[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 9 (Monday, January 24, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H427-H432]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           EPA'S WAR ON TEXAS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Thompson of Pennsylvania). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Carter) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. CARTER. I thank the Speaker for allowing me this time. I am 
pleased that I can bring up some issues that I think are important.
  The title of this is ``The EPA's War on Texas,'' but this is about a 
lot more than Texas.
  I think that most people probably don't realize that a lot of the 
rules and laws that, especially if they're in business, but even in 
your own personal life, that seem to touch closest to home, you would 
think they were done by a vote of this Congress in some form or fashion 
where we decided that this is good for whatever the rule is for your 
life or for your business or for the good of our Nation. But, in fact, 
many of these rules actually come from regulatory agencies. These 
agencies are given rule-making power, and those rules actually have the 
power of law.
  And so a body of employees of the United States--and a few of them 
are political appointees, depending on the agency. Some of them are 
appointed each term by the administration, but most of these people are 
civil servants who work for civil service and these agencies. There are 
agencies across this land that take certain sections of our lives and 
make rules about them--the rule-making authority is given to them by 
Congress--and the EPA is one of those agencies, the Environmental 
Protection Agency.
  A situation has arisen in Texas which is not only about Texas, but 
it's about America. The last couple of years I have been talking about 
the rule of law and the fact that we try to set up a system in this 
Nation that has basic fairness and that there are certain things that 
are right and certain things that are wrong. When we do that, we don't 
expect one group to impose its will upon another group inappropriately; 
but what has happened to Texas, I would argue, is an overstepping of a 
regulatory agency.
  To talk about this, I'm going to have to start off by giving you--so 
that you understand it not only affects the lives of Texans, but it 
directly affects the lives of 13 other States immediately, and 
potentially every State in this Union.
  In the last 4 years we have been having an ongoing debate and 
discussion, both at committee level and on this floor, about the effect 
of carbon emissions upon the environment. There has been an ongoing 
debate as to whether or not there is such a thing as global warming. 
That term now, because the globe doesn't seem to be warming up very 
much, has turned to climate change, and also because of some kind of 
falsely manipulated facts concerning global warming, the term has gone 
to climate change.
  But there are those good-meaning people in this Congress who believe 
that carbon emissions are the new deadly medicine for this country; and 
if we don't do away with them, it's going to destroy our ability to 
live on this planet. Al Gore and others are the lead folks on this, and 
they think it's very important. That debate has been going on now for 4 
to 6 years in this Congress, and an attempt has been made to pass 
what's called cap-and-trade legislation. In fact, by one vote, I 
believe it was, cap-and-trade, under the Democratic administration of 
the last session of Congress, was passed out of this House. Cap-and-
trade went nowhere in the Senate, and so it never became law. But its 
purpose was to cap the emissions and tax folks accordingly. That's very 
simplified; it's much more complex than that. But basically this 
Congress, made up of the Senate and the House, rejected as a unit the 
concept of cap-and-trade.
  The Environmental Protection Agency decided that even though pretty 
much America had spoken that carbon emissions were not something that 
they wanted to impose harshness upon folks about, they decided, well, 
we don't care what they want, we want the carbon emissions.

                              {time}  2050

  So they, starting in December, I believe, of last year, they started 
issuing new regulations about carbon emissions. And then they started 
passing them on through the Clean Air Act to the various States.
  Now, I'm telling you this because it's going to have a direct effect 
on your life. Every Member of Congress here and every person that might 
be watching this discussion someplace else will see that when you start 
talking about what is maybe happening in Texas, you have to realize 
that as you watch the price of gasoline go up at your pump, you have to 
realize that there can be a direct relationship between what's going on 
in the market and what happens to the prices for the American consumer.
  Here's what has happened in Texas. When they created the Clean Air 
Act, they gave the EPA the ability to promulgate rules and standards 
for air quality. But the act specifically says that the local authority 
and the States have a better means of policing up this act than the 
Federal Government. So the implementation of the rules, of the 
standards set by EPA, will be done by the States rather than the 
Federal Government, and each State is to come up with a plan.
  And that bill was passed, I believe, in 1974 or 1976, something like 
that. Anyway, it was in the 1970s, and it had nothing to do with 
carbon. It had to do with noxious gasses and other really bad things 
that were getting into our air and reducing the air quality, and the 
standards were important.
  And each State had the ability to structure their permitting system 
to fit the needs of their State and then submit that permitting system 
to the EPA for approval. And the EPA would say, Yeah, I think that's a 
good system, or, No, we don't think it is a good system.
  One of the things that happened when they put together this Clean Air 
Act and set these emission standards was what they call a grandfather 
clause. And companies that were already in existence long before the 
time of the passing of this act were grandfathered out of the act. So 
basically some of these big refineries, electricity power plants, 
manufacturing facilities, automobile plants had been around long enough 
that they would be grandfathered in some certain areas on these 
emission standards and the requirement for permitting under the law. 
That was just the way this act was written.
  So Texas had a lot of--Texas is the largest energy producing and 
energy manufacturing State in the United States and has the largest 
refinery capacity in the United States. I used to be able to name the 
refineries in Texas, but I'm afraid I'd fall way short today. But 
needless to say, there are a multitude of refineries and chemical 
manufacturing facilities just in the Houston area alone and in Corpus 
Christ and in other parts of our State, both great, gigantic refineries 
and midsize and small refineries and manufacturing facilities. And 
they're all dealing with, basically, the petrochemical industry. The 
oil and gas industry is the base product that they are refining, 
manufacturing things from and so forth.
  So in Texas, looking at what it would take not only to clean up the 
industries that would fall under the act, which would be the newly 
permitted industries, but also would start to police up the 
grandfathered--the folks that

