Jobs

Floor Speech

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It's an important topic these days when we refer to jobs--jobs in America, jobs that we retain, jobs that we create.

The overwhelming issue right now in the minds and hearts of constituents across this country, I firmly believe, is about the dignity of work, jobs that need to be strengthened out there in number so as to provide for the opportunity for people to dream the American Dream, the American Dream of home ownership, of education for their children, of higher education pursuits, so as to unleash the skills and the talents and the passions of the next generations of workers.

Training, retraining programs to enable the human infrastructure required as an investment in the work zone of America is an important aspect of the investment that we need to make through policy reforms and policy strengthening and resource advocacy that we could do here in the Halls of Congress, on the floor of the House of Representatives to enable us to fill those coffers with the quality investments that need to be made from a human infrastructure perspective to a capital infrastructure, and certainly to a physical infrastructure as we go forward and allow this country to utilize its intellectual capacity, to use the brainpower of these United States to enable us to compete and compete effectively in a way that acknowledges that the jobs market, the jobs created, the jobs retained through advocacy here in Washington can speak to the ultimate highest priority that people have established for all of us who are serving, regardless of political persuasion or philosophical mindsets.

As we serve this Nation, we can best provide for an outcome of jobs that are created in our society. There is no stronger need. There should be no stronger commitment. The President showcased that when he was hosted here in the House of Representatives with a joint session of Congress. And the room was filled. The gallery was packed as people witnessed the very passionate speech from the leader of the free world.

As President Obama laid forth his vision, his plan, his initiatives, his goals for the American people, the House of Representatives and Members of the United States Senate got to hear firsthand what that effort is all about. People listened with intent to move forward with that blueprint for our future, a blueprint that would strengthen our economy and have an impact across the world.

We have this opportunity now to work in a multipartisan way in a bicameral response to what the President has highlighted to be his plan for jobs here in America.

I was happy to note that amongst his arguments, amongst his priorities happens to be the creation of an innovation economy, a response perhaps to an innovation economy that finds us as an ``idea-ist'' society investing in those ideas, investing in ideas that get moved along perhaps to a prototype that moves along to a manufacturing sector.

I, before entering the Halls of Congress, before being elected to the House of Representatives, served as president and CEO of NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. It is nationally recognized for its cutting-edge work being done in the science and tech aspects of high tech. By the way, in the district that I represent, the 21st Congressional District in New York State, much about the Capital Region and Mohawk Valley and Schoharie Valley of upstate New York have been dubbed recently by Brookings Institute to be the hottest territory, the strongest hub, the most active region in the country for green collar job growth. That's a feather in our cap; and if someone wants to see investment happening, it's there in the Capital Region of New York.

It took a partnership with academia and State government and Federal Government, yes; but it also was a partnership with the private sector, where great investments were made by the private sector in this high-tech agenda--in the science and tech agenda, nanoscience, semiconductor, advanced battery manufacturing. Now, that is somewhat clustering in its concept to draw more and more start-ups and entrepreneurial efforts and workers who are clustering in this way, with academia getting invested in the research aspects.

I mention that because the innovation economy is something that received high focus and an inordinate amount of attention in the speech made by the President. He understands and he has professed--and I agree with his assessment--that whoever wins this global race on innovation will emerge the exporter--the kingpin, if you will--of the global economy, the exporter of energy intellect and innovation and ideas that will enable us to, in a way, mimic the success stories of the space race--a global race that found fewer partners but found the United States of America being victorious.

That all began, I believe, with a setback. Sometimes failure is a misunderstood gift. In this case, through the Sputnik moment, America, in its defeat, had to stand up and dust off its backside and commit with passion, as experienced with the words of John F. Kennedy, who said we're going to do this effort of investing in the space race not because it's easy but because it's hard; and that attitude, that tone, that passion, that commitment, that resolve produced a winning moment, a winning moment when we were the first to achieve the daunting task of landing a person first on the Moon.

As a Nation, we took great pride in that event that happened some 40-plus years ago. It was more than the magic moment of landing a person on the Moon and the infamous quote that talked about the giant leap for mankind. It was the unleashing of technology and untold aspects of our world, of our society, where technology reached communications and energy generation and education and health care, to name a few segments of activity out there.

That was a profound statement made by America and her brain power, America and her will--her will to invest in her people and in a mission that brought us together as a Nation, where everyone joined in the efforts to fine-tune the best way by which to pursue that mission. What happened really raised America. Her leadership potential, her leadership recognition in the global community became profoundly enhanced, and it was not just technology entering these different segments of our society but of bolstering all these aspects, the different sectors of our economy, and of course impacting not just for Americans but for people worldwide the quality of life that we enjoy, the opportunity to strengthen services, to be able to bring us together in almost a village capacity as a world simply because of technology.

