John Garamendi

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, thank you so very much. Your passion on this has been displayed on this floor numerous times as we talked about making it in America, about jobs and infrastructure. As you were going through that recitation of American history, I want to go back even further than the canal period. Let's go back to our very first President, George Washington. He refused to go through the Inaugural in a suit made by England. So he wanted an American-made suit. He found the cloth from Boston and a tailor, and wore an American-made suit. He also, immediately on taking office, our very first President in the very first days in his office, turned to his Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, and said: We need to develop the manufacturing in this country. I want you to develop a plan on manufacturers. Hamilton went out--I don't know if he had a committee or not--but he came back with a report. It was probably 30 to 50 pages. Now it would be 30-50,000 pages. But nonetheless, he came back with a report--I think he had about 15 different thoughts in it--and they were precisely on this subject of ``making it in America.'' You will love this. One of the very first things in that document was: We need to build the infrastructure; canals, roads, and ports. The very first President said: The role of the Federal Government is to help build the infrastructure. And here we are centuries later still debating how we're going to do it. Well, just pay attention to the Founding Fathers. They told us how to do it. They also said we ought to spend the American taxpayers' money on American-made goods. It's in that document dating back to the very first policies of this Nation. And so when I introduced this bill that says use the taxpayer money to buy American-made products, it's not new, folks. I'm simply copying what Alexander Hamilton suggested to George Washington and the first Congress of the United States. There are other elements in it that play into this in a similar way. And certainly we know that Thomas Jefferson was really big on education. And so the University of Virginia came up. These are the elements of economic growth. Here we are--435 of us in the House of Representatives--and the question for us is are we going to put in place policies that provide the foundation for economic growth, or are we going to go the opposite direction and continue on the austerity route which actually disinvests on those key elements that create economic growth? For me, I'm an investor, I want to invest in America's future with infrastructure, education, innovation, research, and manufacturing in America. Those are the policies that I believe we need to put in place, Mr. Tonko. You and I have been here many nights and we've talked about these issues many, many times. And we're not going to stop, are we?

Mr. GARAMENDI. No, it certainly won't. You've been talking about bridge collapses, the bridge that collapsed in the Twin Cities, Minnesota and Wisconsin, lives lost. We're continuing to see the infrastructure, bridges and others, unable to really carry the modern loads that are there, rusting and falling down. We need to really address that. You did raise an essential point about the electric grid, that power infrastructure, the electric power infrastructure of this Nation, critically important. We need to make the investments there. And we're also making--Mr. Hoyer talked about the energy independence that we're moving towards in the United States. One part of that is the natural gas that is now being more readily available and at a reasonable price, and we're seeing the repowering of many of the coal-fired power plants using natural gas, which also reduces the greenhouse gas emissions from coal. All of that is good. I want to pick up another area of infrastructure that's really important. I've now become the ranking member of the Coast Guard and Maritime. While I've always been interested in the ports, at least in the California ports, I'm now in a position here to spend even more time focusing on the ports and the maritime industry. International commerce, critically important to economic growth, Mr. Hoyer talked about the export potential that this country has and will even grow more in the future, but that is also the ports and the airports. Both of these, airports and the ports, are unable to meet the demands of modern and advanced transportation. Many of the ports in America need to be deepened so that the new container ships that are now coming into play and many of the new oil tankers and the rest can access the American ports. In doing so, we will be able to maintain the vitality of international trade, the export market, which we really must, once again, dominate, and the jobs that go with the ports. And so it's ports and it's railroads that lead out of the ports and the trucking industry that goes out of it so that we need a comprehensive transportation plan. We're going to rewrite the Surface Transportation Act in this session of Congress, start on it this year, get it done in, well, hopefully this year or maybe next year--not maybe. We have to do it next year because we see the expiration of the current transportation plan. So there's enormous responsibilities that we have to create the infrastructure upon which America grows. It's the roads. It's the ports. It's the airports. It's the electrical system and the communication systems. All of these are critical, and all of them, in one way or another, are dependent upon the actions taken by the 435 of us in the House of Representatives and the 100 Members of the Senate and, of course, the President. Bear in mind that the President has presented to the Congress a very robust infrastructure plan that takes into account all of the elements that we've discussed here tonight. Very, very little of that has actually been taken up in any committee hearing, and what we have seen pass the House thus far is not the kind of robust investment that is needed for infrastructure but quite the opposite: a disinvestment through such things as the sequestration and the Ryan budget which will be back on the floor again in the next day or so. These are not the way you grow the economy. These are austerity programs that actually reduce the investments that we need for the foundation of America's economic growth: education, research, infrastructure investment, modern manufacturing. These are the keys, and we have to do it. Mr. Tonko, we've gone through most of our time. If you'd like to take a wrap, and then I'll take a wrap and we'll call it a night.

