Senator Coons hosts discussion on clean energy innovation and sustainability

Senator Coons hosted a luncheon today in the historic Kennedy Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building to discuss clean energy innovation and sustainability.  Organized in cooperation with the American Chemical Society and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the luncheon featured researchers discussing carbon capture technologies, nuclear power, and renewables.  Today’s luncheon was the first of two; in June a second discussion will be held focusing on clean energy innovation.   

Chris opened the discussion with his observation that a century ago windmills dotted the American landscape and those in rural communities routinely lived in houses constructed from natural and composted materials.  He recalled a photograph of his grandmother as an infant in front of her family’s sod house in rural Wyoming, comparing it to new green home designs today that incorporate sod and composted soils.  For much of the past hundred years, Chris noted, we as a society failed to recognize the negative implications of our industrial development on health, the environment, and on sustainability. 

Praising Administration efforts to encourage and invest in broad-based research, development, and innovation in clean energy, Chris called on policymakers to take a long view when approaching this issue.  We won’t be able to meet our energy and environmental challenges without a strong program of research in science and engineering, and this is why Department of Energy programs like ARPA-E, Innovation Hubs, and Energy Frontier Research Centers are so important and worthwhile ventures. 

A member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Budget Committee, Chris has been a vocal advocate of expanding and creating new tax credits for small businesses conducting innovative research, including research into clean energy technologies. 

To learn more about Chris’s energy priorities and his work on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, click here. 

The American Chemical Society is a Congressionally-chartered, independent membership organization representing professionals at all degree levels and in all fields of chemistry.  The American Institute of Chemical Engineers is a professional organization for chemicals engineers with 40,000 members and student chapters at universities around the world.  

Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge will help ensure our students are prepared for grade school

Senator Coons today praised the President’s new Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge, which allocates $500 million in state-level competitive grants that helps states improve and expand access to early education. The program was launched today at a press conference with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

The Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge will reward states that develop comprehensive plans for transforming their early learning systems with better coordination, clearer learning standards, and meaningful workforce development. States applying for challenge grants will be encouraged to increase access to quality early learning programs for low income and disadvantaged children, design integrated and transparent systems that align their early care and education programs, bolster training and support for the early learning workforce, create robust evaluation systems to document and share effective practices and successful programs, and help parents make informed decisions about care for their children.

Chris is no stranger to the positive impact early learning programs have on students’ overall educational achievement, earlier this month he joined Senators Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and Al Franken (D-Minn.) on a letter to Secretary Duncan and Sebelius urging them to implement the type of grant program described in the bill. The full letter can be read below.

Senator Coons was also an original cosponsor of the Supporting State Systems of Early Learning Act (S. 470) that would create a similar grant program.

New batch of Correspondence from the Commute!

Senator Coons has recorded 12 more video responses to constituents’ letters as part of his Correspondence from the Commute series!

We did a double-batch this month since the schedule didn’t work out for us to do videos in April. (Here are the videos from February and March.) These videos were recorded on the 6:25 am Northeast Regional from Wilmington to Washington last Wednesday.

• Andrew from Hockessin about improving our economy
• Lowell from Wilmington about tax subsidies for oil companies
• Jay from Magnolia about rising gas prices
• Henry from Hockessin about helping veterans find jobs
• Dom from Greenwood and his students about legislation, food, sports and parks
• Margaret from Wilmington about education reform
• Mary from Felton about adult education
• Leslie from Wilmington about increasing public safety communications networks
• Patrick from Wilmington about the national budget
• William from New Castle about privatizing Medicare
• Zoe from Wilmington about funding for the NIH
• Leslie from Wilmington about the budget

Senator Coons supports President’s decision to extend Trade Adjustment Assistance

Senator Coons joined 40 of his colleagues Monday in signing onto a letter to President Obama supporting his decision to insist that Congress agree to extend Trade Adjustment Assistance, including a long term extension of the 2009 bipartisan reforms, before submitting the pending trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama.

“Trade Adjustment Assistance has been a core pillar of U.S. trade policy,” the Senators wrote. “The program ensures that workers who lose their jobs and financial security as a result of globalization have an opportunity to transition to new jobs and emerging sectors of the economy. Important reforms were made to TAA in 2009, which have helped streamline the program and make it more efficient for beneficiaries. In 2009, Congress also expanded eligibility to all workers whose jobs have been moved offshore, regardless of whether the United States has a trade agreement with the particular country. It also recognized the important role of the service industry in the U.S. economy by bringing service workers into TAA.”

In February 2011, the 2009 bipartisan reforms expired. The letter supports the President’s goal to create a broader trade and competitiveness strategy that creates jobs and builds the middle class, and supports his decision to seek a long-term TAA extension.

The full letter can be read below.

The Senator’s week ahead schedule: May 23 to May 29

Monday, May 23 at 4:00 p.m. – The Senator will preside over the Senate. Washington, DC – Open to press who wish to sit in the Senate gallery.

Tuesday, May 24 at 9:00 a.m. – The Senator will speak at the Truman National Security Project Development and National Security Conference. 426A Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC – Closed to press. 

Tuesday, May 24 at 11:00 a.m. – The Senator will attend a joint meeting of Congress with Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel. U.S. Capitol, Washington, DC. 

Wednesday, May 25 at 12:00 p.m. – The Senator will give introductory remarks at an energy briefing on clean energy sustainability. The event is hosted by the American Chemical Society and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. 325 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC – Open to press.

Thursday, May 26 at 10:00 a.m. – The Senator will attend the Senate Judiciary Committee businessmeeting.  226 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC – Open to press. 

Thursday, May 26 at 1:00 p.m. – The Senator will preside over the Senate. Washington, DC – Open to press who wish to sit in the Senate gallery.

