[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 76 (Thursday, June 5, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H3559-H3564]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY RULES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Klink] is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. KLINK. Mr. Speaker, my colleague in the chair, and to everyone 
else who is here, let me first of all apologize for making you stay 
late, but I have delayed my own departure this evening. I could be 
almost home with my family. I have delayed my own departure this 
evening by better than 3 hours, because I think what I have to talk 
about is very important.
  And regardless of what my colleagues may think about my legislative 
voting record and regardless of what they think about anything else, I 
hope they realize that I am not one of the Members of the House who 
rises to speak every day; I am not up on every subject every day acting 
as though I am an authority on everything, but when I do know 
something, and when it is important to my district and when it is 
important to this Nation, I think I have a responsibility to speak up 
on it.
  The matter I am going to talk about now is a matter that is of 
importance to everyone throughout this entire Nation. It is going to 
mean whether or not our economy expands, it is going to mean whether or 
not we have jobs or whether or not our industry moves offshore. That is 
what I believe. That is what many other people across this country 
believe. That is what many other Members in this Chamber believe.
  We will get the answer to this question, I believe, by the middle of 
July. We do not have to wait very long. Probably, at most, about 6 
weeks. Because the Environmental Protection Agency is in the process of 
recommending new air quality standards, this at a time when we have 
been cleaning our air, the air quality. And, believe me, my district is 
around Pittsburgh, PA, once described as hell with the lid off. Back in 
the days when people had to sweep off their lawns because of the dust 
that came from the mills. Back in the days when if we hung our clothes 
out, they probably were dirtier when we took them off the line than 
when we washed them and hung them out. We had to shake off those 
clothes to get the dust off. People would go to work in the morning, 
and by the time they got to work they had black rings around their 
collars from the dust that would settle on their bodies.
  We had tremendous problems with air quality. Towns like Donora, PA, 
saw people dropping dead in the street from the pollution. We know 
about air pollution.
  A group called GASP, the Group Against Smog and Pollution, was born 
in Pittsburgh out of this fear for people's health. As a news reporter 
for 24 years, I covered our city as we were cleaning up the air. As a 
father of two young children, I want clean air. But I am convinced by 
the EPA making these standards more stringent, while we are cleaning 
our air, that in fact our air will remain dirtier longer, and there are 
scientists who agree with me on that.
  We have already set the finish line in this race to clean our air. We 
have definitive goals that we want to reach. And once we begin this 
process, those goals are erased and we extend the time out 10 years, 12 
years, in fact, we really do not know how long, until we will actually 
have to hit those very same goals or goals which may be a tiny bit more 
stringent.
  So if we are concerned, for example, about the health of that 
asthmatic 8- or 9-year-old child on the playground, and we do not want 
that child to breathe dirty air, to have to gasp to get air in their 
lungs, then we should agree with what Carol Browner of the EPA is about 
to try to do, unless we want action now. Because what she wants to do 
will perhaps clean the air up, but it will do it when that 8- or 9-
year-old child is in college.
  So instead of hitting ozone targets that say, for example, if we have 
a goal that we have to reach by 1999, well, we may not have to hit that 
goal until the year 2010. So we are going to wait 10 more years, 11 
more years, 12 more years until we hit those goals.
  There is not only the problem of making that asthmatic child wait 
longer for the air to be clean, there is the problem that we have with 
our economy. Industries across this Nation have spent tens of millions 
of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars individually, billions of 
dollars untold since the 1990 clean air amendments to clean the air. 
And now, all of a sudden, we are saying, wait a minute, what we said to 
spend money on, the particulate matter, that is the soot that is in the 
air, the soot which rises up out of the smokestacks of this country, we 
are not measuring it in a small enough measure. Instead of 10 microns, 
we want to make it 2.5 microns.
  Sounds very scientific, but what we are saying is we want to measure 
smaller particles, but we are not saying what those particles should 
be. And we do not have enough science because, understand, we only have 
50 monitors in this whole Nation which can measure 2.5 microns of the 
soot, the particulate matter, that EPA now wants us to go to. Fifty 
monitors are not enough and do not supply enough data that we can be 
sure that we are going to take this course of action which will cost 
over a million jobs, I believe, and others agree with me, and will cost 
untold billions of dollars.
  Let me tell my colleagues about my district a little bit and why I am 
probably a little more concerned, and other people who are from what we 
call Rust Belt regions, have the same concerns.
  In southwestern Pennsylvania, as we cleaned up that air that I talked 
about a few moments ago, partly because we were cleaning that air up, 
partly because the companies were investing in

[[Page H3560]]

those air pollution control devices instead of making capital 
improvements in the processes in which they were manufacturing the 
product, in other words dollars are going in to scrubbers in their 
smokestacks, where we needed that, we needed that to improve our 
health, but those dollars were not available to upgrade their 
manufacturing base, to buy new equipment, to invest in R&D and new 
technologies. And so many of our manufacturers fell behind.

