On the recordApril 1, 2014
Mr. President, I rise to offer an amendment to the unemployment insurance legislation we are currently considering. While we all want to help those who are unemployed, the real solution is to get them a job, is to create a growing economy and more jobs. We need to get this economy going. One way we can do it is by empowering our energy sector. That does not mean spending more government money. What it means is taking the shackles off billions in private investment that is ready to go into energy development in this country. In 2011, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce commissioned a study. The study took a look at the energy projects that are stalled in this country due to government bureaucracy and redtape. That study found there are more than 350 energy projects, projects that will both produce renewable energy as well as projects that will produce traditional energy that are stalled at a cost of $1.1 trillion to the American economy, at a cost of almost 2 million jobs for the American people. I want to take a minute to read from that report: In aggregate, planning and construction of the subject projects would generate $577 billion in direct investments, calculated in current dollars. The indirect and induced effect, where we apply the multiplier, would generate an approximate $1.1 trillion increase in U.S. Gross Domestic Product, GDP, including $352 billion in employment earnings based on present discounted value over an average construction period of 7 years.…





