On the recordSeptember 20, 2012
I rise to speak on energy legislation which is important to this country and legislation I truly believe we can and, in fact, need to pass this year. The U.S. House of Representatives is working on key energy legislation. I think it is very likely they will pass it this evening. That legislation includes a bill that is very similar to energy legislation I have put forward in the Senate. The legislation I am talking about is the Coal Ash Recycling and Oversight Act of 2012. Simply put, this legislation sets commonsense standards for managing and recycling coal ash with a States-led, States-first approach. We have strong bipartisan support for the bill. As I said, we need to take up the bill this year and pass it. Simply put, we have the support on a bipartisan basis to support it. We have more than a dozen Democratic sponsors and more than a dozen Republican sponsors. So why is it important? In simple terms, this is exactly the kind of energy legislation that can help take our Nation to energy security or energy independence. What I mean by that is with the right energy plan, we can move this country to the point where we produce more energy than we consume. Working with our closest friend and ally, Canada, we can produce more energy than we consume--meaning we truly are energy independent or energy secure so that we are not importing energy from the Middle East.…
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