Henry Waxman

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. This should be a moment of bipartisanship where we finally fix this sustainable growth rate in Medicare physician reimbursement. None of us think it is supportable. Doctors are always facing the peril of a deep cut if we don't patch it up or fix it permanently. It is time to fix it permanently. We worked together on a bipartisan basis on our committee and came up with a policy to replace the SGR. The Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee followed us, and they did their approach, and we all worked out one uniform approach with the idea that we are finally going to end this nonsense of threatening the doctors that take care of Medicare patients. This is an issue of patient access to medical care that has been promised under Medicare; yet the Republicans are now insisting we pay for the permanent fix. Well, this has come up many, many times. Sometimes, we paid for it, but sometimes, we didn't pay for it; but we always made sure that there was a fix on a bipartisan basis. Instead, today, the Republicans, without talking to us--they wanted to talk to us about the policy, but without talking to us--are trying to pay for this by hurting the Affordable Care Act. What they are doing is putting a partisan poison pill offset, an offset that would cause 13 million people to lose insurance coverage and would raise premiums by 10 to 20 percent for everybody else in the exchange. They have to know this is not acceptable; we can't support it. They are now coming here to the floor saying that there is some attempt by the Democrats to undermine our policy agreement. Well, let's stop blaming each other. Let's get to work and resolve this problem and vote down this bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. I have one more speaker.

