From Senatus
Daily Coverage of the United States Senate
October 26, 2009
Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) “on Monday said President Barack Obama is promoting a climate-change bill that would “deliberately” kill American jobs — a statement immediately dismissed by the bill’s chief promoter, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.),” The Hill reports:
“I don’t have an issue with the problem. The National Academy of Sciences of 11 industrialized countries, including our own national academies, have said that climate change is real and that humans have probably caused most of the recent warning. That’s plenty of evidence for me,” Alexander said.
“I mean, if a fire chief said said my house was about to burn down, I’d buy some fire insurance. My problem is with the solution. If my house was about to burn down, I wouldn’t buy the most expensive insurance, and I wouldn’t buy insurance that was so expensive I couldn’t pay my mortgage or I couldn’t pay my hospital bill.”
Alexander laid the blame for the Kerry-Boxer bill at Obama’s feet, saying the legislation “deliberately kills jobs, and it deliberately makes Americans poor… Instead, we need two other words — presidential leadership.”
A response from Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA):
In response, Boxer gave The Hill this statement: “We know clean energy is the ticket to keeping America competitive in the world and ensuring strong, stable economic growth here at home. The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act is specifically designed to move us to a clean energy economy, create millions of jobs here in America, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and protect our children from pollution.”
