[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 68 (Tuesday, May 5, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H5145-H5152]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            DOMESTIC ENERGY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, it is great to be down here, and I am going 
to turn immediately to my colleague, Dr. Paul Broun from Georgia, to 
talk on the cap-and-tax, global climate change, destruction of jobs in 
America,

[[Page H5146]]

a bill that may be coming to the floor soon.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I thank my dear friend John Shimkus for leading 
this hour, and I congratulate him on his leadership on this extremely 
important issue on energy.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today because my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle are once again trying to pass off baloney for prime rib. In 
the last 100-plus days, we have seen nonstimulating stimulus packages, 
and we are probably going to see some more, secretive bills in an 
``open and transparent'' Congress, and trillion dollar commitments to 
fiscal responsibility. Clearly, liberals have a monopoly on the 
misnomer. Unfortunately, the disguises are out again today with this 
tax-and-cap plan.
  We must not be fooled by the rhetoric. This is a $646 billion tax 
that will impact every American family, small business, and family 
farm. Family energy costs will rise by more than $3,100 a year for 
every family. This is an outrageous tax on every family that drives a 
car, buys American products, or flips on their light switch when they 
come home. So unless your name is Fred Flintstone or you live in a 
cave, you will be impacted by this tax.
  Senior citizens, the poor, and the unemployed will be hit the hardest 
by this tax as experts agree that they spend a greater portion of their 
income on energy consumption. This is a time when we should be 
promoting policies that stimulate our economy and not tear it down. 
Various studies suggest that anywhere from 1.8 million to 7 million 
jobs will be lost by this tax-and-cap policy. Make no mistake that the 
Democrats' airtight cap will suffocate America's small businesses, 
crippling America's respiratory system, the free economy.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle will claim that this 
tax-and-cap will help clean up the environment; however, this doesn't 
seem that it is even about the environment or global warming anymore. 
This has turned into a revenue generator for Nancy Pelosi and Harry 
Reid's radical agenda, their steamroller of socialism that is being 
shoved down the throats of the American people, and that agenda 
includes socialized medicine. The tax-and-trade will be one of the 
largest sources of revenue for their new radical socialistic agenda. 
Mr. Speaker, the cat is out of the bag, and the American people see 
through the disguises, rhetoric and misnomers. Taxing families during 
an economic recession is not the only way to clean up the environment.
  Fortunately for the American people, Republicans have offered an 
alternative to this unaffordable new energy tax that no one can afford. 
We believe that you can clean up the environment and keep jobs at the 
same time.
  Our solutions include American energy produced by American workers to 
create American jobs. Our all-of-the-above energy plan brings us closer 
to energy independence, encourages greater efficiency and conservation, 
promotes the use of alternative fuels, and lowers gas prices.
  And don't think Democrats aren't doing any back-scratching when it 
comes to their new energy tax. The Washington Times reported yesterday 
that a loophole has been tucked into this legislation written by the 
congressional liberals that would exempt at least one major energy 
company from at least one of the many onerous provisions of the 
Democrats' national energy tax plan, ultimately leaving hardworking 
families and small businesses to pick up the tab.
  I encourage all the non-Fred and Wilma Flintstones in America out 
there to stand up and demand straightforward answers from your 
lawmakers about this new energy tax that is being promoted by Nancy 
Pelosi and company, and encourage your lawmakers instead to support an 
all-of-the-above energy plan that removes our dependence upon foreign 
oil, lowers energy costs, and will create more jobs.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding. We have got to stop this tax-and-
cap plan that is being promoted by the leadership of this House and 
Senate. It is going to kill the American economy, it is going to cost 
jobs, and I congratulate my dear friend from Illinois for bringing all 
this out and being a leader in promoting responsible energy policy for 
America that the American public can count upon. And I congratulate 
you.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I thank my colleague, and I appreciate him coming down. 
I am going to turn quickly to my colleague from Tennessee, 
Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, for such time as she may consume.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman from Illinois for his 
leadership on this issue and for hosting this Special Order hour. I am 
so pleased to come and join with you and discuss the issues that we 
have before us with the Democrats' national energy tax, or the cap-and-
tax legislation as some call it, or cap our growth and trade our jobs, 
or, Mr. Speaker, many people refer to cap-and-trade as just that, 
because it is certainly what they are going to do.
  Now, we also know that if they don't get their way on cap-and-trade, 
what they are talking about doing is an end run and coming back around 
and letting the EPA regulate CO2 emissions under the Clean 
Air Act. Indeed, I have a bill, H.R. 391, that I would encourage all 
colleagues in this House, all Members of this House to sign on and 
support this bill and keep the EPA from going around against the will 
of the people and regulating CO2 emissions under the Clean 
Air Act.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is very interesting that as we are having 
this hour tonight and as we are looking at the logic of EPA and the 
logic of some of my colleagues, I wonder if we have considered that if 
you look at the EPA's threshold of 25,000 tons of CO2, that 
would make you a major emitter, if we have considered that the EPA 
threatens to use that regulation against every business, every farm, 
every church, or every building in this country. And, of course, before 
the EPA gets the chance to regulate CO2, many of our 
colleagues want to come in and tax it right here so that they can both 
regulate the air that we breathe and tax the air that we both breathe 
and then that we exhale.
  The debate that we have before us is not about making energy cleaner; 
it is not about making energy more plentiful. What we would see happen 
from this debate is that energy would become more and more scarce, and 
we also would see that the cost to every family would be more and more 
expense.
  So, here we are. We are talking about cap-and-trade; we are talking 
about the expense of it. And as expensive as energy costs got last 
year, we are not going to take any action that will make it more 
plentiful, we are not taking any action that would make it more readily 
available, we are not taking actions that are going to make it cleaner, 
and we are not taking actions that are going to make it more 
affordable. Indeed, the legislation before us would do quite the 
opposite.
  So I join the gentleman from Illinois in being from a State, my State 
of Tennessee, that would be among the hardest hit by this new energy 
tax and by the efforts that are coming from the other side, indeed, 
their efforts to make energy more expensive. My colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle have conveniently forgotten how quickly economic 
slowdowns follow escalating energy costs. They have forgotten how 
dramatically high gas prices impacted family budgets last summer. They 
look upon the increased use of mass transit in the wake of those energy 
costs as a positive development, forgetting that in many rural 
districts like mine in Tennessee there is no mass transit, there is no 
bus service that goes from Waynesboro to Adamsville to Selmer. There is 
no mass transit in these rural communities. And in picking winners and 
losers--which they do in this legislation; they pick lots of winners 
and decide who is going to be the losers--they are asking the American 
people in their bill to make a choice between very expensive energy or 
no energy at all. All their scheme will cap is American productivity 
and trade American jobs.
  Now, I think, Mr. Speaker, that if you were to ask each and every 
Member of this House, we would all say that we believe in clean air, 
clean water, and clean energy. We believe in conserving our environment 
for future generations.
  Certainly, I grew up in a household with a mother who dedicated much 
of her life to conservation and beautification and preservation and 
historic preservation efforts, so much so that in 1997 Keep America 
Beautiful gave her

