[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 25678-25682]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 2996, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, 
       ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010

  Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1 of rule XXII and by 
direction of the Committee on Appropriations, I move to take from the 
Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 2996) making appropriations for the 
Department of the Interior, environment, and related agencies for the 
fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes, with a 
Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree 
to the conference asked by the Senate.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The motion was agreed to.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to instruct at the desk.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Simpson moves that the managers on the part of the 
     House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 2996 be 
     instructed as follows:
       (1) Insist on section 425 of the House bill (regarding a 
     prohibition on funds to implement any rule requiring 
     mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from manure 
     management systems).
       (2) That they shall not record their approval of the final 
     conference agreement (as such term is used in clause 12(a)(4) 
     of rule XXII of the Rules of the House of Representatives) 
     unless the text of such agreement has been available to the 
     managers in an electronic, searchable, and downloadable form 
     for at least 72 hours prior to the time described in such 
     clause.

  Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve a point of order against the 
instruction.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. A point of order is reserved.
  Pursuant to clause 7 of rule XXII, the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. 
Simpson) and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) each will 
control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Idaho.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, before I get into the substance of this motion to 
instruct, I want to thank Chairman Dicks and his staff for listening to 
the views of the minority during our preconference deliberations. While 
we may not agree on everything in this Interior Appropriations 
conference agreement, our staff discussions have been very productive.
  The motion I am offering today is very straightforward and does two 
things. First, it would insist on section 425 of the House bill 
regarding a prohibition on funds to implement any rule requiring 
mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from manure management 
systems. Secondly, it would require that the Interior Appropriations 
conference report be available 72 hours prior to House consideration 
for the public and Members to read.
  This motion to instruct simply insists upon the House-passed bill's 
position relating to the Latham amendment. The Latham amendment simply 
says that the EPA cannot implement a rule that requires mandatory 
reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from cow, pig, or chicken manure.
  The Latham amendment was offered in full committee and was one of the 
very few amendments passed this year with strong bipartisan support. 
Every Democrat on the Appropriations Committee with agricultural 
interests in his district supported it, and no one made an effort to 
strike the language on the House floor. Now, of course anyone could 
have done that--excuse me, I was wrong. We didn't consider this bill 
under an open rule, so they would have had to go to the Rules 
Committee, but no one did go to the Rules Committee to get an amendment 
approved so that they could offer it on the floor. It was part of the 
House-passed Interior Appropriations bill and should be a part of the 
Interior Appropriations conference agreement.
  According to the EPA, livestock manure management systems account for 
less than 1 percent of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions in 
the United States. Over 85 percent--that's 85 percent--of greenhouse 
gas emissions from agriculture in total come from sources other than 
manure management systems, and these sources are not subject to the 
reporting rule. By the EPA's own admission, regulating these sources 
would be overly expensive and burdensome.
  Members of the Agriculture Committee have been warning us for years 
of the danger of climate change rulemaking outside of the legislative 
process. This EPA rule is clear evidence that the chickens have finally 
come home to roost, as have the cows and pigs.
  If you have livestock or a family farm in your congressional 
district, you will want to support this motion to instruct. The simple 
truth is that the livestock industry is being hammered by the downturn 
in our national economy. If you are raising animals for food, you are 
either losing your shirt or you are going out of business. That's the 
truth. It's not an exaggeration. Frozen credit markets have left 
farmers and ranchers without the credit they need to run their day-to-
day operations, and many have been forced to sell their land or declare 
bankruptcy.
  It was only a few weeks ago that we added $350 million to the Ag 
Appropriations conference report to bail out the dairy industry, which 
is collapsing under the strain of the credit crisis and low milk 
prices. And in the Interior conference report, we're not only making it 
more difficult for farmers to succeed, we are setting them up to fail.
  There is another irony here worth noting. The Interior Appropriations 
conference agreement is likely to include an exemption to a clean air 
rule affecting ships on the Great Lakes. Chairman Obey recognized that 
the excesses of the EPA would place additional hardships upon an 
economy already devastated by the recession, so the chairman has done 
what anyone in his position would do to help his constituents--he took 
action. I happen to agree with him. That's no different from what Tom 
Latham is trying to do to help farmers, ranchers, and livestock 
producers in Iowa and across the country. The only difference is that 
Mr. Latham's amendment was in the original House bill and Chairman 
Obey's rider was airdropped in at the last minute. So we are going to 
protect the Great Lakes on the one hand while we regulate farmers out 
of business on the other hand.
  If the EPA had existed in Biblical times, there is no question in my 
mind that it would have regulated gas emissions from Noah's Ark. Poor 
Noah and his livestock; they could withstand a 40-day flood, but they 
would never have survived the EPA.
  I encourage Members on both sides to take a step back and think about 
this. Let's use a little common sense here. I urge Members, especially 
if you support agriculture, farming, and the livestock industry, to 
support this motion.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The reservation is withdrawn.
  The gentleman from Washington is recognized for 30 minutes.
  Mr. DICKS. I want my colleagues to know that these are two important 
issues. We are going to work on them, and we are going to do the very 
best we can.
  EPA has come out with a ruling on this issue that wants to make sure 
that the largest people who have the biggest farms with the most cows, 
cattle, and pigs have to report, but we are working on this. We're 
going to do the best we can to come out with a credible position for 
the House of Representatives.
  And we will do the best we can on the 72 hours, but we have to keep 
the government running. We have a responsibility to do that.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham).
  Mr. LATHAM. I thank the gentleman from Idaho, and I thank the Speaker 
for the recognition.

