congressional chronicle, you can find some of the issue, cspan.org/congress. the committee will come to order. are there any further amendments to the amendment in the nature of a substitute? is. >> mr. chairman. >> yes, sir, mr. neal. >> might i request information as to how we intend to proceed today, when we will see the manager's amendment? will there be sufficient time to digest the document before the break for veterans day. and because of time constraints and the obvious view that we hold on this side that we want time, to be able to take a look based on the amendment, based on what's happening monday night and based on what happened on thursday, it appears likely that we will at this schedule and pace have very little time to see it and officially react to

it. and i guess my second question, based on what we've seen this morning with a delay, is there a possibility for republicans to actually have seen and read amanda chu's amendment. >> as we laid out, to finish the amendments. yesterday, you indicated there are five or six more you want to have us consider. we'll do that we will then take up the manager's amendment to bring the committee work under the $1.5 trillion budget reconciliation and then we will include this markup later today. we will, as i said yesterday, even though it's beyond ordinary regular order, we will introduce to you the manager's amendment, as soon as practical, and we will give you a chance to analyze it. but we will, as we do with your amendment, we will take it up on on a timely basis.

have full debate on it before a vote is called. >> mr. chairman, i have to ask for unanimous content to have two letters put in the file. one is from the county of napa regarding the tax treatment of the fire victims. and the other one is from the california health association that explains in very good detail how the tax bill before us hurts not only the hospitals and the california job growth and economy by messing with the bonding about the that hospitals use to not only build new hospitals but to retrofit old hospitals. something that mr. nunez knows in california is a huge problem. there's more cost with replicating the hospitals than equity in the hospitals in california. i'd like to have the two letters put in. >> without objection. >> mr. chairman? >> yes, mr. blumenauer.

>> mr. nunez. >> i reserve an order of court. >> while the clerk is distributing, mr. chairman, mr. chairman. >> yes, mr. blumenauer. >> while the clerk is distributing, i would like to acknowledge that you gave me a letter this morning, in reference to the issue that i raised on monday. and you indicated that there would be an opportunity before we adjourn to be able to explore this with mr. barthold and others. >> yes, sir. >> and i'm asking to have distributed to the committee a copy of the exchange that i've had over the last four days that talks about this being a problem, so that i should have done it monday. the committee members understand what's going on. i'd like to have that ability

for each committee member before we get into a discussion. >> thank you very much for that. >> i draw the point of order. >> the gentleman from oregon is recognize for five minutes on this amendment. >> for how many minutes, mr. chairman? >> three minutes. >> three minutes. >> you should have taken the first -- >> no, mr. chairman, my time plays straight with you. i made a mistake, i wanted to clarify. >> the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. >> before the time start, mr. chairman, may i ask for some items to be submitted to the record? >> sure. >> they are from the hill magazine titled "congress turns its back on the american workers." from the american wind energy so, house reneges on tax deal buts america at risk.

not only that, a map showing the distribution of all of the major wind facilities across the country. and the final map that demonstrates that every single person on this committee comes from a state that has wind manufacturing element. >> without objection. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i have been quite frustrated as evidenced a little yesterday. i'm embarrassed that these things take so much time and get to this point. but, frankly, i find this whole process an embarrassment, especially as we dive into this hopelessly misdirected bill. excite the best experts, pollster, writers, lobbyists that money can buy, this bill is going to give hueartburn for

every person who supported on it. i'm going to focus on one of the worst examples of failure to process. the inability to set priorities and keep faith with most of you would claim would be a core republican value. treating taxpayers, and especially business, consistently and honoring our word. if you make a deal, honor it. those of you who went to law school know this is first year law school. there are remedies, especially when you pull out the deal. instead of when you're tealing with republicans in congress. i have been working on wind energy since 1999. this was an industry that congress started. because when it began, it wasn't cost effective. we were dealing with new technology. we were a step behind other countries and we still are. those of you who have been to china and look at what they're

