Remarks at ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit 2012

Senator Coons: Thank you so much, Arun, thank you — Dr. Majumdar, the first and greatest director of ARPA-E, a vocal advocate for the ecosystem of innovation, a great ambassador. In my view, Arun is one of the most inspiring people I’ve met in my first year-and-a-half in the United States Senate.

He seamlessly bridges the worlds of government, laboratory, finance and will be a great undersecretary of energy.

It is a true shame that partisan obstruction has delayed his confirmation and paralyzed the Senate in moving forward on his nomination, and he is not the only one. There’s four other senior energy nominees.

As I presided over the Senate yesterday, I looked through the book with literally a dozen pages of senior positions unfilled, unconfirmed in this administration. This type of dysfunction couldn’t happen at a worst time for our country.

Just as we’ve hit 23 months in a row of steady private sector growth, the innovation economy in my view is the key to sustaining our recovery and to putting our country back on a path towards contributing in a major way to the growth of the entire world.

The only piece of this ecosystem, as I was just saying back stage, that is failing in its mission to deliver, it’s not the investors, it’s not the innovators, it’s not the academic researchers, it’s not the business leaders.

All of you who are convened here today are inspiring examples of leadership in the energy field. It falls to us, to the members of the Congress to get over our petty partisan differences and make the decisions we need to make to move America forward.

American innovation — please, a round of applause for the failure of Congress.

Let’s be frank, there will be a clean energy future for this planet. The dynamics of the marketplace, the dynamics of emerging technologies that President Hartfield just spoke about that we heard about earlier from Senator Bingaman and from Congressman Fattah, they’re all well and clearly laid out.

The question isn’t whether there will be dramatic innovation, new technologies and whole new market economy, the question is whether American companies, American communities, American workers will be at the center or the periphery. Whether we will seize this moment in history and actually lead, or whether we will watch it pass us by.

If America’s going to lead in the clean energy economy, we have to work together. The private sector can and will drive and finance these innovations. The academic and national lab community will make the critical inventions and innovations needed, but the government and in particular the Congress and the administration, the national level, must set the policy environment to sustain these innovations.

We have critical decisions to make, in intellectual property, in tax, in trade and in regulatory approaches which if done right and done swiftly can put us on the right path. At the moment though, sadly, we seem locked in a dysfunctional partisan failure to communicate.

This conference, this entity ARPA-E, this room full of people is an exact — is a precise example of what it is we need to see in Washington and in our political system, collaboration, cooperation, listening to each other and learning from each other. The sorts of partnerships that make cutting edge technology translate into market changing innovations.

I’ve been struck at the breadth and the vision of the innovative changes that ARPA-E has already been funding in just its three short years of existence, and I draw enormous inspiration from being with you and from visiting the hall and from learning in detail about a number of the innovations that ARPA-E has already made possible.

Let me pick two which just happen to be from Delaware, which just happens to be where I’m from, but that really do helps sustain my sense of enthusiasm for ARPA-E as a model and for the work that all of you are doing together.

The University of Delaware is leading a national combination of university researchers, national lab researchers and potential partners in the private sector to deliver high energy permanent magnets, magnets which we used to be the world leader in but where we’ve lost our critical edge.

And where some of the critical components come from outside the United States and are subject to regular interruptions in terms of supply.

The R&D that the University of Delaware is doing in the (idinium) iron boron magnets is cutting edge and shows very real promise for doubling the energy density, producing more cost efficient and more effective lower cost permanent magnets useful in everything from wind turbines to hybrid vehicles.

DuPont is working on the first commercially viable process for producing isobutanol from seaweed, a drop in fuel at very large scale. It’s one of many projects in this space that have been funded through ARPA-E.

And it was striking to me literally yesterday, on the floor of the Senate, to hear a very senior Senator mock the very idea that algae could at any point produce a usable bio-fuel, that this is anything other than some leftist pipedream.

Senator Bingaman spoke about our inability to hear from each other and our inability to learn from you. Well yesterday folks spoke at this conference who I think are not given to leftist pipedreams.

When you heard from Fred Smith of FedEx, and from Lee Scott of Walmart about how changes in energy efficiency, changes in how we produce, and store and distribute energy and the promise of things like drop-in fuels derived from algae or seaweed have very real promise for reducing their bottom line costs and improving their operational efficiency.

I was left with the impression that I only wish other members of the Senate and the House would come and visit this conference, would come and walk the halls and hear about the very real innovation that you’re delivering.

This is an important moment for America. This is a critical moment for all of us in Congress not to talk at each other but to listen to you and to learn from how you’re able to work together to make the policy changes we need to make to build on this moment.

The kinds of innovations that can power the clean energy economy are what we need more of not less. And the kinds of opportunities working together are what we need more of not less.

So as a member of the Budget Committee and a member of the Energy Committee, I intend to strongly support the administration’s move to significantly increase our investment in ARPA-E.

President Obama’s FY13 budget proposes a nearly 30% increase in ARPA-E funding, and in my view, that’s exactly the direction in which we ought to go. We should be investing more not less.

There are some in Congress, as I’ve mentioned, who simply mock the concept that we can make progress in clean alternative energy, and who think that we are picking winners and losers in technology in a way that’s not needed and not appropriate.

As Senator Bingaman said in his opening comments this morning, it is also just this sort of energy technology research that has opened up vast resources of natural gas that have expanded the use of horizontal drilling and made fracking possible so we aren’t picking winners and losers.

The work that ARPA-E is doing, in my view, is making possible whole scale innovations in energy production, storage and distribution across all the different channels and streams of energy, and they are critical to achieving energy independence to the entire United States.

This is the kind of work Congress should be supporting, and this freshman Senator commits to you that as long as the people of Delaware will — as long as the people of Delaware will tolerate my service, I will be a tireless advocate for the funding that ARPA-E needs and for the model that APRA-E represents.

Let me just talk for a moment if I could about Chairman Bingaman who spoke earlier today. And in his typical fashion laid out a clear eyed vision for the path forward. I’ve had the honor of serving with Chairman Bingaman just one year. Many of you have known him decades.

But as I sat here in the audience and listened to his comments I was reminded once again of what has made him a successful bipartisan policy leader. Serving on this committee with him and with Senator Murkowski of Alaska has been for me an opportunity to learn from someone whose intellect, whose character and whose simple decency have come through in every debate and in every dialogue.

And whose determination to really lead in this field from calling on the study that produced the gathering storm report to championing the America Competes Act to insisting on the establishment and funding of ARPA-E, to proposing the creation of the Clean Energy Development Administration CETA, to his action this week to introduce a bill that lays out a path forward for a national clean energy standard.

Senator Bingaman has tirelessly, passionately, positively, moved towards a better energy future for our whole country. And I think all of us owe him a round of applause in recognition of his leadership in this space and for setting a bipartisan example.

Frankly, it was hard at the end of his remarks not to hear a certain heaviness in his heart as he recounted the very real progress that was made on bipartisan energy efficiency standards, on lighting innovation, on financing vehicles only to run into the buzz saw of partisanship between the chambers and between the parties.

And in particular I share his sense of deep dissatisfaction over our failure to advance some of the financing tax extenders in the most recent package. Know that there are a dozen passionate Senators continuing to press for this. And know that we recognize that not just in wins but in many different sectors our failure to continue to deliver a supportive, predictable, long-term tax trade IP and policy framework is the biggest threat to our success in energy innovation.

I offer myself as someone who is determined to continue as a catalyst in this field, as a sustainer of your work, and as someone who sees the power and potential of innovation.

I think there are many things we can and should do. I’ll just mention one if I could in closing. I long worked in a company where the R&D tax credit was a big part of how we financed innovation, how we sustained the 1,000 research engineers that we had across all our facilities across this country.

But that R&D tax credit is frankly terrible federal tax policy. It expires more times than it’s renewed, it goes on again, off again, there’s more months when it’s not accessible than when it is, and the way it’s currently structured is only usable to established profitable companies.

It does not provide the lifeblood of financing for early stage or startup companies that are trying to make a difference in demonstrating and bringing to market potentially category changing technologies. So I’ve pressed, I’ve proposed, I’ve introduced a new model for the R&D credit that would add tradability or refundability to the R&D credit.

Why? Because I think it could get past the partisanship of the moment. That’s not choosing technologies, that’s not picking winners or losers, it is broadening the community of folks who will fight to sustain the R&D credit when the inevitable very tough challenges of broad tax reform come at the end of this calendar year and it creates a way to sustain tax credits that support innovation that are not specific to one channel or one technology.

I think we owe it to you to deliver consistent tax policy, to make the tough changes in immigration, in intellectual property, in trade promotion that will sustain what you do.

As we were fighting internally over my calendar and making time to accept this wonderful invitation to speak today, I insisted on clearing not just a few moments to speak to you, but enough time to go and walk the hall and to visit with you individually to hear from you.

Because every bit as much as you need us to get the policy environment right, we need you to continue to challenge and inspire us to see beyond the partisanship of the moment and towards the very real opportunities to transform our nation and our world that you represent.

So please, when you hit hard moments in the year ahead, when your test run fails, when the money threatens to run dry, find a way to keep working, to keep reaching out, to keep connecting and to keep innovating. And I pledge to you that I will continue drawing inspiration from your example, from your willingness to risk, to dream, to do and to deliver.

This is the room from which literally hundreds of compelling innovations will be shared with our nation and our world. I can’t think of a more exciting place to be today, and I can’t think of a more important community to invest in, to sustain and to work with for our long term future as a nation and a people.

Thank you so much for what you do and thank you to ARPA-E for being a source of inspiration for us all.

