President Biden Delivers Remarks on a Clean Energy and Manufacturing Boom Transcript

Welcome. I’m Antonio Carillo, President and CEO of Arcosa. It is a great honor to host this event and to join President Biden. This new plant demonstrates the expected longterm positive impact of the Inflation Reduction Act that is driving the transition to clean energy and job creation. When completed, the Belen plant will produce wind towers to meet the growing demand for renewable energy in the Southwest region.

(00:39)
At this time last year, Arcosa wind towers, as well as the North American wind tower industry was facing significant challenges and uncertainty. Next week marks the one-year anniversary of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act that is providing a significant multi-year catalyst for our industry. Thanks to President Biden’s leadership, with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, we have received over $1.1 billion in orders for wind towers. This is a great example of how policy has a direct impact on business.

(01:23)
A year ago, as I mentioned, Arcosa wind towers had no work in 2023. We were really struggling. And then in August, the Inflation Reduction Act passes, and just a few months later, we received the largest wind tower order we have received in the history of the company. We announced this facility. We’re investing $60 million, we’re creating jobs, we’re ramping up production in another two facilities of Arcosa, and I think we’re just getting started.

(02:03)
So on behalf of the 6,000 employees of Arcosa and the communities where we are, I want to thank President Biden for pushing through this legislation and making it happen. I also want to thank Senator Heinrich, Senator Lujan, and Governor Lujan Grisham for being here, and also our great friends and partners from GIV or Nova who made it happen also. So thank you very much. And with that, it’s my honor to introduce the person who has made today possible, President Joe Biden.

Hey, folks. This is a team sport. It’s a team sport. I’m going to talk about that in a minute. Thank you for the nice comments.

Thank you, Mr. President.

[inaudible 00:03:19].

Thank you.

Antonio, please, if you have a seat, take it. Antonio, thank you for that introduction and for hosting us here today. Governor, you are the … Where are you sitting?

Over here.

You’re the very best, kid. You’re the best. No, no, no, no. That’s a fact. You’re the best. I love you. Thank you. Thank you. Senator Heinrich, I tell you what, I’m glad I was a flanker back. I’m glad I didn’t have you on the other side as a tight end, but good to see you, man. Thank you and thank your whole family. Good to meet you. And that guy sitting next to you, Ben Ray Lujan, I don’t know where he came from, but I tell you what, I told him I’m prepared to help in terms of making sure that those folks are taken care of, y the way.

(04:22)
Representative Stansbury, God love you, kid. I tell you what, you are really doing a great job. Thank you for all your cooperation and thanks for your advice and your help. And Teresa Leger Fernandez, who isn’t here today … What am I thinking? I thought you had to leave. By the way, her son there, I tell you what, keep an eye on him. I may be calling him Mr. President someday. I don’t know. Gabe is the one who couldn’t be here today. You have an incredible congressional delegation. You really do here, first rate, you really do.

(05:04)
Thanks to all the tribal leaders for being here. I just want you to know, I was raised by a guy most of you don’t know. He’s a wonderful, wonderful man, a great friend. His name was Danny Inouye, and he said, “Joe, it’s Indian Nations.” He taught me early on, early on, but thank you, thank you, thank you for all you’ve done. We had a good day yesterday in your neighboring state, Arizona. I was able to put away just about a million acres of sacred land. That’s good stuff.

(05:42)
I got so tired over the last 15 years, and this is a little story I want to tell you about why … I was telling the team here, I know I don’t look it, but I’ve been around a long time, but I’ve never been more optimistic in my whole career than I am today about America’s prospects in both foreign and domestic policy. Went through an awful long time watching companies the last 15 years decide to invest overseas because labor was cheaper, shutting down factories all across America, all across America. And I asked myself, “Why do we have to put up with that?” We’re sending jobs abroad and importing products at home. We knew we could change that. I just knew we could change that. We have the best workers in the world. And my team and I decided, if you hold here, there’s a law that was passed in the ’30s. It says any money that Congress sends me to dispend, I can insist that it all be spent on American products with American workers. No president has paid much attention to that in either party, but guess what? I’m paying attention. As a simple proposition, I mean this sincere, from the bottom [inaudible 00:07:06], we decided we’re going to invest in America.

