Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011
Floor Speech
FOREIGN RELATIONS AUTHORIZATION ACT, FISCAL YEARS 2010 AND 2011 -- (House of Representatives - June 10, 2009)
Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support of the Larsen-Kirk amendment, which will ensure that the intellectual property rights of American firms working to defeat the scourge of climate change will be protected.
We are now engaged in what could become the most difficult international negotiation in history: the painful and difficult construction of a binding, universal international agreement to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in order to save the planet from a disastrous alteration of the climate. And here at home, we are racing to break our dependence on foreign oil and to create millions of new jobs all across the new energy economy. These two necessities, negotiating an international treaty to halt global warming and developing the new energy economy for the twenty-first century, are deeply interconnected.
The technological breakthroughs being created in American laboratories will not only lead our country into the renewable energy future, they will lead the whole world. And it is absolutely necessary that we do everything we can to encourage and enable our high-tech entrepreneurs to innovate. To do this, we must ensure that the intellectual property rights of these innovators are protected. The Larsen-Kirk amendment is a common-sense approach to this problem, and I commend both Members for their thoughtful amendment.
The Larsen-Kirk amendment will ensure that in the negotiation of an international climate change treaty, it will be the policy of the United States to prevent any weakening of, and ensure robust compliance with and enforcement of, existing legal protections of intellectual property rights as they relate to energy and environmental technologies. This amendment will help ensure that even as we work diligently to reduce global emissions, we are protecting the ability of American innovators to step up to the plate and deliver the technological breakthroughs which will lead this country in a new direction.
I urge my colleagues to support the amendment, and to support the underlying bill, the State Department Authorization Act.
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