To amend the Clean Air Act to remove the requirement for dealer certification of new light-duty motor vehicles.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, today, back in Missouri, this frigid cold snap is really making life miserable for everyone. We have below-zero temperatures and wind chills and a lot of snow. In fact, a lot of children are home from school today, and it is on snowy days like this back in Missouri and across much of America that we really appreciate the ability to go to our thermostats and to turn up the temperature and be able to sit by a nice fire to keep warm. What we don't need is the government interfering in that. Safe, affordable and reliable energy is vital for all of us as Americans, and it is being threatened by the Environmental Protection Agency. They are increasing burdens and making our regulations more difficult and costly for hardworking taxpayers.

While I support commonsense regulations designed to protect my constituents and the environment, many of the EPA regulations have gone too far, threatening to raise electricity rates during these cold winter months and hurting markets designed to provide rural homes with proper heating systems.

County officials, farmers and city administrators, as well as moms and dads

all across Missouri who have to pay the electric bill every month, are constantly coming up to me with stories of the burdens that the EPA regulations have placed on their families, their businesses and their communities.

It is time for this to stop. It is time for the EPA to begin working with my constituents, with local officials and with State governments to bring commonsense, consensus-driven changes to the regulations instead of the typical, heavy-handed Washington bureaucracy. Many of these regulations are stifling small businesses and local communities, leading to slow economic growth, stagnant jobs and less opportunities for the next generations of Americans.

So, today, my colleagues and I would like to outline some of the most egregious EPA regulations and offer commonsense solutions to fix, replace or eliminate previous EPA actions that are hurting the average American.

For example, the EPA's recently proposed rule on source performance standards for new power plants has raised serious concerns among ratepayers, utilities and small businesses in my district. My main concern with these proposed regulations remains focused on Missouri's need to provide affordable and reliable electricity. However, in a State like Missouri that derives over 80 percent of our power from coal, the EPA has proposed a rule that would create a de facto ban on building any new coal-fired power plants by requiring the use of something called carbon capture and storage technology.

This technology has not even been proven commercially viable anywhere, and the small pilot projects used as a basis of the EPA's analysis have been highly subsidized by the government and are not commercially available.

Congressional intent in the Clean Air Act is clear. The EPA is required to complete a cost-benefit analysis and base their regulations on the best commercially available technology. It is clear that these standards have not been met.

The good news is that there is a bipartisan solution for this regulation. Congressman Whitfield and Senator Manchin have introduced the Electricity Security and Affordability Act. They designed the bill to require that any greenhouse gas standard set by the EPA for new coal-fired plants are achievable by commercial power plants operating in the real world, including highly efficient plants that utilize the most modern, state-of-the-art standards that can be met by all States in a way that is not economically damaging to local ratepayers and small businesses.

All we ask is that the EPA work with us to find commonsense solutions for real world problems.

Another example of needless regulation is the EPA's proposed rule on future production of wood-burning stoves like the one in this picture right here. My constituents are concerned that this regulation could provide another de facto ban of the production and sale of 80 percent of America's current wood-burning stoves, which are the world's oldest heating system.

The EPA's stringent, one-size-fits-all policy goes against the will of the people, and it requires the same stringent standards in a cottage in the woods that it applies to a high-rise building in downtown New York. For the first 10 years of my marriage, my husband and I heated our home with a wood-burning stove like this. I am concerned for the many constituents who have used these stoves for years to heat their home, that they will have to turn in their old furnaces for scrap and make costly upgrades if they choose to remodel.

So, again, I implore the EPA to apply a little common sense to these onerous regulations and not finalize this burdensome rule.

These are just two examples of the many concerns of the EPA overreach that I hear on a regular basis.

I pause now to invite my colleagues to share experiences and issues that their constituents face dealing with this agency. So I would like to start with my dear friend from Colorado, Doug Lamborn.

Representative Lamborn, what would you like to share?

Thank you, gentleman. Thank you for your leadership on this. You have been at the forefront of this, and this is so, so important. I love what you said about the EPA is basing this on wishful thinking and not sound science. I think most of us would appreciate if there was some science behind regulations. That seems to be common sense, but they clearly have gone beyond that, and it is hurting, as you say, people. It is hurting the bottom line. It is hurting when you pay your bills every month, and your electric bill is just going through the roof unnecessarily because of these onerous regulations.

So thank you, gentleman.

Now, I would like to turn to my friend and colleague from Utah, Representative Chris Stewart, to share his thoughts on this important topic.

