Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman very much for yielding. I thank the gentleman from Texas as well. This is a very important bill.

I rise today in support of H.R. 2640, which I introduced in the House of Representatives, and Senate 1412, introduced by Senator Kerry and Senator Brown, and that is to name the Woburn Post Office in honor of Officer John--his friends called him ``Jack''--Maguire.

At 9 p.m. on December 26, 2010, during the height of a blizzard, two men invaded a Kohl's department store on Washington Street in Woburn, Massachusetts, to rob the jewelry counter as the employees prepared to close. As one robber entered the store, the second stood lookout on the outside, while a third man waited in a nearby getaway vehicle.

The robber in the department store was a career criminal with a long and violent record. He took a large amount of jewelry and fled outside the store into the driving snow. Eyewitnesses and store employees dialed 911. Officer Maguire arrived in the parking lot moments after the robbery. He saw an officer chasing a gunman on foot and drove his cruiser to a location to prevent the escape of the gunmen into a residential neighborhood in Woburn. Officer Maguire jumped out of his cruiser on Washington Street, and the

gunman opened fire on him. Shots were exchanged, and the gunman was killed. Unfortunately, Officer Maguire was shot four times in the torso and was transported to a local trauma center, where it was announced, unfortunately, that he had passed away.

Officer Maguire paid the ultimate price protecting the citizens of Woburn. We are incredibly grateful for his selfless acts that day, which capped 34 years of outstanding dedication to the safety of the people of Woburn.

On June 26, 1977, Officer Maguire began his career by being sworn in by his father, Police Chief Thomas Maguire, a longtime friend of mine, and he was so proud to follow in his father's footsteps. On December 26, 2010, he died wearing badge 23, which had been his own father's badge number. Just days before his death, he had celebrated his 60th birthday and given notice of his intention to retire in October of 2011.

A devoted husband and caring father, Officer Maguire is survived by his wife, Desiree, and children Bryan, Tara, and Sean. Officer Maguire died protecting the residents of Woburn from an armed gunman. He was the first officer killed in the line of duty from the Woburn Police Department since its inception in 1847. It was a tragedy for his family, for the Woburn Police Department, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to have lost such an honorable father, a courageous cop, and a hometown hero.

That is why, at the request of Mayor Scott Galvin of Woburn, Police Chief Richard Kelly, and former Police Chief Phillip Mahoney of the Woburn Police Department, I introduced H.R. 2640 to rename the Woburn Post Office in the memory of Officer John ``Jack'' Maguire. Renaming the post office located at 462 Washington Street--just a few hundred yards across the street from where Officer Maguire was shot and killed--in his honor is the least that we can do to pay tribute to this brave, dedicated first responder. We honor his service and sacrifice. We honor his life and his legacy. And we honor police officers everywhere who go to work every day to protect the safety and security of all citizens.

Today, we are considering an identical bill that was introduced by my colleagues Senator Kerry and Senator Brown. I urge adoption of this bill, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 462 Washington Street, Woburn, Massachusetts, as the ``Officer John Maguire Post Office'' to honor the legacy of a true hometown hero.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Mr. Patrick Hyland, who, for more than 22 years, has served with distinction as executive director of the Northeast Public Power Association.

Under Pat Hyland's leadership, the Northeast Public Power Association has been the leading voice for 79 consumer-owned utilities that provide energy to more than two million citizens in the six New England states of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Over the years, Pat Hyland has worked closely with Members of the New England delegation, from both sides of the aisle, to advance the interest of NEPPA consumers in New England. Under the leadership of their local elected energy boards, NEPPA utilities are responsible for providing reliable electric services at affordable prices throughout the region.

Pat Hyland is well known throughout the New England Congressional delegation for his integrity and forthrightness. He has played a pivotal role in advocating on behalf of NEPPA utilities that deliver vital electricity, and in some cases water services, on a non-profit, publicly-accountable basis to consumers in small and large communities throughout New England.

To highlight just two of his successes, Pat has effectively spearheaded legislative efforts to increase awareness of impacts to consumers in New England--who are also our constituents--of wholesale and retail competition, including the creation of Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs), and energy capacity markets and the implementation of key transmission rate policies.

Throughout his career, Pat Hyland has been actively involved in federal energy policy. He was a key resource to me during the debate over the amendment that I successfully offered to provide for open transmission access when Congress enacted the Energy Policy Act of 1992; he was a voice of caution regarding the need to ensure appropriate consumer and investor protections in the event of a repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act in the Energy Policy Act of 2005; and he was a leader in the effort to obtain comparable renewable incentives for the customers of consumer-owned utilities.

He has also taken the lead to increase consumer awareness about the impact of wholesale and retail competition and operations of Regional Transmission Organizations.

My personal and professional respect and admiration for Pat runs deep, and I wish him happiness and good health in his retirement. The wise counsel, calm determination, and good Irish sense-of-humor, which he has provided to me and others in Congress for many years on behalf of NEPPA, will be sorely missed.

I am told that one of the highlights of Pat's life was to meet the legendary Celtics basketball player Bob Cousey. I understand that, because over the last 20 years Pat Hyland has been New England's public power ``point guard'': taking control of the game, mastering it with wizardry and elegance, and dazzling fans.

And so I wish today, Mr. Speaker to say to Pat, thank you for your service. We will miss you and we wish you well.

I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, the New Deal was a jobs plan. President Obama has put forward a jobs plan.

H.R. 1904 is not a jobs plan. H.R. 1904 is a massive payout to multinational mining giants that are wearing a jobs plan as a disguise. That disguise is slipping. Real jobs are about making wise investments in businesses and technologies that put Americans to work. This bill just gives billions of dollars in copper to foreign mining companies for free.

