[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 17, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H3443-H3444]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET AND TAXES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, I also come down to the floor to talk 
about the President's budget, and I am going to focus on the issue of 
taxing. There is one provision in the tax increase of the President's 
budget that is very detrimental to our country and to our society, and 
that is the carbon tax aspect of this. Imagine paying more for every 
piece of energy that you use. That is what this cap-and-trade, cap-and-
tax plan will do.
  I have seen the direct result of placing taxes and additional 
regulatory burdens on my congressional district in

[[Page H3444]]

Southern Illinois. I always tell the story about the 1990 amendments to 
the Clean Air Act where because of Federal regulation, in this one 
case, in this one case, 1,200 miners lost their jobs.
  I was told by someone who was the business manager for the United 
Mine Workers of America in Southern Illinois that during 1990 he was 
responsible for 14,000 mine workers in Southern Illinois. After the 
amendments were passed, he then was reorganized into a three-State 
region to only bargain for 4,000 United Mine workers. 10,000 mine 
workers' jobs were lost.
  That was just in the cap-and-trade clean air amendments 1990s, where 
we had technology to make the transformation. This carbon dioxide cap-
and-tax provision, we do not have the technology available today to 
effect this change.
  So this is what happened. This is actually a picture of mine workers 
who lost their jobs. This is the mine I was talking about, Peabody No. 
10 in Kincaid, Illinois. The interesting thing about this mine, it is 
very, very efficient in that the mine was right across the street from 
the power plant, so you saved on the transportation costs, whether that 
be the trucks or that would be the rail applications. There was a 
little conveyor belt going across the road to the power plant. This 
mine was closed down. These miners lost their jobs.
  Now, under the new regime of the President's bill that taxes too 
much, he proposes additional taxation of $686 billion through a carbon 
tax. This carbon tax will be passed on to everybody who uses fossil 
fuels in America.
  You might say, I don't want to use fossil fuels. It is like the story 
where the individual says I don't like coal, I don't like nuclear 
power, I don't like hydroelectric. I like electricity. The problem with 
this is 50 percent of all electricity, even the electricity that lights 
this Chamber, is produced by coal-based electricity generation. The 
power plant just down the road two blocks from here is a coal-fired 
power plant. Fifty percent.
  If you put additional taxation on that fossil fuel, that cost will be 
passed on to the individuals and the consumers. This is the worst time 
to really attack our economy through additional taxation, because of 
the economic slowdown, the economic recession, the competitive nature 
of the world. If we not only put a challenge to our use of fossil fuels 
in this country, not only coal, natural gas as a fossil fuel, gasoline 
as a fossil fuel, estimations of the last cap-and-trade bills are 50 
cents additional to the cost of a gallon of gas.
  Where does that money go to when we collect it? There is an old 
story. When the bank robbers rob a bank and they get away to their 
hideaway and they put the loot on the table, what happens? That is when 
you have the fights break out. That is when one bad guy shoots the 
other bad guy and says, I am taking all the money for myself.
  What this cap-and-tax regime will do will allow bureaucrats, it will 
allow us in Washington, to decide how that money is going to be split 
up, and it will be folks here making that determination. Why do you 
think so many people are at the table? They are at the table because 
they want part of your tax dollars that you are going to pay through 
higher rates to us and they want to get benefited.
  You can look across all the regimes that are at the table. They are 
at the table because they want part of that revenue stream. What this 
revenue stream will do is not only kill the fossil fuel of this 
industry, which is hundreds of thousands of jobs and low-cost power, it 
will make us not competitive with the developing nations who are using 
coal and having low cost power.

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