Paul Tonko: “Absolutely. And thank you again for bringing us together this evening. It's a pleasure to join with our colleague from…”

“Absolutely. And thank you again for bringing us together this evening. It's a pleasure to join with our colleague from New Mexico and you from the State of Florida to really share these regional observations because it's happening across the country. Just yesterday I was at a community that I represent, a small town, a small city, that is utilizing Recovery Act moneys to produce photovoltaic--to install, I should say, photovoltaic panels at their senior center, at their firehouse, and improvements in energy efficiency at their city hall. This translates to, like, $65,000 worth of savings per year. Who does that affect? The property taxpayer. So it's property tax reduction simply by creating jobs and reaching to innovation. That's the beauty of the investments made here. It's not about special interests, it's not about going to the big oil companies and the big Wall Street banks and going to the insurance industry and the like. It is a reform package that talks about long overdue investment. My gosh. We look at China and her investment in a clean-energy economy, and if we don't understand that we need to be in this global race to win it, we understand I hope--we show it here in this leadership, in the majority, the Democratic majority in the House--that we understand by our actions that whoever wins this global race on clean energy becomes the kingpin of the global economy. We will be the exporter of energy innovation and intellect.…”