The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“JOBS” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H6129-H6135 on Sept. 13, 2011.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
JOBS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It's an important topic these days when we refer to jobs--jobs in America, jobs that we retain, jobs that we create.
The overwhelming issue right now in the minds and hearts of constituents across this country, I firmly believe, is about the dignity of work, jobs that need to be strengthened out there in number so as to provide for the opportunity for people to dream the American Dream, the American Dream of home ownership, of education for their children, of higher education pursuits, so as to unleash the skills and the talents and the passions of the next generations of workers.
Training, retraining programs to enable the human infrastructure required as an investment in the work zone of America is an important aspect of the investment that we need to make through policy reforms and policy strengthening and resource advocacy that we could do here in the Halls of Congress, on the floor of the House of Representatives to enable us to fill those coffers with the quality investments that need to be made from a human infrastructure perspective to a capital infrastructure, and certainly to a physical infrastructure as we go forward and allow this country to utilize its intellectual capacity, to use the brainpower of these United States to enable us to compete and compete effectively in a way that acknowledges that the jobs market, the jobs created, the jobs retained through advocacy here in Washington can speak to the ultimate highest priority that people have established for all of us who are serving, regardless of political persuasion or philosophical mindsets.
As we serve this Nation, we can best provide for an outcome of jobs that are created in our society. There is no stronger need. There should be no stronger commitment. The President showcased that when he was hosted here in the House of Representatives with a joint session of Congress. And the room was filled. The gallery was packed as people witnessed the very passionate speech from the leader of the free world.
As President Obama laid forth his vision, his plan, his initiatives, his goals for the American people, the House of Representatives and Members of the United States Senate got to hear firsthand what that effort is all about. People listened with intent to move forward with that blueprint for our future, a blueprint that would strengthen our economy and have an impact across the world.
We have this opportunity now to work in a multipartisan way in a bicameral response to what the President has highlighted to be his plan for jobs here in America.
I was happy to note that amongst his arguments, amongst his priorities happens to be the creation of an innovation economy, a response perhaps to an innovation economy that finds us as an ``idea-
ist'' society investing in those ideas, investing in ideas that get moved along perhaps to a prototype that moves along to a manufacturing sector.
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I, before entering the Halls of Congress, before being elected to the House of Representatives, served as president and CEO of NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. It is nationally recognized for its cutting-edge work being done in the science and tech aspects of high tech. By the way, in the district that I represent, the 21st Congressional District in New York State, much about the Capital Region and Mohawk Valley and Schoharie Valley of upstate New York have been dubbed recently by Brookings Institute to be the hottest territory, the strongest hub, the most active region in the country for green collar job growth. That's a feather in our cap; and if someone wants to see investment happening, it's there in the Capital Region of New York.
It took a partnership with academia and State government and Federal Government, yes; but it also was a partnership with the private sector, where great investments were made by the private sector in this high-
tech agenda--in the science and tech agenda, nanoscience, semiconductor, advanced battery manufacturing. Now, that is somewhat clustering in its concept to draw more and more start-ups and entrepreneurial efforts and workers who are clustering in this way, with academia getting invested in the research aspects.
I mention that because the innovation economy is something that received high focus and an inordinate amount of attention in the speech made by the President. He understands and he has professed--and I agree with his assessment--that whoever wins this global race on innovation will emerge the exporter--the kingpin, if you will--of the global economy, the exporter of energy intellect and innovation and ideas that will enable us to, in a way, mimic the success stories of the space race--a global race that found fewer partners but found the United States of America being victorious.
That all began, I believe, with a setback. Sometimes failure is a misunderstood gift. In this case, through the Sputnik moment, America, in its defeat, had to stand up and dust off its backside and commit with passion, as experienced with the words of John F. Kennedy, who said we're going to do this effort of investing in the space race not because it's easy but because it's hard; and that attitude, that tone, that passion, that commitment, that resolve produced a winning moment, a winning moment when we were the first to achieve the daunting task of landing a person first on the Moon.
As a Nation, we took great pride in that event that happened some 40-
plus years ago. It was more than the magic moment of landing a person on the Moon and the infamous quote that talked about the giant leap for mankind. It was the unleashing of technology and untold aspects of our world, of our society, where technology reached communications and energy generation and education and health care, to name a few segments of activity out there.
