In a June 8th press release, Reed wrote:
Today, Congressman Tom Reed announced bipartisan legislation which would help American manufacturers with energy consumption and costs. The POWER Act, HR 2657 would encourage businesses to use new technologies to convert their “waste heat” into electricity.
“This is a great piece of legislation that really gives our manufacturers a competitive edge around the world. Time and time again, I’ve heard that energy consumption is the largest cost driver for manufacturers across the Southern Tier,” said Reed. “This is a very simple way to help them keep those costs in check.”
“Waste heat” is heat generated as a byproduct during many manufacturing processes. Currently, there are technologies available, called Waste Heat to Power or WHP, that harness this heat and convert it into electricity. Without this technology, waste heat would otherwise be expelled into the atmosphere as a pollutant. Instead, it can be used at a manufacturing facility to offset electrical costs or even be sold back to the main electrical grid for consumer use.
The POWER Act would make it easier for companies to gain access to this technology by offering a new tax credit to offset the upfront cost of purchasing and installing WHP systems. Further, the bill also aims to offer assistance to even the smallest manufactures by removing size and capacity restrictions on the types of systems installed. The bill also expands existing tax credits for electrical generation.
The aim of the legislation is to spur long term investment as many manufacturers are reluctant to invest in this type of innovation as it diverts funding from core operations. Ultimately, the goal of the bill would be to make some of the largest energy users and power generators more efficient and productive, and therefore globally competitive.
It is estimated that roughly 12 percent of all electricity in the United States could be generated through industrial efficiency technologies alone. Currently, there are 3,600 facilities around the United States using these systems.
“Its new technologies, like waste heat to power, which are absolutely vital to America’s quest for energy independence,” Reed continued. “It’s good for our National Security because it reduces our dependence on Middle Eastern crude oil. It’s good for our environment because it creates electricity from pollution. It’s good for our workers, because it makes the cost of doing business cheaper in the United States, which means more jobs here at home, without cuts to wages.”
It is estimated that using waste heat for electrical generation could reduce operating costs for manufacturing industries in the United States by more than 3 billion dollars, enough to create 160,000 jobs.
Pierre Dumas, the Vice-President of Strategic Business Development and Commercialization at Dresser-Rand, which has facilities throughout Western New York also applauded the measure stating, “We are grateful to Congressman Reed for championing the POWER Act, which would add waste heat to power (WHP) as a qualifying technology for the investment tax credit for clean energy and make other key improvements to this incentive. Our company manufactures WHP turbines in Western New York, so we can attest to the local economic benefits of this legislation. This common-sense bill will help our nation produce more home-grown energy, allow manufacturers and other large energy users to save money, and generate new businesses and jobs across the country.”
“The process of capturing waste heat is capital intensive, often prohibitively so, and as a result much of this potential is lost to the atmosphere. The POWER Act will encourage investment in this energy efficiency technology, creating jobs and reducing our energy consumption,” said Representative Earl Blumenauer.
Tom does not mention that thermoelectric power generation is inefficient except on a large scale; even the most efficient generating plants produce waste heat which is uneconomical to recover. Nor does Tom mention the cost of this bill to the Treasury.
I find these specific claims exaggerated:
- “This is a great piece of legislation that really gives our manufacturers a competitive edge around the world.
- I’ve heard that energy consumption is the largest cost driver for manufacturers across the Southern Tier,” said Reed. (That he heard this doesn’t mean it is correct.)
- Further, the bill also aims to offer assistance to even the smallest manufactures by removing size and capacity restrictions on the types of systems installed.
- It is estimated that roughly 12 percent of all electricity in the United States could be generated through industrial efficiency technologies alone. Currently, there are 3,600 facilities around the United States using these systems.
- It is estimated that using waste heat for electrical generation could reduce operating costs for manufacturing industries in the United States by more than 3 billion dollars, enough to create 160,000 jobs.
