[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
______
SHORT-CIRCUITING PROGRESS: HOW THE CLEAN AIR ACT IMPACTS BUILDING
NECESSARY INFRASTRUCTURE AND ONSHORING AMERICAN INNOVATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 11, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-26
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILANLE IN TIFF FORMAT
Published for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
govinfo.gov/committee/house-energy
energycommerce.house.gov
___________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2026
60-976
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
Chairman
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia Ranking Member
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia DORIS O. MATSUI, California
GARY J. PALMER, Alabama KATHY CASTOR, Florida
NEAL P. DUNN, Florida PAUL TONKO, New York
DAN CRENSHAW, Texas YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
JOHN JOYCE, Pennsylvania, Vice RAUL RUIZ, California
Chairman SCOTT H. PETERS, California
RANDY K. WEBER, Sr., Texas DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan
RICK W. ALLEN, Georgia MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
TROY BALDERSON, Ohio ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
RUSS FULCHER, Idaho NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California
AUGUST PFLUGER, Texas DARREN SOTO, Florida
DIANA HARSHBARGER, Tennessee KIM SCHRIER, Washington
MARIANNETTE MILLER-MEEKS, Iowa LORI TRAHAN, Massachusetts
KAT CAMMACK, Florida LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
JAY OBERNOLTE, California ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York
JOHN JAMES, Michigan JAKE AUCHINCLOSS, Massachusetts
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon TROY A. CARTER, Louisiana
ERIN HOUCHIN, Indiana ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina KEVIN MULLIN, California
LAUREL M. LEE, Florida GREG LANDSMAN, Ohio
NICHOLAS A. LANGWORTHY, New York JENNIFER L. McCLELLAN, Virginia
THOMAS H. KEAN, Jr., New Jersey
MICHAEL A. RULLI, Ohio
GABE EVANS, Colorado
CRAIG A. GOLDMAN, Texas
JULIE FEDORCHAK, North Dakota
------
Professional Staff
MEGAN JACKSON, Staff Director
SOPHIE KHANAHMADI, Deputy Staff Director
TIFFANY GUARASCIO, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Environment
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
Chairman
DAN CRENSHAW, Texas, Vice Chairman PAUL TONKO, New York
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio Ranking Member
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
GARY J. PALMER, Alabama RAUL RUIZ, California
JOHN JOYCE, Pennsylvania SCOTT H. PETERS, California
RANDY K. WEBER, Sr., Texas NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California
AUGUST PFLUGER, Texas DARREN SOTO, Florida
MARIANNETTE MILLER-MEEKS, Iowa JAKE AUCHINCLOSS, Massachusetts
LAUREL M. LEE, Florida TROY A. CARTER, Louisiana
NICHOLAS A. LANGWORTHY, New York ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
GABE EVANS, Colorado GREG LANDSMAN, Ohio
JULIE FEDORCHAK, North Dakota FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky (ex officio)
officio)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hon. H. Morgan Griffith, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Virginia, opening statement.................... 1
Prepared statement........................................... 4
Hon. Paul Tonko, a Representative in Congress from the State of
New York, opening statement.................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 10
Hon. Brett Guthrie, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Kentucky, opening statement.................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 14
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, opening statement......................... 17
Prepared statement........................................... 18
Witnesses
Chad S. Whiteman, Vice President, Environment and Regulatory
Affairs, Global Energy Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce..... 21
Prepared statement........................................... 24
Answers to submitted questions............................... 246
James W. Boylan, Ph.D., Chief, Air Protection Branch, Georgia
Environmental Protection Division.............................. 37
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Answers to submitted questions............................... 257
John D. Walke, Federal Clean Air Director, Natural Resources
Defense Council................................................ 55
Prepared statement........................................... 57
Answers to submitted questions............................... 262
Paul Noe, Vice President of Public Policy, American Forest &
Paper Association.............................................. 75
Prepared statement........................................... 77
Answers to submitted questions............................... 282
Legislation
Discussion Draft, H.R. ___, the Clean Air and Economic
Advancement Reform (CLEAR) Act................................. 138
Discussion Draft, H.R. ___, the Clean Air and Building
Infrastructure Improvement Act................................. 151
Submitted Material
Inclusion of the following was approved by unanimous consent.
List of documents submitted for the record....................... 158
Report of the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies,
``State Air Trends & Successes,'' 2025\1\
----------
\1\ The report has been retained in committee files and is included in
the Documents for the Record at https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/
IF18/20250611/118385/HHRG-119-IF18-20250611-SD201.pdf.
Letter of January 31, 2025, from Morgan Dicke, Executive
Director, Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies, to Lee
Zeldin, Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency......... 160
Letter of December 20, 2024, from Morgan Dicke, Executive
Director, Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies, to
Edwin Roks, Chief Executive Officer, Teledyne Technologies
Inc., and Michael S. Regan, Administrator, Environmental
Protection Agency.............................................. 166
Article of June 2024, ``Charting Recent NAAQS Developments and
Implications for Air Agencies,'' by Jason Meyers and Laura
Crowder, The Magazine for Environmental Managers............... 171
Article of May 2023, ``Understanding the Impact of a Lower Fine
Particulate Matter National Ambient Air Quality Standard,'' by
Michael Abrazinskas,et al., The Magazine for Environmental
Managers....................................................... 176
Report by Alpine Geophysics, ``2022-2024 Annual PM 2.5 Design
Value Maps,`` June 2025........................................ 180
Letter of June 11, 2025, from Sean O'Neill, Senior Vice
President, Government Affairs, Portland Cement Association, to
Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Pallone.................................... 191
Article, ``Trump EPA rollbacks would weaken rules projected to
save billions of dollars and thousands of lives,`` Associated
Press.......................................................... 193
Report of the American Lung Association, ``Clearing the Air: How
the New Particle Pollution Standards Work,`` May 2024.......... 205
Letter of February 21, 2025, from Allergy & Asthma Network, et
al., to Lee Zeldin, Administrator, Environmental Protection
Agency......................................................... 214
Report of the American Lung Association, ``State of the Air
2025``\1\
Statement of the Allergy & Asthma Network, et al................. 216
Report of the Environmental Protection Network, ``Breathing Easy:
An Assessment of Public Health Benefits from EPA Air Pollution
Standards (2021-24),`` September 2024.......................... 218
Article of March 29, 2025, ``How Lee Zeldin Went From
Environmental Moderate to Dismantling the E.P.A.,`` by Lisa
Friedman, New York Times....................................... 229
Report of the Center for American Progress, ``The Trump
Administration's Assault on Environmental Protections Will Give
Polluters a Free Pass While Causing Millions of Asthma
Attacks,`` June 2025\1\
Article of November 20, 2018, ``Air Pollution Is Still Killing
Thousands of People in the US,,`` by Megan Molteni, Wired...... 240
----------
\1\ The report has been retained in committee files and is included in
the Documents for the Record at https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/
IF18/20250611/118385/HHRG-119-IF18-20250611-SD201.pdf.
SHORT-CIRCUITING PROGRESS: HOW THE CLEAN AIR ACT IMPACTS BUILDING
NECESSARY INFRASTRUCTURE AND ONSHORING AMERICAN INNOVATION
----------
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 2025
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Environment,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:15 a.m., in
room 2322, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. H. Morgan
Griffith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Griffith, Crenshaw, Latta,
Carter of Georgia, Palmer, Joyce, Weber, Pfluger, Miller-Meeks,
Langworthy, Fedorchak, Guthrie (ex officio), Tonko
(subcommittee ranking member), Schakowsky, Ruiz, Peters,
Barragan, Soto, Auchincloss, Carter of Louisiana, Menendez,
Landsman, and Pallone (ex officio).
Also present: Representative Dingell.
Staff present: Ansley Boylan, Director of Operations; Byron
Brown, Chief Counsel; Jessica Donlon, General Counsel; Sydney
Greene, Director, Finance and Logistics; Emily Hale, Staff
Assistant; Christen Harsha, Senior Counsel, Environment; Calvin
Huggins, Clerk; Megan Jackson, Staff Director; Ben Mullaney,
Press Secretary; Kaitlyn Peterson, Policy Analyst, Environment;
Matt VanHyfte, Communications Director; Katharine Willey,
Senior Counsel; Giancarlo Ceja, Minority Environment Fellow;
Timia Crisp, Minority Professional Staff Member; Waverly
Gordon, Minority Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel;
Tiffany Guarascio, Minority Staff Director; Caitlin Haberman,
Minority Staff Director, Environment; and Kylea Rogers,
Minority Policy Analyst.
Mr. Griffith. It looks like everybody has taken their
seats. I appreciate that. And I will call the subcommittee on
the environment to order.
The Chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes for an
opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Today this subcommittee begins efforts to modernize the
Clean Air Act. The Act was last amended in a consequential way
in 1990 with Energy and Commerce Chair John Dingell being a
driving force in that bicameral comprise.
The Clean Air Act has been effective. According to EPA's
2023 Air Quality Statistics Report, since the Clean Air Act
amendments were past in 1990 there has been a 79 percent
reduction in carbon monoxide, a 92 percent reduction in sulfur
dioxide, or SOx, and a 55 percent reduction in nitrogendioxide,
or NOx.
Since 2000 we have seen a 42 percent reduction in
particulate matter 2.5, which are inhalable particles measuring
less than 2.5 micrometers. The Clean Air Act's National
Attainment Air Quality Standard or--standards, or NAAQS
standards, setting and permitting programs with each new
review.
EPA generally sets new lower--with each new review EPA
generally sets new lower pollution allowances, and over time
these newer standards have had the tendency to pass the point
of diminishing returns.
Accordingly, if you are an industrial plant wanting to
build in this country, you may have to wait until another plant
goes out of business and you can take over their permit. This
is not a path for economic prosperity.
Additionally, I don't believe that banning new industrial
activity in the United States was what the authors of the Clean
Air Act were aiming for.
It was a tough compromised bill meant to have each State
scrutinize major sources and think about air permit planning,
industry concentration, and air quality in unfavorable
geographic settings.
The Act was written to get industry to reexamine its
operations and control pollution by investing in and
implementing innovative technologies. It worked. But now we
have to examine the law in light of little additional public
health gain at the expense of paralyzing nationally important
industries. And that health gain, what I am talking about is
the fact that we continue to lower the amount of pollutants
allowed.
We need to begin a modernization effort by examining draft
legislative proposals to reform the out-of-date NAAQS process.
As we heard in our recent full committee hearing, overly
restrictive air regulations have curtailed some domestic
investment in important semiconductor plants and data centers,
which in turn could jeopardize America's ability to be able to
compete in the global artificial intelligence race.
One of the draft bills we are discussing today would
improve the processes EPA uses to identify NAAQS pollutants and
ceilings, and then for States to implement those new standards.
Under the Clean Air Act's NAAQS program, the EPA sets
standard for six criteria pollutants, like ground-level ozone
and particulate matter.
Historically the Clean Air Act required the EPA to review
NAAQS standards and, if appropriate, issue new limits at 5-year
intervals. The EPA has consistently missed statutory deadlines
for both reviewing standards and for providing implementation
guidance to the States, which has led to litigation in some
cases.
These proposals will enable more reasonable requirements
that States can actually implement. That is why the Clean Air
Act and Economic Advancement Reform Act that we are talking
about today would lengthen that interval to 10 years and allow
the EPA Administrator to consider whether it was likely the
standard--whether it was likely the standard can actually be
attained.
Additionally, the bill would require the EPA to consider
the economic feasibility of these new standards.
The bill would also allow for naturally occurring air
pollution events, such as wildfires, not to count against NAAQS
emission averages for a particular State.
The other bill, the Clean Air and Building Infrastructure
Improvements Act, has to do more specifically with the most
recent PM 2.5 rule that really would cripple a lot of industry
by reducing the limit from 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air
to 9 micrograms per cubic meter of air.
Further, it allows for an easier preconstruction permitting
process.
Protecting our environment and our economy do not have to
be mutually exclusive goals, but in order to achieve both we
must rethink how our country classifies pollution levels
outside of our control.
The EPA is still in the process of updating various air
quality standards. As that work continues, Congress must ensure
States and employers aren't unfairly penalized by impractical
or burdensome new rules which could hurt our national security
and our economic competitiveness.
I look forward to learning from our expert witnesses who
have extensive experience in implementing and complying with
NAAQS standards under the Clean Air Act.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Griffith follows:]
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Mr. Griffith. With that I yield back, and now recognize the
gentleman from New York for his opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL TONKO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome to our
witnesses.
For almost as long as I have served on this committee,
Republicans have tried and failed to enact the proposals before
us today. These bills do not represent new and innovative
solutions specifically tailored to meet our current policy
changes--or challenges, including addressing growing
electricity demand.
They are the same tired ideas that suggest Americans should
expect to live with unsafe air quality if the rules necessary
to protect them would cut into polluters' profits.
I am certain that Members from both sides of the aisle will
celebrate the success of the Clean Air Act, which has resulted
in significant reductions in air pollution while our economy
has grown. But the majority tends to believe that this is
evidence that the job is done and we should dramatically change
the law.
I on the other hand take the exact opposite lesson: The
Clean Air Act is working, and there is still considerable work
for the law to do.
The American Lung Association's 2025 State of the Air
Report found that even after 5 decades of the Clean Air Act, 46
percent of Americans--more than 156 million people--are living
in places with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution,
two of the pollutants addressed by the National Ambient Air
Quality Standards, or NAAQS.
Now, as I said, the proposals before us today are not new,
but there is some new and important context for us to discuss.
First, 3 weeks ago House Republicans passed their Big Ugly
Bill, which according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget
Office would result in 16 million Americans losing their
healthcare. Now, the proposals today add insult to injury
pushing us toward a future where hospitals, already under
financial pressure, will have to deal with more cases of
asthma, of COPD, and other health consequences of increased air
pollution affecting millions more as uninsured Americans.
Second, the Trump administration intends to attempt to roll
back the 2024 standard for fine particulate matter. EPA
previously estimated that this standard will result in some $46
billion worth of net benefits in 2032, including 4,500 avoided
premature deaths, 800,000 avoided asthma attacks, and nearly
300,000 avoided missed days of work each year.
So the 2024 standard for fine particulate matter is
expected to provide such significant benefits to the American
people because NAAQS are required by law to be protective of
our health without consideration of cost. But the proposals
before us today would drastically weaken the process to set
standards based on the latest science.They would double the
amount of time between reviews of standards and inject cost
considerations and attainability into the standard-setting
process.
I also find it unfortunate that the majority's hearing
title would lead us to believe that the Clean Air Act is
stifling American innovation, and yet House Republicans
continue to sit on their hands while the Trump administration
dismantles all of the conditions that have historically made
the United States an engine for innovation.
President Trump is proposing devastating funding cuts to
the Federal research enterprise, NSF, NIH, NOAA, NOAA, and
other critical research agencies. This will ensure that America
fails to train the next generation of great scientists,
engineers, and other innovators who do rely on Federal dollars
to achieve their advanced degrees and conduct cutting-edge
research.
DOE's industrial programs, NIST manufacturing extension
partnership, and other programs that American manufacturers
rely upon are also under threat. The Trump administration has
caused an uncertain and an unstable investment environment with
its unstrategic and ever-changing tariff policies, and
Republicans have demonstrated a willingness to jeopardize
private-sector investments by seeking to abruptly end energy
tax incentives.
Even Federal contracts are no longer worth the paper they
are printed on following the arbitrary and unlawful
terminations of many finalized agreements. These actions are
having a chilling effect on private-sector investment, the
American research community, and other entities that are
critical to the future competitiveness of our economy. These
are not the actions of a government that is serious about
fostering innovation.
But rather than criticize the Trump administration, we are
back to undermining environmental protections and trying to
convince Americans that we simply cannot afford safe, healthy
air. I am certain there is evidence going back decades of
industries claiming each and every past NAAQS standard has been
unachievable or would cause irrevocable economic harm. But the
sky has never fallen. The Clean Air Act has worked and worked
effectively as intended, and it continues to protect Americans'
health while enabling economic growth.
