EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. ELLISON. Let me thank the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. Chairman, a number of very passionate and well-informed speakers have come before this body today to urge a ``no'' vote based on facts and based on research. All this is extremely important, and I'm so glad they did it, but for the people watching this debate today, they need to know one thing, and that is that this legislation is bought and paid for by industry so that people could try to save money at the expense of people's health and their lives, and this is exactly what's going on here today.

What's going on here today is that industry interests backed candidates who come here today to offer legislation that would allow the cement industry, the coal-fired power industry and the boiler industry users to just dump mercury and other junk into the air that makes you sick.

And as we're talking about jobs, what about a jobs bill that could put Americans to work, as opposed to saying, we're just going to get rid of all the regulations in America? What if we just got rid of all the regulations in America? We would be sicker, we would die sooner, and we would be much less of a country. What if we just said that we're going to put the health of Americans up front, that we're going to actually introduce a jobs bill like the American Jobs Act? What if we did those things? America would be back on track. But maybe some of these big industrial polluters would be a little sadder.

I say today, Mr. Chairman, that this Congress should reject the attack on Americans' health. In the last 3 weeks, we have seen industry polluters from the industry that uses these boilers, the cement industry and coal-fired power plant industry, be able to just run amok on the people's health, and we have yet to see a single jobs bill in the course of the 250-plus days that this majority has been in the hands of the Republicans.

This is a national disgrace. The American people said they wanted jobs. They haven't gotten them. The American people say they want to be well and healthy. They are seeing assaults on that. This is something that the American people need to bring their attention to, Mr. Chairman; and I hope that people are paying attention to this debate today because it is crystal clear whose side the majority is so on: industry polluters, not the American people.

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