James M. Talent: “I want to begin my brief statement by congratulating the managers of the bill for their good work in explaining the bill…”

“I want to begin my brief statement by congratulating the managers of the bill for their good work in explaining the bill to this point. This is not a resolution I can support, but I acknowledge its good faith. I point out that the resolution states, in the effective clause where it says what the sense of the Senate is, that we should ``enact a comprehensive and effective national program of mandatory, market-based limits on emissions,'' provided that--and subsection (1) says that ``will not significantly harm the United States economy.'' I read it and caught that word ``significantly.'' Evidently it is OK, under the resolution, to harm the American economy provided that it is not significant. I just wonder what the word ``significant'' means. Not significant may be if somebody else loses their job as a result of it. If I do not lose my job, it is not significant. I am wondering how much of GDP, how much of a loss of manufacturing jobs is significant. The estimates of the McCain-Lieberman amendment would be $27 billion annually as a direct cost. I wonder if that is significant. High energy prices, which legislation of the kind envisioned by the resolution would cause, hurt the American economy. I do not want to do that. I do not want to vote for a resolution that presupposes it is OK to hurt the American economy. That is not the way to solve this problem.…”