Peter Roskam: “like so many others who have come to the floor today, I rise in support of the underlying bill, H.R. 547. The underlying…”

“like so many others who have come to the floor today, I rise in support of the underlying bill, H.R. 547. The underlying measure, without question, is one that is worthy of our support. All of us, many of us in the course of our journeys to come here, gained the confidence of the electorate by talking about alternative energies and alternative fuel sources. I come from Illinois, which ranks second in corn production and is one of the leading producers of ethanol. In my district, I have over 140,000 residents who are directly employed in manufacturing, and they would greatly benefit from having clean fuels, that is, moving products around. But as I was evaluating and meeting with my staff to talk about the underlying bill, there was a word that kept popping up in the analysis and that was a key word, new, N-E-W. I know that in the course of my journey to come here, one of the things that I heard consistently throughout the course of the campaigning was that my constituents, Mr. Chairman, wanted us to live within our means. And so the amendment that I have offered is very, very simple. It directs the EPA that $10 million authorized for these three new programs that don't currently exist, created under the bill, would have to come from funds that are already appropriated. It is the simple measure of pay-as-you-go. You see, we don't get it both ways.…”