Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, 2014
Floor Speech
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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I appreciate Chairman Frelinghuysen's able and collegial leadership throughout this process and efforts to assemble a bill in an inclusive manner in our subcommittee. I also want to say what a pleasure it was to work with him, and I wish all subcommittees could work as effectively.
I want to thank Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Lowey for their efforts to restore a semblance of regular order to this House in consideration of our appropriations bills, and I want to thank all members of our subcommittee for their thoughtful deliberation in considering the best interests of our Nation as they relate to energy and water development and, importantly, America's nuclear security.
I appreciate the dedication, hard work, and sound judgment of our committee staff on both sides of the aisle. On the majority committee staff side: Rob Blair, Ben Hammond, Loraine Heckenberg, Angie Giancarlo, Perry Yates, and Adam Borrelli. And on the minority committee staff side: Taunja Berquam; from the Chairman's personal office, Katie Hazlett and Nancy Fox; and finally my staff, Ryan Steyer, Nathan Facey, and Steve Fought.
While Chairman Frelinghuysen's worthy efforts are to be commended in the highest way, the allocation imposed on our subcommittee by the Republican leaders of this House, and its Budget Committee, move America backwards in a global economy where our Nation's future is at stake.
The Budget Committee's directive to us reminds me of a seafaring expression: ``If you don't know which way your ship is headed, you're bound to run aground or die at sea.''
This bill runs America aground. It says to future generations, we'll risk your lives floating lost at sea. It's simply inadequate to meet the needs of our Nation.
America's budget deficit spiked because high unemployment, resulting from Wall Street's abandon and over a decade of war, caused high unemployment that reduced Federal revenues.
This bill will not embrace the future, nor create the necessary jobs to reverse that trend and lift up America's working families. Our focus has to be on the future, on creating jobs and opportunity, with every single measure that comes before this House.
Foreign energy dependence is our Nation's chief strategic vul ner a bil ity. This bill abandons America's quest for energy independence, which has the potential to create millions of new jobs.
For every American life lost in pursuit of our Nation's national security, now dependent on energy imports, I dedicate my work on this bill today. And I also dedicate my work on the floor in memory of Judge Francis ``Buddy'' Restivo, a World War II veteran who passed this weekend, and just a phenomenal citizen of our country.
This bill not only guts funding for alternative energy research and development, it officially heralds the Republican majority's embrace of sequestration.
Sequestration is the most vivid symbol of congressional negligence. With that one dreadful bill, the Republican majority manages not only to turn its back on energy independence, but also to surrender its congressional responsibility to manage the budget of our country responsibly. The majority has waved the white flag.
This year, in the Lake Erie region, we are celebrating the heroics of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, hero of the pivotal battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812. Oliver Hazard Perry's motto was ``Don't give up the ship.''
The majority's motto is ``We just give up.'' We give up trying to perform our constitutional responsibilities with respect to fiscal affairs. We give up trying to create the much-needed jobs that will restore our fiscal footing. We give up trying to help America break free of its dependence on imported petroleum. We just give up. Let the mindless sequester be the status quo.
It's no mystery why Congress' approval ratings have hit an all-time low. This policy is running our economic ship of state aground when we need full sail ahead.
The allocation for the energy and water bill is $30.4 billion, which is $4.1 billion below the administration's request and $2.8 billion below last year's level. There are further allocation cuts beyond even sequestration levels, resulting in deep and severe reductions made to important priorities within the bill.
The chairman worked to include resources for many Federal priorities, including the Corps of Engineers, the Advanced Manufacturing Office, nuclear safety and cleanup, and the bill also prioritizes some of the nuclear security programs.
But funding these programs came at the expense of others so vital to future energy systems for our Nation, including renewable energy, cut by nearly 60 percent, and advanced energy research at ARPA-E, which received an 81 percent reduction.
Shortchanging critical energy and infrastructure investments will slow economic growth and job creation, hindering America's competitiveness.
Let us look at the water accounts. We must continue to invest in America. The scope of damage caused by natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy have laid bare the inadequacies of our water infrastructure.
The Corps of Engineers budget currently has a backlog of authorized projects in excess of $60 billion from coast to coast. But this bill continues a steady decline in water resources infrastructure, reducing the construction account by $304 million from 2013.
Communities across our country will continue to erode as they experience, firsthand, this decreased investment. The risks illustrated by the failure of flood control projects that the American people endured in the wake of Katrina are not gone. Communities across our country are in desperate need of investment, but this bill shortcuts that.
Take St. Louis, Missouri, or Sacramento, California, where a levee break could leave residents with as little as 20 minutes to flee before the water gets 1 foot deep, are just two examples of major metropolitan areas where the Corps must work harder and faster toward more comprehensive protection.
