Political Quotes

“Madam President, in 1970, smoke stacks towered above cities and towns spewing black clouds of toxic pollution into the air. Sights like these outraged Americans--however, at that time there was no legal way to force these companies to stop polluting the environment. In response to these atrocities, Congress did two things in 1970: First, Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency to defend our natural resources and force polluters to clean up their factories and plants. And second, Congress passed the Clean Air Act with overwhelming bipartisan support to help ensure that all Americans could breathe clean air, free from toxic chemicals. In the 40 years since, Republicans and Democrats have worked together in Congress to protect the health of America's families from the country's biggest polluters. But this week in the Senate, we will vote on a provision that threatens to destroy all that progress by rolling back a critical environmental and health regulation. Senator Inhofe has introduced a resolution that would prevent the EPA from enforcing the first national standard to regulate the emission of mercury and air toxins from power plants. Until now, there had been no Federal standards that required power plants to limit their emission of mercury, arsenic, chromium, and acid gases. And so their pollution went unchecked. This led to power plants becoming the single largest source of mercury in the United States.…”