GRASSLEY: Last week, I urged the administration to include several small business and renewable energy tax incentives, as well as put stronger emphasis upon expanding our international markets in a job-creating strategy.
Now more than ever we need to continue the drum beat and help focus our efforts on job creation.
In fact, you know, a recent poll was out from Gallup, saying that what the people are really concerned about in this country is -- is jobs, and way down the line comes health care reform. But we're spending all of our time on health care reform, and we ought to be spending more on job creation.
But, anyway, the administration's been touting green jobs, and I don't disagree with that. I've been pushing them to act on biodiesel regulation of RFS2 since way back in August. And, by the way, biodiesel is a green creation-type job.
Unfortunately, the EPA has failed to move, which has resulted in, of course, tens of thousands of jobs lost that could easily have been saved. The EPA took action to increase the overall volume mandate to comply with the law, but it failed the most important thing: to implement an enforceable biodiesel mandate.
According to the National Biodiesel Board, only 200 million gallons of biodiesel have been sold in the United States, less than half of the 500 million required by law.
The economic impact of EPA inaction is alarming. The bio industry -- the biodiesel industry was employing about 52,000 people in 2008, has lost 29,000 jobs this year, and could lose another 23,000 next year if nothing's done.
Biodiesel producers will be in a precarious situation until action's taken. Not only is the administration allowing the EPA to shed thousands of green jobs, which the administration says is the jobs of the future, but the Democratic leadership is playing with fire by waiting until the last minute to pass an extension of the biodiesel tax credit.
Without this certainty, then, of course, tens of thousands of good-paying jobs will be lost, and it's going to be green jobs that are going to be lost.
I'm ready for questions, so I'll go to Dan, Successful Farming.
QUESTION: Good morning, Senator. I had a question about a bill that was reintroduced, or kind of reintroduced, last week, in the House. And Senator Harkin says he's going to introduce a similar bill in the Senate.
It's called the Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act, and it establishes a tax on the securities transactions.
Commodity futures are a part of that. They would be taxed at two-hundredths of 1 percent for each transaction -- that's two-hundredths of 1 percent of the face value of the contract. Right now, that would be about $4 for a 5,000-bushel corn contract.
And I just wondered if -- if you think this is a good idea, or what your thoughts are about -- about this legislation.
GRASSLEY: Well, I haven't seen the bill. So I don't know exactly what it does. I need to consider the impact on farmers and everyday Iowans in considering that.
But let me give you a reaction regardless of not having read that bill. And that is that recently
Secretary Geithner was visiting with finance ministers from around the world, mostly the developed countries.
And Britain -- and I think other European countries -- is trying to get the United States to do that so it'd be done on a worldwide basis and raise a lot of money. And Secretary Geithner does not want to do it. It would be very, very bad for jobs in the United States; and, more importantly, financial transactions in the United States that end up bringing not only a lot of wealth to the United States, but it brings a lot of income tax money into the federal Treasury.
So I would see -- just based upon what Secretary Geithner, in refusing to go along with what Europe wants to do, feels, number one, that it's not a good idea and, number two, that if the United States did it by itself, it would ship a lot of wealth and jobs out of the United States to other segments of the world.
And that's why Europe wants the United States to do it the same time they do it. So I'd have to conclude, if the secretary of Treasury of the party in power, which is the same party as Senator Harkin, that it would be probably a bad idea, regardless of its impact upon agriculture, in regard to your question.
QUESTION: So you're agreeing with Secretary Geithner on this issue?
GRASSLEY: I've always been for the -- let me put it in a more broader statement. I've always been for the United States economy to be competitive with the rest of the world so that we don't ship manufacturing jobs to China, so that we don't -- in this case it'd be applicable -- so we don't lose financial services jobs to London.
Tom Rider?
GRASSLEY: OK, Tom's not there?
Julie Brownfield?
QUESTION: Yes, good morning, Senator. The EPA yesterday formally declared greenhouse gases to be a threat to public health and the environment. Many groups, including NCGA, are concerned about the negative implications for farmers and the livestock industry.
And AFBF says, you know, the Clean Air Act wasn't designed to regulate common gases like CO2 and methane, and that nothing short of congressional action will stop this.
Does Congress have the will or the intention to take action on this?
GRASSLEY: Not a majority, but there's a significant minority who thinks it's a bad deal and we would try to do what we can. But I think you're going to find most of the fight coming over the next couple of years within the judicial branch of government. (inaudible) there's going to be lawsuits filed against the constitutional authority, the statutory authority of the -- of the EPA to do this.
And also, as a person who was here when the last Clean Air Act passed, I can tell you that there was no intention of covering CO2, as one example.
And the other thing is that the basis for doing this, the United Nations Global Warming Agreement, and the endangerment position that they've taken, which doesn't necessarily have to be scientific, flies in the face of everything that EPA is always supposed to be doing, everything based upon science.
Now you're having these e-mails come in that are being exposed where they've been trying to compromise science. In other words, scientists have been trying to compromise scientists.
So it raises the whole issue whether the endangerment basis for doing it, which is the basis for EPA doing it, is even legitimate.
QUESTION: Can you give me more information on these e-mails that you're referring to?
GRASSLEY: Yes, they're the e-mails that were exposed between the scientists at East Anglia University in -- in England and Penn State in the United States, among others, and there's also other scientists involved. And there was a whistleblower, I don't know whether we know for sure if it's a whistleblower, but somehow a lot of the e-mails between these scientists was exposed, made public about two weeks ago.
And the publication of them have raised a lot of questions the extent to which scientists had been promoting global warming have been entirely letting their information be subject to peer review, and even trying to discourage publications of dissenting scientists from being published or ignoring such dissenting points of view.
The slap in the face at science is just this: if scientist Grassley comes up with an idea, it's either a good or bad idea based upon how other scientists test my hypothesis or theories and find out whether or not they're rational. If they stand up to peer review, then they stand, just like, you know, the Rock of Gibraltar. If they don't stand to peer review, then it's questionable and I've got to work harder to convince them or else my position falls.
QUESTION: Thank you.
GRASSLEY: Bob Quinn?
Gary Digiuseppe?
QUESTION: I have no questions. Thank you.
GRASSLEY: OK. We have a short list today because so many of you are monitoring snow in Iowa. So anybody else want to drop in before I leave?
OK. Thank you all very much.
QUESTION: Thank you.
QUESTION: Thank you, Senator.