That was a profound statement made by America and her brain power, America and her will--her will to invest in her people and in a mission that brought us together as a Nation, where everyone joined in the efforts to fine-tune the best way by which to pursue that mission. What happened really raised America. Her leadership potential, her leadership recognition in the global community became profoundly enhanced, and it was not just technology entering these different segments of our society but of bolstering all these aspects, the different sectors of our economy, and of course impacting not just for Americans but for people worldwide the quality of life that we enjoy, the opportunity to strengthen services, to be able to bring us together in almost a village capacity as a world simply because of technology.
Today, I would remind my colleagues in the House of Representatives and our partners down the Hall in the United States Senate that we have that same moment, that same challenge, that same need to resolve with passion again, to go forward--to go forward with a mission that allows us to invest in a clean-energy society, in a clean-energy economy into an innovation agenda. Think of it. We have so many opportunities here. We have committed so many times over to public and private aspects of research and development, of investment of research that leads to ideas or ideas that are built by that research to a greater capacity and then shared in a way that builds and develops the prototype that then creates the manufacturing aspect.
We've seen it with the chips manufacturing in my district. Perhaps the largest such construction of a chips manufacturing facility in all of America is taking hold in the region, in the area that I call home. That is enabling us to think beyond usual terms. We're thinking of chips applied to agriculture, chips applied to health care, chips applied to the education world. That is a marvel in and of itself, and it's enabling the best minds to cluster in an area like that which I represent, which is the 21st Congressional District in upstate New York in the Capital Region.
That's the investment that I believe America not only requires but that Americans are demanding of their leaders, leaders that occupy these seats here in Washington in the Halls of Congress. That's what they're asking for--that sort of investment, that sort of magical quality that we have seen throughout her history.
It's replete with sagas of success that began oftentimes with hyphenated Americans in their first generation of connection to these soils investing in a way with this brightness of ideas coming from blue-collar workers, who enabled us to take a region like that which I represent and allow it to inspire a westward movement and an industrial revolution because, in the heartlands of the 21st Congressional District, we were the hosts to an Erie Canal/barge canal history.
What that pathway, that waterway pronounced with its own presence is the opportunity to build a Port of New York that then gave birth to a necklace of communities, dubbed ``mill towns,'' that became these epicenters of invention and innovation. It was perhaps the first high-
tech revolution taking hold in the 21st Congressional District of New York. It was there that all sorts of product lines were conceived and then further developed and then realized in the marketplace around the world, and these product lines inspired continued progress.
That's the sort of ilk that is American and uniquely American. That is the sort of investment that enabled us to produce these tremendously powerful chapters in our Nation's history, and it should be the inspiration.
These moments should be the inspiration for us to do the correct thing today: for us to understand that we do not cut our way to prosperity, that we do not cut our way to opportunity, but that certainly we can invest our way to opportunity and invest our way to a new economy, a stronger outcome, an investment in our working families, an opportunity for people to truly dream the American Dream. That's how we will survive. That's how we will meet the test in the present moment.
The President has challenged Congress--and rightfully so. This is not a time for political gamesmanship. This is not a time for simple negative response or rejection of a political kind.
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This is about working as a team, executive branch with legislative branch, Republicans with Democrats, Senators with House of Representatives membership. That's what we can accomplish here if we set our hearts and our minds and our souls to an agenda that is in keeping with the tradition, the deeply rooted and powerful tradition of job creation in our society.
Think of it. Throughout our years, whether it was President Lincoln in the development of rail or Governor DeWitt Clinton in New York with the development of an Erie Canal, or President Eisenhower in the development of an interstate system, or President Roosevelt and the Corps that went throughout this great country of ours State by State and built the infrastructure that really was a need for this country at a time when we were hurting from a grossly high unemployment statistic.
That's America at her best, at her brightest. It's her shining moment. The President is imploring all of us, as Members, as leadership in the Houses, to allow for America to have her next shining moment. Challenges in difficult times can produce the most deep, profound, uninhibited, unrestricted behavior, and we have that opportunity. We have that opportunity here to respond with this innovation economy. It takes investment.
As I indicated, when I served as president and CEO of NYSERDA, and before as energy chair for some 15 years in the New York State Assembly with the New York State legislature, it took an appropriate policy and then an investment that would enable us to respond in nontraditional terms, to be able to go forward with the kinds of intellectual response to deeply rooted concerns.
Think about it. We dismantled a monopoly situation for utility purposes, electric utility purposes, and chose through an administrative order with then-Governor Pataki to go forward with a competitive quality in our utility outreaches in New York State, a system designed for a monopoly setting that has to be adjusted to not only wheel electrons from region to region within our State, but from State to State, from State to New York State, and then from country to New York State.
