On the recordFebruary 10, 2011
I'm glad my colleague talked about the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act was passed in the 1990s, and it identified six criteria pollutants. And we know a lot of what those are--nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter. Carbon dioxide was never identified in the law. In fact, Chairman Emeritus Dingell said numerous times the Clean Air Act was never designed to regulate carbon. Even as the EPA now moves in the direction of climate, they've changed the rules. They are not complying with the Clean Air Act because of their tailoring rule, thus picking winners over losers. If we go down the road to regulate carbon, we raise the cost of creating jobs. Jobs move overseas. That's what the Waxman-Markey debate was last year. That's why the majority last year could not pass a bill to regulate carbon, because of the impact on jobs. So why are we here? We're not trying to end regulation. We're trying to make sure that there's an economic analysis on what occurs on jobs. What's the job impact? Administrator Jackson, throughout the entire process, could not tell us. In fact, they only do it in silos and never the cumulative effect of what are the jobs lost based upon regulation. What is the compliance cost? We ought to know that because the more there is a requirement to comply with the rules and regulations when we're competing against China, who has no rules and regulations, we are less competitive, we lose jobs.