                              {time}  2100

  Over a 13-county area in southwestern Pennsylvania we lost in the 
1970's and 1980's 155,000 manufacturing jobs. As I said earlier, I was 
a reporter back then. I stood outside many of those steel mills, many 
of those glass plants, car manufacturing plants, car part manufacturing 
plants, and watched as thousands upon thousands of workers walked out 
of the door for the last time.
  Now, as we are trying to rebuild that economy, we had a chance, at 
least a shot, a few weeks ago to lure back an automobile manufacturing 
plant. They were looking to occupy a 1,000-acre site, provide 2,500 
families in southwestern Pennsylvania with jobs. But when they took a 
look at Pennsylvania being part of the Northeast ozone transport 
region, when they took a look as what was going to happen or what was 
going to be proposed perhaps with these new air pollution regulations, 
they said, we are not going to move there, we are not going to provide 
that opportunity.
  I am not making this story up. It was published in the Pittsburgh 
Business Times. The company said they would have had to purchase over 
$3 million in pollution credits to locate in Pennsylvania. But if they 
went upwind, where much of our pollution comes from, to our sister 
States to the west, they would not have had to purchase those very 
expensive credits.
  What the EPA is proposing to do in tightening the regulations does 
not do anything to improve those States like Pennsylvania, which are 
getting dirty air from other States. And we have counties across this 
Nation, we have cities across this Nation, if we vacated them 
completely, moved all the manufacturing out, took all the cars out, 
moved all the vehicle traffic out, moved all the people out, those 
regions at certain days of the year would still be out of compliance.
  Much of this particulate matter is found in nature. What are we going 
to do about that particulate matter in the air, that dust that is found 
in nature? Let me tell my colleagues, I understand that the EPA has a 
pretty bad track record in my State of Pennsylvania. It is a real 
credibility problem. So when they say, trust us, we are going to 
improve air quality by tightening these regulations in the midst of the 
air getting cleaner, so they are going to tell us, first of all, stop 
doing what is working, stop doing what we told you to do before, do 
something new.
  I am saying to them in Pennsylvania, your word is not very good. 
Because you see, you told us in Pennsylvania that we needed to go to a 
centralized emissions testing and then Gov. Robert Casey began to 
implement that system. He moved the necessary legislation. And we even 
had a contract with a company called Envirotest Systems. It was a 
company out of Arizona. They were hired to run this testing system. It 
was a 7-year contract that could have given this Envirotest Systems 
company profits of over $100 million a year.
  Many of us knew that this was a bad idea. The people of Pennsylvania 
did not want it. We fought it. We gathered over 100,000 signatures on 
petitions and we opposed the testing system. As it turned out, EPA had 
misled Pennsylvania, we did not have to go to that centralized system.
  This was not necessary for Pennsylvania to comply with the Clean Air 
Act amendments of 1990. But by this point, we had the contract. By this 
point, we were stuck with 86 E-check centers built around the State's 
67 counties. In late 1995, Envirotest threatened to sue Pennsylvania on 
that contract. They wanted more than $350 million for expenses and for 
loss of profits.
  But then we had a new Governor, Tom Rich. His administration decided 
it was better to deal with them, to strike an agreement. So he reached 
a settlement calling for the State of Pennsylvania, the citizens of 
Pennsylvania, to pay $145 million to Envirotest. We settled it. Of that 
$145 million, that big whoops by the EPA that they misled Pennsylvania, 
not one penny of that $145 million cleaned up one speck of air.
  I believe that these EPA proposed revisions to the national ambient 
air quality standards for ozone and particulate matter are really going 
to be costly to us as a Nation. It will, in fact, keep the air dirtier 
longer, as I said. It will cost industry. It will cost jobs. We really 
have to take time to think about what we are doing.
  First of all, there is a question as to why we are moving ozone 
standards, which is, in effect, smog, at the same time we are moving 
the particulate matter standard, which of course particulate matter, as 
I said, is soot. We have to do something in regard to particulate 
matter, but all we have to do is review it.
  Why do we have to review it? Well, the American Lung Association 
filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency because every 5 
years they are to review these standards. They had not done that since 
1987. In 1992, 5 years later, they were to review these standards, but 
they had not. They do not have to tighten, they do not have to make it 
harder for Americans to clean up the air. All they have to do is stick 
with what is working still, stick with good science, stick with what is 
improving the health of this Nation. But they have decided, I think, 
that they are going to take another course of action.
  We have a problem with the fact that they have put ozone in with us 
because there was no lawsuit involving ozone. But they have thrown 
ozone in. What is the reason that they have decided to include ozone 
with the particulate matter? We do not know exactly what that reason 
is.
  We had Ms. Browner in front of the Committee on Commerce, two of our 
subcommittees, for over 8 years. I am still not sure why it is that she 
has decided to blend those two issues together. But for sure, they 
would not have to do anything regarding the smog issue or ozone until 
next year. But for some reason, we are moving these two very complex 
issues together. The present standard for ozone is 0.12 parts per 
million averaged over a 1-hour period. The Scientific Advisory Board 
said that they thought it would be better to reduce that to a range 
from 0.12 parts per million to somewhere between 0.07 and 0.09 and do 
it over an 8-hour period.
  I have no problem with going to an 8-hour period. But also we heard 
from one scientist after another is that there is no bright line where 
there are health benefits derived by the public within this range. So 
they have chosen somewhere in the middle that have range 0.08, which 
will in fact throw 400 counties, distribute counties across this Nation 
out of compliance.
  What happens when you are out of compliance? Well, businesses in your 
region, businesses in the noncompliance area will not expand. They are 
not going to invest more money, and certainly other companies like that 
automobile plant that I mentioned are not going to move into your 
region. So economically you are strangled, you are hung up, you are not 
going to grow, jobs will not occur. And when you do not have jobs, 
people do not have health benefits, cannot afford to go to the doctors 
and they derive bad health benefits from that, just as if they were 
breathing the dirty air.

