On the recordOctober 6, 2011
The gentlelady made a comment that she genuinely questions whether jobs are at risk, and I would simply say that, as I said earlier, we received over 300 letters. We received phone calls. We received emails. We have five major labor unions, national labor unions, supporting this legislation. And the people involved in these businesses are telling us that they are going to have to cut off people from work. They're going to have to terminate people's employment in some instances. And as I said, the University of Notre Dame said they spent $20 million trying to comply with the old rule that was invalidated, and now they're going to have to spend another X millions of dollars to meet these new rules. I would oppose the amendment because, basically, the gentlelady from California is asking us to put into the findings of the Environmental Protection Agency's calculation that for every dollar in cost, the rule will provide at least $10 to $24 in health benefits. Now, that alone is kind of interesting. From $10 to $24, that's over a 100 percent variance there, flexible zone there. It's not very precise. And then she says that it's going to avoid either 2,600--up to 6,600 premature deaths a year, so many nonfatal heart attacks, so many hospital emergency room visits, so many cases of aggravated asthma, so many cases of missed work and school. Well, all of us have sat in a lot of these hearings. We've looked at a lot of numbers, and I tell you what.…
