Make it in America

Floor Speech

Thank you, Representative Garamendi, for bringing us together on what is a very thoughtful discussion about how we create jobs, grow jobs in America. And that is such a vital agenda. I thank you for bringing us together, and I thank you and our colleagues in the caucus for allowing myself and others to share the woes that we have faced in our respective districts over the recent district work period.

It's ironic that in my district, in upstate New York, within days, we suffered from an earthquake, from a hurricane, from a tornado in my hometown, and now flooding, as we speak. The ravages of the waters of Irene have produced tremendous consequences for the great communities and the people that I represent. And as I've said at all of my stops in the district, I knew, always believed that there was a strength to the people that I represent. But they have made a profound statement about that resilience and that strength in the last few days.

I have seen people lose everything they've ever worked for, homes totally washed into the river, devastation from the floodwaters, cattle that were lost, harvest season almost at hand, all the investment of sweat equity and resources and fuel that never will really have the fruits of that labor captured in harvest.

The heritage infrastructure. As I made mention, in my hometown, the oldest building dates back to 1766, older than our Nation, a wedding gift from Sir William Johnson to his daughter. And watching the velocity of waters tear away the stone of that building and now expose it to the elements, and it was severely threatened and weakened by the storm.

I mention this because it is so important for us to put together the resources that enable us to come back with the skilled labor that can rebuild communities, the heritage infrastructure that very much trailed through the waterway path in my district--covered bridges, historic homes, historic churches, gathering places that have significance, that speak to the character of the communities that I represent. That character is forever changed, and we need to have the resources to go forward and rebuild the infrastructure, the lock system that manages the waters, the gauging system, the technology that needs to be incorporated.

Representative Garamendi, my district hosted, hosts the site of the Erie Canal Barge Canal. They gave birth to mill towns, a necklace of communities we call mill towns that became the epicenters of invention and innovation. The progress of which we speak, the agenda that you bring forward with such passion, is about now a new era of job creation, where we move it up a notch because of our sophisticated quality as a society.

We have perhaps shared manufacturing of traditional types with other nations, and now it's our job to bring in issues like the chip manufacturing that's done, and all sorts of innovative ideas in clean energy that allow for renewables to take hold.

But I make mention of that because we have a richness of history that spoke to job creation, that offered the opportunity to have our constituents, or

constituents of the past, express their God-given talents and express them in ways that strengthens the larger picture, that strengthens society and had an impact around the world, coming right here from New York State, that gave birth to a westward movement that finally reached the west coast of California that you represent. So we can do it again.

We should take to heart our history that showed that, as a people, we have that pioneer spirit; as Americans, we have that uniqueness, we have that gift, we have those strengths, we have the opportunity to turn these situations, these challenges into jobs, jobs that are driven by ideas, that are nurtured by research and development, that translate into manufacturing, manufacturing of an innovation economy of the present moment. And we can make that happen simply by the stewardship of sound public policy and advocacy for resources in our budget planning.

I firmly believe, and I know you share this belief, we don't cut our way to prosperity. We don't cut our way to opportunity. We invest our way to prosperity. We invest our way to innovation, to opportunity. That's what it's all about, and the Make It In America agenda embraced by the Democratic Caucus in which we have the pleasure of serving has adopted that slogan, has adopted the meaning of that passionate opportunity for us to take the trades, take tax policy, take the energy challenges, take the strength of labor, reinforced by the underpinnings of education and higher education and, coupled with research, it all happens if we put the plan together.

Thank you for opening us up to a discussion that is very meaningful to the lives of our individual constituents and to the fabric of our communities which are really looking for this sort of involvement, this sort of implementation of strategy.

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Mr. TONKO. Yes. It was the second stage of the canal when we moved from the mule-driven barge canal to the Erie Canal, which was engineered with locks. And again, to see the damage, tens of millions of dollars worth of damage; infrastructure here, putting the trades to work to rebuild these communities.

You made an interesting observation that the impacts of natural disasters and manmade disasters never ask about political persuasion or philosophy or geography. We've been impacted from coast to coast.

And with pride the other day, we in upstate New York, some colleagues in government, were talking. When the Midwest needed us, we were there. When the West Coast needed us, we were there, as you have been for other regions in the country. When the Southeast needed us, the Gulf States needed us, we were there. We're the family of America, the 50 States speaking as one.

Now it's the turn for us to ask for your help. Thanks to the goodness of folks like yourself, we're going to make it happen. We're going to be able to rebuild. And I think the greatest commodity that we can bring to individuals at times like this where they're enduring, they're coping with tragedy, is to deliver hope to their doorstep. That hope goes a long way, and the hope to recover, the hope to rebuild, the hope to reestablish the character of these communities which is so replete with history and heritage expression: covered bridges, historic homes, historic churches, lock systems that define not only developments of New York State but this Nation and the global impact it had with quality of life being enhanced simply by the genius of oftentimes blue collar workers.

