[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17637-17638]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            BOILER MACT RULE

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, last week during the debate on clean

[[Page 17638]]

air, in which I opposed overturning a rule that allows dirty air from 
other States to blow into Tennessee, costing us jobs, and hurting our 
health, I said: Why should we be picking on a good rule when the 
Environmental Protection Agency is a happy hunting ground of 
unreasonable regulations.
  I just wish to take a moment to talk about perhaps the foremost of 
those unreasonable regulations, which we call the boiler MACT rule. 
This is a regulation that will force thousands of industrial boilers 
around America to install the maximum available control technology on 
their boilers. This is important in order to clean the air of such 
pollutants as mercury.
  That is a good idea. What is a bad idea is EPA only gives 3 years for 
companies to install this technology, a time frame that is completely 
unrealistic. This is not like a lot of the other clean air laws and 
rules that have been around for years; this is an unexpected new rule 
on thousands of industrial boilers which are essential to our 
manufacturing jobs in America.
  First, there is not enough time to comply with the rule, and second, 
EPA used a flawed methodology in determining what fuels could be used. 
As a result, little businesses and big businesses all over America are 
going to be forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to 
comply with this rule instead of spending that money on creating jobs.
  That is just not one Republican Senator saying this. We have 12 
Democratic Senators and a number of Republican Senators who have 
introduced legislation. Senator Collins is the leader of this effort. I 
am a part of it. So is Senator Wyden, Senator Pryor, and Senator 
Landrieu. What we are saying is, let's give the EPA enough time to fix 
the rule. Fifteen months is what EPA has asked for. Let's give the EPA 
additional authority to use the correct methodology so they can write a 
rule that makes some sense and does not act as though it is delivered 
from Mars or Venus or some other planet, and then let's give the 
industries enough time to comply with the rules, instead of 3 years, 
which is what the rule suggests, we will give them 5 years.
  Let me try to give some sense of the impact of this unworkable rule. 
Its estimates that this rule will result in a loss of 340,000 jobs 
nationwide. We just passed, in a bipartisan way, three trade agreements 
which the President said would create 250,000 jobs. It took us 3 years 
to do that. It was something Republicans and Democrats agreed on. We 
thought that was a big step forward. Yet here we are allowing this 
agency to go forward with an absolutely unworkable rule that will cost 
340,000 jobs. In my State of Tennessee, the cost to businesses is $530 
million.
  I have talked to owners of small businesses who are facing a $1 
million cost to try to implement this unworkable rule on their boilers. 
They have told me they will close their plants. They cannot possibly 
afford it comply with this rule in this short of a time period.
  I have talked to large industries that are affected. Eastman 
Chemicals is one, they've been in Tennessee forever. It is as an 
important part of our State as the Great Smoky Mountains are. Thousands 
of Tennesseans work there. This is what they say: They are going to 
spend more than $100 million over and above the work they have already 
planned in order to bring five Eastman boilers into compliance with the 
EPA regulations.
  This is a company with $7 billion in revenue. They are going to 
survive. But some jobs will not. Instead of creating jobs with that 
money; they will just be trying to comply with an unworkable government 
regulation. The majority leader said on the floor: Regulations don't 
cost jobs. Here is a prime example that shows unworkable regulations do 
cost jobs. And 12 Democratic Senators and at least as many Republican 
Senators agree on that. We have a bipartisan way to fix this rule. The 
House, in an overwhelming bipartisan vote, agreed with us by passing 
similar legislation.
  I want to call this Collins-Alexander-Wyden-Pryor-Landrieu 
legislation to the attention of the public, to the attention of the 
Senate, and say, there are some regulations that are before us that 
need to be changed. They are costing jobs. This is not Republican 
rhetoric or Democratic excuses. It is Republicans and Democrats saying 
to the EPA: We want to give you the authority to write a good rule. We 
want you to fix the rule. We want a clean air standard. We do not want 
to change the end result of the rule, but we want to give you enough 
time to write the rule. We want you to be able to use the correct 
method in writing this rule so companies can comply. And we want to 
give companies enough time to install these technologies so they can 
make reductions in these harmful pollutants.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has used 4\1/2\ 
minutes.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. This is a rare piece of legislation, something we 
agree on across the aisle, that could immediately save 340,000 jobs, 
that keeps the clean air rule the EPA has proposed, but simply gives 
them time to write it properly, the authority to write it properly, and 
businesses the opportunity to comply with it within a reasonable period 
of time.
  I hope we will adopt it.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded, and Senator Coons and I be allowed to 
engage in a colloquy for up to 15 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________