Electricity Security and Affordability Act

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations wrote in The Washington Post earlier this year:

Climate change is the biggest challenge of our time. It

threatens the well-being of hundreds of millions of people

today, and many billions more in time.

Robert Rubin, the former Treasury Secretary, said recently:

There are a lot of really significant monumental issues

facing the global economy, but this supersedes them all.

The Energy and Commerce Committee is the committee in the House that has the power to tackle this monumental issue, the biggest challenge of our time, but we are missing in action. Instead of listening to the scientists and working on a bipartisan basis to protect the planet for our children and future generations, we are considering today a science denial bill that would strip the EPA of authority to stop dangerous carbon pollution.

The venerable John Dingell, the longtime chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, is famously known for pointing to a photo of the Earth, which I have here to the right, to describe the committee's jurisdiction. Under his leadership, the committee was known for listening to the experts, tackling the toughest problems, and crafting responsible science-based policies. But today we need a new symbol to represent what we are doing.

The Energy and Commerce Committee has joined The Flat Earth Society. We considered a very similar bill to this one last Congress.

Here is what Nature, one of the world's leading science journals, said at the time:

Misinformation was presented as fact, truth was twisted,

and nobody showed any inclination to listen to scientists,

let alone learn from them. It has been an embarrassing

display, not just for the Republican Party, but also for

Congress and the U.S. citizens it represents.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the U.S. Congress has entered the intellectual wilderness--The Flat Earth Society.

The United States is a major contributor to climate change. It cannot be stopped without us. We have a moral responsibility to act, but the Republican majority has brought a bill to the floor that does just the opposite. It makes the problem worse by preventing EPA from acting.

If we pass this terrible bill, we will vote to let China leap ahead of us in the race to build the clean energy economy for the future, and we will be ignoring our moral obligation to protect the planet for our children and grandchildren.

As you might have guessed, I strongly oppose this bill. Future generations will be appalled that we are considering it today. Coal- fired power plants are the largest single source of carbon pollution in the country. Today, there is no limit on how much carbon pollution these power plants can emit. That is why President Obama directed the Environmental Protection Agency to use its existing authority under law, under the Clean Air Act, to require power plants to control carbon pollution. EPA has proposed a rule to require new coal plants to use available pollution control technology to capture and sequester carbon. For existing coal plants, EPA is working with stakeholders to think through the best approach. H.R. 3826, the bill under consideration today, would stop EPA from issuing any rules and allow these plants to continue to keep emitting unlimited amounts of carbon pollution.

Republicans complain they don't like EPA's approach, but they won't even admit climate change is a problem, much less accept the President's invitation to work together on a solution. Instead, they want to pass a bill to deny the problem, block EPA action, and weaken the Clean Air Act.

My message to my Republican colleagues is simple: if you don't like what EPA is doing, tell us your plan. If you have other ideas for reducing carbon pollution to prevent catastrophic climate change, let's hear about them. If you don't, you should step aside and let the President lead.

Today is an embarrassing day for our committee on Energy and Commerce and the U.S. House of Representatives if this bill is to be passed. I hope that does not come about.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the previous speaker said that heating oil prices are going up, energy costs are going up. Well, if they are going up, it is not because of what President Obama has done by regulation because he has not adopted any regulations through EPA. The bill before us would stop any regulations from being adopted under current law. They would change the current law and say nothing could be adopted in the future.

The chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy made the statement no coal power plants are being proposed, yet what he is also suggesting is that we not allow them to be built in the future should they want to be built in a way that would reduce the pollution of carbon. What is unfair, it seems to me what is unfair is that coal-burning power plants can burn all the coal they want and put out all the pollution they want, and we are allowing it even though everyone is suffering from the consequences. So I find it amazing to hear the arguments: One, coal burning power plants are not going to be built; on the other hand, we are already paying higher prices and nothing has even been passed by the EPA and put into effect.

At this time I yield 5 minutes to my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney).

Mr. Chairman, House Republicans are telling us greenhouse gas emissions are falling in the United States. They suggest the U.S. doesn't need to do anything more about climate change, but they couldn't be more wrong.

A couple of years ago when the utilities were switching out of coal and going to natural gas because natural gas was cheaper, we saw some leveling off of those emissions, but what matters most is whether the U.S. emissions are on track to decline in the future by the amount needed to prevent dangerous climate change.

Scientists say we need to reduce carbon pollution by 80 percent by 2050, but will not get anywhere near that level of reductions if we go about business as usual and stop EPA from acting and Congress doing nothing to respond to this emergency.

At this time, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Mrs. Capps), a member of our committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall).

I yield an additional minute to the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to point out that the speakers in favor of this bill describe themselves as part of the coal-producing regions of the country. They are representing, they think, the coal-producing regions of the country because they fear, if the coal industry had to use some technology that would reduce carbon emissions, that would cost jobs.

I want to dispute that in two respects. One, they claim that no one is using this technology, and that is not accurate. In fact, the control technology is already in effect, being used commercially in the United States for decades. There are seven large commercial CCS--that is carbon capture and sequestration--projects operating today.

Dr. Julio Friedmann, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Clean Coal at the U.S. Department of Energy, recently testified: ``First generation CCS technology is commercially available today.''

So why are they worried about jobs? They are being told by the coal miners that, if they have to use a technology that costs money, that would raise the price of coal and, therefore, coal will lose out to other technologies.

Well, that hasn't been the case. I have been in Congress for 40 years. I remember the coal industry coming in and saying: If we have to put scrubbers on, we will go broke; they will never burn coal again.

The coal industry uses scrubbers right now. The cost of scrubbers has gone down. They overstated how much it would cost. They cried about the lost jobs. It didn't happen.

The other thing I want to point out is that they talk about the coal jobs that will be lost. Well, coal jobs are being lost now because the utilities realize they can burn natural gas. It is cheaper, so coal is losing out in the market.

If natural gas is cheaper than burning coal now, they are going to burn natural gas. That is called the market. It is like cars replacing horse and buggies.

But the reality is that coal is going to be able to compete if we have new technologies imposed on them, just as they have been able to compete in the future. They can't compete if they are expensive, so they have got to figure out ways to produce coal that is less expensive.

That may happen, but we shouldn't subsidize coal to compete by having the world have to deal with carbon pollution.

We decided years ago that we weren't going to help coal compete by poisoning people with toxic mercury pollution when we required they use the technology to stop toxic mercury pollution. We decided they had to use scrubbers. They said they would go broke, that they couldn't afford it, that people would lose their jobs, but we required it because it reduced pollution that harmed people. Carbon pollution harms people on this planet, as we see the impact of climate change continue, because we refuse to require them to use less carbon and spew it out into the atmosphere.