(07:12)
And this company’s a great example. They’re now poised to be the leader in the wind industry, but a few years ago, they were laying off workers because we weren’t investing in them. So we passed a significant climate legislation. Not only it moves us away from fossil fuels to cleaner technologies like wind, but it means we’re going to make things and new technology here in America. And there’s no reason why we can’t do it. We have the best educated, we have the most advanced technology in the world. Why are we not doing that? That’s basically what we’re talking about today when we talk about investing in America. So today, I want to talk about our progress in growing the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down. I came to office determined to move away from trickle- down

… down economics. Not a whole lot trickle down on my dad’s kitchen table when I’m growing up. And focus instead on the middle class because the middle class built America. And guess what? Guess what? And unions built the middle class. That’s not hyperbole, that’s a fact. And folks, and when the middle class… I’m a capitalist, when the middle class does well, everybody does well. The poor have a way up and the rich were able to be very rich. Just make sure they pay a little more of their taxes.

(08:38)
But well look, the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal have started to call my plan Bidenomics. Initially, I don’t think they meant it with a great deal of respect. With all due respect to them, our plan is working. It’s working.

(08:58)
The economy has grown since I took office. It grew faster in the last quarter than anyone expected, and we created over 13 million brand new jobs since I took office. 13 million in less than three years. 90,000 new jobs right here in New Mexico.

(09:19)
800,000 manufacturing jobs nationwide, 800,000. I know you’re tired of hearing me say this, but where’s it written that America can’t lead the world again in manufacturing because we’re going to do just that. The leading manufacturer in the world. These are facts, it’s not hyperbole. We’ve created more jobs in two years than any president in American history has in four-year term.

(09:49)
Unemployment has been below 4% for the longest period stretch in 50 years of American history. And not only have we recovered all the jobs we lost during the pandemic, we now have more jobs than we did before the pandemic. Because unemployment’s been so low for so long, workers aren’t just finding more jobs, they’re able to look for better jobs at higher pay. And according to the research survey, job satisfaction in America is higher than it’s been in the last 36 years. Look, the share of working age Americans with jobs is as high as it’s been in 20 years. That’s never happened under my predecessor.

(10:36)
So where are we now? Well, unemployment is down and so is inflation. Remember all the experts, including some that worked for me, told us that to get inflation under control, we need to lower wages and reduce the number of people working. That’s been sort of gospel. Not a joke. Seriously. Some of you in the audience are economists, you know that. But I never bought it. The problem was too many people are working, or working people are working making too much money. That’s not the problem.

(11:10)
There’s a lot of reasons for inflation is up. First, the pandemic. Second, the war in Ukraine. Third, broken supply chains. Now, one reason we’ve seen inflation fall by two-thirds without losing jobs is we’re seeing corporate profits come back down to earth. We have more to do, but inflation is now at its lowest point in two years. In fact, we have the lowest rate of inflation among the world’s major economies. No other economy, major economy in the world, is inflation as low as we are. It’s down from 9% to 3%.

(11:45)
There’s a lot more work to do. I’m not satisfied with where it is. More work ahead. The Washington Post recently suggested in a front page article, I think it’s front page, that, “Republicans may have to find something else to criticize Biden for now that inflation is coming down.” I’m sure they’ll find something.

(12:04)
At the same time, pay for low wage workers has grown at the fastest pace in over two decades, and wages are growing faster than inflation. And we’re continuing to make progress in fixing the supply chain. For example, we couldn’t access semiconductors during the pandemic because the factories making them overseas were shut down.

(12:29)
You all know semiconductors are those little small computer chips about the size and end of your fingertip, that effectively everything in our lives, from cell phones, automobiles, refrigerators, to the most sophisticated weapon system, including the systems that Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories provide for our national security.

(12:49)
America invented these chips. We invented them. We went to the moon. We made them work better. We made them more sophisticated. But over time, we went from producing nearly 40% of those chips, the world’s chips, down to 10%. That’s why I designated and I signed, and I insisted it be written and passed, the Chips and Science Act, exactly almost one year ago today. Very short.