These goals are not at odds, but unfortunately the
proposals we are examining today do not share that view.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tonko follows:]
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Mr. Tonko. And with that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from
Kentucky, for 5 minutes for his opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BRETT GUTHRIE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Griffith, for
this hearing, and welcome my Ranking--friend Ranking Member
Tonko, and all the witnesses for being here today.
And we are continuing our important work finding
commonsense solutions to reduce unreasonable regulatory burdens
while continuing to protect our environment. Unfortunately,
over the last 4 years the onslaught of the Biden-Harris
administration regulations under the Clean Air Act created
significant regulatory burdens for the American electric,
power, manufacturing, and transportation sectors. We were
recently reminded of this when we held a full committee hearing
on artificial intelligence and heard testimony about the
critical need to support and accelerate AI technologies.
In that hearing, industry experts repeated the same
concerns many of us have heard from small businesses and
manufacturers: The overall regulatory environment and
permitting processes, in particular, are overburdensome and
inefficient here in the United States.
As we will hear today, the economic impact of harmful
regulatory burdens promulgated during the Biden-Harris
administration totaled nearly 1.8 trillion, a historical
record. Amazingly, more than 70 percent of that cost was
imposed by the EPA, much of it from the Clean Air Act rules.
The last time Congress meaningfully amended the Clean Air
Act was 1990, 35 years ago. We have learned a lot and seen a
lot of environmental progress since then.
In the decades since Congress first passed the Clean Air
Act, air quality in the United States has dramatically
improved. Criteria air pollutants are down 73 percent since
1980, according to the World Health Organization, and U.S. has
the some of the lowest particulate matter levels in the world.
The progress that we have seen does not mean the Clean Air
Act cannot be reviewed and modernized. Some of the Clean Air
Act's provisions are unclear, outdated, and do not reflect the
world we live in today.
This trend is illustrated by the Biden-Harris National
Ambient Air Quality Standards, or NAAQS, for particulate
matter.
A prime example of the need for reforming and updating the
flawed system used for setting and reviewing Clean Air Act
regulations, the Biden rule will force large portions of the
country into nonattainment status, which will block new
development, halt modernization and stunt job growth.
In their testimony in April, witnesses in our AI hearing
pointed to the particulate matter rule as a significant barrier
when they look to onshore American innovation. They noted that
as currently implemented the rule would limit opportunities for
American manufacturing.
These overly restrictive regulations oppress domestic
investments in semiconductor plants, data centers, jeopardizing
America's ability to compete in the global AI race.
On top of unreasonable compliance costs and complexity,
these regulations also fail to fulfill the promise of the Clean
Air Act. A majority of emissions measured in NAAQS are from
sources outside of a manufacturer's control.
American industry propelled the innovation that made our
air cleaner, and yet they are being penalized for factors
unrelated to their operation.
A few weeks ago, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin testified
before this subcommittee about his efforts to address the
significant regulatory burdens promulgated during the Biden-
Harris administration and have oppressed economic development
without spurring meaningful improvements to environmental
protection. Now it is our turn to do the same.
The discussion drafts before us today are based on
legislation considered by this committee in previous Congresses
and offered commonsense, practical solutions to remedy
significant flaws in the current NAAQS process. The panel of
witnesses are uniquely well qualified to discuss the compliance
nature of the NAAQS program and its need of reform.
And I thank Congressman Allen and Congressman Carter for
their leadership on these bills, and I look forward to working
with the rest of the members of the committee as we consider
additional proposals on how to best modernize the Clean Air
Act. And I look forward to today's discussion, and I yield
back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Guthrie follows:]
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Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the ranking member of the full committee, the
gentleman from New Jersey, for 5 minutes for his opening
statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, Jr., A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today we are
examining two Republican draft bills that, once again, put
corporate polluters over people and will make the American
people sicker. With these discussion drafts, Republicans are
altering the fundamental premise of the Clean Air Act and
threatening our ability to ensure Americans have clean and
healthy air to breathe.
For over 50 years the Environmental Protection Agency has
had the authority and obligation to set National Ambient Air
Quality Standards, or NAAQS, and these health-based standards
essentially set the level of pollution that is safe to breathe,
and they are based solely on the latest science and medical
evidence.
Since 1970, the standards have been the foundation of the
Clean Air Act, resulting in healthier air, while our economy
has grown. And we know air pollution poses serious and
significant health risks to communities every day. Even short-
term exposure can cause aggravated asthma attacks, acute
bronchitis, and increased susceptibility to respiratory
infections. Pollution is dangerous, plain and simple. And
Americans have a right to clean, safe air.
And that is why I was pleased that last year EPA
strengthened the NAAQS for fine particulate matter, also known
as PM 2.5. The new standard has tremendous health benefits. It
will save Americans up to $46 billion in 2032 in healthcare
costs alone. It will also prevent asthma attacks, lost
workdays, and thousands of premature deaths.
But Trump's EPA is abandoning that effort. My Republican
colleagues now want to double down on the administration's
actions by resurrecting bills that sell out the health of
families and children to line the pockets of big corporate
interests, and they work to steal healthcare from 16 million
people, you know, in their big ugly bill, but at the same time
they are pushing proposals that will make people sick.
The discussion drafts before us today would allow industry
profits to override science in setting air quality standards,
provide amnesty to new polluting facilities at the expense of
existing ones, and remove incentives to cut pollution.
They would also weaken and delay the fundamental
protections in the law, virtually guaranteeing that people
living in areas with poor air quality will continue to breathe
unhealthy air.
And these pieces of legislation are not new. Over the last
decade Republicans have pushed these proposals through the
committee several times. They can try to claim these drafts
will not increase air pollution, but any time you put
polluters' bottom line over public health, the result is
dirtier air and sicker people.
Our experience with the Clean Air Act tells us that we do
not need to choose between the health of our communities and a
healthy economy. We can and must have both.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:]
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Mr. Pallone. So before I close, I did want to ask the
chairman a question about our committee rules. As you know, our
rules require that the, quote, ``date, time, place and subject
matter of any hearing of the committee shall be announced at
least one week in advance of the commencement of such
hearing,'' unquote, unless there is a determination of a good
cause exception.
For at least the last decade the subject matter of a
legislative hearing has been interpreted to include announcing
of the title of any legislation to be discussed and circulating
a copy of the legislative text. However, the notice for today's
hearing did not include an announcement that legislation would
be the topic of today's hearing and did not include a copy of
any legislative text.
My staff did receive communications from the chairman's
staff just prior to the notice circulating that you intended it
to be a legislative hearing, but they did not receive a copy of
the two committee prints until last Thursday, one day after the
hearing was noticed, and Republicans then circulated two new
versions of committee prints with the memo on Monday.
So this is not, as you know, Mr. Chairman, the way the
committee works. When Republicans choose not to provide the
legislative text with a notice, it hinders our ability to
prepare for this hearing, including our ability to discuss the
subject matter with potential witnesses. And that is why it is
imperative that the notice include both the title of any
legislation being discussed and the copies of the legislative
text consistent with longstanding committee procedure.
So, Mr. Chairman, I was going to confirm, I would like to
confirm that moving forward the notice for legislative hearing
will include the name of any legislation to be discussed and a
copy of the legislative text, unless, of course, we go through
the procedure to invoke a good cause exception. I was just
going to ask the chairman to respond.
Mr. Griffith. Does the gentleman from New Jersey yield time
to the gentleman from Kentucky?
Mr. Pallone. Absolutely.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman from Kentucky.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you. Thank the gentleman for yielding.
And the committee rules do not require legislative text to be
made available in advance of the hearing, including a
legislative hearing. I understand that this is the precedent
this committee typically follows, that text is released with
the hearing notice. We intend to continue to follow this
committee precedent when at all possible.
However, like when you were chair, we reserved the right to
deviate from that, and my understanding is that the issue that
you described is we presented legislative text, we did submit
another piece of update legislative text after the hearing was
noticed, and that was because someone from Leg Counsel was
absent. And so we will do--we couldn't help that, but we will
do whatever is within our ability to follow the precedent.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. Pallone. I just want to be sure I understand, Mr.
Chairman, you are saying while it is not a requirement of the
rules, what I articulated, that you are willing to follow it as
a committee precedent.
Mr. Guthrie. Everywhere where practicable, yes.
Mr. Pallone. All right. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Mr. Griffith. Does the gentleman from New Jersey yield
back?
Mr. Pallone. I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman from New Jersey yields back.
Now I will conclude with Member opening statements. The
Chair would like to remind the Members that, pursuant to the
committee rules, all Members' opening statements will be made
part of the record.
We want to thank our witnesses for being here today and
taking the time to testify before the subcommittee. Although it
is not the practice of this subcommittee to swear witnesses, I
would remind our witnesses that knowingly and willingly making
material false statements to the legislative branch is against
the law under title 18, section 1001 of the United States Code.
You have the opportunity to give an opening statement followed
by questions.
Our witnesses today are Mr. Chad Whiteman, vice president
of environmental and regulatory affairs at the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce. Thank you for being here.
Mr. James W. Boylan, chief of Air Protection Branch of the
Georgia Environment Protection Division. Thank you for being
here, sir.
Mr. John Walke, director of Federal clean air and senior
attorney, environmental health, at the Natural Resources
Defense Counsel. Thank you, sir.
And Mr. Paul Noe, vice president of public policy at the
American Forest and Paper Association. Thank you for being
here, sir.
We appreciate all of you being here today. And I now
recognize Mr. Whiteman for his 5 minutes to give an opening
statement.
STATEMENTS OF CHAD S. WHITEMAN, VICE PRESIDENT, ENVIRONMENTAL
AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS, GLOBAL ENERGY INSTITUTE, U.S. CHAMBER
OF COMMERCE; JAMES W. BOYLAN, Ph.D., CHIEF, AIR PROTECTION
BRANCH, GEORGIA ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION DIVISION; JOHN D. WALKE,
FEDERAL CLEAN AIR DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNSEL;
AND PAUL NOE, VICE PRESIDENT OF PUBLIC POLICY, AMERICAN FOREST
& PAPER ASSOCIATION
STATEMENT OF CHAD S. WHITEMAN
Mr. Whiteman. Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Guthrie,
Ranking Member Pallone, and Subcommittee Chairman Griffith and
Ranking Member Tonko, and distinguished members of the
subcommittee for the opportunity testify today on behalf of the
business community regarding recent air quality regulations.
I am Chad Whiteman, vice president of environment and
regulatory affairs for the Global Energy Institute at the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce.
As we discuss the Clean Air Act's impact to building
infrastructure and onshoring American innovation, I would like
to focus on how the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, the
NAAQS, program impacts our ability to meet growing energy
needs, reshoring manufacturing and securing our supply chains.
Specifically, there are five points that I would like to make
today.
First, we must right size regulations to support economic
growth and innovation. While balanced regulations can provide
clarity that help implement the laws passed by Congress in a
manner that maximizes innovation and choice, when not properly
constructed regulations become a form of government
micromanagement that eliminates the ability to do what people
in the free markets do best: innovate.
The lack of innovation stifles economic growth. And echoing
what Representative Guthrie stated in his opening statement,
the wave of regulations issued over the prior 4 years has
raised concerns about the economic impact due to their
cumulative $1.8 trillion price tag, a historic record that may
be underestimated.
More than 70 percent of those costs on the public were
imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, and the vast
majority of those came from the air regulations like the NAAQS.
Second, over the past several decades the United States has
made remarkable progress in improving air quality. Since 1970,
emissions of key pollutants has significantly decreased thanks
to a collaborative efforts of businesses, States, and Federal
Government. The Clean Air Act has been instrumental in driving
these improvements.
Since 2000, emissions of pollutants such as sulfur dioxide,
nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter have decreased by 87,
54, and 37 percent, respectively.
These emission reductions have all occurred while gross
domestic product, vehicle miles traveled, and population have
all increased.
The United States has some of the best air quality in the
world, with particulate matter levels up to 431 percent lower
than other major economies, thanks to steady reductions in
pollutants over the last several decades.
Third, most fine particulate matter now comes from
nonindustrial sources. As EPA's data shows, 84 percent of
particulate matter emissions now come from sources like
wildfires and road dust that are costly and hard to control.
While EPA technically offers exemptions for wildfires under the
Clean Air Act's exceptional events program, the process is time
consuming and difficult for States to navigate, involving
extensive documentation and analysis. For one State, 70 percent
of their past exemption requests were denied.
On top of the challenges, the regulatory program may
currently restrict these types of exemptions. Amendments like
those included in the CLEAR Act would help address this.
Fourth, the 2024 particulate matter standards will cause
permitting gridlock across our economy. Unless the 2024 rule is
rescinded, it will block the permitting of new manufacturing
facilities and associated good-paying jobs, pushing investment
overseas just at the time when we are trying to bring back
manufacturing and stronger supply chains.
The rule will also prevent the delay and construction of
roads, bridges, and other infrastructure funded by legislation
recently passed by Congress.
Fifth, and finally, small businesses, homeowners, and
families could bear disproportionate burden ofthese
regulations. Increased compliance costs and administrative
complexity can particularly be challenging for small
businesses, limiting their ability to grow and compete.
Furthermore, EPA--for instance, in EPA's cost analysis, the
Agency identified various compliance pathways for tighter
particulate matter standards, including the possibility of
States requiring small businesses such as restaurants to
install costly equipment and requiring homeowners to replace
wood fireplaces with natural gas logs.
Furthermore, EPA failed to identify cost-effective and
technologically achievable pathways for complying with tighter
standards as the Agency only analyzed costs of partial
compliance.
I would like to close by reaffirming the business
community's support for efforts to improve air quality. The
Chamber looks forward to working with policymakers on a
reasonable regulatory approach that would achieve our shared
goals of improving air quality and unleashing economic
prosperity.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and
I am looking forward to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Whiteman follows:]
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Mr. Griffith. Thank you, gentleman. I now recognize Dr.
Boylan for your 5 minutes of opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JAMES W. BOYLAN, Ph.D.
Dr. Boylan. Good morning, Chairman Griffith, Ranking Member
Tonko, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Jim Boylan,
and I am honored to testify before you as the chief of the Air
Protection Branch at the Georgia Environmental Protection
Division. Today I am here to discuss the National Ambient Air
Quality Standards and the impact on State regulatory agencies
and the regulated community.
My remarks will focus on two components of the NAAQS: the
setting of the NAAQS and the implementation of the NAAQS.
The NAAQS setting process involves the development and
review of multiple documents. The time to develop and review
each document can be substantial, since some of these documents
can be over a thousand pages long.
Currently, the NAAQS review process is required to be
repeated for ozone, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide,
nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and lead every 5 years.
There simply is not enough time to squeeze in all this work
within a 5-year cycle.
As far as I am aware, EPA has only completed a NAAQS review
within the statutory 5-year cycle one time since the
establishment of the program and the Clean Air Act in 1970.
Extending the time lines for NAAQS reviews from 5 to 10 years
would give EPA the time needed to develop new standards without
being rushed.
In addition, this change would bring about more stability
and certainty for State air pollution control agencies and
industry.
Protecting public health is the core responsibility of
Georgia EPD, and we will always prioritize that. However, there
is likely room for some balance in the NAAQS review process.
The proximity of new standards to background levels puts
many States in a situation where the new standard is not
achievable for reasons that are beyond a State's control.
Therefore, the EPA Administrator should be allowed to consider
likely attainability of the standard as proposed NAAQS levels
approach background concentrations.
The Clean Air Science Advisory Committee, or CASAC, serves
a critical role in the NAAQS setting process by providing
independent expert feedback on various aspects of the NAAQS.
I had the pleasure to serve on the CASAC from 2017 to 2023
and was one of only two people selected to serve on the CASAC
under both the Trump and Biden administrations. I have seen
firsthand the imbalance that is caused by stacking the CASAC
with mostly academic researchers.