Let me just say that you don't have to buy all of the arguments on climate change, but consider this: if there is a 10 percent chance that carbon pollution is going to cause greenhouse gases and climate change and do all of the terrible things that the scientists overwhelmingly tell us will happen, how many people want to take that 10 percent chance on the only atmosphere that we share on this planet?

I know that the coal people say they are willing to take that chance. They are afraid their constituents will turn against them because the coal companies will tell them to turn against them. They may lose their next elections. I don't think that is the case, but that is their fear. They are speaking from fear. They are speaking from a fear of jobs being lost, but that hasn't been the experience under the Clean Air Act, and we shouldn't repeal the Clean Air Act now as it relates to giving the EPA the authority to regulate these coal-burning power plants.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time we have on both sides?

Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that it was unfortunate to make a reference personally to Gina McCarthy, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, on her listening tour. The Republicans have not allotted enough money to the EPA to let her go everywhere in the country, so she went to 10 regional offices as well as the Washington headquarters, and she invited people to come in and give their points of view.

That is the full amount of money she had available to her. So it seems to be unfair to criticize her for not going to every nook and cranny in coal country, when she went to every part of the country and had representation for those regions.

At this time I yield 3 minutes to my colleague from the State of California (Mr. Peters).

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time we have remaining on each side?

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from the State of Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a great champion of environmental protection.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, the underlying bill, H.R. 3826, is a radical rewrite of the Clean Air Act. It effectively repeals the EPA's existing authority to address carbon pollution from coal-powered plants.

It says that EPA cannot set a standard for new plants unless the standard is already being met by power plants using technologies that can achieve that standard.

Well, why would any power plant want to spend the money to use technology to achieve a standard that their competitors do not have to achieve?

So it is a chicken and egg problem. You cannot require them to do what they are not already doing.

Well, this amendment goes a step further and it says, for natural gas-fired power plants, they shouldn't have to do anything that they are not already doing either. They would block EPA from requiring natural gas-fired power plants to install pollution controls.

The problem is, EPA's current proposal for new natural gas plants doesn't require any pollution control technology. EPA is going to set a standard, and then let that standard be achieved however the industry would accomplish it.

So this amendment would preemptively block EPA from ever considering rules that might further reduce carbon pollution from any future power plants, whether they be coal or natural gas.

I think it makes no sense. It is a disaster for the climate. I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am not prepared to close. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, if you look at what is happening with this bill and this amendment, if both were passed, combined, coal and natural gas power plants emit a third of all carbon pollution in this country. They are responsible for virtually all carbon pollution from the electricity sector.

This amendment would ensure that industry can keep building new fossil fuel power plants without modern pollution controls, whether they be natural gas or coal.

So, in effect, if this amendment is agreed to, and the underlying bill is adopted, it would say, in effect, we are not going to control any of the carbon pollution coming from any power plant.

Now, if we don't control the pollution from any power plant, and we let them emit whatever pollution they choose to emit, and it is obviously cheaper to pollute than to stop polluting, we will, in effect, condemn us to all that pollution which happens to be--let me repeat this again--it happens to be a third of the carbon pollution in this country today.

That would mean there is no chance in hell that we will ever reduce the pollution in this country that we can reduce that is adding to climate change pollution, in addition to all the other pollutants coming from around the world.

Those pollutants don't go away; they accumulate in the atmosphere, and when they accumulate in the atmosphere, we see the impact on the climate.

At some point, we are going to have so many pollutants in the atmosphere from carbon that scientists are telling us we won't be able to do anything. We won't be able to continue to contribute to that pollution without making it impossible to do anything about climate change.

We have a chance to do something about climate change now. We should not lose that chance by adopting this amendment and the underlying bill. So, I would urge that we vote against the amendment and the underlying bill.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

I don't know how to oppose this amendment because it doesn't seem to make the underlying bill any worse.

The problem is this: The bill requires that, before a new standard for coal-powered plants is set, there has to be six coal-powered plants in this country

that are already using this technology; and we have argued: Well, that is not going to happen because no one is going to use the technology if their competitors aren't going to use the technology.

And if there is technology outside of this country that is being used successfully, EPA can't rely on that. Mrs. Capps' amendment would have changed that. That is still going to be voted on later.

Mrs. Capito's amendment says EPA could consider technologies developed in other countries, but only if those technologies are also being broadly adopted in the United States, as I understand it.

Well, in fact, that will lead to the exact same problem as we have in the underlying bill. Under both the amendment and the bill, EPA would still be prevented from proposing a standard based on cleaner coal technologies, such as ultrasupercritical boilers, which can reduce pollution by improving efficiency.

That kind of technology is already being used in more than 100 ultracritical coal units generating power in China, but the United States has only installed one. Well, we can't let that one and all the others that are being used in China allow the EPA to set a standard that would require that technology.

Under the bill and the amendment, that one U.S. plant won't be sufficient for EPA to set a new standard. So even if this amendment passes, EPA will still be prohibited from setting pollution control standards based on effective pollution controls that have been deployed overseas.

Well, I guess if you are going to pretend that climate change isn't happening, why not pretend that clean air technologies used in other countries don't exist, either? So I can't oppose--I am not going to ask for a rollcall vote. I am not going to even--I will even vote against your amendment. I am not going to vote for it. But it seems to me the amendment has a problem that the underlying bill already has, and it doesn't fix anything.

So if people want to vote for this amendment, vote for the amendment because it doesn't make anything any different than the problems that I see with the underlying bill.

With those comments, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment so I can make a few points about this.

I didn't speak on the last amendment. I didn't think that last amendment did anything worse than the bill already does. This amendment modifies a section of the underlying bill which requires EPA to report to Congress on the economic impacts of any regulation of carbon pollution from existing fossil fuel-fired power plants.

Well, this reporting requirement is largely meaningless because EPA already does this analysis, and if this bill were adopted, EPA wouldn't issue any rules to trigger the reporting requirement anyway. But this amendment would add more items to be considered in EPA's report on a rule regulating carbon pollution from existing power plants.

For example, this bill would require EPA to look at the rule's potential effects on capital, operation, and maintenance costs for pollution control equipment. But that is exactly what EPA already does for every significant rule that requires pollution controls. The amendment also requires EPA to analyze how our particular pollution control requirement may affect the global economic competitiveness of the United States. I don't think that makes any sense to add this because it is questionable whether we even have reliable economic models to make this assessment.

If this bill were adopted, EPA wouldn't be doing this report anyway, so it doesn't really matter. I am not going to object to the amendment, and I am not going to vote for the amendment, but it won't have any effect because the underlying bill is going to prevent the EPA from acting whether it is a new power plant or existing power plants.

