Ed Markey: “This is not a debate over compassion. This is not a debate over who cares more about the people in Joplin or the people…”

“This is not a debate over compassion. This is not a debate over who cares more about the people in Joplin or the people in Vermont. This is a debate about what the Republicans, what the Tea Party has decided to use as an excuse, as a guise to finish off the revolution that the Democrats have put in place that changes our relationship with where we get our energy from. Big Oil and Big Coal have fought solar, wind, all-electric vehicles, biomass, geothermal, that entire revolution because they know that it will eat into their profits. So a disaster occurs that each of us wants to respond to. The Republicans, responding to the oil and coal industry, say this is our chance to kill the revolution that makes it possible to have vehicles go 50, 60, 80, 100 miles a gallon without oil, no oil, that makes it possible for us to have wind and solar generate the electricity that will fuel those vehicles without sending greenhouse gases up into the atmosphere, which is changing our climate and leading to these storms, leading to these floods, leading to these disasters that then needs FEMA, need the relief that we give to these families. So they take the chance, they take the opportunity to kill the very programs which are the solution to these disasters which are being created here in our country and around the world, the agenda of Big Oil and Big Coal.…”