Providing for Congressional Disapproval of a Rule Submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, at 5:30 p.m. today, two votes are going to take place on the two CRAs--one by Senator Capito and one by Senator McConnell, as he just referred to.
The Congressional Review Act is something really good that has come along for a reason. A lot of people don't understand that the bureaucracy gets out of hand sometimes. I was listening very attentively to my friend from Delaware. When I see some of the regulations that come through, I am wondering: How in the world could this happen? These are things that we have voted on over and over, as with the case of cap and trade, which is what we are talking about now. Our first one was the McCain-Lieberman act of 2003, then again in 2005, and then the Warner-Lieberman act of 2008. And Waxman-Markey didn't even come to the Senate floor because they knew they didn't have the votes for it. Each one of these was rejected by the elected Members of the Senate and by a larger margin each year.
It is interesting what this President has done. He has taken the things that people don't want and has said: Well, if we can't do it through legislation, we will do it through regulation.
We have seen time and again that he has followed this. It is really going to come to a screeching halt this time because there are some things that are going on that people are not aware of. There are a lot of legal problems with Obama's carbon rules--especially his power plan.
Right now we have 27 States, 24 national trade associations, 37 rural electric co-ops, 10 major companies, and 3 labor unions representing just under 1 million workers. They are now challenging the final rule in court. This chart shows you the States that are challenging the rule in court. A lot of these entities have requested a judicial stay, which would likely put these rules on hold until early next year. While the courts work through the numerous other challenges, time is going to go by and time is certainly not their friend.
I was listening carefully to what my friend from Delaware was saying. One observation I have is that the people have caught on. In 2002 it was very lonely standing here at this podium in this Chamber, and no one else wanted to be a part of that discussion. Yet, at that time, the ranking of people, insofar as what they thought about the legitimacy of the argument that the world was coming to an end because of global warming, was either No. 1 or No. 2. I am talking about the polls that were across the nation at that time.
Now that same poll last March that said that global warming was the No. 1 concern back in 2002 is now No. 15. People have caught on. They realize that the cost is going to be exorbitant, and they realize it is not going to accomplish anything. I don't have any doubt that once the courts assess the merits of these challenges, the Obama administration's power plan will not survive judicial scrutiny.
President Obama and Administrator McCarthy are equally aware of their legal vulnerabilities, which is why Obama's Agency deliberately slow-walked the implementation process to try to prevent any CRAs or negative court rulings prior to the International Climate Conference in December. It has already been done over there. It is going to get very active here in a matter of just a few days.
POLITICO had an article a week ago that reported that the administration has asked the DC Circuit to postpone decisions until after December 23. What does that tell you? It tells you that they don't want to go over to the International Climate Conference for the big show and then walk in and find out that nothing is going to happen over here in this country and where the people are in terms of this issue.
The Agency's lack of legal authority is not the only reason for bipartisan opposition to the administration's carbon regulations. The President's power plan alone would cost $292 billion, resulting in double-digit electricity price increases in 46 States. That is conservative. We have documentation from MIT and from many of the organizations saying that the cost of this type of cap and trade is somewhere in the range of between $300 billion and $400 billion a year.
The Presiding Officer and I are very concerned about the State of Oklahoma. In the State of Oklahoma, every time I hear a figure that talks about trillions or billions of dollars, I find out how many families in my State of Oklahoma paid Federal income tax, and I do the math. This would cost somewhere around $3,000 a family--an average family in Oklahoma. You couple that with the fact that nothing is happening only here.
If you believed in all the dangers that you hear about with CO2 emissions, if you really believe that to be true, that would not be true in terms of what we are talking about now. The first Administrator of the EPA who was supported by President Obama when asked the question if we were to pass this regulation or pass the legislation on cap and trade, would this have the effect of reducing CO2 emissions worldwide, said no, it wouldn't because it would only affect the United States of America. If that is the case, then it is not going to affect the other countries.
In fact, you can carry it one step further. If we have very tight restrictions in this country where our manufacturing base is forced to go to other countries, and then there are countries that don't have any emission requirements at all, it has the effect of increasing, not decreasing, the emissions.
We had a hearing in the Environment and Public Works Committee, which I chair, and we had as one of the witnesses Harry Alford. Harry Alford is the President of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. He talked about how any type of a cap-and-trade scheme is unfair to very poor people. He estimated that the Obama power plan would result in an estimated job loss of nearly 200,000 jobs for Black Americans and more than 300,000 jobs for Hispanics. The increased energy cost undermines global competitiveness for American small business and energy-intensive industries. These companies will ultimately shut down here at home where the electricity bill becomes unaffordable and create jobs instead for our competitors, such as China.
I can remember talking to China at the various meetings such as the International Climate Conference meeting that is coming up at the end of next month. They are hoping that something will happen where we are going to restrict our manufacturing base because they are the beneficiaries of that.
The EPA has consistently acknowledged this. The former Administrator, Lisa Jackson, says that U.S. action alone is not going to have any reduction. Her job didn't last too long after she made that statement.
The current Administrator, Gina McCarthy, testified that the President's power plan is not about pollution control but rather about sending a signal to the rest of the world that the United States is serious about addressing global warming. The minuscule
[Page: S8008]
benefits that might come would be hardly measurable to this country.
Lastly, I would like to mention something that people don't talk about very often, and that is, there is something good about the process that we have available to us, the CRA--the Congressional Review Act. There are a lot of people who are of liberal nature, and they like overregulation. They don't mind it a bit. I am talking about Senators and House Members now. They go back to their States, and they get hit by all the business communities that say: We can't compete because of the overregulation of EPA. The response is always this: Well, I have nothing to do with that; the unelected bureaucrats are doing that.
That is not true. You need to carry this message back with you. The CRA is there so that a person cannot tell the people at home that he is opposed to regulations that he is really supporting, because what is going to happen tonight--I can tell you right now--is that both of them are going to pass. But they are not going to pass them by a two-thirds margin. That means that they will go to the House, and they will pass them. They will go to the President's desk, and he will veto them. Therefore, it is going to take two-thirds to override a veto. They will come back for a vote. Those individuals who always rejoice in not having to vote and getting on record are going to have to vote on them. That is a neat deal. It is going to happen. You are here in on it right now.
That reminds me a little bit about Copenhagen, back in 2009. I remember so well that they were all going over there. That was back when the Democrats controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House. They made it a real issue. They put on quite a show over there. President Obama went over. PELOSI went over. John Kerry went over. They all talked about the 192 nations that were there and how we were going to pass cap and trade as legislation. This is 2009. I went over at the very last conference and told them they were telling the truth. We are not going to pass it. In fact, there weren't 30 votes in the Senate that would pass it at that time. Of course, that is what ended up being the case.
There is a real setback that happened 6 days ago. You may have noticed that Secretary of State Kerry made the public statement that nothing would be binding on the United States that came out of the International Climate Conference. Immediately, the President of France and all the others were outraged, saying that he must have been confused. They used the word ``confused.''
Right now the big fight that is going on is not Republican or conservatives and liberals. It is between those participants who are all for restrictions on emissions. That is what is going on now. I think the vote this afternoon is going to be a very important one. I can assure you that anyone who wants to vote against this can go ahead and do it. But keep in mind that this is going to pass. It is going to be vetoed by the President. It is going to come back for a veto override. Everyone is going to be on record. Here it is. These are the States that are currently anticipating the process of putting together legal action to stop this outcome. It is a very important vote this afternoon.
I yield the floor.
Source