committee the transportation committee in the agricultural committee under our rules he has give up those committee assignments to serve on the committee prior to be elected to the united states congress while house of representatives from two thousand and one to two thousand and seven and in the house senate before serving in the house from nine hundred ninety seven to two thousand and one he's also been a county commissioner so he has a wide range of state and local  president reagan in the mid 's we're very happy to represent mr latta he represents a district that is a very diverse district it's an auto parts supplier it's the home of the world's major trade associations like the national association of manufacturers these groups all support homestar because it is a commonsense program that's good for the country during the committee process on this legislation a number of members  question about how this program would be paid for it's a good question and one the congress will need as the legislation moves to the floor our job as the authorizing committee is to perfect the language of the program which is what we are doing today and i urge members to help us get to that point by supporting the legislation in the committee finally the third of legislation is a bill sponsored by chris murphy of connecticut this bill that authorize it pointed out mr chairman some of us on our side and perhaps some on your side still have concerns about the cost of this bill six billion dollar authorization is an improvement over such as necessary i will also admit that is the same number that is in the senate in an era of one and a half trillion dollar annual deficit i'm not sure the six billion though is the right number mr griffith is going to have an amendment to reduce that to one billion that's not successful my guess is somebody on the side of the aisle will offer an amendment to reduce the authorization level to three  billion whatever we recognize i recognize this is a good faith effort there are many good components of the legislation a number of republicans indicated to me they're prepared to support it i'm still importance of this bill to our nation's security it also underscores the imperative that we maintain the bill's integrity in order for it to be effective  priority is preserving the authority the grid act gives to act quickly and directly to address a merge security vulnerability for an emergency arise the defense department maintaining a balance and separation of powers prudent steps to prevent consolidation of power include requiring congressional notification and placing a one year limit on declaring a national emergency congressional oversight is something every member of the chair and thanks for everyone has been working on these bills i just want to make a comment about the need to pay for the homestar bill and our other energy issues i just want to make the point that our failure to really embrace  technology funds conservation efforts and would be the largest investment in our infrastructure in our history and true energy independence in clean air land and water specifically related to programs like  deployment of energy efficient products the problems with any tax incentives as they are as fundamental where do we get the money raising the deficit is not the answer china is not the answer sending hundreds of billions more to opec is not the answer and blocking opportunities for us independence is not what is the answer is using our resources for exploration generation transmission and conservation of energy and all this costs money but we can do this with twenty two twenty seven we can also do some things such as in this home which are passive elements which we oftentimes do not think of many times and we're looking at areas such as reducing emissions we think a very active program with a lot of technology homes and office buildings bipartisan legislation on the grid reliability and infrastructure and i'm also pleased to hear that work to improve the home star energy retrofit specifically i would like to thank the chairman for working with republicans to cooperate the manager's amendment of the homestar energy retrofit act are admirable and i look forward to continuing to work with this committee congressman welch to focus on becoming more energy efficient and putting americans back to work but also while being good stewards of the taxpayers dollars i would also like to  all of the above strategy millions of high paying jobs in america would generate billions of dollars to pay down our national debt and would reduce our dependence on middle eastern oil i look forward to working with this committee as we told i would also like to the noble goals of creating jobs mody energy efficiency and protecting the electric grid too many americans are unemployed or underemployed and our nation needs a bold effort to create jobs and to improve the economy to be sure with president o still not completely done americans and in particular middle class americans are still hurting we must remain focused on revitalizing our economy a smart affective way to create jobs i believe home retrofit we can incentivize consumers to weatherize their homes enough to put our idle contractors a construction workers to work in turn many households would save substantial money not to mention help the climate by weatherizing their home the home star program is a good one as well thought out and i encourage my colleagues to support this legislation on the issue of grid security new cyber threats emerge every day becoming more sophisticated more of a threat to national security a coordinated attack on the grid could literally shut down the u s economy putting lives at protect the infrastructure and systems to keep our nation and our economy running smoothly the u s power grid is one of our most valuable assets into this legislation we're taking the steps necessary to ensure safety yes but on the bill and i  back into his eighteenth congressional district like many parts of the country many folks are struggling to get by right now some of those same people who are out of work also live in homes that are improperly importantly insulated this legislation offers my constituents new opportunities to both improve that efficiency and get back to work and i'd like to thank you commend my colleague mr welch for his work on this important legislation i'd like to address very briefly another piece of important legislation today that i intend to support and that is a good act the safety of our constituents is our foremost responsibility in congress and studies reports that our nation's electric grid a susceptible to  reveal that congressional action is necessary the existing rule making process for vulnerability is not meeting the needs of our nation it should be changed with that said i believe we need to read carefully and changing the rule making structure giving new blanket authority to or any other agency should not be done lightly and we must walk a fine line between spring industry and forcing unnecessary changes industry must continue to be a part of the discussions on grid it be drafted to conform with the base tech circulated with the markup notice and considered to conform within then that in the nature of the substitute the  amendment was a product of working closely with mr markey mr barton mr upton and making a number of changes to the bill that have been agreed to on a bipartisan basis it inserts a provision requiring the president or secretary of energy promptly notify the relevant committees of congress whenever the president issues and provides for a determination that a grid security threat exists thereby triggering to address the threat and then  also ensures that an emergency measure ordered by for to address such a threat is discontinued not later than one year after issuing the amendment replaces the definition of electromagnetic weapon with the definition of electro magnetic poles to clarify that the post would be the threat for a vulnerability to be addressed eliminates the previous exclusion of pulses from nuclear devices and then it also ensures that before promulgating a ruler in order to address curative on ability to the extent practicable in the light of the urgency of the need for action requests considers recommendations from to discuss grid security workforce training corps thank you for holding this market today on the grid reliability in infrastructure defense it's important to give the federal energy regulatory commission appropriate authorities to protect the electrical grid against cyber and other threats and vulnerabilities it's also important ensure that we have a trained workforce who has knowledge to protect systems for the generation transmission and distribution of electric energy geomagnetic storms or malicious act i drafted an amendment to create a new era security workforce training program that would establish a program to provide grants to community colleges for grid security i decided not to offer  mr chairman that we can work together moving forward to make sure that grid security work workforce training programs are addressed in this legislation and i want to thank you for your time i'd be happy to work with you on this we move forward on the bill i hundred percent more than one billion is half a billion point out we have a budget deficit of over one and a half trillion this is a well meaning program as has been pointed out in numerous comments  withdraw this amendment and i'll work with you to make sure that that gets done and if we need to have an amendment in the bill we'll have  efficient manufactured housing act of two thousand and nine which passed the house as part of the american clean energy and security act this amendment is very similar to my original bill and it's complimentary to star in that it will save energy lo them therefore the residents of these homes are missing out on the benefits of the weather is a program and probably won't benefit from the homestar program many of the folks are low income and can afford to upgrade our manufactured homes on their own even though it would lower their utility bills an average of one thousand eight hundred dollars per year i've been working with a diverse coalition of industry and nonprofit groups on putting together a program that will address this problem i have a letter here from the possible that that could happen