Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, I appreciate Chair Fleischmann very, very much for his serious attention to our complex bill and his cordiality and very constructive attitude throughout.

I begin by thanking our diligent staff for all their hard work on this bill. On the minority staff, I thank Scott McKee, Jocelyn Hunn, and Adam Wilson. On the majority staff, I thank Angie Giancarlo, Perry Yates, Nora Khalil, Richie O'Connell, Scott Prutting, and Janet Harrington. On my personal staff, I thank Margaret McInnis and Mayely Boyce.

As we work on this Energy and Water bill, I place in the Record how deeply saddened I am by the passing of our dear colleague in the other body, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who dedicated the best years of her life to our country.

As Energy and Water appropriators, Dianne and all of us worked closely over many years to protect the waters of the United States and to build a brighter, cleaner energy future and to assure America's nuclear capabilities are secure.

Her acute mastery of the energy, water, and security needs of our Nation had no comparison, and her dignified, noble public service is truly a great loss to our Nation.

There is not time during our bill's consideration today to fully express my thoughts, but I am so deeply saddened for California's loss, for our Nation's loss, and for all who grieve the loss of the longest- serving woman in Senate history.

All I or any of us can do is laud Senator Dianne Feinstein's productive career of exemplary effective public service. Rest in peace, my dear friend.

We consider this important measure at a moment in which the United States economy is growing at record rates, producing historic levels of job growth due to the laws enacted by the last Congress.

With historic job growth, revenues are now coming into the private sector and the Federal Government at much higher levels than before because post-pandemic, millions more people are working. Companies are earning money.

The American people again are doing what America does best: being productive and leaving our Nation to the future in better condition than we found it.

Indeed, this gross domestic product/debt chart clearly illustrates as a result of robust economic growth, our Nation has bent the debt curve as a percentage of GDP for the first time in modern history.

Here we go. It is going down. That is where we want it to go, yes. We are beginning to pay down our Nation's accumulated debt, largely amassed from the costs of past wars, the old debts that were not paid for by those that conducted them at the time.

Then we had the pandemic and, sadly, over several decades, the tax cuts that were enacted allowed the wealthiest and most productive powerful corporations in our country not to carry their fair share of the tax load. I think it is important that everyone share in our Nation's responsibilities.

In this context, I must offer that I am unable to concur with my able colleague, Chairman Fleischmann, on this particular appropriation bill. I prefer a more realistic energy and water allocation that meets the critical energy and water needs of our Nation, not just for today but for the energy independence and the water security for America in perpetuity. We are not out of the woods on this, we have got a lot of work to do.

Energy and water security are national security--think about it. Yet, the nondefense spending in this bill is $6.4 billion lower--25 percent lower--than last year's effective level. That is a radical, irresponsible reduction. It repeals over $5 billion for critical energy programs from the Inflation Reduction Act that would have helped American families save money on their monthly energy bills while simultaneously creating thousands of jobs, good-paying jobs, in new energy technologies.

For energy and water needs, it is not an overstatement to say people in our Nation live or die by decisions being made here in Congress.

Since World War II, America has paid a terrible price for its unconscious slide into foreign dependency on imported energy. While we have made strides toward energy independence after a half century of effort, starting in the late 1970s, we still haven't scored at the home plate of U.S. energy independence in perpetuity.

Recently, I read an article that said our country is going to import petroleum after 2040. Well, guess what? I am not voting for that. Our position must be to keep American energy and our people secure here at home. That is one of the major purposes of this bill.

Hasn't our Nation learned repeatedly the hard way that when gasoline prices top $4 a gallon, our economy is thrown into deep recession. It is pretty clear. It should be obvious why U.S. energy independence is so vital. No foreign power should ever again make America vulnerable.

Energy security is national security. We must ensure energy security within our own borders. We cannot depend on foreign sources in the event of energy disruptions that are natural or malignly concocted to do us harm.

Energy impacts every person's well-being. It allows our Nation to be free, and free of foreign malign influence. How well we know our Nation's fate can be impacted by events outside our borders.

News outlets are correctly reporting that Russia's unprovoked war on Ukraine is being waged on more than one front, surely including energy. Russia is known for manipulation of global oil and gas prices through reserves they control. In fact, global oil prices surged to nearly $100 per barrel in September after Saudi Arabia and Russia continued their curtailment of oil supplies.

