[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 84 (Wednesday, June 6, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H3485-H3486]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    FLEXIBLE PERMITTING SYSTEM WORKS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Olson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OLSON. Mr. Speaker, the people I work for, the people of Texas 
22, were disrespected once again yesterday by Dr. Al Armendariz, the 
former Region 6 EPA Administrator, a region that includes my home State 
of Texas.
  After losing his job a few weeks ago because he advocated using Roman 
tactics like crucifixion to beat down America's producers of fossil 
fuel energy, Dr. Armendariz finally accepted an invitation to testify 
today before the House Energy and Power Subcommittee of the Energy and 
Commerce Committee. Late yesterday, Dr. Armendariz informed the 
committee that he had changed his mind. He can no longer come. He 
couldn't come--I don't know why he couldn't come. It wasn't weather. I 
checked. I flew up from Texas last night, yesterday morning, no 
problems. I checked Dallas-Fort Worth, nothing. Nine American Airlines 
flights out of Dallas-Fort Worth--where Dr. Armendariz lives--flew here 
yesterday into Reagan National. None of them were delayed. Why couldn't 
he come?
  He chose not to come because he could not defend his actions to his 
employer, the people of Texas 22, the district I represent and the 
people of Region 6. He could not defend interfering with Texas's 
flexible permitting system to minimize the emissions from our farmers 
and power plants of nitrous oxide and sulfur oxide.
  Texas's flexible permitting system works. Those emissions have been 
cut double the national average in Texas. That's why we're the fastest 
growing State in America. That's a great testament to how they work. 
You cannot grow more than any State in America, add industry, and have 
a reduction that doubles the national average. We did that, and yet Dr. 
Armendariz threw that out. He could not defend jamming Texas into the 
cross-state air pollution rule just this past summer. Immediately after 
he did that, without being notified, we should have gotten at least 
1\1/2\ year notification, we got a 6 month notification. Because of 
that, the largest power producer in my home State, which was using coal 
for power production, said: I'm going to have to shut down two power 
plants.
  Reason prevailed, and that rule got kicked down the road. But again, 
it wasn't because what Dr. Armendariz did. He wanted to punish Texas.
  And most importantly, he could not defend this email, which he leaked 
to radical environmental groups announcing that EPA was dropping the 
hammer on a producer of American fossil fuels in the Barnett shale 
plate. What he was concerned about was contamination of water in two 
wells, two houses there near this oil and gas recovery fossil plate. 
The problem: he was worried about water contamination. He sent this 
out, and I will read it to you:

       Hi, everybody. We're about to make a lot of news. The first 
     story has already been printed. There'll be an official press 
     release in a few minutes. Also, time to TiVo Channel 8. Bug 
     David for more info.

  That was coming from the regional administrator. A couple of other 
points:

       Thank you for helping to educate me on the public's 
     perspective of these issues, and thank you all for your 
     continued support and friendship.

  These aren't the public. The people of Texas 22 I represent are the 
public. But look what he sent out. Again, he sent this out to the 
radical environmentalists, taking their marching orders. Here is the 
response from one of them:

       Texas sheriff, yee haw! Hats off to new sheriff and his 
     deputies.

  Texas does not need a new sheriff and new deputies. We need a 
regional administrator that wants to strike a commonsense balance 
between a growing State and clean air and clean water.
  The American people were fooled in November of 2008. With the help of 
Dr. Armendariz, they won't be fooled again.

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