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Floor Speech: Calling on colleagues to put partisanship aside and move swiftly in confirming judicial nominees

Madam President, I rise today to continue to address an issue which I’ve just had the joy of hearing you and the senators from New York and from Illinois speak to, and that concern that I raise today is the ongoing crisis in our courts — the nearly 10 percent vacancy in judicial positions all across the United States.

I rise today as the senator from Delaware, a senator from Delaware, the junior senator from Delaware, but also as a member of the Delaware Bar and a former federal court clerk and someone who has, I think, a personal sense from that experience and my service on the Judiciary Committee, of the consequences of these delays, the consequences of steadily climbing caseloads, significant judicial vacancies, judicial emergencies in districts across our great country, including the state of California, and what that means for people, for companies, for communities for whom justice is being delayed and thus denied.

Earlier this month, I attended the investiture ceremony of Judge Richard Andrews, who was sworn in to the U.S. District Court for Delaware. This is the first time in six years that the very busy District Court of Delaware has had a full complement of all of its district court judges. And although I am relieved and the people of Delaware are grateful to have a full bench, and although Judge Andrews is an extremely talented lawyer and a devoted public servant and utterly nonpartisan — just the sort of district court nominee of whom the presiding officer just spoke — his nomination took nearly six months to be confirmed by the Senate.

I’m glad that Judge Andrews has made it through, because in the Senate, the confirmation process seems to be even more broken this year than last. When I joined the Senate in 2010, judicial nominations had slowed to a crawl and I watched with dismay as folks who I viewed as highly qualified were blocked.

Goodwin Liu, for example, a brilliant and qualified legal scholar, a nominee twice to the Ninth Circuit, could not overcome a GOP filibuster, in part payback for a view I believe on the other side of the aisle of the rough handling of Miguel Estrada, whose nomination was defeated during the Bush presidency.

What I’ve been most concerned about as a freshman senator is how the history here, lying about this chamber seems to steadily pile up session after session and the process seems to be weighed down by this burden of history.

But next, Caitlin Halligan, an extremely accomplished attorney without a single partisan blemish on her record was nominated to the D.C. Circuit, and her nomination, in my view, also blocked, was blocked based on a grotesque misrepresentation of her actual record. The major talking point against her nomination, if I recall right, was that the D.C. Circuit already had more than enough judges.

Judge Halligan would have been the ninth judge on that court. Notably all the GOP members who spoke against her had no qualms when this Senate confirmed a 10th and 11th judge to sit on that very same circuit during the Bush nomination period. But these sorts of fine points of history, I think, are lost on the people, the communities and the companies across our nation who go to the courthouse seeking justice and find none.

In 2012, as some of the previous senators have spoken, we have so far confirmed just five judges. Today there are 19 nominees on the floor, 12 who came out of our Judiciary Committee unanimously, and are now languishing on our executive calendar. Republicans have no stated objections to these nominees but refuse to grant consent for a vote to be scheduled.

President Obama’s nominees have waited four times longer after committee approval than did President Bush’s nominees at this point in his first term. The Senate is more than 40 confirmations behind the pace set during the Bush Administration.

It’s not just judges that have also been the subject of this ongoing weighting-down. The executive calendar, which I have the privilege to flip through every time I preside, is filled with vacancies, with nominees to complete, complement in every major department in every major independent agency in this government, it is more than a dozen pages long of nominations that have sat for months and months.

Last month, in response to the Republican obstructionism in moving this executive calendar and in filling these administrative vacancies, President Obama made recess appointments. The Consumer Protection Chief, Richard Cordray, and the National Labor Relations Board. Some of us on both sides of the aisle do agree that Congress, and not the President, has the right to declare when the Senate is in recess. But whatever your view of these appointments, there is no questioning that in either case, Republicans forced the issue through their unprecedented refusal to vote the President’s nominees up or down and allow him to proceed with the progress of our nation.

As senators, we have a responsibility to advise the president as to nominations and where we agree, to consent. And where we don’t, each of us is free to vote a ‘no.’ Some senators have suggested they will oppose all nominations in opposition to the president’s recess appointments. And in my position, in my opinion, a pledge to oppose all nominations is a pledge not to do his or her job. In my view, we ought not to make such a pledge. In my view, while so many Americans are out of work and so many of us are here on the public payroll, we can, we should and we must move forward with judicial nominees.

Madam President, this session began this morning with a very encouraging moment of harmony between the majority leader and the Republican leader on the concept of moving ahead with appropriations. It is my hope and prayer we will do the same on judicial nominations as well.

I call upon my colleagues on the other side to rethink this strategy of obstruction at all costs, because it is in the end the American people who pay the price.

With that, I yield the floor. 

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Remarks at an American Chemical Society Briefing on advanced biofuels

Senator Coons: I am grateful for the opportunity to once again co-sponsor an American Chemical Society briefing. I was thrilled that Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma was my co-host today. Senator Inhofe and I come at the world from quite different political perspectives. We come at the federal role in the economy, and many different issues from a different perspective. But I know we share a passion for Africa. We share a passion for American energy independence and innovation, and so anything that I can do in partnership with Senator Inhofe I am grateful to have the opportunity to do.

I have the strong sense not just from the list of who was participating and presenting, but from the briefing I’ve gotten from my folks that participated, that this was an extremely productive, data-rich, challenging and engaging session today.

Sustainable biofuels production is essential in my view for our economy and our future. There is really not enough time to talk about how to overcome the host of challenges that were raised at today’s briefing but as we all know there are a number of environmental and socio-economic and other policy challenges we have to face and this I think, was a great starting point as a concrete forum to look at how we begin to move forward towards workable solutions that will require cooperation from many public and private interests to be able to move from the field to the filling station in the future.

It is remarkable to me that this is the 180th ACS Science and the Congress Project briefing on the Hill since the program started in 1995. I am particularly grateful for the service of Dr. Chris Avery who is a fellow with the American Chemical Society and working in my office this year and making it possible for me to sound relatively well-informed and coherent on issues, which I wish I had the time to delve into deeply, but on which all of the analytical work is done by him and I am merely presenting the slides at the end of the show. He got his PhD in analytical chemistry from Michigan and has contributed admirably to my work not just on the Energy Committee but to be more thoughtful about science policy more broadly. And along with Chris, Franz Wuerfmannsdobler who is my energy policy LA, and well known and regarded across the Hill not just for his unpronounceable last name or that his brother is in fact named Hans, but that he actually has a tremendous grasp of policy and of how to move policy into legislation particularly in what is politically, a very challenging time.

So of all that, financing for the next generation of biofuels is right at the very center of a land which I hope to have some catalytic contribution to moving us forward over the currently clear hurdles, the very significant hurdles, and that might sound strange coming from a Senator generally, but my chemistry background makes me see possibilities for unlocking what are currently seen as insurmountable hurdles.

More than anything I think I am encouraged by the fact that there are four commercial-scale cellulosic projects not just in future development, not just being talked about, but actually in being developed. There will be concrete facilities in production on a time horizon that is short enough so that the many doubting Thomases can be dragged by the nose to visit them, or to witness them in production, or to see documentation of how they actually work.

I understand that there are some significant challenges in terms of biomass and financing that we have to get past but that is exactly the point of marrying policy to science, in my opinion. Biofuels are a home-grown resource that have enormous potential for job creation, for rural economic development, and for more. And as you may have already picked up, my home state of Delaware is right in the thick of this venture. We have companies at all ends of the spectrum.

One is a multi-national company of roughly 200 years providence that some of you may be familiar with. DuPont is deeply committed in investments to a diversified mix of next generation biomass and biofuels, those building blocks and the facilities necessary, those cellulosic production facilities as well as the development of bio-butanol and other drop-in biofuels. But at the other end of the spectrum are a number of other smaller companies I’ll just mention in passing.

One, CMS, is licensing what were formerly DuPont fluoropolymers selected impermeable memory technologies for the dehydration of biodiesel and other biofuels, a small plucky start-up the recipient of a number of critical SBIR and CDR grants that I think can play a key role in solving some of the production and delivery challenges. And another, Elcriton, just two professors at the University of Delaware who with an SBIR grant are taking a way to genetically modify pond scum, I think the nicer term is duckweed, but common pond scum so it stops nitrogen and phosphorus off of polluted groundwater, a challenge which we have in our Delmarva Peninsula due to our abundant and successful poultry industry. In the act of cleaning that nitrogen and phosphorus out of eutrophic ponds they then produce a readily digested bio-butanol that can be extracted from the duckweed, so this poses a potential win-win for the Delmarva Peninsula.

Some of you may not know that agriculture is one of the biggest, longest established industries in my home state and the poultry industry is two parts. One is the competition with ethanol in their view and the price pressure that has put on their prime feed and the others at the other end with what to do with all that chicken litter and what it does to the water ways of the Chesapeake Bay.

So I chose these two examples, Dupont’s role in finding a productive, secondary use of the cellulosic biomass that has been left behind after the harvest of grain and Elcriton’s role in potentially cleaning up the ponds and water ways as a way of showing that biofuels have enormous promise to solve not just our liquid fuel supplies and transportation fuel supplies problem in American energy independence, but then also dealing with lots of other challenges in creative and constructive ways.

You raise today a number of big challenges, one of those is the National Academy study that suggests that we are highly unlikely to achieve the RFS2 goals by 2022 in terms of the great big gap works, what folks are willing to pay and what folks are willing to accept, but if you’ve seen the end of that sentence and that report it says “absent policy.” That’s the whole point. It is only by fighting hard to sustain current policy trajectories and to inject additional policy initiative that we are going to make this change.

And I think it is an incredibly important change for us to be making.

