[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15731-15734]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  IMPORTANT ISSUES THAT AFFECT AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, the attention of the House is drawn to 
many, many issues this week. Certainly, the tragedy in Oregon draws all 
of our attention, our sympathy, but unfortunately not our vote. We have 
never really had a vote here on the floor of the House to deal with 
this issue of gun safety; although, legislation has been passed around 
many, many times.
  Even the most conservative columnists are now saying that we must 
take action, and we really should. So I will just start by saying to 
all of our colleagues: Let's vote, vote up or down on the various 
proposals that have been made.
  Certainly the attention of this body is turned to who is going to be 
the next Speaker. It seems to occupy most of the discussion and most of 
the articles in the newspapers around this town. It is important, but 
there are many, many other issues that come before the House. Some of 
them are really going to affect America.
  I want to talk about one of them today, and it is in the context of 
something we have been discussing here for the last 4 or 5 years. We 
call it Make It In America. It is about rebuilding the American 
manufacturing sector. It is about rebuilding the American middle class. 
It is about creating jobs in America by doing what we once did so very, 
very well, which is manufacturing. Make things: big things, little 
things, all kinds of things. We call it our Make It In America agenda.
  I am going to go through it very quickly here and then focus on one 
piece of this agenda. Here it is: trade policies. This is going to take 
a lot of time to discuss this. We are not going to go into it today, 
but the President announced just in the last couple days that the 
Trans-Pacific Partnership deal is done.
  Now, we don't know what is in it. We have--at least I have--great 
concerns about this and that it will be one more step in hollowing out 
the American manufacturing sector, but it is all secret. We don't know 
yet. We will find out soon enough, and we will undoubtedly come back 
and talk about trade.
  Taxes and tax policies, I will hit on this in a few moments.
  Labor issues, well, that ties back to the trade issue and whether we 
are going to send more of our jobs overseas.
  Education, research, infrastructure, today I really want to focus on 
this energy and infrastructure. If you bear with me a few moments, I 
want to go into this in some detail.
  For many, many years, we have tried to make America energy 
independent, and in the last 5 years, 6 years now, we have seen an 
enormous increase in the production of energy in the United States.
  Now, a lot of that energy has come from green technologies--solar, 
wind, and biofuels--and many other ways of producing renewable energy 
called green energy. That is good because all of that reduces 
greenhouse gas emissions, and we need to do more of it.
  Frankly, we need tax policy.
  Maybe I will put this back up again so I can point out the way in 
which the Make It In America agenda fits all of this.
  Tax policy has a great deal to do with green energy. There are tax 
breaks for solar installation on your home, solar installation for 
businesses, the production tax credit for wind and solar. All of these 
things make it really possible to advance the green energy agenda.
  Tax policy also has a great deal to do with the other part of our 
energy independence--we are not quite there, but we are making great 
advances on it--and that has to do with petroleum products: natural gas 
and crude oil.
  There has been much talk about the Bakken revolution in Wyoming and 
North Dakota producing a lot of energy. We are talking about different 
techniques to extract oil, enhanced oil production, otherwise known as 
fracking. All of these things have led to an explosion--well, 
literally, in the case of the Bakken fuel because it is highly 
volatile, and it does explode when trains tip over.
  But what we are talking about here is an explosion in the volume of 
oil and natural gas produced in America. We have literally doubled the 
production of natural gas and oil over the last 5 to 6 years, bringing 
down the cost of fuel. Also, around the world, the slowdown of the 
Chinese economy and Europe have reduced the demand for oil, and we are 
seeing a reduced price of oil on the world market, even at a time when 
we are seeing more and more production of crude oil and natural gas 
here in the United States.
  What does all this mean to the oil industry, to the petroleum 
industry? It means they have got a lot of oil, and the United States is 
not consuming all of it or as much as they would like to keep the 
prices up. So guess what they want to do. They want to export oil. 
Isn't that something?

