Posted on 06/26/2009 1:04:02 PM PDT by Maelstorm
STATEMENT OF CONGRESSMAN RICK BOUCHER
Consideration of the American Clean Energy and Security Act
June 26, 2009
I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I rise in support of the bill and urge its approval by the House.
It achieves broad reductions in greenhouse gases, enhances America's energy security, and by placing a price on carbon dioxide emissions will unleash investments in clean energy technologies that will create millions of new jobs.
These energy technologies will evolve from America's laboratories. They will be deployed at home. They will be exported around the world.
They will be the foundation for our next technology revolution. And it all starts here, with passage today of the Clean Energy Security Act.
Approximately 80 percent of the electricity in my district is coal generated, and coal production is one of our region's major industries and major employers.
Not surprisingly, my focus in the shaping of the bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee was to keep electricity rates affordable and to enable utilities to continue using coal which accounts for 51 percent of electricity generation nationwide.
Both of these goals have been achieved.
Electricity rates will only be modestly affected.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says that by 2020 the cost of the entire program for the typical family is $175 per year.
The EPA projects that the nearer term cost for the typical family is between $80 and $110 annually.
The claims by the opponents that the bill will impose enormous electricity price increases are simply wrong.
And, the EPA projects that by 2020 coal usage will grow. As transportation electrifies, the demand for electricity increases, and coal, our most abundant fuel, will still be the fuel of choice to meet that rising demand.
The claims of opponents that the CO2 controls under the bill will force utilities to surrender coal use causing an overreliance on natural gas with attendant broad economic harm to the nation are also simply wrong.
This is a responsible measure. It is carefully balanced.
It reduces greenhouse gases by 83 percent by 2050 as compared to 2005 levels.
It keeps electricity rates affordable.
It enables coal usage to grow as the demand for electricity increases.
And it opens the door to a more secure energy future and the creation of millions of new jobs innovating, deploying and exporting to the world the new low CO2 emitting technologies that will power our energy future.
These are sound reasons to approve the bill, but for those who still harbor doubts, let me offer a more practical argument to vote for passage.
In March of 2007 the Supreme Court held that CO2 is a pollutant. Under that ruling and the terms of the existing Clean Air Act, the EPA is now effectively required to regulate CO2 emissions.
And so federal regulation of greenhouse gases is now inevitable.
It is not a question of whether we will have regulation.
The only question is whether the regulation will be our carefully balanced economically sustainable regulation as contained in the bill before us or EPA's regulation under the blunt instrument of the Clean Air Act where economic considerations cannot be fully weighed.
Given the choice and the path this bill charts for affordable electricity, increased coal use and new job creation, I would urge Members to make the reasonable decision to approve today the Clean Energy Security Act.
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The only thing worse than a big dumbass is a clueless big dumbass.
Here is the numbers for this turn coat. His district is fairly Red.
District Offices
188 East Main Street
Abingdon, Virginia 24210
276-628-1145
106 North Washington
Pulaski, Virginia 24301
540-980-4310
1 Cloverleaf Square,
Suite C-1
Big Stone Gap, Virginia 24219
276-523-5450
Washington D.C.
2187 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
202-225-3861
202-225-0442(fax)
A clueless big RAT dumbass.
Only a fool, a.k.a. a politician, would make these two inherently contradictions in the same document. The sad thing he will most likely get away with it.
A clueless big dumbass who can spend our money!
He is lying through his donkey teeth.
I saw him speaking. If you look up “pompous ass” in the dictionary, you will find his picture. And he is a worm. What are the people in Abington thinking?
Wow! It must be true Virginia has been invaded by Morons!
Do your duty, patriots! Send him to the unemployment lines!!!
It's quite a conservative area (most dems are the old-timey types), so the fact that keeps getting re-elected there has always baffled me.
The idiots living in this country are about to learn that “elections do have consequences.” That’s a good lesson that they need to learn. Driving their goofy little electric cars is about to get a whole lot more expensive.
I worked in Abingdon for a while and had an unfortunate encounter with police for speeding through Pulaski county. I have no idea how they’d ever elect such a nut.
Anoother goose stepper!
Any chance this guy can be defeated next election? I’m in.
So, do we kill the economy with a scalpel, or do we bludgeon it to death with a club? Either way, it's still dead.
The real question is: Why is schmuck trying to intimidate us with his fallacious "Hobson's Choice"?
Here's an idea. You're in Congress. If it's really such a dire emergency that the EPA will just steamroll us all on it anyway, how about you reign them in a bit, and stop approving the appointment of wacked-out eco-rads to make up policy as fits their radical agenda, and run it into the ground?
OK, Poindexter??
I have read this dork’s bio and other info on his website. Not one mention of his political party. Is this typical? Very strange.
I called his office and let it be known how angry I am with his statement.
This Congressman will have a lot of explaining to do back home when the coals mines in his district shut down and electric rates skyrocket.
Yeah he likes to keep people fuzzy about his associations with Nancy Pelosi.
That is what I find so ironic. My father works in a coal mine and has for more than 30 years. He told me the other day that one mine stopped work because there wasn’t enough orders coming in for coal. His mine hasn’t had that problem rather he said they had 100 men working at once in his mine for the 1st time in a long time but any miner who thinks they will not suffer from this bill are naive.
No, it can be worse.
He is a clueless, big, crooked dumbass. Bought and paid for.
When this passes, send him copies of your energy and food bills, Virginia. As I intend to send mine to my banana republic* representative.
God bless us all.
*banana republic = the body formerly called the US Congress
These idiots can't even spend trillions of dollars and create a job. And they think raising costs on everyone will create jobs? What foolish idiots they are.
What foolish idiots those are who elect them and believe them.
It does not seem possible that so many incompetent, ignorant and just plain stupids can be assembled in one body, our Congress.
This debate really makes clear how horrible twisted our Democracy as become. These people are lying about the cost of this bill.
I am going to put a wood burning fireplace in if this thing passes in addition to some other creative upgrades.
He is not a turn coat. That implies he changed his position. He has always been that way.
If you owned an insurance company, would you hire him?
It makes one wonder if some of the fleeing Californians are not going clear across flyover country and settling in the DC suburbs of VA.
They may be but Pittsburgh, PA is closer to DC than Abingdon, VA is.
Unions. Lots of the Ninth is still coal country and a stronghold of the UMWA. Between them, the liberals up in the New River Valley college towns, and the traditional reluctance to unseat an incumbent who’s doing a “good job,” that’s why Mr. Peepers stays there.
The sad thing is, Boucher’s actually better on technology issues than most Republicans. But I can’t believe he’s supporting cap-n-tax while being from a district where coal mining is still a major employer. This bill will destroy the Appalachian coal industry.
}:-)4
This is the Roanoke Times’ take
Boucher pleased with climate bill
http://www.roanoke.com/politics/wb/209902
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