Jay Inslee

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Yeah.

Mr. INSLEE. What I want to make clear to the public is that when we say gut, we mean gut the Clean Air Act because the Republican dirty air act doesn't just reduce protections by 10 percent to children with asthma. It doesn't reduce it by 50 percent. It entirely eliminates the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to provide kids with asthma any protection whatsoever for these listed emissions from polluting industries.

Mr. INSLEE. You just may be thinking, President Obama gave a State of the Union. He talked about celebrating winning the science bowl, about using the Chinese advances, and how clean energy is our Sputnik moment, so that we would be called to have a new Apollo energy project, and we know we can do in clean energy what our, you know, ancestors did in space, which is to lead the world in clean energy. We know this can be the American destiny, and the reason we know that is because our vision is one based on optimism and confidence. Our vision is that we know we can invent new forms of energy so that we don't cause additional asthma problems in our children. Now this is a difference between us and the Republicans who want to pass this dirty air act. We realize two things about our children. Number one, when polluters pollute and expose them to dangerous levels of ozone and increase--dramatic increases--in asthma attacks and respiratory problems in senior citizens, those kids don't have anywhere to run and hide. You know, an oil company can go around places in the world. A kid is stuck where he lives, and there's nowhere to hide from dirty air. That's why I'm not very happy about this effort to put more of our kids in the way of dirty air, number one. And number two, we realized that this is real when it comes to new technology. You know, when we passed the bill to create an investment in lithium ion battery manufacturing plants this year, some of our Republican colleagues scoffed at that effort. They thought, This is never going to happen. Well, in Holland, Michigan, we have laid-off American auto workers now making lithium ion batteries, or shortly, for sale all around the world to power electric cars. We know there are jobs to make that happen. We know in Seattle, Washington, we've got the leaders in the discovery of location for wind power. We know those jobs can be made to happen. In Moses Lake, Washington, we have one of the largest manufacturers of silicone, a part of solar panels, to be shipped around the world. We know those jobs can be made to happen. At the Boeing Company, we are making airplanes--or shortly will--that can burn biofuels so we don't put out CO2 emission and pollution. We know those jobs can happen. Now we want our Republican colleagues to join us in this sense of optimism, because the rule that the EPA has proposed is really pretty modest. Now we're having a full-throated discussion here, debate, and we'll have a big debate tomorrow about this. But the rule is pretty modest. Let me tell you how modest it is. It simply requires essentially known efficiency standards at very, very large power plants, over 100,000 tons of emissions a year. Now, a lot of small businesses are going to be told, this is going to shut down restaurants and dry cleaners, et cetera. That's bunk. This rule is only proposing to deal with very, very large emitters, like large coal plants. This is a very modest first step in an approach to try to rein in some of these dangerous gases like carbon dioxide and ozone and toxins like that. It is a reasonable first step.

Mr. INSLEE. And I hope we will be successful and believe that we will because there are multiple reasons for this. And this really is an issue about democracy, about who is going to make a decision about the air we breathe and the air our children breathe. Is it going to be scientists and physicians at the American Lung Association and scientists who base their decision on science and health? Or is it going to be lobbyists for polluting industries? Now we say it should be the scientists. We say we should follow the science. When we go to doctors, we get medical advice, it's based on science. When we want health advice, we don't go to lobbyists for polluting industries. We let a health decision be made by scientists. And unfortunately, the dirty air act that my Republican colleagues want to pass, they want to take that decision away from scientists and away from physicians and away from health practitioners and give it to the folks who lobby up here for special breaks. That's wrong. And I will just make a closing comment, if I can. We are going to fight the dirty air act on behalf of the health of our kids. We are going to fight the dirty air act on behalf of our senior citizens with their health problems. And we are going to fight the dirty air act so that we can grow millions of clean energy jobs right here in this country and not ship them off to China.

