John Garamendi

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. I do, Madam Chair.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Chair, I want to thank my colleagues on both sides of this question. I think it would be wise to really take a look at the language of the amendment. It basically says that none of the funds made available by this act may be used by the Bureau to terminate, to implement, administer, or enforce the termination. This is about the Bureau terminating. It simply says the Bureau cannot terminate the contract until this court case is settled. Is it necessary? It really depends what the Bureau intends to do. I would suspect that the Bureau probably would not move to terminate, but they could, in which case chaos ensues. There will be a settlement in this court case at some time in the future. We don't know when. It is a very complex case. It deals with biological opinions. It deals with the ESA. It deals with very complex biological circumstances of the fish in the delta. This amendment simply says the Bureau cannot terminate until the court case has been settled. That is it. Is it necessary? Well, it could be necessary. Therefore, this simply puts in place a requirement that would avoid chaos in the Central Valley Project. That is it. My colleagues with whom I normally stand side by side in protecting the rivers, I find myself on the opposite side because this amendment needs to be understood in its simplicity and in its potential importance. Therefore, I support the amendment.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Chair, during the fifties and sixties, we were engaged in what was known as the cold war. We could not build nuclear weapons fast enough, and we surely built a lot of them. Beginning in the eighties and on into the nineties, we got a little more sane. We and Russia and others became somewhat more sane about what to do with our nuclear weapons, and we began to dismantle many of the nuclear weapons we had, as did Russia. In the nineties, an agreement was reached between the United States and Russia on the disposition--that is, the ultimate disposition and disposal--of the unused, unnecessary plutonium that both the United States and Russia held in their various stockpiles. That was a good thing. You don't want this stuff lying around. You don't want people to get their hands on it, particularly terrorist organizations. So there was a common understanding between Russia and the United States on the disposal of this unused, unnecessary, and extraordinarily dangerous material. The United States undertook to do this in a facility in South Carolina known as the MOX facility, and we have been at it since the late nineties, putting together a facility. It hasn't gone well. In fact, it has gone very, very badly; and in the recent last 2 or 3 years, the administration has decided that this is not going to work and that the facility as designed should be put in cold storage and there should be a new way of dealing with this issue. This amendment would instruct the Department of Energy to undertake a very quick and, in my view, a very appropriate process of going out to those entities and businesses and others around this Nation that can find a way of disposing of this very dangerous plutonium, and do it quickly. It calls for a 6-month process in which the Department of Energy would ask for requests for proposals from qualified companies to dispose of this, including the company that presently does it, AREVA, a French company that is currently operating the facility, have them come forward with a redo of their proposal, can they do it, and other companies. I know of perhaps two that can come forward. Get this thing underway so we can once again carry out our commitment in a treaty with Russia to dispose of our plutonium material. This does not negate the South Carolina facility. In fact, it would hold the South Carolina facility in place and probably lead to the continuation of that facility, perhaps in a new modality, to dispose of the plutonium. That is what it does. It short-circuits--that is, shortens--the time in which the Department of Energy is already moving to do this. Under their present proposal, I would suggest it would probably be a decade before they decide what to do. But they need a kick in the pants, which this amendment does; get out there, go to the companies that know how to do this, and get it done. It is in the interest of the United States and in the interest of Russia to dispose of this unnecessary, unused plutonium. If we don't move forward this way, we are looking at a decade, in my estimation, a decade before the Department of Energy is willing to make a decision. So that is what the amendment does. I suspect I am going to get a point of order here, but I would like all of us to consider the alternative of not doing this. If we don't take a program such as I am proposing here, we are going to wind up with this thing just lingering out there, a huge fight with South Carolina saying we want to go forward with AREVA; AREVA is not working; on and on and on. So I ask for an ``aye'' vote on the amendment and a foregoing of this point of order so we might, as the House of Representatives, take up this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time. Point of Order