Thank you, Chris.

Mr. Speaker, excellent points there. I think you are right; we need to make regulations that make sense. What the EPA is doing does not make sense. It does feed into the distrust of government bureaucracy by the American people, and well-deserved when they have some of the regulations coming out that they have been proposing that are harming Americans. That is why we are here tonight, to raise these concerns and to fight against them.

I am so glad today to get to pass the baton to my friend from North Carolina (Mr. Holding).

I thank the gentleman very much, and I want to follow up on exactly your same story. I hear the same from my farmers in Missouri. And this picture on this poster, I hope everyone can see, because I want to show what Representative Holding was just talking about.

The Clean Water Act gave the EPA authority to regulate navigable waters, and those are the pictures here. They would be something that you would consider navigable waters, and they worked with the Corps of Engineers to develop regulations.

The pictures on the right are what I consider nonnavigable, and I think most people with common sense would. They are farm ponds, puddles, and ditches. This is what the EPA is trying to expand its reach to regulating. As Representative Holding said, this is going to impact every farmer and every property owner, and it is a violation of property rights.

The government should not have any control or say over how people manage their ponds, or if there is a puddle in the field, they shouldn't have to ask permission to be able to plant a crop there. And yet that is what you have, one of the things that EPA is doing. Thank you for bringing that up. And I wanted everybody to see how ridiculous this is and what an overreach of government it is. Thank you for showing that picture.

Now, I turn to Andy Barr from Kentucky. He knows a little bit about coal and some of the other impacts of the EPA. Please share your thoughts on the topic.

Thank you very, very much. I don't think anyone could say it any better than that.

I appreciate as well your comments about coal because in my district, I have the only working coal mine in Missouri. In Missouri, 85 percent of our energy comes from coal. It is an extremist agenda that would raise the price of energy unnecessarily, especially on the hardest hit Americans whose hours are being cut back because of other policies from this country coming forth, and whose paychecks are shrinking.

Why would you artificially raise the cost of their electric bills due to regulations that aren't even scientifically based and shut off a major source of energy in this country that is affordable, reliable, safe, and clean--and that is coal.

Thank you very much for sharing that.

Now I would like to go to my friend from Oklahoma, James Lankford, to hear his thoughts about EPA and how it is hurting Americans and how we can provide better solutions.

We have turned sadly into a regulation Nation, and it is wrong, but some of us--and the ones here tonight speaking--are not going to sit by and allow this and stand idly by. We are fighting against it, and that is why we are here.

I totally agree with my colleague that it is wrong to just tell people: well, this is going to be hard, but you are going to have to pay more on your electric bill basically because of this new regulation because we care more for a minnow than we do about people. That is wrong. It is time to change things.

I appreciate my friend from Ohio, Representative Robert Latta, being here tonight and welcome your comments on this issue.

Thank you so much, gentleman. Thank you for your leadership on that. That is a great bill, and we really need more of that to push back on these onerous regulations by the EPA, like you pointed out, that cost the taxpayers $1.8 trillion a year overall just to comply with paperwork. That is wrong.

Now I would like to turn to my friend from Florida, Representative Ted Yoho, to share his thoughts.

Your comments were very, very helpful to what we are doing tonight, which is making people

aware of how these EPA regulations hurt real people. I think your example of the 2-year fight and the $200,000 fine just for a low area in your yard that fills with water is just too much.

Thank you. That is why we are here fighting tonight.

I would like to turn it over now to my friend from Arkansas, which is just a little south of me, to Representative Rick Crawford.

Thank you for your leadership on this. That issue is just so important to farmers all across this country and to rural communities, which could certainly use that $3.3 billion.

Now I would like to turn to my friend from Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, to share his thoughts on the EPA.

I am glad you are here tonight. I am glad you are here representing the common person in this country who is fighting these regulations every day, who has had real-world experience dealing with the EPA, like many of us have.

You are exactly right. It is stifling jobs and hurting people, whether it is the families back in Missouri who are dealing with the big 10-inch snow that we got yesterday, and they are wanting to heat their home with a wood-burning stove or turn up the thermostat and worry about their electricity bills at the end of the month, or whether it is the farmer out there who is trying to raise chickens and provide poultry and meat for this country, and then they have the government trying to regulate their feathers.

Last year, the EPA tried to regulate farm dust. Now they are trying to expand the definition of navigable waters to regulating farm ponds and ditches and little depressions in the fields, and asking for permission from Americans to be able to farm their land.