Make It In America came to mind for me over this past week. The greatness of how we developed jobs and products in this country now finds us a century later challenged with new dynamics. How do we draw ourselves away? How do we wean down this dependency on fossil-based fuels? How can we grow America's energy independence? How do we grow high-tech jobs that impact the quality of health care services or communications? We've seen it.

Our whole Sputnik moment drove us to land a person on the moon before any other nation. We need that passion again, we need that resolve here today, and Make It In America does it.

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Mr. TONKO. I think what this tragedy reminds us of is that we come together at times of tragedy in a way that really brings out the best expression of America's spirit. This is about a sense of urgency. It's about a sense of justice. People have been brought down by this tragedy, but their resilience, their strength of character is driven by the belief that we can work together to rebuild.

I was so inspired today in caucus to hear so much support for a supplemental and to say no, no idea of offsets. We're not going to have offsets here. This is tragedy. If this Nation were being attacked by a foreign enemy, we wouldn't sit around and play partisan games or have political dialogue over what to do, but we'd go right to the table and say this is what is needed and let's make it happen. That's what I think we need to have here.

We need the American response to come forward and react in a way that really has that American spirit all about it. This is how we built America one community at a time, putting together the strengths that are all released here in this country enabled to be expressed in magnanimous terms. This is what's so important.

We're going to rebuild America by making it in America. Our workers are raring to go, and there are jobs that can invest the power of that genius in all sorts of ways, infrastructure needs that are out there in the traditional sense or in the more creative or updated sense with broadband and a transmission grid system that needs to be upgraded so as to speak to what is a vulnerability in our system.

So there is a lot of work there waiting to happen. We need to invest, and we need to do it in a way that doesn't have us groping for offsets.

There's no more important issue right now than jobs. Jobs, jobs, job creation, job retention. Let's make it happen. And as we do it, let's make it respond to the tragedies that I've seen in my district over the last week and a half and that we heard about today in caucus from other colleagues.

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Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, thank you again for bringing us together.

I noticed in the listing of dynamics that you have research indicated there, and education and, I'd say, slash higher education, but I witnessed testimony of those investments yesterday in my district with a group called Ener-G-Rotors. And they're actually taking the waste heat market in this country and retrofitting it so that they capture that as a byproduct in different industries, and they make certain that it's utilized to add to the energy supplies that that industry might need.

Now, what happens there? Well, the genesis of that story is that ideas, again, were thought up because of the investment in higher education. This brain was ignited to come forward with this idea that would capture heat and that waste heat market is a precious commodity now. So instead of it just going up into waste, it is captured, recaptured, brought into the energy grid for that particular industry. We're addressing greenhouse gas emissions to the positive. We're reducing those. And we are reducing the energy supply that this industry needs, and we're creating jobs in this incubator startup. They came up with this idea. This took investment in research dollars. It took tax credits from the Federal Government to buy in the commitment from the private sector. It produced the equity that they needed simply with the tax credits that were provided. And all lived happily ever after. There is a win-win-win scenario here that was produced, and that's grounded here in America, and we can export this intellect, this concept, to people around the world, and we begin to be the agents that deal with the waste heat market. What a wonderful concept. And that's how you grow jobs. And they're projecting within a few years 120 jobs in this concept. This is wonderful. This is what we're talking about at the Democratic Caucus, investing in the intellectual capacity of this Nation in a way that responds to challenges that confront us this very day and where we can grow our energy independence, grow jobs through investing in ideas, moving ideas along.

Research equals jobs. Research equals jobs. You can't say it over enough and often enough.

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Mr. TONKO. Sure. I want to pick up on the importance of education as a role for our comeback, but before I do that, I want to thank two very good friends and two very sensitive hearts for the empathy that you have expressed on behalf of the people of my district and neighboring districts in the northeast.

So Representative Garamendi from California and Representative Jackson Lee from Texas, thank you for bringing out the neighborliness in all of us. That is our best expression as an American people, and we do it through the auspices of our Federal Government when one amongst us hurts. We respond in a way that enables us to come back and strengthen the fabric of our entire Nation.

But to the point of education, recently the district I represent, the region that I represent, was dubbed the fastest-growing hub in America for green collar jobs and the third-fastest growing jobs for high-tech jobs by two independent surveys. The reason that happened was because we invested through Federal Government, State government, and private sector and academia in an agenda that speaks to cutting-edge technology, and it happened

because there are three basic formats of infrastructure that need to be reinforced and responded to, that being your physical infrastructure; your fiscal infrastructure, your capital infrastructure; and human infrastructure.

