Jeff Miller: “Mr. Chairman, as a new member of the Subcommittee on Interior, it is two amendments in a row that I stand up in…”

“Mr. Chairman, as a new member of the Subcommittee on Interior, it is two amendments in a row that I stand up in disagreement with my chairman. My chairman is one of the great Members of this body and it is with a certain amount of reluctance that I do that, but as someone who has been a fiscal conservative and opposed to corporate welfare since I came here, this is a classic case of corporate welfare. What we are talking about doing is saving the American people $292 million, $292 million that our taxpayers have to send to Washington for us to pay back and give to large corporations to build power plants. What this program is about, starting back in 1986, was to test the new technology on power plants. There were approximately 45 projects around the United States that received millions of dollars. In fact, over $2 billion has been spent on this program to date. What we are talking about doing is saying, wait a minute, wisely we decided to stop creating these new projects back in 1993, but there are still some projects in the design phase. We can stop them now. That is how we can save the $292 million. We do not need these programs.”