[[Page H5147]]

their lifetime achievement award. We grew up doing the things that 
helped clean this planet, looking for ways for energy to be more 
affordable and more accessible.
  Now, Republicans as a whole believe in that type conservation for 
future generations. We do not believe that you need to tax the American 
people out of their house and home to pay for it, a house, by the way, 
which under a cap-and-trade system is going to be hotter during the 
summer and colder during the winter.
  Republicans believe that we have more alternatives than wind and 
solar as sources for clean, secure energy. We know that we can safely 
exploit American oil resources to provide for a less expensive 
transition to alternative fuels. We know that we can power a next-
generation electricity grid with safe nuclear power that will allow for 
practical electric cars and reliable transmission, rather than forcing 
the costs of energy to explode so that Washington might fund yet 
another expansion of the Federal Government.
  Tennesseans know that hydroelectric power is safe and reliable. It is 
clean. It has powered our State for two generations. What bewilders me 
is that these kinds of innovative solutions are discouraged under the 
Democrat cap-and-tax system. It reinforces my belief that this bill is 
more about revenue than it is about revolutionary energy.
  We should be doing things to encourage our innovators. We should be 
doing things that will incentivize exploration and transition to new 
types of energy, rather than making it more expensive, making it more 
scarce, and cutting off energy and innovation.
  Republicans have proposals for safer, cleaner, cheaper domestic 
energy that will conserve our resources, secure our energy sources, and 
expand our economy. We do it without picking losers but, rather, by 
inspiring that innovative spirit that has solved problem after problem 
after problem in this Nation. We do it without making energy more 
expensive and more burdensome to the family budget. We do it without 
making power more scarce, but by making it more abundant.
  I thank the gentleman from Illinois for his leadership on this issue, 
and I encourage all of our colleagues to join us in making certain that 
we stand against cap-and-trade and also that we support H.R. 391, which 
will prohibit the EPA from regulating CO2 emissions under 
the Clean Air Act.