Mr. GARAMENDI. The infrastructure system of this Nation is the foundation for the economy. And any economic growth that we have has to be built on a solid infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers rates the American infrastructure at a D. That's not good. That's doggone bad, actually. You take a look at the other countries of the world, China and others, that are building first class infrastructure, and you come to the United States and see that we're really not. We're way behind. You talked about the safety issue. I have probably well over 1,100 miles of levees in my district that are flood protection. And they're decades old. They need to be upgraded. So just in terms of the communities being safe--for example, Natomas, in Sacramento, is an area that I share with Congresswoman Matsui and is one of the riskiest places in America for flooding, right behind New Orleans. We need to upgrade those levees so that that community can, A, be safe and, B, grow. We know that other areas in my district have the same problem. Yet at the same time, the sequestration, to go back to that nonsense, removes $250 million of levee improvements from the Army Corps of Engineers' budget. So projects are going to be delayed. We're going to have another winter and, God willing, we won't have a flood. But it could happen. The money that is necessary to rebuild those levees is gone. The President has been very, very upfront about this. The President was standing right behind us here at the State of the Union and said, We need to build our infrastructure. And he proposed three things. First of all, he wants to put in an additional $50 billion to be spent in the near term--this year and the year after--to really give a major push for America's infrastructure. He also said we need an infrastructure bank. Europe has had one for nearly three decades, and it really helps to finance projects that have a cash flow: sanitation systems, water systems, toll roads, toll bridges, and the like. The other thing that I think we ought to do is, when we spend that money, we ought to spend it on American-made equipment. And that's what my bill does. The other part of this is that we really need to address the infrastructure issue with a very robust program. I'm going to take this for just a second. For every $1 that we invest in infrastructure, there is a boost to the economy of $1.57. So by investing in the infrastructure, we actually grow the economy more than a one-to-one basis. It's $1.57 for every $1 that we invest. And so you set this kind of economic growth going on and you've built the foundation for the future. That's what we ought to be doing. So I ask my Republican colleagues here: pay attention. Forget about whether it's President Obama or President whomever. Infrastructure is really, really important. Take up what the President has suggested. Call it a Republican suggestion. Boost the infrastructure spending in this Nation. Put the men and women who build America's foundation back to work so that we have a foundation for economic growth and for safety. Let's realize that we had a train wreck in Connecticut. Was it caused by a bad track situation? Possibly. We had a bridge collapse in Washington State. We know that that was an infrastructure maintenance problem. We have potholes. We know that the economy of this Nation has slowed down because of traffic jams and insufficient capacities on our highways. And we know that we have insufficient transit systems. In New York, you need to rebuild, as you just discussed, from Superstorm Sandy.

Mr. GARAMENDI. It's global warming.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, I certainly agree about logic and the sometimes lack of logic, the sequestration, which is no sense, otherwise known as nonsense, but extraordinarily damaging. But you're talking about Rensselaer and what came out of that. I'll give you an example in my own district, Davis, California, University of California-Davis. And here's where your discussion really meets the road. The engineering school did computerized programming for machine tools and did some very advanced research on how to do that. One of the Japanese companies that manufactured machine tools, one of the most advanced machine tool manufacturers in the world, Mori Seiki, came over to University of California-Davis, talked to the engineers and the students and the professors that were putting together this computerized system for machine tools and said, we want to be part of that. And so they began to use it and realized that what they needed to do was to be right next to the research so that they could constantly upgrade their machines. And they, therefore, came to Davis, California, built a factory, hired, I think, about 120 people now; and they're making the most advanced machine tools, computerized-driven machine tools anywhere in the world right in Davis, California. So we can see the connection between research, the adaptation of that research into the manufacturing process, and then the jobs. These are all middle class jobs and above that are now available in Davis, California. And there are others that spin off from that, providing certain parts of it. So these are the keys. Now, here's where the nonsense comes in. If those are the keys to industrial growth and manufacturing and job growth, why is it that we have a budget that's going to be back on the floor tomorrow that actually cuts research, cuts the educational components, cuts the job training, the retraining that's necessary, and doesn't do anything to create jobs except reduce the Federal support that has been critical in this Nation's history? Why would we do that? I don't understand, but it's going to be back here. This is the Republican Ryan budget. They're going to play some games tomorrow, try to pretend that somehow it passed the Senate when, in fact, we really need a budget conference committee so that we can sort out our differences, so we can lay the platform for future economic growth. But that's not what that budget does. It's exactly the opposite. It's an austerity budget, and it cuts those things that really do create economic growth. Unfortunate, but we have a different agenda; and we want that agenda of growth. We, perhaps, ought to shift our gears here a little bit and talk about the infrastructure component which is integral to this. You mentioned it earlier. I know that in your area a year ago you had tremendous flooding; and so the infrastructure, the protection from that, you may want to pick that up, and I'll follow along.