[[Page 25679]]

  Mr. Speaker, the Senate included a one-sentence provision in the 2008 
omnibus spending bill requiring the EPA to develop and publish a rule 
that mandates the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions for all sectors 
of the U.S. economy. That one sentence reads, ``Of the funds provided 
in the Environmental Programs and Management Account, not less than 
$3,500,000 shall be provided for activities to develop and publish a 
draft rule not later than 9 months after the date of enactment of this 
act, and a final rule not later than 18 months after the date of 
enactment of this act, to require mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas 
emissions above appropriate thresholds in all sectors of the economy of 
the United States.''
  Mr. Speaker, this one sentence, incidentally, I will say--and I will 
say again later--never had a hearing. It was snuck in in this bill. 
That one sentence resulted in 1,302 pages, 42 volumes of regulations, 
and I hold here the 1,300 pages. The preamble of this regulation is 500 
pages long. This is what this is, another 500 pages. So we've got 1,800 
pages, and the Regulatory Impact Analysis of more than 200 pages. Mr. 
Speaker, here is another 200 pages. So, in total, this one sentence 
that was snuck in this bill has resulted in over 2,000 pages of new 
regulations for our country at a time that we're in a recession and 
people are hurting out there. This is the cost of more government.
  The proposed rule generated about 17,000 comments. According to the 
EPA, this rule will cost employers $115 million for the first year, and 
estimates about $70 million each year after that just to comply with 
the new 2,000 pages here. Mr. Speaker, as a former small business owner 
and farmer, I would suggest these numbers are exceedingly low. And 
there is no estimate as to how much has already been spent by 
businesses trying to figure out whether or not they fall under the 
regulation, and if they do, how they're going to follow these new 
rules.
  Congress tucked this sentence into an appropriations bill, again, 
without holding a single hearing. Let me reemphasize, not a single 
hearing goes into these 2,000 pages of regulations that are now being 
put on top of our economy. Consequently, the language provided no 
limitation or guidelines for the EPA and gave the agency unlimited 
authority to draft the new rule.
  The EPA did its job; 1,300 pages in regulations are a testament to 
the Congress using the Appropriations Committee to shortcut the 
authorizing committee process.
  The language we are debating today impacts the livestock industry. 
Within these 1,300 pages, the regulation requires a reporting of 
greenhouse gases from animal agriculture, which, on the surface, seems 
harmless enough. However, I want to stress that this regulation has a 
cost and, more importantly, it will do nothing to improve the 
environmental health of rural America. It doesn't make manure lagoons 
smell any better. It doesn't protect water wells or native species. It 
doesn't do one thing to improve the standard of living in rural Iowa or 
any part of this country. It has, however, improved the standard of 
living of people in metropolitan Washington, D.C., because this one 
sentence has kept a bunch of bureaucrats at EPA busy for the last year 
and a half.
  Farmers work very hard day to day to try to preserve their 
environment, from learning how to keep their topsoil from washing away, 
to improving the quality of our water, to eliminating odor and turning 
waste products into energy. The health of the environment is critically 
important to the success of a farming operation.

