Ed Markey

The problem we have impacting our lands across this county is climate change.

If we are serious about reducing catastrophic wildfire, we first must admit that there is a link between climate change and wildfire.

That is an ironic comment coming from a gentleman who lives in a landlocked desert State voting in this Committee just 2 days ago to authorize drilling for oil and gas in the ocean off the coastline of Massachusetts.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.

The bottom line is that the climate is changing just as the climate scientists have predicted for decades.

Ignoring carbon pollution and focusing solely on fuels treatment to address the epidemic of bark beetles, the epidemic of drought, the epidemic of wildfires is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Do you want to be remembered as a Herbert Hoover, who sat by and did nothing in the face of obvious calamity, or as an Abraham Lincoln, who took every measure to save the Union?

BLM supports the authorization stewardship contracting and the expansion of Good Neighbor authority in this legislation.

I demand a recorded vote. The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Massachusetts will be postponed. {time} 2010 Amendment Offered by Ms. Woolsey

I just want to note here that the gentleman from Washington State did pioneering work in the 1980s in identifying the vulnerability of the land-based ICBM fleet. That discussion continues even today out here on the House floor.

I have an amendment at the desk. The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment. The Clerk read as follows: At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the following: Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act…

I demand a recorded vote. The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Massachusetts will be postponed.

I have an amendment at the desk. The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment. The Clerk read as follows: Page 32, line 18, after the dollar amount, insert ``(reduced by $75,000,000)''. Page 153, line 15, after the dollar amount…

These measures are not sufficient to protect the myriad of privacy interests implicated by increased drone use.

There is . . . potential for drone technology to enable invasive and pervasive surveillance without adequate privacy protections.

Now, one of the OSM employees says in the audio recordings that the aim of the rule is not reduce coal production, as the Majority asserts, but 'that production will improve, and the technology will improve, and the environmental impact…

I am very impressed by your honesty and your candor with the Committee.

The Department has spent significant time and taxpayer money responding to the Majority's request for information.

So the mercury, the sulphur, the carbon dioxide is sent up into the atmosphere after mountaintops are removed here in the United States.

These mines contaminate water supplies, they devastate the environment, and they threaten public health.

In the Appalachian region, 70 percent of the coal is exported from the United States, is exported from Appalachia, exported to other countries.

Continuing on this path is a death sentence for Appalachia.

The free market is beating coal. This is the American way. New replaces old. Efficient replaces wasteful. Clean replaces dirty.

The free market is beating coal!

There is a war on coal in America. But this war is being waged by cheaper, cleaner sources of energy, not the Obama Administration.