Today, I would remind my colleagues in the House of Representatives and our partners down the Hall in the United States Senate that we have that same moment, that same challenge, that same need to resolve with passion again, to go forward--to go forward with a mission that allows us to invest in a clean-energy society, in a clean-energy economy into an innovation agenda. Think of it. We have so many opportunities here. We have committed so many times over to public and private aspects of research and development, of investment of research that leads to ideas or ideas that are built by that research to a greater capacity and then shared in a way that builds and develops the prototype that then creates the manufacturing aspect.

We've seen it with the chips manufacturing in my district. Perhaps the largest such construction of a chips manufacturing facility in all of America is taking hold in the region, in the area that I call home. That is enabling us to think beyond usual terms. We're thinking of chips applied to agriculture, chips applied to health care, chips applied to the education world.

That is a marvel in and of itself, and it's enabling the best minds to cluster in an area like that which I represent, which is the 21st Congressional District in upstate New York in the Capital Region.

That's the investment that I believe America not only requires but that Americans are demanding of their leaders, leaders that occupy these seats here in Washington in the Halls of Congress. That's what they're asking for--that sort of investment, that sort of magical quality that we have seen throughout her history.

It's replete with sagas of success that began oftentimes with hyphenated Americans in their first generation of connection to these soils investing in a way with this brightness of ideas coming from blue-collar workers, who enabled us to take a region like that which I represent and allow it to inspire a westward movement and an industrial revolution because, in the heartlands of the 21st Congressional District, we were the hosts to an Erie Canal/barge canal history.

What that pathway, that waterway pronounced with its own presence is the opportunity to build a Port of New York that then gave birth to a necklace of communities, dubbed ``mill towns,'' that became these epicenters of invention and innovation. It was perhaps the first high-tech revolution taking hold in the 21st Congressional District of New York. It was there that all sorts of product lines were conceived and then further developed and then realized in the marketplace around the world, and these product lines inspired continued progress.

That's the sort of ilk that is American and uniquely American. That is the sort of investment that enabled us to produce these tremendously powerful chapters in our Nation's history, and it should be the inspiration.

These moments should be the inspiration for us to do the correct thing today: for us to understand that we do not cut our way to prosperity, that we do not cut our way to opportunity, but that certainly we can invest our way to opportunity and invest our way to a new economy, a stronger outcome, an investment in our working families, an opportunity for people to truly dream the American Dream. That's how we will survive. That's how we will meet the test in the present moment.

The President has challenged Congress--and rightfully so. This is not a time for political gamesmanship. This is not a time for simple negative response or rejection of a political kind.

This is about working as a team, executive branch with legislative branch, Republicans with Democrats, Senators with House of Representatives membership. That's what we can accomplish here if we set our hearts and our minds and our souls to an agenda that is in keeping with the tradition, the deeply rooted and powerful tradition of job creation in our society.

Think of it. Throughout our years, whether it was President Lincoln in the development of rail or Governor DeWitt Clinton in New York with the development of an Erie Canal, or President Eisenhower in the development of an interstate system, or President Roosevelt and the Corps that went throughout this great country of ours State by State and built the infrastructure that really was a need for this country at a time when we were hurting from a grossly high unemployment statistic.

That's America at her best, at her brightest. It's her shining moment. The President is imploring all of us, as Members, as leadership in the Houses, to allow for America to have her next shining moment. Challenges in difficult times can produce the most deep, profound, uninhibited, unrestricted behavior, and we have that opportunity. We have that opportunity here to respond with this innovation economy. It takes investment.

As I indicated, when I served as president and CEO of NYSERDA, and before as energy chair for some 15 years in the New York State Assembly with the New York State legislature, it took an appropriate policy and then an investment that would enable us to respond in nontraditional terms, to be able to go forward with the kinds of intellectual response to deeply rooted concerns.

Think about it. We dismantled a monopoly situation for utility purposes, electric utility purposes, and chose through an administrative order with then-Governor Pataki to go forward with a competitive quality in our utility outreaches in New York State, a system designed for a monopoly setting that has to be adjusted to not only wheel electrons from region to region within our State, but from State to State, from State to New York State, and then from country to New York State.

So that took improvement that needed to be made in policy and in resource advocacy. I saw from my positioning in NYSERDA the benefits that came when we invested in research and development. Now, granted, all the stories, all the situations, all the scenarios within the research and development opportunities are not necessarily success stories. But without the dive into that opportunity, we will never feel the splash of success.

So many of those situations become a winning outcome. And when we have such an outcome, we are able to move forward and allow for us to even dream of the notion of enhancing our energy independence.

