Ed Whitfield: “I certainly want to thank Mr. Pallone and the great job he does as ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.…”

“I certainly want to thank Mr. Pallone and the great job he does as ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. I am delighted that we have the opportunity to come to the House floor to debate things like S.J. Res. 24. The Congressional Review Act is an instrument that is available to Congress to try to stop the President when we believe that the President has exceeded his legal authority, and that is precisely why we are here today on S.J. Res. 23 as well as S.J. Res. 24. We believe the President has exceeded his legal authority. Now, the President in 2013 went to Georgetown University and gave a speech on climate change, and he set out his clean energy plan. I might say that he never consulted with Congress. He never talked to Congress. He never asked for any input from Congress on this issue. That is his prerogative. But the EPA took him at his word, and then they started the process of adopting these final regulations. {time} 1645 We have already talked about the regulation relating to new coal power plants so that America finds itself to be one of the only countries in the world today where you cannot build a new plant. But right now we are talking about the regulation on existing plants. The reason we have such concern about it is that, first of all, EPA's own legal team, their lawyers, reversed 20 years of legal opinion when they said that they could regulate under 111(d) of the Clean Air Act.…”