Make It In America
Floor Speech
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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, we just finished a very important debate here on the floor dealing with the ability of the American Government to understand the threats that face us across this world. I want to commend my colleagues both on the Republican and Democratic side for working long and hard on the intelligence legislation that will be up on the floor, probably tomorrow.
In the hour ahead, what I would really like to focus on and bring to the attention of the American people is the necessity for jobs. We spend a lot of time talking about security, as we should, and we've certainly seen that in the successful effort to bring down bin Laden and finally see that justice was properly served. Congratulations to the military, to the intelligence community, and particularly to President Obama for his courage in ordering that action, risky to be sure, but ultimately extraordinarily successful.
The other part of American security is our economy. At the end of the day and even at the beginning of the day, this Nation will never be secure unless we have a very strong, vibrant, growing economy that provides every American that wants to work with the opportunity to go to work. And so the focus of our attention for this hour ahead is economic security: how to secure the economic well-being of every American, how to secure the economic well-being of the American public. It can be done.
There are essentially six elements to achieve economic security and economic growth and strength, and we will cover many of those today as we talk about this issue. Let me very briefly lay them out to you.
The first is education. I think we now understand that an individual who has little or no education has very little opportunity to find economic security. It's difficult to get a job if you don't have an education. So for an individual, a good education is essential. Unfortunately across America, report after report, usually every 6 or 7 years a new report comes out and says America at Risk. Our education system isn't measuring up. Yet here in the last 3 months and in the days ahead, my colleagues on the Republican side have consistently cut the education programs that many, indeed millions of Americans depend upon.
Back home in my State of California, education funding is similarly cut, so that now a class that 5 years ago was 20 students is now 30 students. At the University of California, 10 years ago it may have cost $1,500 or $2,000 to go to school to pay the tuition. Now it's $8,000. And in the budget that's being proposed that was presented to the Appropriations Committee today, the Republicans are virtually reducing to a point of nonexistence Pell Grants necessary for higher education.
So education becomes the first key pillar in building a secure economy for an individual. Similarly, it is the pillar to secure a good growing economy for this Nation, because this Nation will not be able to compete economically unless we have the best educated workforce in the world, and we're not even close today. We were in bygone years, 30, 40 years ago, and we can be in the future, but it's going to take a change. As my colleagues come and join me during this hour, we will be talking about the ways in which the education system can be improved and the way in which we can transition people from education to work and back to education and back to work.
The second pillar is research. Research is an essential element, because from that research comes the
new products of the future. I think we only need to think about the things that are in our home. The television, the VCR, the other things that we depend upon, were mostly invented in America. The fundamental research for computer chips and the like, America made, and much of the technology that we now find in our green technology, a lot of the wind turbines, the initial wind turbine industry, the solar industry, the photovoltaic and the rest, research in America's great institutions, our universities, our laboratories, led to these kinds of products. The battery technology that we now find in the hybrids, invented in America, but I think most of you would say, but not made in America today. That's true. So what we have seen is that the research, while done in the United States, did not lead to those things being manufactured in the United States. We need to understand why, and we'll go into that today, also.
So education, research, and then the third element is making those things in America. Manufacturing matters, and that is the core subject of today's
discussion: Make it in America. You can educate, you can research, but ultimately you have to make it in America.
Now, there are ways that we can enhance the American manufacturing sector, and my colleagues and I on the Democratic side have put forth a program that we called Make It in America, so that America can make it, so that American families can make it, and we know that these programs that we're proposing will cause that to occur.
The remaining three things that we will talk about, not today, but I want to make sure we lay them out there: Education, research, manufacturing, make it in America, the next element is infrastructure. You have to have roads and streets and sanitation and water systems, communications systems. All of those things are critically important. Fortunately, part of the stimulus program, not enough of it, but a big part of it was to build the infrastructure. The largest surge in infrastructure investment ever in the history of this Nation was the stimulus program, overlooked and certainly overlooked in the politics of last year's election, but it was there. It was a good point, but we have to carry that forward.
