Congressional Record, Volume 160 Issue 22 (Wednesday, February 5, 2014)

[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 22 (Wednesday, February 5, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H1649-H1656]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

BURDENSOME EPA REGULATIONS

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pittenger). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of January 3, 2013, the gentlewoman from Missouri
(Mrs. Hartzler) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the
majority leader.

General Leave

Mrs. HARTZLER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Missouri?
There was no objection.
Mrs. HARTZLER. Mr. Speaker, today, back in Missouri, this frigid cold
snap is really making life miserable for everyone. We have below-zero
temperatures and wind chills and a lot of snow. In fact, a lot of
children are home from school today, and it is on snowy days like this
back in Missouri and across much of America that we really appreciate
the ability to go to our thermostats and to turn up the temperature and
be able to sit by a nice fire to keep warm. What we don't need is the
government interfering in that. Safe, affordable and reliable energy is
vital for all of us as Americans, and it is being threatened by the
Environmental Protection Agency. They are increasing burdens and making
our regulations more difficult and costly for hardworking taxpayers.
While I support commonsense regulations designed to protect my
constituents and the environment, many of the EPA regulations have gone
too far, threatening to raise electricity rates during these cold
winter months and hurting markets designed to provide rural homes with
proper heating systems.
County officials, farmers and city administrators, as well as moms
and dads

[[Page H1650]]

all across Missouri who have to pay the electric bill every month, are
constantly coming up to me with stories of the burdens that the EPA
regulations have placed on their families, their businesses and their
communities.
It is time for this to stop. It is time for the EPA to begin working
with my constituents, with local officials and with State governments
to bring commonsense, consensus-driven changes to the regulations
instead of the typical, heavy-handed Washington bureaucracy. Many of
these regulations are stifling small businesses and local communities,
leading to slow economic growth, stagnant jobs and less opportunities
for the next generations of Americans.
So, today, my colleagues and I would like to outline some of the most
egregious EPA regulations and offer commonsense solutions to fix,
replace or eliminate previous EPA actions that are hurting the average
American.
For example, the EPA's recently proposed rule on source performance
standards for new power plants has raised serious concerns among
ratepayers, utilities and small businesses in my district. My main
concern with these proposed regulations remains focused on Missouri's
need to provide affordable and reliable electricity. However, in a
State like Missouri that derives over 80 percent of our power from
coal, the EPA has proposed a rule that would create a de facto ban on
building any new coal-fired power plants by requiring the use of
something called carbon capture and storage technology.
This technology has not even been proven commercially viable
anywhere, and the small pilot projects used as a basis of the EPA's
analysis have been highly subsidized by the government and are not
commercially available.
Congressional intent in the Clean Air Act is clear. The EPA is
required to complete a cost-benefit analysis and base their regulations
on the best commercially available technology. It is clear that these
standards have not been met.
The good news is that there is a bipartisan solution for this
regulation. Congressman Whitfield and Senator Manchin have introduced
the Electricity Security and Affordability Act. They designed the bill
to require that any greenhouse gas standard set by the EPA for new
coal-fired plants are achievable by commercial power plants operating
in the real world, including highly efficient plants that utilize the
most modern, state-of-the-art standards that can be met by all States
in a way that is not economically damaging to local ratepayers and
small businesses.
All we ask is that the EPA work with us to find commonsense solutions
for real world problems.
Another example of needless regulation is the EPA's proposed rule on
future production of wood-burning stoves like the one in this picture
right here. My constituents are concerned that this regulation could
provide another de facto ban of the production and sale of 80 percent
of America's current wood-burning stoves, which are the world's oldest
heating system.
The EPA's stringent, one-size-fits-all policy goes against the will
of the people, and it requires the same stringent standards in a
cottage in the woods that it applies to a high-rise building in
downtown New York. For the first 10 years of my marriage, my husband
and I heated our home with a wood-burning stove like this. I am
concerned for the many constituents who have used these stoves for
years to heat their home, that they will have to turn in their old
furnaces for scrap and make costly upgrades if they choose to remodel.
So, again, I implore the EPA to apply a little common sense to these
onerous regulations and not finalize this burdensome rule.
These are just two examples of the many concerns of the EPA overreach
that I hear on a regular basis.
I pause now to invite my colleagues to share experiences and issues
that their constituents face dealing with this agency. So I would like
to start with my dear friend from Colorado, Doug Lamborn.
Representative Lamborn, what would you like to share?
Mr. LAMBORN. Well, I thank my friend and colleague, the gentlelady
from Missouri, for her leadership on this issue and for putting this
time together. This is an important topic.
Mr. Speaker, I hear from Coloradans every day who are struggling just
to make ends meet. Unemployment remains high, and Americans are
striving to provide necessities for their families. Prices at the pump
have doubled since President Obama took office. According to the Energy
Information Administration, they are on a trajectory to rise even
higher.
Sadly, as American families and small businesses continue to suffer
from these high energy prices, the Obama administration's response has
been to impose job-killing and expensive rules through the
Environmental Protection Agency. These expenses are passed on to
American consumers. These policies, such as attempting to regulate
greenhouse gas emissions in the Clean Air Act, only end up hurting
consumers.
As the chairman of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and
Mineral Resources and a proponent for business-focused regulations, I
have been vocal against many of these harmful regulations. The EPA's
continued power grab ends up taking legislative authority out of the
hands of those who are sent here in Washington to represent the
American people and puts it in the hands of unelected bureaucrats
carrying out the agenda and policies of the White House.
I have cosponsored numerous bills to repeal many of these regulations
piece by piece to ensure Americans that they would have affordable
energy. Coloradans and the rest of the country should not have to
choose between heating their homes and feeding their families. I remain
committed to seeing what I can do to stop this bureaucrat overreach.
Just for one example, and my friend and colleague alluded to this,
the EPA wants to force American coal-fired power plants to use carbon
capture and storage technology that does not even exist. Since it
doesn't exist, this is an impossible mandate to obey.
The EPA is basing its regulations on wishful thinking, not sound
science. They need to be brought under control. The ability of working
Americans to pay their bills hangs in the balance.
I thank the gentlelady for putting this important time together.
Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you, gentleman. Thank you for your leadership on
this. You have been at the forefront of this, and this is so, so
important. I love what you said about the EPA is basing this on wishful
thinking and not sound science. I think most of us would appreciate if
there was some science behind regulations. That seems to be common
sense, but they clearly have gone beyond that, and it is hurting, as
you say, people. It is hurting the bottom line. It is hurting when you
pay your bills every month, and your electric bill is just going
through the roof unnecessarily because of these onerous regulations.
So thank you, gentleman.
Now, I would like to turn to my friend and colleague from Utah,
Representative Chris Stewart, to share his thoughts on this important
topic.
Thank you, Chris.

