[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 186 (Friday, December 11, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2983-E2984]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  EPA CARBON DIOXIDE REGULATION ENDANGERS AMERICAN JOBS AND ECONOMIC 
                                STRENGTH

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. VIRGINIA FOXX

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, December 11, 2009

  Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, earlier this week the EPA declared that 
carbon dioxide is a danger to public health. As a result government 
bureaucrats will now have the power to create burdensome new 
regulations on businesses in almost every sector of our economy. This 
is an important distinction. Bureaucrats, not elected officials, will 
be in control of one of the most significant shifts in economic policy 
in recent memory.
  This so-called ``endangerment finding'' is a dramatic step in the 
wrong direction. If the EPA regulates the emission of carbon dioxide--
the same gas emitted by every person in American with each breath--the 
end result will be job losses and harm to our economy.
  But as if this development were not enough to raise serious concerns, 
yesterday media reports quoted an Obama administration official saying 
that if Congress doesn't pass a cap and tax law ``the EPA is going to 
have to regulate in this area. And it is not going to be able to 
regulate on a market-based way, so it's going to have to regulate in a 
command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more 
uncertainty.''
  It is unclear whether this is meant as a threat to Congress to ram 
through the economically harmful cap and tax legislation--which is 
essentially a national energy tax--or if it is a prediction of the 
EPA's upcoming

[[Page E2984]]

heavy-handed interference in almost every aspect of our economy.
  Here's a news flash for the Obama administration: this is America. We 
are not a command and control economy and the American people will not 
stand for control by bureaucrats.
  Regardless, the bottom line is crystal clear: the EPA's endangerment 
finding on carbon dioxide endangers the jobs of hard-working Americans 
and endangers a strong economic recovery.

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