Concurrent Budget Resolution on the Budget, Fiscal Year 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I would have some hesitation anyway about opposing my good friend from Rhode Island, but to have to oppose the Pope is really ominous.

I know the Pope also mentioned, more times than he mentioned carbon tax, helping the poor. This amendment says that if there is a carbon fee, we will use it to reduce the Federal deficit, to reduce Federal tax rates, to have other direct benefits.

I would just say, when the poor family cannot pay their utility bill--the family who is the last family to get the new refrigerator, the family who is the last family to get the insulated windows, the family who is the last family to insulate their ceiling--I guess we tell them there are going to be some Federal tax rates that will be added for a family who cannot pay their utility bill.

By the way, there are other direct benefits you might be able to use whenever you do not have heat or you do not have cooling.

This is a tax that slows down our ability to compete. The most vulnerable among us are the most impacted by this, and I oppose it.

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Mr. BLUNT. This amendment would protect consumers from energy price spikes and workers from significant job loss by providing a point of order against a carbon tax or a fee on carbon emissions.

Energy-intensive jobs are the first to go when you utility prices get uncompetitive. Your ability to compete in the world marketplace, the price of American-made goods, what families pay at the pump, what they pay for heating and cooling, what they pay for every American product they make would be impacted by a carbon tax.

I urge the support of this amendment.

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Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I would just say these entities would allow basic research to come together with product development. It brings the research elements, the universities, and others together with private capital, and even some government agencies, in ways that let things happen that wouldn't otherwise.

I am pleased to join Senator Brown in offering this to the Senate.

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