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Congressman Adam Smith Rejects Flawed Energy Conference Report

July 28, 2005

Congressman Adam Smith (D-Tacoma) made the following statement today on the Energy Conference Report:

“The Energy Conference Report, while containing some good policies that are the product of bipartisan compromise, does not do enough to shift U.S. energy policy away from old fossil fuels and subsidies, to clean and fuel efficient energy proposals and initiatives.

This conference report is disappointing and in effect preserves the status quo. America continues to be too heavily dependant on foreign oil and this bill does too little to lessen our dependence. There are some provisions contained in the bill that are visionary and lead American energy policy in the right direction. For example, a provision by U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) promotes the production of biofuels, which will one day help lessen our dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil.  Her plan promotes the development of ethanol and biodiesel from a wider variety of crops, agricultural waste or even algae. Numerous studies have shown that alternative energy sources such as these can one day help provide the economic and environmental security that this country needs and deserves.

Another noteworthy provision included in the bill was a two-year extension of the Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) for qualified wind energy generation facilities. I wrote a letter to Chairman Bill Thomas asking that this important provision be included in the final report. Over the last decade, wind energy generation technology has grown enormously, allowing turbines to become more efficient and generate more power. A multiple-year extension will promote this technology and help end the boom and bust cycles that have put several wind energy pioneers out of business.

Alternative energy sources such as biofuel and wind are important, but this bill does not take these initiatives or those like them far enough. In addition, this bill contains billions in subsidies for fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas; subsidies that do not make sense if we are serious about switching to alternative energy sources and lessening our dependence on foreign oil.We must be prepared to invest in forward-thinking and emerging technologies, renewable energy, and energy efficiency and conservation.

This bill is also fiscally irresponsible, containing $11 billion in subsidies that are not off-set by reductions in other spending. With a projected federal deficit of over $400 billion, we cannot afford to continue to pass spending bills and tax cuts that are not offset.

The Bush Administration’s backward-looking energy and environmental polices have left the United States ill-equipped to compete with other nations in the booming global market for environmentally clean technologies. We can, and should, do better. By making investments in emerging technologies and renewable energy resources, the United States has the potential to be a net exporter of renewable energy, not an importer of foreign oil.

The time is now for the United States to adopt a real energy policy: a policy that will invest in new technologies, new energy resources and that will increase our national security by decreasing our dependence on foreign oil. It is time for us to adopt an energy policy that not only makes the United States a net-exporter of renewable energy but that protects our environment as well. This bill does not go far enough, and it is for these reasons that I voted against the Energy Conference Report.”

Murray, Cantwell, Smith Announce Over $41 Million for South Sound Priorities in Surface Transportation Bill

July 28, 2005

ve Adam Smith today declared victory in their efforts to secure critical federal funding for the South Sound's transportation priorities.  The three secured over $41 million for the region in legislation reauthorizing surface transportation spending through 2009.

SAFETEA-LU, which the House will pass tonight and is expected to clear the Senate tomorrow, sets the funding levels for highways, ferries, and transit programs through 2009. 

"With the leadership of Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, I'm pleased that we have been able to provide urgently needed dollars for projects in our state and the Ninth District," said U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Tacoma). "While more needs to be done to relieve congestion and improve the quality of life for our citizens, the SAFETEA-LU transportation bill represents real bipartisan progress in addressing our regional needs. I will continue working with local stakeholders and others in our delegation to craft real transportation solutions that will enhance our productivity and ensure that the South Puget Sound remains a great place to live and do business."

"I am proud to have partnered with Rep. Smith and Sen. Cantwell to stand up for the transportation needs of the South Puget Sound," Senator Murray said.  "In a tough budget year, under tough conditions, we stood together to make the investments that will create jobs, improve safety and lay the foundation for our region's future economic growth."

"We need to think of these federal funds as an investment.  These are well spent dollars that will create jobs, improve our quality of life, and literally keep our economy moving," Senator Cantwell said.  "I'm proud of the way the delegation has worked together in these tight financial times to make sure Washington gets the improvements our communities need."

The following is a list of Ninth District projects:

State Route 167 - $9.5 million

This funding will help complete State Route 167, which will connect the Port of Tacoma at State Route 509 to Puyallup at State Route 161.  This project will improve freight mobility, provide congestion relief, and enhance safety. 

Cross Base Highway - $3.2 million

Funding will help build a new six-mile highway from I-5 to State Route 7, between Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base.  It will also link I-5 with the mid-Pierce County area, where the Frederickson High Intensity Employment Center (including the Boeing plant) and the Dupont area (located approximately 5 miles south on I-5 and the site of the Intel computer chip manufacturing and R/D plant) are located. 