[[Page H428]]

could get out under a grandfather clause--police up those facilities, 
too.
  The people in Texas got together and they came up with a concept 
called flex permitting, and here's the way it works:
  Let's just take a refinery. Baytown has a gigantic refinery that I 
have visited. They passed a rule that says there's lots of sources of 
emissions from some form or fashion inside of a refinery--comes from a 
little thing the size of a faucet to great big smoke stacks can be 
emitting something into the air. So what we want them to do is take 
that site and reduce their emissions down to the standard that is 
required by EPA. And so we're going to let them, so long as their site 
reduces emissions and meets the goals set up by the Clean Air Act--not 
every individual place that emits will have to have a permit, but just 
one permit to cover the whole site. And then as the site reduces its 
emissions, it all falls under one permit, and it's called a flex 
permit. So it allows the refinery to go in, fix this first and then fix 
this second and this third and this fourth; and find the big bad ones 
first and fix those, and then work down to fix the plant.
  And by the way, there is a recent letter from the EPA saying that 
Texas has met and exceeded the standards under this flex permitting.
  But then along comes greenhouse gasses, and they passed the rule 
about carbon emissions. And they say, Now you have to put that under 
your permitting systems.
  And the other 13 States plus Texas were kind of taken aback by this. 
But Texas said, No way. We don't think you should be imposing carbon 
emission standards on us when the Congress refused to impose these 
standards. And they, as I understand it, started contesting this in the 
court.

  So here's where the rub comes in. The EPA then announces to Texas, We 
don't approve your flexible permitting system, and every industry in 
your State is now out of compliance, and you are going to have to have 
a new permitting system, and we're taking over how that's going to 
work--even though the act says Texas, or any State, shall be people who 
administer there.
  Now, you may say, Well, that's not too bad. There's a kicker here. 
Texas created this permitting system in 1994, and since that time, they 
have been asking EPA to tell them yes or no. Do you approve it or you 
don't approve it? And tentatively, they sort of said, Well, we'll 
approve it, but we're going to study it and look at it.
  Fifteen years this flexible permitting system has been in place.
  And now as the dispute over carbon emissions comes along, to batter 
Texas into compliance, they have depermitted the whole State. They've 
announced they depermitted the whole State. Now, the State went to 
court and at least got a stay on that temporarily.
  But think about that. If you had something that you were doing that 
the government said, Now we'll have to approve that to do it, and you 
say, Fine, here's what we're doing; would you please approve it or 
disapprove it, and they waited 15 years to do it, and then when they 
announced they're disapproving it they say, Oh, by the way, we plan to 
go back and fine you for the last 15 years for carbon emissions--that's 
what I understand it's going to be--something is wrong with this 
picture.
  I'm joined by my good friend and fellow judge, Louie Gohmert from 
Texas, and I'd like to hear his take on this. And if I got anything 
wrong, he can tell me about it.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. I appreciate your yielding.
  And not only do you not have anything wrong, but the Clean Air Act 
that the EPA is supposedly acting under, but they're actually 
violating, stipulates that pollution control is ``the primary 
responsibility of States and local government.''

