Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2218, Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act of 2013, and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1582, Energy Consumers Relief Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 315 provides for consideration of two pieces of legislation passed by the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The first, H.R. 2218, the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act of 2013 introduced by my friend on the committee, Mr. McKinley from West Virginia, passed out of committee with a strong bipartisan vote with 54 bipartisan cosponsors. The second piece of legislation, H.R. 1582, the Energy Consumers Relief Act of 2013, was introduced by my friend Mr. Cassidy from Louisiana.

The rule before us today provides for 1 hour of general debate on each of the bills included in the rule. A total of nine amendments were made in order between the two bills, six on the Democratic side and three on the Republican side. Further, the minority is afforded the customary motion to recommit, allowing for yet another opportunity to amend each piece of legislation before it's final vote.

H.R. 2218, the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act of 2013, is a product of hours of work over the course of the past few years that the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. McKinley) has put in to perfect this legislation. Indeed, the legislation includes numerous provisions offered by Democrats and even reflects input by President Obama's own Environmental Protection Agency.

This legislation was prompted by a move in June of 2010 by the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate coal combustion residuals. In this rule, the Environmental Protection Agency set out three proposals for coal residuals, commonly referred to as coal ash. Coal residuals are often recycled in an environmentally sound fashion and repurposed for use in roads, parks, golf courses, and any other number of safe manners. Unfortunately, many in the industry viewed these proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulations as placing barriers to the continued use or recycling of coal ash.

In response to these concerns, Mr. McKinley's bill would provide for minimum Federal standards but allow States to craft a permitting program that could be tailored to the needs in each individual State. The bill makes clear that it does not provide the Environmental Protection Agency with new rulemaking authority. Further, it requires the Environmental Protection Agency to defer to the States with respect to the regulation of coal ash. This would allow Sates to protect human health and the environment by adapting an existing solid waste regulatory program for coal ash. To ensure adequate safety measures for human health, the bill requires installation of groundwater monitoring at all structures that receive coal ash.

The second bill included in today's rule has been carefully designed to protect consumers from a runaway Environmental Protection Agency which, in my experience as a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, constantly uses some pretty strange figures and some funny math in depicting the so-called benefits of its rules and rarely fully admits to the full cost of the rules it promulgates.

Since the beginning of President Obama's, Lisa Jackson's, and Gina McCarthy's tenure with the Federal Government, the Environmental Protection Agency has promulgated regulations imposing billions of dollars in costs on our critical power infrastructure. Famously, the Environmental Protection Agency has been so out of control that the President himself was required to intervene and pull the ozone rule in August of 2011, knowing that the cost to the country far outweighed the benefits that the Environmental Protection Agency was claiming.

In response to this out-of-control agency, Dr. Cassidy has carefully crafted H.R. 1582, the Energy Consumers Relief Act, which would add another measure of protection for consumers legitimately frightened of whether or not they will be able to afford their air-conditioning this summer or their heating this fall, or even to turn on their lights at nighttime.

The bill is straightforward. It requires that, before promulgating a final rule that would impose an aggregate cost of $1 billion on the American people, the Environmental Protection Agency must consult with the Secretary of Energy, a Cabinet member who will be working for the very same President as the Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency. The Energy Secretary must then determine that the rule before him would not cause significant adverse effects to the economy or to electric reliability, as is his job. That's what his mission statement is as the top energy official for our country.

For too long, the Environmental Protection Agency has dictated our energy policy rather than simply our environmental policy. Former Energy Secretary Steven Chu seemed to have no problem passively delegating his job to Lisa Jackson. I suppose he was too busy losing America's money to solar companies. The era of the Environmental Protection Agency dictating energy policy must end, and this bill is a solid step toward that goal.

Mr. Speaker, American consumers are struggling. They watch the cost of food as it rises right before their eyes. They watch the gas prices. Where are they going? Nowhere but up. They watch their electricity bills. They are also going up. There is no relief in sight on the horizon under this President and this administration.

House Republicans have not abandoned their promises to protect consumers from an out-of-control bureaucracy imposing cost after cost on the American people. Today's legislation is yet another few arrows in the quiver to stop the Federal Government from taking more money out of Americans' pockets.

As I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the two underlying bills, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute for a couple of brief responses.

First off, I don't know whether the gentleman misheard or only caught me in midsentence. I was responding to the minority leader's statement about this September is the 4-year anniversary of the crash in the economy, and the preceding 20 months, from September of 2008, in the Congress, all of the levers of power were handled by the Democrats.

Now, on this issue of fighting Washington, good strategy, bad strategy, I can't address that. But I do know what's going on out in this country--people are frightened of Washington. They're not fighting Washington; they are scared. Why are they scared? What are they seeing with the NSA? What do they see with the TSA when they go to the airport? What are they seeing with the IRS? Nobody likes the IRS to start with, but now people are concerned that their First Amendment rights are going to be trampled by an out-of-control Federal agency. And I have to tell you what, Mr. Speaker, it all devolves back to the administration. Yeah, the Congress has its own problems, but the administration is actually what is driving the frightening of America, not the fighting of America.

