Ed Markey: “I thank the gentleman. Today marks the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Instead of spending the daylight…”

“I thank the gentleman. Today marks the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Instead of spending the daylight hours passing a clean transportation bill that will help shore up real jobs for Americans, the Congress will be spending the day repealing public health protections and giving away nearly all of our public lands to oil and gas companies in the culmination of the Republican majority's Oil Above All agenda. It is really a ``Midsummer's Nightmare'' for the American people. But before we get to voting on the Republican oil package, we get to debate whether another Republican bill, whose sole premise is to prevent EPA from following the scientific evidence, should be included in the Transportation bill. This bill says that no matter what EPA learns about the sludge that comes out of coal-fired power plants, no matter how high the concentrations of poisonous arsenic, mercury or chromium, no matter what EPA learns about how these materials find their way into our drinking water, EPA is forbidden to classify or regulate it as hazardous waste. EPA is forbidden to require that this toxic material be disposed of carefully. This bill turns a blind eye to evidence of known hazards and takes us back to the Dark Ages, to a time before science was valued and before advanced knowledge transformed society. It takes us back to an era when mercury and arsenic, major components of coal ash, were used to cure toothaches and clear up your complexion.…”