[Senate Hearing 117-551]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




                                                        S. Hrg. 117-551

 A LEGISLATIVE HEARING TO EXAMINE S. 1345, THE COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL 
MERCURY MONITORING ACT; S. 2476, THE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AIR QUALITY 
  MONITORING ACT OF 2021, AND S.__, THE PUBLIC HEALTH AIR QUALITY ACT

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                             JULY 13, 2022

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works




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        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov  
        
        
        
        
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                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                 
50-404 PDF               WASHINGTON : 2023        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
               COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                  THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland         SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West 
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont                 Virginia 
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island         Ranking Member
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts      KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois            CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan            RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama
MARK KELLY, Arizona                  JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
ALEX PADILLA, California             ROGER WICKER, Mississippi
                                     DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
                                     JONI ERNST, Iowa
                                     LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina

             Mary Frances Repko, Democratic Staff Director
               Adam Tomlinson, Republican Staff Director  
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
                            C O N T E N T S

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                             JULY 13, 2022
                           OPENING STATEMENTS

Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware..     1
Capito, Hon. Shelley, U.S. Senator from the State of West 
  Virginia.......................................................     3
Markey, Hon. Ed, U.S. Senator from the State of Massachusetts....     5
Duckworth, Hon. Tammy, U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois...    41
Collins, Hon. Susan, U.S. Senator from the State of Maine........    42

                               WITNESSES

Blunt, Lisa, Hon. Rochester, U.S. Representative from the State 
  of Delaware....................................................    50
    Prepared statement...........................................    52
Gomez, Alfredo, J., Director, Natural Resources And Environment, 
  U.S. Government Accountability Office..........................    54
    Prepared statement...........................................    57
    Responses to additional questions from:
        Senator Cardin...........................................    77
        Senator Duckworth........................................    77
Kathy, Fallon, Director of Land and Climate, Clean Air Task Force    86
    Prepared statement...........................................    89
    Responses to additional questions from:
        Senator Carper...........................................   107
Isaac, Hon. Jason, Director, Life: Powered, A Project of the 
  Texas Public Policy Foundation.................................   114
    Prepared statement...........................................   116
    Responses to additional questions from:
        Senator Carper...........................................   119
        Senator Capito...........................................   124
        Senator Inhofe...........................................   125
Johnson, Dana, Senior Director of Strategy and Federal Policy, We 
  Act for Environmental Justice..................................   126
    Prepared statement...........................................   129
    Responses to additional questions from:
        Senator Carper...........................................   141
        Senator Cardin...........................................   144
Eklund, Bart, Senior Technical Expert, Haley And Aldrich.........   146
    Prepared statement...........................................   148
    Responses to additional questions from:
        Senator Carper...........................................   158
        Senator Capito...........................................   162
        Senator Inhofe...........................................   166

                          ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Washington Post Article by Darryl Fears; Block-by-block data 
  shows pollution's stark toll on people of color................     7
Health Select Committee on the Climate Crisis; The Environmental 
  Justice Air Quality Monitoring Act.............................    11
Article on Disparities in Air Pollution in the United States by 
  Race/Ethnicity and Income, 1990-2010...........................    14
Article by Darryl Fears; Climate & Environment, Redlining means 
  45 million Americans are breathing dirtier air, 50 years after 
  it ended.......................................................    28
Article by Public Health Now; Racial Deisparities in Air 
  Pollutions Where Most Americans Live Worse Than Previously 
  Understood.....................................................    36
Written Statement of Kathy Caster, Chair House Select Committee 
  on the Climate Crisis..........................................    39
Bill S.1345......................................................   185
Bill S. 2476.....................................................   197
Bill S...........................................................   209

 
 A LEGISLATIVE HEARING TO EXAMINE S. 1345, THE COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL 
MERCURY MONITORING ACT; S. 2476, THE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AIR QUALITY 
 MONITORING ACT OF 2021, AND S.----, THE PUBLIC HEALTH AIR QUALITY ACT

                              ----------                              


                        WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 2022

                                       U.S. Senate,
                 Committee on Environment and Public Works,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The committee, met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in 
room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper 
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
    Present: Senators Carper, Capito, Cardin, Whitehouse, 
Markey, Duckworth, Kelly, Padilla, Sullivan, Ernst.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, 
            U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE

    Senator Carper. Good morning, everyone.
    Two of my favorite colleagues are here. Isn't this great? 
How wonderful to have my Congresswoman, Lisa Blunt Rochester 
here, one of my great mentors, and Susan Collins, who has been 
my collaborator on so many issues over the years. This is like 
dying and going to heaven. Could you come back every day? That 
probably wouldn't work. Anyway, on a serious note, we are happy 
to be here with you and are grateful for your service.
    I want to call this hearing to order. As you know, we are 
here today to examine three bills that are intended to improve 
our Nation's antiquated air quality monitoring system and 
better protect Americans from air pollution.
    Since enacting the Clean Air Act, I guess it has been a 
half century ago now, our Nation has made great progress in 
cleaning up the air that we breathe without harming economic 
growth. I like to say everything I do I know I can do better, 
and the same is true with respect to the quality of the air 
that we breathe.
    Soot and smog pollution in the United States have decreased 
since 1970 by 80 percent. We don't oftentimes reflect on the 
accomplishments we have made and the progress we have made. 
That is pretty good, an 80 percent reduction since 1970. Over 
that same period of time, our gross domestic product has grown 
by 250 percent.
    The question is, can we have cleaner air, cleaner water, 
and create jobs and economic opportunity? The answer is, I 
think, clear that we can.
    The benefits of clean air far outweigh the costs, and it is 
not hard to understand why. Clean air is good for human health; 
it is good for our planet, and as it turns out, it is good for 
our Nation's economy.
    As my colleagues know, I have already said it once today 
but I will say it again, everything I do, I know I can do 
better. We can do better still on this front, too. Despite our 
successes, we still have far too many people in this Country 
who are negatively impacted by the quality of the air that they 
breathe, and especially those from low-income and historically 
disadvantaged communities. According to the EPA, nonwhite 
children are much more likely to die from air pollution than 
white children in the United States today.
    Why are environmental justice communities at risk? One 
answer is proximity. More often than not, those in our Nation's 
environmental justice communities live near or downwind of 
facilities that emit harmful air pollution. These ``fenceline 
communities'' as they are known, bear the immediate impacts of 
exposure to harmful pollutants and the burdens of the 
cumulative health effects that can arise from repeated, long-
term exposure to air pollution.
    But you don't have to live near a source of air pollution 
to suffer its consequences. When emitted into the air, 
persistent air toxics like mercury can fall into our waterways 
and bioaccumulate in fish over decades, long after a source may 
cleanup or close down. Many Americans today do not even know 
that they are being exposed to dangerous levels of air 
pollution. There are real gaps in what the Federal Government 
knows, as well.
    Today, the Government Accountability Office, which we 
affectionately call GAO, will testify on its troubling 2020 
study on the State of our Nation's air monitoring systems. 
Their report found that our air monitoring systems are woefully 
out of date and under-resourced.
    According to GAO's findings, these out-of-date systems have 
left our State air quality managers buying replacement parts on 
eBay. Why do they do that? They do that because the air 
monitoring technology that States are using today is no longer 
being manufactured. We continue to rely on yesterday's systems 
to address today's problems.
    GAO also found what we have long known, and that is while 
the health threats posed by air toxics are well-documented, the 
data we have on where, when, and how they are released into our 
air are not well-documented. That is just not acceptable. We 
can and we must do more to support Federal, State, and local 
officials who are tasked with maintaining and improving our air 
monitoring systems.
    That brings us to the legislation that we are considering 
here today. For more than a decade now, I have had the 
privilege of working alongside Senator Collins on a bunch of 
issues, but in particular, on the one that is before us today, 
and that is the Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act. 
She has been a leader on this for more than a dozen years, and 
we are grateful for that. I am grateful for her letting me be 
her wingman on this issue and others.
    Mercury is a powerful neurotoxin that is especially 
dangerous to pregnant women and developing children. An 
estimated 100,000 to 200,000 children born in our Country each 
year are exposed to levels of mercury in the womb that are high 
enough to impair neurological development.
    Congresswoman Rochester, I don't know exactly how many 
children we have in Delaware under the age of 18, but we 
probably have about 200,000. So how many is 200,000? Every 
child in our State is really what it is comparable to.
    In the last decade, we have known that there have been more 
mercury consumption fish advisories in U.S. lakes and rivers 
than all other pollutants combined. However, we still have data 
gaps on where mercury persists in our environment.
    Our legislation fills in the gaps by establishing a first-
ever National Mercury Monitoring Network to track long-term 
trends in mercury concentrations in communities and ecosystems 
across our Country. Under our legislation, the public would 
have free access to the network's findings, empowering 
communities with the information that they need to better 
protect themselves from mercury pollution. I am grateful that 
my partner in this effort, Senator Collins, is joining us today 
to speak further on this legislation, which she leads.
    We will also examine Senator Duckworth's and Congresswoman 
Lisa Blunt Rochester's legislation, the Public Health Air 
Quality Act, of which I am also a cosponsor. This legislation 
would upgrade and expand our Nation's outdated air quality 
monitoring networks, which includes providing immediate 
monitoring for air toxics in fenceline communities experiencing 
high cancer rates and other health impacts.
    Finally, we will review the Environmental Justice Air 
Quality Monitoring Act, sponsored by Senator Markey, a member 
of this committee. His legislation would help ensure that 
communities have access to relevant, local air quality 
information. Our current air monitoring systems do not always 
provide accurate, localized data, which makes it harder for 
communities to assess their exposure to certain toxics.
    All three bills are intended to help Americans understand 
who is being exposed to air pollutants and who is not. These 
investments in our air quality monitoring systems are 
investments in healthier communities and a stronger economy. 
Where I come from, that is a win-win situation.
    We look forward to hearing more from our colleagues and our 
witnesses on the benefits of these important pieces of 
legislation.
    Before we do, I am pleased to turn to our Ranking Member, 
Senator Capito, for her opening statement. Senator Capito, 
please.

        OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, 
          U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA

    Senator Capito. Thank you, Chairman Carper, and welcome to 
Representative Rochester and Senator Collins, my friend. We are 
happy to have all of the witnesses joining us here today.
    As we consider the topic of air quality monitoring today, 
it is important, as Senator Carper began his statement, just 
how much air pollution in the United States has fallen in the 
past few decades.
    With environmental issues, sometimes there is a tendency to 
just fixate on the negative, but I am an optimist and believe, 
while there is always room for improvement, we need to 
recognize and applaud what the U.S. has accomplished.
    Looking forward, we must also bear in mind that costs rise 
and benefits diminish as emission targets approach the limits 
of what our technology can actually measure and mitigate.
    According to the EPA data, between 1970 and 2021, the 
combined emissions of particulate material, carbon monoxide, 
lead, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and volatile organic 
compounds were reduced by 78 percent. From 1990 to 2017, 
emissions of hazardous air pollutants declined by 74 percent. 
On top of that, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have also 
decreased, thanks primarily to the shale revolution and 
American ingenuity, not our regulatory policies.
    While our emissions have been decreasing, this has not been 
the case around the world. According to the World Air Quality 
Report for 2021, using particulate matter as a proxy for air 
quality, Central and South Asia are home to 46 of the world's 
most polluted cities, and the trends there are dire.
    Given the fact that we are seeing continual air quality 
improvements under current authorities in the U.S., it is 
unclear to me why the EPA needs new air quality authorities. I 
especially question granting EPA new powers given the agency's 
reaction to last month's decision by the Supreme Court in West 
Virginia v. EPA. That decision should have been a clear signal 
to the EPA that its planned regulatory overreach needs to be 
reigned in, but the Administration's immediate reaction to the 
West Virginia decision has been quite the opposite, doubling 
down on plants to serve the interests of progressive 
environmental groups and the trial bar, no matter what the law 
says, what the costs are to society, or even if there are 
meaningful environmental benefits as a result.
    As Administrator Regan said following the decision, ``We 
are going to continue to use every tool in our toolbox because 
it is under our legal authority and it is our obligation to 
protect communities, reduce pollution that is driving climate 
change, and provide certainty and transparency for the energy 
sector to grow the clean energy economy.''
    EPA clearly wants to force wholesale changes on our economy 
based on overly expansive readings of existing law, regardless 
of what the Supreme Court has said. This mission means reducing 
affordable, reliable sources of baseload energy generations and 
slamming manufacturing with an onslaught of new regulation.
    If EPA is going to continue to read existing statutes well 
beyond Congress's intent and pursue regulations beyond the 
scope of the law, only to continue losing in court, then I have 
concerns about giving EPA new authorities to abuse, much less 
delegate those supposed authorities to illogically favored 
advocacy groups to feed fundraising drives and frivolous 
lawsuits.
    For example, EPA stated in its proposed methane rule that 
the agency plans to allow third-party monitoring in an upcoming 
supplemental proposal. Congress never intended to empower 
environmental groups to use taxpayer dollars to purchase and 
use potentially unreliable monitoring equipment with no 
oversight and report that data back to the agency, and then 
they have that data, which they use to empower the trial bar to 
pursue their sue-and-settle lawsuits.
    Congress provides funding for air quality management 
activities, including air quality monitoring, through the 
annual appropriations process. EPA typically receives that 
funding through State and Tribal Assistance Grants under two 
primary authorities: Section 103 and Section 105 of the Clean 
Air Act. EPA provides that funding to States and local air 
agencies, which in turn, they decide where and how to spend 
their funding on a range of air quality management activities.
    While the GAO did provide suggestions for EPA to improve 
implementation in a 2020 report, improvements in implementation 
of existing authority are not the same as granting new 
authorities. Indeed, if GAO has concerns about implementation 
of existing authorities, it begs the question what problem 
adding new authorities would actually solve.
    I am interested in hearing from our witnesses their views 
on these questions and how monitoring is actually conducted in 
the field under existing law as they react to the legislative 
proposals before them.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator Capito.
    We are now being joined by Senator Markey. He is just 
settling into his seat, and just 2 days after his birthday. I 
sent him a text message, and I said the president, Senator 
Capito is president host, as you know, of the Annual 
congressional Picnic yesterday, and somehow they didn't put it 
on Eddy's birthday. It was a day late.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Carper. So today we are 2 days late. We are having 
this hearing to honor your birthday.
    As Eddy knows and Lisa and others know, Senator Capito and 
Senator Collins, I love to call my colleagues on their 
birthdays if I don't see them, and if I don't reach them, I 
send them a text message or whatever.
    We hope you had a great birthday, and we are delighted to 
be here today to listen to your comments, please, on the 
legislation that you have proposed. I think it is called the 
Environmental Justice Air Quality Monitoring Act, and we are 
pleased today to be examining it today. Senator Markey, you are 
recognized for your statement.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ED MARKEY, 
          U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS

    Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 
your birthday wishes.
    Senator Carper. One of the people I love to call, we have 
three or four Senators who are 88 or 89, and I called Chuck 
Grassley when he turned 88, and he was in Iowa, and I called 
him to wish him a happy birthday. I said to him, Chuck, you are 
amazing. I think he just announced he is running for re-
election, I think. I said, I don't think I am going to be 
running for re-election when I am 88. I just hope I know who I 
am and where I am. He said, I hope you do too.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Markey. Satchel Paige, the great baseball player, 
when asked how could he still be pitching in the major leagues 
when he was 48 years old, he said, well, let me ask you this 
question. If you didn't know how old you were, how old would 
you be?
    That is a good question. For me, and I think for you as 
well, that I think I am still 40 years old, because I don't 
really know how old I am unless people call me to remind me on 
my birthday. But other than that, every day, including this 
hearing, 40 years old. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    When it comes to Federal efforts to improve air quality in 
the United States, we must first acknowledge the deep-rooted 
injustices of air pollution in communities across our Country. 
Black, brown, and low-income families are historically more 
likely to be located near pollution sources. As a result, they 
have been overburdened by the dirtiest air, yet they have not 
been given enough Federal support to address it or even 
understand the risks.
    Some pilot studies have found that concentrations of air 
pollutants can vary by as much as 800 percent between one block 
and another. That exposure makes a big difference for people as 
they go through their daily lives, and that knowledge could 
make a big difference as we try to help limit public health 
challenges.
    I would like to ask unanimous consent to submit for the 
record three articles about this block-by-block disparity and 
the correlation between race and redlining of neighborhoods on 
air quality.
    Senator Carper. Without objection.
    [The referenced information follows:]

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    Senator Markey. Let me also use this as an opportunity to 
ask unanimous consent to submit for the record a congressional 
Research Service Report released on July 12th, 2022 on the West 
Virginia v. EPA decision, which states, and I quote, ``on that 
decision, EPA retains the ability to regulate greenhouse gas 
emissions from power plants and other sources.'' Without 
objection.
    [The referenced information follows:]

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    Senator Carper. Back to you.
    Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Formerly redlined 
communities experience as much as double the amount of air 
pollution as non-redlined communities, and race plays a big 
role, even within the same communities. We can't accept that, 
and we have to do a better job of understanding it. We can't 
properly manage what we don't measure.
    This is why I partnered with health experts and advocates, 
including the Clean Air Task Force and WE ACT, who are 
represented by some of our esteemed witnesses here with us 
today, to write and to introduce the Environmental Justice Air 
Quality Monitoring Act of 2021, which is co-sponsored by 
several members of this committee, including Senators Padilla 
and Sanders and Duckworth.
    This legislation would authorize $100 million annually to 
establish a 5-year pilot program for hyper-local air quality 
monitoring projects in environmental justice communities. Under 
this program, State, local, and tribal air agencies would be 
able to partner with local nonprofit organizations or air 
quality data providers to identify block level hotspots for 
multiple pollutants, increased community engagement, informed 
air pollution management decisions, and recommend action for 
reducing pollution burden in identified hotspots.
    While our current network of traditional monitors is sparse 
and often misses areas of poor air quality, hyper-local air 
quality monitors can better detect air pollution in the 
specific areas in which people live and work and go about their 
daily lives. When it comes to approaches to improve air 
quality, one size does not fit all from block to block all 
across our Country. With more air quality monitors to capture 
hyper-local data and better inform ways to cut down pollution 
exposure in hotspots, we can make sure that healthy air is no 
longer determined by ZIP code.
    I would also like to submit a statement of support from 
House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis Chair, Kathy 
Castor, who introduced the Environmental Justice Air Quality 
Monitoring Act in the House of Representatives along with the 
support and statements from stakeholders.
    Senator Carper. Without objection.
    [The referenced information follows:]
   
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    Senator Markey. Thank you. I want to thank Chairman Carper 
and Ranking Member Capito for including my Environmental 
Justice Air Quality Monitoring Act of 2021 in today's hearing. 
I look forward to hearing from the witnesses. Thank you.
    Senator Carper. Thanks so much. Before we turn to Senator 
Duckworth, who I think is going to join us remotely to make a 
statement about her legislation, the Public Health Air Quality 
Act, one last word from Satchel Paige.
    Not only did Satchel Paige break into the majors in his 
early 40's, as Senator Markey has said, he used to, when he 
pitched in the Negro Leagues, he was so good, that when he 
would take the mound, his infield, he would call his infielders 
and tell them to sit down. They would sit down in the outfield 
grass, and he would strike out the team, game after game, week 
after week, he was that good.
    He broke into the majors in his early 40's, and made the 
All-Star team, pitched for another half-dozen years or so. Eddy 
gave at the beginning of the quote about how old you are. He 
also said, the rest of that quote goes something like this: 
work like you don't need the money, dance like nobody is 
looking, love like you have never been hurt, live each day like 
it is your last, and someday, you will be right.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Carper. With that introduction, here is a Senator 
who needs no introduction, Senator Tammy Duckworth.
    Senator, it was great to be with you and your kids last 
night at the picnic, and you are recognized to speak about your 
legislation, the Public Health Air Quality Act. I am proud to 
be one of your co-sponsors.
    You are recognized to speak. Please proceed.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TAMMY DUCKWORTH, 
            U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Senator Duckworth. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. That 
was a great quote. It was great to see everybody at the White 
House yesterday.
    Thank you also to Ranking Member Capito for holding this 
important hearing to examine important legislative proposals to 
improve air quality and monitoring, including the Public Health 
Air Quality Monitoring Act of 2022. I was very proud to partner 
with Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester in developing our 
legislation, and I am very pleased that the Congresswoman is 
testifying this morning as the author of the House version of 
our bill.
    Protecting our Nation's public health requires achieving 
clean air for all Americans, yet our current air monitoring 
system is woefully deficient, both in terms of capacity and 
capability. This is simply unacceptable status quo. It inflicts 
devastating and disproportionate harm on low-income communities 
and communities of color that suffer from higher rates of 
cancer, asthma, and other diseases just because of where they 
happen to live. It is outrageous that in the wealthiest Country 
in the world, communities of color are exposed to 63 percent 
more air pollution than they create.
    Last month, I had the opportunity to tour Altgeld Gardens, 
a public housing community just outside of Chicago, that is 
known as the birthplace of environmental justice. Their 
community leader and activist, Cheryl Johnson, explained the 
environmental justice challenges her community faces and 
finished the tour by showing me the Altgeld Gardens cancer 
memorial wall.
    On the wall, one can see name after name after name of 
community members who have fallen to cancer and respiratory 
illnesses resulting from the cumulative impacts of a variety of 
sources, creating poor air quality that has plagued the area 
for decades. This harrowing physical representation of the 
devastating effects of cumulative air pollution should inspire 
us all to act. No community, no community should have a wall of 
fallen mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers because they 
were denied one of the most fundamental human rights: clean air 
to breathe.
    That is why this committee must swiftly advance the Public 
Health Air Quality Monitoring Act and other air quality 
monitoring legislation. Our bill doesn't seek to reinvent the 
wheel. Instead, we propose building upon existing monitoring 
framework to require EPA to implement immediate fenceline 
monitoring for toxic air pollutants at facilities contributing 
to high local cancer rates and other health rates from 
dangerous pollutants. This increased mapping will help support 
local communities on further actions to confront air pollution, 
better inform local government and agencies on permit 
decisions, and illustrate where Federal investments will have 
the largest benefits to health and equity.
    By increasing our air monitoring network, updating our 
existing regulations and methods, and improving our data 
collection and public engagements, we can help to close the 
gaping holes in our air monitoring systems. Advancing my Public 
Health Air Quality Monitoring Act is an important first step 
toward clean air for all.
    I look forward to today's discussion. I also want to thank 
the Chairman for helping me introduce this bill as an original 
co-sponsor, along with Senators Durbin, Booker, Markey, and 
Warren.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
    Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator Duckworth.
    Now, it is time to hear from our first panel of witnesses. 
We are fortunate to have Senator Collins with us today. She is 
the lead sponsor of the third and final piece of legislation we 
are examining today, the Comprehensive National Mercury 
Monitoring Act.
    I am grateful to co-sponsor, to work with you on this 
legislation and so many other bills in the past. You are 
recognized and warmly welcomed. Thank you.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SUSAN COLLINS, 
              U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MAINE

    Senator Collins. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Capito, I want to begin by 
thanking you for holding today's hearing and to also say what a 
pleasure it is to share the witness table with my friend from 
the House, Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester. It is great to 
have you over on the Senate side.
    I appreciate the opportunity to testify on the 
Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act, which I have 
introduced with the distinguished Chairman. Chairman Carper 
mentioned it in his opening comments that this is the 50th 
anniversary of the Clean Air Act, and it is a point of pride 
for me that that landmark law was authored by Maine Senator 
Edmund Muskie. Earlier this summer, I participated in an event 
in Senator Muskie's hometown of Rumford with his son, Ned 
Muskie, where we commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Clean 
Air Act.
    Senator Carper. Boy, it doesn't get much better than that.
    Senator Collins. It doesn't. So, your hearing is 
particularly timely.
    Our bipartisan mercury monitoring bill would help ensure 
that we have accurate, scientifically based data about mercury 
pollution in our Country.
    As this committee well knows, mercury is a potent 
neurotoxin. Exposure can lead to significant health problems, 
especially in children and pregnant women. Mercury exposure has 
gone down as U.S. mercury emissions have declined; however, 
levels remain unacceptably high, and in some cases, we really 
don't know how much mercury is in our environment.
    In Maine, some of our lands and bodies of water face higher 
mercury pollution compared to the national average. That is 
because of Maine's location. It is sometimes called the 
tailpipe of the Nation.
    Senator Carper. Delaware is oftentimes, we refer to us as 
the tailpipe, right at the tailpipe, just like you.
    Senator Collins. It is the same concept, that the winds 
from the west are blowing pollution into the pristine air of my 
beautiful State.
    A system for collecting information, such as we have 
already for acid rain and other pollution, does not currently 
exist for mercury, despite its dangers. A comprehensive 
national mercury monitoring network is needed to protect human 
health, safeguard our fisheries, and track the effect of 
reduced emissions. This monitoring network would also help 
policymakers, scientists, and the public better understand the 
sources, consequences, and trends in mercury pollution.
    Specifically, our legislation would do the following. 
First, it would direct the EPA, in conjunction with other 
agencies, to establish a national mercury monitoring program to 
measure and monitor levels in the air and watersheds, water and 
soil chemistry, and in marine, freshwater, and land organisms 
at multiple sites across our Country.
    Second, it would establish a scientific advisory panel to 
make recommendations for the establishment, site selection, 
measurement, recording protocols, and operations of the 
monitoring program.
    Third, our bill would establish a centralized data base for 
existing and newly collected environmental mercury data that 
could be accessed easily on the internet. These data would be 
compatible with similar international efforts.
    Fourth, the reporting requirements in our bill will help 
Congress assess the mercury pollution reduction levels that are 
needed in order to help prevent adverse human and ecological 
effects.
    Finally, our bill would authorize a modest $95 million over 
3 years to carry out these important activities.
    A robust national mercury monitoring network is needed to 
provide the data to help Congress and others make informed 
decisions to protect the people of our Nation. I would ask 
unanimous consent that two endorsement letters, one from the 
American Lung Association and another from the American 
Geophysical Union, be entered into the hearing record, which 
further explain the need for this legislation.
    Senator Carper. Without objection.
    [The referenced information was not received at the time of 
print.]
    Senator Collins. The Chairman mentioned that he and I have 
worked together to try to get up this monitoring system so that 
we have accurate data nationwide, for many years. I hope that 
this can be the year where we finally enact it into law.
    I hope the committee will favorably report our bill for 
consideration by the full Senate, and I thank you both for the 
opportunity to testify before the committee today. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Senator Collins follows:]