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much for joining us. Mr. Tonko, education, innovation, infrastructure--those are keys. There are a couple of other keys, as Mr. Hoyer was saying. Part of it is our tax policy, the policies that come out of this building. And we can really do the kinds of things, laws, that really make a difference. I put up that picture of that new Amtrak locomotive. It was a law, the Stimulus Act, that allowed the men and women in Sacramento, some 200 of them, plus another 70 companies that are the supply chain that supply the various parts to this locomotive to have a job. And what happened in the stimulus bill was, okay, we're going to spend half a billion dollars for 70 locomotives for Amtrak. But, another sentence, they must be American-made, using American taxpayer money to buy American-made equipment. So we now have this manufacturing plant in Sacramento. We now have men and women employed, not only in Sacramento, but around the Nation, making the various parts for this most advanced locomotive. So it's public policy. I have a bill in that does that. It requires that if we're going to build the infrastructure and locomotives, buses, trains, roads, bridges, and use American taxpayer money, then we must be buying American-made products. Pretty simple stuff. It's the Buy America, and it creates jobs in America. I know you have several pieces of legislation that you're sponsoring and supporting. You may want to bring those up. We'll talk about them for a few moments.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Hoyer, thank you so very much. As I've heard you say over and over again, America will make it when we Make It in America.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, the Make It in America agenda has many, many parts to it. It has a research piece. It has an innovation piece. It has some tax issues to it. All of these have been packaged and pulled together by our leader, Steny Hoyer, who I see has joined us on the floor. Maryland is on the East Coast. California is on the West Coast, so now we've augmented our East Coast-West Coast show. Mr. Hoyer, thank you so very much for your leadership on Make It in America.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, you have come to a very important point here, and that is: Before you came to Congress, you headed up a consortium in New York that did precisely that, didn't you?

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, tonight we want to talk about jobs in America, we want to talk about how we can rebuild the great American manufacturing sector, and we also want to spend some time talking about a very special part of the American economy, and that is the infrastructure upon which that economy can grow and prosper. So there are many pieces to this puzzle about rebuilding the economic strength of this Nation. Much of it comes down to what we call the Make It in America agenda. It's an agenda to rebuild the great manufacturing sector of this Nation. That's where the middle class found its strength. That's where the middle class grew following World War II. Unfortunately, in the last 15 years or so, we've seen a decline from some 20 million Americans in manufacturing down to perhaps 11 million. In recent months, we've seen a resurgence in part due to some changes in law that we've put in place that end tax breaks that American corporations received when they sent jobs overseas--really foolish tax breaks. We ended many of those, and we have a few more to go. What we want to do is give manufacturers, American corporations and others, who want to on shore bring jobs back to America, we want to give them a tax break. So the Make It in America agenda is about rebuilding that great American manufacturing base. There are many different parts to it. Part of it is the infrastructure system. I was talking to one of my friends from the Connecticut area just a few moment ago, and he said, Listen, I can't be with you tonight, but what I want you to say is we had a terrible Amtrak train wreck in Connecticut just a week ago, and we think it may have been due to bad track. That's the infrastructure, folks. We really need to build that train system here in America, the infrastructure for it. I'm going to put up one more sign here before I call upon my friend from New York. Here it is. Now, that's a beautiful locomotive. That's an American-made locomotive. So this is manufacturing. This is an American-made locomotive by a German company, Siemens, one of the great industrial companies in this world. They bid on almost a half-a- billion-dollar project that was in the stimulus bill for 70 locomotives for Amtrak that had to be American made. This German company said half a billion dollars, American made, we can do that. They set up a factory in Sacramento, California, and that's the first American-made locomotive in many, many decades, or generations, and it's a beauty. It's electric. I think it's about 7,500 horsepower, and it's going to be used here on the East Coast and on that Boston to Washington, D.C., track. Hopefully, it'll be rebuilt. Joining me tonight in this discussion about infrastructure and jobs and Make It in America is my friend from New York, Paul Tonko. We're redoing the East-West show.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Wheatland Union High School on its selection as a 2013 California Distinguished School. The California Distinguished School award is given by the California State Board of Education to public schools that best demonstrate educational excellence for all students and progress in narrowing the achievement gap. It is awarded to approximately five percent of California schools each year, and none is more deserving than Wheatland Union High School. Since it was established in 1907, Wheatland Union High School has been a cornerstone of the south Yuba County community, which has a rich history of supporting the state's vital agricultural sector. Serving the communities of Wheatland, Plumas Lake and Smartsville, as well as Beale Air Force Base, the high school covers an astounding 150 square miles, and has always been dedicated to providing the best possible education for all students. This is the first formal acknowledgement of their efforts. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to recognize the impressive achievement of this fine school. I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Wheatland Union High School and thanking them for their continued efforts in serving Yuba County students.