Tom provides no source or justification for these claims. Reed wrote:
“Its new technologies, like waste heat to power, which are absolutely vital to America’s quest for energy independence. It’s good for our National Security because it reduces our dependence on Middle Eastern crude oil. It’s good for our environment because it creates electricity from pollution. It’s good for our workers, because it makes the cost of doing business cheaper in the United States, which means more jobs here at home, without cuts to wages.”
- Absolutely vital? Really, Tom?
- Makes business cheaper at the expense of the Treasury.
- Cuts to wages? Is that what Tom sees as an alternative to business tax loopholes?
Has Tom ever seen a business tax break he didn’t like?
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2657
New NY 23rd 
This sounds like another “idea” that will end going nowhere. 160,000 new jobs? Really ? I would love to see some analysis of these figures. Or are they just produced by the “Waste Heat to Power” industry? Like those hundreds of thousands of XL Pipeline “jobs” that may last for a year. Why is it “smart” government to “pick winners and losers” in some areas (to help big business) and “communism” to give out of work folks a few bucks in food stamps? Oh well, we all know that whomever is behind this taxpayer giveaway will take the money and run.
By the way Tom, where are those “jobs ” bills the GOP promised in 2014?
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Oh, those many GOP jobs bills were passed by the House and blocked by the Senate. If rescinding health and safety regulations really created jobs, they might have been worth something. As it is, they were worthless.
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Reed also didn’t mention that New York doesn’t have a qualified workforce ! Most are college educated and are afraid to get their hands dirty and think they are above doing manual labor. There are thousands of jobs that go unfilled because the millennials either CAN’T do them, or WON’T do them !
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that is why they are called, ” Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation “
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No, Bob, they are called Millennials because they were born from the early 1980’s to early 2000, and were connected to the new millennium. You do realize that these are the folks whose futures were shaped by Bush’s Recession. Those getting out of college being trained for non-existencing careers because of Wall Street greed and Bush’s unpaid for wars. Here is a link that tells facts about the Millennial Generation.
Click to access millennials_report.pdf
I see a trend in your postings–being against people who went to college. Humm.
What does that have to do with Reed’s corporate welfare philosophy?
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Censured remark from Bob McGill:
gee, I got that stuff off the internet, none of it is my opinion. Places like Time magazine, CNN, PBS, Forbes, Wall Street Journal. In fact the ” Millennials ; ME, ME,ME, GENERATION was a copy and paste from Time magazine.
My Comment: Since you didn’t cite your source, I had to assume that the “ME,ME,ME, GENERATION” was YOUR Opinion. How would we know that you plagiarized it from Time Magazine?
Again: What does that have to do with Reed’s corporate welfare philosophy? There’s a lot of things that Rep. Reed doesn’t talk about…Should we permit everybody’s comments on everything thing that Rep. Reed doesn’t comment about? Of course not. I guess I should have completely censured your original comment. My bad.
To the readers: Mr. McGill also had a post that was only the following link–http://redalertpolitics.com/author/rconley/
–I don’t know why. He doesn’t say.
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it’s a link to a video that doesn’t work. The video is about LIFE WITHOUT CORPORATIONS, and how people like you would be really SCREWED without the stuff that, in fact, keeps you alive.
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The idea that capitalist society is the only one possible and therefore the best possible is what Voltaire satirized in “Candide.” Thus some promote ideas today that were ridiculous in the 18th century.
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I would love to see it, Bob. If it doesn’t work, how did you see it? Would it be on youtube?
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Bob. So, how did people stay alive before there were corporations? Or did I miss the part of Genesis where god created CEOs? It is the right wing fantasy of thinking that a legal entity is somehow able to produce value without workers. If corporations disappeared tomorrow people would survive. If workers disappeared tomorrow corporations cease to exist.
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You need to hang out with a better class of people. Maybe some liberals. Every college educated person I know has worked with their hands when necessary. Not their first choice, but they do what has to be done. I guess we hang with different crowds.
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gee, you can’t really chose who you hang out with in the workplace or the government will charge you with discrimination. 🙂 Ya know this blog discriminates against anyone who dissagrees with the socialist liberals, I never see you being asked to site your sources, provide a link or prove anything you say.
