Ed Whitfield: “While I have great respect for the gentleman from California, I would remind everyone that, in his 2008 convention…”

“While I have great respect for the gentleman from California, I would remind everyone that, in his 2008 convention speech, Barack Obama promised to create 5 million green energy jobs, and those jobs have not been created. I would also point out that renewable energy subsidies increased by 186 percent over the last 3 years: from $5.1 billion to $14.7 billion. The wind industry, for example, received a tenfold increase: from $476 million to $4.986 billion. Solar subsidies increased by more than a factor of 6: from $179 million to $1.134 billion. Then we noted that, over at the Department of Energy, there are loan guarantee programs. As this article in The New York Times stated, they gave an example of one company that had received $300 million to create green technology jobs. They ended up creating 150 jobs at a cost of $2 million per job. Now, coal, nuclear, and natural gas still provide about 95, 96 percent of the electricity produced in America; but the reason we oppose this amendment is that it also gives special treatment to green energy. As illustrated by the increase in renewable subsidies available to them, I think it's quite obvious that government programs favor green energy right now.…”