[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 135 (Tuesday, September 13, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H6129-H6135]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  JOBS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  It's an important topic these days when we refer to jobs--jobs in 
America, jobs that we retain, jobs that we create.
  The overwhelming issue right now in the minds and hearts of 
constituents across this country, I firmly believe, is about the 
dignity of work, jobs that need to be strengthened out there in number 
so as to provide for the opportunity for people to dream the American 
Dream, the American Dream of home ownership, of education for their 
children, of higher education pursuits, so as to unleash the skills and 
the talents and the passions of the next generations of workers.
  Training, retraining programs to enable the human infrastructure 
required as an investment in the work zone of America is an important 
aspect of the investment that we need to make through policy reforms 
and policy strengthening and resource advocacy that we could do here in 
the Halls of Congress, on the floor of the House of Representatives to 
enable us to fill those coffers with the quality investments that need 
to be made from a human infrastructure perspective to a capital 
infrastructure, and certainly to a physical infrastructure as we go 
forward and allow this country to utilize its intellectual capacity, to 
use the brainpower of these United States to enable us to compete and 
compete effectively in a way that acknowledges that the jobs market, 
the jobs created, the jobs retained through advocacy here in Washington 
can speak to the ultimate highest priority that people have established 
for all of us who are serving, regardless of political persuasion or 
philosophical mindsets.
  As we serve this Nation, we can best provide for an outcome of jobs 
that are created in our society. There is no stronger need. There 
should be no stronger commitment. The President showcased that when he 
was hosted here in the House of Representatives with a joint session of 
Congress. And the room was filled. The gallery was packed as people 
witnessed the very passionate speech from the leader of the free world.
  As President Obama laid forth his vision, his plan, his initiatives, 
his goals for the American people, the House of Representatives and 
Members of the United States Senate got to hear firsthand what that 
effort is all about. People listened with intent to move forward with 
that blueprint for our future, a blueprint that would strengthen our 
economy and have an impact across the world.
  We have this opportunity now to work in a multipartisan way in a 
bicameral response to what the President has highlighted to be his plan 
for jobs here in America.
  I was happy to note that amongst his arguments, amongst his 
priorities happens to be the creation of an innovation economy, a 
response perhaps to an innovation economy that finds us as an ``idea-
ist'' society investing in those ideas, investing in ideas that get 
moved along perhaps to a prototype that moves along to a manufacturing 
sector.

                              {time}  1520

  I, before entering the Halls of Congress, before being elected to the 
House of Representatives, served as president and CEO of NYSERDA, the 
New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. It is 
nationally recognized for its cutting-edge work being done in the 
science and tech aspects of high tech. By the way, in the district that 
I represent, the 21st Congressional District in New York State, much 
about the Capital Region and Mohawk Valley and Schoharie Valley of 
upstate New York have been dubbed recently by Brookings Institute to be 
the hottest territory, the strongest hub, the most active region in the 
country for green collar job growth. That's a feather in our cap; and 
if someone wants to see investment happening, it's there in the Capital 
Region of New York.
  It took a partnership with academia and State government and Federal 
Government, yes; but it also was a partnership with the private sector, 
where great investments were made by the private sector in this high-
tech agenda--in the science and tech agenda, nanoscience, 
semiconductor, advanced battery manufacturing. Now, that is somewhat 
clustering in its concept to draw more and more start-ups and 
entrepreneurial efforts and workers who are clustering in this way, 
with academia getting invested in the research aspects.
  I mention that because the innovation economy is something that 
received high focus and an inordinate amount of attention in the speech 
made by the President. He understands and he has professed--and I agree 
with his assessment--that whoever wins this global race on innovation 
will emerge the exporter--the kingpin, if you will--of the global 
economy, the exporter of energy intellect and innovation and ideas that 
will enable us to, in a way, mimic the success stories of the space 
race--a global race that found fewer partners but found the United 
States of America being victorious.
  That all began, I believe, with a setback. Sometimes failure is a 
misunderstood gift. In this case, through the Sputnik moment, America, 
in its defeat, had to stand up and dust off its backside and commit 
with passion, as experienced with the words of John F. Kennedy, who 
said we're going to do this effort of investing in the space race not 
because it's easy but because it's hard; and that attitude, that tone, 
that passion, that commitment, that resolve produced a winning moment, 
a winning moment when we were the first to achieve the daunting task of 
landing a person first on the Moon.
  As a Nation, we took great pride in that event that happened some 40-
plus years ago. It was more than the magic moment of landing a person 
on the Moon and the infamous quote that talked about the giant leap for 
mankind. It was the unleashing of technology and untold aspects of our 
world, of our society, where technology reached communications and 
energy generation and education and health care, to name a few segments 
of activity out there.
  That was a profound statement made by America and her brain power, 
America and her will--her will to invest in her people and in a mission 
that brought us together as a Nation, where everyone joined in the 
efforts to fine-tune the best way by which to pursue that mission. What 
happened really raised America. Her leadership potential, her 
leadership recognition in the global community became profoundly 
enhanced, and it was not just technology entering these different 
segments of our society but of bolstering all these aspects, the 
different sectors of our economy, and of course impacting not just for 
Americans but for people worldwide the quality of life that we enjoy, 
the opportunity to strengthen services, to be able to bring us together 
in almost a village capacity as a world simply because of technology.
  Today, I would remind my colleagues in the House of Representatives 
and our partners down the Hall in the United States Senate that we have 
that same moment, that same challenge, that same need to resolve with 
passion again, to go forward--to go forward with a mission that allows 
us to invest in a clean-energy society, in a clean-energy economy into 
an innovation agenda. Think of it. We have so many opportunities here. 
We have committed so many times over to public and private aspects of 
research and development, of investment of research that leads to ideas 
or ideas that are built by that research to a greater capacity and then 
shared in a way that builds and develops the prototype that then 
creates the manufacturing aspect.
  We've seen it with the chips manufacturing in my district. Perhaps 
the

