Providing For Consideration Of H.R. 3585, Solar Technology Roadmap Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Colorado for yielding time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule before us today. The underlying legislation is being brought to the floor under yet another structured rule that does not allow for many of the amendments my colleagues on both sides of the aisle presented during the Rules Committee hearing. This is especially wrong when debating one of the important issues of our time, our Nation's energy policy. By choosing to operate in this way, the majority has cut off the minority and their own colleagues from having any input in the legislative process.

My assumption is that, along with me, all other Members want to see more solar power used in this country; but the Democrats in charge are limiting what ideas can be debated on the floor and what constituents can be adequately represented in the House.

Our constituents in both Republican and Democrat districts are struggling to make ends meet, are facing unemployment, and yet are simultaneously being shut out of participating in debate over how their hard-earned taxpayer dollars are being spent by the Federal Government.

Why is the majority blocking debate on such important legislation? Are they afraid of debate? Are they protecting their Members from tough votes? Are they afraid of the democratic process?

With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, this bill deserves the emperor's new clothes award. We all, again, want to see improved and increased use of solar energy in our country, but this rule and this bill are not going to do it.

The bill before us authorizes $2.25 billion in borrowed money for the creation of a new committee which would devise a solar technology road map or plan. This wasteful spending does not reflect the hard economic times our country and our constituents are experiencing right now and, instead, is spending borrowed money that we do not have.

Whenever I am home in North Carolina, which is every weekend, I hear from numerous constituents their concerns that the Federal Government in Washington is borrowing and spending too much. The American people know that in these tough economic times that they should save, not spend money. However, the Federal Government does not reflect the common sense I see throughout my district. Instead, the Democrats in charge here continue to borrow more and spend more, increasing our Federal deficit on the backs of our children and grandchildren.

The money that Speaker Pelosi and the Obama administration want to authorize today is all borrowed money. We cannot say that often enough. We do not have this money. Our constituents do not have this money and the Federal Government does not have this money. The Democrats in charge have made the irresponsible decision to borrow it in order to spend it at their whim.

Mr. Speaker, the U.S. national debt is currently $11.5 trillion. With over 300 million people in the United States today, each citizen's share of this debt right now is $38.8 thousand. This bill will increase the deficit even more by borrowing and spending money we don't have. We can no longer blame the deficit and economic difficulties today on the previous administration.

Those in charge have shown they don't care about the deficit by continuing to dig America into a deeper and deeper hole with more reckless spending. This borrowed money is all being spent by Speaker Pelosi and the Obama administration. As a result, the unemployment rate continues to rise and the deficit continues to rise also.

Since the Democrats took control of Congress on January 4, 2007, the national debt has increased by $3.282 trillion. Since President Obama was inaugurated just months ago in January, the national debt has increased by $1.325 trillion. The Department of the Treasury has reported that under the Democrats' control, 2009 is the worst fiscal year in this Nation's history. The results get more disastrous with each passing day.

Mr. Speaker, the debt limit has been raised at least three times since 2008. A debt limit increase was included in H.R. 3221, the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. H.R. 1424, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 raised the debt limit again.

The Democrats in charge raised the debt limit yet again less than a year later with passage of H.R. 1, the, quote, stimulus, in February of this year. That bill raised the debt limit to $12.104 trillion, where it now stands. As if that weren't enough, the fiscal year 2010 budget resolution adopted on April 29, 2009, triggered the automatic passage of a separate measure, House Joint Resolution 45, to raise the debt limit to $13.029 trillion, which was then sent to the Senate.

We will soon be asked to raise the debt limit again just as soon as the majority can find a way to do it and hide it in some other bill so that the American people hopefully are fooled by what they are doing. They are not going to be fooled because they are paying attention to what's going on here in the Congress.

I have opposed all these efforts to raise the debt limit. According to an analysis by The Heritage Foundation, the White House projects $10.6 trillion in new deficits over the next decade. This is nearly $80,000 per household in new borrowing. It's beyond time to stop digging.

