Jay Inslee

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Marine Renewable Energy Promotion Act of 2009, a bill to promote the development of renewable energy from our oceans and rivers, using the tides, currents, waves and even the thermal properties of our oceans to generate electricity. I thank Senator Murkowski for introducing a Senate companion to this important measure. Marine and hydrokinetic devices offer the potential to capture energy from waves, tides, ocean currents, and the natural flow of water in rivers, as well as marine thermal gradients, without building new dams or diversions. The potential for this energy is tremendous. The Electric Power Research Institute has estimated that ocean resources in the United States could generate 252 million megawatt hours of electricity, which given as much support as other types of renewable energy, could be equivalent to 6.5 percent of America's entire electricity generation. Currently, Washington State companies, universities, research institutions and public utilities are working to bring affordable, reliable and abundant electricity to major urban load centers located near Puget Sound. For example, the Department of Energy designated the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center, run by the University of Washington and Oregon State University, to develop tidal and wave research projects. Additionally, the Department of Energy's Marine Sciences Laboratory on the Olympic Peninsula assesses waterpower resource potential to address and remove environmental roadblocks to deployment, testing to accelerate the integration of large-scale waterpower electricity generation into the Northwest power grid, and is essential to establishing a robust basis for industrial investment based on verifiable technology performance, assured cost basis, and environmental performance. Furthermore, two entities in Washington State are further along in deploying tidal energy turbines than anyone else in the United States. Both Verdant Power, in partnership with the U.S. Navy, and the Snohomish County Public Utility District, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, are well underway in their research and development of tidal energy in the Puget Sound and should be seen as test beds for the nation. The Marine Renewable Energy Promotion Act will accelerate these efforts by establishing a research, development and demonstration program at the Department of Energy that is specifically devoted to marine and hydrokinetic renewable energy. This office will help to develop new marine renewable energy technologies, increase reliability and durability of facilities, reduce manufacturing and operating costs of the devices, help identify and address environmental impacts of marine renewable energy and make sure that such power can be integrated into the national electricity grid. Importantly, the bill authorizes federal funding for a Marine-based Energy Device Verification Program, which will bridge the gap between design and development efforts and the commercial deployment of marine renewable energy devices. Funds would facilitate the installation and evaluation of marine renewable energy projects in partnership with appropriate federal research institutions and organizations. Information learned will be available for the benefit of utilities, independent power producers, generators, and others in the marine renewable energy development community. Further, the bill establishes an Adaptive Management and Environmental fund to provide grants for entities to help pay for the regulatory permitting and development of new marine technologies. Finally, the bill would allow marine energy to qualify for the existing accelerated depreciation tax benefit, which essentially allows marine projects to accelerate the depreciation of their project costs over five years and will help enhance project economic returns for private developers. I urge my colleagues to consider this important bill.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the Chairman for including my amendment into the manager's package. This important bill addresses a critical component to how we adapt to a changing climate and I am honored to have contributed to the creation of this vital piece of legislation. Washington State faces a decrease in spring snowpack of nearly thirty percent by the 2020's, forty percent by the 2040's and sixty-five percent by the 2080's. While this statewide information is significant to understand the regional impacts of the changing climate on water availability, the information only skims the surface of what our communities need to know to ensure the availability of our water resources. Many water resource managers lack the specific information on how changing climate conditions will impact the availability of, and demand for, water in their communities. In order to correctly plan for future operations, utility managers must have accurate information on how climate change and other factors will impact specific water sources. With the tools provided in this amendment, Evergreen Rural Water of Washington, a non-profit organization serving the needs of small water systems in Washington State, will be able to continue their important work to provide local water systems with on-site technical assistance, formal training, equipment lending and training information while considering specific impacts of climate change to these local water systems. Some utilities, such as Seattle Public Utilities, have assessed the vulnerability of their water supply to climate change and have begun to develop adaptation strategies to prepare for the impacts of the change in temperature while other utilities have not, either due to the lack of resources or lack of awareness about the implications for the specific system they manage. By developing tools used for the anticipation of changing water availability and use patterns for the preparation of a strategic plan for sustainable future operations, we can downscale the information developed by federal water research to a utilizable level so that all utility companies will be able to plan for the future water resource for their customers. I am honored that my amendment was included in the manager's package as it will bridge the gap between the research implemented on the federal level and what is needed on the ground by water resource managers and utilities.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out a few points about this bill. First off, this is a bill we passed with broad bipartisan support last year. Two hundred ninety-four Democrats and Republicans stepped up to the plate and took a very, very modest step to try to preserve these endangered species that, in fact, are threatened and are listed on international lists. Having gone through the scientific process, these 15 species are all recognized at risk both under United States considerations and under the international consortiums of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also called CITES; and the World Conservation Union, the IUCN. We know the science is that all 15 of these species are at risk. And I want to suggest in answer to my friend's concern about this investment by Americans, there are at least three reasons Americans should have an interest in these species even though some of them are not in the United States. Number one and perhaps most important, many of our citizens will never physically be in the presence of a cheetah or physically be in the presence of some of the fox species that are endangered here. But I can tell you that they are enjoying the presence of these species, the Creator's creation, in the Creator's creation watching them on television. I spent a week taking care of my dad recovering from surgery, and he spent about half of his time enjoying watching these creatures, the Creator's creation, because it gives him joy. And we have got constituents who are enjoying the existence of these species. This is a very small down payment to protect that. Number two, when we preserve these species and when we preserve their habitat, it is in our self-interest because it is in our self-interest that the rain forest in South America is preserved. That is the lungs of the planet. We cannot solve our climate change problems without it. This can, in fact, help Americans through our environmental challenges that we have. And, third, this bill is a great investment because for every dollar we put in, and it's a very small commitment of $5 million, but for every one of those dollars, we get $4 from the international community to match and exceed our investment. It is a prudent investment. So I would hope that we would continue our efforts that we had on a bipartisan basis last year of standing up for these precious species that are on the cusp. And I realize that these species are sometimes thousands of miles away from us, but they can be only months or years away from extinction; so our great-grandkids will never get to watch them except in old-time videos and old-time documentaries. We owe them more. Let's take this very small step forward and pass this bill. I rise to present important legislation, the Great Cats and Rare Canids Conservation Act, which supports the conservation of wild big cats and canine populations outside the United States by providing financial resources to conserve 15 such species that are vital for their ecological value and are listed as endangered or threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, IUCN, Red List of Endangered Species. Mr. Speaker, the genesis of the Great Cats and Rare Canids program is nearly a decade old, and the bill under consideration today was also introduced in the past three Congresses. In that time, these species have continued to decline in numbers. I would like to thank Representative Udall, now Senator Udall, who brought up this bill in the past. This bipartisan legislation continues our tradition of protecting threatened and endangered species around the world and comes at a critical time in the survival of these animals. Of the 37 wild felid species worldwide, all are currently recognized as species in need of protection. Of the 35 wild canid species worldwide, nearly 50 percent are recognized as in need of such protection in one of these categories. The 15 species whose conservation is supported in this bill are umbrella species that, if conserved appropriately, protect their corresponding landscapes and other species dependent on those ecosystems. They include the majestic jaguar of South and Central America, the elusive snow leopard, the cheetah, the African wild dog, and other rare carnivore species. If enacted, the Great Cats and Rare Canids Conservation Fund would be established, building on the success of the Multinational Species Conservation Fund. Importantly, it leverages private conservation dollars from corporate and non-government sources in order to address the critical need to conserve these threatened large carnivores. Historically, for every $1 invested by the Federal Government in the programs that are part of the Multinational Species Conservation Fund, there is a $4 match by private donations. Since 1990, the Multinational Species Conservation Fund which has invested over $50 million in conservation assistance to the world's charismatic species, has garnered over $180 million in partner contributions and private funding. A coalition of over 80 conservation organizations, zoos, sportsmen and hunting groups and other non-governmental organizations support this bill. I would particularly like to recognize Defenders of Wildlife, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Safari Club International, and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. These organizations together and their millions of members represent the broad based support among Americans all over the country for Congress to enact this critical piece of legislation. I would like to thank Chairman Rahall and committee staff Jim and Dave Jansen for bringing this bill to the floor.

