[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2484-2485]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     REINVESTING TAXPAYER SUBSIDIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Speaker, this week the House will vote to reinvest 
taxpayer subsidies from the most profitable oil companies in the world 
to the American people in the form of lower gas prices, lower home 
heating oil costs, and new jobs in clean, renewable technologies.
  For 6 years under Republican management, we attempted a strategy to 
reduce our dependence on foreign oil and to lower gas prices. The 
strategy was to provide $14 billion in industry subsidies to the 
largest oil companies in the world, the most profitable oil companies 
in the world. So $14 billion to them, and at the same time the Bush 
administration submitted budgets to this Congress that actually reduced 
funding for renewable energies, for energy efficiency, for 
weatherization, for solar, for hydrogen, for other renewable 
technologies.
  And so what was the result? The result was this: Gas prices doubled; 
home heating oil prices tripled; oil company profits quadrupled, but 
the average American was now faced with an additional $1,500 in gas 
prices. And at the same time as oil company profits went up and as 
pocketbooks got lower and lower, the wallets of the American people 
lost more and more value, we actually increased our dependence on 
foreign oil. This year we are actually importing 1.6 million barrels of 
oil a day more than we were before the energy policy that the prior 
Congress passed and that the President signed.

                              {time}  1545

  So we're actually more dependent on foreign oil, and the American 
people are less well off. Oil companies did very, very well. But we did 
nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and the American 
people lost $1,500 in the process.
  Well, we're going to change that. We have the opportunity to change 
that this week. We're going to pass, I hope on a bipartisan basis, a 
new approach, a new strategy, a fundamental change in energy policy. 
And we're going to redirect those subsidies from oil companies to the 
pocketbooks of the American people. We're going to create as many as 3 
million jobs in renewable technologies. We're going to invest those 
subsidies in the creation of new green jobs in solar and hydrogen and 
wind and geothermal. We're going to create those new jobs and regain 
our manufacturing capacity and capabilities.
  Mr. Speaker, it troubles me that here we are, the country that 
defeated the most monumental threat of the 20th century in Nazi Germany 
and Japan, and we're now behind Germany and Japan in solar 
technologies. Of the top 10 wind companies on Earth, only one is 
American. Iceland, Denmark, now making great strides in geothermal and 
wind. We're not. Seven out of every 10 cars in Brazil are fuel 
flexible. We're not.
  We can regain our capacities. We can regain our skills, we can regain 
our competitive edge in the world. We can regain our manufacturing 
strength in the world by leapfrogging ahead of them in renewable 
technologies. To do that, we've got to make investments in the American 
people, not the bottom line profits of oil companies.
  When we gave those oil companies the opportunity to make those 
investments in the American people, what did they do? They made those 
investments in the oil companies' CEOs. One cashed out with about $60 
million.
  We believe that it's time to make those investments in the American 
people, in American jobs, in renewable energy. And by doing so, we can 
reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
  We have created a paradigm, Mr. Speaker, where, with a $9 trillion 
debt, we are borrowing money from China to fund our defense budgets to 
buy oil from the Persian Gulf to fuel our military to protect us from 
China and the Persian Gulf. It makes no sense.

[[Page 2485]]

  This week, we have the opportunity to take a giant leap for common 
sense: reinvest in the American people, reinvest in American jobs, 
reinvest in our defense, reinvest in our competitive edge, reinvest in 
our human capital, reduce our dependence on foreign oil. And that's 
precisely what we will do by passing this bill.

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