[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 153 (Thursday, November 17, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13069-S13070]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 EPA ANALYSIS OF CLEAN AIR LEGISLATION

  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I will take some time this morning to talk 
about why we need new clean air legislation. It has been some 15 years 
since Congress passed the last revisions to the Clean Air Act. No one 
disputes the fact that we have made significant environmental progress 
since that time, but our work is not over. Powerplants continue to blow 
pollution that causes smog and other air problems in our cities and our 
communities. Unless we require powerplants everywhere to reduce the 
amount of pollution they emit, we will continue to be faced with poor 
air quality and its dangerous side effects.
  The idea of reducing pollution from powerplants is not new. We have 
been discussing it for years. In fact, when President Bush first ran 
for the White House, he promised, in 2000, to make new clean air 
legislation one of his top environmental priorities. Since I came to 
the Senate in 2001, we have seen a number of proposals on how to 
proceed. Senator Jeffords offered his Clean Power Act. The President 
offered his Clear Skies Act. I, along with Senators Chafee, Gregg, and 
Alexander, offered a proposal that we call the Clean Air Planning Act.
  I have always believed that our proposal, the third proposal, is the 
right one. While I agree with the principles laid out in the bill by 
Senator Jeffords, I fear it will be too costly and its goals 
technologically unachievable. By contrast, the President's plan is too 
weak and would do nothing to reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide, 
which we believe contributes to global warming.
  What we crafted in response to these two proposals was a middle-
ground approach, one that achieved the objectives of the Jeffords bill 
without relying on the command and control philosophies of the past. It 
is an approach that reduces pollution further and faster than the 
President has visualized, while giving utilities the flexibilities they 
need and the incentives they need to get the job done right.
  Since we first introduced that bill some 3 years ago, I have tried to 
get the EPA to conduct an objective scientific analysis of it and how 
it compares with other proposals. We were repeatedly denied. Earlier 
this year, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee tried to 
push through the President's Clear Skies bill. I again asked for an 
analysis of our proposal and the other proposals, and we were denied. 
The administration told me I had all the information I needed and there 
was no reason to further debate it. I told them without that 
information we could not negotiate. On March 8, Clear Skies was voted 
on in our committee and it failed on a 9-to-9 vote.
  Soon after the failure to pass out Clear Skies, President Bush 
nominated Stephen Johnson to be the new head of EPA. Stephen Johnson 
had impeccable credentials stemming from his long, distinguished career 
within the agency. In essence, Mr. Johnson represented the best person 
for the job. But when he came before our committee to have his 
nomination approved, I voted against him. I think I was the only one. 
Then I placed a hold on his nomination, something I have never done in 
my 5 years in the Senate. I don't have a problem with Stephen Johnson; 
I had a problem with the way the administration was politicizing EPA 
and keeping the agency from doing its job in providing the information 
that I and others were requesting.
  I believe we need this information in order to enable us to craft the 
best possible clean air bill. I didn't think it was too much to ask 
that we have a detailed, up-to-date modeling on how our bills would 
affect the economy, the health of our public, and our environment. My 
hold was eventually overridden, I think by two votes. But to my 
surprise, my pleasant surprise, once Stephen Johnson became 
administrator, he offered to model the economic, the health, and the 
environmental impact of the various clean air proposals.
  I say right now on the floor that I very much appreciate Stephen 
Johnson's willingness to grant my request. It says a lot about what 
kind of man he is, and that he is willing to break through the logjam 
in trying to meet our years-long request.
  Last month, on October 27, Stephen Johnson and some of his senior 
leadership from EPA delivered the analysis they have done. It is my 
hope their analysis from EPA will take the debate that has been going 
on for a number of years to the next level.
  After reviewing the details of the analysis, it clearly shows, 
perhaps ironically, that we can do better than the President's Clear 
Skies plan. In fact, it shows we can get much better environmental and 
health benefits than Clear Skies at only a slightly higher cost.
  On the issue of climate change, the analysis shows we can regulate 
carbon dioxide cheaply and without worrying that we will hurt coal 
production or drive up natural gas prices. Let me explain, using a few 
charts from the EPA analysis.
  The first chart, ``Projected Emissions From Electric Generating 
Units''--there are four of them. The first we will look at is sulfur 
dioxide emissions from electric generators. We have three proposals we 
can actually see. This yellow-golden line is a proposal called the 
Clean Power Act offered by Senator Jeffords. This line here is actually 
several lines that overlap, but it is Clear Skies and current law, the 
President's proposal. The green line here is the Clean Air Planning Act 
that Senators Chafee, Alexander, Gregg, and I had offered. This is 
2005. This is where we are right now.

  If the legislation were adopted, you see a spike in sulfur dioxide 
emission from the Jeffords proposal. Then it drops down lower than the 
others.
  What you see here with sulfur dioxide emissions--the President's 
proposal is the same as current law.
  What you see here for the bipartisan proposal the other three 
Republicans and I offered is something that gets us deeper cuts in 
sulfur dioxide emissions, far deeper than the proposal of the 
administration, and far deeper than that of current law, and eventually 
somewhere in between where the Jeffords bill is and where the 
President's proposal is.