Mr. INSLEE. Very briefly, I just wanted to respond to my friend's assertion that the species have not been recognized by the scientific community. I want to assure the gentleman, all of the 15 species, eight cats and seven canine species, are listed on at least one of the salient lists of these endangered and threatened species, and that would be the Endangered Species Act of the United States, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also called CITES, and the third, the World Conservation Union Red List of Endangered Species. All of the species that we have selected are on at least one of those lists. I think we will find broad scientific consensus a lot more species are in trouble than these. These are just a tiny fraction of the species that are in trouble, but, frankly, the ones whose existence our constituents enjoy. They are enjoying them in their living rooms, and this is a very small down payment to make sure that continues.

Mr. INSLEE. Will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. INSLEE. Just to make sure that Members will know about the lists we are talking about, the reason not all of these species are on all three lists that we have alluded to is that canine species that are not traded could not be listed under one of these lists that involve just those that are traded animals. It doesn't mean they are not endangered. It doesn't mean they are not threatened. It just doesn't mean that that is the list that pertains to only traded species. And I can warrant that you will not find anything but scientific consensus that we have had a very well-targeted rifle shot to the most endangered cats and canines here, not the least. And I am very sensitive to my colleague's concern about our fiscal condition. It is real and his points are well taken. But there are some things that will not wait, even in respite of our fiscal condition, and extinction is one of them. If we get in better fiscal condition 3 years from now, we can't go back and sort of gin up the DNA from these species. Once the Creator's handiwork is gone, we can't go to our grandkids and say, well, we had a budget crunch and we just couldn't save them. So we hope we get this done.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I've come to the House today to talk about a bold vision and an act of leadership by President Obama that was again noted last night by President Obama. In his news conference, he again stated his commitment to lead our country to the adoption of a clean energy future by means of a bill called a cap-and-trade bill, which we're going to talk about this evening, that he believes and I believe and many people believe will be a wellspring and mainspring of our economic transition to a clean energy future for this country. And I was very pleased to hear him say that last night, because he has not been timid about recognizing the need for economic growth in our country, for job creation growth in our country, for taking on new markets in this country so that we can really rebuild the economy of this country. And I heard him last night yet again recognizing that we're not going to get our economy back on our feet unless we actually take some action. It's not going to happen just by the tooth fairy. So last night what he proposed to do is for the Congress, in as bipartisan a way as we possibly can, to adopt a provision that will drive investment into the new companies that can create millions of jobs in our green-collar future in the next decade or two, and he did that by proposing something called a cap-and-trade bill which will essentially limit the amount of dirty pollution industries put in the air and drive investment into the new jobs of the future that can really give us the new, clean technologies and clean energy that can lead us to this new future. So I come tonight to talk about two things that are fundamental to our ability to realize this vision. The first is, I'd like to discuss tonight some of the companies that are actually realizing this vision. Now, President Obama wasn't just sort of daydreaming when he said that this is a vision that we Americans are capable of. Some of the companies I will note tonight are on the cusp of creating commercially viable technologies that can create literally millions of new jobs where we can create high-tech components and energy sources and ship them around the world. So the first thing I'd like to talk about tonight are some of those new technologies that we can build in America. The second thing I'd like to talk about is how we can build a cap-and-trade bill that will assuage some of the concerns. Now, President Obama knows that this is not an easy setting. When you propose something big, a big idea like this, people get nervous. They get concerned. They want to know the details. And there are concerns tonight about the cap-and-trade bill, and I want to address some of those about how we're going to build jointly a cap-and-trade bill that will work for all the country and all segments of the country. So let me, if I can, first talk about why I believe President Obama's vision is based on optimism but also a really sound sense of realism. I want to talk about some of the people I've come to know in America who are now engaged in building the jobs of the future. Go to Nevada, where there's a company called Ausra. Two years ago it just had eight people. Now, Ausra has several hundred people working for them. What the Ausra concentrated solar energy company does, they have figured out a way to use long mirrors to concentrate the sun's energy that heats up a pipe with a liquid in it, some type of oil usually, captures the sun's radiant energy, uses that oil to essentially heat water and turn a steam turbine and generate electricity. And now we have the first