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Chair, I guess I don't understand the suggested ruling. We are spending a pile of money here. We are going to spend, I don't know, some $12 billion on the path we are on. The bill itself proposes to spend money to keep this project going. The administration says we can't go, it is not working, don't do it. All my amendment does is to tell the Department of Energy, get on with what you need to do anyway; that is, figure out how to do this. It doesn't spend any more money. In fact, it would spend a whole lot less money than in the present drafting of this legislation, and it doesn't change law at all. All it does is it directs the Department of Energy to do something, and it specifies how it should be done. That doesn't change law. Well, this whole thing is a law, so the bill itself changes law. So this simply directs how they should carry out their action for which they already have money. Fine, avoid the issue. Let this thing linger, let it fester and rot, and do nothing. And wait 10 years with this plutonium there while the Department of Energy does what it does best which is to contemplate the future rather than getting things done. Now we will take up the point of order, and this amendment would fail on a point of order. I would suggest to anybody who cares to listen, this issue has to be dealt with. This amendment does not select a winner or loser and it doesn't change the fundamental underlying law that we have put in place.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Yes, I do.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Chair, I would hope my colleague from Idaho, after finishing the excellent explanation I have of this, would withdraw his point of order. This is about an extraordinary opportunity that the United States has. We have been blessed with a very significant supply of natural gas. We have the technology to obtain that gas, and we also are now looking at the possibility or the reality of exporting that natural gas in the liquefied natural gas form. A facility is already licensed and is in the process of nearing construction on the Texas coast. This amendment would actually replicate what was passed by the House of Representatives in 2006 and became law with President George W. Bush's signature, which basically said that if we are going to import natural gas, it must be imported on an American-flagged ship. We will soon be exporting liquefied natural gas, and this is the only step available to me in this forum to replicate what we did in 2006. Now we would at least take a step towards making sure that natural gas is exported on American-flagged ships. This is a big deal for the maritime industry of America. This is a big, big deal. Because if we fail to take steps along the way to secure the maritime industry, we will see it disappear. We have the Jones Act, and that is good, but the Jones Act has only held the very minimum. It is 82 ships now. Forty years ago, we had 1,000 ships operating under the American flag, with American sailors and mariners. If we allow this amendment to go into place, it would simply require that the Department of Energy put in front of other applications those applications that have utilized American-flagged ships in the export of their liquefied natural gas. It sounds to me to be the right thing to do if you care about America. If you don't give a hoot about American sailors and American ships and the American maritime industry, then brush this aside with the point of order. Idaho isn't on the coast, but Idaho cares deeply, deeply about the export of American grain on American ships for programs such as Food for Peace and the Jones Act. This amendment would begin to secure the American maritime industry by simply saying to the Department of Energy: If you are going to approve an LNG export facility, then put first in line that export facility that is going to utilize American sailors, American crews, and American ships. If you care about this Nation's maritime industry, then you ought to be supporting this amendment and my next one, which goes in the same direction. So I would ask my colleague from Idaho, who controls this debate at this moment, to put aside his point of order and allow the House of Representatives to have a vote on whether they care--all 435 of us-- about the American maritime industry and this one little step in providing an opportunity for American-made ships, American sailors, American crews, and the American maritime industry to survive in a very hostile environment, where other countries, like China, and others, subsidize their maritime industry and have literally decimated the American maritime industry. Let's support Americans. Let's support our industry. Let's have this amendment come to a vote on the floor and let us all see whether we stand with the American Shipbuilding Council and the Navy League and others who do support this. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GARAMENDI. My colleague from Idaho correctly asked me a question: How does this work? Would this in fact stop the export of LNG? No, it absolutely would not. Other countries who want the LNG may or may not operate ships. The fact of the matter is it is going to take hundreds of ships to export this natural gas. The reality is that this amendment----

