[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Page 10644]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         AIR QUALITY STANDARDS

  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss a matter of 
importance not just to Arizonans but to the people affected across the 
country by the Environmental Protection Agency's continuing overreach. 
Namely, I want to talk about air quality standards that are quite 
simply unattainable and those that penalize States where Mother 
Nature--not smokestacks, not factories, not evil industrialists, just 
Mother Nature--causes these events that affect air quality.
  Let me say from the outset we all love and deserve to have clean air, 
and when I am discussing these particular concerns I want to be clear 
that I am not in favor of pollution, dirty air or asthma. Instead what 
I am in favor of is a little more common sense from the EPA.
  It won't come as any surprise to most people that Arizona is a desert 
State. We have lots of cactus. We have scorpions. I was stung twice 
last year. In Arizona, just as in most deserts around the world, we 
have dust storms. These dust storms are not caused by eroding topsoil 
or overfarming or man. These are naturally occurring events just like 
tornadoes or blizzards in other parts of the country. When you live in 
a naturally dusty State, the dust storms sweep across the desert and 
across State lines. They can obviously cause local and regional air 
quality issues. The same goes for living in a forest-fire-prone State, 
which Arizona also is.
  States simply cannot be expected to control these issues. Yet despite 
adopting an ``exceptional events rule'' and issuing murky guidance, the 
EPA still forces States to squander resources on these spikes in air 
pollutants that are outside anybody's control, with no actual 
improvement to air quality.
  The EPA's reviews to prove that spikes in air quality are the result 
of naturally occurring events are arbitrary, cumbersome, and they are 
costly. Let me give you an example.
  In 2011 and 2012, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, 
the Maricopa County Air Quality Department, and the Maricopa 
Association of Governments were forced to spend $675,000 and 790 staff 
hours to prove to EPA's satisfaction something that anyone with two 
eyes could readily see: Dust storms trip the EPA's air quality 
sensors--not pollution, dust storms.
  The current regulations are entirely up to the EPA's discretion and 
they are final and they are not appealable. But in some cases such as 
those in Arizona, they are a violation of common sense as well.
  That is why I am introducing the CLEER Act. The CLEER Act will, among 
other things, require the EPA's decisions on those events to be based 
on a preponderance of evidence and to accord deference to States' own 
findings when such an event happens. It will also require the EPA to 
renew a State's exceptional event documentation within 90 days instead 
of dragging this process out, and to decide which States with 
exceptional events will be evaluated.
  I am also introducing two other bills: the ORDEAL Act and the Agency 
PAYGO for Greenhouse Gases Act.
  Much credit goes to the EPA for successfully reducing air pollution 
in the past few decades. This has led to benefits for everyone. But one 
of the most common pollutants--ozone, dealt with by the ORDEAL Act--has 
presented a nearly endless supply of redtape for States and 
municipalities for literally decades. When the EPA reduced its 
permitted ozone standards in 2008, counties across the country that 
were in ``nonattainment'' status were forced to enact expensive and 
complicated compliance plans.
  With scant scientific health bases, the EPA wants to further lower 
ozone emissions standards. But there are already 221 counties in 27 
States that are noncompliant with the present standards. How will 
lowering these standards even further help these States, communities, 
and counties comply? Is this EPA's version of double-secret probation?
  By some estimates this lowering of ozone standards from 75 parts per 
billion to 60 parts per billion will cost a whopping $1 trillion per 
year from 2020 to 2030. The EPA's own estimate said the proposed 
standard will cost $25 billion per year at 70 ppb to $90 billion per 
year at 60 ppb. It will cost as many as 7.3 million jobs.
  The rationale for further reduction in ozone standards is the 
potential health benefits. The EPA consistently fails to meet its 5-
year intervals for ozone, which results in lawsuits, bad policy, and 
poor analysis when the agency is forced by the courts to produce a new 
standard. My bill, the ORDEAL Act, would provide the EPA more 
flexibility by doubling the statutory review interval to 10 years. It 
would also push off any decision on EPA's proposal to tighten the ozone 
standards until 2018, putting that standard on a more realistic 10-year 
cycle. This will give businesses more certainty. It will give them a 
more certain regulatory environment, not a possible change every 5 
years. If you can imagine how to plan on a 5-year cycle for standards 
that are rarely met and have to be adjusted again. It will also give 
State air quality agencies the time they need to implement their own 
plans.
  Finally, this administration has set its sights on reducing carbon 
emissions with the most recent attempt being draconian regulations on 
existing powerplants, despite inevitable job losses and spikes in 
energy costs.
  The Agency PAYGO Act I am introducing would simply give the EPA a 
taste of its own medicine by requiring the agency to offset the cost of 
any greenhouse gas rules to an equivalent reduction in agency spending.
  If the agency proceeds without offsetting these costs from its own 
budget, the final greenhouse gas rule must be approved by Congress. 
This bill specifically forbids the EPA from denying costs to Federal 
agencies by passing costs on to the Federal agency's ratepayers. If 
capital costs are imposed by the greenhouse gas rule, the EPA must 
offset those costs or get Congress's approval.
  Specifically this bill will not let underlying agencies--including 
power generating agencies such as the Western Power Authority--pass 
along these costs to consumers.
  The modern EPA has a history of implementing increasingly costly and 
stringent standards for negligible or even questionable benefit. All 
three of these bills, the CLEER Act, the ORDEAL Act, and the Agency 
PAYGO Act, provide more certainty than presently exist to States and 
businesses that have to deal with the EPA and will hold the agency 
accountable for its decision-making process.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting these commonsense 
measures.
  With that, I yield the floor.

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