{time} 1900

Mr. STEWART. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my friend from
Missouri for allowing me to speak tonight. Thank you for organizing
this. I think this is an important issue. In fact, I would say that
this is a critical issue. It is a great example of why the American
people don't trust the Federal Government. Let me say that again. The
American people don't trust the Federal Government. So much of what
they do doesn't make any sense, and so much of what the EPA does
doesn't make any sense.
I was the chair of the Subcommittee on the Environment, and we had
direct oversight over EPA. Again and again, I saw examples of the
things that they did that illustrated that they were an agency that is,
in many ways, out of control. At one point, they had proposed
regulations over ozone that were virtually impossible for many Western
States to comply with, Western States like my home State of Utah. Their
regulations would have been so restrictive that there was more
naturally occurring ozone than they would have allowed. It doesn't make
any sense.
There are multiple studies that were sponsored by the EPA concerning
supposed contamination of groundwater from fracking that were so sloppy
and

[[Page H1651]]

so obviously biased that even the EPA had to finally admit to them and
withdraw their own studies. Once again, it doesn't make any sense.
Why would the EPA try to stop fracking, a technology that has led to
cheaper energy, more efficient energy, jobs, and economic growth in
many parts of our country? It doesn't make any sense.
There is the war on coal that I suppose many will be speaking about.
As my friend, Mrs. Hartzler, was saying, it drives up the cost of
energy for every working family. It does nothing to reduce global
carbon emissions.
I would like to take a minute and expand on, with a little more
detail, what I think is one of the most egregious and troubling
examples of EPA overreach. I want to speak on behalf of the thousands
of landowners in my district, to my home State of Utah, that face a new
threat due to the heavy hand of the EPA. This will affect farmers, it
will affect ranchers, and even homeowners as they come into the
crosshairs of an agency that has an ever-expanding regulatory agenda.
The new actions of EPA are nothing more than a power grab that will
have significant impact on infrastructure, on energy and land
development.
Back in September, the EPA published a drafted rule to more heavily
regulate the Clean Water Act. Now, make no mistake, this rule is wholly
in defiance of recent Supreme Court rulings that determined the Agency
was out of step with current law. The drafted rule would allow the EPA
to regulate virtually every body of water in the United States,
including private lakes, small ponds, seasonal streams. Every
depression, no matter how far away it was from a jurisdictional water,
could fall under this regulation. It would require farmers to get
approval from the EPA before they planted their crops. It would require
permits from the EPA before you could build on your own property, and
it would hand environmentalists another way to sue property owners. It
would drastically increase the cost and the timeframe of building any
piece of infrastructure, whether it is a highway or a power plant, all
of the things that communities need in order to survive.
Everyone agrees that we should protect the environment. There is a
reason that I chose to live in Utah. I love to rock climb. I love to
hike. I love to ski. I grew up on a farm. I love the land. I want to
protect the land. The presumption is that because I am a Republican I
must hate the land, and I think it is absurd.
If you want to take a meaningful step towards restoring trust between
the American people and the Federal Government, then rein in the power
of the EPA. It appears that our President has exactly the opposite in
mind, and that scares me to death. It, frankly, should scare every
American. I hope that he doesn't. I hope we are able to control this
Agency. I hope that this discussion tonight helps move us forward
towards doing that.
Mrs. HARTZLER. Mr. Speaker, excellent points there. I think you are
right; we need to make regulations that make sense. What the EPA is
doing does not make sense. It does feed into the distrust of government
bureaucracy by the American people, and well-deserved when they have
some of the regulations coming out that they have been proposing that
are harming Americans. That is why we are here tonight, to raise these
concerns and to fight against them.
I am so glad today to get to pass the baton to my friend from North
Carolina (Mr. Holding).
Mr. HOLDING. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlelady for bringing
us here today to talk about this important issue.
Mr. Speaker, excessive and burdensome regulations have become a
pattern under this administration. It is harmful to business and
prevents growth in our economy.
One area of concern, amongst many that I have and my constituents
have in North Carolina, is the proposed Environmental Protection Agency
rule which would make changes to the Clean Water Act. The proposed rule
by EPA would grant them control over essentially all waters, not just
navigable waters as any commonsense person understands navigable waters
and which is clearly defined in the Clean Water Act of 1972 and has
been upheld by the Supreme Court.
In North Carolina, farmers are a critical part of this economy and
community. Earlier this week, I had the chance to meet with a group of
farmers from Wayne County, which is a large population center in my
district. One of their greatest concerns was not a traditional farmer
concern that you hear. It wasn't a concern about feed prices or soil
fertility or farm equipment maintenance. It had to do with a Federal
agency attempting to regulate any ditch, puddle, or dry creekbed within
their property lines. This proposed rule from the EPA would take
control away from these farmers and place it in the hands of a Federal
Government bureaucracy.
Now, the EPA claims that it needs the authority to do this, but in
reality, this expansion of power would unnecessarily put local and
State issues in the Federal Government's hands. The EPA wants to expand
the jurisdiction to intrastate waters, which could include isolated
streams or ditches. This is extremely consequential to private property
owners who could now be subject to EPA regulations even if they merely
have a small pond in their backyard.
If the EPA is given this authority, private property owners will be
vulnerable to lawsuits from environmental groups for not complying with
regulations. In some of these cases, these waters have nothing to do
with Federal interests and the rule could override State prerogatives.
The rule would allow EPA to regulate activities beyond the scope of
interstate commerce, which is clearly not what was intended when the
Clean Water Act was passed in 1972.
It is essential that we support policies that help farmers not only
in North Carolina, not only in my district, but across the country to
grow and produce their crops. They cannot afford to be laid low by
overreaching government regulations. These are not large corporations.
We are talking about local farmers who are farming sweet potatoes or
soybeans or tobacco, and for them, these new regulations can be complex
and compliance can be time consuming and expensive.

