Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, 2014

Floor Speech

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Ms. KAPTUR. I move to strike the last word.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Last year, wind energy was the largest source of new generating capacity in our country, comprising 42 percent of all new generating capacity. Overall, America's wind energy capacity grew by 28 percent. That's an incredible record, and it demonstrates that wind energy is an affordable, reliable source of power that produces no carbon or other air pollution.

But the recent success of wind energy in our country doesn't mean we should stop investing in it. In fact, we need to do more, not less, to develop and deploy new wind energy technologies, and we're busy doing that along the Great Lakes.

Wind energy will play an important role in the transition to a cleaner energy economy. According to the American Wind Energy Association, this year alone U.S. wind projects will avoid nearly 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide being poured into the atmosphere--the equivalent of reducing power sector emissions by over 4 percent or taking more than 17 million cars off the road.

In addition to cutting carbon pollution, investing in wind energy is a boon to our economy. In 2012, the industry supported more than 80,000 full-time equivalent jobs, including more than 25,000 manufacturing jobs at more than 550 facilities. As the global clean energy economy grows, the United States has a tremendous opportunity to attract more investment here and create even more manufacturing jobs, including in Kentucky and Ohio.

But we are at risk of missing out on this opportunity. At a time when the global clean energy market is getting more competitive, the United States has started to lag behind. In 2012, China's level of clean energy financing surpassed our country's for the first time.

Year after year, some House Republicans have pushed budgets and appropriation bills that would slash funding for clean energy and energy-efficiency programs. This appropriation bill is no exception, and Mr. Whitfield's amendment just takes it one step further. Eliminating all Department of Energy wind energy programs is exactly the wrong approach and one that will hurt our Nation's competitiveness in this growing market. It certainly isn't consistent with an all-of-the-above energy strategy.

Some may argue it makes sense to cut government investment in wind energy since it is a more mature technology than some emerging technologies, but wind energy isn't operating on a level playing field. The United States currently provides enormous government subsidies and tax breaks to fossil fuels. In fact, the International Monetary Fund just issued a report finding that the United States provides more subsidies to fossil fuels than any other country in the world, even China. Our annual subsidies total over--get ready for this--one-half of a trillion dollars.

We shouldn't cede the growing global clean energy market to China or make any of our other competitors happy.

And let me just say this, as I know quite a bit about this and Ohio has been fast about wind energy. I represent the Saudi Arabia of wind in the Great Lakes, which is called Lake Erie. Lake Erie also happens to be the warmest of the lakes, so it's a bird haven. On the Mississippi Flyway, we have more fish, fauna, and birds than all the other Great Lakes combined. And with that Mississippi Flyway coming up, we have lots of eagles, we have lots of different types of birds. The cormorants are some that are problematic, but, nonetheless, we are really a bird haven. We've learned that the wind turbines don't cause us any trouble. We have to situate them sometimes 3 miles from shore.

The biggest killer of birds nationwide is cats. So if you really want to look at where the problem is, maybe we need more cat control. But honestly, for the number of turbines that we've erected, what happens, especially when you have a set of turbines operating in the air, they create an updraft and the birds--they are pretty smart--sort of fly above the wind. They're amazing. They float on the pathway that the turbines generate. In addition to that, there are new technologies like strobe lights that are actually affixed to the turbines, and they keep birds away. It's almost like a silent radar in a way. So there are new technologies that are being developed to deal with that.

We actually want birds. We want turbines. We want clean energy. We want all types of energy in our region. We haul coal out of Kentucky to many of our power plants. So we have an all-of-the-above strategy in our region, but we really welcome the wind opportunities.

Cleveland, Ohio, and an investment group called LEEDCo is doing everything possible to move additional turbines onto the Great Lakes.

So I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment. I ask my colleagues to vote against it. And I yield back the balance of my time.

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