  Let me take time right now to recognize my dear friend from Michigan 
[Mr. Dingell], the ranking member of the Committee on Commerce and the 
Dean of the House of Representatives. He has been here continuously 
longer than any other Member of the House. And I think, beyond a shadow 
of a doubt, everyone recognizes that he knows more about the Clean Air 
Act, the clean air, and the amendments and this issue than anyone else 
in the House of Representatives. It has been my pleasure to work with 
my colleague and to learn from him as we have moved through with this 
issue.
  I recognize now the gentleman from Michigan, [Mr. John Dingell].
  Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my dear friend from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Klink], who has provided

[[Page H3561]]

such valuable leadership in addressing the important issue that he now 
raises in the House. I want to commend him for his distinguished and 
able service here on behalf of the people that he serves and on behalf 
of the people of the United States. I also want to thank my colleague 
for his kind remarks towards me
  Mr. Speaker, the situation here is a serious one. It is interesting 
to note that we are making, according to Administrator Browner, 
significant progress in cleaning up the air and that that progress will 
continue for at least 5 years and that no change in the Clean Air Act 
is necessary to continue significant progress in terms of evading 
pollution. It is interesting that in the same appearance before the 
Committee on Commerce, in which she said those things, she had to admit 
that much of what are the supporting facts or science with regard to 
the changes that EPA proposes with regard to particulates and ozone, 
she does not know the answer and she does not have the science upon 
which she can base the judgments that she needs to.
  Certain facts are very clear. The air is getting better, the air is 
getting cleaner. Significant progress will be made. One of the 
admissions made by Ms. Browner before the Committee on Energy and 
Commerce was that the changes she is suggesting will not significantly 
result in major improvement in air quality between now and the year 
2002.
  In addition to this, it is plain that the economic consequences of 
the rulemaking now proposed by EPA will be very, very significant in 
terms of jobs, opportunity for our people, and competitiveness. It is 
very plain that the jobs in industrialized America will move to 
unindustrialized areas and that new brownfields will be created and new 
greenfields will be torn up for industrial change.
  It is also very plain that significant loss of economic opportunity 
and economic impetus for this country impends and that the consequences 
of these rules being adopted will be that the United States will see 
significant jobs lost to Mexico, Canada, and other places around the 
world as American industry moves out.
  One might ask why that situation will obtain. The answer is very 
simple. What is going to transpire is that the rules suggested by EPA 
will create no less than 400 nonattainment areas in the United States 
and those areas, while getting cleaner, will be legislated into 
nonattainment by the rules that are being suggested by EPA.
  The consequences of this are that those areas will become subject to 
sanctions, will become subject to transportation limitations, will 
become subject to losses of jobs stemming from losses of building 
permits, and to changes which will be imposed on industry with regard 
to the fashion in which business is conducted.
  More importantly, business will be faced with the significant 
problems of achieving building permits. Ordinary citizens will face 
significant risk to lifestyle; and while those lifestyle changes are 
impossible to predict at this time, the rules which could be imposed on 
those areas could include things like controls on barbecuing, house 
painting, on running of power mowers, operation of motor boats, and 
other things in the areas which are nonattainment.
  The consequences in terms of lost jobs, lost opportunity, loss of 
quality of life by Americans is indeed significant. While it is 
impossible to predict exactly what the consequences of this will be, 
they will be extremely onerous and need not be imposed upon American 
industry and upon American citizens.
  The cost to the American people of the changes that this is going to 
impose will be enormous. One of the interesting things is that if we 
had, for example, a fourth grader playing in a grade school playground 
here in Washington, DC, under existing rules and regulations, that 
child is going to live in an area that meets existing standards by 
1999, a mere 2 years from today. If EPA adopts the new standard, EPA 
hopes to force continued progress. But this attainment deadline will 
not be enforced, at least according to the transitional guidance issued 
by EPA with the proposed rules.
  Instead, EPA will provide a new attainment date with the new 
standard. That allows States to take up to 12 years to bring an area 
into attainment. So in point of fact, what will transpire to this child 
is that 12 years after today he will live in an area which has reached 
attainment if all goes well.
  If the past is prologue for the future, we know that EPA and the 
States will use the maximum amount of time allowed. So in point of 
fact, that child, instead of seeing the cleanup of his area or her area 
in 2 years, will observe it in a period of 12 years.
  The number of counties that are going to be put into nonattainment 
area is significant, as I mentioned, better than 400 in the United 
States. It is interesting to note that amongst that number will be a 
significant number of counties in the State that I have the privilege 
and the pleasure to represent. Some 26 counties in Michigan will be 
legislated from attainment into nonattainment. Some 26 counties in Ohio 
will find same situations.
  EPA's standards may result in cleaner air, but they may also result 
in significant hardship which will be imposed because of the 
requirements for sanctions and other things to be imposed.

