Jerry Lewis: “Mr. Chairman, very reluctantly I rise in opposition to this amendment by my colleague the gentleman from California (Mr.…”

“Mr. Chairman, very reluctantly I rise in opposition to this amendment by my colleague the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman). As many of you know, Henry Waxman and I have worked on a number of issues in the past that relate to the environment, and we have done things like sponsoring alternative fuels for clean air purposes. The gentleman knows of my work in connection with the clean air amendments in California. But having said that, let me say that this amendment, together with some of the advertisements distributed by what can only be either misinformed or very extreme environmentalists within that community, is nothing less than a bizarre attempt to create controversy where none should exist at all. To label the committee's direction to the EPA, direction that is contained solely within the report accompanying the bill, as somehow being a rider is about the furthest stretch of imagination that I can fathom. These folks are really scraping the bottom of the barrel if their primary objections would somehow raise report language to the level of statutory law.”