                              {time}  2100

  While the national EPA office is supposed to set the overall 
priorities, States are supposed to have, under this bill that they are 
supposedly acting under, the States have considerable leeway in their 
``implementation plans.'' That's what the States are supposed to do. 
And for all these years, when the EPA all of a sudden changes their 
instructions, States are normally given 3 years. Because what we're 
talking about is when the EPA says now shut down, you are talking about 
jobs.
  And I realize this is all part of the President's war on jobs. And 
it's working well. First, the moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico has 
really decimated Louisiana and many of the Gulf States as he has 
declared this war on jobs and eliminated so many jobs there in the Gulf 
region. But what is happening here, as you freeze out refineries, as 
you declare war on drilling and activity in the Gulf of Mexico, we are 
now starting to see that effect on everybody else.
  And it's one thing to stand up and say, and I am sure we'll hear 
tomorrow night about how the President cares so much about the working 
poor in America, and that's who he's out for. But the trouble is, don't 
watch what is said, watch what's done. And as we watch the price of 
gasoline continue to go up, and up, and up, the people that are most 
devastated by that are not the massive companies that can pass these 
costs on, they're the people that are trying to get to those jobs that 
have jobs left. So those that hadn't already lost their jobs are going 
to have to deal with this problem.
  The EPA, the regulation chief, Gina McCarthy, just a couple of weeks 
ago sent notice to Texas saying she had no choice but to seize control 
of the permitting. I mean this is the Federal Government just deciding 
that even though the bill under which she is acting says the States and 
local government have primary control, she's decided to seize control. 
This is the Federal Government at its worst, at its most dictatorial, 
doing what democracy says you will not do, because they couldn't pass 
the bill, and now they're coming on and doing this with a totalitarian 
dictatorship.
  Now, might as well put ``czar'' beside Gina McCarthy's name. She's 
the latest czar. Just hadn't called her that because the name's become 
unpopular. But now she has seized control of the State and local 
permitting under the act. She noted ``statements in the media'' by 
Texas officials and their legal challenges to EPA's greenhouse gases, 
but she cited no legal basis for the takeover. And what's more just 
really offensive is the fact that what in essence they're saying is in 
1992, according to this Wall Street Journal article, in 1992, before 
there was ever any regulation of this horrible carbon dioxide, carbon 
emission, and unfortunately Gina McCarthy, as she says anything, she's 
a pollutant, she's a polluter, we need to shut down polluters like 
folks that are breathing out carbon dioxide. You know, it used to be a 
joke, Judge, that the government has gotten so overreaching that the 
next thing they're going to regulate the air you breathe. And now we're 
here. And that's what's happening.
  But in 1992 there were no carbon dioxide concerns. And now they're 
using the fact that in 1992 Texas was not regulating carbon dioxide as 
a reason to take over what the Clean Air Act says must be done by the 
States and local governments. So it's pretty ridiculous. The Wall 
Street Journal says these words: ``The takeover was sufficiently 
egregious that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an emergency 
stay on Thursday suspending the rules pending judicial review. One 
particular item in need of legal scrutiny is the permitting takeover as 
an interim final rule that is not open to the normal and Clean Air Act-
mandated process of public notice and comment.'' As the article says, 
so much for transparency in government.
  But I guess when you declare a war on jobs, you declare a moratorium 
on drilling activity, you devastate the hardworking folks in America 
that are trying to produce energy, and what that didn't kill then you 
turn right around and take over control of State environmental 
responsibilities so that you can finish going through with your war on 
jobs.
  Mr. CARTER. And you know, this flex permit's whole purpose was to use 
common sense and meet the environmental standards without shutting down 
facilities and losing jobs. That's why they came up with the flex 
permit. It allowed them, if they met the standards, to do the repairs 
and fixes in integral parts and not stop until the whole thing is in 
compliance and have a permit for every faucet in the building

[[Page H429]]

that needs to be adjusted or fixed. But rather let them fix the problem 
as it goes along.
  And we are the model for meeting the air quality act, the model. I 
mean most States aren't in as good of compliance as the State of Texas 
under the flex permit system. And yet exactly as my colleague has 
pointed out, because of this carbon emissions dictatorship and 
because they're saying you will do as I say or else, the position 
that's being taken by this czar from the EPA, Texans are sort of the 
kind of people that just bow up when people say that like that, so we 
said ``no,'' and we are in this fight. And I think we are in the fight 
to win. Because I think anybody would say it would be totally unfair 
for EPA to sit and ponder their duty to approve a plan and spend 15 
years looking at it and not do anything with it, and it's meeting its 
standards, and all of a sudden, bingo, because of this they're taking 
over our permitting.