Let's do the math. Estimates vary on the value of the copper from $2 billion to $7 billion or $8 billion. So let's just split the difference down the middle and say that the copper might be worth $5 billion. The jobs claims for this bill vary wildly as well from 500 to 5,000 jobs.

Now, there is a good reason to believe the jobs numbers will be on the very low end, but let's be optimistic and take the highest jobs claim possible.

So supporters of this bill are going to give away $5 billion in hopes of creating 5,000 jobs. Well, that's $1 million per job, Mr. Chairman, $1 million not paid necessarily to the workers themselves but to foreign mining giants. Now, is that the kind of wise investment that we need? I do not think so.

I think that we need some new jobs, but they should be real jobs. They should be here.

Much of the work that's going to be done in this mining is going to be done by robots. So there will be full employment for R2-D2 and for the transformers; but the total number of jobs here, very speculative and very expensive per job created. That's the real question here because I think many human beings are just going to remain unemployed under this plan.

And since it's a multinational that gets the benefits, there will be plenty of accountants and lawyers in London and Melbourne, all around the world, that will be employed, but in America, not so many. And those that are there, very expensive, especially since the per capita cost is very, very high.

Now, why do we know that? Well, we know it because Rio Tinto and BHP- Billiton stand to pocket an enormous amount of money, billions of dollars, off of this deal.

So if you count the chauffeurs, if you count the food service workers in the executive dining rooms of these companies, well, you can see where there will be some jobs that are created if you're adding it up that way.

But the truth is, this is a windfall, a windfall, which is why I am going to make an amendment to charge a reasonable royalty for the privilege of mining this copper on public lands in the United States. And when the majority votes ``no'' on that, when the Republicans say, no, we don't want a royalty payment that can actually be collected by the American people, we'll see what the real aim of this is, which is to privatize this resource for multinational corporations without giving the full benefit to the American taxpayer for the copper which is mined.

Mr. Grijalva and Mr. Garamendi will offer an amendment to require local hiring and local ore processing and Make It in America, make it here and have Americans working here doing this work, people from Arizona itself. That's the real debate that we're going to have.

In conclusion, Mr. Lujan as well will offer an amendment to protect Native American sacred sites from being destroyed by this bill. And when that is defeated as well by the majority, it will

be painfully clear just how far they are willing to go to enrich these foreign corporations.

This should not be a Filene's Basement sale. This should not be a fire sale giving away American valuable copper resources to multinationals. We should be able to put a price tag on what the American people are getting from this bargain basement sale, this giveaway, without proper compensation given to the American taxpayer.

That's what this bill and the debate is going to be all about. It's whether or not, in fact, there is corporate profiteering at taxpayer expense, plain and simple, which is at the heart of this bill. History will record that when the public cried out for a jobs plan to put Americans back to work, what was put together was a retirement plan for executives at Rio Tinto and BHP-Billiton that did not, in fact, get a return on investment for the American taxpayers.

The National Congress of American Indians Resolution #MKE-11-0xx

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk made in order under the rule.

Mr. Chairman, there are two versions of this land bill: one with the Markey amendment and one without the Markey amendment. The difference is the version with the Markey amendment is a deal the American taxpayers should take. Without my amendment, this is a deal that takes the taxpayers.

Without the Markey amendment, this land deal is a shell game, all about misdirection and surprise outcomes. We are urged to keep our eye on the beautiful surface acres the Federal Government would get in this deal and the unique payment scheme included in the bill. This is like the guy on the street who tells you to watch his right hand while his left hand is picking your pocket.

This is not about the surface. This is about the copper and whether Rio Tinto will have to pay its fair value. And the fact is the payment scheme in this bill is completely--let me say it again--the payment scheme in this bill is completely speculative. It will be based on information only the company has access to and is subject to serious manipulation.

In the end, Rio Tinto could end up paying absolutely nothing for the massive windfall they stand to receive from this legislation. With the Markey amendment, this bill is simple. It would require no guesswork on the part of the taxpayers. It would allow for no manipulation that could shortchange the American taxpayer.

My amendment strikes the convoluted payment scheme in this bill and replaces it with a simple 8 percent royalty on the copper produced each year from this mine. This is the American people's copper. It's not their copper. It's the American people's. What are they going to get out of this? How about 8 percent? Can we give the taxpayer 8 percent?

Now, we don't know how much copper exactly is down there. The benefit of my amendment is we don't need to know ahead of time. If Rio Tinto makes $1, then they owe the taxpayer a nickel and three pennies, and if they make $8 billion, the Treasury gets $640 million.

Now, the company will argue a royalty is unfair. Well, guess who is already paying royalties, Mr. Chairman. Oil and gas companies pay 12.5 percent when they drill on the taxpayers' land. 12.5 percent, that's what ExxonMobil pays. That's what Shell pays. But do you know who else pays the royalty? Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton when they mine on State land. So, if you're in Colorado, you're in Wyoming and you're on State land, you're paying a royalty. But, no, let's go to the American taxpayers' land. Those same companies that pay to the States don't pay to Uncle Sam.

And the revenue from a royalty is money we can use. What can we use the money for? Make sure we don't have to cut Medicare payments for Grandma. Make sure we have student loans for kids to be able to go to college. That's what the money should be used for. Should it just be pocketed by Rio Tinto, by these companies?

So I ask my colleagues, which deal do you want to go home with and tell your constituents you were for? The deal where they got some nice lands in Arizona while a foreign mining company got billions in copper, or the deal where they got the land plus hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty payments for the U.S. taxpayer?

With the Markey amendment, we in Congress are responsible stewards doing our due diligence to protect the Federal Treasury to get the taxpayer what they're owed. Without the Markey amendment, this House looks like the old Keystone Kops, bumbling around in circles while billions walk right out the door that should be in the pockets of every taxpayer in this country.

