John Sarbanes: “I inquire of the Senator, when the Bush administration came in in 2001, wasn't the Federal budget in surplus?”

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.

Each of which--each of which--would hamper EPA's ability to regulate air pollution and, unfortunately, continues this Republican agenda of putting Big Oil interests over the interests of the public.

Congress gave EPA this role more than 50 years ago under the Clean Air Act and reaffirmed that responsibility in 2005 under the Energy Policy Act.

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.