  I am very pleased to be joined by a gentleman that is probably the 
most knowledgeable man in Congress about the workings of this 
particular act, Mr. Joe Barton, former chairman of the Energy and 
Commerce Committee and a ranking member of the Energy and Commerce 
Committee, and now our Texas expert on all things energy and all things 
environmental. Mr. Barton, I yield you so much time as you choose to 
use.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Thank you, Congressman Carter. And I want to 
thank you and Congressman Gohmert and some of the other Texans who may 
have been here before I got here. I have been at a Young Guns dinner, 
which is why I'm late. But I did not want to fail to take advantage of 
this opportunity. I want to thank you for hosting this Special Order.
  I want to kind of set the predicate here in terms of those kind words 
that Judge Carter just said about me. I have been in the Congress 26 
years. I have been on the Energy and Commerce Committee 24 years. I 
have been a congressional observer or delegate at large to all the 
major global warming climate change conferences, or COPS, council of 
parties. I was at Kyoto when Vice President Gore came over and made his 
famous speech, and then on behalf of President Clinton agreed to sign 
the Kyoto Accord, which the U.S. Senate never took up.
  Most recently, I was a part of the congressional delegation that 
then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi took to Copenhagen last year, where President 
Obama came and pleaded that there be a conference agreement, which then 
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed to fund with dollars 
that the U.S. Government didn't have. So I was at Buenos Aires. I mean 
I have been to all the major conferences as a congressional observer or 
delegate.
  I chaired dozens of hearings on global warming, authored bills, was 
an original cosponsor and passed the--I helped to vote for and support 
the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990. So I have been involved in this 
issue for a number of years. Let me say this: CO2 is not a 
pollutant under the criteria as put forward by the Clean Air Act. It's 
not one of the named criteria pollutants like SO2 or ozone. 
It is necessary for life as we know it.

                              {time}  2110

  The term ``greenhouse gas,'' if you just think what a greenhouse is, 
self-enclosed, in this case the world, and the greenhouse gases are 
what create the atmosphere and help trap the heat so that life can 
exist. CO2 is a trace gas, it's about \1/10\ of 1 percent of 
the atmosphere. Man-made CO2, called anthropogenic 
CO2 is, I don't know the exact percentage of the total, but 
it is less than 50 percent.
  So what has happened in the last 10 to 15 years is this theory of 
global warming and climate change needed a bogeyman, and they chose 
CO2. They have developed these models that show as 
CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere over time the temperature 
rises.
  It is a fact that CO2 is rising, but it is not necessarily 
a fact that that rise is causing temperature to rise. In fact, there is 
quite a bit of data that would indicate that CO2 rises as a 
consequence of temperature rising, so it is a follower, not a leader in 
that.
  So in any event, this administration, the Obama administration, when 
they came into office in January of 2009, began a process, or 
accelerated a process, to determine that CO2 was a danger to 
the atmosphere or a danger to the health of the U.S. population. And 
they, within 90 days, issued an endangerment finding where they said 
that since CO2 was a danger to public health, they had the 
right to regulate CO2, and they began to promulgate these 
proposed regulations.
  What does that have to do with the Special Order this evening? The 
Environmental Protection Agency has made a decision--and I think a 
political decision--to be punitive towards Texas and has gone down, and 
I am sure Judge Carter and Judge Gohmert have pointed out that they 
have revoked over 100 existing air-quality permits, some of which have 
been on the books since the 1990s, for sites and facilities in Texas.
  Those permits are for more than CO2. They actually are 
required by the Clean Air Act to regulate SO2 and 
NOX and ozone, things of this sort. They revoked all of 
those.
  The EPA has also issued, I don't know the right word, Judge, threats, 
warnings to the State of Texas that Texas must begin to implement some 
of these proposed regulations on CO2. In both cases, I think 
the EPA is acting without the law being on their side; and in the case 
of the CO2 regulations, I am very confident they are acting 
without the science on their side.
  So what those of us who represent Texas here in the Congress, in 
conjunction with our Governor, Lieutenant Governor, the Texas House, 
the Texas Senate and the Attorney General of Texas, are saying is 
before we go any further, let's see what the real facts are. Let's see, 
has Texas, as a regulatory entity, through the Texas Council of 
Environmental Quality, TCEQ, failed in its obligation under the Clean 
Air Act to, to implement the terms of that act?
  I think the answer is Texas has not failed. I think the answer is, if 
you look at the record, air quality and the criteria pollutants that 
are specifically regulated by the Clean Air Act is improving in Texas. 
We have two or three or four, I guess we have, the DFW is a non-
attainment area. El Paso is a non-attainment area. Houston-Harris 
County is a non-attainment area and Beaumont-Port Arthur, I believe, 
are still listed as a not. So we have four areas that have been non-
attainment under the specific criteria of the Clean Air Act.
  In all four of those, the State of Texas has submitted what are 
called state implementation plans, SIPs, and those have been accepted, 
I think with one exception by the EPA, both regionally and nationally. 
Under those SIPs, air quality is improving.
  And if the EPA were not to keep changing the standard, we would be in 
attainment in all four regions. But each time we have gotten close, in 
the DFW area, for example, to be in attainment, they have tightened or 
changed the standard and said that we were in noncompliance.
  So what we are doing this evening under Judge Carter and Judge 
Gohmert's leadership is saying let's begin to have a debate about what 
the facts are. The first fact that everybody watching this and 
listening on the floor needs to know is air quality in Texas is 
improving. The TCEQ, Texas legislature, has done an outstanding job of 
implementing the terms and conditions which we have passed here in 
Washington.
  Number two, the State of Texas, working with industry, has adopted a 
flexible permitting program where we work with industry and say here is 
the standard you need to meet. Here are the various ways you can meet 
it; let's work together.
  And that's worked very well. Compliance costs in Texas are below the 
national average. Industry sees that. Industry is coming to Texas. 
People are moving to Texas for its quality of life.
  I am sure you all pointed out that Texas has led the Nation in job 
creation. Texas has led the Nation as one of the leading States in 
terms of population increase. Now, you cannot be doing all those good 
things and then be derelict in air quality if, in fact, air quality is 
improving and water quality is improving.

