Nick Lampson: “The EPA, however, has been an underfunded agency, and to take money from one area that has been appropriated is like…”

“The EPA, however, has been an underfunded agency, and to take money from one area that has been appropriated is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. And I will give you a good example. The Energy Star program. The Energy Star program is an investment that we have made in the future to help consumers, and the money that we spend on the Energy Star program, for every dollar that we put into it, we get about $10 back, a tremendous investment. So it is an area where government can do something positive and save a great deal of money. What we are trying to do right now is to improve an infrastructure that will give us the ability to have access to cleaner burning fuels, that will give us an access to having a product or products that consumers are demanding, and we do it more safely, more conveniently, and hopefully with less expense. We believe that the bill as it stands is one that provides for the new dollars necessary to make this project one that could be very appropriate for the citizens of this country. And the bill could save consumers somewhere between $5 billion and $30 billion a year, a total of close to $30 billion on a $10 million investment. That is one heck of a return, and it is the opposite of what I believe the gentleman, Mr. Blunt, was talking about a few minutes ago that we want to control the size of government.”