[[Page S13070]]

  Coming over here, looking at emissions of mercury from electric 
generators, we find the greatest cuts, the deepest cuts, come in 2010. 
They come from the Jeffords proposal, not surprisingly. The 
administration's proposals are right here--not much different from 
current law. The proposal that the three Republican Senators--Chafee, 
Alexander, Gregg--and myself offered is somewhere in between. Actually 
our cuts are a little deeper than in the Jeffords proposal between now 
and 2010, and his mercury cuts are a bit further than ours in the 
subsequent years.
  Right here, the third box here, let's look at nitrogen oxide 
emissions. Again, the deepest cuts are from the Jeffords proposal. The 
President's Clear Skies proposal--they are all sort of lumped together, 
and our bipartisan proposal does a little bit better with nitrogen 
oxide emissions. I think it is kind of interesting, for the nitrogen 
oxide emissions we are not that far apart. There is a considerable 
difference between us and the administration on sulfur dioxide and 
mercury, but we are pretty close together on nitrogen oxide.
  Here are CO2 emissions. The yellow line, the Jeffords 
proposals: some reductions between now and 2010, pretty level in the 
outyears. My proposal doesn't go as far, but it holds the 
CO2 emissions pretty level until the end of the next decade. 
Under the President's proposal, under Clear Skies and current law, 
CO2 levels continue to rise and emissions continue to rise.
  The next chart we are going to look at actually lets us see what the 
price is of reducing CO2 emissions. This for me was maybe 
the biggest surprise of all.
  In order to reduce emissions of CO2 by a ton starting in 
2010, under the Jeffords proposal it is $16 a ton--pretty expensive. By 
2020, to get a ton of CO2 reduction out of the Jeffords 
Clean Power Act--$27 a ton. But look at this. The proposal that 
Senators Chafee, Alexander, Gregg, and I offered, our proposal--one ton 
of CO2 reduction in 2010 costs $1. It is $1 per ton in 2015. 
It is $2 per ton in 2020.
  Given that low cost, my question to my colleagues and the 
administration is, What are we waiting for? Let's get started.
  We have a third proposal, a third chart here. The third chart 
actually looks at what we could get for our money, for our efforts on 
reducing areas of nonattainment for particulates, the microscopic stuff 
that gets in our lungs and causes all kinds of breathing disorders. Now 
we are looking at nondesignated areas that exist. There are about 40 of 
them around the country that are nonattainment for small particulate 
matter. Under the Carper proposal and under the Jeffords proposal, we 
reduce that almost by three-fourths, down to about 10 in each of those. 
The administration goes down about half. We continue to show 
considerably fewer nonattainment areas for particulate matter by 2020 
under the Jeffords proposal, which is the lowest, and our proposal, 
which is next to the lowest.
  The second chart shows nonattainment areas for ozone. There are a lot 
of nonattainment areas right now--about 126. If you come up to 2010, 
there is a dramatic reduction. We go down to about 20. Frankly, the 
achievements are across the board. Each of the proposals is about the 
same with respect to reducing ozone.
  This chart lets us look at annual monetary health benefits of 
reducing fine particles and ozone. We find in 2010 that my proposal has 
quantifiable--according to the EPA--health benefits of about anywhere 
from $110 billion per year to almost $130 billion. That is almost twice 
what we get under the Clear Skies proposal and under current law; not 
quite as much as is achieved under the Jeffords proposal. We find in 
each of the outyears--2015 and 2020--we also have considerably better 
health benefits that we can demonstrate, in the view of the EPA, 
between 2010 and 2020.
  Let me wrap it up by saying that we can do better for our 
environment, we can do better for our health, and, frankly, I think we 
can do at least as well for our economy by taking this middle-ground 
approach that Senators Alexander, Gregg, Chafee, and I have outlined.
  In terms of health consequences alone, under our proposal, 10,000 
fewer people will suffer from chronic bronchitis in 2010. Think about 
that--10,000 fewer people throughout this country in 1 year will suffer 
from chronic bronchitis. In 2010, we will see some 14,000 fewer 
hospital admissions and emergency room visits. In 2010, there will be 
about 160,000 people who will no longer have asthma attacks in this 
country. And in 2010, companies will have over 1 million fewer lost 
workdays. These benefits are real. They will have a dramatic impact on 
the quality of people's lives, and they will have a dramatic impact on 
worker productivity as well.
  Since 2001, both Republicans and Democrats have been arguing over 
multipollutant legislation. Now with an apple-to-apple comparison of 
various proposals from EPA, I think we can have a process with not just 
meaningful legislation but that which will get us off the dime and get 
us to work on improving the quality of our health and doing it in a way 
that doesn't break the bank for consumers or the utility companies.
  Over the coming months, I will continue to work with my colleagues, 
the administration, the utility industry, and environmental groups to 
develop legislation that has strong bipartisan support.
  Early next year, we will reintroduce a new and I think improved Clean 
Air Planning Act, and soon after that I hope to sit down with my 
friend, Senator Voinovich, and others to develop a bipartisan 
compromise we can take through the committee and bring to the floor, 
hopefully, for action.
  There are five principles we should stick to if we want to get a 
clean air bill.
  Climate change must be addressed. As we have seen from EPA, it can be 
addressed for $1 a ton in reduction of CO2.
  We should start to improve the environment of people's health as 
quickly as possible. We can do that.
  We should provide industry with the regulatory certainty they need 
and which they have been asking for--and some flexibility, too.
  We should protect our economy.
  We should pass stronger protections than those which we already have 
on the books.
  I want to get legislation done. I came here to get things done, and I 
know my colleagues did, as well. I believe that together we can develop 
a proposal that will help us achieve just that. Again, we can do 
better. We shouldn't let politics get in the way of doing the right 
thing.
  I yield my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Murkowski). The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, parliamentary inquiry: What is the time 
allocation?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 15 minutes under the control of the 
majority in morning business.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I shall take 7 minutes, and my distinguished colleague from Alaska 
will follow.

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