  So we want a dialogue on what the facts are, both on the criteria 
pollutants under the Clean Air Act and on CO2, which is a 
greenhouse gas. And I would hope, Congressman, that we do

[[Page H430]]

more of these Special Orders, that we even do some of these in Texas. I 
can assure you on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and I am a senior 
member, I have encouraged our current chairman, Mr. Upton, and our 
current subcommittee chairmen, Mr. Whitfield, Mr. Stearns and Mr. 
Shimkus, to hold hearings, bring witnesses on both sides from Texas, 
bring our friends at the EPA, both up here and in Dallas, come down, 
come up, and let's put the facts on the table and then let's see what 
laws, if any, need to be changed.
  I am already a cosponsor of a bill that would make it explicit that 
CO2 is not a regulated pollutant under the Clean Air Act and 
should not be. I am not saying that at some point in time we may not 
need to issue a standard on CO2, if it's proven that it is a 
harm to public health. But until that time, it should not be regulated 
under the Clean Air Act. It was never intended to be, and we think the 
EPA is wrong to keep insisting that it should be.
  Again, I want to thank you, Judge, and thank you, Judge. I am glad to 
be here and participate.
  Mr. CARTER. I thank you for coming here. Joe Barton really has been 
dedicating his life to these types of issues for his long tenure in 
Congress.
  But I always wonder if sometimes people back home are sitting around 
saying so what does this mean to me. Well, I am speculating, okay, I am 
only speculating, but let me say something that I think everybody 
agrees.
  The last time we had a spike in the price of gasoline, it started, I 
think, everybody points to how it started, it started when they had a 
refinery fire in Illinois.

                              {time}  2120

  And all of a sudden, the speculators said, whoa, we've got to reduce 
refining capacity in the oil and gas industry right now. They shut down 
about half that plant in Illinois. And all of a sudden, we started to 
see the futures start to move on oil. And that was the kickoff of $5 
gasoline in some parts of the country. Why? Because the speculators 
say, well, if refinery capacity is reduced, gasoline is going to be in 
more short supply. Futures, I can buy now, sell later. I can make money 
off this commodity. And the price started up. Other things happened 
then, speculators, all of that can be talked about. But it started. 
Everybody says that there was a fear of reduced refining capacity 
because right about that same time we had the hurricanes, which reduced 
refining capacity over in New Orleans.
  Now, what's happened since this whole thing started right here which 
could reduce--remember that Texas has the largest amount of refineries 
anywhere in the United States. Joe, Mr. Barton, if I could ask you, 
what percentage of the refining is in Texas? It's a pretty good 
percentage of the national refining. Do you know?
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. About two-thirds.
  Mr. CARTER. Two-thirds. Two-thirds of the refining capacity is in 
Texas. And all of a sudden as this dispute between EPA and Texas rises 
its ugly head, and we see that the EPA is taking over this permitting, 
and industry itself is saying, look, we just want to know what to do. 
We are at a loss of what to do. And we are willing to work. Industry is 
saying to them, tell us what the new permit is. Tell us how to do this. 
What's going to happen? And there's a lawsuit pending, and all this 
stuff. Now the speculators, I think, are starting to say, oh, the price 
may be going up again. You tell me. Has the price of gasoline gone up 
in the last 3 months? Does it look like it's going to continue? I'm not 
saying this is the cause, but I think I can argue it's one of them.
  What Texas does with industry is the perfect example of government 
and industry working to fix a problem together. That's what we thought 
we were going to get from the Obama administration when he started out. 
Instead, we have government working against industry in this present 
administration, and because of that we start to see it at every level. 
And by the way, if you think it's just in this particular area, just a 
little fact: Last year, the Federal Government issued a total of 3,316 
new rules and regulations, an average of 13 rules a day. Seventy-eight 
of the new rules last year were major rules. A major rule is a rule 
that will result in an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or 
more, a major increase in cost or prices for consumers, or significant 
adverse effect to the economy. And we had, just last year, 78 of those 
rules, plus an additional 3,000-plus more rules that were passed.
  I bring this all up, and I will yield to my friend in just a moment, 
because I want to talk about one of the solutions that we are looking 
at. It's a little known thing that is now coming to the forefront. It's 
called the Congressional Review Act. Back in 1996 under the Contract 
With America Advancement Act of 1996, as part of the Small Business 
Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act, they created the Congressional 
Review Act, this is Public Policy Law PL 104-121. It allows the 
Congress to review every new Federal regulation issued by the 
government agencies and by passage of a joint resolution overrule that 
regulation. The process is the Federal agencies shall--note that word, 
that means they have to, although I don't think they all do--submit to 
each House of Congress and to the Comptroller General a comprehensive 
report on any major proposed rule. Congress has 60--that's 
legislative--days to pass a joint resolution of disapproval of any 
rule. The Senate must--must--vote on the CRA resolution of disapproval 
if 30 Members of the Senate approve having a vote. Only 30 Members are 
necessary to have a vote in the Senate.
  So this is a tool where we can, in our small way, be a part of this 
fight on behalf of Texas. And we will be following this procedure that 
is set out in this act, and we will be attempting to have, and will 
have, a vote on this House floor on this rule. And I think when people 
hear the ``taint fair'' factor in this particular rule, it's going to 
be a strong vote.
  I now yield the time to Mr. Gohmert that he wishes to take.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, my friend indicates it's unfair for Texas. But as 
former chairman of Energy, Joe Barton, notes, with about two-thirds of 
the refining capacity for the whole country being in Texas, what this 
means is regardless how anybody feels about Texas, I know there are a 
lot of people that don't care for the State, but regardless of how 
people feel about it, when two-thirds of the refining for the gasoline 
they put in their cars is coming from the State of Texas, and the EPA 
has declared war against Texas, violating the laws of this land in 
order to politically stick it to Texas, the price that will be paid is 
by rank and file folks across the country. And, as we've seen, 
manufacturers--we had colleagues across the aisle talking about jobs, 
jobs, jobs--the things that this administration are doing are killing 
jobs. They were going to create all these jobs and create all these 
jobs, and then they did such a terrible job of creating jobs, in fact, 
we were going in the wrong direction. So then they went to saying, 
well, we are saving jobs, when the fact is they are driving jobs 
overseas. We're losing manufacturing jobs constantly. And this very 
thing we are talking about tonight is one of the reasons. There is so 
much uncertainty with regard to business in this country.