                              {time}  1800

  Mr. SHIMKUS. I thank my colleague for coming down and making the 
time. We have already had a colleague from Georgia and now from 
Tennessee. I'm now going to be followed by Dr. Fleming of Louisiana, a 
new Member, and I think this shows the diversity of representation in 
this country.
  I appreciate your coming down and you're free to open with your 
comments.
  Mr. FLEMING. Well, I thank the gentleman from Illinois. I also thank 
the gentlelady from Tennessee for her remarks. I certainly agree with 
everything she has said this evening. And perhaps I have a couple more 
things to add.
  Mr. Speaker, there are no two ways about it: this is a revenue-
boosting or a net tax system by any way you look at it. The experts 
have looked at it, economists and energy people. I guess you could call 
it cap-and-trade with a little C for the ``cap'' and a big T for 
``tax.'' What do I mean by that? Well, what is the cap-and-trade or 
what we call the ``cap-and-tax?'' Basically, it says that there are 
factories out there that can burn coal or emit CO2 into the 
atmosphere as long as they can find somebody else by way of allotments 
who are perhaps under the threshold by taking that burden from them. 
And in the process, there is some sort of exchange of currency.
  Now what kind of currency are we talking about? Well, it is 
estimated, at least at this point, and we don't have details as often 
we don't get on these things, of $646 billion of net taxation to our 
economy. So again, let there be no mistake about it. This is a tax.
  Now, what effect will it have on us Americans? Well, first of all, we 
know it is going to increase unemployment because as the tax burden is 
put on the factories and as it is put on power plants, there will have 
to be a movement of factories and other things offshore or to other 
countries who are not part of this program. We also know that it hits 
the poor. And it is also going to lower the overall standard of living.
  Well, here is just a couple of facts that I would like to share with 
you, Mr. Speaker. A recent MIT study shows that cap-and-tax will cost 
the average American household $3,100 a year. Now, I know there has 
been some controversy about this. And it is my understanding that the 
MIT people went back and said, we were wrong on that; it is more than 
$3,100.
  Another study shows that we are likely to lose three to four million 
American jobs if this is enacted. Companies who are looking to invest 
in our economy will simply move overseas, as I said. There is also a 
debate about whether it will create a stimulus. For the last few 
months, we have been talking about how important stimulus is to our 
economy. Well, this will definitely stimulate an economy. It will 
stimulate other countries' economies while hurting our economy.
  Now all of this perhaps would be a theoretical and perhaps a 
hypothetical discussion except for the fact that cap-and-trade is not 
really a new concept. They have had it in Europe for years. This 
morning I heard Dr. Gabriel Calzada talk about this. This gentleman is 
from Spain and an expert in this area. So what is the Spanish 
experience in this, Mr. Speaker? What Spain found was that for every 
green job that was added, and again, I'm not exactly sure what a 
``green job'' is, but for every green job, there was a loss of 2.2 
jobs. In the so-called ``green jobs'' it was found that 90 percent of 
these jobs were in the implementation or construction. And these jobs 
were quickly dissipated as soon as the construction was ended. So what 
is the current unemployment rate of Spain? Seventeen and a half 
percent.
  Now there was also a discussion by a very interesting expert in 
microeconomics. Aparna Mathur is her name. And I would like to read 
some very interesting facts into the Record: ``These higher costs of 
production by cap-and-trade will translate to higher energy and product 
prices. In a paper that I co-authored with my colleagues at the 
American Enterprise Institute, we estimate that a cap-and-trade system, 
with a $15 permit price, will increase the cost of everything, from 
food, clothing, shoes and home furnishings by 1 percent, of gasoline 
7.7 percent, electricity 12.5 percent, and natural gas 12.3 percent. Of 
course, as previous experience with cap-and-trade programs has shown, 
permit prices are likely to be extremely volatile and rising over time, 
and our $15 price estimate is likely to be conservative. Other studies 
suggest that the price could be above $50 in 2015, close to $100 in 
2030 and $200 in 2050. We can safely project that our estimates will be 
some multiple of these higher prices.''
  Now, also she points out something else, and that is this: as a 
percent of the total home budget for poor people, electricity is 4 
percent, whereas for richer, more wealthy people, upper middle class 
perhaps, it is only 1 percent. Therefore, the burden to a low-income 
person is going to be four times that of someone of higher income. So 
what does this do in net effect? What it does is it hits the poor first 
and worst. How else does it hit the poor and how else does it hit 
everyone else? Well, we know that all the costs have to be passed along 
to the consumer. So as Dr. Mathur pointed out, we are going to see 
inflation in the cost of everything we do because everything we have 
today in terms of products, and even services to some extent, are 
dependent upon energy cost. And certainly it is going to create 
unemployment, because if this system were implemented worldwide, 
perhaps it would be an even playing field. But that is not the case. We 
know that for everything we do, we have China and India that is 
reversing that tremendously in terms of the impact on the environment. 
And while their economies are growing rapidly, ours will be diminishing 
related to this.
  So the net effect of that, Mr. Speaker, is that if we move forward 
with this crazy plan, we are going to see both middle class and lower-
income people hurt the worst. We are going to see an overall lowering 
of life styles. We are going to see ourselves less productive and less 
competitive around the world.

[[Page H5148]]