Mr. GARAMENDI. We will come back at this in the proper way.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Chair, I have amendment No. 102 at the desk.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Representative Roskam, it is a pleasure working with you this evening. We will call this a beginning, working across the aisle on a program that affects everyone and every family in this Nation. We can deal with Alzheimer's. We just need to put our shoulder to the wheel and push forward with the programs that we know are successful, many of them introduced by our colleagues here. I, too, am happy to be a cosponsor of all of these pieces of legislation. So much for this night on this very, very important piece of legislation. We will come back to it in a few weeks and see what progress has been made in perhaps the appropriations process or in the passage of these pieces of legislation. In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, we have had our discussion this evening on this important illness, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, we have just heard a very interesting 1 hour on an issue that is important, and I would like to bring to this floor another issue that affects every American family either directly or indirectly, but in a very profound, and in most cases, a very sad, very sad way. One in five American seniors are affected by this disease called Alzheimer's. I know it has affected my family. My wife's mother at the age of 92 died of Alzheimer's. She spent the last 2 years of her life living with my wife and me in our home, where we were able to provide care for her. I think that that is just one story among the millions of American families that are trying to find a way of dealing with this devastating disease. In the last years of her life, my mother-in-law always had what seemed to be a bright outlook. She was never a complainer, and she always seemed to recognize her grandchildren, particularly the very young grandchildren. I will never forget a day where our youngest grandchild--her youngest great-grandchild--was climbing into bed with her, and my mother-in-law was, what I thought, was babbling. And that young child who could just barely speak was translating in a very real way what my mother-in-law was saying. It was my wife and I that were unable to understand. Just one moment in a long period of time that my mother-in-law lived with us in her final years. This story is replicated time after time across America. One in five seniors will have Alzheimer's and will die of it. If we take a look at the well known diseases that affect Americans, here is the death rate: cancer, clearly, clearly a problem. Heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Over the last 10 years, we are seeing a decline in the death rate for all of these well known and devastating diseases. We have seen the progress of research and the application of medical practices to these diseases, cancer, heart disease, and stroke, all declining, stroke by some 23 percent. HIV/AIDS, another devastating disease in this country, an incredible 42 percent decline in the death rate between 2000 and 2010. And here is Alzheimer's, the same period of time, a 68 percent increase. My mother-in-law was one of the people that made up this statistic. Deaths from major diseases. This is a clear indication of what happens when the public, acting through Congress, and governments, State, local, and private organizations, put their shoulder to the wheel and decide that it is time to do something about cancer, heart disease, stroke, and HIV/AIDS. What is happening here? What is happening with Alzheimer's? Well, part of the answer is the aging population, the baby boomers. That is part of the answer, but it is not the complete answer. What does this mean to the American taxpayer and the American families? It means it is a very, very expensive disease. In fact, it is the most expensive disease in America. Medicare, the principal source of health insurance for the elderly, 1 in 5 dollars in Medicare is spent on Alzheimer's, well over $240 billion a year for Medicare and Medicaid alone. And where is this going? Well, here is where the costs are going. The cost of Medicare and Medicaid, 2010, $122 billion; 2022, $195 billion; 2050, $880 billion. So what are we going to do here? Well, we are going to spend an awful lot of money unless we get ahead of this devastating disease. Looking at it another way, a different graph, same story, the skyrocketing cost of Alzheimer's care. This is not the peak, this is just where we stop counting in 2050. Baby boomers coming on and then this disease taking hold and literally bankrupting the Medicare and Medicaid programs. So what do we do? Well, here is what we are doing, a neat little chart here, treatment shown here, this is the Medicare portion, this is the Medicaid portion. We are looking at a huge expenditure, $150 billion. This is from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Oh, down here, this is the comparison for research. This year, $566 million of research. Extraordinary expense, a lot of research, but not nearly enough to address the problem. For example, back to that first graph that showed the decline in cancer research, HIV, heart--I wonder why it happened? Look where we are investing: cancer research, $5.481 billion; HIV/AIDS, $2.978 billion; cardiovascular, $2.15 billion; Alzheimer's, $566 million. This is a very, very good graph. This is what