What sense does cleaning up after natural disasters make when preventive measures could prevent destruction and loss of life?
We should be doing more to build infrastructure and create jobs, not less. Investments now will yield future benefits that will far outweigh repayment costs. That is what the Hoover Dam was all about. That is what our Mississippi River lock and dam system is all about. That is what electrifying our Nation, rural and urban, was all about, great visions for a great Nation, not Lilliputian surrender.
On future energy systems, this bill would slash funding for applied energy research and development by more than half, even as foreign competition doubles down to develop 21st century technology while undermining our markets through illegal dumping and intellectual property theft.
Renewable energy is a vital leg of future energy independence beyond the fossil fuel age. It will achieve cost competitiveness, but the question is, which
countries will develop and own those technologies?
The United States has spent $2.3 trillion importing foreign petroleum since 2003, representing thousands and thousands of dollars out of the pockets of every hardworking American family. These are dollars diverted not to much-needed American job creation but overseas, assisting our competitors in developing their economies and their energy futures. We are ceding millions of jobs and trillions in income from this country to undemocratic kingdoms far from home.
Wake up, America. Wake up, Congress.
In 2012, every billion dollars of U.S. exports supported nearly 5,000 jobs here at home. But can you imagine what $2.3 trillion in our energy trade deficit translates into lost jobs in America over the last 10 years?
It's a hemorrhage. Our Republic will not compete in this 21st century and beyond if we further reduce investments in this area and cede our energy future to other countries.
Predatory foreign competition in energy poses a real security threat to our country. I view it as the chief security threat to our country. I appreciate the chairman's commitment to ensure that technology developed with taxpayer dollars benefits our Nation first.
The Department of Energy, however, must do more to ensure that intellectual property supported by Federal dollars furthers the interests of the United States economy. And I'm concerned with the level of funding, but I appreciate the chairman's commitment to American manufacturing in this bill.
Manufacturing remains one of the most important job drivers in our economy, and there is little merit in using Federal dollars to foster technological advances or breakthroughs for products that are not ultimately made in America and manufactured domestically.
America must do more to reverse the trend of domestic firms shifting production overseas because, to put it simply, domestic manufacturing drives domestic innovation and jobs here in America.
Tragically, the science account critical to the competitiveness of our Nation is reduced by 5 percent from 2012. And, with an 81 percent reduction, 81 percent reduction in the new ARPA-E program, this bill would effectively end the most advanced research our Nation can launch. That is not a formula for success.
We are beginning to see the initial payment from the ARPA-E, which advances high-potential, high-impact energy technology so advanced it is too early for private sector investment. Return on investment from our publicly-funded research and development ranges from 20 to 67 percent. It's a home run.
With this rate of return, Congress should be increasing our investment in science. This bill moves us exactly in the opposite direction.
Finally, I remain concerned this bill increases spending for nuclear weapons upgrades at the expense of nuclear nonproliferation and cleanup. I support the funding to maintain our nuclear arsenal at acceptable levels, and I appreciate the efforts to improve program and project management, including the reporting requirement on Life Extension Programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration.
However, nonproliferation programs are on the front lines of our defense. They are the most cost-effective way to achieve the urgent goal of securing and reducing the amount of vulnerable bomb-grade material. But this bill cuts these critical efforts by $559 million.
What sense does that make?
Further, I am concerned that the funding the bill includes for environmental management activities is insufficient to meet the Federal Government's legal obligations to clean up its defense nuclear waste.
In sum, this bill should achieve critical investments in our country. It fails to do so. It should promote job creation. It fails to do so. It should ensure national energy security and national security. It fails to do so. It should protect and promote vital infrastructure. It fails to do so. And it should advance American competitiveness, and it fails to do so.
Unfortunately, Republicans on the Budget Committee continue to push the outrageous notion that we can balance our budget through cuts to non-defense discretionary spending, which accounts for only 17 percent of Federal spending. In so doing, they harm America's future in a very major way.
Again, I commend the chairman's effort, however the allocation for this bill is insufficient and irresponsible and I cannot, in good conscience, support it.
It is my firm hope that the committee will be provided a workable path toward the fiscal 2014 appropriation bills, and I look forward to the day we will return allocations to acceptable levels and to working with the chairman to draft a bill worthy of support.
Let me, before reserving the balance of my time, read that quote right up there above the Speaker's rostrum.
Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered.
That is our charge in this bill, and this bill fails.
Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), our very able ranking member of the Appropriations Committee.
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Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California, Representative Bera.
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Ms. KAPTUR. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.
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Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California, Representative Janice Hahn.
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Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Chair, we have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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