[[Page H6130]]

largest such construction of a chips manufacturing facility in all of 
America is taking hold in the region, in the area that I call home. 
That is enabling us to think beyond usual terms. We're thinking of 
chips applied to agriculture, chips applied to health care, chips 
applied to the education world. That is a marvel in and of itself, and 
it's enabling the best minds to cluster in an area like that which I 
represent, which is the 21st Congressional District in upstate New York 
in the Capital Region.

  That's the investment that I believe America not only requires but 
that Americans are demanding of their leaders, leaders that occupy 
these seats here in Washington in the Halls of Congress. That's what 
they're asking for--that sort of investment, that sort of magical 
quality that we have seen throughout her history.
  It's replete with sagas of success that began oftentimes with 
hyphenated Americans in their first generation of connection to these 
soils investing in a way with this brightness of ideas coming from 
blue-collar workers, who enabled us to take a region like that which I 
represent and allow it to inspire a westward movement and an industrial 
revolution because, in the heartlands of the 21st Congressional 
District, we were the hosts to an Erie Canal/barge canal history.
  What that pathway, that waterway pronounced with its own presence is 
the opportunity to build a Port of New York that then gave birth to a 
necklace of communities, dubbed ``mill towns,'' that became these 
epicenters of invention and innovation. It was perhaps the first high-
tech revolution taking hold in the 21st Congressional District of New 
York. It was there that all sorts of product lines were conceived and 
then further developed and then realized in the marketplace around the 
world, and these product lines inspired continued progress.
  That's the sort of ilk that is American and uniquely American. That 
is the sort of investment that enabled us to produce these tremendously 
powerful chapters in our Nation's history, and it should be the 
inspiration.
  These moments should be the inspiration for us to do the correct 
thing today: for us to understand that we do not cut our way to 
prosperity, that we do not cut our way to opportunity, but that 
certainly we can invest our way to opportunity and invest our way to a 
new economy, a stronger outcome, an investment in our working families, 
an opportunity for people to truly dream the American Dream. That's how 
we will survive. That's how we will meet the test in the present 
moment.
  The President has challenged Congress--and rightfully so. This is not 
a time for political gamesmanship. This is not a time for simple 
negative response or rejection of a political kind.

