the facts of the day.
Lawmakers: GOP's anti-EPA rider axedSenators Boxer, Kerry and others have been talking about the EPA all day.
The Senate voted down the GOP attack on the EPA Wednesday.
Kerry<...>
Start with the fact that they’re going to shut down the government if we don’t prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases which the Supreme Court of the United States – all those Justices appointed by Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43 – said the EPA has to do.
Folks, we had that debate. It’s fresh in our minds. This week the Senate debated Senator McConnell’s amendment to cut off EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act. It lost. Three other amendments with similar approaches had up or down votes - each one of them failed. The process worked – amendments were debated and votes were counted. So now, it’s do it or we’ll shut down the government. I don’t remember a lot of Americans voting for dirtier air – or water they can’t drink – or longer droughts for farmers – but now they’re saying the government’s going to be shut down if we don’t handcuff the EPA. We’ve been here before. In December 1995, one of the reasons that the federal government shutdown was the Republican attempts to include a “….excessive number of anti-environmental riders.” And here we go again. The Budget Committee Chairman, Senator Conrad, reports that last night in the middle of the night, the other side put mountaintop mining riders on the table. What’s that have to do with reducing the deficit?
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