[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 97 (Thursday, June 27, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1209-E1210]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  THE BARTON CLEAN AIR ACT AMENDMENTS

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ROSA L. DELAURO

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 27, 1996

  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, on May 23, H.R. 3519 was introduced to 
amend the Clean Air Act. Its sponsor characterized his bill as 
``minor,'' saying it in no way changes compliance timetables or 
standards, but ``simply provides more flexibility in doing so.''
  I disagree. In short, the bill repeals the most fundamental aspect of 
Federal clean air standards--protection of public health. This bill is 
a polluter's dream.
  The congressional majority's vision statement for the 104th Congress 
states that Republicans support air and water that is clean and safe. 
But if you read the fine print, the majority's agenda says that they 
support clean water and clean air as long as achieving it can be 
accomplished cheaply.
  Everyone supports the bill's emphasis on the use of innovative 
technologies to achieve clean air standards. The problem with H.R. 3519 
is that it eliminates pollution monitoring and turns off pollution 
controls except when the air is at its dirtiest.
  Under H.R. 3519, major sources of pollution would no longer be 
subject to regulation. The Federal Government would no longer enforce 
healthy air requirements for States and localities. In addition, the 
bill would give polluters 10 years to clean up pollution that is 
causing health hazards, including cancer, today.
  The fact is that this bill substantially repeals key provisions of 
the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments signed by President Bush, and the 
fundamental principles of the original Clean Air Act signed by 
President Nixon.

  The American public believes that the air should be clean enough to 
breathe safely. The American public also believes that the Government 
has a responsibility to set clean air standard which guarantee health 
protection. And the American public does not believe that the science 
of health should be compromised by cost alone.
  For 25 years, clean air health standards have been based solely on 
the best scientific evidence available as to the impact of air 
pollution on the health of people. Congress has provided that cost 
considerations are appropriate when determining how quickly those 
standards should be achieved.
  But now H.R. 3519 says that the health of people should no longer be 
the driving force behind our clean air programs. If the air is 
unhealthy but there is a cost of clean up, the health standards--not 
the pollution levels--should be modified.
  For 25 years, no serious legislation proposed compromised health 
science on the basis of economics. For 25 years, no legislation 
proposed that basic scientific data on health effects be ignored. Yet 
this Congress is likely to vote on a bill that changes the rules so 
polluters won't have to protect health.
  Americans need to send Congress the message that their health is not 
for sale to special interest groups. Mr. Speaker, I ask that the Texas 
Observer article ``It's the Environment, Stupid,'' be printed in the 
Record so Americans know how important their response to this bill is 
to protect their environment and health. Thank you.

                [From the Texas Observer, June 14 1996]

                      It's the Environment, Stupid

                           (By Louis DuBose)

       Phil Gramm got the message in January when his pollster 
     advised him that Republican voters don't trust their own 
     party on environmental issues. Pollsters now trying to 
     determine what will drive November's elections are 
     discovering that environmental issues are a real public 
     concern. Even Newt Gingrich is beginning to get it. The 
     Speaker crossed the Potomac to salute environmental corps kid 
     volunteers working on Roosevelt Island, and traveled to New 
     York to embrace a panic-stricken wild pig on the ``Tonight 
     Show.'' All of this to convince the public that Republicans 
     are not enemies of the environment. And in Congress, the 
     party is backing away from its assault on environmental 
     protections--at least until after November's elections.
       But Congressman Joe Barton--two years ago Phil Gramm's 
     choice to replace Texas Republican Party Chair Fred Meyer, 
     after fundamentalist Christians declared Meyer unworthy--is 
     an exception. Barton recently filed the ``Clean Air Act 
     Amendments of 1996,'' perhaps thinking that a bill filed so 
     late in the session would not attract too much attention. He 
     got caught. Frank O'Donnell of the Clean Air Trust got wind 
     of Barton's bad air bill and began faxing it to media outlets 
     around the country. ``It is very unlikely that the bill will 
     get anywhere this late in the session,'' O'Donnell said. He 
     added that he suspects that Barton is staking out a position 
     for 1997, when the law will be reauthorized. But even 
     O'Donnell admits he is surprised by Barton's timing, which 
     could create problems for Republicans in November.
       Perhaps Barton is determined, O'Donnell said, ``to complete 
     the `Texas Toxic Trilogy.' First congressman Tom DeLay 
     proposed repealing the entire 1990 clean air law. Then 
     Congressman Steve Stockman tried to pretend dirty air doesn't 
     exist. And now Congressman Barton wants to repeal the heart 
     of the 1970 Clean Air Act.''
       Barton's legislation is aimed right at the heart of the 
     1970 law, a milestone in environmental legislation that 
     established clean air ``standards'' that states are required 
     to meet. Barton's bill replaces specific standards with vague 
     ``goals''--a small semantic change that completely undermines 
     the philosophy of the country's most basic clean air law.
       But this is not merely an ideologue's philosophical assault 
     on a law that passed with broad pubic and congressional 
     consensus--after protracted negotiations that included 
     environmentalists and representatives of industry. Barton has 
     put together a technical bill, loaded with the same minutiae 
     lobbyists wrote into Tom DeLay's bills--while they set up 
     shop in his House office at the beginning of this 
     congressional session.
       Consider, for example, the following verbiage:
       ``If, based on photochemical grid modeling demonstrations 
     of any other analytical method determined by the 
     Administrator to be as effective, the Administrator 
     determines that the area is a down-wind nonattainment area 
     receiving ozone or ozone precursor transport from outside the 
     area and control of ozone concentrations or beyond the 
     ability of the area to control because volatile organic 
     compounds and oxides

