Boeing Dreamliner
Floor Speech
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I know we are in the middle of a health care debate and I know we are focused on health care and we will be talking about that for several days, but I rise to congratulate the people of Washington State and the country on the 787 Dreamliner flight that took off from Paine Field, WA, just a few hours ago. Some people might think of that as just going to YouTube and looking at the video and seeing a plane take off and what is the significance. I tell you, there is great significance, not just for the State of Washington but for the country because this plane is a unique plane. It is a game changer as far as the market is concerned. But it is American innovation at its best. This plane, built now with 50 percent composite materials, is going to be a 20-percent more fuel-efficient plane. That is significant for our country. It is significant because it means the United States can still be a leader in manufacturing and it can still deal with something as complex as fuel efficiency in aviation.
What is prideful for us as Americans is, this is about American innovation at its best. What would Bill Boeing say about today? He would say we achieved another milestone, where we faced international competition. Yet the United States can still be a manufacturer. We can still build a product, still compete, and still win because we are innovating with aviation.
To the thousands of workers in the Boeing Company and in Puget Sound I say: Congratulations for your hard work--for the planning and implementation of taking manufacturing from aerospace with aluminum that had been the status quo for decades, to developing an entirely new plane, 50 percent with the new material.
I want the United States to continue to be a manufacturer, to still build products, to still say we can compete. So I applaud the name Dreamliner. Somebody in that company had a dream, and today it got launched when it took off from that runway. I wish to say that is the innovative spirit that has made this country great and that is the innovative spirit in which we need to invest.
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