[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 31 (Tuesday, February 28, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H1004-H1008]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1710
               MAKE IT IN AMERICA: MANUFACTURING MATTERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to this hour with my 
colleagues to talk about jobs. How do we create jobs in America? We are 
now well over 14 months of the Republican control of this House, and 
not one significant bill has passed this House that would create new 
jobs. There are many bills to wipe out environmental laws, many bills 
to wipe out regulations that protect the citizens of the United States 
from pollution and contamination of one sort or another, but where are 
the jobs bills? We absolutely have to create the jobs in America.
  Today, we are going to take about an hour to discuss how we can 
create jobs in America. One of the principal ways is to Make It in 
America: Manufacturing Matters. Manufacturing was the heart and soul of 
and the foundation for the great middle class, the rise of the middle 
class here in the United States. It wasn't too long ago that 
manufacturing in the United States was a big deal. About 20, 23 years 
ago, we had almost 20 million Americans in manufacturing. It also 
happened to coincide with the largest percentage of Americans that were 
in the middle class.
  Over the intervening years, we've seen the slow decline until we hit 
this period of 2000 to 2009, and we saw a precipitous drop to just over 
11 million manufacturing jobs in America. That coincided with the 
decline of the middle class in the United States.
  So what we want to do today is to focus on, how can we rebuild the 
American middle class? One of the principal ways of doing it is to 
focus on manufacturing and to focus specifically on rebuilding the 
great manufacturing sector in the United States. There are many, many 
ways to do this.
  My colleague from Oregon is here to join us, and I know that there 
are many things that are happening in Oregon that speak directly to 
this, one of which is competition between Oregon and California for the 
manufacturing of light railcars. I'll let my colleague from Oregon go 
first, and then I'll pound on him that California is a better place to 
manufacture light railcars than Oregon. But either way, they're made in 
America, and that's to the benefit of all Americans.
  Please join me, and let's see where we can take this.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you. I deeply appreciate your courtesy in 
permitting me to speak, and I appreciate your leadership in focusing on 
the need to rebuild and renew this country, putting Americans back to 
work, being able to not just revitalize our economy, but our 
neighborhoods and strengthen our families. It is true that there are 
some areas where there are some great opportunities for healthy 
competition. The gentleman may be referencing the fact that recently we 
have started manufacturing a streetcar in the United States for the 
first time in 58 years, and it's being manufactured in Portland, 
Oregon. But I would note that that project, manufacturing streetcars, 
includes the work of subcontractors across the country, including 40 in 
the Midwest that had been so hard hit by some of the decline in 
manufacturing activity.
  The point is that being able to make goods in this country, whether 
it's light rail, streetcar, heavy rail, whether we're dealing with 
fabricating steel for bridges and roads or rebuilding the power grid, 
these are all areas that are a tremendous source of family-wage jobs. I 
find no amount of irony that one of the major Republican candidates for 
President somehow thought that President Obama was being--and I'm using 
his direct word--``elitist'' by advocating that young people have the 
chance for a college education or going to a community college. My 
goodness, how out of touch can you possibly be? I don't know any 
American that doesn't want his or her child to be able to have the 
opportunity for further education and training. This is part of an 
agenda here. I look forward to the conversations this evening.
  At one point, I'd like to cycle back to the spectacle we had on the 
floor of the House the week before we recessed for Presidents Day where 
we had the most partisan transportation bill in the history of the 
House--narrow in focus, small in vision, dividing the various elements 
of transportation--that was so bad that our Republican friends were 
embarrassed to even have a hearing on it. Never before in the history 
of the House have we had a major surface transportation reauthorization 
that never even had a hearing.
  Well, mercifully, our Republican friends have decided that that 
wasn't getting them anywhere. The outcry from transit agencies across 
the country, from cyclists, even from the people who advocate safe 
routes to school, the program designed for our children to be able to 
get back and forth to school