And that is going to relegate to actually a net loss in jobs.
  So I call upon my colleagues in our discussion this evening--and 
hopefully this bill won't even come to the floor. But if it does, I ask 
my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to vote ``no'' on this wasteful bill that 
is really, in my opinion, just another Trojan horse, a way of 
generating revenue to pay for new social programs and perhaps even 
newer social programs that are yet to be determined.
  And with that, I thank you, Mr. Shimkus, and I yield back to you.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Dr. Fleming, for joining us. Now I'm pleased 
to be joined by the ranking member of our Agriculture Committee from 
the Commonwealth of Virginia.
  Ranking Member Goodlatte, thanks for joining us.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for holding 
this Special Order to talk about the cap-and-tax proposal that has been 
offered by Chairman Waxman of the Energy and Commerce Committee and 
subcommittee Chairman Markey of the subcommittee dealing with energy on 
that committee. And it concerns me greatly as it should concern all 
Americans.
  When you look at the sources of energy that we have in our country 
today, this legislation is going to drive up energy costs for the 
average American. It is going to drive up the costs of a whole lot of 
other things than simply their electric bills and the cost of other 
energy they receive. It is also going to drive up the cost of virtually 
every good that they receive and a lot of services that they receive as 
well. It concerns me greatly.
  I have served as the ranking member and previously the chairman of 
the Agriculture Committee. Today I serve as the ranking member on the 
subcommittee of the Agriculture Committee that deals with energy. And 
quite frankly, it is a situation where this is a solution in search of 
a problem. And quite frankly, the solution is going to create great 
problems for the American people.
  What we really need to have in this country in this time of very 
severe economic turmoil when people are losing their jobs and the 
economy is suffering is we need to be looking at producing more 
domestic sources of energy of all kinds. And yet this legislation is 
going to discourage the production of most of the principal sources of 
energy that we utilize in our country today, including coal production 
and nuclear power.
  The gentleman may correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is 
that nuclear power, which is completely CO2 gas emission-
free, is going to not receive any credit for the availability of 
electricity that is produced from this source which today produces 
about 20 percent of all of our electricity in the country. And it seems 
to me that if you're truly dedicated to solving our problems of energy 
sources, you would want to be encouraging increased production of all 
different sorts of energy.
  Now nuclear power is very capital intensive. But once you have a new 
nuclear power plant, it is the cheapest source of electric generation 
that exists in the country, even far cheaper than coal as a source of 
energy. And yet the fact that it is CO2-free doesn't seem to 
make any difference, because there are those in the environmental 
community who are very hostile to nuclear power production, even though 
we have--and countries like France which now produces more than 75 
percent of its electricity from nuclear power--have addressed in new 
and innovative ways the waste disposal issue and other safety issues 
that make nuclear power very, very attractive.
  And then when it comes to coal, do you know that more than half of 
our electricity in this country is generated by coal? It is a very, 
very important source of energy. And yet it is treated like the lost 
step-child in this legislation because no effort is really made here to 
help coal address the serious concerns that have been raised by some 
about the amount of CO2 that is emitted from coal 
production. That to me does not make any sense. We are the Saudi Arabia 
of the world in terms of coal production. We have more coal reserves 
than any other country in the world. And we have tremendous 
capabilities in terms of long-term ability to generate cheap, low-cost 
power.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Would the gentleman yield on coal just for a second? I 
think this is an important issue, of course, for me. But a couple of 
recent occurrences highlight the fact that this bill really is an 
assault on coal. And however they try to clean it up, it is not 
working. Yesterday in the local paper, what did Speaker Pelosi do? She 
said the coal-fire power plant here in the Capitol is now switching to 
natural gas, that coal is gone. At a news conference briefing held last 
week at the United States Energy Association, FERC Chairman Wellinghoff 
told reporters that nuclear and coal power was too expensive. He 
estimated the cost of building a nuclear plant at about $7,000 per 
kilowatt and discouraged investors from undertaking such ventures.
  So the signals are no nuclear and no coal.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. So what are they going to replace it with?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. They don't like coal. They don't like hydro. But don't 
like nuclear. But they like electricity.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. They like electricity? I like electricity. You like 
electricity. But you have to produce it with something.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Here is the President's comments.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Seventy-five percent of our electricity--people who 
are paying attention to this issue should know that 75 percent of the 
electricity produced in our country today is produced from coal and 
nuclear.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. And here is the President's statement during the 
campaign: ``What I have said is that we would put a cap-and-trade 
system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than 
anybody else's out there. So if somebody wants to build a coal-fired 
power plant, they can. It is just that it will bankrupt them because 
they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas 
that is being emitted.''
  So the signals are ``no'' in a venue when the demand for electricity 
is going to go up by 30 percent. But we want to limit the ability to 
produce electricity which is why we fear the real price escalations.
  I just want to tie this in with the leadership of this House in 
Washington and down at the White House and through the Federal 
agencies. They are saying ``no'' to coal and ``no'' to nuclear when we 
have all these challenges that face us.

                              {time}  1815

  Mr. GOODLATTE. And they have no good answer in terms of what to 
replace it with. Wind power and solar, two that are very commonly 
cited, produce just a tiny percentage of the electricity in our country 
today. I think wind power and solar are great and they have great 
potential and we should encourage more of them, but there is no way 
that they are going to replace our traditional sources of generating 
electricity any time in the near future.
  So the natural result is going to be that if you write legislation 
that heavily penalizes other sources of energy, particularly coal, what 
you are going to have as a result is much higher energy costs. And it 
will affect people all across the country in very dramatic ways, and 
they will see it when they open their bill for their electricity. But 
they are also going to see it in ways that may surprise them in terms 
of the cost of goods and services and in terms of their very livelihood 
because many jobs will go outside of the country to other countries 
like Russia and China and India that have no intention of complying 
with the same type of a cap-and-tax system that is being proposed right 
here in this Congress. Therefore, they are going to have cheaper 
sources of energy.
  China and India, right now, are building one new coal-fired power 
plant a week. Are they going to comply with cap-and-tax? Are they going 
to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions? No, they are going to 
dramatically increase those greenhouse gas emissions, and the end 
result is they will produce electricity cheaper. Therefore, they will 
be able to produce goods cheaper in those countries. They will be a 
magnet to draw jobs to those countries, to become manufacturing bases, 
as they are already growing to be. It is just going to get worse.
  Even though China has grown so much in terms of its manufacturing in

