[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3946-3947]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               THE COST OF THE ENERGY TAX PREVENTION ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, Colstrip, Montana, is home to the second 
largest coal plant west of the Mississippi. One boxcar-full of coal is 
burned every 5 minutes.
  The burning coal creates sodium, thallium, mercury, boron, aluminum, 
and arsenic, which is pumped out of the factory and into the air. The 
chemicals that are pumped into the air are caught in the factory's 
scrubbers and then dumped with coal ash into giant settling ponds. 
These ponds are shallow artificial lakes of concentrated toxicity which 
leach this poison into wells and aquifers.
  The sludge flows into the surrounding towns and countryside, bubbling 
up against foundations and floorings, cracking the floor in Colstrip's 
local grocery store. Ranchers in eastern Montana are now suing the 
plant for damages; noxious water, they cite, is the only liquid that 
fill their wells and stock ponds.
  James Jansen, a renowned climate scientist, says Colstrip itself will 
cause the extinction of 400 species. But Colstrip burns on. Why? 
Because we have no national energy plan, and because there are 
currently no Federal enforceable regulations specific to coal ash.
  This lack of federally enforceable safeguards is exactly what led to 
the disaster in Tennessee, where a dam holding more than 1 billion 
gallons of toxic coal ash failed. The TVA disaster destroyed 300 acres, 
dozens of homes, killed fish and other wildlife, and poisoned the Emory 
and Clinch Rivers.
  From Tennessee to Montana and across the Nation, the story is the 
same: We have no national conservation plan, no national energy policy, 
no regulatory enforcement authority.
  What is worse, today we are faced with a bill, H.R. 910, the Energy 
Tax Prevention Act, which purports to protect citizens from taxation. 
In reality, this bill is a death sentence not only to our land, air, 
water, animals, and plants but to humans.
  This bill overturns proven scientific findings that carbon pollution 
endangers the health of Americans. It repeals the greenhouse gas 
reporting rule and removes the Environmental Protection Agency's 
authority to require energy efficiency at power plants and refineries. 
This bill simply says that science doesn't matter.
  I stand here today to refute that claim and, further, to protect the 
integrity of science. It is this science, these facts and figures, that 
have led hundreds of scientists to confirm that global warming is real. 
In fact, over 200 peer-reviewed scientific studies have found that 
global warming is real and that man contributes to it. To this date, 
zero peer-reviewed studies have found otherwise.
  It is this science that led the Supreme Court to rule that the 
Environmental Protection Agency does in fact have the authority to 
regulate greenhouse gases, and it is this science that led the Congress 
to pass the Clean Air Act, the act which designated the EPA as the body 
charged with overseeing, adapting, and implementing these regulations.
  In the coming months, EPA will begin regulating greenhouse gases from 
certain emitters for the first time. These regulations have become 
hugely controversial and, sadly, political. These rules seek to combat 
man-made climate change; man-made climate change that is melting our 
polar ice caps, that is raising the level of our oceans, and that is 
modifying our seasonal temperatures; man-made climate

[[Page 3947]]

change that is altering the duration of our growing season, that is 
flooding part of the world and is causing multiyear droughts and 
others; man-made climate change that is allowing particulate matters to 
infiltrate our children's lungs, making them suffer from lifelong 
asthma and making us die earlier.
  And still, here we are, ignoring cries from health and medical 
professionals who have asked us, as Members of this body, to fulfill 
the promise of clean, healthy air for all Americans to breathe.
  Support full implementation of the Clean Air Act and resist any 
efforts to weaken, delay, or block progress toward a healthier future 
for all Americans.
  Ignoring requests from former senior military officials who wrote 
just last week, ``America's dependence on oil constitutes a clear and 
present danger to the security and welfare of the United States,'' and 
that, ``As former senior military officials, we are concerned about 
congressional efforts to undermine the Environmental Protection 
Agency's regulatory authority that is critical to reducing our 
dependence on oil,'' Mr. Speaker, we cannot afford the costs of the 
Energy Tax Prevention Act: Lost and devastated ecosystems, lost jobs, 
and lost lives.

                          ____________________