SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011 -- Continued
Floor Speech
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I think we all know elections have consequences. I doubt seriously, however, that when most voters went to the polls last November, they were voting for more of their kids to get aggravated asthma or more people to go to the hospital with respiratory problems or more people to get sick in general. I do not think the people went to the polls this past November to vote to put big oil and big polluters in charge. I didn't see those TV ads.
But make no mistake. People may not have voted for a polluter poison agenda, but that is exactly what they are getting from Republicans in the House and their colleagues in the Senate. Their agenda is to deregulate polluters, even if it harms our national security. They want to gut the bipartisan Clean Air Act, even if doing so harms public health. Republicans claim the Inhofe amendment would lower gas prices. That claim was found to be false by politifact.com. Meanwhile, the Clean Air Act is actually raising fuel economy standards and is projected to save drivers $2,800 on gas for new vehicles.
The reason for that is pretty obvious. We are making an effort to see that cars manufactured and sold in this country get decent mileage per gallon. We wonder why all over the world people are driving cars that get 40, 50, 60 miles per gallon, and we are stuck with cars that get 15 or 20. We can, we must, and we are doing better in that area. We have to continue to go forward.
The Clean Air Act standards are projected to save 2.3 billion barrels of oil. When we get cars that are energy efficient--hybrids, electric cars--we are not consuming oil from Saudi Arabia. We all talk in the Senate about the need to move this country toward energy independence. But the Clean Air Act is actually helping to deliver it. That is good news for our national security but not for polluters. The Inhofe amendment would keep us dependent on foreign oil, something we certainly do not want to be the case.
My Republican friends claim the Clean Air Act regulations are destroying the economy. That claim is also false. This chart shows that even as we have reduced pollution in the air by 63 percent since 1970, our economy grew by 210 percent and added nearly 60 million jobs. In fact, the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws have helped create hundreds of thousands of jobs in environmental technologies and pollution control industries. If we invest properly in energy efficiency and in such sustainable energies as wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, over a period of years we will, in fact, not only clean up our environment, not only move toward energy independence but create millions of good-paying jobs.
For every $1 invested in clean air, we see up to $40 in return in economic and health benefits to America. We should all understand, however, that while big polluters may not like the Clean Air Act, it benefits every American. Why is it that after we have made significant progress in beginning to clean up our air, there are people who want to bring us back to the days when polluters could fill the air with all kinds of soot and other harmful products which cause disease all over America?
Thanks to the Clean Air Act, we are actually saving 160,000 lives each year. People are not dying from premature deaths, as they would have if the air they were breathing was dirty. We are literally avoiding sending tens of thousands of people to the hospital and emergency rooms every year, avoiding thousands of cases of heart attacks, skin cancer, aggravated asthma, and lung damage thanks to the Clean Air Act.
Senator Merkley made the point a few moments ago about the view of the American Lung Association on this issue. They have strong concerns as to what will happen to respiratory illnesses if we weaken the Clean Air Act. We are currently reducing toxic pollution such as mercury that the CDC has said causes major developmental problems for children. Our Nation's leading public health experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Preventative Medicine, the American Public Health Association, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, the American Heart Association, and the American Lung Association, recently said the Clean Air Act's continued implementation is ``quite literally a matter of life and death for tens of thousands of people and will mean the difference between chronic debilitating illness or a healthy life for hundreds of thousands more.''
That is what is at stake. I will vote against the Inhofe amendment and urge my colleagues to vigorously oppose this attack on our public health. While this amendment may benefit wealthy oil companies, it is an attack on the health of all Americans who want to breathe healthy air and drink clean water.
I yield the floor.
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