While academic researchers have a good understanding of the
underlying science, they do not always have a practical
understanding of how science is translated into the NAAQS.
State regulatory agencies possess specialized expertise and
practical knowledge and skills needed for environmental
management. For this reason, the CASAC should include at least
three representatives from air pollution control agencies who
are well versed in NAAQS implementation to balance the CASAC.
I would now like to turn to the implementation of the
NAAQS. Implementation guidance needs to be--guidance needs to
be issued concurrently with the issuance of any new NAAQS so
that States have the immediate understanding of the
requirements and are able to come into attainment quickly. Once
a new NAAQS is promulgated, States are required to submit
attainment/nonattainment designation recommendations to EPA.
As part of the designation processes, States can submit
exceptional event demonstrations to EPA for approval. The State
of Georgia issues prescribed burn permits for approximately 1.5
million acres per year. The application of prescribed fires in
Georgia has been extremely successful, as shown by the
historically low number of wildfires across the straight.
However, the current provisions for exceptional events do not
explicitly recognize prescribed fires as exceptional events.
While the EPA has tried to address this through guidance, it
really needs to be addressed through legislation.
There are multiple permitting challenges associated with
implementing extremely low NAAQS in both attainment and
nonattainment areas. For projects that want to build in areas
meeting the NAAQS, the lack of headroom, or the difference
between the standard and the background levels, makes it very
difficult to approve permits.
For areas found in violation of the NAAQS, they will be
required to implement the most restrictive new source review
permitting process, not only for new but also for existing
sources.
In 2024, the annual PM standard was dropped from 12
micrograms per cubic meter to 9. Many locations in Georgia are
currently over the standard or lack enough headroom for new
projects. This is especially a concern with the large number of
economic development projects looking to locate in Georgia.
Specifically, data centers are one of the fastest-growing
industries in the State. These data centers need large amounts
of energy to operate.
In May, a data center developer announced plans to build a
20-building data center campus costing $16 billion that would
require more power than one of Plant Vogtle's nuclear reactors.
Power generation to support all the new data centers will
pose multiple permitting challenges under the current NAAQS
process.
In closing, I would like to emphasize that there may be
ways to modernize the NAAQS process that could help States
implement the new standards in a way that continue to protect
air quality without restricting economic opportunities.
Again, I would like to thank the Chairman Griffith for the
invitation to appear today, and I look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Boylan follows:]
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Mr. Griffith. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields. I
now recognize Mr. Walke for his 5-minute opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JOHN D. WALKE
Mr. Walke. Thank you, Chairman Griffith and Ranking Member
Tonko, for the opportunity to testify today. My name is John
Walke with NRDC.
All Americans want safe, clean air. All Members of Congress
want the same. That consensus should unite us, not divide us.
Today's draft bills unfortunately are divisive because they
end Americans' legal right to safe, clean air that the Clean
Air Act has guaranteed for 55 years.
Today's law ensures safe air quality based on medical
science, how much air pollution is unsafe for people to
breathe, not based on company profits or economics.
The draft CLEAR Act before you first would eliminate the
obligation to establish health standards for air pollution like
smog and soot based solely on medical science and what is
required to protect public health with an adequate margin of
safety for vulnerable groups like children and the elderly,
without any consideration of profits for regulated companies or
economic impacts. Then the bill for the first time would
authorize EPA to consider company profits and costs to set
unprotective standards, sanction continuing health hazards, and
even premature death from PM 2.5.
Both steps would overturn a unanimous Supreme Court
decision by the late Justice Scalia upholding Americans' right
to safe air based on science, not unsafe air tainted by
economics.
After that 2001 Supreme Court decision, a lawyer for the
Chamber of Commerce said, ``Now we will see if we can get the
magic word `cost' put into the statute.'' That is what this
legislation is about, that long-time corporate campaign. Mr.
Tonko is right, the sky has never fallen.
Americans are not asking Congress to take away their 55-
year-old legal right to safe, clean air. Americans are not
asking the Government to lie to us about whether the air is
safe to breathe. I suspect the Make America Healthy Again
movement would be shocked to learn that is being considered for
the third time in 8 years before this subcommittee.
Take the example of the health standard for ozone
pollution, last updated in 2015 to 70--seven zero--parts per
billion. A strong majority of EPA science advisors found in
2023 that 70 was badly unsafe and needed strengthening to
guarantee safe air for Americans.
Suppose EPA, in the future, then considers a range of
standards as high as 70, the draft Clear Air Act--the draft
CLEAR Act would let EPA for the first time refuse to strengthen
the ozone health standard to a safe level by invoking economic
impacts, or attainability, of the standard and keep the unsafe
level of 70, denying Americans safe, clean air and allowing
preventable asthma attacks, forcing parents to take their
children to the ER and causing hospital admissions for
respiratory distress.
The implementation issues addressed in both bills, and in
much of the other testimony, are complex, but the proposed
solutions are the wrong ones. They would let air pollution
increase by legal definition, roll back safeguards under
current law, increase the burden on existing businesses and
facilities to reduce their pollution to accommodate the new
pollution increases, force Americans to breathe unsafe air
longer, then change the law to declare unsafe air pollution
levels acceptable.
Over 156 Americans live in areas that suffer unsafe levels
of smog pollution or fine particle pollution. More than 88,000
Americans die prematurely every year due to just fine particle
pollution--over twice as many deaths as auto accidents cause.
Over 100 leading public health and environmental
organizations have urged Congress not to pass nearly identical
earlier versions of these harmful bills, including the American
Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the National
Medical Association, and the National Public Health
Association. Like me, they object to authorizing more air
pollution, weakening the Clean Air Act in numerous ways, taking
away Americans' 55-year-old right to safe, clean air, worsening
Americans' health, and overturning multiple court decisions,
all without doing one thing, unfortunately, to improve air
quality, reduce air pollution, or make Americans healthier.
Similar to these health experts, I urge Members to decline
to advance both bills. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Walke follows:]
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Mr. Griffith. Thank the gentleman. I now recognize Mr. Noe
for his 5-minute opening.
STATEMENT OF PAUL NOE
Mr. Noe. Thank you. Chairs Griffith and Guthrie, Ranking
Members Tonko and Pallone, and distinguished members of the
committee, I am here today on behalf of the American Forest &
Paper Association and the American Wood Council. AF&PA
represents manufacturers of sustainable paper products, and AWC
represents manufacturers of structural wood products.
Our forest products industry directly employs over 925,000
people, and we are a top-10 manufacturing sector employer in 44
States. The industry supports over 1.6 million more jobs across
its suppliers and in local communities, many in rural America.
These hard-working people are sourcing from sustainably
managed forests and making products right here in America
representing nearly 5 percent of U.S. manufacturing GDP.
In February of last year, I testified before this committee
that our air permit program is broken. While it remains true, I
am heartened to sit before you today knowing critical steps are
being taken to modernize the underlying permit program to be
achievable, and I want to express our gratitude.
We strongly support Congressman Rick Allen and Buddy Carter
in their efforts to address the impacts of air permitting
issues on U.S. manufacturing. The proposed legislation you are
considering today would greatly improve the NAAQS program.
We would especially like to applaud that the legislation
requires a workable implementation plan when the standards are
issued so they can be successfully achieved, establishes a 10-
year review cycle to increase certainty and reduce wasteful
litigation, and reforms the exceptional events program to
facilitate prescribed burns to prevent wildfires, by far the
largest source of particulate matter in our country.
We look forward to continuing to work with you on this
legislation, and we have included some additional suggestions
in our written testimony.
Only through commonsense solutions will we truly enable the
onshoring of American innovators, and we thank Congressmen
Allen and Carter for their leadership, and all the Members
helping us.
We are also grateful that in March EPA Administrator Zeldin
recognized the specific problems manufacturers are facing when
he announced the Agency will quickly revisit the unworkable
2024 PM NAAQS standard.
Under previous PM standards, our industry could make
substantial capital investments to modernize, but the new PM
standard is a perfect storm for permit gridlock, making it much
harder to modernize our facilities and continue reducing
emissions.
The previous EPA rushed to tighten the PM NAAQS close to
background levels using dubious legal authority, ahead of
schedule, and without a workable implementation plan. Notably,
the 2024 rule doesn't address at all 84 percent of particulate
matter emissions, which come from nonindustrial sources such as
wildfires and road dust. Pulp, paper, and wood products mills
account for less than 1 percent of particulate matter, to put
that in perspective.
Blindly ratcheting down on already controlled sources has
diminishing returns, and collapsing the permit program by
making it unachievable blocks progress towards more efficient
and cleaner facilities.
The previous administration unfortunately ignored each of
these concerns--concerns raised not only by industry, but our
partners in labor and many elected officials. If we don't
change this trajectory now, American manufacturing
competitiveness and jobs in many of your districts are at
stake.
We stand ready to work with you, with Administrator Zeldin,
and the Trump administration to strengthen and support this
effort.
Thank you, again, for the opportunity to be heard and for
your tireless leadership to support U.S. manufacturing jobs.I
look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Noe follows:]
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Mr. Griffith. I thank the gentleman. I thank all of you for
your testimony. I now move into the question-and-answer portion
of the hearing, and I will begin the questioning and recognize
myself for 5 minutes.
Mr. Noe, we are talking about NAAQS today, but I can't help
myself: Attainment also impacts new course review permitting.
It concerns me that industries are trying to reduce--industries
trying to reduce emissions at their plant can potentially be
punished in some cases under the Clean Air Act, which is why I
have been working on H.R. 161, the New Source Review Permitting
Improvement Act. Doesn't the current new source review
permitting process make manufacturers think twice about
building new projects, or even improving current facilities?
Mr. Noe. Mr. Chairman, 100 percent. And thank you so much
for your tireless work there. I am going to paraphrase a friend
of mine and former EPA general counsel, Don Elliott, who said
the kindest things you can say about NSR is it is ineffective,
slow, and it doesn't work. And those really are about the
kindest things you can say about it because it makes no sense
that a program that is supposed to improve air quality blocks
efforts to become more efficient and thereby lower emissions
per ton of production. It is that simple.
Mr. Griffith. Yes. is it economically efficient or
environmentally friendly to require pollution control projects
to go through the full NSR permitting process, and doesn't the
current NSR regime actually discourage major sources from
installing emission control equipment for fear of losing their
current air permit?
Mr. Noe. One hundred percent. And, Mr. Chairman, I just
want to add, when you were kind enough to have a hearing back
in February 2018 and I had the opportunity to testify, we had a
whole bunch of examples from our industry alone about how NSR
has had very damaging unintended effects. The intent was good:
Let's make our air cleaner. We all support that. I think you
have heard that already from not only all of you on this panel,
but we have got to be smart about how we do this. There is so
much at stake if we are not smart in how we do it.
Mr. Griffith. I appreciate that. And I had my examples too,
but I won't go through them today.
Mr. Whiteman, could you briefly explain the colored map,
which has--we have got our fake Vanna here. Could you explain
the colored map in your written testimony and that is enlarged
behind me?
[Map displayed.]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILANLE IN TIFF FORMAT
Mr. Whiteman. Will do. Thank you for the question. Yes,
this map is a map of the counties in the U.S., and we modeled
the air quality nonattainment, and areas that would be in
attainment.
So if you look at the map, the green areas would be those
that are in attainment. The red areas are those that are out of
attainment, 428 counties that we project. EPA projected just
one-fourth of that.
And then the light red areas are those where there is not
much headroom--there is not a lot of headroom to build new
facilities, or you bump into the standards.
This is the first time that we have seen the Clean Air Act,
the NAAQS program, reduce emissions so low that the impacts are
getting around background levels. So that is why we see such an
extensive potential permitting gridlock across the country, and
that is why we raised so many concerns about the NAAQS
standard.
We all want to reshore manufacturing, we all want to
provide the good-paying jobs, and unfortunately this looks like
it is going to block a lot of those projects for coming back.
Mr. Griffith. What are the real-world effects of a
nonattainment designation for a county trying hard to land a
big factory, or a family manufacturer looking to expand their
plant?
Mr. Whiteman. I am sorry, sir, I missed----
Mr. Griffith. That is all right. What are the real-world
effects of a nonattainment designation for a county trying to
land a big factory, or even a family manufacturer looking to
expand their existing facility?
Mr. Whiteman. It puts them through a lot of permitting and
can be quite difficult. In fact, I was talking to somebody in
the foundry industry yesterday from Wisconsin. They had a new
green field facility that they wanted to build. They looked at
400 sites, after they--they could meet their labor
requirements. When they went on and considered the
environmental requirements from the NAAQS, from ozone and PM,
it narrowed it down to eight. And then when they looked at
supply chain, energy access, and other things, they decided
they just couldn't do the project because the NAAQS program and
what is coming up is just going to be too stringent to them.
Mr. Griffith. Couldn't do the project in the United States.
Mr. Whiteman. They shelved--no. They shelved it.
Mr. Griffith. And so when we are talking about those
nonattainment areas, those are the ones that are currently red,
correct? Dark red?
Mr. Whiteman. These are the ones that are projected to be
out of attainment in the future.
Mr. Griffith. All right. And then a lot of the pinkish red
ones are close, so if you were trying to land a really big
factory, that might tip you over the line as well.
Mr. Whiteman. That is right. We have an example in one of
the reports that we wrote, even a wind facility in Colorado, CS
Wind--the air permit they had to put together to follow EPA's
requirements would increase the emission in their area by 1.9
micrograms. They may not have been able to build their facility
because even projects like that could be blocked.
Mr. Griffith. All right. My time is up. I yield back, and
now recognize the ranking member from the State of New York for
his 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I expressed earlier, it
is critically important that the National Ambient Air Quality
Standards are based on the latest science to ensure they are
health protective. However, I am concerned that several
provisions of these proposals will undermine those efforts.
First, the CLEAR Act would change the current 5-year review
cycle to a 10-year cycle. So, Mr. Walke, what would be the
consequences of making that sort of change?
Mr. Walke. Thank you, Mr. Tonko. The consequences,
unfortunately, would be to ensure that updates to health
standards occur closer to 12 to 15 years.
Now, why do I say that? Because under today's law where the
statutory deadline is 5 years, as Dr. Boylan said, the reality
is it is closer to 8 to 10 years, and the Agency has to be sued
in order to try to issue them faster. If the statutory deadline
were 5 years, they would miss that statutory deadline, too.
Now, why do I say that? Well, because Congress adopted a
program in 1990 that set a 10-year statutory deadline for a lot
of standards, and EPA missed that deadline probably 60 to 70
percent of the time. Sometimes they missed it by 10 or even 15
years.
So it is entirely predictable what would happen. Americans
would be denied safer, clean air based upon what the medical
science says for as long as 12 to 15 years, or more.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. And is it safe to say that our
scientific understanding of the health impacts of air pollution
is continuously improving?
Mr. Walke. That is absolutely the case. In the most recent
updates to the health standards for ozone that unfortunately
did not occur but were the subject of scientific analysis in
2023, shows that we have learned much more and the standards
should be strengthened.
The strengthening the PM 2.5 standard in 2024--which, by
the way, is the most deadly pollutant regulated by the Clean
Air Act and recognized globally as either the second- or third-
largest source of premature mortality globally--we have learned
much more and we need to do more to protect Americans.
Mr. Tonko. Right. And let me add to your assessment. There
can be a lot of science produced in a short period of time, and
as an example, the 2020 ozone standard review included more
than 1,700 new studies that were published since EPA's 2015
review of that standard.
So even within the current 5-year cycle there could be
hundreds if not thousands of relevant scientific studies that
further our understanding of what levels of air pollution may
be considered safe.
So Mr. Walke, if we are committed to having our
environmental protections based on the latest best available
science, would shifting to a 10-year review cycle undermine
that goal?
Mr. Walke. Absolutely it would undermine that goal, and so
would eliminating the Office of Research and Development, a lot
of other things that are being done by this administration,
unfortunately. We are eliminating scientific capacities, and
lengthening the period to 12 to 15 years would just be even
more irresponsible.