                              {time}  1745

  American farmers have done a great job in finding ways to protect the 
environment without sacrificing their families' farms' incomes; but at 
a time when our Nation's farmers are facing some of the most difficult 
economic times in the last decade, we are introducing a new and costly 
Federal mandate. This regulation will generate additional input costs 
for an industry that can ill afford it.
  Dairy has lost about $12 billion in milk receipts from 2008-2009, 
about a 33 percent loss; pork, a loss of about $2 billion, or 10 
percent in receipts for hogs, and the industry is expected to lose 
another $800 million this year; cattle, a loss of about $5 billion, or 
10 percent of its receipts; and poultry producers are going bankrupt.
  If you're in livestock today, you are losing money. The EPA estimates 
the cost of reporting will be $900 per facility. However, one 
instrument used to measure methane can cost about $15,000, and it 
requires trained personnel to maintain, which adds further costs. So 
these farmers are going to have to hire an expert to sit there and 
monitor the machines. To me, that adds up to a little more than $900 
per facility.
  To add further costs to production is simply foolish and 
irresponsible on the part of this Congress. This language should never 
have been added to a spending bill. That's why we have an authorizing 
committee and why Members representing agriculture are concerned about 
this climate change legislation.
  You think about it. One sentence tucked into an appropriations bill 
generated 1,300 pages of regulations, 500 pages of preamble and 200 
pages of regulatory impact analysis, and it regulates all sectors of 
the economy, agriculture just being a small slice.
  We have cap-and-trade bills that have thousands of pages of 
legislative language alone that Members of Congress want signed into 
law. This Congress intends to give the EPA a huge increase in spending 
this year, and I guess they're going to need it. Why? Because the EPA 
is going to have to hire a heck of a lot of new people to write those 
regulations, and regulations with equations like these have real costs 
to our economy.
  Let me just show you what this regulation looks like. This is true. 
This is why farmers love Washington--when you have a paragraph that 
puts one of the formulas in these regulations that farmers have to 
comply with. Let me just read.
  It says, ``For all manure management system components listed in 
98.360(b), except digesters, estimate the annual CH4 emissions and sum 
for all the components to obtain total emissions from the manure 
management system for all animal types using equation JJ-1.''
  Well, this is equation JJ-1. You figure it out. We're going to have 
to have a bunch of mathematicians on the farm along with the EPA, 
apparently.
  The regulation, as written, is onerous. The cost and scope is in 
serious question, and agriculture cannot afford another Federal mandate 
on this economy. Manure management is a serious issue. I know. I grew 
up and I live in Iowa, but this rule does nothing--and I emphasize 
again nothing--to improve the way farmers manage their manure.
  Ladies and gentlemen, we stand up here every day, and we talk about 
the economic problems outside the beltway and about how much we want to 
work to provide assistance. When will it dawn on us that here in 
Washington we are part of that problem? Washington mandates costs on a 
daily basis, whether on farmers who feed us or on our constituents in 
low-income areas who have to pay more of their hard-earned dollars each 
month to cover the costs of our well-intentioned handiwork. We need to 
think about the impacts--$200 here, $1,000 here, $200 million over 
there. Pretty soon, our employers are struggling to keep up with the 
government-generated cost-of-living increases.
  I ask my colleagues to please support this motion to instruct. It is 
absolutely critical, not only in agriculture but for our constituents 
back home.
  Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I just want to give a little background on 
this. I think the gentleman has a perspective, but I want to make sure 
that everyone understands what actually happened here.
  The EPA administrator signed the proposed rule for the mandatory 
reporting of greenhouse gases from large emission sources in the United 
States on March 10, 2009. It was published in the Federal Register on 
April 10, 2009. The EPA received almost 17,000 written comments on the 
proposal, and it heard

[[Page 25680]]