That said, the good news I think is the recognition in that very same report, that the economic environment in which cellulosic biofuels are best able to compete looks very much like the economic environment of today and of our likely decade to come. High oil prices and breakthroughs in processing and implementation technologies are in line to create this space where biofuels can and will be cost competitive. Some have argued that they can’t ever be viable alternatives to petroleum but I believe now is not the time to retreat. To stand behind these emerging technologies, budding markets, predictability and credible amounts of opportunity are going to be absolutely essential.

So in my view, the things we have on our horizon are simple and few. Continuing to fight for investments, in the department of energy and USDA R&D program. Extending the tax credits for advanced biofuels, especially incentives that can actually be utilized for building second generation facilities. And third, most importantly, working together on a path forward for the Renewable Fuel Standard. I know different groups come at the RFS from different perspectives but we should share a common purpose, I think, of making biofuels a significant contributor to our national liquid fuels market.

To be honest with you, the political environment for all of this is quite difficult, it’s quite demanding. But this is something that I am passionate about fighting for. And I hope that I can have your active engagement with this not just as scientists, not just as industry leaders but as advocates. To help in the sometimes thicket of energy alternatives, to clear away a lot of the rhetoric and a lot of the politics to help people understand that biofuels, that advanced biofuels genuinely offer a real promise for American energy independence and for a significant contribution to a change in the global energy markets going forward. So let’s take today’s discussion as a beginning of how to move forward on this enormous opportunity for the next generation of American renewable fuels.

Thank you and thank you to the American Chemical Society.

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Sermon at Civil Union Ceremony of Drewry Fennell and Lisa Goodman

Happy New Year! What joins us here together on this New Year’s Day is to celebrate this great, this momentous day – this special day – and to celebrate this love, this union, this family.

As the psalm we just read together as a congregation says, “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the Earth.” I love this: “Let the rivers clap their hands, let the hills sing together for joy at the presence of the Lord.”

On such a glorious, bright, sunny, warm day today, with such an amazing gathered community and congregation, how could we be anything but joyful about this day?

First, my thanks to Drew and Lisa, for the invitation to speak — to preach — at this ceremony, and my heartfelt thanks to Reverend Dowling, the vestry, and to the congregation of Trinity Episcopal Church. In preparing for this service it became clear to me how welcoming — how positive — how supportive a church home this has been for Drew, for Lisa, and their family. Thank you, Trinity, for your openness — your witness — to our wider community; for your view that in Christ’s calling, there are no outcasts; for your broad-ranging commitment to justice, including for those who seek healing, who seek a home in a foreign land in a different language, for those who yearn for housing, for those who seek recovery, for those who want a place where they are welcome, in the radical reach of God’s open-hearted love for us all. Thank you, Trinity, for showing what the Gospel can mean in daily practice to our community and our world.

This, today, is a different sort of celebration, on a special sort of day. You know, I’ve never before preached at a ceremony where there are “best persons.” When Drew and Lisa shared with me that their children were to serve as their “best persons,” I just had to smile. How perfect. How fitting. How “Drew and Lisa.”

They challenge conventions in a way that is warm, inclusive, positive and I know it reflects how grateful they are to have the support of their family: those who raised them, those who have loved them, and those in the broader circle of family that they have built together.

In the ceremony, as we have already spoken, Reverend Dowling has asked for the consent and support of all of us — family, witnesses, the congregation. I know that in this case, more than most, your shouted affirmation reflects the constant encouragement, love, and support of this community — this congregation — that has helped to build and sustain their love and their life together.

Let me, if I can, for a moment, reflect on the Scripture passages this remarkable couple has chosen to be a part of this historic ceremony. Reaching back into one of the great prophets in Micah, we are reminded of their great commitment to justice — to a vision of a world where swords will be hammered into plowshares, where spears are turned into pruning hooks, where all will sit under their own vines and fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid. In their personal and professional lives together, Drew and Lisa have taken this ancient part of Scripture and turned it into an animated commitment to justice, to challenging those things in our world that are, and to instead calling us to work towards those things that should be.

Psalm 98, with which we opened this celebration, called us in its very first words, to “sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things.” Today, we do indeed sing a new song rooted in an ancient tune, for today in this civil union and this coming together in celebration — in this sanctification and this recognition — we take a variation from the ancient tune of love between two people.

In their choice of Colossians and Luke, for the epistle and the Gospel, I can add but little, but urge us to go through them and reflect for a moment about the messages embedded in these remarkable passages. First, in Colossians: “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” What great advice, not just for a couple on their day of wedding together, but for all of us.

Back to Paul’s ancient writings, back to the epistle, this most simple, central message is a great reminder to us of how this couple has woven their families together, and how we are all called and challenged to live.

Let me draw your attention to the Gospel reading, as well. For a couple that has had a long journey to this day, for a couple that has, at times, had to endure a culture that, in some places, has not respected them, has not regarded them, has not lifted them up as you have, they chose a Gospel that essentially says this: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you.” The generosity of spirit, the kindness, the open-heartedness with which they chose that as their central Scripture from the Gospel, resonates, I think, with all of us who know them, of their tireless commitment to kindness, matched with an equally fearless insistence on justice.

Rarely have I known two people whose hearts have been so entwined in balance and so willing to witness to the broader world from their own experience informed by grace.

Let me, last, reflect on this. All three of us are lawyers — a confession that may not surprise any of you. And as such, we have spent most of our adult lives wrestling with the law. Working with the law. Trying to change it, challenge it, interpreting it, writing it. To those who would, in my view, misinterpret the law in a spiritual, Scriptural context, to prohibit this union, I would point them to one last passage, if I might. At a moment in the Gospel, when Christ is being challenged unsuccessfully by the Pharisees and the Sadducees, when they ask Him to do an interpretation on a piece of law that is designed to get Him in trouble, He deftly moves from their trap. This is a passage of Matthew in the 22nd chapter, where after a series of encounters, Christ challenges us and the law.

Let me read, if I might, from Matthew 22. “When the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together and one of them — a lawyer — asked Him a question to test Him. Teacher, what commandment of the law is the greatest?” He said, “you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the Prophets.”

Then I say, to those who would miss this most fundamental message — this radical message — of inclusion, of hope, of welcoming, and of love, in the Gospel, in my view, we are called to build the beautiful community in this life not through subtraction, but through addition, not through exclusion, but by inclusion. By listening to that most fundamental relationship. By challenging our definition of neighbor, and by opening our heart to the radical love offered to us.

Today begins a new chapter not only for Drew and for Lisa, but for Delaware. Our state is, today, taking another great and bold step forward. And, in my view, the love we celebrate today, between Lisa and Drew, is no less real and ought to be no less respected in the law, and our community, than the love my wife and I share.

Just as every marriage performed in this church has been, this union is about two people who proudly and passionately love each other celebrating that love and demonstrating their commitment to one another in front of God, their families, their friends, and their community.

Drew and Lisa, my advice to you as a couple is to be patient, be forgiving and be joyful together. To listen to the remarkable Scriptures, which together, you have chosen. To remember to make time for each other in the midst of a life together so given over to making a real difference for others, and for justice in the world.

Unlike many couples on their wedding day, you have already learned the early lessons of life together. You’ve already fought through the adjustments and differences, the disappointments and the forgiveness necessary not just to start, but to sustain a committed relationship, and give it life. And what a remarkable life you have given to it, through your menagerie at your home – a sprawling combination of pets, guinea fowls, peacocks, honeybees and koi. From the remarkable strands of your separate lives, you have woven together a beautiful cloth that is strong and wonderful to behold.

I know in many ways, the past years for you have been hard. And to get to this point, to this day, has been a hard climb, and there remains even more to do ahead so that not just this state, but all states, and not just this state, but this country, recognize, celebrate, empower the love, which we recognize between you two today. 

So, just as any climber on a long, hard journey pauses, turns, and gauges their elevation at a moment in the climb, I invite you to also take in the view. Take a moment — I’m not kidding — literally, pause and turn, at the congregation that is assembled here today. Look out, and really, take it all in (while I fumble for my next page!).

This assembled group of witnesses is here today out of real love and support for you, as people, and as a loving, committed couple. Remember our faces. When you have times that are difficult, demanding or just human, when your love goes through the seasons as it inevitably will, remember that just as there is a fall and a winter, there is always a spring. And recall that there is a cheering squad in the hundreds urging you onward, praying for you, supporting you, and celebrating you.

Now look to each other, and realize that you have found in each other what is so rare in this life – someone truly willing to know you, to accept you and to love you – as you are, for who you are – for all the rest of the days of your life.

Earlier, I cited Matthew and suggested that the central message of the Gospel is Christ’s liberating us from merely observing the law, of putting love and justice ahead of narrow literalism. Let me return to that point, if I might, and close. I was friends with a couple for many years who, although they lived together in a committed relationship, chose not to be legally married. The man among them, my neighbor, said, “Why do I need a piece of paper from the government to confirm what we already know, that I love my female partner?” He had that choice.

Today, we recognize that for those who, for many years — too many years — have been denied the choice to affirm their relationship in the law, we recognize, we solemnize, and we celebrate.

Some might say, “it’s just another piece of paper,” as my neighbor long ago did, but just as the Declaration of Independence was “just another piece of paper” — just as the Emancipation Proclamation was “just another piece of paper” — but, in fact, both put to paper the most deeply held hopes and aspirations for a new nation, for a steady journey toward greater justice, so, too, today, your license from the Clerk of the Peace, and your certificate to be signed later today, while they merely reflect on paper the love, the commitment and the lives that you have pledged to build together, they are so much more than “just pieces of paper” – they are solid bricks in the steps to a country where it does get better, where liberty and justice for all, means for all.

Thank you, and God bless you.

