Ed Whitfield: “Once again, I would like to thank Mr. McNerney for this amendment. I have certainly enjoyed working with him on our…”

“Once again, I would like to thank Mr. McNerney for this amendment. I have certainly enjoyed working with him on our committee. He certainly understands energy. I must say that I have to respectfully disagree with him on this amendment. His amendment would basically strike the substantive part of our bill. As I have said in the beginning, this proposed regulation is so far outside the bounds of anything EPA has ever attempted before because these plants are already regulated under section 112. It specifically states if they are regulated there, they can't be regulated under 111(d). So we are trying to respond to the States. EPA, we expect, is going to give them 13 months to comply. There have been many lawsuits already filed. There are going to be more lawsuits filed. Because it is so costly, so complex, and they are under such time constraints, we simply want to delay the State implementation plans until after the courts have made a decision. Also, his amendment would eliminate the Governor's finding of a significantly adverse impact on electricity rates and reliability and simply say that they have got to come up with this State implementation plan by working with utility commissioners and NERC, which they will be doing anyway. So if our bill is vetoed, that is where they are going to be anyway. So I would respectfully oppose this amendment as certainly defeating what we are trying to do. With great respect to Mr. McNerney, I would oppose the amendment.…”