[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 95 (Tuesday, July 8, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H4907-H4908]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH IMPLEMENTATION OF IMPENDING EPA STANDARDS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Taylor of North Carolina). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
Mascara] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MASCARA. Mr. Speaker, I was supposed to join the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Klink] this evening to talk about the problems 
associated with the impending standards to be implemented by the 
Environmental Protection Agency.
  First of all, I would like to give a historic perspective to 
illustrate why I have joined so many of my colleagues in the House of 
Representatives to speak about the national ambient air quality 
standards. First let me clear the air, no pun intended. I support, as 
do many Members of Congress, clean air and a sound environmental policy 
in this country. The key word is ``sound.''
  I would like to share with my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, a historic 
perspective about the 15 years' experience that I had in county 
government. During that time I served on the Southwestern Pennsylvania 
Regional Planning Commission and during those 15 years I served as 
chairman 3 years and also as chairman of the Plan Policy Committee 
which had the responsibility of implementing ISTEA, which is the 
Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act and the Clean Air Act 
amendments of 1990 which were a companion bill. So I had an opportunity 
as a county commissioner to see the system from the bottom up and now 
as a Member of Congress to see it from the top down. I do have some 
experience in dealing with legislation that applies to clean air and 
air quality standards.
  As a member of the Regional Planning Commission, we covered six 
counties, including Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Washington, 
and Westmoreland and the city of Pittsburgh. I also served as chairman 
of this Plan Policy Committee that had the responsibility of 
implementing those two pieces of legislation, including the National 
Highway System Act.
  This enabled me to have a better understanding of the problems 
associated with implementing those standards in southwestern 
Pennsylvania. I led a group of county commissioners in 1994 suggesting 
that the nonattainment status in southwestern Pennsylvania was 
incorrect, and that we as county commissioners and the city of 
Pittsburgh council requested that an independent testing firm test the 
quality of air in southwestern Pennsylvania to determine whether in 
fact we did not reach attainment. We found at that time that some of 
the equipment that was used in measuring the quality of air was faulty, 
we found that the air quality samples that were taken were taken on the 
hottest days of the year. We requested and the Department of 
Transportation in Pennsylvania and the Department of Environmental 
Resources agreed to permit a testing company, an independent testing 
company to measure the quality of air in southwestern Pennsylvania.

                              {time}  2145

  The tests that were done by this independent firm proved our 
suspicions that the earlier testing was inappropriate and resulted in 
inaccurate test results. The air quality in the Pittsburgh region had 
definitely met the air quality standards. The Pennsylvania DER advised 
the EPA that southwestern Pennsylvania had met its ozone standards, and 
the EPA sat on the new information and never corrected our status from 
moderate nonattainment to attainment.
  Listen to this. Based on monitoring data between 1989 and 1994, 
western Pennsylvania's air quality met or exceeded the national 
standards for ozone levels. Apparently the application got lost in the 
bureaucratic maze, for it took the EPA over 2 years to respond instead 
of the mandated 18-month period. That summer, the summer of 1995, 
western Pennsylvania's ozone readings exceeded acceptable levels on 
only 9 days. Let me remind you that 1995 was one of the hottest summers 
on record.
  Yes, we paid the price for clean air that we now breathe, and as I 
said earlier we all support clean air. Southwestern Pennsylvania 
citizens paid the price, and now they want us to believe the new 
standards could eventually put the remaining 100,000 miners out of work 
and impact workers in the few remaining jobs we have in southwestern 
Pennsylvania.
  Mr. Speaker, I remind you that as a part of the 1980's and the 
decline in the steel and mining industry that we lost nearly 200,000 
manufacturing jobs in southwestern Pennsylvania. And these new air 
quality requirements are without a basis of science, and we are asking 
the President, and I joined in with several of my colleagues in writing 
the President asking him to take another look at the air quality 
standards which will be implemented this year.

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