Jim Inhofe: “while we are again encouraging people to bring amendments down to the floor, I would like to make some comments on a…”

“while we are again encouraging people to bring amendments down to the floor, I would like to make some comments on a statement that was made yesterday that affects our committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee. Yesterday evening, the junior Senator from Delaware discussed his hold on Stephen Johnson's nomination to be Administrator of the EPA. His main complaint about Steve Johnson is about a lack of technical data from EPA on Clear Skies. We are talking about the Clear Skies legislation we considered in our committee that the administration has come forth with. But there has been no lack of technical data. The EPA has provided the Environment and Public Works Committee with over 10,000 pages of modeling on costs, job impacts, fuel switching, air quality, and deaths avoided for the various multi-emissions proposals. This information provides extensive detail about the impacts on the Nation as a whole, regions, and individual States. Claims that EPA did not supply sufficient information to make an informed decision simply do not have any credibility. In fact, this is in direct contrast to 2002, when then-Chairman Jeffords--I have been making all kinds of complimentary remarks about the ranking member, Senator Jeffords. Back in 2002, Senator Jeffords was the chairman and I was the ranking member. He came forth with something he had very strong feelings about, and that was the Clean Power Act.…”