Peter Visclosky: “With all respect, I do rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment. I appreciate his comments about ARPA-E. I…”

“With all respect, I do rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment. I appreciate his comments about ARPA-E. I appreciate the purpose behind its creation. And I will certainly acknowledge that it would appear at ARPA-E there is a new culture, if you would, at that element of the Department of Energy to move projects along and to have a conclusion to research. As I indicated in my opening remarks in general debate on this bill, I wish the Department of Energy had brought the same vigor and that same commitment that they had to ARPA-E to existing programs at the Department of Energy because my concern is that at some point in time we have too many programs that are going to solve the problem and we're tripping over each other. At this point, we have 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers, and there is a request to add three to eight more. We have a new administration, and it is not unique to the Obama administration that at the Department of Energy we need, as I would characterize it, a new silver ball to chase around. We need new hubs so that people can talk to each other about critical research. At this point in time, there are three hubs in place, as I understand, for about 18 months. There are two more called for in this bill, totaling five. We need a bioenergy research center. There are now three in the United States: one in Berkeley, California; one in Madison, Wisconsin; and one in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.…”