The sharp escalation in geopolitical risk in the Middle East from the brutal Hamas terror attack in Israel has oil markets on edge. Check it out. Let us not forget that the Middle East accounts for more than one- third of the world's seaborne oil trade. Again, energy resources are intricately bound to the fate of liberty halfway around our world. Let us make our home front impenetrable.

Energy also allows our private sector and its workforce the ability to flourish in a modern economy with millions and millions upon millions of living wage jobs in energy production and conservation, across all sectors: natural gas, ethanol and biodiesel, nuclear, fossil fuels, thermal heat recovery, renewables, advancing sectors of hydrogen and fusion energy, and advanced nuclear platforms.

Meanwhile, imaginative energy conservation and other developing technologies are being created by America's amazing inventors in new building materials, solar and electrified windows, biofuels, geothermal and thermal heat recovery, wind and wave energy, to name but a few. America will never ever lose through power of invention because we are a free people.

Let me turn to our water responsibilities. New, major engineering challenges lie before America. Ask the citizens along the drought- stricken Mississippi and the Louisiana corridor as saltwater creeps north, or the flood victims in New York City.

Across our Nation, cities are having to manage water and wastewater loads for which they were not engineered. In rural America, farmers are losing crops because of increasing rainfall, an inability to manage water in their fields, and drainage systems that were built for another era. Frankly, a century or a century and a half ago. Well, times are changing.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation are needed now more than ever to handle regional approaches to new and changing water flows, whether it is down the Mississippi, along our coasts, in the Great Lakes, or the dry, irrigated West.

There is an old expression: ``Don't try to fool Mother Nature.'' I would say: Don't ignore Mother Nature. This is one such moment in American history. I must express the Energy and Water Appropriations bill before us is completely inadequate. It does not meet our country's needs in this new era of climate change.

If I need offer more proof, Americans and America are paying billions more in disaster relief. This country paid over $150 billion last year in disaster damage, significantly higher than the $60 billion average from the last 30 years. How about that--doubling and a half. Well, that is a big warning sign that one simply can't ignore.

We ought to be investing that money upfront to avoid those disasters by properly funding this bill. We must robustly meet the needs of the future, not flounder in the past.

In other areas of the bill, I continue to be troubled by the unsustainable spending in the Department of Energy's weapons programs. We know we have to keep a tight lid on them because they have a tendency to overspend when we don't watch.

Further, I am concerned how this bill cuts nuclear nonproliferation programs that reduce nuclear risks and counter the global challenge of nuclear proliferation.

Finally, the bill includes numerous controversial poison pill policy riders that sadly show extremist Republicans are not interested in bills that can gain bipartisan support and become law.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill. America can and must do better on the new age frontiers of energy and water.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the ranking member of the full Committee on Appropriations.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I look forward to responding to my dear friend, former Chair Simpson. However, first, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), the ranking member of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, who does such a phenomenal job.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, I stand here as a proud member of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies for many years. I unfortunately rise in opposition to this harmful bill.

Let's start with the two most obvious problems. It raises energy costs for families, and it has zero chance of becoming law.

It was drafted with one goal: to appease MAGA extremists.

The new Speaker of the House just spoke of reaching across the aisle for all Americans, yet one of the Republicans' first major acts is to jam through a bill that raises their energy costs and undermines our security, all just to keep their rightwing base happy.

How do we know? Instead of fortifying our power infrastructure and confronting the climate crisis, it fixates on blocking the Army Corps of Engineers from renaming items that celebrate the Confederacy. You just cannot make up this stuff. That rockets to the top of the priority list for House Republicans.

As we recover from the hottest summer on record, it cuts a critical clean energy program by half a billion dollars, choking off vital energy efficiency avenues to battle climate change. House Republicans have drafted a bill that is entirely removed from the realities that our families and the entire planet face right now.

I recently had an affordable housing roundtable with Broward County in my home State of Florida, and they all talked about being rent burdened by climbing housing costs. Yet, this bill takes away funding to help American homeowners keep their homes safe and energy efficient to cut their power bill.

