American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009

Floor Speech

AMERICAN CLEAN ENERGY AND SECURITY ACT OF 2009 -- (House of Representatives - June 26, 2009)

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, when we talk about Herbert Hoover's mishandling of the recession of 1929, the very first thing that economists point to is the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that imposed new taxes on over 20,000 imported products.

I believe the Waxman-Markey bill is going to be looked back upon as our generation's Smoot-Hawley Act. In fact, it is worse. It imposes new taxes on an infinitely larger number of domestic products on a scale that utterly dwarfs Smoot-Hawley. At least Hoover could argue that Smoot-Hawley made domestic products more competitive with imports. Waxman-Markey disadvantages American products.

When California adopted similar carbon restrictions 3 years ago, we too were promised an explosion of green jobs. Instead, California's unemployment rate has skyrocketed to one of the highest in the country.

I believe that if this bill becomes law, history guarantees us two things. Number one, the planet will continue to warm and to cool as it has been doing for billions of years; and two, Congress will have just delivered a staggering blow to our Nation's economy just at the time when it is most vulnerable.

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