The Small Business Office of Advocacy has reported that Federal
rulemaking has imposed a cumulative burden of $1.75 trillion on our
economy. We should not add more to the problem with the proposed EPA
rule; but, rather, we should be doing all we can to alleviate the
burden on our farmers, small businesses, and our Nation's economy.
Again, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler)
for organizing this Special Order this afternoon.
Mrs. HARTZLER. I thank the gentleman very much, and I want to follow
up on exactly your same story. I hear the same from my farmers in
Missouri. And this picture on this poster, I hope everyone can see,
because I want to show what Representative Holding was just talking
about.
The Clean Water Act gave the EPA authority to regulate navigable
waters, and those are the pictures here. They would be something that
you would consider navigable waters, and they worked with the Corps of
Engineers to develop regulations.
The pictures on the right are what I consider nonnavigable, and I
think most people with common sense would. They are farm ponds,
puddles, and ditches. This is what the EPA is trying to expand its
reach to regulating. As Representative Holding said, this is going to
impact every farmer and every property owner, and it is a violation of
property rights.
The government should not have any control or say over how people
manage their ponds, or if there is a puddle in the field, they
shouldn't have to ask permission to be able to plant a crop there. And
yet that is what you have, one of the things that EPA is doing. Thank
you for bringing that up. And I wanted everybody to see how ridiculous
this is and what an overreach of government it is. Thank you for
showing that picture.
Now, I turn to Andy Barr from Kentucky. He knows a little bit about
coal and some of the other impacts of the EPA. Please share your
thoughts on the topic.
Mr. BARR. I thank the gentlelady for organizing this Special Order
and her leadership in highlighting a real problem in our country right
now.

[[Page H1652]]

The President of the United States the other night in the State of
the Union made an observation, and the President's observation was one
where he described an economy in which inequality has deepened and
upward mobility has stalled. Unfortunately, in many respects the
President is right, but he is wrong about what has caused that problem
to exist in our economy.
The truth is a major reason why upward mobility has stalled is
because the Environmental Protection Agency, under his direction, has
produced a deluge of red tape and regulations that are literally
strangling the Nation's economy. The poor are worse off today than they
were when President Obama took office. Seven million more Americans
live in poverty today as compared to 2008. Median household income has
fallen over $2,000 in the last 4 years. Seventy-six percent of
Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and the percentage of working-age
people actually in the workforce has dropped to the lowest rate in 35
years in the Obama economy. The EPA is largely responsible for this.
The coal industry in my region in central and eastern Kentucky could
be the poster child of this regulatory onslaught. According to the
Commonwealth's recently released figures, more than 7,000 coal miners
in the Appalachian coalfields have received pink slips since 2009;
2,232 of those jobs were lost last year alone, thanks in large part to
the overreach of the EPA. The percentage of coal miners in our State is
the lowest number of coal miners since 1927 in the coal labor market,
and that is since they actually started keeping those statistics.
So whether it is deadlocking the permit process or trying to
effectively ban coal-fired electricity through disastrous greenhouse
gas regulations, EPA's arming of unelected bureaucrats has been very
direct about their efforts to reshape entire sectors of our economy. In
fact, the President's own climate adviser was reported as saying ``a
war on coal is exactly what we need.''
So what bothers me about this is that there is a total disregard for
the human cost to hardworking Americans, their families, who have lost
these paychecks, who have been laid off with no other economic
opportunity.
There is a problem with upward mobility in this country. There is
income inequality, but it is because of this administration's policies
that are devastating these coal-mining families. And make no mistake,
these costs are generally borne by the Nation's most vulnerable who can
least afford higher energy prices. A recent study analyzing government
data found that, for the 180,000 families in Kentucky making less than
$10,000 per year, energy costs consume more than two-thirds of after-
tax income.