Mr. INSLEE. I would just note in closing that if we are successful in asking Republicans to stand with us against the dirty air act, we will celebrate a Republican achievement of 40 years ago that we will have preserved, the Clean Air Act. And we will argue that the next electric vehicle should be called the Nixon. We want to honor a Republican President. Thanks very much.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I came to the floor this morning to talk about our excitement hearing the President tonight express that feeling of optimism, confidence and can-do spirit that has always epitomized America, and that is in the field of the development of our clean- energy job creation program. I'm excited about it because, as we're coming out of this very deep recession, many of us believe that one of the brightest spots on our economic horizon is our ability to develop hundreds of thousands of new jobs in this country so that America can fulfill its destiny of leading the world in clean-energy development. We believe it is our destiny to do that because we have always done that throughout America's history, leading the world in aeronautics, leading the world in software, leading the world in aerospace; and now we have a great opportunity to lead the world in the development of clean energy. And when we do that, we do believe that we will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. And I look forward to the President's ideas on how to do that. But I want to talk about where we are right now in our ability to do that. I remember I came to the floor 2 or 3 years ago and talked about the prospects of creating jobs in America in the creation of an electrified transportation system and our ability to electrify our cars. And when I did that, I remember I was criticized by some in this Chamber thinking, well, that was sort of a pipe dream, couldn't happen, that was Buck Rogers-kind of stuff that really wouldn't allow us to create jobs in this field. Well, I want to bring us back up to where we are now this year to see what progress we've made. I want to mention three pieces of progress we have made that are going to, I think, be examples A, B and C of why the President's message of clean energy will be received well tonight: Number one, this year is the General Motors Volt. It is a plug-in hybrid electric car, a car that you can plug in and go 40 miles all on electricity; and then if you want to go more than 40 miles, it has an internal combustion engine that will generate electricity to charge the battery that will run the wheels of the General Motors Volt. And when I asked General Motors to bring the Volt to Capitol Hill a few years ago, people thought, interesting idea, will never work. Well, guess what. The General Motors Volt this year was North American Car of the Year a couple of weeks ago. It stunned the auto industry, and it is going to be one of the great leaders as we move to the electric cars of the future. We have the domestic manufacturer, the Ford Focus, that we think is going to follow. Tesla is being manufactured here. We hope to see Toyota and Nissan produce electric cars here as well. These are the cars not of the future but of today. And we can lead the world in the manufacture if we do some of the things that the President will talk about tonight to electrify our auto transportation fleet. Second, I want to talk about one of the most exciting events I've ever had as a U.S. Congressman, and that is last October I went to the Wooden Cross Lutheran Church in Woodinville, Washington. And I got to participate with that congregation in dedicating the very first electric charging station in America in a church parking lot. And I thought, this is a great thing for America that we are electrifying our transportation fleet, allowing Americans a place to plug in their electric cars. And we dedicated this charging station. It's about 3\1/2\, 4 feet tall. And you pull up to it and plug in your electric car in the Wooden Cross Lutheran Church parking lot. The Good Book says ``let there be light.'' Well, now let there be power, and verily there is power in this church parking lot. And there's going to be more power in thousands of places in America because of our stimulus bill which has allowed the creation of these electronic charging stations. Third, I want to mention the production of batteries. We have grown something like--and I want to make sure I get the number right--700,000 clean-energy jobs doubling renewable energy manufacturing and generating jobs in America by the year 2012. And the clean-energy sector has grown 2\1/2\ times faster--faster than the U.S. economy in the last year and a half. And one of the reasons is because we are growing an electric battery manufacturing capacity industry here in the United States. We only had 2 percent of that capacity in 2009. We believe we can have 40 percent of the world's capacity by 2015. And if you want to think this is not a reality, go to Holland, Michigan, where because of our stimulus bill that we passed last year, we are putting hundreds of formerly laid-off auto workers to work in Holland, Michigan, making lithium ion batteries to run our electric cars. And that is happening because of what we did. Let's grow these clean-energy jobs. I look forward to the President's speech tonight.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I'm opposed to this effort to repeal a bill, a reform bill without anything to replace it at hand. It's asking Americans to jump without a parachute and without a net. And it's the wrong thing to do because we are a country that has always moved forward. I want to mention two ways this bill moves forward which we should not repeal. One is that we have finally addressed this horrific geographic disparity where physicians and hospitals get treated differently, unfairly around the country. We finally are fixing that, long, long overdue. And, second, this bill really helps us move forward to reduce waste in our medical industry. A Dartmouth study suggested as much as 30 percent of all the things we do have been wasted in health care because we haven't had the right incentives. Where I come from in Washington State, we're doing things that we need to export around the country to stop waste in medicine. At Virginia Mason they just won the national Leapfrog to the Top Award, where they've saved over $1 million a year just by bringing efficiencies in how you provide supplies. At GroupHealth, they've reduced the readmission rate by about one-third by bringing efficiencies to the system. At the Providence-Everett Hospital, I was so impressed when I met a Dr. Brevig, a cardiac physician, who brought some efficiencies in how they handle cardiac patients. So instead of moving the patient all around, they bring the physicians to the patient. Do you know what? They've knocked almost a full day off the time you have to be in a hospital, and they've reduced the infection rate by almost one-half, improving quality. At Children's Hospital, they are building a hospital which uses 30 percent less square footage than the average hospital. These are the types of efficiencies that we need to reduce the rate of medical inflation. This is one of the reasons that the Congressional Budget Office found that this bill will actually reduce the deficit by $230 billion. Let's keep moving forward and not go backwards. Defeat this bill.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, it is with a heavy heart that I rise to support House Resolution 32, expressing the sense of the House of Representatives with respect to the tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona, on January 8, 2011. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their loved ones, including my friend and colleague Gabby Giffords, the Giffords staff, and all who are mourning this tragedy in Arizona and across the Nation. The events of this weekend are difficult to comprehend. Gabby is a champion for her constituents and it was because of her devotion to them that she was outside a local grocery store the Saturday morning when she nearly lost her life. As the tragedy unfolded, she was surrounded by a group of dutiful staff and constituents, including an intern who may have saved her life, and many who so unbelievably lost their own lives or were injured. I have gotten to know Gabby through our shared efforts to advance renewable energy policies, including our working together on the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition. She's bright and engaging, and is always bringing in fresh ideas to achieve solutions to our Nation's energy problems. My heart is with her and her husband at this moment as she fights for her recovery. If there is anyone who can pull through, I believe it will be Gabby. It is in times like these that I believe our Nation can rise above our past and shine brighter than we have before. While it will take time to learn exactly why this has happened, I hope that as we heal, our Nation will find a way to be more compassionate, understanding and peaceful.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. And may I inquire of the gentleman, if I may inquire before we start this process, if he would explain to us so that we will all be on the same page.

