Statement on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, as for the other win for Massachusetts, today I am introducing my first major piece of legislation as a Senator. My bill, the American Renewable Energy and Efficiency Act, will allow every single American to have access to clean energy and money-saving efficiency.

In our slow economic recovery, there has been one very bright spot in Massachusetts and the national economy, the incredible growth of clean energy, energy efficiency, and the jobs that come with these industries.

According to the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, our State alone has gained 20,000 jobs in these sectors since 2010, with another 10,000 new jobs expected in the next year alone. Massachusetts has become the Nation's most energy-efficient State. Boston is ranked as the Nation's most energy-efficient city. Our shores will host the first offshore wind farm, with a new construction terminal built in New Bedford, allowing our fishermen to work alongside our wind energy workers. Massachusetts is No. 7 in the Nation in deploying solar energy, even though we are more well known for the ``Perfect Storm'' than perfectly sunny days.

These advances, these jobs, these technologies have flourished in Massachusetts because we have set the right policies and encouraged our companies to lead.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick set high goals for clean energy deployment in our State, and we have already surpassed them. Boston Mayor Tom Menino wanted Boston to be known as green for just more than the Green Monster in Fenway Park, and he has delivered. Boston is now the greenest city in the United States. That is why I am introducing my first bill as a Senator to take our Massachusetts leadership and make it national.

My bill would require that electricity sold to American consumers increasingly be generated using renewable sources such as wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and biomass. By 2025, the bill would require 25 percent of our electricity to come from the free fuel of the Sun, the wind, and the Earth.

Since the cheapest and the cleanest powerplant is the one we never have to build, my bill would also require utilities to put people to work on large-scale energy efficiency programs.

My bill would build on the efforts of Massachusetts and the 30 other States that already require utilities to provide customers with minimal amounts of renewable electricity and ensure that America joins the 118 other nations that have already established renewable energy goals.

My bill would quadruple renewable energy production in the United States. It would create more than 400,000 new jobs. We can put steelworkers and ironworkers and electricians back to work building the new energy backbone for America, from Massachusetts to Montana.

The energy efficiency measures in my bill would save the average household $39 per year on utility bills, and it would reduce carbon dioxide pollution by the equivalent output of 120 coal-fired powerplants, helping our efforts to battle the advancing tide of dangerous climate change.

A renewable electricity standard passed the House of Representatives twice while I was a Member of the body--as recently as 2009--and it has passed the Senate three times since 2002. Before it was held hostage over the Affordable Care Act, the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill showed there is real bipartisan support for energy efficiency in the Senate. These are policies that should be embraced and not blocked.

If we do not take these steps, we will lose the international race to dominate the multitrillion-dollar clean energy sector. Right now, China has already overtaken the United States as the No. 1 most attractive place to invest in renewable energy. Sixty percent of all new companies going public in the clean energy sector are doing so in China. More than 100,000 clean energy jobs are being created there annually. China now has more wind capacity installed than any other country, and they produce two-thirds of the world's solar panels.

It is time for our country to scale up our clean energy deployment and innovation. It is also time to take a look at revolutionary approaches to driving that innovation. All too often we are unable to move clean energy-related discoveries and breakthroughs out of the labs and into the marketplace.

That is the problem my clean tech consortia legislation addresses. I have included this bill as part of the Manufacturing Jobs for America Initiative, launched this week by Senator Coons and some of my Democratic colleagues. My bill would fertilize America's innovation ecosystems so that scientific breakthroughs can more effectively navigate the so-called valley of death between the lab and the factory and reach their commercial potential.

America's universities and research institutions are truly national treasures, and our venture capitalists and entrepreneurs are the sharpest in the world. When we sprinkle the right mix of scientific brainpower and capitalist drive, we get something uniquely American and extremely potent in terms of its economic impact.

My clean tech consortia bill, which I will soon be introducing, will link inventors with investors, professors with producers and get clean energy out of the laboratories and into the factories. That is the type of partnership we need with the private sector right now in our country.

The other bill I have included in this package, the Manufacturing Jobs for America Initiative, and which I will also be introducing soon, is called the Build America Bonds Initiative. Here is how it works and here is what it does.

When a State or local government wants to build and renovate schools, bridges, roads, and hospitals, they need financing, and they issue a bond. Investors buy those bonds, giving the State capital to hire workers and update infrastructure, and investors get a return in the form of interest. Build America Bonds say to State and local governments: We will help with the interest payments and help put more Americans back to work.

From the inception of this program in April 2009 to when it expired at the end of 2010, there were 2,275 separate bonds issued nationwide, which supported more than $181 billion of financing for new public capital infrastructure projects, such as bridges, schools, and hospitals.

Build America Bonds were a huge success in Massachusetts. My State issued close to $5 billion in bonds. Build America Bonds helped finance Massachusetts' Accelerated Bridge Program, which repaired and rebuilt hundreds of structurally deficient bridges.

Other examples of projects include a new laboratory at UMass Amherst, a new courthouse in Salem, and a new building at the Worcester State Hospital--improving energy efficiency and reducing costs.

I plan to work with my good friends Senator Wyden and Congressman Neal--both leaders on this issue--to ensure we continue to invest in both our infrastructure and our future.

These are the kinds of programs that will put America back to work. I want American workers to build and export wind turbines and solar panels that say ``Made in America,'' instead of the American economy importing millions of barrels of oil a day that say ``Made by OPEC.''

I want American inventors dreaming up the newest energy technologies that convert patent applications for a prototype into job applications on the factory floor. I want American workers repairing our crumbling bridges, roads, and schools.

We are in a terrestrial technology and manufacturing race as important as the celestial race President Kennedy began 50 years ago. These are three of the programs that will put America into a new economic orbit, looking down on our competitors. We should pass all three and put America back to work.

Source