happens when we invest in research and treatment protocols. Let me remind you of what those investments have meant. Cancer, decline in death rate; heart disease, decline in death rate; stroke, decline in death rate; HIV, decline in death rate. The major reason for it is the investment in research and treatment protocols. Cancer, HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular, Alzheimer's. So where are we going to go here? Are we going to stay with this and see an increase in Alzheimer's disease and death over the next years? Or are we going to go with something that can solve the problem? And that is investment, investment by the people of America and around the world in addressing this devastating illness for which today there is no cure, there is no way to slow down the progress, and we don't know when it is coming on until it is with us. And so families across this Nation find themselves in a devastating situation. I would like to recount just one devastating situation. It was on National Public Radio in the Sacramento region. A gentleman from the State park system retired at the age of 65, thinking that he and his wife would be able to spend their next years traveling, enjoying themselves and the benefit of the years of work they had put in. His wife was 1 year younger. No sooner had he retired, his wife came down with early onset of Alzheimer's. The result is a devastation in their family, obviously, to the lady. She doesn't even know today that she is married to her husband of 42 years, but he cares for her, day in and day out, every day, 24/7. There are many pieces of legislation that are here in the Congress that deal with this caregiving situation. There is also legislation that would ramp up the research necessary to get at the disease to fully understand what it is all about and how we might treat it and prevent it. These pieces of legislation deserve our attention. Joining me tonight is a colleague from California who is carrying one of those pieces of legislation, a woman who has spent her entire career--public and private--in Congress and in the California legislature, addressing the problems of health care, the problems of the underinsured and the underserved, an incredible woman who has her own story to tell. Let me introduce to you Maxine Waters, my colleague from California.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank Congresswoman Waters. A couple of things come to mind as we were talking about the research effort. We will very soon appropriate well over $80 billion--$80 billion--for ongoing military actions in Afghanistan. We make choices here, and it seems to me that we need to understand the import and the importance of the choices we make. Now, that does not include the CIA and the State Department and the USAID--those are additional expenses over and above that the military will be using--at a time when, presumably, we are pulling out of Afghanistan. What would $1 billion of that $80 billion mean to the Alzheimer's research programs here in the United States? Well, first of all, we shouldn't appropriate $1 billion because you can't ramp up that fast; but if we spread that over 2, 3, 4 years and go from $566 million to $1.5 billion, what could be accomplished? I know that, in my own district in the Sacramento Valley, the University of California, Davis, has a very robust and breakthrough opportunity on brain research. I know in your own area of Los Angeles, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California are, together, operating major research programs on the mind, on the human brain, and how it is harmed, what is it that sets off Alzheimer's. We can do this, but these are choices that your Representatives, the American people, your Representatives are making choices here in this House about how to spend your money. When one in five seniors comes down with Alzheimer's and we make a choice to spend $80 billion in Afghanistan, you should be questioning this. As to our rationality, are we making the right choice? I think not. Let me just comment on your legislation, Congresswoman Waters. Your Alzheimer's Caregiver Support Act, H.R. 2975, I am thinking what it would have meant to Patty and I as we took upon the task of caring for her mother. We really didn't know much about Alzheimer's and really didn't know much about the kind of care and the kind of reaction and different things we might do and she might do. It would have been so helpful to us to have had that kind of information available, that kind of support. Now, we got through it very well. We had a lot of ability to search out information, and we are not unique, but I think the general public who is facing this personal crisis of a husband or a wife--and as you said, two out of three are going to be women--as they face that crisis, if they had the support that your bill would give to them, here is what you should expect, here is what you can do, here is where you can get help. It is a good bill. We ought to pass it. We ought to pass this bill. So, Congresswoman Waters, thank you for doing that. If you want to comment back on how you came to put this bill in, what was your motivation? How did you come to see it, from your own experiences? I know you have friends and, perhaps, even family that faced this situation.