WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) issued the following statement following President Obama’s climate change speech before the United Nations:

“Demand for energy will only increase. We should focus on developing all of America’s abundant energy resources.  Picking energy winners and losers is not the right course.”
We want to make energy as clean as we can, as fast as we can, without raising prices on American families.

American energy means creating American jobs. With unemployment at its highest rate in decades, we need red, white and blue jobs – not just green jobs.

Nearly one in ten Americans are looking for work.  President Obama’s scheme is for less American energy production.  Less energy production will mean fewer jobs for Americans. 

We cannot afford the consequences as a nation.  Additional Washington restrictions and new bureaucratic regulations on U.S. manufacturing and energy production will result in additional job losses.”

Background:

In written testimony for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office testified that climate legislation would “cause permanent shifts in production and employment away from industries focused on the production of carbon-based energy and energy-intensive goods and services and towards the production of alternative energy sources and less-energy-intensive goods and services.  While those shifts were occurring, total employment would probably be reduced a little compared with what it would have been without a comparably stringent policy to reduce carbon emissions because labor markets would most likely not adjust as quick as would the composition of demand for different outputs.”