[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 147 (Tuesday, September 16, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H8132-H8133]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          CLEAN ENERGY ECONOMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. Inslee) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. INSLEE. I have come this morning to take issue with a comment by 
one of the candidates for President about how our economy is doing 
fine, the fundamentals are strong. I want to say that we have to do 
some major work rebuilding our economy and rebuilding millions of jobs, 
and that we will have a bill on the floor this week that we will 
propose to restore economic growth by rebuilding a new, clean energy 
economy for America.
  We believe that we need to have a new birth of whole new industries 
in America to start to replace the hemorrhaging of jobs that we have 
suffered,

[[Page H8133]]

and we believe that we can do this by building green collar jobs and a 
whole new clean economy for America.
  In the next few days, we will be proposing to the House a 
comprehensive energy bill that will be focused on building new jobs in 
America. And we think Americans deserve this. We think Americans are 
ready for this. And we think it is an American destiny, as we were the 
arsenal of democracy in World War II, to now become the arsenal of 
clean energy for the world.
  I want to talk about some of the things I've learned just in the last 
few months about our ability to grow a new clean energy economy in the 
world.
  I'd like to refer to a photograph taken a few weeks ago in Golden, 
Colorado. This is a photograph taken at the National Renewable Energy 
Lab. This lab is vested with the charge to help build new technologies 
to grow new jobs in America. I want to report this picture, I think, 
encapsulates the potential future for the American transportation 
system and the American new energy system to drive jobs in that 
direction.
  This is a photograph of a photovoltaic array, this panel here that is 
mounted on this pedestal. On the other side of this metal is a 
photovoltaic array that basically captures the sun's energy and 
transfers it to electric energy. This array itself is attached to these 
two cars here. These two cars are plug-in electric cars. These are two 
cars that essentially we will plug in at night, when these cars are on 
the road. And they are mass produced in America.
  These cars plug in at night. We charge them for 8 hours. And then 
they will run about 40 miles on all electricity. So that these cars 
will emit no carbon dioxide. They'll run just on energy and electricity 
for 40 miles. If you want to go more than 40 miles a day, you'll run on 
gasoline or ethanol for the remaining 200, 250-mile range, plus.
  Now the wonderful thing about this, and I've done a lot of research, 
but something I learned, and I was very impressed with the young man at 
the National Renewable Lab that told me that this array right here, 
which isn't a lot larger, you can see, than a rooftop, will charge in 8 
hours, fully charge, two of these plug-in electric cars to run a full 
40 miles on electricity, and they then can run on gasoline an 
additional 200, 250 miles.
  This was a remarkable statement to me because this picture, I 
believe, is Exhibit A in our ability to totally revolutionize our 
transportation system and grow millions of new jobs in America to do 
that. Let me give you an example of that.
  These photovoltaic arrays are now being manufactured in America, not 
just in the silicone-based systems that we're familiar with, but 2 
months ago at the Nano Solar Company in California, Americans produced 
the first thin-cell photovoltaic to actually have a revolutionary 
system that is 30 to 40 percent less expensive for a lot of energy 
coming from these photovoltaic arrays. Those are manufacturing jobs in 
America.
  General Motors is getting ready in 2010 or 2011 to mass produce the 
first plug-in electric car in America, where we are going to put 
Americans to work in this manufacturing process.
  This is why I mention this. We will have a bill on the floor in the 
next few days that will truly advance these manufacturing millions of 
new green collar jobs in solar, in plug-in electric cars, by doing 
several things. It will create a tax code that will give benefits to 
companies to manufacture these products. It will give tax breaks to 
Americans to buy these products. It will create a 15 percent 
requirement that our utilities use these new, clean energy sources. It 
will create a research and development fund to help do the research to 
bring these to market.
  And my Republican colleagues, I will call on them and we will call on 
them to join us in a comprehensive bill to truly help the development 
of these new technologies. We hope they will abandon their shortsighted 
view that these technologies aren't the future. This is the future.

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