[[Page H5149]]

recent years, the United States is still the world's largest 
manufacturing country. We are going to lose that when this bill takes 
effect if we don't get the American people to speak out about it and 
let the Members of Congress know that this kind of damaging legislation 
will cost jobs and raise the cost of living in this country if it is 
not brought to a halt.
  Every source of energy that we have, whether it is coal or nuclear 
power or oil or natural gas or solar or wind power or geothermal or 
renewable biofuels, all of them have environmental issues attached to 
them. You can't name a one that doesn't.
  Wind power has all kinds of environmental issues attached to it. 
People have attempted to build wind power facilities in my district and 
have gotten great push back on the effect about birds and bats and 
noise.
  Solar generating facilities that have been proposed for the southwest 
of this country have had lawsuits brought against them to prevent them 
from building these solar facilities because of the impact it will have 
on desert vegetation and desert wildlife and so on.
  Ethanol and other renewable fuels have environmental opponents to 
them as well.
  So it seems to me that the all-of-the-above approach of the 
Republican Conference, of promoting the development of new sources of 
energy, of promoting energy conservation and efficiency, and of 
promoting the development of all of our sources of energy, including 
our traditional sources, and producing them domestically to reduce our 
foreign trade deficit problems and to create more jobs in this country 
is the way to go here. That ought to be the alternative that this 
Congress turns to instead of a cap-and-tax government planning scheme 
that stifles private sector innovation, that causes higher consumer 
energy prices and causes job losses and lower wages and stock 
devaluation.
  Its potential for abuse and corruption is great. It is a windfall for 
certain people who didn't do anything to deserve the benefits that they 
will get when they suddenly find that they have something to sell or 
trade under this system. And it is not likely to actually reduce any 
emissions significantly.
  This idea that somehow we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the 
extent that we can turn down the thermostat of the world when other 
countries are going to increase their CO2 emissions around 
the world is folly. That is what this legislation is, and it has no 
guarantee that it will solve the global warming issue that many have 
focused on. Instead, we do have a guarantee that it will have a 
devastating impact on our economy.
  I thank the gentleman for allowing me to speak during this Special 
Order.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I appreciate the gentleman coming down, and I would like 
to now recognize the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert).
  Mrs. BIGGERT. I thank the gentleman and I am delighted to be here 
with Mr. Shimkus.
  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Shimkus has done so much on energy for so long in 
the Energy and Commerce Committee and has really brought to the 
forefront so many innovations and ideas on how we can solve our 
problems, and also making sure that we do the right thing.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my concern about our national 
energy and environmental future. I am really worried that Congress may 
soon consider the cap-and-trade legislation in an attempt to move 
America toward a clean energy economy and decrease our reliance on 
foreign oil sources.
  That sounds good, doesn't it, and the act in its current form will do 
that, but it will do much worse, and I cannot support a cap-and-trade 
program that will unfairly penalize small business, industry and 
taxpayers across the country.
  A lot of my constituents get this. I would like to read a short quote 
from one of my constituents. The gentleman is from Darien, Illinois, 
and he says: ``I am writing to ask you to vote ``no'' on any cap-and-
trade bill that comes up for a vote this congressional session. Cap-
and-trade is a huge tax on every American who flips on a light switch 
or puts gas in their car. Cap-and-trade would do nothing to affect 
global climate change, but would harm our economy and lead to job 
losses and higher taxes for all Americans.''
  Many estimates exist on job losses and rising electricity prices 
under a cap-and-trade program. One recent and very conservative 
estimate suggests that Illinois would lose 48,000 manufacturing jobs by 
2020 and see a $1.47 per kilowatt increase in their utility bills. 
Illinois is 50 percent reliant on nuclear power followed by coal.
  For this reason, I think with record unemployment and foreclosures, 
how can we ask the American people to swallow a huge cost of living 
increase when they are already struggling to live?
  In an apparent trend, the recently passed budget resolution slashed 
Yucca Mountain funding. This disturbs me. It effectively signaled lack 
of support for expanded nuclear production, closing the window of 
opportunity for a waste solution. Taxpayers have already put $16 
billion into this mountain to take care of our waste. So this is 
welcome back to the Carter years when the reprocessing plants that were 
built here in the United States, six of them, were shut down before 
they even opened. I think one opened.
  Mr. Speaker, there is no silver bullet solution for the future of our 
national energy supply, but we would be irresponsible to incentivize 
emission reductions without including supply increase solutions. I 
think that the U.S. can lead in the environmental performance and 
production with this policy. I just don't believe that cap-and-trade is 
an appropriate means of doing that.
  We need a combination of technology and increased production of 
nuclear renewables and fossil fuels. Each have to be a part of the 
long-term plan for America's energy and environmental security.
  I want to focus for a moment on the nuclear. As I said, Illinois is 
50 percent nuclear, 20 percent in our country, and there are a lot of 
permits pending out there for increased nuclear plants. But we need 
reprocessing to deal with the waste. If you thought of nuclear energy 
as a log, and you cut 3 percent off this side and 3 percent off of that 
side of the log, and you put that log, the 3 percent plus the 3 percent 
and burned it, and then take the other part of the log, which is 94 
percent, and put that into the ground as waste, that is what we are 
doing right now. So we can really increase the capabilities of nuclear 
and we can reduce the toxicity and we can reduce the longevity of the 
radioactivity. So this is a no-brainer. I can't understand the 
Secretary of Energy and the administration suddenly deciding that we 
put a hold on the recycling process when we have worked so hard and 
come so far on the research to be ready to do that without nuclear 
proliferation.
  So I think we really have to look at doubling the amount of power 
generated from zero emission nuclear power by 2030; and, more 
importantly, we need to begin nuclear fuel recycling and incentivize 
interim storage to get us there. Recycling reduces the volume of that, 
and it is clean and it is safe. And then utilizing technology to 
transition to a low carbon transportation system is another way we can 
dramatically decrease petroleum use and reduce emissions.
  Lithium batteries in fuel-cell technology, like those being developed 
in Illinois at Argonne National Lab in my district, will transform both 
the auto manufacturing sector and help America recapture the domestic 
battery manufacturing base.
  I currently serve as the co-Chair of the High Performance Building 
Caucus, and each month we hear from a business or an association about 
the technology, a service that offers a solution for improving 
commercial and residential building efficiency. Forty percent of the 
emissions in this country come from existing building infrastructure. 
So retrofitting existing buildings or utilizing technology in new 
building construction can serve a variety of things. There are so many 
things that we can do. We need everything to cut out the CO2 
and the other gas emissions that cause so many problems.
  Illinois is almost exclusively dependent on nuclear power followed by 
coal, so we cannot afford the price spikes that would follow a cap-and-
trade plan, especially without the increased power production.
  I hope that leadership on both sides of the aisle remember to put 
their constituents first when it comes to considering climate 
legislation and allow

