Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I will continue yielding without losing my right to the floor because there will be a question.

Mrs. BOXER. I do not at this point. We are taking our time. I wish to say through the Chair to my friend, this amendment is so radical, it is so far beyond any other amendment we have ever had on this subject, so I am not going to yield the floor until I have given people a chance on my side to ask questions about it. I intend to hold the floor at this point. I cannot give you a time when I will stop. I am also very willing to have a vote on this at a time we can mutually agree to. But at this point, I will not be able to yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. I yield to my friend for a question or a series of questions--as many as she might have.

Mrs. BOXER. Before my friend leaves, I thank her so much, and I am going to leave the floor so my Republican friends have time to speak on this issue. America will hear a lot of different stories from a lot of different people. But, remember, this is pretty simple. This amendment stops the Environmental Protection Agency from doing its job. I thank my friend and tell her that we can't afford this amendment. This amendment will hurt America. It will hurt it in every way. It will hurt the health of Americans, it will hurt jobs in this country, it will hurt consumers, and I am proud to stand with her. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Just a parliamentary inquiry: Since we are going back and forth, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized after Senator Murkowski.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am happy my friend has her amendment lined up so we can get to that. I commend, first of all, the Senator from Louisiana for her measure that is before us. It is a bill I support very strongly. Therefore, to say I was disappointed to see an unrelated amendment offered is an understatement. But that is the way it is. We are going to have to vote on this. Frankly, we have had votes similar to this before. I feel comfortable and hopeful that we will defeat this amendment. In about 5 minutes I am going to yield for a question to my friend from New Jersey, but before I do that I want to make about 5 minutes worth of remarks. The amendment that is pending on this bill has been named by Senators McConnell and Inhofe The Energy Tax Prevention Act. Good title. The bill doesn't do one thing to lower the price of oil--not one thing. We know what we can do right now to lower the price of oil. We know we should go after the speculators who are speculating on futures. We know we have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that the President is looking at. Every time we have taken some oil out of that it has had a salutary impact on the price of gas immediately. We know we should increase our investment in alternative clean fuels. We know what we have to do. We have to work for more stability in the Middle East. Most of all, we have to get off foreign oil. We cannot be hostage to what is going on in the world. This bill does nothing about it. It has a good title but it has nothing to do with the price of oil. We know what we have to do to do something about that. I hope we will. Let me tell you what I would name this amendment. I would not name it what it has been called, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, because it doesn't do a thing about that. I would call it the Reliance On Foreign Oil Forever Act, because part of it says we can no longer look at fuel economy through the Clean Air Act and make gains on fuel economy. We all now have the opportunity to buy gas-efficient cars. How do you think that happened? It did not happen without some leadership here. As a matter of fact, the Senator from Maine, Olympia Snowe, was very involved in that. My colleague Senator Feinstein was as well. We all worked on this--Senator Lautenberg. We said we are going to have more fuel-efficient cars. According to this, it is over and no State can step out and pass tougher fuel economy standards. It is stopping our States from acting. That is No. 1. So I call it the Reliance On Foreign Oil Forever Act because as long as we drive cars that do not do well on fuel economy, we will be stopping at the gas pump. Mark my words. How wonderful is it for me. I drive a hybrid car. I go about 50 miles per gallon. I can wave at that gas station and say I am glad I don't have to stop here for a long time. If you don't want to name the amendment the Reliance On Foreign Oil Forever Act, you can name it something else: The More Air Pollution for Americans Act. The More Air Pollution for Americans Act. More air pollution. Now, we all ran for office and we all run for office. I never met one person who said: Please go back there and get me more air pollution. Not one person ever said that. What they tell me is that they know someone with asthma. They have asthma. Their kid has asthma. So here is what happens here. This bill says, forever, the EPA can never, ever go after carbon pollution. Let me repeat that. This amendment, despite the fact that the Clean Air Act specifically says that carbon pollution is covered, says, no more. EPA cannot go after it. It is going to keep on keeping on, and there is going to be more air pollution for every American. That is what this amendment promises that they want to pass. I have to tell you, my colleagues are playing scientist and they are playing doctor. They are deciding for us whether we should be exposed to pollution. When we hear from my colleague, Senator Lautenberg, we are going to hear what it is like to have a grandchild with terrible asthma and to worry about it 24/7. So who are the real doctors and what are they saying? We got a letter in opposition to this terrible amendment from the American Lung Association. I guarantee you, Mr. President, even though you are an extremely persuasive person, if you went outside and just stopped people on the street and said: Well, who is really more trustworthy about your health, the American Lung Association or a Senator, I don't care what you say, they would take the American Lung Association. They oppose this. The American Public Health Association, the American Thoracic Society, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, the Physicians for Social Responsibility and Trust for America's Health--they write to us. I ask unanimous consent to have this printed in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER. ``We the undersigned write to express our strong opposition to the McConnell amendment known as the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011. We believe this legislation would block the Environmental Protection Agency from setting sensible safeguards to protect public health and the effects of air pollution.'' So here is where we are. This is a terrible amendment. It is going to keep us reliant on foreign oil. It is going to overturn the endangerment finding, a health finding made by scientists and doctors that says carbon pollution is dangerous. It is even going to stop us from having a greenhouse registry where we know how much carbon pollution we are producing. This is a radical amendment. I trust we will defeat it. I yield to Senator Lautenberg, without losing my right to the floor, for a question.