Instead of investing in a stronger America, it cedes supremacy to a Chinese Communist Party that throws its full weight into infrastructure and clean energy investments.

If Republicans want to craft a bill that helps American families, start by abiding by the bipartisan budget agreement that was signed into law by President Biden just a few months ago.

In the rare instance where this bill actually honors that agreement, it fully funds a $425 million budget request for Everglades restoration, which I am thankful for, and it allows us to keep moving the EAA Reservoir project forward.

Beyond that, though, this bill has dramatic funding gaps that jeopardize America's energy stability and independence. It raises costs for families, hurts job creation, fails to tackle the climate crisis, and rolls over to Chinese and Russian competitors.

Mr. Chair, for all of these obvious reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I wish to offer a few thoughts here regarding what our esteemed colleague, Mr. Simpson, said about the Federal balance sheet.

If you think of your own checkbook, when you work and earn money, you have an entry that is positive. You have a payroll check or earn interest on something. Then, if you have to pay a bill, you put a minus sign and subtract it, and you see what is left.

What is interesting about the arguments from the folks on the other side of the aisle is, they only talk about what is subtracted. They don't talk about what is being added. Both revenues and expenditures are a part of the Federal budget.

It is interesting to me. I have served in Congress for a while now, and the other side never talks about revenues. They only talk about expenditures. The interesting thing about revenues is when an economy is booming, you are bringing more revenue into the Federal Government. The Federal debt, as a percent of our economic prowess right now, is decreasing because we are growing the economy. What we are spending in this bill causes more economic growth. That is a good thing.

What the other side is not talking about is that there are a lot of free riders in our country, and they are not paying their fair share of revenues into the Treasury. We have to talk about that side of the budget, too. There are a lot of people who are what I call free riders. We are paying for them. Some of the richest people in this country and some of the biggest corporations aren't paying their fair share of the load. You have to look at both sides of the ledger.

I wanted to put that on the floor today in order to adopt the proper policies. It will be a most interesting discussion as we move forward with the new debt commission that has been formed. It will be interesting if they bring both pages in the ledger, both the revenues and the expenditures.

As our chart shows, the Federal debt, as a percent of GDP, is going down for the first time in modern history. We better not do anything that stops that because it is one of the answers, as well as getting those who are free riders to pay their fair share.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, Congress needs to write bills that meet our country's needs, and I reiterate my disappointment that the energy and water bill before us today does not adhere to the agreed to levels in the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.

The American people are counting on us to work together, not draft partisan bills that will never become law.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to H.R. 4394--Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024. This bill needs to be revised to be truly bipartisan to serve the American people and Houston.

As with all the additional appropriation bills that have been up for consideration on the House Floor, I strongly oppose the passage of this bill for a myriad of reasons--including the following listed below.

The majority has put forth a bill that increases energy costs for American families, undermines the growth and modernization of our energy infrastructure, weakens our national security, and would yield the world's energy future to foes abroad.

With massive cuts that renege on the debt limit agreement that was just signed into law, the 2024 Energy and Water bill raises costs for families and weakens energy security and our ability to out-compete China.

The bill invests $55.2 billion, a decrease of $3.9 billion or 6.5 percent below 2023.

Further, the bill's domestic allocation is effectively 21.5 percent, $5.4 billion, below 2023 while its defense allocation is 3.5 percent, $1.1 billion, above 2023, creating a further disparity between domestic and defense programs.

This harmful legislation would have the following damaging impact on America:

Increases energy costs by cutting the Department of Energy's clean energy programs that lower American families' energy bills;

Jeopardizes energy security by enabling Russia to continue weaponizing energy to destabilize global markets;

Hurts U.S. competitiveness by allowing competitors like China to monopolize markets for new energy technology; and

Fails to confront the climate crisis and create better-paying, clean energy jobs.

The bill cuts the Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy account by $466 million or 14 percent below 2023 ($1.8 billion or 38 percent below the President's budget request). This office is critical to developing manufacturing, building efficiency, clean energy like hydrogen and solar, and weatherization technologies that are critical to our Nation's growth and resilience.

The bill includes dangerous cuts that House Democrats have been sounding the alarm about for months.

