[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 14, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H2597-H2600]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 2030
MAKE IT IN AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Perry). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from California (Mr.
Garamendi) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority
leader.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I had intended to talk about this
subject, rebuilding the American manufacturing sector, and I will. But
I just heard the most remarkable 1-hour debate in my life--not a
debate, but a whole slew of accusations and incorrect facts. I guess a
fact shouldn't be incorrect. But I've never heard such gobbledygook and
misstatements in my entire life.
The last one--I'm absolutely delighted the gentleman's father is
healthy, but to think that a 2 percent tax on medical devices is
somehow going to stop medical technology when those devices are
extraordinarily profitable to these companies is just lunacy. I know
nobody likes to pay taxes, and certainly the manufacturers of those
devices don't want to have to pay a 2 percent tax. But come on, you
think that's going to stop medical technology from advancing when
there's so much profit in it? I don't think so.
Okay. Thirty-seven times now, 37 times this week the Republican
majority is going to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act--37 times--
when Americans are already benefiting from the Affordable Care Act. Is
it that my friends who spoke here for the last hour want to tell every
22-year-old or 21-year-old in the entire Nation that they can no longer
stay on their parents' health insurance? Because that's exactly what
the repeal would do. Those young men and women who are counting on
being able to have health insurance--no, repeal ends that part of the
Affordable Health Care Act.
Are they to go out and tell 40 million Americans that they're not
going to have health insurance at all? That's what the repeal of the
Affordable Health Care Act will do, 40 million Americans. Are they to
say that somehow this is costing more money to have an insurance policy
where you can stay healthy, where you can get care before it becomes a
crisis and wind up in an emergency room, that that's going to be
cheaper when you repeal the Affordable Health Care Act? Sending people
to the emergency room is going to be cheaper? What planet are you from?
That's not the way it is. The most expensive care in the world is the
emergency room, where somebody does not have the continuity of care
that an insurance policy provides for them.
Or maybe they want to discriminate against women as existed before
the Affordable Health Care Act. Every woman in this Nation faced
insurance discrimination, but the Affordable Health Care Act ends that
discrimination.
And how many families out there, how many families out across America
have a member of that family--or maybe many members of that family--
that have some preexisting condition--high blood pressure, onset of
diabetes, maybe some incident in their past? I will tell you, I was the
insurance commissioner in California for 8 years, and I know exactly
what the health insurance companies will do if the provisions that
prevent insurance discriminations are eliminated with the bill that
these gentlemen and ladies intend to take up later this week.
Insurance discrimination has harmed millions upon millions of
Americans--many of whom came to me as insurance commissioner in
California pleading for some justice in their insurance program.
Justice was to be found at least in California because I knew that the
insurance companies had an obligation and they had a contract. But you
eliminate the Affordable Health Care Act and you'll see insurance
discrimination reemerge in the United States in a way that will harm
millions upon millions of Americans because they will not be able to
get insurance. And if they did, they will have to pay far more simply
because they are a woman.
Thirty-seven times. Thirty-seven times you've attempted to repeal the
Affordable Health Care Act.
Seniors--every senior in this Nation that's on Medicare is able to
get a free annual checkup. And ladies and gentlemen, you need to
understand in your arguments that that free, affordable annual checkup
has reduced the cost of medical care in Medicare programs. And the
inflation rate in Medicare has come down since the Affordable Care Act
has gone into effect.
The statistics you toss around about the extraordinary cost, you need
to understand that we have been plagued by health care insurance
inflation for decades. The Affordable Health Care Act has built into it
the very first opportunity this Nation has had nationwide
[[Page H2598]]
to bend the cost curve on health care, and we're seeing it happen
today. We're seeing it happen today in the Medicare program because
seniors are able to get prevention. They're able to get that drug that
brings down their blood pressure, or the advice on how to deal with
diabetes and avoid the extraordinary cost. Oh, yeah, 37 times repealing
the Affordable Health Care Act.
You talk about jobs in America. Okay, let's talk about jobs in
America. Let's talk about the fact that there's not been one
significant piece of legislation out of this House since the beginning
of this session to create jobs. President Obama stood here on this dais
and talked about creating jobs, but this House has not brought forward
one significant piece of legislation.
The President called for an infrastructure program--$50 billion--to
put people back to work, to create the infrastructure--the streets, the
roads, the bridges, the water systems, the sanitation systems--not just
to put people back to work, but to build the foundation for future
economic growth.