(13:18)
Now, all over the country, semiconductor companies are investing a record billions of dollars. By the way, you know how much has been committed in the Chips and Science Act to be invested in America? $ 230 billion. $230 billion to bring chip production back home in Ohio, New York, Arizona, and right here in New Mexico.

(13:47)
Look, just a few years ago, Intel cut 700 jobs of a semiconductor fab in Rio Rancho. Now they’re expanding their fab with a $3.5 billion investment, creating 700 new jobs, many of which won’t require a college degree. And by the way, of this over $200 billion, they’re building fabs. They’re just called factories. They’re the size of a football field. Not much wider than this. And guess what? Average salary is about 130,000 grand. And guess what? You don’t need a college degree. Make over a hundred thousand dollars is about time. And folks, unions are building the structures as well.

(14:34)
Look, folks, that’s Bidenomics. Since I took office, we’ve attracted over half a trillion dollars. Half a trillion dollars in private investment in manufacturing and industries of the future right here in America. According to Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs and Wall Street, my Investing in America Agenda is leading to a boom in manufacturing investment. Spending on construction for manufacturing plants nearly doubled in the last two years, after growing only 2% the previous four years. Last quarter, factory construction contributed more to the gross domestic product than any time in 40 years. 40 years. Instead of exporting American jobs, we’re creating American jobs and we’re exporting American products.

(15:27)
And we’re seeing it right here in America. We’re seeing it in New Mexico as well. In 2008, Solo Cup factories shut down right here, right where we’re standing, and 200 people lost their jobs. Nearly a decade and a half later, a plastics company bought the site. It shut down after three years, laying off a hundred workers. It’s been idle ever since. Now it’s coming alive again.

(15:54)
Arcosa makes wind turbines, wind towers. That’s the thing that holds…

… When I say that, people look at me like, “Wind tower, you don’t know what a wind tower is.” They look at me like, “What the hell’s a wind tower?” That’s a key component. You have to have it to hold up those blades. You know how long… By the way, I was in Eastern Colorado looking at the blades manufactured, those blades are 103 yards long, longer than a football field. And by the way, they don’t cause cancer. And by the way, wind energy is cheaper than fossil fuels. Solar is cheaper.

(16:39)
A few years ago, business took a turn and they were forced to lay off 200 employees at plants all across America. Now, thanks to the new law I signed, making historic investments in clean energy, business is booming again. By the way, they call it the Inflation Reduction Act. Within that is the act related to climate and it’s $368 billion. And when I passed that, not one single guy on the other team voted for it. Nobody voted for it on the other team. Since I signed that bill into law, Arcosa has received $1.1 billion in orders for new wind towers. And today, we’re here breaking ground on a new plant that’s going to create 250 new good paying jobs.

(17:29)
And meanwhile, we’re speeding up permitting for transmission lines so wind energy produced by these towers reaches people’s homes because what’s happening now is it’s hard to get. A lot of these towers are old and everybody is, not in my neighborhood, they don’t want a big new tower going up. So we’re strengthening the towers and we’re going to go underground. It costs six times as much to go underground, but we’re learning how to do that more cheaply so it doesn’t cause the forest fires and all the things that happen when major windstorms knock these lines down.

(18:03)
My administration recently completed review of a proposed SunZia line, the transportation energy from a planned wind farm here in New Mexico, in Arizona, and California. So you’re going to generate the energy here, and be able to transmit it all the way across Arizona, and into California as well. These projects are expected to create 2,000 new construction jobs and up to 150 permanent jobs, providing clean energy for up to 3 million Americans, 3 million, and reducing the pressure of the climate change. Like I said, Bidenomics is about bringing supply chains back home. Arcosa makes wind towers that’s going to go into turbines made by GE Verona… Excuse me, I mispronounced it. Vernova in Florida and New York. Pattern energy will use these turbines to build the largest wind farms in the Western Hemisphere spanning Lincoln, Torrance and San Miguel counties in New Mexico. And SunZia will use that energy to power homes all across the Southwest. That’s Bidenomics. It’s cheaper. It’s cheaper.

