Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2354, Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

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

I would like to thank my colleague from Florida for the time, as well as to thank the majority members of the Rules Committee for a fair rule that will enable a wide variety of floor amendments to be brought forward.

I do rise in opposition to the underlying bill unless there are major changes made, which I hope a majority of the House successfully achieves in doing under this fair open rule.

The current political debate in Washington is dominated by the question of Federal spending. And I think it's a question that we need to revisit under each appropriations bill. We need to cut wasteful spending. We should eliminate programs that don't work, eliminate corporate giveaways, look at the cost of tax subsidies that cost billions of dollars to Americans but fail to create jobs, and really serve to enrich special interests.

We also need to make sure that we don't lose sight, in our drive to reduce the deficit, that we impact investments that are creative and help our economy and reduce deficits over time. Just as a successful business making cuts in a recession would make the cuts intelligently and wouldn't cut essential investments on capital resources, Congress shouldn't slash domestic investments that create jobs while also at the same time continuing to give handouts to multibillion dollar corporations.

Given the approach to budgeting this year in this body, it seems like the majority isn't basing their decisions on cold arithmetic that's needed to balance a budget. Rather, there seems to be a different equation in play, an approach driven by ideology and special interest lobbying, not by a real concern for deficit reduction. With this appropriations bill, I think what we are seeing is more of the same.

How else can we explain a budget that ends Medicare while preserving tax subsidies for Big Oil, tax subsidies for corporate jets, and continues wasteful defense programs, in fact actually increases the defense budget when we know that we have more defense than we can afford in this country? Why is wasteful spending prioritized over health care for our seniors, the education of our children, and investments under this bill that keep our air and water supply clean and healthy, reducing health care costs in the long run?

Now, again, when we talk about these appropriations bills it's not a debate over whether we should cut the deficit. I think Republicans and Democrats agree that we need to cut the deficit. It's a debate about how we restore fiscal discipline that has been abandoned over the last decade. Let's have that debate here in the U.S. House. And I am glad that this rule allows us do it under this bill. And I hope we are able to make some major changes to this bill.

Unfortunately, the Energy and Water bill as presented before the House under this rule exemplifies a reckless and ideological approach to the budget.

This bill actually increases funding levels, increases deficit funding levels for fossil fuel research and development, oil and gas research, increases Federal spending on these programs, while cutting investments in clean energy research. In the past, Republicans have claimed that they were for an ``all of the above'' approach to energy policy, looking at optimizing exploitation of fossil fuels and also investing in new energy research, but instead of ``all of the above,'' this bill represents an ``oil above all'' approach to national energy policy. It's simply not a serious response to America's need for cleaner, more affordable domestic energy.

At a time when we all agree we're confronting a fiscal crisis, how can we ask American taxpayers to foot the bill for ExxonMobil's R&D? That's exactly what we do under this bill. It's one of a series of subsidies for Big Oil that the majority has chosen to protect at a time that they're also demanding Americans see funding cut for schools and for seniors. Instead of increasing wasteful spending which benefits only the fossil fuel industry, we should invest in the American clean energy innovation that will benefit our national security, our environment, and our economy.

This legislation cuts total funding for the Energy Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy by 42 percent compared to 2010, at the same time increasing subsidies to oil and gas. These cuts will mean less innovation, dirtier energy and fewer clean energy jobs. In my home State of Colorado alone, over 5,000 jobs have been spun off of research that was conducted at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the lab gives an estimated $714 million annual boost to our State's economy. It's that kind of research that is devastated under this bill. Through this open amendment process, I call upon my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support efforts to restore that funding.

These labs, like the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the basic Federal research, are incubators for the private sector. The investments don't go to bloated bureaucracies or government bureaucrats in Washington. They go to the actual hiring of experts and innovators that will spin off their ideas to entrepreneurs to bring to the marketplace, a model for private sector job growth that's critical for our Nation's economy and critical for our national security in meeting our own energy needs domestically.

The Department of Energy's investments in clean energy are the first step in a job create domino effect. As of August 2010, as an example, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory had 329 contracts with Colorado companies totaling $414 million, including $75.3 million in the most recent fiscal year. NREL had cooperative research and development agreements with 23 Colorado companies, and NREL supports interactions with companies from across the Nation. That's just one example of the many research initiatives and public-private partnerships that this bill as written would call into jeopardy.

And while again calling into jeopardy much of this fundamental research that has private sector applications, we're again increasing subsidies to the fossil fuel industry's research. There is a $141 million or 81 percent cut to weatherization initiatives that help insulate the homes of low-income, elderly and disabled individuals in this bill, while continuing and increasing subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.

Another dangerous cut in this bill is cutting funding to the Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA-E, by 44 percent compared to the current year. ARPA-E has strongly had bipartisan support for years and helps fund innovation in the economy based on a proven successful model we've had in defense for many years called DARPA. It funds path-breaking ideas that are unlikely to get funding anywhere else at an early stage. This creative model is crafted after DARPA, which has led to things ranging from cell phones to the creation of the Internet itself, and it has tremendous implications for America to meet its renewable energy needs.

The bill before us is not smart, and it's not sensible. It's simply not a fiscally responsible bill that meets our Nation's future energy needs and cuts our deficit. I urge my colleagues to improve this bill through amendments during this open amendment process and, if it's in anything close to its current form, to oppose the final bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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