But I did want to single out this provision which I think is unreasonable to expect EPA to be able to do this global economic competitiveness analysis. That is not what EPA does. They are not in the position to do it, and to add that requirement, I think, is a very bad precedent.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Well, I want to come to the floor to wish the Republicans a happy anniversary. I brought a gold ring. This is the 50th repeal of ObamaCare. I want to wish my colleagues a happy 50th anniversary for the appeal of ObamaCare.

Like any marriage that lasts 50 years, it takes a lot of work. The American people have shown that they want this marriage to last. They have shown that by reelecting Barack Obama as President. They have shown that by electing a Senate that won't even consider a repeal of the Affordable Care Act; but also like any marriage, it takes work along the way to improve it, to work at it, to make changes to it.

Democrats stand ready to work with President Obama, to fine-tune this wonderful marriage celebrating the 50th anniversary of its repeal here today, to make sure it endures for another 50 repeal votes by the House Republicans here in the coming months. We are ready to make the changes that we need to, to ensure that the Affordable Care Act works for every American.

There are issues in the implementation in my district. Two of my counties, Summit and Eagle County, have among the highest insurance rates in the exchange in the entire country, these two counties. That is due to a problem that the State had in implementing it, but we would love to work with Republicans on a Federal fix for Eagle and Summit County, and the other Colorado counties that are affected by it.

I would be proud to work with my colleagues to replace the revenue and the medical and device tax with other sources of revenue to ensure that the Affordable Care Act works.

There are a lot of great ideas, and perhaps it is time that, rather than continue to celebrate anniversaries of repeal, that we enter couples counseling sessions today, and we work together in trying to find common ground.

Rather than talking about repealing ObamaCare and going back to a system we know wasn't working, in which 40 million Americans didn't have health care insurance, in which Americans and my constituents and yours were frustrated that, year after year, rates were going up 10, 15, 20 percent--rather than going back to a formula we know didn't work, let's enter couples counseling and work together to make health care work in our country, to talk about a path forward, with the President, with Democrats, with Republicans, with Independents, to ensure that these cost increases that have been epidemic the last couple of decades come to an end, that we can extend coverage to more American families, that we can ensure that the quality of health care that is our Nation's pride can continue to be available to Americans, regardless of their economic background.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Isn't that wonderful? Isn't this great that the President has made 19 changes to improve the Affordable Care Act to make it work?

You know what? That is what a marriage takes. That is what has helped the Affordable Care Act withstand the 50th vote to repeal it here in the House. Had the President been inflexible--just like in a marriage, if one partner is inflexible, it would have been a lot harder to survive 50 votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Here, we are celebrating the golden anniversary of repeal votes, 50 votes.

But thanks to the President's flexibility with 19 changes, hopefully, there are more along the way to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health care:

That no American faces pricing discrimination or is kept out of a plan because of a preexisting condition;

That people can move between employers;

That somebody can leave a large company to be an entrepreneur and have a startup without worrying about losing their health care if they have a preexisting condition;

Making sure that young Americans, as they are trying to find a job or working part time, can stay on their parents' plan;

Making sure that Americans have a real choice in the exchanges that choose between multiple providers.

These were some of the elements that I think the American people want to keep and one of the reasons that this health care act has not only withstood 50 votes to repeal and is celebrating its golden anniversary, but will survive the next 50 votes if the House Republicans choose to have them to try to appeal the Affordable Care Act.

The American people want to see changes to make it work. We applaud the President for the 19 changes he made. We encourage him to use the discretion that we rightly give him under the Affordable Care Act to help make it work.

We encourage the discretion at the State level that many Governors, like the Governor of Kentucky and others, have shown to make the Affordable Care Act work in their State.

We applaud the fact that there are over $200 billion of deficit reduction in the Affordable Care Act. If we can find additional savings and replace lost revenue, we are certainly open to that discussion. So I rise in celebration of having withstood 50 repeal votes. We are ready for the next 50.

We use these opportunities to highlight the American people on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act and to say that we are ready to have a real discussion with Republicans, to exert our legislative privilege, to make changes, and in the absence of that, we applaud the President in using the abilities that we give him under the act to help make sure the Affordable Care Act truly makes health care more affordable for American families.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This bill--this 50th anniversary--golden anniversary of ObamaCare repeals here in the House--50th vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, gutting mental parity, health parity, gutting protection for Americans with preexisting conditions, went through no hearings, no markups, no amendments that we are allowed to discuss or debate or vote on here on the floor of the House. This is not the process for improving the quality of health care for American families.

The American people have made it clear they want this marriage to last. They want to make it work. They know it requires hard work. The President has made 19 wonderful changes to the law.

I am not a constitutional lawyer. If there are folks on the other side who want to sue the President, who think that he did something contrary to the law we passed, they are certainly welcome to sue. I believe that the President was given broad discretion under the law to make it work.

I hope that this legislative body takes up the gauntlet and makes the changes we need to make the Affordable Care Act work. Any marriage takes effort. Here, we have a marriage between the Affordable Care Act and the American people, and 50 votes to repeal it are not going to break up that marriage.

It is a stronger marriage than that because the American people have voted on it. They didn't elect a Presidential candidate who wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They didn't elect a Senate that wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

So here we are, and we are welcome to have another 50, 100, 200 votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act; or we can get to work on an open process, letting Members of both parties offer floor amendments. This rule allows no floor amendments.

Having a markup in committee, having hearings in committee about how we can deliver better health care value to the American people will make sure

affordable care is available to every American family and affordable for small businesses, to make America more competitive.

But instead of going through an open process, encouraging ideas from Republicans and Democrats to make health care work in our country, we are presented with the 50th vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

In the absence of meaningful improvements and legislation, the President is using the authority that we gave him under this bill to make the changes that he needs to make, to make sure the Affordable Care Act works.

This body can reassert itself and take back its prerogative whenever we want by passing commonsense bipartisan bills to improve the Affordable Care Act, but it truly is hypocritical to criticize the President out of one side of one's mouth for making changes that actually improve the law and make it work better, when here in this body we are refusing to make some of those same commonsense changes.

I hope that if people think that there was authority of the law that exceeded, they are welcome to work that out in the courts. That is what the court is for, to settle the differences of separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches; but I hope, more important, because the American people care about affordable health care, that this body is willing to take up some of those improvements that we can make, to make sure that this marriage can endure for the next 50 votes as well.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, make no bones about it. The individual mandate is a linchpin of RomneyCare--or whatever you would like to call it--modeled on, in fact, the insurance reforms in Massachusetts. This component is critical to ensuring that people with preexisting conditions are not discriminated against in pricing in the exchange. It is important to make sure that we have a younger, healthier risk pool in the exchange to bring down rates for all Americans.