                              {time}  2115

  It should be noted that of the 50 States, all 50 will see questions 
raised about the validity and the propriety of their State 
implementation plans. The consequence of this is again to subject every 
county within those States to the possibility of sanctions, penalties 
and other things. And failure to comply with these will subject the 
cities, the counties and the States to the strong possibility of 
citizen suits which will take control away from the local units of 
government, away from the States and put them into the courts. The 
consequences of this, I reiterate to my colleagues, are indeed serious. 
I commend again the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania for his 
leadership. One of the questions I did not mention that is going to 
confront us is the Clean Air Act as now constituted requires all 
Federal highway funds to be withheld by EPA as an automatic sanction 
for nonattainment areas, whether they be counties, whether they be 
cities or whether they be States. As a result, industrial and 
transportation projects can be delayed years and decades by the Clean 
Air Act requirements in nonattainment areas where good faith effort is 
now being made by the citizens and by their governments to comply with 
the law. These changes suggested by EPA are extremely destructive, 
hazardous of economic growth, unneeded and will result in serious 
hardship not only for American industry and competitiveness but also 
for the people of the United States. I would hope that those who are 
within reach of my voice or are observing what I am saying will take to 
heart what I have said and communicate with the administration about 
their concerns of the unwisdom of this kind of unnecessary step.
  Mr. KLINK. I thank the gentleman for his input again and just laud 
him for everything that he has done to help us on this issue. The 
gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell] was the author and worked with us 
all on a letter to the administration where we as Democrats sought to 
sit down with our President to talk about the seriousness of this 
matter. We have been relatively quiet up until now, working very hard 
behind the scenes, trying to get through to the administration, trying 
to talk to Administrator Browner. The administration has dragged their 
feet. They do not want to seem to want to sit down and talk to us. We 
have issued letters, we have made phone calls. Many of us have 
buttonholed people who work at the White House who we think are close 
to the President trying to impress upon them how serious we are. I will 
not stand idly by and watch the same kind of degradation to our 
industrial base that I watched during the 1970's and 1980's. I know 
that the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell] likewise will not watch 
that in his State of Michigan or anywhere else in this country. Yet we 
have not heard from the administration. So now we have prepared a piece 
of legislation. I am hoping, and we have gotten a great start, it is 
going to be a bipartisan bill. We are working with our friends on the 
Republican side to say, ``Don't change the standards. We're cleaning 
the air. The economy is moving forward.'' This is not something where 
we want to