manufacturing plant in the United States to build these system of mirrors that can now be arrayed anywhere the sun shines to create energy and electricity with no carbon dioxide, no pollution whatsoever of global warming gases while you're producing that electricity. Why is this a big deal? It's a big deal because the world is desperate for electricity that we can generate at a commercially viable price that doesn't pollute. Ausra is now manufacturing a plant to do that. They're not the only one. The Bright Source company is another company that uses what's called concentrated solar energy. They do a similar technology, and they just signed contracts for I think over 2,000 megawatts of concentrated solar energy to provide our grid system. So here are two companies that are leaders that could potentially create massive new job creation, not only giving us electricity, but as importantly, developing technology that we can sell to the rest of the world. I met the environmental minister of India this afternoon, and they are desperate for clean energy. Now, President Obama has a vision that I think can come to reality. Ausra and Bright Source make this technology. We build it here, we design it here, and we sell it to India, and we sell it to China, and we sell these products to Korea. This is the vision of economic growth that he recognizes, and I think the country will come to recognize is our best way out of the economic morass we're in. Go to Boston. In Boston is a company called A123. A123 has developed a lithium ion battery that is capable of producing a plug-in electric car where we can run our cars for 40 miles on nothing but electricity, home-grown, American electricity. Imagine a future where you're generating electricity with solar power, and you're feeding it in at night, you plug your car in at home at night, you unplug it, and you drive to work. It goes 40 miles, which 60 percent of our trips are less than 40 miles a day, on all electricity. You get an infinite miles per gallon of gasoline because you don't use any, at least in your first 40 miles. Now, A123 battery company is competing with a loan guarantee, again under President Obama's plan, to start the manufacture essentially of this type of component, and this is an extremely important realization by our new President. He realizes that we're going to have electrified cars, and we're going to need advanced batteries to run them, and we want those batteries made in America. We don't want us to be driving cars with electric batteries made in Korea or China. We want to drive cars with batteries made in the United States, and we want to sell those batteries to Chinese car buyers and Korean car buyers. That's a vision we need to pursue. So we need policies that will drive that investment into the United States, to build these new electric batteries here, not Korea, not China. And why is that important? Well, it's important because if we don't do this, we're going to trade our addiction to Saudi Arabian oil, which we're addicted to now, for an addiction to lithium ion batteries made in Korea or China. Now, if we don't start taking some action here in Congress, that's the type of fate that our economy would have. Fortunately, we have a President with a plan to, in fact, do this domestically. So now I will travel West to Michigan to see General Motors, who is getting ready to build the GM Volt, which is a plug-in electric car so that our car manufacturers can start to build this new generation of vehicle, leading the third generation to an all-electric vehicle. And just to show you that our car manufacturers, even if there's dislocation in the car manufacturing business, I'll tell you about another little company I heard about called Infinia. Infinia is a company in Tri-Cities, Washington. It's in southeast Washington. They have developed a concentrated solar energy machine. It is called a sterling engine, a sterling engine. It's very old, but they're now figuring out a way to make it commercially viable. Essentially, it uses a pressure differential created by solar thermal energy that drives a piston, and it creates electricity. And the beauty of the Infinia product is that people who have made cars, this is exactly the type of technology to now start making sterling engines because it's essentially automobile technology. It involves a cylinder, a transmission, and people in the auto industry can transition into this new industry. So here are five companies I've listed that if we adopt the Obama cap-and-trade system and energy plan, we've got a chance to really drive the economic development. So, I have a few others I thought I might share with you, but we're joined by Ron Kind from Wisconsin. He is the leader of the New Democratic Coalition that's invested in pushing ideas about how we really innovate, and I'm glad you've joined me. I wonder if you have some comments.

Mr. INSLEE. I would like to yield to a tremendous leader in the clean air revolution, our Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, who is truly leading the House in the right direction. Madam Speaker.

Mr. INSLEE. If you find anyone objecting, give them those five points, and we hope they will see the light. With that, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from New York be redesignated the time.

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, before you go, just one comment. Our colleague Earl Pomeroy is a very good sandbagger and sandbag filler. I talked to him this morning about that effort. He's been working hard. He was on the floor this afternoon making sure that all of his colleagues knew about this problem and I saw him talking to several folks about some ideas to help his constituents. Thank you for caring about his great State.

Mr. INSLEE. Yes, sir.