Mr. GARAMENDI

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

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Sheila Jackson Lee, thank you so very much. You are a leader in all of these issues. You've often and almost always present these issues to the American people on the floor of the House, and you do it with passion and knowledge. There was an hour spent earlier by our colleagues about the 37th time that they're going to attempt to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act. It reminded me that they also have a piece of legislation to end Medicare as we know it. If you go back to when Medicare was put in place in the sixties, 1964, 1965, the Republican Party opposed it then and have often, through those years, to this date, attempted in various ways to eviscerate or to end it as we know it. Apparently they're going to try to do the same thing with the Affordable Health Care Act. It is such a waste of time because these programs are so fundamental to our ability to survive. This is health care for Americans and spreading that opportunity out. It's a long discussion. We've had that discussion on the floor for many days. What we really ought to be focusing on is putting Americans back to work. This piece of legislation is one of about 30 pieces of legislation that's put in by the Democratic Caucus. This is mine. It deals with your tax money. It simply says that it's going to be spent on American-made clean energy, solar panels, wind turbines and the like. It's not a bad idea to spend your tax money on American-made equipment, American jobs, American businesses. There's another bill that I have dealing with the transportation system. It's the same thing. That bill is now finding its way into the rewrite of the highway transportation program, the transportation bill; and hopefully it will be there. It's a very strong buy-American provision for our buses, our trains, our light rail, locomotives and steel and concrete for bridges. We've got a lot of work to do in America. We've got a lot of work and a lot of need; and this House ought to be spending its time on that. We'll take another night and we'll go into the tax policy side of this, which there is a lot to be said about changing our taxes to encourage manufacturing. Some of that has been done. I'll leave the one example that 2 years ago when the Democrats controlled this House, we eliminated about $12 billion of tax breaks that American companies received for shipping American jobs overseas. We put a stop to that. There's about another $5 billion that needs to be done, but we no longer control this House. But we ought to bring those jobs back home. We ought to flip that over and give a tax break for reshoring, bringing the jobs back to America. That's another night's discussion. We'll take that up in another evening. But for tonight, it's about putting Americans back to work. It's about focusing the attention of this Chamber, the 435 of us, on what we really need in this country, which is a very strong and growing economy. We've seen progress every quarter since the beginning of 2010. Every quarter we've seen private sector employment grow. We're not where we ought to be. We have more work to do. And when we finally rebuild the American manufacturing sector, when once again we make it in America, Americans are going to make it. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I had intended to talk about this subject, rebuilding the American manufacturing sector, and I will. But I just heard the most remarkable 1-hour debate in my life--not a debate, but a whole slew of accusations and incorrect facts. I guess a fact shouldn't be incorrect. But I've never heard such gobbledygook and misstatements in my entire life. The last one--I'm absolutely delighted the gentleman's father is healthy, but to think that a 2 percent tax on medical devices is somehow going to stop medical technology when those devices are extraordinarily profitable to these companies is just lunacy. I know nobody likes to pay taxes, and certainly the manufacturers of those devices don't want to have to pay a 2 percent tax. But come on, you think that's going to stop medical technology from advancing when there's so much profit in it? I don't think so. Okay. Thirty-seven times now, 37 times this week the Republican majority is going to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act--37 times-- when Americans are already benefiting from the Affordable Care Act. Is it that my friends who spoke here for the last hour want to tell every 22-year-old or 21-year-old in the entire Nation that they can no longer stay on their parents' health insurance? Because that's exactly what the repeal would do. Those young men and women who are counting on being able to have health insurance--no, repeal ends that part of the Affordable Health Care Act. Are they to go out and tell 40 million Americans that they're not going to have health insurance at all? That's what the repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act will do, 40 million Americans. Are they to say that somehow this is costing more money to have an insurance policy where you can stay healthy, where you can get care before it becomes a crisis and wind up in an emergency room, that that's going to be cheaper when you repeal the Affordable Health Care Act? Sending people to the emergency room is going to be cheaper? What planet are you from? That's not the way it is. The most expensive care in the world is the emergency room, where somebody does not have the continuity of care that an insurance policy provides for them. Or maybe they want to discriminate against women as existed before the Affordable Health Care Act. Every woman in this Nation faced insurance discrimination, but the Affordable Health Care Act ends that discrimination. And how many families out there, how many families out across America have a member of that family--or maybe many members of that family-- that have some preexisting condition--high blood pressure, onset of diabetes, maybe some incident in their past? I will tell you, I was the insurance commissioner in California for 8 years, and I know exactly what the health insurance companies will do if the provisions that prevent insurance discriminations are eliminated with the bill that these gentlemen and ladies intend to take up later this week. Insurance discrimination has harmed millions upon millions of Americans--many of whom came to me as insurance commissioner in California pleading for some justice in their insurance program. Justice was to be found at least in California because I knew that the