 Thank you for the kind introduction and thank you all for having me here today to share a few words I've only got around to about half of the booth so far, but what I've seen is amazing It's inspirational If you are bullish on the United States of America you are all about innovation And in private enterprise pushing clean energy and energy solutions for the future You guys are all doing that and and give yourselves a round of applause will you? There is no limit to American ingenuity and creativity and you're part of that Solving our energy challenges is going to require cooperation between members of Congress and the innovators in this room And lately as you all and you know all too well Congress kind of has not been holding our our end of the bargain up Congress has to clear hurdles provide certainty and incentives provide the necessary funding for research Congress should be a partner to the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries For my own part I can promise you that you can count on me and other dedicated members of Congress I saw Paul Tonko here just earlier. How about a round of applause for the great Paul Tonko? Members like us will continue fighting tooth and nail to pave the path for your incredible work to flourish As mentioned I have introduced several bills to promote energy efficiency These bills have targeted advanced manufacturing the often overlooked Non-profit sector common-sense solutions that can help our schools save money Save energy and provide a better learning environment for our children That's kind of been the low-hanging fruit for us. Everybody likes to save money Whether it's on energy or anything else And so when you come up with a bill that supports energy efficiency people tend to get behind it And so I'm proud to say that we've passed legislation like that Of course, it's rare in Washington that we get to work on win-wins But renewable energy and energy efficiency do prevent this offer present this opportunity For example, when a company invests in mechanical insulation It saves money It helps the electrical grid. It saves energy. It decreases our dependence Of course on foreign energy sources all at the same time as it helps the environment When a school installs a new HVAC system It can use the money it saves for reduced energy bills to buy new textbooks And create a better learning environment for its students With the benefits of renewable energy and energy efficiency so obvious, so apparent The federal government has to continue to invest in research Now as a member of the House of Appropriations Committee I have been a strong advocate for essential programs such as EERE and ARPA-E In this day and age when clean energy is cheaper, more sustainable, and more promising than ever Our government should be working as hard as ever we can to help the people in this room And we shouldn't be focusing our efforts on propping up legacy energy systems That are dirty and no longer economically viable So often we are presented with false choices in politics, aren't we? And you know, maybe the biggest lie of all is that you have to choose between jobs And clean energy or the environment That is a false choice and I'm not going to candy-coat it, it is a lie And all of you know that Clean energy doesn't just generate electricity, but it creates jobs as well Clean energy industries have produced 3.2 million jobs and counting in the United States Energy efficiency in this country employs twice as many workers as all fossil fuels combined In fact, more Americans work in clean energy than work in agriculture, real estate, investment, banking And the entertainment, music, and sports industries all combined How about that? This country is demanding more clean energy and more clean energy jobs I look forward to working with all of you to deliver on that demand And ensure that our brighter future is powered by clean and renewable and efficient energy Thank you all so much for having me here today