Political Quotes

“I stand corrected on that, Mr. Chairman. But I know that the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Wamp] and I, could reach no contemporary consensus this year on the authorization. We are dealing with last year's, last year's amendment which was offered on the floor. Last year we made a commitment to reduce R&D funding in both fossil and energy efficiency by 10 percent. That commitment is more than met in the bill before us this year which is a 14-percent cut. This amendment would amount to a 47-percent cut from last year's level. It would literally wreak havoc on what is currently a planned and sensible downsizing of the government R&D part of this. Funding for fossil energy has been declining from $442 million in fiscal year 1995 to $359 million in fiscal year 1997 under the committee bill, a 23- percent decline in 2 years. More than 92 percent of global man-made carbon emissions are released from outside the United States. Higher efficiency technologies, I believe, will help lower CO2 emissions by more than 40 percent compared to existing options while reducing energy costs providing exportable technologies. I do not think we want to move backward on this, which is where this amendment takes us with reduced funding for R&D. The private sector R&D funding, including the Electric Power Institute and the Gas Research Institute, is declining at the same time. Private sector spending on R&D in this area has dropped nearly 30 percent since 1982.”