Jared Huffman: “This is our last day in session before Republicans close up shop and send everyone home for a couple of weeks. The…”

“This is our last day in session before Republicans close up shop and send everyone home for a couple of weeks. The majority could be using this time to do something, such as provide actual solutions to the healthcare cliff that the country is about to go off of, address the affordable cost of all manner of goods and utilities that have been set in motion by their wrongheaded policies, but no. Instead of doing anything to help Americans make ends meet, we are here on the floor giving more gifts to Big Oil, multibillion-dollar foreign mining corporations, and specialty interests like the NRA. I guess merry Christmas to all of them and a big lump of coal for everyone else. To no one's surprise, Republicans have been working all year on handouts to Big Oil that were written for and by the oil and gas industry. The first bill up on our Christmas list is for polluters. It has been at the top of their wish list for as long as I have been in this Congress. It is the SPEED Act, which is being sold to us as permitting reform, and a spoiler alert: It is not permitting reform. The bill takes a sledgehammer to the National Environmental Policy Act, one of our foundational environmental laws.”