So that took improvement that needed to be made in policy and in resource advocacy. I saw from my positioning in NYSERDA the benefits that came when we invested in research and development. Now, granted, all the stories, all the situations, all the scenarios within the research and development opportunities are not necessarily success stories. But without the dive into that opportunity, we will never feel the splash of success.
So many of those situations become a winning outcome. And when we have such an outcome, we are able to move forward and allow for us to even dream of the notion of enhancing our energy independence.
We cannot remain so gluttonously dependent upon fossil-based fuels to be our solution for our energy crisis. We simply cannot. We cannot. We need to make certain that we commit to an innovation cycle that enables us to dream outside the ordinary, to think beyond the barrel, think outside the barrel in the case of energy reform.
And those formats, those transformations need to again encourage the investment in higher education, in education, because we need, as early as the pre-K setting, to encourage the development of our students, especially with the shortfall of engineers that we are producing in our society, and scientists.
Education in itself has the need for many reforms, but one of the areas of targeted concentration needs to be the increased numbers of individuals, especially in atypical formats with young women and students of color who need to be encouraged to pursue along the pathways of engineering and science. So we begin that investment but then we go forward with that cultivation of ideas that begins with the investment of the intellect of America, and what I witnessed were wonderful opportunities. We had witnessed all sorts of improvements to renewables, that was part of the NYSERDA agenda.
We saw all sorts of opportunities like kinetic hydropower where we would actually be able to do turbine-type settings in an ordinary wind turbine activity, but beneath the turbulence of water, to use the turbulence of water to crank out the energy supplies that we required. In a State like New York it holds vast potential. It holds tremendous potential.
The R&D commitment was there, the refinements came through the Department of Energy lab where they reviewed the product, saw where some of the weaknesses might be, engineered the assembly, the design of the turbine itself and the assembly of that turbine, designed it, redesigned it, and now we grow more and more committed to the opportunity for some of this use of turbulence of water to respond to our energy needs.
That's just one small sampling in one agency and one State of how we can grow the opportunities. Investing in battery manufacturing that enables us to respond to that linchpin that is our connector to investment into the future that enables us to, again, draw this energy independence agenda together in a way that not only grows our economy and protects our consumers and strengthens American job opportunities, but really creates a cutting-edge sort of job opportunity where, for the first time, these jobs appear on the radar so that we can begin to provide hope to individuals who may have that genius within them and will pursue that as a career path. But it begins with individual voices, individual voices in the House speaking to those issues of jobs and creation of jobs and investing in an innovation economy, investing in workers.
Certainly no one has been stronger in that attempt than my colleague, my friend from Kentucky's Third District. Representative John Yarmuth has been a champion on the floor. He has been a champion at home speaking to the need for jobs in America, Make It in America, which is a mantra which he and I and our colleagues in the Democratic Caucus have adopted.
Representative Yarmuth, it is great to have you join us for this hour. Welcome, and I know you have been such a strong voice for jobs not only for Kentucky but for Americans coast-to-coast.
Mr. YARMUTH. I thank my friend from New York.
It's a great pleasure to talk about the subject that's on every American's mind, and that is, how do we rebuild America, how do we put Americans back to work, and how do we recreate the kind of America that we all once admired and will admire again?
You've talked about a very incredibly important element of the job creation agenda, and that is research and development. It's clear that the jobs that we look forward to in the next generation, and the generation after that, are jobs that probably don't exist today. We're going to find them. We're going to discover them. And if we don't do it, they will be invented somewhere else, and that's why the initiatives that you have been talking about in the energy field are so critical.
But I would like to talk today about a job opportunity that exists right now. The President referenced this in his speech last Thursday night, and I thought he was incredibly powerful and articulate in doing that. Because what he did was connect the dots. And when he talks about infrastructure and jobs, that's something that most Americans can understand.
When we built the interstate highway system, that created an awful lot of jobs, and it also established an infrastructure that has enhanced our commercial activity throughout this country for more than a half a century. And now today we have a gap in that interstate highway system, and it happens to be in my community.
Just last Friday, the bridge called the Sherman Minton Bridge which spans the Ohio River between Louisville, Kentucky, and New Albany, Indiana, was shut down because of structural deficiencies. So when the President speaks of infrastructure deterioration throughout the country and the thousands and thousands of bridges that need to be repaired, he didn't know at that time, the next day, one would become more than an abstract theory; it would become a reality.
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We saw this, unfortunately, in Minnesota. We hopefully have averted a similar disaster in my community. But in the meantime, this bridge which was built 50 years ago which was examined just 2 years ago and judged to be structurally fine, because of advances in analysis of certain steel products, they did a different kind of analysis this year and found cracks in the support system and had to shut the bridge down.