We have a supercommittee debating how much they're going to cut poor people, students, national defense, what we're going to spend on the protection of our country, and how many policemen we can afford to have. Meanwhile, out here on the House floor, we're going to turn a blind eye to billions of dollars just going right out the floor of the House here today into the pockets of Rio Tinto, into the pockets of a foreign corporation. That's not right.

Vote for the Markey amendment. Capture this money for the American taxpayer.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentleman.

The bill before us today proposes to give away National Forest land to the Resolution Copper Corporation so they can build a giant copper mine. There could be somewhere between $2 billion and $7 billion worth of copper on this land.

So who exactly is this company that is going to be the beneficiary of the Republican majority largesse? A controlling 55 percent of Resolution Copper's shares are owned by the giant mining conglomerate Rio Tinto.

What else does Rio Tinto own? It turns out Rio Tinto owns 65 percent of the world's largest open pit uranium mine, the Rossing Mine, in Namibia. Their second-largest partner in the Rossing Uranium Mine, with a 15 percent stake and two people on the board of directors, is none other than the government of Iran.

The U.N. Security Council has six times approved resolutions condemning Iran for its violations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and this House has twice enacted strong Iran nuclear sanctions. Yet Rio Tinto is in partnership with the Iranian government to mine uranium. For what purpose?

And with this bill today we are rewarding Rio Tinto. We are telling Rio Tinto, Never mind the U.N. sanctions. Never mind the sanctions of U.S. law.

What the Deutch amendment does is say if you want to do business with America, you need to stop doing business with Iran and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Under this amendment, as soon as Rio Tinto severs its partnership with Iran and Ahmadinejad, Rio Tinto's Resolution Copper affiliate can proceed to take title to these very valuable Federal lands in Arizona in the United States of America.

I don't think that's too much for this Congress to ask. Vote for a strong nuclear nonproliferation policy. Send a message to Ahmadinejad. Vote for the Deutch amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentlelady.

I rise in opposition to this legislation. If it were to pass the House, we lawmakers would be directing the Secretary of Transportation to tell U.S. airlines not to follow the law. If we prohibit our companies from complying with the laws in other countries, we should expect other countries to do the same when it comes to their companies complying with U.S. law.

In an effort to protect U.S. airlines, this bill might actually undermine airline security. The U.S. currently requires international airlines to comply with a wide range of U.S. laws when it comes to passenger, baggage, and cargo security in order to do business in our country. If we legislate our companies out of Europe's environmental laws, our homeland security could be adversely impacted if European countries decided to withhold their cooperation in response with regard to screening of baggage for bombs on planes flying into the United States.

When it comes to pollution from the transportation sector, the United States was the first to pass a law requiring anyone in the world interested in coming to our shores to follow our environmental regulations. In 1990, Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. In order to reduce the risk of an oil spill, it required all tankers operating in U.S. waters to be double-hulled by 2015. No matter what country's flag a tanker is flying, it will have to be double-hulled to sail into the United States of America--to protect us from their pollution.

We acted unilaterally to protect our country from the carbon pollution associated with an oil spill 21 years ago. Now, after years of trying to forge an international aviation agreement, the European Union is acting to protect itself from the carbon pollution associated from airline travel.

Last week, an independent team of scientists at Berkeley released their analysis of land surface temperature records going back to 1800. They found--as their counterparts in NOAA and NASA had previously shown--that temperatures over the last decade were increasing. Once again, scientists have confirmed that global warming is real. Now that independent scientists have validated this bedrock fact, perhaps my colleagues who have questioned the science of climate change will be willing to give climate scientists the benefit of the doubt that the rest of their findings are accurate. And those findings have sobering consequences for the United States--more heat waves, rising sea levels, declining snowpack, more frequent drought, more extreme precipitation when it does rain--to name just a few.

2011 has been a record-breaking year for extreme weather in the United States. If left unchecked, climate change could make a year like this seem normal. The Europeans are taking climate change seriously. We shouldn't undermine their efforts by legislating that our airlines break the law. I would urge a ``no'' vote on H.R. 2594. Just remember that all of the other laws that we expect them to abide by in terms of the protection of American environment and American security become jeopardized when we question legitimate laws that the Europeans put on the books in order to protect our planet.

So I urge a ``no'' vote on this bill.

Madam Chair, I rise as the designee to offer amendment No. 3, the Carney amendment.

I thank you.

Just 3 days before Christmas in 2008, the coal ash impoundment--and ``impoundment'' is just another word for giant swimming pool--burst in Kingston, Tennessee, releasing 1.1 billion gallons of toxic sludge that blanketed the nearby Emory River. That toxic stew that flowed out, a billion gallons into the river, destroyed homes and 300 acres of surrounding land, creating a Superfund site that could cost up to $1.2 billion to remediate. Since this incident, the EPA has identified 49 other giant pools of coal ash across the country that are designated as high hazard.

This means that if these impoundments were to fail, then it's not just the land that would be damaged, but human life would likely be lost.

This Republican bill purports to be a solution to what happened in Tennessee. It claims to create standards

for these giant pools that would ensure a TVA catastrophe won't happen again. But in fact it excludes safety requirements such as just accounting for earthquakes or surface erosion. And even worse, the very minimal requirements that are included in this bill only apply to new impoundments there are built starting 3 years after this bill is enacted. That's right. Nothing even starts for 3 years. And it's got to be brand new.

So more than 430 impoundments that we know of and are in use today are not even going to be covered by this bill. And they have been built by old standards, not by the new standards. That's like finding a fatal flaw in a car that's on the road, but only requiring car companies to fix the ones that have not yet been built and won't even come on the road for 3 years. Or, like finding E. coli in chicken on grocery store shelves. But rather than issuing a recall today for the stuff that's on the shelves, they say there are rules that are going to go in place 3 years from now so just let the contaminated poultry continue to be sold.