                              {time}  1530

  This is about working as a team, executive branch with legislative 
branch, Republicans with Democrats, Senators with House of 
Representatives membership. That's what we can accomplish here if we 
set our hearts and our minds and our souls to an agenda that is in 
keeping with the tradition, the deeply rooted and powerful tradition of 
job creation in our society.
  Think of it. Throughout our years, whether it was President Lincoln 
in the development of rail or Governor DeWitt Clinton in New York with 
the development of an Erie Canal, or President Eisenhower in the 
development of an interstate system, or President Roosevelt and the 
Corps that went throughout this great country of ours State by State 
and built the infrastructure that really was a need for this country at 
a time when we were hurting from a grossly high unemployment statistic.
  That's America at her best, at her brightest. It's her shining 
moment. The President is imploring all of us, as Members, as leadership 
in the Houses, to allow for America to have her next shining moment. 
Challenges in difficult times can produce the most deep, profound, 
uninhibited, unrestricted behavior, and we have that opportunity. We 
have that opportunity here to respond with this innovation economy. It 
takes investment.
  As I indicated, when I served as president and CEO of NYSERDA, and 
before as energy chair for some 15 years in the New York State Assembly 
with the New York State legislature, it took an appropriate policy and 
then an investment that would enable us to respond in nontraditional 
terms, to be able to go forward with the kinds of intellectual response 
to deeply rooted concerns.
  Think about it. We dismantled a monopoly situation for utility 
purposes, electric utility purposes, and chose through an 
administrative order with then-Governor Pataki to go forward with a 
competitive quality in our utility outreaches in New York State, a 
system designed for a monopoly setting that has to be adjusted to not 
only wheel electrons from region to region within our State, but from 
State to State, from State to New York State, and then from country to 
New York State.
  So that took improvement that needed to be made in policy and in 
resource advocacy. I saw from my positioning in NYSERDA the benefits 
that came when we invested in research and development. Now, granted, 
all the stories, all the situations, all the scenarios within the 
research and development opportunities are not necessarily success 
stories. But without the dive into that opportunity, we will never feel 
the splash of success.
  So many of those situations become a winning outcome. And when we 
have such an outcome, we are able to move forward and allow for us to 
even dream of the notion of enhancing our energy independence.
  We cannot remain so gluttonously dependent upon fossil-based fuels to 
be our solution for our energy crisis. We simply cannot. We cannot. We 
need to make certain that we commit to an innovation cycle that enables 
us to dream outside the ordinary, to think beyond the barrel, think 
outside the barrel in the case of energy reform.
  And those formats, those transformations need to again encourage the 
investment in higher education, in education, because we need, as early 
as the pre-K setting, to encourage the development of our students, 
especially with the shortfall of engineers that we are producing in our 
society, and scientists.
  Education in itself has the need for many reforms, but one of the 
areas of targeted concentration needs to be the increased numbers of 
individuals, especially in atypical formats with young women and 
students of color who need to be encouraged to pursue along the 
pathways of engineering and science. So we begin that investment but 
then we go forward with that cultivation of ideas that begins with the 
investment of the intellect of America, and what I witnessed were 
wonderful opportunities. We had witnessed all sorts of improvements to 
renewables, that was part of the NYSERDA agenda.
  We saw all sorts of opportunities like kinetic hydropower where we 
would actually be able to do turbine-type settings in an ordinary wind 
turbine activity, but beneath the turbulence of water, to use the 
turbulence of water to crank out the energy supplies that we required. 
In a State like New York it holds vast potential. It holds tremendous 
potential.
  The R&D commitment was there, the refinements came through the 
Department of Energy lab where they reviewed the product, saw where 
some of the weaknesses might be, engineered the assembly, the design of 
the turbine itself and the assembly of that turbine, designed it, 
redesigned it, and now we grow more and more committed to the 
opportunity for some of this use of turbulence of water to respond to 
our energy needs.
  That's just one small sampling in one agency and one State of how we 
can grow the opportunities. Investing in battery manufacturing that 
enables us to respond to that linchpin that is our connector to 
investment into the future that enables us to, again, draw this energy 
independence agenda together in a way that not only grows our economy 
and protects our consumers and strengthens American job opportunities, 
but really creates a cutting-edge sort of job opportunity where, for 
the first time, these jobs appear on the radar so that we can begin to 
provide hope to individuals who may have that genius within them and 
will pursue that as a career path. But it begins with individual 
voices, individual voices in the House speaking to those issues of jobs 
and creation of jobs and investing in an innovation economy, investing 
in workers.

  Certainly no one has been stronger in that attempt than my colleague, 
my

[[Page H6131]]

friend from Kentucky's Third District. Representative John Yarmuth has 
been a champion on the floor. He has been a champion at home speaking 
to the need for jobs in America, Make It in America, which is a mantra 
which he and I and our colleagues in the Democratic Caucus have 
adopted.
  Representative Yarmuth, it is great to have you join us for this 
hour. Welcome, and I know you have been such a strong voice for jobs 
not only for Kentucky but for Americans coast-to-coast.
  Mr. YARMUTH. I thank my friend from New York.
  It's a great pleasure to talk about the subject that's on every 
American's mind, and that is, how do we rebuild America, how do we put 
Americans back to work, and how do we recreate the kind of America that 
we all once admired and will admire again?
  You've talked about a very incredibly important element of the job 
creation agenda, and that is research and development. It's clear that 
the jobs that we look forward to in the next generation, and the 
generation after that, are jobs that probably don't exist today. We're 
going to find them. We're going to discover them. And if we don't do 
it, they will be invented somewhere else, and that's why the 
initiatives that you have been talking about in the energy field are so 
critical.
  But I would like to talk today about a job opportunity that exists 
right now. The President referenced this in his speech last Thursday 
night, and I thought he was incredibly powerful and articulate in doing 
that. Because what he did was connect the dots. And when he talks about 
infrastructure and jobs, that's something that most Americans can 
understand.
  When we built the interstate highway system, that created an awful 
lot of jobs, and it also established an infrastructure that has 
enhanced our commercial activity throughout this country for more than 
a half a century. And now today we have a gap in that interstate 
highway system, and it happens to be in my community.
  Just last Friday, the bridge called the Sherman Minton Bridge which 
spans the Ohio River between Louisville, Kentucky, and New Albany, 
Indiana, was shut down because of structural deficiencies. So when the 
President speaks of infrastructure deterioration throughout the country 
and the thousands and thousands of bridges that need to be repaired, he 
didn't know at that time, the next day, one would become more than an 
abstract theory; it would become a reality.