What has this done? I-64, which begins in Virginia and runs through Lexington, Kentucky, and Louisville and on to St. Louis, it's a major, major east-west artery of this country, and for this country's both civilian and commercial traffic. About 90,000 vehicles every day go across this bridge. Most of them in the morning come into Louisville; most of them in the afternoon go out of Louisville into Indiana.
Right now, all of that traffic is being diverted onto I-65. We have a great, centrally located community in Louisville. Three interstates converge there--I-71, I-65 and I-64--and they all converge in a pretty similar spot except now all that traffic that can no longer go on I-64 across the Sherman-Minton has to go across the I-65 bridge. That bridge is already taxed to its extreme. It is operating at 25 percent more than it was envisioned to hold. Now 90,000 more vehicles are going to be coming across that bridge every day.
So we don't know yet what's going to transpire with that Sherman-
Minton bridge, whether it can be repaired, whether it is going to have to be condemned and rebuilt; but we do know if we had been making the kinds of investments in keeping our infrastructure current and modern and in making those investments over time, we would have had many, many thousands more people at work, and we probably would have avoided this situation.
So now this is both a very serious commercial and personal inconvenience, and I don't want to go quite so far as saying it's a disaster, but it is a very serious problem in my community. But it also could be something where we put many Americans back to work as we either fix it or replace it.
Again, we are at a time now where we have example after example, thousands of these around the country. We are at a juncture where we can borrow money to do this at historically low levels, and we can put tens of thousands of Americans back to work.
So as a theory as espoused in the President's speech Thursday night has become the reality in my community, it can become a reality of rebuilding America for all of us.
Mr. TONKO. Representative Yarmuth, let me add to your reality with my reality, one scenario being a couple of decades old now. In 1987, a bridge collapsed along the New York State Thruway system because of flooding. It came across a creek that you could walk across some years during the month of August. It had the CFS, the flow, equal to Niagara Falls with the flooding, and it wiped out a bridge. And I believe just about all of the tragedies, all of the loss of life, which was some 10 or 11 people, were not from the area. So we are all at risk with these deficiencies to which you alluded. So it is important for us to keep up the investments.
As we saw this year, some 500-year records broken with hurricanes from the ravages of the waters of Irene and floods from the Tropical Storm Lee, wiped out infrastructure galore. And so now there is a need, a demand to have these bits of infrastructure restored and rebuilt; otherwise the economy suffers.
I saw what rail meant to jobs in my district through the course of time. I saw what the canal meant not only for jobs in my district, but in the western movement, the industrial revolution. So infrastructure is important. I dwelled on innovation to economy, but you are so right to bring up the need for infrastructure and those improvements. I thank you, Representative Yarmuth, for your thoughts and hang with us because this is an order where we want to talk about job creation.
We are joined by yet another outspoken voice from Maryland's Third Congressional District. Representative John Sarbanes is an outspoken advocate for job creation in our society. He knows from the Maryland experience that we need jobs. By the New York experience, by which I measure it all, we need jobs. Representative Sarbanes, thank you for being a leader in the House and advocating for not only Make It in America but job creation of all types.
I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. SARBANES. I want to thank the gentleman for assembling us here today to talk about this critical issue of jobs. If you talk to the average American, the issue that they put at the top of the list and, frankly, it is the issue they have had at the top of their list for months now is the issue of jobs and creating jobs to get the economy moving again.
You were just talking about the infrastructure issue. It would be one thing if our infrastructure was in terrific shape, if we were sort of 100 percent repaired right now and everything was new and shiny, and then we had this economic crisis and we were looking around for ways to create good jobs to get ourselves back on our feet and there wasn't these infrastructure projects out there to provide those jobs. But that's not the case.
As you point out, as Congressman Yarmuth just pointed out, you can look out your window and you can see evidence of the crumbling infrastructure across the country. So do we call that fortuitous? I don't know how you would view it, but at a time when we are trying to create jobs in this country, the fact that our infrastructure needs to be rebuilt is a tremendous opportunity for the country.
I commend the President because in his address the other night, he put rebuilding the infrastructure front and center, not again just because it is a job-creation effort, although that is the number one premium that I think people are focused on, but because it has to be done. The amount of productivity this country is losing because of the waste and inefficiency of having this crumbling infrastructure is mind boggling. So at the same time you are rebuilding a country and creating jobs that way, you are also strengthening the country so that going forward we can be more efficient and we can be more productive.
