Lois Capps: “Mr. Speaker, it must be close to Thanksgiving because this bill has the energy industry doing a lot of thanking and…”

“Mr. Speaker, it must be close to Thanksgiving because this bill has the energy industry doing a lot of thanking and taxpayers doing a lot of giving. Odd couple Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute and Dan Becker of the Sierra Club together call this energy bill 'three parts corporate welfare and one part cynical politics.' They are absolutely right. For our colleagues to consider themselves friends of the environment, I note the following: This bill drills holes in the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, NEPA, and the Coastal Zone Management Act. It reverses a long-standing polluter pays principle by forcing taxpayers to clean up leaking underground storage tanks. It is clearly the most anti-environmental bill in a long time. As for my colleagues who say they are concerned with wasteful government spending and heavy-handed government mandates, this bill's $23 billion of tax provisions are triple the administration's proposal. They shovel billions in taxpayer-funded subsidies to wealthy corporations. The cost of the bill could be as high as $135 billion in new government spending, industry subsidies, and mandates increasing consumer prices for gas and electricity. So much for fiscal discipline.”