                              {time}  1540

  We saw this, unfortunately, in Minnesota. We hopefully have averted a 
similar disaster in my community. But in the meantime, this bridge 
which was built 50 years ago which was examined just 2 years ago and 
judged to be structurally fine, because of advances in analysis of 
certain steel products, they did a different kind of analysis this year 
and found cracks in the support system and had to shut the bridge down.
  What has this done? I-64, which begins in Virginia and runs through 
Lexington, Kentucky, and Louisville and on to St. Louis, it's a major, 
major east-west artery of this country, and for this country's both 
civilian and commercial traffic. About 90,000 vehicles every day go 
across this bridge. Most of them in the morning come into Louisville; 
most of them in the afternoon go out of Louisville into Indiana.
  Right now, all of that traffic is being diverted onto I-65. We have a 
great, centrally located community in Louisville. Three interstates 
converge there--I-71, I-65 and I-64--and they all converge in a pretty 
similar spot except now all that traffic that can no longer go on I-64 
across the Sherman-Minton has to go across the I-65 bridge. That bridge 
is already taxed to its extreme. It is operating at 25 percent more 
than it was envisioned to hold. Now 90,000 more vehicles are going to 
be coming across that bridge every day.
  So we don't know yet what's going to transpire with that Sherman-
Minton bridge, whether it can be repaired, whether it is going to have 
to be condemned and rebuilt; but we do know if we had been making the 
kinds of investments in keeping our infrastructure current and modern 
and in making those investments over time, we would have had many, many 
thousands more people at work, and we probably would have avoided this 
situation.
  So now this is both a very serious commercial and personal 
inconvenience, and I don't want to go quite so far as saying it's a 
disaster, but it is a very serious problem in my community. But it also 
could be something where we put many Americans back to work as we 
either fix it or replace it.
  Again, we are at a time now where we have example after example, 
thousands of these around the country. We are at a juncture where we 
can borrow money to do this at historically low levels, and we can put 
tens of thousands of Americans back to work.
  So as a theory as espoused in the President's speech Thursday night 
has become the reality in my community, it can become a reality of 
rebuilding America for all of us.
  Mr. TONKO. Representative Yarmuth, let me add to your reality with my 
reality, one scenario being a couple of decades old now. In 1987, a 
bridge collapsed along the New York State Thruway system because of 
flooding. It came across a creek that you could walk across some years 
during the month of August. It had the CFS, the flow, equal to Niagara 
Falls with the flooding, and it wiped out a bridge. And I believe just 
about all of the tragedies, all of the loss of life, which was some 10 
or 11 people, were not from the area. So we are all at risk with these 
deficiencies to which you alluded. So it is important for us to keep up 
the investments.
  As we saw this year, some 500-year records broken with hurricanes 
from the ravages of the waters of Irene and floods from the Tropical 
Storm Lee, wiped out infrastructure galore. And so now there is a need, 
a demand to have these bits of infrastructure restored and rebuilt; 
otherwise the economy suffers.
  I saw what rail meant to jobs in my district through the course of 
time. I saw what the canal meant not only for jobs in my district, but 
in the western movement, the industrial revolution. So infrastructure 
is important. I dwelled on innovation to economy, but you are so right 
to bring up the need for infrastructure and those improvements. I thank 
you, Representative Yarmuth, for your thoughts and hang with us because 
this is an order where we want to talk about job creation.
  We are joined by yet another outspoken voice from Maryland's Third 
Congressional District. Representative John Sarbanes is an outspoken 
advocate for job creation in our society. He knows from the Maryland 
experience that we need jobs. By the New York experience, by which I 
measure it all, we need jobs. Representative Sarbanes, thank you for 
being a leader in the House and advocating for not only Make It in 
America but job creation of all types.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. SARBANES. I want to thank the gentleman for assembling us here 
today to talk about this critical issue of jobs. If you talk to the 
average American, the issue that they put at the top of the list and, 
frankly, it is the issue they have had at the top of their list for 
months now is the issue of jobs and creating jobs to get the economy 
moving again.
  You were just talking about the infrastructure issue. It would be one 
thing if our infrastructure was in terrific shape, if we were sort of 
100 percent repaired right now and everything was new and shiny, and 
then we had this economic crisis and we were looking around for ways to 
create good jobs to get ourselves back on our feet and there wasn't 
these infrastructure projects out there to provide those jobs. But 
that's not the case.
  As you point out, as Congressman Yarmuth just pointed out, you can 
look out your window and you can see evidence of the crumbling 
infrastructure across the country. So do we call that fortuitous? I 
don't know how you would view it, but at a time when we are trying to 
create jobs in this country, the fact that our infrastructure needs to 
be rebuilt is a tremendous opportunity for the country.
  I commend the President because in his address the other night, he 
put rebuilding the infrastructure front and center, not again just 
because it is a job-creation effort, although that is the number one 
premium that I think people are focused on, but because it

[[Page H6132]]

has to be done. The amount of productivity this country is losing 
because of the waste and inefficiency of having this crumbling 
infrastructure is mind boggling. So at the same time you are rebuilding 
a country and creating jobs that way, you are also strengthening the 
country so that going forward we can be more efficient and we can be 
more productive.

