Joe Barton: “I want to try to set the record straight about this bill and add some comments that I did not make in my previous…”

“I want to try to set the record straight about this bill and add some comments that I did not make in my previous statement. The Senate had 14 conferees on the bill, 8 Republicans and 6 Democrats. Thirteen of those conferees signed the conference report. We had all the Republicans in the Senate and five of the six Democrats sign this conference report. In the House, a majority of the House Democrat conferees have signed the report, a majority. Of the Energy and Commerce Committee conferees that were general conferees, a majority of those conferees signed the conference report, including the distinguished former chairman of the committee, John Dingell of Michigan. We have a bipartisan bill that has come before the House. As I enunciated earlier, if your vision of an energy policy is a policy where the government tells you what you can do and when you can do it and how you can use your energy, this is not your bill. But if your vision of America is a vision of America that says it is okay to let the private sector, with the appropriate environmental guidelines and open market transparency rules and regulations, develop its resources for the good of all the people, this is your bill. In terms of incentives for alternative energy, this bill has got more incentives at the individual level and at the general industrial level than any other energy bill that has ever been before this Congress.…”