[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 63 (Monday, April 25, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE 2016 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT ``CREATE, GROW, SUSTAIN: 
                    PEOPLE AND TECHNOLOGY AT WORK''

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                            HON. FRED UPTON

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, April 25, 2016

  Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, last Friday, we celebrated Earth Day. Every 
year on April 22 we recognize how much we have at stake in preserving 
the wondrous natural resources of not just the United States, but of 
the entire planet. As someone who has sponsored important legislation 
to upgrade pipeline safety standards and keep microbeads out of our 
waters while helping to broker a landmark deal that opened up markets 
for energy exports and extended tax credits for renewables, I 
understand the many momentous ways in which we have improved the 
environment within our great country since the first Earth Day in 1970. 
And no organization has captured the many ways in which our private 
businesses have made, and continue to make, huge strides toward 
sustainability than the Business Roundtable.
  But to me and so many of our colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, 
the unsung heroes in the effort to make our nation cleaner and more 
abundant are the private companies that develop technologies that are 
responsible for a cleaner environment.
  They are the ones who have developed technologies that have helped to 
clean our Nation's vital waterways, including the Great Lakes.
  They have cleaned the air in Los Angeles, where the ``brown layer'' 
over the entire basin of 30-40 years ago is a distant memory. This is 
thanks to breakthroughs from auto manufacturers and oil refiners alike.
  Chemical companies are enhancing energy efficiency in our homes and 
businesses, and increasing the productivity of our farmland.
  The ability to tap into natural gas that seemed out of reach, if we 
even knew it existed, has enabled us to radically reduce greenhouse gas 
emissions into the atmosphere.
  The Business Roundtable has done us all a great service by canvassing 
its members and compiling a document, entitled ``Create, Grow, Sustain: 
People and Technology at Work'' that acquaints us with the technologies 
that these very companies have used so effectively, and the cutting-
edge approaches they have developed that will facilitate sustainability 
long into the future.
  This report represents a catalog of technologies promise to bring 
about advances under the heading of sustainability at an even more 
rapid pace than we seen over the past decades. The future is bright 
indeed.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope our colleagues will take the time to review the 
Business Roundtable 2016 sustainability report so they can see for 
themselves the exciting technologies being put into commerce by our 
leading companies.

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