  But I want to extend this notion of rebuilding the country beyond 
just the physical infrastructure, because I think it also applies to 
the idea of strengthening our country in terms of human capital. We 
know we have to invest in human capital. I think some of us are 
embarrassed when we look at these comparisons with other countries 
around the world in terms of how our students do in terms of math or 
science, or other important subject areas where the United States 
really should be at the forefront, we should be on the cutting edge so 
we can be competitive, but we're not there.
  So what do you do about that? Well, you rebuild the country in terms 
of investing in human infrastructure, in human capital and making the 
next generation as competitive and skilled as it can possibly be.
  Yesterday, I was in Baltimore. We were celebrating Adult Education 
and Literacy Week. There are 90 million people, according to the 
research, there are 90 million Americans who would benefit from 
literacy, and in particular adult education opportunities. When you are 
in an economy where things are moving fast, where some opportunities 
disappear and other ones appear, you need to be able to go back to our 
community college system and other resources to get your skills ready 
to meet the new challenge. We ought to be investing in that.
  I commend the President because when he came here the other night, 
not only did he talk about strengthening the physical infrastructure of 
the country, but he talked about the importance of investing in the 
human capital of this Nation, and I think every single American out 
there understands the imperative of rebuilding America. That can be our 
mantra. And when you rebuild America, you restore the American Dream.
  The greatest frustration that people are feeling these days is they 
say, I worked hard, I played by the rules, but I'm not getting the 
opportunities to move ahead; and when you rebuild this country, you 
restore that American Dream. You get us back to where we need to be as 
a Nation, and that's what the American Jobs Act is intended to do. I 
think that's the agenda that the Democratic Party here in Congress is 
putting forward with the President. I am glad to support that. So I 
thank you for pulling us together today to focus on this very, very 
important issue of job creation.
  Mr. TONKO. Representative Sarbanes, I couldn't agree with you more. I 
have witnessed what happens when we invest in training, retraining, and 
apprenticeship programs in pre-K through 12, in graduate school, in 
undergrad campuses and research centers. I witnessed the inspiration 
that a cleanroom science course provided for a young man 30, 35 years 
old, unemployed ready to leave our area. When he saw the cleanroom 
science at the local community college, which was an investment from 
the Federal Government, he did a U-turn in his stated plans.

                              {time}  1550

  This was something that was exciting. This was something that spoke 
to his heart and soul. This was something he wanted to engage in. And 
that's the opportunity that we can give people here.
  The story line of America is basic. As you say, give me that American 
Dream. Let me unleash my skills, my talents. Let me raise a family, 
build a home, and dream that American Dream. We owe it to America.
  And people have placed their faith in this jobs agenda. I can't tell 
you how many times that I know we've talked. We've heard it from our 
colleagues. People believe in that Make It In America opportunity. They 
believe in tethering that dream, that American Dream, so that 
households, middle class--let's rebuild that middle class. Let's take 
those values of the middle class and make it happen.
  We're happy you joined us. Another partner of ours, a colleague who 
has led us oftentimes during Special Order on making it in America, on 
jobs, none other than California's 10th District Representative, John 
Garamendi.
  Representative Garamendi, we often talk about the east coast-west 
coast. The message is unique. It's commonplace across this country. 
Thank you again for your leadership on the floor on job creation.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko and Mr. Sarbanes, thank you for being here. 
I'm delighted to be able to join you today talking about 
infrastructure.
  Earlier today, just a couple of hours ago, my office had 
representatives from the City of Davis, near Sacramento, and another 
community, Woodland, both of them in Yolo County. They're talking about 
an infrastructure project. The water systems in those communities have, 
for 150 years, depended on groundwater, but the groundwater is going 
bad. They need to develop a new water system--about $300 million, $400 
million. They cannot continue with the present system. They need help. 
But they also, in doing that, are going to be able to employ a vast 
number of people and put in place the infrastructure those communities 
need. We're talking about the University of California, Davis campus, 
with about 27,000 students at that campus, bad water. They need to 
rebuild their water system.
  Right now, across America we're looking at more than 2 million 
construction workers, men and women that could build that water system 
for those communities. They're out of work. Two million are out of 
work.
  The President came here last week and said Americans want to go back 
to work, they want a job, and he put forward to this body--to the 
Senate, the House--a proposal, the American Jobs Act. The American Jobs 
Act, putting Americans back to work.
  You want to deal with the deficit? Take tax-takers, people that are 
unemployed, and make them taxpayers. We can do this and simultaneously 
solve the long-term deficit problem of this Nation by growing the 
American economy once again with, as you were saying so well, Mr. 
Sarbanes, infrastructure projects.
  You were talking about east coast-west coast, Mr. Tonko. Twenty-seven 
hundred miles of American roads almost unfit for travel. This is the 
kind of project that the President wants: $50 million to rebuild the 
American transportation system so we can travel.
  Mr. TONKO. That measurement, I'm assuming, was made before some of 
the ravages of floods in portions of our country or the tragedies in 
Texas with the many fires. As the President proposes this 
infrastructure improvement, there are those who are hurting right now 
who have been severely impacted by the ravages of the waters of 
Hurricane Irene that went so far northeast and inland that they broke 
centuries worth of recordkeeping.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, you and I were right here in the back of 
this House Chamber earlier today and you were sharing with me the 
stories. The reality in your district is these are your constituents 
who have been harmed. And we had our colleague, Peter Welch from 
Vermont, who was also talking about the extraordinary damage done to 
the infrastructure in Vermont. As we rebuild those communities as part 
of this American Jobs Act, people go to work in those communities and 
are able to once again stand on their own.
  Share with us some of the things that you've seen from your own 
district and the needs for infrastructure replacement in your 
communities.
  Mr. TONKO. Well, it's amazing because there are situations--I'll 
first go to Representative Welch's district in Vermont--where Route 4 
has been wiped out. It's just about removed from the map.
  What was just a couple of miles worth of activity for some people to 
travel to work now becomes this tremendous circuitous route that may 
even take you down into Massachusetts and back into eastern Vermont to 
get to the locations. It has made life nearly impossible. I have seen 
numbers of bridges wiped out in upstate New York, a tremendous amount 
of bridges, locks that have been compromised in the area that I 
represent.

