Mr. BLUMENAUER.
We have been joined by my colleague from New York, Congressman Tonko from Albany who, in a prior life, as I recall, was CEO of the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority. You have got some practical applications, both in your private sector experience and your work for years in the New York State Assembly. We will welcome thoughts and observations that you would have to add to the conversation.
Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Congressman. I think it's absolutely important that we move forward with progressive policy in the energy area. I chaired the Energy Committee in the New York State Assembly for 15 years. And, you're right, went on to serve as president and CEO at NYSERDA, where we focused on renewables, efficiency, research and development. The investment that we saw was tremendously powerful to the economy and where we worked on several projects that really promoted efficiency and conservation measures.
What I think is important to note here is that this President, this administration, has shared a vision with a laser-sharp focus and shared with a very direct boldness about the opportunity we have now as a Nation.
We have witnessed the last several years of conflicts in the Middle East, and so many believe that was over the commodity of oil. We know that that fossil-based dependency pollutes the environment and that we have an opportunity here to not only address our future and job creation, but our environment and greening up the outcomes, leaving not only this generation, but certainly those to follow much cleaner air to breathe and a stronger sense of environment-friendly policy.
Where I think the significance comes here is that we can grow our energy independence. We can strengthen that outcome by reducing what is a gluttonous dependency on fossil-based fuels, oftentimes imported and from some of the most troubled spots in the world that have unstable governments. And it's why we were drawn into a conflict, I think, because of our dependency on that area for our energy commodities.
While we can reduce that dependence on fossil-based fuels, we can strengthen our energy security, which is a good thing. It's a great bit of policy initiative that we should have pull us along this roadway of progressive politics as it relates to energy generation and energy usage.
We also, when we reduce that dependency and grow the energy security, we grow and strengthen our national security, which is an important factor in the international concepts. We are able to move forward in a way that I think promotes a much more stable national security outcome for our Nation and generations, again, to follow.
So, as we do this, I believe the investments we can make now by the policies that will build an investment in renewables, in shelf-ready opportunities to grow energy efficient outcomes, to retrofit our businesses, to retrofit our farms. We did projects through NYSERDA that spoke favorably, overwhelmingly favorably, to dairy farmers, who are dealing with perishable products, who are dealing with perishable produce, that were dealing with a very important bit of nature. They couldn't avoid at times the peak periods where they could perhaps avoid priciest power. They needed to have some sort of addressing of those situations.
What we were able to do is retrofit those dairy farms and allow for them to reduce their energy costs, which allows for them to feed this Nation in a more effective way.
So, also, as we create these opportunities through investment and research and development, we are growing significant jobs, tremendous jobs that will call upon the engineer out there, the inventor, the innovator, and we know that there's a great career ladder we can build there.
We are investing in the trades because the trading out and the retrofit of these systems, they will maintain, operate, and repair these situations so that, again, job creation galore here that can really allow us to breathe freer in terms of creating the energy that we need and how we use that energy.
What I also would make mention of is that R&D, research and development, should be seen as economic development. I believe that by investing in that sort of future, by creating the funds that will allow for a blueprint for our energy future, that allows us to take that intellectual capacity as a Nation, to take our brain power as Americans, and put it to work so that we can deploy these success stories into the commercial sector, where we can do cutting edge, where we already have ready opportunities, they need to be inserted into the outcomes here in the States, and we also can move forward with many, many new opportunities in this energy-driven, innovative economy that is so boldly expressed by this President and certainly by Speaker Pelosi and the leadership of this House.
So I see a great opportunity here for this Nation to respond favorably to the energy needs of this country, to do it much more independent of reliance on some of the most troubled spots in the world, and doing it in a way that creates significant career ladders for people across the strata of job opportunities, from trades on up to those who hold bachelor's and master's and doctorate degrees that can assist this Nation.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. We deeply appreciate your adding a voice of experience as somebody who dealt not just with the policy but the practice to demonstrate how this money somehow doesn't disappear, but is reinvested, creates wealth, creates economic opportunities for a wide variety of people.
Mr. TONKO. Certainly. As we struggle through these very difficult economic times, job creation, job retention is at the forefront of the work we do. We all talk about it every day. This is a good way that not only grows jobs but grows that energy independence and strengthens the energy outcome, and it does it in an environmentally friendly way.
So it's a powerful statement that we can make here as legislators.
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