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    Senator Carper. From your lips to God's ears. Thanks so 
much for joining us today. I know you got a lot on your 
schedule this morning. Feel free to leave us when you need to 
go. Thank you so much for joining us, for your testimony, and 
for your leadership for so long on this issue and so many other 
issues. Thank you.
    Senator Collins. Thank you. I appreciate it.
    Senator Carper. Now, it is a special privilege to introduce 
a woman who has not only served as Cabinet Secretary and 
administration-wise, privileged to be the Governor and the 
subsequent Governor as well, she has led several major 
departments in the State of Delaware for many, many years. Not 
only the first African American to serve in the House of 
Representatives from Delaware, the first woman to be elected 
and to serve in the House of Representatives from Delaware, and 
someone we are just extremely proud of and have great respect 
and affection for.
    Thank you for coming to our committee today to discuss your 
legislation with us. You may proceed with your statement at 
this time. Thank you.

            STATEMENT OF HON. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, 
         U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE

    Ms. Rochester. Good morning, Chairman Carper and Ranking 
Member Capito and members of the committee, and also our fellow 
witnesses. A special thank-you. It was good to be with Senator 
Collins, who was one of the great supporters of me in my 
freshman term. Thank you, Senator, for all of your years of 
service, as well, for Delaware and our Nation.
    I want to start by thanking you and the Ranking Member for 
calling this important hearing today and giving me the 
opportunity to speak about the need to protect the health and 
wellbeing of all Americans by expanding our air quality 
monitoring system. I also want to thank Senator Duckworth for 
her leadership and partnership on this important issue.
    ``Living with a time bomb.'' That was the headline 
emblazoned across the front page of Delaware's largest 
newspaper, the News Journal, earlier this year. The story 
underneath the headline went on to describe the fear and 
anxiety that residents of New Castle County's Route 9 corridor 
feel every day as they live in the shadow of chemical and 
industrial plants. Communities such as Newport, Belvedere, and 
Southbridge have lived with this reality, with this time bomb, 
for decades and suffer from higher cancer rates and respiratory 
hazards as a result.
    This is an issue of health, education, but more 
importantly, justice, both environmental and racial. The 
justice cannot come as an afterthought. It has to be at the 
center of our response.
    We know that decades of discrimination and environmental 
racism have resulted in disproportionate numbers of communities 
of color at the frontlines where they risk significant 
disparities in health outcomes. These disparities are then 
passed on from generation to generation. It is past time we 
break the cycle.
    Communities like the ones I described in New Castle County 
aren't an anomaly. Communities across the Country that neighbor 
industrial and chemical facilities are more likely to suffer 
from higher rates of cancer and respiratory disease.
    In these communities, it is often the most vulnerable, 
including children and the elderly, that suffer the most from 
air pollution health emergencies. For example, exposure to 
toxic pollutants during a child's development phase has been 
shown to cause lifelong health and education problems, and 
ongoing exposure to toxic pollutants may cause premature death 
in the elderly population, often due to existing comorbidities.
    We need to work together to address these health 
disparities and the impacts. Our first step in protecting these 
communities is to use our air quality monitors in each 
neighborhood to identify the pollutants of greatest concern. We 
cannot address the issue without addressing the problem, which 
is why we need to have a more robust air monitoring system 
across the Country.
    That is why, today, I am proud to join Senator Duckworth 
and other House and Senate environmental justice leaders in 
reintroducing the Public Health Air Quality Act, and why I am 
also proud to partner with Representatives Castor and Torres 
and Senator Markey on the Environmental Justice Air Quality 
Monitoring Act.
    The Public Health Air Quality Monitoring Act will better 
inform and protect communities by requiring EPA to enhance and 
expand its air quality monitoring network and will ensure that 
EPA has the resources they need to do it well. Beyond 
collecting the data, this legislation will help the community 
access and understand the data.
    All too often, the communities that live closest to 
polluting facilities are the last to find out what toxic 
pollutants are in their air and how these toxic pollutants 
impact their health. With the Public Health Air Quality Act, 
they will be one of the first to know.
    From enhancing air monitoring systems at the highest-
polluting facilities to supporting pilot program for hyper-
local air monitoring project in under-resourced communities and 
communities of color, we need to work together to expand our 
environmental protection infrastructure.
    Too many communities throughout our Country are living with 
that time bomb, wondering when or if their government will be 
there to protect their health. Well, today, let's come together 
to say that we are here to give them the protection they 
deserve. We are here to hold polluters accountable, and here to 
make our communities safer and healthier. Health care costs are 
impacted, education costs are impacted, but the ultimate cost 
is the cost of life.
    Thank you so much for this opportunity, and I look forward 
to working with the Senate to pass these important pieces of 
legislation. I yield back.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Rochester follows:]

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    Senator Carper. We look forward to it as well. Thank you so 
much for joining us today.
    I understand the House is not doing anything today, so you 
can stay with us for the whole hearing, but if that is not 
true, feel free to leave when you have to go. Great to see you. 
Thanks for your leadership on this and so many other issues.
    Ms. Rochester. Thank you so much, Senator.
    Senator Carper. See you soon. It was a great pleasure with 
your mom and dad yesterday at the White House, along with your 
sister.
    Ms. Rochester. Thank you so much. I also have to join in 
your conversation about birthdays and say that I broke into 
Congress in the mid-50's, and I am happy this year to turn 60, 
so I am proud of that 60. Thanks, and thanks for all the happy 
birthdays over the past 30 years.
    Senator Carper. You keep having them, I will keep calling.
    I now get to call the witness for our second panel. As 
Congresswoman Rochester leaves, our next witness is Alfredo 
Gomez.
    I am going to go ahead and give a brief introduction, Mr. 
Gomez. Welcome. I got to say hello to you before we started. It 
is good of you to come and join us today. Alfredo Gomez is the 
Director for Natural Resources and Environment at the U.S. 
Government Accountability Office, or GAO. I just spoke with 
Gene Dodaro yesterday, the Comptroller General, which is always 
a pleasure.
    You are, I understand, a leader on GAO's recent 
comprehensive study on the State of our Nation's air quality 
monitoring system. Mr. Gomez, we welcome you. Thank you for 
being here today to discuss your agency's important findings. 
You may begin your statement at this time.
    Welcome. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF J. ALFREDO GOMEZ, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND 
       ENVIRONMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

    Mr. Gomez. Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Capito, and 
members of the committee, good morning. Thank you for the 
opportunity to testify today. I hope that GAO's work helps 
inform the committee as it considers legislation related to air 
quality monitoring.
    Mr. Chairman, as you noted, while the U.S. has made 
significant progress in reducing air pollution levels since the 
1970's, air pollution continues to harm public health and the 
environment in certain locations. Concerns remain about the 
health effects of air toxics and wildfire smoke and 
concentrations of air pollutants in local areas.
    The air quality monitoring system includes thousands of 
monitoring sites across the Country that measure specific air 
pollutants. The EPA is responsible for ensuring that this 
system produces information that is needed to manage air 
quality. EPA sets the requirements for the system's design, and 
State and local agencies are the ones that operate the majority 
of monitoring sites, ensure that data are accurate, and report 
the data to EPA and the public. EPA, State, and local agencies 
provide funding for the system.
    I would like to focus today on two areas covered in our 
2020 Air Quality Monitoring Report. The first is the need for 
additional air quality monitoring information, and the second 
is challenges that EPA and selected States and local agencies 
face in meeting these needs.
    Regarding information, in November 2020, we reported that 
more information was needed in several areas. The first is the 
need for information about local-scale air quality in real 
time. This information would help identify air pollution 
hotspots and provide insights into air quality in rural areas.
    The second is the need for information about the 
concentrations of air toxics in key areas. This information 
would help EPA and other understand hotspots like cancer 
clusters. It could also help promote environmental justice by 
highlighting where pollutants are concentrated.
    The third is information about the quality and performance 
of low-cost sensors. While low-cost sensors are increasingly 
available to measure air quality and offer much promise, some 
officials express concerns about the quality of the data they 
produce. Having this information could help give insights about 
the reliability and accepted uses of low-cost sensors.
    Moving now to the topic of challenges that EPA and States 
face in providing this information, the challenges include 
establishing priorities for air toxics monitoring, developing 
and improving air quality monitoring methods, integrating 
emerging technology such as low-cost sensors, and managing and 
integrating additional monitoring data. EPA, State, and local 
officials told us that they have incomplete information about 
the public health risk associated with air toxics, making it 
difficult to understand which present the highest risks and 
should be priorities for monitoring.
    With regard to challenges with air quality monitoring 
methods, some existing methods were not sufficiently cost-
effective, timely, or sensitive, meaning that they did not 
detect pollution at low enough levels needed to understand 
health effects.
    With the third challenge of integrating emerging 
technologies, EPA has worked with State and local agencies to 
study low-cost sensors, but performance issues with low-cost 
sensor measurements have persisted.
    While EPA has strategies aimed at better meeting needs for 
additional information on air quality, we found that these 
strategies were outdated and incomplete. For example, these 
strategies did not reflect needs for additional information or 
changes in the agency's approaches and resources.
    To address these challenges, we recommended that one, EPA 
develop and implement an asset management framework so that 
limited resources are directed toward the highest priorities, 
and two, to develop an air quality monitoring modernization 
plan that aligns with leading practices. Such a plan can help 
EPA provide information needed to understand and address 
changing air quality issues, such as wildfire smoke and air 
toxics, and to make better use of new technologies. EPA agreed 
with our recommendations and has begun implementing them.
    Chairman Carper and Ranking Member Capito, members of the 
committee, this completes my statement, and I am happy to 
answer questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Gomez follows:]