So where is that legislation? Has it even been heard in one committee
controlled by our friends in the opposition party? No. No. Well, we
will take up a transportation act soon, but will there be adequate
funding for infrastructure? Probably not. Probably not.
The President called for an American Jobs Act, not even heard in
committee here. Americans want to go to work. They want jobs. They want
to go to work, and we have a program on the Democratic side to do that.
We want to deal with the big problems facing this Nation. We want to
deal with the fact that we have millions of people that want to work in
America, and we have serious problems to solve.
We ought to put aside this business of repealing the Affordable
Health Care Act. Change it? Yes. Make a reasonable change and let's
talk about it. Make a proposal about how to make it better, and we'll
talk about it; but we're not going to talk about repealing it. We're
not going to go there.
Maybe we ought to go with some things that are really important.
Maybe we ought to go with something that was in the news today.
It's been determined that for the first time in at least 3 million
years the carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is over 400 parts
per million. What does that mean? Climate change? Oh, yes. If you were
in Los Angeles this last couple of days, you would have seen record-
high temperatures in early May. Reports are coming out about firestorms
this summer season. We've seen Superstorm Sandy, and around this world
we've seen many super-environmental effects.
{time} 2040
The scientists tell us that that climate change will bring more
severe weather events and there will be disruptions in our food supply
like the current drought in the Southwest. Four hundred parts per
million; in the last 3 million years, the carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere has never been that high.
Now, the good news is that this Nation, the strongest economic nation
in the world, despite the inability of this House to get things done,
we can solve the climate change problem, or at least lead; and in doing
so, we can put people back to work.
Here's how it can be done: clean energy. Clean energy is spurring
business development across this country and its future is very, very
bright. Not a month goes by without some entrepreneur, a scientist, an
inventor, coming to me with another idea about how you can improve
solar technologies, photovoltaic technologies. One just came up the
other day, a very inspired way of doing it, perhaps two times more
efficient, or one-and-a-half times more efficient than the current
solar panels.
Companies are investing. U.S.-based venture capital investments in
clean energy surged 30 percent from $5.1 billion in 2010 to $6.6
billion in 2011, and the trend continues. Jobs in the solar energy
industry are in every State, and there are over 5,000 companies
involved employing over 100,000 American workers. And wind energy,
which is big in my district in Solano County, 75,000 people across this
Nation, and many of them my own constituents.
There's great potential out there as we move from coal and oil, the
energy of the previous two centuries, to the clean energies of the
future. We'll see that in agriculture as we grow crops that can
generate energy. We'll see it in geothermal. We'll see it in wave
energy in our oceans. There's enormous potential. And the research that
goes into this is also jobs.
Our colleagues on the majority side have attempted in the last year
to reduce research for energy and agriculture. To what effect? Well,
maybe they want to go to 500 parts per million carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere. I don't think Americans want to go there. I don't think the
people of the world want to go there. I don't think they want the
calamity that will come.
There's many other ways this can be done. Yesterday, as part of our
Make It in America agenda, I was in Sacramento, California, on the edge
of my district and a remarkable event took place, an event that was
actually caused by a piece of legislation that was passed here, the
very first piece of legislation signed by President Obama in 2009. It
was the stimulus bill, the much-maligned stimulus bill. They said it
didn't work. Well, it did work, Mr. Speaker, and it is working today,
and it's being made in America. Here's what the American Recovery Act
is doing for Americans. Here's what the stimulus bill, in yet one more
example of success, is doing for America.
This is the most advanced locomotive built in the world. It's built
in Sacramento. The stimulus bill provided $466 million for Amtrak to
buy 70 advanced electric locomotives. And written into that bill was a
sentence that said these locomotives must be American-made.
So, Siemens, a German company with large manufacturing facilities
around the world, certainly in Germany and other countries on every
continent except Antarctica, looked at that and said, 466 million?
Hmmm. Made in America? We can do that.
They put a bid in. They went to their manufacturing plant in
Sacramento that was previously manufacturing light rail cars, set about
building a new factory, and that new factory employs 200 people today.
Yesterday, the first of 70 new locomotives rolled onto America's rail
tracks and will soon be providing service on the Northeastern Corridor.
Two hundred new direct jobs in Sacramento at the Siemens factory and
hundreds around the Nation--it works.
