Here’s the transcript and video of today’s House hearing colloquy between Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and EPA chief Lisa Jackson in which Jackson says that EPA air rules could save as many lives as a cure for cancer.
The video is located here and the colloquy begins at about 1:50:05. Here’s the transcript:
Markey: … How would you compare [particulate matter regulation] to the fight against cancer?
Jackson: Yeah, I was briefed not too long ago. If we could reduce particulate matter to healthy levels, it would have the same impact as finding a cure for cancer in our country.
Markey: Can you say that sentence one more time?
Jackson: Yes sir, If — um — we could reduce particulate matter to levels that are health, we could have identical impacts to finding a cure for cancer.
Markey then repeated Jackson’s outrageous comment during the floor debate before the TRAIN Act vote.
But as we noted earlier today, something on the order of 570,000 people will die from cancer this year. Lisa Jackson says PM is killing a like number.
Show us just one Lisa, just one.
Jackson also said at the hearing that, particulate matter doesn’t make you sick, it just kills you.
In the 1940s I lived in a time when pollution was real. We heated our homes with coal, the trains ran on coal, and there were no pollution control devices on the effluent from power plants. The day after a snow storm, the snow on the ground was black with soot. Life was sort of grimy.
I never met anyone with asthma. I know of no single case where someone suffered with a respiratory ailment. According to EPA data, there should be no survivors of those who were born before 1950. Where did these social security beneficiaries come from?
James Rust
And in the meantime, they start screwing with my asthma inhalers like I’m some second class citizen not worthy of living in the USA.
I have a few words for Lisa Jackson and the EPA and they would greatly upset the FCC and my mother. I actually care what my mother thinks.
So the EPA estimates 20% of all deaths are due to pollution that can be reduced by these few laws?
That makes no sense whatsoever. If we were that vulnerable to pollution, Beaver Cleaver would have been dead the moment he stepped outdoors.
If we used the money the EPA spends to reduce taxes on small business, it might create 572,000 jobs. Eliminate the EPA!!