(19:26)
That’s what we’re talking about, investing in America. This company says investing in making it here is a direct result of the law is signed almost exactly a year ago, the most significant investment in clean energy and combating the existential threat of climate change ever anywhere in the world. Like I said, it’s $368 billion and Governor Lujan Grisham is leading the way in launching the New Mexico Community Solar Program, so families will save money on electric bills, stopping leaks of super polluting methane from oil and gas operations. We’re capping thousands of those wells all across America, beginning in Western Pennsylvania, coming West, and putting New Mexico on a path for cleaner, cheaper electric transmission future as well in this state.

(20:16)
Folks, when I think climate, I think jobs, I don’t think all the dangers, there’s real danger, but the jobs to fix the problem. My mother used to have an expression after I lost my wife and daughter and she was trying to console me. She said, ” Joe, out of anything bad, something good will happen if you look hard enough for it.” Well, all across America, we’re looking. There are going to be a lot of good things that are going to happen as a consequence of this problem we’re facing. What Arcosa is doing here is part of a much broader clean energy manufacturing. It’s going to happen in big cities and rural communities as well. Like in Colorado, where CS Wind broke ground on what will be the world’s largest wind tower manufacturing plant. And coincidentally, CS Wind is Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, you know that very quiet Republican lady? It’s in her district who along with every other Republican, voted against this bill and it’s making all this possible and she railed against its passage, but that’s okay. She’s welcoming it now.

(21:25)
When I ran for office, I promised to be president for all Americans, whether you live in a blue state or a red state, I’m going to keep my promise. Before we made this clean energy investment, Siemens Corporation laid off workers who were making wind turbine parts and put the plant in Iowa and Kansas into what they refer to as hibernation. I hibernated in Iowa for a while. But look, now we’re reopening both these plants and rehiring workers. In New York, GE is investing 50 million for a new manufacturing assembly line making critical components for turbines in partnership with organized labor. Every one of these companies has pointed to the clean energy law that we originated and I signed as a reason for making these investments. And we’re making sure rural communities are benefiting from these historic investments as well. It’s not just urban areas.

(22:26)
We’re investing over $160 million in New Mexico to support conservation and climate smart agriculture and forestry, like improved water management for grazing livestock and ways to improve soil. Helping farmers and ranchers get paid for doing the right thing, planting material that absorbs carbon from the air and not just… Look, we’ve launched the Rural Partners Network, placing federal employees on the ground in New Mexico to help rural communities take advantage of the federal resources that are there because this is all new stuff. People on the ground say, “Here’s how you do it. This is what you do.” Building an economy from the bottom up and the middle out means strengthening our rural economy so farmers and ranchers and their children don’t have to leave home to find opportunities for work.

(23:16)
Where I come from, it’s all about pride. It’s all about restoring pride, being able to make a living in the community you love and where you’re raised and not have to leave. Folks, it’s all part of my plan. The plan is to invest in America. We’re transforming our country, including by rebuilding America’s infrastructure. We used to have the best infrastructure in the world. We were number one in the world. That’s ports, railroads, airports, roads, everything. You know where we are now? We’re number 13 in the world. China used to be number eight, now they’re number two. How can you have the best economy in the world with second rate infrastructure? It’s not

… not possible. And through the bipartisan infrastructure law, we already announced over 37,000 projects in 4,500 communities all across America, including $3.6 billion in investments right here in New Mexico. So far. We’re just getting started. For example, the city of Albuquerque is getting 25 million to rebuild the Uptown Transit Center, making it safer and more accessible and easier for folks to get uptown and helping transform the area into a vibrant community hub.

(24:34)
We’re investing $160 million in Eastern New Mexico rural water system to build a new transmission pipeline providing a critical water supply to nearly 70,000 people from Clovis to Portales to Canon Air Force Base. Look, right now over 114,000 homes and small businesses across New Mexico don’t have access to high-speed internet. We’re investing over $1 billion in this state to connect every corner of this state, especially rural communities and family farms to affordable internet. People sometimes say, “Why are you doing that?” Imagine if a long time Roosevelt and telephones came along saying, “We’re not going to help invest in telephones.” Come on man.