We cannot remain so gluttonously dependent upon fossil-based fuels to be our solution for our energy crisis. We simply cannot. We cannot. We need to make certain that we commit to an innovation cycle that enables us to dream outside the ordinary, to think beyond the barrel, think outside the barrel in the case of energy reform.

And those formats, those transformations need to again encourage the investment in higher education, in education, because we need, as early as the pre-K setting, to encourage the development of our students, especially with the shortfall of engineers that we are producing in our society, and scientists.

Education in itself has the need for many reforms, but one of the areas of targeted concentration needs to be the increased numbers of individuals, especially in atypical formats with young women and students of color who need to be encouraged to pursue along the pathways of engineering and science. So we begin that investment but then we go forward with that cultivation of ideas that begins with the investment of the intellect of America, and what I witnessed were wonderful opportunities. We had witnessed all sorts of improvements to renewables, that was part of the NYSERDA agenda.

We saw all sorts of opportunities like kinetic hydropower where we would actually be able to do turbine-type settings in an ordinary wind turbine activity, but beneath the turbulence of water, to use the turbulence of water to crank out the energy supplies that we required. In a State like New York it holds vast potential. It holds tremendous potential.

The R&D commitment was there, the refinements came through the Department of Energy lab where they reviewed the product, saw where some of the weaknesses might be, engineered the assembly, the design of the turbine itself and the assembly of that turbine, designed it, redesigned it, and now we grow more and more committed to the opportunity for some of this use of turbulence of water to respond to our energy needs.

That's just one small sampling in one agency and one State of how we can grow the opportunities. Investing in battery manufacturing that enables us to respond to that

linchpin that is our connector to investment into the future that enables us to, again, draw this energy independence agenda together in a way that not only grows our economy and protects our consumers and strengthens American job opportunities, but really creates a cutting-edge sort of job opportunity where, for the first time, these jobs appear on the radar so that we can begin to provide hope to individuals who may have that genius within them and will pursue that as a career path. But it begins with individual voices, individual voices in the House speaking to those issues of jobs and creation of jobs and investing in an innovation economy, investing in workers.

Certainly no one has been stronger in that attempt than my colleague, my friend from Kentucky's Third District. Representative John Yarmuth has been a champion on the floor. He has been a champion at home speaking to the need for jobs in America, Make It in America, which is a mantra which he and I and our colleagues in the Democratic Caucus have adopted.

Representative Yarmuth, it is great to have you join us for this hour. Welcome, and I know you have been such a strong voice for jobs not only for Kentucky but for Americans coast-to-coast.

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Mr. TONKO. Representative Yarmuth, let me add to your reality with my reality, one scenario being a couple of decades old now. In 1987, a bridge collapsed along the New York State Thruway system because of flooding. It came across a creek that you could walk across some years during the month of August. It had the CFS, the flow, equal to Niagara Falls with the flooding, and it wiped out a bridge. And I believe just about all of the tragedies, all of the loss of life, which was some 10 or 11 people, were not from the area. So we are all at risk with these deficiencies to which you alluded. So it is important for us to keep up the investments.

As we saw this year, some 500-year records broken with hurricanes from the ravages of the waters of Irene and floods from the Tropical Storm Lee, wiped out infrastructure galore. And so now there is a need, a demand to have these bits of infrastructure restored and rebuilt; otherwise the economy suffers.

I saw what rail meant to jobs in my district through the course of time. I saw what the canal meant not only for jobs in my district, but in the western movement, the industrial revolution. So infrastructure is important. I dwelled on innovation to economy, but you are so right to bring up the need for infrastructure and those improvements. I thank you, Representative Yarmuth, for your thoughts and hang with us because this is an order where we want to talk about job creation.

We are joined by yet another outspoken voice from Maryland's Third Congressional District. Representative John Sarbanes is an outspoken advocate for job creation in our society. He knows from the Maryland experience that we need jobs. By the New York experience, by which I measure it all, we need jobs. Representative Sarbanes, thank you for being a leader in the House and advocating for not only Make It in America but job creation of all types.

I yield to the gentleman.

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Mr. TONKO. Representative Sarbanes, I couldn't agree with you more. I have witnessed what happens when we invest in training, retraining, and apprenticeship programs in pre-K through 12, in graduate school, in undergrad campuses and research centers. I witnessed the inspiration that a cleanroom science course provided for a young man 30, 35 years old, unemployed ready to leave our area. When he saw the cleanroom science at the local community college, which was an investment from the Federal Government, he did a U-turn in his stated plans.

This was something that was exciting. This was something that spoke to his heart and soul. This was something he wanted to engage in. And that's the opportunity that we can give people here.