The new budget estimates, including an estimated total national debt of $24.5 trillion in 2019 under President Obama's budget, are alarming and unsustainable. The result will be the highest level of spending and debt in American history. This is an irresponsible lack of fiscal restraint carried on the backs of our children and grandchildren. My constituents at home and Americans across the Nation are not operating their family budgets as recklessly as this Congress is spending their taxpayer dollars.

On top of all this, the President and Congress' shameless proposals to create a $1 trillion health care entitlement are careless and unaffordable. We should be focusing on capping Federal spending, restraining entitlements, and eliminating wasteful programs. When will the Democrats learn that out-of-control spending will not solve our Nation's problems?

Last week, a group of us had the great opportunity to hear Mr. John Allison, who is chairman of the board of Branch Banking and Trust Company in North Carolina, one of the most successful banks in the United States. He told us then that we are on an unsustainable course in terms of accruing debt.

He said if we do not stop this almost immediately, we have fewer than 25 years left as a great Nation, that within 25 years we will become a Third World country similar to other Third World countries, particularly in South America. We cannot sustain this. We owe our children and grandchildren a better future. We need alternatives.

But what the Democrats in charge are doing is shutting off our opportunity to use alternative sources of energy that we have available to us in this country. We have plenty of oil, plenty of gas, plenty of coal. We could be using all of those sources of energy, but they are shutting us out. We should be utilizing those and not doing what our colleague from California showed, and that is wasting money on setting up committees to devise road maps to bridges to nowhere, when we could be developing the resources that we have, allowing the private sector to do it, and not having government involvement.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, while solar energy is an important resource and worthy of support, there are many flaws in this legislation and in the rule. This is not the right policy to advance our Nation's energy needs.

As usual, the Democrats' approach to another problem is to take money from hardworking citizens to use for their pet projects and their supporters. This approach fails to incorporate creative solutions that do not rely on ever increasing the size of the Federal Government.

According to the Science and Technology Committee, solar energy has been on the forefront for over 30 years, and yet it still makes up only 1 percent of the 7 percent of renewable energy consumed in the United States. Because there is no silver bullet, our Nation's energy policy must encompass many energy alternative solutions.

Mr. Speaker, if the Democrats in charge were serious about achieving energy independence and freeing our Nation from the grip of foreign oil, they would bring legislation to the floor that invests in several energy initiatives, not just one.

Republicans have alternatives. We have alternatives to everything that they have been presenting. We've introduced legislation that would encompass a multitude of energy initiatives, including solar technology. H.R. 2846, the American Energy Act, of which I'm a cosponsor, is a comprehensive energy solutions plan that would create jobs, make energy more affordable, diversify our energy sources, and help the U.S. become more energy independent.

The American Energy Act would increase both the supply of American-made energy in environmentally sound ways and achieve the goal of energy independence for our Nation. Instead of investing billions in taxpayer dollars we don't have for one energy resource, the American Energy Act would establish a renewable energy trust fund using revenues generated by exploration in the deep ocean and on the Arctic coastal plain. It would permanently extend the tax credit for alternative energy production, including wind, solar and hydrogen; and it would eliminate barriers to the expansion of emission-free nuclear power production. The comprehensive strategy is budget neutral, without tax increases, and would make independence achievable without wasting billions of our constituents' dollars.

But instead of taking real action, this bill places restrictions on solar technology research and development by requiring that the Secretary of Energy allocate at least 75 percent of funding to those solar R&D projects directed under the committee's road map. This leaves little flexibility for innovations that may be feasible and yet were not included in the road map.

When Speaker Pelosi took office, she promised the Nation that this Congress would be the most open and honest in history. This bill works against that objective. At least one-third of the road map committee created by this bill is made up of industry officials who are explicitly exempted from the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which is intended to provide an open and transparent process. The Democrats in charge could have ensured the road map committee was open and transparent, but curiously they chose not to.

When it comes to solar technology research and development, we must have the collaboration of the Department of Energy, universities and industries. However, this bill would create a committee, half of which could be industry, telling DOE where to direct taxpayer money into research and development that could benefit their companies while not having to answer to anyone or defend their recommendations. This is not a responsible policy when billions of taxpayer dollars are on the line.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 900, of which I'm a cosponsor, would liberate energy companies from being suffocated by extreme environmental litigation and allow them to move forward and get approval to implement energy products.