doing with wind energy know that this is not a race. and we're in the industry to foreour get. we went boom and bust because congress refused to give them a steady path forward. some of you, and many other republicans worked with me in our side of the aisle to have that particular path. to stop the boom and bust. to get the short-term extension. on 2015, on a bipartisan basis we negotiated a path forward, that would actually phase out the subsidy. we gave them five years to do that. to be able to follow through on this promise. the wind energy industry thanks to the work we've done now

employed over 150,000 americans in all 50 states. 500 factories. and the result of this -- this is why the renewable energy sector now employs more people than gas and oil and more than coal. and wind is an important part of that. the wind energy industry has taken us by our word. they've invested billions of dollars into the record to be able to witness the promise to that deal. but your bill retroactively appeals this agreement. you put in jeopardy 50,000 jobs. you put in jeopardy up to 50 million -- $50 million of investments and you start spiraling this out of control. if we had ever had hearings that you could listen to the utilities, to the manufacturers, and to the farmers and ranchers

who are relying on these payments. in kansas, in south dakota. in missouri. and texas. i can't imagine you would have put this in the bill. and make it retroactive, risking this investment, reneging on the deal, that we've worked on a bipartisan basis to establish. i can't imagine what you're thinking. this represents a horrible failure of the process. i'm sorry, mr. chairman. it looks like i'm eating into five minutes instead of three. i'll stop at this point in case one of my colleagues will yield to me. >> thank you for self-regulating yourself, thank you mr mr. pomeroy -- mr. blumenauer. >> i think i'm starting to understand my problem. in defense of -- >> mr. chairman, in defense of whether pomeroy.

>> they have wind in north dakota too, mr. chairman. >> it just keeps getting better, doesn't it? mr. neal, you're recognized. >> i'm glad that part of it got right. i want to yield my time and support mr. blumenauer. this is a very good amendment, and wherever mr. pomeroy is right now, he supports this amendment. >> no doubt. mr. chairman, i talked a lot in the course of this proceeding about trying to do these thing on a cooperative and thoughtful way. i have looked, as you know, to find ways to work across the aisle. and many my colleagues who have debated this issue today know that i have worked with them on things where we could come together and make a difference. and i have promoted the work of this committee in an open and thoughtful way, to promoting

hearings, finding a way to come together. to get something done. and when we have, i've celebrated. this amendment is trying to help you fix an aegregious problem that symbolizes what is wrong with this bill. we could have come together with a tax credit, dealing with housing that would have benefits the rich. we could have taken the small business provisions on passthrough and limited to small business. not hedge funds, not sports bar, not donald trump. we could have done that on a bipartisan basis and there wouldn't be questions about blowing a hole in the revenue estimate. but because the choice is to go it alone, with no hearings, without working with us on a cooperative basis. dropping on us a bill that is being written as we speak. and is probably going to be rewritten in the rules committee.

it has been a failure of the process. it saddens me to say these words. i even took your tie and made it into a bow tie celebrating ways and means and believe in the work we do here. and i think at some point, we'll come to our senses and go back to actually trying to work together. not relitigate what happened two years ago or ten years ago or 20 years ago. nothing symbolizes, i think, the failure of this process and the fact you that would retroactively put in jeopardy billions of dollars of investment, that many of us work together on a bipartisan basis to make possible. and probably, you're going to vote it down, even though you won't be able to go home and explain it to your farmers and ranchers that are relying on those payments. to the wind energy manufacturers in your states.

and it's just one example of things, i think, that's going to doing y dog you, not just in the 2018 election but the 2020 election. whether this bill passes or not. and i hope it doesn't. thank you, i'd respectfully request support for my amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. many of my constituents believe that this credit, this wind production credit has too much risk and way too much. some of these projects have started -- as little as 5% of some of these projects have been put in the ground and jut abandoned. so, ranchers who thought they were going to get a credit, thought they were going to have

a stream of income, are looking out at, in many case, just a slab that's sitting there on the ground because they were able to get the project started. and then let it sit there for years. years. nonetheless, these facilities are still entitled when they finally decide to start them back up to a ten year stream of credits. yet the bill generally -- the bill that we will put out for vote generally preserves the intent of our phase out program that was agreed to. we continue to have reasonable discussions about this. maybe there's room to amend this in the future. but for now, mr. chairman, i think what we have in our bill draft is correct and i think we should defeat this amendment. >> will the gentleman yield? >> yes. >> i think you make great

