Resolution of Disapproval of EPA Rule--Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I stand in opposition to the resolution offered by the Senator from Alaska. The text of the resolution asks Senators to second-guess scientists and public health officials by voiding the scientific finding that carbon pollution may endanger public health or welfare--like there is any legitimate dispute about that question. The text of this resolution would halt all efforts by EPA to address carbon pollution, including the necessary and long-overdue fuel efficiency standards that EPA negotiated with States and the automobile industry, to everyone's satisfaction.
Mr. President, that is the text of the resolution. But the point of the resolution is far simpler: to delay--delay action on energy legislation, delay action by EPA to protect public health and, more importantly, to delay action in this Congress on energy reform and to preserve the status quo by taking off the pressure of facts and science and law that is now driving the process. They want to trump that with pure politics.
What you will hear from many colleagues who support this resolution is that they want Congress to act to address carbon pollution and not the EPA. But with all due respect, many of the resolution's supporters want nothing to do with comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation. What they want is for EPA to go away. If they can delay EPA's work to address carbon pollution or stop it in its tracks altogether, they take the pressure off of anybody to do anything serious about a new energy policy or our addiction to fossil fuel. This is about delay on change in our energy policy.
Congress could be spending its time now setting the country on a new energy course by placing a price on carbon and investing in low-energy and clean-energy alternatives. Transforming our energy base will not happen overnight, but the longer we delay, the harder it will be.
That is what Congress could be doing. Instead, we are spending time arguing about whether the Clean Air Act should be used to fight air pollution. Outside these walls, in the real world, this question has to seem absurd. What else would the Clean Air Act be used for?
This issue has been all the way to the Supreme Court, and it is established law that the Clean Air Act applies. Then why are we debating this legislation? We are debating this because the big polluters--the same industries that brought us the April 5, 2010, mine disaster in West Virginia and the explosion on the rig in the Gulf of Mexico--like things the way they are. They like the status quo.
Under the status quo, while the rest of America was struggling to pull out of a recession earlier this year, big oil raked in record profits--$23 billion in just the first quarter of 2010. Under the status quo, when workers pay the costs of mining and drilling with their lives, when our environment pays for devastating oilspills, when our children pay the cost of dirty air with childhood asthma, big polluters don't have to pay the full cost of the pollution they have caused. That is the status quo they want to preserve.
In 2009, the polluters spent $290 million lobbying Congress or 10 times what the clean energy companies spent. This year, they have lobbied Members of the Senate to support this Murkowski resolution. They will keep on lobbying for delay and against energy reform, that is clear.
The question is, How will we respond to that big oil industry pressure? Will we fold before these big companies and their corporate lobbyists and delay again action on energy and climate change or will we stand up to the special interests and work to enact comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation?
This is not the first time I have spoken on the Senate floor in opposition to an effort to delay EPA action. But it is the first time I have done so against the backdrop of an environmental catastrophe.
This time, when I say polluters want to delay action on climate change and energy reform, we understand in a very real way the risk that delay poses. Despite the multimillion-dollar ad campaign by BP telling us not to worry because they are ``beyond petroleum,'' hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil now pour into the Gulf of Mexico from a BP well that exploded 2 months ago because they were big polluters and badly prepared.
Polluters have a powerful voice in Congress. Make no mistake about it; if they are successful in getting Congress to keep EPA from addressing carbon pollution, they will take all the pressure off for clean energy jobs legislation. But the tragedy along the gulf coast makes clear that we must do something. Today's vote will make clear who in this Chamber is on the side of delaying action on real energy reform and who is fighting for the American people, for jobs, and for the environment.
America is already years, if not decades, behind in the race to lead the global clean energy revolution. As far back as the 1890s, scientists documented the ``greenhouse effect'' of increased carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. The first congressional hearings on climate change were held three decades ago.
In 1994, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change recognized human-caused climate change. The issue has been out there for decades, and now it is time to take action. We have to move swiftly to address climate change and to have America in front in the global race for clean energy jobs.
In the meantime, we have to allow EPA to use its legal authority to reduce carbon pollution and encourage the deployment of clean energy. The EPA isn't just inventing this authority, it is following the law of the land. Congress enacted the Clean Air Act in 1970 under a Republican President. For four decades, EPA has used the Clean Air Act to make our air safer to breathe. Over that same time, guess what. Our economy grew--many times over.
Some argue that the Clean Air Act isn't meant to clean up carbon pollution. Well, the Supreme Court disagreed. Congress wrote a very broad definition of ``air pollutant'' and specifically, in 1990, defined carbon dioxide as a pollutant in the Clean Air Act amendments.
Despite this broad authority, EPA was indeed idle for many years, but not of its own accord, and not when it was sued. In fact, the Bush EPA fought the application of the Clean Air Act to carbon dioxide every step of the way and to the bitter end, right up to the doors of the Supreme Court, where they lost. Despite the heavy hand of the Bush administration holding EPA back from doing its legal duty, the Supreme Court--one of the most conservative Supreme Courts in generations--ruled in 2007 that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions were ``pollutants'' under the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court held that if the Agency thought this pollutant could ``reasonably be anticipated'' to endanger public health or welfare, the EPA had to act.
Yet here we are, and some Senators still want delay. For delay, they are willing to vote for a resolution that disregards science. For delay, they are willing to vote for a resolution that undermines the Clean Air Act. For delay, they are willing to vote for a resolution that tosses aside a Supreme Court decision. And for delay, they are willing to vote for a resolution that ignores the will of the American people, largely for the benefit of big oil and other corporate polluters.
Should we have a national discussion on how to control carbon? Yes. Should we debate how to move to cleaner sources of energy? Absolutely. But rather than have an honest discussion about how to do this, supporters of this resolution want to delay doing anything at all.
The attorney general of my State of Rhode Island, Patrick Lynch, with 10 other attorneys general and the corporation counsel of New York City, sent a letter to the Senate leadership yesterday urging us not to vote for the Murkowski resolution because it ``would be a step backwards undoing the settled expectations of States, industry, and environmentalists alike.''
In closing, that is exactly the point of this resolution. It is a deliberate step backward. It is a delay tactic. It is a last attempt by polluters to hold onto the dirty energy economy that has treated them so well--$23 billion well so far this year.
Under this dirty energy economy, we spend $1 billion a day on foreign oil from countries that do not wish us well. Companies such as BP can cut corners on worker safety and the environment and then expect the government to come in and clean up their $30 billion mess. Twelve percent of our children in New England downwind from the polluters suffer from asthma and pulmonary disease. These kids matter. This issue matters. We can delay no longer.
I urge my colleagues to say no to delay, say no to taking all the pressure off the polluters, and vote against the Murkowski resolution so we can get to work to forge clean energy reform in America.
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