Mr. Tonko. And, Mr. Walke, I would also further ask about
the CLEAR Act's proposed changes to the Clean Air Scientific
Advisory Committee. Currently the CASAC is statutorily required
to have seven members, with at least one from a State agency.
Mr. Walke, what is the role of the CASAC today, and would
you say it is to inform EPA in consideration of the latest
science when reviewing standards, or is it more focused on the
implementation and feasibility of the standards?
Mr. Walke. It is focused on the protectiveness of the
health standards and whether they provide an adequate margin of
safety for vulnerable populations like children. And so it
requires medical expertise. It does not require implementation
expertise. And I differ with my fellow witness, Dr. Boylan, on
that respect.
Geographic diversity doesn't speak to medical expertise. So
kind of pulling people from region 4 States to be on the panel
doesn't speak to whether the standards will be better and more
protective of Americans.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. While I certainly support States
playing an important role in scientific reviews of standards. I
also believe States are just one of several important
contributors.
Mr. Walke, are you concerned that this proposed change to
the CASAC membership might tip balance of the--tip the balance
of the committee?
Mr. Walke. I think it is intended to, Mr. Tonko. We had
testimony before this committee today that criticized past
panels for being imbalanced, and this was the approach to
supposedly address that. Administrator Pruitt did it during the
Trump administration and blocked people who had EPA grants for
serving on the committee, and that was found to be unlawful by
a court. So I think there have been attacks on the integrity of
CASAC for as long as I have been practicing law.
Mr. Tonko. Is there any evidence that the current structure
of the CASAC is causing it to fail to adequately fulfill its
responsibilities?
Mr. Walke. To the contrary. I mean, Dr. Boylan was
reappointed by a Democratic administration and provided his
views, and they were fully captured for the public record, and
I think that was to the credit of both Dr. Boylan and to Mr.
Biden and his EPA.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, and, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Crenshaw [presiding]. The gentleman yields back. The
Chair recognizes Mr. Latta.
Mr. Latta. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to our
witnesses for being here.
This is a pretty important discussion that we are having
today on these bills that we--the discussion drafts. And, you
know, if you look at this map, again, looking where the State
of Ohio was, it pretty much puts the entire State of Ohio in
jeopardy.
And what I would like to start, Mr. Whiteman, if I can just
ask you some real quick questions. One of the things you said
in your testimony, that EPA acts based on faulty scientific
analysis. How often does thought happen, and how can this
affect this map right here?
Mr. Whiteman. Let me first qualify, I am not a scientist,
but there is a lot of science that goes into this, into the
NAAQS, and there are concerns--you know, let me just speak from
the business community perspective on cost, because ultimately
if we are not considering costs and we are just considering one
side of the equation and not the other, it leaves with
unbalanced and overly burdensome regulatory provisions that we
are finding ourselves now in this situation of having potential
permitting gridlock.
Mr. Latta. Let's go back just a couple years back because,
you know, when we were talking about maybe a county being out
of compliance, and the county that would be adjacent to it--and
all of a sudden the county adjacent to it who might not have
any issues, but because of it being next to that county,
depending when that test is being run, then all of a sudden
then that could be putting the county adjacent that didn't have
any issues out of compliance. But would you say when you are
looking at this map today, it is putting everything out of
compliance, is that correct?
Mr. Whiteman. Yes, you know, the red areas, we completely
expect them to be in violation of the standards. And those next
to it, we expect permitting gridlock to be there because you
need some headroom to be able to site these facilities. And
because they are so low, the standards, so close to background
levels, there is just not a lot there.
Mr. Latta. Let me ask a few more questions real quick. You
know, when these tests are out there and the monitoring goes
on, you know, when they take into effect certain things--like,
I have got one in particular: You have an interstate highway
that runs through a county. Would, you know, would that be a
factor out there that would be a concern?
Mr. Whiteman. Yes, certainly the funding that Congress
passed in the infrastructure bill, building new roads and
bridges, you know, State DOTs have to look at potential air
emission increases and factor that and look at the NAAQS
standards, and so that may block some of those roads and
bridges that would increase efficiency and supply chain
efficiency.
Mr. Latta. Well, and, again, this is like several years
back in Ohio on Interstate 75 from the Michigan border down to
the City of Findlay, it was determined that we had to--the road
was at about 115 percent capacity, and what did they have to
do? They needed to put a third lane in. So what you are seeing
right then is it could put that kind of a project in jeopardy
to have something like that done then.
Mr. Whiteman. They would likely have to deal with the NAAQS
program and finding offsets and other things, which may not be
available.
Mr. Latta. What would the impact be on agricultural areas?
Do you have any idea on that?
Mr. Whiteman. Certainly they are one of the nonpoint
sources that are becoming--you know, as industrial emissions
have gone down, or around 16 percent, other nonpoint sources
like, again, road dust and fires are becoming a bigger portion
of it, so it is likely that, you know, farming and other things
will be in the crosshairs for this type of NAAQS, which is
bringing pollution levels down so low.
Mr. Latta. And just to follow up on that real quick, just a
comment on my part because, again, you have to think about when
harvest is done. So if you are shelling corn, or if it is going
to--you are harvesting beans, you are harvesting wheat, that is
the time of the year that you are going to have a little more
dust in the air. But thank you.
Mr. Noe, if I could ask you, could you tell the committee
about the cumulative regulatory challenge facing American
industrial, what it means to this country?
Mr. Noe. Thank you, Congressman. The challenge is enormous,
and there is so much at stake because, if our regulatory system
isn't working well, and the permit system is gridlocked, that
grinds progress to a halt. We need to play to our strengths. We
are the most innovative country on the planet. We have great
entrepreneurs. We have a great, productive workforce. And our
workers just want the right to compete. That is all they are
asking for.
And so we can't have a picture like that where the permit
program is basically collapsing because what those colors show
you, it is not just there are lots more of these nonattainment
areas in red. That pink is a special problem for my industry.
And those are attainment areas, OK. So don't get me wrong. We
are in rural America, by and large, those are cleaner areas
that tend to be in attainment, but by putting the standards so
close to background level--average in this country is 8, they
put it at 9, we--that blocks major projects in our industry.
They typically need an increment of 3.
So the simple math is, you start at background, let's say
it is 8, you add 3 to that, where are you? Eleven. That is way
above the standard at 9. You can't do it. You have now blocked
a project that is both going to create more jobs in this
country, help onshore manufacturing, put wealth in communities
that really need more economic development and job opportunity.
You are blocking all of that, and you are also preventing more
efficient technology that is also cleaner technology.
So that is what I mean when I say we have got to be smarter
than that. We need a permit system that works and allows all of
the benefits of our economy where we can have both jobs and
environmental progress to happen together.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, thanks for
the indulgence. My time has expired. I yield back.
Mr. Crenshaw. The gentleman yields back. The Chair yields 5
minutes to Ms. Schakowsky.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Walke, I want
to just tell you that you and I are on the same panel right now
and on the same view. You know, when I was in the State
legislature in 1995, I found the report and I stood on the--in
the State legislature and said, ``Please, let's pay attention
to this issue, time is running out.''
Well, how many times have we heard that, that time is
running out? We know that the international panel on climate
change said that very clearly. We have heard them all the time.
But even more important to me is the children in my
district, especially in low-income districts, have more asthma
than others in the country, and we don't want to see that
happen.
We have to understand that time really is running out. And
while we want to make sure that we have a good economy, are we
going to trade that in? And that definition about all the
businesses that are made--I am not against them, but I say we
have to do something. And I wanted you to talk about the things
that were--that have been introduced.
What is going to happen if those bills go into fruition,
and are we going to do better?
Mr. Walke. Thank you, Ms. Schakowsky. No, we are going to
do worse, and I think across the board that is clear in my
testimony. A bipartisan Congress in 1970 and again in 1977 and
again in 1990 ensured that health standards for Americans
protected us all with an adequate margin of safety. And the
courts and EPA have found that means children, it means the
elderly, it means people suffering from asthma and emphysema,
to make sure that we have health standards that protect all
Americans, not just some.
And this bill would eliminate that. It would allow economic
impacts or attainability or, you know, cost feasibility to
eliminate the protectiveness of standards for children, for the
elderly, and then for the most vulnerable among us because it
eliminates the health foundation for the standards and replaces
it with whatever costs decide is good enough.
Ms. Schakowsky. Yes, thank you. So I wanted to ask you,
what is the most immediate thing that you think that we want to
do to start to catch up with this time line that is growing
stronger?
Mr. Walke. So the current process for setting the health
standards takes too long. But it takes too long because EPA
engages in a bunch of steps that the statute doesn't require.
So I think that we could have a science- and health-based
process that actually does update health standards according to
the best medical science closer to 5 years than 10. Certainly
closer than 15 that this bill would produce. And we would be
better served by that process.
We have recommendations to strengthen the current unsafe
ozone standard now. And this administration, if it wanted to,
could act on that. Instead, they have announced that they don't
see any cause or reason to update the standard until 2030. That
is 15 years after it was last updated, Ms. Schakowsky, in the
year 2015. And we have been told that level is unsafe, and we
are going to be stuck with that unsafe standard until at least
2030 and beyond.
Ms. Schakowsky. Are our--yours and mine, and I think a lot
of people in this country, are we going to be really saying to
manufacturers that you can't do a job?
Mr. Walke. Of course not. Like you said, 1995 is an
interesting year that you mentioned because that is when the
Chamber of Commerce and some others filed lawsuits to require
that health standards be set based on cost. That resulted in
the Supreme Court decision in 2001 that unanimously said no,
that is just wrong.
K, so this fight has been going on for a long time, and as
Mr. Tonko said, we have been told ever sense, the sky is
falling, but it never has. And these complaints are ones that
are designed to weaken the law. There is a lot of complexity in
this testimony, and there are surely things that could be
improved with implementation of the program. But eliminating
Americans' legal right to safe air based on medical science is
not the way to do it.
Ms. Schakowsky. I agree. And my time is up, but I wanted to
thank the--allowing me to talk a little over. Thank you. I
yield back.
Mr. Crenshaw [presiding]. Thank you. The gentlelady yields.
The Chair now recognizes the chairman of the full committee,
Mr. Guthrie.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time, and I
look forward to the discussion based on what we just heard. I
see a good friend of mine, Johnny Walke is in the audience.
Johnny Walke is from Tennessee, and he runs a business. He is
trying to put people to work and run a manufacturing business
and be successful. And he has no other intent than to run a
clean, sound business and make sure that he puts people to
work.
And it is a high--what do you call it?--you are in a high-
cost, low-margin business, and that is a fun one to be in,
right, a high-cost, low-margin, and just trying to stay ahead.
And regulations matter. But we do need a clean environment.
So Mr. Whiteman, the Biden administration did a particulate
mater rule, and they were reducing annual standard to 9 parts
per microgram of cubic meter, which is getting close to some
areas of the country, it may be in that lower-than-background
levels. Could you describe what having a standard lower than
background levels, what the impact could be on manufacturing,
or ability to develop, ability to construct, ability to
operate?
Mr. Whiteman. It essentially puts those areas into
gridlock. I mean, the way the permitting works is once you are
out of attainment, you have to implement the most stringent
emissions control technologies out there under the lowest
achievable emissions reduction program. And on top of that, you
are going to have to seek offsets because, once you establish
the background so low and you are in this area of trying to
implement layer controls, you are going to need some help
somewhere else.
The problem is, you set it so low everybody else is going
to be in the same boat. So everyone else is going to be
pointing to each other like the Spider-Man, and then I am like,
can I get your offset credits from you? So ultimately it is
going to lead to a lot of projects like the one I mentioned in
Wisconsin that is going to get blocked.
Mr. Guthrie. Well, it was mentioned earlier that people say
the sky is falling. I hope we can fix this product before the
sky falls. That is the idea, not have it fall on us.
So Mr. Noe, the pulp and paper industry used a lot of
energy data centers which are being built to support and
develop artificial intelligence also needed an enormous amount
of energy. What insights can your industry share with those in
the AI sector about how these air quality standards will impact
their ability to grow in the United States?
Mr. Noe. Thank you for that question, Mr. Chairman. And I
think that shows the urgency. We have got to be able to build
things. We have got to be able to expand things. We have got to
be able to modernize things in this country. And what that map
is showing you is permanent gridlock all around the country.
And it is not just these bigger red areas of nonattainment that
Mr. Whiteman was mentioning. All of that pink is areas that are
in attainment. So you would think things would be fine, but
they are not, because there is permit gridlock. And if you want
to do a major project in those areas, you are going to be
blocked.
So, you know, there is a lot at stake here. It is not just
U.S. manufacturing competitiveness. Our place in the world, our
ability not only to compete, but national security issues are
at stake, because the demand that is coming online for energy
in this country, including electricity, are massive. And that
is what keeps CEOs up at night, I can tell you.
Mr. Guthrie. Well, thank you. And that is a good point.
Because, you know, from the mid-1990s until just recently, we
have had a flat-level demand for power. Part of it is because--
and thankfully so--we have become far more efficient at using
the power that we use, which we absolutely should be.
The second part of it is, we unfortunately had flat
manufacturing growth, which is now beginning to increase, but
not just bringing jobs back but also th excessive demand, the
extensive demand that is coming from new areas which is data
centers. I always quote, and I said that Bill Gates had a
Microsoft data center--can, not everyone, but can--one of them
can use as much power as the city of Seattle. So that what we
have scale up for. If we don't do it, then we are going to lose
this battle to China. And I would rather have the American
values govern AI around the world than Chinese values any day.
There is no comparison to that.
So let me go to Mr. Boylan. The Clean Air Act requires EPA
to review and revise air quality standards on 5-year intervals.
But the Biden administration conducted a review of the
particulate matter outside of the normal review cycle. That
means States like yours may have significant burdens in
implementing these changing standards. The draft legislation
will move it to 10 years.
As the head of Georgia's program, can you discuss the
impact that would be for you?
Dr. Boylan. Yes, so the impact of changing it from 5 to 10
years, is that what you are asking?
Mr. Guthrie. Yes.
Dr. Boylan. Yes, so what that would do is it would allow
EPA to fully consider all the documents. The way it is now, the
rush--and sometimes they try to shortcut reviews and things
like that--giving the full 10 years would allow for a full
consideration of all the science. These documents can be over a
thousand pages long, and there's six different pollutants that
are being reviewed.
And so, one, it would allow for EPA to not be rushed. But
it would also give more stability to the State to be able
implement. Because what happens is sometimes States are right
on the verge of coming into attainment and then EPA drops the
standard, and then we kind of have to start the whole process
again of getting back into nonattainment. So it would give more
stability and allow for a better long-term planning for
attainment.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you, Dr.--I said Mr.--thank you, Dr.
Boylan. I appreciate it, and I will yield back.
Mr. Crenshaw. The gentleman yields. The Chair now
recognizes Mr. Peters.
Mr. Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Clean Air Act is
one of our most, the Nation's most important substantive
environmental and public health laws. At the center of the law
are the National Ambient Air Quality, or NAAQS. They define
what levels of common air pollutants are safe to breathe, and
they are developed based solely on science and public health
considerations. And I have often talked about in the context of
permanent reform.
When we talk about statutes like NEPA, we don't have to
worry so much about NEPA because we have the Clean Air Act and
the Clean Water Act guarding us against the emission of
pollutants into the atmosphere, into the environment without
permission by way of a permit.
And as we consider ways to support infrastructure and
energy development, I think there is room for bipartisan
conversation. We should be looking at how to reduce permitting
delays, provide clarity for important infrastructure projects.
But I don't think that those projects and improvements should
come at the expense of science-based processes that sets clean
air standards.
So the discussion drafts we are looking at today do raise a
couple of questions. One thing I am struck by is the debate
between 5 and 10 years. And it doesn't sound like 5 years is
ever met.
And, Mr. Walke, what were you saying was the timeline we
are seeing for the actual review of this in comparison to the
5-year mandate?