There are other regulations we haven't even talked about tonight dealing with permitting and being able to spray crop protection products on their cops. Farmers get this every day. So do manufacturers. So do businesses, and so does anyone who has to pay an electric bill every month, with the President's war on coal.

So that is why here in the House we are standing strong against the EPA. We are exposing what they are doing and how it is hurting Americans and why it is important for the Senate to move on our bills to rein in the EPA, to bring common sense back to Washington, and to return this government of the people, by the people, to start working for the people once again.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentlelady for organizing this Special Order and her leadership in highlighting a real problem in our country right now.

The President of the United States the other night in the State of the Union made an observation, and the President's observation was one where he described an economy in which inequality has deepened and upward mobility has stalled. Unfortunately, in many respects the President is right, but he is wrong about what has caused that problem to exist in our economy.

The truth is a major reason why upward mobility has stalled is because the Environmental Protection Agency, under his direction, has produced a deluge of red tape and regulations that are literally strangling the Nation's economy. The poor are worse off today than they were when President Obama took office. Seven million more Americans live in poverty today as compared to 2008. Median household income has fallen over $2,000 in the last 4 years. Seventy-six percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and the percentage of working-age people actually in the workforce has dropped to the lowest rate in 35 years in the Obama economy. The EPA is largely responsible for this.

The coal industry in my region in central and eastern Kentucky could be the poster child of this regulatory onslaught. According to the Commonwealth's recently released figures, more than 7,000 coal miners in the Appalachian coalfields have received pink slips since 2009; 2,232 of those jobs were lost last year alone, thanks in large part to the overreach of the EPA. The percentage of coal miners in our State is the lowest number of coal miners since 1927 in the coal labor market, and that is since they actually started keeping those statistics.

So whether it is deadlocking the permit process or trying to effectively ban coal-fired electricity through disastrous greenhouse gas regulations, EPA's arming of unelected bureaucrats has been very direct about their efforts to reshape entire sectors of our economy. In fact, the President's own climate adviser was reported as saying ``a war on coal is exactly what we need.''

So what bothers me about this is that there is a total disregard for the human cost to hardworking Americans, their families, who have lost these paychecks, who have been laid off with no other economic opportunity.

There is a problem with upward mobility in this country. There is income inequality, but it is because of this administration's policies that are devastating these coal-mining families. And make no mistake, these costs are generally borne by the Nation's most vulnerable who can least afford higher energy prices. A recent study analyzing government data found that, for the 180,000 families in Kentucky making less than $10,000 per year, energy costs consume more than two-thirds of after- tax income.

That means for every $100 they take home, about $70 goes to covering the cost of energy. The EPA's ruinous policies will only drive those rates higher, adding to the burdens on those already struggling to make ends meet. Folks like our seniors on fixed incomes, they can't afford these higher utility bills.

The President likes to talk about the war on poverty. My friends on the other side of the aisle like to talk about the war on poverty. Well, it is hard to win the war on poverty when you are waging a relentless war on jobs. That is exactly what is happening with the EPA.

EPA officials think that they know what is best for you, for your family, and for your community, whether you live in Kentucky or Texas or California, but when Congress has asked for some evidence to justify this one-size-fits-all approach, they fail to provide it.

While I am sure it was much easier for these bureaucrats to have listening sessions on greenhouse gas regulations in Washington, D.C., or San Francisco, California, the three States that produced the most coal--Kentucky, West Virginia, and Wyoming--they were not on the list where the EPA went to visit. I don't think the bureaucrats would have received such a warm welcome from the coal miners of my State whose jobs were lost, the small businesses that no longer have customers-- many in my home district--the teachers whose schools have lost a major source of tax revenue. They no longer have those funds because of the war on coal and the loss of revenue.

As I have warned for some time, the impact of EPA regulations will not be limited to the coal fields of Appalachia. If the EPA has its way, rising electricity rates, like we have already seen this winter, will ripple through this economy, threatening the manufacturing renaissance; home heating bills will spike; goods and services will cost more, depressing consumer demand; businesses will have to devote money that could have gone to investment and hiring to cover higher energy costs at a time when they can least afford it; companies considering to locate here in the United States will leave because our energy advantage will instead go overseas, where labor and energy are cheaper and the regulatory environment is less suffocating. Americans are calling for more jobs, but the Federal bureaucracy is trying to make sure those jobs go elsewhere.

