Providing for Consideration of H.R. Climate Action Now Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. NEWHOUSE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Arizona for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule that is before us today. As Democrats in the House bring forward legislation in the name of supporting the environment and climate, I would like to talk a little bit about the process.

My good friend Chairman McGovern and the Democratic majority of the House Rules Committee received a total of 91 amendments submitted for consideration on the legislation that we have before us, and as you just heard from Mr. Cole, of the 45 Democratic amendments, more than half were made in order, 26 of those; but of the 44 Republican amendments submitted for consideration, only 3--let me repeat that--3 of those were made in order.

Myself, I offered 2 of those 44 amendments. They were noncontroversial. They were ruled germane to the legislation before us by the House Parliamentarian, and all they did, simply, was recognize the clean, renewable benefits of hydropower and the clean emissions- free benefits of nuclear power, but Chairman McGovern and his committee refused to allow this recognition.

So we have got to ask ourselves, Madam Speaker:

Why? Why, if we are supposedly here to debate policy affecting our environment and our climate, why would they not want to discuss the clean energy that comes from hydroelectric dams like those in my district along the Columbia and Snake Rivers?

Why would they not want to discuss the emissions-free energy produced by nuclear power plants like the Columbia Generating Station in my district in central Washington.

It is because the efforts put forward by Democrats in the House, be it the flawed Paris agreement legislation that is before us or the radical Green New Deal proposal--which, I might add, has no mention of hydropower and actually calls for the end of nuclear power in our Nation--have nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics.

The majority party, the Democrats, with these proposals, is more focused on pushing a mandated top-down system that will inevitably do nothing to help our environment.

What we should be doing, and what my Republican colleagues continue to advocate for, is focusing on the free market approach spurred by collaboration and innovation between our national laboratories, research universities, Federal partners, and the private sector.

Madam Speaker, I would say to my friend Mr. McGovern that, when Republicans were in the majority, we made a conscientious effort on the Rules Committee to provide equitable treatment of amendments offered to legislation. With the process before us today, it is disappointing to see the chairman not following in that good faith effort, and I would urge a ``no'' vote.

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