But I want to extend this notion of rebuilding the country beyond just the physical infrastructure, because I think it also applies to the idea of strengthening our country in terms of human capital. We know we have to invest in human capital. I think some of us are embarrassed when we look at these comparisons with other countries around the world in terms of how our students do in terms of math or science, or other important subject areas where the United States really should be at the forefront, we should be on the cutting edge so we can be competitive, but we're not there.
So what do you do about that? Well, you rebuild the country in terms of investing in human infrastructure, in human capital and making the next generation as competitive and skilled as it can possibly be.
Yesterday, I was in Baltimore. We were celebrating Adult Education and Literacy Week. There are 90 million people, according to the research, there are 90 million Americans who would benefit from literacy, and in particular adult education opportunities. When you are in an economy where things are moving fast, where some opportunities disappear and other ones appear, you need to be able to go back to our community college system and other resources to get your skills ready to meet the new challenge. We ought to be investing in that.
I commend the President because when he came here the other night, not only did he talk about strengthening the physical infrastructure of the country, but he talked about the importance of investing in the human capital of this Nation, and I think every single American out there understands the imperative of rebuilding America. That can be our mantra. And when you rebuild America, you restore the American Dream.
The greatest frustration that people are feeling these days is they say, I worked hard, I played by the rules, but I'm not getting the opportunities to move ahead; and when you rebuild this country, you restore that American Dream. You get us back to where we need to be as a Nation, and that's what the American Jobs Act is intended to do. I think that's the agenda that the Democratic Party here in Congress is putting forward with the President. I am glad to support that. So I thank you for pulling us together today to focus on this very, very important issue of job creation.
Mr. TONKO. Representative Sarbanes, I couldn't agree with you more. I have witnessed what happens when we invest in training, retraining, and apprenticeship programs in pre-K through 12, in graduate school, in undergrad campuses and research centers. I witnessed the inspiration that a cleanroom science course provided for a young man 30, 35 years old, unemployed ready to leave our area. When he saw the cleanroom science at the local community college, which was an investment from the Federal Government, he did a U-turn in his stated plans.
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This was something that was exciting. This was something that spoke to his heart and soul. This was something he wanted to engage in. And that's the opportunity that we can give people here.
The story line of America is basic. As you say, give me that American Dream. Let me unleash my skills, my talents. Let me raise a family, build a home, and dream that American Dream. We owe it to America.
And people have placed their faith in this jobs agenda. I can't tell you how many times that I know we've talked. We've heard it from our colleagues. People believe in that Make It In America opportunity. They believe in tethering that dream, that American Dream, so that households, middle class--let's rebuild that middle class. Let's take those values of the middle class and make it happen.
We're happy you joined us. Another partner of ours, a colleague who has led us oftentimes during Special Order on making it in America, on jobs, none other than California's 10th District Representative, John Garamendi.
Representative Garamendi, we often talk about the east coast-west coast. The message is unique. It's commonplace across this country. Thank you again for your leadership on the floor on job creation.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko and Mr. Sarbanes, thank you for being here. I'm delighted to be able to join you today talking about infrastructure.
Earlier today, just a couple of hours ago, my office had representatives from the City of Davis, near Sacramento, and another community, Woodland, both of them in Yolo County. They're talking about an infrastructure project. The water systems in those communities have, for 150 years, depended on groundwater, but the groundwater is going bad. They need to develop a new water system--about $300 million, $400 million. They cannot continue with the present system. They need help. But they also, in doing that, are going to be able to employ a vast number of people and put in place the infrastructure those communities need. We're talking about the University of California, Davis campus, with about 27,000 students at that campus, bad water. They need to rebuild their water system.
Right now, across America we're looking at more than 2 million construction workers, men and women that could build that water system for those communities. They're out of work. Two million are out of work.
The President came here last week and said Americans want to go back to work, they want a job, and he put forward to this body--to the Senate, the House--a proposal, the American Jobs Act. The American Jobs Act, putting Americans back to work.
You want to deal with the deficit? Take tax-takers, people that are unemployed, and make them taxpayers. We can do this and simultaneously solve the long-term deficit problem of this Nation by growing the American economy once again with, as you were saying so well, Mr. Sarbanes, infrastructure projects.
You were talking about east coast-west coast, Mr. Tonko. Twenty-seven hundred miles of American roads almost unfit for travel. This is the kind of project that the President wants: $50 million to rebuild the American transportation system so we can travel.
