[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 65 (Thursday, May 12, 2011)]
[House]
[Page H3227]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           INFRASTRUCTURE, JOBS, AND ENERGY INDEPENDENCE ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MURPHY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, a gallon of gas is over $4, 
heading to $5. The average family spends $2,200 more on gas than they 
did 2 years ago. Fourteen million Americans are out of work and 
wondering how they are going to put food on the table. America's 
infrastructure is crumbling. A quarter of our bridges are structurally 
deficient.
  The American Society of Civil Engineers says all our infrastructure 
needs are going to cost over $2 trillion for roads, bridges, water, 
sewer systems, airports, locks and dams. Where will we find the money?
  Well, we send $100 billion each day to foreign nations for oil. OPEC 
exerts control over world oil prices and wants it to be $200 per 
barrel. We are 60 percent dependent on foreign oil, and climbing. As a 
country, we waste 20 to 40 percent of our energy in inefficient 
buildings and factories.
  Mr. Speaker, we want clean air and water. We want to see our highways 
and bridges fixed. We want clean power plants, lower energy prices, and 
don't pollute our environment. But where will the money come from?
  Today, my colleagues and I on the Energy Working Group are 
introducing the Infrastructure, Jobs, and Energy Independence Act, a 
bipartisan bill that for the first time brings forward a comprehensive 
plan to rebuild America, take back our energy future, and create 
millions of jobs. We can become energy independent, we can create these 
jobs, and we can do it all without raising taxes or adding to the 
national debt.
  How? Well, America has enough offshore reserves to replace all oil 
imports from Venezuela and Saudi Arabia for the next 80 years and 
enough clean natural gas to power industry for the next 63 years. Yet 
the drilling moratorium means that instead of using our own resources 
to grow jobs, we are supporting the economies of unstable regimes that 
want to do us harm.
  Our plan opens the door to the safe, responsible expansion of energy 
production off our coasts, where there is $8 trillion worth of economic 
output in oil and gas reserves offshore. Over 20 years, that translates 
to between $2.5 trillion and $3.7 trillion in new Federal revenues, 
from lease rights and royalties, without raising taxes.
  That is $440 billion for infrastructure of our roads and bridges; 
$330 billion that we will invest in renewable energy sources and 
buildings and transportation; $220 billion for clean coal technology; 
$88 billion for environmental restoration to clean up our lakes, bays, 
rivers and streams; $66 billion in energy conservation; $110 billion 
for carbon-free technology and nuclear energy development; $66 billion 
to rebuild our water and sewer systems in small towns and big cities 
all across America; $44 billion for LIHEAP; and $660 billion for States 
that are producing; and also several hundred billion to pay down the 
national debt.
  Mr. Speaker, there is a plan for jobs and energy in America, and this 
is the plan that estimates are will create about 1 million jobs each 
year, new jobs in building highways and bridges, new jobs in developing 
our energy resources. And we can do it all.
  I ask my colleagues to support the Infrastructure, Jobs, and Energy 
Independence Act. Let's rebuild America, let's create jobs without 
raising taxes, let's stop borrowing from foreign nations, let's pay 
down our national debt, let's stop buying from OPEC, and let's use our 
rules and our laws to make sure we do all of this in a way that is 
environmentally sound so we can create jobs and have energy 
independence for this and the next generation.

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