Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, as the designee of the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), I move to strike the last word.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Budzinski).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

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

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I listened to the gentleman, and he and I share a piece of the continent in a way. Part of Pennsylvania drains into Lake Erie believe it or not. I don't believe the gentleman's district does.

Congressman Perry represents a capital city. Capital cities tend to do a little better than other parts of the country economically because all the tax dollars flow there. Harrisburg and the general region my friend represents is very different from the Great Lakes region that I am privileged to try to help represent here in the Congress.

I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment because I think it comes from a lack of understanding of the challenges that are faced in our region of America which the gentleman does not share, even though Erie, Pennsylvania, will benefit, assuming the commission can be stood up. Maybe our Vice President can help us with that. He calls Ohio his home, though he does not come from the Great Lakes region of Ohio.

Mr. Chair, if you look around our country, for many, many years my part of America lost jobs and economic growth to California and the West because of the Bureau of Reclamation. It is important to understand what the Bureau of Reclamation does and the fact that places like I represent have enormous environmental debt because we had to self-finance our water systems and so forth.

If I go to the South and I look at the Tennessee Valley Authority, they take our jobs because of their ability to produce power because of the Federal Government's presence in that region across several States extending all the way through down to Alabama, from Tennessee to Alabama.

I support that. Those regions needed help with economic growth and environmental restoration.

I represent an important part of the Great Lakes watershed. It is one actually that we share with Canada. Let me tell you, Mr. Chairman, we don't get the attention that these other places do, and our people have gone through a lot. We have not had a trade balance in this country for almost one-half century.

Mr. Chair, whether you are talking about Kenosha, Wisconsin; whether you are talking about Flint, Michigan; or whether you are talking about Erie, Pennsylvania, there are places in the gentleman's State that would benefit from what is being proposed in this particular measure.

The Great Lakes Authority was passed in both Chambers, and we are waiting. The reason that the dollars are sitting there is because the executive branch has not chosen a co-chair to actually stand up the authority.

So what is it there for?

First of all, it is to pay attention to communities like Flint, Michigan, that had its water shut off. My hometown lost its water in 2014.

Until you go through that, Mr. Chair, you really won't understand. When you look at the environmental debt of these cities and what they are trying to do and what has happened to production, as NAFTA, CAFTA, all these trade agreements, the Korean agreement, is that they outsourced our jobs to cheap labor, and these communities are trying to restore themselves.

There is a greatness to these communities. There is an industrial muscle and a patriotism that is important to acknowledge and not to say: Well, we are done with them.

No. We need to focus on these regions just as we do in Appalachia and with the other kinds of instrumentalities that exist across our country. We are very proud of our working-class people. We have a company right now in my hometown of Toledo, Libbey Glass, where we have a major strike.

Why?

It is because they are in competition with China, Mexico, and France with no help from the Government of the United States. The workers are sort of on their own. They are trying to say: Hey, wait a minute. We want to work.

They work hard. The gentleman from Pennsylvania should sit in front of a glass furnace 8 hours a day in 90 degrees blowing in his face. That won't happen to people from Harrisburg, largely because they are more of a middle-class community. They are a State capital. However, where I come from people work hard for a living. They work in industry and agriculture every day, and they deserve the attention of the Government of the United States. No region should be left out when it faces what our region does.

What do we use the Great Lakes Authority for?

We use it to create and foster innovation and advance world-class workforce, education and training, and adjustment institutions for better jobs in places like I represent.

I am not the only one. The Great Lakes nation we share with Canada. That is another complexity. Parts of New York get energy from working with Canada. It is not so simple to create production in our part of America.

By the way, the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway is built too small because the coast didn't want us to succeed. We are far from the Atlantic. We can't get to the Pacific out of our part of the country other than by train, so we needed a way to move our product. They figured it out with the help of President Eisenhower and a lot of others who preceded him in order to move our product globally. However, we don't have some of the benefits that the other coast does.

I would ask the gentleman to reconsider his opposition.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

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

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source