{time} 1915

That means for every $100 they take home, about $70 goes to covering
the cost of energy. The EPA's ruinous policies will only drive those
rates higher, adding to the burdens on those already struggling to make
ends meet. Folks like our seniors on fixed incomes, they can't afford
these higher utility bills.
The President likes to talk about the war on poverty. My friends on
the other side of the aisle like to talk about the war on poverty.
Well, it is hard to win the war on poverty when you are waging a
relentless war on jobs. That is exactly what is happening with the EPA.
EPA officials think that they know what is best for you, for your
family, and for your community, whether you live in Kentucky or Texas
or California, but when Congress has asked for some evidence to justify
this one-size-fits-all approach, they fail to provide it.
While I am sure it was much easier for these bureaucrats to have
listening sessions on greenhouse gas regulations in Washington, D.C.,
or San Francisco, California, the three States that produced the most
coal--Kentucky, West Virginia, and Wyoming--they were not on the list
where the EPA went to visit. I don't think the bureaucrats would have
received such a warm welcome from the coal miners of my State whose
jobs were lost, the small businesses that no longer have customers--
many in my home district--the teachers whose schools have lost a major
source of tax revenue. They no longer have those funds because of the
war on coal and the loss of revenue.
As I have warned for some time, the impact of EPA regulations will
not be limited to the coal fields of Appalachia. If the EPA has its
way, rising electricity rates, like we have already seen this winter,
will ripple through this economy, threatening the manufacturing
renaissance; home heating bills will spike; goods and services will
cost more, depressing consumer demand; businesses will have to devote
money that could have gone to investment and hiring to cover higher
energy costs at a time when they can least afford it; companies
considering to locate here in the United States will leave because our
energy advantage will instead go overseas, where labor and energy are
cheaper and the regulatory environment is less suffocating. Americans
are calling for more jobs, but the Federal bureaucracy is trying to
make sure those jobs go elsewhere.
All of this is happening through agency rulemaking because that is
the only way that the President's environmentalist wish list can come
into being. Similar policies have repeatedly failed in the face of
bipartisan opposition in Congress. The President and the EPA, deaf to
the vehement refusals of the American people and their elected
officials to go along with this extremist agenda, are resorting to the
only means that they have left: legally questionable rulemaking and
executive actions unilaterally administered by the executive branch.
The House has made its position loud and clear: these policies are at
odds with the intent of Congress and not in the best interest of the
American people. In fact, they are actually bankrupting many
hardworking Americans.
Enough is enough, Mr. Speaker. I would encourage the President and
the EPA to approach Congress with an open, transparent program that
balances environmental protection with economic growth. It can be done
if Congress has a willing negotiator in the White House, but continuing
to impose these rules by executive proclamation unilaterally fails to
benefit the environment and it serves only to harm our constituents and
our democracy, if this President, if this Congress is serious about
dealing with poverty, if we are serious about dealing with income
inequality, if we are really genuinely interested in helping the poor
in this country, let's not attack hardworking Americans. Let's focus on
job creation and growth, and let's unleash the energy potential of the
United States.
I thank the gentlelady for her leadership.
Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you very, very much. I don't think anyone could
say it any better than that.
I appreciate as well your comments about coal because in my district,
I have the only working coal mine in Missouri. In Missouri, 85 percent
of our energy comes from coal. It is an extremist agenda that would
raise the price of energy unnecessarily, especially on the hardest hit
Americans whose hours are being cut back because of other policies from
this country coming forth, and whose paychecks are shrinking.
Why would you artificially raise the cost of their electric bills due
to regulations that aren't even scientifically based and shut off a
major source of energy in this country that is affordable, reliable,
safe, and clean--and that is coal.
Thank you very much for sharing that.
Now I would like to go to my friend from Oklahoma, James Lankford, to
hear his thoughts about EPA and how it is hurting Americans and how we
can provide better solutions.
Mr. LANKFORD. There are a lot of things that we have done as a Nation
that really have greatly benefited the health and economy of our
Nation. We have engaged. There are some that would say to Republicans
that Republicans just want dirty air and dirty water and they just
assume we want unhealthy kids and all those things. I have people who
have complained to me here while I have been in the House of
Representatives and say: Don't you care about kids with asthma? And I
look at them and say: Yeah, my daughter is one of them. So don't throw
back in my face we don't care about our own kids and we don't care
about the environment.
My youngest daughter, a couple of years ago we were sitting at an
intersection and the car in front of us took

