Floor Statements

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

Mr. Chairman, we have an ongoing debate in this Congress about regulation. My friends on the Republican side believe we have too much. Those of us on the Democratic side think we need careful regulation. We shouldn't have too much, but we shouldn't abolish it all together.

An appropriate regulation levels the playing field for our businesses and industries, but it also gives a fair shot to the health, safety, and concerns of our people who have no control over the production processes and how those may affect their health.

The issue presented in my amendment is not about a regulation, but it's related to the effort to roll back regulations at any cost and at any price and whatever the consequences. My amendment would include in the bill a finding that the American people who are exposed to mercury from industrial sources, addressed by the rules listed in section 2(d), through the consumption of fish containing mercury face a health hazard. There really is no dispute about that, scientifically or medically.

So the question may be, why do we need the finding? The reason we need the finding is because we have to acknowledge when industrial processes actually create health risk in order that we can accept our responsibility to address the risk that's created in the production process.

And the cement in boilers does produce mercury. Now, it's so self- evident that it produces mercury that this map here shows every single State in our Union has issued a mercury advisory. The reason those States, locally, not from Washington, have issued those mercury advisories is to give a heads-up to their citizens to be careful about eating fish that may be contaminated; and that is the responsibility of government, to let people know when there is a health risk and to help them avert it and to stop it.

My amendment, Mr. Chairman, simply incorporates what the scientific and medical community know, and that is that mercury is a toxin. And if we ingest it, particularly if it's a child, an infant, that it does enormous health damage long term.

So why don't we acknowledge what we know, namely, that mercury is a toxin, that we include this in the findings so that, in so doing, we accept the responsibility that this country has, that all of us have, to do everything we can to avoid unnecessary health care risk.

This amendment simply does that. It's not additional regulation, but it's a finding of what we know and 50 States have found, that mercury is a threat to the public health of its own citizens.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I, first of all, wish to associate myself with the remarks of Mr. Duncan, Mr. Jones, and Mr. McGovern, who spoke earlier; and I intend to address the issue of the war in Afghanistan.

This war has got to end. It's got to end because it's making us weaker, not stronger. It's a dead-end strategy that is the result of decisions that were made that do not treat with the respect they are entitled to the willingness of our men and women in uniform to serve. They will do whatever it is we ask them to do.

Our job is to give them a policy that's worthy of the sacrifice that they are always willing to make. This war in Afghanistan has been going on for 10 years. It has morphed into the United States military and the United States taxpayer having the burden of building a nation in Afghanistan. That can't be done. We know it can't be done, but there is an unwillingness to have a reckoning in this Congress and in this country to turn the direction of our national defense into fighting terrorism in a sensible way, not nation-building in Afghanistan.

So the central issue here is not just the money, which I'll address; it's not just the time that this war has been going on, which I'll address; it's the basic strategy. This nation-building approach, over 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan, over 110,000 contractors, does that make sense when the enemy that we're fighting is decentralized and dispersed? It's not a nation state threat.

And the answer to that, we all know--it's common sense, you don't have to be a military strategist--is no. And the main reason we continue on in Afghanistan is because arguments are made that it will look bad or it will look weak if we leave.

Mr. Duncan said something, I think, that makes a lot of sense. When you are persistent in the face of facts that show that what you are doing is wrong, it's time to adjust the strategy. We in this Congress owe it to the men and women in uniform to give them that strategy that's worthy of their willingness to sacrifice.

We went into Afghanistan for a legitimate reason. That reason does not exist today. We went in because that was the launching sight where Osama bin Laden planned the 9/11 attacks. And we had a right, in our national self-defense, to take out the sanctuaries and to pursue Osama bin Laden.

Those sanctuaries have been taken out, and now what we are engaged in is a continuation and a stumbling ahead towards a policy of this nation-building where we have 100,000 troops, 40,000 international troops, 110,000 contractors, where we're throwing money at problems as though these contractors can get something done, and the corruption associated with a lot that contracting is rampant.

There are 286,000 Afghan National Security Forces troops who are poorly trained and leave at a moment's notice. This has come at an enormous expense to this country: $10 billion a month; $2.3 billion a week; $328 million per day; $13.7 million an hour.

What is happening? Is that where the threat to the country is coming from? The terrorist plots that we can identify that have happened in recent years, the Fort Hood shooting that killed 13 people in November 2009, that was planned in Yemen by Anwar Al Awlaki. The plot to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009 was planned in Yemen by the same man. The attempt to bomb Times Square in May 2010 was planned and ordered by the Pakistani Taliban. And the October 2010 plot to bomb cargo planes was again planned in Yemen.

