Virginia Foxx, Bad for the Environment

Quite a scene today in the U.S. House of Representatives on the passage of H.R. 3893, the hilariously misnamed "Gasoline for America's Security Act of 2005," more aptly known as the "Air Polluters Empowerment Act of 2005." On what was supposed to be a five-minute vote, the Republicans were losing, so the chair held the vote open for over 40 minutes while the usual arm-twisting went on, and the bill finally passed 210-212. I tuned in on C-SPAN in time to hear the Democrats chanting "Shame! Shame Shame!" on the floor of the House.

No arm-twisting required for Madame Virginia Foxx's vote to pass this abomination. She proudly cast her vote to do the following, according to the League of Women Voters (of which Madame Foxx was once upon a time, in her deep "liberal" past, a proud member): "Under the guise of post-hurricane energy relief, H.R. 3893 would do little to solve our country's energy problems. Instead, this legislation undermines existing environmental protections, makes smog worse and fails to provide for much needed energy conservation measures." Here's a statement about the bill from the Natural Resources Defense Council. And here: "The bill is a grab-bag of industry-friendly proposals that were rejected when Congress passed a controversial energy bill last summer. Its plethora of ill-conceived policies is aimed at further boosting profits for oil and gas companies while proposing to sharply curtail laws that safeguard public health and the environment."

The worst part for us in these mountains is that this bill allows, apparently, greater pollution from asphalt plants, but we're still trying to get to the bottom of that particular language (it's a very long bill with the usual dense language). Madame Foxx has a history of trying to help asphalt plants do their dirty business (from her N.C. Senate days, when she voted to allow asphalt plants to start operating prior to getting air quality permits), so we aren't surprised.