[[Page H1653]]

off and black smoke came out of the back of it, and she said out loud:
Is that car on fire? As a kid who grew up in the 1970s like I did, I
thought: No, that is what every car did in the 1970s, but we have made
real changes, and it has affected our environment.
It is fascinating to me now that the EPA and the rules that were put
in place to protect all Americans have moved from where they were in
the 1970s to now trying to get to the most granular small level that is
pushing beyond health and safety down to a level that is actually
controlling business and the basic operation of our economy. This is no
longer about health and safety of people anymore. Those rules have long
been changed and been in place. This is something different.
The basic rules:
There is a rule that probably no one tracks. It is a 316(b) rule. No
one has heard of the 316(b) rule, but what it does with power plants,
most power plants, as people drive past all the time and see them, they
have a lake around them. In that lake there are, typically, fish. Quite
frankly, for many power plants that are there in many parts of the
country, the power company actually built that lake and then stocked
it. In Oklahoma, some of the best fishing lakes are right around power
plants because the water is a little bit warmer and the fish multiply.
The water that comes in through one side of that lake actually goes
underneath the power plant to actually cool the power plant. It is not
the steam that comes out of the top. It is just like a big radiator
that comes in.
There is a grading screen that keeps all the fish out and everything
else because they don't want them going underneath the plant as well
and hurting the tubing and such. Occasionally, a fish gets what is
called impinged on that screen. They are typically minnows, what we use
in Oklahoma for fishing bait.

So the EPA is stepping in to power companies and making massive
changes in their requirements to the screens around the outside of that
to keep fish--minnows, bait fish--from being caught on that. Well, the
offer has been made to say, if 100 bait fish are killed on this screen
during this time, can we just buy 100 bait fish and put it in? We can
go down to the local bait shop and get 100 fish and just restock it--
and they say no. It requires millions of dollars of change to go around
that screen to prevent that.
Who pays for that? Ratepayers pay for that. The President made a
statement in his State of the Union address when he said: these things
will be hard, but they are right for the environment. Do you know who
it is hard on? The poorest in our society, elderly people that are on
fixed incomes. That electricity bill matters to them, and you can't
just flippantly say, Mr. President, this is going to be hard but we
have got to do it, when the people that it is going to be hardest on
and are going to be affected the most are the people that this
government should protect rather than just look at them and say: this
is going to be hard, but you are going to pay a higher bill.
Simple things like regional haze. Rules were made years ago on
regional haze. Regional haze is a rule dealing with aesthetics, what
the air looks like. Not air quality, not what we breath, not health,
just aesthetics. So the rule was made if this is just about aesthetics,
not about health, the State should make those rules.
Then there was what's called a ``sue and settle'' agreement. This
administration allowed a lawsuit, broke off separately from the normal
judicial process, made an arrangement with these environmental groups,
and then came back to States and said, a judge is imposing that. A
judge is not imposing that. They made a deal with environmentalist
groups around the people that it would affect and are now imposing it
on States.
What is the result of that? Higher prices for electricity. Not
because of health, but because of aesthetics. Again, the President's
statement: this is going to be hard, we are aware. It is going to be
hard on the people that should be protected by this Nation, not just
someone stepping into their house and saying: sorry your electricity
bill is higher, this is going to be hard. That doesn't help anyone.
Families know that day-to-day life is hard. They don't need this
government making it harder for them.
We need to stand up and protect them. It is important that we have
clean air and clean water. It is also important that we protect our
families and not bring them undue expense that matters nothing for
basic human health and population.
I thank the gentlelady for hosting this time and for this
conversation because these EPA issues are not just Washington issues;
they are issues that matter to our families. They are issues that do
change the price of our electricity and our energy. When people say all
the time: Why doesn't my check go as far as it used to go, why does
life seem to cost so much now, I say to them: Welcome to the regulation
world that we live in, where someone from D.C. says: this is going to
be hard and you pay more.
Mrs. HARTZLER. We have turned sadly into a regulation Nation, and it
is wrong, but some of us--and the ones here tonight speaking--are not
going to sit by and allow this and stand idly by. We are fighting
against it, and that is why we are here.
I totally agree with my colleague that it is wrong to just tell
people: well, this is going to be hard, but you are going to have to
pay more on your electric bill basically because of this new regulation
because we care more for a minnow than we do about people. That is
wrong. It is time to change things.
I appreciate my friend from Ohio, Representative Robert Latta, being
here tonight and welcome your comments on this issue.
Mr. LATTA. Thank you very much. I appreciate the gentlelady for
organizing this Special Order tonight.
The issue about the EPA and what it is doing back home and across our
Nation is an issue that we all have to really pay attention to. I serve
on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and we look at this all the time
in our subcommittee. We have hearings continually. People back home
always ask: What's going on, why is this happening, as the gentleman
from Oklahoma just said.
My district is unique. I have 60,000 manufacturing jobs, and I also
represent the largest number of farmers in the State of Ohio. When I am
home, over the last 16 plus months I have probably done about 40 to 50
different meetings in my district visiting manufacturing plants,
farmers, and small businesses. I also ask them: What is the issue that
you are most concerned about? The number one issue I hear from them all
the time on, the number one issue is regulations. Regulations are the
number one thing that are holding back Americans from creating more
jobs in this country. It is very important that I ask them: Well, who
is it, what regulations? It is the EPA. That is the number one agency I
hear about from my constituents all the time.
Earlier this session, I offered H.R. 724. H.R. 724 is a piece of
legislation that received bipartisan support here in the House. Not
only did it receive bipartisan support, it passed unanimously. What
that bill does is it gets rid of a piece of regulation that is no
longer necessary under the Clean Air Act.
There is a regulation on the books out there that requires small to
large to medium auto dealers in this country that they would have to go
out and give the buyer a piece of paper telling them that, yes, it met
all the requirements. Well, it is no longer a piece of paper that needs
to be given. It is something that should have been gotten rid of a long
time ago because it is online, it is on the cars, it says right there
that that car meets all the emission standards.
So what we need to do is just start paring back these types of
regulations. That bill has gone over to the Senate. I hope our friends
over there in the very near future take that up because, again, it is
something that helps the communities. Again, when you talk about folks
back home, the folks back home--it is like the auto dealers--they are
the ones that sponsor Little League teams, they are the ones that are
out there making sure that they are donating. So let's give them more
time to do things like helping their community and, by the way, selling
more cars, putting more people to work. That is very, very important.
Also, as the speaker from Oklahoma also mentioned, there is nobody
out

