Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. H.R. 2609 seems to decimate funding for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy programs. In reading the bill, it appears that the bill cuts ARPA-E funding by some $215 million--that's 81 percent--effectively terminating this program. At the same time, the bill provides $98 million in additional funds for nuclear weapons activities, and it even provides $29 million beyond the President's budget request for fossil fuels energy and research development. My amendment would shift that extra funding to fund ARPA-E and continue important investments in innovation that keep our Nation globally competitive. ARPA-E is modeled after the successful Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which helped develop global positioning systems and stealth fighter technologies. Since 2009, ARPA-E has helped fund 275 innovative energy technology projects, and we are beginning to see the positive benefits. ARPA-E projects have doubled energy density for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries and have developed microbes to use hydrogen and carbon dioxide to make liquid transportation fuel. The many important innovations made possible by ARPA-E have resulted in millions of dollars of economic activity in the private sector. In my district in North Carolina, the Research Triangle Institute in Durham has developed technologies to dramatically reduce the cost of carbon capture to coal-fired power plants.…”