If this bill were to become law, which it won't--it is simply the 50th repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the golden anniversary of repeals--the entire affordable care structure, including the pricing in the exchange, would go up for American families, and it would devastate health care reform. This is not a bill that has support from the President. It is not a bill that has support from the proponents of the Affordable Care Act. It doesn't make the Affordable Care Act better. It is, in fact, the 50th repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

I was on the Education and Labor Committee, as it was called at the time, two Congresses ago. My colleague from Texas talked about the process under which the health care bill was written. We did have a substantial markup. There were other committees: the Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee. My committee was one of the committees that it was reported out of, and there were other committees it was not reported out of.

This was an amazing process of writing this bill over the period of a year. In fact, in our Democratic Caucus meetings, we even, essentially, functioned as a committee of our entire Caucus, where we went through the bill page after page, and we made suggestions. There were a number of bills that were written by Republicans that were included in the Affordable Care Act, and there were amendments that I was involved with that were included. Like in any legislative process, some that I advocated for were not included in the final bill.

Unlike this bill, which had no hearing and no markup in any form-- because the gentleman from Texas is right. This bill number came from the Senate, and that is the normal process around here. We sometimes have bills from the Senate we approve, and sometimes they originate here and go over there. So this bill number and this title came from something else, and they approved it in reconciliation.

Yet the Affordable Care Act--the bill that led to it--went through my committee. I remember being up until, really, I think, 7 o'clock in the morning. We went straight through the night, under Chairman Miller, offering a number of amendments, some passing and some not. Sometimes I was on the prevailing side, sometimes not. We had a lively discussion over amendments from Democrats and Republicans, some of which made it into the final bill and some of which didn't. That is the legislative process.

To somehow compare that to the legislative process around this bill is like night and day. So, although the gentleman from Texas is technically correct--the bill number was a reconciliation from the Senate that the House concurred in and sent back with some changes--the work that went into forming that bill had countless hearings and had several markups, including one that I participated in and offered amendments in and voted for and against amendments from both sides of the aisle in.

We are where we are. We would love to see the Affordable Care Act go through a process now. Again, why not allow amendments under this rule? Why not allow Republicans or Democrats, who have ideas to make health care more affordable, to offer them now to the floor? If they would pass, then they would move on to the Senate.

Instead, we have a narrowly focused Affordable Care Act repeal that makes health care less affordable for American families by leading to a risk pool in the exchanges that is less healthy and older. We need to ensure that young people are part of the exchanges. Young people want to have insurance, and they want to have affordable insurance. Let's make sure they have a way to do that in the exchanges. This bill would repeal that.

I reserve the balance of my time.

To the gentleman from Texas, I say it is possible I will have one more speaker. If I see her arrive, I will yield to her. Otherwise, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this week, the number of people who lost their unemployment benefits as a result of Congress' failing to extend the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program has climbed to 2 million Americans. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up legislation that would restore unemployment insurance and provide much-needed relief to countless families across the country as well as to stimulate our economy.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I do urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question and to vote ``no'' on the underlying bills.

We could be doing a lot of important work here in the House rather than to have, I think, what both sides would agree is a purely symbolic 50th vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, unless there are, perhaps, some who think ``50'' is the magic number. I think anybody who has a degree of political sense realizes, if the other 49 didn't go anywhere, this one is very unlikely to go anywhere. Rather than proceed with something that isn't going anywhere and that gives the Democrats once again the opportunity to talk about how important it is to make health care more affordable--and the American people overwhelmingly want health care to be fixed, not repealed--we could be doing a lot of important things that the American people actually want this body to do.

Let's talk about immigration reform.

There is a bill that passed the Senate with Democrats and Republicans--68 votes. It is rare for more than two-thirds of the United States Senate to come together around a commonsense solution. How did they do that? They did that because the American people want this problem solved. They are sick and tired--and they should be; I am, too--of having over 10 million people illegally in this country. In my district, there are tens of thousands of people who are there illegally. We don't even know because there is no way to even count. President Obama has deported over 2 million people at an enormous cost to taxpayers--$10,000 to $20,000 per deportation. That is how much it costs taxpayers--you and me, Mr. Speaker.

Guess what? There is a bipartisan solution supported by the law enforcement community, supported by the business community, supported by the technology industry, supported by both the agriculture industry--farmers and farmworkers--and supported by business and labor, supported by the faith-based community, supported by over 75 percent of Americans across the political spectrum, supported by a majority of Republicans and a majority of Democrats and a majority of Independents. That bill is ready.

There is a bipartisan House version, H.R. 15. Let's bring that forward under a rule. That bill would have the votes to pass tomorrow if we brought it forward. We could send it to the President. We could reduce the deficit by over $100 billion, increase our GDP, create hundreds of thousands of jobs for American citizens, as the bill has been scored. Finally, we could secure our borders so we could have control over who comes and goes, both people and illicit products. That is what the American people want. Let's get that bill through rather than celebrate yet another empty anniversary for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

I strongly suggest that my colleagues start bringing forward bills that the American people want to see pass. If we can bring forward immigration reform with bipartisan support and get it out of this body and to the President's desk, the American people will start to improve their opinions of this institution. When I see the polls and they say, oh, 15 percent approval is what Congress has--or 12 percent--it is really no wonder because it is a little bit like a broken record around here. They are, frankly, sick and tired of our every week, it seems like, repealing the Affordable Care Act and making health care more expensive for the American people. They don't want to see us talking about golden rings and 50th anniversaries of votes. They want to see us solving problems.

We offer the Speaker and the majority leader the opportunity to do that. We welcome the Republican immigration principles. There are ample grounds to work on a bipartisan solution based on H.R. 15 or on another bill that encapsulates those principles that the Republicans laid down on which we can find common ground so as to solve a very real problem, to grow our economy, to reduce our deficit, to secure our borders, and to ensure that America remains competitive in the global economy. I challenge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reach a solution on that issue and to really move forward with regard to making health care more affordable.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this closed process--this closed rule--that allows no Republican ideas and no Democratic ideas to come forward, to enter this discussion. I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so the Democrats can bring forward the unemployment insurance bill, and I also encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the underlying bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor to discuss a pending nomination, that of Harvard Law School Professor David Barron to a seat on the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

This nomination is exceptionally controversial and was voted out of our committee, the Judiciary Committee, on a 10-to-8 vote. Even a cursory look at Professor Barron's record reveals views on the Constitution and on federalism that are well outside the mainstream. But I want to put all those views aside and speak about this nomination from another point of view.

So today I discuss Professor Barron's service as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in 2009 and 2010.

According to multiple media sources, while heading up the Office of Legal Counsel, Professor Barron was instrumental in formulating the legal arguments that this administration used to justify the targeted killing of American citizens by drone strikes.

