Henry Waxman

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Chair, I oppose this bill on substantive grounds because it nullifies EPA's rules to cut toxic pollution from cement kilns and threatens EPA's ability to reissue rules that are protective of public health. And we certainly had an exhaustive discussion of why we think this is not a good bill, but this bill has another problem: It does not comply with the Republican leadership's policy for discretionary spending. When Congress organized this year, the majority leader announced that the House would be following a discretionary CutGo rule. This requires that when a bill authorizes discretionary funding, that funding is explicitly limited to a specific amount. The protocols also require that the specific amount be offset by a reduction in an existing authorization. This rule was embodied in a document entitled, ``Legislative Protocols for the 112th Congress.'' The majority leader announced that compliance with these protocols is necessary for legislation to be complied with before the bill would be scheduled for floor consideration. Well, this bill fails to meet these protocols on two counts: First, the bill does not include a specific authorization for EPA to complete the rulemaking required by the bill. After all, EPA finalized the cement rulemaking more than a year ago. EPA will have to start from scratch, according to this bill, and follow a whole new approach for setting emission standards. That's going to cost money. Second, the bill does not offset the new spending with cuts in an existing authorization. In addition to violating the protocols of the majority leader, the bill violates the policies of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Chairman Upton said the committee would be following a discretionary CutGo rule. He sent me a letter in June to clarify this CutGo policy with regard to bills pending before our committee, which said: If CBO determines that any of these bills will have a significant impact on the Federal budget, we will offset the newly authorized spending with reductions elsewhere. Well, CBO has determined that H.R. 2681 does, in fact, authorize new discretionary spending. CBO determined that this bill will have a significant impact on the Federal budget because it requires EPA to spend resources on proposing and finalizing new regulations. CBO estimates that implementing this bill would cost EPA $1 million over a 5-year period. Now, my Republican colleagues claim that this bill doesn't trigger the CutGo requirement. They say that EPA can use existing funds to complete the work mandated by the bill, but that's not how the appropriations law works. Not including an authorization in H.R. 2681 does not have the effect of forcing the executive branch to implement the legislation with existing resources. To the contrary, it has the effect of creating an implicit authorization of ``such sums as may be necessary.'' Anyone familiar with Federal appropriations law knows this and the Government Accountability Office or the Congressional Budget Office can confirm it. My amendment would simply ask a third party to settle the debate. It requires the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, in consultation with EPA's Chief Financial Officer, the Comptroller General of GAO, and CBO, to determine whether this bill authorizes the appropriation of funds to implement its provisions and, if so, whether this bill reduces an existing authorization of appropriations by an offsetting amount. If it is determined that this act authorizes the appropriation of funds without an offsetting reduction, the provisions in the act will be nullified. This is a truth-in-advertising amendment. With great fanfare, the Republicans announced they were so serious about addressing the Federal deficit that they would live by a new protocol on discretionary CutGo. This amendment is an opportunity for the Republicans to live by their word. If we adopt this amendment and the legislation complies with discretionary CutGo, then the amendment will have no effect. If, on the other hand, this legislation fails to comply, as the Congressional Budget Office indicates, and has a significant impact on the Federal budget, then my amendment will ensure that the offending provisions do not go into effect. I urge all Members to support this amendment. Let's hold the Republican leadership to their word. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Chair, this amendment was going to be offered by Mr. Markey, and he strongly supports it, and I want to offer it in his place. Power plants, cement kilns, incinerators, manufacturing facilities, and other industrial sources release toxic mercury into the air. These emissions travel through the atmosphere and eventually deposit to land or water. Once deposited, the mercury can build up in fish, shellfish, and animals that eat fish. Consumption of fish and shellfish is the main route of mercury exposure to humans. EPA and FDA have warned women who are pregnant, of childbearing age, or nursing that they should limit their consumption of certain types of fish and avoid others entirely due to mercury contamination. EPA's cement kiln rules are designed to cut emissions of mercury as well as other hazardous air pollutants. EPA estimates that the rules will reduce mercury emissions from cement kilns by 16,400 pounds, or 92 percent, compared with projected levels. EPA looked at how these reductions would affect the emissions that are deposited to land or water. EPA estimated that the cement rules would reduce mercury deposition by up to 30 percent in the West and up to 17 percent in the East by 2013. The agency's modeling indicates that the mercury deposition reductions would be the greatest nearest the cement kilns. This amendment adds a simple finding to the bill, stating that EPA's cement kiln rules are expected to reduce mercury deposition in the eastern and western United States. This amendment does not change the substance of the bill. The bill still nullifies EPA's cement rules, which have been in place for a year. The amendment simply adds