Frank Pallone

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment makes an end run around the National Environmental Policy Act. The amendment would simply eliminate any meaningful review of the environmental impact of large trans- boundary infrastructure projects by redefining and significantly narrowing the scope of NEPA's environmental review. While a traditional NEPA review looks at the impacts of an entire project, this amendment restricts NEPA review only to that small portion that physically crosses the border, and that defies common sense. We are talking about massive projects that are more than just at border crossing. When we approve a trans-boundary pipeline or transmission line, we are approving multibillion-dollar infrastructures that may stretch hundreds of miles and will last for decades. They cross through private property, water bodies, farms, sensitive lands, and over aquifers. They carry substances that can catch fire or spill and pollute the environment, and they have profound implications for climate change. To understand the potential environmental impact of an energy project, we need to look at the project as a whole. To ignore the potential environmental or safety risks for every part of the project except the tiny sliver of land at the national boundary makes no sense. Imagine going to the doctor if you are feeling sick, and the doctor gives you a clean bill of health after looking only at your elbow. That is what this amendment does by redefining the scope of NEPA's inquiry to only encompass the step across the border. It makes the process of environmental review essentially meaningless, and no meaningful review means no opportunity to mitigate potential harm to public health, public safety, or the environment. Mr. Chairman, NEPA provides policymakers with a critical tool to understand potential impacts and consider lower impact alternatives. NEPA doesn't dictate the outcome or, by itself, impose any constraints on projects. Fundamentally, it requires us to look before we leap, and that is just basic common sense. We should not be punching loopholes in this law. But the amendment doesn't just stop there. It also creates a rebuttable presumption that every cross-border project is in the public interest, tipping the scale in favor of their approval. And that is a subtle but significant change. Coupled with the small portion of projects being reviewed, the amendment makes it virtually impossible to ever prove that a project is not in the public interest. Proponents of this amendment argue that a new process is necessary for reviewing and approving cross-border projects, but if Congress is going to establish new permitting rules through legislation, it should do so in a thoughtful and balanced way. Instead, this amendment creates a process that rubber stamps projects and eliminates meaningful environmental review and public participation. Frankly, this amendment is just another attempt to bring TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline back from the grave. The President has already rejected their application, and we have wasted enough time on this Canadian pipe dream. The Keystone XL pipeline is a lose-lose proposition for energy security, a lose-lose for safe climate and a healthy environment. And we shouldn't be trying to create a weaker approval process to provide a new pathway for its approval. Adoption of this amendment will undoubtedly benefit TransCanada and other multinational oil companies but will not help the American people that we are here to represent. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The score that I am asking for that would be done by the Energy Information Administration would not indefinitely delay the bill. They have the ability to do the scoring. This is an independent agency within the Energy Department that was created on a bipartisan basis. It is nonpartisan. It collects energy data for the United States. And once the score was attributed, the bill could move forward. But the point is we need to know what the impact is going to be on the environment, on air pollution, and on climate change. I think that my concern, of course, is that this legislation was scored negatively, and that is the reason why I think we need to have a score. It is certainly not going to delay the bill indefinitely, as was suggested by the chairman. I urge a vote in favor of this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, despite original efforts to pass a bipartisan bill to address some of our energy infrastructure needs, H.R. 8 has become an attempt by the Republican Party to create backward-facing legislation that replaces many good provisions with legislation that would continue to reward polluters and contribute to our climate change issue. In yesterday's debate on the CRAs, we heard time and again that climate change is not a priority for Republicans because they are more concerned with the economy and jobs. Unlike the rhetoric that they would have us believe, a good economy and sound environmental policies are not mutually exclusive. We have actually experienced a boost in the economy under the Clean Air Act. However, climate change is having a real effect on our communities, from more frequent extreme weather events, like Hurricane Sandy, to the extreme drought in California, to the floods experienced in Florida. The emotional and economic tolls of these events have been great and will continue to increase the longer this Congress ignores these pressing issues. Mr. Chairman, we cannot continue to ignore climate change and disseminate misinformation. We are putting ourselves on a track towards irreparable damage. Climate change and energy are inexorably linked. Each are a facet of the other. Energy is the source of 84 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and any energy bill has a large impact on the direction of energy investment. To that end, it is critical that legislation that is focused on developing U.S. energy policy move the country