John Shimkus: “legislation is like making sausage. When Henry Waxman and John Shimkus come to the floor on an energy bill that we…”

“legislation is like making sausage. When Henry Waxman and John Shimkus come to the floor on an energy bill that we grudgingly will support, that is probably newsworthy in itself. A couple of things. First, congratulations to Mattoon, Illinois, that has been named as the FutureGen site for the next generation of coal-fired clean emissions plants. I want to put that on the record. The benefit of this bill is the tax increase is out of this bill. That is a plus. That is less cost to the American consumer. The RFS is out of this bill. That is a plus for the consumer. The RFS was unable to be met and would have been costly to the consumer. The RFS could have been better. It could have been an alternative fuel standard which brought in coal-to-liquid technologies that I have talked numerous times on the floor about, taking coal, using fossil fuels, turning it into clean-burning liquid fuels. That is a fight we will have to bring to the floor another time. And the CAFE language is an acceptable compromise that industry supports. The world will continue to demand more energy, not less. We have to focus on more supply. That supply comes from coal. It comes from natural gas. It will come from nuclear power. While this bill doesn't measure up to the demands that we need in the future, it is an acceptable start.”