  I talked about hosting the Erie Canal barge canal activity. The locks 
that

[[Page H6133]]

came in the second phase of that canal development are now tremendously 
devastated by the powerful force of water, homes that have been knocked 
out, but the infrastructure and landslides of roads that are 
disappearing and different opportunities now that are really demanding 
of an investment like this in order for us to go forward.
  As Representative Sarbanes made mention, this is a part of the 
equation for success for jobs--not just jobs in the immediate zone to 
improve and repair and construct some of this infrastructure, but jobs 
in general. It is part of the equation of success. You have got to move 
that product line. You have got to deal with the freight issues.
  So it is incumbent upon us to respond. If politics gets in the way 
here, it is grossly regrettable. It's unacceptable to hold back this 
Nation simply because you choose to do a knee-jerk political response 
to a plan outlined by a President who has shown a vision here that is 
laser sharp about what needs to be done.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. You're absolutely correct. The President's American 
Jobs Act, which I'm embracing and I believe the Democratic Party has 
embraced, is one that is focused like a laser on the immediate 
challenge that America has--and that is: Employ Americans. Put 
Americans back to work.
  Another thing that's in the bill--this is about schools. Forty-four 
percent of the principals across this Nation and all the schools across 
the Nation have reported that their school in one way or another is not 
satisfactory for students: the bathrooms are not working, the 
playgrounds are falling apart, the roofs are leaking.
  We need to make American schools physically strong and pleasant for 
the students to be in. So this is a major piece of it. This also is 
improving the science laboratories. And the President has lined out 
about, I think, $30 billion to rebuild the American schools. It's not 
just the schools that are going to benefit from that and the children 
that are in those classrooms and on the playgrounds, but it's the 
Americans that need jobs, and they'll get those jobs rehabbing and 
rebuilding the schools.
  Mr. TONKO. Earlier, Representative Sarbanes talked, Representative 
Garamendi, about human infrastructure. It begins with sound schools 
that are not crumbling over the students' heads but also an investment 
in education. Just recently, during our August district work period, I 
did a tour, a number of tours in my district with manufacturing. But 
one story pops into mind where a manufacturer in Schoharie County, a 
very rural county in my district, has utilized the efforts of its CAT 
Center--the Center for Advanced Technology--to come up with an idea 
that created automation so that he can remain competitive in the global 
sweepstakes. But he needs people who are specifically trained and 
educated to run this automation aspect within his assembly process, and 
so it becomes very important that this human infrastructure is 
critical.
  I'm reminded all the time about a centuries-old saga and decades-old 
stories of what we used to manufacture in America. After doing it 
someplace else, the daunting challenge to America, to a sophisticated 
society, is build the products not yet on the radar screen. And that 
takes intellect. That takes genius that's cultivated in our schools and 
in our colleges and our universities and research centers, and then we 
create that product line that is brand new. But that's a sophisticated 
society responding to a manufacturing challenge. And it begins with the 
human intellect; it begins with human infrastructure.
  Representative Sarbanes, you're so on target with that investment of 
capital infrastructure, physical infrastructure, and, indeed, human 
infrastructure, so thank you for bringing that into the discussion.

