Joe Barton: “It's interesting how different people can see the same set of circumstances and come to totally different conclusions.…”

“It's interesting how different people can see the same set of circumstances and come to totally different conclusions. In the last Congress, we passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 on a bipartisan basis. There were open markups in the House and the Senate. There was an open conference committee that was televised in some cases. We had, I believe, a majority of the Democrats vote for that bill on the House floor, a majority of the Democrats in the Senate, and obviously almost all the Republicans in both bodies. It was the most comprehensive energy bill to be signed into law in probably the last 30 or 40 years. Many of the things in that bill are going to be undone if and when this bill passes and the President signs it, which he is expected to do so. I do not understand how what made sense 2 years ago doesn't make sense today. Let's take the issue of fuel economy standards. If there is a crown jewel in this bill, it apparently is that we're going to raise CAFE standards significantly for the first time in 30 years.”