Mr. WAXMAN. You have one more speaker? I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I know that this legislation carries important personal significance for some of our colleagues, and I respect that, but I want to express some real concerns about the bill because I feel it is overly broad. It could seriously undermine the Affordable Care Act and would establish a bad precedent for our tax laws. The bill states that individuals would not be required to obtain health insurance coverage if their ``sincerely held religious beliefs'' cause them to object to treatments that would be covered. The bill does not narrowly define ``sincerely held religious beliefs'' as those of Christian Scientists or other groups who rely on a religious method of healing. As a result, the bill would force the IRS to either accept virtually all attestations of exemption or to determine which Americans' religious beliefs meet that standard. This is impossibly difficult to enforce, and, frankly, it is not a role we want the IRS to take on. If the IRS chose to define ``sincerely held religious beliefs'' broadly, H.R. 1814 could allow, essentially, anyone opposed to the Affordable Care Act to opt out of coverage. That would lead to an increase in the number of uninsured Americans, and it would shift costs on to other taxpayers. Even if we assume the IRS could set a standard, there are significant problems with the legislation. The bill claims that individuals receiving ``voluntary'' medical care would lose their exemptions, but the IRS has no way to monitor individuals' use of voluntary medical care, making this totally unenforceable. Furthermore, individuals receiving ``involuntary'' care, such as expensive emergency care, would be allowed to remain exempt from the coverage requirement, passing the costs of their care on to hospitals and other taxpayers. I understand this is a sensitive issue. If religious groups that receive Medicare and Social Security benefits do not want to obtain health insurance, we need to examine that issue carefully. This bill should have been the subject of hearings. It should have been marked up in committee. Unfortunately, it was not. The Affordable Care Act is about moving our Nation towards universal health insurance coverage. That is the right thing for the health of our Nation. So I believe we need to tread very carefully when opening up new loopholes or exemptions, and we must be very cautious before assigning such sensitive duties to the IRS. Because of these concerns, I cannot support this legislation at the present time and in its present form. I hope our colleagues in the Senate will take a careful look at it and make substantial changes before considering it further.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. The truth of the matter is no matter how many votes the Republicans cast to repeal the Affordable Care Act and no matter how many distortions they spread about the law, there are some facts they cannot change. They cannot change the fact that, because of the Affordable Care Act, nobody in America can ever again be denied health insurance because they have a preexisting condition. They cannot change the fact that a woman can never be charged more than a man for the same coverage. They cannot change the fact that a family will never again be left without coverage just because their child's hospital bills got too high. These facts are stubborn and they are inconvenient for my Republican colleagues, so they ignore them and they deny them. Republicans have voted--or will today--50 times to try to take away the basic security and freedom guaranteed by the Affordable Care Act. They offer absolutely no solutions for the tens of millions of Americans who need health care coverage that is secure and affordable. They have voted to repeal the law, but they have never once voted for a replacement. Madam Speaker, if the Republicans have a solution that will expand coverage, that will end discrimination by insurance companies, and that will reduce the deficit, they need to bring it up for a vote. But they do not have solutions. What they want to do is deny health insurance coverage to millions of Americans. That is a shame, and I think we are wasting our time today voting again to turn our backs on a bill that will offer so much to the American people. Don't we have anything else to do? All we seem to do is deny science, which is the bill that will be coming up next, when the Republicans want to stop EPA from dealing with the climate change issue or denying the rights of people to get health insurance, which the Republicans have voted over and over again to do. I urge that we vote ``no'' on this bill.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations wrote in The Washington Post earlier this year: Climate change is the biggest challenge of our time. It threatens the well-being of hundreds of millions of people today, and many billions more in time. Robert Rubin, the former Treasury Secretary, said recently: There are a lot of really significant monumental issues facing the global economy, but this supersedes them all. The Energy and Commerce Committee is the committee in the House that has the power to tackle this monumental issue, the biggest challenge of our time, but we are missing in action. Instead of listening to the scientists and working on a bipartisan basis to protect the planet for our children and future generations, we are considering today a science denial bill that would strip the EPA of authority to stop dangerous carbon pollution. The venerable John Dingell, the longtime chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, is famously known for pointing to a photo of the Earth, which I have here to the right, to describe the committee's jurisdiction. Under his leadership, the committee was known for listening to the experts, tackling the toughest problems, and crafting responsible science-based policies. But today we need a new symbol to represent what we are doing. The Energy and Commerce Committee has joined The Flat Earth Society. We considered a very similar bill to this one last Congress. Here is what Nature, one of the world's leading science journals, said at the time: Misinformation was presented as fact, truth was twisted, and nobody showed any inclination to listen to scientists, let alone learn from them. It has been an embarrassing display, not just for the Republican Party, but also for Congress and the U.S. citizens it represents. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the U.S. Congress has entered the intellectual wilderness--The Flat Earth Society. The United States is a major contributor to climate change. It cannot be stopped without us. We have a moral responsibility to act, but the Republican majority has brought a bill to the floor that does just the opposite. It makes the problem worse by preventing EPA from acting. If we pass this terrible bill, we will vote to let China leap ahead of us in the race to build the clean energy economy for the future, and we will be ignoring our moral obligation to protect the planet for our children and grandchildren. As you might have guessed, I strongly oppose this bill. Future generations will be appalled that we are considering it today. Coal- fired power plants are the largest single source of carbon pollution in the country. Today, there is no limit on how much carbon pollution these power plants can emit. That is why President Obama directed the Environmental Protection Agency to use its existing authority under law, under the Clean Air Act, to require power plants to control carbon pollution. EPA has proposed a rule to require new coal plants to use available pollution control technology to capture and sequester carbon. For existing coal plants, EPA is working with stakeholders to think through the best approach. H.R. 3826, the bill under consideration today, would stop EPA from issuing any rules and allow these plants to continue to keep emitting unlimited amounts of carbon pollution. Republicans complain they don't like EPA's approach, but they won't even admit climate change is a problem, much less accept the President's invitation to work together on a solution. Instead, they want to pass a bill to deny the problem, block EPA action, and weaken the Clean Air Act. My message to my Republican colleagues is simple: if you don't like what EPA is doing, tell us your plan. If you have other ideas for reducing carbon pollution to prevent catastrophic climate change, let's hear about them. If you don't, you should step aside and let the President lead. Today is an embarrassing day for our committee on Energy and Commerce and the U.S. House of Representatives if this bill is to be passed. I hope that does not come about. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, the previous speaker said that heating oil prices are going up, energy costs are going up. Well, if they are going up, it is not because of what President Obama has done by regulation because he has not adopted any regulations through EPA. The bill before us would stop any regulations from being adopted under current law. They would change the current law and say nothing could be adopted in the future. The chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy made the statement no coal power plants are being proposed, yet what he is also suggesting is that we not allow them to be built in the future should they want to be built in a way that would reduce the pollution of carbon. What is unfair, it seems to me what is unfair is that coal-burning power plants can burn all the coal they want and put out all the pollution they want, and we are allowing it even though everyone is suffering from the consequences. So I find it amazing to hear the arguments: One, coal burning power plants are not going to be built; on the other hand, we are already paying higher prices and nothing has even been passed by the EPA and put into effect. At this time I yield 5 minutes to my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney).

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, House Republicans are telling us greenhouse gas emissions are falling in the United States. They suggest the U.S. doesn't need to do anything more about climate change, but they couldn't be more wrong. A couple of years ago when the utilities were switching out of coal and going to natural gas because natural gas was cheaper, we saw some leveling off of those emissions, but what matters most is whether the U.S. emissions are on track to decline in the future by the amount needed to prevent dangerous climate change. Scientists say we need to reduce carbon pollution by 80 percent by 2050, but will not get anywhere near that level of reductions if we go about business as usual and stop EPA from acting and Congress doing nothing to respond to this emergency. At this time, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Mrs. Capps), a member of our committee.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall).

