Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. ELLISON. Let me thank the gentleman for yielding, and let me thank all of us who are assembled here on the floor tonight to talk about the state of our lungs, the state of our health, and to talk about how the deprivation of protection will lead to harming our health. It's a sad day, and I'm just glad we're here to debate this issue so that the American people can see who's for them and who's not.

What my friends on the other side of the aisle call ``regulation'' we call protecting our lungs. What they call ``red tape'' we call fighting asthma from mercury. What they call ``government interference'' we call staying out of the hospital and getting some asthma treatments and being able to eat the fish that we catch in our rivers and streams across this great Nation. What they call ``job-killing regulation'' we call child-killing pollution.

It's just amazing how different the world would be if we could all just focus on what really matters.

What we really should be doing is arguing about how we can get Americans back to work. That's not what we're doing. What we're doing is trying to say, if they got rid of all the regulations--all the health and safety regulations--and then if they even got rid of all the taxes, then the business community would have enough certainty to actually hire somebody.

But I don't think anybody really believes that.

We've got a nation in this world that has gotten rid of all the regulations and that doesn't really tax anybody. It's called Somalia. I don't think that's a good business environment for much of anybody unless you're a warlord.

The fact is that, instead of focusing on creating jobs, Republicans are bringing up another assault on our public health--in the Clean Air Act. We should have the American Jobs Act here, and we should be debating that. We should be passing bills to create jobs and improve economic growth. We should not be telling American workers that the only thing between them and a job is a regulation to protect their lungs. They're trying to say, A paycheck or your lungs. You can have a paycheck or you can have asthma, but you can't have a paycheck and be well. That's what they're arguing today, and this is what we have to reject.

Instead of bringing up bills to create jobs, the GOP is bringing up yet another assault on the Clean Air Act, blocking two of the most important lifesaving Clean Air Act rules in decades--the Mercury and Air Toxics rule and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.

The Mercury and Air Toxics rule will prevent 17,000 premature deaths per year. I couldn't agree more with the gentleman from Virginia, Gerry Connolly, who reminded us that, if you've ever held the hand of a loved one who is suffering through an asthma attack, it would be hard to see how you could callously vote for a bill like this TRAIN Act, which I like to call the Train Wreck Act, because it's just that bad. The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule will prevent 34,000 premature deaths per year.

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Mr. ELLISON. I thank the gentleman, and I'll wrap it up with this:

We can have energy and jobs. The Clean Energy Group, a coalition of energy utilities and power companies, has said that the changes in industry practice that the Mercury and Air Toxics rule would produce are reasonable, can be accomplished, and are not a burden on industry. Not all industry agrees that we need to get rid of every regulation. A study released by the Environmental Defense Fund has estimated that the Mercury and Air Toxics rule and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule would together create nearly 1.5 million jobs over the next 5 years.

So let me just say that it's time for the American people to say we want good health, that we want good jobs, that we want clean air, and that we want healthy lungs--and we don't want the train wreck bill offered by the Republicans.

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