important context for this nullification. By nullifying the cement rules, this bill erases the reductions in mercury deposition that the rules would achieve. This debate has shown us how we need this context. The bill's supporters have claimed that 99 percent of mercury is natural; and, thus, they imply, we don't need to worry about it. I have no idea where they get that figure. It wasn't from the EPA. But if that's why they're supporting this bill, their support isn't based on the facts. The amendment sets the record straight. It makes it clear to all Members that the cement rules will have a real and significant impact on mercury deposition. These effects will be the largest, of course, closest to the plants that will have to clean up their pollution. But before we vote to throw out rules that have been in the works for over a decade, before we vote to leave communities exposed to toxic air pollution for years or decades more, let's at least recognize what we are throwing away. And what we'd be throwing away is this particular finding that is so important. I urge all my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Pallone amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. First, this amendment simply adds a congressional finding that Federal agencies should support ongoing efforts to reduce Americans' exposure to mercury. This seems to me a no-brainer. For the past 30 years, under both the Democrats and the Republicans, the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and other agencies at the federal, State, and local levels have worked together to set science- based, 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans. This is called the Healthy People initiative. The Healthy People initiative has set critical public health objectives for 2020. These goals are the product of an extensive stakeholder process that involved public health experts, a wide range of federal, State, and local government officials, a consortium of more than 2,000 organizations, and the public. The Healthy People 2020 initiative set a goal for reducing mercury exposure. This goal is to reduce the level of mercury in the blood of children and women of childbearing age by 30 percent by 2020. Mercury exposure in the womb or at a young age can adversely affect the developing brain and nervous system, damaging a child's long-term cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, and fine motor skills. This amendment states that Congress agrees that we ought to set this goal and we ought to try to achieve this goal as a way to reduce the mercury levels in children. I hope we can all agree this is a worthwhile objective. The amendment also puts some weight behind this finding. If the EPA administrator determines that allowing cement kilns to continue emitting toxic mercury without controls threatens to block attainment of the Healthy People standard by 2020 to reduce mercury in children, then the bill has no effect. The administrator can reach this determination only after consultation with experts at NIH and CDC. This amendment is common sense. There's no point in engaging in an extensive process to set broadly agreed upon goals to guide agency actions to improve the health of Americans and then adopt laws that prevent agencies from meeting these goals. Now, if Republicans want to vote against these goals, that's what they'll be doing if they vote against the Pallone amendment. Unfortunately, the bill we're considering today could hinder this initiative's goal to reduce children's mercury exposure by nullifying long overdue rules to reduce toxic mercury pollution from cement kilns. But the Republicans have told us that their bill will not hurt public health. They've argued that mercury reductions achieved by cement and boiler rules won't have a discernable effect for public health. It won't even benefit us in how we achieve these goals. Well, if they actually believe that, then those who support this bill should consider this amendment as an opportunity to prove that the bill has no impact on the mercury levels in children's blood. I would urge my colleagues to support this amendment, to support these goals, and not to nullify the goals as they would like to nullify the EPA rules. I support the Pallone amendment and urge my colleagues to vote for it. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Chair, I rise in support of the amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. This amendment says that the President, whoever that President is or will be, would certify that implementation of the act will not adversely affect public health in the country and will not have a disproportionate impact, a negative impact on sub-populations that are most at risk from hazardous air pollutants, including communities with a high proportion of minorities, low-income communities, pregnant women, and the elderly. I don't know how my Republican colleagues can oppose that. First of all, I didn't like that little slur that I heard about the President of the United States. I think the President would make an honest call. I trust any President of the United States to make an honest call if this amendment were adopted. But the whole idea of our environmental laws is that we could all live together. If an elderly person is more susceptible to asthma, and if children are more susceptible to harm from air pollution, we don't want to say that they have to live somewhere else. We should all be able to live together. But there are some sub-populations that are at greater risk; and we ought to recognize that, especially low-income populations. A lot of minority groups are more susceptible to asthma. And when you talk about minority and low-income people, they don't have houses where they can send their kids down to the playroom. They can have their kids play outside, and they are going to be breathing in a lot of this air pollution. So I think that before we implement this law to delay for 6, 8, 10 years any impact to control the harmful air pollution, we ought to have some certification that we are not going to be putting these populations at risk.