Friday, May 27 at 11:00 a.m. – The Senator will attend the Delaware Adolescent Program, Inc.’s graduation. 126 Wyoming Road, Wyoming, DE

Monday, May 30 at 8:30 a.m. – The Senator will attend the Wilmington Memorial Day Parade. Open to press.

Monday, May 30 at 10:30 a.m. – The Senator will attend the Memorial Day Bridge Plaza Service. Memorial Bridge Plaza, Delaware Memorial Day Bridge, New Castle, DE – Open to press.

What We’re Reading: Krugman on manufacturing

From Friday’s New York Times, noted economist Paul Krugman discusses the “manufacturing renaissance” underway in large part because of President Obama’s economic strategy.

By the middle years of the last decade, I used to joke that Americans made a living by selling each other houses, which they paid for with money borrowed from China. Manufacturing, once America’s greatest strength, seemed to be in terminal decline.

But that may be changing. Manufacturing is one of the bright spots of a generally disappointing recovery, and there are signs — preliminary, but hopeful, nonetheless — that a sustained comeback may be under way.

And there’s something else you should know: If right-wing critics of efforts to rescue the economy had gotten their way, this comeback wouldn’t be happening.

…

America’s industrial heartland is now leading the economic recovery. In August 2009, Michigan had an unemployment rate of 14.1 percent, the highest in the nation. Today, that rate is down to 10.3 percent, still above the national average, but nonetheless a huge improvement.

Read the complete story here.

Video: Senator Coons urges confirmation of Goodwin Liu

Senator Coons went to the floor Wednesday afternoon to speak in support of the nomination for U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Chris strongly supports Professor Liu’s nomination and urged his colleagues to join him in voting for his confirmation.

Senator Coons is a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Video: Honoring Delaware’s law enforcement officers

Senator Coons went to the floor this morning to honor Delaware’s law enforcement officers and celebrate National Police Week.

Video: Senator Coons speaks out against taxpayer subsidies for oil companies

Set to speak on the floor during morning business on Wednesday in honor of National Police Week, U.S. Senator Coons also responded to comments made moments earlier by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell accusing Democrats of “picking winners and losers” by attempting to repeal tax subsidies for the nation’s largest oil companies.

“We just heard a comment on the floor that we need to stop picking winners and losers and need to move forward in helping America end its dependence on foreign energy,” Senator Coons began. “I couldn’t agree more because the expenditures through our tax code — the billions and billions of dollars in needless expenditures through our tax code that continue to subsidize some of the most wildly profitable corporations in American history — is exactly that: picking winners. And the losers are the American people.”

At issue was a bill cosponsored by Senator Coons to end tax breaks for the nation’s five largest oil companies and instead use the savings that would be recouped to reduce the federal deficit. That Senate failed to invoke cloture on Tuesday night when all but two Republicans voted against the measure.

“This isn’t picking on one particular industry,” Senator Coons said. “This is rationally looking at our immense tax expenditures through the code and saying there is a time here for us to stop. We would save literally $21 billion by fiscal year 2021.” 

Read the full text of the remarks here.

Standing up for national and community service

Volunteering in service to our communities has been an American value for all of our history. Whenever people are in need, we always come together as communities and as a country to lend a hand. That is why Congress created a number of national service programs in 1993, through bipartisan legislation, under the aegis of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). These programs include AmeriCorps, VISTA, Learn and Serve America, Senior Corps, and others that enable Americans to engage in service to their communities.

Unfortunately, earlier this year House Republicans threatened to defund the CNCS and, with it, remove opportunities for Americans to engage in volunteerism in communities throughout the country.

On Monday, Senator Coons joined Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski and twenty other Democratic senators in sending a letter to the Labor-Health and Human Service – Education Appropriations Subcommittee urging its leadership to support funding for the CNCS in next year’s budget. In the letter, Chris and his colleagues noted that these programs have a “multiplier effect, yielding much more in benefits than we put into it in dollars.”

“We strongly believe that whatever cuts are made to the budget will need to be paired with strategic, long-term investments in economic growth and middle class job creation. AmeriCorps’s contribution to public safety, education, and housing do much to advance this agenda,” the Senators wrote.

Since their creation, these programs have engaged millions of Americans in service. Senior Corps, with half a million volunteers each year, enables older Americans to serve as foster grandparents, to visit other seniors who are homebound, to participate in neighborhood safety patrols, and to work on local environmental preservation projects. Learn and Serve America provides grants to state education agencies, schools, and non-profit organizations to engage students in service activities that connect to academics. AmeriCorps provides opportunities to over 85,000 Americans each year to work full-time in service to their communities in a range of ways. VISTA, one well-known AmeriCorps program, helps over 7,000 Americans each year work full time at non-profits or local government agencies to help fight poverty, teach reading skills, combat homelessness, expand employment opportunities, and improve public health.

Chris co-founded one of the first AmeriCorps-supported programs in Delaware in the early 1990s, which helped mentor students participating in the “I Have a Dream” Foundation’s college-attainment program. As New Castle County Executive in 2005, Chris helped create the New Castle County Emergency Services Corps (ESC), a partnership between AmeriCorps, county government, the Volunteer Firefighters’ Association, and the YMCA Resource Center of Delaware. The ESC was created to recruit more people into the county’s volunteer fire companies, but its members also provide a host of important benefits to the community, including CPR and First Aid training and other outreach activities to promote safety. Over the past six years, ESC members have provided over 108,000 hours of service to their communities and saved County taxpayers money that would otherwise have been spent on providing these services directly.

The Emergency Services Corps is just one of so many examples of community service programs supported by AmeriCorps. All over Delaware and across America, communities are being strengthened by the hands of volunteers from AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and other CNCS programs.

To learn more about how you can volunteer in your community, visit www.nationalservice.gov.