[[Page H1654]]

there that doesn't say that we don't want clean air and clean water. We
all want that, but in recent years the EPA has put forward broad-
reaching regulatory proposals that are either unachievable or lack
sufficient cost-benefit justifications. One of the most harmful
proposals includes the greenhouse gas emission standards for new power
plants that aim to stop the use of coal as an energy source.
We have all heard from folks tonight talking about how much coal is
being used not only in their districts, but their States. In the State
of Ohio, 78 percent of our electricity comes from coal-fired plants.
When you talk about what is going to happen if all these regulations
go on, who is that going to affect?

{time} 1930

It is going to affect the very vulnerable citizens in our districts.
For the senior citizens out there on fixed incomes, it is going to
increase the costs for them. They are going to have to make the choice
about heating their homes or about refilling those lifesaving
prescriptions that they might have to have.
So, when we look at the EPA and when it fails to consider what those
real-life impacts are on all of these proposals that it is proposing
out there; or the small business owner who struggles to make the
payroll; or the newly hired employee facing the reduced hours; or,
again, senior citizens who are on fixed incomes and trying to budget in
these tough times, those are the things that have to be considered.
One of the things, I think, that was really staggering was that, in
2011, the SBA--the Small Business Administration--came out with a
report stating that we have $1.7 trillion of regulations in this
country today. Unfortunately, that got up to $1.8 trillion, and that is
what we are dealing with in this country. People wonder why jobs aren't
being created in this country. You just have to look at Washington.
What are we doing to them here?
What we need to do, in my opinion, is invite the EPA to visit our
districts. I have actually had some folks in my district say that they
would be glad to have them come in to show the EPA. In one company,
they had all of these different manuals and books and everything on the
table that they showed me, and they said one thing--that they would
love to have them come in because it doesn't even apply to their
plants. That is what is going on. They are trying to take a round peg
and drive it through a square hole. We have got to do that in order to
help our hardworking American taxpayers meet these goals and to create
more jobs, to help their families, and to help the future.
With that, I thank the gentlelady again for hosting this tonight.
Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you so much, gentleman. Thank you for your
leadership on that. That is a great bill, and we really need more of
that to push back on these onerous regulations by the EPA, like you
pointed out, that cost the taxpayers $1.8 trillion a year overall just
to comply with paperwork. That is wrong.
Now I would like to turn to my friend from Florida, Representative
Ted Yoho, to share his thoughts.
Mr. YOHO. I would like to thank the gentlelady from the great State
of Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler) for the privilege of being able to address
one of the greatest issues facing our Nation today--the unilateral
imposition of regulations coming out of an administrative agency known
as the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the strangulating
effects those regulations have on business development and on our
economy.
Mr. Speaker, my home State, the great State of Florida, is fortunate
enough to play host to a myriad of beautiful animals, landscapes,
waterways, and beaches, and I believe that we all play a role in being
good stewards of our natural resources. We all want clean water. We all
want clean air. As Mr. Lankford was talking about his child's having
asthma, I have asthma, and I know the importance of this. So, yes, we
do want a clean environment.
Many rural districts like mine often have unique needs, whether it is
the farmer farming to put food on his table in order to keep his family
fed or to feed a Nation or to keep the lights on at the storefront or
bringing jobs back to our districts. Through projects like the dredging
of the St. Johns waterway, which is a crucial infrastructure project in
our district, it would create thousands of jobs, and yet we have to
deal with EPA regulations.
Congress must ensure that efficient and effective policies are being
implemented that both boost the economy and uphold environmentally
friendly industry standards. However, the EPA has overstepped its
authority time and time again by imposing unwarranted, costly Federal
regulations on States and on individuals. Last year, the EPA issued
1,624 rules and notices. In this year alone, the EPA has issued 148 new
rules and notices.
To sum this up, since the beginning of the 113th Congress alone, the
EPA has issued 1,759 new rules and notices. In a little over 12 months,
the EPA has issued, on average, just under 147 new rules and notices
per month. That is just under 34 a week, just under 11 new regulations
a day. This is an incredible rate. Every industry is affected, and they
are finding it harder and harder to keep up.
Take, for example, the highly debated cap-and-trade emissions
standards the EPA and the current administration are pushing. This is
going to affect every American.
The EPA Web site says:

Cap-and-trade is an environmental policy tool that delivers
results with a mandatory cap on emissions while providing
sources flexibility in how they comply. Successful cap-and-
trade programs reward innovation, efficiency and early
action, and provide strict environmental accountability
without inhibiting economic growth.

