan guarantees.

There is of course a trade-off in investing in nascent technologies. Sometimes it won't work out. But as the demand for energy rises, emerging technologies in the United States will need our support to compete with China, whose solar industry received $30 billion in government subsidies in 2010. Because of the Loan Guarantee Programs, U.S. investment in clean energy edged China last year, but if we abandon our commitment to investment in the most promising renewable energy technologies, we will again fall behind. That would be a reckless and irreversible decision.

We owe it to the next generation to foster the investment that will make American energy production the envy of the world over the next century. We will not accomplish that goal by clinging to the technologies of the past. We must dedicate ourselves to the goal of energy independence, which is impossible without our support of emerging energy technologies.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source