Jay Inslee

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I commend Microsoft's announcement today that it will adopt a set of ``Open Platform Principles'' that will govern the development of Windows desktop operating systems. Four years ago, the Justice Department rejected calls to force Microsoft to remove code out of Windows and to reorganize its business. Instead, the department adopted a consent decree setting out basic rules to preserve competitive opportunities for other companies, while ensuring that Microsoft could continue to improve its products. As a result, the U.S. software industry is thriving with competition and innovation. The ``Open Platform Principles'' that Microsoft announced today give me tremendous confidence that innovation and competition will continue. The principles broaden the Department's consent decree and makes them a standard part of how Microsoft does business. They give every company, large and small, confidence that they will be treated fairly and can compete equally. In 2004, the European Commission ordered Microsoft to delete code out of Windows. To the commission's shock, absolutely no one bought this substandard version of Windows. The commission now appears intent on actively managing how Microsoft designs Vista, its new platform. Microsoft's new guiding principles ensure that Windows will continue to be a great platform for innovation and competition. The fact that Microsoft adopted these principles voluntarily shows that it recognizes the important responsibilities that come with being an industry leader. I congratulate Microsoft for taking this important and forward-looking step.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is a very simple amendment that will increase the amount of authorization for clean, renewable ocean energy projects from the current $6 million to $20 million. We have enormous potential off of our shores not only for oil and gas but for clean, renewable sources, including wave power-generated electricity and current-generated electricity, and there are several places in the United States where we are doing that today. In fact, in Hawaii, we have a wave power system that is generating electricity for the United States Navy, a very ingenious product that is essentially an ocean bell that bobs up and down just underneath the surface of the ocean, drives a hydraulic system, and generates electricity. Just to give you an order of magnitude of the capacity that we may have to develop off our shores, a 10 megawatt power station would only use 30 acres of ocean space. That is enough for 10,000 homes. A 10 by 10 area off our oceans has enough capacity, and this is pretty amazing when you think about it, to generate all of the electricity used in the State of California. Now, these are prototypes in the water today, but we think they have great, great potential. So we would like a modest increase to allow this technology to go forward. It is a very modest increase, of course, and here is something we can do with our oceans that is clean and renewable. And we have heard the science coming out on global warming, the importance of not just relying on fossil fuel in our energy plan. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I appreciate the Chair's acceptance of the amendment. I just wanted to point out I have looked at this, as the Chair believes. I just want to point out in dealing with these new energy technologies, we are going to find some that are dry holes and do not work, but I think it is incumbent on us to look for any technology that has a reasonable chance for success. I think this one does. This is a good investment for taxpayers. I appreciate the Chair accepting the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I wish to state for the record my objection to the Republicans' refusal to be indignant about the outing of a spy by the administration.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, we know two things about domestic violence and violence against women. Number one, it is still at epidemic levels across our Nation. And, number two, it is almost an inherited trait where children who are exposed to domestic violence themselves become perpetrators frequently. Ten million children a year are exposed to domestic violence in our country, and we know that men who have experienced it and viewed it as children are twice as likely to become perpetrators themselves. So one aspect of this bill is to fund a portion of the Violence Against Women Act to break that chain, nip this in the bud, stop that chain from continuing across multiple generations. The other part of our amendment will make sure that we treat children. Teenagers are a special group that are increasingly submitted to sexual harassment, sexual abuse and domestic violence themselves. These are bills that we need to get funded. Third, this will deal with the tribal problem. We need to have a tribal registry for sexual abuse. And just in conclusion, there will come a day, I hope, where we fathers are successful in teaching our sons that it is unmanly to abuse women. That is an obligation upon all of us as fathers. But as part of that, I am happy today and I hope this amendment will pass. It will fulfill our obligation in Congress to help break this chain of domestic violence.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to pose this question here about who is driving the bus when it comes to Iraq policy. And this is an important question I know all of us feel. Yesterday, two of our finest from the State of Washington were killed in Iraq, young men. The day before that, a young man from Port Orchard, Washington, who had been fighting for life for 3 months died in one of our hospitals in Texas. We need somebody to drive the bus of Iraqi policy that is trustworthy, accurate, and has a full understanding of what is going on in Iraq. And when you ask yourself, does the President meet those criteria for that policy, does his policy meet that criteria; was he right on weapons of mass destruction? No. Was he right on association with 9/11? No. Was he right on the number of troops we needed? No. Was he right on flac jackets for the troops? No. Was he right on armored Humvees? No. Is he right on the issue of who is actually doing the fighting now? He still wants to make it sound like it is just part of an international conspiracy, not a sectarian conflict that is going on when Shiites and Sunnis are killing themselves in the streets? No. He still is wrong about the basic nature of the conflict, and yet some people in Congress want to let him just drive the bus after he has crashed it 52 different times, and we have lost over 2,500 of our finest as a result. It is time for someone else to start driving the bus, and that is Congress; to start asking these hard questions and demand a different strategy