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, this chart clearly shows--clearly shows--what happens when you make an investment: cancer, HIV, cardiovascular. I remember, 20 years ago, nobody thought you could solve HIV. It was there and it was going to devastate the entire planet, but research-- research--paid off. While this disease is not under control and is still all too prevalent, there is an ability to stem the impact of it and to be able to live with that disease. We can make progress here. I am just thinking again about your piece of legislation, about the kind of help that people need and, really, education beyond just what you have talked about in your bill. Every family goes through this in either their own family or a neighboring family in the early onset, early in the progress of the disease. The change in the way in which a person functions and works and interacts with the family is profoundly disturbing to the family, even more so if the family doesn't understand and doesn't know what is happening. So the ability to diagnose Alzheimer's early becomes very, very important to the well-being of the family, as you said. If that family understands what is happening, they are better able to cope with a very, very difficult situation. If they have no idea and Mama or Dad just suddenly seems to be off in some strange and unimaginable direction, the family can be torn apart. I know we have seen this many, many places across the people that I have known over the years. But your bill ought to be law, and we ought to be funding those kinds of nonprofit and social organizations that can address and help an individual understand what is going on in the Alzheimer's situation. Another one, your second bill dealing with the Patient Alert Program, I remember very well a situation that occurred years ago where a neighbor simply wandered off and it created a community crisis: Where did he go? Where is he? After a couple of days, it turned out to not be a devastating situation. Your bill would provide assistance in tracking and keeping track of and finding those men and women that will and have wandered off. This is very much a part of this illness. So thank you for introducing these pieces of legislation. My plea to my colleagues here is let's focus on this. There are many, many things we focus on here. All too often it is just political one- upmanship. This is not a Democratic issue; it is not an Republican issue. This is an American issue affecting nearly every American family. I like your legislation. I would hope the President would have this on his desk tomorrow morning, would sign this and get the help that people need. There are several other pieces of legislation that are also introduced. I would like to introduce my colleague, who is carrying a piece of legislation on this matter, and yield to him for his exposition. So if you would care to join us, we will hear from, actually, the other side of the aisle. It is a bipartisan 1-hour, so please.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you so very, very much. One of the challenges that I find in the House, there are 435 of us, and I never had the opportunity to work with you directly on committees. We just are not on the same committees, so I hardly know you, but I already like where you are headed. I like the way in which you speak to this issue and the way in which you show your compassion. I really look forward to working with you. These are bipartisan issues. If you just hang on a few seconds, there are about seven bills that have been introduced thus far. Representative Markey, who is now a Senator, introduced H.R. 1507, which I think one of our colleagues has picked up here. That deals with the Social Security Act and makes this illness, a comprehensive Alzheimer's disease diagnosis, part of the Medicare program. There is a bill introduced by a Republican, Mr. Guthrie. It is the Alzheimer's Accountability Act. This one basically says, okay, there is a plan. How are we doing with the plan? What is the plan to deal with Alzheimer's research, the support necessary? And it would require that a report be prepared every year so that we can keep track of progress or lack thereof. I like that bill because I think accountability is really important for us. Ultimately, these will be our decisions. You can jump in on any one of these you may be involved in.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, we are doing some of that tonight. There is another one. This issue is not an American issue. This issue is a worldwide issue. Every society, every ethnic group in the world faces Alzheimer's, some more severely than others. There is another piece of legislation introduced by Chris Smith, who is the cochair of the Alzheimer's Caucus here in Congress. This one is H. Res. 489, the Global Alzheimer's resolution by Mr. Smith. It says it is the policy of the U.S. Government to encourage and facilitate the following efforts concerning Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. This goes to the World Health Organization and other nations that are involved in research, the sharing of knowledge and research. We can, as you just said, leverage, leverage what we are doing with what is going on in other countries--certainly the European countries; we know China is doing a lot of research on this--together the whole world facing a common issue, and perhaps we can find a much better and a faster solution.