This amendment is a simple fix to this problem. It would require all impoundments to meet minimal safety criteria in this Republican bill. Those facilities that cannot meet basic requirements such as installing a liner so that this toxic coal sludge doesn't seep into the soil and the groundwater will have 10 years to close their doors.

Unless this amendment is passed, disposal of coal ash in unlined, unsafe pits will be allowed to continue. In Missouri, there is an unlined impoundment that has been leaking more than 50,000 gallons of toxic liquid a day since 1992. It would not have to be fixed. Let me repeat that. Fifty-thousand gallons of toxic liquid a day since 1992 has been leaking out of that toxic facility, and it wouldn't have to be fixed under that bill. What are you saying to the people in Missouri?

In Princeton, Indiana, a wet coal ash impoundment built in an earthquake fault area discharged dangerous slurry when an earthquake struck nearby last year. The spill contaminated a national wildlife refuge with selenium. A wetland that is home to an endangered bird species had to be drained and 50 tons of fish had to be buried. This Republican bill would allow that impoundment to continue receiving coal ash as well.

After the Kingston accident in 2008, the Tennessee Valley Authority approved a plan to voluntarily phase out all of their coal ash ponds in 10 years and to eliminate high-risk storage facilities that pose a danger to people and property if they were to fail. If they can do it, shouldn't the other companies be able to do it as well?

We shouldn't have to wait for another catastrophe like Kingston to happen before we require these basic safety measures to be employed at all coal ash ponds.

I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Two weeks ago, scientists at a massive facility in Europe announced that they may have discovered a particle that travels faster than the speed of light--a discovery that would turn Einstein's theory of special relativity upside down, a discovery that, if true, would revolutionize the way we see the world. The news spurred a massive amount of interest. Headlines read: ``Back to the Future,'' and media stories even speculated on how this discovery could be exploited to enable real-life time travel.

However, it seems Republicans have already figured out how to get around Einstein's theory, because today the House will vote on a piece of legislation that will blast us right back in time to the start of the Industrial Revolution. This bill says no matter what EPA learns about the sludge that comes out of coal-fired plants, no matter how high the concentrations of poisonous arsenic, mercury, or chromium, and no matter what EPA learns about how these materials find their way into our drinking water, EPA is forbidden to classify or regulate it as hazardous waste. EPA is forbidden to require that this toxic material be disposed of carefully.

This bill turns a blind eye to evidence of known hazards and takes us back to the Dark Ages, to a time before science was valued and before advanced knowledge transformed society. It takes us back to an era when mercury and arsenic, major components of coal ash, were used to cure toothaches and clear up your complexion. It takes us back to an era where children were sent deep into the bowels of the Earth to rip coal from the mines and to die early deaths.

The problem with continuing to push a 19th century technology like coal is that you then continue 19th century attitudes about public health and the environment. Instead of time travel through Einstein's theory of special relativity, Republicans are pushing to travel backwards in time to advance the coal industry's special interests.

While Republican efforts on time travel are unlikely to help us understand black holes, they will take us back to the era of black lung disease. Instead of allowing the coal industry

and Republicans to transport our country's environmental and public health standards back to the era of Charles Dickens, we should hold these industries to great-er expectations.

In December of 2008, hundreds of acres of land were buried in toxic sludge after a Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash containment pond collapsed in Tennessee, releasing 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash slurry, covering more than 300 acres of land in a gray poisonous muck, damaging homes and properties and tainting nearby rivers. The event was, quite literally, a poisonous lump of coal dumped on the nearby community just 3 days before Christmas.

This Republican bill purports to be a solution to what happened in Tennessee. It claims to create standards for coal ash containment ponds that would ensure structural integrity, but in fact it explicitly exempts those same coal ash ponds from key design requirements relating to their long-term stability.

This bill claims that States have to set up a rigorous drinking water monitoring regime and dust controls, but in fact the bill has no legal or enforceable standard for these State programs. And even more, any State at any time can waive any of these minimal permitting requirements and they don't have to tell anyone. That's right. When it comes to constructing a gigantic containment pond in your backyard, a State can choose to opt out of the requirements of this bill and no one--not the public or the EPA--would ever even know. This is just plain wrong.

We should not delegate this authority to the States and then turn around and let States hide behind a cloak of secrecy when making decisions about waste sites that may be hundreds of acres in size, receive millions of tons of waste, and which may be in operation for decades.

My amendment is very simple. It says that before a State can waive even the minimal criteria that this bill requires, that the State must first notify the public and the EPA and offer the opportunity for public comment. That is the least that we have as a responsibility to the public.

I urge an ``aye'' on the Markey amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

The ``Occupy Wall Street'' protests have spread from New York to cities across America. As the protests expand, people are asking, Why? Why are thousands of Americans in the streets? Because Americans are fed up.

Ninety-nine percent of the people are 100 percent fed up. They are fed up with a system that puts profit over people, that rewards the rich at the expense of everyone else. Let me give you an example:

The government plans to spend $700 billion on new nuclear weapons systems over the next 10 years, even as it's proposing to cut research for Alzheimer's, for cancer research, for a diabetes cure, to take care of Medicare and Medicaid patients across our country.

The American people are not afraid that their family is going to get killed by a new nuclear weapon. They're afraid that the killing that comes into their life comes from the terrorist that is the phone call from a doctor in the middle of the night that another member of their family has cancer, has diabetes, has Alzheimer's, has Parkinson's.

