WASHINGTON, D.C. - Below is the transcript of the remarks provided by Congressman Charles B. Rangel today on the House floor regarding the introduction of the Waxman Amendment to H.R. 2681- Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act:

"I rise in support of the Waxman Amendment. Recently a new group has arrived here in Congress and there are now three things that you shouldn't do: ask for anything that might be good for the President of the United States, ask for anything that could improve the environment of the people that breathe the air, and for God's sake, don't ask them to bring up any bills that could create jobs.

It just seems to me that we're involved in a political fight that concerns Democrats and Republicans and others. Yet you would think, if you listened to the debate, that the air in which we breathe is Democratic air or Republican air. Or, when you start talking about saving lives through providing an opportunity for our youngsters to be able to grow up in a healthy environment, that we're just talking about Democratic babies.

What we're talking about scientifically is the connection between pollution of the air and how people breathe it and what happens to their general health. I don't really believe anyone challenges the fact that, whether it happens on a 9/11 site or in a coal mine, what you breathe is going to have an impact. And if indeed it leads to things that will be costly, it seems to me we should concentrate on what we can do.

I know there are people who don't like the President, but there are millions of people that go to sleep every night wondering what the heck we are doing in Congress. It just seems so unfair for us to go back and say we cannot bring out a bill that the President proposes that will create jobs. It would be different if we said we'll bring it out, or we're not going to vote for it, or we're not going to bring it out because we have our own bill.

Very few Americans are going to sleep at night wondering what is going on in cement factories throughout the United States. Maybe those in Texas or those that may have one or two in their [Congressional] districts may have some concern as to whether it will cost their employers and business people in order to clean the air. But that's the problem we always have when it costs a little extra to do the right thing, to extend the value and, indeed, the condition of life.

There's something going on in America and I don't know whether or not it reaches the floor since the best place to find out what's going on in the country is right here as we come from 435 different areas and we come to tell what's happening.

In New York people are not going to take it anymore. They are not against Democrats. They are not against Republicans. They just don't see why they have to suffer the way they do after some of them have lost the ability to go to school, lost their jobs, lost their savings, have no idea what the future looks like for them. And we're not even giving them hope. Hope has made our middle class -- not the rich that control most of the nation's wealth and certainly not the poor.

When you see the hope for the middle class just dropping, squeezing and pushing people into poverty, we have a higher responsibility than that. Often I ask for our spiritual leaders to help us because it's right over the Speaker: "In God we trust." That means we don't have to trust each other, but maybe some of the rabbis, ministers, and Catholics who come down and try to get our priorities in order.

If you are talking about human life, that includes the ability to have healthcare, to have a healthy environment, and housing. We have a moral obligation -- not only to get ready for the polls in 2012, but to do something for the people who are so completely helpless now.

And I'd like to emphasize there's no way to split up the jobs between Democrats or Republicans. These things are so nonpolitical that I just hope that very soon, we will respond to the frustrated people we have, even the wealthy, and come up with something on the floor that, whether we win or lose, we can be so very proud that we're doing something to improve the economy, put America back to work, have things once again made in America."