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate Mr. Larson's leadership on this. I wanted to talk about three hard realities in Iraq. It is very easy, tempting when we are in the middle of a struggle, as our Armed Forces are, to forget harsh realities and to become emboldened by the rhetoric that is associated with war. But I think it is very important for us, when our sons and daughters and husbands and wives are there, to just take a very cold, harsh, realistic look at what is really going on in Iraq. This is not a moment for rose-colored glasses. It is a moment for reality. And I want to talk about the three realities in Iraq today, because basically the debate over Iraq is really twofold. One side says that we should just keep doing what we are doing. We will just trust the President to make the decisions as he has made them in Iraq. We won't question them. We won't ask to accelerate them. We won't question the strategy. Congress will just sit back and let George Bush decide what to do in Iraq. Others of us take a different approach that says the status quo is inadequate, that we cannot expect to keep doing the same thing in Iraq and expect a different result. So we believe we need some changes in Iraq. And I want to talk about some three realities about why we need a change, why the status quo is unacceptable, unacceptable in Iraq. Number one, the security situation. The reality in Iraq is that the current strategy proposed by the Bush administration is resulting in things not only not staying the same but getting worse. If you take a look at the Brookings Institution, you can go online and take a look at the Brookings Institution's Web site. Anybody can Google that to find Brookings. You will find the statistics that I want to talk about tonight. Fatalities in Iraq of Armed Forces are not only going down; they are going up. Compared to May 2003 and May 2005, we are now experiencing greater loss of our sons and daughters in Iraq than we were 2 years ago, 3 years ago. Those are going up, regrettably. The Bush plan is not working when it comes to protecting our men and women in uniform. When you looked at the wounded in the Brookings Institution report, regrettably, they are not going down; they are going up, compared to 2\1/2\ years ago. When you look at Iraqi fatalities compared to the same time in February, March, May 2005, they are going up. When you look at the number of car bombs in May 2004, to May 2006, they are going up. When you look at Iraqi civilians killed, in fact, the number of Iraqi civilians killed compared to the same period about 3 years ago, they are three times higher per month. And I think we rightfully care about Iraqi civilian fatalities from a sense of humanity and from a sense of the American spirit. When you look at the number of multiple fatality bombings, they are up by a factor of 50 times higher than they were 3 years ago, a 50 times increase in multiple fatality bombings that the Iraqis are experiencing. When you look at crime-related deaths, they are up 50 times what they were over 2 years ago. When you look at the number of daily attacks, they are up compared to May 2004. When you look at weekly attacks on our service personnel, 2 years ago they went from 185 to 620 now. Up substantially, unfortunately. So the security situation under the George Bush plan for security in Iraq, all of the indicators are going in the wrong direction. The status quo is not adequate. We cannot just trust the President with making decisions in Iraq. So I want to turn now to sort of the life-style, if you call it that, in economic conditions in Iraq. We were told, when we were briefed on this war by Paul Wolfowitz and others of the President's men and women, that oil would be quickly restored in Iraq and that, indeed, the Iraqis would pay for this war by themselves. In fact, the production of oil today has still not reached prewar levels under that tyrannical, abysmal dictator Saddam Hussein. We still have not achieved oil and gas production records on one of the largest pools of oil on Earth; they are still at 2.18 million barrels compared to 2.5 in the prewar level. We still are not back up to those levels. And we are paying hundreds of billions of dollars today for Iraq. In electricity we, at best, are back to prewar levels after 3 years and untold tens of millions of dollars squandered, American taxpayer dollars. And, in fact, in Baghdad today I read they are having a heat wave in Baghdad and they still only have 3 to 4 hours a day of electricity. You can imagine, after 3 years of sitting under a foreign army's occupation, with 3 hours of electricity for your air conditioner. I read these Iraqis said that, We basically sit and look at each other. I read this comment by a middle-class Iraqi who said, We are going crazy doing that. And I can understand that. The economic condition is not making substantial improvement in Iraq under the harsh realities. So now we turn to the political situation and ask ourselves if the George Bush plan is adequate on Iraq. And, yes, we have had elections and we were all thrilled by elections. All of us would like to see a democratic Iraq. But there is a very harsh reality that we think demands a change of plans in Iraq. That is, until the Shiia community and the Sunni community and the Kurd community can