[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 77 (Tuesday, May 19, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H5717]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              REGIONAL IMPACTS OF CLEAN ENERGY LEGISLATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Connolly) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONNOLLY of Virginia. I thank the Speaker.
  Today, I rise as a southern Congressman to discuss the regional 
impacts, Mr. Speaker, on clean energy legislation and on a renewable 
electricity standard in particular.
  We have heard that it is impossible to have a national renewable 
electricity standard, because different States have different renewable 
energy resources, and that the southeastern United States, in 
particular, would be unable to meet targets established by the 
renewable electricity standard in the draft American Clean Energy and 
Security Act now being considered by the Energy and Commerce Committee 
of this body.
  I represent a State in which there is not a single utility-scale 
renewable generation facility. The Virginia General Assembly has not 
enacted a mandatory renewable electricity standard, so we have failed 
to create market certainty for firms that would invest in renewable 
energy otherwise. In contrast, New Jersey has 44 megawatts of grid-
connected solar capacity, fueled in part by a 22.5 percent renewable 
electricity standard with solar set aside. New Jersey has more than 
twice as much grid-connected solar energy generation than the total for 
all States without a renewable electricity standard, including 
Virginia, even though it has less solar exposure than any State in the 
Southeast. What we have witnessed in the Southeast is not a lack of 
natural resources but, perhaps, a lack of political will.
  Since we are in the midst of the most severe economic contraction 
since the Great Depression, the clean energy jobs legislation before us 
represents not an academic debate but, rather, an opportunity to spur 
economic growth and to reduce greenhouse gas pollution based in 
successful policies that have been enacted at home and abroad.
  Just as more than half of our States have enacted successful 
renewable electricity standards, so too have other nations. Germany, 
for example, has a lower solar exposure than almost all of the United 
States, and yet it is the world's leader in renewable energy, as 
documented in a recent article in the National Journal. In the last 
decade, the number of Germans employed in the renewable energy sector 
has grown from 30,000 to 280,000. Germany has installed 22,247 
megawatts of wind energy and 3,811 megawatts of solar photovoltaic. 
Strong mandatory incentives for renewable energy have fueled this jobs 
boom in Germany.
  The number of coal mining jobs in the United States has fallen by 50 
percent in the last three decades, principally due to mechanization. 
Those coal jobs disappeared from States like Virginia and West 
Virginia, which lack incentives for renewable energy. In Germany, on 
the other hand, the number of coal mining jobs also has fallen, but the 
number of renewable energy jobs created has more than offset the lost 
jobs by a factor of five. Unfortunately, many U.S. companies, like 
First Solar, have built factories in Germany rather than here in 
America because Germany had requirements for renewable energy 
production.
  The minority claims that a clean energy bill will result in net job 
losses, but in reality, we are losing jobs right now because we do not 
have a stronger clean energy policy. We cannot cling to antiquated 
modes of energy production that are hemorrhaging jobs and then expect 
to achieve, much less expedite, an economic recovery here at home. If 
we are to drive economic growth, we must invest in innovation and in 
job creation, not in exhausted resources and outmoded systems of 
production.
  Here in the South, where we have not benefited from strong renewable 
energy incentives, we need a national renewable electricity standard to 
create new jobs in both mill towns that have lost jobs overseas and in 
prosperous business centers such as those I represent in northern 
Virginia. The Southeast has wind resources in the Continental Shelf, in 
the Appalachian Mountains, and it has good solar exposure throughout 
our entire region.
  Now is the time, Mr. Speaker, to exploit those natural resources and 
to produce energy right here at home. Now is the time to pass clean 
energy jobs legislation with a strong renewable electricity standard.

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