Creation Of New Jobs Through Clean Energy Technology

Floor Speech

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Mr. TONKO. It doesn't. We are usually vastly outnumbered. So it is good for us to step back and look at these issues from an academic perspective and to respond to them in technological terms. That is real leadership. And the President, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, leaders here across the board here in the House and rank-and-file Members have joined together to speak forcefully about just what we can accomplish if we set our sights on this innovation economy that is sparked by a green energy arena.

The numbers of jobs that we can create in this clean energy career ladder are tremendous. It is a way to provide opportunities for those emerging members of the workforce and to train and retrain our existing workforce. As we look at the opportunities out there, they are immense.

Representative Polis, you talked about the fear and despair approach taken by some as they try to message in very negative terms the work that is being done in this area. Well, a $475 billion bill that finds money going to foreign imports for fossil-based fuels could be referenced as a tax. We might say we are paying our bills for the energy supply we need, but it is taxing our economy and, more importantly, it is taxing households, families that could otherwise be producing here in America the supplies we need with American jobs, American know-how, American intellect.

You know, as I listened to our Representative from New Mexico, as Representative Heinrich spoke of that global race back from the decades ago, from the sixties, having heard Sputnik over and over again in the elementary classroom and having seen us in a race somewhat narrower than today's race would be, Russia, the U.S. all competing to land a person on the moon. But a vision shared by a very eloquent, articulate leader of this Nation, John F. Kennedy, allowed us to come together as a nation in multipartisan frameworks and provide the kind of energy that is required to get us to think in those positive and progressive terms, and it stretched our thinking, it provided loftiness to the outcomes, and it created career opportunities for many.

That same race, global race, is upon us today, and it is not like we have a choice to enter into the race. We have no choice but to be part of it, and the pressure is on for us to win.

When China invests $12.7 million per hour in its greening-up opportunities, that is a signal to us that we can and we must do better than we are today. And whoever emerges, whichever country emerges the leader, the winner of that race, will then be that go-to nation that will export energy intellect, energy innovation, energy ideas. The energy capital that we can build will be extremely valuable for all of our American families.

I, as you know, had worked at NYSERDA before I entered here. I had chaired the Energy Committee in the New York State Assembly for 15 of my 25 years in the Assembly, and then went to assume the role of president and CEO at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

Projects that found us utilizing our wind, our sun, our Earth, our soil and our water enabled us to create energy supplies for New York State. Hydrokinetic power that was produced simply by the turbulence of the East River along the shoreline of the Island of Manhattan is there as a demonstration project, an R&D project, that as a prototype holds promise, great promise, when deployed into the manufacturing and commercial sectors.

The opportunity for geothermal, where I witnessed at the Culinary Institute of America six new dorms, lodges as they are referred to, utilizing geothermal as an energy source, and using the constant temperature of the Earth far below us was a simple and novel idea, almost cave-like in its concept, but it is providing modern-day usage. And certainly wind, solar, PV, all being utilized in New York State, as much as 1,100 megawatts worth of wind power.

So this is possible. It is very possible. And the jobs that we can create are countless as we go forward, and it provides energy security, energy independence, and therefore I believe is critically important to us, to our national security. We won't be putting our sons and daughters in harm's way because we won't be in the battle zone fighting over the commodity of oil and fossil-based fuels.

Mr. POLIS. If the gentleman will yield, what you are talking about sounds great, the great spirit of American innovation, jobs being created, improving our security. I mean, do you think that if we fail to enact this policy, that will be a blow to a lot of this activity, economic activity, security activity, everything you are talking about?

Mr. TONKO. Absolutely. And, you know, we will have to pay some other nation for their ideas. When we spoke the other day with the SEEC Caucus, of which both of you made mention, with the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, the Green Dogs, so-to-speak, in the 111th Congress, we heard from the most recent energy minister, past energy minister, that a lot of American know-how and patents were being utilized in Denmark. Well, if we are coming up with this intellectual capacity and this brain power, what a shame if we don't invest it for our own benefit.

So the time is now to move. The time is long past that we have a comprehensive energy plan for this Nation. And it was one of the motivations for me to run for Congress, so that we could come here and do those sound policies that will move us into a new era of energy thinking, eclipsing us from a political generation of denial.

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