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Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we all know, in order for this economy to flourish, energy has to be available and energy has to be affordable. Unfortunately, the situation we've seen in recent years is anything but that.

The Department of Energy was created back in the 1970s in response to the Arab oil embargo. The Department of Energy was created to deal with the situation of scarcity.

Unfortunately, the Department of Energy has not evolved since that time. And where do we find ourselves today? We find ourselves right on the threshold, right on the horizon of America being an energy exporter, again, for the first time in a couple of decades. That's a huge change.

Has the Department of Energy changed and kept pace with the reality that is going on in development of energy in State lands, private lands, and, yes, some Federal lands? Have they kept pace with the development within the industry? I submit they have not. I submit that they have been an impediment.

Yes, I'd be happy to work on improving where the Department of Energy could be, in fact, a facilitator rather than an obstruction for developing energy for our economy. Because we know without available and affordable energy, the promise that the economy can create the number of jobs that it needs to create--not just to replace those jobs that have been lost, but all of those people who are getting to the age where they expect a job to be there for them--and without that energy production, it's not going happen.

Now, I do want to talk about the other bill that's before us today, Dr. Cassidy's bill, H.R. 1582. Let's think about this for a minute. The Congress works its will on a bill. It becomes law. That law then goes to the regulatory agency. They work their will on the bill. And we all know the story. A thousand-page bill here on the floor of the House can generate 10,000 pages of regulation in the Federal Register.

I don't know about you, Mr. Speaker, but it's hard to discipline myself to wake up every morning and read what was written in the Federal Register the day before. The American people who are out there creating and producing certainly don't have time to do that.

But when these rules are then visited upon the people, what happens then? Well, they just simply have to accept the effect of those rules. Congress did that a couple of years ago. They are not playing in that arena any longer.

Here's what Dr. Cassidy says. He says that before promulgating a final rule that would impose an aggregate cost of $1 billion on the American people, the Administrator of the EPA has to consult with the Secretary of Energy. This seems like a logical and straightforward maneuver. In fact, we will talk about the REINS Act in the weeks to come. And they have to come back to Congress and get us to either say ``yes'' or ``no'' on that regulation that is going to have such a profound effect on the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I've been in business before. I've made investments before. I know very well if someone comes to investors with a cash call and says you're going to have to pony up a lot more money here, the very least that the investor expects at that point is a pro forma, a profit and loss sheet, or some reasonable expectation that there can be a return on investment.

You say, Wait a minute, nobody's coming to the American people with a cash call. Well, it's called April 15. And it is a cash call. And we owe them that scrutiny. The Congress owes them that scrutiny; the Department of Energy owes them that scrutiny. I would assert we owe them an up-or-down vote on those regulations that are going to have such a profound effect on the economy.

Mr. Speaker, today's rule provides for the consideration of two critical bills ensuring that the American people are not further penalized by out-of-control policies coming out of the Environmental Protection Agency. Consumers need relief, it is clear.

For that reason, I urge an ``aye'' vote on the previous question, an ``aye'' vote on the rule, and an ``aye'' vote on the two underlying bills.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Florida is as follows:

An amendment to H. Res. 315 Offered by Mr. Hastings of Florida

At the end of the resolution, add the following new sections:

SEC. 3. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution the Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 2070) to protect consumers from price-gouging of gasoline and other fuels, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions. If the Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill.

SEC. 4. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the consideration of H.R. 2070.

THE VOTE ON THE PREVIOUS QUESTION: WHAT IT REALLY MEANS

This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. A vote against Ordering the previous question is a vote against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow the Democratic minority to offer an alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be debating.

Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or control the consideration of the subject before the House being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first recognition.''

The Republican majority may say ``the vote on the previous question is simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on adopting the resolution ..... [and] has no substantive legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is not what they have always said. Listen to the Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in the United States House of Representatives, (6th edition, page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the previous question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally not possible to amend the rule because the majority Member controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by voting down the previous question on the rule. ..... When the motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering the previous question. That Member, because he then controls the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for the purpose of amendment.''

In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of Representatives, the subchapter titled ``Amending Special Rules'' states: ``a refusal to order the previous question on such a rule [a special rule reported from the Committee on Rules] opens the resolution to amendment and further debate.'' (Chapter 21, section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: ``Upon rejection of the motion for the previous question on a resolution reported from the Committee on Rules, control shifts to the Member leading the opposition to the previous question, who may offer a proper amendment or motion and who controls the time for debate thereon.''

Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only available tools for those who oppose the Republican majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the opportunity to offer an alternative plan.

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