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Mr. INSLEE. We'll turn our attention now, again, to the issue of how we promote this job creation in this new energy world. I want to perhaps now talk about the second thing this evening we want to talk about, which is how a cap-and-trade bill will actually promote job creation. It's very important, obviously, for environmental reasons, why we want to prevent global warming. It is obvious why we want to get off of our addiction to Middle Eastern oil. It is obvious that we have national security concerns that promote the development of clean energy. What is not so obvious always is the fact that we can create jobs by making smart and commonsense policies. I want to briefly talk about six things in the bill President Obama is ultimately going to help us pass that will be very helpful. First off, in his cap-and-trade bill, he will pass and we will pass a cap on the amount of pollution that goes into the atmosphere, which our grandchildren deserve and we deserve and our homes deserve so that the climate does not change dramatically. We have a cap right now on many pollutants. We limit the amount of, for instance, sulfur dioxide and other pollutants that go into the air. But, unfortunately, polluting industries are still free to put unlimited amounts of one of the worst pollutants in the globe right now--carbon dioxide--which is responsible for changing the climate of the planet. So we need to essentially close the huge loophole in our laws right now and put a cap on the amount of pollution that's going in the atmosphere. Then we need to charge polluting industries for the right to put this into the atmosphere because obviously we don't want it to be allowed to go up there for free because it will be put in the air for free. And we can't do that as citizens. We can't go to the garbage dump and take our pickup load of all the junk in our basement that accumulates--I don't know how, but it ends up there. We can't go to the garbage dump and dump it for free. We've got to pay $25, $30. That should be true too, including industries who put pollution into the atmosphere, which has a limited carrying capacity before the climate changes. So President Obama has proposed we simply extend an American law we have for several other pollutants, including sulfur dioxide, to the gas of carbon dioxide. Now there are six things I want to address about that bill and then I will yield to Mr. Tonko. I'll just note a couple of them. The first thing in this bill is that the money that is generated when these permits are auctioned off to these polluting industries, the bulk of it is going to go right back to American citizens. It's going to go right back. It's going to be recycled so that American citizens have assistance with their energy bills. So that money is going to be paid into a pool by polluting industries. The vast bulk of it is going to be recycled right back to American households for help on their utility bills. We're going to have a way to get that job done. We are designing it now. We want to have bipartisan help, if we can do that. We would love Republicans to help us to do that because we hope that they'd want that to be the case, that a significant part of this go back to the American taxpayers. So for those who are concerned about the utility bills, the first thing to realize about a cap-and-trade bill is the most significant part of this money is going to go right back to citizens. And that's perhaps the first thing people should know about it. The second thing they should know about it is that some people are concerned from coal-producing States that if we pass this cap-and-trade bill, it will be too disruptive to their economies. Here's a very important point for those who are in regions of our country that use coal, which is tremendously abundant and has been a very effective energy source for us, but in fact has the problem now that if we continue to burn it, if we burn all the coal we have, we will cook the planet, unless we find a way to sequester carbon dioxide and put it where it can't get in the atmosphere. For those who are concerned about this, it's important to note that a significant part of this pool of money that will be generated is going to go to research to help the coal industry figure out a way to bury carbon dioxide so that it doesn't get into the atmosphere. For those who worry about this--of the continuation of the coal industry--they ought to support this approach because we're going to generate money to help the industry develop a way not to put carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If we do that, coal could have a long-term future in our economy. If we don't, it does not. Because we have to find a way to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere. So here's two central points that those who are looking at a cap-and- trade bill and are worried about it. I hope they will realize the first thing, the money is going back to the consumers; second, we're helping industries that might otherwise be in dire, dire trouble if we don't help them out. With that, I'd like to turn to a new Member of Congress, Paul Tonko, who has a tremendous energy background. I'd love your thoughts this evening.

Mr. INSLEE. The good news is that President Obama is right on the beam of what you are suggesting; because in this cap-and-trade bill, he is not suggesting using the money that is generated by the polluting industries buying these permits for museums or nicknacks. He wants to put the money that doesn't go back to consumers, that is recycled right back to consumers, which will be the bulk of it, he wants to put it in a research and development, and he is proposing $15 billion--frankly, we think it may end up being higher than that--to develop these American industrial technologies so we can put Americans to work in green-collar jobs. And I think that is so important, because if you look at the energy research we have been doing, it is pretty pathetic until President Obama was President. I will give you what was an eye opener to me. The dog food industry of the United States spends more on research and development than the entire electrical utility industry of the United States. We have not done our knitting when it comes to research and development funds. Now, we started in this new bill we just passed, which put about $70 billion into research, but we need the second, third, and fourth year out. And President Obama, in this cap-and-trade, we are going to dedicate these funds. They are not going to be used by Member of Congress for just some pet project; they are going to be dedicated for clean energy research and development. And when President Obama talks about that, what I am particularly impressed about is he is not focusing on one little silver bullet here like he has got some favorite technology, he is putting it in the whole vast array of new possibilities; solar photovoltaic energy, concentrated solar energy, engineered geothermal energy, advanced biofuels, lithium ion batteries, coal sequestration to find out if we can burn coal in a way that doesn't put CO2 in the atmosphere. So this is a mechanism he has proposed to do for energy what John F. Kennedy did for space.

Mr. INSLEE. By the way, there are people who might be listening to us talk about this tonight who might look askance at some of these new technologies. They might think it is people with funny hats on talking about some kind of crazy thing that is never going to come to pass. And some of these technologies will not become commercially viable. The nature of exploration is that you try things, and some of them don't work and some of them do work. And some of the things we are talking about tonight may not work. But I would just hearken back to a recent experience. Ten years ago, when we were arguing that we should try to develop wind power people thought those were just going to be little Dutch windmills that could never really generate electricity. Well, this year the United States of America became the largest producer of wind power, electricity generated by wind in the world. We are number one in the world of wind-power generation. And, more people today are working in the wind power industry than are working in the coal mining industry. That is not to diminish the importance of the coal mining industry. It is important. Those are good although very difficult jobs. But the point is, ten years ago people would have laughed at us if we would have said we are going to have more people working in the wind turbine industry than coal. And, in fact, that has come to pass, and wind is still going gang busters. We cannot put up wind turbines fast enough. We have to build the lines to get to them, and that is another part of President Obama's plan to build the lines to get to the wind turbines, and he has committed significant dollars to make sure we do that. I want to point out something about the fourth point of some people's concerns about this cap-and-trade bill. Some people have expressed concerns that it would only help the coastal regions, the Seattles of the world where I am from, the Bostons of the world, and leave out the heartland, and nothing could be more further from the truth. I just want to mention a couple reasons. Number one, one of the big winners in this new transition is the agricultural part of America, the heartland, for a couple reasons. Number one, it is where the wind is. And farmers today are getting $3,000 to $6,000 a year just in lease payments to leases a few hundred square feet to put a wind turbine on. And there are a lot of happy farmers in my State right now, and there are going to be a lot of happy farmers in the Midwest, in North Dakota and Wyoming and Iowa. There are going to be a lot of farmers sitting in that chair seeing those checks come in the mailbox from getting to rent these wind turbines. Second, there is a way in this cap-and-trade bill that farmers may be able to essentially get paid for using their topsoil to sequester carbon dioxide. If they can find ways, tillage practices and the like, they can sell the sequestration service, the service of their soil of taking carbon dioxide out of the air and burying it in the soil; and we think there is a way we might be able to design a system to do that. Third, biofuels. You know, we still have advanced biofuels. It is not just biodiesel and corn-based ethanol. That was sort of the first generation. Now we have got to move to the second generation of cellulosic ethanol and then the third generation of algae-based gasoline. By the way, there is a company called Sapphire Energy right now that just opened up their plant in New Mexico to do that. So we want to make the point that those who care about the agricultural communities, there is a tremendous upside to moving forward with this cap-and-trade system.

