Sen. Baucus is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

All over this country, families are emptying drawers, packing up cardboard boxes, and arranging to move. But instead of preparing for an exciting new chapter in their lives, many of these families are leaving the joy of home ownership behind. In 2007, the American real estate market saw more than one million foreclosures. And troubled times in the housing sector have spilled over into other parts of the economy.

It is clear that Congress must act — and act swiftly — to address continuing trouble in the housing sector, and save the American economy as well. The Senate Finance Committee included vital mortgage and tax relief for the housing sector in its economic stimulus bill earlier this year, and two key elements of the Finance package remain in the housing legislation that should come before the Senate soon. As the Senate begins work on the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, the Finance Committee provisions are a significant part of the bill’s promised help for America’s sagging housing sector. Read the rest of this entry »

Local municipalities who are trying to incorporate green technologies into transportation construction and stormwater management plans deserve our support.  That’s why I introduced the Green Transportation Infrastructure Research and Technology Transfer Act, which passed the Committee on Science and Technology today.

Currently, some local officials are having a hard time obtaining approval to use green technologies because the EPA relies on data from specific projects, rather than overall technology performance in a variety of settings, to determine whether technologies effectively contribute to preventing water pollution.

For example, in 2000 and 2001, Portland, Oregon wanted to incorporate bioswales into its “Clean River Plan� for the Willamette River.  Bioswales allow soil and plants to filter pollutants before reaching ground and surface water sources.  However, an EPA regional administrator who was not familiar with research indicating that bioswales are effective said that the city also would have to have expensive and extensive permitting monitoring systems.  Due to the anticipated cost of the monitoring systems, the city was forced to rely on larger sewer pipes instead.

We need more research on green transportation infrastructure so that we can justify using green technologies and help solve substantial pollution problems in our communities.  This bill is a common sense step toward cleaning up our environment.

A new Hillary Clinton ad in Ohio features the state’s Governor Ted Strickland telling voters that Hillary Clinton who “will be a fighter.”

Tuesday’s hearing in the Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties considering a Resolution authorizing the issuance of a subpoena to J. Kenneth Blackwell was, in my opinion, a demonstration of severely misplaced priorities at best and a deliberate subversion of America’s national security at worst.

As of midnight, February 16, America has been denied the ability to collect intelligence on the vast number of foreign-to-foreign electronic communications that allow us to anticipate threats, avert terrorist attacks, and protect innocent American lives. At this very moment, our intelligence community is being forced to rely on the archaic 1978 FISA regulations to gather any new foreign terrorist communications until the House of Representatives takes action and passes the Senate’s bill, H.R. 5440, which passed by a bipartisan majority of 68-29. Read the rest of this entry »

Video from President Bush’s press conference today.

Bush’s says Economy in “slowdown”

Bush calls on House leaders to “stop blocking” and up or down vote on FISA

After spending 20 years working in the renewable energy field I know firsthand how important growth and investment tax credits have been in spurring renewable energy use and production.

These tax credits helped turn a once fledgling portion of the energy sector into a major player. Wind energy is now one of the most cost-effective and viable options for power production, and solar energy continues to come down in price.

I worked hard to include provision for extending the production tax credit for wind and the investment tax credit for solar in H.R. 5351. I’m proud that the House acted to prevent a setback of recent gains by shutting off support for these burgeoning technologies.

In a new ad in Texas, Mike Huckabee tells Texas Republicans that “being independent is being Texas” because he won’t “just go along to get along.”

Oil prices are again right at $100 per barrel; gasoline prices are over $3.00 per gallon and rising. Yet the Democrats bring an ‘energy’ bill that doesn’t do one thing to increase our supply of oil and gasoline. I support extending many of the tax credits and efficiency items in this bill, but those deal with electricity issues, and right now we need to focus on oil and gas prices.

Even with our economy slowing down, prices are nearing record highs. The simple economics of supply and demand come into play. Demand is down slightly, but prices are still high. That means supply must be increased if we have any hope of reducing prices.

The Democratic Congress has proposed closing off more areas to oil and natural gas drilling. That just doesn’t make sense.

We must start to look at using our own nation’s oil reserves. Efficiencies and tax increases will certainly not bring down record high prices of oil and gasoline. We must produce more of our own energy instead of relying on unreliable foreign supplies.

Ralph Nader just announced this week his intentions to run for President and even though he hasn’t released an ad yet, a spoof Nader ad is already out.

Extending alternative energy tax credits will help encourage consumers and companies alike to use wind, solar, and geothermal energy, and that’s a good thing. At the same time, with global demand for energy projected to increase by 50 percent in the next 25 years, families and businesses will continue to rely on traditional sources of energy. H.R. 5351 lacks responsible understanding of the scale of these needs from now until alternatives are widely available. Limiting our supply of oil and gas will complicate our energy problems, not correct them. In addition, repealing tax breaks for the suppliers of today and giving them to the potential suppliers of tomorrow is like quitting your current job for a job that might available five to ten years from now.

The America I know embraces and encourages private investment and ingenuity as instruments of progress that lead to things like the mapping of the human genome, the technology revolution of the 1990’s and the automobile assembly line. Our nation does not grandstand against the audacity of profits. Publicly-held corporations employ millions of Americans, stabilize union pension funds, and pay taxes on earnings which support government investments in alternative and renewable energy sources. Remarkably, some members of Congress want to kill America’s ability to do all of these things. Earning profits is a necessary part of investing in renewable energy and “green jobs” in the same quarter. I can’t imagine a worse idea than claiming that the U.S. government can do a better job investing $18 billion into new sources of energy than the private sector.