Ed Markey: “what we are seeing with this energy bill is the result of a highly partisan, secretive process in which Republicans have…”

“what we are seeing with this energy bill is the result of a highly partisan, secretive process in which Republicans have been talking only to other Republicans and the oil and the gas and the nuclear and the coal and the electric utility industry. Well, they have treated the Democratic minority and the environmental and consumer groups with the maximum possible disregard and with political arrogance. It is the final stages of the implementation of the secret energy task force meetings that began in Vice President Cheney's office. This bill is the worst piece of legislation that has been brought before this legislative body in many decades. It is an appalling concoction of tax breaks, subsidies, and pork barrel spending for wealthy oil, natural gas, nuclear, coal, and utilities industries. It turns over control of the American people's lands to energy companies that will be free to ravage and rape the environment with little or no restraint. It pays polluters, pays polluters to clean up the messes that they have created and subsidizes them to pollute some more. It will make our Nation's air dirtier. It will make our water dirtier, and it will make ordinary people pay higher energy bills for the privilege of having dirtier air and dirtier water, more asthmas, more cancers, and more deaths due to pollution.”