Ed Whitfield: “While I have great regard for the gentleman from Virginia, I must rise to oppose this amendment. In his 2008 convention…”

“While I have great regard for the gentleman from Virginia, I must rise to oppose this amendment. In his 2008 convention speech, Barack Obama promised to create 5 million green energy jobs. An article in The New York Times headlines, ``Where the Jobs Aren't,'' talks about all the government money that's being spent to subsidize green energy today. They gave an example of one government program that provided $300 million to a company. They created 150 jobs at what turned out to be a cost of $2 million for every job. {time} 1040 The reason that solar and wind are not taking off is they are too expensive and too inefficient. Having said that, I recognize that they have a part in our economy and that they have a part in producing electricity, but they can never be the base load. That cannot be attained. We cannot provide enough electricity without coal, nuclear, and natural gas. Now, this amendment gives special attention to the green energy field. I would remind everyone, once again, that renewable energy subsidies increased over the last 3 years by 186 percent: from $5 billion to $14 billion. Renewables saw, by far, the largest increase in Federal benefits. Wind alone received a tenfold increase in subsidies: from $476 million to almost $5 billion. Solar increased by a factor of 6: from $179 million to $1.2 billion.”