Political Quotes

“And my colleagues and anybody listening to this debate, under this bill, if DOE determines that a rule by the Environmental Protection Agency would cause any significant adverse effects to the economy, EPA would be permanently blocked from finalizing that rule. That's a pretty broad assault on the rules that EPA might issue because EPA rules are to protect public health and the environment. So if this bill became law, a lot of clean air and clean water protections would be at risk, and the terms in the bill are so expansive and vague that nearly every major public health proposed rule could be delayed and would be affected because DOE is not going to do this extensive analysis. My amendment is straightforward. It eliminates the bizarre provision in this bill that gives the Secretary of Energy the unprecedented authority to effectively veto public health rules. It makes no sense for DOE to veto an EPA public health rule, especially since the veto would be based on DOE's analysis of the economic impact, which is by its terms a macroeconomic analysis. What is this going to do to the economy if this rule goes into effect? Did anybody ever think that the DOE does not do that kind of analysis? Perhaps they should have had the Department of the Treasury do a macroeconomic evaluation. They do things like that. But instead, the authors of this bill want DOE to do it. All right. It's outside of DOE's area of expertise. This, I think, would be a terrible precedent.…”