insurance companies had an obligation and they had a contract. But you eliminate the Affordable Health Care Act and you'll see insurance discrimination reemerge in the United States in a way that will harm millions upon millions of Americans because they will not be able to get insurance. And if they did, they will have to pay far more simply because they are a woman. Thirty-seven times. Thirty-seven times you've attempted to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act. Seniors--every senior in this Nation that's on Medicare is able to get a free annual checkup. And ladies and gentlemen, you need to understand in your arguments that that free, affordable annual checkup has reduced the cost of medical care in Medicare programs. And the inflation rate in Medicare has come down since the Affordable Care Act has gone into effect. The statistics you toss around about the extraordinary cost, you need to understand that we have been plagued by health care insurance inflation for decades. The Affordable Health Care Act has built into it the very first opportunity this Nation has had nationwide to bend the cost curve on health care, and we're seeing it happen today. We're seeing it happen today in the Medicare program because seniors are able to get prevention. They're able to get that drug that brings down their blood pressure, or the advice on how to deal with diabetes and avoid the extraordinary cost. Oh, yeah, 37 times repealing the Affordable Health Care Act. You talk about jobs in America. Okay, let's talk about jobs in America. Let's talk about the fact that there's not been one significant piece of legislation out of this House since the beginning of this session to create jobs. President Obama stood here on this dais and talked about creating jobs, but this House has not brought forward one significant piece of legislation. The President called for an infrastructure program--$50 billion--to put people back to work, to create the infrastructure--the streets, the roads, the bridges, the water systems, the sanitation systems--not just to put people back to work, but to build the foundation for future economic growth. So where is that legislation? Has it even been heard in one committee controlled by our friends in the opposition party? No. No. Well, we will take up a transportation act soon, but will there be adequate funding for infrastructure? Probably not. Probably not. The President called for an American Jobs Act, not even heard in committee here. Americans want to go to work. They want jobs. They want to go to work, and we have a program on the Democratic side to do that. We want to deal with the big problems facing this Nation. We want to deal with the fact that we have millions of people that want to work in America, and we have serious problems to solve. We ought to put aside this business of repealing the Affordable Health Care Act. Change it? Yes. Make a reasonable change and let's talk about it. Make a proposal about how to make it better, and we'll talk about it; but we're not going to talk about repealing it. We're not going to go there. Maybe we ought to go with some things that are really important. Maybe we ought to go with something that was in the news today. It's been determined that for the first time in at least 3 million years the carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is over 400 parts per million. What does that mean? Climate change? Oh, yes. If you were in Los Angeles this last couple of days, you would have seen record- high temperatures in early May. Reports are coming out about firestorms this summer season. We've seen Superstorm Sandy, and around this world we've seen many super-environmental effects. The scientists tell us that that climate change will bring more severe weather events and there will be disruptions in our food supply like the current drought in the Southwest. Four hundred parts per million; in the last 3 million years, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has never been that high. Now, the good news is that this Nation, the strongest economic nation in the world, despite the inability of this House to get things done, we can solve the climate change problem, or at least lead; and in doing so, we can put people back to work. Here's how it can be done: clean energy. Clean energy is spurring business development across this country and its future is very, very bright. Not a month goes by without some entrepreneur, a scientist, an inventor, coming to me with another idea about how you can improve solar technologies, photovoltaic technologies. One just came up the other day, a very inspired way of doing it, perhaps two times more efficient, or one-and-a-half times more efficient than the current solar panels. Companies are investing. U.S.-based venture capital investments in clean energy surged 30 percent from $5.1 billion in 2010 to $6.6 billion in 2011, and the trend continues. Jobs in the solar energy industry are in every State, and there are over 5,000 companies involved employing over 100,000 American workers. And wind energy, which is big in my district in Solano County, 75,000 people across this Nation, and many of them my own constituents. There's great potential out there as we move from coal and oil, the energy of the previous two centuries, to the clean energies of the future. We'll see that in agriculture as we grow crops that can generate energy. We'll see it in geothermal. We'll see it in wave energy in our oceans. There's enormous potential. And the research that goes into this is also jobs. Our colleagues on the majority side have attempted in the last year to reduce research for energy and agriculture. To what effect? Well, maybe they want to go to 500 parts per million carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I don't think Americans want to go there. I don't think the people of the world want to go there. I don't think they want the calamity that will come. There's many other ways this can be done. Yesterday, as part of our Make It in America agenda, I was in Sacramento, California, on the edge of my district and a remarkable event took place, an event that was actually caused by a piece of legislation that was passed here, the very first piece of legislation signed by President Obama in 2009. It was the stimulus bill, the much-maligned stimulus bill. They said it didn't work. Well, it did work, Mr. Speaker, and it is working today, and it's being made in America. Here's what the American Recovery Act is doing for Americans. Here's what the stimulus bill, in yet one more example of success, is doing for America. This is