Mr. GARAMENDI. No doubt about it. There is research going on all around the world. Major drug companies are involved. Countries are doing their own research. It is all possible. One other bill that I would like to bring up, this one is introduced again by Chris Smith, and this is called the PACE Pilot Act. This is a program for all-inclusive care for the elderly, which currently helps those over 55, to provide a continuity of care and comprehensive care for them. It is more than just Alzheimer's. We know that nursing home care is extraordinarily expensive. This is an effort to try and keep people in their home with appropriate care and support. So this is another piece of the puzzle, together with the two bills that our colleague Maxine Waters had introduced, giving us a package of legislation that we ought to work on. The other piece of legislation which is not among these bills is the annual appropriation bill. Last year, we increased Alzheimer's research by $100 million, a very, very good thing. But, again, we could do much more. And if we were to do that, I am convinced we would be able to advance the knowledge, the early detection, and, as you said a moment ago, a cure for this devastating illness. It is there. The only thing we need is to focus our attention and the world's attention on this, put the money into research, and then we can see a solution. If you would care to wrap up, I have had my say on this.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to the committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended. My colleagues, America is blessed with many, many resources--all of you, for example. America is blessed with great natural resources, among them natural gas. We have seen a terrific increase in the availability of natural gas, and it has provided this Nation with the opportunity to have the lowest price energy among the industrial nations, an incredible advantage that we have received as a result of God's gift of natural gas. The question for all of us to ponder for a moment is: How will we use that natural gas and to whose benefit will it inure? This bill will provide for the protection of Americans who have, from these number of years, enjoyed a reasonable price for their energy, but if this bill moves forward as presently written, we will be talking about seniors who will see higher prices in their natural gas and in their energy. If this bill moves forward as it is currently written, we will be seeing our natural resource, this strategic asset, wind up in the hands of countries who support terrorists or countries who are engaged in industrial espionage through cyber attacks on our industry and on our government. If this bill moves forward as it is presently written, we will not see American ships under our flag with our sailors taking this natural resource, this strategic asset, across the oceans. However, ladies and gentlemen, if we approve this amendment, we will be protecting our seniors from higher energy prices because this bill says that, in determining the public interest, we will make sure our seniors are protected. If we adopt this amendment, we will see that none of our natural resource--natural gas, a strategic asset--will wind up in the hands of countries who have supported terrorists. We will find that no country that allows people in their country to engage in cyber attacks against our industries or against our government will have our precious natural resource, and we will see American ships with American sailors and American flags on the ocean exporting this strategic national asset. The question, therefore, for each and every one of us is this: With whom do you stand? The gas companies, who will have billions and billions of dollars of profits exporting? Or, do you stand with our seniors? Who do you stand with? Countries that are engaged in cyberattacks against America, and who are supporting terrorists? Who do you stand with? Do you stand with American sailors and shipbuilders? That is the question. That is what this amendment is all about. It is about protecting America. I ask for your ``aye'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I object.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I am opposed to the bill.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I have to catch my breath after listening the last hour to an unbelievable stream of consciousness. I want to be very specific about some things that we really need to do here in Congress. Often, we come to the floor in the evening and we talk about the subject of making it in America, rebuilding the American economy brick by brick, road by road, job by job, and putting the manufacturing sector back on its feet. Today, my colleagues and I want to talk about one part of that Make It in America agenda, and that is not the trade, taxes, energy, labor, education, or research, but rather the infrastructure part of that equation. Infrastructure is the foundation upon which any economy grows. And the American infrastructure has a problem. Here is the problem. The American infrastructure is falling down, falling apart, overused, overworn, and in desperate need of rebuilding. We can do it. America once built the greatest infrastructure in the world. We are falling way, way behind in our own country and we are not even keeping up with other countries, such as China, which is building everything everywhere and laying in place an infrastructure that will carry them into the future. Here is why we are not keeping up. Here is why we are falling down. Here is why we have potholes. Here is why cars are losing their ability to stay on the road. It is not because the drivers can't drive but because we are not spending the money that we once did. Way back in 2002, we were spending some $325 billion a year. Right now, we are down to somewhere below $250 billion on infrastructure. That is why we see bridges collapsing. That is why we have the transportation snarls and all of the problems in our transportation system. As they say in the Middle East, just wait. It will get worse. Here in America, we are just 2 months away from this