Mr. Walke. Mr. Peters, it has been closer to 8 to 10 years.
Mr. Peters. Right. You know--and that happened under
Democratic and Republican administrations. I guess I am
interested if you want to extend it. We could talk about that.
But I also wonder what enforcement we are going to have. What I
find among my colleagues is that they are reluctant to talk
back to this administration. And if they were willing to give
me some assurance about actually observing a limit, I think
that is something that we could talk about.
Mr. Walke, also, would you address this concern I think
about the standards getting so low that they are close to
background, and that makes things impractical to comply with?
Mr. Walke. Sure. I would be happy to do so. That actually
was addressed in the most recent court decision from the DC
Circuit Court of Appeals about the ozone standard, where that
very concern was raised. And what the court said rightly and
what the law has said for, you know, 55 years is those are
implementation concerns. Congress has three tools that they
have included in the law: exceptional events, international
transport, and rural transport. You know, maybe the regulations
for those programs could be improved, but it is an
implementation concern.
Mr. Peters. That is implementations. I mean, how will you
respond to the practical problem that that presents when, you
know, you impose regulations on actors when the regulations
themselves--see you have to get so close to background, it is
impractical. How do you deal with that as a practical matter?
Mr. Walke. Well, you know, we have heard a lot of talk
about wildfires and prescribed fires and things that are real
concerns in this country. And I was a little puzzled because I
looked up the 2017 exceptional events rule last night. It
defines exceptional events to include prescribed fires, and it
mentions prescribed fires 182 times. So I am a little puzzled
why we are talking about the need to change the law when the
law already guarantees that.
But, you know, it requires good, hard work by people of
good faith to say, look, if you violated the standard of 9
because the combination of background in wildfires pushes you
over 9, you are not in nonattainment. You are not. And if the
rules and the processes need to be expedited and made more
efficient and effective, then we would stand ready to support
that.
Mr. Peters. OK. I guess I'd just like to pick up on the
issue of particulates and wildfires. It is a huge problem. And
I would just drive one's attention to the bill I did with Chair
Westerman, the Fix Our Forests Act, which is the only attempt,
I believe--certainly the only bipartisan attempt--to deal with
pollution from wildfires by giving the Forest Service the
ability it needs to actually go in and perform the forest
management that would keep us from only having catastrophic
fires and get us back to a normal fire cycle, which we
suppressed particularly in the West for many decades.
I would also ask particularly the National Resources
Defense Council to participate in that process. They have
basically not helped us in a way that I think would really
meaningfully reduce air quality concerns and reduce the concern
about particulates from wildfires, which is a bigger climate
pollution source than the entire power sector of California
right now. It is the biggest problem we have.
We need the help of the environmental community. We have
the Nature Conservancy that has helped us, the Environmental
Defense Fund, the Audubon Society. But some people are so
wedded to what the law is today that they have so far not
helped us change the law to really help meet concerns about air
quality. I know that is not what NRDC is about, and I ask their
help. And with that I yield back.
Mr. Crenshaw. The gentleman yields. The Chair recognizes
Mr. Palmer for 5 minutes.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a topic that I
am particularly interested in. I have worked for two
international engineering companies. I worked for Combustion
Engineering in the Environmental Systems Division. I worked for
Rust International. Everything from refuse energy to air space.
And talking about particulate matter in general, we have the
technology to produce that, but I think we are at a point now
where we are asking industry to meet standards that we don't
have the technology to meet, particularly when it comes to, as
my friend from California mentioned, dealing with wildfires,
agricultural dust, just things that occur in nature, a
substantial part of the particulate matter that is in the
atmosphere over California originated in China or other places.
How do you respond to that? Obviously, we want to maintain
as high an air quality as we possibly can, but at the same time
we have got to take into account what we are capable of and
what is economically sustainable. Any of you?
Mr. Noe. Congressman, what I would say is, a hundred
percent no one is saying you shouldn't use best technology.
That is not the issue. The issue is we have got a permit
program that is basically collapsed right now. You can't get a
permit to do a highly beneficial project that anyone could tell
you is not only going to create jobs and economic growth and
inject that community with some prosperity but it is also going
to be a more efficient--this is typical--so it is going to
lower missions per ton of production.
Those are the kind of projects we should be having all
around our country, and that map's showing you we can't because
you have got permanent gridlock all cross the country,
including in attainment areas.
Mr. Palmer. It is also a problem, though, I believe we are
literally on our national security situation with regard to the
processing and refining of rare earth elements. There is not a
single major refinement for rare earth elements in the Western
Hemisphere. If I said there wasn't one in the United States,
that would be bad enough. There is not one in the Western
Hemisphere. And there is only nine in the world. Eight are in
China. The other one is in Malaysia.
And there is a reason for that. We have regulated these
industries out of existence to the point now that we are
confronted with a national security emergency. Your economy
depends on them, but your military depends on them.
Mr. Noe. Absolutely.
Mr. Palmer. So I think we have got to find that balance.
The other interesting thing about this is, is when you look at
asthma rates--and, admittedly, I wouldn't expect China to
provide the most accurate data, or India for that matter--but
when you look at efforts to improve emission quality, the
United States has a prevalence of 8.7 percent, China has one of
2.2 percent. And anyone who has ever been to China will tell
you that the air quality there is substantially worse than
here.
So there is just a lot of information out there that I
think requires a little different narrative. I think part of
the problem is, from the narrative from my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle is that the EPA regulations only impact
large businesses. And that is not true. So I think when you
look at the overall impact, and whether it is homebuilders,
whether it is small manufacturers, we are literally regulating
our economy. And we have been regulating it into oblivion to
get us to the point where we are no longer competitive.
I was asked to be on a panel with members of the European
Parliament, and we were talking about this, and I said, you
know, China subsidizes companies, they cut up--they don't
follow the rules that we follow, whether it is wages, in some
cases it is slave labor. And how do we respond? We tax our
companies. We regulate them to a point that they are not even
competitive within our own markets.
And I think part of what all of us have got to come to a
realization of is that, you know, we have got to have sensible
regulation. We are not in competition with Europe, we are not
in competition with Canada. It is the West in competition with
China. And I think it is time that we sat down and had a very
serious discussion about the regulations that we need, the tax
policy that we need. That is what we are trying to do with this
bill that they are so adamantly opposed to, is we are trying to
get to a position where we can bring back these industries that
we are going to need for economic security and national
security.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Crenshaw. The gentleman yields. The Chair now
recognizes Mr. Ruiz.
Mr. Ruiz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At the heart of today's
hearing is the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, our
Nation's baseline for breathable, safe air. The standards are
designed to limit how much of certain harmful pollutants can be
in the air. And yet, rather than strengthening these standards,
my Republican colleagues are once again choosing a familiar
path, chipping away at policies that protect the environment
and the health of the American people.
So let's be clear: Weakening these standards mean more
pollution, more illness, and more deaths. And these NAAQS
protect our health, environment, and also vulnerable
communities.
Fine particulate matter is microscopic pollution so small
that they can enter our blood right straight through the lungs.
They are tied to asthma, heart disease, lung damage, and early
death. And in communities like mine, the consequences are dire.
In California's 25th District, we have been classified as
an EPA nonattainment area for years, meaning our air quality
consistently fails to meet the national health base standards
set by the Federal Government. Riverside County has been
flunked by the American Lung Association, receiving an F for
our annual particle pollution.
Mr. Walke, is it correct that the new NAAQS standards have
consistently provided significant health benefits for our
communities, especially our most underserved?
Mr. Walke. Absolutely, Mr. Ruiz. And they will continue do
so if we let them. You know, the State of California has about
10 percent of the manufacturing in this country. It is the
fourth-largest economy in the world. It also happens to have
the greatest air pollution challenges in the United States.
And yet the California Air Resources Board strongly opposes
these bills because they know that protecting health--and
children's health, especially--is compatible with economic
growth. And they know that deadly fine particle pollution kills
far too many Americans that we can prevent by upholding the
law.
Mr. Ruiz. Well, that is why I am so concerned about these
legislative proposals that will delay and weaken these
standards. Last Congress, we examined changes to the PM 2.5
standard, which is projected to save thousands of lives.
Mr. Walke, can you share why it was critical for EPA to
follow the science when the Agency revised the PM 2.5 NAAQS
standard?
Mr. Walke. It was critical because PM 2.5 is responsible
for more premature deaths than any other air pollution in this
country and around the globe. EPA found that strengthening the
standards would avoid 4,500 premature deaths every year as a
result of this.
And, Congressman, I am a little puzzled by some of this
conversation. These bills do not eliminate Clean Air Act
permitting. So it sounds really like what is going on here to
me is they just don't want the PM 2.5 standard to be
strengthened, then don't want it to be in place at all so that
permits would have to be obtained to meet those stronger
limits.
Mr. Ruiz. And so if EPA had considered industry costs
during the standard-setting process, how might that have
impacted the standard? And what would be the downstream effects
for communities rural and impoverished like mine?
Mr. Walke. I don't think EPA would have strengthened the
standard. In fact, that is what the Trump administration did as
it was walking out the door on December 23, 2000. They refused
to strengthen the standard, and I think they were just secretly
considering costs. And the Biden administration properly
reconsidered those standards as the law has always allowed for
four decades. And that is why we now have safer standards
protecting more American lives.
Mr. Ruiz. Thank you. As an emergency physician, you know, I
have seen the impact of this pollution up close: Kids wheezing
through asthma attacks, seniors collapsing from respiratory
distress. And these are not data points, they are people, and
they are depending on us to act. But instead of standing with
their constituents, Republicans are standing with corporate
polluters.
Last Congress, committee Republicans voted for the bills
being discussed today. These are disastrous bills, and now they
are back once again moving these bills and trying to delay and
derail these public health standards.
Let's be honest: They are not defending public health, they
are not defending Medicaid or working families, they are
defending polluters and profit margins. And the cost is
measured in ER visits, missed school days, missed work, and
lives cut too short. So people will die. As we have seen,
people who live in high-polluted areas live 10 years less than
people who live in nonhigh-polluted areas. The evidence is
there: High pollution kills people earlier than what was
intended. And we must uphold and enforce the National Ambient
Air Quality Standards, not weaken them. I yield back.
Mr. Griffith [presiding]. I now recognize the chairman of
the Health Subcommittee, the gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
Carter.
Mr. Carter of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank
all of you for being here. This is extremely important. You
know, balancing America's air quality with economic development
begins with implementing commonsense legislation. I think we
would all agree on that. EPA reviews the National Ambient Air
Quality Standards on a 5-year interval.
After establishing the National Ambient Air Quality
Standard, States assume the primary responsibility for
implementing and enforcing them, these rules. This is an
extremely time-consuming process, one that takes years and
years. I have got a bill, it is called the CLEAR Act, that
would give States the time needed to implement standards
without rushing the process. And I think that is very
important. This bill also allows States the opportunity to
correct deficiencies found by EPA in State implementation plans
for NAAQS before EPA can issue a Federal implementation plan.
The CLEAR Act offers commonsense solutions, commonsense
solutions to make attaining clean air standards realistic while
giving States the time necessary to comply.
Dr. Boylan, I want to ask you. You are obviously very
familiar with implementing clear air quality standards and
policy. Can you tell me more about the implementation process
for these kind of rules that we are talking about here?
Dr. Boylan. Yes, so for the implementation for the
attainment and the nonattainment areas. For attainment areas,
there is a lot of hurdles for getting new permits implemented.
In fact, the last time the PM standard was dropped from 15
micrograms to 12 micrograms, we had four nonattainment areas,
and we had zero new, large projects go into those areas until
the areas were designated back to attainment many years later.
In addition, areas that were attainment, there was so little
headroom that the number of new projects even in the attainment
areas declined substantially in those areas. So that is kind of
what we are looking at with the new standard of 9 micrograms
here in Georgia.
Mr. Carter of Georgia. OK. Well, let me ask you this:
Lowering the NAAQS standards, how does it impact you on a local
and a State level?
Dr. Boylan. Yes, so when the NAAQS is lowered, there is a
process to go through for designations. It is very resource-
intensive. We have to make recommendations to EPA on areas that
are attainment or not attainment. It also involves the
evaluation of exceptional events, particularly in Georgia for
prescribed fires. We had a team of 14 people recently working
on--just on exceptional events to be able to get them submitted
to EPA.
So once we go through the designation process, then a new
lower standard does make it much more difficult to issue
permits, and then the resources become much tougher, or working
with the companies to see if there's ways to find compromises
and things like that. But in the end, sometimes projects just
need to be denied because there is not enough headroom to issue
the permit.
Mr. Carter of Georgia. OK. Well, you know, we have had a
lot of discussion in this subcommittee about the PM 2.5
standard and whether it is too close to background levels or
not. You just mentioned wildfires. Is that something that can
lead to noncompliance that you think?
Dr. Boylan. Yeah, so wildfires--you know, we had the
Canadian wildfires that impacted the Northeast and Midwest, but
it also impacted the Southeast. So wildfires definitely could
impact compliance as well as prescribed fires, which your bill
would specifically call out prescribed fires as events that
could be removed when making the comparison to the NAAQS.
Mr. Carter of Georgia. Isn't that what we call common
sense?
Dr. Boylan. Yes, sir.
Mr. Carter of Georgia. OK. Thank you. Let me ask you this,
Georgia, for 11 years in a row, the number-one State in which
to do business. One of the primary reasons for that is our
availability and affordability of energy.
Now, the current PM 2.5 and other NAAQS standards, does it
pose a threat to the development of energy projects in Georgia?
Dr. Boylan. Yes, it does. In fact, I spent 4 years as the
Georgia EPA liaison to our Georgia Department of Economic
Development. And when I met with new companies looking to
locate in Georgia, the first question they ask is, is this a
nonattainment area? And if the answer is yes, they are not
looking at it. And then they are looking at how much headroom
there is for new projects.
But, yes, this is a serious concern with the lower PM
standard, that the ability to permit new projects will be very
challenging.
Mr. Carter of Georgia. Thank you for that. And I thank all
of you for being here. Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
the ranking member of the full committee, the gentleman from
New Jersey, for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today, we are back
again considering harmful regulation to undermine the heart of
the Clean Air Act. And these discussion drafts are more of the
same, creating loopholes and providing giveaways to industry at
the expense of the people's health, and proponents are
rehashing old misleading arguments to justify these proposals.
Every time EPA proposes a new policy, we hear arguments for
why it can't be done. These arguments rely on exaggerated
claims about implementation costs, job losses, and minimal
health benefits. But we have heard all of these doomsday claims
before. Over and over again, these claims have turned out to be
simply wrong.
So, Mr. Walke, can I ask, what does the history of the
Clean Air Act tell us about the relationship between
environmental health and safety regulations and the strong
economy?
Mr. Walke. Thank you, Mr. Pallone. It is one of the
greatest success stories of any U.S. law, in my opinion. We
have had, you know, 400 percent-plus growth in GDP over the
period that the Clean Air Act has reduced emissions by, you
know, 78 to 90 percent. And so all of these doomsday
scenarios--I have been hearing them for 32 years as a Clean Air
Act attorney.
Mr. Pallone. Thirty-seven for me.
Mr. Walke. The same ol' same ol'. Well, congratulations,
sir.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you. Well one of the exaggerated
Republican claims being circulated about the EPA's PM 2.5
standards is that it is simply impossible and the majority of
counties around the Nation will be in nonattainment. Of course,
this is at odds with EPA's own analysis. We have this map
here----
[Map displayed.]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILANLE IN TIFF FORMAT
Mr. Pallone [continuing]. And if you look at it, it clearly
shows that the overwhelming majority of the United States is in
light green. And these are the counties that already meet EPA's
more protective standard.
Yet the National Association of Manufacturers released a
report about the economic effects associated with a stronger PM
2.5 standard. And that report which has been used to justify
undermining clean air protections in today's draft bills
unsurprisingly paints a much darker picture.