the most advanced locomotive built in the world. It's built in Sacramento. The stimulus bill provided $466 million for Amtrak to buy 70 advanced electric locomotives. And written into that bill was a sentence that said these locomotives must be American-made. So, Siemens, a German company with large manufacturing facilities around the world, certainly in Germany and other countries on every continent except Antarctica, looked at that and said, 466 million? Hmmm. Made in America? We can do that. They put a bid in. They went to their manufacturing plant in Sacramento that was previously manufacturing light rail cars, set about building a new factory, and that new factory employs 200 people today. Yesterday, the first of 70 new locomotives rolled onto America's rail tracks and will soon be providing service on the Northeastern Corridor. Two hundred new direct jobs in Sacramento at the Siemens factory and hundreds around the Nation--it works. The climate change issue here is very important. The advanced technology in this locomotive that has 9,000 horsepower has the ability to generate electricity when it slows down, when it brakes for curves or stations, putting back into the grid electricity that it consumed in its previous travel. Make it in America. Use our Federal tax dollars to buy and to build American-made equipment and supplies and materials. That's precisely what Siemens is doing. This is a success story. This is the kind of thing we should be talking about here on the floor of the House of Representatives. This is the kind of work we should be doing in our committees: putting Americans back to work, laying the infrastructure for the future growth of this country. But, oh, no, we are going to spend this week dealing with the 37th attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. There's so much more to do. There's so much more to do here in America. Why don't we put our shoulder to the wheel of progress and provide a transportation bill that actually builds the infrastructure for this Nation, that provides these kinds of locomotives and train sets. In the early days of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln signed the Transcontinental Rail Act. Little known, but in that Rail Act was a provision, not just to build a rail line across America, but that all of the steel, all of the iron that was to be used in that line had to be American made. Made it in America, creating jobs, connecting the east to the west, 1862. And here we are all these decades later with the same idea: a new locomotive on American rails and American made. I want to congratulate Siemens. I want to congratulate this German company that is here in America, is providing American jobs, and is providing the most advanced locomotive in the world, and they're building it in Sacramento, California. So, what else can we do? What else can we do to provide jobs? There's so much. If we had listened to the President when he proposed to Congress the American JOBS Act, perhaps 2 million more Americans would be working today. Construction crews would be putting bridges and dams and levees and flood protection facilities, they would be building the infrastructure. And we would also be working on our energy systems. The piece of legislation that I have introduced would require that tax subsidies for individuals and businesses that wanted to put up a wind turbine or a solar panel would only be available to them if they bought American-made equipment. Spend our tax money on American-made equipment made by Americans: a pretty simple thought. Abraham Lincoln must have had that thought, and the Congress in 1862 had that thought and passed a law that did it. There is more that we can do. When we passed the transportation bill, as we should this year or early next year, a new highway bill, we should put into it a proposal by Ranking Member Rahall. That proposal said that the money in this bill will be spent on American-made concrete, steel, trucks, buses-- putting Americans to work. The Democrats on that committee think that's a really good idea, and we hope our Republican colleagues agree and that we write into the transportation bill a very strong ``buy America'' provision so that Americans can have the jobs and so that we avoid the egregious and humiliating fact that the steel in much of the new Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge was not made by American steelworkers, not by American companies, but Chinese. It went out to bid. It was supposed to be 10 percent cheaper, so the Chinese company took the bid, built a new highly advanced steel mill, and sent faulty steel to San Francisco Bay, requiring even more expenditure. So there are things we should learn from the history, and we will if we listen carefully, if we pay attention to what science is telling us about climate change, about the buildup of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, and if we listen, then we must have the courage to act. I would pray for our children's future and their children's and their children's beyond that that this House of Representatives and the Senate have the courage to act decisively on the climate crisis, and that in the farm bill that we mark up tomorrow we take the opportunity to write into that farm bill serious conservation programs that conserve the Nation's forests and farmland and water and streams. I would hope that we would do that. I would hope that this House would find the courage to take on the oil industry and the coal industry and move decisively to green energy systems and stop, slow down what is a terrible process underway of filling our atmosphere with ever-increasing levels of carbon dioxide. After all, it's about the next generations. My generation will soon be gone, and so will most of the Members of this House. It's the future generations that are going to face our apparent unwillingness and inability to attack the climate change problem. As I said a moment ago, we can do it in a way that builds efficient transportation systems, like this locomotive that Siemens built in Sacramento, California, that builds green energy systems, renewable energy, low carbon dioxide- producing energy. I've noticed that my colleague from Texas has joined us. Sheila Jackson Lee, thank you so very much for joining us this evening. We've gone on here about the Affordable Care Act and how we ought to turn our attention to jobs for America, and I'm sure you have some thoughts on those subjects and others. Please join us.