Supporting Intermediate Space Challenge

Floor Speech

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Mr. LATTA. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding.

I also rise in support today of what this would mean to our young people in this country. In my old State Senate district I represented an area in Erie County near Plum Brook Station, which is a large NASA testing facility. Just to the east of there, we had NASA Glenn, which is in Cuyahoga County.

The things that we can do and achieve in this country through the space program are limitless. However, if we stand by what we are seeing happening across Congress today with this cap-and-tax legislation, we are in trouble.

One of the things I am proud of is the fact that in my Fifth Congressional District I represent an area where we manufacture solar panels with First Solar. We have another company coming on line this fall that will also be in solar manufacturing. We also in my district have wind turbines, ethanol, hydrogen, biomass, and we are doing all these things in the alternative.

Also though it is very, very important in this country that we have that base load capacity that we have to have to be able to manufacture, that we have to have if we want to continue to be able to be independent in this country, especially when we are talking about manufacturing in the new age of space. We have to make sure that we have these homegrown companies here today. It is going to be very, very difficult to do that if we don't have the manufacturing capacity and if we also don't have that base load capacity.

One of the things we have found, of course, is that we don't have that base load capacity in certain areas, and we also don't have the ability of being able to go out there on the nuclear facilities. I think 1977 was the last time that we had a nuclear facility permitted in this country. And the problem that we have today is if we want to have more nuclear, to be able to produce more power, to be able to keep our manufacturing capacity, it is going to be very tough to do, because a lot of these parts are no longer made in this country.

We have to go overseas to buy these if we can get them today. And some of the very large components are made in Japan. And there's a long waiting list because so many countries are out there wanting to build nuclear facilities and keep up that base load capacity. Why is it important?

Well, again, if we don't utilize that all-of-the-above policy of not only having the alternatives because we all want to make sure in this country that we have a clean environment, but we also want to make sure that we have nuclear, clean coal, oil, natural gas and geothermal.

We've all seen the headlines in the paper of course where, you know, CBO score saying that we're looking at $846 billion on this new cap-and-tax, which would be a massive energy tax on the American people. But at the same time, as the gentlelady from Tennessee was just talking about, is the tremendous cost on individuals.

One of the analyses from the Heritage Foundation shows that they're looking at around a $4,300 per year tax on an average family. And how do they get to that number? It says, our $1,500 number is just the direct impact of household energy bills. Your energy bill, your natural gas bill, your home heating bill, and of course the amount of gas you put in your tank, and that would be around $1,500.

But also, there is that ripple effect that goes through the economy that takes it up to $4,300. And in the year 2035 alone, the cost is $8,276, and the cost per family for the whole energy tax aggregated from 2012 to 2030 is $116,680.

And compare it if we did not have a cap-and-tax, the real GDP losses increase an additional $2 trillion, from $7.4 trillion under the original draft to $9.6 trillion under the new draft.

Compared to no cap-and-trade, the average economic or unemployment increases an additional 261,000 jobs, from 844,000 lost jobs under the original draft to 1.1 million jobs under the new draft.

Also, interesting enough in the paper today in the Washington Times is an article, ``GDP hit found with cap, trade.'' This is from the Brookings Institution. ``The Brookings Institution on Monday said cap-and-trade legislation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions would lower the Nation's gross domestic product in 2050 by 2.5 percent, compared with levels it would reach if the legislation is not implemented.''

It also says that, ``About 35 percent of crude-oil-related jobs and 40 percent of coal-related jobs would be lost in 2025.''

It goes on to say: ``It assumes that the majority of workers would find new jobs, but the net job loss would be 0.5 percent over the first 10 years that the legislation is in effect.''

I don't think that this country can afford it because, again, to go on, you know, when you're looking at reducing the aggregate gross GDP by $9.6 trillion, destroying 1.1 million jobs, raising electric rates, as the gentlelady from Tennessee just mentioned, by 90 percent after adjusting for inflation, seeing gasoline prices up to 74 percent, raising residential natural gas prices by 55----

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has again expired.

Mr. PLATTS. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. LATTA. I appreciate the gentleman for yielding.

--raising natural gas prices by 55 percent, raising an average family's annual energy bill by $1,500, and again, increase the inflation-adjusted Federal debt by 26 percent, or $29,150 additional Federal debt per person after adjusting for inflation.

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