U. S. Troops Readiness, Veterans' Health, and Iraq Accountability Act, 2007

Floor Speech

U.S. TROOP READINESS, VETERANS' HEALTH, AND IRAQ ACCOUNTABILITY ACT, 2007 -- (Senate - March 28, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

AMENDMENT NO. 808

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I would like to briefly discuss amendment No. 808 which will be voted upon tomorrow. This amendment deals with a very serious problem facing our country; that is, we have millions of low-income Americans who lack the resources to properly weatherize their homes.

I know, coming from a cold-weather State such as Vermont, this is a very serious problem. It gets cold in Vermont, sometimes 20 or 30 below zero. It is a real shame we have people who simply lack the financial resources to put in the proper insulation, roofing material, windows, doors to keep heat from literally disappearing. The result of that is low-income people are forced to pay a higher and higher heating bill, at a time when many of them do not have the funds to do that.

The other aspect to this issue, which is equally or even more important, is if the U.S. Congress and the American people are serious about dealing with the issue of global warming, then we have to make a major effort to retrofit homes all over this country so we are not wasting enormous amounts of energy.

We cannot come here and say we have a major global warming crisis and not be serious about energy efficiency and not be serious about making sure all our homes, especially those of lower income people, are properly weatherized.

As part of the continuing resolution, Congress level-funded the weatherization program at $242.2 million. Unfortunately, the administration's spending plan for fiscal year 2007, which came out about 2 weeks ago, reduced funding for the weatherization program by $38 million compared to what it received in fiscal year 2006.

In other words, despite the global warming crisis, despite the increase in poverty, despite the need to spend substantially more to weatherize homes throughout this country, the administration is actually lowering the funds available for weatherization. This makes no sense to me at all.

Tomorrow, I am going to be offering an amendment which is cosponsored--it is a bipartisan amendment--by Senators SUNUNU, BINGAMAN, JACK REED, MENENDEZ, KERRY, HARKIN, DODD, WYDEN, and CLINTON.

This amendment will add $25 million more to the weatherization program compared to last year's level. I hope we will have strong support for this effort. It will help us address global warming, and it will provide real assistance to many low-income families throughout this country.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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