Mr. WAXMAN. I yield an additional minute to the gentleman.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to point out that the speakers in favor of this bill describe themselves as part of the coal-producing regions of the country. They are representing, they think, the coal-producing regions of the country because they fear, if the coal industry had to use some technology that would reduce carbon emissions, that would cost jobs. I want to dispute that in two respects. One, they claim that no one is using this technology, and that is not accurate. In fact, the control technology is already in effect, being used commercially in the United States for decades. There are seven large commercial CCS--that is carbon capture and sequestration--projects operating today. Dr. Julio Friedmann, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Clean Coal at the U.S. Department of Energy, recently testified: ``First generation CCS technology is commercially available today.'' So why are they worried about jobs? They are being told by the coal miners that, if they have to use a technology that costs money, that would raise the price of coal and, therefore, coal will lose out to other technologies. Well, that hasn't been the case. I have been in Congress for 40 years. I remember the coal industry coming in and saying: If we have to put scrubbers on, we will go broke; they will never burn coal again. The coal industry uses scrubbers right now. The cost of scrubbers has gone down. They overstated how much it would cost. They cried about the lost jobs. It didn't happen. The other thing I want to point out is that they talk about the coal jobs that will be lost. Well, coal jobs are being lost now because the utilities realize they can burn natural gas. It is cheaper, so coal is losing out in the market. If natural gas is cheaper than burning coal now, they are going to burn natural gas. That is called the market. It is like cars replacing horse and buggies. But the reality is that coal is going to be able to compete if we have new technologies imposed on them, just as they have been able to compete in the future. They can't compete if they are expensive, so they have got to figure out ways to produce coal that is less expensive. That may happen, but we shouldn't subsidize coal to compete by having the world have to deal with carbon pollution. We decided years ago that we weren't going to help coal compete by poisoning people with toxic mercury pollution when we required they use the technology to stop toxic mercury pollution. We decided they had to use scrubbers. They said they would go broke, that they couldn't afford it, that people would lose their jobs, but we required it because it reduced pollution that harmed people. Carbon pollution harms people on this planet, as we see the impact of climate change continue, because we refuse to require them to use less carbon and spew it out into the atmosphere. Let me just say that you don't have to buy all of the arguments on climate change, but consider this: if there is a 10 percent chance that carbon pollution is going to cause greenhouse gases and climate change and do all of the terrible things that the scientists overwhelmingly tell us will happen, how many people want to take that 10 percent chance on the only atmosphere that we share on this planet? I know that the coal people say they are willing to take that chance. They are afraid their constituents will turn against them because the coal companies will tell them to turn against them. They may lose their next elections. I don't think that is the case, but that is their fear. They are speaking from fear. They are speaking from a fear of jobs being lost, but that hasn't been the experience under the Clean Air Act, and we shouldn't repeal the Clean Air Act now as it relates to giving the EPA the authority to regulate these coal-burning power plants. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time we have on both sides?

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that it was unfortunate to make a reference personally to Gina McCarthy, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, on her listening tour. The Republicans have not allotted enough money to the EPA to let her go everywhere in the country, so she went to 10 regional offices as well as the Washington headquarters, and she invited people to come in and give their points of view. That is the full amount of money she had available to her. So it seems to be unfair to criticize her for not going to every nook and cranny in coal country, when she went to every part of the country and had representation for those regions. At this time I yield 3 minutes to my colleague from the State of California (Mr. Peters).

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time we have remaining on each side?

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from the State of Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a great champion of environmental protection.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chair, the underlying bill, H.R. 3826, is a radical rewrite of the Clean Air Act. It effectively repeals the EPA's existing authority to address carbon pollution from coal-powered plants. It says that EPA cannot set a standard for new plants unless the standard is already being met by power plants using technologies that can achieve that standard. Well, why would any power plant want to spend the money to use technology to achieve a standard that their competitors do not have to achieve? So it is a chicken and egg problem. You cannot require them to do what they are not already doing. Well, this amendment goes a step further and it says, for natural gas-fired power plants, they shouldn't have to do anything that they are not already doing either. They would block EPA from requiring natural gas-fired power plants to install pollution controls. The problem is, EPA's current proposal for new natural gas plants doesn't require any pollution control technology. EPA is going to set a standard, and then let that standard be achieved however the industry would accomplish it. So this amendment would preemptively block EPA from ever considering rules that might further reduce carbon pollution from any future power plants, whether they be coal or natural gas. I think it makes no sense. It is a disaster for the climate. I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.