Mr. INSLEE. You mentioned the electrical grid. It is very important that we build an electrical grid that is up to these new technologies. And I will be introducing a bill in the next week or so to create a new Federal way of siting, planning and financing these new high-density, high-capacity grid systems to get that job done. Before I yield to Mr. Polis, I want to just mention one thing before I forget. There is a fifth concern about our cap-and-trade bill that the President has proposed. Some people have rightly been concerned about a market mechanism to allow companies to swap these permits. And given what we have gone through in the recent past, we all are rightfully skeptical of a new market system that could be manipulated by those who let greed overcome their common sense. So it is very important that when we design this system, we design a new regulatory system that is fully capable of being the most aggressive, most hard- nosed, toughest, most ambitious, most foolproof regulatory system known on planet Earth. We intend to accomplish that. We do not intend to allow this market to be abused, as other markets have been, including by regulating derivatives that have been the bane of some of these market disasters. So we hope to use this as a template on how to really do other markets so that we don't have that problem. I want to now yield to Mr. Polis from Colorado, who has been a great leader on these measures that have had tremendous success in the development of job creation in Colorado. We are envious of some of the things you're doing there.

Mr. INSLEE. I appreciate that comment. I'm going to make a couple of closing comments and turn it over to my friends here. We have come tonight to try to assuage some concerns about this program. We know we have to move. Inaction is not an option. Failure is not an option here given what is going to happen to our country otherwise. But I just want to mention five things. Those who are concerned about the impact on consumers, we will be recycling the money generated from this, to a large extent, back to consumers, right back into their pockets, number one. Number two, for those who are concerned about the impact on coal- dominated regions, this is the only plan out there to help the coal industry survive long term by doing research to find out if we can sequester carbon dioxide and allow coal to remain a viable option for this country. Number three, those who are concerned about the impact on agriculture, we know agriculture is going to suffer if global warming continues. Take a look at the drought and the almond farmers who are losing their orchards in California right now because of the drought. And farmers are going to be able to make money from this program in wind power, in sequestration and in advanced forms of biofuels. Number four, we will provide the American people what they deserve in market protection. We will have a regulatory program that will keep the rascals out of our till in these markets. And it will be a template of further markets. Number five, we will do for research and development what Kennedy did for space in the original Apollo project and finally get this country up to speed on generating these new technologies. So we hope people will take a good look at this. We are very appreciative of President Obama's inspirational leadership here, and we intend to do our part.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, last night President Obama again reaffirmed his commitment to a clean energy policy for America, a policy that will grow millions of new green-collar jobs in this country. And he did it by, again, reaffirming his commitment to a cap- and-trade bill in this Congress this year which will drive investments into these new jobs for the next century. The reason he is giving so much hope for Americans is that he realizes that we want Americans building the energy-efficient, partially and fully electric cars so we can sell those cars to China, so we can make the solar cells and sell them to Korea, so we can make wind turbines and sell them to Denmark. It is this vision of Barack Obama that is going to help grow jobs in this country. And when we pass this cap-and-trade bill, two things are going to happen: money is going to go back to the American consumers to help them buy these energy-efficient products, and we are going to create millions of new jobs. That is a Barack Obama hope for the future, and it is going to come to pass.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. I want to thank the sponsor of this amendment for broadening the application of this bill. I just want to make the point that this is a bill that is not only for the benefit of the individuals, the people who are going to gain these skills, but the whole country. When we weatherize homes, when we install solar panels, when we engage in all of these activities, it is part of the whole clean energy revolution that this country is going through, and it is going to help all 50 States. The best vote I have ever cast, the very first vote I ever cast in Congress was for AmeriCorps, and I am happy that that is being extended. Mr. Sarbanes and I introduced a stand-alone bill to get this Energy Corps going, and now I'm glad that we make sure it is all across the country. I thank the gentlelady for her sponsorship.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, last week I had two very exciting meetings with people who have some insights about how we can move forward to use a new energy future to really revive our economy, and I thought I would take a couple of moments to advise my colleagues about these meetings. I thought they would be interested in them. First, I met some absolutely brilliant people up in Boston area at the MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Energy Club. This is a club of graduate and post-graduate students who have come together to organize themselves to try to promote ideas about how to build a new, clean energy future for the country. These are brilliant people, post-graduates in chemistry, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering. These are really some of the creme de la creme of our young geniuses coming up who can help build our new economy. It was fascinating to me, because these were people who were tremendously optimistic even in these tough times about the ability to grow the U.S. economy, if we will get serious about promoting the future of new energy technologies. I am convinced after meeting these relatively young people that we've got a bright future in our economy if we can unleash these intellectual geniuses. They told me that they were waiting for a signal from Washington, DC, that we were really going to embrace these new technologies; and they told me about some of these new technologies that they're fascinated in. I thought I would share some of them today. They told me about a technology company called Ramgen, a company out in my State of Washington, that has an ability to compress carbon dioxide so that someday we might be able to burn coal in a way that carbon dioxide doesn't go into the air but we compress that carbon dioxide and put it under the ground permanently so it doesn't cause global warming. They're waiting for Congress to pass a bill that will essentially direct the economy in that direction. They told me it's very important to have a bill that will create a fund to be able to support the research so that these people at MIT can help develop this and various other technologies. The cap-and-trade bill, which I'll talk about a little later, is a bill that will do just that, to help that technology forward. We talked about the Ausra Company, a company that just opened the first manufacturing plant in the United States, commercial plant, for concentrated solar energy, so you can concentrate the sun's rays and generate