Political Quotes

“colleagues, using the Congressional Review Act to overturn waivers puts polluters in charge of government policy. In 1970, Congress passed the Clean Air Act. The law explicitly states that individual States like California can enact stricter emission standards to protect the environment if they receive from the Environmental Protection Agency a waiver. And States like Oregon can adopt those standards if they so choose. Since then, California has applied for, well, about 100 waivers. They have made vehicle emissions 99 percent cleaner than they were in 1970. I remember going down to Southern California in the early eighties and seeing how incredibly polluted the air was near L.A., and I thought, How can anyone live here? It hurt your eyes; it hurt your lungs. People don't have that impression today, despite the amount of vehicle miles going way up, because of the incredible efforts California made to clean up their air from auto emissions. You know, in the last 50 years, California has never had a waiver revoked. That tells me they put together very competent proposals and that the Nation supported their effort to clean up their air. But something different is happening right now. Senate Republicans are using the Congressional Review Act in ways that Congress never intended.”