[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 17, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3126-S3127]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           AMERICA'S ECONOMY

  Mr. REID. Madam President, 8 years of greed and negligence have left 
our country with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. 
President Obama took office in an economic climate that no President 
would relish: staggering job loss, the largest national debt in 
history, a frozen credit market, major banks teetering on the edge of 
insolvency, a record foreclosure rate forcing millions of families to 
lose their jobs and their homes, a stock market in freefall, leaving 
senior citizens to put retirement on hold and putting the economic 
security of millions more at risk.
  The first job of any doctor is to stabilize a patient. In the first 2 
months of

[[Page S3127]]

his administration, President Obama has started to stop the bleeding 
and begun to heal our economy. The cornerstone of the President's near-
term plan to end the freefall he inherited is the Economic Recovery 
Act, which will save and create 3.5 million jobs, while making 
critically needed investments in roads, bridges, tunnels, education, 
health care, and energy.
  President Obama, along with Democrats in Congress, understands that 
as deep as our immediate problems may be, the worst mistake we could 
make is to stop investing for the future.
  That is why the President's budget proposal lays the groundwork for 
an economy that just doesn't recover in the short term but also 
prospers in the long term. That starts with ending the previous 
administration's era of passing the buck, refusing to make tough 
choices, to plan for the future, or to hold anyone accountable for 
greed and corruption.
  There will be no accounting tricks in the Obama budget. There will be 
honesty, accountability, lower taxes for working families, smart 
investments for a long-term prosperity that reaches beyond the 
privileged to lift up the middle class.
  One of the most critical investments we can make today is in a new 
national energy policy that finally begins to end our addiction to oil. 
Since the first Model-T Ford left the assembly line more than 80 years 
ago, the risks associated with oil consumption have been known. Today, 
we face a three-pronged oil crisis threatening our economy, our 
national security, and our environment.
  After years of writing bigger and bigger checks to foreign nations 
for more and more barrels of oil, this budget finally takes the logical 
approach that all Americans understand: We need to reduce our 
consumption, and we need to find new renewable sources of clean energy 
that we can grow, creating hundreds of thousands of good jobs right 
here at home.
  We must make these investments now and, if we do, we will not only 
accomplish those goals but also lower future energy bills for every 
single American consumer, and we will save money for all middle-class 
families.
  Remember, last year, we spent, buying oil from foreign nations, about 
a half trillion dollars, which is money that should have stayed at 
home. That is why President Obama is proposing a market-based cap on 
carbon pollution to drive production of renewable fuels and energy-
efficient technology and reward companies that lead the way.
  This budget will also invest $15 billion a year to develop the 
renewable sources of energy that lie literally all around us--in the 
Sun, the wind, and just beneath the Earth in geothermal. All across 
America, the work of tapping these plentiful energy sources is 
underway.
  In Pennsylvania, renewable energy has sparked more than $1 billion in 
private investment. In Iowa, shuttered factories have reopened to build 
parts for wind turbines. In Nevada, a State called the ``Saudi Arabia 
of renewable energy,'' we already have enough renewable energy projects 
in operation to heat and cool hundreds of thousands of homes--without a 
drop of oil.
  If we make renewable energy a priority in this budget, these projects 
will just be the beginning. The solar power in Nevada and the desert 
Southwest alone could meet our entire energy needs 7 times over--the 
needs of this country.
  The wind energy in the Great Plains, the Midwest, and off both of our 
coasts is similarly abundant. The potential for geothermal energy--
still largely untapped--is staggering.
  Until recently, all of these outstanding projects have been moving 
forward with little, if any, Federal support. Our landscape is dotted 
with renewable energy projects, but right now we are not connecting the 
dots. The renewable energy is where people don't live; we need to bring 
that energy to where people live.
  The fact that we are not connecting the dots has to end, and it will 
end when we begin to invest in a smarter and greener transmission grid 
that brings renewable energy from the places that produce it to the 
places that will use it.
  We should be catalyzing the work of private sector innovators who are 
carrying the green revolution on their shoulders. Every job created by 
a new renewable energy project in California, Utah, Illinois, Nevada, 
or Iowa is a job that could never be shipped overseas.
  Some on the other side may try to protect our country's biggest 
corporate polluters from cleaning up their act. Some may say that in 
this time of economic crisis, we should not be investing in our future. 
Some may criticize the President's budget, yet refuse to offer ideas of 
their own.
  Over the next several weeks, we have the opportunity to engage in a 
serious and vigorous debate over this budget and the priorities it 
reflects.
  I urge all my colleagues to choose sound policy over sound bites. We 
may not agree on everything, but I know we can agree that after 8 long 
years of irresponsibility, we must pass a budget that puts the American 
people first.

                          ____________________