Yelm 510/507 - $2 million

Funding is provided to conduct engineering, design and right-of-way acquisition for the construction of an alternative route to two highways that bisect the heart of downtown Yelm.  Once constructed, the Yelm "Loop" would divert traffic around the backlogged intersections of State Route 510 and State Route 507.  This project would create a smoother flow of traffic and create greater capacity for economic growth in Yelm.

Renton 405/167 - $1.6 million

Funding rebuilds the interchange of two vital transportation corridors, State Route 167 and Interstate-405, by adding additional lanes.  It will help to reduce long waits in traffic at a critical choke point in the regions traffic flow and ease the commute of thousands of people in the Puget Sound region.

Tukwila Urban Access - $2.550 million

This funding addresses necessary congestion improvements to the Southcenter Parkway, between Tukwila Parkway and 61st Avenue South and South 168th Street.  This area is the primary entry/exit point into this major regional retail and warehousing area. 

State Route 518 from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to I-405 - $5 million

This project funds improvements along the State Route 518 corridor.  It will increase access to Sea-Tac Airport and the surrounding cities of Burien, SeaTac and Tukwila.  It provides for the safe and efficient movement of people and goods in the region.

Port of Tacoma Road - $400,000

This funding allows for a second left turn lane to be constructed from westbound Pacific Highway to Port of Tacoma Road.  Identified as a necessary improvement, this project is critical to the planned extension of State Route 167 into the Port of Tacoma and will increase capacity at a highly congested intersection.  In addition, the project will also include pedestrian and bicycle improvements along the full length of the project. 

Lincoln Avenue Grade Separation Project in Tacoma - $2.3 million

The Lincoln Avenue grade separation project in Tacoma will construct an 1,100 foot, four lane concrete viaduct over five existing railroad lines.  This is part of several planned improvements in the Port area of Tacoma and will eliminate the long waits that currently hamper freight mobility at this rail crossing.

Valley Avenue/70th Avenue - $800,000

The project would widen both 70th Avenue East and Valley Ave East in Pierce County.  The project widens 70th Avenue East from 2 to 5 lanes, from 20th Street East to Valley Avenue East, and will also widen Valley Avenue East from 2 to 4 lanes, from 70th Avenue East to Freeman Road East.  Once completed, the improvements will reduce congestion and enhance safety at an important point of access for freight to the Port of Tacoma.

Kent Willis UP Tracks - $800,000

The Willis Street (SR 516) UP Railroad Grade Separation Project will construct a bridge for the Union Pacific railroad and reconstruct Willis Street to pass underneath the UP tracks.  This project is a critical step towards providing a more seamless passage for rail and truck freight through the Green River Valley.  It eliminates rail/vehicle at-grade conflicts that slow the movement of truck freight between the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma and the warehousing complex in the Valley.

 Federal Way Triangle - $5.6 million

 The Federal Way Triangle project will reconstruct the interchange at the intersection of I-5, State Route 18 and State Route 161.  This overburdened interchange is the fifth-busiest in the State and has been identified by the Washington State Department of Transportation as a "High Accident Location."  This project will provide relief and increased safety for commuters and businesses moving goods in the region.

Burien Town Square Roadway and Pedestrian Improvements -- $4 million

 The City of Burien is redeveloping 10 acres of underutilized property in downtown Burien to support economic development and affordable housing.  This funding will allow for an extension of 6th Avenue, connections to Burien's transit center with an emphasis on pedestrian use and safety, and the development of streets within the Town Square project.

Tukwila Southcenter Parkway Extension -- $3 million

Funding will be used to relocate, widen, and improve Southcenter Parkway between south 180th Street and south 200th.  This extension will provide access to the Tukwila South Development project.

Kent I-5/272nd Street SPUI - $800,000

This single point urban interchange (SPUI) under Interstate-5 will be constructed at South 272nd Street.  This project will relieve congestion and add capacity for an integrated regional HOV-transit system.  The community surrounding the interchange will benefit with the efficient movement of freight, faster commutes and increased safety.

Smith Dissapointed that House Refuses to Address Health Care Crises in United States

July 28, 2005

U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Tacoma) is disappointed that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives refused to address the health care crisis that the United States is facing and chose instead to help those least in need. He made the following statement:

“The U.S. House of Representatives had an historic opportunity this week to help the more than 45 million Americans without health insurance,” said Smith. “Instead, the Republican majority passed bills that protect Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and not doctors and patients. We also passed an Association Heal Plans (AHPs) bill that only helps a small fraction of uninsured Americans.

