Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 1117 to celebrate the 28th Anniversary of Earth Day, take stock of the progress that has been made, and recommit ourselves with renewed focus and urgency to the work that remains to be done.
We have come a long way since Senator Gaylord Nelson and Dennis Hayes organized their nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment in the Spring of 1970. In the years that followed, Congress established the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; enacted the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act; and strengthened the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, among other critical initiatives.
To a large extent, these steps — and others like them — continue to form the foundation of our environmental laws in the United States. Unfortunately, recent years have witnessed an erosion to this foundation as regulatory agencies shirked their responsibility to enforce the law and existing statutes failed to keep pace with the magnitude of the environmental challenges we are confronting in the 21st century.
The New Direction Congress has now begun the necessary process of reversing that erosion and establishing a new baseline of federal commitment to stewardship from which the next chapter in American environmental leadership will be written. For the first time in over 30 years, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 increased the corporate average fuel economy (CAFÉ) standard for automobiles to 35 mpg by 2020. In combination with the economy-wide energy efficiency standards in the legislation, this step will reduce oil consumption by 2.4 million barrels a day — for a more than 25% reduction over today’s usage — and save 5.3 billion metric tons in energy-related CO2 emissions by 2030. It’s important. But it’s just a start.
We must move decisively to enact an economy-wide cap-and-trade program that achieves dramatic reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the century — and work with other nations around the world to do the same. We must transition our economy away from its reliance on fossil fuels and towards the clean, green energy sources of the future, while making far more efficient use of the energy we currently use. We must update, strengthen and enforce bedrock laws like the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts. And we must act locally and individually in all of our communities to restore, protect and cherish ecosystems like the Chesapeake Bay on which all of life ultimately depends.
Madam Speaker, the key decisions we make over the next several years will have a profound impact on the kind of America we leave to our children. I believe the vast majority of our constituents understand this and stand ready to do their part as we come together to build a more prosperous, healthier and greener nation.