Mr. WAXMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, negative to air pollution. We're talking about air pollution, the harm from air pollution. We are talking about asthma, cancer. Toxic pollutants can cause brain damage. We're not talking about some inconvenience to them. We're talking about adverse public health impact on the public in the United States, first of all, and then a disproportionate negative impact on sub- populations that are most at risk for hazardous air pollutants.

Mr. WAXMAN. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. WAXMAN. It says will not have a disproportionate negative impact or adversely affect public health. I think the language is clear enough for the President to make a finding and get the guidance on it in order to determine whether this bill should be held up. So we may disagree, but I don't think that the language is poorly drafted. I think it's pretty clearly drafted, and I would support the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Chair, I rise in support of the amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. I yield to the author of the amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. Reclaiming my time, I think the public has a right to know, and I don't think the Congress of the United States ought to deny them that information. As I heard the argument from the gentleman from Kentucky, it's already been evaluated and is in the record by the EPA. I think putting it in the Congressional Record is not even enough. If the public wants to know, we ought to have full-page ads in the newspapers. That's my view. But that's not as far as the amendment would go, simply to put it in the Federal Register and hope that the press would pick it up and inform people. Let people know. Don't pass a bill to let the cement kilns avoid coming to terms with regulations that will protect the public health from all of these different incidents of serious diseases and then not tell the American people that we've let them off the hook and they should understand one of the consequences will be all of these diseases and all of these deaths that otherwise could have been prevented. So I strongly support the gentleman's amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. WAXMAN. I would yield to the gentleman from Tennessee if he wishes to make any further statements.

Mr. WAXMAN. In light of that argument, I'd be pleased to yield to the gentleman from Kentucky if he's now been convinced of the rebuttal. If not, I will yield back my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the pending amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. I would like to yield to the author of the amendment, the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. WAXMAN. I want to reclaim my time because the gentleman is absolutely correct. There is no end point to when there would be compliance so that we can get the health benefits because of that compliance. But let's go through the bill again. The bill would nullify EPA's emission standards for cement kilns. It ensures that if EPA is able to issue a new standard, the new standard would be less protective of public health and more protective of the cement manufacturers' profits. And even then, the bill allows for implementation of any new standard to be indefinitely delayed. It blocks EPA from requiring cement kilns to comply with the new rules for at least 5 years, and fails to establish any deadline for compliance whatsoever. This could allow cement kilns to continue to pollute without limit indefinitely. I support this amendment because it would use this existing framework of the bill as a baseline for compliance, but it would also allow the administrator to provide additional extensions of 1 year for existing sources if she determines there is a compelling reason. No polluter can have more than 5 years to comply. Already under the Clean Air Act, every facility has complied no later than 3 years after the limits go into effect. Over the past 20 years, tens of thousands of sources across about 100 industries have cleaned up their toxic air pollution within that 3-year period. I think the statutory timeframe is sufficient. Five years is a long time to wait for the communities living in the shadow of these cement kilns. At least this amendment sets an outer bound for when cement kilns will have to comply, unlike the underlying legislation. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. I rise in support of the amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. For decades, regulated industry has claimed that EPA rules are not worth the cost. For decades, they've pushed laws and executive orders to require more and more detailed cost-benefit analyses. So now, that's what EPA does for every major rule. EPA conducts a regulatory impact analysis that quantifies and monetizes, to the extent possible, the costs and benefit of each rule. These analyses are based on peer-reviewed science. They're reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget. The analyses are usually a couple hundred pages long. EPA prepares a draft analysis for the proposed rule, which is available for public comment before it is finalized with the final rule. The information about the costs and benefits of the rules helps EPA make a sensible decision about how stringent the standards should be. For example, as a consequence, EPA almost never adopts rules where monetized costs outweigh the benefits. Last year, EPA finalized long overdue standards to cut emissions of mercury and other toxic air pollutants from cement kilns. As it does for every rule, EPA conducted a thorough regulatory impact analysis of cement kiln rules following the process I just described. This analysis found that the benefits of these rules for public health far outweigh the costs to the polluters. That means that, as a Nation, we're far better off with these rules than without them. But now the Republicans aren't interested in the cost-benefit analysis. They're only interested in the costs, regardless of how much those costs are outweighed by the benefits. Here's why these rules are such a good deal for the American public: the rules will significantly reduce emissions of fine particle pollution which can lodge deep in the lungs and cause serious health problems. By cutting emissions of fine particles, EPA estimates that these rules will prevent up to 2,500 premature deaths, 1,500 non-fatal heart attacks, 17,000 cases of aggregated asthma, and 130,000 days when people miss work or school each year. EPA estimates that the cost to comply with the rules will be about $950 million in 2013. In contrast, EPA estimates that the monetized health benefits associated with reduced exposure to air pollution range from $6.7 billion to $18 billion in 2013 and annually thereafter. Moreover, these figures likely underestimate the health benefits of the rule because, given time and data limitations, EPA wasn't able to put a dollar value on the health benefits of reducing cement kiln emissions of carcinogens and other toxic substances such as mercury, which is a powerful neurotoxin. Well, this amendment simply restates the conclusions of EPA's cost- benefit analysis. This amendment does not change what the bill does. If this amendment passes, the bill would still nullify the cement kiln rules and force EPA to start all over again. The bill would still rewrite the Clean Air Act in such a way that EPA may never be able to reissue emission limits for toxic air pollution from cement kilns. But this amendment provides an important reminder. By nullifying the rules, the bill also nullifies the $6.7 billion to $18 billion in annual health benefits that would have made Americans better off if the rules remain in place. This amendment ensures that we have a clearly stated accounting of the monetized costs and benefits of this bill. The Republicans have been eager to talk about the benefit to industry of shielding them from having to cut their toxic and mercury emissions. This amendment simply outlines the costs to public health of nullifying these rules. When it came to Congressman Ellison's amendment, where he wanted the benefits clearly stated, the Republicans opposed it because they said that EPA had already studied it, so why should we have to put it in the finding. When it comes to this amendment they say, well, maybe they haven't studied it well enough; and they didn't want to put it in the findings for that reason. I find both arguments not only inconsistent, but not very persuasive. So I'd urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2608, the Continuing Resolution for the 2012 fiscal year. This year, our country has faced perhaps the worst string of natural disasters in a generation. Flooding in the Upper Midwest and Northeast, tornadoes in the Midwest and Southeast and wildfires in Texas have caused an estimating $35 billion in property damage in 2011. These disasters are yet another indication that our burning of dirty fossil fuels is causing our climate to change, resulting in more frequent and destructive severe weather events. The government has a responsibility to aid the victims of these events by funding cleanup and recovery efforts. But the Continuing Resolution that we are considering today pays for disaster relief by slashing funding for an important clean energy technology program-- undercutting the very solutions that are an essential part of combating the causes of climate change and building a clean energy, 21st century economy. This kind of reasoning could make sense only in Washington. It makes as much sense as cutting vaccine funding to pay the costs of a measles outbreak, or cutting funds for aerial fire retardant chemical stocks in order to pay for the horrific fires in Texas. In addition, this program, the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Program (ATVM), has already created jobs for over 40,000 Americans. The Center for Automotive Research credited the program with bringing the