Mr. INSLEE. I ask unanimous consent to ask the gentleman to yield for a question.

Mr. INSLEE. I will wait till Mr. Goodlatte is recognized, and I will ask him to yield so we can have clarity of this.

Mr. INSLEE. If I may ask unanimous consent to ask Mr. Goodlatte to yield for just a question so we all understand the reading.

Mr. INSLEE. Yes. My parliamentary inquiry is, may I ask the gentleman to yield for 30 seconds to ask a question of the derivation of this language that we will all be reading in good faith and in good spirits today?

Mr. INSLEE. And would the gentleman accept the premise that since we have not been able to review the exact language we will be reading today--I will wait for a moment, Mr. Speaker. We do want to have a good bipartisan success here today, and this is a special moment for us all. So I guess the question is: I take it that since we have not had discussion about which language to read or not, that this is not intended to create any statement of congressional intent about the language but, rather, to do our best to have a moment of comity to read the language as best as we can ascertain it. Is that correct?

Mr. INSLEE. I thank you. And I very much appreciate your leadership in bringing this to our attention today.

Mr. INSLEE. ``To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations.''

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the leadership shown to bring this document for reading today; but I do want to inquire of the Chair and perhaps the gentleman who is the author of this effort today, Mr. Goodlatte. The language, as I understand it, that we will be reading today does not include some of the original language of the Constitution of the United States. On multiple occasions amendments have purported to change some of the intent of the original document.

Mr. INSLEE. I do have. My parliamentary inquiry is, will we be reading the entire original document without deletion, or will we be reading a document with deletions that may or may not have been accomplished by respective amendments?

Mr. INSLEE. If I may make a unanimous consent to ask Mr. Goodlatte a question so that we all do understand the nature of the language that we will be reading today, I think it would be very helpful to us on a bipartisan basis.

Mr. INSLEE. I thank the Speaker. Mr. Goodlatte, could you explain to us the decision-making process about which language to read today? And the reason I ask is, through our American history, we have had a series of amendments that were intended to change the original document, but the amendments do not make specific deletions to specific language in the original document, and it has been up to us to ascertain the intent of the amendments to figure out which language is operative or not. But the language has not specifically been deleted by the amendment, so it could be subject to some interpretation of which language really has been removed and which has not. So I think it would be helpful to the Members if you explain to us how the determinations of what to read have been made or not made so that we will all be on the same page as to congressional intent.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6540) to require the Secretary of Defense, in awarding a contract for the KC-X Aerial Refueling Aircraft Program, to consider any unfair competitive advantage that an offeror may possess.

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the bill under consideration.