All of this is happening through agency rulemaking because that is the only way that the President's environmentalist wish list can come into being. Similar policies have repeatedly failed in the face of bipartisan opposition in Congress. The President and the EPA, deaf to the vehement refusals of the American people and their elected officials to go along with this extremist agenda, are resorting to the only means that they have left: legally questionable rulemaking and executive actions unilaterally administered by the executive branch.

The House has made its position loud and clear: these policies are at odds with the intent of Congress and not in the best interest of the American people. In fact, they are actually bankrupting many hardworking Americans.

Enough is enough, Mr. Speaker. I would encourage the President and the EPA to approach Congress with an open, transparent program that balances environmental protection with economic growth. It can be done if Congress has a willing negotiator in the White House, but continuing to impose these rules by executive proclamation unilaterally fails to benefit the environment and it serves only to harm our constituents and our democracy, if this President, if this Congress is serious about dealing with poverty, if we are serious about dealing with income inequality, if we are really genuinely interested in helping the poor in this country, let's not attack hardworking Americans. Let's focus on job creation and growth, and let's unleash the energy potential of the United States.

I thank the gentlelady for her leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 724) to amend the Clean Air Act to remove the requirement for dealer certification of new light-duty motor vehicles.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials into the Record on the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be the lead sponsor of H.R. 724, along with my colleague, Congressman Gary Peters of Michigan. This bipartisan bill, which has 106 cosponsors, repeals an obsolete regulatory requirement that no longer

makes sense. This legislation is fully supported by the auto industry, and I have a letter that I would like to submit for the Record from the five leading automotive trade associations, including the National Automobile Dealers Association, highlighting their support.

Since 1981, automobile dealers who deliver a new vehicle for sale have been required to provide a certificate to the purchaser, indicating the vehicle conforms to Clean Air Act emissions requirements. However, modern technology and standard vehicle warranties have rendered this paperwork requirement unnecessary and redundant for a number of reasons.

First, every new vehicle must comply with Clean Air Act requirements before it can enter the stream of commerce. Second, information certifying a vehicle is Clean Air Act compliant can already be found in a number of other locations, including under the hood of a vehicle, in a vehicle's manual, or on the EPA's Web site. And, finally, many new sale warranties range from tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of miles or a number of years which far exceed the protections provided for in the regulatory requirement.

During recent years, we have seen an unprecedented amount of Federal regulation proposed and enacted. This bureaucratic creep not only threatens the scope of entrepreneurial freedom but also comes at a heavy cost which, by some estimations, is approximately $1.7 trillion annually. In my district, when I am out visiting with the small businesses community and hardworking American taxpayers, the number one concern I hear about is the burdensome regulations and the need to pare back Federal Government interference.

H.R. 724 is simple, direct, and sends a clear message that small business owners, and specifically auto dealers, should not be burdened with redundant regulatory requirements. This legislation will make the car-buying process a little simpler and let auto dealers spend less time complying with obsolete regulatory requirements and more time developing their businesses, investing in local communities, and creating jobs.

I look forward to continuing to find ways that reduce unnecessary red tape on the small business community. As H.R. 724 represents, this is not only a policy goal both sides of the aisle can agree on, but it is a policy goal that can actually get done. I urge support from my colleagues.

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

American International Automobile Dealers, NADA, NAMAD, Auto Alliance,

and Global Automakers,

January 7, 2014.

Dear Representative: We, the undersigned automotive trade

associations, are writing regarding our strong support for

H.R. 724, a bipartisan bill that would repeal an outdated

paperwork mandate on franchised automobile dealers requiring

dealer certification of a new vehicle's emission system. This

legislation was introduced on February 14, 2013 by Reps. Bob

Latta (R-OH) and Gary Peters (D-MI) and currently has 105

bipartisan cosponsors. H.R. 724 was reported out of the House

Energy and Commerce Committee on December 11, 2013 by voice

vote. This bill is scheduled to be considered by the House of

Representatives on January 8, 2014.

For over 30 years, automobile dealers who sell a new

vehicle have been required to provide customers with a

certificate which states that the vehicle conforms to Clean

Air Act (CAA) emissions requirements. However, subsequently

passed laws and dealer contractual obligations have rendered

this statutory mandate redundant and obsolete.

Currently, every new vehicle must comply with CAA

requirements before entering the stream of commerce, making

it unnecessary for a dealer to also provide a customer with

written notification that the vehicle is CAA compliant. Next,

information can be found under the hood of the vehicle

certifying that the vehicle is CAA compliant, making another

form given by the dealer to the customer duplicative.

