[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12197-12198]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          COAL ASH AND ENERGY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, we can do better. When it comes to 
legislatively establishing a national energy policy to address climate 
change, we can and must do better. But we're not. As Members of this 
body, we're not doing anything. Why?
  We are hamstrung by our inability to work together to do great, 
important, vital things here in this Chamber: things like addressing 
our national debt, tackling comprehensive immigration reform, and to 
ever, in the history of this Nation, establish a national energy plan. 
The only way forward is to establish a national energy plan to address 
climate change, something this great Nation has always lacked, and to 
work with public and private entities alike to get this done.
  For the climate doubters out there who still question climate change, 
I remind them that over 200 peer-reviewed scientific studies have said 
that climate change is real and that man contributes significantly to 
it. And zero scientific peer-reviewed studies have said the opposite.
  So we must craft a plan that focuses on working with the business 
community hand-in-hand to be competitive internationally. We must go 
toe-to-toe with India and China. We must craft a plan that focuses on 
public transportation and green infrastructure. We

[[Page 12198]]

must pass a multiyear transportation bill. We must focus on 
conservation, as demonstrated so adeptly by our own President's 
increase in Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards and his call to 
action on climate just a few weeks ago. Above all, we must compromise 
and work together and be inventive and creative.
  I'm not calling on the President for another executive order. I'm not 
calling on the Senate to move one more piecemeal energy bill that lies 
holed up in committee. I'm calling on this House.
  I know what the critics will say, and my argument is the same as 
theirs: it's about jobs. Setting standards for carbon-pollution limits 
for coal plants under the Clean Air Act will not shutter all U.S. 
plants. On the contrary, it will set achievable standards for existing 
plants until we can use a patchwork solution to transition to cleaner 
sources.
  Still others will say the Clean Air Act is a draconian doctrine that 
kills jobs, slows down American progress, and sets us back as a 
technology-advanced Nation. Right? Wrong. The Clean Air Act has been 
the impetus for the only existing technologies that currently exist for 
power plants, having been required to reduce emittance by 90 percent by 
2015. Without such directives coming out of the EPA over the past 40 
years, such advancements by polluting power plants would never have 
been voluntarily made.
  We can transition with incentives and a patchwork approach--and 
compromise.
  Several weeks ago, when the President made a major drive on combating 
climate change, it's too bad he had to bypass Congress to do it. But as 
a Member of this body, I don't blame him. I would love to say we here 
in this Chamber would be part of the solution, but I understand why he 
believes we cannot.
  Since Congress has abdicated its desire to pass climate legislation, 
natural gas has become a panacea for fossil fuel. It's dirt cheap and 
``cleaner,'' they say. But it's brought about a renaissance of dirty 
extraction like hydrofracking or extracting gas from shale in an 
oftentimes negligent and toxic manner.
  Also, our nuclear energy can't compete with China's solar energy. 
China provided over half the solar panel cells in the U.S. That's over 
$3.1 billion within our domestic market--$3.1 billion we could be 
capitalizing on, infusing small and mid-sized solar companies across 
the country, creating and retaining green jobs.
  Our attempt to deregulate or fight rules promulgated from the EPA 
isn't working either. Take the bill we're considering this week, the 
Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act, which would set up a separate 
management stream which would bypass the EPA. Per the Congressional 
Research Service, this standard, as established by the bill, pays no 
mind to public health. The CRS memo, written at the request of the 
House and Energy and Commerce Committee states:

       This bill fails to establish minimum national safeguards, 
     fails to establish Federal backstop authority, fails to 
     define what facility the bill applies to, fails to contain 
     any minimum Federal requirement to protect health and the 
     environment.

  It's time this body became a relevant advocate and participant in 
solving the great questions that plague our Nation today before we lose 
a chance to have a tomorrow.

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