Fifth point. We have to be international. Unfortunately, the word ``international'' in America has come to be that we give it all away. The trade agreements of the past often led to the outsourcing of American jobs, and so, as we look to the future, we want to make sure that as we look international we talk about, as President Obama has suggested, that we once again become an export Nation. We can do that. There are programs that will cause that to happen, and also, we need to be quite sure that when we talk about international we talk about fair trade, trade that is fair to American workers.
And so as these trade programs come before us, we will be taking a very hard look at are those programs good for American workers, or are they simply good for Chinese workers. If they are good for those workers overseas and not good for American workers, you can see strong resistance from those of us on the Democratic side who say, wait a minute, international is good. We understand the need to grow markets. We understand the growing markets of the world, but we will no longer allow American workers to be put at a disadvantage by some trade agreement that is not fair to American workers.
The final element is this: we have to change. We cannot be what we were yesterday. We have to be what we can be tomorrow, and our President very clearly points this out as he talks about capturing the future. We can but only if we do these six things, and the final one is change.
Let me go now to a couple of the specific elements that we need to talk about here. Sometimes it's helpful to put up one of these placards. It helps focus at least my attention and perhaps yours. This is the Make It in America Agenda. These issues we've talked about, trade, tax policy, energy policy. Let's pick up the energy policy here.
It is incumbent upon America to secure its energy future. I think all of us go to the gas station from time to time, all too often it seems to me, and you know now we're filling up with $4 a barrel oil. Why? Why did that happen? Well, it basically has happened because for more than 30 years America has talked about energy security. We've talked about ending the importation of oil. We've talked about how we can provide the energy necessary for this Nation. Yet, we now find ourselves in a situation very similar to what we found in the 1970s, that is, insufficient energy available to us. The ``Drill, baby, drill'' mentality that we saw on the floor today is not the solution to this.
The solution to the energy issue is to transform our energy systems from the 19th and 20th century energy system, the fossil fuels, where we are dependent upon the petrol dictators of the world, and on coal, which I think all of us have come to understand presents enormous challenges for us, challenges of climate change, challenges of despoiling the surface of the Earth as we now find in the Appalachian Mountains and enormous health risks that come with the burning of coal. We need to move away from these fossil fuels to the fuels of tomorrow.
As we do that, we need to use our tax dollars to accomplish this goal. Right now, our tax dollars are used to support the oil industry. The oil industry thinks that is all well and good, but how many of you want to have $4 billion, $5 billion, $6 billion, even $12 billion of your tax money go to the wealthiest, most successful industry in the world as a subsidy? This is oil welfare, plain and simple, to the industry that simply does not need it. We're talking about the wealthiest, most successful industries in the world that have, for a century, for a full century, enjoyed the generosity of the American taxpayer. They receive welfare. Plain and simple, it's a subsidy, to subsidize the oil industry.
Yet we know in the last few days the Big Five oil companies have produced record profits in the last quarter. So much so that in the last decade, the decade 2001 until 2010, the oil industry has had over $1 trillion of profit, $1 trillion dollar of profit. At the same time, they have received billions of dollars of subsidies. We need to bring those subsidies back into
the Treasury. Tell the oil industry, for a century you have been living off the welfare of the American public taxpayer. No more. That money is coming home.
And we're going to use it for two purposes: one, to reduce the deficit. President Obama has suggested about $4 billion a year. I think you can go as high as $12 billion if you add up all of the subsidies, bringing that money back into the Treasury to be used to reduce the deficit and to support industries of the future. We're talking about a lot of money here. Take a look at this.
ExxonMobil, $10.7 billion of profit in just the last quarter. Oxychem, $1.6 billion. Conoco, $2.1 billion. Oh, you're going to love this. The CEO of Conoco oil a couple of days ago got in front of a microphone and said it is un-American to take away our welfare, to take away our subsidy. I don't think so. I think it is un-American to give the wealthiest industry in the world a subsidy. We can go on and on here. We see Chevron doing very well. Oh, yeah, BP--we know that bunch. They're the ones that didn't have enough money to safely drill for oil, but they did manage to make $7.2 billion of profit this last year.
So, as we look at the energy systems of this Nation, we need to understand that the money that you and I are presently giving to the oil companies as a subsidy needs to be brought back and used to reduce the deficit and to support the energy systems of the future.
