Political Quotes

“Mr. President, in 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act to bring electricity to the sparsely-populated rural areas of our vast Nation. Today, with advances in renewable energy from the sun, the wind, water, and geothermal energy beneath the Earth's surface, our rural communities are ready to produce clean, renewable electricity and sell it to cities and towns. Just as our national highway system grew out of the network of farm roads to bring agricultural products to market, our electric transmission system needs connections to rural areas to bring our abundant rural renewable energy resources to load centers. For example, Nye and Lincoln counties in Nevada have the potential to generate more solar and wind energy than their small populations can use. Without transmission to connect these rural areas to load centers, they cannot fully develop their local renewable energy industry and are losing out on important opportunities to create jobs and diversify their economies. That is why I am introducing two bills today to give rural communities more options to finance the clean energy infrastructure we need to develop our rich renewable resources. These two bills would help rural communities fund clean energy infrastructure, which will create many short and long term jobs and attract badly needed investment in rural Nevada's struggling economy.…”