[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2344]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                TIME TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

  (Mr. HUFFMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Madam Speaker, last week, in a Friday afternoon 
announcement designed to bury the news, the State Department released a 
very troubling supplemental environmental document regarding the 
Keystone XL pipeline, a project that would undo the progress our 
country has been making in recent years in showing leadership on 
climate change, in reducing gas emissions and transitioning to a clean 
energy economy.
  Unfortunately, environmental protection seems to be a ``foreign'' 
policy to our State Department. But even this pro-industry report 
cannot gloss over the fact that Keystone XL would unlock development of 
some of the dirtiest, most climate-damaging fuel on Earth, and it would 
lock the United States into deeper dependence on expensive tar sands 
fuel that would take this country in the wrong direction for our 
environment and our economy.
  Just this morning in the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral 
Resources, we heard about the enormous potential for wind energy to 
generate jobs and also cost-effectively improve energy independence. 
Other forms of clean energy hold the same promise.
  Madam Speaker, it's time to get serious about climate change and 
clean energy job creation. Importing dirty, expensive tar sands fuel is 
the wrong way to do that.

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