on the right path by helping to reduce carbon pollution, not to increase it. It is imperative that U.S. energy policy promote clean forms of energy and help make all energy use more efficient. A necessary step to understanding its potential impact on emissions is to have the energy bill scored before it is enacted, and my amendment would do just that. The energy bill would be submitted to the Energy Information Administration, who would determine the overall short- and long-term impacts of the bill on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions: the Climate Pollution Score. The bill should not be enacted until such an analysis is complete. Mr. Chairman, we know that the higher levels of greenhouse gases will continue to perturb our climate and impact public health. The responsible choice is to ensure that we are not contributing to the problem. As Members of this Congress, it is our responsibility to protect the interests of Americans, which includes protecting Americans from the devastating effects of climate change while we still can. This amendment will allow us to do just that by giving us necessary information to analyze the effects of this legislation. So I strongly urge my colleagues to vote to protect Americans by voting for this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank my colleague from Texas for coming up with such a great program for young people. Listening to her and her sense of optimism about the future, I think that is what we need to encourage with our young people. I was so pleased to see that the chairman of our committee also supports it. I would like to lend my support and urge the amendment's adoption.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I urge opposition to the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Chair, this amendment will delay the implementation of the EPA's important standards for residential wood heaters--finalized in February 2015--that will help improve air quality, especially in communities where people burn wood for heat. The EPA updated these standards because the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to set new source performance standards for categories of stationary sources of pollution that cause or significantly contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare, and the law requires the EPA to review these standards every 8 years. The EPA issued the first NSPS for residential wood heaters in 1988. The Agency amended the standards once in 1998 to prohibit the sale of wood heaters to consumers if the manufacturer had used an invalid test to obtain EPA certification that the heater met NSPS requirements. The 1998 amendments did not change the emission limits in the original rule. This means the standards for wood heaters have not been updated in nearly 30 years. The EPA's standards reflect significant outreach to the public and interested stakeholders, including consultation with State, local, and tribal governments and a Small Business Advocacy Review Panel. The new standards will provide tremendous health benefits by cutting harmful air pollution, including particle pollution, carbon monoxide, and air toxics. Particle pollution causes a range of adverse health effects, including asthma, heart attacks, and stroke. The EPA estimates that the benefits of these standards will be up to $7.6 billion annually. Put another way, for every dollar spent to manufacture cleaner wood heaters, we will see up to $165 in health benefits. So blocking this rule is fiscally irresponsible. Some may claim that this rule will require people who use wood heaters to replace the models they currently use, but this standard applies only to the new manufacturing of wood heaters. It does not require people to replace the heaters they have already purchased. Let me repeat that. The EPA is not going into anyone's home and forcing one to replace a heater one currently has. The final rule also has a gradual 5-year phase-in to allow manufacturers time to adapt. If this amendment were to become law and if the EPA is unable to implement these standards, manufacturers will be able to continue producing outdated wood heaters that pose risks to our air quality and to our health. The EPA's rule is a reasonable one that is long overdue. It has important benefits, and it should be allowed to be implemented; so I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment, which would require the Department of Energy and the Department of Commerce to conduct a study on the legal and regulatory provisions that delay or prohibit the export of natural energy resources. This is another example, Madam Chair, of an amendment in search of a problem. The majority is, once again, making hyperbolic claims about the Federal Government blocking energy exports, but this is simply not true. To cite the example of LNG exports, the Department of Energy currently conducts a public interest review of all applications to export LNG to a country without a free trade agreement with the United States. The DOE has established a record of acting expeditiously, and it has acted on all applications that have completed the NEPA process. To date, the DOE has approved nine final authorizations on seven projects. So, to imply there is a barrier in this case is simply not true. Further, any so-called barrier usually has a specific purpose: for example, taking the time to ensure that public health is protected, that safety and environmental concerns are adequately evaluated, that the export of our natural resources is actually in the national interest, and that consumers are not adversely impacted. Finally, the amendment doesn't define ``barrier.'' So would other agencies' regulations, promulgated under other statutory authority, constitute a barrier? I am also not sure that the DOE and the Department of Commerce even have the appropriate expertise to assess these barriers. For these reasons, Madam Chair, I oppose this amendment as its being an unnecessary and vaguely defined study, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Chair, let me just say that this process with the EPA is very transparent, they do consider costs, and I disagree with the gentleman. I urge opposition to this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment which would require EPA to satisfy within 30 days certain regulatory requirements included in three executive orders in two sections of the U.S. Code. This amendment is a solution in search of a problem. EPA, in carrying out its responsibilities to write regulations as required by various statutes--for example, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act--already complies with the EPA's specific responsibilities included in the three executive orders and two sections cited in this amendment. I say ``EPA'' specifically because some of these laws and executive orders impose ongoing obligations on these agencies and place responsibility on parties other than the EPA--for example, the Vice President and the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the Office of Management and Budget. In such cases, it will not be possible for EPA to ``ensure that the requirements of subsection (b) are satisfied,'' as the amendment requires. In addition, some matters, such as the publication of the Regulatory Flexibility Agenda in the Federal Register, as cited in section 602 of title 5 of the U.S. Code, are handled by the General Services Administration on behalf of other Federal agencies and are therefore similarly outside of the EPA's control. Moreover, Madam Chair, this amendment has the potential to lead to confusion in the future because it requires the EPA also to satisfy requirements in any successor executive orders that may establish requirements applicable to the uniform reporting of regulatory and deregulatory agendas. What happens if these successor executive orders are not consistent with the current ones? Then we have a situation where EPA is forced to comply with competing executive orders, leading to unnecessary confusion. Let's avoid this possibility by defeating this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Chair, the manager's amendment to H.R. 8 already includes a provision which would hand over management of vast swaths of U.S. public lands to private corporations and other utility providers under the guise of preventing forest fires. This provision was inserted in the dead of night, and the full House won't get to vote on it. This is a terrible way to treat our public lands. As if this weren't enough, this amendment would go even further, allowing electric utilities to clear-cut a football field-length swath of national forest adjacent to transmission rights-of-way. It would also shift liability for fire damage caused by transmission infrastructure from the utilities to the American taxpayers, and that is just not right. The Forest Service and the BLM are already working with utilities to improve right-of-way maintenance, and both agencies testified before the Natural Resources Committee that prior agency approval is not necessary for emergency vegetation maintenance work. Mr. Huffman offered a commonsense amendment at markup which would have required proactive planning by utilities in coordination with land managers to identify and address potential fire threats, but every Republican voted against it. Instead, they are supporting legislation which would lead to less responsible stewardship of the American people's forests. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, power lines were responsible for causing only 0.03 percent of forest fires in past 5 years. Madam Chair, if Republicans were serious about preventing and fighting forest fires, they would work with us to adequately fund the Forest Service and fix the problem of fire borrowing, which last year burned up 52 percent of the agency's budget. But this isn't about solving a problem. This is about control. It is regrettable that House Republicans seek to give away the people's land to private interests. It is outrageous that this would happen. Madam Chair, I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko).

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, when Chairman Upton and I first talked about energy legislation, I was encouraged that we would be working together to develop a consensus, bipartisan bill. In the tradition of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, that is what we started to do, spending months negotiating over language and finally reporting a bill from subcommittee on a voice vote in July. That bill was modest but bipartisan and was the result of good faith cooperation. Unfortunately, that effort fell apart. H.R. 8 is not a bipartisan consensus bill. Instead, the House is taking up a backward-looking piece of energy legislation at a time when we need to move forward. H.R. 8 undermines the progress we have made in deploying the sustainable clean energy economy of the future. Although the title for H.R. 8 suggests we are authorizing improvements in energy infrastructure, the bill provides no funding or initiatives to address some of the significant energy infrastructure issues we are facing. Meanwhile, the bill has only gotten worse since it left the committee. It was in Upton's manager's amendment that strips out the few good provisions that remained from the committee markup. This so-called energy bill now does nothing for solar, wind, or any other clean energy technology. On top of that, the Republicans deleted a whole title of the bill written primarily by the subcommittee ranking member, Bobby Rush, the 21st Century Workforce Initiative. That title created a new program at DOE to help minorities, women, and veterans find work and build careers in the energy industry. This was something that Republicans praised throughout the committee process. In fact, the Energy Subcommittee chairman even praised the title last night during testimony before the Rules Committee. Yet, Mr. Chairman, the bill before us doesn't have that