Mrs. BOXER. I will answer and then yield for further questioning. The Senator is making the case so clearly. The one area we know we can make progress on in terms of getting off foreign oil is cars that get better fuel economy. My friend worked so diligently on the Commerce Committee, along with Senator Snowe, Senator Feinstein, and others. We all worked. But my friend took a tremendous lead on it. In this particular amendment, which is named something that has nothing to do with reducing or preventing gas taxes or something--it has nothing to do with that. If this passes--and I hope it will not pass--but if it were to be signed into law, it essentially takes the EPA completely out of the picture, in terms of fuel economy, which means that all the progress we have made in getting more fuel economy, cleaning up the air, will be gone. This little child, shown in this picture, gasping for air, as it is, is going to be gasping for more air. Children are particularly vulnerable. So the Senator is right on so many fronts. If we were to pass this, we would turn around from all our progress we just made. We would stop the States from being able to do more on their own. We would lose the competition in the world for the most fuel-efficient vehicles, which is so critical--everybody looks to us--and consumers, as my friend points out, would miss out on, frankly, thousands of dollars a year in savings. I hope I have answered my friend's question.

Mrs. BOXER. Obviously, I cannot speak for my colleagues. I cannot. But I have to look at what would happen if this were to become law. EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, signed into law by Richard Nixon, a Republican, overwhelmingly--and, by the way, the Clean Air Act amendments were signed into law by George Herbert Walker Bush--they would say to the EPA: You are out. You no longer have the ability to do your job, which is laid out in the Clean Air Act. This particular amendment changes the Clean Air Act and says--I say to my friend--to the EPA: You no longer can look at carbon pollution. You cannot look at any pollution at all that relates to the climate change issue. In doing so, they are in a frontal assault against the American Lung Association, the American Public Health Association, the American Thoracic Society, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Trust for America's Health. But I say to my friend, even more than that, they are going against the American people. I wished to share this poll with the Senator. In February, 1 month ago--truly 1 month ago--there was a bipartisan poll. A Republican pollster and a Democratic pollster teamed up, and they asked the people what they thought about these very issues. Sixty- nine percent of the American people--this is not people in Washington State or California; this is all over the country--think EPA should update the Clean Air Act standards with stricter air pollution limits. The McConnell amendment stops them, stops them from updating the Clean Air Act standards. As a matter of fact, it repeals the ability of the EPA to ever address carbon pollution, which, by the way, is a clear endangerment to the people. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record EPA's Endangerment Finding.

Mrs. BOXER. I say to my good friend and colleague from Washington State, in EPA's summary of the endangerment our people would face, they talk about the worsening of ground-level ozone pollution if the EPA is not allowed to enforce the law, which is what McConnell offers us today. They say: Exposure to ground-level ozone has been linked to respiratory health problems ranging from decreased lung function-- We know kids, even today, with all the progress we have made--kids who are born in areas that are close to freeways, I say to my friend, close to railroads, close to ports--have a reduced lung function. At birth, they have a lesser lung function. What are we doing? How dare people come and hurt the American people. That is what this is. This is about hurting the American people, hurting America's families, stopping the Environmental Protection Agency from cleaning up the air, cleaning up pollution. Here is this poll: 69 percent say EPA scientists--not Congress-- should set pollution standards. Yet this amendment says: EPA, get out of the picture. We do not want you. We want to do this, the politicians. Well, the people do not want this. That is why I hope we will reject this terrible amendment that endangers the people. I continue to yield for a further question.

