Kathy Castor: “I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding the time. Madam Speaker and colleagues, I rise to oppose the rule and…”

“I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding the time. Madam Speaker and colleagues, I rise to oppose the rule and the underlying bill for three primary reasons. First, the package is very poor public policy. Second, I offered a commonsense amendment, and the Republican majority blocked it from being debated, so it will not be heard today, unfortunately. And third, the House of Representatives shouldn't be wasting its time on a package that's not going anywhere. Instead, we should be focused on job creation, especially passage of the transportation bill, through which we could create thousands and thousands of jobs across the country. But first, as we marked up part of this package in the Energy and Commerce Committee, it became apparent that this package is chock-full of detrimental policy decisions for America. It creates new bureaucracies when it comes to energy policy and undermines the Nation's energy security. It rolls back policies that support the continued growth of safe and responsible energy production in the United States. And it improperly removes protections that we enjoy under the Clean Air Act that protect the health of American families all across this great Nation.…”