electricity. They are now hiring several hundred people in Nevada, building these new plants, so that we can convert the sun's energy directly to electricity, and they were very excited about that technology. I met up there the leader of A123 Battery Company. At A123 Battery, they make lithium ion batteries that can power plug-in hybrid cars and ultimately all electric cars using lithium ion. The beauty of this, of course, is that if you use electricity, you don't have to import gasoline from Saudi Arabia, you don't have to wrap yourself around that national security threat, and you can use electricity rather than oil. But they told me they're waiting for a signal from Congress to move toward electricity in our cars. Now we started that in the stimulus bill to help them, but now we need to move forward to have a bill to essentially regulate carbon dioxide so we can have another signal to industry to start moving to electric cars. We talked about a company called the Sapphire Energy Company. The Sapphire Energy Company just started construction of ponds--and this will sound like science fiction but it's real--ponds where you can grow algae and the algae takes the sun's energy and turns it into lipids and then you essentially press it and you get fuel that you make gasoline out of. So we can use algae to essentially eat carbon dioxide out of our coal-fired plants and then use it to make a liquid automobile fuel that's chemically indistinguishable for gasoline. Pretty exciting company. We talked about the AltaRock Company. The AltaRock Company is a company, again up in the State of Washington, which is trying to commercialize what we call engineered geothermal, where you can poke a hole down in the Earth, you pump water down there, it collects to a 300-degree temperature, you bring it up, generate steam and make electricity. Again, zero CO2. These companies are waiting for a signal from Congress, the cap-and- trade bill, and we're going to try and get it through this year.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I would commend this resolution to the House. This really is a great American story of truly a great American hero. John ``Bud'' Hawk is a son of Rollingbay, Washington. He grew up playing with his sister around the post office we're about to name in his honor in the little community of Rollingbay, Washington. And he's a fellow who answered the Nation's call in the 1940s and was a hero in the 1940s, but was a hero for several decades to the students he educated. And I just want to commend him for both of those acts of heroism. My colleagues have talked about why he won the Congressional Medal of Honor, and I have to tell you if you actually read this, you would be mightily impressed by a fellow who on one day at the Battle of the Falaise Gap essentially with his machine gun squad destroyed two enemy tanks while he was already severely wounded and, after he was severely wounded, leading to the surrender of hundreds of German prisoners, still refused medical treatment. He was a hero several times in 1 day, and he was then injured three more times during World War II, and we still honor him for that. But I want to just highlight something that he earned not in 1 day but he earned the honor and affection of hundreds, if not thousands, of people in our community. After he got back from World War II, he came home and got a degree in biology. He worked for 7 years to do that, and he started teaching fifth and sixth grade, first at Tracyton Elementary in Bremerton and later at nearby Brownsville Elementary. He eventually became a teaching principal and taught classes while he was running the school. He served 31 years as an educator and retired in 1983 as principal of Woodlands Elementary in Bremerton. And I just want to read something that a lot of people feel in our community of Bainbridge and Bremerton, something a former student of Mr. Hawk's wrote in a University of Washington Alumni magazine, recalling 1 year he spent as Mr. Hawk's student. This former student wrote: ``Ascribe it to my then youthful impressionableness, if you will, but John Hawk was then and remains still a personal hero of mine for the humanity and strength of character he taught his students, along with the more mundane subjects of math, science, and history. I count myself fortunate to have spent that year as his student. And I relish the opportunity all these years later to say what I at age 11 didn't know to say: For both a year of education and for your lifetime of service to your country and to humanity, thank you, Mr. Hawk.'' So on this day of honoring Mr. Hawk by naming the Rollingbay Post Office in his honor, we want to say thank you, Mr. Hawk. I know Mr. Issa noted the bagpipes we heard just a few moments ago. They were honoring a great Irishman who's now President, President Barack Obama. All of the Irish are celebrating John ``Bud'' Hawk's celebration. There is a young lad, a young Irishman, named Brody in Bainbridge Island. He's honoring Bud. Thank you, Mr. Hawk. And thank you for the country in passing this resolution.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. I appreciate, Mr. Blumenauer, coming forth to talk about this issue because we're about to really make a pretty big decision here, whether we're going to just continue doing nothing about our energy problems, this sort of inaction model. Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle basically are saying everything is hunky- dory and we should do nothing about the energy challenges we have. Or should we take a real step forward to try to move to transform our economy, to build millions of green collar jobs, to wean ourselves off of Middle Eastern oil and at the same time reduce the amount of global warming that is occurring? We think we need to move. We think we need action. We don't think the current state of the economy is good enough for America. We think America is better than this for ways I'd like to talk about a little bit. And I don't think it's good enough to adopt this sort of approach some of my colleagues earlier were talking about to just say it's okay to be addicted to Middle Eastern oil, it's okay to allow the jobs of building electric cars to go to China. It's not okay to let the jobs building wind turbines to go to Denmark. It's not okay to let the job of building solar cells go to China. We don't think that's okay. We want an American response to build those products here, to build those green collar jobs here. Now, I meet with a lot of groups about energy. I was very heartened last weekend. I went to the Boston area to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the MIT Conference on Energy, and there's a group up at MIT of students, mostly post-graduate science and engineering students, and they have an energy club, and and once a year they have a meeting about energy. So I went up there to address their group. There were about 150, 200 students, and about 300 entrepreneurs and business people. And I was so excited to listen to what they saw as a vision for this country. And for those who think we can just stay in the status quo, I wish they could meet these MIT students. These folks were telling me about the jobs we can create in the solar industry with concentrated solar energy power, like the Ausra Company that just built the first manufacturing plant for concentrated solar cell energy in Nevada. Just 2 months ago they opened up this plant. And these MIT students are chomping at the bit to start working in that technology. We were talking about the AltaRock Company, a company that's now exploring engineered geothermal up in the State of Washington. These MIT students just can't wait to start going out and start businesses around technology like that. We talked about the Sapphire Energy Company, a company that now is building production facilities to use algae to