The Safe Climate Caucus
Floor Speech
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Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative Blumenauer, for leading us in this discussion. I appreciate the fact that you've brought together this thoughtful discussion, this dialogue on how we need to embrace a stronger sense of stewardship with our environment that ties to our energy policy, that ties to our economic recovery opportunities.
I have to first and foremost mention that you're right; I headed the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority in the State of New York, my last workstation before serving here in the House. I was totally surrounded by consummate professionals who make it their role, their job, their advocacy, their vocation to make a difference with energy policy that allows us to be stronger stewards of our environment and to advance this effort for renewables, for innovation that allows us to reduce that mountain of electrons that we require for the workplace, the home place, for quality of life, and allows us to use that in much more useful, measured terms so that energy efficiency is seen as our fuel of choice and that that comes before any of our energy thinking. And that provides for a greener outcome that allows us to address this phenomenon of climate change.
Now, whether or not you believe in climate change--and to me, the scientific evidence is insurmountable--but see it as an opportunity for good-paying jobs, jobs that advance research and innovation and intellect and ideas as an economy that can then transition us into a very powerful economic recovery.
But I want to make certain that I introduce onto this floor the discussion about Mother Nature and its grip on the 20th Congressional District and, before redistricting, when I represented the 21st, as major storms Irene and Lee impacted my region. People had lost,
Representative Blumenauer, everything for which they ever worked--houses swept into the river through storms that just, through the force of Mother Nature, overpowered communities.
Many houses were destroyed. Heritage crown jewel items in the region that were visitation centers and destinations, destroyed. Covered bridge, historic in nature, wiped away through the ravages of water.
This was a profound impact. Lives lost, many injured. Communities are still rebuilding, businesses are coming back, households are still abandoned. The efforts have been powerful. We've witnessed volunteerism to the Nth degree, a tremendous statement about the human heart to respond to the needs of neighbors and at times total strangers. And then this year, seeing what had happened with the ravages of Sandy, Superstorm Sandy, that impacted New England, impacted metro New York, New Jersey and beyond, Pennsylvania. These are atypical situations. Tornadoes, tropical storms, hurricanes as far north as upstate New York had been unheard of.
So there is a statement that Mother Nature is making. We are faced with this climate change phenomenon, a concept that we need to address in scientific measure, in ways that allow us to constructively build a plan that allows us to move forward, again, by enhancing the opportunities for job creation.
What I had seen through the advocacy at NYSERDA, the State Energy Research and Development Authority, was this effort for us to be the keepers of the funds that would go towards innovating and transitioning into a better reliance on renewables, using in a benign way the environment qualities that surround us--the winds, the sun, the soil, the water--in a way that allows us to respond to the needs that we have as a society for energy and to do it through intellect. The intellectual capacity of our Nation is something we constantly cultivate through education, training, higher ed, apprenticeship programs. These are forces that can then bear good news of invention, of innovation.
I have the renewable center for GE, the international center in the heart of my district. We have the R&D lab in Niskayuna. All of these places are working in a way to allow for us to look at new battery design, the linchpin to innovation that allows us to embrace, perhaps, storage of intermittence power, that it makes it more predictable and of more useful capacity. Investment in cable that allows for less line loss in the delivery, in the transporting of electrons to the source.
There are many, many ways that we can be significantly sensitive to the demands on our society for energy and not to be wasteful, to be innovative in our approach, and to green up our thinking.
I'll say this--and I know we have others that want to speak. When I first arrived here in 2009, after the 2008 election for my first term to serve in the House, I was able to sit at the table when we formed, as Democrats, SEEC, the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition. It's a group of like-minded thinkers who want to take us in a green direction, with progressive politics, and enable us to think outside the barrel, to be able to be clever in our approach to provide for new ways to meet society's needs, to open the door to job creation, to provide for soundness of outcomes in a sustainable way that allows us to make a very bold and noble statement, and that is typically this: that we inherit this environment for the moment, and it is our task, I believe, morally to hand it over to the next generations in even better stead.
That is a daunting challenge these days. It's a daunting challenge. But in my heart I believe that we can accomplish what we need to accomplish. We can respond to the challenge by opening up to new thinking, and to not be restrained and restricted by status quo or by the disbelief that these things are happening right before our very eyes, right in the heart of our communities.
I wanted to make certain that I shared the impact on my district of Mother Nature and the clarion call to respond with urgency and with in-depth knowledge, driven by the passion to make a difference because there is always that pioneer spirit in America, and we're at our best when we embrace that inspiration and move forward as a Nation.
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Mr. TONKO. Representative, if I might just add to that statement, the many discussions I have had with constituents who say where is the wisdom in sending hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign nations--oftentimes enemies of this country--who are using American energy consumer dollars to train troops to fight our son and daughters on the battlefield.
This is a no-brainer. This gluttonous dependency on fossil-based fuels, imported to keep our energy agenda alive, has got to stop. We need to move forward--again, with the progressive thinking that I know we can embrace in this House. Get it done. So I thank you again for your leadership in this dimension.
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