[[Page H1005]]

safely that they eliminated--so they've put that on the back burner. 
But the point is, you are right. We've enjoyed, if I can use that term, 
their Republican leadership of the House for 14 months. We have no 
economic development plan, we have no transportation bill, and we 
continue to have an opportunity to rebuild and renew America 
languishing.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you so very much for circling back to the 
transportation issue. That issue is still before this House. There has 
been no hearing, and the bill that was put forth by the Republicans 
simply has gone nowhere. In fact, it hit the brick wall. I'm sure one 
of the reasons it hit the brick wall is that there is no way to create 
a modern transportation system in that bill. For example, we both 
talked about streetcars and light-rail cars. In California, there is a 
factory near Sacramento that makes light-rail cars. I'm delighted 
there's a factory now in Portland, Oregon, that is building streetcars. 
And the factory in Sacramento is also building locomotives.
  The reason this is happening is that the Democrats, in their recovery 
legislation, the stimulus bill that gets such bad press--totally 
undeserved, I might add--actually had a clause in it that American 
taxpayers' money was going to be used to Make It in America. And that 
started or propelled both of these operations as cities decided they 
would use some of their own money, some State money, and some of the 
Federal money to enhance their public transportation programs.
  However, the transportation bill that you brought up just a moment 
ago totally removes the public transportation sector from the bill. Now 
I don't know how we're ever going to build buses, trains, and light 
rail, Amtrak, without the support of the Federal Government.

                              {time}  1720

  I know you were deeply involved in this. I heard you talk about this 
once before--with a little bit of animation. You may want to circle 
back and pick that up again.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Well, I appreciate the invitation.
  You know, today, as we speak, the people in Michigan are voting in a 
Presidential primary to help determine the Republican nominee. I just 
mentioned one of them. My friend and former colleague here, Rick 
Santorum, with whom I served in the House, is the person who thinks 
it's elitist that American families have an opportunity for their kids 
to go to school. The other major contender, the gentleman who is likely 
to even win the ballot in Michigan today, more Republican votes, has 
been quoted as saying one of his top targets, if he's elected 
President, would be to eliminate Amtrak.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Seriously? I've heard him say a lot of things, but----
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Yesterday he was on the trail. This is one of his top 
five projects.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Is this Mr. Romney?
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Romney wants to eliminate the funding for Amtrak. 
This is one of his targets.
  Well, the United States is--in the past, I have actually been brought 
up short when I've talked about the United States having a third world 
rail passenger system, because I've ridden railroads in places like 
Malaysia or Thailand, and we do an injustice to their rail systems.
  The United States is the only major country in the world that does 
not have higher-speed rail passenger service. It is the only major 
country that has no plan to move forward. The President, to his credit, 
put forth $14 billion to be able to strengthen our rail passenger 
system, some of which, several billion would have helped with a 
California vision; the California voters have approved an opportunity 
to go forward.
  It is frustrating for me because there is no doubt that Americans 
will have higher-speed rail over the course of the next quarter 
century, no doubt. But the question is, coming back to the point that 
you have so relentlessly and eloquently developed on the floor here, 
Congressman Garamendi, is the notion of: Where will America's rail 
system come from? Because the path we're on, if we follow it with 