That's the priority that we have to establish for our country. That's why 65 of my colleagues are going to introduce this effort to cut $200 billion out of the nuclear weapons program over the next 10 years.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Amendment No. 7. I rise as the designee to offer amendment No. 7.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Yes, I am offering the amendment as the designee of Mr. Quigley, which I think under the rules is permitted.

Today the Republicans continue their war on the environment. This time we have episode 58 of the Clean Air Act Repealathon.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen who are listening. This is the 58th time the Republicans have voted to weaken the Clean Air Act this year. Today's episode guest stars excessive and unwanted appearances by neurotoxic mercury, carcinogenic dioxin, and deadly arsenic. This bill blocks and indefinitely delays implementation of the rules that would reduce emissions of these lethal air pollutants from industrial boilers and does so in total disregard for the devastating impacts these pollutants have on public health, particularly the health of infants and children.

We already know a lot about these substances. For instance, exposure to dioxin causes delays in motor skills and neurodevelopment in children, impacts hormones that regulate growth, metabolism and reproduction, and has been classified as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization and the National Toxicology Program. Chromium 6 was made famous by the movie ``Erin Brockovich,'' starring Julia Roberts. That chemical has been linked to stomach and other forms of cancer. And let's not forget mercury, a substance that is particularly harmful to children because it impairs brain development, impacting memory, attention and language, potentially leading to life-long disabilities. The mercury is released directly into the air we all breathe and finds its way into the food that we eat. In 2010, all 50 States issued fish consumption advisories warning

citizens to limit how often they eat fish caught in State waters because of mercury contamination.

This bill seeks to permanently eliminate EPA's ability to reduce these toxic emissions from industrial boilers and does so despite the fact that the American Boiler Manufacturers Association, the association that represents the very companies that design, manufacture, and supply the industrial boilers in question, oppose the Republican bill.

That's right, the companies that have stated that they stand ready and able to harness American ingenuity and technological might to design products that comply with EPA requirements in a timely and cost- effective manner oppose the Republican bill here today. And why? Because they believe this bill will only kill what they expect to be a new high-tech engineering and domestic manufacturing job explosion.

So the Republican bill will not only kill people, 6,600 additional deaths per year in the United States according to the EPA; it will also kill jobs.

My amendment is very simple. It just says that the Republican prohibitions on EPA reducing toxic air pollution in this bill are waived if these emissions are found to increase the risk of cancer. This amendment makes the choice very clear. If we adopt this amendment, EPA can continue with its plans to require the dirtiest industrial boilers and incinerators to clean up their cancer-causing emissions and do so while creating American jobs. So we saved 6,600 Americans from dying each year from their exposure to these neurotoxins; and at the same time, we create jobs in our economy.

That's what this is all about. The EPA just has to certify that the Republican approach will not lead to an increase in cancers. That's all that we ask the Members on the floor to vote on today.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

Again, the EPA has estimated that delaying the boiler air pollution rules could cause upwards of 6,600 deaths per year. That's the estimate, but that might be lowballing the number. We all know that parents out there are very concerned about what their kids are breathing in, especially if they live near these kinds of facilities that are spewing this stuff up into the atmosphere. They know how kids can be very vulnerable to this going into their systems as they're growing up.

So to say that there is no health effect and that it can't be specifically quantified--that it's 6,602 as opposed to 6,605--doesn't mean that they haven't come up with a number, 6,600, that approximates what could happen in terms of the number of deaths that are caused by having this bill go on the books.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank our leader from California.

I just want to say that these bills represent a toxic assault that compromises public health for polluter wealth. Republicans are continuing their war on the environment with episode 37 of the Clean Air Act repeal-a-thon. It is a tried-and-true, three-part Republican strategy:

First, pass legislation that repeals regulations that have already been set. Second, indefinitely delay new regulations from ever being set. And third, just for good measure, include a provision that eviscerates the very underpinnings of effective Federal law and deters any effort to protect the health and well-being of millions of Americans.

Make no mistake, that is what we are doing here this week. These bills block and indefinitely delay implementation of the rules that would reduce hazardous air pollution, such as mercury, lead, and cancer-causing substances released from cement kilns and industrial boilers, and do so in callous disregard for adverse impacts those pollutants have on public health, particularly on the health of infants and children.

Republicans have decided to stage their own public event today on the floor: Occupy Stall Street. But lest you think that Republicans always want to delay regulations, it turns out that sometimes they want to speed up the wheels.

Republicans voted to tell EPA to hurry up and make decisions to issue air permits for drilling rigs off the pristine coast of Alaska. Republicans have voted to give the Department of the Interior a mere 30 days to approve permit applications for drilling in the gulf at the same time they block legislation to implement any drilling reform in the wake of the BP disaster. And they've also voted to reduce the time allowed for environmental review so that the State Department would approve the Keystone pipeline as soon as possible.

But when it comes to regulations that would decrease the amount of toxic pollutants in our air or water, apparently the same Federal agencies that evaluate hazardous pollutants in the first place just need more time to review the science, more time to understand the technologies, more time before doing anything to make our water safer to drink, make our air safer to breathe, and protect the health of children around the country.

And it also turns out that Republicans don't always turn a blind eye towards the health effects of toxic chemicals. Three months ago, as our country stood on the edge of default due to Tea Party brinksmanship, House Republicans chose to vigorously debate a bill to ban compact fluorescent light bulbs. During that debate, Republicans repeatedly told us that the mercury vapor from those light bulbs is dangerous and that exposing our citizens to the harmful effects of the mercury contained in CFL light bulbs is likely to pose a hazard for years to come. Yet the bills considered today would result in nearly 16,600 pounds of extra mercury vapors being released directly into the air, and that's just in 1 year. That is the equivalent of 2.5 billion compact fluorescent light bulbs. And the mercury released as a result of these bills is not the kind you can sweep off the living room floor or throw into a trash can. This is the mercury released directly into the air that we all breathe and finds its way into the food that we eat.