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    Senator Carper. Great, thanks so much for doing that. From 
time to time, I say to my staff when we are dealing with a 
particular issue or challenge, I ask them to help make me or a 
committee or the Senate a guided missile, as opposed to an 
unguided missile. What I think I read in listening to your 
testimony and preparing for this hearing, my sense is that what 
you are trying to do, what GAO is trying to do here, is help 
make us a guided missile as we face what is a real challenge, 
but an opportunity as well.
    As I mentioned in my opening statement, GAO found that some 
of the air monitoring technology in use in our Country is so 
outdated that air officials have to resort to eBay to purchase 
equipment because the manufacturer has discontinued the needed 
parts. I am struck, in fact, I am disappointed by this story, 
and what it tells us about the State of air quality monitoring 
systems, I think, and my colleagues ought to be, as well.
    Are you able to tell us more about this story, or share 
with us any other anecdotes that you and your team heard 
directly from air agency officials? Was this a unique incident, 
or does this story reflect a pattern in the challenges of our 
air agencies across the Country that they are facing?
    Mr. Gomez. Thank you for that question, Chairman Carper, 
and yes. This is an aging infrastructure, as we have been 
talking about. Those were the stories that we have heard. We 
have heard other stories where the air conditioning, for 
example, failed. There were leaking roofs. One of the States 
told us how they had to throw away a whole week of data because 
the air conditioning wasn't working, and it affected the 
measurements that they were collecting.
    That is one of the challenges that we heard across the 
board from State and local air quality monitoring agencies. It 
is just an old system that needs to be updated, which is 
consistent with our recommendation, as why we told the EPA, we 
really need to modernize the system, figure out what you need, 
what the resources are, and put that into place, and really to 
partner with the State and local agencies who are really the 
ones operating the system.
    Senator Carper. That is a good point. Thank you.
    Second question: GAO's report found that Federal funding 
for State and for local air monitoring programs has declined by 
about 20 percent over the last 16 years, adjusted for 
inflation. At the same time, air agencies at the Federal, at 
the State, and local levels are facing rising costs associated 
with maintaining aging, inefficient infrastructure, purchasing 
new, more expensive equipment, and staffing needs.
    Given the dire financial situation, many air monitoring 
programs find themselves in it appears that additional Federal 
funding may well help to alleviate much, not all, but much of 
the strain that these agencies are facing. Would additional 
funding for updating our Nation's air quality monitoring 
systems help address some of the challenges found in GAO's 
report?
    Mr. Gomez. Right. So, that is exactly what we learned when 
we looked at the funding across the last 15 years, that it had 
decreased by 20 percent. We did hear from local and State 
agencies and from EPA, that more resources would help them do 
the job. Again, I go back to our recommendation. It is really 
up to EPA as they modernize the system to identify what 
resources they need and come forward to Congress with that.
    Senator Carper. OK. My last question deals again with 
monitoring of air toxics. I believe that GAO found EPA's 
strategies for air toxic and local monitoring were, I think 
this is a correct quote, ``outdated and incomplete.'' I think 
that is the correct quote. Briefly, based on the GAO report, 
what are the greatest gaps in how EPA currently monitors for 
air toxics in local air pollution, and how could Congress help 
address these gaps?
    Mr. Gomez. Sure. So, in the areas of air toxics, we did 
find where there are additional information needs for air 
toxics in key locations, such as identified cancer clusters and 
environmental justice areas around industrial facilities. There 
is also a need for timely information on air toxics. What I 
mean by that is currently, when you monitor air toxics, the 
samples are collected in canisters over a 24-hour period. They 
are sent to the lab. So, there is really a lack of information 
for real-time, exactly when do those elevated readings happen, 
for example.
    Then, there is also information, as I noted in my opening 
statement, about air toxics at low levels. So currently, the 
methods that we have for analyzing toxic samples, they are not 
sensitive enough at these low levels to detect and see if, in 
fact, these things might be causing bad health effects.
    Senator Carper. Thanks so much. Senator Capito.
    Senator Capito. Thank you, and thank you for coming before 
the committee, and thank you for your work at GAO.
    I would like to go to the two recommendations that you 
mentioned in your statement. You mentioned for EPA to develop 
and implement an asset management framework for National 
Ambient Air Quality monitoring systems, and second for EPA to 
develop and make public an air quality modernization plan. You 
addressed this a little bit.
    I am wondering, what has EPA done, your study came out 2 
years ago, in the last 2 years to implement your 
recommendations?
    Mr. Gomez. Yes, thank you for that question, Senator 
Capito. We do followup with our recommendations. First of all, 
EPA agreed with those recommendations. They have been meeting 
and working with their local and State partners. They have 
plans already in place to develop an asset management 
framework, which we think would be really useful, as that would 
allow them to focus their limited resources on the highest 
priorities.
    We understand, at the upcoming conference that EPA is 
having next month on air quality monitoring in Pittsburgh, our 
report and our recommendations are part of the discussion as 
they partner with State and local folks to figure out the 
bigger job on a modernization plan. We are touching base with 
them and following up, so we are hopeful that those 
recommendations will be implemented, as well.
    Senator Capito. Let me ask you a question on the 
modernization plan. Let me ask first about the funding issue. 
It was 20 percent down, funding since 2004, adjusted for 
inflation. Is that real dollars down, or is that, I don't have 
the figures in front of me. Has the amount gone up, or just 
hasn't gone up as much to keep up with inflation, or how is 
that?
    Mr. Gomez. Sure. So, when we did the report in 2020, we 
looked back 15 years. What we found was that, for that time 
period, there was a decrease in funding of 20 percent while 
controlling for inflation. We can also submit for the record 
the more details about those numbers.
    Senator Capito. OK. So, I guess what I am wondering is, why 
do you think EPA, with knowing, you cited some of the real 
physical problems, lack of air conditioning and things of that 
nature, why do you think they haven't already moved to a 
modernization where you can have low-cost monitoring, you can 
reshape? Do you think it is a bureaucracy that is kind of 
immovable, or you like to do it the way it has always been and 
think it is accurate? Are States resisting? Where do you think 
the real problems are with why they haven't already moved to a 
modernization plan 10 years ago?
    Mr. Gomez. I think it is a variety of issues. This is an 
aging infrastructure. It is fairly complex, and many different 
networks. You can look at our statement and our report. There 
are thousands of monitors across the Country.
    Now, EPA has been working with its local and State 
partners, especially as they are looking at these low-cost 
sensors to figure out where they can be deployed, what the 
particular uses of them could be. We just didn't see an overall 
plan, where they are really focusing on this aging 
infrastructure, and really coming up with ways to modernize it. 
Again, they are supportive, they are moving in that direction, 
so we are hopeful to see that come about.
    Senator Capito. Well, I would hope sooner. You mentioned 
it, and I just caught what you said in your opening statement. 
I went back and tried to find it, but I couldn't find it. You 
said something about an incomplete list as to what is more 
toxic than, can you go back to your statement and read that?
    Mr. Gomez. Let's see. If it was about air toxics----
    Senator Capito. Yes, and you started--I do have the quotes 
on here about an incomplete list.
    Mr. Gomez. With air toxics, it was more that EPA needs to 
better understand the hotspots, like cancer clusters. It could 
also help promote environmental justice by highlighting where 
the pollutants are concentrated.
    Essentially, there is just a need for additional 
information when it comes to air toxics, like more local-scale 
information about where those hotspots are, and then also the 
timing information in real time.
    Senator Capito. Maybe I was thinking what you were saying 
is that local and State authorities working with the EPA don't 
have a clear view of what is the most toxic, or what the 
toxicity level of certain things, that is not what you are 
saying.
    Mr. Gomez. No, I mean, there are already 188, I believe, 
air toxics that have been identified. It is more the 
measurement of these toxics in particular locations that is 
needed.
    Senator Capito. OK, I heard that wrong, because I thought 
what you were saying was that the EPA hasn't provided the data 
to the local and States to say, this type of toxin is more 
critical or should be monitored more.
    Mr. Gomez. So, that is one of the challenges, prioritizing 
air toxics.
    Senator Capito. Yes, that was the incomplete list.
    Mr. Gomez. There is a need for EPA to figure out which air 
toxics need priority, because of a lack of information, so that 
is why we are saying there is information that is needed so 
that the agency can begin to prioritize which air toxics they 
should monitor.
    Senator Capito. Yes, well it seemed to me that would be a 
critical responsibility for the EPA, in my view, should already 
be pretty apparent with all the science and data that they 
generate. Thank you very much.
    Senator Carper. Senator Capito, thanks very much.
    We have been joined, as you may have noticed, Mr. Gomez, by 
several of our colleagues. Senator Whitehouse has been able to 
come and stay for a bit. He has to leave very shortly. Senator 
Ernst from Iowa just joined us.
    We all serve on multiple committees and subcommittees, and 
for some reason, a lot of them are meeting right now at the 
same time, so folks are coming and going. Senator Padilla from 
California joined us by WebEx for an earlier part of the 
hearing, including your testimony, and Senator Cardin has 
joined us and had to leave and go to another meeting that he is 
scheduled to have at the same time.
    I am going to do something, since we have an extra minute 
or two here, that I don't often do, but I want to do it right 
now. Is there a question that you wish you had been asked by 
somebody on our committee? Is there a question that you wish 
you had been asked by somebody on our committee, and what would 
that question be?
    Mr. Gomez. Sure. I would say, again, there is a lot of 
information needs for air toxics, as we were just talking about 
them, information about air toxics in key locations, more 
timely information on air toxics, and then also, again, being 
able to have analysis methods so that you can get measurements 
for them.
    The other question, maybe, that we haven't talked about as 
much is about these low-cost sensors, because low-cost sensors 
are widely available. GAO, as part of our report, purchased 
some of these low-cost sensors, and we actually deployed them 
outside the building because we wanted to test them to see----
    Senator Carper. Outside this building?
    Mr. Gomez. Outside the GAO building, we put our low-cost 
sensors to see what kind of information we got. This was for PM 
2.5. This is one of the things that we have reported on, that 
there is a need for more work in looking at the quality and 
performance of the sensors, because we had two sensors, 
different sensors, and they gave us different measurements. It 
is a question about, what do you do with the data, do they need 
to be calibrated, so that is something that EPA, again, is 
focused on, because low-cost sensors do provide a lot of 
information and are widely available now. We need to figure out 
where we can use them and how we can use them.
    Senator Carper. Good. Thank you. Thank you for asking and 
answering the same question. Not every witness gets that 
opportunity. To our friends at GAO and to our Comptroller 
General, our best regards and thanks for all the good work that 
you and your colleagues do. Thank you so much.
    Mr. Gomez. Thank you.
    Senator Carper. And I am sure we will have some questions 
for the record, so we look forward to your responses. Thank 
you.
    All right, our third and final panel for the morning. Let 
me introduce and welcome four witnesses: Kathy Fallon, Hon. 
Jason Isaac, Dana Johnson, and Bart Eklund. We thank you all 
for joining us today and for appearing.
    OK, I understand that Kathy Fallon is joining us virtually, 
and I understand that Dana Johnson is joining us virtually. We 
have, live and in person, Jason Isaac and Bart Eklund, who is 
named after the Bay Area Rapid Transit Authority.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Carper. I was a Naval flight officer stationed at 
Moffett Field, California. I used to occasionally travel on 
your systems. It is nice to see what you look like in person.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Carper. Kathy entered a bio by way of introduction. 
Kathy Fallon, joining us remotely, is currently serving as the 
Director of Land and Climate at Clean Air Task Force in Boston 
Massachusetts. Prior to joining Clean Air Task Force, Ms. 
Fallon was a senior advisor at the Center for Climate Health 
and Global Environment at Harvard, T.H. Chan School of Public 
Health.
    Ms. Fallon, you may begin your statement at this time. 
Thank you for joining us remotely.

 STATEMENT OF HON. KATHY FALLON, DIRECTOR OF LAND AND CLIMATE, 
                      CLEAN AIR TASK FORCE

    Ms. Fallon. Thank you, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member 
Capito, and members of the committee for the opportunity to 
testify today.
    I am Kathy Fallon. I am Director of Land and Climate at the 
Clean Air Task Force, which is an environmental organization 
founded in 1996 to curb air and climate pollution through 
policy and----
    Senator Carper. Kathy, where are you today?
    Ms. Fallon. I am actually sitting in the Town of Hartland, 
Vermont.
    Senator Carper. All right. Why?
    Ms. Fallon. Interestingly, I hail from Maine, and my family 
is from Rumford, Maine, where apparently, Senator Collins 
celebrated the Clean Air Act.
    Senator Carper. That is great. Small world, small world. Go 
right ahead. Sorry to interrupt.
    Ms. Fallon. Small world indeed. Thank you. The Clean Air 
Task Force strongly supports all three bills before the 
committee today. There is an urgent need to improve air quality 
monitoring, especially in overburdened and underserved 
communities, as called for in the Environmental Justice Air 
Quality Monitoring Act and in the Public Health Air Quality 
Act. My oral testimony today will focus on the comprehensive 
National Mercury Monitoring Act.
    Here are my key takeaways: mercury poses serious health 
risks, and millions of Americans are exposed to elevated 
methylmercury through fish consumption. Remarkable progress has 
been made in reducing mercury emissions in the U.S., 
particularly from power plants, and that has brought the 
American public major health benefits. Despite this progress, 
mercury pollution remains a widespread problem, due in part to 
the long-range transport of mercury emissions from China.
    Unfortunately, about half of our mercury deposition 
monitoring sites have closed due to lack of funding, and there 
is no federally supported long-term mercury monitoring for fish 
and wildlife and water. The problem hasn't been solved, and the 
nature of the problem is changing, and it is more important 
than ever to establish and fund a National Mercury Monitoring 
Network.
    Mercury in the form of methylmercury can lead to lost IQ, 
impaired motor function, and cardiovascular disease, including 
risk of stroke and fatal heart attacks at elevated levels. 
Approximately 200,000 children are born in the U.S. each year 
exposed to elevated methylmercury at levels that exceed EPA's 
reference dose. Unfortunately, there is no threshold below 
which neurodevelopmental impacts don't occur.
    Most people are exposed to methylmercury through fish 
consumption. Sensitive populations include the developing 
fetus, pregnant women, women of child-bearing age, and people 
who consume a lot of fish. This can include people from 
households with lower incomes and education levels, as well as 
high-income populations and individuals from several non-white 
racial and ethnic groups, as detailed in my written testimony.
    Most of the methylmercury in fish originates from air 
emissions. Mercury, once emitted, can be transported locally or 
globally, depending on its form, and methylmercury is 
staggering in its ability to bioaccumulate in food chains. It 
can reach levels 100 million times higher in fish than levels 
in water.
    Unfortunately, mercury is also somewhat of an equal 
opportunity contaminant. Any watershed anywhere with the right 
conditions, like areas in rural Maine with lots of forest cover 
and wetlands, can have high mercury levels in fish and 
wildlife, even if they are far from sources and have relatively 
low mercury inputs.
    Remarkable progress has been made in cutting mercury 
emissions from the U.S. In fact, coal-fired power plants have 
cut their mercury emissions by an incredible 90 percent. 
Despite this progress, though, the total mercury deposited to 
the U.S. has shown only modest improvements and may be 
increasing in some areas, but we don't know, for lack of 
monitoring. According to the most recent compilation in 2013, 
fish consumption advisories for mercury still exist in all 50 
States.
    Here are three of the reasons why mercury pollution is 
still a problem. Global emissions, particularly emissions from 
China, have increased, offsetting the benefits of emissions 
reductions here at home. Climate change is making the problem 
worse. Mercury is being released from thawing permafrost and by 
more frequent wildfires, and it is bioaccumulating to higher 
levels as waters warm. Third, there are sensitive watersheds 
across the U.S. where even a small amount of mercury can have a 
large impact.
    Mercury monitoring today is pieced together with annual 
funding from various sources. Funding levels have fluctuated 
over time, and we have lost about half of our mercury 
deposition monitoring sites, so that we can no longer even 
produce a map of deposition for the whole Country. There are 
large gaps in Western States and in Gulf States.
    Also, even though fish consumption is the dominant pathway 
of human exposure, there is no coordinated national long-term 
mercury monitoring for fish and water.
    To wrap up, given the hazardous nature of mercury 
pollution, it is wonderful that we have made so much progress 
here in the U.S., but the problem hasn't been solved, and the 
nature of the problem is changing. It is more important than 
ever to establish and fund a national mercury monitoring so 
that the American public can know where it is a problem and 
where it is not and can make informed choices about mercury 
exposure and their health; so that environmental managers can 
determine whether to delist water bodies that may no longer be 
impaired by mercury or to list new ones that now are'; and so 
that policymakers have the data needed to understand how the 
American public is being impacted by mercury emissions that 
originate from outside our borders.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Fallon follows:]

