[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.''
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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
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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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