                              {time}  1600

  Mr. SARBANES. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. TONKO. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. SARBANES. I just want to echo this idea of investing in 
manufacturing in this country.
  The economists will tell you that a manufacturing job has a greater 
multiplier effect on the economy than any other kind of job that you 
can produce. So when you're investing in manufacturing, when you're 
creating manufacturing jobs, when you're making it possible for 
Americans to make things in America, you're having the maximum impact 
possible on the broader economy. So it makes sense to do this.
  Congressman Garamendi referred to the repair and investment in our 
public schools across the country that the President wants to do. 
Thirty-five thousand public schools would benefit that have projects 
waiting to move forward. In other words, think about this; this is not 
a situation where you decide first that you're going to go out and 
build infrastructure, and then you've got to go first do the design and 
the plans and everything else.
  I worked in Maryland for 8 years with the Baltimore City public 
school system, which at that time needed about $1.5 billion worth of 
repairs just to get back to sort of what would be an acceptable 
standard in terms of the physical plan of the Baltimore city school 
system. They know what they have to do. Those plans are complete, all 
the design specs are done, all they need is the resources to make it 
happen. They can start on those projects tomorrow. Are there workers 
out there to do it? You bet. There are millions of unemployed 
construction workers out there and others who are ready to step up and 
fill that void. So this is something you can do right away. That's the 
beauty of it. That's the beauty of what has been presented to us.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. They could start tomorrow if Congress acts today to 
pass the American Jobs Act. Because the resources--that is, the money--
would be there tomorrow. The day the President signs this bill, those 
men and women could go to work rebuilding those schools.
  There is one other thing that's in the President's bill that I am 
really excited about because we've been talking about this forever and 
a day around here, and that is, Make it in America. There is a buy-
America provision in this legislation. So when they go out and buy the 
paint, redo the heating and air conditioning system, those are going to 
be American-made paint, American-made air conditioners and heaters. 
That's the kind of thing we can do. We can use the American taxpayer 
money to rebuild the American manufacturing industry, just as you said. 
We can do it. It's billions of dollars of American money in 
transportation, bridges, roads, buses, and trains used for American-
made equipment, making it once again in America. This is exciting. This 
is really rebuilding the manufacturing base.
  Mr. TONKO. To Representative Sarbanes' point, every year that's 
wasted, that is allowed to pass by, youngsters in the third, fourth, 
fifth grade, whatever, will never have the experience they ought to. So 
we're letting down the workers of tomorrow by this delay, by this 
resistance, this recalcitrance of a political order that is 
unacceptable.
  I will just make the point that Wynn Kintz, who is the owner of the 
facility that I toured in Schoharie County, said that he reaches the 
community colleges routinely because he needs that upgraded skill set. 
There are manufacturing jobs across this country for which they need 
skilled labor, and if we walk away from that investment in human 
infrastructure, we've denied progress for this country.
  We've been joined by an outspoken advocate for jobs--I mean a very 
loud voice because we've heard the volume cranked up--as the chair of 
our Democratic Caucus and the Representative of Connecticut's First 
Congressional District, and that is none other than Representative John 
Larson.
  Representative Larson, thank you for joining us in this Special 
Order.
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. I am honored to join the gentleman from 
New York, the gentleman from California, and the gentleman from 
Maryland.
  Martin Luther King once described the need to act as the ``fierce 
urgency of now.'' Nothing is more important to the American people, 
nothing is more important to anyone listening to this broadcast than 
seeing this country go back to work.
  Representative Garamendi talked very eloquently about Make It in 
America. People want to see jobs created in this country and want to 
see Americans back to work because we all know that when we put America 
back

[[Page H6134]]

to work by making things here in America, that it provides the 
opportunity for every American to succeed.
  The President has called upon Congress to act. He did so in a speech 
last week. We need to respond now. He did so in bipartisan fashion, 
citing bills that have come from both sides of the aisle. Congress as 
an institution should be about the vitality of ideas that you heard 
expressed here this evening but then turned into a plan of action that 
sees us lowering our unemployment rate.

  It is simply unacceptable that Congress would dawdle while 14 million 
Americans are unemployed and a sum total of 25 million Americans are 
underemployed. The time schedule that Congress has here should be 
expanded so that we're working every day to see that Americans are put 
back to work. Fourteen million Americans are crying out for the 
President's proposal to be enacted, to see this body take action. They 
are tired of the endless bickering between both sides and want to see 
action taking place in this body. My colleagues have outlined very 
specific proposals that will achieve those goals.
  We've just witnessed one of our colleagues who spoke so eloquently--
and I'm referring to Mr. Tonko from New York State--about what has 
happened to his community, his district, the very character of which 
was changed because of a calamity, more than a 500-year level storm 
that ravaged the States of Connecticut, New York, and Vermont and left 
people not only destitute in terms of their very homes and their 
livelihood, but again, seeking what is fundamental to this country, a 
certain sense of fairness and shared sacrifice and commitment to 
helping out fellow Americans. What better way than rebuilding our 
country and starting with those communities that have been ravaged. The 
youth that could be employed immediately in our urban and rural areas. 
The rebuilding, as Mr. Garamendi has said, of roads and bridges and 
sewage systems. And fire departments and public schools with broadband 
to light up the desktops of our children and the blackboards and white 
boards, if you will, of our teachers so that we can once again assume 
our rightful position as the preeminent economic leader in this global 
economy.
  We had Professor Dr. Joseph Stiglitz speak before the caucus today. 
And he said it very clearly--that job creation equals deficit 
reduction. We are not talking across the aisle here; we need to come 
together as Americans.
  We witnessed this past weekend what can happen when America decides 
to be unified in common cause, as we did and as we responded after the 
events of September the 11th. We need to respond to the crisis at hand, 
which is 14 million Americans that are unemployed, the devastation that 
it has wreaked on our economy, what it's meant to our housing, what 
it's meant to our education system, what it's meant to our 
manufacturing base that Mr. Garamendi has talked about time and again 
on this floor. That's what we have to do--reinvest in Americans. And in 
doing so, as Dr. Stiglitz, the preeminent economist in this country, 
has indicated, we can both reduce our deficit by more than 25 percent 
and put America to work. What we need is action from this Congress, 
from this House of Representatives.

