[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 85 (Tuesday, June 3, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3349-S3350]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               ENERGY TAX

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, everywhere middle-class Americans look, 
they are facing higher prices. Over the past 5\1/2\ years of the Obama 
Presidency, the price of everything--from milk to the refrigerator to 
put it in--has risen. Tuition costs have soared, gas prices have almost 
doubled, food prices have shot up, and then, of course, there is health 
care. The President claimed that health care premiums would fall by 
$2,500 under his health care law. Instead, they have risen by almost 
$3,700 during the President's administration, and they are still going 
up. The President's health care law has driven up the price of almost 
every aspect of health care, from premiums to pacemakers.
  Americans are ill-equipped to meet these higher costs. Household 
income has declined by more than $3,500 on the President's watch. 
Nearly 10 million Americans are unemployed, more than one-third of them 
for 6 months or longer, and 19.4 million Americans have been forced to 
join the food stamp program since the President took office.
  Our economy is simply not posting the kind of growth we need to open 
opportunities for middle-class families. Economic growth actually 
declined last quarter, and job creation is sluggish at best. 
Furthermore, the jobs we are creating are not the kinds of jobs 
Americans need to get ahead. Seventy-eight percent of the jobs that 
were lost during the recession were high- or mid-wage jobs, but just 56 
percent of the jobs recovered have been the same.

[[Page S3350]]

That means almost half of the jobs we are creating are low-wage jobs--
not the kind that will get Americans to a more secure financial future.
  Americans have had a tough time over the past 5\1/2\ years, and if 
the President has his way, it is about to get much worse. This week the 
President's Environmental Protection Agency announced a national energy 
tax that will drive up Americans' energy bills and destroy jobs while 
essentially doing nothing for the environment.
  Coal is responsible for approximately 40 percent of our country's 
energy production and is a significant part of the economies of several 
States. Currently, there are nearly 560 coal-fired powerplants in the 
United States, but if the administration's new greenhouse gas 
regulations go into effect, a majority of them will close and no new 
plants will be built. That means energy companies are going to have to 
scramble for new sources of energy. With utilities faced with fewer and 
more expensive sources of energy, electricity rates will soar to 
unprecedented levels, and that will leave millions of Americans 
struggling to afford their energy bills.
  What the administration has proposed this week is nothing short--make 
no mistake about it--of a national energy tax, and it will hit low-
income families and seniors who live on fixed incomes and already 
devote a large share of their income to the electricity bills the 
hardest. In my home State of South Dakota, low-income families already 
spend almost a quarter of their income on energy bills. There is no way 
they can afford to spend hundreds more to pay for President Obama's 
national energy tax--that is, of course, if they can even get 
electricity.
  The polar vortex that covered large portions of the United States 
with extreme cold and snow this past winter pushed the electricity grid 
to its limits. The Chairman of the Federal Regulatory Commission 
described the grid as ``close to the edge,'' with coal-fired 
powerplants running at 90 percent capacity to keep houses warm during a 
historically cold winter. These are the very plants that are being 
targeted by this administration. Closing these powerplants, which 
provide affordable power throughout the year, will severely jeopardize 
our ability to produce reliable electricity and heat during times of 
peak power demand. This will be particularly dangerous in winter months 
when an overstressed grid could leave thousands of Americans without a 
source of heat for their homes.
  Driving up energy bills and compromising the energy grid would be 
sufficient reason to reject the President's new carbon dioxide 
regulations, but that is not all these regulations will do. The 
President's new regulations will also destroy tens of thousands and 
possibly hundreds of thousands of jobs.
  First, of course, there are the thousands of Americans who will lose 
their jobs when the coal-fired plants that they work for close their 
doors. Then there are the manufacturing jobs that will be lost if these 
regulations go into effect. U.S. manufacturing is currently enjoying a 
renaissance thanks to the abundant, affordable energy the United States 
offers. Manufacturers are actually moving production from overseas to 
the United States and investing billions of dollars in our economy in 
the process. But if we drive up the cost of energy here at home, 
manufacturers will no longer have the same incentive to locate jobs 
here in America. Instead, manufacturers will send jobs overseas.
  Given the terrible costs of these regulations, one would assume that 
the payoff would be huge--a drastic reduction in global carbon dioxide 
concentration levels.
  The truth is the President is proposing to devastate American 
families and destroy our economy for nothing, because the President's 
proposals would have essentially no impact--no impact--on the 
concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Even the President's 
own former EPA Administrator admitted: ``U.S. action alone will not 
impact world CO2 levels.''
  The truth is, as long as the United States is acting unilaterally, 
global emissions will not be reduced in any meaningful way. In fact, 
the President's proposals could actually drive up emissions in other 
countries as manufacturers send jobs from the United States to some of 
the world's top polluters such as India and China.
  Manufacturers in the United States are already reducing emissions. 
U.S. manufacturing and other industrial carbon dioxide emissions are 
down 13 percent since 2005. In the meantime, however, China's 
CO2 emissions have grown by 69 percent, while India's have 
grown by 53 percent.
  After 5\1/2\ years of the Obama economy, Americans are struggling--
struggling to pay for health care, for college tuition, for food, and 
for gas--and they are wondering where the promised recovery is and how 
long they are going to have to live paycheck to paycheck, praying they 
can afford unexpected bills. Too many of them are wondering if they 
will be able to find a job to replace the one they lost. Others are 
wondering if they ever will find the better paying job they have been 
waiting for.
  Now the President is prepared to hike electricity prices for every 
one of these Americans. Worse, he is prepared to eliminate thousands of 
their jobs. For what? For a significant reduction in global carbon 
dioxide concentration levels? No. He is prepared to damage their 
budgets and destroy their jobs just so they can appear to be doing 
something about global warming. He is willing to overlook the economic 
havoc these regulations will create as long as his extreme 
environmental base is content.
  News reports have suggested the President has backed these new carbon 
regulations because he believes they will be an impressive addition to 
his legacy. I wish to suggest that the record of lost jobs and 
struggling families is not the kind of legacy the President would want 
to leave.
  I hope in the coming days we will hear from the President's party on 
this issue. I challenge my Democratic colleagues in the Senate to stand 
and tell the American people where they stand. Do they stand with 
American jobs and American families or do they stand with their party's 
environmental fringe?
  The American people deserve to know. Their jobs, their standard of 
living, and their future hang in the balance.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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