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We have another great bipartisan success today, at the closing day of our Congress, and I want to thank Representatives Larsen, Blunt, Tiahrt, Moran, and McDermott for bringing this bipartisan bill to the floor. This bill is the Defense Level Playing Field Act, which will incorporate in standalone legislation an amendment we adopted with huge bipartisan support previously by a vote of 410-8 on the defense authorization bill. This bill is very important to bring a level of fairness and competitiveness from a job creation perspective to the tanker contract, which is now one of the largest procurement contracts in American history, a $35 billion contract providing for 179, and ultimately 400, aerial refueling planes, which will replace the Eisenhower-era tankers, which is so critical to our Nation's skeleton and backbone of our Nation's defense. I note the basic thrust of this bill is to make sure that in our procurement process that we have fairness--fairness both to the law and fairness to the American workers, who are so successful. And one of the bidders we hope to be so successful with is the Boeing 767 platform, which will be fully capable of continuing the tradition of American provision of the very backbone of our American fleet and providing our tankers. I want to make four points about what this bill will do. Basically, what this bill will do is require the Defense Department to take into consideration any unfair competitive advantage of any of the bidders in this contract. What basically this bill will do is require that the Pentagon take into consideration any unfair competitive advantage enjoyed by either of the bidders, Boeing or the Airbus consortium, and that is defined as costs of development, production, or manufacturing that are not fully borne by the offeror of any such contract. Obviously, what gave rise to this amendment was the fact that we have found that there were over $5 billion of illegal, unfair competitive advantage that has been enjoyed by one of the contractors, the Airbus consortium. But I want to make four points about what our bill does. Number one, our bill basically says that we need a fair competition. We are happy to compete as Americans. We love competition. We're happy to compete, but we need to do it on a level playing field. And this bill is very fair because it says that any unfair competitive advantage of either of the bidders needs to be taken into consideration in this bill. We love competition, but it needs to be fair. Second, this bill is fair to both sides, Boeing and Airbus, America and Europe, because it requires an unfair competitive advantage from either bidder to be taken into consideration. And it is WTO-compliant. We were careful to draft the bill with that in mind. Third, this is an enormous contract, and there have been enormous unfair competitive advantages bestowed on one of the bidders--frankly, Airbus. The $5 billion of illegal subsidies that we have found come out to somewhere between 27 and $5 million an airplane. This is an extraordinarily unfair advantage that one of the bidders has been given, and we need to take that into consideration. Fourth, the job importance of this issue cannot be overstated. It is estimated that 62,000 jobs could hang in the balance if we allow these illegal subsidies not to be remedied in this procurement contract. American workers have built the best airplanes. They're ready to do it. And we're not going to allow tens of thousands of jobs to be lost based on illegal subsidization by our friends in Europe. Now we have standalone legislation. We look forward to giving the Senate every opportunity to act on this. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce Oil Independence for a Stronger America Act of 2010, a bipartisan bill to help transition our transportation sector from an oil-based system to one based on electricity and natural gas. This legislation is a significant investment in our shared goals to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and ramp up production of homegrown biofuels in states like Washington that can spur our economy and create American jobs. As many of you know, the U.S. has only two percent of the world's oil reserves while we consume 23 percent of the world's oil. The status quo is not in our national security interests, or economic interests. Of all the oil that is used in the United States each day, 57 percent is imported, and 70 percent of that imported oil comes from countries that do not enjoy many of the same basic freedoms as U.S. citizens. Further, this addiction costs the U.S. economy close to $1 billion per day. This imbalance of supply and demand means that the U.S. will be dependent on foreign sources of oil unless we create smart and thoughtful policies to invest in America's clean energy technologies and infrastructure. This bill provides the necessary framework for the United States change invigorate new American industries and kick our oil habit. To put this in perspective everyone should know that approximately one- third of the total amount of energy consumed in the United States is to fuel the 249 million vehicles that are burning gas on our highways. The Oil Independence for a Stronger America Act of 2010 contains language that has the goal of reducing our dependence on oil by approximately 3 billion barrels per year, a number that represents nearly all of our oil imports. This bill would: 1. Establish the National Energy Security Program to coordinate oil reduction efforts across all of government 2. Help deploy electric and natural gas vehicles though tax credits and deployment demonstration projects 3. Amend current federal transportation planning rules to include planning for oil savings in transportation infrastructure plans developed by states and authorize funding for projects to implement the plans 4. Help the U.S. advanced biofuels industry scale up to commercial levels 5. Support research and development in battery technologies In addition to strengthening America by reigning in our oil consumption the legislation also has very positive environmental benefits. Almost \1/3\ of all the Green House Gas, GHG, emissions in the U.S. come from the transportation sector. Switching over 60 percent of our transportation sector to electric vehicles would cut emissions by 33 percent. This is the equivalent of taking 82 million gas burning cars off the road. In the great state of Washington, interests from the private and public sectors are already working to bring electric vehicles and the associated infrastructure to the 1-5 corridor. Their efforts can be greatly enhanced by this legislation. Realizing the goals of this legislation will ensure that the U.S. secures its competitive edge in this field. This legislation is a win-win-win for the future of the United States. We can help secure our nation's energy resources, reduce our nations greenhouse gas emissions significantly which will help mitigate issues of global climate change, and ensure that innovative transportation technologies like advanced batteries and advanced biofuels are made here in the United States. In closing, I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this bill, and hope that we can work together to move it toward passage as soon as possible.