The climate change issue here is very important. The advanced
technology in this locomotive that has 9,000 horsepower has the ability
to generate electricity when it slows down, when it brakes for curves
or stations, putting back into the grid electricity that it consumed in
its previous travel.
Make it in America. Use our Federal tax dollars to buy and to build
American-made equipment and supplies and materials. That's precisely
what Siemens is doing.
This is a success story. This is the kind of thing we should be
talking about here on the floor of the House of Representatives. This
is the kind of work we should be doing in our committees: putting
Americans back to work, laying the infrastructure for the future growth
of this country. But, oh, no, we are going to spend this week dealing
with the 37th attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
There's so much more to do. There's so much more to do here in
America. Why don't we put our shoulder to the wheel of progress and
provide a transportation bill that actually builds the infrastructure
for this Nation, that provides these kinds of locomotives and train
sets.
In the early days of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln signed the
Transcontinental Rail Act. Little known, but in that Rail Act was a
provision, not just to build a rail line across America, but that all
of the steel, all of the iron that was to be used in that line had to
be American made. Made it in America, creating jobs, connecting the
east to the west, 1862. And here we are all these decades later with
the same idea: a new locomotive on American rails and American made.
I want to congratulate Siemens. I want to congratulate this German
company that is here in America, is providing American jobs, and is
providing the most advanced locomotive in the world, and they're
building it in Sacramento, California.
[[Page H2599]]
So, what else can we do? What else can we do to provide jobs? There's
so much. If we had listened to the President when he proposed to
Congress the American JOBS Act, perhaps 2 million more Americans would
be working today. Construction crews would be putting bridges and dams
and levees and flood protection facilities, they would be building the
infrastructure. And we would also be working on our energy systems.
{time} 2050
The piece of legislation that I have introduced would require that
tax subsidies for individuals and businesses that wanted to put up a
wind turbine or a solar panel would only be available to them if they
bought American-made equipment. Spend our tax money on American-made
equipment made by Americans: a pretty simple thought. Abraham Lincoln
must have had that thought, and the Congress in 1862 had that thought
and passed a law that did it.
There is more that we can do.
When we passed the transportation bill, as we should this year or
early next year, a new highway bill, we should put into it a proposal
by Ranking Member Rahall. That proposal said that the money in this
bill will be spent on American-made concrete, steel, trucks, buses--
putting Americans to work. The Democrats on that committee think that's
a really good idea, and we hope our Republican colleagues agree and
that we write into the transportation bill a very strong ``buy
America'' provision so that Americans can have the jobs and so that we
avoid the egregious and humiliating fact that the steel in much of the
new Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge was not made by American
steelworkers, not by American companies, but Chinese. It went out to
bid. It was supposed to be 10 percent cheaper, so the Chinese company
took the bid, built a new highly advanced steel mill, and sent faulty
steel to San Francisco Bay, requiring even more expenditure.
So there are things we should learn from the history, and we will if
we listen carefully, if we pay attention to what science is telling us
about climate change, about the buildup of carbon dioxide in our
atmosphere, and if we listen, then we must have the courage to act. I
would pray for our children's future and their children's and their
children's beyond that that this House of Representatives and the
Senate have the courage to act decisively on the climate crisis, and
that in the farm bill that we mark up tomorrow we take the opportunity
to write into that farm bill serious conservation programs that
conserve the Nation's forests and farmland and water and streams. I
would hope that we would do that.
I would hope that this House would find the courage to take on the
oil industry and the coal industry and move decisively to green energy
systems and stop, slow down what is a terrible process underway of
filling our atmosphere with ever-increasing levels of carbon dioxide.
After all, it's about the next generations. My generation will soon be
gone, and so will most of the Members of this House. It's the future
generations that are going to face our apparent unwillingness and
inability to attack the climate change problem. As I said a moment ago,
we can do it in a way that builds efficient transportation systems,
like this locomotive that Siemens built in Sacramento, California, that
builds green energy systems, renewable energy, low carbon dioxide-
producing energy.
I've noticed that my colleague from Texas has joined us.
Sheila Jackson Lee, thank you so very much for joining us this
evening. We've gone on here about the Affordable Care Act and how we
ought to turn our attention to jobs for America, and I'm sure you have
some thoughts on those subjects and others. Please join us.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I want to thank my good friend from California for
really framing the discussion tonight around, I think, the only theme
that gives us the kind of positive agenda that puts Americans back to
work. We know, as the economy collapsed, 12 million were out of work.