  Now if you want certainty, you could be a friend of this 
administration, as George Soros is, so his biggest single investment is 
a drilling company down in South America, and so we loaned them $2 
billion--that's with a B, billion dollars--to drill offshore off 
Brazil, but in the meantime, we've got a war declared on those who make 
their living in the gulf coast area, a drilling moratorium. People are 
still not able to drill, and that has affected so many jobs. But when 
the price of gasoline continues to go shooting up because this 
administration is doing everything they can to increase the price of 
energy and make it harder for people to get cheaper gasoline, people 
are going to make their voices heard. And what I don't think the 
administration understands is the timing of all this is going to be 
such that it's going to be coming around in 2012 and really adversely 
affecting people's pocketbooks and jobs. Employers can't count on the 
price of fuel being where they need it, and a lot of businesses are 
saying, this is something we can't do business with, the EPA, the 
uncertainty of the requirements.
  And what it reminds me, too, is in our Natural Resources Committee 
with

[[Page H431]]

the Democrats in control they were always able to bring more witnesses. 
That's just the way procedure works around here. Whichever party is in 
the majority, they get to bring more witnesses that will say what their 
position is. They brought a witness to the Natural Resources Committee 
to testify that, gee, we really need to stop drilling off the coast and 
basically everywhere. But he said there were over 200 million families 
in the world that make their living from fishing, and if we allow this 
drilling off the coast to continue, it's going to destroy fishing for 
all those 200 million families. Well at my turn, I pointed out, you'll 
be glad to know that we heard those things in Texas, I did growing up, 
that if you allow platforms off our coast, then it's just going to kill 
off all the fishing off the coast of Texas and in the gulf. It turns 
out, I told the witness, he would be glad to know, that those platforms 
become an artificial reef. Fish proliferate around those areas. So when 
you want to go fishing now, they take you out to platforms because it's 
done so much good for fishing. And I said, as far as you're concerned 
about the oil that was leaked after Katrina, not one barrel came from 
any of those platforms, some of which were totaled. They came from 
onshore tanks which really were the place where tankers bringing oil 
from overseas came in and unloaded it. Some of that was hit by the 
hurricane and leaked. And he said, well, look, and this is in a 
nutshell what he said, I guess the real problem is this: If you produce 
oil or gas onshore, offshore, wherever it is, at some point it's going 
to be burned, and it may be it's in an engine, wherever, that produces 
carbon, the carbon goes into the air, and eventually the rain brings it 
down either into the ocean or on the land, and it's washed into the 
ocean. That puts more carbon in the ocean, and as you have more carbon 
in the ocean, eventually the pH increases, and eventually if you keep 
doing that long enough, the pH will increase enough, everything dies in 
all the oceans, and so that's when people can't fish. That's what this 
administration is basing all of their opposition to drilling and 
production of fossil fuels on.