Mrs. BOXER. Could the Senator repeat that, please?

Mrs. BOXER. Well, my friend is so right. If this is an economic argument, bring it on to us. We know the numbers. The Senator has laid them out. We know tens of thousands of firms are moving forward because we have these laws on the books. The clean air technologies and the clean water technologies and the safe drinking water technologies are wanted by the whole world. I have to say to my friends who are pushing this--I wish to tell them something they do not seem to either understand or maybe they do not want to hear, but I am going to say it--the whole world is going green, no matter where you look. Walmart is going green. I have had my differences with them on their policies on workers. Walmart is going green. And why? Because, as my friend said, it saves money. The whole world is going green. What does it mean? It means everyone wants to save money. Everyone is looking for better energy opportunities that are clean. And everybody wants clean energy. If we back away from that, we are saying to China: Go for it. You will get the whole market, and we will still be pumping for oil. By the way, I have a message on that front: Oil companies have 57 million acres of land and offshore tracts they already have a permit to drill in. My friends on the other side, in another debate, keep saying: Let's drill, drill. Why don't they drill where they already have the leases and it is already approved? So that is not at debate here. What is at debate here is why would we, as my friend asked me, turn away from policies that result in clean technologies that the entire world wants--clean technologies that support more than 100,000 businesses and tens of thousands of more jobs? Why would we do that? My answer is, to me, it would be a self-inflicted wound on our country, when this is an opportunity. I think my friend from Washington knows John Doerr who is a venture capitalist. He has told us for years now that if we invest in clean energy, if we incentivize clean energy, the venture capitalists will come off the sidelines with more billions than they ever gave to high tech and biotech combined. So why would anyone support this amendment which would turn the clock back on fuel economy, as my friend said, on clean energy technology, and turn the clock back on our little kids who are struggling as it is with asthma? I yield for another question.

Mrs. BOXER. Well, of course my friend from Washington is right on target when she points out that--first of all, the EPA is being very cautious in the way it moves on this. They are only going after the biggest, dirtiest polluters. I think most of the people I talk to out there say--my mother always said, Clean up your room. If you are belching all of this smoke into the air, you have to take some responsibility for it, especially when you are making billions and billions and billions of dollars of profit. No one has come to me and said big oil is suffering because they were under the Clean Air Act all of these years. But it is true. There is no pressing matter before us. They are using the problems in Libya and the tragedy in Japan. The Upton bill, as in this McConnell amendment, says--Upton: A bill that would halt the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases would help stop rising gas prices. That is what he says, that this amendment before us will help stop rising gas prices. The nonpartisan PolitiFact, which is an independent Web site, looked at this. When they came to the end of looking at Mr. Upton's claim that this would reduce gas prices-- and this is the same bill as the Upton bill--they say, We find this claim false. I feel comfortable in this debate because I am on the side of the truth. I am on the side of the American people who are telling us: Stop, Congress. Don't tell EPA to stop enforcing the law. That is wrong. So I feel good about that. We are on the side of these children whom we are protecting. We are on the side of consumers. We are on the side of progress. We are on the side of business. We are on the side of exports. We want America to be the leader. My friend from Washington is an innovator. My friend knows what it is to go to the capital markets and say, I have a great idea, and she knows what government can do to encourage this type of investment. Government can't do everything, but we can set the stage. One of the ways we set the stage for a great multibillion-dollar economy to take off is by having a Clean Air Act that saves our children from these terrible air-gasping days, but also creates technology that cleans up our air. My friend is so right. The false claim that this amendment is going to lower gas prices has been debunked right now. That claim has been debunked by people who have no axe to grind. I appreciate my friend coming here and engaging this. Does she have any further questions?

