On the recordMay 1, 2019
I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chair, as a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 9, more appropriately named the U.S. energy disadvantage act. The bill attempts to lock us into a bad deal. While the United States is continuing to lower its emissions and to lead the world through technological innovation, other countries around the world are not meeting even their targets. Some aren't making targets. Those countries came up with targets on their own, and they still aren't living up to them. Staying in the Paris Agreement would raise energy prices and slow economic growth without curbing emissions in a meaningful, global fashion. Mr. Chair, we are not the ones who are polluting the air and the water. We are cleaning it up. We are doing it as a result of doing the right thing. Yet, Mr. Chair, today, the ones that are polluting greatest are doing nothing other than just being told to think up something by 2030. Mr. Chair, our President did the right thing. We should do the same. We need to get to work on legislating, not political messaging. The American people sent us here to work on solutions to healthcare, infrastructure, education, the economy, and much more. Let's get to work on that, and let's encourage the nations of the world to do the right thing and get involved in doing what the United States has done already and, by the way, will continue to do. Mr. Chair, I oppose this bill. We all should.
