Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted By the Environmental Protection Agency Relating to ``Review of Final Rule Reclassification of Major Sources As Area Sources Under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act''

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. CASTOR of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Pallone for yielding the time.

Mr. Speaker, this is a dirty, pro-polluter resolution, so I rise in strong opposition to S.J. Res. 31. It is going to increase hazardous air pollution across America. It is going to expose more Americans to cancer-causing toxins.

What is worse, it comes at a time when Republicans are ripping healthcare away from at least 13.7 million Americans in their billionaire boondoggle bill. In fact, Mr. Speaker, if you talk to folks back home or in your townhalls, what they are talking about is the cost of living.

It is amazing that this is the priority of the GOP at a time when people are really being squeezed back home. Republicans have not brought one bill to the floor to lower the cost of living and tackle the everyday challenges of our neighbors back home. Instead, they are consumed by this tax giveaway for billionaires.

This is the priority, to gut the Clean Air Act, to give polluting industrial plants the right to pollute more, to pollute our air with toxins that cause cancer, neurological damage, and death.

As a result of this Republican bill, we will see about 1,800 industrial facilities able to increase their pollution output.

Back home in Florida, we anticipate that will apply to 72 more polluting facilities that will be allowed to escape regulation and emit cancer-causing air pollution.

These are the major sources of hazardous air pollution, the large industrial facilities like chemical plants, refineries, and pesticide manufacturers. It is especially troubling because--and I think Mr. Pallone would agree that this hasn't gotten a lot of play--in that billionaire boondoggle bill, the big tax giveaway package that is ruminating here in the Rules Committee right now, the American people need to know what else was included in that bill.

The Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans included a pay-to-play scheme to sell out the most vulnerable communities to the highest bidder. This is in addition to gutting Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.

What they put in relating to their pay-to-play scheme would allow Big Oil polluters to pay a one-time $1 million fee to the Department of Energy to grease the skids to get polluting gas plants online faster.

Yes, we need more energy, but this comes at a time when they are, in doing so, going to raise electric bills across the country because they say it is only oil and gas. Forget about solar, wind, storage, all the energy that is ready to come onto the grid.

It is another example of sacrificing the people's interests for the special interests'. The special interests here are the chemical plants, refineries, and pesticide manufacturers.

This is especially troubling, too, because, for decades, Congress has recognized the clear health dangers of hazardous air pollutants from these large-scale industrial polluting plants. We know they cause cancer. We know they cause birth defects, developmental disorders, and neurological problems, even at low levels of exposure.

While Americans struggle with the high cost of living and watch this billionaire boondoggle bill try to get through the House, just know what else is going on at the same time.

They are gutting the Clean Air Act, the bipartisan piece of legislation that has stood us well for years and years. No Congress has ever stripped away protections against toxic air pollution, and we shouldn't start now.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source