I'm going to wrap this very quickly with 2 pieces of legislation that I've introduced that would take those subsidies back from the oil industry and apply them to tomorrow's energy systems, the green energy systems, solar, wind. Our tax money should be used to buy American made solar, wind, turbines, and other green technologies. Right now, our tax money, we do subsidize those industries. Our tax money is used to purchase products that are manufactured offshore. My legislation says, good, we need to subsidize. We need to promote those industries. Those are the industries of the future. Those are energy sources of the future. Let's use that money to buy American-made equipment.
If somebody wants to go buy Chinese solar cells, fine, use your own money. One of these companies wants to go buy European-made wind turbine, that is fine, do it. But don't use my tax money. Don't use your tax money. American tax money must be used to buy American-made equipment.
Similarly, with our gasoline taxes that are now being used to buy buses, trains, and build highways and bridges, great. Good thing to do, but make sure that those things are made in America.
Now let me turn my attention to my colleagues. Three of them have joined us. I notice that our minority whip has joined us today.
Mr. Hoyer, you've been the advocate, the leader, of developing the Make It in America strategy. Please share with us your thoughts, and then I'm going to turn to my other two colleagues.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you very much, Mr. Leader, for what you've done. Mr. Hoyer, you've been on this, actually, longer than I. You have some history in this House that goes way back. I think about a program that you and the Democrats put forward before I arrived. I've only been here now about 20 months. It was the stimulus bill, the American Recovery Act.
In that Recovery Act, there was about $12 billion for transportation. In that transportation program, you and the Democrats, signed by President Obama, said that the money had to be spent--and this was the high-speed rail program--on American-made high-speed rail.
Guess what happened?
Of the high-speed rail companies of the world--none were made in America--the Japanese, the Chinese, the Germans, the French, and the Spanish all began to find American manufacturing plants because they wanted access to the high-speed rail money that was in the stimulus bill.
The point here is that, if we use our tax money wisely and say to the world ``come and build a high-speed rail, but you're going to make it in America,'' they will establish those manufacturing plants here in America. It's already happening. In Sacramento, Siemens, and in New York, a couple of the European companies are already locating those manufacturing plants.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you so very much, Ms. Jackson Lee. You have been a leader in all of these issues over these many, many years and speak wisely and legislate very wisely on that.
The tax issue out there is one that just always befuddles me. It befuddles me as to why my colleagues on the Republican side just don't seem to get the message. We passed a tax bill last year that ended the subsidy that international, multinational companies were given to off-shore jobs. $12 billion a year of our tax money was given to these huge American companies when they off-shored jobs. What was that all about? I still haven't found out where that law came from. But it was in the Tax Code, and American companies were taking advantage of that tax reduction, tax subsidy, corporate welfare to send jobs overseas. We passed a bill. It's over. The President signed it. Not one of my Republican colleagues voted for that. I don't understand. I'm befuddled by their lack of support for American companies who want to keep jobs here. Apparently they're willing to support American companies that want to send jobs offshore. Anyway, one small example.
I wonder what it's like to be the mayor of the largest town in Rhode Island. It was probably an enormous experience. And then to bring that experience here to the floor of the Congress and to the committees and to share with us all of that down-home, on-the-ground experience of bringing jobs to the community.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much, Mr. Cicilline. And we note that your part of the Nation was where the manufacturing started in America, and the rivers, taking the power of the rivers and using it to start the mills and eventually creating the early American economy and continuing on to this day in a very special part of this Nation, the Rhode Island and the New England area.
There are many, many things to say. As you were talking, Mr. Cicilline, and bringing us up to date on how we can do these things, I notice that two of my colleagues came in to join us.
Again, Mr. Tonko, you were here for the very first Make It in America discussion, you and I, on this floor some months ago talking about what we can do in this rebuilding the great American manufacturing base, the strength of America, the incredible innovation that's possible, and you just happen to come from one of those areas where it was done and it's still being done.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much, Mr. Tonko.