provision. What does that say about Republicans' so-called commitment to expanding job opportunities in the energy sector for minorities, women, and those who served our country? Unfortunately, it says all too much, and none of it is good. H.R. 8 has one central theme binding its titles: an unerring devotion to the energy of the past. Provision after provision favors an energy policy that is dominated by fossil fuels and unnecessary energy use. It is the Republican Party's 19th-century vision for the future of U.S. energy policy in the 21st century. Needless to say, the administration opposes this bill. If it reaches the President's desk, it will be vetoed. I, too, oppose H.R. 8, and I urge my colleagues to reject this attempt to roll back progress in energy efficiency and clean energy. I have to say I don't usually pay much attention to comments that come from the media, but I was actually asked a couple of minutes ago to comment on the fact that some of the Republicans have said that this bill is actually something they can take to the Paris conference and talk about in a positive way. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Paris conference is seeking to address climate change and is seeking to move us towards less reliance on greenhouse gases, less reliance on fossil fuels, and more on renewables. Nothing in this bill accomplishes that goal, and it is hard for me to believe that my colleagues on the Republican side could even suggest that, somehow, this is something that they would want to bring up or talk about at the Paris conference. Again, I can't say anything positive about this bill, and it is unfortunate that we have gotten to the point now at which there is no effort, really, to reach any of the Democrats' concerns. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Judy Chu).

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in strong opposition to this resolution, and I oppose the other resolution that we will also consider this afternoon. Once again, Republicans are attempting to stop any action by this administration to reduce carbon emissions, and, once again, the opponents of the EPA's regulations have no constructive alternative to offer that would improve the environmental performance of the electricity sector. In fact, this week, the House of Representatives will not only consider these two unnecessary, ill-conceived resolutions, but it will also consider an energy bill that is dedicated to rolling back gains that have been made in energy efficiency, grid modernization, and renewable energy. Mr. Speaker, governments and many of the world's largest private sector companies are gathered in Paris this week. They are putting forward innovative ideas, and they are making commitments to forge a different energy path--one that will prevent us from further overheating the Earth and causing major disruptions to people's lives, their property, and the global economy. We know that climate change is harming us today through droughts, fires, floods, and storms, and we know that it will endanger our children's future if we don't act now. Some of the opposition to these resolutions is based on the assertion that they will not solve the world's carbon emissions problems or ensure that we will avoid increased warming and catastrophic climate change, but that is not true. Reducing carbon pollution from the power sector through the implementation of performance standards for new power plants and improving the overall environmental performance of our grid will reduce carbon emissions here in the United States. By making a commitment to this effort and demonstrating that reducing pollution is consistent with maintaining a reliable, resilient electricity supply, the United States exercises its leadership, giving assurance to other nations to follow our example. This resolution and its companion will block the EPA and this administration from taking prudent steps to reduce carbon pollution from one of the highest emitting sectors, the power sector. That is not all. The Congressional Review Act stipulates that the passage of a resolution to block a final rule also bars the Agency from issuing any rules that are substantially similar. So these resolutions prevent any future administration from developing similar rules to control carbon emissions from power plants. The irony is that this sector already is poised to make many of the changes that are contained within these EPA rules. These changes are being driven by a combination of factors, only one of which is Federal regulation. State policies, changes in the relative price of natural gas and coal, smart grid technologies, consumer demand, and the further expansion of wind and solar generation all are factors that are reshaping the grid and redefining relationships within the electricity sector. Instead of trying to hold back these forces, we should be helping States, local governments, consumers, grid operators, utilities, and displaced workers to make this transition easier. Every significant effort to improve air quality through the Clean Air Act regulations has met the same tired, old arguments from the GOP-- that it will cost too much, that it will jeopardize the reliability of our electricity system, that we don't have the technology to meet these new standards. Every time these dire predictions by my Republican colleagues are put forward, they have failed to materialize. We have already had delayed action on climate change, Mr. Speaker, for too long. The EPA's rules to set greenhouse gas emissions standards for new and reconstructed generating units is an essential first step toward a more sustainable energy future. This rule sends a strong signal to the market in favor of technologies that provide improved environmental performance. These EPA rules--this one and the one that will be mentioned later today--should move forward, and this joint resolution should be defeated. I urge a ``no'' vote on the resolution. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.