We also know that we have steadily made an increase, but it's not where
any of us would like to be.
I listened to the gentleman so eloquently and so effectively ask the
simple question as to why are we again putting on the floor of the
House a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, something that has not only
been resoundingly embraced by many of our leaders and by the uninsured
in our Nation who are looking forward to the opportunity to be insured,
but in the last election, I think it was very clear that, in the
affirmation of President Obama, 64 million-plus people voted for him,
and an enormous, unequaled divide in the States supported him, and he
made it clear that he wanted to ensure, on behalf of the American
people, that there would be the coverage of working families.
Now, as he looks to implementation, we recognize that Members of
Congress will be engaged in making it work right, but we also realize
that the Affordable Care Act will provide more resources for health
professionals, that it will establish more federally qualified health
clinics, which will create more jobs, and that it will attack the
dastardly number, my friend, Mr. Garamendi, of 28.4 percent uninsured,
and of 6 percent uninsured in the State of Texas. Of course, our
Governor sees fit to reject the expanded Medicaid.
I can't imagine why we have not embraced this agenda, which includes
the idea of all of the above and of creating clean energy and
manufacturing jobs, bringing solar energy back to the United States
again, making solar panels. Certainly, I'm aware of the fact that any
country will grab what it can grab, but the United States has the
capacity to do solar energy. It has the capacity to build wind
turbines. All we have to do is invest.
It has the opportunity, in actuality, to build submarines and to get
back in the shipbuilding business. I'm sure there are Members listening
and saying, We've long left that business. No, I don't think so,
because there is always a more technologically efficient, more
effective, more swift, if you will, ship or submarine. You can always
make it bigger and better, smaller and better. With the technological
revolution, we also have the opportunity to raise the specter of
manufacturing.
Of course, in the energy sector, where I come from, there is a whole
array of opportunities as we utilize clean natural gas. That is making
the manufacturing opportunities grow grander and grander, and I truly
believe that we will find a common balance between natural gas
producers and the manufacturers who need to use clean energy. Let me
also say that the housing market is booming, and I am delighted to
stand here and say that that is creating jobs, and many of these homes
are being built on the basis of clean energy. H.R. 1524 is a bill that
speaks to this issue.
I don't know why we are spending our time, 3 days, on the floor. I
know that they will be in the Rules Committee tomorrow, and I will have
a number of amendments that I hope to be introducing that hopefully
speak to the issue of the utilization of expanded Medicaid for States
that have 20 percent-plus of uninsured, the idea of ensuring that we
include the right kind of Medicare reimbursement. These are issues that
can go in regular order, but yet we are spending the Nation's time,
dollars, and resources to be on the floor when we could be putting
forward tax reform.
Many of us want to work on tax incentives for small businesses, the
backbone of the economic engine of this country. My friends--I call
them all my friends; I want small businesses to be paying attention--
you are our friends. You create jobs. You stay the course.
{time} 2100
Just today, I was listening to an individual in the ravaged area of
Hurricane Sandy, and she was saying she has six restaurants. She was
complaining that we had not done what we were supposed to do. Obviously
you remember they stalled the compensation for those souls in that eye
of the storm. We waited and our friends, the Republicans, wouldn't let
the money out. She is a victim of that. She said I have six restaurants
and some of the ones I cook in. But just give her, in addition to the
compensation from FEMA which is overdue, give her a tax structure that
can help her grow her business and pass legislation that gives
incentives for hiring the unemployed. That's what
[[Page H2600]]
should be on the floor of the House as we approach all of the
excitement of graduation, when young people will be coming out of
college doors, looking for the opportunity that America has always
promised when they say we all are created equal.
I'll be going to a number of graduations. I know I will. You'll be
speaking at graduations. What will you be saying to them? That America
is a land of opportunity, yet we pound day after day after day after
day, month after month, year after year on a bill that has been passed,
signed into law and is being implemented, where physicians and
researchers are saying thank you for the Affordable Care Act. For the
items we have to fix, let's fix them together.
So I came to the floor to just say that I want to join the chorus of
getting to work; I want to join the chorus of creating jobs. In fact, I
want to join the chorus of putting our heads together and creating a
summer youths' job program for the young people, high school students
that are coming out in the middle of their high school years. We always
used to be able to find work. No one cannot tell me that when we did it
in 2009, the first year of President Obama's administration, it was a
grand and exciting--it was not an experiment, but a grand and exciting
response to all those young people who were in the high schools
preparing to go to college.
