Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, 2014
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. TONKO. First, I would like to thank Representative Welch and Representative Sablan for working with me on this amendment, and I thank the gen tle lady from Ohio for the opportunity to chair the amendment in the House.
Madam Chair, this bill would be fine if we were still living in the 1950s, in a world where we had few energy limitations, no knowledge of the fact that burning fossil fuels would alter the chemistry of our atmosphere and the trajectory of our Earth's climate. We lived in a world where energy was much more affordable and a world where the United States was the dominant economic and manufacturing power. It was also a time when there were two nuclear powers, and we believed that nuclear weapons were a guarantee of security.
Well, it is not the 1950s, and this bill does not meet our present or future needs. The overall funding level is too small, and the funding distribution reflects the wrong priorities. Our amendment addresses just two of the important programs that are grossly underfunded in this bill: the Weatherization Assistance Program and the State Energy Program.
Energy is a significant part of families' budgets, and its cost is especially burdensome for low-income families and the elderly who live on fixed incomes. Burning fossil fuels generates emissions that are leading us into a much warmer future and one with unstable, unusual weather patterns. We cannot afford to reduce our support of energy efficiency.
Our amendment provides additional funds in the Energy Efficiency account to raise the funding for the State Energy Program from the $12 million in the bill to $50 million. In addition, it provides an increase of $107 million for the Weatherization Assistance Program to restore this program to $184 million, a level that will provide benefits to homeowners across this country.
The Weatherization Assistance Program is the largest residential efficiency program in the Nation. The sequestration and low allocation for fiscal year 2013 have put this important program at risk in many of our States.
The demand has not gone away. Individual consumers are still faced with significant energy bills, and those who are elderly or disabled or whose income is not sufficient to make investments in weatherization themselves rely heavily on this program for assistance.
The amendment also restores funds for the State Energy Program. SEP is a cost-shared program, a partnership between the Federal Government and the States. The State Energy Program enables States to assist with the development of energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, such as improving the efficiency at our hospitals and our schools, working with utilities and energy service companies to install clean energy and energy efficiency projects, and supporting private sector energy innovations through business incubators and job training.
Each dollar of SEP funding produces significant returns. A study by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory found that every dollar of SEP Federal funds are leveraged by $10.71 of State and private funds and results in $7.22 in energy cost savings.
The modest investments we have made in these two programs have paid
for themselves many times over throughout the country. They have produced benefits in the form of better insulated, more comfortable homes, jobs, savings on energy bills, product improvements, and greater energy security.
We continue to ignore problems, neglect our infrastructure, and disinvest in our communities at our peril. These programs make a modest but important contribution to job creation and energy security. I urge you to support this amendment and keep the important work done through these programs moving forward.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source