(25:23)
I don’t know what the hell we’re thinking. Already we’re saving nearly 170,000 New Mexico families $30 a month on internet bills, so far. We’re making investments like this all across the country. If I could pause for another second, there was a distinguished senator from the state of Alabama who used to be a pretty good football coach and he’s railed against this legislation. And then I noticed he had a big announcement, “Alabama’s going to get a billion, $200 million [inaudible 00:25:59].” And I thought, wait a minute, didn’t he rail against that for a long, long time? I was inclined to go down and help him celebrate, but I decided not to.

(26:10)
Look, we can see exactly where we’re making these investments and you can see exactly where they are. If you go to invest.gov, you’ll know exactly where every one of these investments is going throughout America. These investments create thousands of good paying jobs. We’re making sure workers have the skills to do the jobs. For example, in New Mexico, we’re funding the mobile training unit run by the plumbers and pipefitters union, UA Local 412. It’s going to train plumbers and pipefitters and HVAC workers with a focus on training Latino workers, indigenous people, and people recovering from substance abuse.

(26:55)
And I know you’re probably thinking what a lot of our very conservative Republican friends, ” Biden’s spending all this money, man, my taxes are going to go up.” Unless you make more than $400,000 a year, your federal taxes aren’t going to go up a single penny. And guess what? I did all this without raising anybody’s taxes in the middle class. And one other little thing, during this process, I cut the federal budget in two years by $1.7 trillion. 1.7 the largest anyone’s ever done in two years, the last guy increased the national debt by 40%. Folks, we’ve done all this without raising tax in the middle class, and I promised we’ll never raise federal tax in anyone making less than 400,000 a year. I’ve kept that promise and I’m going to keep it unlike the last president. And as I said, my first two years in office the federal deficit fell by 1.7 trillion.

Thank you Joe.

And we got what we promised. We can cut the federal deficit and still do all the rest of this. Folks, every one of my friends in the other team in Congress voted against the clean energy investments and the vast majority voted against the bipartisan infrastructure law. But that hadn’t stopped them from claiming credit now that billions of dollars and thousands of jobs are coming into their states. Like I said, at the State of the Union address “I’ll see them at the groundbreaking.”

(28:23)
Look, let me close with this, I’m not here to declare victory on the economy. We’ve got a lot more work to do, but we have a plan and it’s turning things around. Bidenomics is just another way of saying restore the American Dream. 40 years of trickle down economic policy, limit the Dream to those at the top. But I believe every American willing to work hard should be able to get a job no matter where they live.

(28:57)
In the heartland, small towns, raise their kids on a good paycheck, be able to keep their roots where they grew up. My dad used to have a saying, I mean it sincerely. He’d say, “Joey, a job’s about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your pride, it’s about dignity.” And he meant it, not a joke. It’s about dignity. It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, “Honey, it’s going to be okay.” Being able to say, and you think I’m kidding, but some of some, the folks in Congress knew my dad, he meant it. And he said, “The real question, Joey, is, at the end of the month after you pay all your bills, is there anything left? Do you have a little breathing room? Just a little bit of breathing room?” Well, folks, that’s part of the American dream and that’s Bidenomics.

(29:51)
It’s rooted in what has always worked best in this country, investing in America, invest in Americans because when we invest in our people, when we strengthen the middle class with stronger economic growth, that benefits everybody, the poor, the wealthy, everybody. And for the longest time, we’ve been told to give up on American manufacturing that it can’t happen again and we just can’t do it anymore. Well, as you might’ve noticed, I’ve never believed that.

(30:23)
As I said, America used to lead the world of manufacturing, we’re going to do it again. I can honestly say I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future. Just remember who we are, we’re the United States of America. And there’s nothing beyond, I mean it sincerely, think of any objective we’ve set as a goal that we’ve ever not met. Name one, no matter what it is. We’ve never, never, never, when we’ve worked together, failed. Nothing’s beyond our capacity of we work together. And God bless you all and may God protect our troops. Thank you so much.