                              {time}  1945

  How do we become energy-independent if we are exporting oil? Well, we 
have got a lot of interesting economic arguments about how that could 
be done. I am saying I don't think so.
  I don't think it is in the interest of the United States to take a 
strategic national asset--natural gas, crude oil--and export it to 
China. It may be good for China. It certainly would be good for the 
energy industry, the petroleum industry. Wow, they have got a new 
market.
  You see, right now there is a Federal ban on the export of crude oil 
to other countries, with the exception of Mexico and Canada. We swap 
crude oil back and forth. A little bit of crude oil is also shipped out 
of the United States from the North Slope of Alaska.
  A very interesting law was established back in the seventies, when 
there was this energy crisis and there were long lines at the gasoline 
pumps. That law said: No. You cannot export crude oil.
  And then later, in the 1990s, there was a little opening provided for 
Mexico and Canada and for Alaska North Slope oil. It could be shipped 
to other countries--exported--with this caveat: You cannot increase 
domestic oil prices.
  I don't know that that was ever enforced. We certainly saw the 
gasoline prices zip to the top last year. Now it is coming back down, 
and that is good. It is bad that it went up, good that it is coming 
down.
  But I don't think the Department of Energy or the Department of 
Commerce really enforced what was in the law about the export of crude 
oil from Alaska.
  So we have got this strategic asset--natural gas and crude oil--that 
has allowed us to have a resurgence of American manufacturing. They are 
coming home. American manufacturers are coming home to make it in 
America.
  Dow, a big chemical operation, is coming back to America because 
natural gas prices are low. Other companies are doing the same thing. 
Because the United States has a strategic advantage as a result of 
strategic assets:

[[Page 15732]]