[[Page E1210]]

     of nitrogen from sources within such do not make a 
     significant contribution to ozone concentrations in such area 
     (or in any other nonattainment area), the Administrator may 
     redesignate the area as in attainment or having a lower 
     classification.
       Which, if properly punctuated, would mean: if it can be 
     established that most of the pollution in a region comes from 
     elsewhere--for example, chemical plants and refineries on the 
     other side Galveston Bay--the air in that region could be 
     declared clean.
       Predictably enough, such a declaration would make the air 
     dirtier, because declaring an area ``in attainment'' means 
     lifting environmental restrictions and allowing more local 
     contamination of air already badly polluted by upwind 
     sources. Barton's Bad Air Bill is filled with provisions like 
     this one--in which ``attainment'' of clean-air standards is 
     achieved by cleaning up the language of the law, rather than 
     cleaning up the environment.
       When (to cite another example of Barton's peculiar logic) 
     the EPA establishes air quality goals for a region, 
     ``infrequent episodic variations in air pollution levels that 
     are cause by weather'' must be excluded from any clean-air 
     calculus. So in Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and 
     El Paso that will mean the elimination of protections against 
     dangerously high summer ozone levels--rather than the 
     elimination of dangerously high ozone levels. ``To create 
     ozone,'' O'Donnell, ``you do need sunlight, which cooks the 
     stuff, but you also need a source of pollution.'' Barton's 
     bill ignores those sources of pollution and assumes that, 
     like the weather, man-made pollution cannot be controlled. 
     The result of such twisted logic can only be more air 
     pollution.
       More illogic? ``The [EPA] Administrator may not require 
     that emissions of oxides of nitrogen from baseline vehicles 
     using the reformulated gasoline be less than emissions from 
     such vehicles when using baseline gasoline.'' Leave it to an 
     EPA reg-writer to parse this sentence, which establishes that 
     the quality of emissions are the same--when they aren't. It's 
     just one small part of the bill's broad assault on 
     reformulated gasoline requirements--a two stage program 
     designed to lower tailpipe emissions. The first phase was put 
     in place last year and regulations for implementation of 
     phase two are not yet complete, and might not be if 
     Barton, who once worked as a consultant for Atlantic 
     Richfield, has his way. ``This will roll back a program 
     already on the books that hasn't kicked in yet,'' 
     O'Donnell said.
       Perhaps the loopiest provision--it's tough to pick one--
     allows pollution control devices voluntarily installed 
     ``prior to the designation of the area as a non-arraignment 
     area to be credited as additional reductions. * * *'' But if 
     air pollution in a region is too high, how does a pollution-
     control device already in place and working reduce it any 
     further? Or is ``to be credited as'' what this is all about?
       To be fair, not every provision in the bill is as 
     circumspect as those already cited. A straightforward, two-
     line change extends from five to ten years the time in which 
     a plant can operate without being subject to permit 
     revisions; some revisions simply change must to may--for 
     sanctions or requirements. And no bill like this one would be 
     complete without the standard ``cost-benefit-analysis'' 
     provision. Barton would ``require'' regulators to prove that 
     ``the incremental costs of attaining [a] standard do not 
     exceed the incremental benefits of attaining the standard.'' 
     These provisions always provide an advantage to industry, 
     which can provide exact figures of retrofitting a refinery 
     with pollution control devices, then challenge whoever 
     represents the public interest these days to predict and 
     calculate long-term savings in public health, and quality of 
     life--which has no dollar-equivalent market value.
       What's driving Joe Barton's attempt to dismantle the Clean 
     Air Act? The odd configuration of his Central Texas district 
     provides him a completely safe seat, which he won by seventy-
     six percent in the last election; he's a true believer in the 
     conservative agenda, and he's an engineer who understands 
     this stuff better than, say, the average consumer of air. Yet 
     it seems impolitic for someone who ran as the Washington 
     candidate for the state Republican Party chair in 1994 to 
     burden his party with another bad environmental bill--just as 
     the 1996 election campaigns get underway. Maybe Tom Pauken, 
     the fundamentalist Christian (charismatic Catholic variety) 
     who defeated Barton two years ago, was correct when he argued 
     that Barton was too much a Washington insider--too influenced 
     by ``inside the Beltway culture.''
       Pauken got it almost right during his fervent three-day 
     state convention campaign. But the Washington culture he 
     derided as the culture ``of big government'' is really the 
     culture of big corporations. After twelve years in Congress 
     Joe Barton understands that culture. And he has engaged in a 
     bit of cost-and-benefit analysis that reads something like 
     this: It costs him nothing to carry a bad environmental bill. 
     The benefits, in contributions from the polluters PACs listed 
     below, simply outweigh what his legislation will cost his 
     party--and the breathing public.