make biofuels. We talked about the A123 Company in Boston, which makes lithium-ion batteries so we can power our plug-in electric hybrid cars. And what these MIT students told me is, Mr. Congressman, you build a structure to drive investment into these new technologies, and we will build the companies of the future and the jobs of the future to deliver a clean energy transformed economy for the United States. And for anybody who is a pessimist about our ability to wean ourselves off of fossil fuel and wean ourselves off of Saudi Arabian oil, you ought to go out and meet these MIT students. But the businessmen there told us something, and this is the important point, I think. What the business people, these were venture capitalists, these were CEOs of major corporations, what they told us is that future will not come to pass, the green-collar jobs we are talking about, unless we adopt some rules of the road for a market- based economy that will not give such an advantage to fossil fuels but, in fact, will level the playing field. And what they told me is that basically there is a couple of things we can do. One thing we can do is to essentially level the playing field between these new technologies and some of the older companies that have been subsidized for so long, like the oil and gas industry. Now, basically, we can do that through a system that will drive investment towards these new jobs of the future. And, by the way, those new jobs of the future may include what we call sequestered coal. Some of my colleagues were here earlier talking a lot about coal. The folks up at MIT were telling me that we may be able to find a technology to sequester carbon dioxide when you gasify coal. It may be a possibility. So we need some research dollars to make that come to pass. Well, we have a way of doing that, and President Obama has proposed a way of generating funds that can be used to essentially develop that technology, and he has proposed what's called a cap-and-trade or a cap- and-invest system which is, basically, it's pretty simple. We would establish a cap, a limit on the amount of pollution that polluting industries are allowed to put into the air. We have done this to great success in acid rain, sulfur dioxide, which is the pollution that causes acid rain. Congress several years ago passed a cap, a limit on the amount of that acid rain pollution that we put into the atmosphere. Now, President Obama has proposed doing the same for the pollutant that causes global warming, principally carbon dioxide. And then we would simply have the polluting industries buy, at auction, the permits to do that, and use the market system to establish a price for that. Now, here's the important part about this approach. Number 1, it does, it takes action. It recognizes that the status quo is not good enough. And we are here tonight to say that America needs a better energy policy than the one we have right now. So, number one, it takes action. Number two, when you do this, what the business people have told me all across this country, when you do this, it starts to drive investment into these new technologies that can create the green-collar jobs that we need so much in wind power, in solar power, in enhanced geothermal power, in electric cars and potentially in sequestered coal to use coal in that way. But to do that you have to put a price on carbon dioxide, and you have to limit the amount of this pollution that's going into the atmosphere. So we are here to say that we are capable of building a new transformed economy. I want to make one other comment if I can, people have said that when you make an investment like this it costs some money. Well, any investment costs some money, when you buy a house, it costs some money. When you build an electric car, it costs you some money. But the people who want us to just stay in the status quo don't understand that the door of inaction is going to cost us a heck of a lot more money. Go ask the people up in Alaska whose homes tonight are washing into the Arctic Ocean because the permafrost is melting, these are Americans. There is a town in America that is going to have to be moved at the cost of about $30 million because it's basically melting into the Arctic Ocean because the tundra is melting underneath them. That's costing Americans a lot of money tonight. We need to figure that into the proposition. Go ask the farmers in California, who are losing their farms tonight because we have this horrendous drought, an unprecedented drought in the western United States, who are losing their farms and their livelihoods. Ask them if there is a cost associated with global warming. Ask the folks who are losing salmon, the salmon fishermen on the west coast--I am from Washington, Mr. Blumenauer is from Oregon--ask them the cost of inaction of losing their livelihood because we lost salmon runs because there wasn't enough water in the rivers last year to have a salmon harvest. Americans are getting costs tonight that we cannot ignore, and we know those costs are going to be greater than any investments that we make. By the way, those investments that we make under our plan, here is what is going to happen, and this is President Obama's plan. Polluting industries are going to do what they should do, which is to have to pay some cost to put pollution into the atmosphere. You know, when you and I go to the dump, we pay $25 to dump our junk in the garbage dump. We can't just dump it for free. And under our plan polluting industries will pay some cost associated with putting pollution into the atmosphere, as determined by the market. They will bid against each other, and the highest bidder will get the permit. So they will get to finally recognize the atmosphere as not a personal dumping ground for a coal-fired plant but, in fact, something we share that has a market value. So they will put money into the pot to buy those permits. That money will then go back to the American people in a variety of ways. First it will go back to the American people in making an investment for America in common to build these new industries to do the research and development it takes so these jobs will be here, not China. It will go back to the American people as an investment to build research facilities to build lithium ion batteries here in this country rather than China and Korea, that's number 1. Number two, it will go back to the American people in a substantial tax cut, probably the largest tax cut America has seen for the middle class, to make permanent some of these tax cuts. It's going to go right back to the American people. Third, it will go back in a way, and there are several ways we can do this, to help some of the communities that might be disadvantaged, potentially, by job loss and energy-intensive industries around steel mills and the like. The point is it will go back to the American people, and it go in a way that will reduce the cost for Americans, not increase it. Now, if you think I am just making this stuff up, people can go check an authoritative view, an assessment of the cost of this, and it basically concluded as this has net positive costs. I mean, it doesn't have costs relative to what's going to happen to our economy if we do not act, and that's from an assessment done on the GNP that predicted we would have a 5 percent reduction. Lloyd Stern, a very well respected economist from England, he and his team did this assessment. They concluded we will have net negative costs relative to this inaction. So we are here to say we have a vision based on confidence that Americans still have the right stuff, that people who put a man on the Moon still have the right stuff. And if we go out and make these investments, we are going to put Americans to work building these green-collar jobs right in this country. If we don't, we are going to lose jobs.