Romney, who would zero it out, with Republicans who have fought these 
investments every chance they get, the high-speed rail we'll have will 
be built and operated by the Chinese. They will design it; they will 
build it. The value will be added in another country, and we'll pay for 
the privilege.
  The alternative is to invest here in the United States in the tracks, 
the signals, the equipment, to be able to revitalize a vital system of 
transportation, taking pressure off of airports and roads. But, as I 
say, the choice is whether or not we're going to build it, we're going 
to own it, and it will accrue to the benefit of the American public.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, you're right on an issue that is very close to 
my own policies, which is, if it's American taxpayer money that's being 
used to buy a bus, a light railcar, a streetcar, a locomotive, or a 
train set for BART in California or the Metro system here in 
Washington, D.C., then our money must be used to buy American-made 
equipment. Plain and simple, those are American jobs.
  We had a terrible example of bad policy in California. The San 
Francisco Bay Bridge, Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, a multibillion-
dollar project, the steel in that bridge went up to bid. It's $1 
billion or so of steel for the bridge. One contractor put in two bids. 
One bid was 10 percent cheaper, and that was Chinese steel. The other 
bid was American steel, and it was 10 percent more. So the bridge 
authority, in its wisdom, selected the cheaper.
  It turns out that cheaper is not necessarily better and, ultimately, 
not cheaper. It turned out that it was far more expensive. There were 
serious flaws in the steel, in the welding, and 6,000 to 8,000 jobs 
were in China rather than in the United States. Ultimately, the cost 
was higher, and we did not benefit in the United States, even in 
California, from the increased economic activity that would have 
occurred if the direct jobs in manufacturing and welding and 
fabricating that steel were in the United States.
  We don't want that ever again. If it's our taxpayer money, from 
whatever source, then make it in America. Use our money to buy 
domestic-made buses and trains and steel. We've got work to do.
  I put this one up here, not to get away from the transit systems and 
the public transportation systems, which are critically important, but 
we've got 150,000 miles of road that need repair. The transportation 
bill that had been offered by our colleagues on the Republican side 
doesn't even get close to keeping up with what we need in the highway 
system and repairing the bridges that are falling down or could fall 
down across America. We have work to do.
  We need to reignite the American Dream, and part of that dream has 
been the world's best transportation system. Unfortunately, over the 
last decade or two, we have seen that decline in American status in 
transportation. Whether we're in the third world or the second world, 
we're surely not in the first world for highway transportation or for 
the public transportation system.
  We have work to do to reignite the American Dream. This 
transportation bill that ultimately we must pass, the Senate and the 
House, we must come together and pass a bill that is adequately funded, 
that provides for public transportation as well as for the road 
transportation. Our Republican colleagues are not even close to that. 
They've got a $75 billion hole in their wallet not filled by the 
programs that have been put forward.
  I know that you've been serving on this committee. You're far more 
familiar than I am with it. So let's just continue with this for a 
little while.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. One of your points about the impact, that one piece 
of the bridge project, the $400 million element of steel, it wasn't 
just the steel itself. Had we been developing that portion of the steel 
for the project in the United States, there would have been thousands 
of other jobs that would have been related to it to support that 
effort, in terms of the manufacturing, the development, the people who 
provide the equipment to manufacture the steel and put it in place, and 
the tools. It is a dramatic ripple effect.