oil and natural gas, together with green energy.
  So what does the petroleum industry want to do? They want to ruin all 
of that. They want to take the strategic assets and ship them overseas.
  This week the House of Representatives is going to take up a piece of 
legislation that opens the spigot for the export of crude oil. There is 
already an open spigot for the export of natural gas. I will come to 
that in a few moments.
  So is this in the interest of the United States? Well, if you are in 
the oil patch--North Dakota, Texas, maybe even California--maybe it is 
good. Maybe you will be able to make a little more money.
  But at the expense of who? America, American consumers at the pump, 
truckers, trains. All of those use diesel produced here in the United 
States from our refineries.
  So good for the petroleum industry, but bad for America. We ought not 
do that. And if you would consider for a few moments that, should we 
ever allow the export of crude oil, we ought to put some serious 
caveats on that piece of legislation.
  But just today the Rules Committee of this House decided no, no, no 
caveats. Just a bare bill. Open the spigot. Send the crude oil 
overseas. Don't worry about the price of fuel. Don't worry about the 
price of energy in the United States. Worry about the bottom line of 
the petroleum industry.
  I say time out. Wait a minute. This is America. This is about the 
American economy. This is about men and women that go to the gas pump 
and buy gasoline, farmers out there having to buy diesel in order to 
plow their fields and harvest their crops, trains moving goods and 
services back across the United States, the airline industry.
  This is not just about the petroleum industry. This is a big deal for 
America. If we take a strategic national asset and just allow it to go 
anywhere in the world so that it is to the benefit of a small, but 
important, slice of the American economy, we are making a big mistake.
  So let me just put some caveats on this piece of legislation. Harken 
back to the Alaska situation back in 1995 where they opened the spigot. 
They put in a caveat that said: No. You can't do it if it results in an 
adverse effect on the price of transportation fuels and home heating 
fuels in the United States.
  Does the legislation we have this week have any caveats on it? No. It 
doesn't have that one.
  Let me give you another caveat. If we are going to ship a strategic 
national asset overseas, why don't we look at other strategic assets in 
the United States, shipbuilding?
  The entire United States Navy is dependent on American shipyards for 
all of their ships. Those shipyards no longer produce large, ocean-
going commercial vessels. All of that has been off to China, off to 
Korea and Japan. All of those countries subsidize those shipyards. We 
don't do it in the United States.
  But we can put caveats on the export of this crude oil and simply 
say, if we are going to export crude oil, caveat one, not at the 
expense of American consumers; two, not at the expense of American 
refiners and other strategic asset--the refinery of these petroleum 
products; and, three, ship it on American-built ships with American 
mariners.
  Right now there are over 400,000 men and women working in the 
shipyards producing smaller ships for trade within the coastal zone of 
the United States and for the barges up and down the rivers and canals 
of the United States, but not building ocean-going tankers. What does 
it mean? Well, let me just give you an example.
  It has been estimated that the maximum amount of oil that could be 
shipped is somewhere about 3.6 million barrels a day. That is at the 
top level. Hopefully, they will never get close to that because that is 
almost certain to raise prices. But let's say that they do.
  For the largest tanker currently on the ocean today--these are the 
maximum tankers, too large to even go through the new Panama Canal and 
larger than the Panamax ships--it would take 180 ships to handle 3.6 
million barrels of oil a day.
  What if those ships were American-built ships? This isn't Saudi 
Arabian oil. This isn't Iraqi oil, Venezuelan oil. This is American 
oil. What if we require that that oil be shipped on American ships and 
suddenly, over the next decade or two, our shipyards were to build 180 
supertankers or, if they are Panamax-size ships, 384 Panamax-size 
ships?
  Think of the employment that would take place in the American 
shipyards and then through the entire supply train, all of the engines, 
all of the communications, all of the electronics, all of the pumps, 
all of the valves. We could see a resurgence in American manufacturing.
  Who benefits from this? Americans benefit. Americans benefit in the 
shipyards and in the manufacturing facilities all across this Nation.
  But, no, we are not going to do that here on the House floor. We are 
going to simply take a bill that opens the spigot and that gives the 
benefits to the oil patch, to the petroleum industry.
  And I am not saying that is not good for them. There will certainly 
be jobs. There will be some construction jobs, and there will be oil 
rigs that will have to be built. That is good.
  But think what we could do if we had a law that said: Okay. We are 
going to ship, but we are going to protect the domestic price of 
refined products, we are going to protect the American refineries, we 
are going to build American ships, and we are going to put American 
mariners on those ships.
  We are talking about tens of thousands, if not a hundred thousand, 
new jobs in the United States. That is a good thing for the middle 
class. That is a good thing for America.
  We can do it by simply amending the oil export bill. But it is not 
going to happen. The majority here isn't going to allow that. They are 
simply going to pass a bill that opens the spigot.
  It is a shame. Shame on all of us if we would allow that to happen. 
Shame on us if we do not protect the American consumer. Shame on us if 
we do not protect the American maritime industry, the shipyards of 
America, the American middle class.
  Watch closely. It is going to happen. It is going to happen here on 
the House floor this week while all of the attention of America is 
looking at this Speakership thing.
  Okay. That is where we are on one critical issue. I want to take up 
one more and then I will call it a night.
  That is a new Amtrak locomotive for the Eastern Corridor, and it is 
100 percent American-made. Why is it 100 percent American-made for the 
first time in decades--well, at least a decade and a half--and that the 
United States is once again producing locomotives?
  By the way, that is made near my district, in Sacramento. It is about 
4 or 5 miles from the edge of my district. Several hundred men and 
women are employed doing this.
  Why did this happen? Because the Congress wrote policy that said your 
taxpayer dollars are going to be used not to buy a locomotive made in 
China or Japan or Europe, but to buy a locomotive made in America, made 
in America. Your tax dollars are being used to build locomotives in 
America.
  It is part of a transportation policy, which is where I want to go 
now. Before I do, I guess I forgot this.
  This is a liquefied natural gas tanker. I was just talking about 
crude oil and what could be done. This is another one. If we are going 
to export our natural gas--that strategic asset--it ought to be 
exported on American-made liquefied natural tankers.
  A new facility is opening down in Texas to export liquefied natural 
gas. That facility will take 100 tankers for that one facility. Not to 
worry. Those tankers are going to be made in China, Japan, Korea. They 
are not going to be made in America.
  But under 16 lines of law--all we need to do is write 16 lines of 
law--we would be manufacturing these tankers in the United States.
  It is the same argument that I made about the crude oil tankers. I 
won't go into it in any more detail. This is one