So, Mr. Walke, again, based on your Clean Air Act
expertise, what do you think of the manufacturers' report? Is
it realistic to expect a potential economic impact that they
are suggesting?
Mr. Walke. Congressman, thank you. That red/pink map we
have seen, unfortunately, today is just--it is fiction. It was
created by consultants for NAM in a report. As the logo on your
map shows, it was produced by EPA. They found that 3.8 percent
of counties nationwide would be in nonattainment, and half of
those were in California and already failing to meet the older
standard.
So this is a California-centric problem. They have got some
challenges. But the rest of the country looks nothing like the
red and pink bloodbath that we saw in that other map.
Let me say one thing about headroom too. Headroom is a
concept that says a new plant should be able to come in and
become built and permitted very often at the expense of
existing businesses and facilities that are already in that
area. If you allow a new plant to come in that does not have
modern air pollution controls, that shifts the burden to the
existing plants and facilities that are being asked to do more.
That is not the way the law works. This bill doesn't
actually eliminate the permitting program, so I think something
else is going on. I think they are actually targeting the PM
2.5 standard, and like the Trump administration really aiming
to make it go away.
Mr. Palmer. Well, thank you. I agree with you. Again, you
know, since the beginning of the Clean Air Act, polluters have
been crying wolf every time EPA has issued a new rule to
protect public health. And they claim time and again that a new
clean air rule will lead to economic ruin. But those claims
never come true. And we know we can have a strong economy while
cutting pollution and cleaning the air. Everything points to
that.
So these exaggerated claims are being used to justify this
legislation, which I think is dangerous and will leave
communities exposed to the harmful impacts of air pollution.
And these Republican draft bills once again put corporate
polluters over people and will make Americans sicker.
Everyone has the right to clean and healthy air to breathe.
And I think these drafts undermine that right. And that is why
I will continue to oppose them for more than the 37 years. And
thank you again.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
the gentleman from Texas for 5 minutes.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to come to y'all
with simply a yes or no answer.
Mr. Whiteman, you are hearing about from the other side
that we want to put polluters over people. Does that sound
absurd? Yes or no? We want a clean energy environment, don't
we? Does that sound absurd?
Mr. Whiteman. Eighty-four percent of the emissions come
from nonpoint sources like wildfires.
Mr. Weber. So that is a yes.
Dr. Boylan, do you think that is absurd that people think
that we want to put polluters over----
Dr. Boylan. Yes.
Mr. Weber. Mr. Noe, I am going to come to you next.
Mr. Noe. Yes, sir.
Mr. Weber. I am going to stay with you, Mr. Noe. We seem to
be looking at two different maps.
Mr. Noe. Yes.
Mr. Weber. Why is that, do you think?
Mr. Noe. Well, it is very misleading to look at the map
that was just shown because those are EPA projections, and I
won't get into the details, but the point is that is showing
the projections of who is in attainment. That misses the point.
What this map shows you is the whole country lights up on
who is going to have permit gridlock, and that is the problem.
Our industry, as I said, by and large, is in cleaner attainment
areas. We are in rural America. But the problem is the way the
math works under the program, you got to take what is
background level. Average in this country is 8.
[Chart shown.]
Mr. Noe. You have a major project, you need an increment of
3 more micrograms. That gets you to 11. The standard is 9. That
is gridlock. That means you can't create jobs, you can't inject
the local community with prosperity, and you also can't
upgrade, which means you can't lower emissions per ton of
production. That is why it is so frustrating. It is a lose/lose
for jobs and the environment.
Mr. Weber. And all the while, all our enemies are
outstripping us big time, not just----
Mr. Noe. Absolutely. We have got to compete. Our workers
are asking you, just let us compete.
Mr. Weber. Pretty simple.
All right. Dr. Boylan, I am going to come to you, if I may.
On March 12, 2025, the EPA announced the reconsideration of
Biden's administrations of particulate matter PM 2.5 standard,
which lowered the standard from 12 micrograms per cubic meter
to 9.
This committee going back to the previous Congress has
expressed concerns that the 9 level simply is not attainable in
many regions without bringing manufacturing and production and
infrastructure development to a halt. Did I mention our enemies
are outstripping us right now?
So in your opinion, is the 12 standard a more appropriate
balance between protecting public health and while preserving
our Nation's ability to grow and innovate in spite of our
enemies?
Dr. Boylan. Yes, I do.
Mr. Weber. Well, you are easy. Can you share how the United
States has successfully balanced high-air quality standards
with the needs of industry and what the EPA needs to keep in
mind as it considers revising the PM 2.5 standard.
Dr. Boylan. Yes, so, you know, none of these bills are
looking to remove the permitting process. The analysis that is
done, the best available control technology, the lowest
achievable emission rate--all those are in there. It is just
ensuring that the standard is set at a value that is
achievable. When you said it----
Mr. Weber. A reasonable standard. Keeping in mind these
kids that we love and the parents and the grandparents that we
love. Keep going.
Dr. Boylan. That is correct. When you set standards at or
below background values, they are impossible to meet, and it
basically causes permitting gridlock.
Mr. Weber. And it handicaps, as Mr. Noe said, industry. All
the while our enemies are loving every minute of this.
Dr. Boylan, I am going to stick with you for a minute.
Given the States that are responsible and implementing State
implementation--which I was in the State legislature
environmental reg committee when I was back in Texas in 2009,
2012.
In implementing State implication plans to ensure
compliance with EPA's air quality standards, how important for
it is for those States to have a meaningful role--which they
love their kids, people in most legislatures want people to
thrive, they don't want kids to get sick.
How important is it for them to have something to say
meaningful role in the standard-setting process to ensure they
can actually implement these standards? How important is that?
Dr. Boylan. That is very important. And specifically, you
know, getting more State regulators on the case act is
important because many of the academic researchers, they
understand the science, but they don't understand how it
translates into the NAAQS, which involves not just a number, it
is the level, it is an averaging period, it is a form. You
know, and there is--many of the academic researchers don't
understand the importance of the risk and exposure assessment.
In fact, the last ozone study, they didn't even want to see a
risk and exposure assessment. They looked at some epi-studies
and said the number should be 55, which just really didn't make
sense.
Mr. Weber. It is like you are trying to pull a rabbit out
of the hat. It just a stymied growth. Anyway, Mr. Chairman,
thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
the gentlelady from California for her 5 minutes of
questioning.
Ms. Barragan. Thank you. Mr. Walke, we just heard an
exchange about fiction, absurdity, and pulling rabbits out of a
hat. Is there anything that you want to correct from that
conversation for the American people that are watching today?
Mr. Walke. Sure. I would like to, you know, address this
constant charge of permitting gridlock. That term has been used
a lot today. What you won't find for it is the evidence in
testimony presented today or in the prior two hearings that
would remotely justify eliminating Americans' right to safe air
over some problems that have been identified.
This system is not perfect. They have given us some
examples of things that should be improved. And the exchange
that just happened, I think we had something really useful
happen that I want to bring attention to. And one of the
answers to Mr. Weber's question, it became clear that
permitting gridlock is just a euphemism for eliminating the
right to safe air by claiming that it is not attainable or that
we should be considering feasible costs.
Mr. Weber. That is funny.
Mr. Griffith. It is Ms. Barragan's time.
Ms. Barragan. Go ahead, sir. And I expect to have that
extra time.
Mr. Griffith. Yes, ma'am.
Mr. Walke. And so I, you know, I do want to emphasize that
the focus on implementation and permitting in particular where
Dr. Boylan correctly said that this does not change the permit
process, OK, in the implementation section of the bill. Rather
it is the attack on the health foundation of setting standards
that guarantees Americans' right to safe air. That is really
the target of this bill.
We will continue to have permitting, and we should for new
facilities coming into an air shed using modern air pollution
control technology. They would like the PM 2.5 standard to
disappear.
Ms. Barragan. Great. Thank you, Mr. Walke. And I think the
Member that was interrupting you is indicating of they don't
like to be challenged. And the answers that are given, they
don't like the fiction to be corrected. So thank you for doing
that.
The Trump EPA and House Republicans claim that weaker clean
air regulations will spur economic growth. But according to a
recent Associated Press investigation, these rollbacks could
lead to up to 30,000 premature deaths annually and wipe out
$275 billion in public health benefits each year.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter into the record the
Associated Press article entitled ``Trump EPA Rollbacks Would
Weaken Rules Project to Save Billions of Dollars and Thousands
of Lives.'' The article highlights Jessica Blazier whose 11-
year-old son Julian has multiple health conditions that make
him more sensitive to air quality, which can make breathing,
quote, ``feel like a knife sometimes,'' end quote. Jessica said
these rollbacks, quote, ``are almost adding insult to injury,''
end vote.
Mr. Griffith. And it is on the staff list. So we will make
sure we get it put in the record.
Ms. Barragan. Mr. Walke, I have a district that has heavy
air pollution surrounded by freeways and ports. Kids play in
parks with inhalers around their necks because of air
pollution. Can you talk about how weaker air standards will
affect school attendance and student performance?
Mr. Walke. Yes, Ms. Barragan, there's been numerous studies
that show that attention in school is dramatically worsened in
districts like your own, unfortunately, due to air pollution.
We know that mercury and lead, both neurotoxins, begin damaging
the developing fetus all the way up through children that
breastfeed due to the mother's milk being contaminated by those
neurotoxins.
And yet we have had a Congressional Review Act resolution
in this Congress that rolled back air toxic safeguards under
the Clean Air Act for the first time in the law's history. We
have got the Administrator announcing that he wants to conduct
the greatest rollback in U.S. history of nine hazardous air
pollution standards. We are expecting at 2 o'clock this
afternoon rollbacks of the mercury and air toxic standards for
power plants that burn coal.
And all of these rollbacks will have devastating impacts on
the health of children, sending them to ERs, causing them to
miss school, causing them to suffer learning deficiencies. And
even, you know, saddling them from an early, early life with
diminished IQ as a result of damage that was done to them
before they were even born.
Ms. Barragan. Well, thank you for pointing that out.
Because we apparently love our children too and our
grandchildren too, except we don't want to go to the hospital
and suffer those. And other people, I guess, feel differently,
and they are OK with having kids suffer and not get the air
quality that they deserve and the clean air they deserve.
I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentlelady yields back. I now recognize
the gentleman from Pennsylvania for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you, Ranking
Member Tonko, for holding today's important hearing. Thanks to
the panel for testifying here today.
Important context for this hearing is understanding that
America's air quality is among the best in the world, and that
the U.S. emissions have steadily decreased over the past
several decades, even as economic input and output has changed.
We observed this trend because of the fact that reasonable
clean air standards lead to economic growth. And if this
economic growth spurs innovation in investment and technology,
that ultimately reduces emissions without sacrificing output.
We need to balance public health and clean air goals with
the reality that attainable standards will not only hurt the
American economy but also disincentive development of the more
efficient technologies necessary to continue to lower U.S.
emissions.
Mr. Whiteman, I would like a clarification of some previous
discussion that we have had. Could you explain the data
differences between the two NAAQSes that were recently
discussed?
Mr. Whiteman. Will do. Thank you for the question, Mr.
Joyce. So I just wanted to talk a little bit about the
differences between the two maps that we have seen here today.
The map that was put together that we presented and talked
about, actually it looks at more recent data--data that
actually incorporates the fires from 2023, which is missing
from the EPA map which we just saw previously. And that is one
of the big reasons why we see such a massive increase in
nonattainment areas. Everybody remembers here in Washington,
DC, when we had 2 weeks of red haze in the sky because of the
emissions coming down from Canada.
The other thing is EPA only looks at the monitored areas to
determine nonattainment areas, and they didn't look at adjacent
areas. So therefore, we did. And when you have adjacent areas
to nonattainment areas, you can expect them, too, to have
issues.
And, finally, I will just mention that EPA has a habit of
underestimating nonattainment areas. In the 2015 NAAQS, they
estimated 14 counties out of California to be out of attainment
with the NAAQS. The last time I looked at EPA's Green Book,
there are over 143 counties that are out of attainment with the
ozone NAAQS.
So the issues can be significant. It is a real issue. You
have to look at the recent data. And, unfortunately, the prior
estimates have been underestimated, and we think our maps are
much more accurate.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you for that clarification.
Dr. Boylan, in your testimony you discuss how the lack of
headroom in some areas due to the stringent 2024 annual PM 2.5
standards hurts economic development even in attainment areas
that comply with the current NAAQS. Can you discuss how these
overly burdensome standards can prevent the permitting and
development of innovative projects such as data centers that we
desperately need?
Dr. Boylan. Yes, so it goes back to the headroom issue with
the map--if you looked at the map in Georgia, it had a lot of
red areas and then a lot of pink areas, making it very
difficult, the pink areas being the attainment areas. With so
little headroom and the amount of energy that is going to be
required for these data centers, it is going to be very
challenging to be able to permit all the new power generation
that is going to be needed to power this industry.
Mr. Joyce. By creating an inhospitable environment for
these projects, data centers, you mentioned, we will lose out
on investment in American innovation to countries like China,
which lacks truly any meaningful environmental regulations.
Dr. Boylan, would you agree that ceding our investment
opportunities to foreign adversaries who do not have clean air
requirements not only harms the U.S. economy but is
incompatible with the ultimate goal of protecting the
environment?
Dr. Boylan. Yes, I would agree with that.
Mr. Joyce. Mr. Whiteman, do overly aggressive and
burdensome environmental regulations threaten our global
competitiveness?
Mr. Whiteman. They are really challenging. They are
micromanaging businesses and aren't providing the opportunities
for to us innovate, which we do best.
Mr. Joyce. In the same vein, in order to encourage
investment and project sponsors, they need to have the
predictability when they choose to invest their resources that
will not be burdened with unforeseen costs.
Unfortunately, PSD projects that submitted previously but
not finalized before the effective date of tighter standards
are not grandfathered in will be forced to invest resources to
update their permitting.
Dr. Boylan, how will giving more flexibility to projects
that are already engaged in the permitting process benefit both
the State and the industry stakeholders?
Dr. Boylan. Yes, so you are correct that there is no
grandfathering in. The grandfathering would allow projects that
are already in the permitting process to continue through that
process and finish them out. So it is a lot of resources for
States and industry, and rather than having to go back to the
drawing board and starting from scratch again.
Mr. Joyce. So short answer: Grandfathering in will speed up
the process?
Dr. Boylan. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired. I
yield back.
Mr. Griffith. I now recognize the gentleman from Florida
for his 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Soto. Thank you, Chairman. You know, in Florida, we are
a peninsula. We are blessed with a naturally clean air quality
as the breeze just blows through, and no mountains to stop it.
A lot of this--as you can tell from the maps that have been put
up, geography has a big effect on it. And we are--every one of
our counties, including in central Florida, are below the
National Air Ambient Quality Standards.
Although, we are still working on clean air in central
Florida with the closing of the OUC coal plant, natural gas,
solar, nuclear are the predominant power sources in central and
south Florida. We also see IRA projects, including the largest
solar plant in North America coming to our area.
Although we did just recently--Orange County had an air
pollutant ozone at elevated levels on May 23 primarily due to
forest fires, which obviously we are discussing here today, and
a big population with some vehicle pollution.
And Florida has the second most EVs of any State in the
Union. That may shock some folks. And then you look at with
transportation being the biggest air polluter, 20 percent of
new vehicles that are bought hybrid and electric. So we see the
trends and where they are going.
Another interest we have is hurricanes, which are getting
more extreme and are making insurance rates go up. They are
making it intolerable for many Floridians, and it is making it
progressively worse.
So why would we want to stop now the progress that we are
making on it? That is not common sense. That makes no sense.
When we are looking at data centers, AI, fabricators from
microchips, you know, I feel like a lot of this conversation is
like we are having it 10 years ago. Most of these places, they
are going nuclear now.
Microsoft, 20-year agreement with Three Mile Island.