With this bill, House Republicans irresponsibly:

Call for $5.7 billion in untenable repeals from the Department of Energy's Inflation Reduction Act programs, including:

$4.5 billion from the High-Efficiency Electric Home Rebate Program;

$1 billion from the Assistance for Latest and Zero Building Energy Code Adoption; and

$200 million from the State-Based Home Energy Efficiency Contractor Training Grants.

Repurpose critical Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) resources including:

$3.6 billion from the Department of Energy's IIJA Civil Nuclear Credit Program that help preserve the existing U.S. reactor fleet and save thousands of high-paying jobs across the country; and

$84 million from the Corps of Engineers' IIJA programs.

Revoke $15 billion in loan authority from the Department of Energy's Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program--an increasingly successful program that promotes climate-friendly innovation and American manufacturing.

Sadly, this bill exemplifies Republican misguided values: increasing costs for hardworking families, decreasing job opportunities, failing to confront the climate crisis, and allowing Russia and China to outcompete us.

In an attempt to provide some reasonable action in this unreasonable legislation, I offered an amendment for consideration by the Rules Committee that would help our Nation's government take seriously our ever-changing climate and the crises that ensue creating national and international instability at unprecedented levels and degree.

The Jackson Lee Amendment (Rules Committee No. 121) to H.R. 4394-- Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024, if adopted would have added the following language to this bill:

It is the sense of Congress that energy and water are emerging as paramount and critical issues, posing challenges not only to the United States' national security and economy but to the stability of the global community; and

As each nation grapples with climate change, which is evidenced by climatic events taking place in this nation and others over the last decade, where precipitation in all of its forms and extreme drought have triggered calamities that clearly inform decision makers that nations must be purposeful in preparing to meet these challenges to protect life and human advancement in all of its forms.

Temperatures are rising, snow and rainfall patterns are shifting, and more extreme climate events--like heavy rainstorms and record high temperatures--are becoming more common.

The planet's oceans and glaciers have also experienced changes-- oceans are warming and becoming more acidic, ice caps are melting, and sea level is rising.

As these and other changes become more pronounced in the coming decades, they will likely present challenges to our society and our environment, our country and our world.

This summer saw the hottest days in Earth's modern history as a climate-change fueled surge of heat shattered temperature records across the globe.

According to scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York, the summer of 2023 was Earth's hottest since global records began in 1880.

The months of June, July, and August combined were 0.41 degrees Fahrenheit (0.23 degrees Celsius) warmer than any other summer in NASA's record, and 2.1 degrees F (1.2 C) warmer than the average summer between 1951 and 1980. August alone was 2.2 F (1.2 C) warmer than the average.

This new record comes as exceptional heat swept across much of the world, exacerbating deadly wildfires in Canada and Hawaii, and searing heat waves in South America, Japan, Europe, and the U.S., while likely contributing to severe rainfall in Italy, Greece, and Central Europe.

As backed up by NASA and global scientists and witnessed by everyone across the world, the Summer of 2023's record-setting temperatures are not just a set of numbers--they result in dire real-world consequences.

From sweltering temperatures in Arizona and across the country, to wildfires across Canada, extreme flooding in Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as catastrophic earthquakes striking across the Middle East, extreme weather is threatening lives and livelihoods around the globe.

As we entered into the fall, September started with a typhoon that ripped through Hong Kong, uprooting trees and flooding the city.

It was the first of a slew of extreme weather events that hit ten countries and territories in just 12 days--the most catastrophic being the floods in Libya, which have killed more than 11,000 people according to the UN and left many thousands missing.

Scientists warn that these types of extreme weather events, affecting countries all over the world, may become increasingly common as the climate crisis accelerates, putting pressure on governments to prepare.

These real impacts of climate change are a threat to our planet and future generations that we must continue to confront and tackle head on.

The scientific evidence is overwhelming, and we will no doubt continue to see more climate records and more intense and frequent extreme weather events impacting society and ecosystems, until we come to acknowledge and accept the devastating impact of climate change and actively stop the harms that are contributing to the deadly and damaging climate crises of our time and inevitably forthcoming in our future.

Texans and the constituents in my home district of Houston are no strangers to the adverse impacts and dangers of climate change.

When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in 2017, dumping over 50 inches of rain on Houston, it caused more than $125 billion in economic damage as my constituents' homes, workplaces, schools, and businesses flooded.