                              {time}  2130

  We all agree we ought to be moving off of fossil fuels; but if we 
would allow drilling on Federal offshore areas, Federal onshore areas 
and designate a percentage of the proceeds of our Federal royalty to go 
toward development of alternative fuel, we don't run the jobs off, we 
don't run the poor folks that are just trying to make it into 
bankruptcy because they can't afford gasoline, and everybody wins. It 
doesn't have to be an everybody-lose solution.
  Mr. CARTER. I yield to Mr. Barton.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I want to keep reiterating, air quality in Texas 
is improving. It is improving. The Clean Air Act gives the Federal 
Government, through the Environmental Protection Agency, the right to 
preempt States when the States either don't implement the Federal 
regulations on the Clean Air Act, or if the States simply turn it back 
and ask the Federal Government to take over. So the EPA does have the 
right under certain circumstances to preempt State implementation.
  But in this case, I would postulate, and each of you are former 
judges before you became Congressmen, that since the State of Texas has 
complied and air quality is improving and there is a debate about 
whether CO2 should be regulated under the Clean Air Act, 
which is a separate issue, that the Federal Government has overstepped 
its bounds to come in and unilaterally, against the wishes of the State 
of Texas, repeal these permits and require that they all be resubmitted 
and not only resubmitted, but resubmitted in a very specific way.
  The State of Texas air quality permitting program has been flexible, 
says we will regulate an entire site and as long as you are under that 
cap, you can implement new equipment and new procedures as long as your 
emissions stay the same or go down. And under the Texas flexible 
permitting program, they have gone done, in some cases as much as 20-30 
percent. This is in a State where population has gone up, where 
productivity has gone up, and output has gone up. So in my view the 
State of Texas and the Texas Council on Environmental Quality should be 
getting awards from the Federal Government, not being punished and not 
being unilaterally dismissed.
  I really respect and thank you, Congressman Carter, for holding this 
Special Order. I will tell our friends in Texas that may be watching 
that this Special Order is not the end; it is simply the beginning.
  Mr. CARTER. That's right.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Those of us who support this initiative support 
it because we believe you can have improving air quality and improving 
water quality and increase jobs and economic output. It is not an 
either/or. It can be a win/win. But if we adopt the EPA's shortsighted, 
mandatory, very specific command-and-control attitude, you are, as 
Congressman Gohmert said, you are going to destroy jobs, destroy the 
economy, reduce output, and not get very much increased environmental 
quality.
  Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, I believe the Governor pointed out 
that of the million new jobs created in America in the last 5 years, 3 
years, something like that, 850,000 of them were created in Texas. We 
are a dynamic economy; and we are a dynamic economy because we have had 
the foresight of all working together to make jobs, to improve the 
environment by using logical, commonsense methods of doing this 
regulation.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. If the gentleman would yield, common sense, we 
are beginning the redistributing process now, and the State of Texas is 
going to gain four additional congressional seats which means our 
population between 2000 and 2010 has increased approximately 3 million 
people. My question to you: Would people be coming to Texas if the 
quality of life was decreasing, if the environmental quality was 
decreasing, or would they be coming to Texas because it is a better 
place to live and it has economic opportunity?
  Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, that is exactly what is going on, Mr. 
Barton. They are all indications. You can stop your new neighbors and 
ask them why they came, and they will tell you because Texas is where 
things are happening. It is where you have a tax structure where we can 
prosper in business, and yet it is a fair tax structure.
  You are doing things right so that rather than throwing up roadblocks 
to new businesses, you are throwing up enhancements to make it easier 
for new businesses to come and prosper. Not the big monstrous 
refineries, the little bitty mom-and-pops. Some of those mom-and-pops 
are a chain of mom-and-pop stores that are all over the State and soon 
to be all over the Nation. Texas makes sure that we follow basic rules 
and we don't turn people loose, but we come up with methods where 
government and industry work together to solve problems.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. If the gentleman would yield for another 
question, name a State that has one of the more rigid, restrictive, so-
called protective environmental regulatory schemes in the Nation?
  Mr. CARTER. California.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. The gentleman is correct.
  Name the State that has the largest net out-migration from its State 
to Texas?
  Mr. CARTER. California.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. The gentleman is correct again.
  So here you have a State that is noted for its State regulatory 
protection regulations at the State level; and yet that State has one 
area, the Los Angeles basin, that has been in the worst category for 
nonattainment for two decades. I wish we had some of our friends from 
the great State of California on the floor, and they could correct me 
if I'm wrong, but that particular region has not exhibited any 
measurable increase in air quality, in spite of the most rigid 
regulations, and that State has exhibited the largest net out-migration 
of population to Texas.
  I don't think that is serendipity. It is because we have strong 
environmental protection in Texas. Our air quality is improving. The 
quality of life is improving; but because of our flexible approach, you 
still can create jobs in Texas, and there are lots of folks around the 
country who want to take part in that and become part of that.
  Mr. CARTER. As we fight this fight, this fight is not just an oil and 
gas