Let me finish by saying this and just throw a little something on the
table just to say that if we want to work, let's move toward
immigration reform. That is another job creator and one that answers
the questions of America's businesses. Let's do that. If we want to
work--of course, I know I'll see a couple of my friend running out the
door, but we can find sensible gun legislation. But I'll just say that
if nothing else, can we get something that says store your guns?
Over the last weeks, we've been seeing people leave guns around and
do this. So could you do that? Could you just have a simple--H.R. 65
says to hold people responsible for storing their guns.
I want to thank my friend for your leadership. It has been a
persistent and pronounced leadership that I've been delighted to join
you on. And I want to thank our leader, Nancy Pelosi, for her
pointedness about can we get to work and her rising leadership, if you
will, in the backdrop of the tenor that she had as Speaker to be able
to get things done. And, of course, all the leadership, including the
leading spokesperson for Make It in America, our friend, Steny Hoyer,
and I must mention all of our leaders, Mr. Clyburn, Chairman Becerra,
and our vice chair in Mr. Crowley, along with our committee ranking
members.
But our message has been that we can do all of the fussing; we can
fix the IRS; we can talk about issues that are occurring with leaks.
That's our job. We understand that. But it is not our job to come back
over and over again and revive a bill that is the law of the land not
only by the vote of the United States Congress, but by the United
States Supreme Court. What more do we need to answer that question?
So I hope to accomplish this in partnership with the gentleman. We're
writing legislation, as well. Let me throw one other point in there. We
joined in on some legislation about doing human exploration again. That
creates jobs, as well. It builds the Orion that's on the books right
now that is getting ready to be built. There are so many things we can
do together bipartisan. And I want to thank the gentleman for his
leadership.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Sheila Jackson Lee, thank you so very much. You are a
leader in all of these issues. You've often and almost always present
these issues to the American people on the floor of the House, and you
do it with passion and knowledge.
There was an hour spent earlier by our colleagues about the 37th time
that they're going to attempt to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act.
It reminded me that they also have a piece of legislation to end
Medicare as we know it. If you go back to when Medicare was put in
place in the sixties, 1964, 1965, the Republican Party opposed it then
and have often, through those years, to this date, attempted in various
ways to eviscerate or to end it as we know it. Apparently they're going
to try to do the same thing with the Affordable Health Care Act. It is
such a waste of time because these programs are so fundamental to our
ability to survive. This is health care for Americans and spreading
that opportunity out.
It's a long discussion. We've had that discussion on the floor for
many days. What we really ought to be focusing on is putting Americans
back to work. This piece of legislation is one of about 30 pieces of
legislation that's put in by the Democratic Caucus. This is mine. It
deals with your tax money. It simply says that it's going to be spent
on American-made clean energy, solar panels, wind turbines and the
like. It's not a bad idea to spend your tax money on American-made
equipment, American jobs, American businesses.
There's another bill that I have dealing with the transportation
system. It's the same thing. That bill is now finding its way into the
rewrite of the highway transportation program, the transportation bill;
and hopefully it will be there. It's a very strong buy-American
provision for our buses, our trains, our light rail, locomotives and
steel and concrete for bridges.
We've got a lot of work to do in America. We've got a lot of work and
a lot of need; and this House ought to be spending its time on that.
We'll take another night and we'll go into the tax policy side of
this, which there is a lot to be said about changing our taxes to
encourage manufacturing. Some of that has been done. I'll leave the one
example that 2 years ago when the Democrats controlled this House, we
eliminated about $12 billion of tax breaks that American companies
received for shipping American jobs overseas. We put a stop to that.
There's about another $5 billion that needs to be done, but we no
longer control this House. But we ought to bring those jobs back home.
We ought to flip that over and give a tax break for reshoring, bringing
the jobs back to America.
That's another night's discussion. We'll take that up in another
evening. But for tonight, it's about putting Americans back to work.
It's about focusing the attention of this Chamber, the 435 of us, on
what we really need in this country, which is a very strong and growing
economy.
We've seen progress every quarter since the beginning of 2010. Every
quarter we've seen private sector employment grow. We're not where we
ought to be. We have more work to do. And when we finally rebuild the
American manufacturing sector, when once again we make it in America,
Americans are going to make it.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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