Floor Colloquy: Senators Coons and Kirk debate balanced budget amendment

SENATOR KIRK: Mr. President, too often we have a set-piece speeches in the Senate, without any resort to the traditional debate where two sides are equally dividing time, without a set script on a critical issue before our country. And so I’d like to restart the true Senate tradition of debate with a debate with my colleague from Delaware. And I yield to him right now.

SENATOR COONS:  Thank you, Senator Kirk. I am grateful for your inviting me to join you in a real debate on the floor today on an issue on which we disagree and about, which we have cast opposing votes earlier today. An issue of real import for our country, something that’s been debated in the past and will be debated again in the future, but essentially a question of whether or not we should have a balanced budget amendment. Senator Kirk.

SENATOR KIRK:  What I’d like to do is a chess clock style, is to take ten minutes with unanimous consent to be equally divided between me and the senator from Delaware on the subject of the balanced budget amendment.

THE PRESIDING OFFICER: Without objection for ten minutes the senator from Illinois and the senator from Delaware may engage in a colloquy and the parliamentarian will keep track of each’s time to the best of our capability.

SENATOR KIRK: Mr. President, the United States needs to adopt a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. It was a good idea when Thomas Jefferson backed it, and it’s an even more important idea today. What we’re seeing in Europe is a collapse of government finance, because they have spent too much, taxed too much, and borrowed too much. Not only do they have a crisis of their government debt, but they have higher taxes and lower economic performance because of that philosophy.

We cannot repeat that mistake.

And that’s why the Senate should have adopted a balanced budget amendment. I will speak in bipartisan fashion. Any of the balanced budget amendments we considered today would have been better. Rather than to subject our country to a rising tide of debt and an economic model which is already, we’re seeing, failing in Europe.

SENATOR COONS: I couldn’t agree more, Senator, that we need to be responsible, that the United States and this Senate needs to face our serious and crippling national deficits and debt. It was a good idea when Thomas Jefferson recognized that a balanced budget amendment was a bad idea. Thomas Jefferson actually several years later after supporting a balanced budget amendment acted as president in ways that demonstrated that he understood that real opportunities required extraordinary capabilities by the federal government.

I was a county executive. Others in this chamber who were mayors or governors lived with balanced budget requirements and it imposed great restrictions on us. It forced us to make tough decisions on annual time lines. So I understand why it’s tempting to consider passing one of the balanced budget amendments that we’re before this chamber today. But there is a difference, between the federal government and the state and local governments. Thomas Jefferson acted decisively to make the Louisiana Purchase possible, to finance the War of 1812, and during the current economic downturn, if the federal government hadn’t been able to borrow and invest in restoring growth to this country, we wouldn’t have had a ‘great recession,’ we would have had a second Depression.

I’m convinced of it and one of the reasons had the balanced budget amendment been in place, we would have been in even greater trouble than we’ve been over the last few years. Senator?

SENATOR KIRK: What we now see today is we’re awash in $15 trillion in debt, that since the creation of the AAA credit rating by Standard & Poor’s, the United States has now lost that rating.

That when a young American is born today, they already owe the federal government $40,000, and so they will have a lower income and a higher tax burden throughout their working lives because of the debts put on them. The biggest reason for a balanced budget amendment, though, is we have a structural inability to represent young Americans. They can’t vote until they’re age 18. And yet the representatives of their parents can transfer tremendous burdens onto that young generation of Americans.

The essence of the American Dream is that our children’s lives will be better than our own. But given the weight of the debt we are now transferring onto the backs of the next generation that may no longer be possible. We have absolutely got to have a structural way to prevent one generation from transferring new spending and new debt to the new generation. So that the American ideal is preserved and so that they have a fighting chance to have a better life than their parents.

SENATOR COONS: This Senate can, should, and has shown the ability to reach balanced budgets. No, in fact surpluses – within living memory. When Mr. Clinton was the President, this Senate and the House acted together. They adopted budgetary self-restraint. Why amend the Constitution of the United States, our most foundational document, when we have within our own power, recently demonstrated in the late 1990s, the capacity to control ourselves?

The senator and I agree we are leaving to our children an enormous, crushing legacy of a national debt that has exceeded safe boundaries. But why amend the Constitution in order to force the Senate to do our job?

Instead, I think we should embrace some of the tough, big, bold, bipartisan proposals that have been put on the table. Whether the Bowles-Simpson Commission or others. The framework of a broad deal that requires sacrifices from all, changes to the spiral federal spending and changes to the direction of the country, is on the table before us. Why take a detour into amending America’s foundational document rather than simply stepping up and doing the job that’s before us?

SENATOR KIRK:  The job of each generation is to make sure that the Constitution deals with critical problems facing the country. So we amended the Constitution so that we could prohibit slavery. We amended the Constitution so that we could grant women the right to vote. And we should amend the Constitution to prevent one generation from encumbering the next generation.

America is the greatest experiment in self-government, and more importantly, the underlying value of self-control, ever designed. But we have seen in recent days that self-control disappear. We work here in the United States Senate, now well onto I think, 900 days without a budget. Is the most successful corporation, the most successful enterprise on earth representing the real aspirations for human dignity and freedom, and yet that is in danger if we become indebted to China and other countries in ways that no previous generation of Americans have done.

This country has regularly amended the Constitution to fix inequities in our society. And the growing inequity we see today is debt and deficits, especially to other countries. Therefore, we should amend the Constitution to protect those who cannot yet vote from an economic fate that would otherwise befall them.

SENATOR COONS: Mr. President, how much time remains?

THE PRESIDING OFFICER: On your side 2 minutes and 20 seconds, on the Senator from Illinois’ side, a minute and 15.

SENATOR COONS: Thank you. As the good senator from Illinois suggests, we are encumbering future generations with a debt that has risen above $40,000 per American. This is a central challenge of our time, one which our national security leader cited as critical to ensuring our security and our liberty going forward. But in my view, the balanced budget amendment that was advanced through Senate Joint Resolution 10 earlier today would compel exactly the sort of intergenerational burdens that my good colleague from Illinois suggests he seeks to avoid.

Let me be clear. The requirements of that balanced budget amendment, a spending cap, a supermajority requirement to raise the national debt, a two-thirds requirement for any increase in federal revenue, those in combination would compel drastic, immediate, and substantial reductions in a wide range of programs: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits. That if imposed, would have not just a short term very negative impact on our current economy but a significant restructuring of the long-standing relationships between individual citizens and generation.

Yes, leaving a legacy of debt to the next generation is a terrible thing for us to do. But leaning on the crutch of the Constitution and the fig leaf of a Constitutional amendment to avoid doing our responsibility, a job which the Senate is fully capable of doing, avoids that responsibility to the next generation.

I close with this question: As we say in the law, Mr. President, if there is a right, what’s the remedy? If we were to pass this Constitutional amendment, how would it be enforced if the Senate in the future were to fail to balance the budget? Would lifetime federal judges around the country be imposing choices in terms of budget cuts, spending cuts, revenue changes? I think that would be no better – in fact, far worse than the Senate simply doing its job.

Today I voted against this balanced budget amendment because I think we have it within our power to show self-control and to secure the future for the next generation of Americans.

SENATOR KIRK:  And I would close by saying the Senator and I agree, I think, that the Simpson-Bowles plan is the right way to go. And my hope would be that on a bipartisan basis we would join together to reduce expected federal borrowing by $4 trillion along the lines of that bipartisan presidential commission. But, unfortunately, the Simpson-Bowles plan right now is gathering dust.

That the super committee that was given procedural powers to possibly put that forward also collapsed. We have not been able to do our job. And we are now encumbering the next generation with even greater amounts of debt, historic amounts.

I think the founding fathers did not contemplate the ability to borrow as much from other countries as we now have. And with the United States as the center of freedom and democracy around the world, there’s a lot riding on the credit of the United States.

My colleague from Delaware talks about the future, a very vital future, especially for people like my own mother, of Social Security and Medicare. But I think she understands that a bankrupt country cannot support Social Security and Medicare that we have to defend the credit of the United States. And, therefore, I think a balanced budget amendment is essential to the long-term future of the United States.

And with that, I thank my colleague.

Mr. President, we just finished this. I hope we do return to a tradition of actual debate. I want to thank my colleague for the chance to carry on this debate.

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Floor Speech: Continuation of middle class tax cuts

Mr. President, I rise today to share a feeling that many in my home state have expressed to me. I rise to share my frustration. It’s not just the frustration that you may feel, as I have felt, presiding over this body – when for hours at a time it is empty. When there is such precious and important work  that we can and should be doing to get the people of this great country back to work, to strengthen our national security, to lay the groundwork for a strong recovery, to deal with the hundreds of issues that this body should be dealing with. I am expressing my frustration at our inability to work together and to make real progress.

Today I’ve had the blessing of being visited by a number of Delawareans: for lunch, for some business visits, for just some constituent catch-up.

As I do almost every day, I commuted down from Delaware this morning. As I’ve heard from folks on the train, as I’ve heard from folks in my office, as I’ve heard from folks who have written and called my offices in Delaware and here in Washington, they’re puzzled and they’re frustrated. They don’t understand why we can’t move forward.

To paraphrase the good senator from Missouri, who just spoke, there is a no brainer right in front of us, and it’s the extension of the payroll tax cut. It is something that at least has the support of both parties in both houses. It is something that a number of economists have said is an important contributor to the modest but steady economic growth that is helping pull America out of this terrible ‘great recession.’

So I ask, Mr. President, why is it that we sit here stalled, unclear on when we can proceed to a vote, to a consideration of a clean payroll tax cut?

Well, there have been a whole series of efforts to get us to the floor, to a vote, to an extension of the payroll tax cut.    

This is a simple enough matter. Working Americans all over this country, I believe 160 million of them, will be hit with an increase in their payroll tax rate at the end of this month – just a few days now away, unless we act.

