Political Quotes

“Before my colleague leaves I wish to thank Senator Heitkamp for her support, not just for Shaheen-Portman but for a resolution to getting a vote on our energy efficiency legislation that I have worked on for 3\1/2\ years with our colleague Senator Rob Portman from Ohio but also for the impasse that would break around the vote for the Keystone Pipeline as well. Pairing the two would allow us to see where we stand on both of these issues. I appreciate my colleague from West Virginia, Senator Manchin, coming to the floor because he and Senator Heitkamp have talked about the fact that we have to look at a variety of areas of energy if we are going to address our future energy needs in this country. There is new urgency to energy efficiency right now. A recent study just came out that shows the United States ranks 13th out of the world's largest 16 economies in energy efficiency. So that study analyzed the world's largest economies that cover more than 81 percent of the global gross domestic product and posts 71 percent of the global electricity. What it found is we are severely lagging behind other countries in our use of energy efficiency. This legislation, the Energy Efficiency and Industrial Competitiveness Act, also known as Shaheen-Portman, is a way for us to address the deficit we currently have in this country. We have heard from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy that by 2030 this legislation would create 192,000 domestic jobs.…”