If the regulation to remove mercury from cement plants--which is already 13 years overdue--is delayed for even 1 year, up to 2,500 people will die prematurely, there will be 17,000 cases of aggravated asthma, and 1,500 people will suffer heart attacks.

I thank the gentleman.

If the regulation to remove mercury, lead, and cancer-causing toxins from incinerators and industrial boilers--which is already 11 years overdue--is delayed for even 1 year, there will be 6,600 people who will die prematurely and people will miss 320,000 days of work and school.

The Republicans are presenting yet another false choice to the American people. We do not have to choose between manufacturing and mercury. We do not have to choose between concrete and cancer. We can have both clean air and a healthy manufacturing sector.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this terrible Republican cancer-causing bill out here on the floor today.

Mr. Chairman, can you inform us as to how much time is remaining on both sides?

I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison).

I yield myself 1 minute.

What we have here today is just one more episode in what is a 1-year Republican control of the Congress, which has seen a litany of industries that no longer want to make the air cleaner, that no longer want to make the water safer to drink.

We come out here on the House floor with Republican leadership in order to repeal the laws, to water down the laws to protect children from mercury, to protect children from contracting asthma. That's what this is all about. The EPA used to stand for the Environmental Protection Agency. Now it stands for ``every polluter's ally'' out here. They all come out here, and they want to ensure that the laws are watered down.

That's what we're fighting. That's what Democrats are fighting here. We're fighting to ensure that the water stays clean, that the air stays safe to breathe. The boiler industry is saying, no, there's not enough mercury that gets sent up into the air; there's not

enough mercury that goes into the lives of children in our country. We're going to fight that.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I would ask the Chair if we could review again how much time is remaining.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The Republicans have yet to bring a job creation bill out here on the House floor in the 10 months they have controlled the Congress.

Instead, what they're doing is responding to industries who do not want to make the air cleaner, who do not want to make the water safer for the children of our country to drink and to breathe. And, instead, they make the case that making the environment cleaner kills jobs when we know that all evidence says it creates more jobs, because it spurs innovation in new technologies that create jobs that make our economy stronger. Instead, they argue that what the country needs is more mercury, more arsenic, more cadmium, more asthmas, more mercury poisoning, more carcinogens that harm the health of our country.

So not only do they not help the health of our economy by bringing out a jobs bill, instead they bring out bills that hurt the health of the American people where they live and their families. That's what their agenda has been all about since the day they took over in January, and that's the agenda that we are voting on here today.

Vote ``no'' on this Republican health-killing bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Offered By: Mr. Markey

Amendment No. 16: After section 1, insert the following

section (and redesignate the subsequent sections

accordingly):

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise in opposition to the Republican TRAIN Act, the Total Regulatory Amnesty for Industry Negligence Act of 2011.

The very silly premise of this bill is that it's simply impossible to keep our air clean and still keep our economic engine chugging along. This Republican-led House has initiated a full-throttle ``repeal-a- thon.'' It's a three-part strategy: one, deny the science; two, delay the regulations; three, deter efforts to protect the health and security of millions of Americans.

We keep hearing from Republicans about how EPA's clean air standards to reduce mercury, lead, dioxins, and other pollutants need to be economically analyzed and reanalyzed. They insist that, even if a standard for one toxic chemical was met by an entire industrial sector, the removal of just one more poisonous chemical would cause a domino effect of problems for industry.

And the solution to these supposed problems? It is a time-tested Republican tradition.

First, pass legislation that repeals regulations that have already been set. Two, require endless study of the cumulative effects of all regulations of

all industries. Finally, just for good measure, pass an amendment that guts the very underpinnings of the Clean Air Act.

Make no mistake, that is what we are doing here today.

Our planet is warming and extreme weather is increasing. We're having record 100-year floods every few years. Hurricanes have caused floods, massive power outages, and deaths. Texas was on fire this summer after having the warmest summer ever recorded by any State. The President has issued disaster declarations in 48 States so far this year. We have set an all-time high of 83 major disasters declared in 2011. We've already had 10 weather events causing $1 billion or more in damages--another record--and we still have 3 months of the year left to go.

And what do Republicans propose?

Rather than saving money by cutting the hundreds of billions we spent on unneeded Cold War-era nuclear weapons, the Tea Party chooses to cut funds that would reduce our dependency on foreign oil. Rather than cutting the tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies we give to Big Oil and Big Coal, the Republicans gut programs that would manufacture energy-efficient cars in America and provide clean air. Republicans would have us pay for the costs of weather disasters caused by global warming by cutting funding for a program that actually reduces the very threat of global warming.

For all the talk of this so-called ``TRAIN wreck of cumulative EPA regulations,'' there seems to be one cumulative effect that isn't getting mentioned by the Republicans: the cumulative effect of all of their goals on the health of Americans. That is because the Republicans, perhaps, are spending so much time doing the bidding of those corporations that they have lost their train of thought.

If the regulation to remove mercury from cement plants--already 13 years overdue--is delayed for even one more year, up to 2,500 people will prematurely die. There will be 17,000 cases of aggravated asthma, and 1,500 people will suffer heart attacks. If the regulation to remove mercury, lead, and cancer-causing toxins from incinerators and industrial boilers--already 11 years overdue--is delayed for one more year, there will be 6,600 people who will prematurely die because of that.

Additionally, if this bill passes, it would repeal mercury and Cross- State Air Pollution Rules for power plants, resulting in the loss of 25,000 more lives and more than 11,000 heart attacks. And that's just with 1 year of delay.

