[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 7194-7195]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             TAPPING AMERICA'S INGENUITY AND CAN-DO SPIRIT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Walz) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WALZ of Minnesota. I want to thank my friend and colleague, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania, for his leadership, for his vision, and 
for the understanding that the American people sent us here to do 
America's work. Not one party's work, not ideological rigidness, but 
the idea to come together; that this Nation's bounty in terms of energy 
reserves and mineral resources, if used wisely and safely and 
reinvested in this Nation's future, can produce what we know needs to 
be done: strengthening our national security by making sure we control 
our energy destiny, making sure we control our economy, and making sure 
there's stability in where that energy comes from so that American 
families and businesses aren't forced through the ups and downs at the 
whims of nations that hate us.
  We spend billions, hundreds of billions of dollars sending it to 
those nations that hate us. Heck, they'll hate us for free. And we can 
keep those jobs at home, we can keep the money at home, and we can 
invest. It's not an either/or proposition. Taking the royalties that 
belong to this Nation's people, allowing them to be gained, to be 
expanded, and to be done in a responsible manner is something everybody 
in this House wants. We can take those resources and reinvest them.
  I am proud to come from southern Minnesota, a place where innovation 
is the air we breathe. We have the Mayo Clinic; we are the fourth 
leading producer of wind power; we are the leading producer of 
biofuels; we have the largest agricultural production; and we have good 
small employers manufacturing at home. That vision can be one that we 
control our destiny.
  There is a group of us together, Democrats and Republicans, 
introducing something that can become law, that can do these things, 
that can reinvest in infrastructure, that can reinvest in conservation, 
that can make sure that we control our destiny. And the things that 
happen with dictators in the Middle East, the importance goes down. We 
control those things. We can do it. It's going to be on the floor 
today.
  Mr. Speaker, I encourage all of my colleagues to join this piece of 
legislation. It is visionary. It is a compromise to get to there. It 
can work. It adds nothing to the national debt, but reduces it. It adds 
nothing in taxes and it lets us control those things.
  This bill, and I will add, the gentleman's work and my colleagues 
from California and across this Nation, was written by us and the 
American people, not lobbyists, not special interests. We sat in a room 
together and agreed to

[[Page 7195]]

get along, to try to come together on things that we could work on to 
make this country work.

                              {time}  1040

  That's going to be introduced today. It can happen. We owe it to the 
American people to get that done. Let's roll up the sleeves, tap that 
innovation, do the right things, get to work, and make this country 
energy independent. Let's secure our future both from a security 
standpoint and an economic standpoint and create jobs right at home.
  Believe it or not, there are solutions coming right out of this 
Chamber.

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