[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14677]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       ENERGY TAXES AND TOY CARS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, unveiled today was a new energy plan 
that would increase production of American-made energy in an 
environmentally sound manner. The American Energy Act is an all-of-the-
above solution that offers more affordable energy, good-paying American 
jobs and American energy independence, and it is safe for the 
environment.
  However, what the administration and the taxacrats are still 
proposing is a none-of-the-above approach to energy development. They 
call it the cap-and-trade bill. Their answer is to tax energy 
consumption, not actually find more energy.
  Their new tax will cost the average American family over $3,000 in 
additional taxes each year. If you use energy, you are going to be 
taxed. That will mean all sources of energy will cost all consumers 
more money. Electricity costs will go up. Natural gas, gasoline, and 
even the cost of food and consumer goods will rise. Everything is going 
to cost a whole lot more, because everything Americans buy is produced 
using the energy the administration is going to tax.
  Their plan is to punish Americans who use energy by taxing them, plus 
there is no real plan for energy that they propose. Their new cap-and-
trade national energy tax will financially devastate middle class 
families across America. It will be especially hard on energy-producing 
States like Texas that are going to lose thousands of jobs.
  The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued their analysis of 
the energy consumption tax this week. The CBO reports say that the 
administration cap-and-trade tax imposes $846 billion in new national 
energy taxes that will affect all of us. Not only that, the CBO told 
the Senate the new energy consumption tax will have little or no effect 
on the climate. Now, isn't that lovely?
  The none-of-the-above energy plan and tax on business hammers what 
few manufacturing plants are left in the United States. It is going to 
send countless American jobs overseas to places like China and India. 
You see, both of these countries have said they are not going to 
participate in any scheme to cap-and-tax carbon like America is going 
to do. Thus, they will make what were American products cheaper in 
those countries. Also, if all of these factories and plants move 
overseas, along with the jobs, to so-called polluting nations, how is 
this going to have any positive effect on our climate?
  At the same time, the taxacrats are trying to kill off carbon-based 
fuel supplies; that is, things like oil and its derivatives, as well as 
natural gas. There is no transition fuel that exists at this time. That 
is at least 10 years away. Now we are really in a fix; no new energy, 
and, literally, we are going to be in the dark and we are going to be 
taxed back to the stone age.
  The strange part of all this is that the taxacrats say natural gas 
could be that transition fuel, but they are trying to kill the drilling 
of natural gas, especially offshore. I wonder if they understand that 
natural gas is a carbon-based fossil fuel that requires drilling to 
unearth? You cannot grow natural gas like corn.
  Those taxacrats also want to force us all into small, little green 
cars that are death traps. Have you seen these things? These dinky cars 
are too small for people like me and too small for even groceries or 
putting children in these toy cars. There is no room, and they are 
unsafe at any speed.
  The Institute for Highway Safety ran three 40-mile-per-hour, car-to-
car, front-to-front crash tests each involving one of these little 
bitty microcars and a midsize car from the same manufacturer. They 
didn't even use large cars or those SUVs. The results weren't pretty. 
They found that the weight of just a midsize car was devastating to 
these micromini toy cars. These green cars simply do not have the 
weight to protect the passengers, and they are not safe on American 
highways. So the government is going to force us to drive small, 
battery-powered, unsafe vehicles, but they will be cute, Mr. Speaker.
  And speaking of batteries, if all our vehicles are electric, where 
are we going to dispose of the millions of larger batteries that will 
be required to generate these little cars? The other side talks about 
protecting the environment, but this will create an environmental 
nightmare when we are trying to dispose of these batteries somewhere in 
America.
  It is just common sense to do everything we can to embrace an all-of-
the-above approach that is environmentally friendly as well as 
affordable for the American people.
  The American Energy Act is good for the country. We can drill safely 
off our shores for oil and natural gas. That will create American jobs 
and make us less dependent on foreigners.
  We need to use more nuclear and hydroenergy, and eventually we will, 
as an American Nation, develop alternative energy. Meanwhile, we don't 
need the bureaucrats forcing Americans into a none-of-the-above energy 
plan, raising taxes and forcing us to drive unsafe cars.
  And that's just the way it is.

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