According to press reports, Professor Barron wrote at least two legal opinions laying out those arguments. We also know the Department of Justice relied on the legal arguments Professor Barron formulated to justify the targeted killing of an American citizen in a tribal region of Yemen in September 2011.

In a May 2013 letter to the chairman of our Judiciary Committee, the Attorney General wrote that ``since 2009, the United States, in the conduct of U.S. counterterrorism operations against Al-Qaeda and its associated forces outside of areas of active hostilities, has specifically targeted and killed one U.S. citizen.''

According to press reports, that individual was the first American citizen placed on the CIA's disposition matrix, better known as the kill list. However, the Attorney General conceded that three additional Americans located outside the United States have been killed by drone strikes since 2011.

According to the Attorney General's letter, these Americans were killed even though they ``were not specifically targeted by the United States'' as part of a counterterrorism operation.

But today I am not debating Professor Barron's legal arguments related to the drone strikes. The fact is that Senators aren't in a position to make an informed judgment about the nominee because of the way this administration has handled the issue, so I wish to address our constitutional duty with respect to the nomination.

Article II, Section 2, instructs us to give advice and consent on the President's judicial nominees. That is not a procedural technicality, it is a constitutional imperative. These happen to be lifetime appointments, and the men and women we confirm to the Federal bench play a vital role in the life of our Republic.

It is my view this body cannot, as things stand today, fully and appropriately discharge its constitutional duty to advise and consent with respect to this nominee. I will briefly address some recent developments in the courts that lead me to that conclusion.

On April 21 of this year, the Second Circuit issued an opinion in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by two New York Times reporters and the American Civil Liberties Union against the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, and the CIA. That lawsuit began in December 2011 after the administration denied a Freedom of Information Act request from the New York Times for documents on the administration's targeted killing of American citizens outside this country. Specifically, the Times requested ``a copy of all Office of Legal Counsel memorandums analyzing the circumstances under which it would be lawful for United States armed forces or intelligence community assets to target for killing a United States citizen who is deemed to be a terrorist.''

The administration refused to provide anything in response to that request by the New York Times. In fact, initially the administration wouldn't even acknowledge that any responsive documents even existed, but as the litigation developed, the Department of Justice identified a single document but claimed it was exempt from disclosure under FOIA. That document is the so-called OLC-DOD memorandum.

Essentially, according to the Second Circuit, that is Professor Barron's memo providing the legal justification for targeted killing of American citizens abroad with drones. Basically, the court reasoned that because the administration had leaked and then officially released the so-called Department of Justice White Paper on the drone program, the administration then waived any basis for withholding the Barron drone memo under the Freedom of Information Act. Therefore, the Second Circuit ordered the administration to produce a redacted copy of this Barron drone memo to the New York Times.

The Second Circuit's opinion confirms that Professor Barron wrote this drone memo. However, according to press reports going as far back as September 2010, Professor Barron had written at least one other drone memo on the targeted killing of Americans while he was at the Office of Legal Counsel. That second memo wasn't addressed by the Second Circuit's opinion and hasn't been disclosed publicly.

We also don't know whether Professor Barron wrote or was involved in producing other materials related to the drone program that have yet to be provided to the full Senate. For example, the Second Circuit has identified two additional memos from the Office of Legal Counsel that it ruled were not subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. Moreover, according to some media reports, there are quite a few additional memos on the drone program. In fact, the Second Circuit opinion repeats the ACLU's contention that there may be as many as 11 total memos related to this drone program.

This fact didn't escape the Second Circuit. In sending the case back to the district court for further litigation, the circuit left open the possibility that there might be other documents subject to disclosure down the road. The court said, after giving the government another chance to submit additional reasons for withholding the documents: ``The district court may, as appropriate, order the release of any documents that are not properly withheld.''

Let me be very clear. My colleagues should be on notice that more of these documents very well may be made public down the road. In my view, that is all the more reason for the full Senate to receive all materials on the drone program, written by and related to Professor Barron, from the Office of Legal Counsel and do it now before Members decide and are held accountable for their vote on this nominee.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of these materials to our consideration of Professor Barron's nomination. The memos and whatever other materials Professor Barron drafted as the acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel provides the legal framework for the administration's policies related to killing American citizens abroad. We know this because the administration itself has said so. In testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, CIA Director Brennan testified that advice from the Office of Legal Counsel on the drone program ``establishes the legal boundaries in which we can operate.''

Once again, let me be clear. The Senate cannot properly discharge its duty to advise and consent on this nomination without having a full picture of this nominee's legal philosophy. A very legitimate question is, How can the Senate predict what kind of a judge he will be if we don't know what kind of a lawyer he has been?

The Senate simply cannot evaluate whether this nominee is fit for a lifetime appointment to one of the Nation's most important courts without

complete access to his writings. It is even more important now that we know some of those writings concern perhaps some of the most controversial issues the Office of Legal Counsel has addressed in recent years; that is, the use of drones to kill American citizens abroad.

Time and again this President and even this Attorney General have promised transparency. They have made these promises to us. They have made promises to the American people. We all know in our oversight capacity of trying to get information out of this administration that they haven't delivered on these promises.

In that letter from the Department of Justice to Chairman Leahy that I mentioned just a few minutes ago, the Attorney General claimed this administration ``has provided an unprecedented level of transparency as to how sensitive counterterrorism operations are conducted.'' The Attorney General also wrote that the administration was taking all steps to ensure that congressional committees ``are fully informed of the legal basis'' for targeted killings of American citizens.

Again, those assertions aren't accurate when it comes to this nominee's track record at the Department of Justice. If press reports are accurate, this administration hasn't made all the relevant materials available to all Members of this body yet. I am not the first Member of this body to point this out.

I give several of my Democrat colleagues credit for publicly drawing attention to this administration's shortcomings in respect to this administration sufficiently giving us information. I agree with them that this nomination cannot go forward until this body, every Member of this body, is given access to any and all secret legal opinions this nominee wrote on this critical issue of the constitutional basis for the President subjecting an American to killing by drone without trial. Every legal opinion this nominee wrote related to this issue ought to be made available. I wholeheartedly concur in the sentiment of my colleagues, some of them Democrats, on this issue.

Again, I think all Senators should bear in mind that these documents may very well become public in the future. Are Senators who are up for reelection in a few short months ready to vote on this nominee without knowing the full extent of his writings on a topic as serious as the killing of an American citizen by a drone? Are those Senators ready to go home to face their constituents and explain that they cast a vote on that nominee without knowing all of the facts?

On Tuesday the administration announced it will provide the full Senate access to the Barron drone memo that it was ordered to make public by the Second Circuit.

Is this what the most transparent administration in American history looks like, disclosing a memo that a court has already ordered it to disclose?

