Political Quotes

“I thank my friend and my colleague for yielding. I thank him for the work that he has done, as well as Mr. Whitfield, Mr. McKinley, Ms. Castor, and staff on both sides of the aisle. It feels good to come to the floor to speak on a package of bills that are bipartisan and that are really going to produce something for our country and help move us forward. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today in support of the package of these four bipartisan energy efficiency bills because they are going to save taxpayer dollars. They are very important. Title III of this legislation is a bill that I authored with Congressman Mike Rogers of Michigan to make the Federal Government's IT and data centers more energy efficient. We have been at this for a long time. By requiring Federal agencies to utilize the best technologies and energy management strategies, our legislation will reduce the Federal Government's energy use, save taxpayer dollars, and importantly, set the standard for the private sector. While we now routinely hear a lot about data centers, that was not the case when we started out examining this issue a decade ago. Back then, I had to explain to colleagues what a data center was. Today, just about everybody understands that data centers are a critical part of our national infrastructure and are found in nearly every sector of our economy. In 2005, I authored language in the Energy Policy Act that mandated an EPA study relative to energy use and energy costs of data centers.…”