Mrs. BOXER. The Senator from Washington poses an important question, and that is: Why are we seeing this kind of amendment on a small business bill? It is ridiculous. It makes the American people lose faith in us, frankly. This is a bill about small business innovation. This isn't a bill that is about telling EPA they can no longer do their job in protecting the American people. This is ridiculous. We already know from reports how many lives have been saved. We have it here, and I want my friend to see this. In 2010, the Clean Air Act prevented 160,000 cases of premature deaths. That is a fact. By 2020, that number is projected to grow to 230,000. So excuse me. If this amendment were to pass and stop EPA from cleaning up the air, people will die. If this is what you want to do, don't hang it on a small business bill. Why don't you have a press conference and say, You know what, we don't think this is worth it: 160,000 deaths; win a few, lose a few, you know. They don't care at all. But we care, and that is why we are talking about this. I yield again to my friend. This is what they would turn away from: preventing 160,000 premature deaths--that is documented--in 2010 alone.

Mrs. BOXER. There have clearly been a lot of moves on the part of special interests in this country--the biggest polluters--to try to get their way, and they try every which way to try to get their way. If they were to present the case to the Senator from Washington or to me that what they want is good for the American people, that is great. Make the case. Who could ever make the case that stopping the EPA from enforcing the Clean Air Act is good for the people? They can't. So what do they do? My friend is right to recall these other attempts. They couch it as: Oh, it is going to lower the price of gas, or it is good for business, or it is good for jobs. The truth is, it is devastating for all of those things. My friend from Washington has been a leader on consumer protection. Oh, my goodness, we remember the fights when we had the Enrons of the world destroying people by raising the price of electricity behind closed doors, and the conspiracy to do that. Remember those battles we were in? These battles keep coming back at us. Does my colleague know-- my friend is asking me questions, but I would ask her one rhetorically. This amendment is so radical, it goes after fuel economy standards, and it says, No more. EPA, you are out of that. You can't deal with it ever again, even though we know fuel economy, when we get it done right, takes those toxins out of the air, plus we get better fuel mileage, and that will get us off of foreign oil. It takes that away. Chalk one up in the Middle East for oil barons. That is good for them. It is not good for America, but yes, chalk that up for them. We already know what happens to kids. Let's show this picture because it shows the look on this child's face. This is what happens to our kids when the air is dirty. The fact is, if we take EPA out of the business of cleaning up carbon pollution and all the co-contaminants that go into the air with it, such as mercury and others I could list, people are going to be sick. But here is beyond the pale what they do: In addition to those things, they even stop in this amendment the Carbon Registry, so that, America, you might as well cover your eyes, cover your ears, and cover your mouth, because you will not speak evil, you will not hear evil, you will not see evil. You will not see, you will not hear, and you cannot speak about the carbon pollution in the air. That is what is going on here. So my friend is right to connect this to a whole line of faulty reasoning that the American people have been asked to swallow. But I have news for you. They are smart. Madam President, 69 percent think EPA should update the Clean Air Act standards with stricter air pollution limits; 68 percent believe Congress should not stop EPA from enforcing the Clean Air Act; and 69 percent believe EPA scientists, not Congress, should set pollution standards. So this vote we will have tonight--I hope we will have it tonight--is about whether Congress should play doctor and scientist and decide what is best for the people or allow that to be done by the physicians, by the scientists, and by an agency that is extremely popular in this country. It is not popular right here, right now, I will tell you that, because the polluters don't want anything to do with it. But we don't represent polluters, we represent everyone--everyone. And a vast majority want us to say no to this McConnell amendment. So I yield to my friend, if she has a final comment or question.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I wanted to know, from a parliamentary standpoint, what time remains on the Republican side and when the Democrats' time begins.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, it is my understanding the Republicans have finished their time. I ask unanimous consent we start our hour at this point.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. We have a number of people coming for 30 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, could the Chair tell me what the order is?

Mrs. BOXER. How much time do I control?