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the University of California, Davis. This historic land grant university excels in a wide range and variety of fields, including medicine, physics, law, and agriculture. Today, the University of California, Davis, agriculture and forestry program was recognized as the best in the world by QS World University Rankings, a respected firm that measures publications and citations in scientific journals and the program's reputation among both academics and employers in the field. I offer my highest congratulations to the school's faculty, students, and staff. For decades, the University of California, Davis, has developed cutting-edge farm practices, research, and local partnerships. Right now, they're studying genetics, nutrition, milk, wine grapes, and so much more. As epitomized by the mechanical tomato harvester and other inventions developed there, this work directly boosts agricultural production and profits. As we write the new farm bill, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting agricultural studies and research.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. We must start thinking about what we can do rather than what we cannot do. This is America. This is the country that built the future--we really did--and we can claim the future if we reach back into our history and do what we did before. We were builders. We built the foundations. Mr. Ryan, as you said so very clearly, it's investment. It's investment in the intellectual ability of Americans--in education and research. It's investment in the infrastructure. It's investment in the business community. There is a combination of government and private sector. It's the history of America. It's an exciting history. It's a potential. Unfortunately, we are ignoring the key role that the governments--local, State and Federal--play in that process. We're builders, we're Americans, and we're going to do it. We will make it happen, and I will tell you this: when America begins to make it in America, Americans are going to make it. I thank my colleagues. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio, who knows what it is to rebuild the manufacturing base, and I thank you for the work that you've been doing. We have just a few seconds, Ms. Norton, if you could wrap and then I'll wrap, and we'll call it a day.

Mr. GARAMENDI. If you use American taxpayer money to buy American- made equipment, supplies and products.

Mr. GARAMENDI. If the gentlelady would yield for a moment, you're exactly right about the infrastructure. We need to build it. I notice that our colleague from Ohio has joined us. The last time we were on the floor, we talked about these issues. So if you would like to carry on here for awhile, please, Mr. Ryan.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I would be happy to.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, that's exactly the problem. We need to get this sequestration out of the way of America's growth. There are many things that we can do. I'd like to remind everybody that the President, more than 2 years ago, put forth an American jobs proposal, an American Jobs Act. In that proposal--which has never been taken up by the leaders of the House of Representatives--those who are in control of the House now, our colleagues here on the right side of the aisle, have never taken it up. So what was in it? There was a $50 billion immediate investment in infrastructure. Well, what is infrastructure? Infrastructure is highways, our roads, our streets, our sanitation facilities, our water facilities, airports, flood levees, the kinds of things that upon which the economy can grow and be built. It is the foundation of the economy. They brushed it aside, wouldn't even consider it. One of the most basic things that any economy, any government must do is to make sure the foundation is in place. The President had also proposed--and it's part of our Make It in America--an educational program to make sure that our students are ready for the jobs that are part of the American economy today and to retrain American workers. A proposal that I have is that our tax dollars be spent on American- made equipment. Oh, my, how strange would that be. But yet we go out and buy Chinese steel to build the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. No, we don't buy American-made steel and give Americans the jobs; we turn the jobs over to China. Wind turbines, solar panels, all of the new energy systems, our tax money supports those systems. Shouldn't we be buying American-made equipment with your tax money? I believe we should. That's my legislation. The Democratic agenda, the Make It in America agenda, is about 30 different bills dealing with rebuilding the great American manufacturing sector. I know that if we were to carry these policies forward, if they were to become law, we would see a resurgence in the American manufacturing sector. The reason that that is so important is this--Mr. Clyburn spoke to this earlier when he was here. I've got a little different display. This is what's happened to the American middle class, and beyond. I'm going to use a football analogy here--I played football back at the University of California a few years ago--actually, many years ago. So we can use a football analogy. The bottom 99 percent of America, 99 percent of every family and 99 percent of all of the workers and men and women in America have, since 1966, seen a net increase in their take-home pay of $59. This is in constant dollars. The top 10 percent have seen their income grow by $116,071 over that period, '66 to 2011. The top 1 percent--remember the 99 percent thing? Well, this is the top 1 percent--have seen their income grow by $628,817. Now, the very, very tippy top, that is, the one-tenth of 1 percent--we're talking the superwealthy billionaires here; Mitt Romney wouldn't fit into this category--they have seen their income grow by over $18 million annually. So what we're seeing in the American economy is a skewing of the wealth in this economy. Literally, the wealth in the economy is flowing to the very top so that the wage increases are not among the men and women that work every day, that put in their 40 hours a week or more. But, rather, it's flowing to those at the top. This is the result of economic policies that are put in place here in the Congress--tax policies, educational policies, other kinds of policies that lay the foundation for this extraordinary inequality. This has never been seen in America. During the Gilded Age in the 19th century, this kind of wealth disparity was not in existence. During the Roaring Twenties, this type of wealth inequality was not seen in the American economy. Only now, in the last 20, 30 years, have we seen policies put in place that have created the most inequality ever in modern American history. What does that mean? What does that mean to the average American family? It means that both mom and pop are working. It means that they cannot afford to send their children to school. And added on top of that, the Great Recession has stripped the wealth from the 90 percent. The wealth was stripped, mostly in the housing market collapse. So now we are faced with the situation, what can we do? Well, what we can do is to rebuild the American manufacturing sector, because this is where the middle class had decent wages. We are not talking about a $7.50 an hour minimum wage. We are talking about wages that a man or a woman could earn to protect and to provide for their family.