Yet, research has shown that climate change made Harvey's torrential rainfall much worse, roughly 15 percent to 38 percent greater rainfall than it would have been in a world that was not warming.

This difference is far from insignificant--up to 50 percent of the properties that flooded in Harris County might have escaped that fate in a world without climate change.

Houstonians are not the only ones to have faced harm from climate change fueled national disasters.

Since 1980, the US has sustained 341 weather and climate disasters, coasting over $2.4 trillion in all.

However, for Houstonians, Texans, and all of our constituents, the worst of the threat is far from over.

The US coastline is projected to rise 10 to 12 inches in the next 30 years, threatening the coastal states and vastly increasing the risk of flooding for those on either coast.

Average global temperatures will continue to rise, prompting a crop loss of 10 percent in the next 5 to 25 years, melting glaciers, and further driving the rise of sea levels.

It is estimated that climate change could cost from 30 to over 100 billion dollars per year, along with significant potential for economic and federal revenue losses.

The OMB has predicted that climate change could reduce the national GDP by as much as 10 percent by the end of the century, costing a $2 trillion loss in the federal budget.

Further, some of the most severe harms from climate change will fall disproportionately on socially vulnerable populations, including racial and ethnic minority communities.

Additionally, the GAO has highlighted that climate change further poses threats to national security, as rising sea levels and catastrophic storms threaten both military and civilian infrastructure and can even affect migration patterns.

There is no Planet B. We must address the existential threat of climate change now.

We are seeing the consequences of climate change at home and abroad.

However, Republicans continue to deny the scientific consensus of climate change.

Now more than ever before, we need to strengthen our energy security and diversify our energy sources, so we are not dependent on global adversaries--while also tackling the devastating global and economic policies impacting our climate.

And yet today, House Republicans are putting forth a bill that threatens to raise energy costs for more than 250,000 U.S. households and halt the creation of more than 50,000 new jobs, while failing to acknowledge and address energy policies that are decimating our global climates.

I call upon my fellow colleagues across the aisle to stand up against these harmful and dangerous policies offered in this appropriations bill.

For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote in opposition to H.R. 4394, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Act of 2024.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of this amendment. I know it took a lot of effort on the part of the chair, and we appreciate your cooperation. I urge support of the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment.

Let's be clear. This amendment reduces funding for the Army Corps of Engineers' investigations account by $715,000, with the amendment description's stated intent of eliminating funding for the Delaware River Basin Commission.

I will note that the actual bill language of the amendment only reduces funding for the account. It does not in any way eliminate funding for the Delaware River Basin Commission.

However, I vigorously oppose the stated intent behind this amendment, especially since the Delaware River Basin, which flows into the Delaware Bay and then into the Atlantic Ocean, covers over 13,000 square miles in four States.

As established by law through the Delaware River Basin Compact that went into effect in 1961, the Commission consists of the Army Corps of Engineers and the four basin State Governors. Those States include Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York.

The Corps of Engineers in these States work as equal partners for planning, development, and regulatory actions for the river basin. Frankly, all across the country we are facing issues that deal with very large watersheds and basins that in the past centuries and decades didn't face what we face today with water flows.

While the Commission's work could be further discussed, my strongest reason for opposition to this amendment is that the underlying bill provides $715,000 to the Delaware River Basin Commission as community project funding on behalf of two Members of this body. The community project funding process allows Members of Congress to request funding for their community to meet urgent needs that they identify. There is a rigorous process for vetting and inclusion of community project funding, including strict transparency and accountability rules. I am shocked that one Member would target another Member's community project funding through an amendment on the floor.

Mr. Chair, I strongly urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I thank Congressman Neguse for yielding and compliment him on the hardworking representation of the people of Colorado.

There could not be a more complex water system than the one that his community is a part of, and most of America has no idea about the plumbing of the West, so I really compliment him.

I know that funding provided in this bill will help advance or complete projects to protect the Humpback Chub, Bonytail, Colorado Pikeminnow, and Razorback Sucker that are feeling the impacts of drought while allowing water development projects to proceed.

We know many reports, including one from the United Nations just a couple years ago, talked about the extinction of natural species across our country and world. We must combat these efforts to prevent biodiversity loss, particularly in areas like the Colorado River, which was diverted for the first time in American history recently. That is a showstopper by anyone's measure.

