[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 96 (Wednesday, July 9, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H5006-H5007]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             NEW EPA RULES THREATEN ECONOMIC REVITALIZATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Klink] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KLINK. Mr. Speaker, as I have in the past several weeks, I come 
to the floor of the House again asking my colleagues to give some 
consideration to becoming cosponsors to a bill that I have done with 
the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Upton], a Republican from Michigan, 
and the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Boucher], a Democrat. It is a 
bipartisan effort to try to say to the Environmental Protection Agency 
that we in the United States of America, we the people, are working 
toward cleaning up our air. We have done a tremendous job of cleaning 
up the air of this Nation. Industries have spent hundreds of millions 
of dollars. Workers have done their part. Automobile owners have done 
their part. We have gone to catalytic converters and unleaded gasoline. 
I will tell my colleagues, coming from southwestern Pennsylvania in an 
area that was once referred to as ``hell with the lid off'' that we in 
fact have made tremendous strides in cleaning the air and even 
according to Carol Browner, Director of the EPA, we will continue to do 
that.
  But now comes the Director of the EPA and now comes the President of 
the United States refusing to talk to those of us who are from their 
own party, the Democratic Party, refusing to even acknowledge our 
letters when we say to them that you are threatening the very 
livelihood of the people of our district. You are threatening the 
economic revitalization that has been decades in coming by changing the 
target at the midway point in the race.
  The President, at the suggestion of Ms. Browner, at EPA is going to 
change two standards, that dealing with soot or fine particulate 
matter, and that dealing with ozone, or smog. There is no reason to do 
that. By their own admission, we are making progress. By their own 
admission, particularly when dealing with fine particulate matter, 
there are only 50 monitors in this entire country which will deal with 
what is known as PM-2.5. That is something about \1/28\th the width of 
a human hair.
  Why are we doing this, Mr. Speaker? Why are we changing the rules and 
regulations for industry? The governors certainly do not want it. They 
have encouraged this President, who was a Governor, not to make this 
change at this time, many Governors.
  State legislators have urged us. The burden will fall on them. The 
Mayors Conference overwhelmingly suggested to this President, do not 
change the rules, the burden will fall on us. We are the ones that will 
have to come up with methods of complying. We are the people who will 
have to say, no building permits if you want to expand your industry, 
no building permit if you want to bring a new industry into this

[[Page H5007]]

region. We are the people who have to make the decision. It is not the 
EPA, it is not Carol Browner.
  It is going to be something that is mandated, new standards, by the 
Federal Government, that according to the scientists who testified 
before our Committee on Commerce, the Committee on Science and other 
committees on both sides of the Hill, that there is no bright line 
which defines an improvement in human health. So why are we spending 
billions of dollars, costing millions of people their jobs, costing the 
economic recovery of this Nation at a time when we have no definitive 
reason to believe that there will be a positive impact?
  And the President has said, wait a minute, take a look at our 
compliance. We are going to set these standards down but, with a wink 
and a nod, you do not have to obey them for years to come.
  Why institute them? Why institute them? And if you do not have to 
comply, then why do we have them? And it is not the Federal Government 
that is going to force you to comply; it is those same local elected 
officials, the mayors, the county commissioners, the State elected 
officials, the Governors who are going to have to say, if my district 
all of a sudden, these hundreds of counties across this Nation, are 
going to be out of compliance, then we have to begin the process of 
setting up the standards. We will be the people that will have to make 
the decisions as to whether or not we issue building permits, whether 
we allow industry to expand, what we do about centralized emissions 
testing of our vehicles, and on and on and on.
  So you are right, Mr. President. With a wink and a nod, you can say 
we are going to keep the environmentalists happy by seeming to make 
more stringent laws, but with a wink and a nod to our friends in labor, 
to our friends in industry, we will say, ``But you don't have to obey 
those rules.''
  You cannot have it both ways. We in southwestern Pennsylvania have 
lost 155,000 jobs. We are beginning to come back. We are beginning to 
see a new investment by companies that want to come back to people with 
a good work ethic and want to create employment. We do not want that to 
be undone, and so we have introduced H.R. 1984. It will stop the EPA. 
It is a common sense bill. In the meantime, we will authorize money to 
study the problem, to build the PM-2.5 monitors and to take us forward 
with good science.

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