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, we certainly will create a new recession. We know that 750,000 Americans will be unemployed, lose their jobs by the end of this fiscal year--that would be the first of October--as a result of sequestration. Now, it's not that we haven't tried to do a different proposal. Our budget proposal is one that would maintain the reduction, but push it forward so that it doesn't immediately dampen the American economy. The President has made a similar proposal, but we've had no action. Right now, we are calling on our colleagues and Speaker Boehner to appoint a conference committee so that we can actually do a budget. Please, let's get that budget going. Let's get this thing out of the way of America's job growth.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Exactly.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you so very, very much for really bringing to all of our attention the extraordinary impact that the sequestration is having on American families. Jobs are being lost. Real jobs are disappearing, and Americans, working men and women, are feeling their paychecks being significantly reduced. Now, another word for sequestration is austerity budgets. Shortly after the Great Recession began in 2008, there was the debate about should the governments of the world, the United States, Europe, China and Japan, should they take a policy of actively engaging in the economy to boost demand, which would be a Keynesian model of increasing the purchasing power within the economy, or should there be a reduction in government spending because of the deficits that were created as people lost their jobs and as tax revenues declined? That debate was robustly engaged here on the floor of the House, with the decision being made to engage the government in increasing the demand. So the stimulus bill came forth, and it really worked. It really had an effect. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were created. The decline was stopped, and slowly in 2009 and 2010, the American economy began to recover. Now, Europe made a different decision. In Europe, they made a decision not to stimulate the economy but rather to go into austerity, to reduce the budgets of the governments. The result in Europe has been perfectly clear. They have headed into a deep, deep recession yet again. They never came out of it. And so the entire European economy has been continuing to decline over these years. Austerity has gained in Europe a very, very bad name. In fact, conservative magazines such as The Economist magazine have been for the last 2 years saying, no more austerity, you have to stimulate the economy. We now see policies in Europe that are now turning around and looking to the stimulation of the economy as we did here. China did exactly the opposite of Europe. They followed the American model--or we followed theirs, depending on how you want to look at this--and they put into place a very heavy stimulus program, almost all of it in infrastructure, creating enormous demand and growth in China. Now, unfortunately, here in the United States, our initial effort at stimulus was cut short. It was cut short by the 2010 election. We had a new Congress, and the American Government since that moment has been involved in an austerity program. The sequestration is but one of the austerity programs that have been foisted upon the American public by our colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle. We have had fiscal cliff after fiscal cliff, and every time we come up against that cliff, we've seen a reduction in the role of the Federal Government in so many ways. Ms. Norton, you so clearly pointed out dozens of ways in which the Federal Government is backing away from previously important tasks, tasks such as, well, flight controllers, airline flight controllers. Now, we passed a bill to deal with that, but nevertheless, we took money out of the construction of airports and the upgrading of air traffic systems to keep the air traffic controllers going. So the austerity continued even in the airline sector. We've seen it in my district. I've got maybe more than a thousand miles of flood levees. The Army Corps of Engineers, $250 million reduction in their ability to upgrade and to deal with the levees and to prevent flooding. On and on. I won't go through all the list that Ms. Norton put forward. But those are the continuing austerity measures that have been forced upon us. It can't continue. It cannot continue. Our task is to create jobs. Our task is to put Americans back to work. Our task is to make sure that this incredible income disparity ends and that we find ways to rebuild the American middle class.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much, Mr. Clyburn, for your excellent exposition of the problem faced by the middle class, by the working families of America: the fact that over the last 40 years they've seen virtually no progress in their economic status while those very, very few at the very top have seen extraordinary wealth. It's also a shifting of wealth, and some say that this discussion is a discussion of class warfare. Well, I wouldn't call it warfare, but I would say that the middle class of America is clearly losing, while those very, very few at the top are clearly winning. And the reason is the policies of the United States are pushing the wealth to the top and literally taking the wealth from the working men and women. We need to change those policies, and our discussion here is very, very much about that. Thank you for your excellent discussion. I see that our colleague from Washington, D.C., Eleanor Holmes Norton, is here. Thank you very much for joining us. And, Mr. Clyburn, if you'd like to stick around, we will engage in a discussion, but I think you have other obligations.