from approximately 60 people at the two public hearings. The final rule 
reflects changes the EPA made as it carefully considered and responded 
to significant comments.
  Now what has happened here is that thousands of small farmers would 
be exempted, and only the 90 largest manure management systems in the 
country would be required to report their emissions, those who annually 
emit as much in greenhouse gases as 58,000 barrels of oil. It is 
important for the EPA to receive information from these systems because 
the EPA needs reliable data on the greenhouse gas emissions from major 
facilities in all industries if we are going to be able to base our 
climate policy on a solid and thorough understanding of the problem.
  So I think this rule, which is very close to where, I think, the 
conferees are going to come out, does the right thing. It exempts 
thousands of small farmers; but for the ones who have enormous 
operations, where large amounts of greenhouse gases are emitted, they 
have to report.
  I think that's reasonable, and I think the process is reasonable. 
Congress directed that this be done. It was our committee that required 
a greenhouse gas registry so that we could make these decisions based 
on science, not on just political machinations. We did it on science. 
The EPA did it on science. I think it's a reasonable compromise.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SIMPSON. I would just remind the chairman that what we have is an 
authorizing committee that ought to be doing this and not the 
Appropriations Committee that ought to be doing this. This is the 
result of language put in an appropriations bill. We have authorizing 
committees like the Ag Committee which ought to be looking at this and 
overseeing it, not the Appropriations Committee.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the ranking 
member of the full committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Lewis).
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my friends, 
Chairman Norman Dicks and Mike Simpson, for nearing the completion of 
their work on the Interior appropriations report as we speak. I look 
forward to discussing their work in greater detail over the next couple 
of days.
  With regard to the motion to instruct, I would like to remind Members 
how important it is to you if this vote happens to reflect your 
constituency concerns--those constituents who have farms, ranches, 
livestock, et cetera in their districts. Without your support, the EPA 
will place an extraordinary and expensive burden on your constituents 
by regulating the emissions from cow, pig and chicken manure.
  Now, I do know how intently my chairman, over the years, has opposed 
any kind of minor exemption in a process like this, but the language 
that we are considering, which was presented by Mr. Latham in the 
committee, was adopted with bipartisan support by the full committee, 
and it passed the House with overwhelming support. As Mr. Simpson 
pointed out, no one even tried to remove this during the House 
proceedings.
  However, today, as we discuss this commonsense motion to instruct, I 
can't help but wonder about the greater plan to finish our 
appropriations work. I remind Members that the clock is ticking. We are 
now 1 month into the 2010 fiscal year, and we still have a great deal 
of work to do if we plan to complete our appropriations business this 
year.
  By my account, the House and Senate have now sent to the President 4 
of the 12 appropriations conference reports. Presuming it gets there 
soon, the Interior conference report will be the fifth. That means that 
there are 7 spending bills left to complete before the end of the year.
  For weeks and months now, the House has had very little substantive 
work to do. Week after week, the legislative calendar is fashioned to 
appear that the House is busy with the Nation's business, but Members 
and those portions of the public who watch carefully know better. 
Members on both sides of the aisle are frustrated with the House 
leadership for loading up the calendar with suspension bills, which are 
relatively insignificant, as the rest of our spending bills languish.
  For example, the Defense spending bill has now cleared both the House 
and the Senate, and there aren't any obstacles to prevent this 
conference report from moving forward.
  I care a great deal about our public lands and environment, but 
moving the Interior bill before the Defense bill makes no sense. In 
fact, it borders on the irresponsible. Rather than moving the Defense 
bill, one of the most important spending bills, that bill is lying on 
the shelf while our men and women are defending our freedom in places 
like Afghanistan and Iraq. It is unfortunate that Democrat leaders have 
prevented the Defense bill from moving forward while we have troops 
deployed overseas.
  Even more disconcerting is the fact that Democrat leaders are talking 
about using the troop funding bill as a mechanism for increasing the 
debt limit to the tune of over $13 trillion. There is no way, 
certainly, that that can be a reflection of our desire to honor the 
commitment of our military that is fighting overseas.
  In addition, the Transportation-Housing spending bill cleared the 
House and Senate months ago, and that conference agreement should also 
be completed in short order. Instead, many of the best and brightest 
staffers on the Hill are left sitting on their hands, with nothing to 
do, while they await direction on how this year's work will be wrapped 
up.
  The way we are proceeding, one would presume we are headed for yet 
another massive take-it-or-leave-it omnibus package. It is my 
understanding that the Interior bill will also carry the next 
continuing resolution, which could last until the week of Christmas or 
maybe even until the end of the year.
  For all of the bluster about passing appropriations bills by the 
August break, albeit by changing the rules to avoid tough amendment 
votes, the majority has very little to show for it now. So far, the 
only bill completed on time is that which contains the budget for the 
Congress, itself. We certainly wouldn't want to have our being 
unemployed while the people out there are struggling to pay their bills 
and their taxes and while the men and women who are fighting for us 
overseas are left languishing, awaiting this Defense appropriations 
bill.
  Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SIMPSON. May I inquire of the Speaker as to how much time we have 
remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 10 minutes and 30 seconds 
remaining.
  Mr. SIMPSON. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. 
Tiahrt).
  Mr. TIAHRT. I want to thank Ranking Member Simpson for yielding me 
time. I have to say that I think that he is much better equipped to be 
the ranking member of the Interior Committee than I was when I was 
ranking member.
  I also want to commend Chairman Dicks. I think nobody has been better 
prepared to be chairman of the Interior Committee than he has, and he 
has done an excellent job.
  Yet, Mr. Speaker, we have an honest concern and an honest difference 
on whether we should have these regulations imposed on the American 
economy and on American agricultural jobs.
  There is an onslaught of regulations going on now, and we forget 
that, when we hire all of these government workers, they have to do 
something, so we're reminded when they submit these regulations which 
do nothing but slow our economy and force more unemployment.
  We also forget that it takes five private-sector jobs to pay for each 
and every one government job, but we very seldom get the opportunity to 
talk about how we're going to grow our economy in a positive fashion. 
Instead, we have to play defense on how we're going to save the jobs we 
have today. Regulations like this do nothing but force more jobs 
overseas. They do nothing more than raise unemployment.