So what's the cumulative impact of just 1 year of delay on each of these regulations? Thirty-four thousand people will die and many more will be injured.

In discussing these Republican efforts, today, Lisa Jackson, EPA Administrator, testified before our committee that, ``If we could reduce particulate matter to healthy levels, it would have the same impact as finding the cure for cancer in our country.'' The difference is we already know how to reduce particulate matter. We don't know how to cure cancer.

The Republicans are providing the American people with a false choice. We do not have to choose between air quality and air- conditioning. We do not have to choose between manufacturing and mercury poisoning. We do not have to choose between clean air and cancer. Ending protections for clean air and clean water should be a third rail issue, but the Republican Tea Party express has veered far off onto the right track.

I thank the gentleman.

Sadly, these are the kinds of anti-innovation, anti-science, anti- public health schemes the public has come to fear from this legislative wrecking crew.

When the Republicans beckon you to come ``all aboard'' on the TRAIN Act, I urge you to run in the opposite direction, because the only train Republicans seem to care about is the Big Oil and big coal gravy train, and that's pulling out of the station here tonight as the Republicans push this bill through the Congress.

I thank the gentlelady.

Write today's date down, September 22, 2011. The Republicans are now in open warfare against clean energy. Yesterday was an opening salvo, but today is the declaration of war. They've already gutted clean energy research and development budgets by 40 percent for next year. Their budget for the next 3 years promises to cut those investments by 90 percent. They've zeroed out loan guarantee programs for all renewable energy in their budget while leaving intact $25 billion for the nuclear industry. They're prepared to shut down the government rather than rescind one penny of the oil and gas industry's $41 billion in tax subsidies. But clean energy sector gets the hammer.

Yesterday, in a gratuitous assist to Big Oil, Republicans tried to kill the Clean Car Factory Fund in order to pay for natural disaster relief. This is the program that is helping American companies manufacture superefficient vehicles that reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil from OPEC. But, apparently, that bill wasn't radical enough for the Tea Party base. So tonight, they come back and they're launching their full-frontal assault on clean energy. Yesterday, it was just clean cars. Today, it's solar energy, wind energy and all renewables. Tonight, they take out the full assault attack.

But a word of warning. Up to a dozen projects are prepared to receive the green light in the next week. Swooping in and destroying this program now will destroy these projects and destroy the thousands of jobs that will come with them. So before you vote for this bill, check and see if your State is one of the 38 that has received support under this program. Check and see if your State is one of the 12 that could have a new project announced next week. Make sure that the 66,000 people that have jobs today as a result of this program are not from your State. By the way, those 66,000 jobs created through this program are far more than any jobs created through legislation passed out in the first 9 months that the Republicans have controlled the United States House of Representatives.

So our planet is warming and extreme weather is increasing; 100-year floods and droughts are now striking every few years. Hurricanes have caused floods, massive power outages, and deaths. Texas has been on fire after having the hottest summer ever recorded. The President has issued disaster relief declarations in 48 States so far this year. Eighty-three major disasters declared in 2011, the all-time record; 3 more months to go this year. Wake up. Wake up. You can't kill these programs. This is the solution you are killing.

Republicans say, fine, we'll provide emergency relief for those who have been afflicted by nature's wrath in an ever-warming planet, but we won't do it unless we can cut the funds for the programs that promise to be the solution to the problem. That's what they're proposing here tonight.

Does the majority ask if we can save money by cutting the hundreds of billions of dollars we are planning on spending, the Republicans are planning on spending on new nuclear weapons being constructed over the next 10 years when we don't need any more nuclear weapons? No. Can we cut the tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies we pay to Big Oil and King Coal? Of course not. But wind, solar, clean cars, all- electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, oh, yeah, let's cut that program tonight to fund disaster relief for people in this country suffering from weather, from floods, from hurricanes, and from tornadoes caused by an ever-changing climate.

This bill is an embarrassment. This is not worthy of this Congress. Vote ``no'' on this latest Republican assault plan to kill the clean energy industry in this country on behalf of the Big Oil and Big Coal industries.

I thank the gentleman. I'm glad you brought out the General Motors deal because the General Motors deal is only possible because of the grants and the loans that have been given for the batteries and for the new technologies under these programs that are now making it possible for General Motors to reinvent.

This is not a debate over compassion. This is not a debate over who cares more about the people in Joplin or the people in Vermont. This is a debate about what the Republicans, what the Tea Party has decided to use as an excuse, as a guise to finish off the revolution that the Democrats

have put in place that changes our relationship with where we get our energy from.

Big Oil and Big Coal have fought solar, wind, all-electric vehicles, biomass, geothermal, that entire revolution because they know that it will eat into their profits.

So a disaster occurs that each of us wants to respond to. The Republicans, responding to the oil and coal industry, say this is our chance to kill the revolution that makes it possible to have vehicles go 50, 60, 80, 100 miles a gallon without oil, no oil, that makes it possible for us to have wind and solar generate the electricity that will fuel those vehicles without sending greenhouse gases up into the atmosphere, which is changing our climate and leading to these storms, leading to these floods, leading to these disasters that then needs FEMA, need the relief that we give to these families. So they take the chance, they take the opportunity to kill the very programs which are the solution to these disasters which are being created here in our country and around the world, the agenda of Big Oil and Big Coal.

And the temerity of it all is that they know that the automotive program has already created 39,000 jobs in our country over the last 3 years and that this one cut that they are talking about tonight will kill 10,000 jobs over the next year. In the solar industry--and, by the way, they cut out $100 million in solar and wind guarantees as well.