strike the hard bargains it takes to make a democracy in Iraq, and particularly over access to the oil resource, which they still have not done after 3 years. It doesn't matter what an outside force will do. The current plan is not a plan for success. Frankly, our continued presence in Iraq is now acting as a security blanket to allow the politicians in Iraq to refuse to move forward with hard compromises about oil revenues, which is dooming our military to be there for decades. That is why we need to send a message to the Iraqi politicians that we are not going to be there for decades and they must make the compromises necessary about oil revenues, because they are shortly going to have responsibility for their own country. I am not the only one to think that. There are some people with some skin in this fight besides Americans, and that is the Iraqis. We went there to help the Iraqis. It was based on false information and deceit, but, nonetheless, Americans had I think the right intentions. So I think it pays some heed to see what the Iraqis think about this. What the Iraqis think about this, when a poll was done January 31, 2006, by the World Public Opinion Poll, and that is not a group that has any particular dog in this fight, they went out and asked the Iraqi people, do you approve the government endorsing a timeline for U.S. withdrawal? These are the people whose lives are most dependent on obtaining a secure, safe Iraq. They are not sitting thousands of miles away like we are, like the President is. They are sitting in these rooms with no electricity and 120 degrees temperature and bombs going off next door where they can't send their kids out to play. They may be considered perhaps the experts on this issue. What do the Iraqis say about that issue? What they say is 87 percent of Iraqis would approve of the government endorsing a timeline for U.S. redeployment. That is something we ought to think about. I think there is a reason for that. I think there is a reason that 87 percent of the Iraqis who are living in such squalor and danger today believe that it makes sense for us to tell Iraqis that the time is shortly coming where the country will be theirs. I think the reason is they recognize that their politicians aren't going to get around to disposing of really coming up with an agreement on oil reserves until they know that the day is coming that the United States security blanket will be removed. The Iraqis have figured this out. We should figure it out. So we are here today saying it is not enough just to trust President Bush with decisions in Iraq. Security is not getting better, the economy is not getting better, the political situation still really has not come to terms with the necessary compromise, and it is time for us to send a message to the Iraqi government that they need to get serious about resolving issues and redeploying our troops. This is a strategy for success. The Bush plan is a strategy for long- term failure. It is time that we come to terms, take off the rose- colored glasses and make hard decisions. I want to thank Mr. Larson for allowing me to participate.

Mr. INSLEE. Will the gentleman yield for a moment? I want to add an additional mistake, if I can briefly, that I think is very important for us to talk about, and that is the mistake to not send the message that the Iraqis are going to have a country that is free at some point of United States forces. This poll that I talked about, when they asked Iraqis, do you think the U.S. Government plans to have permanent military bases in Iraq, 80 percent of the people answered that they thought we were going to do that. When asked, do you believe that we will at some point remove our military once Iraq is stabilized, 80 percent of Iraqis believe we will not remove our forces even after Iraq is stabilized. There is a reason for them to believe that. Because on this floor, when we tried to put a provision in a defense bill that says we won't have any Iraq permanent bases in Iraq, which we actually succeeded in doing on the floor, the first thing that happened, in the dead of night in one of these conference committees, the Republican Party stripped it out. The message we are sending to Iraq is we are going to stay there as long as we want and perhaps permanently. That is the wrong message. We need to send a different message. That is why we are here tonight.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, there are times where the Constitution needs to be considered, and this is one of those times. Those of us who support this amendment, I hope that both Republicans and Democrats will do so because I think Republicans and Democrats ought to agree on one central proposition, and that is the proposition that our government ought to protect our citizens aggressively, assertively. We need electronic surveillance to be doing it to the full extent of the law, and that intelligence should be done in compliance with the American way. There is an American way to do intelligence, and there is a Chinese way to do intelligence. There is a Turkish way to do intelligence. There is a Russian way to do intelligence. And there is an American way to do intelligence. And the American way to do intelligence is to do a very simple thing: Comply with the law that has been passed and signed by Congresses and Presidents. And all this amendment does is say a very simple proposition: You don't spend taxpayers' money to do illegal acts by the Federal Government. That is all it says. And when it passes, we will do assertive, aggressive intelligence of these scoundrels by doing a very simple thing: Get a warrant. And if you do not have time to get a warrant, get it 72 hours after you do the intelligence, because the FISA Court allows that to happen. That is the simple proposition here. Now, why is that important? It is important because the people who fought the Revolution realized that no American is perfect, and that includes no American President. To the proposition that all men are created equal, you can add the proposition that no man is created