H.R. 5, the Medical Malpractice Reform Act is a bad bill because it broadly defines “medical malpractice action” to protect HMOs, insurance companies, nursing homes and drug and device manufacturers from a broad range of liabilities, including suits by physicians against those companies. The bill provides a cap on punitive damages that is far too low and would hurt those at the bottom end of the income scale.  It will also seriously restrict the rights of injured patients from being fully compensated for their injury by imposing an impossibly high standard of proof needed to bring a successful case against negligent defendants.  Instead of penalizing innocent victims of medical malpractice, Congress should be focusing on reducing the number of mistakes made.  Medical errors and rising malpractice insurance rates are important issues that must be dealt with but unfortunately this bill does not fix these problems.  

I was also disappointed about the passage of H.R. 525, the Small Business Health Fairness Act, which creates AHPs. If this legislation is enacted, these AHP’S sold by associations would be exempt from state insurance law and regulatory oversight. The right of states to apply a large body of insurance laws and regulations would be removed, undermining consumer protections, solvency and fair marketing practices, grievance and appeals procedures, premium taxation and prohibitions on discrimination. This bill would create a big government program and expand federal control by giving the government sole regulatory authority over these entities. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that only 600,000 of the more than 45 million uninsured will be provided new coverage by AHPs. This is not only unfair and does nothing to help solve the health care crisis that our country faces.

I voted for an alternative bill to AHPs that would have established a health insurance plan similar to the plan enjoyed by Federal employees. Unlike, AHPs, this alternative would not have allowed insurance companies to cherry pick younger healthier workers. Everyone would be on equal footing and older and sicker Americans would not be forced to pay higher insurance premiums or have no insurance at all. Most importantly, under this alternative bill, participating insurers would remain subject to state laws applicable to the states in which they cover residents.

America needs a real solution to our mounting health care crisis. The bills that passed the House of Representatives this week are not a step forward and do not address the needs of the more than 45 million uninsured. Alternatives that would have helped America were proposed but did not pass. I will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure that Americans get the healthcare coverage they need and deserve."

Smith Disapointed on Passage of Central American Free Trade Agreement

July 28, 2005

U.S. Representative Adam Smith (D-Tacoma) made the following statement today concerning his disappointment in the passage of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement:

“I am disappointed that the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Dominican-Republic Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), “said U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, (D-WA). “I am an advocate of free trade, but CAFTA is a fundamentally flawed trade agreement that does not balance the needs of American workers and companies, nor the needs of the nations with which we trade.

It is clear that America needs to have a discussion and build a real consensus, one that does not currently exists, around the issues of trade, globalization and international competitiveness.

To build this consensus at home, America needs a modern, clear-eyed approach to the challenges of globalization. Competition has grown more fierce, more markets and consumers have become available, technology is changing the game, our workers are not prospering and we don’t really know how to factor in very real environmental concerns.

To build a consensus abroad, we must understand that workers’ rights and effective labor and environmental enforcement mechanisms are crucial to ensuring that developing nations fully and effectively participate in the global economy.

Our current debate over CAFTA barely touched on these new realities. 

My hope is that we can begin to talk not just about narrow trade agreements, but about what strategies we must adopt as a nation to ensure we meet the new 21st century challenges of globalization head on, allowing our companies to prosper, our world to grow closer together, our environment protected and our workers to succeed.   By doing so, we can move our nation and our trading partners forward in a way that makes real and sustainable progress toward opening markets, growing our economy and lifting developing states out of poverty.

This consensus must be grounded in balancing the interests and needs of American workers with those of private companies.  Time and again, the Bush Administration has chosen economic policies that undermine our ability to invest in education and skills training that are desperately needed in this country. Domestically, we must aggressively implement policies that help Americans succeed in the increasingly competitive global economy.  We must invest in providing skills training and lifelong learning opportunities so that American workers have the opportunity to upgrade their skills or get new jobs. We must invest in K-12 education, particularly in math and science, to ensure that we continue to lead the world in innovation. We must invest in research and development and partner with universities, businesses and entrepreneurs in developing new technologies and encouraging innovation that will drive our economy and create the jobs of the future. The American workforce and companies must be prepared to take on the challenges and reap the rewards of globalization.