We need to provide the resources necessary to continue this collaborative work in the Upper Colorado and San Juan Basins.

I thank my colleague for his leadership on this. I also thank the chair of the subcommittee for his great effort to try to accommodate as many members as possible.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, first of all, I have great respect for the gentleman who offers this amendment, but I do find myself in the position of opposing it.

In step with the myriad amendments offered by Republicans to reduce leadership salaries, this amendment seeks to reduce funding for the Bureau of Reclamation's policy and administration account by $5 million, ostensibly to fund it at the fiscal year 2022 enacted level. However, in fiscal year 2022, $64.4 million was appropriated for policy and administration, so this amendment reduces this funding by $4.321 million below the fiscal year 2022 enacted level.

The Bureau of Reclamation brings water to 31 million people and is the second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the United States, producing enough electricity to serve 3.5 million homes. This account funds day-to-day Bureau of Reclamation management, administrative, and policy functions that are necessary to ensure effective and efficient implementation of all Bureau of Reclamation programs from which 31 million people receive water and 3.5 million homes receive electricity. That is a big job.

This account also funds the Office of the Commissioner and regional offices. This leadership is critical for ensuring that one in five Western farmers has irrigation water for 10 million acres of farmland that produce 60 percent of our Nation's vegetables and 25 percent of its fruits and nuts.

According to the United States Census Bureau, my colleague comes from a district of approximately 751,000 people, of which approximately 1.5 percent are in occupations related to farming, fishing, and forestry. I don't think the gentleman's amendment benefits his district.

With the West reeling from the historic megadrought, the worst in 1,200 years, where we have just had to divert the Colorado River for the first time in American history, why would any of my colleagues want to hamstring the Bureau of Reclamation's management and the direction and guidance necessary to achieve Reclamation-wide program and mission accomplishment? This is a moment in American history when we need to help them.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

I hear what he is saying, but I think that we have to work harder together to embrace the future and not just depend on the past.

I agree with him on fossil fuels and rare earths. We visited the fossil fuel energy center in southwest Pennsylvania. I was fascinated by some of the work going on there. I think we need to fund it, and we are.

This amendment reduces funding for the Department of Energy's energy efficiency and renewable energy account by $1.2 billion, and I don't think that that places America in the position I want her to be in, which is number one in the world.

Now, that proposal is also on top of another $466 million reduction in the underlying bill itself and the $1 billion reduction incorporated by the manager's amendment.

This funding provides for clean, affordable, and secure energy and ensures American leadership in the transition to a global clean energy economy.

I will tell you, this past year in my region of the United States-- and it came here to Washington, ultimately--a very strange haze began floating down from Canada into the United States due to the forest fires up there and the changing nature of the environment. I have lived in the same place my whole life, and I never saw anything like that before. It ruined my rhododendron plant. All that gunk got all over it.

I was talking to a friend who came up from Florida, and he goes: Marcy, the winds took that all the way down to near the panhandle in Florida.

I said: Are you kidding me? It got down that far? The Earth's ecosystem is changing, and we have to catch up to Mother Nature.

The account being targeted funds the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Office of State and Community Energy Programs that supports important services like the Weatherization Assistance Program to save energy, the Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains, and the Federal Energy Management Program itself.

Those programs focus on energy technology ranging from biofuels--the first biofueled F-16 flew out of the 180th Fighter Wing in my district. That was a great moment. That was almost 15 years ago.

Biofuels have now become such an important part of our economy, as well as hydrogen, solar, wind, and a whole broad range of energy technologies to make America energy independent in perpetuity-- geothermal, what we are learning on that; advanced manufacturing; building efficiency and weatherization; and the list goes on.

Without these programs, we are jeopardizing U.S. leadership across a range of possibilities. The world is set to invest a record $1.8 trillion in clean energy in 2023, and that is expected to climb to $4.5 trillion by the year 2030. We want to be a leader. With $4.5 trillion per year on the line, we have the choice to embrace American leadership and invention.

Let me just mention that if the Department of Energy's goals are achieved, the hydrogen industry will produce $140 billion in revenue and over 700,000 jobs by 2030.

