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Home > Blogs > Butler County News and Issues > Archives > 2008 > September > 10 > Entry
Boehner, Chabot updates
What have Butler County’s U.S. Reps been up to these days? We’ve received a couple press releases to that effect. Here’s the one from House Minority Leader and West Chester Twp. native U.S. Rep. John Boehner:
WASHINGTON, D.C. - As House Democrats continue to take a nationwide public pounding for blocking a vote on “all of the above” energy reforms the American people want, Congressman John Boehner (R-West Chester) delivered remarks on the House floor welcoming them back to work from their August recess. House Republicans remained on the floor of the House during the five-week break demanding that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) call the House back into session and allow a vote on Republicans’ “all of the above” energy bill, the American Energy Act (H.R. 6566). House Republicans will continue to insist on a vote on behalf of the American people.
The press release came with a link to a video of Boehner’s welcome back speech to House Democrats, and this transcript:
“Mr. Speaker, let me say welcome to my Democrat colleagues, welcome back to the House. You all left here without a vote on the ‘American Energy Act,’ and as I look at this week’s schedule, looks like we’re going to take another week of vacation because there’s not much on the schedule. While you all were out, I and my Republican colleagues were here each and every day with the lights dimmed, the microphones off, no one in the chair, the cameras off, talking to the visitors who were coming through the Capitol about our plan to produce all of the above.
“You know, the American people are tired of high gas prices, small businesses are having a difficult time with high energy prices. We’ve got school districts around America trying to figure out how they’re going to operate their buses this fall with the price of gasoline and diesel where it is and yet Congress has failed to act. And what we’ve been proposing for the last three months is a bill that would do all of the above. We need to have more conservation in America and we need to have the incentives to produce more conservation. We need renewables. My colleague from Washington who was just here, I’m in full support of all of these renewables, but many of them are not going to be ready next year, the year after or for that matter, some of them not for 10 or 20 years.
“So in the meantime we have to find a way to produce more energy now. That means using coal in a clean way, whether it’s coal to gas, coal to liquid, we can use coal and we’re the Saudi Arabia of the world when it comes to coal and there’s no reason for us not to use it an environmentally-sensitive way. We also need nuclear energy, the cleanest form of energy that - today, it’s a 15-year process to get a nuclear permit and to go through all the steps it costs billions of dollars and maybe at the end of 15 years you’ll get a permit to actually operate. But even if we do all of that, we have not done all we can do to maximize our energy security and maximize the amount of energy we can produce and take a big step toward energy independence. That’s why producing more American-made oil and gas in an environmentally sensitive way has to be part of this bill.
“Now, this bill’s been out there. It does all of the above and I think the American people are demanding that we do all of the above. The Speaker before she became the Speaker promised this would be the most open and accountable congress in history. In that light, I’ve respectfully asked the Speaker when will she give the American people a vote on the ‘American Energy Act’ (H.R. 6566)? Our plan to do all of the above. Will it be on the floor this week? There’s rumors floating around that we could have an energy bill this week. Nobody’s seen one yet. It hasn’t been scheduled, but these rumors are out there and if we are going to have a vote on a little bit of the above or some of the above that the majority might produce, why not give a large group of Members in this House who want to do all of the above just a chance to have a debate and vote on our competing proposal.
“So that’s what we are looking for. We want a fair and open debate. We want a chance to have a vote. Anything less than that frankly is unacceptable and the Republicans in this House will continue to force the Democrat majority to allow a vote on doing all of the above because it’s what the American people want, it’s what they sent us here to do, and we are not going to leave until it gets done. I yield back.”
Now for U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot. His office issued this release:
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congressman Steve Chabot (R-Cincinnati) expressed concerns about the proposed agreement by DHL to eliminate its North American express air cargo operations during a House Judiciary Committee hearing today on competition in the package delivery industry. Chabot, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, took a lead roll in pressing Chairman Conyers to hold a hearing on the subject.
“I am very concerned about the impact this proposed agreement will have on the employees of DHL and their families,” Chabot stated. “The possible loss of up to 10,000 jobs and more than $250 million in salaries will also cause significant long term harm to the state and local economies.”
The committee heard testimony from a number of lawmakers and industry leaders concerned about the impact such an agreement would have on area jobs and the state’s economy. Ohio Senators George Voinovich and Sherrod Brown, along with Congressman Mike Turner, who’s 3rd Congressional District encompasses Wilmington Air Park, testified before the Judiciary Committee regarding the local effects of the proposed deal. Additional witnesses included Wilmington Mayor David Raizk, Captain John Prater, the President of the Airline Pilots Association International, and John Mullen the CEO of DHL Express.
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