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, my intention is to yield to Senator Udall. He and Senator Merkley will engage in a colloquy. I wish to open before yielding by saying that Senator Reid has laid out the devastating consequences of H.R. 1, which the Republicans have put forward as their plan to cut the budget. It is a jobs killer. It is a killer for the middle class. They said they would have a vote on it. Now they don't want to vote on it. We are going to have a vote on it. It is important for the American people to understand the various plans to cut the deficit. One of the things in H.R. 1, of many, is a huge cut to the Environmental Protection Agency. There are two points I wish to make in that regard. In 1970, the Clean Air Act was passed. The vote in the Senate was 73 to 0. The vote in the House was 374 to 1. Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act. H.R. 1 destroys the Clean Air Act by giving the largest cut of any agency to the Environmental Protection Agency. If that is not enough, it prohibits the EPA from enforcing pollution laws. In 1977 there were the Clean Air Act amendments signed by Jimmy Carter. There wasn't even a rollcall vote it was so popular. In 1990, George Herbert Walker Bush signed the Clean Air Act amendments. Two out of the three Presidents were Republicans. This passed 89 to 10 in the Senate and 401 to 25 in the House. The Clean Air Act and the EPA are strongly supported by the American people. The only place we have a lack of support is in the Congress by our Republican friends, primarily. The American Lung Association says 69 percent think the EPA should update the Clean Air Act with stricter air pollution limits; 68 percent believe Congress should not stop the EPA from enforcing Clean Air Act standards, which is what H.R. 1 does; and 69 percent believe EPA scientists, not Congress, should set pollution standards. Our friends on the other side, through H.R. 1, are acting as if they have all the brilliance in the world, all the scientific credentials in the world. They don't. I ask unanimous consent that we continue with our time until Senator Kerry comes to the Chamber to talk on his particular subject.

Mrs. BOXER. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I say to the Senators, if I could take back my time. I want to thank both Senators. We have only 10 minutes remaining, and we have three more speakers. So I thank you very much. Before I yield to Senator Cardin--I thought it could be for 5; now I am told there are two more speakers; it will be about 3 minutes--let me put two charts up here in the Chamber and then yield to him for 3 minutes. Look at this picture, I say to my colleague from Maryland. These are the most difficult times on these children when the air is dirty. This is a beautiful child. She cannot breathe, and she has asthma. The reason we passed the Clean Air Act is because of kids like her, and others who are gasping for air, literally. The other thing I want to show you is this chart. This is an incredible chart that shows the significant drop in smog-related health advisories in southern California, the most polluted area, since we have put the Clean Air Act into place in the 1970s. Look at this. We have gone from 166 days where there were warnings for people to stay indoors to zero days in 2010. The Republicans, in H.R. 1, devastate the EPA's budget, plus they tell them they cannot enforce the Clean Air Act. Let me say this: If my Republican friends want to repeal the Clean Air Act, just bring it on, and we will have a debate here. Do not do it through the guise of deficit reduction. Now I see I have three colleagues in the Chamber for the remaining time. I ask unanimous consent that we have until 20 after before we turn it over to Senator Kerry, and that I am going to yield 3 minutes to the following: Senators Cardin, Lautenberg, and Whitehouse.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I listened very carefully to my Republican colleagues who have come to the floor blaming the Democrats and the President for everything you can imagine, including the high price of gasoline and deficits as far as the eye can see. I wish to say to Senator Manchin, I am going to make some very brief remarks about H.R. 1 and then yield to you for 5 minutes. I respect the right of any colleague to say whatever he or she wants on the floor. But I also wish to tell the American people who may be following this debate, that in truth, in the last many years, 40 years, the only party to balance the budget was the Democrats. Bill Clinton, in his Presidency, not only took a deficit brought about by Republican Presidents, not only did he balance the budget with us, but we created surpluses. Guess what. Twenty-three million jobs. Compare that to George W. Bush. He created huge deficits, handed President Obama a tremendous debt and deficits--I will get the exact numbers--and created 1 million jobs, compared to 23 million jobs. I appreciate the lectures from my Republican friends, but look at any measure: job creation, budget balancing, stock market. Check it out, America. These are facts that are in the history books. So please do not lecture us about how to balance the budget. We know how to do it. The way you do it is cut waste, cut fraud, cut abuse, make sure everything you spend is essentially justifiable by the results, by the benefits, and invest in our people so if they lose a job, we invest in worker training, invest in our people, invest in science and technology, invest in health research, invest in our children. If you follow that method, we will not only balance the budget, we will create jobs. We know their approach, H.R. 1, which they support, would devastate this economy, barely doing anything about the deficit. Most amazingly, they do not think billionaires should pay even a little bit higher tax rate than people who are earning $150,000--billionaires, multimillionaires. It does not make any sense. So with that as an opening, I am very pleased to yield to the Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Manchin, for 5 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, in accordance with rule XXVI(2) of the Standing Rules of the Senate, Senator Isakson and I ask unanimous consent that the Rules of Procedure of the Select Committee on Ethics, which were adopted February 23, 1978, and revised November 1999, be printed in the Record for the 112th Congress. The committee procedural rules for the 112th Congress are identical to the procedural rules adopted by the committee for the 111th Congress.