Amazon, a major agreement with Pennsylvania Susquehanna Nuclear
Power Plant. Google, they are going with small modular
reactors, and they are adding in wind and solar. And solar
power is being used by Apple in Nevada. None of those have
significant air pollution.
We just passed the last term the Nuclear Advancement Act,
which improved timetables, fee caps, streamlines approval for
well-established reactor models.
Mr. Boylan, we saw in Georgia you all just opened the new
Vogtle Power Plant, and some of it has been reported in
response for the increasing demand for power generation in
Georgia from AI and data centers. What can you tell us about
what the challenges you face with Vogtle and what we can do to
continue to improve the ability to get more nuclear energy
online?
Dr. Boylan. Yes, so plant Vogtle, while it was the first
nuclear reactors built in 30 years, they were severely delayed
in timelines and well over in budget by billions and billions
of dollars. I do think, you know, increase in nuclear energy is
a good thing. However, not all of the data centers are being
powered by nuclear and clean energy in Georgia. We have a
number of new projects in house being evaluated currently for
fossil. Because fossil is much quicker to get up and running
than nuclear projects that could take 10 to 20 years to get
online.
Mr. Soto. So what could we do to help? What were some of
the obstacles you faced with the new unit at the Vogtle plant?
Dr. Boylan. Well, so as far as like you mentioned, plant
Vogtle is a nuclear plant. It doesn't have lot of air
emissions. We don't have to actually issue permits for plant
Vogtle. It is regulated through the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission. What we do issue are very minor permits for our
backup generators and things like that. And so that was not a
major permitting project for Georgia.
Mr. Soto. But those are things that we have to improve upon
if we are going to continue to provide this power. We saw NOAA
through the Climate Program Office state that wildfires are 25
percent of all days with unhealthy ozone levels.
Mr. Walke, what is the danger if we remove wildfire smoke
and wildfire pollution from air quality standards?
Mr. Walke. So Senator Inhofe amended the Clean Air Act 20
years ago to ensure that wildfire smoke did not count towards
violations of air quality standards. And since then we have
issued regulations that add prescribed fires, I think smartly
and responsibly, to that same practice, so that States and
industries are not penalized for violations of monitors that
occurred due to prescribed fires. So there is no need to amend
the law. The law already guarantees that. And it is a real
challenge, but it is the right treatment under the law, I
think.
Mr. Soto. So the key is we are promoting management of
forests because this is now 25 percent of what is affecting our
clean air standards across the Nation, isn't that true?
Mr. Walke. Yes, sir, and it comes down from Canada, as we
remember from last summer, two summers ago, in Washington, DC,
when we were blanketed in smog. It is a real problem for all of
us. And we believe it is driven and accelerated by climate
change, but we can all agree that it causes dangerous air
pollution.
Mr. Soto. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
the gentlelady of North Dakota for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mrs. Fedorchak. Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you all for sharing your expertise with us today. I appreciate
this really informative discussion.
So North Dakota, where I am from, is one of only four
States that has never violated a Federal ambient air standard.
And we do that while being one of the largest energy producers
in the country. Yet North Dakota opposed, our State opposed,
the NAAQS rule change.
Mrs. Fedorchak. In fact, we joined more than half the
States that sued according--against this new standard. At the
heart of this matter is the health assumptions and the
modeling. We all agree that we want clean air for our kids, for
our grandkids. It is offensive to suggest that some don't agree
with that. And I take great offense at those suggestions. We
all share that.
But we also can all agree that you can get a model to say
just about anything you want. And so what is at the core of
this disagreement is the health assumptions. That is what my
State focused on. Some of the opposition from our Department of
Environmental Quality was opposition to some of the technical
flaws in health modeling. Specifically, they failed to use
actual models, actual air quality versus modeled air quality
data.
There was assumptions that there is no safe threshold. So
regardless if it was something from smoke or whatever that the
factories or the emitters could never affect was considered
still not safe. And then the application of urban health
impacts to rural States, like mine, that just doesn't work.
So I am curious, to some of the experts here, what are
the--specifically Mr.--I forget your name--from the Chamber,
could you talk about further about some of the health
assumptions and the health data modeling assumptions that were
erroneous or could have been improved in this current rule
proposal?
Mr. Whiteman. I think our biggest--one of our biggest
concerns with the proposal was EPA short-circuiting the
standard full NAAQS review process. And instead of doing the
full review and going back and looking at all the science, they
short-circuited that and moved forward. So that is one of our
big concerns. They didn't do the full review, which is really
required. And, you know, I think they could have done a better
job in looking at the science if they had done that.
Mrs. Fedorchak. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Walke, you talked with my colleague from California,
Mr. Peters, about an implementation concern regarding, you
know--he asked some very good questions about how are companies
supposed to deal with existing emissions that they can't
affect. And you said that that is an implementation concern.
But I don't really feel like you got to the heart of the
matter in providing, like, an answer to how is an emitter, a
factory or a generator, an electric power generator, supposed
to achieve emissions standards when the emissions in the air
are dominated by sources that they can't affect? How are they
supposed to deal with that?
Mr. Walke. Well, the way they are supposed to deal with it
and the way the law has worked for over 50 years is that first
States and industries are not responsible for controlling
emissions that are uncontrollable. No one is asking them to do
things that can't be done. And so the law has mechanisms to
ensure that things like wildfire smoke doesn't count towards
how they receive their permits or whether air quality standards
are met. And that is what I was addressing in my, you know,
comments.
But the question of permitting gridlock, as I think we have
seen here today, is really not about implementation, it is
about an attack on the standards and whether they are too safe
in one version or too low in another version.
And that is why I think that the focus should be on what
the bill really does, the CLEAR Act, especially. As Dr. Boylan
said, facilities still have to get the required permits and
meet the modern air pollution control technology and attainment
and nonattainment under the Republican bills. And I am grateful
for that. I think that is the responsible thing to do.
But why doesn't that lead to permit gridlock just as much
as requiring it for a safer standard? So the attack is really
on the safer standards, because we are still requiring permits.
Mrs. Fedorchak. The attack seems to be on--I agree with
you, on the standard, and the fact that more than half of the
States oppose this says an awful lot about that standard and
whether it is accurate or not.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentlelady yields back. I now recognize
Mr. Landsman for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Landsman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all
of our witnesses for being here and engaging.
The proposal that we are discussing today could
fundamentally change the way air quality standards are pursued,
implemented in this country, and that has enormous implications
for our children, our families, our communities.
As part of the proposals that worry, as we are hearing, is
that the way in which we use science, it could be changed in
prioritizing--or in setting these standards.
So this is, unfortunately, not the only way in which
science that informs these health-protective standards has been
diminished.
So Administrator Zeldin announced that they would shutter
the Office of Research and Development, which affects my
district in Southwest Ohio significantly, affects the entire
country--just from an employment standpoint, it affects us--and
would fire nearly 1,200 dedicated public servants that conduct
the office's work. It is the scientific backbone, if you will,
of the EPA.
Not only will this plan have a negative impact on the
research conducted by the Agency, but the actions have real
impact on, again, my district, our constituents.
Mr. Walke, how does EPA's work within ORD inform EPA's work
to address air pollution?
Mr. Walke. Thank you, Congressman. The Office of Research
and Development scientists' work touches on every aspect of air
pollution control at EPA in ways that you couldn't even
describe in a full day's hearing, with the intricacy of the
analysis and the world-class research. And it was just even to
me breathtakingly reckless that they would shutter that office.
Far more extreme than anything they did in the first term.
Just 2 days ago, they announced quietly that they are
canceling a world-class air quality research lab in North
Carolina. It didn't get much attention. But this is a
systematic attack on the science and the scientists that inform
health safeguards and protections for the American people.
Mr. Landsman. I had heard somewhere recently that
government sometimes is in the business of providing
investments and supporting folks and trying to improve their
lives, but it is also about mitigating risks, the societal
risks that if government doesn't stand in the way, or try to
mitigate those risks, terrible things will happen.
And I am curious. Based on your extensive experience, what
are the implications of shuttering ORD. I mean, what are the
risks that we will start to deal with because we are no longer
using ORD?
Mr. Walke. So ORD, among other things, provides invaluable
research into the hazards and harms of classes and chemicals
like PCBs and dioxins and other chemicals that make their way
into products that go into consumer products and can get into
the food supply and the water supply, and so they are, you
know, the scientific canary in the coal mine that alerts us to
those future risks while at the same time providing the, you
know, the legwork for the scientific studies and analysis that
goes into trying to protect us against deadly levels of PM 2.5
pollution, alerting us to new chemical risks that we haven't
even known about.
It is hard to keep up with industry and industrious
chemists in this country, and ORD is in part our bulwark
against that, trying to provide the Government with a fair
assessment of dangerous chemicals before they get into the
marketplace and end up in our food and shampoo and water and
places that we can't do anything about.
Mr. Landsman. And who benefits? I mean, you know, obviously
this is a committee that has--there is bipartisan support for
permitting reforming and getting things done built faster. You
also want to make sure that we are using science and research
to inform how we protect people.
Undermining that, obviously, has a negative impact on kids,
families, all of us. Who benefits and who--why do this?
Mr. Walke. Congressman, honestly, I don't think anyone
benefits. Unless you adopt kind of a short-term, quarterly
mentality that profits and, you know, stock values are
important because really it is companies producing the
chemicals and pushing them out into the marketplace that now we
are facing shorter, abbreviated, inadequate reviews. It doesn't
help their families or their workers to have that happen.
Mr. Landsman. Or long term, their businesses.
Mr. Walke. Yes.
Mr. Landsman. Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
the gentlelady from Iowa for her 5 minutes of questioning.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you, Chairman Griffith and Ranking
Member Tonko, for holding this important hearing today, and I
also want to thank our witnesses for appearing before this
subcommittee.
Over the past two decades, the U.S. has proven that
environmental progress and economic growth aren't mutually
exclusive. We have dramatically improved air quality while
expanding energy output.
In Iowa, our farmers and manufacturers rely on stable,
smart policy to keep innovating and growing and also to compete
economically around the globe.
As we look to the future, any new regulations must support,
not stifle, the backbone industries of our heartland.
Mr. Boylan, the discussion draft before the subcommittee
today reforms several counterintuitive and outdated portions of
the NAAQS program--N-A-A-Q-S, excuse me. For example, it
extends the timelines to conduct the NAAQS process from 5 to 10
years.
How many times has the EPA completed a NAAQS review within
the statutory-mandated 5 years.
Dr. Boylan. As far as I know, the 2020--or the 2020 review
was last reviewed in 2015, which would have been one time. But
technically it was actually 5 years and 3 months, so even
technically that one didn't make the 5 years.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. So--and as someone who has served on
CASAC, can you explain to the committee why it is such an
important role, and your thoughts on increasing State
representation?
Dr. Boylan. Yes. So typically the CASAC is more academic
researchers who understand the underlying science, but they
don't really understand how the underlying science is
translated into the NAAQS. From that standpoint, the NAAQS
includes an averaging period of form--a statistical form and a
level and an indicator pollutant, and that is understood
through a risk and exposure assessment, and many of the
academic researchers don't understand the value of the risk and
exposure assessment, which basically translates the basic
science into an equivalent NAAQS.
And a lot of State regulators deal with design values every
single day and really understand that. That is why we should
have more State regulators on there.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. As a physician who has been both in
academic medicine as well as in the field, as you say, in the
community, I certainly understand and would echo that
sentiment.
Can you tell me how the exceptional event process has
unfolded in Georgia?
Dr. Boylan. Yes. So in Georgia, as the map was showing, we
have a lot of red areas, many of those areas for PM 2.5. Some
of those were caused by Canadian wildfires, but a majority of
them were caused by prescribed burns where we burn 1.5 million
acres per year to prevent the wildfires, and it has been a very
successful program.
But I will say that the amount of exceptional events we
have had to do--we actually recently turned in 129 exceptional
events to EPA for approval, the majority of which were
prescribed fire, some were Canadian wildfire, and it was a huge
resource. We had 14 people on my staff working on this, on this
project, over the last year and a half, and now we are actually
turning to do exceptional events for the 2024 data. It is
almost a never-ending process.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. And would the process of extending
timelines and/or the PM 2.5, would that hamper you from being
able to do prescribed burns to prevent drastic wildfires?
Dr. Boylan. I am sorry. Could you repeat the question? I am
sorry.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. EPA's guidelines on PM 2.5.
Dr. Boylan. So the standards--yes, so if EPA--EPA has not
yet approved any of our exceptional events, and so I don't know
if I can answer--you know, if they can approve the exceptional
events, that would be great. Right now the exceptional events
are not part of the Clean Air Act. In fact, the description of
exceptional events is almost contrary to prescribed burning,
and that is the reason why I feel it strongly that specifically
prescribed burning should be added into the Act.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. You answered my question, so thank you
for that.
Mr. Noe, in your testimony you described the permitting
gridlock crisis that occurs when a NAAQS is changed. How does
the immediate application and the revised PM 2.5 NAAQS to PSD
permitting in attainment areas contribute to permitting
gridlock despite those areas still meeting the new standard?
Mr. Noe. Thank you, Congresswoman. I think the map shows it
best, because so much of the country lights up either in red
nonattainment, or even these attainment areas where you have
got permit gridlock now pink.
But I will tell you, I put a chart in my written statement
on page 15 that is complicated, but it makes a really important
point. This really is the first time in the history of the
Clean Air Act where the permit gridlock problem is unique,
because this is the first time in the history of the Clean Air
Act where the standard is so low it is literally one click
above background levels, the average level in the U.S., and in
some areas it is, you know, it is below background, but because
we are in that situation, that is why that map lights up.
And so much of your State is lit up in that, and these
other Members'. And, you know, that is a shame, not just for
jobs, again, and the economy, that is a shame for progress
because the typical project is going to bring efficiency, which
is lower emissions per ton of production. We all should want
the modernization of our manufacturing sector.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you. My time has expired. I yield
back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentlelady yields back. I now recognize
the gentleman from Louisiana for his 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Carter of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
our witnesses for being here today.
You know, I have heard repeatedly said from my colleagues
on the other side of the aisle that we have the best air
quality in the world. According to IQ Air Global Ranking shows
that major U.S. cities frequently fall outside the world's top
cleanest, demonstrating that that statement is not correct.
Meanwhile, some countries in territories like Bahamas,
Bermuda, and New Zealand consistently outperform the U.S. in
terms of cleaner air on average.
We know that 1980-2006 emissions and carbon monoxide,
sulfide dioxide, lead and particulates in the U.S. have fallen
lower under the Clean Act and EPA measures, yet we still are
losing lives. Despite progress, chronic exposure to fine
particulate matters in the U.S. still causes an estimated
100,000 to 200,000 premature deaths annually, which means we
can do better.
It is not a us-against-them, it is not a one or the other.
We can do better. The notion that we have the cleanest air:
compared to what? People are still dying. People are still
getting chronic diseases as a result of pollutants in the air.
So we have nothing to celebrate. There is nothing to pat
ourselves on the back about.
You know, I represent a community in Louisiana that,
unfortunately, has the dubious distinction--and I hate even
saying it because of the pain associated with it--nicknamed
Cancer Alley. It is an industrialized stretch along the
Mississippi River which suffers from high cancer rates among
residents believed to be linked to industrial pollution. I have
heard stories of people who lost their families. I have seen
the pain and suffering of people who have talked about their
loved ones who have died because of their close proximity.
You know, we can't accept a false choice between public
health and economic growth. We can have both. Congress can and
must work with both communities and industries to set fair,
science-based solutions to pollution standards to protect
people without shutting down jobs. Many companies are already
stepping up. Many have a long way to go because cleaner
technologies and responsible practices aren't just good for
health, they are good for business.
Communities must be safe. Clean air, cean water. If we
expect industry to survive, you have to have healthy employees.
We know that, once a National Ambient Air Quality Standard
is in place, States and industries get to work on how best to
meet it. Along the way, we develop more effective and less
expensive pollution control technologies. Not only is our air
cleaner due to the Clean Air Act, but we know--now also export
tens of billions of dollars of pollution-control equipment
worldwide. We have seen this happen over and over again.