[[Page 15733]]

of the great could-do's, should-do's, ought-to-do's for America.
  So the export of these strategic national assets--natural gas, 
petroleum--why don't we build them in America? Why don't we make it in 
America?
  I started to talk about the locomotives. October 29 is just about 23 
days from today. The highway trust fund is out of money. Once again, we 
are on one of those cliffs--this time, a transportation cliff--and we 
have got to do something.
  And so what are we going to do? The President proposed the GROW 
America Act. It provides money for our crumbling transportation system, 
the infrastructure structure.
  There is a rail portion of it, locomotives, improving the rail 
system. There are buses, ports, bridges, and highways. It is a very, 
very good piece of legislation. It is $476 billion over the next 6 
years. It is a big deal.

                              {time}  2000

  It helps America come from number, I think, 18 in the infrastructure 
capability compared to other nations of the world.
  China has, I don't know, 5,000, 3,000 miles of high-speed rail. The 
United States has zero. Chinese airports, Japanese airports. I think 
even Cuba is now in the process of building a new deepwater port to 
take the Panamax ships.
  And what are we doing? Not much. The Grow America Act is totally 
stalled. It is not going anywhere right now.
  But we have got 23 days. So what are we proposing? Are we proposing 
something that will increase the rail capacity in the United States, 
that will combine rail, ports, and highways into a system to provide 
for goods movement, freight movement, integrated? No, we are not going 
to do such a thing. Other countries do it. Hey, but this is America. We 
just like to fall behind.
  So where are we with the Grow America Act? Well, some of us have 
introduced it. Some of us think we ought to do something like this, 
that we really ought to pay for our infrastructure.
  Oh, by the way, this doesn't raise gas taxes. It doesn't raise diesel 
taxes, but it does require that those American corporations that have 
skipped out on their obligation to their home country to bring their 
profits back to the United States and be taxed.
  So we maintain the existing excise tax on gasoline and fuel, and we 
pay for the rest of this by having American corporations pay their just 
due to this Nation by repatriating their foreign earnings hidden off 
somewhere in Ireland or some other tax havens, not taxed, even though 
they are American corporations.
  Oh, and some of this stuff is just too good.
  Apple, an American company, all of their manufacturing is overseas, 
and most of their profits are overseas also because, even though it is 
invented here, even though the software, even though the new equipment 
is invented in California, it is licensed in Ireland, and the profits 
stay in Ireland and are taxed there at a very low percentage--not fair 
to America.
  So those profits would come home from other companies as well, and it 
would fill this $476 billion over 6 years.
  I want to just go through some of this, and then we will wrap this 
up.
  The Grow America Act would provide $52 billion a year for highways. 
We are presently spending $41 billion a year for highways, so we are 
looking at something $11 billion more for highways. Maybe there won't 
be so many potholes. Maybe one out of four bridges in the United States 
will get repaired. Right now, they are deficient. They could fall down. 
They are insufficient in capacity. Maybe we could do that.
  Now, the Senate has done a little better. The Senate has passed a 
highway bill that is $46 billion a year, which is $5 billion more than 
we are currently spending, and that is good. It is a 5-year program 
that is only paid for in 3 years.
  Huh? How does that work? It doesn't, but it is a good start. But the 
Grow America Act, $52 billion a year.
  Anybody take buses in the United States? Anybody take BART in 
California, or the Metro system in Los Angeles, or here in Washington, 
the Metro, or the subways in Chicago, New York, Atlanta and so forth? 
That is called transit. We are presently spending about $10 billion, 
$10.6 billion a year on transit, supporting these transportation 
systems. The Senate bill adds about $2 billion, so they go to $12.5 
billion.
  The Grow America Act, let's get on with it. Let's build those 
systems. $19 billion, without raising your fuel taxes.
  But if you happen to be those American companies that have skipped 
out on their obligation to this Nation, they are going to wind up 
paying their fair share.
  So we go from 10.6 for transit, $10.6 billion annually for transit, 
to $19 billion in the Grow America Act.
  Remember, I put some of these trains up here? We presently spend $1.4 
billion on our rail system--not the transit. This is the heavy rail 
system. The Senate would go to $2.2 billion, and the Grow America Act 
would go to $4.7 billion.
  Are we going to do this? Not likely. Not likely.
  We have perfected a childhood game here in the House of 
Representatives and the Senate. In fact, your American Government has 
perfected this game. Something, when you didn't have a ball to kick 
around, you would kick a can around. It is called kick the can down the 
road. We have perfected that. I think we have done it more than 30 
times to transportation over the last decade and a half.
  We are highly likely to do it again, as the attention of America and 
the attention here amongst all of us is focused on the Speakership 
fights, which will culminate at the end of October when the Speaker 
retires and we will have a new vote. But in the intervening 23 days, 
are we going to focus on a transportation program for America or are we 
going to focus on the internal politics of the House of 
Representatives?
  I will tell you where I would put my money. I would put my money on 
the House of Representatives worrying about the internal politics of 
who is going to be the next leader and not paying attention to what 
America wants us to do.
  America wants us to pay attention to their needs, not to the internal 
politics of this place, but to the needs of America, American jobs for 
American workers.
  Can we build ships? Oh, yeah, we can build ships.
  Can we build liquefied natural gas tankers? You bet we can. We are 
already building ships that are fueled by liquefied natural gas. We are 
doing it in San Diego. We know how to do this. We would have to ramp 
up. We are not going to build 180 ships in 1 year, but we sure could 
over the next two decades.
  But maybe we care more about the petroleum industry than we do about 
the American worker and the American sailor and the shipyards of 
America. I am afraid that is the way it is likely to be here.
  I notice that I am joined here by an extraordinary woman from what 
used to be the manufacturing center of the United States, the Midwest, 
Ohio, to be quite clear.
  Marcy Kaptur, I have been going on for more than I probably should 
have in time but, boy, these are important issues. These are really 
important issues. Please join us.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).
  Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman from California for being an 
extraordinary leader on Make It In America and restoring prosperity to 
all corners of this country. The citizens of California really have 
sent an amazing Congressman to speak on behalf of the Nation and the 
importance of making items in America.
  It is probably a tragedy, over the last three decades, that we have 
accumulated over $9 trillion in trade deficit, which translates into 
lost wealth, lost income for America's families, and, ultimately, a 
budget deficit that we just can't get under control because people 
aren't earning enough. So much economic activity has been outsourced 
that there are many who have forgotten how much manufacturing actually 
matters.

