EPA Carbon Dioxide Regulation Endangers American Jobs And Economic Strength

Floor Speech

* Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, earlier this week the EPA declared that carbon dioxide is a danger to public health. As a result government bureaucrats will now have the power to create burdensome new regulations on businesses in almost every sector of our economy. This is an important distinction. Bureaucrats, not elected officials, will be in control of one of the most significant shifts in economic policy in recent memory.

* This so-called ``endangerment finding'' is a dramatic step in the wrong direction. If the EPA regulates the emission of carbon dioxide--the same gas emitted by every person in American with each breath--the end result will be job losses and harm to our economy.

* But as if this development were not enough to raise serious concerns, yesterday media reports quoted an Obama administration official saying that if Congress doesn't pass a cap and tax law ``the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area. And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it's going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty.''

* It is unclear whether this is meant as a threat to Congress to ram through the economically harmful cap and tax legislation--which is essentially a national energy tax--or if it is a prediction of the EPA's upcoming heavy-handed interference in almost every aspect of our economy.

* Here's a news flash for the Obama administration: this is America. We are not a command and control economy and the American people will not stand for control by bureaucrats.

* Regardless, the bottom line is crystal clear: the EPA's endangerment finding on carbon dioxide endangers the jobs of hard-working Americans and endangers a strong economic recovery.

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