  You referenced 150,000 miles of road in critical need of repair. 
What's under the surface is even in worse shape. We

[[Page H1006]]

have, in the United States, every day 6 billion gallons of water that 
leaks from water mains that are old, in some cases unsafe and 
unhealthy. That's the equivalent of 9,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. 
Lined end to end, it would go from Washington, D.C., to Pittsburgh, 
Pennsylvania.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. That's a lot of swimming.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. It's a lot of water that's wasted.
  It is a problem in terms of undermining roads. We've all seen these 
terrible pictures of sinkholes that develop. I used to keep them and 
use them for presentations. I stopped when one of the sinkholes was 
actually in my old neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, that opened up in 
the middle of the street and swallowed a maintenance truck. This is 
serious business.
  The American Society of Civil Engineers, every 5 years, does a report 
card on the state of American infrastructure. Their most recent report 
card showed that we have $2.3 trillion unmet need, and the grades 
ranged from C-minus to an F in terms of water, the electrical grid, 
transit, roads and bridges. This is serious business in terms of 
American quality of life. And think about the hundreds of thousands of 
family-wage jobs if we were investing in rebuilding and renewing 
America.

                              {time}  1730

  I know you appear to have a little statistic here.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I would like to have handed this to you as you were 
talking about the expansion that occurs when you invest in 
infrastructure. I ran over to get this, but I didn't want to interrupt 
your discussion.
  For every dollar invested in infrastructure investments, $1.57 is 
pumped into the American economy. That's the multiplier effect that 
occurs when you invest in this. These are investments that pay 
dividends year after year. This is the immediate turnaround. You 
described it so very well. It's the small business that is fabricating, 
it's the steel mill, and on and on. $1.50. If we invest a dollar today, 
we get $1.50 back in economic activity, people paying taxes. We recoup 
much of that dollar investment. That is just the immediate multiplier 
effect.
  Let's say we have an investment in a water system in Portland, 
Oregon, that is old and needs to be replaced. That's now in the ground, 
and it's going to serve year one, two, three, and probably for the next 
century. So it's not something that is used up. I suppose if we were to 
invest in an artillery shell, and we shoot it off in Afghanistan, well, 
okay, that is a one-off, one time, and it is gone. Perhaps to good 
purpose, but gone. You invest in infrastructure in America, you get an 
immediate return, and it is there for the next generation and the 
generation beyond.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. That's a very important point. The Society of 
American Civil Engineers has produced another fascinating report about 
what the cost will be if we don't invest in the water infrastructure. 
They have documented tens of billions of dollars of extra cost if we do 
not take care of these problems. It is not a problem that is unknown to 
American homeowners, who quickly find out if you don't fix the hole in 
the roof, you end up with massive structural damage.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Excuse me. You're getting too close to my roof. Move 
on. Don't focus on roofs, because I didn't fix it, and, yes, I got to 
repair the inside as well as the roof.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. The damage that you mentioned earlier in terms of the 
roads that are in need of critical repair, the cost to the American 
motorists in terms of the damage to car suspension systems and tires, 
that wear and tear wears out cars more rapidly. Delays in traffic for 
something like UPS--a 5-minute delay I think translates to something 
like $100 million of costs to them over the course of a year. This 
$1.57 of economic impact for every dollar invested translates into over 
25,000 jobs for each billion dollars that is spent on infrastructure. A 
far greater rate of return than on military spending, on a lot of the 
other things--tax cuts, for Heaven's sake. This is real economic 
benefit, particularly when we've got a building trade sector where 
unions are looking at 20, 30, 40 percent or more unemployment. These 
are opportunities to put people to work tomorrow on things that people 
in America need today.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. We ought not dance around one of the issues involved 
in this infrastructure. That's, where is the money coming from? How are 
you going to pay for this stuff?
  Our colleague Rosa DeLauro for more than 15 years has made a proposal 
here in this House that we create what Europe has had for the last 
almost 30 years now, an infrastructure bank, a way to finance those 
projects that have a cash flow, the specific ones that you're talking 
about. The bridge has a toll, has the ability to pay off a loan. The 
water system has a fee associated with the delivery of water, the 
sanitation system. All of those are what I call cash-flow projects.
  Rosa DeLauro from Connecticut has proposed an infrastructure bank in 
which the Federal Government provides the initial capital, say a 10-
year note. We could borrow at the Federal level for less than 2 percent 
now on a 10-year note, put that in the bank, go to the pension funds 
around the Nation, and they all invest in the bank. We may have $25 
billion, $30 billion, $50 billion. And in some cases, depending on how 
robust you want to go, you could have $100 billion of capital available 
in the infrastructure bank to finance the kinds of projects that have a 
cash flow associated with them: toll roads, water systems, sanitation 
systems, airports, bridges.
  All of those things are possible. In doing that, you not only create 
the opportunity to finance those projects and obtain this kind of 
economic stimulation, but you also have taken off of the general fund 
of the Federal Government and some State and local governments, taken 
off their general fund the burden of financing those and are freeing up 
money for those infrastructure projects that do not have a cash flow 
associated with them, such as, for example, many of the highways and 
biways and county roads throughout America where there's no fee 
associated with them.
  We have the opportunity to finance these things if we could just get 
off the dime. Please, the leadership in this House, move us forward, 
give us a project that we can actually put in place, an infrastructure 
bank, and other kinds of projects that will actually create jobs.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. The gentleman is absolutely correct. There are lots 
of ways of going about this.
  Ronald Reagan in 1982 understood that the gas tax, a user fee, could 
be used to help the country, which at that point was in a serious 
economic recession. Ronald Reagan signed into law a nickel-a-gallon 
increase in the gas tax that helped spur economic development activity.
  If you don't want to raise a tax, there are unnecessary tax benefits 
that are flowing, for instance, to the largest oil companies that no 
longer need these tax breaks. In fact, George Bush the younger was 
famously quoted as saying when oil prices got to $50 a barrel that oil 
companies didn't need incentives to drill for the most profitable 
commodity on the face of the planet. Where we've watched it go to $100 
a barrel or more, we could completely capitalize the infrastructure 
bank the gentleman talked about just by unnecessary tax benefits to oil 
companies, which the majority of the American public would approve in a 
heartbeat. There are also the expiring tax provisions on the wealthiest 
of Americans where just half of that would enable us to fully fund the 
transportation gap over the next 10 years.