Finally, other information contained in the form is either no

longer relevant or can be found in the owner's manual and

supplements provided by the manufacturer.

H.R. 724 is narrowly drafted to eliminate this one

statutory mandate only. The bill does not amend or impact

other provisions of the Clean Air Act.

This legislation is an excellent example of Congress

working on a bipartisan basis to repeal an outdated law that

no longer benefits the public. We urge you to vote ``Yes'' on

H.R. 724 to end this unnecessary requirement. Thank you for

your consideration.

Sincerely,

Peter K. Welch,

President, National Automobile Dealers Association.

Mitch Bainwol,

President and CEO, Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

Damon Lester,

President, National Association of Minority Automobile

Dealers.

Cody Lusk,

President, American International Automobile Dealers

Association.

Michael J. Stanton,

President and CEO, Association of Global Automakers, Inc.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, it appears that I, too, have no further requests for time on my side, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

There are a lot of things that we have done as a Nation that really have greatly benefited the health and economy of our Nation. We have engaged. There are some that would say to Republicans that Republicans just want dirty air and dirty water and they just assume we want unhealthy kids and all those things. I have people who have complained to me here while I have been in the House of Representatives and say: Don't you care about kids with asthma? And I look at them and say: Yeah, my daughter is one of them. So don't throw back in my face we don't care about our own kids and we don't care about the environment.

My youngest daughter, a couple of years ago we were sitting at an intersection and the car in front of us took

off and black smoke came out of the back of it, and she said out loud: Is that car on fire? As a kid who grew up in the 1970s like I did, I thought: No, that is what every car did in the 1970s, but we have made real changes, and it has affected our environment.

It is fascinating to me now that the EPA and the rules that were put in place to protect all Americans have moved from where they were in the 1970s to now trying to get to the most granular small level that is pushing beyond health and safety down to a level that is actually controlling business and the basic operation of our economy. This is no longer about health and safety of people anymore. Those rules have long been changed and been in place. This is something different.

The basic rules:

There is a rule that probably no one tracks. It is a 316(b) rule. No one has heard of the 316(b) rule, but what it does with power plants, most power plants, as people drive past all the time and see them, they have a lake around them. In that lake there are, typically, fish. Quite frankly, for many power plants that are there in many parts of the country, the power company actually built that lake and then stocked it. In Oklahoma, some of the best fishing lakes are right around power plants because the water is a little bit warmer and the fish multiply. The water that comes in through one side of that lake actually goes underneath the power plant to actually cool the power plant. It is not the steam that comes out of the top. It is just like a big radiator that comes in.

There is a grading screen that keeps all the fish out and everything else because they don't want them going underneath the plant as well and hurting the tubing and such. Occasionally, a fish gets what is called impinged on that screen. They are typically minnows, what we use in Oklahoma for fishing bait.

So the EPA is stepping in to power companies and making massive changes in their requirements to the screens around the outside of that to keep fish--minnows, bait fish--from being caught on that. Well, the offer has been made to say, if 100 bait fish are killed on this screen during this time, can we just buy 100 bait fish and put it in? We can go down to the local bait shop and get 100 fish and just restock it-- and they say no. It requires millions of dollars of change to go around that screen to prevent that.

Who pays for that? Ratepayers pay for that. The President made a statement in his State of the Union address when he said: these things will be hard, but they are right for the environment. Do you know who it is hard on? The poorest in our society, elderly people that are on fixed incomes. That electricity bill matters to them, and you can't just flippantly say, Mr. President, this is going to be hard but we have got to do it, when the people that it is going to be hardest on and are going to be affected the most are the people that this government should protect rather than just look at them and say: this is going to be hard, but you are going to pay a higher bill.

Simple things like regional haze. Rules were made years ago on regional haze. Regional haze is a rule dealing with aesthetics, what the air looks like. Not air quality, not what we breath, not health, just aesthetics. So the rule was made if this is just about aesthetics, not about health, the State should make those rules.

Then there was what's called a ``sue and settle'' agreement. This administration allowed a lawsuit, broke off separately from the normal judicial process, made an arrangement with these environmental groups, and then came back to States and said, a judge is imposing that. A judge is not imposing that. They made a deal with environmentalist groups around the people that it would affect and are now imposing it on States.

What is the result of that? Higher prices for electricity. Not because of health, but because of aesthetics. Again, the President's statement: this is going to be hard, we are aware. It is going to be hard on the people that should be protected by this Nation, not just someone stepping into their house and saying: sorry your electricity bill is higher, this is going to be hard. That doesn't help anyone. Families know that day-to-day life is hard. They don't need this government making it harder for them.