[[Page H3562]]

have EPA say 5 years from now, billions of dollars later, millions of 
jobs lost later, ``Whoops, we made a mistake.''
  We know that it will take at least 2 years, Mr. Speaker, for the only 
2 companies that manufacture these PM-2.5 monitors to make enough to 
get them distributed around this Nation. Then according to the law, it 
has to be monitored for at least 3 years to have the data. Two years to 
manufacture and distribute, 3 years to collect the data, adds up to 5 
years. At the end of that 5 years, by law, this matter will have to be 
reviewed again or there will be another group suing the EPA. We are 
saying, take that 5 years, make sure that the science is right and as 
Carol Browner said herself, as other people in the administration have 
said, as scientists have said, during that 5 years nothing is lost 
because we are cleaning the air. We are moving forward with improving 
the breathability and the healthiness of the air across this country.
  I would mention one other thing that really bothers me. Industry is 
on our side on this issue. Labor is on our side on this issue. In 
southwestern Pennsylvania, the American Lung Association of western 
Pennsylvania is on our side on this issue. Also on our side are the 
State legislatures of Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, 
Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, 
Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina and South 
Dakota, along with Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia. All of these 
legislatures and many of them, both the State House as well as the 
State Senate have passed resolutions or concurrent resolutions saying, 
``Don't do this. You're throwing it back on us, Federal Government. It 
is up to us, the State, to do the State implementation plan. We've 
begun our State implementation plan. We're cleaning the air. Now you're 
moving the finish line farther down the road, making it more expensive, 
making it more difficult and in fact stopping us from cleaning the 
air.''
  Who else is on our side? The Governor of Arizona, two Governors of 
Arkansas, both of which followed the current President into the 
governor's mansion. The Governor of Delaware has written a letter. The 
Governor of Florida, the Governor of Georgia, the Governor of Illinois, 
the Governor of Indiana, the Governor of Kansas, the Governor of 
Kentucky, the Governor of Louisiana, the Governor of Michigan, the 
Governor of Mississippi, the Governor of Missouri, the Governor of 
Montana, the Governor of North Carolina, the Governor of Ohio, the 
Governor of Pennsylvania, the Governor of South Carolina, the Governor 
of Tennessee, the Governor of Texas, the Governor of Utah, the Governor 
of Virginia is with us as is the Governor of Wisconsin, the Governor of 
Wyoming, and then we have had many governors join together and sign 
letters together. We have had letters from people within the Clinton 
administration, including Jerry Glover of the Small Business 
Administration, the Department of Air Force at Wright Patterson because 
you understand, Mr. Speaker, that the Defense Department may not be 
able to have aircraft flying in certain areas at certain times of the 
day because of the particulate matter given off by the exhaust of those 
aircraft. The same goes for commercial aircraft. I do not know what we 
would do, and we would really be in a pickle, it would seem to me, if 
our Nation would be attacked during a bad pollution day. I do not know 
if EPA would try to stop us from defending ourselves with these 
aircraft taking off or not.
  That is almost how stupid all of this sounds. But we have a stack of 
resolutions, and I would tell my colleagues they are better than a foot 
high. These are letters, they are resolutions from industries and from 
State legislatures and governors across this Nation, telling us, this 
will impact their area negatively. It will inhibit their ability to 
clean the air. We talk about particulate matters. As I said this is 
something, the smaller particulate matter which is soot is composed of 
sulfates and nitrates and acids and ammoniums and elemental carbon and 
organic compounds, but a lot of this particulate matter also can 
be derived through industrial activities, through farming, mining, 
through driving down a dirt road. Because the particulate matter is 2.5 
microns, which again I hate to get technical, but because it is of a 
certain size, does not necessarily mean it is as toxic as some other 
substance of that size. It does not mean it is as dense as another 
substance of that same size. Do toxicity and density and other kinds of 
things like this cause one particular PM-2.5 particle to cause you 
worse health effects than others? Is it when you have a blend of 
various substances that are taken into your lungs that you have a worse 
health matter? We do not have the answer, but yet it appears that the 
EPA and Director Browner are on their way down this pathway to hell for 
this country economically by rushing us into this before we know that 
we have all the scientific facts.