perfectly. And that is why we demand some judicial oversight on this. And, by the way, the central argument I have heard about this is that a few Congressmen have said it is okay, apparently. Well, calling a few Congressmen is not enough under the law. Why? Because the law is very specific. It says that each application for an order approving electronic surveillance under this subchapter shall be made by a Federal officer in writing, upon oath or affirmation, to a judge. To a judge. And we are great Congressmen. I have eminent respect for all the people who were briefed on this. But not a single one of them wears a black robe, and not a single one of them was given authority by the United States Constitution to make this decision. Calling Ray or Norm or any of my great colleagues and saying, ``Does this sound okay to you,'' is not enough in American democracy. Now, we have had other occasions in our democracy where we have been challenged by fear, and I do not want to see us succumb to that again. And for those of us who think it shouldn't bother us, the President is not going to bug us, other nations have lost their liberty because of that attitude, because some Supreme Court Justice said loss of liberty does not come like a curtain coming down like a thunderclap. It comes the way the twilight comes, gradually, and you do not notice. Do not wink at this potential violation. Say that we are going to do intelligence the American way. For those people in Iraq and Afghanistan who are risking their lives for democracy and the liberties we enjoy, don't we have enough gumption to send a simple message to the executive branch of the United States from the U.S. Congress, a very simple message that we expect the law to be fulfilled, that our personal protection to be fulfilled by getting a warrant the way the law requires? That is all that we require.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment brought by myself and my colleagues, Mr. Van Hollen and Mr. Jones, seeks to protect very basic job securities for Department of Defense employees by blocking funds for those parts of the National Security Personnel System that have been declared illegal. The workplace environment that would result if this amendment does not pass, that results in destroying basic worker rights; jeopardizes our ability to recruit and maintain qualified, skilled workers to protect our national security. These are hardworking men and women. They deserve our gratitude, they deserve our respect, they deserve a personnel system that respects their work and complies with principles that we hold forth. I have got to tell you, I just want to note who we are talking about here. These are the men and women who make sure that our equipment works. When I went out and saw the Carl Vinson, one of our great carriers coming back from the Afghanistan campaign, the sailors asked me to thank the people who worked on that carrier to see to it that it could launch 10,000 sortees without losing an airplane. These people are part of the defense team. They deserve respect. But, unfortunately, the current situation does not give them either respect or fairness in the personnel system. It is worth noting that the Office of Personnel Management questioned the legitimacy of this new program in March 2004 in a letter to Secretary Rumsfeld and said, ``The current system may be contrary to law insofar as it attempts to replace collective bargaining with consultation and eliminate collective bargaining agreements all together. In addition, other elements of the proposal lack a clear and defensible national security nexus and jeopardize those parts that do.'' Now, this is not just us speaking; it is the Federal courts. At the beginning of this year, U.S. Federal District Court Judge Emmitt Sullivan ruled that the NSPS system failed to ``ensure even minimal collective bargaining rights.'' The court further enjoined the National Security Labor Relations Board on the grounds that it did not satisfy congressional requirement for independent third-party review. It has been declared illegal. Now, one might assume after such a ruling had come down that the Pentagon would attempt to fix the problem and that the administration would do so, but in fact that has gone on after 3 years. They are essentially snubbing their noses at collective bargaining rights, at civil service rights, at the right to know whether you are discharged or what your discharge would be, basic fundamental rights that we ought to give to the people who are critical members of the defense team. That is why we bring this amendment, to preserve the right to be free from discrimination based on political opinion, something that our Civil Service rules need to protect; and the right to collective bargaining, to engage in collective bargaining in good faith; the right to due process for advance notice of suspension and some meaningful appeal rights for people who work on the defense team. So we are offering a commonsense amendment that will recognize that we should not be forcing this broken system that has been ruled illegal for people who are doing such great work for us, keeping our uniformed personnel on the post in Iraq and Afghanistan. We commend this amendment to our colleagues' attention.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, if you will yield just for a moment, I just want to make sure members understand what we are voting on. If this amendment passes, the President of the United States and his executive authority will be able to continue to listen to these conversations unimpeded, unimpeded, as long as they go to a judge 72 hours after.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your courtesy, and I do think this is an important debate. I appreciate your perspective. I want to ask you a forthright question. Do you understand that under the scenario you have posed, that you can go over the executive, 72 hours after the event, 72 hours after the event, you go and get a warrant, you can continue your tap, you can get the intelligence, 72 hours? Do you understand that is allowed?