production of the Ford Focus, a vehicle that gets 40 miles-per-gallon, from Mexico to Detroit. If Congress simply leaves ATVM alone, it will create employment opportunities for another 35,000 to 40,000 Americans in the heart of the manufacturing belt, by the end of the year. In the past, Congress has always come to the aid of those affected by disaster by paying for federal recovery efforts without conditions. The Bush Administration requested supplemental emergency disaster funding on eight occasions, and each time Congress agreed, often passing these measures with large bipartisan majorities. This time should be no different. This disaster relief offset should be removed. This is not the way we care for our fellow Americans in a disaster. We're better than that. I urge my colleagues to support continued funding for clean energy technology to create jobs and invest in a 21st century economy and oppose this bill.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. I rise in strong opposition to this Whitfield amendment, Mr. Chairman. The amendment is objectionable from the standpoint of public health and the legislative process. Throughout the debate on this bill, Mr. Whitfield has claimed that his bill just requires a study and delays two rules for further analysis. Well, the indefinite delay of these two rules is terrible for public health, but this amendment would be a disaster because this amendment nullifies these two critical EPA rules to cut air pollution from old, dirty power plants by requiring them to install modern pollution technology. First, the EPA amendment abolishes EPA mercury air toxics proposal by requiring EPA to start scratch on a rule that's long overdue. There are two rules at stake. The EPA mercury air toxic rule, which was opposed by EPA, would prevent 17,000 deaths, 11,000 heart attacks, 120,000 cases of aggravated asthma, and 850,000 lost workdays each year. Now, that doesn't even include the benefits that are harder to put a dollar figure on such as reducing toxic air pollution that can lead to birth defects and developmental delays. The EPA rule would also prevent 91 percent of the mercury in burned coal from being emitted into the air. Mercury is dangerous in tiny amounts. It's a powerful neurotoxin that can damage the developing brain, leading to learning disabilities and developmental delays in children. We heard about the delay in letting this rule go forward that was in the bill, but this amendment negates these benefits and ensures that power plants will not have to reduce their emissions of toxic air pollution, including mercury, for at least 7 years. The amendment also tosses aside the way EPA has long been setting these emission limits for toxic air pollution for two decades, and it replaces it within an entirely new approach for power plants that is completely unworkable. It guarantees years of litigation and, according to the EPA administrator, may well prevent EPA from ever requiring power plants to clean up their mercury pollution. So this isn't just a delay, as we were told, for further study. It may well lead to no rule ever being put in place to stop these mercury emissions that cause such terrible public health disasters. The Whitfield amendment also nullifies the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which is designed to reduce emissions from power plants that cause ozone and particulate matter violations in downwind States. Well, this rule has tremendous health benefits. The EPA cross-state rule will prevent 34,000 deaths, 15,000 heart attacks, 400,000 cases of aggravated asthma, and 1.8 million lost days of work each year. The Whitfield amendment negates these benefits and ensures that power plants will not have to reduce their pollution for at least 8 years. But this new rule may ensure that it will never happen. The EPA administrator testified that the language in the amendment barring reliance on modeling likely will block EPA from ever issuing another cross-state pollution rule to address ozone and particulate problems in downwind States. These are two radical proposals, and they're coming to the floor without a single day of hearings in the Energy and Commerce Committee. The amendment's sponsor, Mr. Whitfield, is the chairman of the relevant subcommittee. But he didn't ask for a single day of testimony or debate on these proposals. Instead he took a bill that asked for a lot more analysis before rules go into effect, and then just dropped this amendment on that bill because it was a moving train. He didn't insist that the TRAIN Act was requiring a study. He insisted it was only going to do a study, and now it is preventing them from implementing anything. Today we have 10 minutes of debate whether this body should eliminate two critical EPA rules that prevent premature death, asthma attacks, and other respiratory diseases and fundamentally alter the Clean Air Act. I find that inexcusable, both on the substance and the process. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.