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    Senator Carper. Thank you so much. We look forward to 
asking you some questions in just a few minutes, but first we 
want to welcome Mr. Isaac, who is currently serving, as I 
understand, as the Director of Life:Powered, a national 
initiative of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Do you live 
in Texas?
    Mr. Isaac. Yes.
    Senator Carper. Where?
    Mr. Isaac. Just outside of Austin, in the hill country.
    Senator Carper. Welcome back to our committee, Mr. Isaac. 
We have, I think, seen you here before.
    Mr. Isaac. Yes, it is great to be back.
    Senator Carper. We are happy you are back, and you are 
recognized and welcome to proceed with your statement. Thank 
you.

   STATEMENT OF HON. JASON ISAAC, DIRECTOR, LIFE: POWERED, A 
         PROJECT OF THE TEXAS PUBLIC POLICY FOUNDATION

    Mr. Isaac. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman and members. I 
am Jason Isaac, the Director of Life:Powered, a national 
Initiative of the Texas Public Policy Foundation to raise 
America's energy IQ.
    From 2011 to 2019, I served in the Texas House of 
Representatives, and during my freshman session, carried the 
Texas Emission Reduction Plan legislation. I was a House 
sponsor for the ozone standards set by the EPA under the Clean 
Air Act in our State.
    Senator Carper. How long were you in State legislature?
    Mr. Isaac. Eight years, yes, four terms. That was our SIP 
that I carried, the State Implementation Plan.
    The EPA's National Emissions Inventory finds that mercury 
emissions from stationary sources in the U.S. fell 85 percent 
from 1990 to 2017, over 200 tons annually to about 30 tons 
annually. According to a 2018 U.N. study, 80 percent of the 
mercury deposited in North America comes from other continents, 
with half coming from Asia.
    A mercury deposition network already exists at the 
University of Wisconsin. The network consists of approximately 
100 stations across the Country and is supported by State, 
Federal, and private funding.
    The Mercury Air Toxics Rule, which cost billions of dollars 
and resulted in the closure of many coal plants, increased 
electricity prices and reduced grid reliability in many areas. 
It was estimated, originally, by the EPA that there would be 
$90 billion in health benefits, but resulted in only $6 million 
in health benefits from reducing mercury emissions.
    Instead of repeating the narrative that we are dirty and 
setting impossible emission reduction goals for ourselves, we 
need to recognize our success, which you both have touted, in 
our clean air here in the United States. We need to get the 
rest of the world to align with our air quality standards that 
improve human health. Until we do, our Nation will continue to 
export jobs and import pollution.
    Regarding environmental justice, the real injustice: 
American's lack of access to affordable and reliable energy. 
This year, Americans will pay $5,200 more than last year to 
cover rising prices of gas, electricity, and everyday items.
    Even before the current energy crisis that Americans are 
facing, a lawsuit was filed in California that specifically 
addressed the issue. The plaintiff, the more than 200 civil 
rights organizations accuses the California Air Resources Board 
of being racially biased in its environmental regulations and 
environmental lobby organization. The evidence they present for 
this case is that the regulations they created primarily hurt 
minorities, while not doing anything to help the environment in 
California.
    The effects of clean energy policies have been 
catastrophic, as are the measures being taken by the Federal 
Government that ignore the science behind air quality and 
responsible energy practices. When it comes to air quality, we 
are a world leader. We have reduced the six criteria pollutants 
that the EPA has the authority to regulate under the Clean Air 
Act by 78 percent in the past five decades, which both of you 
have touted.
    The message in the bill is clear: environmental extremists 
want to say that the air in these communities is racist and 
unfair, but what matters more to Americans is not having to 
choose between food and electricity.
    The last bill on public health air quality refuses to 
acknowledge the monumental wins I have already mentioned, as 
well as the fact that we have the cleanest air of any Country 
with over 50 million people. We should be celebrating our 
success, not spending more money to spread unnecessary climate 
alarmism.
    If we want to improve the lives of all Americans, then we 
should do so with our affordable, reliable energy from fossil 
fuels. Until the EPA demonstrates that it will ends its war on 
American energy, Congress should not bless it with more 
funding.
    Environmental leadership and economic prosperity do go 
hand-in-hand. We cannot address injustice without monitoring, 
but we can with energy. To improve the global environment and 
eradicate poverty as we know it, we should produce and export 
our energy and our clean air around the world.
    Thank you for the opportunity to be here.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Isaac follows:]

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    Senator Carper. Thank you very much, Mr. Isaac.
    Next, I want to welcome, I believe remotely, Dana Johnson, 
currently serving as the Senior Director of Strategy and 
Federal Policy at WE ACT for Environmental Justice.
    Welcome, Ms. Johnson. Please begin your statement at this 
time. Welcome.

  STATEMENT OF DANA JOHNSON, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF STRATEGY AND 
        FEDERAL POLICY, WE ACT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

    Ms. Johnson. Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Carper, 
Ranking Member Caputo, and all the members of the committee.
    Senator Carper. It is Capito. It is confusing because we 
have a witness, a nominee just before this committee, whose 
name is Caputo.
    Ms. Johnson. Senator Capito, I am sorry.
    Senator Capito. You are confusing her even more.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Carper. You are not entirely wrong. Where are you 
today, Ms. Johnson? Where are you talking to us from?
    Ms. Johnson. I am talking to you from Washington, DC, and I 
am a Chicago native.
    Senator Carper. Oh, welcome. This is a home game. Chicago, 
good. Welcome aboard. Senator Capito and I are delighted to 
welcome you.
    Ms. Johnson. Yes, my apologies, Senator Capito.
    Senator Capito. Not a problem, don't worry about it.
    Ms. Johnson. Thank you.
    I want to thank all of you for convening this important 
dialog on how we can improve the air quality in communities 
across this Country for all Americans. As noted, my name is 
Dana Johnson. I serve as Senior Director of Strategy and 
Federal Policy with WE ACT for Environmental Justice.
    We are a member-based organization whose mission is to 
build healthy communities by ensuring that people living in a 
community of color or low-income residents are able to 
participate meaningfully in decisionmaking at every level of 
government when it comes to environmental and public health 
policies and practices. We are based in Northern Manhattan and 
organized in New York City, New York State, and here in 
Washington, DC.
    We are the only environmental justice organization that has 
a Federal presence here, a Federal policy office. In this 
office, we convene the Environmental Justice Leadership Forum, 
which is a network of EJ groups representing 22 States, and 
there are about 50 members that make up that body.
    Americans living in communities of color have a racially 
disproportionate exposure to air pollution because of 
institutionalized bias in our environmental, energy, land use, 
and economic decisionmaking. Last year, researchers at the 
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that African 
Americans have a higher-than-average exposure to particulate 
matter from every pollution emitting source studied, including 
cars, trucks, power plants, construction, industrial 
operations, and agriculture. This outsized and dangerous 
exposure was repeated in nearly all categories where 
researchers grouped Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians into a 
``people of color'' category and compared the risk pollution 
exposure to whites.
    Millions of Americans live, work, and play in conditions 
that can only be described as environmental emergencies. This 
was true in 1997 when our Northern Manhattan community housed 
six of the eight bus depots in New York City. We had one-third 
of the city's bus fleet, which was diesel at the time, emitting 
pollution in our communities, and we did not have a single 
particulate matter air monitor present during the 8-hour period 
when particulate matter pollution was four times higher than it 
would be for annual levels set by the Environmental Protection 
Agency.
    We saw this again in 2005 in the Sauget community of St. 
Louis, which is an area of importance to Senator Duckworth, 
where there was a lack of air quality monitoring data available 
for an investigation into the health hazards associated with 
the operation of a waste incinerator.
    We saw it again in Chelsea, Massachusetts, where 
Congresswoman Pressley and Senator Markey intervened to have an 
air quality monitor placed in that city when no air quality 
monitor was present before 2020, and that area of the community 
ranked third in the State for environmental hazards and had the 
highest asthma rates in the city.
    There are hundreds of cases like these across the Country, 
and they tell us an important theme. Every facet of existence, 
including the health and economic conditions for those living 
in a front and fenceline community demands bold and decisive 
action to alleviate the cumulative burden of being exposed to 
carbon, ozone, nitrous oxide, particulate matter, methane, and 
sulfur dioxide. The proposed legislation for modernizing our 
air quality monitoring processes, our tools, our resources, 
staff, and technology that we are discussing today is that bold 
and decisive action that we need to begin to dramatically 
improve the quality of lives for all Americans.
    I just want to flag four things really quickly from the 
bills that we think are important to highlight. The community 
engagement and data gathering processes that are available 
really partner well with the principles of environmental 
justice that note that people have the right to participate in 
decisionmaking at every level of government. This includes 
needs assessment, planning, implementation enforcement, and 
evaluation.
    Communities have the right to know and be educated when it 
comes to pollution where they live, work, and play. For 
pollution present in their community, we have a right to know 
about the health risks associated with it and how it might 
exacerbate any present health conditions.
    And we have a right to corrective action. Once there is an 
awareness and understanding of air pollution in our 
communities, corrective action must be taken. Environmental 
justice principle No. 6 demands that there be a cessation of 
the production of all toxins, hazardous wastes, and radioactive 
materials, and that all present and current producers be held 
strictly accountable to the people for detoxifying contaminants 
at the point of production. We believe that these three bills 
being discussed today give us the opportunities to do that.
    I will just make quickly one final point around the 
investments. I think it was noted that there has been a 20 
percent decrease in funding for the EPA to do this important 
work, and we want to highlight the need to have the financial 
resources available to invest in the people, the technology, 
and the equipment necessary to really do quality monitoring in 
communities that have a legacy of harm as it relates to air 
pollution.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]

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    Senator Carper. Ms. Johnson, thank you so much for joining 
us today.
    Now, batting cleanup, we are pleased to welcome Bart 
Eklund, currently serving as the Senior Technical Expert at 
Haley and Aldrich. Welcome, Mr. Eklund. We invite you to 
proceed with your statement. Glad you could be with us. Thank 
you.