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I want people to understand the sweeping scope of Mr. Lungren's argument. What he argues is that the President of the United States, during a time of fear and war that we are now in, has the unchecked, unfettered, unlimited authority to ignore not just FISA, but any law passed by the Congress of the United States and signed by any President. His argument here means that no law restricts this President or any other President to do anything else. Not just intelligence. Torture, false imprisonment; you go as far as you want.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I want to make sure you understand. I want to make sure the gentleman understands that under this amendment you do not have to stop listening to anybody ever. We want to continue listening, and we simply require that 72 hours after that, we ask the executive to have another set of eyeballs take a look at it to make sure it is compliant. Does the gentleman understand this amendment does not stop anybody ever, as long as you go and have a warrant 72 hours after the intelligence gathering? Do you understand that is the purpose of our amendment? Because it is.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, that is exactly right. The President can do all of the intelligence he needs to do in a way that complies with FISA. That is what we want him to do. That is what the Constitution requires.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. As Ms. Schwartz indicated, I just happen to have an Innovation Agenda, which is the Democratic suggestion on how we can seize the power of innovation for the country and how the Innovation Agenda is just part of a larger package that one can read if anyone is interested. We think energy is a very important part, but it is one part of our Innovation Agenda; and page 3 of that basically is our effort to develop a new generation of innovators, and that is what we need to do. That is why we are committed to placing a highly qualified teacher in every math and science classroom, why we are committed to educate 100,000 new scientists, engineers, and mathematicians in the next 4 years, why we want to make college tuition tax deductible for the students studying math, science and engineering so we can have those minds available. But if you look at page 8 on our Innovation Agenda, you will see our dedication to energy independence in 10 years. I will just mention two of the bullet points in the Democrats' larger agenda. We would commit to substantially reducing the use of petroleum-based fuels by rapidly expanding production and distribution of synthetic and bio-based fuels, such as ethanol derived from cellulosic sources, and by deploying new engine technologies for fuel-flexible, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and biodiesel vehicles. Now, those are different kinds of vehicles. Coming back to what Ms. Schwartz said, we want to give consumers choices of what kind of vehicles to buy and to use. This is not a command-and-control suggestion we are making. We think we want to develop an economy so that you can decide what kind of vehicle you want to use. That might be a flex-fuel vehicle. That is a vehicle that can burn gasoline or biofuels, and Brazil has done this through great genius. Now, when you pull up to a pump in Brazil, if you have a flex- fuel vehicle, you can burn either gasoline or biofuels or ethanol, which makes you in the driver's seat literally, not the oil and gas companies. So you can compare prices and decide what to burn. Now, the reason they have done that is Brazil basically told the auto industry to start producing these vehicles, give consumers choice, and that is what we stand for is giving consumers choice so that we are not victims of the oil and gas oligopolies in our country. We talked about fuel-flexible, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and biodiesel. The second bullet point in our plan will create a DARPA-like initiative within the Department of Energy to provide seed money for fundamental research needed to develop high-risk, high-reward technologies and build markets for the next generation of revolutionary energy. We do realize that there is some basic research that the government is good at that is very high-risk. It might be hard to get a bank loan on some of these cutting-edge technologies, but we have had very great success in the Defense Department with a group called DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research labs. They have done great work in the Department of Defense. We need to use that same strategy in energy, and that is why Democrats are proposing to have a similar energy advanced research program in the Department of Energy. We are very optimistic about that.