points. we are listening to members in this issue. we certainly want over time renewable energy and others to be able to have a certain glide path to the free market. we continue to look for ways to improve the bill as we move forward and will continue to work with members in these and other areas. so thank you. anyone else wish to speak on the amendment? >> mr. chairman. >> yes, sir. would you like to speak on the amendment? >> i would just note that texas is the leading wind energy producer in the country and that the problem my colleague mentions that some people may not immediately set up their wind generating station is no different than somebody who has decided that they've got some oil or gas on their property and they don't immediately drill.

i believe wind energy is coming on fast in texas. it's going at a much reduced price from where it started out because this credit has helped get our renewable energy moving there. i would yield to mr. bloomenaeu rerks. >> i listen to my friend from texas. i'm trying desperately to understand exactly where he's coming from. the wind energy credit is being phased down. they don't get the full credit they used to have. it's being stepped down in increments to be able to smooth it out. because they're getting close to the point where they can function without subsidy. that was our goal. and i would suggest that maybe some of the reasons that people went out and maybe put down some slabs and tried to get a foot -- a toe hold is because congress

keeps changing its mind. congress keeps having deadlines that pass. we've seen the wind energy industry shut down all together because congress dropped the ball. that's why we on a bipartisan basis negotiated a five year deal so they wouldn't be in that. but you are taking and retroactively denying those benefits. i would welcome to have a hearing before this committee and you invite in all the people in texas that you think have been cheated or shortchanged by wind energy. and then lineup the people who have benefited, who work in it, who are getting payments. i don't think it would even be clo close. you would be embarrassed to have a hearing like that i think. i'm trying to spare the committee from embarrassment, not renege on a deal. keep faith with texas texans who

have more wind energy than anybody else. they've got most at troirisk toe if you pull the plug on it. vote for my amendment. get it out of the bill. and then let's come back and have a hearing here on what you want to do to the wind energy production tax credit. that would be i think a rational way of doing it. and we used to do this on a bipartisan basis. i think it would be a very interesting couple days of hearings so we can fine tune it. thank you very much. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. mr. reed, you're recognized to speak on the amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. as i think the chairman knows and many others know, i have been a strong voice for an all of the above energy policy and i appreciate the negotiations and discussions we had in regards to the phase out to get these industries from infancy to

commercial viability. i appreciate the gentleman from oregon's committeemement to thia and i'll continue to enjoy working with him. i do harken back to some of the comments i made yesterday. if we are so inclined to support this amendment, my colleagues on the other side have made it very clear from public comments and issues from their leadership and statements from their leadership both in the house and senate that they are adamantly opposed to any implementation of tax reform being driven from our side to the floor to get relief to the american people from the code that's represented here to my right. and so i appreciate the chairman's comments and i join with my colleague from texas, mr. marchant to ask my colleagues to vote this amendment down, but i appreciate my chairman's commitment and his professionalism and his representation here today to continue to work in this area,

to find that area that he's represented that some members are expressing concern about and i truly appreciate your leadership on that issue and i believe this is an example of that leadership being displayed. with that i yield back. >> we will continue to work with you in this area. mr. levin, you're recognized to speak on the amendment. >> yes, thank you, mr. chairman. the problem is you say you'll continue to work with us. but then you have a bill that deletes the provision. and that doesn't work. i mean, it doesn't make any sense. i was going to bring up the electrical -- electric vehicle tax credit today because it's been so important for renewable energy and so important to begin to move away from the present.