Keep in mind this administration agreed to the disclosure only after the Second Circuit order and a threat from the American Civil Liberties Union. Is that transparency?

In fact, I am having a bit of a flashback to a statement I made before this body just last week about another judicial nominee. That nominee led the administration's effort to stonewall congressional oversight into the murder of four Americans at our diplomatic mission in Benghazi. That nominee refused to comply with congressional subpoenas and assisted the administration's unlawful withholding of documents from Congress. The Benghazi documents that should have been turned over years ago weren't released until a judge forced the administration to turn over those documents by issuing a court order in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Just like the memos I have been talking about today, I am starting to see a pattern, and I am starting to understand what this administration means by the word ``transparency.'' It means ``show me a court order first.''

Incidentally, I have been for more transparency at the Office of Legal Counsel for years, and even more so since January, when President Obama threatened to aggressively use Executive orders to circumvent Congress. It is the job of the Office of Legal Counsel to ensure that Executive orders are constitutional.

On January 31 I wrote the Attorney General to ask him to disclose the Office of Legal Counsel's work related to Executive orders issued by the President. I still haven't received a response.

I will also note that Professor Barron himself has gone on record publicly and urged increased transparency at his former workplace, the Office of Legal Counsel, and for that we ought to give him due credit.

In fact, the nominee said this about the OLC--the Office of Legal Counsel:

OLC should follow a presumption in favor of timely

publication of its written legal opinions. Such disclosure

helps to ensure executive branch adherence to the rule of law

and guard against excessive claims of executive authority.

It couldn't be said any better by me in regard to the letter I wrote on January 31. He went on to say:

. . . transparency also promotes confidence in the

lawfulness of government action.

That is a very admirable standard. I would like to call it the Barron standard, and I hope the administration follows the Barron standard with respect to informing the full Senate about this nominee's work in the Office of Legal Counsel. The administration's offer to disclose the memo it was already ordered to make public by a court isn't good enough, and it shouldn't be good enough for the other 99 Senators, because this is already their legal obligation.

The administration must turn over not only the memo addressed by the Second Circuit, but every legal opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel written by and related to Professor Barron on this issue. Given the lack of clarity thus far, I call on the White House to provide every Senator with access to all Barron materials related to the administration's drone program.

I am also calling on the White House to comply with the Second Circuit's order and release to the public--not just to Senators--a redacted copy of the Barron drone memo that it addressed in its opinion. This is the administration's legal obligation.

Our obligation, as Senators, is to ensure our constituents have full access to information a Federal Court has ordered to be made public before we vote on the nomination. Without full disclosure to the full Senate of all materials on this nominee's involvement in the legal case for the administration's drone program, this nomination should not proceed.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 497 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H. Res. 497.

Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 497 provides for consideration of two bills, one of which addresses the country's worsening health insurance situation due to the Affordable Care Act; the other addresses the Environmental Protection Agency's attempts to cripple our economy with costly regulations which have dubious health benefits.

The rule before us today provides for 1 hour of debate for each bill, controlled by the primary committee of jurisdiction. The committee made in order every amendment submitted for consideration to H.R. 3826, the Electricity Security and Affordability Act, including three amendments offered by Democrats and five amendments offered by Republicans. Finally, the minority is afforded the customary motion to recommit on each bill, allowing for yet another opportunity to amend the legislation. This is a straightforward rule for consideration of two very important bills.

H.R. 3826, the Electricity Security and Affordability Act is a bipartisan response to the Environmental Protection Agency's wrongheaded approach to our energy future. It was carefully crafted by Democratic Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia and the Republican chairman of the Energy and Power Subcommittee, Ed Whitfield from Kentucky. The bill requires the Environmental Protection Agency to acknowledge within its greenhouse gas regulations that different sources of fuel--such as natural gas, such as

coal--require different approaches to the regulatory sphere. Further, it prevents the Environmental Protection Agency from unilaterally imposing new regulations on existing power plants--those power plants that are already up and running, providing heat to our Nation, which is currently under the throes of a significant cold snap. This limitation exists until Congress has weighed in and passed a law specifying an effective date for the regulations to begin.

Finally, as is just good government, the bill requires strengthened reporting requirements from the Environmental Protection Agency.

One of the most frustrating parts of the EPA's new venture in regulating our existing energy infrastructure is that the EPA has actively blocked proper congressional oversight from receiving the science and calculations used in crafting these new costly regulations. That simply must end. If the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing new regulations because they believe they will truly make Americans healthier, let them share the data. Let them share the data with the United States Congress so it can be peer reviewed. Both the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Science Committee have continually been ignored when requesting such data. That is unacceptable. That must end. This legislation is a step toward bringing accountability to an agency that for too long has run roughshod over our economy.

The second bill contained in this rule, H.R. 4118, Suspending the Individual Mandate Penalty Law Equals Fairness Act, addresses the disparity that President Obama and Secretary Sebelius have created between big businesses, which have been given a reprieve from having to comply with the mandates in the Affordable Care Act, and individual Americans, who have been given no such help by this President. Just this week, the press reported that the administration will delay yet another provision of the Affordable Care Act by allowing insurers to continue offering health plans that do not meet the Affordable Care Act's minimum coverage requirements. It is becoming so commonplace for this administration to waive or ignore provisions--by their own admission, this is their signature law, and they continue to waive provisions. The American people cannot seem to get an even break, and no one even seems to notice anymore. There is little doubt that this is exactly what the President is hoping for.

In the last 8 months, the President has delayed or modified overly 22 provisions in his signature health care law. We are all familiar--we have all seen the headlines: delays in the preexisting program; delays in the employer mandate; delays in the reporting requirement; changing the rules under which Congress has to buy insurance; delay, delay, delay, in his own law. The President has been quick to fix parts of the law that have political consequences for his allies and to protect his own talking points.

Yet, where is the President's protection for the American people?

Under the health care law, Americans who don't have health insurance and refuse to purchase a government-approved insurance policy will face an annual fine--an annual fine--that increases every year.

However, purchasing a government-approved plan also means you have to pay big premiums. You are forced to navigate a dysfunctional Web site. You may lose the doctor you like and place your personal information in jeopardy on an unsecure Web site.

Today, Republicans are offering a legislative solution to help Americans get out from under the crushing weight of the so-called Affordable Care Act. H.R. 4118, also known as the Simple Fairness Act, will give hardworking Americans the same relief that the President has already given to big businesses across the country.

The administration has no problem delaying the employer mandate, not just once for 2014, but a second time for another full year for employers with 51-100 employees. Shouldn't that same relief be provided to rank-and-file Americans?

The President has refused to work with Congress to change the law so today, we are moving ahead and doing what is right for the American people. The Simple Fairness Act will eliminate the penalty for 2014 for those individuals who chose not to purchase a government-approved health care plan.

