Marcy Kaptur: “And Members, this amendment would prohibit funding for what is called the sustainable cities program, which is aimed at…”

“And Members, this amendment would prohibit funding for what is called the sustainable cities program, which is aimed at deploying U.S. technical expertise to urban energy planning for cities in places like India and China. So the gentleman and I look at this in a little bit of a different way. Mr. Chairman, this effort is aimed at developing markets for U.S. products in places that are growing, and I think census figures show that India and China are absolutely growing, and their economies are growing. In fact, in places like China, it is growing so fast that they are actually often stealing our technology and buying our companies out from underneath us, and we lose market edge. Mr. Chairman, this particular program encompasses a variety of technical assistance activities to actually prime those markets for our clean technologies in places where there is population increase and a need for product and would help potentially to support the export of American clean energy technologies. That means jobs here at home; it means exports out of the United States, rather than imports in here in two major economies. Working closely with U.S. companies, the Department of Commerce and other governments will focus on product testing and developing minimum standards, certifying that we can actually achieve the installation of these clean energy products. Here at home, obviously, we help our clean energy sector to develop.…”