American Energy Solutions for Lower Costs and More American Jobs Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the underlying bill and to the policy direction that this legislation would take us in.

As I read this legislation, I asked myself a simple question: What in this bill will improve the everyday lives of my constituents? What will help make our country and our communities stronger? Unfortunately, the answer is nothing.

This bill would roll back commonsense safeguards that protect the communities I represent and the Great Lakes upon which we depend from harmful pollutants emitted from powerplants.

This bill would reduce the quality of our drinking water and threaten the safety of the air we breathe. This bill would deny the necessity of combating climate change through the regulation of greenhouse gases, even as the communities I represent and the communities around our country have been ravaged by unprecedented severe weather events that can only be attributed to the effects of climate change.

This bill does not seek to create a healthier environment for our children; instead, it sacrifices our ability to pass to future generations their rightful legacy of a clean, healthy, and dynamic natural world.

For these and other related reasons, I offer an amendment to this legislation. This amendment would seek to limit the release of toxic air pollutants around schools, hospitals, and nursing homes from the massive storage of petroleum coke in populated areas.

This toxic dust, when improperly stored, can easily become an airborne pollutant which the EPA has shown to cause severe health effects to the heart and lungs.

It would ensure that we safeguard our strategic resources by denying U.S. oil and gas exports from being sold to any country, company, or individual that supports or harbors terrorist organizations, including ISIS or al Qaeda. Denying our enemies these critical resources is in the vital national security interest of the United States.

Finally, this amendment would empower the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to combat energy speculation which manipulates fuel prices and distorts markets, harming consumers at the gas pump.

Increasing these efforts will bolster transparency for consumers while discouraging bad actors from gaming energy markets for financial gain.

Like many of my colleagues in this Chamber, I want to pursue an energy policy that utilizes an all-of-the-above strategy, including renewable energy and innovative technologies to save consumers money at the pump and lower their home energy costs.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the underlying legislation does not achieve this goal and, in fact, would do harmful damage to our environment and the health of our communities. My amendment would be a step forward rather than several steps backward in the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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