Ed Markey: “So here is where we are: The President is going to use all of his legal authority to reach a deal in Paris. He will do…”

“So here is where we are: The President is going to use all of his legal authority to reach a deal in Paris. He will do it pursuant to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that was signed by President George Herbert Walker Bush and ratified by the Senate in 1992, so everything he is doing in Paris is completely pursuant to a treaty that was agreed to by this body. He is doing the Clean Power Plan to reduce greenhouse gases by 30 percent by the year 2030 in the electric utility sector, by the Clean Air Act of 1990, a law passed by the Senate. He increased the fuel economy standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by the year 2025, still the largest reduction of greenhouse gas in the world's history, pursuant to a law passed in 2007 by the U.S. Senate. Underlying it all is an authority given to him by the Supreme Court in 2007, in Massachusetts versus the EPA, which mandated the EPA had to act if they found there was an endangerment of an environment. All of this is legal, all of it is authority the President is using, and all of it is working to create a new era of clean energy jobs all across our country so that we are no longer preaching temperance from a barstool to the rest of the world. We can now say to China and to India: You too must put your reductions on the books. Mr. President, I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska. ____________________”