SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to express my strong opposition to any attempt to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from doing its job and protecting our families and our environment. The amendments being considered here in the Senate would hurt our environment and harm our national security by increasing our dependence on foreign oil. They would devastate our public health efforts, and take us in the wrong direction as we fight to compete and win and create jobs in the 21st century clean energy economy.

The positions of leading scientists and doctors and public health experts are clear. Global climate change is real, it is harmful, and it has to be addressed. Rolling back EPA's standards would be devastating to the health of our families, and especially our children. These are settled issues in the scientific world. We shouldn't be spending time debating them over and over on the Senate floor.

By the way, with the price of oil spiking and families paying more and more at the pump, we ought to be focused on ways to move our country away from our dependence on foreign oil. These amendments would do exactly the opposite. They will disrupt efficiency standards that sacrifice billions of gallons of fuel savings and increasing our foreign imports. They will derail the cooperative efforts of automakers and autoworkers and EPA and States to develop these unified, national standards that provide certainty for businesses to invest in new technologies. Frankly, they would be harmful to our national security. Every dollar we spend overseas to pay for oil is more money in the pockets of countries that are too often far from friendly to our national security interests, and that doesn't make any sense to me.

But this debate isn't just about health and the environment, and it is not just about our national security dependence on foreign oil. It is also about jobs and the economy, which is exactly what we ought to be focused on right now.

We are currently working on legislation on the floor to help small business owners to innovate and grow, to give them the resources they need so they can expand and add jobs and compete in a global economy. These amendments being considered to that bill will move our country in the opposite direction.

First of all, they are going to cause massive uncertainty and upheaval for clean energy companies such as the McKinstry Company in my home State of Washington that is working right now to create jobs and grow and create a clean energy economy. If the rules of the game keep changing, businesses are never going to have the confidence they need to invest and add workers.

Second of all, we all know America needs to move quickly into the 21st century clean energy economy. Other countries such as China and India are pouring resources into investments that are creating jobs and building infrastructure. We need to make sure we position ourselves to compete and win in this critical sector.

That is why instead of harmful legislation and amendments that would take us in the wrong direction--instead of doing that--we should be talking about policies that reduce our dependence on foreign oil, support our national security objectives, and unshackle our economy, so we can tap the creative energy of our Nation's workers and support good family wage jobs, and make sure our workers continue leading the way in this 21st century economy. That is the direction our country needs to be moving--toward a healthy and clean environment and toward the clean energy jobs of the future. We can't bury our heads in the sand and expect our energy and our environmental problems to somehow disappear.

The longer we put off dealing with these issues, the more it is going to cost us in the future, and that is exactly what the amendments on the floor today will do. They are bad for the environment, they are bad for the economy, and they are dangerous to our family's health.

The science on these issues is very clear and it is something the people in my home State of Washington take very seriously. Because when families across America go outside for some fresh air or turn on their tap and hope to have a clean glass of water, they expect these resources to be just that: clean.

Once again, I strongly oppose any attempt to take away the EPA's ability to do their job, and I hope we can work together to find real solutions to the critical problems that face our country.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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