Barbara Boxer: “of course, I support Senator Inhofe's right to offer this amendment, but, to me, it is a disastrous amendment because it…”

“of course, I support Senator Inhofe's right to offer this amendment, but, to me, it is a disastrous amendment because it is a taxpayer giveaway to the oil companies. And I will explain why it is a total taxpayer giveaway to the oil companies that are making more money now than ever in history. It doesn't do one thing to expand energy supply--not one thing. It shortcuts many environmental laws, which I will not go into at this time, but if we get further time, I will do that. It shortcuts many environmental laws that protect the air quality which is so important to our families. In California, 9,900 people every year die of particulate matter in their lungs. We cannot afford to say we are going to forget about air quality. That is a disaster. We don't want to become a China where they don't care about their people and their people suffer. We don't want to go there. In the Energy bill in 2005, oil companies got a huge break, and it was made very attractive for them to open new refineries. My staff informs me that not one company has taken advantage of this break. So there is nothing that I think suggests that even going as far as Senator Inhofe goes, which is a total giveaway, will result in increased energy supply. This bill never made it out of our committee when the Senator was chairman. It was never offered in the committee since I have been chairman. And if it were to be offered, it would go down.”