                              {time}  1610

  Bring the President's bill to the floor. If you won't bring the 
President's bill to the floor, then engage the select committee that 
has a very specific timeframe with deadlines and dates and no cloture 
votes in the Senate, no poison pill amendments in the House, an up-or-
down vote on jobs. That's what the American people are demanding. 
That's what you gentleman have so eloquently put forward here.
  Mr. TONKO. Chairman Larson, we have precious few minutes left. I'll 
make a few comments and then yield to my gentlemen colleagues as we 
close this Special Order hour.
  To me, you've identified it well. This country has had, throughout 
its history, its shining moments. This is our opportunity to invest in 
America's next shining moment. It will take commitment by the 
legislators here on the Hill in Washington, and encouraging and 
inspiring and building a tone that brings us together to think as one 
as a Nation, generation to generation to generation, region of the 
country to region of the country, political persuasion to opposite 
political persuasion, philosophy of difference to the philosophy of 
another kind, moving together, coming together, understanding this is 
our defining moment. It's our moment to create our next shining example 
of America at her best.
  Representative Sarbanes, thank you for joining us.
  Mr. SARBANES. Thank you again, Congressman Tonko, for pulling us 
together this afternoon. I just want to make a couple of points.
  Echoing what Congressman Larson said, if you look at just what 
happened over the last couple of weeks in terms of the disaster that 
hit the Eastern Seaboard, and you can look over the last few months 
across this country and see those sorts of disastrous effects happening 
to people, nobody would question that the Federal Government has an 
important role to play in coming to the assistance of people that are 
in that dire situation.
  Whatever your larger philosophy is about whether government should be 
large or small and so forth, everyone agrees the government should be 
on the side of people that are facing such a desperate situation and 
should act quickly. So if we accept that proposition, we also ought to 
think about the 14 million people, John, that you referred to, who 
basically are facing an economic hurricane every single day.
  And it is the role, the appropriate role, the necessary role of the 
Federal Government taking those taxpayer dollars and saying, we're 
going to turn and help our fellow citizens in need, and we're going to 
do it quickly, and we're going to do it in a way that not only helps 
them, but is also good for the broader economy and will put people back 
to work.
  Let me just finish with this last thought. I hope people watch this 
discussion, and I hope people keep track of who's going to be 
supportive of the American Jobs Act and who's not because there are 
going to be people in this Chamber who vote against it and drag their 
feet. And the reason I want people to pay attention is because people 
are getting cynical out there. And I hope that it will cure some of 
their cynicism to see that there are folks, yes, here in Washington who 
are absolutely determined to try to come to the assistance of people 
that are looking for good job opportunities out there.
  So pay attention because there are people here who want to do the 
right thing, and hopefully that'll stop you from becoming so cynical.
  Mr. TONKO. Thank you very much. To Chairman Larson and then 
Representative Garamendi to close.
  I yield to Chairman Larson.
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Thank you again, Paul, for organizing this 
Special Order. And I think John Sarbanes said it well. The gentleman 
from Maryland spoke eloquently about the need for us to act and the 
need for us to act now.
  It has been a storm. It has been a hurricane for the 14 million 
people that are unemployed, and for their families; and all Americans 
are asking is the simple dignity that comes from being able to look 
across the table at your spouse and your family and let them know that 
they are safe and secure because you have a job and you are providing 
for them.
  Mr. TONKO. I yield to Representative Garamendi to close.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, thank you for bringing us together. 
Yesterday, the President delivered to this Chamber a comprehensive 
American Jobs Act, employment for perhaps 2, maybe more than 2, million 
Americans immediately available as soon as this Congress acts. And it 
is fully paid for. It will not add to the deficit. It is fully paid for 
through a series of tax increases on the superwealthy, and the oil 
companies finally having to give up our tax money that they've enjoyed 
for more than a century as a subsidy.
  We can do this. We must do this. We must put America back to work. 
And in doing so, we will be able to deal with the deficit because 
Americans have come, once again, taxpayers, and we have created the 
critical investments in individuals, in education, in infrastructure 
and in small businesses, all of whom will benefit from the American 
Jobs Act.
  It's our responsibility, it is our opportunity, it is America's 
opportunity to go back to work.

[[Page H6135]]

  Mr. Tonko, thank you for bringing us together.
  Mr. TONKO. It's been my pleasure and honor to work with you 
gentlemen.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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