So the threat is real. Terrorism is a threat to this country. We have to address it, but we have to have a strategy that works. And having 100,000 of our troops in one nation when the terrorist threat is dispersed and decentralized throughout other parts of the world doesn't make any sense. It's time for this Congress and this President to call the question, change the strategy which requires us to right-size what our effort is, because that will, A, protect the American people in a better, more effective way; and, B, it will be a sustainable strategy, which has to be a responsibility of the policymakers.

There's been enormous sacrifice by the men and women in uniform. The troops from the State of Vermont have sacrificed and lost more lives in the Iraq and Afghanistan war on a per capita basis than any other State in the Nation. They are entitled to a policy worthy of their sacrifice.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, in this legislation there are findings. It is common in our legislation for there to be a finding section. This amendment would propose a finding for inclusion in this important legislation, and that finding would read that ``Congress finds that the American people are exposed to mercury from industrial sources addressed by the rules listed in section 2(b) of this act through the consumption of fish containing mercury, and every State in the Nation has issued at least one mercury advisory for fish consumption.''

So the question is, to the proponents of this legislation, as to whether there would be an objection to include this finding about mercury and the scientific community's absolute conclusion that mercury is hazardous to the

health of those who consume it. That's the question. If you believe that science has a place in our consideration of important legislation that affects health and safety, then it would suggest that you would want to have a finding affirming Congress's acceptance of the scientific conclusion that mercury causes harmful health effects.

So this amendment offers this Congress the opportunity to say the obvious, and that is: Mercury poisoning is bad for our health.

The reason why I ask that this Congress consider this finding is that this Congress has been debating the applicability of science to our deliberations. This is not a question of whether a regulation is onerous or not or the cost is too great for the benefits derived; it's a question of whether we will accept the responsibility to acknowledge that mercury does have significant detrimental health consequences. This should be acknowledged. It should be part of this legislation.

What this Congress cannot do, whatever its dispute is about the degree of regulation, the effectiveness of regulation, whether it's too onerous or not, is have the point of view that we can, by legislation, defy science. It does not allow us to do that.

So, Madam Chair, I urge that this Congress accept this finding, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Offered By: Mr. Welch

Amendment No. 19: After section 1, insert the following

section (and redesignate the subsequent sections, and conform

internal cross-references, accordingly):

Offered By: Mr. Welch

Amendment No. 20: After section 1, insert the following

section (and redesignate the

subsequent sections, and conform internal cross-references,

accordingly):

We have two problems in this economy: One is, we have a long-term deficit that requires long-term solutions. Second, we have an immediate crisis of high unemployment. We have 23 million Americans who are out of work full time or out of work part time, people looking for full-time work that don't have it--23 million Americans. Why can't we focus on policies that are going to put people back to work? The President's jobs plan will help us to do that.

What does it do? We start to invest in infrastructure. It is disgraceful that the roads and bridges of this country, that the water and sewer systems in your town and mine are ancient and antiquated. They need repair. They need rebuilding. That is not just money thrown out the door. That's investing in our future where generations are going to benefit from it.

Part of the solution is rebuilding our schools. Who among us has not been to a school in our neighborhood or our district that is in desperate need of repair? And we have folks in the construction industry who aren't building houses because of the housing crisis but can be rebuilding these schools and can be retrofitting our homes.

We have to focus on putting people back to work.

I seek to offer the amendment of Mr. Rush of Illinois as his designee.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment makes needed changes to the economic analysis mandated by the underlying bill; but fundamentally this bill, itself, we believe, is an assault on the Clean Air Act, not really a bill that requires a study.

The legislation began in committee as a bill to require a new study on the economic impacts of EPA rules to cut air pollution. At that point, the bill simply required a burdensome and redundant study of EPA rules and did not affect any of the rules it proposed to examine.

It changed in committee. The Republican members amended it to indefinitely delay implementation of two very key rules to reduce power plant pollution, the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and the Mercury and Air Toxics Rule.

Now Mr. Whitfield has proposed amending the bill to further eliminate those rules altogether and prevent EPA from being able to clean up power plants in the future. Mr. Latta has offered an amendment to force EPA to listen to polluters' accountants rather than scientists when setting air quality standards. This bill is now a direct attack on the heart of the Clean Air Act. That act has saved thousands of lives.

The bill still contains a study on the economic impact of EPA rules, although I'm not sure why it would do that. The Rush amendment, Mr. Chairman, would make the study required by this legislation a little less biased and a little more useful.