[[Page H5150]]

technology and the market to pave the way for emission reductions.
  I thank the gentleman for holding this Special Order. I think it is a 
great benefit that we continue to discuss this issue. I hope that we 
can all work together to really solve this. Cap-and-trade will not do 
it.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I thank my colleague.
  It is very important that we continue this discussion, this dialogue, 
and help inform the American public.
  The reality is the 686-page bill, so it is $1 billion a page, but the 
reality is that there are large portions that are to be written later. 
Part of our challenge to really debate this bill is to call my friends 
out and say, okay, you promised transparency. You promised openness and 
regular order. What are the scores so we can figure out the winners and 
losers? But it is crafted behind closed doors.
  In fact, I heard today that this bill will now bypass the 
subcommittee and hopefully go to the full committee, which is really a 
shame for individuals who have promised regular order to continue to 
disregard it.
  In fact, Chairman Waxman, Chairman Markey, and Chairman Emeritus 
Dingell all sent a letter making sure that this would not be done in 
reconciliation, and pushing for regular order. They sent a letter to 
President Obama.
  And it is now these very same people who sent a letter begging for 
regular order who are not going to allow regular order to occur on this 
bill. That is sad because it hurts our ability to educate our 
constituents, our voters, and let them make a decision. And they do 
that every 2 years.
  With that, I am pleased to be joined by a new Member from 
Pennsylvania, Mr. Glenn Thompson.