 Selected polluter PAC supporters of Congressman Joe Barton, 1995-1996

Air Products and Chemicals, Inc..................................$1,000
Alabama Power Company/Southern Company..............................250
American Electric Power Company.....................................500
American Portland Cement Alliance, Inc............................1,000
American Trucking Association.....................................2,000
Amoco Corporation.................................................1,000
Arizona Public Service Company......................................500
Ash Grove Cement Company............................................500
Atlantic Richfield Company........................................2,000
American Gas Association..........................................1,000
Baltimore Gas and Electric Company................................1,000
BP America........................................................1,000
Burlington Resources/Meridian Oil.................................1,500
Carolina Power & Light Company....................................1,000
Cement Kiln Recycling Coalition...................................1,000
Centerior Energy Corporation........................................250
Chrysler Corporation..............................................1,000
COALPAC/National Mining Association...............................1,000
Columbia Hydrocarbon Corporation..................................1,500
Commonwealth Edison Company.......................................1,500
Consolidated Natural Gas Service Company, Inc.....................1,000
Consumers Power Company...........................................1,000
Dominion Resources Inc./Virginia Power Company......................500
Detroit Edison....................................................1,000
Duquesn Light Company.............................................1,000
Edison Electric Institute...........................................500
E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Company................................2,500
El Paso Natural Gas Company.......................................1,000
Elf Atochem North America, Inc....................................2,000
Entergy Corporation.................................................500
Entergy Operations, Inc.............................................500
Enron Corporation.................................................2,012
Exxon Corporation.................................................1,000
Fina Oil and Chemical Company.......................................500
Ford Motor Corporation............................................1,000
Florida Power Corporation...........................................500
Florida Power & Light Company.....................................2,000
Flour Corporation.................................................4,000
General Public Utilities Corporation................................500
Hoechst Celanese Corporation......................................1,000
Houston Industries, Inc...........................................4,759
Intel Corporation...................................................250
Interstate Natural Gas Association of America.....................1,000
Kansas City Southern Industries, Inc................................500
Kerr-McGee Corporation..............................................500
LaFarge Corporation.................................................100
Marathon Oil Company/USX Corporation..............................1,500
Mobil Oil Corporation...............................................500
National Automobile Dealers Association...........................4,000
New England Power Service Company...................................500
North American Coal Corporation.....................................250
Northeast Utilities Service Corporation.............................500
Occidental Petroleum Corporation..................................1,000
Ohio Edison Company.................................................500
Pacific Gas and Electric Company..................................1,000
Panhandle Eastern Corporation.....................................2,000
PECO Energy Company.................................................500
Pennzoil Company....................................................500
Phillips Petroleum Company........................................1,000
PSI Energy Inc./Cinergy Corporation.................................500
Public Service Electric and Gas Company.............................200
Shell Oil Company.................................................1,500
Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America..............1,000
Southdown Inc.....................................................1,000
Southern California Edison Company................................2,000
Southern Company....................................................750
Southwestern Public Service Company.................................500
Tenneco Inc.......................................................1,000
Texaco Inc........................................................1,000
Texas Utilities Company.............................................500
Texas-New Mexico Power Company......................................500
USX Corporation.....................................................500
Valero Energy Corporation.........................................3,000
Westinghouse Electric Corporation.................................1,500
Weyerhaeuser Company..............................................1,000

Source: Federal Election Commission.

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