  I have bipartisan legislation that would deal with a water trust fund 
that would leverage close to a trillion dollars because of what the 
gentleman said--that there are other funds flowing for infrastructure 
like that, a trillion dollars of development over the next 20 years. 
There are opportunities here for us to step up and meet the needs of 
America and to rebuild and renew it.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. We have work to do, and Americans want to go to work 
and they want things made in America.
  I was interested in what you were saying about the use of our Tax 
Code. The Big Five oil companies in America--Exxon, Chevron, BP, and 
the other two--have in the last decade made a trillion dollars of 
profit. Yet at the same time, those Big Five get $4 billion a year in 
tax subsidies. Our tax money is going to those companies as if they

[[Page H1007]]

don't have enough of our money already. They do. If we dial that back 
and bring that back into the system for infrastructure investment, you 
could use it, as you say, for transportation because it's associated 
with transportation. You could use it for clean energy. Let's say you 
take 3 years of that and suddenly got $12 billion, we could capitalize 
an infrastructure bank. All of these things are possible if we get away 
from the notion of continuing to help the oil industry.

                              {time}  1740

  The wealthiest industry in the world doesn't need our tax money as a 
subsidy, and we ought to reel that money back in and use it for things 
that really create investments in America.
  There are other ways we can do this. We had what are called bonds, 
Build America Bonds. Those have expired, but those were extraordinarily 
useful for small cities, big cities, and counties to build 
infrastructure. Many, many things that could be done, but unfortunately 
we are now 12, 14 months into the current control of the House by 
Republicans and not one of these things have come to the floor to 
rebuild the American economy. We have work to do. And we can do it.
  I want to just point out that the Democratic Caucus, our colleagues 
on the Democratic side, have introduced 36 Make It In America bills, 
different kinds of ways to do it.
  My two bills deal with our tax money for transportation. The gasoline 
tax, use it to buy American-made steel, equipment, buses, and the other 
one I have is using our tax money. If we're going to subsidize wind 
turbines and solar cells, we buy American made, and this is a way of 
keeping the jobs in America.
  I know you have some additional thoughts on this, and let's continue 
on.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Well, it is one of the very real problems we are 
facing in terms of building it in America. We are in the process of 
constructing a wind energy in the United States. It's been remarkably 
successful over the course of the last 20 years.
  We've watched the price per kilowatt-hour produced by wind drop 
dramatically. At the same time, we are watching these wind turbine 
farms--you have them in California. We have them in the Pacific 
Northwest. They're in the Midwest. They're in Texas. They are providing 
revenue to rural America. Farmers and ranchers are being able to 
harvest the wind, literally.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. With the cows and sheep beneath the turbines.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. At the same time, this is low carbon. This is not 
adding to our greenhouse gas effect. It's not something that is being 
exported overseas, giving money to people who don't like us very much.
  At the same time, it is building this infrastructure: people who are 
now manufacturing wind turbines in the United States; people who are 
putting up, fabricating these towers; people dealing with the 
transmission capacity.
  But I will say that one of the things this Congress should do is to 
extend the production tax credit. We've talked about benefits that flow 
to the oil industry long past time that they were necessary to provide 
incentives for them to develop oil resources, but we have provided a 
little bit of an incentive to help get the wind energy business 
competitive.
  Well, that production tax credit expires at the end of the year. 
Already, we are watching investment patterns start to pull back because 
people are uncertain that they can go ahead with large-scale projects, 
investing tens of millions of dollars not certain that they will 
continue to have this tax benefit. That's outrageous.
  Of the $4 trillion of tax provisions that are going to expire at the 
end of the year, the opportunity for us to actually have deficit 
savings by recalibrating some of those--at a minimum, we ought to step 
up, and we ought to step up now, to be clear that the production tax 
