Earl Blumenauer: “I must confess, and you and I have endured some fascinating hearings on our global warming committee having these new…”

“I must confess, and you and I have endured some fascinating hearings on our global warming committee having these new technologies explained that are not, as you say, some far distant point in the future. They are available today for people to implement. I must, however, as the Chair of the congressional bicycle caucus, make a mention of proven technology that we have available now, where people can burn calories instead of electricity or fossil fuel. One of the things that I really appreciate Dan Beard working with us on is to make the cycling choice more readily available to employees on Capitol Hill. As I mentioned a moment ago, we have about 14,000 car trips a day to Capitol Hill. The majority of the trips to the Capitol by our employees are made by car, higher, at a higher percentage than the rest of D.C., where fewer than half of the residents drive to work. Mr. Beard has been working with us to be able to deal with making this Capitol more cycle friendly, working with the Washington Area Bicycling Association, the League of Bikers, to have more bike racks here on Capitol Hill, more secure facilities, lockers perhaps inside the garages.”