But the discussion of the draft being considered today
would undermine EPA's ability to set forth health-protective
air quality standards and drive the development of pollution-
control technology, rejecting an approach that has been
successful for over five decades.
Mr. Walke, why is it so important for EPA to have the
ability to set strong, enforceable air quality standards?
Mr. Walke. Thank you, Congressman. Because over 156 million
Americans live in parts of the country where the air is not
safe, and that is based on health standards that themselves are
not protected. So the problem is bigger than the 156 million.
It is actually much bigger because we are allowing unsafe air
pollution levels to persist today and calling them healthy
based on outdated science.
President Trump doesn't believe in climate change, but he
talks about air pollution and water pollution. They issued a
Make America Healthy Again report recently----
Mr. Carter of Louisiana. Dr. Walke, I don't want to cut you
off. I appreciate it. I really want to get to Dr. Boylan in my
final seconds.
Dr. Boylan, the corporative federalism model allows EPA to
set clean air goals and allows States to decide how to best
achieve them.
Before joining Congress, I served Louisianian State Senate,
so I am very familiar with difficult budgetary decisions States
are forced to make. That is why I am dismayed by the proposed
cuts to State funding in EPA's budget request.
Dr. Boylan, would a cut to EPA's resources and State grants
hurt your State's ability to comply with clean air regulations?
Dr. Boylan. Yes. A cut in our budget grants that we get
from EPA would definitely hurt us, yes.
Mr. Carter of Louisiana. Thank you. I agree. The Federal
Government needs to be a strong partner with our States. If we
are going to protect the environment and public health, that
includes robust and reliable Federal resources. Unfortunately,
my Republicans are ignoring the dangers of toxic pollution and
putting polluters over people. We can, we must do better. This
is not a partisan issue. This is about lives.
I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
the vice chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Crenshaw, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you to both the Chair and ranking
member for holding this important hearing today. It has been a
great conversation, especially regarding, I think, what are
very commonsense and, frankly, quite mild changes to the
National Ambient Air Quality Standards under the Clean Air Act.
Look, there is radical environmentalism and there is
rational environmentalism, and I am certainly an
environmentalist, but I am a rational one, and I would hope we
all are. It is important to protect our air and water, of
course, but as policymakers we deal with tradeoffs. That is
what policymaking is. There is no perfect solutions to
anything. There are only tradeoffs.
And you can't hold two contradicting ideas in your head,
one being that, you know, what, we need more energy, or at
least 50 to a 100 percent more energy over the next 50 years.
That is pretty commonly understood. We want to reshore
manufacturing, especially on critical items like critical
minerals processing or medical manufacturing. I am actually on
the same committee, that exact hearing is going on downstairs.
You can't say that but also say, look, we have to create
limits to any of that manufacturing, basically making it
impossible to build anything new. You can't hold both of those
ideas in your head at the same time.
And, also, let's stop with the catastrophizing. And I want
to let the American people know that, luckily, this crisis mode
that everybody says we are in is just not true. The facts are
air quality in the U.S. has been improving, not deteriorating.
According to the EPA's own data, the concentration of the six
critical pollutants are down almost 80 percent in recent
decades. Meanwhile, the population has gone up, economic
activity has skyrocketed, and energy demand has also massively
increased.
So this crisis isn't true. That doesn't mean that the first
regulation wasn't a good thing. But let's have a little thought
experiment. One regulation being good doesn't meant 10 more are
necessary. There has to be a logical limit, and I think the
legislation that we have been proposing is just assessing those
tradeoffs more properly.
You know, more than 80 percent of PM 2.5 emissions, they
come from sources other than the manufacturing that we are
talking about. We are talking about our cities being so
polluted. When I lived here in DC right next to a highway, yes,
I got a lot more dust than my home in Houston. A lot more.
Because it is from the highway. Are there manufacturing plants
around me that I am not aware of? I don't think so.
You know, so these are coming from sources other than
manufacturing in the power sector. They are coming from
wildfires and road dust. And we are getting to this point as
assessed where you have the largest reduction--Mr. Boylan,
maybe you can help me with this one. We had the--in 2024, NAAQS
rule decreased limit for PM 2.5 by 25 percent. How does that
drastic reduction compare to the past?
Dr. Boylan. For PM 2.5? The previous reduction was from 15
down to 12, and then from 12 down to 9, which is a huge
reduction.
Mr. Crenshaw. Twenty-five percent is a big reduction.
Dr. Boylan. It is.
Mr. Crenshaw. And where did it start? We have been trying
to actually research that during this hearing. I have gotten
numbers like 65, 75. It started pretty high, didn't it?
Dr. Boylan. Just to be clear, there is the annual standard,
which started at 15----
Mr. Crenshaw. Annual standard.
Dr. Boylan. And there is the 24-hour standard, which
started at 65 and has now been brought down to 35. So the
annual standard went from 65 to 35. The--I am sorry. The daily
standard went from 65 to 35, and the annual standard went from
15 down to 12, and now down to 9.
Mr. Crenshaw. OK. And it obviously begs the question, what
is the logical limit? And Mr. Walke, maybe you can help me.
Thought experiment: What is your end goal here? I mean, should
it go below 9? At what point is--have we gone too far on the
logical limit of regulation?
Mr. Walke. I guess that is just a misunderstanding,
Congressman. That is not the way that the law or I view it. The
goals are twofold. One, safe air for all Americans. Two----
Mr. Crenshaw. Which we have accomplished. In your
testimony----
Mr. Walke. That is not true, Congressman.
Mr. Crenshaw. We have accomplished it.
Mr. Walke. That is not true.
Mr. Crenshaw. How much better can you get?
Mr. Walke. The second goal is safe air based upon medical
science, which is why I can't and won't give you a limit
because science tells us what the limit is, not a witness at a
table.
Mr. Crenshaw. OK. Say what the science tells us the limit
is.
Mr. Walke. Congressman, I am not a scientist. I don't have
the science before me. That is why we need to have scientists
doing their job.
Mr. Crenshaw. When we talk about air, and you keep
referring to the public health--and of course that has to be a
consideration--but you know what else is a consideration when
considering public health is economic activity and prosperity.
And, in fact, that is probably the primary determinant of
public health by far. And that is--and not taking that into
account is a disservice to the American taxpayer.
I am already out of time, but I have a lot more questions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
the junior member from New Jersey for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Menendez. Thank you, Chairman. No one should worry
about the air that they breathe. No one should worry that the
air they breathe is unsafe. That is why Congress established
the National Ambient Air Quality Standards to keep excess
cancer-causing pollutants like lead and carbon monoxide out of
the air. And since 1990, the NAAQS have reduced the
concentration of criteria pollutants in New Jersey's air by 80
percent and improved the health of our communities. That is a
great thing.
But here is the problem. Just weeks after voting to take
healthcare aware from 16 million people, Republicans are
bringing up draft bills that would weaken vital Clean Air Act
protections and increase Americans' risk of developing serious
health conditions. And these drafts don't just endanger the
health of our communities. They are bad for the economy and bad
for our workers.
We are hearing a lot of talk today about permits issued for
the highest-emitting projects, facilities like factories and
refineries. The Clean Air Act requires large new or expanding
industrial facilities to get air pollution permits before
starting construction.
Mr. Walke, those facilities must commit to installing
pollution controls and demonstrate that emissions won't produce
unhealthy levels of air pollution in the area, is that correct?
Mr. Walke. That is correct under current law. It is not
correct under the bills.
Mr. Menendez. Right. And that is the problem that we are
going to address in our 4 minutes together.
And if a polluting industrial facility would cause the area
in which it operates to violate an air pollution standard, then
it must do more to reduce or offset its emissions, is that
correct?
Mr. Walke. That is correct. And under current law, that is
before the plant is even built. So it has plenty of opportunity
to get the right controls to get the right result.
Mr. Menendez. To ensure clean air in the----
Mr. Walke. Yes, sir.
Mr. Menendez. Area it is to serve, depending on those
particular circumstances.
Mr. Walke. Correct.
Mr. Menendez. Agreed. Thank you. These permits provide an
effective, science-based way to protect our communities from
dangerous health risks associated with dirty air while
supporting businesses and economic growth. But the draft bill,
as you alluded to, creates a loophole in the law. If the EPA
fails to meet new procedural requirements, a proposal will
allow a facility to get a permit by measuring its emissions
against an outdated, less protective air quality standard.
Previous witnesses have referred to this as, quote,
``amnesty.''
Mr. Walke, what is the practical effect of allowing a new
facility to be permitted under an outdated standard?
Mr. Walke. The effect is it pushes the pollution burden
from the plant that will not meet the health standards onto two
groups.
The first group is the community and the public that lives
around that plant. The second group is other businesses that
now will be required to reduce pollution more because we
allowed a new plant to be built that is not doing its job.
Mr. Menendez. Can you expand on part two, on how would
existing facilities be impacted by such a change?
Mr. Walke. Yes, sir. I mean, the Clean Air Act and
attainment and nonattainment areas is a zero sum game. Someone
has got to come up with the reductions in order to meet the
health standards. So if you are not requiring it of the new
plant because you are giving them a pass or amnesty or whatever
you want to call it, you are putting the burden on existing
plants and constituents and companies in that area to make up
for the added pollution that you have failed to address
properly.
Mr. Menendez. Correct. I appreciate you explaining how this
discussion draft would not only harm public health, right--the
first group, the community that these facilities would serve
in--but it would also hurt industry, the existing facilities.
Correct.
This provision shifts the burden of air quality
improvements from new to existing industrial facilities, as you
alluded to, which would make it more expensive and doesn't make
business sense.
And it is not just this one section that is bad for
business. Environmental protections specifically, especially
NAAQS, support a key driver of economic growth in our Nation's
labor force. I consistently hear from Jersey businesses and
manufacturers who want to protect and prepare our workforce,
not make them sicker.
I am concerned about what gutting bedrock air quality
standards means for workers breathing unsafe air. Mr. Walke,
these bills could allow industrial sites to emit more polluted
air, is that correct?
Mr. Walke. That is correct. And ground zero for the air
pollution is the workers.
Mr. Menendez. That is right. And Mr. Carter acknowledged
that in a part of Louisiana that he represents in terms of
these high industrial areas where workers are subjected to
lower air quality, especially if we consider these draft
proposals. And that would make situations better or worse for
workers?
Mr. Walke. Worse.
Mr. Menendez. That is a problem. So yes or no, do you agree
that those effects on workers could worsen if air pollution
increases beyond safe limits as a result of these discussion
drafts?
Mr. Walke. Yes.
Mr. Menendez. And we are here today because Republicans
claim that gutting bedrock clean air protections is good for
business, but would you agree that harming worker health and
productivity would be bad for business too?
Mr. Walke. I fully agree.
Mr. Menendez. So the pro-business Republicans are actually
doing a thing that would harm existing businesses and make it
more expensive for them while simultaneously creating unsafe
air conditions for both the workers inside those facilities and
the communities surrounding them, is that correct?
Mr. Walke. I will stick with your words.
Mr. Menendez. I appreciate it. I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. Seeing no other
Mmbers of the committee, I will now move to those who wish to
waive on. It is policy in our committee, and I appreciate the
witnesses--I appreciate the witnesses being here, but we always
allow folks to waive on our committee.
And Mrs. Dingell wants to waive on, and we are more than
happy to have her. Mrs. Dingell, you are recognized--I should
say the gentlelady from Illinois is----
Mrs. Dingell. No. Michigan.
Mr. Griffith. Michigan. Michigan. Michigan. I am sorry.
Mrs. Dingell. Motor City.
Mr. Griffith. I tried to put you in Chicago. I apologize.
It has been a long day. Please forgive me. The gentlelady from
Michigan is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Dingell. Mr. Chairman knows how much I love him, so--
look, all Americans deserve to breathe clean air. Clean air is
a basic right, and it is the foundation of the Clean Air Act.
And by the way, I lived through watching the Clean Air Act
get passed, and it took a long time, and I watched a lot of the
fights on all sides.
But here is a reality: Over 100 million Americans live in
areas with unhealthy air. Air pollution contributes to over
100,000 premature deaths annually, and it hits children,
seniors, underserved communities, workers, as it has been
discussed, the hardest.
In Michigan, we know the cost of environmental failure from
contaminated sites. In my district, which is one of the--was
one of the heaviest to the Flint Water Crisis. And I think we
also can all agree that we want efficient permitting. But that
can't come at the expense of health protections like the
National Ambient Air Quality Standards, which save thousands of
lives each year.
So with respect to my colleagues, you are pushing two draft
bills that would delay lifesaving clean air standards, but
polluters override public health experts and exempt the most
polluted communities from being cleaned up. This is a giveaway
to polluters at the expense of everyday Americans.
And to make matters worse, hundreds of EPA employees have
been let go since the start of this year, weakening our ability
to protect air, water, and public health.
So pointblank, clean air save lives, and protecting it
should be a top priority for all of us.
And before I get to my questions, I also, having listened
to--yes, economic security, economic success matters, but I
listened to the autos. I worked for General Motors for 30
years, and I can remember how the company said, ``We can't do
anything, it is too expensive.'' Thirty years ago, a car
sitting in a driveway not going anywhere was dirtier than a car
going down a highway today. That is a fact.
So since I have been in Congress I have fought hard to
ensure strong science-based standards, but that they are also
balanced with economic growth. We can do both. They are not a
conflict.
Mr. Walke, can you explain why the National Ambient Air
Quality Standards process is essential to protecting public
health, particularly for vulnerable groups like children and
the elderly and low-income communities?
Mr. Walke. Yes, Mrs. Dingell. It is pretty basic. First,
the law says you have to make sure health standards are safe to
protect humans from dangerous air pollution. OK. But then
Congress in its wisdom went on to say and especially provide a
margin of safety for vulnerable groups like children and the
elderly and people who suffer asthmatics. For 55 years that has
worked to make the Clean Air Act one of the biggest success
stories in the world.
And so I just still am puzzled why we are attacking success
when we are protecting our children and elderly and all
Americans based on science and not based on cost or economics.
Mrs. Dingell. So let me ask you this, Mr.Walke. To justify
this bill, we have heard concerns that new standards would
result in significant cost to States and industry. Do you agree
with this assessment? What would be the cost if we delayed
implementation or weakened standards?
Mr. Walke. I do agree that they impose significant costs,
and they impose or deliver vastly, vastly higher benefits. The
Office of Management and Budget routinely identifies the Clean
Air Act as the single most successful cost-effective law across
all of Federal Government, producing benefits of 60-to-1 or 90-
to-1 higher than their costs.
So by definition, if you weaken those health protections
you are increasing costs on the American people in the form of
hospitalizations and premature death and lots of other things
that the law is designed to avoid.
Mrs. Dingell. Thank you. And that is what we have also got
to figure out, how you keep that--take that into account.
Can you--one more question. Can you explain how these
policy proposals would undermine the science-based framework
that currently guides clean air protection?
Mr. Walke. Well, it eliminates the science-based framework
and replaces it with one that even the majority has described
as based on cost feasibility. An earlier Member described this
as quite modest, I think, but it would be cataclysmic, and it
would be a radical, radical overhaul of the law, overturning
Supreme Court decisions and multiple other decisions. There is
nothing modest about that.
Mrs. Dingell. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say
we have cut air pollution by 78 percent since 1970 while
growing our economy. We can and must keep leading.
And with that, I thank you and yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentlelady from Michigan yields back. I
would like to thank our witnesses for being here today. Members
may have additional written questions for you.
I will remind Members you have 10 business days to submit
additional questions for the record. And I would ask the
witnesses to do their best to submit responses within 10
business days of receipt of the additional questions from the
members of this subcommittee.
I ask unanimous consent to insert into the record the
documents included on the staff hearing document list.
Without objection, so ordered.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Griffith. The subcommittee is hereby adjourned. Thank
you all.
[Whereupon, at 12:50 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
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