Internationally, we must seek to improve workers’ rights – and raise the standard of living – in developing nations throughout the world.  Better protections for workers and a genuine effort to improve worker’s rights internationally are essential to forging this new consensus. Clearly, we do not expect workers in developing countries to instantly have the same legal protections as workers in the United States. However, there is no reason that our standard for worker protections can’t match those of the Jordan trade agreement. That agreement not only required Jordan to enforce their existing labor laws but to also make progress towards meeting all International Labor Organization standards.  At the same time, the enforcement provisions for the worker protection language should be on the same footing as robust intellectual property and investor’s rights.

With CAFTA, an opportunity has been missed to put forward an agreement that balances the need to open global markets to American workers and businesses and promotes growth and stability overseas. As negotiated by the Bush Administration, CAFTA actually weakens the existing workers’ protections currently available under the United States’ existing trade preference programs with the region. Similarly, on environmental protection, rural development and public health, this agreement falls short. While CAFTA rightly includes protections for the intellectual property rights that are so important to our region, the Administration failed to take such a serious approach on workers’ rights and environmental protections.

The United States must craft a competitiveness policy that provides American workers and businesses with real opportunity to grow and that strengthens our economy. We must build a trade policy that creates foreign markets for our products, not only a vast pool of unskilled laborers who have no hope of fully participating in a global economy. We believe that our nation must be bold in crafting policies to deal with the current economic realities.  We must rise to meet the historic challenge presented by globalization. By doing so, we can build a real consensus on trade that is bipartisan, comprehensive and puts our nation’s workers and businesses in a stronger position to compete and win in the global marketplace.

CAFTA and indeed many of the Administration’s economic policies falls far short of creating a cohesive and comprehensive policy on trade.”

Smith Votes Against Reauthorization of Patriot Act

July 21, 2005

Today, U.S. Representative Adam Smith (D-WA) made the following statement on his vote against the reauthorization of portions of the Patriot Act:

“Four years ago, I joined my colleagues in voting for the Patriot Act. We were a nation that had just suffered a series of catastrophic events and we were facing an emergency situation. We passed the Patriot Act in order to ensure that our law enforcement officials had the tools they needed to combat terrorism. Four years have passed and the United States is still fighting the War on Terrorism, yet we’ve now had time to review the Patriot Act to determine which parts need to be re-worked to preserve and fully protect, not erode, our rights and liberties.

Let me be clear that I support the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. However, the version of this bill before the House today is unacceptable.

The Patriot Act expanded the circumstances under which the federal government can obtain a warrant to search or otherwise gather information about people in this country.  It did this by both allowing the federal government to obtain such warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Services Act (FISA) court, instead of having to go to federal or state court, and by allowing for the warrant to be granted when the government shows probable cause that a terrorist act is being planned or even when a person is simply suspected of being involved in terrorism.  Previously, any law enforcement agency had to show probable cause that a specific crime had been committed or was about to be committed.

The change in the Patriot Act makes sense.  We cannot afford to wait until terrorists act or plan to act in some specific manner.  We must be able to gather information much earlier in the planning stages of a terrorist act.  Waiting for a specific target would be waiting too long.

But the changes did also present challenges in the critical effort to protect Americans from unlawful searches.  The FISA court, because it deals with terrorism, works in secret.  Their rulings are not made public.  State and federal courts have long established precedent for what constitutes probable cause that a crime has been or is about to be committed.  No such history of precedence exists in the FISA court.  In addition, evidence that someone is somehow involved in terrorism offers a much broader and less definable standard than one based on a specific crime.  What exactly must the government show to establish probable cause that the warrant they seek is aimed at investigating possible terrorist activity?

I strongly feel that Congress can clear up these questions by putting in law standards for the FISA court to follow.  Congresswoman Jane Harman had an amendment that would have offered some clarity on the question of what constitutes probable cause of terrorist activity.  Unfortunately, the Republican Majority did not allow her amendment to be offered.  If it had been allowed I would have supported it, and if it had passed I would have supported the final bill, but without that language the standard for the government to obtain warrants through the FISA court to investigate terrorism remains too vague and offers too great a potential for abuse.  For this reason I voted no on final passage.

We must provide our law enforcement officials with the necessary tools they need to combat terrorism, and I believe we can do so while also protecting our important civil rights.  Sadly, this goal was not met by the House version of the Patriot Act.  There is no guarantee that the Patriot Act, in its present form, will prevent abuses of our freedoms. For this reason, among others, I chose to vote against the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. It is my intention to work with my colleagues to improve the bill through the conference committee process and help craft a fair, balanced conference report that will garner bipartisan support.”

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