It is clear that H.R. 4118 offers the only feasible lifeline to millions of Americans who are faced with purchasing an expensive health care plan that does not meet their needs. It is Congress' job to protect the American people. I urge my colleagues to pass this rule so Washington can stop making decisions about American's health care and instead individuals can be free to decide for themselves. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying bills.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes for a response.

Mr. Speaker, there have been 36 changes to the Affordable Care Act since it was signed into law. It has been a little over 3 years since the bill was signed into law. Thirty-six changes means one a month.

How does the breakdown of those 36 changes occur? According to the Galen Institute published this morning, 15 times, Congress has passed and the President signed legislation changing the Affordable Care Act. Twice, the Supreme Court modified the Affordable Care Act, but 19 times, President Obama made a change unilaterally.

We are here today debating a delay on the penalties under the individual mandate, but it might interest the Congress to know that the President himself delayed the individual mandate. The administration changed the deadline for the individual mandate by declaring that customers who had purchased insurance by March 31 will avoid the tax penalty.

Previously and by law, they were required to purchase that insurance by Valentine's Day, February 14, so there has already been a 6-week delay. We are simply trying to place in code what the President is doing unilaterally.

You want to talk about a closed process where people don't have an opportunity to participate? That is governing by executive fiat. That is what we are trying to stop today.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I would just emphasize there have been changes by administrative action, some 19 that President Obama has done all on his own, without any influence from Congress.

Now, if the gentleman were truly interested about an offset for repealing the medical device tax, perhaps he might look more favorably on the bill before us today, H.R. 4118. The Congressional Budget Office scores a significant savings by passing H.R. 4118.

Perhaps there are some other things that could be done with that money as well; but nevertheless, the President has, on his own, delayed employee reporting, delayed subsidies through the Federal exchange. He closed the high-risk pool.

He has doubled the allowable deductibles. He has required self- attestation and eliminated the reporting requirements under the law that he signed in March of 2010.

He last fall said: Okay. I give up. Insurance can offer plans that we just told you were illegal, that they were crummy insurance, and now, we are going to allow them to be offered again.

All of these were actions taken by the executive under a closed process. With no input or oversight by the people's House--by the United States House of Representatives.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, here is the Affordable Care Act. The President says it is the law of the land. How does it describe the effective date for the individual mandate? Under section 1501, subparagraph D, effective date:

The amendments made by this section shall apply to the

taxable years ending after December 31, 2013.

Pretty unambiguous, pretty easy to understand. It doesn't seem to have a lot of flexibility or wiggle room written into it.

How does the language read that describes the effective date for the employer mandate? Well, that reads under section 1513, subparagraph D, effective date:

The amendments made by this section shall apply to the

months beginning after December 31, 2013.

It doesn't sound as if there is a lot of flexibility; yet the President, on his own, found the flexibility only within the executive branch to say that effective date is no longer valid.

We are simply saying for Mr. and Mrs. American--for the average American, we should be able to delay the effective date of the penalty because this law has been a disaster from start to finish. Stories about the Web site are now legion.

We should give the same relief to the average American that the President gave to his friends in Big Business.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

It sounds as if the gentleman is going to vote for the bill under consideration today because, after all, it is an opportunity to give long-suffering Americans an opportunity to be out of the penalty part of the Affordable Care Act.

Let's be honest, I mean this thing is one of the most coercive pieces of legislation that has ever been passed by the United States Congress. I might just remind people here in the House of Representatives that this law, which was H.R. 3590, was actually not subject to any hearings or any markups in the United States House of Representatives. Maybe it was when H.R. 3590 first passed the House when it was a housing bill in July of 2009.

But remember, what became the health care bill was a housing bill that was amended. The amendment read over in the Senate: ``strike all after the enacting clause and insert.''

And what was inserted was language written by special interests over in the Cloakroom of the Senate Finance Committee, was passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve, and then thrown back over here to the House.

Since the House had passed H.R. 3590 as a housing bill, not as a tax bill like the Affordable Care Act was but as a housing bill, the question before the House then became: Will the House now concur in the amendments to H.R. 3590? It took 3 months for the Speaker to cobble together the 217 votes that she needed to pass this thing, but H.R. 3590 was never heard as a health care bill in my committee, the Committee on Energy and Commerce. It was never heard in the Ways and Means Committee. It was never heard in the Education and Labor Committee. That was H.R. 3200. H.R. 3200 is long gone--no one has seen it for years--but H.R. 3590 is what is embodied in the President's health care law.

So, really, to say that everyone had a chance to participate in this and to debate it, that is, in fact, hypocritical. What is really hypocritical is that H.R. 3590, when it came back to the House, was presented to this House under a closed rule. That is a fact, and that is a fact that should be recognized by the minority. This bill was the product of a closed rule.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, seeing no other speakers on my side, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

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

Talk about doing the will of the people. There was an election in Texas yesterday. There was a question on the ballot--to support or oppose the President's takeover of the health care industry in this country. Ninety-two percent of the people were recorded as being in opposition to the President's takeover of health care. So, in fact, in the district I represent, that is a significant amount.

Today's rule provides for the consideration of two bills to provide relief for hardworking Americans who are faced with the administration's expensive and restrictive mandates both in the health insurance and energy sectors.

I want to thank my colleagues Lynn Jenkins from Kansas, the Republican Conference vice chair, as well as the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power, Mr. Whitfield from Kentucky, for their thoughtful pieces of legislation.

I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying bills.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 3826.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, I rise this afternoon in support of H.R. 3826, the Electricity Security and Affordability Act.

Recently, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University named Jonathan Turley issued a dire warning. Professor Turley said that he voted for President Obama in the last election, that he agrees philosophically with President Obama on many issues, but he said that, if left unchecked, the U.S. President could effectively become a government unto himself. He was referring to the fact that this President has been overly aggressive in the use of executive orders and regulations through various governmental agencies to accomplish his political goals.

The reason that we are here today is, with this legislation, it is our hope that we can overturn one of the most extreme regulations of the Obama administration.

In January of next year, it is anticipated that they will finalize a rule from EPA that will make it impossible to build a new coal-powered plant in America. That is hard to believe that that can be the situation in our great country, particularly since 40 percent of our electricity comes from coal. The reason that it would be impossible to build a new coal-powered plant because of these new EPA regulations is the fact that the emission standards have been set so high, and I might add that it is pretty clear that those emission standards, the way they were set, violates the Energy Security Act of 2005.

We have written a letter to EPA setting out our concerns. They still have not responded to us. We have talked to lawyers throughout the country who are ready to file a lawsuit if this happens because it is impossible to believe that the three plants in America that used to set the emission standards for new coal-powered plants, none of those plants are in existence today. None of them are operating today. So our legislation, we believe, is a reasonable approach to a serious problem for America.

