Jody Hice: “I thank my good friend, Mrs. Lesko, for yielding some time. H.R. 9 is an attempt simply to force the President to…”

“I thank my good friend, Mrs. Lesko, for yielding some time. H.R. 9 is an attempt simply to force the President to reenter an ineffectual international agreement, one that pushes the United States to adopt burdensome, painful measures and hold us to a standard that no other country that is a part of the agreement has bothered to meet themselves, all to do something that we are already doing, and that is lowering greenhouse gas emissions. But H.R. 9 is not the real agenda of our Democratic colleagues. To understand what the real Democratic Party wants to do, one need look no further than H. Res. 109, better known as the Green New Deal. Look, people in my district are not asking where I stand or what I think about the Paris climate agreement, but they are asking, eagerly, where I stand on the Green New Deal. Everywhere I go, people are asking about it. Last night, on a telephone townhall, several questions were asking where I stood on this. They are concerned that their Representative might support a proposal that would drastically increase their energy bills. And businesses I talk to want to know whether or not I would support what amounts to a torrent of heavyhanded regulations. I assure you, as I did them, that I do not. I strongly oppose the Green New Deal, but I cannot say the same for my colleagues across the aisle. Madam Speaker, 92 Democrats have cosponsored the Green New Deal, and nearly every Democrat running for President has endorsed it.…”