Mr. INSLEE. They did the same thing they have been doing since the 1800s. The way I described this is this Congress last year passed a great energy policy for 1890. It was visionary for 1890. It is Neanderthal in the year 2006. When you look at when this country has made great advances, we have done it in two major challenges that our country had in the last several decades, the Manhattan Project which developed nuclear power, and it was a major investment by the United States of America because of a major challenge. The second was the original project in the space race, and we responded and were successful. The third now needs to be an energy revolution in this country. But the fact of the matter is under this Congress and in this management of Congress, we are investing less than 15 percent of the equivalent of what we would have done in either one of those projects; and as a result, we are getting teeny, tiny little baby steps that we are encouraging when we should have these great leaps for mankind. You know, if this Congress was running the space race, the quote would have been, ``Another little step up the cabin of a DC-3,'' because that is about all we would have invented. Kennedy got us to the moon; this energy policy won't get us to Cleveland. We believe we need a very significant ramp-up both in Federal research and development, basic R&D, tax credits to manufacturers, to help them manufacture fuel-efficient vehicles; tax credits to consumers to allow you to decide how to buy both a fuel-efficient car and build a fuel-efficient home; and use of the procurement policy. We haven't talked about this tonight at all, but one of the great tools we have in our toolbox in energy policy is the Federal Government procurement power. The Federal Government is kind of the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to buying things in this economy. The Federal Government needs to start buying fuel-efficient cars, fuel-efficient air-conditioning units, and building green buildings. There is much more that we can do. We are taking little baby steps there. The Pentagon is looking at a fuel-efficient battery. One of the competitors trying to develop this is in my district. It is called Neopower. They are building a fuel- celled battery that will actually power computers and radio devices using fuel cells. So as we ramp that up, hopefully we will have much more efficient batteries that can last much longer and not burn gasoline-generated electricity. But we are just starting. I don't know how to categorize it other than to say that we need a revolution, and what we are getting is not even an evolution. It is almost a devolution, going back the wrong way.

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. I am delighted that Ms. Schwartz is leading this energy discussion tonight for two reasons. One, right now outside the Capitol there is a giant lightning storm going on, so talking about energy in the spirit of Ben Franklin is the right time to do it. But, secondly, and more importantly, many of us here on the Democratic side of the aisle believe that America is ready for a project with the same scope and ambition and vision as we had with John F. Kennedy with the original Apollo project. I have introduced H.R. 2828, which is called the New Apollo Energy bill, that basically is working on the belief that this Nation has the same gumption, the same technological prowess, the same vision that we had in the 1960s when we decided, as challenged by John F. Kennedy from that rostrum on May 9, 1961, to say we were going to put a man on the moon in 10 years and bring them back safely. We have now introduced this New Apollo Energy Project because we believe that the times that we now live in this decade are both as challenging and as promising as the 1960s were in space. We believe that the challenge we have to deal with energy is of the same scope as America had and Kennedy had dealing during the Cold War with the space race. We also believe that our ability to invent, to tinker, to innovate is as good or better as it was in the 1960s, and we need to have that same spirit with the New Apollo Project. In fact, I was just reading before I came over here, one of my staff handed me the quote from Kennedy's speech, and one of the things that he said was, I think it was kind of interesting, he was talking about the need for America to be a leader in space. We believe America needs to be a leader, it is our destiny to be a leader, and what Kennedy said was, ``If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not. It is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space.'' We believe, those of us who are propounding the New Apollo Energy Project believe, that we cannot be a leader of the world unless we decide that we are going to lead the world into a new energy future in this country and later in the world. And to do so, we believe that that is a challenge that is much more than nibbling on the edges. We got to the moon because we had an aspiration of one giant leap for mankind, not just one little baby step for man. Frankly, this Congress and this administration to date, sadly to say, has been just nibbling on the edges. These tiny little inching forward as a baby would take their first little steps. We both need and deserve more in this country, which is a very bold and visionary technological leap in energy. So we have introduced the New Apollo Energy Project, which will answer that bugle cry that this country has always answered to really leapfrog the existing technologies. If I can just briefly describe some of the things we want to do. We want to achieve three ends in the New Apollo Energy Project. Number one, we want to lead the world economically. We want to create good, high-paying jobs in the new technologies of new energy that are right now, unfortunately, going overseas. Unfortunately, we are losing jobs right now to some of the Japanese automakers because of auto efficiency. We are losing jobs to some the German solar energy industries. We are losing jobs to Denmark. And I think Denmark is a great country, but to lose jobs to them to create these wind turbines makes no sense. The country that put a man on the moon, to allow other countries to lead in energy makes no sense. So one of the things we need to do is to bring the job growth right here. The second thing we have to do is truly break our addiction to Middle Eastern oil. Although we laud the President for the first time suggesting after 6 years of urging him, has now suggested that he wants to join us to help to break the addiction to Middle Eastern oil, and that is great, but, unfortunately, the week the President said that, he laid off 150 or 100 researchers in renewable energy at the Boulder Energy Laboratory. So we would like to have some reality rather than rhetoric. Third, we have to break this tendency to put more carbon dioxide in the air, to deal with global warming. The debate about global warming is over. It was a vigorous and strenuous debate, and it is done. The science of global warming is in, and we need now to really have technologies that will reduce CO2 emissions. I met the President of the Marshall Islands the other day, and he told me, he was on Bainbridge Island, I live on an island, Bainbridge Island, Washington, he told me that his entire nation may be environmental refugees because their entire nation is threatened by the rising sea levels together with the collapse of coral reefs. We had a meeting with Stanford professors last week in the basement of this building, who told us in 100 years there may not be any viable healthy coral reefs in the world because the carbon dioxide we are putting in the air out of our tailpipes and coal-powered plants goes into solution in the ocean, it makes the oceans more acidic, and when they become more acidic, coral reefs cannot survive. So we got to get these three jobs done. We have got a New Apollo Project to do it, and I would like to discuss it in depth.