My good friend, Senator Casey of Pennsylvania, suggested several versions of a payroll tax cut extension that would build upon and strengthen the payroll tax cut that the president proposed and this body passed last year. The Casey compromise that has most recently been considered and debated in this body would put up to $1,500 in the pockets of hardworking Americans all over this country and contribute as much as 1.5% in G.D.P. growth in the coming year.

But in the last two weeks we’ve seen our colleagues here on the other side of the aisle four times block our efforts, through filibusters and dilatory tactics, to attempt to get to a payroll tax cut extension. The first Republican version was opposed by 26 Senate Republicans.  The second version opposed by 25.

On some level, Mr. President, I have to ask: What are we doing?

Since when do Republicans openly oppose tax cuts? I’ve been in the Senate just over a year. As you know, I was sworn in last November. And in my freshman year you’ve seen many moments when we’ve been unable to reach reasonable compromise, when we’ve been unable to move forward, and when we’ve flirted with having to shut down the whole federal government, because we couldn’t reach an appropriate compromise with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

Now we, once again, stand here this Wednesday knowing that unless we can act in partnership, we will shut this government down on Friday without a continuing resolution.

Last night the House acted. They passed this payroll tax cut extension and sent it over to us. And I’m puzzled as to why we’re not moving to it on the floor today. I will tell you that when we get to move to it, I will vote against it. And I know many others here as well.

Why?

Because H.R. 3630, which passed the House last night, is not just a clean extension of the payroll tax cut bill – in fact, far from it. It is loaded up with things that have nothing to do with the payroll tax cut extension, which House leadership had to do in order to garner enough votes to move it.

So today we should considering this bill sent to us last night, the speaker asking us to take it up, and it has a whole series of provisions, which, I suspect, many here and at home don’t know about.

So I’ll briefly consider a few of them. It undermines health care reform by punishing low and middle-income families whose economic circumstances changed during the year. It cuts 40 weeks of unemployment benefits from the 99 weeks we would like to extend to 54 weeks. It overrides the president’s decision-making process on the keystone pipeline, which in my view simply to embarrass the president. And it amends the clean air act to block E.P.A.’s proposed rules on toxic air pollution from industrial boilers. It would also freeze federal pay through 2013 and impose a triple contribution — mandatory contribution — to federal retirement programs, effectively cutting federal employee pay and taking more than $50 billion out of the pockets of federal workers.

To me, in some ways most alarmingly, it allows states to impose drug-testing requirements on employees who have lost their jobs and are seeking unemployment.

In short, Mr. President, what has come over us to from the House last night is the farthest thing possible from a clean extension of the payroll tax cut. It is a payroll tax cut with rider after rider sitting on the back of this horse that have weighed it down so greatly that it can clearly, hardly, move.

It is a terrible bill, and, in my view, we should move to it, dispose of it, and get back to the business of the country.

Last, I’m puzzled as to why we’re not proceeding to it. My recollection and I don’t have the joy of sitting here on the floor all the time. But my recollection, from what I’ve read and heard, is that the Republican leader has twice called on us to move to this bill.

I believe he did so twice earlier this week. Saying that we should put partisanship aside and promptly take up whatever is sent over to us from the House by way of a payroll tax cut extension. His comment was: “The first thing we need to find out is whether there are the votes in the Senate to pass what the House has passed, so I’d rather not speculate about what happens, I’m hoping we’re spending our time and energy trying to get this bill passed in the Senate, as well as in the House.”

Perfectly reasonable attitude. We should proceed to this bill. We’re here. We have the bill. We’ve been waiting almost literally the entire day without making any progress. Mr. President, we need to extend tax cuts for payroll. We need to extend tax cuts that incentivize clean energy investments. We need to extend tax cuts that can help inspire innovation, research, and development. There is a whole list of tax cuts that will expire at the end of this year without action.

We need to pass the National Defense Authorization Act. We need to pass a continuing resolution to fund this government and the rest of this year’s appropriations bills. Mr. President, there are so many important bills to which we must turn.     

My sole question is: Why when we try to proceed to this bill this morning, did the Republican leader object?

I’m just a freshman, but I represent a state that is deeply frustrated and puzzled. Since when do Republicans load up a tax cut extension with so many riders that they’re afraid to even bring it to a vote on the floor of this chamber?       

I’m puzzled. I’m frustrated.

With that, I yield the floor.

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Floor Colloquy: Senators Coons and Carper celebrate Delaware Day

SENATOR CARPER: Mr. President, today is Delaware Day. Something important for our state and our nation occurred on December 7, 1787. Senator Coons is here. I ask him to take a moment and maybe share with our colleagues what that was all about. Senator Harkin was kind enough to give us a couple of minutes on his time to do this. Senator Coons, what did happen there at that Golden Fleece Tavern?

SENATOR COONS: Senator Carper, thank you for entering into this colloquy about Delaware Day. As some folks may know, if you look at the Delaware flag, as the Senator mentioned, there is the date, December 7, 1787. That is the day that 30 Delawareans, elected delegates, gathered at the Golden Fleece Tavern in Dover and voted unanimously to make Delaware the first State to ratify the U.S. Constitution. That is why our State moniker is—

SENATOR CARPER: The First State.

SENATOR COONS: The First State.

SENATOR CARPER: Small Wonder. The guys who were there that day – about 30 of them – I would like to say they were drinking hot chocolate at the Golden Fleece Tavern.  I am not sure what they were drinking, but the outcome was a good one. For one whole week after that, Delaware was the entire United States of America. Who was next, Pennsylvania? Maybe Pennsylvania, maybe New Jersey. Then the rest followed and I think, for the most part, it turned out pretty well.

SENATOR COONS: And Senator, one of the things I have always been struck by is that it was 11 years before that that Delaware actually, on Separation Day, on June 15 of 1776, acted both to declare its independence from Pennsylvania and its independence from the King of England, and by doing so acted in an incredibly risky way, because had the Continental Congress on July 4 not chosen to ratify the Declaration of Independence, then Delaware would have stood alone, and arguably, hung alone for having taken the risk for stepping out first.

Delaware has a tradition of being first—first in declaring its independence and acting to secure its independence, and in ratifying the Constitution, that set the whole structure that ended the debate over the Articles of Confederation and moved toward the federal system, one where we look to each other as states and look to this government for the provision of and the securing of our liberty through the balance of justice and liberty that we rely on so much in this body. What else are we doing to celebrate this great day, Senator Carper?

SENATOR CARPER:  The Constitution that was ratified that day—the thing about it is that it is the most enduring Constitution of any nation on Earth, the most copied or emulated Constitution of any nation on Earth as well, and a living document that provides provisions for us to change and update as time goes by. It is remarkable, and we are very proud of the role we played in getting the ball rolling in this great country of ours.

I want to go back to July 1776, if I can. Not far away from the Golden Fleece Tavern, there was a guy named Caesar Rodney, who rode his horse. Do you want to quickly share that story?

SENATOR COONS: That made it possible for our delegation to be represented in Philadelphia and for us to commit to the Declaration of Independence by breaking a tie between the other representatives of Delaware in the Continental Congress.

SENATOR CARPER: If you look at the back of the Delaware coin, you might say why is Paul Revere on the back of that coin? Well, that is not Paul Revere, that is Caesar Rodney riding the horse from Dover to Philadelphia. For people who are familiar with Dover Air Force Base, where big planes come in—the C-5s and C-17s that fly all over the world—as you come in on the approach, the runway heading north-northeast to land, you fly over an old plantation house where a guy named John Dickinson used to live. There is a John Dickinson high school in Delaware, which was named after him. He was also a guy who was involved in the Constitutional Congress and also involved in the Declaration of Independence, and the penman of the Revolution. So if you think about it, there at the Golden Fleece Tavern, the Constitution was ratified. Caesar Rodney, from Dover, departing from not far from there, casts the tie-breaking vote for the Declaration of Independence, and the penman of the Revolution, growing up in what is now the Dickinson plantation. There is a lot of history right there, especially for a state that doesn’t have a national park.

SENATOR COONS: Although we have a senior Senator who is tireless in his effective advocacy of our state.

SENATOR CARPER: Maybe we can do something about that with the Senator’s help and that of Congressman Carney, and our colleagues in the Senate and the House—and maybe including the presiding officer from North Carolina. Believe it or not, the economic value of national parks is actually charged for every one of our states.

The most visited sites in the United States among tourists from foreign countries are our national parks. The economic value to the state of North Carolina—I was told last year—from their national parks was $700 million. Not bad.

SENATOR COONS: If I might, just later today, we are having our first Delaware Day reception here in one of the Senate buildings. It is a way for us to promote and celebrate what is great about Delaware.

One of the things I treasure most about Delaware is our unique political culture—a culture that focuses on consensus, on reasoned compromise, on bringing folks together from across what is, in some other places, a sharp partisan divide to find reasonable, principled paths forward to tackling the challenges that face our state. It is that consensus, commonsense approach that I know my senior Senator brought to his two terms as Governor and has brought to the Senate. Our Congressman, who was on national television this morning with a Republican cosponsor of an initiative, has also made that a hallmark of his tenure. I know our Governor has as well.

I wanted to suggest that one of the things that makes Delaware unique, special, valued, and first isn’t just our agricultural products, it isn’t just our great and enjoyable food products, and it isn’t just our unique history in the beginning of our country but it is also how we continue to find ways to build bridges across the divide that so many Americans watch us here in the Congress wrestling with at this moment and that I think, in our home state, we have managed to find a good path forward.

