Political Quotes

“Later this week we are going to have the EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy come to our Environment and Public Works Committee to testify about the greenhouse gas rule being developed for existing fleets of powerplants. We know what the rule is for the new powerplants; this is for the existing. In light of that, it is important to point out that the Senate has been debating global warming for well over a decade, actually around 14 years. The first cap-and-trade bill the Senate debated was when Republicans were in the majority. I was chairman at that time of the Environment and Public Works Committee. The first bill was the McCain-Lieberman bill which would have set CO<INF>2</INF> limits on all utilities that emit at least 10,000 tons of greenhouse gases per year. That was defeated October 30, 2003, by a vote of 43 to 55. That was when I was all alone. Actually, everyone thought eventually something was going to pass and they were all afraid of the issue. Now times have dramatically changed. Since that time we have had other bills come up. In 2005 we had the same bill by the same authors. It was defeated even at that time by a wider range. Then in 2008 the Lieberman-Warner bill came up, and it failed also. That was actually when the Republicans had lost the majority. So even with the Democrats as the majority, they were not able to get it through. Most recently, we debated the Waxman and Markey bill of 2009 which said emissions to facilities over 25,000 tons a year.…”