[[Page H432]]

fight. This is going to affect power plants around the country that are 
operating under natural gas, coal, oil, any kind of hydrocarbon. This 
is just the tip of the iceberg of what is going to happen in this 
arbitrary decision by the EPA against the will of the Congress and the 
American people.
  We have had 2 years of doing things against the desired will of the 
American people, and the American people spoke in the last election. It 
is time for us to make commonsense decisions and do what makes sense. 
It makes no sense to let people operate under a system that works for 
15 years and then come in and say implement this immediately. We are 
not giving you 3 years to implement it. You will do it now. And when we 
said, no, wait a minute, let's play by the rules, they say, Fine. We 
never did get around to giving you the official letter approving your 
flex permit system, so here is your official letter. It is denied. 
Because you are not doing anything about it, we are going to come in 
and take over your permitting system.
  I don't think the average American thinks that is the way anybody 
ought to operate. It is not the way that I think anybody ought to 
operate. I would be surprised if it is not the way that a majority of 
the people in this House think these agencies ought to operate.
  You know, we always hear the idiot, crazy things and they come out in 
the newspaper and you will see some of them. But just to let you know 
it is not just in this industry where new regulations are going to be 
going strange; there is a proposed regulation that is going to be 
affecting Texas for sure and a whole lot of other States in this 
unions: they want to regulate dust.

                              {time}  2140

  So, if you've got a dusty road, driving up to your ranch house or to 
your personal house, they want to come in and regulate the dust that 
kicks up in the summertime, when it's hot, behind your car.
  The solution they came up with for this in California--California, 
the place where they have the drought in the Central Valley, a shortage 
of water--is to water down your road every day. Take the water you need 
for the plants and for people, and squirt it on the road to keep dust 
from going up in the air.
  Like Mr. Gohmert said, we used to laugh and say, someday, the 
government is going to regulate the air we breathe and the food we eat. 
Lo and behold, they are. It's going on right now.
  So this is just the beginning. As Joe said, this is just the 
beginning of bringing this to the attention of the American people--
this regulation, what they're doing to Texas--and of standing up for 
our fellow Texans, who are standing up for our State's compliance 
record and standing up for our State's ability to create an environment 
where people can have a job and where they can pay their own way--and 
good industry jobs. We're standing up for those people. We're making 
sure that we don't lose those great jobs in Texas because of this 
regulatory agency.
  This is only the beginning of the fight. There is more to come. We're 
going to fight, not only this regulation, but many, many more. We'll be 
bringing them up to let the American people see that the regulators can 
be dictators.
  I just want to correct one thing Mr. Gohmert said. We're no longer 
having a moratorium on drilling. I was told today by one of my 
constituents that we're having a permanentorium.
  They said, Oh, yes. Where the moratorium's lifted, you just have to 
get a permit.
  So far, there haven't been any permits.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I just want to make one nonscientific comment.
  I flew this morning from DFW Airport up to Reagan Airport to attend 
this session of Congress. The DFW area is home to approximately 3 
million people, to a number of power plants, lots of industry, 
electronics, general aviation, defense. I flew into Washington, which 
has almost no industry. The air was clear at DFW. When I came into 
Reagan, I looked out the window, and I thought, man. I mean, I don't 
want to be disrespectful to our international friends over in Poland, 
but it did remind me of the last time, which was several years ago, I 
flew into Warsaw, and the air was so thick you could see it. I don't 
know what the issue is here in the Washington region today, but when we 
flew into Reagan, it was noticeably hazier and browner flying in than 
it was when I left DFW, where the air was absolutely crystal clear.
  Now, that's nonscientific, but I would invite anybody who thinks 
we've got an air quality problem in Texas to go to Dallas or to go to 
Houston. Drive out along the Houston ship channel. Go down to Corpus 
Christi, outside the major refineries on the gulf coast, and you'll see 
a success story. What you won't see is air pollution that's caused by 
industry in Texas. Their compliance record is excellent, and they've 
got the facts to back it up.
  Mr. CARTER. I thank you.
  At this time, I yield back what little time I have, and remind 
everybody that the stars are still big and bright deep in the heart of 
Texas.

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