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You never see that people have asked me to site my source? Maybe the reason is that I try to provide links to where I get me information, most of the time they are embedded in the articles, they are usually in blue. I notice that William usually adds his at the end of the article, like he did in this one. Besides giving the reader more information to think about, giving the links gives me the opportunity to revisit the information quickly if I need to use it again.
I’m glad you don’t bring up your First Amendment Rights, since they don’t apply here. I don’t censure your responses because of your opinions, just when you call people names or are way off topic. I don’t even mind that you don’t use capital letters properly. Feel free to submit an article for us to post. We have posted opposing opinion articles before. Let me know if you find a working link to your corporation video, if it is on youtube I can easily link it up to an article.
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Bob. I often cite my sources and provide links when I directly refer to an article. But most of my thoughts are my own. I take full responsibility for them. And I am happy to respectfully disagree with you (or in rare cases agree) on any issue. But when you generalize about educated people it needs to be documented. I , myself, had to have many manual jobs AFTER I earned my first degree in 1972 because the US was in the midst of a great recession at the time. When you criticize educated people as being “lazy” you are missing the mark by a long margin.
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OK, hows this,I won’t call you names but just rephrase the statement. ” the garbage you spew is pure BIGOTRY.
kdminer.com/main.asp?SectionID=36&SubsectionID=73
May 8, 2014 … Without corporations, the USA would be just another Bangladesh. … you did not like to prevent the possibility of it being read by anyone else. …. one, most likely,
would have voted for this idiocy that has cost thousands of lives.
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Letter: A world without corporations
Corporate America – wicked, greedy Corporate America. Corporations are evil. They should not be allowed to exist. Sound familiar?
“Corporate America”-bashing has become a popular pastime. Imagine that corporations no longer existed. How would it go?
OK, time to go to work. Oops, there is no work, maybe just a small business that once sold equipment to a corporation. No corporation, no small company, no job.
Besides, no corporation, no automobile or gasoline. No problem – let’s eat. Oops. There are no farming corporations to raise and process food and no trucking corporations to deliver to markets.
There are no markets; they were once run by corporations. What remains are truck farms, with ugly rutabaga, wilted carrots and moldy tomatoes.
OK, lock the door and let’s go. Oh, wait, there is no lock. There is no lock-manufacturing corporation.
Well then, tie an old log on the door and turn out the light. Oh, no need to turn out the light; there is no electricity. There is no electric corporation. So, no electricity – no need to purchase that cheap Chinese-made electrical device. Go solar. Oh, no solar panel manufacturing corporation, either.
What are we to do for food? Plant corn and tomatoes? Oh, here we go again – no corporation to provide water. Hunt? Fish? No – rifles and rods and tackle were manufactured by corporations. Make your own gun?
That doesn’t matter anyway. There’s no money. Since corporations don’t exist, there is no corporate stockholding. No stocks, no investment, no returns. No investment, no profits, no 401(k), no profit-sharing, no pensions and no retirement plan.
OK, Social Security will do. Really? One cannot exist on the meager payout from Social Security. Besides, no jobs, no FICA deduction to support those payouts.
Why are American manufacturing corporations moving to foreign countries? Over-regulation, high taxation and costly unionization.
Corporations help make this country great and strong, provide income to millions and millions of middle-class families, help keep the economy running and provide financial stability. Without corporations, the USA would be just another Bangladesh.
D.B. Mitchell
Valle Vista
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from MIT, and I don’t mean Romney
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/519241/report-suggests-nearly-half-
Report Suggests Nearly Half of U.S. Jobs Are Vulnerable to Computerization
Oxford researchers say that 45 percent of America’s occupations will be automated within the next 20 years.
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Bob, please point out to the readers where we said that corporations should be eliminated. The point of the article is that our congressman always votes on giving are tax money to corporations. He votes to take away the common sense rules for corporations to follow. For example he recently voted against a rule to make pipelines safer. He also votes against helping the safety net and education. Note the sequester and reducing funding the SNAP program, and last January it was his amendment to the House rules that will force the Social Security Disability Insurance to be unable to meet their legal benefit requirements. You can copy and paste every letter and comment you find about how wonderful corporations are on another blog. We agree that corporations are an important member of the economic ecosystem, but Rep. Reed’s actions are killing the middle class for corporate profits. Some countries see the benefit of having consumers have money to spend.