i decided not to do it because i think you would vote it down. my amendment. and i didn't want the precedent of your voting it down while at the same time you might say you'll work with us. mr. blumenauer's passion really stems from the belief that we need to have some limited role of ghost overnment to try to ch the way energy works in this country. that's what you're doing. and you then say it's necessary to act the way you did in your bill because you need the money for your overall bill but you're sacrificing policies that are so

vital. so again, i didn't bring up the electric vehicle tax credit because i was afraid you'd say you'll continue to work with us at the same time you delete the credit. and the public can't make sense of that. i think i'll yield my final minute to mr. blumenauer. >> thank you. i'm shocked by what my friend from new york said because he was one of the people on a bipartisan basis that helped us do this. and now if i understand him right, he's willing to hold what he worked on in a bipartisan basis hostage to force people to vote against something they find egregious like repealing the inheritance tax for billionaires. i find that really fundamentally flawed and i would be embarrassed to make that argument. because what you're doing is you

are targeting something that is a bipartisan -- why punish, why punish an industry that i thought you were trying to help that has much activity in new york because you want to force everybody here to vote for the inheritance tax for billionaires or to deal with problems with carried interest. i mean, we can go on on a number of things that are flawed, that aren't popular with the public, and don't relate to this bill. >> thank you, mr. thompson. you're recognized to speak on the amendment. >> i'd like to yield my time to my renewable energy hero, mr. blumenauer. >> reporter: thank yo >> thank you. i will stop at this point. i appreciate your courtesy. i appreciate you allowing me to try and state this. and i -- the contradictions that i see here in terms of how the committee should work and could work singling out this to be

retroactively repealed, hurting every one of your states. in a bill that many of you worked on. how do you pick this out of the air to hold it hostage to try and get people to vote for something that the american public feels uncomfortable with in which you are changing by the minute? mr. reed has no idea what that final bill looks like. i don't think he has an idea of what is going to be dropped on us out of the rules committee. but taking something like this from somebody in the problem solver's caucus and taking a problem that i thought we had solved and holding it hostage for trying to jam through a bill bigger bill. that's what's wrong with this process. we ought to be able to take individual items, debate them on their merits, find areas of agreement like we could have done in health care in many

areas and which we still could do i hope. but to wrap everything together, make it a moving target, which nobody really knows what the problems, and we'll talk about some of them in a minute, i just think is a violation of the process. i said that it's going to haunt everybody who votes for it. i absolutely believe that the case. you've had a parade of people lined up trying to find out what's in the bill and pleading to not have unintended consequences. i long for the day that we return to regular order when we could have, for example, a week's hearing on wind energy and if mr. marchant wants to fix it, let's fix it. i long for the day when we have two weeks of hearings on american infrastructure which is falling apart while america falls behind. and states are raising gas taxes. we can't even discuss it here even though the u.s. chamber of commerce, the truckers, afl/cio,

many of your states would come up and testify why it is vital to do that and why it would help. that's the sort of regular order that we could do. it's happening in states. and this is exhibit a of how that process is failing here. thank you and i yield back. >> thank you. gentlemen yields back. mr. nunes, you're recognized. >> i just want to say that mr. reed is a trusted member of our committee and for those of you who have been in the audience for the last four days, you'll notice he's had those books in front of him. so a man that can read that many books in four days, i mean, he has to know this tax code all the way through in and out. and i will yield to my good friend who is the tax expert from new york, mr. reed. >> well, i appreciate that, mr. nunes. it took much longer than four days to go through the u.s. tax code. as we've been on the committee for seven years dealing with these issues. dealing with tax reform.

and having hearings on the issues before us that have set up this day for us to take this step to move the bill forward hopefully and to the floor and through the senate process. and through the entire legislative process. to mr. blumenauer's point, at the end of the day i do anticipate the final bill that we will put on the president's desk is obviously going to be different than the bill that we put out through the committee because we have to go to our colleagues off the committee. we have to work with our colleagues in the senate to make sure that their differences and our differences are reconciled probably through a conference committee. that's regular order. and as i listen to the debate yesterday, i was also reminded many times from my colleagues on the other side, you should have reached out to us, we should have been discussing this. essentially they were insinuating we should have been discussing this where? in the back rooms? in the back rooms, in the closed door for conversations that -- >> will the gentleman yield?

