[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 59 (Wednesday, April 22, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E927]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         RECOGNIZING EARTH DAY

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                         HON. PATRICK J. TIBERI

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 22, 2009

  Mr. TIBERI. Madam Speaker, as many of my colleagues know, today is 
Earth Day.
  Earth Day is dedicated to raising awareness of how we can all be good 
stewards of our environment and leave our world better than we 
inherited it for future generations.
  An important task to achieve this laudable objective is a 
comprehensive federal energy policy, one which puts all options on the 
table for debate and discussion. In other words, an ``all of the 
above'' approach.
  Included in this energy policy will be exciting new technologies 
which incorporate more efficient, cleaner and safer ways to harness 
energy from the sun and our natural resources. There will also be an 
expansion of common-sense practices to conserve our resources.
  One such method is recycling. We're familiar with recyclables, as 
more and more Americans chose to participate in local recycling 
programs nationwide. Recycling results in a net reduction in ten major 
categories of air pollutants and eight major categories of water 
pollutants. To put this in perspective, a national recycling rate of 30 
percent reduces greenhouse gas emissions as much as removing nearly 25 
million cars from the road.
  One vital contributor is the scrap recycling industry. In these 
challenging economic times, the scrap recycling industry employs more 
than 85,000 workers while providing high-quality products at lower 
costs, thus strengthening our economy.
  Each year the scrap recycling industry keeps over 160 million tons of 
material out of landfills. Recycled aluminum saves our country 95 
percent of the energy that would have been required to make new 
aluminum from ore. It also invests significant capital in high-tech, 
environmentally-designed manufacturing machinery that is used to sort, 
pack, transform, process, manufacture and ship materials to become new 
products.
  As a member of the House Recycling Caucus, I believe Congress must 
continue to build our partnership with the scrap recycling industry. 
Last year's Recycling Investment Saves Energy tax credit has been well 
received, and I think we all agree that more can be done.
  On this Earth Day I would like to thank the scrap recycling industry 
for the dedication to strengthening our economy in earth friendly way.

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