credit is, in fact, going to continue so we don't shut down the wind 
energy industry, we don't lose the manufacturing and the construction, 
to say nothing of clean, renewable energy. That would be a tragedy.
  We have bipartisan legislation I've introduced with my friend from 
Seattle, Congressman Reichert. We have a number of very distinguished 
cosponsors, including yourself. This is something that shouldn't be 
languishing. There's a bipartisan interest in making sure that the wind 
energy industry doesn't shut down and that we continue making it in 
America.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very, very much for bringing that issue up. 
It's one that is extremely important in my district because I do have 
the two major northern California wind farms in my district, one in the 
Solano County area and the other one in the Altamont Pass area.
  My own history in this goes back to 1978, when I authored the first 
State law to provide a tax credit for those companies that built the 
wind turbines way back in 1978. So we've come a long, long way on this, 
and we ought to get it going.
  I notice that you're going to have to go, and I'm going to wrap up 
shortly after you leave.
  We've gone through a lot of things here. I'm going to just bring one 
more issue, and that has to do with the price of fuel in America today.
  Thank you so very much, my colleague from Oregon, bringing us the 
Northwest perspective on this.
  I went out and purchased gasoline this last week when I was back in 
California, and it was something around the range of $4.15 in one 
station, another, $4.25. I said, What's going on here? Why are we 
seeing this sudden rise when, in fact, in the Midwest of the United 
States, there is actually a surplus of oil? What's happening here?
  I think we can look to several different things that are taking 
place.
  One thing we know that is taking place is speculation. Because of the 
Dodd-Frank legislation, the government now has the power to deal with 
speculators, and I know the President picked this issue up when he was 
in Florida last week and said that this is something that a special 
task force has been set up in the Department of Justice to ferret out 
the speculation that's taking place in the gasoline markets.
  I've also said I'd heard a rumor that the United States is actually 
exporting gasoline. In fact, we are. We're exporting over 26 million 
gallons of gasoline a day. You heard that right. The energy companies 
say, well, the price is going up because of a shortage of gasoline. 
What are you selling me? There's a shortage when we're actually 
exporting gasoline? Why are we doing that? Well, we do import gasoline, 
too, but your imports are balanced by exports. So how does that help 
America? I don't think it does.

  Speculation, the export of gasoline, and you wonder why the prices 
are going up?
  Well, certainly the speculation has to do with the question of Iran 
and whether we're going to shut down the Strait of Hormuz or not. Well, 
that's speculation. But the reality today is there's a glut of oil in 
the Midwest that ought to be used for refining gasoline and diesel in 
the United States. We ought to make it in the United States and keep it 
in the United States.
  Twenty-six million gallons a day being exported? We'd like to have 
that in California. We'd like to have that drive down the price in 
California.
  There's not a shortage. There may be a shortage of wisdom. There may 
be an excess of market-driven policies here, but we have a crisis in 
the United States, and it is certainly the price of gasoline.
  A lot of discussion about ``drill, baby, drill.''
  Okay. Let's understand that we are now drilling and producing more 
oil in the United States this year than in the previous 8 years. That's 
right. Right back to the Republican administration, when George W. Bush 
was in power and the Republicans controlled both Houses, the drilling 
of oil was at an all-time low. As we've come into this period of time, 
we've seen the production increase to the highest it's been in the last 
8 years, and more to come.
  But the opening of the Outer Continental Shelf, the Alaska National 
Wildlife Refuge and others will have nothing to do with the near term, 
that is in the next 5 to 10 years, because of the length of time it 
takes to produce from those new areas.
  By the way, you don't need to waive every environmental law in the 
Nation or in the State to go get that oil. Off the coast of California, 
with directional drilling, you don't even need to get onto the ocean to 
get to the oil. You can drill from the land, reducing

[[Page H1008]]

the risk to the marine environment to near zero and access oil that's 6 
miles offshore. We ought to be looking at those things.