Mr. Chair, I strongly urge my colleagues to vote against this harmful amendment, but I am very happy to continue to work with the gentleman to find ways that we can reach accommodation.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding and rise in strong opposition to this amendment.

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Ms. KAPTUR. The underlying bill already cuts the energy efficiency and renewable energy program by $1.5 billion or 42 percent below last year.

Now, there are a lot of people that are complaining about that, and I would be the first one to say that our country should not cede any new markets or capitulate to global competitors in the field of energy.

I think that we have to keep our foot on the accelerator in many energy sectors. The gentleman is right. Texas has been a leader in so many ways; certainly in wind energy, but not just that.

In terms of the solar industry and how do we pay down the debts that prior Congresses and administrations racked up? We grow our economy.

By growing our economy, more revenues come in, and they are. They are coming into the private sector. They are coming into the government.

A whole lot more people who aren't paying their fair share of taxes should be, and that would help. The way we balance budgets is not to kill economic growth.

One of the areas we grow in is energy. These are jobs that are good jobs, and they create wealth for the Nation.

We have to keep up our dominance in this country. For the solar industry, which is something I am terribly interested in, I represent the most important domestic manufacturer of solar in our country.

Overall, the whole industry across our Nation supports 333,000 jobs now. Mr. Chair, 20 years ago, they were in a very different position, and 40 years ago, they almost didn't exist.

America is now creating utility scale solar, and the invention of the American people is unstoppable. We can't give a signal that we are going to capitulate to anybody, but we have got to develop these new energy sectors.

The gentleman is right about the grid. The grid is worn out all over this country. Ask anybody in Ohio about that. It has been underinvested.

We will find a way by growing the economy, and some of the new bills we have passed for infrastructure have allowed us to modernize the grid.

Well, let's connect the dots. We can choose to give up American leadership in these technologies, or we can actually put our foot on the accelerator.

I really think that the gentleman's amendment, though he believes it is well intentioned, does move America backward, and I cannot support it, and therefore, I oppose it.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise in opposition to this amendment. I am sure the gentleman offering it is well-intentioned.

I will say, in many of the energy technologies that I have observed, unlike the real estate industry, they always say real property, you can tangibly touch it, you can see that it is there, you can measure it. ARPA-E really focuses on that which is not yet measurable.

If you see the movie ``Oppenheimer'' and you look back at the history of our country and how we began to actually move into atomic energy, it was very experimental and very dangerous. The government got involved, and at that point in history we had to win a war. We learned a whole lot about nuclear energy at that point, but part of it was uncontrollable.

I was at an event yesterday with companies that are working on unbelievable technologies, which aren't quite solved yet, but where we can take metals like titanium and nickel and do things with them to carry current that we never were able to do before. They are working with research labs because it is so utterly complicated.

I would say to the gentleman, you know, sometimes private enterprise doesn't invest because the research has to occur through a longer period of time, and you need programs like ARPA-E who do the most amazing work. Our fracking technologies, our drilling technologies for natural gas, those came through not the private sector initially, they came through the Government of the United States because there wasn't any private sector company willing to invest.

I know in my own district, where we are known for the glass industry, some of the research that has been necessary to thinly layer different types of material in order to produce more efficient solar panels actually had to be assisted with government help because there were no angel investors in my part of the country. So the Department of Energy, through photovoltaic research, discovered inventors who were doing great things in America, and helped them to move their technology forward. Now we have the greatest domestic producer of solar in the middle part of the country--not California, not the East Coast, not the South, but in the Great Lakes region.

What I have seen out of ARPA-E is high-level basic research that most companies, frankly, aren't dedicated to. It is very different than the real estate industry, it is over a longer time horizon.

Mr. Chair, I strongly urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment and in support of the Appalachian Regional Commission.

Let me say that the Commission itself is a partnership between the Federal Government and 13 State governments, focusing on 423 counties across the Appalachian region.

Residents in part of Pennsylvania--evidently the gentleman's area is not covered--are served by this Commission. Since 1965, the Appalachian region has been struggling, and they have made progress. They have made significant progress.

The number of high-poverty counties in Appalachia has been cut by 60 percent since 1960. It is a long road. The regional poverty rate has been cut by more than half. God bless them.

