Date: 2007-12-18
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

I thank the chairman for yielding me this time. and I want to join with my colleagues in thanking him so much for all of his leadership on this legislation. his knowledge. of the subject .matter. and his ability to work out the intricacies in what may be the longeststanding battle in the Congress. and that is on fuel economies. But he has put together a standard that will work for the consumers. it will for the environment. it will work for the auto industry. and it will work for the people who work in that industry. And. Mr. DINGELL. I want to thank you for that. I also want to join in thanking the Speaker of the House of RepresentatiVes for making this her most important priority for this legislation. to give us an opportunity. this Congress and the American public. to break with the past. to break with the stranglehold of the old way of thinking both about our transportation sector and about our energy sector. to introduce into that sector the competition of alternative energy sources. of renewable energy sources. of efficient automobiles that will change America dramatically. Whereas. we know. with this legislation. many have said it. by 2030 it will save almost 4 million barrels a day. That is almost the equivalent of the output of this entire Nation. You can keep thinking that you can produce your way out of this problem. but it has shown that we cant. We continue to become more and more reliant on questionable sources of energy. and yet this legislation itself will produce. just the automobile standards will produce half of what we import from the Persian Gulf. This changes that dramatically. You can find oil in conservation. You can find oil in. Detroit. Or you can find it in the Persian Gulf. We chose to go in the smart direction. to think about conservation. not only its impact on energy. but on the environment and on the pocketbook of the American public. Four million barrels of oil a day saved by 2030. five times the output of the Alaska pipeline today. five times. It is like finding money in the street and oil in the street. It doesnt mean we wont continue to produce. but it means we are going to be very smart about oil production in this country and about the use of energy on behalf of this Nation. I also wanted to mention that we address the jobs that are going to be created by this commitment to renewables. this commitment to alternative energy sources. whether it is in nuclear. whether it is in coal. whether it is in the automobile industry or in the renewables sources. and that was the green jobs bill to provide training and expertise for people in solar panel manufacturing. construction work. and renewable energy and initiatives. Those are very important. Those were reported out of the Committee on Education and Labor and were championed by Congresswoman HILDA SOLIS and by Congressman JOHN TIERNEY on that legislation. This legislation has a potential to create millions of new jobs in new industries of the future in every geographical sector of America. not just confined to the old centers of manufacturing. but all across this country for new highskilled jobs for the future.