Boehner: National Energy Tax Punishes American Families

Democrats "studying" the bill…

Guest Post by Congressman John Boehner

If there’s one thing the American people should demand of their elected representatives, it’s that’s we should know what’s in bills before we vote on them.  Unfortunately, that seems to be too much to ask of the Democratic-controlled U.S. House, which under the heavy hand of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has once again rushed sweeping legislation to passage without appropriate scrutiny or sufficient time for public review.

In February, the U.S. House passed a 1,100-page economic “stimulus” bill that (according to the White House) was supposed to create 3.5 million jobs and keep unemployment no higher than 8 percent.  Since that bill was signed into law by President Obama, we’ve lost 1.6 million jobs nationwide, and unemployment nationwide is now 9.4 percent.  The so-called "stimulus" has been a disaster in my home state of Ohio, where our unemployment is a record-breaking 10.8 percent. 

The House late on Friday, June 26, passed Speaker Pelosi’s new national energy tax – a more than 1,500 page bill that included 300 pages added to it fewer than 24 hours in the dark of night before the final vote.  No one – not one single lawmaker – had read the entire bill before voting on it.  So I did what I had to do: using my privileges as Minority Leader, I took to the floor and read portions of those 300 pages to the American people before the final vote.  By tradition, the Speaker of the House, the Majority Leader and the Minority Leader have the right to talk for as long as they like on the Floor.  I used my prerogative as the Minority Leader to read to the American people parts of a bill that will raise their taxes, send American jobs overseas and punish hard-working, middle-class families with higher energy costs.

I had hoped that lawmakers would understand that this new national energy tax on middle class families would further punish people who are struggling to make ends meet.  At the very least, I and my colleagues believed the American people deserved a more open and honest debate over the contents of the bill and its implications for our country, which is still struggling through a deep recession.  But in the end, in another exercise of legislating by brute force, political muscle applied by Speaker Pelosi and former Vice President Al Gore on behalf of radical special-interests carried the day, and the measure was narrowly passed.

What took place in the House Friday is a stinging slap in the face for suffering American families and small businesses.  A backroom deal was struck between powerful Democratic politicians in Washington and powerful interests who got special "carve-outs" in the final bill to ensure the higher costs and higher taxes imposed by the Speaker’s bill will apply to ordinary citizens and small business owners, but not to them.  

Americans want clean energy, and a clean environment.  There is a better route to these goals than the one embodied in the bill passed on the floor of the House last night, and Republicans have offered it:

a comprehensive "all of the above" energy reform strategy that will increase environmentally-responsible production of American energy and reinvest a share of the royalities from such production into development and expanded use of clean, alternative energy across our country.  It’s a strategy that will create American jobs instead of destroying them; one that will lower costs for American families and small businesses rather than raising them at a time of economic hardship.  This approach is advocated by Republican governors and Members of Congress standing together for real solutions to the challenges facing our country.  It hasn’t seen the light of day in Democratic-controlled Washington.

Our economy is hemorrhaging jobs at a frightening pace, and middle class Americans are suffering.  Legislation like Speaker Pelosi’s massive national energy tax that she rammed through the House will only punish hard-working families even more.  Every family who has the audacity to turn on their TV, flip on a light-switch and put gas in their car will pay more for it.  Family farmers, whose energy costs account for 60 percent of their spending, are going to see their fuel costs, especially diesel, skyrockets while their incomes plummet.  Meanwhile, elite special-interests whose lobbyists made backroom deals with congressional Democrats in the dark of night will be exempt.

Speaker Pelosi’s national energy tax is a job-killer.  It will punish responsible American families with crushing taxes that will suffocate our economy.  It creates a slew of new government programs to take and redistribute trillions of dollars away from our families overseen by a tangled web of government agencies that will ultimately answer to the Environmental Protection Agency.

While government bureaucrats squabble over how best to regulate our lives, other countries are moving ahead with innovations and technologies that are propelling their economies in front of ours.  And while American manufacturing companies and energy-intensive industries shutter their doors, foreign nations that don’t impose punitive taxes will roll out the welcome mat.  The next time you wonder where the jobs are, take a look at China, India and other countries that refuse failed policies like the cap-and-trade scheme that makes up Speaker Pelosi’s national energy tax – that’s where our jobs have gone.

Minority Leader John Boehner represents the 8th Congressional District of Ohio.