 STATEMENT OF BART EKLUND, SENIOR TECHNICAL EXPERT, HALEY AND 
                            ALDRICH

    Mr. Eklund. Thank you, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member 
Capito, distinguished Senators, for the opportunity to speak 
today.
    I concur with the statements that various folks have made 
about the success in improving air quality over my working 
lifetime. Some of the reasons for the success of the Clean Air 
Act for the NAAQS is that we have standards, we agree upon what 
we are trying to achieve for those six pollutants, and we have 
reference or equivalent methods so that when people gather 
data, they used agreed-upon methods, and we don't argue about 
the data, we argue about what the implications might be.
    When it comes to air toxics, we have some additional 
challenges. We do not have any national standards for air 
toxics, with the exception of lead. From jurisdiction to 
jurisdiction, there are differences in what is an acceptable 
level. If I am doing a study for dry cleaning fluid or arsenic 
or benzene, what concentrations we have to achieve in 
California may be different in Illinois may be different in New 
York. What concentration we have to achieve drives some of our 
choices on monitoring methodologies.
    We don't have any standard methods for some of the air 
toxics. I know one of the bills calls out ethylene oxide. I 
developed a method for ethylene oxide 15 years ago. There are a 
couple other methods out there. There hasn't been methods 
development done to compare those different approaches to see 
how they compare, and EPA doesn't necessarily endorse any of 
them at this point.
    When we are looking for monitoring in communities for air 
toxics, we need to look at the timeframes of interest. 
Sometimes, we are interested in very short-term exposures, such 
as during an accidental release or process upset. Sometimes we 
are interested in lifetime exposure to low levels of 
carcinogens.
    A mistake that is often made is trying to use one 
measurement method to address all those different objectives. 
Generally, we wind up needing to fine tune our approach for the 
specific objective at hand. The trends in the monitoring 
community have been toward continuous monitoring, and sometimes 
that is needed, sometimes it is not, but we are generating huge 
amounts of data now.
    The other, I don't know if it is a trend, but there is a 
lot of enthusiasm for low-cost sensors. There is very little 
enthusiasm among people like me that are experts in air 
monitoring for low-cost sensors. They have some pros and cons, 
obviously, but there are some deficiencies in their accuracy, 
precision, and sensitivity. I know some of the bills have 
called out more use of low-cost sensors.
    I would suggest, as an alternative, more short-term 
intensive studies. We have done that many times in the past 
when we are interested in understanding more about an issue to 
intensively study it for a shorter period of time with the 
kinds of equipment that we all have confidence in. That is a 
potential tradeoff.
    I would also point out that we are generating huge amounts 
of data, millions and millions and millions of data points a 
year for air quality. Unfortunately, I don't think there is 
really the funding for review and interpretation of that 
information. So, for example, EPA has an Urban Air Toxics 
Monitoring Program. They generate data across the U.S. and 
urban areas for things like formaldehyde, mercury, benzene, 
many of the compounds we are interested in.
    But they ceased doing reporting of that in 2016. The data 
is still available, but it is no longer in a usable format for 
the public. They no longer can see a summary report. There is a 
lot of reason to do more with the data we have in addition to 
considering collecting more data.
    My final point is, in recent years, I have done a lot of 
indoor air work. People spend, the typical number you will see 
is 89 percent of their time indoors. When we are doing indoor 
air studies, we collect outdoor air samples, but what people 
are exposed to in that 89 percent of the time they spend is 
overwhelmingly due to consumer products and other things they 
have indoors. It is rarely outdoor air being a significant 
contributor to their overall exposure.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Eklund follows:]