                              {time}  1750

  There is one other thing, and I think I will wrap with this so that 
my Republican colleagues, if they need a little time to get here for 
their next hour, have fair warning.
  Natural gas, it's an extraordinary asset for America. Natural gas is 
readily available. We're producing more natural gas in America now than 
ever before, and we're discovering that we can get even more. We're 
looking at an extraordinary asset. This is an American asset. It is a 
strategic asset. It is leading to the creation of jobs in America right 
now.
  In my own district that I share with Representative George Miller, in 
Pittsburg and on the Antioch city boundary line, we're seeing Dow 
Chemical coming home, bringing jobs back to America, investing large 
sums of money--millions and millions of dollars--in that facility 
because of the low price on natural gas. All across this winter in 
every part of America we've seen homeowners' heating bills, not soar, 
but actually decline. Yes, it has been a warm winter, but the price of 
natural gas for heating in the North Atlantic States, in the New 
England States, across the Midwest, and even in California is at an 
all-time low. The average last year was $4.30 when, just 5 years 
before, it was in the $10 to $12 range.
  So we're seeing an incredible opportunity for America. Energy is the 
foundation of our economy. When you have a ready supply in abundance, 
you ought to recognize that as a strategic asset. Yet in committee 
after committee, in my own Natural Resources Committee, I've seen my 
Republican colleagues put forth bills that would export natural gas, 
that would take this strategic asset and send it overseas because the 
energy companies can get a higher price overseas. They don't need a 
higher price. They're doing quite well, thank you. What we need is a 
reliable, low-cost energy source in America.
  Do not allow--do not allow--by legislation or by executive order the 
export of natural gas from the United States. There is a little bit 
that now goes to Canada or to Mexico under the NAFTA agreements, all of 
that in pipeline; but just this last week, one of the big Wall Street 
hedge funds decided to invest $2 billion in a Texas scheme to build a 
liquefied natural gas export facility. Well, I suppose it's nice to 
build it; but by golly, that's America's strategic asset that's going 
to be sent overseas.
  Be aware of what's happening here. If you send that gas overseas in 
any large quantity, you're going to drive up the price of natural gas 
in America. So American farmers are going to pay more for their 
fertilizers, and we're going to see home-heating prices throughout the 
Nation rise as those exports of this strategic asset rise. We're going 
to see that Dow Chemical is going to make a different decision about 
whether to come back to America to take advantage of the low cost of 
natural gas or whether it's going to say, okay, America is so screwed 
up in that it's taking one of its most basic strategic assets and 
selling it for the highest price.
  I think back on the story of Esau, in the Bible, when he sold out his 
birthright for a bowl of porridge. We ought not do this. We need an 
energy supply in America that we do have available to us.
  So, with that, if my Republican colleagues are anywhere nearby, they 
can claim their hour.
  We've gone through some very, very important things here--the Make It 
in America agenda and 36 Democratic bills that would build our economy, 
that would cause us to come back and rebuild our great manufacturing 
sector. It will happen. It's government policies that over the last 25 
years have caused the American manufacturing base to erode, policies 
such as tax breaks for American companies that would send their jobs 
offshore. We stopped nearly all of that before the Democrats lost power 
here in Congress.
  So we ask our Republicans to work with us in putting into law these 
36 bills that will cause us to rebuild the American middle class, to 
reignite the American Dream and to give the middle class the 
opportunity to engage in manufacturing.
  Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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