You started with the Erie Canal. It's interesting to note that at that period of time, which was the last decades of the 1700s and the early 1800s, the
United States Government set out on a course to build infrastructure, and the infrastructure was the canal systems at that time, and you so quickly and correctly pointed out the growth that came from that. That lesson, now more than 200 years old, needs to be repeated in America once again.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. You talk about innovation and new things.
Last week, I was out in my district talking to manufacturers. One company is called Bridgelux--``lux'' I think is light, bridge lighting to the future. They make LED lights. The kind of things that are now in the stores--when you get a flashlight, it's an LED flashlight. They have taken those LEDs to a whole new level of technology and advancement.
In fact, if we would put them in these lights here in the Chamber, we could reduce the energy consumption by about 90 percent, which wouldn't be a bad thing for the taxpayers. Their particular system would allow those lights to change color, which might put me in a better color; that wouldn't be such a bad thing, and to dim when people are not here, and move the lights, and in that way improve our ability to see while simultaneously saving us a lot of energy.
The company is 2 years old, has 250 employees, is manufacturing these advanced LED lighting systems in Livermore in my district, and I am going, ``Go Bridgelux, go!''
They need something, though. They need access to the American markets. And that is where the use of our tax dollars, in this case perhaps the local tax dollars in the cities around that area, would reach out and save the taxpayers a bundle of money by buying lights from that company.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. Indeed.
Mr. Ryan, you come from a part of the world that was and is going to be, given your leadership and the leadership of this Make It in America agenda, the premier manufacturing place in the world. We will contend in California; we will be happy to contend for that and compete for that title, but you are in the process of rebuilding the manufacturing base in the heartland of America.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you very much for that.
You just reminded me of last night at 2:30 in the morning, the House Armed Services Committee completed the markup that is moving out of committee, the National Defense Act. We do it every year. Seven hundred billion dollars.
A study done by one of the think tanks came up with the number that America spends about 17 percent of its total defense budget protecting the flow of oil out of the Middle East. So you can add that to the deficit. That is over $100 billion a year that we spend of our tax money to protect the flow of oil, not only for us, but for the rest of the world.
We need to build a domestic energy system not based on carbon-based fuels, but rather the future energy, all of the clean green technologies, nuclear and others, that will provide us with the energy security we need.
In doing so, each and every one of those, if we spend our tax dollars on buying American-made systems, will come back, just as you say, and build our communities stronger along the way.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. It is actually already there. It is called advanced biofuels, algae-based fuels, everything from cosmetic oils to fuel for the Navy ships. So we can do these things. But, again, it is how we deploy our resources.
We have about 5 minutes, and we are going to do a lightning round between the three of us. I am going to turn to Mr. Tonko.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. As a great example, your colleague next to you there has a piece of legislation that calls for fairness in the financial markets, the value of the dollar versus the value of the Chinese yuan. Mr. Ryan, you have put it out there. You say it has to be fair. Wrap it for us.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is clearly currency manipulation. Here is the deal: Chevron, $19 million refunded from the IRS last year. They made $10 billion. Valero Energy, 25th largest company in America, $68 billion in sales last year; they got a $157 million tax refund check subsidized by the taxpayer.
If we are going to do this, we need shared sacrifice. We need everybody to contribute, especially those people making a lot of money, to help us reinvest. These folks are benefiting from an old-age industry--that we are running out of oil. It only makes sense. It went into the ground for 4 billion years. We pulled it out in 150 years, and we are burning it. Something is happening. It is an old industry and we are subsidizing it. We need to be Americans who invest in the next great technology to lead the world.
Mr. GARAMENDI. And indeed we will. Over the weeks and months ahead, we are going to talk about the Make It in America agenda, the legislation that has been introduced by the Democratic Caucus here in the House of Representatives. There are about 25 pieces of legislation, ranging from the ones that we talked about here, using our tax money when we buy solar equipment, make sure it is made in America. A bus, if you are going to use our tax money, make sure where it is made. Innovation, the innovation economy, all of those things. This is legislation that we have, infrastructure financing and all the rest. We are going to talk about it piece by piece.
I thank my colleagues for joining us. I have the sense that behind me we are about to be gaveled that we are out of time. I want to thank the American public for listening to the Make It in America agenda.
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