[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 78 (Thursday, May 11, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H4802]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 AMERICA NEEDS A NATIONAL CLEAN AIR ACT

  (Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, as this body meets today, the conferees are 
discussing the rescission bill a number of substantive changes in the 
Clean Air Act; first, to prevent EPA from imposing sanctions on States 
that violate the Clean Air Act, no matter how deliberate or egregious 
the violation; to eliminate the requirement that new highway projects 
funded with Federal monies must conform to the Clean Air Act by taking 
air quality considerations into account; and to eliminate the 
requirement that EPA give 100 percent credit to all State inspection 
and maintenance programs, no matter how deficient, how inadequate, or 
how patently empty those particular programs might be.
  These are amendments which eliminate EPA's sanction authority, and 
effectively makes the Clean Air Act voluntary. If a State wants to opt 
out of the act and allow limitless pollution in that State, it is 
allowed to do so. This is fundamentally inconsistent with the position 
that the Congress has taken time after time for so many years, that we 
need a national Clean Air Act to prevent and to protect our people 
against interstate pollution.


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