However, the region still lags behind the Nation and continues to encounter challenges such as the severe substance abuse crisis, as well as a downturn in the coal economy. This is the part of America that we have to lift up.

I have been very impressed with the work they are doing in terms of restoration of the natural environment and expanded tourism. They are working together collaboratively.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment. Let's help the American people who need it.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, this amendment is one more controversial poison pill policy rider that sadly shows extremist Republicans are not interested in bills that can gain bipartisan support and become law.

Now, let's have a little math. In 2012, before the Bush tax cuts, the Congressional Budget Office showed revenues exceeding primary spending for the next 65 years and that debt as a percentage of GDP, our gross domestic product, everything that we make in a year, would decline indefinitely. How about that. That was 2012.

Since then, tax cut extensions and the Trump tax cuts have added $10 trillion to the debt to date, and their cost will increase enough over time to account for the entire long-term growth in debt ratio. The Trump tax cuts are costing us $2 trillion per year. Just look at it. It is unbelievable. Remember, those benefits are disproportionately enjoyed by the most wealthy.

If we truly want to protect the American taxpayer, we should be marking up bills at levels agreed to between the President, Speaker McCarthy, and signed into law in the Fiscal Responsibility Act rather than bringing the government to the verge of a shutdown and now marking up bills that don't just break the deal but obliterate it by cutting critical domestic investments.

I can't wait for the Debt Commission to actually get the facts out there for the American people, because I have been listening to this all evening. It is very much off the mark. Let's get serious about passing bills that can gain bipartisan support and become law.

Mr. Chair, I strongly urge my colleagues to vote against this harmful amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, the Department of Energy is charged with implementing congressionally directed energy efficiency standards. When the gentleman blithely says he doesn't like unelected bureaucrats, the people who work in these departments are trained and actually help consumers.

Frankly, I think it is helpful for consumers to know, when they are going to buy a blouse, let's say, whether it is cotton or rayon. It is sort of nice to have the label on there. If you are driving a car, it is nice to know how many miles per gallon the car is going to get. You sort of get a sense of if you are going to buy this one or another one. With refrigerators, I think it is really great that you see how much energy it uses so you can buy a more efficient refrigerator, so you have your electricity bill go down.

I don't know why the gentleman is objecting to helping the American consumer make better choices. In accordance with the statutes that we have passed, the Department of Energy has published regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations--in other words, it is not by some whim-- for more than 60 categories of appliance and equipment types. That helps consumers make good choices.

The Department of Energy drafts the energy efficiency regulations with the full participation of equipment manufacturers and the public at large. The process includes thorough consideration of all comments and concerns.

In following the law, the Department of Energy has issued proposed or final standards for 24 product categories so far this year. Again, these actions are by congressional direction. They just don't pick them out of the air. Actually, it is a process of law. These actions result in direct energy savings while also improving the reliability and performance across household appliances and commercial and industrial equipment.

There is a quote from Daniel Webster in this House that tells us in our time and our generation, may we perform something worthy to be remembered. That is a really good quote to think about.

I think it is safe to assume that virtually all Americans, let alone all of the people in this room, have benefited from some of these types of efficiency standards over the course of their lifetimes.

The benefits are real. As a result of the Department of Energy's efficiency actions, cost savings for American families and businesses are projected to reach nearly $2 trillion by 2030. The Department of Energy estimates that this specific rule would slash household utility costs by $1.5 billion annually, which is something the American people want to do, and save consumers $24.8 billion on their energy bills over 30 years. That is a big deal.

Further, if Congress does not like these standards, that should be addressed by new laws through the Energy and Commerce Committee, not by funding prohibitions. I would suggest to the gentleman, he might want to go before that committee.

Stopping the Department of Energy from finalizing, implementing, or enforcing energy efficiency standards will only create uncertainty for manufacturers and consumers.

With respect to the energy efficiency standards for consumer furnaces, if my Republican colleagues are concerned about the rule's potential to increase costs for homeowners, then I would suggest that they should not be seeking in this bill to rescind the Inflation Reduction Act funding for home energy efficiency rebates, which will help many hardworking Americans afford energy efficient heating units that will actually save them money on their utility bills in the long term.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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