Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I would like to engage in a colloquy with the gentleman from New Jersey. Throughout this debate on the Energy and Water appropriations bill, we have discussed the importance of research and development of new energy technologies. However, I would like to highlight the importance of demonstration projects that are carried out within the Department of Energy's Building Technologies Program. The Department of Energy spends millions of dollars each year on research and development for new technologies. However, that R&D often reaches a point known as the Valley of Death. The Valley of Death is where promising new technologies fade into obscurity because they can't attract the capital investments to move from concept to commercialization. In essence, on one side of the Valley of Death is research and development; good ideas. On the other side is the actual deployment and commercialization. A demonstration project takes the research and development just a little bit further and bridges this divide so that private entities will be interested in deployment, private entities will be interested in commercialization. This good use of federally funded demonstration projects is critical to reducing the risk to private sector investors and allows technologies to cross the Valley of Death and establish commercial viability for investors and, indeed, attract their interest.…”