[[Page 25681]]

  Is there any belief, when we impose additional regulations as high as 
this pile is next to me, that it will do nothing less than move 
agricultural jobs out of America to other countries like Mexico, Brazil 
and Argentina? Are you convinced that any of those countries will do a 
better job of regulating this type of production? I don't think they 
will.
  Do you think they will do a better job in Mexico or in Brazil or in 
Argentina of managing animal diseases? We do a very fine job here. When 
there is a problem, we respond immediately, but I don't see that in 
those other countries.

                              {time}  1800

  What we are doing by writing these regulations is forcing production 
of animals overseas where we will be more vulnerable as a world, where 
we will have less jobs as America. It's not the type of direction that 
I think our President wants to go. It's not the type of direction that 
I think Congress wants to go.
  We see this not only in agriculture but we also have seen this in 
manufacturing, where as we grow the regulatory burden, the jobs move 
overseas. Today, 12 percent of the cost of making anything in America 
is consumed by just complying with the regulations. As a result we have 
seen jobs go offshore.
  Now it's not because we have high wages; we want highly qualified 
workers. It's not because CEOs are greedy; they can only control so 
many costs. They cannot control the costs imposed upon their companies 
by the regulations that they are facing from the Federal Government 
today.
  And we are doing this for what reason? So we can control greenhouse 
gases? I would defy anybody to show a measurable increase or decrease 
in greenhouse gases because of these regulations, and not only this 
year or next year, but in the next 50 or 100 years. This is not worth 
it. It doesn't meet the common sense. I would request that we keep the 
language that was passed in the Appropriations Committee by Mr. Latham 
and vote for this motion to instruct.
  Mr. DICKS. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington for 
entertaining this motion to instruct.
  I said earlier that we had authorizing committees to do this. Some 
have suggested maybe they don't do their job and the Appropriations 
Committee has to do it for them. I don't think that's right.
  But I will tell you that in the only comprehensive climate change 
bill that's passed the House, the Waxman-Markey bill, it exempted all 
animal agriculture sources from greenhouse gas emissions reporting. We 
have two bills now that have passed the House, and the House has stated 
they do not want to have to report animal emissions to the EPA, Waxman-
Markey and the Interior appropriations bill that passed.
  Now remember this legislation, or this amendment by Mr. Latham, was 
not in the original Interior bill as it came before the Appropriations 
Committee. It was added as an amendment. We affirmatively said we do 
not want the EPA to implement this rule on greenhouse gas emissions 
from animals. We affirmatively said it. It was not an oversight. That's 
what the committee said. When it came to the full House, no one offered 
an amendment to remove that language. I think that we ought to insist 
on the House language that is in this bill.
  Now I am puzzled a little bit when the chairman says ``we'll do our 
best'' and then stands up and defends the rule. What is ``our best''? I 
don't know where we are headed with this.
  Let me tell you how this process works just a little bit. 
Preconferencing goes on between the House and the Senate, generally 
between the staffs; they talk with the Members of Congress and so 
forth, but the preconferencing goes on. Apparently the Senate didn't 
like the Latham amendment, and we caved. And we said, No, we'll drop 
the Latham amendment.
  I think we need to insist on the Latham amendment. It's been the only 
expression by either body of the direction we ought to go, that we are 
opposed to this mandatory reporting by the EPA that's going to cost us, 
I think the gentleman from Iowa said, $115 million a year. Remember, we 
just gave the dairy industry $350 million because of the hardships they 
are currently suffering. And now we are going to impose these kinds of 
costs on them.
  We need to go to conference, and when we say we're going to do the 
best we can, if, when we go to conference, if the preconferenced 
conference report does not have the Latham language in it, that means 
we can offer an amendment to put it in the language, in the 
appropriation bill. But if the Senate doesn't have the votes to pass it 
there, then it's dropped and it's out.
  If it goes to conference with the language in, they have to get an 
amendment both past the House and the Senate to drop it. It's to our 
advantage and to the will of this House that it have the language in 
the preconferenced report before we go to conference, and apparently 
we've dropped it. So when the chairman says we'll do the best we can, I 
don't know exactly what that means.
  Mr. DICKS. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SIMPSON. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.
  Mr. DICKS. It means we got 99.9 percent of Latham. That's pretty 
good.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Now I'm really confused. I'm really puzzled. I don't 
understand what the gentleman is saying.
  Mr. DICKS. We all agree that for these small farmers, this makes no 
sense. The only people that are going to be under this rule are the 
people who are emitting the equivalent of 58,000 barrels of oil in 
these emissions. These are the biggest farmers in the country. They can 
afford to do this.
  This is a compromise. The spirit of Latham has been adopted, but we 
regulate the small number of people, around 90 in the country, who have 
these very large emissions. I think it makes sense. I think it's a 
decent compromise.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Reclaiming my time, I would yield to the gentleman from 
Iowa.
  Mr. LATHAM. I thank the gentleman.
  I don't know how you can say you have 99 percent when the amendment 
is eliminated. The fact of the matter is that we are going to be 
spending millions of dollars whether you are large producers or small 
producers to figure out who qualifies under this.
  That's one of the major problems here is that nobody knows for sure 
who it is and who it isn't. You are going to have to spend as a large 
producer, small producer, whatever, a whole bunch of money to figure 
out whether or not you actually qualify.
  The fact of the matter is, any of these costs are going to be passed 
down to the consumers. Now, I know, maybe another 30, 40 bucks a week 
out of a grocery bill isn't much for folks around here. But I tell you 
what, there are folks hurting at home, and that's a lot of money.
  The idea that somehow this isn't going to affect the price of food, 
that it isn't going to affect the cost of agriculture; and to do 
nothing, just have no improvement as far as the environment, no 
improvement as far as waste management, as far as air emissions, it 
will do nothing except add cost to the end consumer. I'm sorry, but my 
producers out there know what this is going to cost them, each and 
every one of them, because they're going to have to go through a whole 
process to figure out what they can do and cannot do; it's going to add 
cost, and we're going to end up with the families today paying the bill 
at the grocery store because of onerous regulations exactly like this.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Reclaiming my time, I will point out once again, this is 
the Appropriations Committee. The authorizing committee specifically 
exempts all animal agricultural source from greenhouse gas emission 
reporting. We got 100 percent of the legislation under the requirement 
the EPA can't oversee the emissions from the ships on the Great Lakes. 
We need to stand up strong, and we need to stand

