Providing for Congressional Disapproval of a Rule Submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Kentucky for yielding and for bringing this legislation to the floor.

I rise in strong support of S.J. Res. 24.

Mr. Speaker, what we are talking about is rejecting this radical plan by President Obama's EPA that is going to actually impact every power plant in this country.

The President has a war on coal. He declared a war on coal years ago, and we are seeing the results of it. The results of it here in America are thousands of good jobs lost, thousands of middle class families that are now unemployed and trying to fight to get back in the middle class. And even more than that, Mr. Speaker, what you see is millions of people across this country paying more for electricity costs because of these regulations.

So what is President Obama's answer? It is to go to Paris and say that the biggest threat to national security is global warming. For goodness' sake, doesn't he see what is going on across the world?

We are here focusing on national security, Mr. Speaker. We are also focusing on energy security, and we are standing up against a radical regulation that is going to increase costs on the most needy in this country.

When you look at the impact, this proposal by President Obama's EPA would have a $29-billion-per-year cost on middle class families. The people that are going to be hit the hardest are low-income families, Mr. Speaker. In Louisiana alone, nearly 1 million middle-and low-income families will be hit by this radical regulation.

At Christmas season, I think families would much rather be spending their hard-earned dollars going and buying Christmas presents for their families instead of seeing a 13-percent increase in their utility bills for a regulation that is not going to do anything to clean the air.

We are already seeing a reduction in carbon emissions because of the American innovation. When some of these European countries signed Kyoto and some of these other accords that are wrecking their economies, we didn't do it. Because we are actually doing better than them without signing an accord because we used great American innovation.

And, instead, the President wants to come behind and bring a regulation that is going to strangle small businesses, it is going to strangle families, and it is going to increase electricity costs on those that can least afford to pay it.

Again, let them keep the money in their own pockets. Let's innovate, let's create jobs in this economy, not use radical regulations to strangle our economy and our middle class. Let's pass this resolution.

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