Right now, ladies and gentlemen, there are 85,000 jobs in the wind industry, almost all of them created in the last 4 years. There are 85,000 jobs in the coal industry. In other words, in the last 5 years, wind now equals the entire coal industry. There are 100,000 jobs in the solar industry, and last year we were a net exporter to China; 100,000 jobs in solar, 85,000 jobs in wind, and it is the future.

The oil industry laid off 20,000 employees over the last 3 years. Let us talk here about future, about young people, about this planet, about backing out the oil from OPEC so we can tell them we don't need their oil any more than we need their sand. That's what this debate is about tonight.

And under the guise, with these crocodile tears of how much they care about the victims, as though it's any greater on our side, they are using it as the guise to kill these programs. That's what it's all about tonight. That's why we're angry. That's what this is all about.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

They could have taken this money out of the $41 million of gas breaks for the oil and gas industry, but, no, they take it out of solar, they take it out of wind.

And by the way, wind and solar, with the same amount of money, creates five times more jobs than an investment in fossil fuels does. So they keep the money in for the programs that create three to five times less jobs than the program they are knee-capping here this evening. That's what this vote is all about.

I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Solyndra will receive no money under this program.

Who will receive this money? Indiana will receive the money.

So they will not receive a nickel under this program. The oil and gas industry will receive that money as they tip the people of our country upside down and shake the money out of their pockets.

I thank the gentleman from Washington State.

We're having 100-year floods every year. We're having tornados rip through Joplin. We have floods in Vermont, in New Jersey, New York. We have hurricanes all across the country. We have 48 States who have had emergency declarations so far this year. The planet is warming; the weather is worsening.

What is the response of the Republicans? They have to find the money--they say all of a sudden--for disaster relief for people who are suffering, for people who are desperate, for people whose lives have been altered permanently.

They say we have to cut something. Now, do they say we're going to cut the nuclear weapons program because America doesn't need any more nuclear weapons? No. Are we going to cut the breaks that we give to oil and coal? No, we're not going to touch those things. Where are we going? What does the Republican Party do? What does the Tea Party want? I ask what the Tea Party wants.

The Tea Party wants to cut the Clean Car Factory Fund. Now, what is that? Well, that's the fund that we have that's going to invent the automobiles and the trucks that go 60, 70, 80, 90 miles per gallon without having to use oil. Now, why is that important? Two reasons: One, it's the oil that's being burnt that creates the greenhouse gases that are warming up the planet, causing all of these weather conditions that are leading to these disaster relief programs that have to have more money in them as each year goes by; and, two, it is so that we can tell the OPEC ministers, We don't need your oil any more than we need your sand.

So what are they doing here today? They're taking the one program that is central to the health and well-being of our country and to our national security--so that we alter our relationship with OPEC--and they are slashing it. They are slashing the one program that reinvents the vehicles that we drive. They are slashing the one program that gives young people in our country some hope that we are going to invent our way out of this problem.

You don't have to be Dick Tracy to figure out what's going on here. The oil industry, the coal industry, all of the polluting industries are saying kill the program that makes sure that the vehicles we get in 20 years get 75 or 100 miles per gallon without using one gallon of oil.

Vote ``no'' on this terrible bill.

I thank the gentlelady.

The Republican Party deficit plan is very simple:

Number one, send the financial markets into a nose dive.

Number two, drive up costs for home mortgages, student loans, and credit cards.

Number three, spook businesses to stall job growth, bringing the Nation to the brink of economic collapse.

Number four, repeat it all again and again until election day 2012.

The Republicans don't want compromise; they want capitulation. The Republicans have brought to the floor a constitutional amendment to balance the budget that's going nowhere. It is phony. But there's another sinister constitutional amendment being debated here, it's very real; and it will cause our country to default on its obligations.

Amendment 14, section 4, of the Constitution says: ``The validity of the public debt shall not be questioned.'' But this bill would change the Constitution forever--forever.

Under this Republican bill, our country would be pushed into defaulting on our obligations. The Republican Party would turn the 14th Amendment from a guarantee into a question mark. Now, under the Republican bill: ``The validity of the public debt shall be questioned.'' That is what they are doing this weekend.

This is unacceptable and would have a disastrous effect upon our economy and the middle class. The only way to end this historic nightmare is to resolve another massive deficit, the leadership deficit in the Republican Party. We must vote down this constitutional amendment, which will have us not honoring the full faith and credit of the United States which was built into the 14th Amendment of our United States Constitution. They are amending that Constitution here this evening. They are leading us to a default which will be a violation of that Constitution.

The Republican Party's deficit plan is very simple: one, prolong the default crisis; two, push the Nation to the very brink of economic collapse; three, repeat it all again and again until election day 2012.

The Republican Party cares only about political victory. They don't want compromise. They want capitulation.

And if America goes into default, it will be your fault.

We now have the pluperfect form of the Republican Party's political paradox: Republicans hate government, but they have to run for office in order to make sure it doesn't work. In 1995 and '96, the Republican Party shut down the Federal Government. In 1997 and '98, the Republicans shut down the Congress over impeachment. Earlier this year, they threatened to shut down the Federal Government again unless they got an extension of tax cuts for the very rich.

And now Republicans are trying to shut down the entire economy. Republicans are turning Americans into the laughingstock of the world.

If our Nation defaults, it will devastate Americans all across the country. If you have an adjustable rate mortgage, you will pay more. If you have a credit card, you will pay more. If you have a small business, you will pay more.

This Republican default will impose a Tea Party tax on the entire country. It will force Americans to pay billions more of their hard- earned money when they can least afford it. The Tea Party has congressional Republicans wrapped around its little finger, but it's the American people who are going to get squeezed. The Republican Party doesn't care. After all, it was the Bush administration and congressional Republicans who put us on this course in the first place.

The only way to end this historic nightmare is to resolve another massive deficit--the leadership deficit in the Republican Party.