Clean Energy And The Great Lakes Region

Floor Speech

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, hundreds and hundreds of Americans will gather in Massena, New York, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, the fourth seacoast of our country, stretching all the way from Duluth, Minnesota, all the way out to the Atlantic Ocean, and for communities such as Toledo and Port Clinton and Sandusky in my own congressional district, the Saint Lawrence Seaway waterborne corridor is our gateway to the Atlantic and the world beyond.

The seaway is the linchpin in our efforts to create sophisticated, modern, multimodal distribution hubs that can skirt the congestion in coastal ports in our country. The seaway, our corridor that we share with the Canadians, is the vital link of commerce between our Nation's heartland and world markets. Therefore, investments in the seaway are not only investments in our economic future for the Great Lakes States but for the Nation.

As the United States Congress considers clean energy legislation and a national power generation policy, it is important that that policy remediate a major national energy inequity that must be included in any reform bill.

Power costs are just horrendous in the Great Lakes States, in fact, double and triple the rates of our western and southern brethren and southeastern brethren in our country. And when you think about those regions having had the luxury of Federal power support for nearly 75 years--and they have enjoyed those power supports--they were really a product of a Nation that believed in growing to the west and the south. And we made it happen.

But our Great Lakes region, along with some northeastern States, are the only parts of our country without equal access to Federal benefit for electric power generation and transmission, thus denying competitive rates to our residential, commercial, and industrial consumers.

The high costs of power just in my district here in northern Ohio--at 14 to 18 cents a kilowatt hour--is a serious factor contributing to job loss. In fact, the Midwest is put at a competitive disadvantage with the entire rest of the country, not because we have fewer resources or less skilled workers, but because Federal subsidies encourage development in western and southern areas, but not in ours.

The House version of the energy bill includes a provision members of the Great Lakes States worked very hard to incorporate. It begins the process of leveling the energy playing field for these Great Lakes States and creating the startup of Federal energy parity.

The Great Lakes region is home to 116 million people that account for well over a third of our Nation's gross domestic product, and we've long endured these serious competitive disadvantages because of the absence of Federal power parity.

This provision aims to level the playing field with all other regions of the country--the South, the West, the Southeast, the Tennessee Valley Authority--that have benefited for over 75 years from Federal power assistance to develop their economies.

These regions borrow at very favorable Federal funds rates and also receive significant energy infrastructure investments annually, with the Western Power Authority alone receiving over $228 million just in the last year.

In the recovery bill passed earlier this year, there was an additional $6.5 billion just for Bonneville Power Authority and the Western Area Power Authority, along with $10 million for added infrastructure and administration.

For infrastructure, for renewable power generation, really, these Federal supports provide a huge strategic advantage. The language we're offering would propose a similar $3.5 billion borrowing authority to create jobs through the development of clean energy platforms, and if we don't do this in our region, those green energy jobs are going to flow to the other parts of the country.

This provision would allow a Federal instrumentality such as the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation to undertake these green energy development activities across Great Lakes communities. And as the energy bill moves to the Senate, Members of this body must continue to demand equal treatment from the Federal Government for all regions of our Nation.

Our region's track record is commendable. It speaks for itself. We're among the three top solar centers in the hemisphere. We have massive biofuels industries, the first solar plant at a U.S. National Guard base, establishment of clean energy incubators at many of our advanced universities, and an expanding roster of startup green companies that are pursuing exciting opportunities in solar, wind, and other green power sectors.

The Great Lakes deserve to be a part of the solution to clean energy in our country, but in order to do this, we need to have that Federal energy power parity with the other regions of the country that have now developed as a result of what the Midwest and Northeast did for them over three-quarters of a century ago.

A true revolution in green energy can only be ushered in in a balanced way when the Great Lakes have the same instrumentalities that ushered in generations of western and southern growth.

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