Mr. TONKO. That measurement, I'm assuming, was made before some of the ravages of floods in portions of our country or the tragedies in Texas with the many fires. As the President proposes this infrastructure improvement, there are those who are hurting right now who have been severely impacted by the ravages of the waters of Hurricane Irene that went so far northeast and inland that they broke centuries worth of recordkeeping.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, you and I were right here in the back of this House Chamber earlier today and you were sharing with me the stories. The reality in your district is these are your constituents who have been harmed. And we had our colleague, Peter Welch from Vermont, who was also talking about the extraordinary damage done to the infrastructure in Vermont. As we rebuild those communities as part of this American Jobs Act, people go to work in those communities and are able to once again stand on their own.
Share with us some of the things that you've seen from your own district and the needs for infrastructure replacement in your communities.
Mr. TONKO. Well, it's amazing because there are situations--I'll first go to Representative Welch's district in Vermont--where Route 4 has been wiped out. It's just about removed from the map.
What was just a couple of miles worth of activity for some people to travel to work now becomes this tremendous circuitous route that may even take you down into Massachusetts and back into eastern Vermont to get to the locations. It has made life nearly impossible. I have seen numbers of bridges wiped out in upstate New York, a tremendous amount of bridges, locks that have been compromised in the area that I represent.
I talked about hosting the Erie Canal barge canal activity. The locks that came in the second phase of that canal development are now tremendously devastated by the powerful force of water, homes that have been knocked out, but the infrastructure and landslides of roads that are disappearing and different opportunities now that are really demanding of an investment like this in order for us to go forward.
As Representative Sarbanes made mention, this is a part of the equation for success for jobs--not just jobs in the immediate zone to improve and repair and construct some of this infrastructure, but jobs in general. It is part of the equation of success. You have got to move that product line. You have got to deal with the freight issues.
So it is incumbent upon us to respond. If politics gets in the way here, it is grossly regrettable. It's unacceptable to hold back this Nation simply because you choose to do a knee-jerk political response to a plan outlined by a President who has shown a vision here that is laser sharp about what needs to be done.
Mr. GARAMENDI. You're absolutely correct. The President's American Jobs Act, which I'm embracing and I believe the Democratic Party has embraced, is one that is focused like a laser on the immediate challenge that America has--and that is: Employ Americans. Put Americans back to work.
Another thing that's in the bill--this is about schools. Forty-four percent of the principals across this Nation and all the schools across the Nation have reported that their school in one way or another is not satisfactory for students: the bathrooms are not working, the playgrounds are falling apart, the roofs are leaking.
We need to make American schools physically strong and pleasant for the students to be in. So this is a major piece of it. This also is improving the science laboratories. And the President has lined out about, I think, $30 billion to rebuild the American schools. It's not just the schools that are going to benefit from that and the children that are in those classrooms and on the playgrounds, but it's the Americans that need jobs, and they'll get those jobs rehabbing and rebuilding the schools.
Mr. TONKO. Earlier, Representative Sarbanes talked, Representative Garamendi, about human infrastructure. It begins with sound schools that are not crumbling over the students' heads but also an investment in education. Just recently, during our August district work period, I did a tour, a number of tours in my district with manufacturing. But one story pops into mind where a manufacturer in Schoharie County, a very rural county in my district, has utilized the efforts of its CAT Center--the Center for Advanced Technology--to come up with an idea that created automation so that he can remain competitive in the global sweepstakes. But he needs people who are specifically trained and educated to run this automation aspect within his assembly process, and so it becomes very important that this human infrastructure is critical.
I'm reminded all the time about a centuries-old saga and decades-old stories of what we used to manufacture in America. After doing it someplace else, the daunting challenge to America, to a sophisticated society, is build the products not yet on the radar screen. And that takes intellect. That takes genius that's cultivated in our schools and in our colleges and our universities and research centers, and then we create that product line that is brand new. But that's a sophisticated society responding to a manufacturing challenge. And it begins with the human intellect; it begins with human infrastructure.
Representative Sarbanes, you're so on target with that investment of capital infrastructure, physical infrastructure, and, indeed, human infrastructure, so thank you for bringing that into the discussion.
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Mr. SARBANES. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. TONKO. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. SARBANES. I just want to echo this idea of investing in manufacturing in this country.
The economists will tell you that a manufacturing job has a greater multiplier effect on the economy than any other kind of job that you can produce. So when you're investing in manufacturing, when you're creating manufacturing jobs, when you're making it possible for Americans to make things in America, you're having the maximum impact possible on the broader economy. So it makes sense to do this.
Congressman Garamendi referred to the repair and investment in our public schools across the country that the President wants to do. Thirty-five thousand public schools would benefit that have projects waiting to move forward. In other words, think about this; this is not a situation where you decide first that you're going to go out and build infrastructure, and then you've got to go first do the design and the plans and everything else.
