Foreign Emissions and Nonattainment Clarification for Economic Stability Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. MIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 6409, the FENCES Act, which would gut the Clean Air Act.

For over 60 years, the Clean Air Act has stood as our Nation's landmark air pollution law, serving as our most effective tool to try to keep the air that our children and families breathe safe and to hold polluters accountable.

Despite this achievement, we still have more than 100,000 people prematurely dying in the United States every year because of air pollution. That is simply unacceptable.

We should be building on the progress of the Clean Air Act, not gutting it. We should be decarbonizing transportation, regulating carbon emissions, acknowledging that climate change is happening and that the science is real, and trying to improve air quality and reduce the climate trends that we are seeing that are so alarming. Instead, we are debating another bill that would give yet another free pass to corporations and billionaires at the expense of working families.

I understand my colleagues across the aisle are debating right now, and will introduce later today, a bill to rename the big, ugly bill to something maybe more palatable to the masses. They are doing that because the big, ugly bill is so unpopular right now that they are trying to run away from it as fast as possible.

I have a news flash for y'all. It is not the name that is the problem. It is the substance of the bill that helps, again, the Epstein elites that y'all are protecting so hard. It does so at the expense of the working class--in this case, with the FENCES Act gutting the Clean Air Act and polluting our air and water.

The bill before us today is yet another attack on the Clean Air Act that we cannot afford. The FENCES Act would pave the way for States to avoid their responsibility to improve air quality and protect public health by claiming air pollution in their State as a foreign source.

This bill is completely unnecessary because, under current law, States are not penalized for pollution they can't control, such as from foreign sources or other States. This is a solution in search of a problem.

It is important to remember that air pollution doesn't vanish when we don't see it. It moves across national borders and has deadly impacts on Americans here at home.

As a reminder, not too long ago, in the 1960s and 1970s, Los Angeles, just up the 405 from where I live in Orange County, was one of the most polluted cities in the world, with smog so pervasive that people reported burning eyes and extremely low visibility.

Because of landmark laws like the Clean Air Act and efforts by State and local governments, air pollution in Los Angeles has been significantly reduced, driving down chronic health impacts and having notable and statistically proven quality-of-life improvements for millions of Californians in southern California.

For these reasons, at the appropriate time, I plan to offer a motion to recommit this bill back to committee. If the House rules permitted, I would have offered the motion with an important amendment to this bill.

My amendment would ensure that this bill does not go into effect until the EPA and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee certify that the act will not increase health harms or the costs associated with treating those harms.

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Mr. MIN. Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will join me in voting for the motion to recommit.

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Mr. MIN. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

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Mr. MIN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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