On the recordJuly 25, 2012
I thank my colleague for bringing this up, but this again is something that is obviously dealt with already in the text of the bill. As we anticipated, there would be issues like this. On page 3, line 23 of the bill, it actually states the President has the ability, by executive order, in dealing with any significant regulatory action to go ahead and waive this, if it's necessary, because of an imminent threat to health or safety or other emergency. This is already dealt with in the bill itself. While we do need to be able to deal with this, and obviously the vast majority of electricity providers are very attentive to their workers, including the companies that are in my district, and take great pride in how they care for the health and safety of the workers that are on those lines and that are out there in very dangerous situations, it is a very important thing to them. We have the ability already within this bill to be able to address that. For that reason, I would oppose this. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
