Political Quotes

“The Senator from Rhode Island brings up a very good point because obviously the Chinese have come to the conclusion that it is in their best interests to innovate and to do it as rapidly as possible. He brings up some issues that, frankly, are not necessarily what I would call the most responsible or moral ways to move rapidly through that ladder of innovation. But, nonetheless, it is unmistakable that they are realizing just how important this is. I think it is important for us to come to the same conclusion. I think it is important for us to realize if we cede these industries to China, they will be selling us the products of the future. We have seen this already with their ability to undercut the price and artificially lower the cost of producing solar panels and how deleterious that has been to our domestic manufacturing base for those technologies. We need to make sure we are making the technologies of tomorrow's clean energy economy here and installing those technologies ourselves and getting the jobs, all the way from the innovation to the manufacturing, to the supply chain, to make sure we see the opportunities in this as well as other challenges. I think what motivated me to be part of tonight is that, similar to the Presiding Officer, I have a couple of young kids at home--a 7-year- old named Micah, a 10-year-old--soon to be 11 years old--named Carter.…”