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There are corporations that contribute to the general economic welfare of the nation. And there are corporations that abuse the system we have generously provided them with. I know of no liberal who condemns all corporations or the idea of corporations. But I do see many on the right wing setting up straw men concerning corporations. They like to think in “black” v “white” terms. No subtlety to their understanding of how economic systems work.
For example. Walmart. Walmart employs many people. But their wages are so low that the US taxpayer has to subsidize Walmart employees with food stamps, Medicaid and other assistance.
To the tune of over $ 6 billion per year. ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/ )
So, this highly “profitable” corporation makes its profits by wages that are substandard for living in the US. The same year , according to Walmart’s own website, it returned over $ 7.2 billion to shareholders. ( http://news.walmart.com/walmart-facts/corporate-financial-fact-sheet ).
In effect, this was a transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to the shareholders. NOT because Walmart is an exceptionally well managed company, but because it has been allowed to utilize low wage labor and takes advantage of the social safety net.
Does this mean all corporations are inefficient and would cease to exist without federal welfare? No. But it does mean we should recognize some serious flaws in the tax code and minimum wage laws that negatively impact on workers and tax payers.
To those who say that corporations “create jobs”. No. Do those people think that all of sudden no one would be providing goods and services ? Silly. If those corporations disappeared then small businesses would quickly fill any gaps in the economic system. It is called supply and demand. The most basic economic principle.
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http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Walmart-Salaries-E715.htm
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http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2015/06/11/jobs-galore-rochester-best-city-find-employment/71105858/
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most small business owners started by working for a large corporation 🙂 small business can’t produce on a scale large enough to produce all the stuff we as a society. Besides foreign competition would CRUSH them.
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Why should our tax money go to a profit making corporations? Why should our tax money go to profit making corporations who bank their money overseas so they don’t pay US Taxes?
Our government is cutting domestic programs (how is our infrastructure doing these days?) and giving tax breaks to multinational corporations who take jobs overseas. You want to know who? Check the corporations who donate to Rep. Reed’s campaign.
I don’t understand your first comment about most small business owners started by working for a large corporation”. Why is it important that burger flippers at McDonalds later on start businesses? Oh, is that an opinion or is there some type study that gives actual numbers?
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Bob. I guess I believe in the idea of hard work, supporting local business folks and independence. Strong liberal concepts. I have faith in the small business owner. When given a fair playing field he can compete with any corporation. Why do so many supporters of Walmart and other corporate “welfare queens” fear the honest small businessman ? Why does Walmart need over $6,000,000,000 in yearly tax subsidies in order to survive? The corner store doesn’t.
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WASHINGTON – The U.S. Small Business Administration today announced that the federal government reached its small business federal contracting goal for the first time in eight years, awarding 23.39 percent in federal contracts to small businesses totaling $83.1 billion of eligible contracting dollars.
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and the fact that the federal government gives small business $83 BILLION in contracts is not welfare, note the SBA doesn’t say it goes to the lowest bidders. So who are the welfare queens ?
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ah, didn’t someone say the First Amendment doesn’t apply on this blog, I think it was pstew :-), but of course you can’t remember. Like a lot of things 😛
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Nobody said the government having contract is welfare. That is the price of doing business. I don’t expect our government makes the paper clips it uses or haul garbage away from government operations.
Corporate welfare is subsidizing a for profit corporation–giving them tax money– to continue to do what they do to make a profit. Also lowering the protection/safety standards of the corporations so it can cut costs to make more profits is a form of corporate welfare.
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Yes, Bob. The First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
It has to do with Congress making laws…not Blog administrators trying to keep high standards.
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Good point. There is a BIG difference between giving tax breaks and subsidies on one hand and hiring small business or corporations to perform a service on the other hand. Giving out a contract is hardly the same as giving a tax break. Thanks for clarifying that distinction.
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