[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12174]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 TIME TO PASS CLEAN ENERGY LEGISLATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Connolly) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONNOLLY of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Americans have not faced this level of economic stress since the 
Great Depression. Nearly a decade of ideologically driven deregulation 
sent the foundation of financial market regulation asunder and enabled 
the housing market bubble and subsequent financial crash. The same 
deregulators created an energy market that rewarded old polluting 
technologies while increasing greenhouse gas emissions and other kinds 
of pollution. The same Gilded Age politics that wreaked our financial 
system laid waste to our environment.
  Today the same people who let Wall Street run amok claim that we 
cannot afford to make investments in energy independence or create new 
jobs with renewable energy generation. In fact, we just heard such 
remarks. They claim that economic and environmental renewal is somehow 
too costly to undertake at this critical juncture in our Nation's 
history. In reality, with a contracting economy and expanding global 
warming pollution, we cannot afford inaction.
  The Energy and Commerce Committee is considering draft legislation 
that would make historic investments in clean energy and job creation 
while dramatically reducing global warming and pollution. According to 
the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, this legislation would 
help spur economic growth by creating powerful incentives to invest in 
renewable energy.
  This legislation also presents Congress with an opportunity to make 
polluters pay while directing money to consumers who have suffered as a 
result of the economic policies of the prior administration.
  Although the committee's bill is in discussion draft with some 
details still unresolved, let us consider the economic math for 
American families.
  If Congress enacted this legislation, the American Clean Energy and 
Security Act, and made polluters pay through a 100 percent auction of 
carbon credits for all of their greenhouse gas emissions, we could 
write a check in theory to every American for $2,150 per year.

                              {time}  1245

  Due to inaction by the previous administration, polluters do not have 
to pay for the impacts of greenhouse gas pollution and its impacts on 
communities all across the United States. From rising sea levels to 
increased incidence of severe weather, the costs of global warming are 
increasing each year.
  The minority party seems to believe that average Americans should 
bear that cost, not those who create the pollution in the first place.
  The business community understands we cannot bear the economic costs 
of inaction. Companies including eBay, Nike, Starbucks, Levi Strauss, 
Symantec, Johnson & Johnson and others have formed a Business for 
Climate and Innovative Energy Policy Coalition, known as BICEP, to 
advocate for clean energy legislation that reduces greenhouse gas 
pollution. It auctions 100 percent of pollution permits, establishes a 
renewable electricity standard and invests in job creation. Those 
businesses support clean energy jobs legislation both to spur economic 
growth and to avoid the costs associated with global warming, which 
will reach at least $271 billion, it is estimated, by 2025 if we do not 
act.
  Now is the time to pass legislation that spurs jobs creation, reduces 
greenhouse gas pollution and puts money back in the pockets of the 
people who are suffering as a result of the failed economic policies of 
the Republican administration that just left town.
  Mr. Speaker, as we consider the American Clean Energy and Security 
Act, we must ensure that we will make polluters pay and use the revenue 
to invest in job creation here at home and give a climate rebate to all 
Americans.

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