Insular Areas and Freely Associated States Energy Development
Floor Speech
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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member of the full
committee, Nita Lowey of New York, and the chairman, Hal Rogers, for
the perseverance they have shown throughout this process. I rise to
address the bill before us to fund the departments of the government of
the United States for the federal fiscal year 2015 which incidentally
began over 2 months ago.
Though 2 months late and a Christmas tree bill at that, what is very
troubling in this measure are dangerous and unwelcome nongermane
riders--like opening the door to more Wall Street abuse and reckless
behavior with swaps and derivatives. Haven't those megabanks hurt America enough? What is this doing in this bill? This underhanded inclusion of authorizing language does not belong in this bill. This subterfuge reminds me of a similar effort in 2000 to bury language in a Continuing Appropriations bill to not regulate derivatives at all. Look what that did to our economy.
I recognize that not passing this bill can severely hamper our
economic recovery and job creation. Many of us view these as the top
priorities our constituents have sent us here to achieve. Job growth
this past month increased again by 321,000, as the unemployment rate
dropped to 5.8 percent nationwide.
We have gained 10 million private sector jobs since President Obama
took office amid the deepest recession in modern history, but still,
9.1 million Americans remain unemployed. This bill will promote future
economic growth which is in America's interests.
There should never be a question whether the government of the United
States will remain open for business and honor its commitments and
contracts.
Further, this appropriations bill is within budget limits. Indeed,
our deficit has been going down year after year as employment increases
and revenues with it.
The annual deficit has dropped from $1.3 trillion in 2010 to an
estimated $469 billion for 2015, an enormous improvement made possible
by steady economic growth. Our pace needs to continue.
The Energy and Water portion of this bill assures America will
continue its decathlon toward energy independence and energy
diversification, a major strategic objective for our Nation--some would
argue the highest.
An all-of-the-above energy strategy is strengthening our Nation here
at home financially and militarily as fewer imports are required and
new energy jobs are created within the borders of the United States.
The energy trade deficit, by the way, for our Nation has been on a
downward path.
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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady.
The energy trade deficit for our Nation has been on a downward path
from 4.7 billion barrels in 2008 to 3.6 billion barrels in 2013. That
is real progress, and you can even see it in falling gasoline prices
across this country.
Our bill will support thousands of jobs through the Army Corps of
Engineers in developing infrastructure, and the bill provides $922
million above the request to meet an unmet enormous backlog.
This bill as a whole is far from perfect, yet our Congress must work
toward keeping our economy and jobs growing through giving certainty to
the public that Congress can operate our ship of state.
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