The bill creates a new government bureaucracy to conduct a complicated study of EPA rules. It's not necessary. In addition, the bill ensures that the final study will be unbalanced and inherently biased. It's one thing to take a hard look at regulations. It's another thing to cook the outcome of that examination.

The Rush amendment ensures that the committee will look at both the costs and the benefits of EPA rules.

The bill's supporters originally presented this bill as a means to gather more facts on key EPA rules. As amended by the Republicans, it's increasingly clear that the facts really don't matter.

I support the Rush amendment, but I remain staunchly opposed to final passage of the bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

How much time do I have?

Thank you.

I want to talk a little bit about the Clean Air Act, Mr. Chair. We have power plants that are coal-burning and emit toxins into the air. That's not in dispute. But the attack on any kind of regulation says that if there's any expense associated with providing health and safety to the people downwind of the polluting emitting power plants, they're on their own. They've got to breathe that air, and it's their problem.

Now, I live in Vermont; and the coal-burning plants, the air all comes and falls in Vermont. The Clean Air Act has had tremendous success in actually cleaning up some of these power plants.

Now, of course there's some expense associated with burning clean; but there's also, as you know, Mr. Chair, an enormous cost associated with burning dirty. It may be cheaper for the power plant owner, and it might even be cheaper for the electricity users of that power plant; but the costs associated with the health, the safety, the environmental impacts are simply off-loaded by the polluter on to the innocent members of society who are downwind of the mercury-spewing polluting plants.

So, sure, we can have some debate about what should be the proper expense. But should we really have a debate that it is illegitimate for the Federal Government to take actions, regulatory and legislative, that protect the health and safety of innocent people?

The law of physics has air-carrying pollutants going in the direction that nature sends it, and that means everybody downwind gets affected. It's really astonishing that in the legitimate effort to ask legitimate questions about whether a regulation is serving a useful purpose, whether the regulation achieves the intended goal, whether there's a way to achieve that goal at less expense, those are all fair questions. But to abolish the regulations altogether, to suggest that everybody who will be affected by mercury pollution has no remedy and cannot look to the Federal Government to provide them with some protection for their health, for the health of their children, that's extreme, and it's unacceptable, and it's expensive.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the House this week will take up a bill called the TRAIN Act. The acronym stands for Transparency and Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation. It is quite a mouthful, but what it's going to do, very specifically, is delay the implementation of two very important Clean Air Act standards that protect human health and the environment. Now, we can have a lot of arguments about proper regulation, which ones are good and which ones are bad, but can we really argue about the necessity of taking appropriate action to protect the air we breathe?

The Clean Air Act has been very successful in improving air quality around this country. Obviously, much more needs to be done. But the two provisions that are under attack by the so-called TRAIN Act are:

One regulation that regulates cross-State air pollution. Now, if you live in one State and there is a coal-burning plant in another State, the law of air motion means that the pollution is going to follow the path that the air travels, and people in a State that are on the receiving end of polluted air ought to have some protection. This has a significant impact on health. It is not as though you can have appropriate regulatory safety without having the Federal Government have some role, since air does travel according to the law of physics, not according to an act of Congress.

A second provision is the power plant emissions of mercury limitation. Mercury is a known carcinogen. It is extremely dangerous to our health, particularly that of infants. And the success that we've had in limiting mercury pollution has had dramatic impacts--positive impacts--on our health. Why? Why would we delay the implementation of a mercury regulation that is going to have significant and immediate benefit?

There may be some cost to this; that's true. But what about the cost in lives? What about the cost in health care expenditures by allowing pollution to occur?

When we do something and price it cheaply by ignoring what the external impacts of allowing something to be theoretically cheap, in the terms of lives lost, in terms of health care expenses incurred, we're not saving anybody money. We're making some money for the owners of the polluting entity, but we are not making money for society, and we are certainly not protecting it.

We have to have careful regulation. We should always be willing to look at them to get rid of things that don't make sense and aren't getting the job done, but we also need proper regulation. And when it comes to health and safety, clean air and mercury, those are two provisions that should not be delayed. This legislation would do that. It's harmful to our health, and it will be harmful to our economy.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

This bill is not about the offset. This bill is not about whether we're going to pay for emergency spending. We must and we will. What this bill is about is whether we're going to help 427 residents of Pittsfield, Vermont, who were in the wake of the wrath of Hurricane Irene.