happening. We are going to fall off the transportation bridge. The funding for transportation programs, funded by the Federal Government, will run out of money sometime in August, perhaps in early September, depending on several factors that are simply unknown, but the funding for the maintenance and construction of our roads and bridges by the Federal Government will be over. There will be no more Federal funding available unless this Congress acts. We have a roadmap. We have a plan. We have a program. President Obama and the Transportation Department, with Secretary Foxx, recently laid out a program called the GROW AMERICA Act. It is a program that would provide $302 billion over the next 4 years, which is money that is desperately needed for rail, buses, ports, the freight system-- ``buses'' meaning light rail, heavy rail. It is for the transit systems in our cities and the rail systems--Amtrak--bridges and highways. All of this is available. The GROW AMERICA Act is a real proposal. It is one that this Congress should take up. If there are some who have better ideas and better plans, bring them forward. For highways, it is about $199 billion. For bridges and buses, it is about $79 billion and about $10 billion for the freight systems. For the rail, it is another $10 billion to $12 billion. All of this is possible, but we need to do this. We need to finance it, and this program by the President is fully financed. The $302 billion relies upon the existing excise tax that all of us pay for our gasoline, for our diesel fuel. The President would add another $100 billion or so to fill up the pot so that we would have the $302 billion, which is some 27 percent more than we presently are spending on the transportation system. Where does that extra money come from? It comes from corporate reforms, but that is not the only proposal on how to finance our transportation system. In a few minutes, I will turn this over to my colleague from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), who will talk about that in some more detail. Also joining us tonight is my colleague from Kansas City, Missouri (Mr. Cleaver), who will be talking about his transportation system in that area. But this is a real plan--a real proposal--all of the details that we would need on how we could develop the freight programs: where you would connect the ports to the rail systems, how you would provide those intermodal proposals, how we could repair the bridges--the funding for it--over a period of time, and the highways. It is all coordinated around fixing the things that are broken, not necessarily adding but fixing first, fixing what is broken. For the rail systems, critically important is the intercity rail, which is the Amtrak system here on the east coast. Then this happens to be the Capitol Corridor in my own district, which runs from Roseville, all the way through San Jose and through San Francisco. It is one of the most heavily used rail corridors in the entire system. One of the things that we also talk about here in the Make It In America is that we spend our tax money on American-made goods. If we are going to spend $302 billion of American taxpayer money, my legislation would increase the Buy American provisions, and I want to give you just one brief example of what it means: This is the most modern locomotive in the United States, and it is, arguably, one of the most modern electric locomotives in the entire world. It is built in Sacramento. This is money that was made available in the American Recovery Act, the stimulus bill. Written into that bill was a provision that said that money--some $800 million--for Amtrak locomotives had to be spent 100 percent on American-made locomotives. Siemens, the big German manufacturing company, looked at that, and it said: $800 million and 100 percent American made? We could do that. So they took their factory in Sacramento and expanded it, and this is the first locomotive among those that will come off the lines--some 70 or 80 of them--that will be 100 percent American made. This locomotive will soon be operating here on the East Coast Corridor. Eventually, we will get those in Sacramento, but those will be diesel elective. The final point I want to make before turning this over to my colleague Mr. Blumenauer is this. These were men and women in my district--Fairfield, California--in December of last year, who attended a job fair that I put on in Fairfield. I expected to find a few of my fellow citizens attending that. This job fair took place in December, and the temperature was just below 40 degrees. It was a foggy and rather cold day. More than 1,000 people lined up outside our job fair seeking a job. Americans want to go to work. Americans want to work. They want those good, middle class jobs that come from building the infrastructure. It is just not the hard hat jobs. These are the technicians, the engineers, the accountants, the secretaries, the people who are working on the software. There are all of those jobs, and these are the men and women who want them. So our plea today to our colleagues on the Republican side is: Let's go to work. Let's go to work here in the Congress. Let's put forward a transportation bill that avoids that transportation cliff, that allows the American public to go back to work--tens of thousands of jobs. Indeed, 3.5 million Americans will lose their jobs in the coming year if we fail to put together a transportation bill. That 3.5 million plus thousands upon thousands more will be able to go to work if we get this transportation program moving. The President has given us a program, the GROW AMERICA Act. If there are those with better ideas, they should come forward. We should act upon that legislation, improve upon it and figure out the financing. If the President's notion of ending unnecessary corporate tax loopholes and giveaways isn't the best way, then let's put together a better way. With that, Mr. Speaker, I would yield back my share of the time and, if possible, turn it over to my colleague, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), to manage the remaining portion of this session.