SENATOR CARPER: Madam President, we call this the Delaware Way. As my colleague from Delaware knows, whenever I run into people who have been married a long time—50, 60, 70 years—I ask them what is the secret to being married so many years. They give some funny answers, but they also give some very pointed answers. One of the best answers I have heard—and I hear it over and over—as the reason why they have been married such a long time is because of the two Cs. I say: What are the two Cs? They say, “communicate and compromise.”

I would suggest that is what we do pretty well in our state. It is not only good advice for creating an enduring marriage, but it would also be good advice for us in this body, in this town, to do a better job—both parties—to communicate and compromise. We show, I think every day, in our state, if we do those things, take that seriously, the result is pretty good. We could get a better result here if we keep that in mind.

With that, I think we have said our piece. It is Delaware Day, one more time, and may the spirit of Delaware and the Delaware Way permeate this place as well.

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Floor Colloquy: Senators Coons and Rubio urge their colleagues to support the bipartisan AGREE Act for job creation

Senator Coons: Thank you, Senator Rubio, and thank you, Madam President. Senator Rubio and I have come to the floor today to talk about our shared experience. In my home state, over the one year that I’ve been a Senator and over the years before that I’ve served on county government, I have heard from hundreds, even thousands, of families and individuals looking for work, deeply hurt and challenged by the ongoing slow economic recovery, folks who have come to us asking for opportunities, for assistance, for promise and hope. And in reality, I think one of the things that is causing some real concern in this country, in my state, and I think most likely in Senator Rubio’s as well, is a broadly shared concern that we here in Congress are not capable of getting past the partisan politics and making real progress in tackling the job creating challenges before us.

Let me, if I could, quote from a couple of letters that I have received from Delawareans just in the last few months. Lawrence from Milford wrote my office, “Congress needs to stop the political arguing and take positive action to make America and our economy strong again.” Janet from Wilmington wrote, “I am the owner of a very small business. I’ve been in business for 29 years, and I have never seen it as tough as it is today.” And Joseph in Smyrna summed it all up in a letter he wrote: “Our economy needs jobs now.”

Delaware is a great place to grow a business, to raise a family, to achieve success… but we have the toughest economy we’ve seen in generations. Madam President, the folks we represent expect us to act and they expect us to find ways to work together and to get past the partisan divide that has made it so difficult for us to make progress.

Senator Rubio, what sorts of things have you heard from your constituents in Florida and how has that motivated you to act?

Senator Rubio: Thank you, Senator Coons. Let me just point out a couple things before we begin, and that is that there are a lot of issues in this process that we’re not going to agree on.  And there is an ideological divide about a lot of major issues – the role of government, how do we get the economy growing again and what government can do about it – and the people of America recognize that. And they recognize that issues of that magnitude ultimately are solved at the ballot box. You elect people. People run for office on their competing visions of government’s role and use it to decide those elections. And we’re going to have one in November of 2012.

But what do we do over the next 12 months? Do we just stand around and do nothing? Do we just stand around and continue to bring up pieces of legislation from both sides of the aisle that we know are going to fail just to make political points? Or do we actually begin to act?

And there are a lot reasons why I think we need to act. And I want to share with you an e-mail that I received from Stephanie, who lives in Vero Beach, and it just breaks your heart. I think it is very typical of the ones, Senator Coons, that you’ve probably gotten and I bet you all of the other members of this institution have gotten.

She writes, “I’m not sure who to turn to with this question. I’m a true Floridian, I was born and raised in Florida. As you know, the unemployment rate is horrible. I had to file for unemployment benefits for the first time ever, and I was just informed that I exhausted my benefits. Where do I turn for help? There are no jobs available. I search for a job daily and get excuses such as ‘you don’t have enough experience’ or ‘you’re overqualified.’ Or I’m suggested to go back to school. How am I going to go back to school if I have no money to pay for school or have no job and no money to pay my bills?”

It goes on to outline other problems but at the end it says, “Many people like myself have nowhere to turn. Hopefully you can help me or at least suggest what I can do. Thank you for your time.”

This is the voice of real desperation, of real people in the real world who want to work, have always worked and cannot find a job. This is the number one issue in America. There are a lot of issues floating around here and they’re important issues. But this is the number one issue in America, of everyday hardworking people who cannot find a job.

Now, can government create jobs for them? In government. But by and large there are things government can do to help create an environment for job creation.

And so what we have done is we have sat down and we have analyzed what things have we agreed on. There are things that are in the President’s plan that are also in the Republican plan that the House has passed, that our colleagues have filed. And what we came up with was this piece of legislation that Senator Coons is going to describe in a moment. It is literally a collection of bills that we have agreed on. And what people want to know, “I understand you’re going to have arguments about the things you disagree on, but why are you arguing about the things you agree on?”

And so Senator Coons, maybe this is a good segue to start describing some of the measures that are in this bill – the things that we agree on, the things that we can act on and do right now to help people like Stephanie, people in your home state, and people in every one of the states in this country who are struggling to find a job and are looking for some ray of hope that this process here in Washington has an understanding about what they’re going through and are actually willing to do something about it.

Senator Coons: We together announced the introduction of the AGREE Act yesterday — the American Growth, Recovery, Empowerment and Entrepreneurship Act — which conveniently spells out, “agree.” The core principle, as Senator Rubio described, was for a real Republican and a real Democrat to look through all the different ideas that have been put out there in the President’s jobs bill, by the President’s Jobs and Competitiveness Council, by members of the Senate and the House from both parties that we could come to agreement on, and to put them into a bill packaged to assemble all of these ideas and put them out and hope that we will pick up cosponsors, hope that it will pick up steam, and hope we can demonstrate to the American people, to the families that Senator Rubio and I have heard from in letters, e-mails and tweets who have expressed real concern.

The basic big-picture proposals in this bill, first, extending tax relief for small businesses: There are three different provisions that have already been in law that would be extended by this bill: for capital gains exclusion; for five-year investments in qualified small businesses; for accelerated depreciation; and for increased expensing — all of which would help small businesses invest in growth.

Encouraging cutting-edge research and innovation by making permanent the R&D tax credit and by adding something to it that, I think, has real potential: an added incentive for companies who invent something here, to manufacture it here.

Another common sense regulatory relief, for fast growing businesses that seek to go public, another an idea originally championed by Senator Casey providing incentives to the tax code for veterans to become franchise owners and entrepreneurs, and last are reducing some immigration barriers that prevent highly skilled workers who’ve studied here, from staying here.

Now really to the last point, protecting American businesses from intellectual property theft, strengthening our ability to prevent counterfeit goods from coming into American markets by fixing a small but real barrier to effective border protection against counterfeiting.

All of these provisions, Madam President, are provisions that have already enjoyed bipartisan support in other settings. We’ve simply assembled them together, put them into a common sense package and want to move them forward.

Senator Rubio, what sort of response has our action gotten so far from people in Florida, around the country, who might have contacted about this initiative?

Senator Rubio: Thank you. It’s been a very positive response, and I’ll tell you why for a couple reasons.

Number one is every time people open up a newspaper or turn on the television what they get from Washington is bad news. A week ago in a speech I gave, I said it resembles professional wrestling to them. It seems like there’s people from the Republican side and Democrat side that go on TV and scream at each other about what’s happening. And people watch it and they get it that there are differences between us.  But is there anything [we agree on]? I mean, don’t we all live in the same country? Aren’t we seeing the same economic conditions? Are there things we can work together on, and why are they not hearing from that?

Let me tell you the impact in the real world of all that bad news. The impact is that people get scared. So imagine for a moment, you are a job creator and you’ve got some money to invest this year. And you have to decide: do I leave it in the bank, or do I take this money and use it to grow my business?

Well, the safe thing to do is to leave it in the bank. But what job creators and entrepreneurs want to, what they really want to do is they want to create new jobs, they want to grow their businesses. Who doesn’t want to grow their business? Who doesn’t want to add customers? So now you have to make a decision. Is now the right time to grow my business or the wrong time?

And one of the things people look at is the political climate. Are the people in charge of government, in Washington especially which is the one that gets the most attention, what is their mind frame? How are they working? Are they getting things done? Is it positive things that are happening or negative things that are happening?

And I believe the measures here are meaningful. We’re not claiming that this bill solves all of our economic problems, but they are meaningful. If you’re a small business that’s looking to invest next year in buying some capital investment in your business, this is a real incentive to extend these tax credits that help you to do that.

But more importantly, something else people will look at, they will be able to open up the newspaper one day and actually read that Republicans and Democrats came together and passed a piece of legislation that they agreed on. And I don’t think you can underestimate or, quite frankly, really measure the kind of psychological impact that could have on job creators to actually have some optimism that the future will be better than the present, that tomorrow may be better than today.

And I think that, as much as anything else, is critical. The United States Senate is a big deal. People pay attention to what we say here, the good stuff we say and the bad stuff we say. They pay attention to what we do here, and they pay attention to what we fail to do here. I think it’s important for all of us to recognize that our actions have consequences and the way we speak and comport ourselves in these debates. And I think we need to recognize that some of the rhetoric and some of the noise that has been made in this process over the last six months to a year have hurt job creation because they created an air of negativity around the economics of this country. And we have an opportunity with passage of legislation like this to send a message that, on the things we agree on, we can actually get things done. That’s been the impression I’ve gotten from people – a little bit of surprise, but a lot of it is some sense of optimism that before this year is out we’ll be able to pass a piece of legislation that is both meaningful and bipartisan. Is that the same reaction you’ve gotten?

Senator Coons: That’s right, Senator Rubio. I have gotten an almost immediate response from Facebook, from Twitter, from emails, from phone calls to my office. I’ll just quote a couple of them for a moment, if I might. I got a tweet from @JasonFebrey, who wrote: “Kudos for introducing job-creating legislation. Good to see detailed plans rather than the endless partisan bickering.” @WI_LADI tweeted, “If AGREE is a jobs act that can get passed, I, an American who cares deeply about our unemployed says thanks.”