I worked in Maryland for 8 years with the Baltimore City public school system, which at that time needed about $1.5 billion worth of repairs just to get back to sort of what would be an acceptable standard in terms of the physical plan of the Baltimore city school system. They know what they have to do. Those plans are complete, all the design specs are done, all they need is the resources to make it happen. They can start on those projects tomorrow. Are there workers out there to do it? You bet. There are millions of unemployed construction workers out there and others who are ready to step up and fill that void. So this is something you can do right away. That's the beauty of it. That's the beauty of what has been presented to us.
Mr. GARAMENDI. They could start tomorrow if Congress acts today to pass the American Jobs Act. Because the resources--that is, the money--
would be there tomorrow. The day the President signs this bill, those men and women could go to work rebuilding those schools.
There is one other thing that's in the President's bill that I am really excited about because we've been talking about this forever and a day around here, and that is, Make it in America. There is a buy-
America provision in this legislation. So when they go out and buy the paint, redo the heating and air conditioning system, those are going to be American-made paint, American-made air conditioners and heaters. That's the kind of thing we can do. We can use the American taxpayer money to rebuild the American manufacturing industry, just as you said. We can do it. It's billions of dollars of American money in transportation, bridges, roads, buses, and trains used for American-
made equipment, making it once again in America. This is exciting. This is really rebuilding the manufacturing base.
Mr. TONKO. To Representative Sarbanes' point, every year that's wasted, that is allowed to pass by, youngsters in the third, fourth, fifth grade, whatever, will never have the experience they ought to. So we're letting down the workers of tomorrow by this delay, by this resistance, this recalcitrance of a political order that is unacceptable.
I will just make the point that Wynn Kintz, who is the owner of the facility that I toured in Schoharie County, said that he reaches the community colleges routinely because he needs that upgraded skill set. There are manufacturing jobs across this country for which they need skilled labor, and if we walk away from that investment in human infrastructure, we've denied progress for this country.
We've been joined by an outspoken advocate for jobs--I mean a very loud voice because we've heard the volume cranked up--as the chair of our Democratic Caucus and the Representative of Connecticut's First Congressional District, and that is none other than Representative John Larson.
Representative Larson, thank you for joining us in this Special Order.
Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. I am honored to join the gentleman from New York, the gentleman from California, and the gentleman from Maryland.
Martin Luther King once described the need to act as the ``fierce urgency of now.'' Nothing is more important to the American people, nothing is more important to anyone listening to this broadcast than seeing this country go back to work.
Representative Garamendi talked very eloquently about Make It in America. People want to see jobs created in this country and want to see Americans back to work because we all know that when we put America back to work by making things here in America, that it provides the opportunity for every American to succeed.
The President has called upon Congress to act. He did so in a speech last week. We need to respond now. He did so in bipartisan fashion, citing bills that have come from both sides of the aisle. Congress as an institution should be about the vitality of ideas that you heard expressed here this evening but then turned into a plan of action that sees us lowering our unemployment rate.
It is simply unacceptable that Congress would dawdle while 14 million Americans are unemployed and a sum total of 25 million Americans are underemployed. The time schedule that Congress has here should be expanded so that we're working every day to see that Americans are put back to work. Fourteen million Americans are crying out for the President's proposal to be enacted, to see this body take action. They are tired of the endless bickering between both sides and want to see action taking place in this body. My colleagues have outlined very specific proposals that will achieve those goals.
We've just witnessed one of our colleagues who spoke so eloquently--
and I'm referring to Mr. Tonko from New York State--about what has happened to his community, his district, the very character of which was changed because of a calamity, more than a 500-year level storm that ravaged the States of Connecticut, New York, and Vermont and left people not only destitute in terms of their very homes and their livelihood, but again, seeking what is fundamental to this country, a certain sense of fairness and shared sacrifice and commitment to helping out fellow Americans. What better way than rebuilding our country and starting with those communities that have been ravaged. The youth that could be employed immediately in our urban and rural areas. The rebuilding, as Mr. Garamendi has said, of roads and bridges and sewage systems. And fire departments and public schools with broadband to light up the desktops of our children and the blackboards and white boards, if you will, of our teachers so that we can once again assume our rightful position as the preeminent economic leader in this global economy.
We had Professor Dr. Joseph Stiglitz speak before the caucus today. And he said it very clearly--that job creation equals deficit reduction. We are not talking across the aisle here; we need to come together as Americans.
