Ed Markey: “the President was wise in vetoing this bill. This is terrible energy policy, terrible environmental policy. It is an…”

“the President was wise in vetoing this bill. This is terrible energy policy, terrible environmental policy. It is an all-out assault upon the environment in our country. We can go down the litany from Tongass to California Desert, through all of the parks decisions which are made under the guise of an appropriations bill, but there is a 50 percent cut in money for low income weatherization, thousands, thousands of poor and elderly across this country dependent upon this money--cut 50 percent for the poor in this appropriations bill. The energy efficiency standards that were put on the books in 1987, 1989, 1991, which have improved the efficiency of stoves, of refrigerators, and people say, ``Who cares?'' I will tell my colleagues who cares. Because of those laws we have saved 4 billion barrels of oil from having to be imported in the United States from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, 4 billion in the last 8 years. We saved the need for us to build 50 500-megawatt nuclear power plants in this country. We saved consumers in this country $132 billion in electricity costs, untold billions of dollars in nuclear power plants that would have had to have been constructed, and they say, well, this is just a small compromise. No new energy standards for any refrigerator, or stove, or light bulb, when we know the gains that are made by working smarter and not harder in environment, in energy efficiency in energy. This is terrible policy.…”