This is simply not true. It strangles businesses; it costs money; and
it stifles economic growth.
Overzealous regulations like cap-and-trade by the EPA, which is,
again, an administrative agency, handcuff our economy and make America
less competitive in the world because emerging markets like China and
India will never adopt such destructive taxes; yet they put our
manufacturers in a hold and make America less competitive, further
restricting the opportunities in this country and lowering the job
growth in this country.
I have just a few stories I would like to share with you. One of them
is about a constituent of mine. We have talked about this, and you held
up the navigable waterways:
He is a dairy farmer. He has been in battle with the EPA for over a
couple of years. It has cost him over $400,000--$200,000 in fines. It
is for a depression on his property that has been there for years. It
is a depression that, when it rains, it fills up and it evaporates, yet
he has fought the EPA on this for over 2 years at the cost of $200,000
in fines--$200,000 to fix it and in lawyer fees. This can't go on. It
drives people out of business;
In our area, I visited a power plant. That power plant was tasked
with meeting a new EPA standard for their emissions. It cost them over
$500 million, and they had 4 years to complete it. They got halfway
through the project, and the EPA came out and said, Never mind. We
changed the rule. They have already spent half the money, yet the EPA
says, You don't have to comply.
We see this over and over again. According to the new EPA studies, by
their own admission, they said that the new rules on the carbon capture
standards would have an insignificant effect on human health and our
environment, yet it is going to cripple every American in this country
and cost him a lot more in money.
Our role in government is to legislate in order to make America safer
and economically stronger, not to govern by an administrative agency
which has little oversight and that winds up stifling business
development and our economic growth. It is high time Congress reminds
the EPA of what its original purpose was, and that is to protect human
health and the environment by writing and enforcing regulations based
on the laws that we pass, not regulations that stifle America.

I would like to thank the gentlelady from Missouri for the
opportunity and for organizing this. You did a great job and a great
service to the American people.
Mrs. HARTZLER. Your comments were very, very helpful to what we are
doing tonight, which is making people

[[Page H1655]]

aware of how these EPA regulations hurt real people. I think your
example of the 2-year fight and the $200,000 fine just for a low area
in your yard that fills with water is just too much.
Mr. YOHO. It wound up costing him over $400,000 by the time he was
done, and he just threw up his hands. This is happening all over
America. So I thank you again.
Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. That is why we are here fighting tonight.
I would like to turn it over now to my friend from Arkansas, which is
just a little south of me, to Representative Rick Crawford.
Mr. CRAWFORD. I thank the gentlelady and her staff for arranging this
Special Order to discuss this issue that we have been talking about--
the egregious overreach of the Environmental Protection Agency.
I want to talk about an issue that is very close to you and near and
dear to you and that you have helped me on, and that is the spill
prevention and containment countermeasures issue, which is facing
farmers across the country.
Mr. Speaker, we have taken action on this. If you are like me and if
your staff is like my staff, we have fielded countless phone calls from
farmers who are concerned about these new rules that the EPA was
attempting to roll out with respect to on-farm fuel storage at, really,
an unmanageable level. 1,320 gallons was the threshold that would
require that the farmers construct these spill prevention and
containment countermeasures. For those who don't know what those are,
those are berms, or protective dikes, around a storage facility that
can cost tens of thousands of dollars to ag producers. Farmers may be
land rich--capital rich--but they are not cash rich by any stretch of
the imagination, so this adds cost to their operations.
Really, who pays for that?
We have talked about it with our power plants. The ratepayers pay.
The American people pay for that because prices go up. Generally, while
the farmer bears the burden initially, ultimately, those costs are
passed on to the consumer, which is the case in nearly every one of
these issues where we see the EPA engaging in overreach.
So we took to the floor to try to change this, and we were
successful, not once but twice, in passing by voice vote the FUELS Act.
That would have changed the threshold from 1,320 gallons to 10,000
gallons. Between 10,000 and 42,000, you would be required to build the
structure, but above 42,000, you would then be required to engage the
services of a professional engineer for certification in order to meet
that standard for EPA's compliance.
Now, the University of Arkansas did a study on the FUELS Act which
addressed the spill prevention and containment countermeasures, and
they estimated nationwide that this bill, which was passed successfully
on the House floor, would save American farmers $3.3 billion. I don't
know about you, but I think this $3.3 billion could do our economy a
heck of a lot better service than chasing this problem that really
doesn't exist.
Why do I say this problem doesn't exist?
A decade ago, the USDA did an analysis of the spill prevention and
containment countermeasures, and they discovered there was little, if
any, evidence of farms having any oil spills. In fact, 99 percent of
farmers had never experienced an oil spill, and that means that the
compliance cost of $3.3 billion is essentially a solution in search of
a problem. It really doesn't exist.
What we did was we took that 10,000-gallon threshold directly from
the underlying law--the Clean Water Act--that regulates on-farm fuel
storage, and they defined, in their own words, 10,000 gallons as being
a proper definition of a family farm, of small farm fuel storage. The
commodities at this scale are certainly storing more than 10,000
gallons on their farms. Being a farmer yourself, you know that you
store in greater quantity than 10,000 gallons, particularly if you are
engaged in a larger scale operation. So, number one, the evidence just
isn't there to support the 1,320-gallon threshold.
Number two, we had over 30 commodity organizations and agricultural
organizations that were in support of the bill. We passed it twice on
the floor. The Senate will not move. The EPA continues to move forward,
and we continue to be concerned about the EPA's drive to overregulate
on-farm fuel storage.
Again, I want to thank the gentlelady for her leadership on this and
for bringing this to the attention of the American people, because
everything that we have heard tonight and everything that has been
talked about has a direct impact on their bottom lines and on the
quality of life for their farmers.
I would also like to echo what my colleagues have said. We certainly
don't want to see poor air quality or poor water quality. I have kids
at home. I love my kids. You love your kids. I know you have small ones
at home, too. We are just as committed to a clean environment as
anybody is, but we are also committed to the quality of life, to the
costs incurred in that quality of life and to a more responsible
approach.
Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you for your leadership on this. That issue is
just so important to farmers all across this country and to rural
communities, which could certainly use that $3.3 billion.
Now I would like to turn to my friend from Oklahoma, Markwayne
Mullin, to share his thoughts on the EPA.
Mr. MULLIN. I would like to thank the gentlelady from Missouri.
Mr. Speaker, this is something that is very near and dear to my
heart. The only reason I stand in front of you is that I realized one
day that the biggest threat that I had to my family business was the
Federal Government from its overregulation. I woke up one day and
realized that I was literally spending 40 cents on every dollar that
came into our company to simply comply with different mandates and
regulations that came down from this area.
I never dreamed I would ever stand up here one day as a Congressman.
It was never a thought. I never even owned a suit until after I won the
election. My family is strongly rooted in entrepreneurs--from farming
to plumbing, all the way to banking--and we understand regulation well,
but the biggest threat we have to this economy is overreaching
regulation.

