Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. QUIGLEY. Madam Chair, my amendment would require that the GAO report to Congress the results of a study of health care costs in the U.S. as affected by the elimination of EPA regulation under this act. Further, the report would also detail health care costs in the U.S. proceeding under the EPA's current regulatory authority as determined in 2007 in Massachusetts v. EPA.

It is science, hard facts, and figures that have led hundreds of scientists to confirm that global warming is real. Despite the other numbers you may have heard, the most convincing one is that there are over 200 peer reviewed scientific studies that have determined that global warming is real and that man contributes to that, and exactly zero that have proved or shown evidence to the contrary.

It was science that led the Congress to pass the Clean Air Act, the act which designated the EPA as the body charged with overseeing, adapting, and implementing these regulations. It was science that led the Supreme Court to rule in 2007 that the Environmental Protection Agency does in fact have the authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

My amendment is simple. It directs the GAO to report the cost of health care under the Clean Air Act, and then to report the costs of health care with this bill passing as it modifies the amendment.

In 2010 alone, the EPA reported the reduction in fine particulate and ozone pollution from the Clean Air Act prevented more than 160,000 premature deaths, 130,000 heart attacks, 13 million lost workdays, and 1.7 million asthma attacks. These are serious health issues that burden the government with serious bills.

We face serious budgetary times. We may be out of a recession, but we are far from recovered. If we are committed to making the government more efficient and effective to cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, we must acknowledge that spending a smart dollar up front saves many dollars on the back end.

I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment that will allow the experts at the GAO to show us a world with the Clean Air Act and a world without. My estimation is that a world with less mercury in our water and less ozone in our air will cost far less in dollars and deaths than the opposite, but I will defer to the experts and look forward to their report on this subject.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HARPER. I rise in opposition to the amendment.

The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Mississippi is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. HARPER. This amendment filed by the gentleman from Illinois would require a GAO study to be completed, 1 year, analyzing how health care costs are affected if EPA does not proceed with regulation in its role as determined in Massachusetts v. EPA.

You know, this case did not determine whether or how EPA should regulate greenhouse gases. To the contrary, it did not mandate that EPA move forward with global warming regulations, and it certainly did not direct the EPA to begin regulating tens of thousands or millions of stationary sources across the United States economy.

In any event, no GAO study is needed because the EPA, itself, has already concluded that greenhouse gases pose no direct adverse health effects.

Here's what the EPA has stated: ``Current and projected ambient greenhouse gas concentrations remain well below published thresholds for any direct adverse health effects, such as respiratory or toxic effects.''

So even if the EPA had concluded that there were direct health impacts, EPA's own administrators concluded that the agency's greenhouse gas rules are not going to be effective in appreciably reducing temperatures or global emissions.

Administrator Jackson has said: ``We will not ultimately be able to change the amount of CO

2 that is accumulating in the atmosphere alone.'' If anything, EPA's global warming rules will cause global emissions to increase as U.S. manufacturing and industry goes to countries with much less stringent environmental laws.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Madam Chair, I guess my response is, with all due respect, prove me wrong. If there is no health care risk, let the GAO independent analysis prove us wrong.

But there's a lot at stake here, and I would defy anyone to say that greenhouse gases are not in and of themselves--putting aside the issue of global warming--dangerous because many of them are precursors to ozone. I live in Chicago, which is the morbidity and mortality capital of the United States for people who are afflicted with asthma, and there is a dramatic and direct impact of what ozone does to those people suffering from asthma.

So prove me wrong. Show me how we're wrong on this. Let there be a study which goes to this, because if I'm wrong, no damage done. But if there is some danger here and we have decided that it is not worth our study, then we have done a grave disservice to the American public and put their lives at risk.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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