Mr. INSLEE. I just had a thought, as you were talking. I have seen this movie before of those who didn't want to take action, and I am trying to remember where I saw it before and I just flashed on where it was. It was in Katrina, because if you think about some of my colleagues who don't want to take action to protect against natural disaster, it's kind of like the response of the administration to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans where they did not make a response to a natural disaster. And we are now experiencing a natural disaster of enormous implications and costs. What I think this is like is if we had come forward the day before Katrina with meteorological evidence that this hurricane is coming, and we went to President Bush and we said, if we make this investment, we can build these levees real fast and protect this city from this known damage that's coming our way. You know what our friends across the aisle would have said? Costs too much money. It's just another socialist experiment. And that's pretty much what the administration's attitude was in Katrina even when that was happening. Now, we have a slow-motion disaster which is a lot worse than Katrina. But their philosophy is the same, which is to not spend a dollar for investment against a known risk. And so I just want to suggest it's a similar situation.

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. I want to continue this discussion of job creation. I want to address--some of our colleagues may be watching tonight, possibly--a couple of industries that are concerned about this. One is the coal industry and one is the auto industry, two great industries doing hard work for a long time. And I want to address how our proposals tonight I believe long term will help those people working in those industries. Not hurt them, but help them, which we want to do. These are great, hardworking people. I want to address the auto industry first. We know the difficulty we have right now with many thousands of Americans who are in difficult straits in the auto industry right now. I believe that what we are proposing here can be a great tool for the rebirth of the American auto industry. Here's the reason I believe this. Right now, we are in a race to build the next generation of the new car of the next couple of decades. We know it's going to be different than the car of the last several decades. We know it has to be. It has to not use as much Saudi Arabian oil so we would be addicted to Saudi Arabian oil as much. We know it has to be advanced on materials. We are in a race to preserve the jobs of the American auto industry against folks in China who want to take these jobs and against folks in Korea who want to take these jobs. We are in a race right now with them to get these jobs in this country. Well, to get these jobs in this country, we know we have to have the technology here to build these next generation of cars. We know to do that, we are going to need an investment to help the research and to help the retooling of these domestic auto industries to retool to start to build electric plug-in cars and the aerodynamic cars and the cars that can move to these new technologies with the new biofuel cars. We have to win this race with China and Korea. To do that, we need an investment pool to help the auto industry to do that. Where are we going to get this pool? We are not suggesting we get it from some tax of lower- and middle-income Americans. We are suggesting we get it from an auction of the right to put pollution into the atmosphere and then use those funds to help auto workers build the cars of tomorrow and, for those who can't, to be retrained to help in some other industries, which is an important part of this. Let me tell you why retraining is important. There's a company in Washington State called Infinia. Infinia makes a Stirling engine, a concentrating solar power system that basically it's a big parabola and concentrates the sun's energy and uses thermal energy from the sun to create electricity. Guess who's the perfect workers to build those? It's auto workers. Because this technology is essentially right out of Detroit. Whatever you use to build a car, you use to build this Stirling engine, which could be one piece of the puzzle. They are now selling tons of these Stirling engines to Spain, and they are worried about having to build-- not this company, but others in Spain--because Spain has policies like we are now advocating to try to move Spain forward. We need this right in this country. Move to coal. People are concerned about coal. A company called Ramgen, which is a company that has figured out a way to compress carbon dioxide so you can stick it under the ground to continue to burn coal. We know we need to have those technologies if it's going to be a meaningful player in the future. Thanks.

Mr. INSLEE. Well, I would take it home to say this is an American approach to a problem. It really is. We basically are following in the footsteps of what Americans have always done when they are presented with a problem. Number one, when Americans are presented with a challenge, we act. We don't just sit around on our hands. Some people are saying we should do nothing about this. We believe we need a new energy transformation of our economy to deal with this. So that is number one, we act. We are not a passive people. Number two, we act with confidence in our ability to innovate and find solutions to these problems based on technological solutions. Other people think we are just too dull to figure out how not to just burn fossil fuels. We think we are smart enough that the people who went to the moon and invented the cup holder ought to be able to invent ways to solve this problem. So we act with confidence. Third, we would like to act in a bipartisan way. You know, you would think that growing green collar jobs and saving the planet from global warming would be a bipartisan thing; but, unfortunately, so far in this debate we have advocated an action plan, and there is a thousand ways to skin this cat, there is various ways to deal with regional cost disparities, there is various ways to distribute the pool of revenue between research and helping low income people. There is all kinds of permutations that we are going to find a consensus on eventually. But, unfortunately, our friends across the aisle have just adopted a favorite movie of Ian Fleming, ``Dr. No.'' They have just said no. And I hope that over time some of our friends across the aisle will join us in finding a consensus on how to move forward. If we do that, we are going to continue to enjoy successes in building jobs for Americans like we have in the wind energy industry. I will just close with this one comment. People 4 or 5 years ago said that wind turbines were kind of child's play; they were a fancy toy of a bunch of fruitcakes out on the West Coast who were dreaming in their teepees of how to solve this problem. Today, America is the leading producer of wind power in the world, and more people work today in the wind power industry than in the coal mining industry and it is the fastest growing of energy in the United States. This is the kind of future that we believe we can move forward in. It doesn't mean that we are going to replace coal necessarily. We are going to use this money that we are going to generate from this plan to try to find a way to burn coal cleanly, because we think we ought to look at all possible approaches to this problem. So we are going to act, we are going to be confident, we are going to believe in bipartisanship, and we are going to believe in innovation. That is the American response to this problem, and I look forward to when we get this done. Thank you, Mr. Blumenauer.