I might add that 41 out of 50 States last year indicated that their electricity rates have gone up under the Obama administration. I know that the President is greatly concerned about the less fortunate in our society. He has talked a lot about the minimum wage bill, for example, but these electricity rates going up hit the most vulnerable in our society the most, particularly those on fixed incomes. Yet it is his policies that are driving up these electricity costs.

So the legislation that we have on the floor today is very simple. First of all, it acknowledges for the first time by legislation that EPA can regulate greenhouse gases. This bill goes farther than any other bill has. So you can regulate greenhouse gases, but when you set the emissions standard, the unit must be in operation for a period of time. It must be commercially available to the utilities to buy it, as opposed to the proposed regulation in which the technology is simply not available.

So our legislation, as I said, we don't anticipate a new coal-powered plant to be built anytime soon in America because our natural gas prices are so low. But in Europe, which it is acknowledged is the green sector of the world, they mothballed 30 gigawatts of gas-powered plants in the last 20 months because the gas prices coming from Russia are so expensive that it is raising their electricity rates to such an extent that it is damaging the area. With our legislation, if those gas prices go up, an option available to the American people, to the American utility sector, is they can go out and build a coal-powered plant with reasonable regulations.

Then the second thing that our legislation does--and when I say ``our,'' I am talking about Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, has introduced this bill in the U.S. Senate. I, along with Democratic support, was able to get it out of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

So this debate is vitally important today because the President is going so fast, in such an extreme way, that it would make it impossible to use coal in America with a new plant, and we have never had a national debate on the issue. So today we can at least have this debate.

The second thing that our legislation does applies to existing plants. EPA said they are going to regulate existing coal plants. We say go ahead and do it, set the standards, but Congress will set the effective date for that regulation.

It is a very simple piece of legislation, one that I think is necessary to protect the American people and to ensure that America remains competitive in the global marketplace.

In addition to that, I want to make one other comment. Emissions from the energy sector in America are the lowest, CO2 emissions are the lowest that they have been in 20 years. So America does not have to take a backseat to anyone on having a clean emission standard and regulation.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, at this time I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the majority whip.

I would just reiterate that America doesn't have to take a backseat to anyone on its emissions from energy sources. Our emissions today are lower than they were 20 years ago. Why should the U.S. unilaterally take this extreme position and other countries around the world, particularly in Europe and in Asia, are using coal and using coal, and we don't even have the flexibility to do that when they finalize this rule. So that is what we are up to today.

At this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus).

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining on both sides?

At this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Indiana (Mrs. Walorski).

At this time, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis).

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I can assure you we are not speaking from fear today. I can assure you we are not being parochial about coal. Coal is still the base load for this country--for manufacturing, industrial use, electricity at home, and for our ability to compete in the world.

I have great admiration and respect for the gentleman from California, and I am sorry that he has made the decision to leave Congress after having a distinguished career, but I can tell you there is no power plant operating in America today that is using carbon capture and sequestration, because the technology is not available.

Now, there are some plants being built with government support and would not be built without that government support, but they are not in operation. There is a difference. When scrubbers were mandated by the EPA, scrubbers were already being put in plants at private expense. The government didn't pay for those scrubbers. They were already being used. Unlike this proposed regulation, there is no technology available to meet the emission standard, so there is a significant difference in what has happened and what is being proposed.

At this time, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), the distinguished chairman of the full Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Renacci).

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Indiana, Congresswoman Brooks.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer).

Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner).

At this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly).

Mr. Chairman, to conclude, I would point out to my friends on the other side of the aisle there has been a lot of discussion today about the availability of carbon capture and sequestration. Let's not forget that the Energy Policy Act of 2005 said:

Emission standards will not be set by plants receiving

funds from the Clean Energy Initiative at the Department of

Energy.

To my friend from the west coast, it is costing $5 billion, and the president of the Southern Company said:

This plant cannot be consistently replicated on a national

level and cannot be the primary basis for new emission

standards.

That is because they are artificially concocted.

So our legislation simply says, in the future, if natural gas prices go up, America, like most every other country in the world, will have the option of building a new coal-powered plant.

I think it is a reasonable approach. It has bipartisan support.

This is the first time that we have been able to have a national debate with this President, who has already made up his mind he does not want coal for America. This is our opportunity to express the opinion of the American people that we need coal moving into the future.

I would urge the adoption of H.R. 3826, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I certainly have a great deal of respect for the gentlelady from California, and I might add, we have heard a lot today about climate change.

Former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, herself, stated in a hearing:

We will not ultimately be able to change the amount of

CO2 that is accumulating in the atmosphere alone.

By that, she meant the United States, and there are a couple of reasons she said that. First of all, 96 percent of CO2 emissions are naturally occurring; manmade is around 4 percent.

I might also point out that, in the recent fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, they acknowledged a lack of warming since 1998, and they acknowledged the growing discrepancy between their climate model projections versus actual readings.

So it is not that people are denying. It is that there is a significant difference among the scientific community about what is manmade CO2 contributing and what is naturally occurring

Mr. Chair, what I object to is that the EPA would use that and mandate that private industry build that technology here in the U.S. And I think that your amendment would allow them to do that, and that is what I object to.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, the purpose of our legislation is, whenever EPA sets the standard, we want the technology to be in the U.S. for at least a year--operating for a year, and six units have the proof of that; so that is why we object to the gentlelady's amendment, and I would urge Members to vote against her amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the gentlelady's amendment.

I have a great deal of respect and admiration for the gentlelady from Illinois. I might say, this legislation would never have been necessary if EPA had adopted a standard that had been adequately demonstrated and was not in violation of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

I would also say in wanting to add this language to the bill, EPA itself, in discussing its proposed regulation, projected that its rule would result in almost zero CO2 emission changes or quantified benefits in cost by 2022. So even EPA does not think that their regulation is going to really significantly reduce CO2 emissions because 96 percent of CO2 emissions are naturally occurring; less than 4 percent are man-made.

I might also point out once again that no one is a denier of climate change, but more and more scientists seem to be disagreeing with the impact of manmade CO2 versus naturally occurring

I yield myself the balance of my time.

In reply to this case closed argument, I would just point out that the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which came out in the fall, acknowledged a lack of warming since 1998 and a growing discrepancy between the model projections and the reality of the observations actually made; that the discrepancy between the models and reality was increasing. It also acknowledged the evidence of decreased climate sensitivity to the increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. It also acknowledged that sea level rising during the period 1920-1950 was the same as in 1995 to 2012. Now that is the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

With that, I respectfully request that we defeat the gentlelady's amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.