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    Senator Carper. Thank you very, very much.
    Senator Capito has to head out for another responsibility 
here in a second, but she is going to be asking questions. I 
think I will turn it over next to Senator Whitehouse. I will 
probably go right after her, so Senator Capito.
    Senator Capito. Thank you, and thank you all for being 
here. Mr. Eklund, let me ask you if you can explain in really 
general terms, because I know you are a technical expert, the 
difference between monitors that are used to regulate criteria 
for air pollutants, and then air toxics. Is there a difference 
there?
    Mr. Eklund. Certainly. For criteria pollutants, they are 
largely the combustion products for things like vehicle use and 
burning coal. We are interested in short-term exposure, so we 
have monitors that give us time resolution of a few seconds or 
a few minutes.
    For air toxics, we are often interested in lifetime 
exposure, because of the potential for them being cancer 
causing. In those cases, we don't need that same time 
resolution, but we need to get very, very sensitive results. So 
as a previous witness pointed out, we may be collecting a 
sample and shipping it off to a lab and getting the answer back 
in a matter of weeks, rather than instantaneously.
    Senator Capito. We have heard testimony that there are 
gaps, and some of these bills are aimed at trying to fill gaps. 
You mentioned enormous amounts of data that EPA is generating, 
or has, collects, and then we are hearing all these gaps.
    I am curious to know, why did EPA stop publishing the data 
in 2016, that you could extrapolate for regular people like me 
to be able to see what it going on, rather than to have to dig 
deep, and what gaps would you say there are in light of the 
testimony that you have heard before you?
    Mr. Eklund. I can't speak to EPA's----
    Senator Capito. You don't know?
    Mr. Eklund. I don't know.
    Senator Capito. OK.
    Mr. Eklund. In terms of gaps, there are emerging 
pollutants.
    Senator Capito. What would be an example of an emerging 
pollutant?
    Mr. Eklund. Well, PFAS is one, but also some of the things 
that were listed in Senator Duckworth's bill: ethylene oxide, 
formaldehyde. One of the issues is that the methods that we use 
to look at things like around a refinery aren't good tools for 
those chemicals. Each of those chemicals presents some 
challenges from an analytical chemistry standpoint, and we wind 
up needing to spend a lot of money and effort to get data for 
one chemical at a time, as opposed to some of the existing 
methods that allow us to look at dozens or hundreds of 
chemicals with a single sample.
    Senator Capito. OK. Mr. Isaac, I want to ask you about the 
Permian Basin, because domestic air emissions, including 
ground-level ozone, have fallen significantly over the past few 
decades, meaning our Country has much cleaner air, but that has 
not stopped this Administration from moving forward with plans 
to redesignate your area, the Permian Basin, as being in 
nonattainment with the ozone standard. How would a finding of 
nonattainment with the ozone standard impact what goes on in 
the Permian Basin, and how do you interpret their 
interpretation?
    Mr. Isaac. Their interpretation is wrong. The EPA 
nonattainment areas should be based on vehicular traffic, and 
they are looking at remote areas where there is no vehicular 
traffic. You are looking at one of the largest areas of 
production for oil and gas in this Country, and so it would be 
absolutely catastrophic to put EPA nonattainment, and that is 
why our Governor, Governor Abbott, has come out full throttle 
against this and will work diligently to make sure that this is 
not implemented over the Permian Basin, whether it is Texas or 
New Mexico.
    But that energy that we are producing is really providing 
the fuel for this Country and the rest of the world, and quite 
honestly, we need to be increasing production. We need to get 
the financial industry off of the backs of the oil and gas 
companies and the fossil fuel producers in this Country. We 
need to get them to quit discriminating against responsible 
American energy producers. We need to get the government to get 
out of the way and get off the backs of these responsible 
energy producers so that we can be helping people that are 
facing troubles in Sri Lanka, in Germany, in France, and the 
Netherlands, and Ghana and South Africa that are just being 
crushed by energy poverty because they have adopted these 
policies to decarbonize their governments, their countries, 
which does nothing to improve the environment, but does 
everything to increase the cost of energy. It is just another 
assault on the oil and gas industry.
    Senator Capito. Thank you. We have heard that, and we have 
stated, both of us, and you all have as well, that the mercury 
levels have come way, way down over the last 20 to 30 years. 
Consistent with everybody's testimony is that the reason that 
we have any issues with this, I wouldn't say any, but issues 
with this is because of what goes on in China. I am curious to 
know, does China monitor their mercury emissions? Mr. Eklund, 
do you know?
    Mr. Eklund. No, I don't know, but I would be surprised if 
they do.
    Mr. Isaac. I do know they have the pollution control 
technology, they just don't utilize it. I have often said that 
there are, of all the technology the Chinese steal from us, it 
would be nice if they would utilize our pollution control 
technology. They don't. We are world leaders in clean air, and 
that impacts, as I said in our testimony, over 80 percent of 
the mercury deposits in the U.S. today come from foreign 
sources, and over half of that is from Asia.
    Senator Capito. Thank you.
    Senator Carper. Senator Capito, thanks so much for joining 
us. I look forward to seeing you on the floor in a little bit.
    I am going to ask unanimous consent to submit for the 
record letters and statements of support for today's 
legislative hearing. These letters come from environmental 
organizations, environmental justice groups, public health 
advocates, including a July 12th, 2022 letter from the American 
Lung Association in support of all three pieces of legislation 
we are examining today.
    [The referenced information was not submitted at the time 
of print.]
    Senator Carper. I believe a series of votes have just 
started on the Senate floor. We will have to be out of here in 
less than 30 minutes. I am going to ask questions next, and I 
will yield to a Marine friend of mine, I am a Navy guy, 
different uniform, same team, and I will yield to Senator 
Sullivan next, and Senator Whitehouse is back. He will be 
following Senator Sullivan. OK.
    My question, let me just start off with a quick statement. 
My colleagues have heard me say this more times than they want 
to remember, Mr. Isaac, but there is an old saying that says 
where you sit helps determine where you stand on a particular 
issue. I don't sit in Delaware, but I live in Delaware. I have 
lived there forever since I got out of the Navy a million years 
ago at the end of the Vietnam War when I moved there.
    My State is sinking. We are the lowest-lying State in 
America. We are sinking. The seas around us are rising. Up and 
down the east coast, you find similar situations. Although our 
colleagues from Louisiana remind me from time to time, both 
Republicans, that in their State, that they lose about every 
hundred minutes, a piece of land the size of a football field. 
During the course of this hearing, they are going to lose, in 
Louisiana, enough land for two football fields, and it is going 
off into the sea.
    We have wildfires across the Country as big as my State. 
There is stuff going on here. There are reasons why we are 
still concerned about reducing carbon emissions, as you know. 
The challenge for us, and the opportunity for us, going back to 
what Ms. Johnson said, she was talking about diesel bus 
emissions.
    One of the things that Senator Sullivan and I focus on is 
how do we cleanup, do good things for our planet, for air, 
water, and so forth, and create economic opportunity at the 
same time? One of the things that, this is the committee that 
helped write the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and reported 
out unanimously both the Surface Transportation piece and all 
the water legislation.
    We are proud of the work that we did. We also provide a lot 
of opportunity to address, through electric vehicles and buses, 
reducing bus pollution, diesel emissions and that sort of 
thing. There is a lot of opportunity for economic development 
and job creation, as well, so we are focused on both sides of 
that.
    In terms of questions, I will start with Ms. Fallon. Ms. 
Fallon, are you still with us?
    Ms. Fallon. Yes, Senator.
    Senator Carper. Good, good. Mercury is a dangerous air 
toxic, as we know, that persists and bioaccumulates in the 
environment long after its release, meaning it gets more 
dangerous over time.
    Unlike particulate matter and ozone pollution, mercury air 
pollution is more dangerous when it settles into our waterways 
and our food than when it is in the air, yet we have 
significant data gaps in knowing how much mercury is present in 
our environment at one time. For example, as you mentioned in 
your testimony, it has been a decade since EPA last compiled 
State mercury fish consumption advisories.
    The question, Ms. Fallon, is this: how is the mercury 
monitoring authorized and the Comprehensive National Mercury 
Monitoring Act different? How is it different from EPA's 
current air toxics monitoring programs, and why is this new 
type of mercury monitoring necessary to better protect health?
    Ms. Fallon. Thank you for that question. Currently, as you 
said, as you rightly said, mercury is not just an air pollution 
problem. While mercury levels, specifically mercury emissions, 
have gone down, the amount of mercury deposited to watersheds 
has not, and may be increasing. The funding is currently to 
measure that deposition being pieced together from State 
agencies, universities, nonprofit organizations.
    We don't have dedicated Federal funding to measure mercury 
deposition, and we are down to 82 sites that measure mercury 
deposition. There have been about 90 others that were online at 
one point or another. As the patterns of where mercury is 
coming from changes, it is particularly notable that we lack 
Federal funding for measuring mercury deposition in Western 
States.
    So, with the influx of mercury from emissions in China, it 
is really important that we are able to document mercury 
deposition in those Western States. Given the fishery and the 
Gulf States, it is equally important that we measure mercury 
deposition there. We shouldn't take the fact that mercury 
emissions in the U.S. are declining to mean that the mercury 
problem has been solved.
    Senator Carper. Thanks very much. A quick question, and a 
quick answer, I would ask from Ms. Johnson. You explained in 
your testimony how vulnerable populations like children, like 
seniors, and pregnant women are more sensitive to the effects 
of air pollution, especially if they live in low-income 
communities or communities of color.
    Do you believe that the three pieces of legislation before 
us today complement one another to address the deficiencies of 
our current air monitoring systems and adequately protect 
vulnerable communities? Why should Congress, through these 
bills and other legislative action, continue to invest in air 
monitoring? I ask you to be succinct in responding to that 
question. Go ahead, Ms. Johnson.
    Ms. Johnson. Yes, thank you for your question, Chair 
Carper.
    I absolutely believe that the three pieces of legislation 
work well to address the issue of air pollution in our 
communities. I think that people living in an environmental 
justice community oftentimes notice the adverse health outcomes 
plaguing their community before data is available to validate 
that source.
    I think the burden of health protection has been placed on 
people living in communities, whether it is fundraising for 
monitors or performing community-based participatory research, 
and the passage of these bills, the Environmental Justice Air 
Quality Monitoring Act and the Public Health Air Quality Act, 
as well as the bill focused on mercury, can shift the burden of 
protecting communities, protecting the environment away from 
residents and place that burden on our agencies and departments 
that have that responsibility.
    I think it also, as was mentioned earlier, can provide 
economic opportunities for individuals. We talked about the age 
of the monitors that we currently have in place and a need for 
us to do robust maintenance and care for them, and we believe 
that those are opportunities, economic opportunities, that are 
available for individuals to be trained, to have jobs, as well 
as to have entrepreneurial opportunities in that space.
    Senator Carper. That was good. Thanks very much.
    Senator Sullivan is next, followed by Senator Whitehouse. 
Senator Padilla will be coming back after that; he will be 
next. OK, Senator Sullivan, welcome. Good to see you.
    Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You, too.
    Mr. Isaac, Mr. Eklund, I want to followup on Mr. Isaac's 
discussions on the energy sector and the importance in terms of 
jobs, national security, economic security, prices at the pump. 
I couldn't agree with you more that this Administration has 
undertaken a full assault on these sectors.
    One thing, though, that never gets talked about, I am from 
Alaska. I was the Commissioner of Natural Resources and Energy 
in Alaska. We have the highest environmental standards on 
production of any place in the world, in the world, by far. It 
is not even a close call, but that goes for America in general. 
I think Alaska is the highest.
    But can you just comment on that, because a lot of people 
don't know that. When we produce oil and gas in Texas and 
Alaska, New Mexico, by the way, New Mexico is just cranking. 
Deb Haaland, Martin Heinrich, their State, boy, do they crank 
on oil and gas. They get special treatment by the Biden 
Administration. Almost half the Federal permits, half the 
Federal permits issued by the Biden Administration go to one 
State. Not Texas, not Alaska, they try to shut my State down 
every day.
    New Mexico; I think it would be a great hearing to have, 
why is New Mexico getting all this special treatment for oil 
and gas? Maybe it is the Secretary of the Interior. Maybe it is 
the Senior Senator, but who knows. I am digressing here. It is 
an issue I am a little hot and bothered about.
    Do we have higher standards than, say, Russia, Saudi 
Arabia, Venezuela, Iran, where the President is going around 
begging for more oil production? Do we, and shouldn't that 
matter?
    Mr. Isaac. Absolutely, Senator. The National Energy 
Technology Lab issued a report. You could take natural gas 
produced in this Country, you export, you produce it, you pipe 
it, you liquefy it, and then you put it on a ship and you 
transport it around the world, and you can get that gas to 
Europe and the India with greater than 40 percent fewer life 
cycle emissions than getting the same gas just piped from 
Russia.
    Senator Sullivan. From Russia, 40 percent. Yes.
    Mr. Isaac. You are absolutely right, yes.
    Senator Sullivan. Greater than, Venezuela is 18 times 
higher in terms of pollution, including air, than U.S. energy 
production. Isn't that true as well?
    Mr. Isaac. That is absolutely correct.
    Senator Sullivan. OK.
    Mr. Isaac. We are world leaders in environmental 
protection.
    Senator Sullivan. But that never gets out. When they come 
after the energy sector, oh, you guys are horrible. We are the 
leader in the world, aren't we?
    Mr. Isaac. Yes, we are.
    Senator Sullivan. Let me show you another chart that is 
really important. I bring this out a lot. By the way, all the 
national media has fact-checked this because they hate it, but 
it happens to be true. Even they have to admit it is true.
    This is a chart of CO2 emissions since 2005, OK? That is 
the United States. We have reduced CO2 emissions by almost 15 
percent. There is China; there is India, through the roof. Why 
do you think that happened?
    Mr. Isaac. It is technology, and it is environmental 
leadership.
    Senator Sullivan. Technology, and it is also the revolution 
and the production of natural gas in America, correct?
    Mr. Isaac. Yes.
    Senator Sullivan. Because it is clean-burning, relative to 
other sources. We moved off coal, and we went to the production 
of natural gas.
    Mr. Isaac. I am glad you brought up CO2, because I am 
ingesting higher concentrations that what is prevalent in the 
atmosphere, and I am not spontaneously combusting, so we can't 
demonize CO2. It is necessary for life on Earth.
    Senator Sullivan. My point is, if other countries had the 
profile that we do, don't you think the global emissions 
problem would make significant, if China and India had our 
profile, wouldn't that be good for global emissions around the 
world?
    Mr. Isaac. Oh, absolutely.
    Senator Sullivan. Does everybody, Mr. Eklund, do you agree 
with that?
    Mr. Eklund. I think that is pretty obvious, yes.
    Senator Sullivan. OK. Ms. Fallon, do you agree with that?
    Ms. Fallon. Could you repeat your question, please?
    Senator Carper. Try to make it really short.
    Senator Sullivan. I am going to be out of time here.
    I want to ask, Ms. Johnson, I want to ask one final 
question. It is a really important one for me. I have brought 
this chart up a lot, too. This is a chart about life expectancy 
in my State, in America. Dark blue, even purple, is the most 
life expectancy, increases from 1980 to 2014.
    Unfortunately, in America, there are a couple areas you 
look, orange, red, yellow, the life expectancy in America 
decreases. It is mostly the places where there is opioid 
challenges.
    Alaska has had the biggest life expectancy increases of any 
place in the Country, almost 13 years. What is remarkable about 
this, and the reason it happened, is because resource 
development happened. That is the North Slope of Alaska, 
Northwest Arctic Borough, Aleutian Island Chain with the 
Magnuson-Stevens Act. That is fisheries, that is oil, gas, 
mining.
    My question is, this Administration likes to talk a lot 
about environmental justice, environmental equity, but when it 
comes to Alaska Natives, they don't count. They don't count, 
because they try to shut down resource development projects in 
these parts of my State that will not only hurt people, it is a 
matter of life and death. Thirteen years life expectancy 
increase.
    So when people talk about environmental justice and 
environmental equity, Ms. Johnson, shouldn't they also include 
the Alaska Native people who are communities of color, who are 
often targeted by the Biden Administration, not helped, and to 
promote policies that actually increase life expectancy?
    Senator Carper. Ms. Johnson, I am going to ask you to be 
succinct in responding to that question.
    Senator Sullivan. Yes, that is my question.
    Senator Carper. Three more folks to ask questions, and then 
we have to go vote. Ms. Johnson, very briefly, please. Thank 
you.
    Ms. Johnson. Yes. I will note that there are indigenous 
tribes in Alaska, and they are considered environmental justice 
communities. So I would make the assumption that when one is 
talking about Native Alaskans, one could also be talking about 
an environmental justice community.
    Senator Sullivan. Good. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator Sullivan.
    Senator Whitehouse, please. Thanks for coming back, 
Sheldon.
    Senator Whitehouse. Thanks. I love following Senator 
Sullivan, because I get the chance to point out that his graph 
does not include methane and is based on coal-to-gas transition 
that has unleased enormous amounts of excess methane, and it is 
not based on percentage, which is interesting, because the U.S. 
has been the biggest carbon dioxide emitter. It is based on raw 
emissions.
    So yes, we have a bigger number because we are a bigger 
emitter. I think that is what the fact-checking shows.
    Mr. Isaac, the Texas Public Policy Foundation has received 
funding from the fossil fuel billionaire Koch operation, from 
ExxonMobil, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, Devon Energy and other 
fossil fuel companies. Is that correct?
    Mr. Isaac. If that is public knowledge. I don't keep track 
of who our donors are, but I know that we are supported by over 
close to 10,000 people across the United States that believe in 
liberty, free enterprise and personal responsibility.
    Senator Whitehouse. Here is what TPPF's former vice 
president said about the organization producing industry-
friendly research and advocacy in exchange for donations from 
industries that would financially benefit from the industry-
friendly policies. The fundraising involved approaching 
corporations, wealthy businessmen and corporate-funded 
foundations with a pitch described as ``We think this is 
beneficial to your industry and would you consider providing us 
with a non-profit contribution? Here is the timeline for the 
completion of the research, the parameters of the research are 
this, we expect it to result in some savings or outsourcing.''
    I would like to put this article from the Texas Observer 