  Again I would not ask my colleagues to depend on me because I am not 
a scientist, I am a lowly former news reporter, who has now been 
elected to Congress, who studied this issue. Let me call on those who I 
do know and I want to give Members some quotes.
  Dr. Joe Mauderly is the current chairman of the scientific panel who 
has made their recommendations. As he appeared before the Committee on 
Commerce, he said, ``While I support the proposed change for ozone as 
logical from a scientific viewpoint, I have to point out that it should 
also be considered that an equal or greater overall health benefit 
might be derived by using the Nation's resources to achieve compliance 
with the present standard in presently noncompliant regions, than by 
enforcing nationwide compliance with a more restrictive standard.''
  In other words, what he is saying is we might be better off to make 
sure that we continue to clean the air to the specifications that we 
must adhere to now in areas that are in noncompliance rather than put 
everybody else to new levels of compliance and just start throwing 
money at that before we have all of the science.
  He also points out that he is concerned about New Mexico and other 
arid regions with alkaline soil. He says, ``The substantial portion of 
soil derived PM, particulate matter, that can exist as PM-2.5 may cause 
noncompliance with a standard aimed at controlling a different class of 
PM.'' In other words, what we are saying is you can have no industrial 
activity, none. But if you live in an arid region with alkaline soils, 
such as New Mexico, in nature, you might find yourself out of 
compliance. Yet we will be forcing industries across this Nation into 
trying to attain goals that are not attainable.
  Let me just again go to Dr. Joe Mauderly, present chairman again of 
CASAC. He said, ``I do not believe, however, that our present 
understanding of the relationship between PM and health provides a 
confident basis for implementing a standard that necessitates crippling 
expenditures or extreme changes in life-style or technology.'' That is 
exactly what this would do. First of all, we are going to have a 
crippling change in technology because we have got to get those PM-2.5 
monitors manufactured. We have to get them out there. We have to get 
the readings and we have to make a determination as to exactly what is 
the impact of that.
  It is going to cause crippling expenditures for industry. They know 
that. I have a little company that is in my district that was formerly 
owned by Arco, it is now owned by a company from Canada and we are 
happy to have Canadian companies come here and provide jobs for 
Americans. It is always good when that can occur. It is called Nova 
Chemical. They make styrofoam like you would find on the underside of 
the dashboard of your car or sometimes in the roof and the other 
components of the automobiles.
  This is a small company, a small chemical company down in Beaver 
County, PA. But since the 1990 standards went into effect, this small 
company has spent $40 million cleaning up the air. Just down the Ohio 
River a little bit farther in Midland, J & L Specialty Steel, they make 
stainless steel. We are proud because they are expanding right now, 
they are putting in a new specialty steel line. I do not know if they 
would or would not have done this if they when they began the process 
had been threatened with these new pollution regulations, because they 
have spent about $160 million cleaning the air. And they have given us 
great benefits. They are not complaining

[[Page H3563]]

about that because they live in the community, just like the folks at 
Nova Chemical and Zinc Corp. of America, and USX and Allegheny 
Teledyne. They live in our community, they want the air to be clean, 
they have made the expenditure, but now we are moving the finish line 
farther away from them. That is a problem which all of this country 
will have to deal with. We have just reached for better or for worse, 
we will see how it goes, a balanced budget agreement, very historic, 
the first time since 1969. It was derived as the President sat down 
with the majority in the House of Representatives. But the basis for 
that agreement, as I understand, not having been in the room, were some 
very rosy economic assumptions. Those economic assumptions that we have 
made would go right out the door if all of a sudden our industry across 
this Nation were crippled by these new proposed standards. You can 
forget about it. People will not be taxpayers, they will be tax 
recipients because the jobs will not be created and in many regions 
they will lose the jobs. I know that the President, I know the 
administration, I know that Ms. Browner is hearing from the same mayors 
that we are hearing from, from the same county commissioners, and other 
local officials that we are hearing from. They are concerned about the 
impact that these kinds of changes at the midpoint of this race would 
have on their ability not only to clean up the air but their ability 
likewise to have a vibrant economy. Eventually it is up to them, it is 
up to the States to reach attainment, it is up to the locale to reach 
the attainment.