Mr. INSLEE. I just want to point out the history of our own country is that we will succeed on this because we have succeeded. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, because of what Congress did, and President Carter, we increased our fuel efficiency at least 50 percent. And if we had simply continued on that path, we would be free of Persian Gulf oil today. We could have solved this problem if we had simply continued with that success. But I want to close by thanking you for your leadership on this and by saying that the Democrats are optimistic on energy, Democrats believe in innovation, and Democrats believe in paying for it and not having a deficit. And we are going to do that by closing some of these giveaways to the oil and gas industry. Thank you for your leadership.

Mr. INSLEE. I think you have put your finger on a very important principle as we go forward on energy debate. The debate in energy between those of us who believe in the New Apollo Project and those of us who do not is really a debate between the optimists and the pessimists. The pessimists believe that we are tied to these really now ancient technologies. Fossil fuels is really an ancient technology. It is from the 1800s. It is old. We have been doing it for a long, long time. Now, pessimists believe that we are stuck burning fossil fuels, and that is about as good as it gets.

Mr. INSLEE. And I want to dovetail on this point about this is good old American capitalism as work. We believe in the power of capitalism. You look at the space race, and it was not just governmental activity, it was a public-private partnership with private contractors operating in a profit margin or incentives that did help get us to the moon. And we believe the same type of activity can be part of the solution for energy. And I have to tell you, one of the huge transitions going on in the U.S. economy right now is happening without necessarily government help, which is a huge influx of investment capital. We just had a startup company involving biofuels that was announced last week at one of the largest infusions of capital for some period of time this decade, and we are seeing that. And we are also seeing an infusion of intellectual capital. I come from a part of the world that is very active in the Internet and software technologies. The Microsoft campus is in my district. And we are seeing a lot of intellectual capital now from software and Internet move over to the energy side. We have seen investments from some of the Microsoft family into biofuels. I met an interesting fellow a few months ago who was involved in the commercialization of the MRI machine, the magnetic resonance imaging machine, and he made a bundle of cash on that commercialized product that now they put us in the tubes and diagnose our old knees when you get to be 55 and play basketball like I do. So this guy now is involved in perfecting a solar cell panel that is nonsilicone-based; it is based on an organic molecule that you essentially just spray on, and you can reduce the construction cost because silicone-based solar panels are fairly expensive to make. This could be just a spray-on application and potentially reduces the cost 20 to 30 percent. So here is a fellow that has done well in one electronic business now making the transition to energy, and we are seeing a lot of that. But what we can do is we can help those businesses get a jump start, and one of the important things we can do on that is to offer loan guarantees to guarantee the loan of some of these new plants. We are now trying to hustle along a loan guarantee for a first cellulosic ethanol plant in the world, actually in the State of Idaho, and we are trying to get that loan guarantee perfected so that company can get up and running. Those are the kinds of things that are an appropriate public-private partnership, along with the tax incentives. I sponsored a bill with Senator Barack Obama called Health Care for Hybrids, and what it would do is to help the auto industry with some of their legacy health care costs in exchange for producing more fuel-efficient cars. So here is a two-for.