The story line of America is basic. As you say, give me that American Dream. Let me unleash my skills, my talents. Let me raise a family, build a home, and dream that American Dream. We owe it to America.

And people have placed their faith in this jobs agenda. I can't tell you how many times that I know we've talked. We've heard it from our colleagues. People believe in that Make It In America opportunity. They believe in tethering that dream, that American Dream, so that households, middle class--let's rebuild that middle class. Let's take those values of the middle class and make it happen.

We're happy you joined us. Another partner of ours, a colleague who has led us oftentimes during Special Order on making it in America, on jobs, none other than California's 10th District Representative, John Garamendi.

Representative Garamendi, we often talk about the east coast-west coast. The message is unique. It's commonplace across this country. Thank you again for your leadership on the floor on job creation.

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Well, it's amazing because there are situations--I'll first go to Representative Welch's district in Vermont--where Route 4 has been wiped out. It's just about removed from the map.

What was just a couple of miles worth of activity for some people to travel to work now becomes this tremendous circuitous route that may even take you down into Massachusetts and back into eastern Vermont to get to the locations. It has made life nearly impossible. I have seen numbers of bridges wiped out in upstate New York, a tremendous amount of bridges, locks that have been compromised in the area that I represent.

I talked about hosting the Erie Canal barge canal activity. The locks that came in the second phase of that canal development are now tremendously devastated by the powerful force of water, homes that have been knocked out, but the infrastructure and landslides of roads that are disappearing and different opportunities now that are really demanding of an investment like this in order for us to go forward.

As Representative Sarbanes made mention, this is a part of the equation for success for jobs--not just jobs in the immediate zone to improve and repair and construct some of this infrastructure, but jobs in general. It is part of the equation of success. You have got to move that product line. You have got to deal with the freight issues.

So it is incumbent upon us to respond. If politics gets in the way here, it is grossly regrettable. It's unacceptable to hold back this Nation simply because you choose to do a knee-jerk political response to a plan outlined by a President who has shown a vision here that is laser sharp about what needs to be done.

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Mr. TONKO. Earlier, Representative Sarbanes talked, Representative Garamendi, about human infrastructure. It begins with sound schools that are not crumbling over the students' heads but also an investment in education. Just recently, during our August district work period, I did a tour, a number of tours in my district with manufacturing. But one story pops into mind where a manufacturer in Schoharie County, a very rural county in my district, has utilized the efforts of its CAT Center--the Center for Advanced Technology--to come up with an idea that created automation so that he can remain competitive in the global sweepstakes. But he needs people who are specifically trained and educated to run this automation aspect within his assembly process, and so it becomes very important that this human infrastructure is critical.

I'm reminded all the time about a centuries-old saga and decades-old stories of what we used to manufacture in America. After doing it someplace else, the daunting challenge to America, to a sophisticated society, is build the products not yet on the radar screen. And that takes intellect. That takes genius that's cultivated in our schools and in our colleges and our universities and research centers, and then we create that product line that is brand new. But that's a sophisticated society responding to a manufacturing challenge. And it begins with the human intellect; it begins with human infrastructure.

Representative Sarbanes, you're so on target with that investment of capital infrastructure, physical infrastructure, and, indeed, human infrastructure, so thank you for bringing that into the discussion.

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Mr. TONKO. To Representative Sarbanes' point, every year that's wasted, that is allowed to pass by, youngsters in the third, fourth, fifth grade, whatever, will never have the experience they ought to. So we're letting down the workers of tomorrow by this delay, by this resistance, this recalcitrance of a political order that is unacceptable.

I will just make the point that Wynn Kintz, who is the owner of the facility that I toured in Schoharie County, said that he reaches the community colleges routinely because he needs that upgraded skill set. There are manufacturing jobs across this country for which they need skilled labor, and if we walk away from that investment in human infrastructure, we've denied progress for this country.

We've been joined by an outspoken advocate for jobs--I mean a very loud voice because we've heard the volume cranked up--as the chair of our Democratic Caucus and the Representative of Connecticut's First Congressional District, and that is none other than Representative John Larson.

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Chairman LARSON, we have precious few minutes left. I'll make a few comments and then yield to my gentlemen colleagues as we close this Special Order hour.

To me, you've identified it well. This country has had, throughout its history, its shining moments. This is our opportunity to invest in America's next shining moment. It will take commitment by the legislators here on the Hill in Washington, and encouraging and inspiring and building a tone that brings us together to think as one as a Nation, generation to generation to generation, region of the country to region of the country, political persuasion to opposite political persuasion, philosophy of difference to the philosophy of another kind, moving together, coming together, understanding this is our defining moment. It's our moment to create our next shining example of America at her best.

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