I got an e-mail from Mary June from Delaware City, “I think it’s great to see a bipartisan approach to solving the jobs crisis. Thank you for getting past party lines and coming together to propose common sense solutions.”

Last, Maria from Middletown emailed me, “I think it is time for both parties to come together. To bring our country back to where we have people working again and families believing in the American Dream. The same dream I had growing up. The dream I thought my sons and granddaughter were going to live. Business as usual in Washington has to stop. Through this bill, you will both prove to your fellow senators that if you all work together, anything can be possible.”

To be clear, as Senator Rubio said earlier, there are real differences. There are things that divide the parties.

There is time ahead for an election to resolve those fundamental differences in values, in approach, in priorities. But while we can, we should come together with common sense proposals that demonstrate to the American people, that we can take ideas from Republicans, Democrats, from the House, the Senate, from the states, and the President, and put them in a package and pass them… because 12 months is too long for us to wait.

As we all wait this coming week for the outcome of the super committee, I know that confidence is one of the major things we have some concerns about. The confidence in the marketplace, the confidence to take risks and invest, the confidence to grow.

And in my view, Madam President, this bill, this initiative shows that both parties can and do have confidence in American inventors, American investors, American veterans, and American entrepreneurs.

I’m grateful for a chance to work on this.

Senator Rubio, what’s the next step and where do we go from here?

Senator Rubio: I hope the next step is to get as many people in this chamber and in the House to sign on to this legislation, and let’s get it done. Obviously we’re open to suggestions about how to improve it. Maybe there are some things we left out that should be in there.  We’re open to that. Maybe there are some questions involving how some of these particular measures would work. So we’re open to suggestions now. I think what we wanted to do is get the ball rolling. And I know that our time is short here and is about to run out. And I want to recognize what you’ve recognized.

You know, one of the ways you lose credibility is when you exaggerate things. Let’s not exaggerate things in terms of the differences between our parties. They’re real. There are real ideological differences about the role of government, about what the tax code should look like, about how to get out of this debt situation, and we’re going to debate those things. To my friends on both the right and the left, the Republican side and the Democrat side, we have real differences and this is the place to do them.

We are fortunate and blessed to live in a republic where we can debate our competing points of view as to what the proper role of government is. But there are things we do agree on, and these are the kinds of things we should work on. And so I think today is an open invitation to all of our colleagues here in the Senate to join us, to look at this bill, analyze it, see if there are things in it you’d like to add that you think belong there. Maybe there are things we left out that should be in there. The more, the merrier. We’re looking forward to that. To those who think there are things that are in this bill that maybe should be changed or improved, we’re open to those suggestions as well.

But we want to get this done. We want to deliver something to the American people as soon as possible that shows that here in Washington, D.C. we can agree on the things we agree on. I think that would be a positive first step in the right direction on behalf of job creators.

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Floor Speech: Helping our veterans find work

Madam President, I rise today, on the eve of Veterans Day, to speak on behalf of those who have fought for our country only to return home to find that their fight must continue.

This time their fight is for a job, for employment. I rise today to offer my support on the floor for the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, which I believe is now before this body. I am a cosponsor of this bill, Madam President, because, as a nation, we must do more to appreciate, to support the service of our returning heroes and to help them to fully recover from their service abroad by returning to meaningful employment in the civilian sector.

We haven’t had as many service members coming home from military service abroad in a long time, and, unfortunately, so many of them come home to a bitterly slow recovery from the Great Recession. The unemployment rate among all veterans from service in Iraq or Afghanistan is now 30 percent higher than the national unemployment rate. It’s at roughly 12.1 percent, and that means nearly a quarter-million veterans are unemployed.

This bill is about equipping them, equipping them effectively to return home to full employment. We have a tremendous asset, Mr. President, in the highly trained, highly skilled, highly motivated veterans that we have deployed overseas in the service of freedom, and who are now returning home seeking service in employment with America’s businesses. We’re talking about men and women who are real leaders, tested leaders who’ve learned something useful about managing people through some of the most difficult situations imaginable. Folks in whom we invest hundreds of millions of dollars every year, year in and year out, in training them and in equipping them, billions of dollars in equipping them, to the highest service levels when we send them overseas. We should invest comparably in making sure that that training, that equipment, is relevant as they return home.

This summer, Mr. President, I hosted a round-table in Delaware on veterans’ jobs. Nineteen participants came from a wide range of sectors, from the military, from labor, from businesses, from all sorts of different civilian support organizations who work with our returning veterans. And as we had a long and productive conversation, the message was loud and clear — we can and should incentivize private businesses to hire veterans. We can help connect the private sector, these businesses, across America with veterans whom they want to hire. And we can and should do a better job of helping returning veterans transition to civilian services.

In Delaware and across the country, we’ve had some great programs in the past. Helmets to Hardhats, for example, one with which I became familiar in my previous service in county government, that connected folks in the building trades who wanted to welcome into their ranks veterans returning from recent service with those who have served our country honorably overseas and are now home fighting for jobs. There’s also the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve or ESGR, with which I regularly communicated as county executive and continue to offer my support as senator, that helps make sure that those who serve overseas in the Guard and Reserve know that their employers understand and respect their legal obligations and their moral obligations to provide employment opportunities comparable to those they had before they deployed.

We also had participating in this important conversation this summer Delaware companies that have made a public pledge to hiring veterans; Aviation in Middletown, J.P. Morgan Chase with a very large presence in Delaware that’s made a very real and sustaining commitment to hiring returning veterans. We have a jobs crisis in America, Mr. President, and today Delaware’s veterans’ unemployment rate is 8 percent. And while that’s good compared to the national average, 8 percent shouldn’t be a good number. And in my view, this Congress could have no higher priority than helping Americans get back to work and, in that priority, helping America’s veterans get back to work.

The bill we are on today is the fourth major jobs bill full of ideas, many of which originally came from the other side of the aisle, for job creation that we’ve introduced and considered. The American jobs act, a bill that would public safety workers and teachers back to work and sustain their public service role. A bill that would invest in the infrastructure bank and public dollars for infrastructure all over this country.

And all of these bills, Mr. President, have been blocked. Not defeated but blocked, prevented through filibuster from even coming to the floor. If ever there was a jobs bill that has earned bipartisan support, it’s the one this body will vote on later today. Today we have an opportunity to make it easier for our veterans to find jobs, and I am encouraged by very real signs that this bill may pass so that all of us can go home tomorrow to our states, and participate in veterans day ceremonies, having voted for a bill designed to help so many of America’s servicemen and women ease their path back to full employment in the civilian economy. I believe we owe them nothing less.

This bill, Mr. President, offers tax credits to businesses in the private sector who would hire veterans. It guarantees service members access to training designed to facilitate their transition to civilian use — life, excuse me– their transition to civilian life and allow them full use of the skills they’ve gained in service to our nation. And it cuts through some of the bureaucratic red tape that’s made it difficult for veterans to get access to federal resources.

I am proud, Mr. President, to be a cosponsor of this bill, just as I was proud to cosponsor with Senator Murray of Washington the Hiring Heroes Act this spring. We owe it to America to work more aggressively together, across the aisle in confronting this ongoing jobs crisis, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the VOW to Hire Heroes Act today.

If I can, Mr. President, I’d also like to take just another few minutes to discuss a bill that I hope will pass the senate later today on a similar topic. It is a small bill addressing a complicated issue but it will make a big difference in the lives of many of our service members. When an American marries a foreign national, an immigrant, and that immigrant decides that he or she wants to become an American citizen, they begin a process of obtaining permanent residency, of applying for and seeking a green card. Just before the two-year mark in that process, the couple must fill out a form together and appear for an in-person interview. You have a 90-day window to file paperwork and another 90 days to appear for this in-person interview together.

Here’s the problem, Mr. President. What if you’re in the military and deployed abroad? What if the American in this couple is in a war zone and cannot make it back to the United States in that limited, tightly defined 90-day window for an in-person interview? You might miss your opportunity for you and your spouse to have the interview and secure his or her green card in this United States.

Our soldiers, in my view, have enough to worry about without adding this to the list. The bill we will offer later today is a simple fix, Mr. President. My colleague, Senator Graham of South Carolina, and I have introduced a bill that Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren introduced in the House earlier this year, that would give service members the flexibility to wait until after their deployments have concluded in order to conduct these in-person interviews.

This measure, Mr. President, passed the House of Representatives 426-0. It is my hope it will also pass the Senate unanimously tonight. Mr. President, we are blessed in this nation to be served by volunteers, by men and women who stand up and go to the other side of the world to serve us in the interest of freedom.

The two bills I’ve spoken of here on the floor today are things that we can and should do together across the aisle to advance their interests in having the enjoyment of liberty for which they’ve sacrificed so much. Thank you. And with that, I yield the floor.

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Keynote Address: Alliance to Save Energy Fall Conference

Thank you, Tom, thank you so much for the introduction and congratulations on being chosen to serve as the next co-chair of the Alliance. I had an opportunity to visit with a couple dozen folks from the Alliance to Save Energy back in March, at a time when I needed some encouragement and so frankly, I came out of that conversation in that room with a sense of width that I don’t always get day in and day out here in the Senate as I sit through hearings and as we debate, or don’t debate, on the Floor. And to Peter Darbee of PGE (Pacific Gas and Electric Company), I just want to say congratulations and thanks for your term of service, the outgoing or co-chair. It is good to be back here.