                              {time}  1830

  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Thank you, sir. I thank the gentleman 
for his leadership on this issue because this is, as I was preparing to 
come to Congress, the fact that we had a complete lack of a national 
energy plan and that our energy situation we were in was just not 
facing us from our energy needs, but our economy and our national 
defense.
  Mr. Speaker, I come from an energy-intensive part of the country in 
rural Pennsylvania. I can say that the cap-and-tax plan is nothing more 
than a national energy tax. The devastating impacts of creating such a 
program are obvious and alarming--while the benefits remain entirely 
unclear.
  A cap-and-trade program will not just raise the price of gas at the 
pumps and increase our home heating and cooling bills, but it will 
increase the cost of all goods and services that we rely on.
  The truth behind the cap-and-tax plan is that it will lead to more 
taxes, fewer jobs, and more government intrusion in our lives.
  The President's energy plan is a $646 billion tax that will hit 
almost every American family, small business, and family farm. Family 
energy costs will rise on average by more than $3,100 a year. That 
makes no sense, considering the current economic crisis we find 
ourselves in.
  Those hardest hit by this massive tax will be the poor, who, experts 
agree, spend a greater portion of their income on energy consumption. 
Cap-and-trade--cap-and-tax--amounts to, literally, a war on the poor.
  In my district, many folks depend on the Low-Income Home Energy 
Assistance Program to make energy costs more affordable just to make 
ends meet. It makes zero sense to impose what are essentially new taxes 
on energy when we have programs like this to make it cheaper for those 
who need it most.
  Now, we believe that there are better solutions--better solutions 
than more taxes and few jobs and more government intrusion. And while I 
strongly favor diversifying our energy portfolio and increasing our 
renewable sources, we have to be realistic about how we go about this.
  We talk a lot about renewable energy sources, but the fact remains 
that wind and solar still make up less than 1 percent of our total 
energy consumption in needs that it meets. Even with heavy government 
investment and involvement, it's obvious that these sources will 
continue to be minor contributors in the coming decades to our energy 
needs. A cap-and-trade system equates to enormous new taxes on fossil 
fuels, which currently accounts for 85 percent of our overall energy 
consumption.
  What do we know about the experience with cap-and-tax? Well, Spain is 
a country that has been identified as a success story for cap-and-trade 
by President Obama. Now I agree that the best predictor of future 
performance is past performance. That has been something I have led my 
life by as I have made my decisions. So what has been Spain's 
experience over the past 7 years with cap-and-trade?
  Earlier today, at the Republican Energy Solutions hearing, we heard 
testimony from Dr. Gabriel Calzada Alvarez from a university in Madrid, 
Spain. Dr. Alvarez reported on the failure of cap-and-trade in Spain. 
What are the outcomes that he saw of cap-and-trade--the real past 
performance of cap-and-trade?
  First, unemployment. There were 2.2 jobs lost for every 1 job created 
in Spain. For every 10 green jobs that were created, only 1 survived. 
The rest require continuous massive government subsidy and funding.
  The second outcome we saw was unaffordable energy costs. The price of 
energy in Spain has gone up 31 percent during those 7 years of this 
grand experiment with cap-and-trade.
  The third outcome has been unreliable energy. Spain's power grid 
system has been unreliable, with blackouts that he reported, leading 
some producers to move their manufacturing plants to other countries.
  Dr. Alvarez reported that just last week, British Petroleum closed 
two solar plants in Spain, and said that the wind and solar industries 
are losing thousands of jobs.
  Interestingly enough, a number of these manufacturers in Spain moved 
to our country to escape Spain's cap-and-tax. I'm absolutely confident 
today they may be packing their bags, getting ready to move again, 
along with our own United States manufacturers, because of the crushing 
impact and the discussions we are having of imposing this proposed cap-
and-tax in our country today.
  Mr. Speaker, the best predictor of future performance is past 
performance. The only measurable outcomes of this proposed national 
energy tax is, based upon past performance, higher unemployment, higher 
energy costs, and unreliable energy sources. Frankly, Americans deserve 
better.
  I really appreciate the gentleman yielding time, and I appreciate 
your leadership on this very important and critical issue.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for joining us. I 
look forward to working with him as we move to defeat this, wherever we 
get a chance to.
  Now, just for my colleagues to know, I think there are about 10 
minutes remaining. I would like to now give the time to Dr. Phil 
Gingrey, a colleague of mine from Georgia on the Energy and Commerce 
Committee.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank 
Representative Shimkus for leading not just this hour, Mr. Speaker, not 
just this hour tonight, but he has been in a leadership role on an all-
of-the-above approach to solving our energy problem and our dependence 
on a lot of countries that don't like us very much for our sources of 
oil and natural gas.
  This goes back, Mr. Speaker, to the August recess of last year, where 
so many of us on this side of the aisle just spent literally the entire 
month with the lights down low and the microphones off and the C-SPAN 
cameras not running, but just bringing people on the floor of this 
House that were visiting the people's House on summer vacation and 
talking to them about an all-of-the-above approach to solving our 
energy problems.
  So I thank Representative Shimkus for that, and my colleague from 
Illinois (Mrs. Biggert), and Representative G.T. Thompson. I think 
about the person he replaced in Pennsylvania, a long-serving member in 
this body, who retired--John Peterson--and the work that he did in 
regard to clean coal and his efforts. Of course, that is a signature 
issue that Representative Shimkus is trying to rally us behind--clean 
coal technology, carbon sequestration, and things that are part of this 
total package of all-of-the-above.
  Just real quickly let me say this. I heard Representative Biggert 
talk

[[Page H5151]]

about the situation in Illinois. I wasn't really aware of the 
dependence on nuclear for electricity in Illinois and its relationship 
to how much energy is generated by coal. So you have got that one-two 
punch in Illinois.
  It's just the opposite in Georgia. It's mostly coal. Some hydro and a 
little bit of nuclear. We are very likely to get the next two nuclear 
power generators come online pretty soon at Plant Vogel in my great 
State of Georgia.
  But there is no question that this cap-and-trade or cap-and-tax--you 
know, the word scheme can be a pejorative. And I honestly believe, as I 
stand here and tell my colleagues, that I think this is a scheme. It is 
a scheme to get jobs that have long ago located in the South and 
Southeast because of the low cost of labor, to get them back into 
Massachusetts or out in California. And this is the way they do it. 
They are not willing to cut the cost of labor, for obvious reasons, so 
they jack up the price of energy in the Southeast and in Illinois and 
other States of the breadbasket of the country and the Rust Belt.