Mr. Speaker, this rule is wrong. This bill is a bad bill.

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Since 2005, more than 200 applications have been submitted to the Bureau of Land Management for permission to build solar power projects on federally controlled land. To date, the Bureau of Land Management hasn't approved a single one of them. Mr. ROHRABACHER has introduced H.R. 964, the Emergency Solar Power Permit Act, of which I am a cosponsor, to exempt solar energy projects from costly and prolonged environmental impact statement requirements. Enacting this legislation would do more to expedite solar energy than the underlying bill.

Even though the public has repeatedly demanded to take advantage of the resources we have here at home, attempts to develop these resources are consistently and adamantly opposed by radical environmentalists who claim to be in favor of domestic development of renewable energy. The American people are suffering the consequences.

The Democrats' radical environmentalist friends and campaign donors continue to block domestic energy development by imposing excessive environmental litigation on energy companies. This excessive litigation prevents our country from moving forward to implement policies that will develop renewable technology and free us from the grip of foreign oil.

H.R. 900, of which I am a cosponsor, would liberate energy companies from being suffocated by extreme environmental litigation and allow them to move forward and get approval to implement energy projects. However, the Democrats in charge will not allow this bill to come to the floor for debate because they have more allegiance towards their radical environmentalist friends than towards the American people.

Mr. Speaker, amendments to reduce the authorization, give the Secretary of DOE discretion as to how much funding should go to the Roadmap recommendations, and sunset the Roadmap Committee in 2015 were all voted down in the hearing on this legislation.

Amendments to protect small businesses, veteran-owned businesses, and fund this bill through unspent funds authorized under the ``stimulus'' earlier this year were blocked by the Democrats on the Rules Committee so we will not be debating them in order to improve this flawed legislation. Because of this, Mr. Speaker, I oppose this rule and urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, we have no additional speakers, and I will make my closing speech now.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so an amendment can be added to the rule. The amendment to the rule would provide for separate consideration of H. Res. 554, a resolution to require that legislation and conference reports be posted on the Internet for 72 hours prior to consideration by the House. It does not affect the bill made in order by the rule.

The amendment to the rule provides the House will debate the issue of reading the bill within 3 legislative days. It does not disrupt the schedule.

The bill currently has 164 cosponsors. The discharge petition has 182 names, including five Democrats. This bill has gained support of an overwhelming majority of Americans and is widely respected by government watchdogs.

The existing House rule, that committee reports be available for 3 days prior to floor consideration, has been repeatedly waived by Republicans and Democrats alike. This is not a partisan measure. As Members of Congress, we ought to agree that regardless of the legislation brought before us, we should always have the opportunity to read and understand the legislation before we vote.

The American public agrees with this commonsense position. A recent survey by Rasmussen Reports found that 83 percent of Americans say legislation should be posted online and available for everyone to read before Congress votes on it. The poll also found that this is not a partisan issue: 85 percent of Republicans, 76 percent of Democrats, and 92 percent of unaffiliated voters favor posting legislation online prior to its being voted on.

In the beginning of the year, Democrat Members of this Congress voted to spend almost $790 billion in taxpayer dollars on a stimulus package that most Members did not even read. All Republicans voted ``no.'' The 1,073-page document wasn't posted on the government's Web site until after 10 p.m. the day before the vote to pass it was taken.

Furthermore, before debate on the cap-and-tax bill offered last summer, the House was presented with a 300-plus-page amendment at 3 a.m. for debate the following morning and a vote the following afternoon. This was unacceptable and further demonstrated the need to read the bill and the amendments.

Mr. Speaker, we are elected to Congress to represent our constituents. How are we supposed to determine what is right for our fellow Americans if we have to vote on something before we even have time to read it? We need to have this debate. If people oppose having the text of bills available to read, they should make their case. This amendment to the rule allows them to do just that.

I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so that we can have this debate and do the right thing for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have the text of the amendment and extraneous material inserted into the Record prior to the vote on the previous question.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from North Carolina?

There was no objection.

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