[[Page 15734]]

  So I agree with the gentleman. Make it in America, grow it in 
America, use the technology of America to transform farm field products 
into ethanol and biodiesel.
  Let us use the sun. Let us invent our way forward to become energy 
independent because, at some point, not in our lifetime, but at some 
point over the next 100 years, the oil wells will run dry, and even the 
natural gas fields currently being discovered in Ohio and Pennsylvania, 
which are mother lode supplies with horizontal drilling, those are 
finite and they will be gone. So the world with many more people is 
going to have to figure out how to sustain life.
  The gentleman has addressed many of these issues in terms of energy 
production, America's need to become energy secure, which would create 
prosperity here at home, and also all the investments of hard 
infrastructure on rail, on over-the-road, air transportation.
  I have to add, obviously, our ports and, in my part of the country, 
the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway so in need of infrastructure 
improvement, several billion dollars actually.
  We are having a Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway meeting tomorrow 
morning, inviting in many of the business interests along the seaway 
and looking for ways in our transportation bill where we can make more 
investment in that region so it can sing fully economically again.
  So I thank the gentleman for a moment here. And believe me, I unite 
with you in your efforts to make America fully strong again, and Make 
It In America can lead us down that path.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. You have been a leader on these issues for many, many 
years and certainly in your territory of Ohio. You saw what happened 
when the manufacturing plants left; but they are coming back, and we 
can make policy to do that.
  I think you may have other things that you would like to bring to our 
attention. You are certainly welcome to do so.
  I think with that, it is time for me to say ``enough,'' or maybe I 
have said too much already.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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