  I think if you go around your district and you talk to people, every 
manufacturer will tell you, ``For goodness sake, Congressman, do 
something about stopping this cap-and-tax situation.''
  That's what we are all about here tonight. I know time is limited so 
I want to yield back and let some of my other colleagues have a little 
time. But, John Shimkus, thank you for the opportunity. We will 
continue to be with you on this effort. We have got to stop this 
scheme.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I appreciate my colleague from Georgia. Georgia has some 
significant challenges on the renewable electricity standard that they 
are trying to cram down, which will definitely increase rates in the 
Southeast. We need you in the fight--and we are glad you are here.
  I would now like to turn to my other colleague and friend, also from 
the Energy and Commerce Committee, Congressman Steve Scalise from 
Louisiana.
  Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank my friend from Illinois on his 
leadership on this issue as well. As my other colleague said, this is 
one of those big battles that happens up here in Congress not too 
often, but at a time when we are facing very difficult times in our 
economy.
  We are talking about different things that we can do to get our 
economy back on track. But for the last few years, a lot of us have 
been talking about what we need to do to really achieve energy 
independence, to reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, stop 
sending billions of dollars to countries that don't like us, but also 
to really promote those alternatives in our own country so that we can 
get to that next level of generation of new energy sources.
  So this bill, this cap-and-trade energy tax, comes before us. If you 
look at President Obama's own budget, President Obama's budget 
estimates that a cap-and-trade energy tax would generate $646 billion 
in new taxes on American families--something that would have a 
devastating impact.
  The National Association of Manufacturers estimates 3 million to 4 
million jobs would be lost. The President's own budget director says 
average American families would pay thousands of dollars more on their 
home utility bills. So I think as people look at this, they realize 
this is the wrong approach.
  The good news is there is a better way to do this. We filed last year 
the American Energy Act, a bill to actually promote a comprehensive 
energy plan to get energy independence in America, but to get it by 
using our own natural resources; to explore our oil, our natural gas, 
which we keep finding more reserves throughout the country. Up in 
Shreveport, Louisiana, we found the largest natural gas reserve in the 
country's history.
  So we have got those natural resources in our own country. 
Unfortunately, a lot of policies here stop us from using them. That 
could create hundreds of thousands of jobs, generate billions of 
dollars for our economy, and then you would use that money to promote 
and find and explore those alternative sources of energy like wind, 
like solar, to get those online; to encourage more conservation, as 
people are already doing.
  But we also need to include clean coal technology and nuclear power. 
Nuclear is a source that emits no carbon. And so as we have heard from 
some of these studies, the Spain study is a really good indicator, a 
country that has gone down this cap-and-trade energy tax road and has 
realized how devastating it is to their economy.
  That study that just came out in Spain that said for every green job 
they created, every permanent green job, they lost over 20 full-time 
jobs, because even the bulk of the jobs they created were temporary 
jobs. So for every job they created that was a permanent job, they lost 
20 jobs in their economy. And they have realized it was a failure.
  America surely shouldn't go down that road. That's why we are 
proposing these alternatives. There is a much better way--a way that we 
can achieve American energy independence by promoting the alternatives 
and using our natural resources that we have in this country to create 
good jobs, keep those jobs here, promote the alternative sources of 
energy, and reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
  I thank the gentleman for his leadership on this issue.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I appreciate my colleagues--all my colleagues--for 
coming down here tonight. In fact, I didn't have to spend much time, we 
had so many people involved. I think it shows the concern of this 
debate.
  One of our new Members recently elected--and when you are elected out 
of cycle, you get a chance to get sworn in and speak here. And he 
actually had one of the best speeches I have ever heard. In fact, I 
wrote it down to a point that I wanted to highlight his comments.
  He said, ``It is a humbling experience to take a job when people back 
home are losing theirs, and become a member of this House when people 
are losing theirs.''
  It made me appreciate the great honor that the people of southern 
Illinois have bestowed on me to come here and represent them. How dare 
I come here and cast votes that would cause them to lose their jobs in 
even greater numbers. I am here to protect their jobs.
  Why am I so impassioned? In the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, this 
mine, Peabody No. 10 in Kincaid, Illinois, closed. Twelve hundred jobs 
were lost in just one mine. Fourteen thousand in southern Illinois.
  The Special Order before this had a lot of members from Ohio, and one 
of them mentioned Bob and Betty Buckeye, which I thought was cute. Ohio 
lost 35,000 coal mine jobs. Ohio. About 92 percent of their energy 
portfolio is coal.
  If you follow President Obama's quotes and you follow the FERC 
chairman and you follow the bill, this is an assault on every State 
that relies on coal-fired power and the miners that get that coal from 
the ground.
  We will have a chance to talk, debate, offer amendments to make sure 
that these jobs are protected, and then when my colleague makes a 
comment, ``it is humbling to be given a job when people are losing 
theirs,'' we best be about the business of protecting the jobs of our 
constituents.

                              {time}  1845

  And this cap-and-tax, this national energy tax, will destroy jobs; 
and that is what we are here to fight.
  I see my colleague is here. I have 1 minute left, and I recognize the 
gentleman from New Jersey.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I appreciate all the work the gentleman 
has done, and I know we will be doing this in the future.
  Obviously, this cap-and-tax Special Order that you are talking about 
tonight points out the fact that we are looking at higher energy costs, 
what you were just talking about here, fewer jobs, and of course more 
government interference and intrusions into private lives. When we come 
to the floor next time to address this issue, I want to address the 
issue of ``not in my back yard,'' or NIMBY, and the fact that you are 
running at cross purposes here. And that is that, in order to do some 
of the good things that they want to do--which is to get to some 
alternatives, renewables, and the like--we cannot do it in the 
structure that is in the bill before us, or what have you, because new 
electricity demands will be graded, spikes in energy costs will occur, 
the

[[Page H5152]]

fact that we need new transmission lines--and I will be able to come to 
the floor to explain in detail how this is not already occurring 
because of the problems with NIMBY, the fact that people do not want to 
have this occur in their back yard.
  I commend the gentleman on his work here. And I look forward to 
elaborating on this in future floor remarks.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I appreciate my colleague joining me.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________