into the record.
    Senator Carper. Without objection.
    [The referenced information was not submitted at the time 
of print.]
    Senator Whitehouse. Mr. Isaac, in 2020, the most recent 
year for which we have your TPPF 990 form, TPPF reported 
receiving over $17 million in donations, correct?
    Mr. Isaac. That is correct. That is my understanding.
    Senator Whitehouse. How much of that comes from entities 
connected to the fossil fuel industry?
    Mr. Isaac. I am not advised.
    Senator Whitehouse. You really don't know that that funding 
comes from the fossil fuel industry?
    Mr. Isaac. I am going to say it comes 100 percent from 
people that benefit from fossil fuels.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Whitehouse. Yes, I bet they do.
    I am assuming that you are a fan of and familiar with the 
economist Milton Friedman, the godfather of conservative 
libertarianism.
    Mr. Isaac. Yes.
    Senator Whitehouse. In fact, TPPF honored Dr. Friedman at a 
commemorative event for the important role he played in 
promoting economic freedom in the United States, correct?
    Mr. Isaac. I believe so, yes.
    Senator Whitehouse. Are you aware that Dr. Friedman 
supported pricing of emissions, pollution pricing, indeed said 
it was the best way to deal with pollution, and he considered 
pollution to be a market failure? Is that correct?
    Mr. Isaac. I am not advised of his comments on pollution 
pricing.
    Senator Whitehouse. Is this being the one area where TPPF 
doesn't follow Friedman's principles related to the fossil fuel 
donors of TPPF?
    Mr. Isaac. I would say that we are proud of our American 
achievement and having the cleanest air on record, and we are 
world leaders in environmental protection.
    Senator Whitehouse. We, meaning?
    Mr. Isaac. The foundation. The foundation is absolutely 
proud of our Country and the clean air that we have, the 
safest, we are No. 1 when it comes to access to clean and safe 
drinking water. There is almost a billion people on the face of 
the earth that have no access to electricity.
    Senator Whitehouse. We keep trying to improve that, and 
your industry keeps trying to oppose us, and you work for the 
industry.
    You cite a Bloomberg article in your testimony saying that 
the average household paid $5,200 more a year because of 
inflation, much of it from gas price hikes by big oil, which 
sets gas prices. At the same time, the International Monetary 
Fund estimates that damages associated with fossil fuel 
combustion to people's healthy, property, lives, amount to 
approximately $640 billion in 2020, which works out per 
household to almost exactly $5,200. That hits those households 
every year, not just when inflation surges, correct?
    Mr. Isaac. Yes, I believe those are referring to 
statistical lives, and that is flawed, much like the U.N. IPCC 
climate model.
    Senator Whitehouse. So you disagree with that?
    Mr. Isaac. Yes.
    Senator Whitehouse. How much is the Ike Dike going to cost 
to protect the Texas coast from future hurricanes? Is it $31 
billion?
    Mr. Isaac. I am not sure of the cost of the Ike Dike. The 
only levee that I am aware of was built around Galveston.
    Senator Whitehouse. How much is the damage from Hurricane 
Harvey? Is it $125 billion?
    Mr. Isaac. I am not advised.
    Senator Whitehouse. Ninety-one percent of families in the 
Houston area with flood insurance policies projected to see 
their rates go up due to increasing weather events like 
Hurricane Harvey?
    Mr. Isaac. I would say it is due to extreme insurance 
companies that are no longer making funds available to the 
fossil fuel industry or the timber industry in this Country as 
well as financial institutions discriminating----
    Senator Whitehouse. How do they make funds available to the 
fossil fuel industry?
    Mr. Isaac. If you are limiting access to insurance 
policies----
    Senator Whitehouse. Hold on. Hold on. Hear my question. 
This is home insurance I am talking about.
    Mr. Isaac. Yes.
    Senator Whitehouse. You are talking about business 
insurance.
    Mr. Isaac. Correct.
    Senator Whitehouse. OK. Just wanted to be clear about that. 
I would like to put into the record the article about the 
increased cost to Houston families from flooding.
    Senator Carper. Without objection.
    [The referenced information was not submitted at the time 
of print.]
    Senator Whitehouse. In other States, Florida, average 
homeowner's insurance premiums up 55 percent in the last 3 
years due largely to increased hurricanes and flooding. 
California, more than 350,000 home and business owners saw 
property and casualty properties dropped because of more 
frequent and severe wildfires. Cargill's executive director has 
stated that climate change could reduce grain yields in the 
U.S. by 14 percent by mid-century and 42, 42 precent by late 
century.
    What effect on prices would a 42 percent reduction in 
midwestern grain yields have, Mr. Isaac?
    Mr. Isaac. I think the key word there is could. What we are 
seeing is climate is absolutely changing and man is having an 
impact on it. But over the last 100 years we have seen around a 
90 percent----
    Senator Whitehouse. And a 42 percent reduction in supply 
would have an effect on price, would it not?
    Mr. Isaac. It could. Could.
    Senator Whitehouse. Thank you. My time is expired.
    Senator Carper. Thank you very much.
    Now we have Senator Kelly.
    Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to 
everybody who is testifying today.
    Mr. Eklund, I want to ask you about emission reduction 
credits and what flexibilities currently do or could exist 
under the Clean Air Act. As you know, under the Clean Air Act, 
any new manufacturing or development must identify emission 
offsets through emission reduction credits. These credits are 
traditionally created by installing pollution controls at 
factories or at generation facilities.
    In Arizona, where we do not have a legacy of heavy 
polluting industries, finding sources of emission reduction 
credits from traditional sources is challenging. This has led 
Maricopa County, the largest county in Arizona, to explore 
opportunities to create non-traditional credits from offsets 
from the transportation sector or improving efficiencies in 
refrigeration technologies. But they have encountered 
challenges working with EPA Region Nine, given limitations of 
the Clean Air Act.
    Mr. Eklund, do you believe that there are opportunities in 
the Clean Air Act legislation that we are considering today or 
another legislation to give EPA the additional ability to help 
localities create non-traditional emission reduction credits?
    Mr. Eklund. I am not an expert in that topic, but I think 
we all would agree that EPA should have flexibility to reach 
goals that are agreed upon by non-traditional methods, if 
necessary, for those kinds of situations like you described.
    Senator Kelly. Yes. So this is getting rather challenging 
for Arizona. If you could, after the hearing today, if there is 
any other information you can get on this topic, and would work 
with my office, I would appreciate that.
    Ms. Fallon is testifying remotely. Ms. Fallon, thank you as 
well for being here today. Your testimony and that of several 
other of our witnesses has focused on the potential benefits 
that could come from the deployment of small, low-cost sensors 
to help localities monitor air quality in more locations and at 
a lower cost. Yet some have raised concerns that this 
technology has not been fully proven out and in some cases, it 
creates false positives, which can push a community into non-
compliance.
    Ms. Fallon, do you believe that the new, small, low-cost 
sensors are able to perform at the same level or before than 
existing level, or better than existing air quality management 
tools?
    Ms. Fallon. Thank you, Senator. That is a bit outside my 
specific area of expertise, so we can certainly get back to you 
with more details. But in general, innovations in air quality 
monitoring are pretty commonplace. As new methods are adopted 
and new equipment is used over time, they are often co-located 
and coupled with the conventional methods for a period of time. 
So that through a pilot project, for example, we learn how to 
calibrate and better use new equipment.
    So innovation in air quality monitoring is important and 
should be funded so that we can continuously improve our 
measurement of air quality.
    Senator Kelly. I would appreciate your getting back to us 
because there have been a number of cases where this has 
created false positive situations. Mr. Eklund, if you would 
like to comment?
    Mr. Eklund. The low-cost sensors cannot be used for 
enforcement or compliance purposes, because they don't have the 
capabilities to do that. So we can put them out for 
informational purposes, but when we have put them side by side 
with EPA reference or equivalent methods, they don't perform 
very well. That is why I was making the case for alternative 
approaches like short-term intensive studies using more robust 
methods than relying on low-cost sensors to gain that knowledge 
about how pollution might bury them on a local scale.
    Senator Kelly. Yes, I am all in favor of game-changing 
technology. We just need to make sure it is ready for 
widespread use.
    Thank you, Mr. Eklund, Ms. Fallon, and I yield back.
    Senator Carper. Senator Markey, have you voted? Senator 
Markey. I have not voted.
    Senator Carper. Senator Padilla, have you voted? Would you 
mind if Senator Markey goes ahead and speaks, asks his 
question? Are you able to do that? That would be helpful. 
Thanks very much.
    Senator Markey. Thank you, Senator Padilla.
    Just a few years ago, Chelsea, Massachusetts, a major 
industrial hub with some of the highest rates of asthma in the 
United States, the most elevated rates of lung disease, did not 
have any permanent air quality monitors, while nearby Boston 
had three. I am proud that we were able to get some monitors 
deployed in Chelsea.
    But we have a lot more work to do to correct our patchwork 
approach to pollution measurements within affected communities. 
Ambient air quality monitors are critical tools to get baseline 
air quality measurements on a regional average.
    But we also need to understand that the air quality issues 
that can vary substantially from neighborhood to neighborhood 
are very real. Communities like Chelsea or Springfield or 
Lawrence deserve real-time data on a block-by-block basis in 
order to make day to day decisions about public health risks, 
as well as long-term decisions about siting infrastructure.
    Ms. Fallon, do you agree that hyper-local monitors are 
helpful and provide additional data to regional ambient air 
monitors that will help us really to target the areas that need 
the most help?
    Ms. Fallon. Yes, Senator, I do agree with that. As you have 
mentioned, a lot of the existing monitoring provides regional 
average information. We can have very strong gradients in air 
pollution exposure and air quality.
    So we need to begin to better understand how people are 
affected who live close to these sources such as people who 
live in Chelsea and hyper-local monitoring is the way to get 
there.
    Senator Markey. Thank you. Because the national average or 
the State average doesn't tell us anything about Chelsea. 
Because you only get the average from the extremes. So the 
suburbs, they are great. But you have to identify the Chelseas 
to know where the protections are in need of being placed. We 
can't manage what we don't measure. We have to use the best 
available technology to make the best possible decisions.
    That is why I introduced the Technology Assessment for Air 
Quality Management Act, in addition to the Environmental 
Justice Air Quality Monitoring Act. This legislation would help 
the EPA annually update and expand its online air quality 
toolbox with the best available monitoring technology and 
connect the toolbox with environmental justice mapping and 
screening tools.
    It is 2022. We have new, advanced technology that can fill 
critical hyper-local data gaps. But today's communities aren't 
reaping the benefits of today's monitors. We need to pass the 
Environmental Justice Air Quality Monitoring Act in order to 
provide EPA with the resources to kickstart hyper-local 
monitoring programs in environmental justice communities across 
the Nation.
    Ms. Johnson, do you agree that it is important that 
communities have access to air quality data that lets them know 
how healthy the air is in their neighborhood, especially for 
neighborhoods that have historically been redlined or afflicted 
with higher levels of pollution?
    Ms. Johnson. Yes, thank you for the question, Senator 
Markey, and your leadership on this issue. We do believe that 
it is important for communities to have this air quality data. 
We believe that they are already with citizen science projects 
identifying pollution in their communities and this gives us an 
opportunity to match real time data, real time information with 
the lived experiences that people are having on the ground.
    It also helps to address, as you noted in your comments, 
how communities have been redlined and how we have centralized 
pollution. While we may have seen improvements in air quality 
at a national level, this does give us the opportunity to 
really drill down and at a hyper-local level be able to 
quantify and qualify the experiences that people are having.
    Senator Markey. I thank you so much. You also, I hope, 
believe that it is important to provide people on the front 
lines with jobs and training to work on community air 
monitoring issues. Do you agree with that?
    Ms. Johnson. Yes, absolutely. As I noted earlier, this is 
an opportunity for us to train those who are under-employed or 
unemployed in a new skill set. It is an opportunity to give 
folks entrepreneurial possibilities, in sort of managing and 
monitoring the upkeep of these systems and technologies. So we 
do think it is a great opportunity and WE ACT does have 
experience in training and developing people in these areas.
    Senator Markey. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman. Thank you to Senator Padilla for your indulgence.
    Senator Carper. Thanks for coming back.
    Senator Padilla, thank you for joining us again.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank 
you for holding this hearing on the bills to improve air 
quality monitoring. All three of the bills that we are talking 
about today will improve our air monitoring network, which is 
desperately needed to improve public health and access to clean 
air in our communities.
    California is no stranger to polluted air. Going b ack to 
1955, 15 years before the Clean Air Act and before the creation 
of California's own Air Resources Board, the city of Los 
Angeles, where I was born and raised, experienced the single 
smoggiest day in its history. I know firsthand what that is 
like. When I was a kid growing up in Los Angeles, I remember 
the smog days when we were sent home from school early due to 
the devastating air quality.
    We have come a long way in improving air quality and clean 
air access for our communities. But California's clean air 
gains have not necessarily been equitable throughout the State. 
I won't go into the entire history of redlining, but I think 
the results are devastatingly clear in many California 
communities.
    I will give an initial example. In the East Bay area in 
California, redlined neighborhoods in Berkley and Oakland, 
among others, were closer in proximity to polluting industries 
and further harmed by major highways that separated communities 
and increased exposure to pollution.
    Data shows that even today, people in those areas 
disproportionately suffer from higher levels of nitrogen 
dioxide pollution which in turn increases rates of childhood 
asthma. A study from 2019 that focused on eight California 
cities found that residents of historically redlined 
neighborhoods were twice as likely to visit emergency rooms for 
asthma.
    So my first question is for Ms. Johnson. Ms. Johnson, how 
would the Environmental Justice Air Quality Monitoring Act help 
redlined neighborhoods, specifically like those in the East 
Bay, achieve the same air quality gains that non-redlined 
communities have enjoyed?
    Ms. Johnson. Thank you for your question, Senator. I think 
there are examples of hyper-local air quality monitoring 
projects in California that give us an idea of the benefits 
that we can gain from these bills. One is a pollution 
monitoring project that was designed to increase youth literacy 
around air quality issues. But what it really found was that as 
it followed youth in their day-to-day activities, it found that 
their exposure at home and at school to transportation 
pollution was higher than expected because of the path that 
they needed to take to walk back and forth between those two 
places.
    When we think about a project that the NRDC, The 
Environmental Group and Google engaged in it really showed that 
people living in a redlined community have a higher percentage 
of exposure to pollution that is eight times that of any other 
area. So I think our ability to really be able to capture this 
data will be the step, the first step or an additional step, in 
the path that we need to be able to actually bring corrective 
action to these communities that will improve air quality.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you. I want to piggyback on the 
question and topic raised by Senator Markey about hyper-local 
monitoring, which you just acknowledged once again. We have 
been working together with Senator Duckworth as well on an 
item.
    I will preface it with highlighting once again the tool 
developed in California known as CalEnviroScreen, that helps 
identify communities with the most significant pollution 
burden. Part of the innovation of CalEnviroScreen is how it 
maps communities that are impacted by multiple sources of 
pollution, not just each source in isolation. It collects data 
on over 20 indicators to help California policymakers identify 
disadvantaged communities so we can better target climate 
investments.
    We are working, as I mentioned, with my colleagues as well 
as the Council on Environmental Quality to make recommendations 
for how to improve the Federal climate and economic justice 
screening tool, and we hope that the recommendations, which are 
based on lessons learned from California, can be used to 
improve both the Federal tools and the States that have similar 
tools.
    Ms. Johnson, how is CalEnviroScreen unique in its use of 
air quality data? How would the legislation that we are focused 
on today help improve California's tool and the Federal tools 
at CEQ and EPA?
    Senator Carper. Ms. Johnson, I am going to ask you to 
answer very briefly. Time has expired on the floor. Answer that 
very briefly and we will ask you to answer it more completely 
for the record. Go ahead, Ms. Johnson.
    Ms. Johnson. The CalEnviroScreen is unique in that it uses 
satellite data and pairs that with other sensor technologies. 
It is a process for that tool, had a robust community 
engagement complement to it. When we think about the climate 
and economic justice screening tool, married with other data 
sets, as noted in these pieces of legislation today, we do 
think that that community engagement, the use of satellite data 
and other data sets will really go a long way in ensuring that 
we are able to direct benefits to communities that have been 
most impacted by redlining and air pollution.
    Senator Carper. Good. AI am going to ask you to hold it at 
that.
    Again, Senator Padilla, thanks so much for coming back. I 
want to thank all of our witnesses for being with us. I want to 
thank Senator Capito. I want to thank the other colleagues who 
joined us here. There is going to be much interest in this 
issue, more than I even expected. We are delighted with the 
kind of participation that we have had.
    I want to thank our staffs on both sides of the aisle for 
the work they have done on this, and especially our witnesses. 
Our Nation's air quality monitoring networks face some real 
challenges, but I think we have some opportunities within those 
challenges to address them through the legislative solutions we 
have talked about today and discussed today.
    Before we adjourn, a little bit of housekeeping. Senators 
will be allowed to submit written questions for the record 
through the close of business on Wednesday, July 27th, 2022. We 
will compile those questions, send them to our witnesses, and 
ask our witnesses to reply by August 10th, 2022.
    One of the questions I am going to ask for the record is 
for the witnesses, having a diverse panel like this ensures 
that there is not a lot of unanimity. But one of the things I 
will be asking you to do is maybe to come back and share with 
us, each of you, what may be an area or two that we have talked 
about today with respect to improving the quality of air, where 
do we agree. Not just where do we disagree, where do we agree. 
That is what I always look for.
    With that, it is a wrap. Thank you all so much. Great to be 
with you. This hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:13 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
    [Additional material submitted for the record follows:]

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