Political Quotes

“I am here on what we are calling the Shaheen-Portman bill, the energy efficiency bill, and I note that the lead sponsor of the bill, Senator Shaheen of New Hampshire, as well as the ranking member of the energy committee, Senator Murkowski, are both here. I have been cleared by them to take a minute on the floor right now and talk about an amendment I would like to have offered and voted on and added to this bill. We call it the pay for success amendment. It is amendment No. 1852. What this amendment would do is something that is quite simple and bombproof for taxpayers. Ultimately, it would save money and save energy; that is, for the properties managed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, if they do not have the capital to go back into that property and do retrofits and install efficiency measures that will bring down their cost of electricity, this amendment would allow them to contract with the private sector to bring in private capital to achieve those energy savings. There are significant restrictions in here that will protect taxpayers. Any money that goes back to these investors comes out of energy savings and only out of energy savings. If something goes wrong and the energy savings don't materialize, the investors lose. The taxpayers and the government are held harmless.…”