We need to stand up and protect them. It is important that we have clean air and clean water. It is also important that we protect our families and not bring them undue expense that matters nothing for basic human health and population.

I thank the gentlelady for hosting this time and for this conversation because these EPA issues are not just Washington issues; they are issues that matter to our families. They are issues that do change the price of our electricity and our energy. When people say all the time: Why doesn't my check go as far as it used to go, why does life seem to cost so much now, I say to them: Welcome to the regulation world that we live in, where someone from D.C. says: this is going to be hard and you pay more.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the gentlelady for organizing this Special Order tonight.

The issue about the EPA and what it is doing back home and across our Nation is an issue that we all have to really pay attention to. I serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and we look at this all the time in our subcommittee. We have hearings continually. People back home always ask: What's going on, why is this happening, as the gentleman from Oklahoma just said.

My district is unique. I have 60,000 manufacturing jobs, and I also represent the largest number of farmers in the State of Ohio. When I am home, over the last 16 plus months I have probably done about 40 to 50 different meetings in my district visiting manufacturing plants, farmers, and small businesses. I also ask them: What is the issue that you are most concerned about? The number one issue I hear from them all the time on, the number one issue is regulations. Regulations are the number one thing that are holding back Americans from creating more jobs in this country. It is very important that I ask them: Well, who is it, what regulations? It is the EPA. That is the number one agency I hear about from my constituents all the time.

Earlier this session, I offered H.R. 724. H.R. 724 is a piece of legislation that received bipartisan support here in the House. Not only did it receive bipartisan support, it passed unanimously. What that bill does is it gets rid of a piece of regulation that is no longer necessary under the Clean Air Act.

There is a regulation on the books out there that requires small to large to medium auto dealers in this country that they would have to go out and give the buyer a piece of paper telling them that, yes, it met all the requirements. Well, it is no longer a piece of paper that needs to be given. It is something that should have been gotten rid of a long time ago because it is online, it is on the cars, it says right there that that car meets all the emission standards.

So what we need to do is just start paring back these types of regulations. That bill has gone over to the Senate. I hope our friends over there in the very near future take that up because, again, it is something that helps the communities. Again, when you talk about folks back home, the folks back home--it is like the auto dealers--they are the ones that sponsor Little League teams, they are the ones that are out there making sure that they are donating. So let's give them more time to do things like helping their community and, by the way, selling more cars, putting more people to work. That is very, very important.

Also, as the speaker from Oklahoma also mentioned, there is nobody out

there that doesn't say that we don't want clean air and clean water. We all want that, but in recent years the EPA has put forward broad- reaching regulatory proposals that are either unachievable or lack sufficient cost-benefit justifications. One of the most harmful proposals includes the greenhouse gas emission standards for new power plants that aim to stop the use of coal as an energy source.

We have all heard from folks tonight talking about how much coal is being used not only in their districts, but their States. In the State of Ohio, 78 percent of our electricity comes from coal-fired plants.

When you talk about what is going to happen if all these regulations go on, who is that going to affect?

It is going to affect the very vulnerable citizens in our districts. For the senior citizens out there on fixed incomes, it is going to increase the costs for them. They are going to have to make the choice about heating their homes or about refilling those lifesaving prescriptions that they might have to have.

So, when we look at the EPA and when it fails to consider what those real-life impacts are on all of these proposals that it is proposing out there; or the small business owner who struggles to make the payroll; or the newly hired employee facing the reduced hours; or, again, senior citizens who are on fixed incomes and trying to budget in these tough times, those are the things that have to be considered.

One of the things, I think, that was really staggering was that, in 2011, the SBA--the Small Business Administration--came out with a report stating that we have $1.7 trillion of regulations in this country today. Unfortunately, that got up to $1.8 trillion, and that is what we are dealing with in this country. People wonder why jobs aren't being created in this country. You just have to look at Washington. What are we doing to them here?

What we need to do, in my opinion, is invite the EPA to visit our districts. I have actually had some folks in my district say that they would be glad to have them come in to show the EPA. In one company, they had all of these different manuals and books and everything on the table that they showed me, and they said one thing--that they would love to have them come in because it doesn't even apply to their plants. That is what is going on. They are trying to take a round peg and drive it through a square hole. We have got to do that in order to help our hardworking American taxpayers meet these goals and to create more jobs, to help their families, and to help the future.

With that, I thank the gentlelady again for hosting this tonight.