{time} 1945

Let me share just a real quick story. My uncle, Darryle Mullin, is
from Clearfork, Oklahoma, a big metropolitan area I am sure everybody
around here has heard of. It is the same place he was born and raised,
the same place my dad and his brothers and sisters were born and
raised. He has been raising chickens there since 1971. For 42 years, he
has raised chickens. He raised a family by raising chickens and
farming.
The EPA came in and started fining people on little, silly stuff,
including feathers. Fining poultry growers, chicken farmers, on
feathers.
Now you are going to tell me that in a place where my Uncle Darryle
grew up his entire life, he doesn't have pride on the land that he
lives on? You are telling me people that never stepped foot in
Oklahoma, and probably never on a farm, but they are up here in D.C.,
know how to manage our land better than we know how to manage our land?
I find it a joke. It is embarrassing, and they should be embarrassed.
Because they are going to kill the entrepreneur spirit. They are going
to run small farmers out of business.
2013 was the last batch of chickens my Uncle Darryle got. It wasn't
because of his health. It wasn't because he didn't want to still manage
it. He just got to the point where it wasn't profitable for him to be
able to do it anymore. Rather than doing what he loves, he was spending
his time trying to comply with mandates that the EPA is putting down on
small farmers all over the country.
What we are seeing is these small farmers have raised families, and
they were raised on the same farm. Generations of farmers are starting
to have to sell out. Large corporations that have more people to
balance the pay, to balance the cost around, are having to come in and
take the spot of these small farmers that started the same way my uncle
did.
Now you tell me, what good are they doing? Are they helping America?
No. They are killing the entrepreneur spirit of America. They are
costing us jobs. They are taking away our life. They are ruining
families.
This country was built on the backs of farmers. The work ethic that
we

[[Page H1656]]

have as Americans came from the farming community. We get up every day,
we pull our boots on, we go to work, and we take pride because we
accomplish something that no one else can accomplish--and we did it
that day.
We overcome challenges every day. More and more challenges we
overcome. It is something we take pride in. You can't tell us we can't
do a job. We are the only one that can tell us we can't.
But one challenge we haven't been able to get over--and that is right
here in Washington, D.C.--is bureaucrats that get up every day and try
to tell us how to live our lives. Yet we survived all these years
without them.
As I stand in front of the gentlelady from Missouri today, the EPA is
the biggest threat we have to this country right now. They are the
biggest threat we have to our way of life right now. They are doing
nothing but costing us jobs by trying to say they are saving us from
ourselves. It is embarrassing, but I am sure glad I am up here standing
in front of you today to fight for our way of life.
I would like to thank the gentlelady from Missouri for giving me this
time and the opportunity to stand in front of you. Thank you for
exposing the EPA for what they are instead of what they hide behind.
Mrs. HARTZLER. I am glad you are here tonight. I am glad you are here
representing the common person in this country who is fighting these
regulations every day, who has had real-world experience dealing with
the EPA, like many of us have.
You are exactly right. It is stifling jobs and hurting people,
whether it is the families back in Missouri who are dealing with the
big 10-inch snow that we got yesterday, and they are wanting to heat
their home with a wood-burning stove or turn up the thermostat and
worry about their electricity bills at the end of the month, or whether
it is the farmer out there who is trying to raise chickens and provide
poultry and meat for this country, and then they have the government
trying to regulate their feathers.
Last year, the EPA tried to regulate farm dust. Now they are trying
to expand the definition of navigable waters to regulating farm ponds
and ditches and little depressions in the fields, and asking for
permission from Americans to be able to farm their land.
There are other regulations we haven't even talked about tonight
dealing with permitting and being able to spray crop protection
products on their cops. Farmers get this every day. So do
manufacturers. So do businesses, and so does anyone who has to pay an
electric bill every month, with the President's war on coal.
So that is why here in the House we are standing strong against the
EPA. We are exposing what they are doing and how it is hurting
Americans and why it is important for the Senate to move on our bills
to rein in the EPA, to bring common sense back to Washington, and to
return this government of the people, by the people, to start working
for the people once again.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

____________________