We witnessed this past weekend what can happen when America decides to be unified in common cause, as we did and as we responded after the events of September the 11th. We need to respond to the crisis at hand, which is 14 million Americans that are unemployed, the devastation that it has wreaked on our economy, what it's meant to our housing, what it's meant to our education system, what it's meant to our manufacturing base that Mr. Garamendi has talked about time and again on this floor. That's what we have to do--reinvest in Americans. And in doing so, as Dr. Stiglitz, the preeminent economist in this country, has indicated, we can both reduce our deficit by more than 25 percent and put America to work. What we need is action from this Congress, from this House of Representatives.
{time} 1610
Bring the President's bill to the floor. If you won't bring the President's bill to the floor, then engage the select committee that has a very specific timeframe with deadlines and dates and no cloture votes in the Senate, no poison pill amendments in the House, an up-or-
down vote on jobs. That's what the American people are demanding. That's what you gentleman have so eloquently put forward here.
Mr. TONKO. Chairman Larson, we have precious few minutes left. I'll make a few comments and then yield to my gentlemen colleagues as we close this Special Order hour.
To me, you've identified it well. This country has had, throughout its history, its shining moments. This is our opportunity to invest in America's next shining moment. It will take commitment by the legislators here on the Hill in Washington, and encouraging and inspiring and building a tone that brings us together to think as one as a Nation, generation to generation to generation, region of the country to region of the country, political persuasion to opposite political persuasion, philosophy of difference to the philosophy of another kind, moving together, coming together, understanding this is our defining moment. It's our moment to create our next shining example of America at her best.
Representative Sarbanes, thank you for joining us.
Mr. SARBANES. Thank you again, Congressman Tonko, for pulling us together this afternoon. I just want to make a couple of points.
Echoing what Congressman Larson said, if you look at just what happened over the last couple of weeks in terms of the disaster that hit the Eastern Seaboard, and you can look over the last few months across this country and see those sorts of disastrous effects happening to people, nobody would question that the Federal Government has an important role to play in coming to the assistance of people that are in that dire situation.
Whatever your larger philosophy is about whether government should be large or small and so forth, everyone agrees the government should be on the side of people that are facing such a desperate situation and should act quickly. So if we accept that proposition, we also ought to think about the 14 million people, John, that you referred to, who basically are facing an economic hurricane every single day.
And it is the role, the appropriate role, the necessary role of the Federal Government taking those taxpayer dollars and saying, we're going to turn and help our fellow citizens in need, and we're going to do it quickly, and we're going to do it in a way that not only helps them, but is also good for the broader economy and will put people back to work.
Let me just finish with this last thought. I hope people watch this discussion, and I hope people keep track of who's going to be supportive of the American Jobs Act and who's not because there are going to be people in this Chamber who vote against it and drag their feet. And the reason I want people to pay attention is because people are getting cynical out there. And I hope that it will cure some of their cynicism to see that there are folks, yes, here in Washington who are absolutely determined to try to come to the assistance of people that are looking for good job opportunities out there.
So pay attention because there are people here who want to do the right thing, and hopefully that'll stop you from becoming so cynical.
Mr. TONKO. Thank you very much. To Chairman Larson and then Representative Garamendi to close.
I yield to Chairman Larson.
Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Thank you again, Paul, for organizing this Special Order. And I think John Sarbanes said it well. The gentleman from Maryland spoke eloquently about the need for us to act and the need for us to act now.
It has been a storm. It has been a hurricane for the 14 million people that are unemployed, and for their families; and all Americans are asking is the simple dignity that comes from being able to look across the table at your spouse and your family and let them know that they are safe and secure because you have a job and you are providing for them.
Mr. TONKO. I yield to Representative Garamendi to close.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, thank you for bringing us together. Yesterday, the President delivered to this Chamber a comprehensive American Jobs Act, employment for perhaps 2, maybe more than 2, million Americans immediately available as soon as this Congress acts. And it is fully paid for. It will not add to the deficit. It is fully paid for through a series of tax increases on the superwealthy, and the oil companies finally having to give up our tax money that they've enjoyed for more than a century as a subsidy.
We can do this. We must do this. We must put America back to work. And in doing so, we will be able to deal with the deficit because Americans have come, once again, taxpayers, and we have created the critical investments in individuals, in education, in infrastructure and in small businesses, all of whom will benefit from the American Jobs Act.
It's our responsibility, it is our opportunity, it is America's opportunity to go back to work.
Mr. Tonko, thank you for bringing us together.
Mr. TONKO. It's been my pleasure and honor to work with you gentlemen.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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