Political Quotes

“Madam President, I come this afternoon to speak about the regulations proposed by the administration on Monday relating to the Environmental Protection Agency. This time the agency's target is a 30-percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from existing powerplants by the year 2030. The regulation that has been announced, which has been the subject of a great deal of conversation this week, should not be confused with EPA rules for cooling water intake or for proposed powerplants or for cross-state air pollution or for boilers or for ozone or for incinerators or for regional haze or for fuel economy or for the waters of the United States or for renewable fuels or for cement kilns or for coal ash or for effluent limitations or for any other number of regulatory actions that the agency has taken or is expected to take. This rule--and there have been so many of them, it almost feels like this should be EPA's rule of the week or rule of the month--is a unilateral effort to bypass Congress and to force into place policies that we in Congress have not approved. The goal is to push our electric supply away from coal and, I think, ultimately, away from natural gas as soon as possible. As the ranking member on the energy committee, I can attest that energy is always the flip side of the environmental debate. If we have a discussion about energy, we always have a discussion about the environment.…”