Energy efficiency is a generally important issue to me and I think you have a vital in, and I strongly support the work you are doing to achieve a healthier, cleaner, stronger economy. In fact, it seems to me that it is not the next big thing; it has always been a big thing. It strikes me as surprising that it is something we even need to debate. And yet here, these days, in the modern stay, things that might seem to us more interested in science-based public policy, interested in getting people back to work, interested in strengthening America’s independence–apparently some of us need to be reminded of the central role, the huge importance of value of energy efficiency as one of the smartest, strongest ways that we can see progress in the country.

It has long enjoyed bipartisan support. As I presided last week, I heard some stirring speeches from Senators, both Republican and Democrat from Illinois, giving tribute to Senator Charles Percy; someone who I did not know personally, but who was present at the very founding of this organization thirty-four years ago. Charles Percy and Hubert Humphrey were able to come together, Republican and Democrat, as centrist, responsible, thoughtful folks from the heartland who found a way to work together at the beginning of the Alliance to Save Energy. These days, I will just say, sadly, it seems that petty partisanship has seeped into every corner, into every crack, into every hole of the thoughts and the deliberation of us here in the Senate. And I think petty partisanship has had an unfortunate and corrosive effect on our ability to make progress on what has long struck me and I know what finally struck those two great Senators, a common sense collaborative initiative to strengthen our nation and our economy. And I come from a place, the great little state of Delaware, where bipartisanship and where responsible collaboration between industry and environmentalists, a real and meaningful dialogue between regulators and regulated industries, is just part of the background. At our annual Chamber of Commerce Dinner, the President of AFL-CIO gives the invitations. We have a state culture that favors and encourages innovation, entrepreneurship, investment, and stewardship; and to me, if those are four pillars of your common values, energy efficiency runs right through the center all four of them.

As you heard in that great introduction, I come to an interest in energy efficiency from an undergraduate training in chemistry to eight years working for WL Gore and Associates, the makers of Gortex, a materials-based science company, that had a significant play at the time in fuel cells and where I was doing some of our government affairs and community outreach work as well as a lot of commercial and transactional work. Our then Governor, Ruth Ann Minner, appointed me to the Governor’s Energy Taskforce, something that struck me merely, at the time, as a painful distraction from the demands three young children and a full-time job. But having heard that I was involved in unwinding an ESCO contract of an energy services and one of my first challenges had been unwinding the trail of a longstanding ESCO contract where there hadn’t been enough engineering involved in the actual annual implementation, which is sort of an understandable challenge if you have an ESCO and you let it go too long and you don’t finish the details, they talked about one time too many, and so the Governor decided I was somehow an expert, a thing that happens here in the Senate as well, you give one thought and you’re immediately blazing the trail. So she not only put me on her Energy Taskforce, she made me the chair of the Conservation and Efficiency Work Group. This allowed me over forty meetings over the next two years to thoroughly and deeply geek out and yet, get credit for it at my employer and to get better grounded in and better informed in the dynamics of energy, exploration, production, and distribution and to understand  how this fifth pupil, how this alternative way of looking at energy savings can fundamentally alter not just the built space, not just our commercial or industrial balance sheet for energy, but our future as a nation– environmentally and in terms of job creation.

That work translated for me into a leadership role I took on as County Executive of a county serving half a million people. We are in a very fiscally constrained environment where we also had a Headquarters building that was built during the years of “energy doesn’t matter” and so it had enormous windows and very little insulation and very poor energy management systems, it desperately needed capitol rehab, and the only way we were able to finance it was through an ESCO, which required changing state law because procurement systems and contracts had not caught up with the twentieth century even before the twentieth century ended.  That work, plus implementing the EECBG (Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant) Program, a privy to a year stimulus, gave me an insight in that how the government sector would handle this, thus concluded that the government section can do a better job of implementing energy efficiency programs and help more effectively financing and paying for those investments.

It is easy, here in the Senate, to believe that I can take that private sector experience, that local government experience, and just sort of, leap forward to contributing to a conversation about our energy future. Sadly the Energy Committee, although lead by two great Senators who work responsibility and thoughtfully together between Bingaman and Murkowski of New Mexico and Alaska, has some divisions within it that slowed down our progress on some of the more ambitious bills that have stood before us like the SEDA bill (Sustainable Energy and Development Bill)that I think is critical to financing energy infrastructure. The question I keep asking other members of the Committee when I have a chance to sit, either in privacy or when I get the chance to talk to staff is, “What is it that we are fighting over between those who seem to champion, more traditional, oil or gas or curling expiration and those who seem to champion a clean energy alternative for an alternative energy future?”

In both cases, I think what we’re addressing is the symptom not the fuse. Energy Efficiency should be the one thing that allows us to bridge all of these competing interests and concerns because it promotes energy independence, it promotes energy efficiency, and thus, produces or impacts our environment and it promotes American employment. An America that uses less energy because it is an America that takes less from the earth. An America that is less reliant on other nations for the fuel that we spend so much for, day in and day out. An America where its people don’t need to worry about their future in order to cool their homes. An America that uses less energy and will also spend less time, ever again, waiting in long gas lines, sweating through mid-summer brownouts, or having to make the choice between feeding families and keeping warm in difficult winters, in tough economic times.

I haven’t been around here very long, thankfully, just less then a year, but I am already seeing how in tough economic times the conversation can and should change. In my view, the arguments for energy efficiency work equally well, in great economic times and difficult economic times, because when we’re tightening our belts nothing can help our bottom line as company, accounting, and a country then energy efficiency. In my view, energy efficiency is all about American’s future and we need to recapture that solid bipartisan sense of its role in our future that Alliance to Save Energy is trying to do. Energy efficiency is not about who’s right or who’s wrong, it is not about whether climate change is real or not, it is not about who’s science you are going to choose to believe today, it is not even about benefiting shareholders or appeasing some particular wonk, it is something that, in my view, fundamentally makes sense. There is no “we” word in the fight for energy efficiency except to the sense that we all win.

So for the four questions, I think, for those of us that serve on the Energy Committee are: how do we do it? How do we continue to make some progress when cost efficiency seems to be ruling the day? As you’ve heard in the introduction, I am a co-sponsor– I have co-sponsor three different bills– that I think can and should command the majority of our Committee.  I am dedicating time, energy, and resources to advocate for them for the Members of the Committee, for the Chair, and the Leadership.  One of the problems with Washington is that once there is an assumption made, that certain bills will never see the Floor, and will never make it to the Senate and the House, and will never make it to the President’s desk, then the energy needed to move them stops being invested. If I can, I would like to offer myself as a catalyst, as someone who tries not to fuel that movement but to catalyze. The three bills that were mentioned previously: the “Consensus Appliance Agreements Act” which is named the Rutkowski Act, more than any other, obviously deserves consideration and move a consensus filled negotiation between industry and advocates; the “Reducing Federal Energy Dollars Act” from my senior Senator, Tom Caper, how could I not support a home state favor like that; and the “Energy Savings and Industrial Competitive Act,” known to most of us as Shaheen-Portman. I have greatly enjoyed serving with Sen. Shaheen; she has brought a Governor’s sense of bottom-line accountability and focus and a New Englander’s concern about energy efficiency in staying warm in increasing cold winters. These are things we should be moving in the short run.

But I am also concerned about fighting for saving the Research and Development Funding for The Department of Energy. The Department of Energy has played a critical role in partnering with the private sector, the State, and energy offices, to make possible the research and development that has fueled some of the critical advances in energy efficiency. I’m also greatly concerned about tax credit.  There is a lot of concern in the media about loan guarantees and I am concerned that broadly we may be taking our eye off a full spirit of expiring tax credit, that provide a critical groundwork that allows for the financing, investment, and advancement of clean energy and energy efficiency technologies. I am also someone who is particularly interested in budget rules having had to balance six budgets as County Executive and seeing the pernicious effect of the budget rules we adopted on some of the decisions we made—I am stunned that how complex and how irrational whole squat of federal budget making them a scoring profit is, so particularly around ESCOs and how purchase agreements as they apply to federal entities I have been working with the Chairman and hope to make some responsible progress with the budget scoring rules that I think are a needless barrier to our making real progress as a deal.

Last, I have been trying to hold up, and advocate for, and champion innovation in how the current spark of energies operate: REE, The Energy Innovation Hub, which has a particular group that I am excited about The Energy Efficiency and Building Systems group, and frankly I also think we need to continue the fight for clean energy standards. Even if it seems right now difficult to get the new fuel economy and clean energy standards advanced by the Administration but I think that is a fight worth having. In case it’s not clear to you, I am someone who stands before you who thinking energy efficiency is not the next big thing; it is a big thing right now.

Much like that, like my experience on the Energy Committee, which is endlessly tantalizing to me because of the value and the impact of the underlying content. Yes it demands that current role suggests I have to go back, hearing debates on a whole range of things that are not as obvious, common senses, or powerful as energy efficiency.

Every time I hire someone new that comes and joins my office either before as County Executive or here, and they tend to be in their early twenties, I tend to ask them a simple question, “When did you first learn about the power of compounding interests and the consequences for your pension and retirement?” and they look blankly disturbed, they often wonder if it too late to take a different offer with different office. Do you remember? I was thirty when I first got a pension calculation presentation and it occurred to me that I should’ve been saving when I was twenty, because the power of compounding interest is so huge over a longer period of time that the earlier you start those savings the more profound its movement in your long term economic future. Energy efficiency has exactly the same power. It has enormous potential that can change our future, our competitors, our environmental footprint, our technology, and our children and grandchildren’s country that they will inherit from us. I cannot say thank you more strongly and clearly then that.

I still remember, when serving on the Governor’s Energy Taskforce, when I first went, “Ohhh, energy efficiency is the most important thing we could be working on in energy.” And I am grateful for your efforts in helping the rest of the nation to have that powerful “Ah-ha” moment. Please, lets not stop fighting to also make this a powerful, successful, bipartisan one.