                              {time}  2130

  Yvonne Atkinson Gates, who is on the board of commissioners of Clark 
County, NV; that is where Las Vegas is, and everybody knows Clark 
County. It is booming, they are building homes, they got tremendous 
amounts of economic growth. But she told our committee this:
  Since the economy of Clark County is almost entirely based upon 
tourism, EPA's designation of our county as nonattainment will do 
damage to our ability to market our community as safe and clean.
  When you are in nonattainment, and as the gentleman from Michigan 
[Mr. Dingell] said, 400 counties like this would be out of attainment; 
when you are out of attainment, there is a stigma that is involved. If 
you want to apply to expand your plant or to put a new plant in, you 
are in nonattainment, you have got problems. It is going to cost a lot 
more. You probably will not even attempt to do it. If people are 
seeking building permits as they are in Clark County to build those 
thousands upon thousands of homes each month as that area booms and 
grows, they will not be able to have building permits.
  Now a lot has been said about the change of lifestyle, would people 
be able to burn their wood burning stoves, would they be able in rural 
areas to burn brush and leaves and trash as they have in the past? That 
is going to be up to the local communities to have to make that 
decision as to how they comply. They may feel and they may indeed not 
have any alternative but to say to the citizens of this country you are 
going to have to change your lifestyle, you are going to have to have a 
new vehicle that burns reformulated gas whether you like it or not. You 
might have to have a car that is the California style car with the air 
pollution control, and the cost, 1,500 or $2,000 more. What will that 
do for your ability to be able to afford to buy new cars? What will 
that do to the automobile industry in this country? What will that do 
for the auto parts industry of this country?
  Let me jump just across the border. Let us go to San Jose, CA. Trixie 
Johnson, vice chair of the National League of Cities, told the 
Committee on Commerce about this proposed change of air pollution 
standards. Many of the State implementation plans developed as a result 
of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments are just now being implemented. 
The implementation strategies incorporated in these plans have not been 
in effect long enough to determine their impact. And now we are saying 
to the States with that plan you have been working on, that plan that 
you have had in mind to clean up the air in your state so that you can 
comply with the federal law, forget about it. Start over again. The 
target used to be here. Now we are moving it way over there. See if you 
can hit that. And it is up to you and your industries and your citizens 
to figure out how to do it. We are out of it, we are the EPA. We are 
bigger than you. We could change the rules as we move along.
  That is exactly what we are being told.
  Dr. Barbara Beck I thought was very good when she was in front of the 
committee. She was from Gradient Corporation. About the ozone standard 
she said again remember we do not have to move on ozone now. We have to 
take a look at PM. We do not have to change it; we just have to review 
it according to the courts. But ozone could wait a year. But about this 
she said although the approach used by EPA in support of its 
recommendations is conceptually sound, multiple biases in the analysis 
result in an overall over estimate of the risk and hence an over 
estimate of the potential benefits.
  Well, if their science is so good, let us take time while we are 
still cleaning the air, and I remind you again I cannot say it enough 
that the folks at EPA, including Miss Browner, agree with me, we are 
still cleaning the air. No matter what we do, the air is going to get 
cleaner. So let us make sure we are doing it right. Let us make sure 
that something good is happening.
  And I would say to the administration sit down and talk with us. Do 
not meander into this. You are taking on this Nation. You are taking on 
these State legislators, these Governors, these industries, these labor 
unions. This is a government of the people, by the people, for the 
people. We want clean air, we are getting clean air. You are ignoring 
us. You are saying you do not have to sit down and talk to us.
  And I am saying we have waited patiently long enough. Now it is time 
for us to take matters into our hands so that we have a fallback 
position. We cannot depend on the fact that you are going to talk to 
us. We cannot depend on the fact that you are going to say to us the 
industries in your state will be fine because we are going to be 
realistic about dealing with this. We have to go back to that 
centralized emission system that you forced Pennsylvania to go to that 
cost us $145 million to settle with that Envirotest company from 
Arizona that did not clean up any of the air.
  Now that $145 million, they will take it kind of personally because 
that money came out of the pockets of the taxpayers of the Commonwealth 
of Pennsylvania. It was money we could of used to educate our children. 
We could have used it for mass transit improvements that would have 
certainly cleaned up the air. We could have used it for so many things, 
for Medicare or Medicaid payments to take care of the needs of our 
citizens. But we had to use it because EPA said, whoops. Now I am 
afraid what they did to Pennsylvania they may be on the brink of doing 
to the entire United States of America.
  And there are other complications. You see, a corporation could take 
this as an excuse and say you know we really got this agreement called 
NAFTA which gives us an ability to move south of the border or north of 
the border and sell our goods in the United States just as if we were 
located there and we do not have pollution standards like we have in 
the United States, but of course that air is going to blow across the 
border to Texas and across the border to the northern States from 
Canada, but companies would be able to do that. They would have that 
option.
  This issue does not stand unto itself. There are other issues that 
come into play as to whether or not these jobs will still be American 
jobs, these plants will still be American plants.
  So we are concerned. We have some very grave concerns about whether 
or not we are headed in the correct direction.
  I want to just mention again something that I think is extremely 
important, and that is this issue of the slower cleanup, and I 
mentioned this before, and I know that Mr. Dingell talked about it. 
This, I think, and the reason I repeat it is because it is probably the 
most important issue; we are, Mr. Speaker, going to continue to make 
progress in seeing the air get cleaner. Regardless of whether we have a 
new ozone standard or new particulate standard, we are cleaning up our

[[Page H3564]]

air as it pertains directly to ozone though. For the next 5 years we 
know that the air is going to continue to get cleaner through the 
continued implementation of the existing ozone provisions of the 1990 
Clean Air Act amendments. However EPA has stated now that the existing 
attainment deadlines for ozone are not going to be enforced.