That flood came down and ripped their road to the north and ripped their road to the south, and the water went in the middle, taking out homes and taking out public buildings. That's the selectboard-- volunteers. It was that volunteer fire department--volunteers. They didn't have time to have an argument about offsets. They had to find out how they could get an excavator in there, and if they didn't have one, they had to borrow one. They had towns that weren't leveraging some disputes they might have had about whether they would turn back an excavator or earthmoving equipment to help them out. They did it. They had their school running the next day, not because they had a school that was functional--their kids couldn't even get out. They did one thing first, and that was to set up school on the green. They set it up on the green. Two days after this hurricane, the kids were going to school, and their parents were making them feel secure. They couldn't get to a passable road for several days. What did they do? They cut a path through the woods so that, for half a mile, kids could walk and get to transportation.

Now, they're going to have a tab even if we help them, and they know they have to pay for it; but, you know, if your neighbor's house is on fire and if you've got a boundary line dispute, you can use the leverage of his urgent necessity to get that fire hose and hold off and get it on condition that he cave--or you can do the right thing.

Every time this Congress has had an opportunity to come to the aid of your district or mine, we've stepped up. No Vermonter has ever complained to me that we used his tax dollars to help out in Texas, to help out in Ohio, to help out on the gulf coast; and we didn't make it conditional in getting our way--my offset, what might be Afghanistan, and yours might be some environmental program. We knew that was not the time to do it. We are in this together.

This Congress has an obligation to the American people. I have an obligation to the folks in your district, as you do in mine, to do the right thing when an act of God requires for its remedy an act of Congress. Let us act, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the scene to my right is a typical scene in Vermont. It's the result of the fury of Hurricane Irene. The damage to homeowners, to businesses, to the State infrastructure is immense.

This scene inflicted itself on 47 districts represented by Members of this House of Representatives. The fury of Irene was indiscriminate in who was on the receiving end of a very bad storm. That was an act of God. The relief will come as a result of an act of Congress.

Republicans represent Democrats in their districts; Democrats represent Republicans in our districts. We have a mutual responsibility to work together to get the tools back to those first responders, to those municipalities, to those volunteer firefighters who are doing the very hard work in each and every one of our districts to recover from Hurricane Irene.

Mr. Speaker, we had a meeting this morning of a coalition to fight for relief for Hurricane Irene. We're going to get the funds back to our first responders, to our municipalities and States, to our families so that they can get the job done.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize 66 Vermont towns that are two hundred and fifty years young this year.

Two and a half centuries ago, Vermont as we know it did not exist. Ownership of the territory that now makes up the state was disputed between the colonies of New Hampshire and New York. Authorities in both colonies granted charters for towns in the territory to speculators. Benning Wentworth, colonial Governor of New Hampshire, granted nearly 130 of these charters in the early 1760s. It is for this reason that so many of Vermont's towns are currently celebrating their Semiquincentennial anniversaries, with several more to follow in the coming years.

It is from this unusual history that Vermont towns and those who inhabited them developed their spirit of independence, self reliance and community. That spirit was passed along to future generations and remains just as vibrant today as it was in the early 1760s. It is a heritage that has defined our state and one we are proud to celebrate.

As Vermont's representative to this House, I rise today to recognize the following towns, whose contributions to Vermont began before our nation's founding and continue today as they celebrate their two hundred fiftieth anniversaries:

Addison, Andover, Arlington, Barnard, Bennington, Brandon, Bridgewater, Bridport, Brunswick, Castleton, Cavendish, Chester, Clarendon, Cornwall, Danby, Dorset, Fairlee, Ferdinand, Glastenbury, Granby, Guildhall, Guilford, Hartford, Hartland, Killington, Leicester, Ludlow, Maidstone, Manchester, Marlboro, Middlebury, Mount Tabor, New Haven, Norwich, Panton, Pawlet, Peru, Pittsford, Plymouth, Pomfret, Poultney, Reading, Rupert, Rutland, Salisbury, Sandgate, Shaftsbury, Sharon, Shoreham, Shrewsbury, Somerset, Springfield, Stockbridge, Strafford, Stratton, Sunderland, Thetford, Tinmouth, Tunbridge, Wallingford, Weathersfield, Wells, Weybridge, Windsor, Winhall, and Woodstock.

I thank the gentleman.

What's going on here, Madam Speaker, is extraordinarily dangerous and it's completely unnecessary. We are using the full faith and credit of the United States, the reputation this country has had since its founding that we are a country who pays our bills, we are using that as political leverage to get our way on budget and tax issues. That's wrong. It's dangerous.

Ronald Reagan, no stranger to fierce tax and budget battles, would never allow the linkage to be made that would jeopardize the full faith and credit of the United States. We're a bigger and better country than to threaten that we won't pay our bills. This is wrong. We should raise the debt ceiling cleanly because that is what Americans do. We pay our bills.

