Ed Markey: “I want to applaud Senators Murkowski and Cantwell, the chair and ranking member of the Energy Committee, for their…”

“I want to applaud Senators Murkowski and Cantwell, the chair and ranking member of the Energy Committee, for their leadership and tenacity in passing yesterday's bipartisan Energy bill on the floor. This kind of bipartisanship has always been the political fuel that has driven some of our most important energy legislation. I thank them for their commitment to working together in a bipartisan fashion to pass this bill, and I look forward to working with them and all of my colleagues going forward to capture all of the potential for America's clean energy future. There are many good provisions in this bill. The bill promotes energy efficiency in our buildings and appliances. It will help to modernize our electrical grid and support energy storage technologies. It permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The bill includes a number of provisions and amendments that I authored that were accepted on the floor. I was pleased that my bipartisan legislation with Senators Inhofe, Rounds, and Booker to reauthorize EPA's brownfields program through 2018 was included in the Energy bill. This legislation will help clean up the decades of abuse our lands have experienced at the hands of corporate polluters. It will help to create jobs and spur economic activity in Massachusetts and around the country, while revitalizing underutilized and polluted lands. In December, Congress voted to lift the 40-year old restrictions on exporting U.S. oil overseas.…”