  You understand this; we have got a rule right now that says this is 
the standard, .12 parts per million over a 1-hour period. They want to 
go to .08 parts per million over an 8-hour period, and I will admit an 
8-hour period makes sense, but why from .12 to .08 throwing hundreds of 
counties out of attainment because when you do that the EPA said that 
they will not enforce the deadline at which those standards must be 
reached.
  So now you have said, as I said in the very beginning, as Mr. Dingell 
reiterated, to that child who is 8 or 9 years old who is on the 
playground having problems breathing, you said to the location where 
they are located if 1999 is the deadline that you have to reach .12 
parts per million, forget about it, we have got a new standard, and we 
are going to give you 10 or 12 years longer to reach that deadline.
  In addition, the States that have implementation plans are going to 
stop right now. They are going to quit because now we have moved the 
target. This is bad policy. We need to know more about the science. We 
have to do more studying. The ramifications are hard for all of us to 
grasp, but we know they will not be good. This new standard is going to 
disrupt the clean air progress that we could make under existing ozone 
standards, and we do not have to do it. There is no reason that we 
should be taking this on.
  Let me reiterate again about these PM-2.5 monitors, 50 of them exist. 
We have to manufacture more, we have to get them implemented, get them 
located, rather, around this country, gather the information. That also 
is going to cause a long delay in knowing where we stand with PM-2.5.
  Is there a combination of PM-2.5 molecules that is worse than others?
  We have other questions. Why in the Pittsburgh region and other 
regions across this country as we clean up the air have we seen 
increased incidences of asthma?
  There are more asthma cases as the air has gotten cleaner. Why is 
that? Well, there is speculation it may have to do in poorer areas with 
the fact that we have insect infestations in homes. There is 
speculation it could have to do with the fact at one time we had 
hardwood floors and now we have gone to wall to wall carpeting and 
there is dust mites and all kinds of particles like this in carpeting. 
But we do not have the answer. Without having that answer, without 
understanding why we are seeing more asthma as the air is cleaned up, 
we have got this rush to judgment on behalf of the EPA.
  It is a bad policy. It is going to hurt the country, and it is not 
going to benefit the children and other asthmatics across this country. 
That is the problem that we have. The EPA is charging forward without 
the ability to implement the new PM standard. They are charging forward 
on ozone without really having to do that, without really having the 
answers to many of these questions.
  Again, I know the White House has heard from us, the White House has 
heard from local officials, from State officials, from State 
legislators. They have heard from people in the administration that 
have the same concerns that Ron Klink has, that the gentleman from 
Michigan, [Mr. Dingell] has, and thus far the silence from the White 
House has been deafening.
  I will say one more time we have lost enough jobs in southwestern 
Pennsylvania and other industrial regions of this country. We have felt 
the implications of those job losses. Families have been ruined, lives 
have been ruined, individuals have been ruined, communities have been 
ruined. We now have one of the largest populations percentagewise of 
senior citizens in the entire Nation because many of our youngest and 
best and brightest had to move away. We are finally getting to the 
point where we are regrowing our industries and what we are saying to 
our children and grandchildren: Come back to Pennsylvania. Jobs exist 
again. And now the EPA wants to bring all of that crashing down around 
our ears.
  If we must go to war on this issue, then, Mr. Speaker, we will go to 
war on this issue. We have done it before. I have been involved in some 
battles that I have lost, but I have been involved in some that I have 
won. I hope that we still have time to sit down and to work this matter 
out and that cooler heads and calmer minds and good science and the 
best interests of the people, the workers across this country, will 
prevail.
  But I am preparing a piece of legislation that will keep the 
standards as they are, maintain the status quo and continue to clean 
the air at the rate we are cleaning it, and we are ready to move that. 
We have got Republicans working with us, Democrats working with us, and 
we will move that legislation, and I think that we can get it moved 
through the House. I think there is enough interest in it.
  Let us make those on the other side tell us why they want to delay 
cleaning up the air, why they want children to be gasping longer, why 
they want to cost people their jobs, why they want to shut down 
industries in this Nation.
  As for me, let us continue the progress that we have made in 
rebuilding the industrial base of this Nation, the industrial might of 
this Nation, and let us keep making the progress that we have done on 
cleaning the air and seeing the health improvements that we have seen 
across this country.

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