Second, the bill before us now is, as my friend from Kentucky said, making a bad bill worse. The process that Americans want is a balanced approach. Balance is revenues along with cuts. Democrats have to make concessions on cuts. We're prepared to do that. The President has led. But there have got to be revenues, particularly when we have got a Tax Code that is completely a mess.

What we've seen is that in the Biden discussions, Mr. Cantor walked out when there were revenues on the table. The Speaker walked out on the President when revenues were still on the table. And now this bill is attempting to impose a constitutional amendment and has no chance of passing; and it, in effect, is a white flag of surrender to a small group in the Republican caucus who won't pass the bill that was brought to us before.

We've got to work together. That means we've got to put everything on the table. We've got to maintain our credit rating by paying our bills, and we have to have a balanced approach to long-term fiscal stability that requires revenues as well as cuts.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a Vermont veteran on his 90th birthday, Anthony ``Sonny'' Bertone.

A resident of Bennington, Vermont, Mr. Bertone served his country with bravery and honor in the United States Army during the Second World War. Mr. Bertone was assigned to Company ``C'' of the 634th Tank Destroyer Battalion, a Company that at many times was assigned to campaigns under General George S. Patton.

Mr. Bertone fought in some of the most important campaigns throughout the war, including Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge. Mr. Bertone also fought to secure the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen, Germany and concluded his service in Czechoslovakia.

Mr. Bertone was honorably discharged from the Army in 1945 and received the Croix De Guerre. Upon leaving the Army, Mr. Bertone went on to raise his family in New Jersey before moving to Vermont.

As Vermont's Representative in this Congress, I ask that Mr. Bertone be recognized for his accomplishments and applauded for his service to the state of Vermont and the United States of America.

I thank the gentlelady.

Mr. Speaker, this is a bad situation. There are two failures: One is the process by which we got here, where we've abandoned a willingness to compromise when compromise is required; and second is to propose a plan that's not balanced with revenues as well as with spending cuts.

I just want to go through the process. This institution is responsible for making decisions about taxing and spending. Those are contentious debates; always have been, always will be. But whenever we've made progress, there's been a recognition that the Republican argument, that we have to watch how we spend our money, has validity, and that the Democratic argument, that we have to have fairer taxes, has had merit. This is a one-sided approach.

There were negotiations that were promising. In May, the Biden group began negotiations to avert a crisis. On May 16, the U.S. hit the debt ceiling, and Treasury moved money around to avert the August 2 deadline. June 23, the majority leader, Mr. Cantor, walked out because revenues were on the table. July 3, President Obama and Speaker Boehner meet to work out a ``grand bargain'' deal. It was very promising, $4 trillion in deficit reduction by combining revenues as well as

cuts. President Obama, incidentally, put on the table things that were giving enormous heartburn to many Democrats, but he said, We have to compromise for the greater good. The Speaker indicates on July 9 that the ``grand bargain'' is unlikely due to differences on revenues, so he leaves. July 22, Mr. Boehner walks away from the debt talks, saying that we can't have revenue.

So now we have the bill. The bill is defective in this fundamental respect: It is going to damage the economy; $1 trillion in cuts, increasing on a short-term basis the debt ceiling, followed by $1.8 trillion that will hurt Medicare and Social Security. This is going to be very harmful for the economy.

Madam Chair, I offer an amendment.

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

Madam Chair, this amendment inserts an environmental finding that highlights the very significant environmental and health risks that are proposed that will occur as a result of this proposed pipeline. This pipeline is going to carry up to 900,000 barrels of tar sands oil every day, and it's going to carry them a distance of 2,000 miles. And whatever assurances are given about the safety of any mechanical and engineering system, we have too much regular experience that the best of intentions oftentimes fail.

So there is risk, and we want that to be known as part of the findings.

A University of Nebraska professor recently released the first independent assessment of the spills that could come from the Keystone XL pipeline. That study found that TransCanada has in fact greatly understated the risks of the pipeline. That study established that the pipeline could spill over 5 million gallon of tar sands oil into a major river, making water undrinkable for hundreds of miles. Also, the Keystone real-time leak detection system doesn't register spills that are less than 700,000 gallons per day.

Cynthia Quarterman, the administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, has noted that the U.S. pipeline system was not designed with raw tar sands crude in mind.

My amendment is very simple: if we're going to rush through--and that's what we're doing--the environmental permitting process for a project that has questionable benefits to our Nation, let's at least recognize the risks.

I reserve the balance of my time.

How much time do I have?

I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).

I yield back the balance of my time.