Bring Jobs Home Act--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, today the Senate is considering legislation to end tax breaks included in our own Internal Revenue Code that actually help companies that want to ship American jobs overseas. The Bring Jobs Home Act provides not only a tax credit to encourage companies to move jobs back to the United States, but it would end those tax breaks that help companies ship jobs overseas.

Offshoring of American jobs has hurt the middle class and it continues to be a real problem. There is no good reason we should continue giving companies an incentive to offshore good American jobs.

We can address high unemployment by encouraging companies to bring jobs back to the United States, and the tax credits in this bill will help to reverse the trend and put Americans back to work. In fact, this incentive could help bring 2 million to 3 million jobs back to the United States, according to some economic estimates. So I hope all of our colleagues will support this bill.

I also wish to take a few minutes to talk about another way that I think we in the Senate and in Congress could work together in a bipartisan way to create jobs and help the economy. Today I filed an amendment, along with Senator Portman from Ohio, that provides us with a great opportunity to create jobs in America. This amendment is the text of S. 1000. It is the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act, which is a bipartisan bill sponsored by Senator Portman and myself that will create a national energy efficiency strategy for the United States.

Energy efficiency is the cheapest and fastest way to improve our Nation's energy infrastructure and our economy's energy independence. It is also something we can all agree on. Whether we are from the Northeast, as I am in New Hampshire, from the South, from the West--all of us can benefit from energy efficiency.

What our bill would do, which is the amendment we filed today, is create jobs for our workers, lower energy costs for consumers, and make businesses more competitive. In fact, a recent study by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy concluded that our bill would create almost 80,000 jobs and save consumers $4 billion by 2020.

Also, S. 1000 has broad support on both sides of the aisle. It passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee with an 18-to-3 vote. In addition, there is a large and diverse group of industry, energy efficiency, and environmental stakeholders who have endorsed the bill. That list includes the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Alliance to Save Energy, the National Resources Defense Council, Best Buy, and the Environmental Defense Fund just to name a few of the organizations on the list.

Anytime we can get organizations as diverse as the ones I just listed to endorse one piece of legislation, it is clear there is broad bipartisan support for the effort. This legislation contains a broad package of low-cost and effective tools to reduce barriers for businesses, homeowners, and consumers who want to adopt off-the-shelf technologies, so we don't have to wait for something to happen in order for the bill to make a difference. These are all efforts that will help consumers, businesses, and homeowners save money.

This is an easy first step to make our economy more competitive and our Nation more secure while still meeting pent-up demand for these energy-saving technologies from individuals and business alike.

The American public is desperately looking for Congress to work in a bipartisan way on policies to spur growth and create jobs. Energy efficiency legislation represents our best chance to achieve both of those goals this year.

We need to get some energy legislation to the floor. I have had the great opportunity to work for the last 4 years with Senator Jeff Bingaman and Senator Lisa Murkowski, the chair and ranking members of the Energy Committee. We have done some great work in our committee. We passed significant pieces of bipartisan legislation out of the committee. In fact, there are 15 pieces of legislation that have been passed and all but one of those with strong bipartisan votes. Those pieces of legislation are just sitting in committee because we have not been able to get an agreement to bring them to the floor.

We can get an energy efficiency policy in place. We can pass this legislation. That kind of an energy efficiency policy would be one that enhances our national security, addresses our energy needs, and puts Americans back to work. We can do it in this Congress if we can bring the Shaheen-Portman energy bill to the Senate floor for a vote. That is what this amendment would do. I hope we have that opportunity.

Thank you very much, Madam President. I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

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