John Sarbanes: “First, I commend the very able Senator from West Virginia for this amendment. This is an extraordinarily important…”

The health of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed can only continue to improve through robust Federal, state, and local partnerships.

But these are dramatic changes that can bring us to a new place and, I think, have given many people a sense of hope instead of despair in the face of what we are seeing with a warming planet.

I hope that today's hearing is the first step in continuing that legacy of strong bipartisan support for the Chesapeake Bay in this Congress.

It is important to be clear that EPA's proposed standards are reasonable, performance-based emissions standards and constitute neither a national electric vehicle mandate nor an internal combustion ban.