[[Page 25682]]

up for what the House voted for, not once but twice, what the committee 
voted for. We need to stand up in the conference committee with the 
Senate.
  I encourage the chairman to do just that. I encourage my colleagues 
to vote for this motion to instruct.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, today the House of Representatives is 
voting on a motion to instruct conferees to insist on language that 
would prevent any funding in this bill from being used to implement an 
EPA rule requiring the largest manure management systems to report 
annual greenhouse emissions.
  The EPA rule was finalized in September 2009. It would require 
entities emitting only more than 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases 
per year--the equivalent of emissions from 58,000 barrels of oil--to 
report on annual emissions. According to the EPA, the rule will impact 
approximately 100 manure management systems across the country, five of 
which operate in the state of Oregon. Small farmers--those emitting 
less than 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases per year--would be 
completely exempt from the rule.
  I applaud the EPA's rule and President Obama's leadership in taking 
serious action on climate change. After losing eight years under the 
Bush administration in addressing the most serious environmental 
challenge of our time, it's time for bold U.S. leadership. Compiling 
accurate and complete data on greenhouse gas emissions is a critical 
piece to crafting a smart and effective climate policy.
  For these reasons, I intend to oppose the motion to instruct 
conferees before the House today. Congress should not place funding 
restraints on the EPA that would prevent the agency from executing its 
Supreme Court-confirmed authorities to regulate greenhouse gas 
emissions in the U.S.
  Mr. SIMPSON. I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. DICKS. I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion to instruct.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

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