On the recordJanuary 21, 2015
Reclaiming for a brief followup. I want to make sure I understand the Senator's position. The Senator's position is we should not establish any Federal standards on the safety of petcoke and leave it up to the States. He also argues it is not a danger, it is not carcinogenic, and it is low hazard, in his words. I don't know if the Senator has seen petcoke neighborhoods that have this blowing into them. I would just say to the Senator, this notion that somehow petcoke is going to be some fabulous discovery for new inventions--maybe it will, but at this point it is being sold to China and they are burning it to generate electricity. I would just try to imagine for a moment what is coming out of those smokestacks in China, where sadly the air pollution is awful at the moment. I yield the floor, but I don't think it is adequate to say that the city of Chicago should be regulating this substance. We have a nation which will be affected by a national pipeline from this Canadian company. We ought to have a national standard to protect Americans from the dangers of petcoke. Whether we are talking about Fargo, Little Rock or Juneau, I wouldn't want to live this close to these petcoke piles. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