>> that we were going to come to an agreement -- >> will the gentleman yield? >> no, i'm not going to yield. i agree with mr. blumenauer. when you rreference my co chair of the problem solver's caucus, we're trying to send a message to our leadership and/or extreme bases on the left and the right, on the left and the right. you're right, i said both. because your leaderships, especially what i saw yesterday in the public news and what was reported and what i've seen over the last seven days, where i have seen your leader repeatedly say and the minority leader in the senate repeatedly say we are not going to support any efforts of tax reform and as was reported in a very respected media outlet here on the hill, the calculation has been made from the other side's leadership, you know what we have to do? we have to do everything in their power to block tax reform

and the relief that we're going to provide to the middle class americans that i truly do believe this bill will deliver to them by allowing them to keep thousands of their dollars in order to achieve their political goal. what has become their emblem of ses here in d.c. the majority and the oou.s. hou and the majority in the u.s. senate. that's appalling to me and with that i yield back. >> ms. sewell, you're recognized to speak on the amendment. oh, excuse me, anyone else wish to speak on the amendment? mr. schweikert, you're recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. barthold, can you help me, just because i was not blessed to be a member of the committee when some of this was originally drafted and looking at the gentleman from oregon's amendment, could you first walk me through right now what the

actual change we're talking about here in the definitions and mechanisms and timing on work in progress. >> there's -- mr. schweikert, there's two basic changes in hr 1. as was noted in the debate, there's a phase down under present law of the value of the production credit or the value of the investment credit if the taxpayer elects the investment credit in lieu of the investment credit. >> i want to double emphasize, that is current law? >> current law. and the reductions are 20% reduction, 2017, 40% reduction in 2018, 60% reduction in 2019 relative to the base proposal that's been in the law for 20 plus years. the value of the credit for projects, the construction of which begins in those years, the inflation indexing is removed.

the credit itself is indexed. it currently has a value of 2.4 cents per killowatt hour. without indexing it reverts to the base value which is 1.5 cents. >> are you saying the inflation indexing is 1.5? >> the base value of the credit established in 1992 was 1.5 cents. >> base value plus -- >> it's currently, because of indexing, since 1992, the current value is 2.4 cents per kilowatt hour. the inflation adjustment would be repealed meaning future projects would revert to the base value of 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour. not projects currently in service but new projects, the construction of which begins after the enactment. >> so projects under construction right now --

>> not all. we've been bringing you live coverage over the past few days of the house ways and means committee markup of the house gop tax reform measure. over on cspan the house has gavelled out for the day, so we're going to continue our live coverage of the ways and means committee over on cspan. you can also continue to watch streaming live online at cspan po cspan.org and listen live using the radio app. the plan -- and senator bill cassidy of louisiana says the individual mandate will not be repealed as part of the senate tax overhaul. that proposal is expected to be released later today. breaks with president trump's insistence that a corporate tax cut be put in place immediately. the house tax reform legislation proposes gradually lowering the corporate tax rate from 35% to

20% starting in 2018. >> 50 years ago the united states was at war in vietnam. this veteran's day weekend american history tv on cspan3 looks back with 48 hours of coverage starting saturday at 8:00 a.m. eastern. we're live from the national archives. among the backdrop of three vietnam era helicopters to talk with veterans who flew then. then from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 woo p.m. we're taking your phone calls about the war in 1967. at 1:00 p.m. from the veterans memorial a sceremony. on sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern on real america a 1967 cbs news vietnam war special report. >> whether it's due to the enemy's tactics or the bad fighting conditions, the weather

or the terrain, it seems clear that the american military offensive along the dmz has bogged down like the marines in the mud. >> then at 6:00 on american artifacts, we'll tour the national archives exhibit remembering vietnam. at 8:00 on the presidency, the 1967 president lyndon johnson vietnam war press conference. >> made our statement to the world of what we would do if we had communist aggression in that part of the world in 1954. we said we would stand with those people in the face of common danger. and the time came when we had to put up or shut up. and we put up. and we're there. >> watch the vietnam war 50 years later. this weekend on american history tv on cspan3. last night vice president pence attended a vigil in texas for victims of a mass shoin