Lower Energy Costs Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. CASTOR of Florida. Madam Chair, I thank Ranking Member Pallone for his leadership and yielding the time.

Madam Chair, I rise in strong opposition to the polluters over people act, and I rushed here to the floor with some good news: This bill is not going anywhere.

President Biden has already said that he intends to veto it, but it is not even going to make it out of the U.S. Senate. I thought President Biden spoke very well in his statement on his veto message.

He said, we are ``making unprecedented progress in protecting America's energy security and reducing energy costs for Americans--in their homes and at the pump. H.R. 1 would do just the opposite, replacing pro-consumer policies with a thinly veiled license to pollute. It would raise costs for American families by repealing household energy rebates and rolling back historic investments to increase access to cost-lowering clean energy technologies. Instead of protecting American consumers, it would pad oil and gas company profits--already at record levels--and undercut our public health and environment.'' It will take us backwards.

In fact, a number of America's leading health organizations, like the American Lung Association, the Children's Environmental Health Network, and others wrote to Congress to say they oppose H.R. 1 and its attempt to weaken the Clean Air Act to allow additional polluting energy sources. They say, ``Years of scientific research has clearly established that pollution is a threat to human health at every stage of life--from inside the womb to adulthood.''

Burning fossil fuels not only contributes to a warming climate, but higher levels of dangerous--and deadly--pollution.

The good news is, this bill is not going anywhere.

There is more good news for American families and all of us who care about the moral obligation we have to our kids to provide a livable planet.

Earlier this month, the International Energy Agency said it has been the jump in renewables, not frack gas--it has been the jump in renewables that has helped blunt a feared runaway in carbon emissions. In the end, they say, global energy-related emissions are still on an unsustainable growth trajectory, but--and this is thanks to the outstanding wealth of renewable energy, electric vehicles, heat pumps, energy efficient technologies--that we still have a fighting chance.

This was followed by more good news yesterday out of the U.S. Energy Information Administration. For the first time in 2022 renewable energy in America surpassed coal burning in America, and it is now outpacing nuclear energy, as well.

Who is driving this?

I thought this was very interesting.

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Ms. CASTOR of Florida. The States that are producing the most renewable energy resources: In solar, California, Texas, North Carolina; in wind, again it is Texas, Iowa, and Oklahoma.

Why is this happening?

Because renewable energy is the cheapest energy.

With the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure law, the CHIPS and Science Act, we are about to lower energy bills substantially for our neighbors back home.

Since we have adopted the IRA, the infrastructure law, we have also seen $200 billion of private sector investments in the manufacturing sector in America, in clean energy, electric vehicles, batteries, and other manufacturing processes.

There is good news here. As we debate this bill, and the polluters over people act goes nowhere, we continue to lower energy costs for our families back home, lift American workers, and provide for healthier, safer communities. We have an opportunity here to go farther and faster. That is what is inspirational today, not the backwards policies of the past.

Vote ``no'' on the polluters over people act.

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