Representative Garamendi and Representative Jackson Lee, you both referenced the education issues. They are very important to the comeback of this Nation, to growing jobs and retaining jobs. What I witnessed through the efforts in our region, we have a clustering happening as you have this strength.

We have the largest ship manufacturing plant construction going on right now in all of America in the region that we call Capital Region, New York. I know that as other industries come in, other businesses come in, there is a demand for workers. Now, it's great to grow jobs, that's our first step in the process, but we have to make certain that jobs are responded to with the skill sets required, and those skill sets need to be brought to and enhanced for all neighborhoods, all communities.

It has to be the coalition of a mosaic of workers brought to the table. And how do we do it? It's an investment in education beginning as early as pre-K and right through the college setting.

Now, I witnessed what happens at our community colleges. We have grown programs for clean-room science. We have those investing in solar application to construction majors, those who are going to be building residences and businesses in our region. They are going to have State of the art know-how to retrofit those buildings with renewable concepts, from solar to wind to geothermal, whatever. So that cutting edge is being offered.

We have an incubator in the region, several incubators. But we have one that incorporates a business that has produced automation in their manufacturing. At Kintz Plastics in Schoharie County, New York--which, by the way, absorbed some of the greatest blows from Mother Nature this past week--but right there in rural Schoharie County, New York, just absolutely replete with heritage and history, in that county, in a rural county, they are providing for automation and advanced manufacturing. That took place because we invested in the CAT concept, an incubator, a Center for Advanced Technology. And there we are getting ideas again that are then put into prototypes that are then further developed into a manufacturing concept that enables us to be competitive with this automation.

But then you need now the skill set to operate these automated networks that are now part of the assembly process. So it's that investment again in the worker, in the brain power. This country will be competitive if we put the tools together, if we provide the tool kit.

And how does it happen? It happens by doing it smarter, and that enables us to cut costs and be competitive in the global market. It's as simple as that. And Make It in America is a pronouncement of a commitment by the Democratic Caucus in the House of Representatives that says let's do the tax packaging, let's do the resource advocacy, let's see the research development incentives that bring together the strongest force of manufacturing.

Manufacturing as a sector was ignored in the last decade and a half. Now this President has said we are going to be about an innovation economy, we are going to be about a clean energy agenda. We are going to be about bolstering our manufacturing sector.

I know there is growing expectation. We are going to hear about Make It In America. We are going to hear about an infrastructure bank. I am convinced that's what we will hear tomorrow, and that will produce for us a far stronger outcome for America's workers and America's potential.

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Mr. TONKO. Right. Their strength, their resilience is infectious. They motivate me. They fill my voice with passion.

Again, I thank you for the wonderful support you have expressed today in caucus to do a stand-alone supplemental bill for the people of this recent tragedy. My district was in the midst of that, as were many others. Forty-seven, I believe, districts were impacted by it. But, Representative Garamendi, I couldn't help but think, as Representative Jackson Lee spoke with such eloquence, that America's most shining moments are when we invested in America, invested in a canal system, invested in an infrastructure program with rail. We invested in a rail system and an interstate system and invested in a race to the moon that unleashed untold amounts of technology. That investment had a bipartisan spirit to it under Republican and Democratic administrations. We were at our shining best when we invested in America.

What do we hear now? Let the free market rule.

Well, go tell it to companies whose countries are co-investing with them. We hear it all the time. They are co-investing in these other countries. In fact, the private sector investment in renewables used to be placing America number one. We slipped to number two to China, and recently slipped to number three after China and Germany. The America I love, the America we all love is not about being number three; we are about being number one, and that's the investment we are talking about.

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Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, I'll try to do this in lightning speed. I think of two things here. People that were impacted by the storms in my district that need to rebuild are also impacted with the loss of jobs. Small businesses that have shut are losing jobs for the community. So it makes sense to bring back those jobs. The dignity of work is what should drive us, what should motivate us. And oftentimes in this equation, as has usually been the tradition, people of most modest means--neighborhoods, communities, people, businesses of modest means, farms of modest means have been impacted here. So we need to respond, and we need to respond with that dignity of work, for the young college grad who has college loans to pay off and is told to come back when you have experience; for the middle-aged person who lost a job through no fault of her own who now needs to continue to work and maybe at the age of 55 is having a tough time landing that work; or seniors who need to supplement their income. Across the age spectrum, we need to be there to provide the dignity of work.

Again, let's give America it's newest shining moment. Let's invest in jobs. Let's make it in America. Let's invest in manufacturing as a sector. We are still perched at the top of the list with manufacturing jobs. We lost too many because the manufacturing sector was ignored. Let's shine that moment again for America.

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