Responsibly and Professionally Invigorating Development Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Chair, I rise to oppose H.R. 348, also known as the RAPID Act. This bill will rapidly cause environmental degradation.

Under this bill, if it became law, you could have projects that harm the environment that are deemed approved, even if the review process was not yet completed. That is crazy. Keep in mind, we have had over 60 straight months of job creation under the Obama administration. Those are the facts.

This bill is written in such a way that it will cause confusion. It will cause increased delays and limit public involvement in this important process. It is also unscientific.

There is a provision in this bill that says we cannot count the social cost of carbon. Now, I believe in a free market, and I believe that that has made America strong, but we can't have government artificially come in and say we are going to say things are costs and things are not costs when it is not scientifically based.

We know that carbon has done a lot to increase climate change and caused global warming. That is why I, along with Representatives PETERS, POLIS, and LOWENTHAL, have introduced an Los Angeles, CAamendment to put that language back in. We can't just say stop talking and ignore carbon.

Keep in mind, just a few hours ago, Pope Francis came in to a joint session of Congress and told us to really revert and look at what we have done in terms of causing environmental degradation.

Now, just a few hours later, we are back to attacking the environment. This is not right.

I urge that we not support the RAPID Act.

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