[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
H.R. 2250, THE EPA REGULATORY RELIEF ACT OF 2011, AND H.R. 2681, THE
CEMENT SECTOR REGULATORY RELIEF ACT OF 2011
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND POWER
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
----------
SEPTEMBER 8, 2011
----------
Serial No. 112-82
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
energycommerce.house.gov
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
H.R. 2250, THE EPA REGULATORY RELIEF ACT OF 2011, AND H.R. 2681, THE
CEMENT SECTOR REGULATORY RELIEF ACT OF 2011
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND POWER
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 8, 2011
__________
Serial No. 112-82
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
energycommerce.house.gov
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
_____
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
74-205 PDF WASHINGTON : 2012
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20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
FRED UPTON, Michigan
Chairman
JOE BARTON, Texas HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Chairman Emeritus Ranking Member
CLIFF STEARNS, Florida JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky Chairman Emeritus
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
MARY BONO MACK, California FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
GREG WALDEN, Oregon BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
LEE TERRY, Nebraska ANNA G. ESHOO, California
MIKE ROGERS, Michigan ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina GENE GREEN, Texas
Vice Chairman DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma LOIS CAPPS, California
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas
BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California JAY INSLEE, Washington
CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
PHIL GINGREY, Georgia MIKE ROSS, Arkansas
STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio JIM MATHESON, Utah
CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi JOHN BARROW, Georgia
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey DORIS O. MATSUI, California
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky Islands
PETE OLSON, Texas KATHY CASTOR, Florida
DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
CORY GARDNER, Colorado
MIKE POMPEO, Kansas
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
7_____
Subcommittee on Energy and Power
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky
Chairman
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
Vice Chairman Ranking Member
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois JAY INSLEE, Washington
GREG WALDEN, Oregon KATHY CASTOR, Florida
LEE TERRY, Nebraska JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana GENE GREEN, Texas
CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington LOIS CAPPS, California
PETE OLSON, Texas MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas
CORY GARDNER, Colorado HENRY A. WAXMAN, California (ex
MIKE POMPEO, Kansas officio)
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
JOE BARTON, Texas
FRED UPTON, Michigan (ex officio)
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hon. Ed Whitfield, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Kentucky, opening statement.................... 17
Prepared statement........................................... 18
Hon. Joe Barton, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Texas, opening statement....................................... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 21
Hon. John Sullivan, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Oklahoma, opening statement................................. 23
Hon. Henry A. Waxman, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California, opening statement............................... 33
Hon. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Washington, opening statement..................... 34
Hon. Pete Olson, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Texas, opening statement....................................... 35
Prepared statement........................................... 36
Hon. H. Morgan Griffith, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Virginia, opening statement.................... 37
Hon. Bobby L. Rush, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Illinois, opening statement................................. 141
Hon. John D. Dingell, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Michigan, prepared statement................................ 149
Witnesses
Regina McCarthy, Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation,
Environmental Protection Agency................................ 130
Prepared statement........................................... 132
Daniel M. Harrington, President and CEO, Lehigh Hanson, Inc...... 182
Prepared statement........................................... 184
James A. Rubright, CEO, RockTenn Company......................... 188
Prepared statement........................................... 190
Answers to submitted questions............................... 316
Paul Gilman, Chief Sustainability Officer, Covanta Energy
Corporation.................................................... 195
Prepared statement........................................... 197
John D. Walke, Clean Air Director and Senior Attorney, Natural
Resources Defense Council...................................... 214
Prepared statement........................................... 216
Eric Schaeffer, Director, Environmental Integrity Project........ 246
Prepared statement........................................... 248
Peter A. Valberg, Principal, Gradient Corporation................ 252
Prepared statement........................................... 254
Todd Elliott, General Manager, Acetate, Celanese Corporation..... 257
Prepared statement........................................... 259
Submitted Material
H.R. 2250, A Bill to provide additional time for the
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to issue
achievable standards for industrial, commercial, and
institutional boilers, process heaters, and incinerators, and
for other purposes, submitted by Mr. Whitfield................. 2
H.R. 2681, A Bill to provide additional time for the
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to issue
achievable standards for cement manufacturing facilities, and
for other purposes, submitted by Mr. Whitfield................. 10
Letter, dated August 25, 2011, from Anthony Jacobs, Special
Assistant to the International President, Acting Director of
Legislative Affairs, International Brotherhood of Boilermakers,
Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers & Helpers, to
committee leadership, submitted by Mr. Sullivan................ 24
Letter, dated September 1, 2011, from Paul A. Yost, Vice
President, Energy and Resources Policy, National Association of
Manufacturers, to Mr. Upton, submitted by Mr. Sullivan......... 26
Letter, dated July 28, 2011, from 25 Senators to House
leadership, submitted by Mr. Sullivan.......................... 28
Letter, dated September 7, 2011, from R. Bruce Josten, Executive
Vice President, Government Affairs, Chamber of Commerce of the
United States of America, to committee leadership, submitted by
Mr. Sullivan................................................... 32
Letter, dated September 6, 2011, from the National Association of
Manufacturers to House and Senate leadership, submitted by Mr.
Griffith....................................................... 38
Letter, dated July 5, 2011, from Cal Dooley, President and CEO,
American Chemistry Council, to Mr. Upton, submitted by Mr.
Griffith....................................................... 43
Letter, dated June 28, 2011, from Donna Harman, President and
Chief Executive Officer, American Forest & Paper Association,
and Robert Glowinski, President, American Wood Council, to
committee and subcommittee leadership, submitted by Mr.
Griffith....................................................... 44
Letter, undated, from James Valvo, Director of Government
Affairs, Americans for Prosperity, to Mr. Griffith, submitted
by Mr. Griffith................................................ 46
Letter, dated July 1, 2011, from Bill Perdue, Vice President,
Regulatory Affairs, American Home Furnishings Alliance, to
committee and subcommittee leadership submitted by Mr. Griffith 48
Letter, dated September 7, 2011, from Jolene M. Thompson, Senior
Vice President, American Municipal Power, Inc., and Executive
Director, Ohio Municipal Electric Association, to committee and
subcommittee leadership, submitted by Mr. Griffith............. 51
Letter, dated July 15, 2011, from Edward R. Hamberger, President
and Chief Executive Officer, Association of American Railroads,
to committee and subcommittee leadership, submitted by Mr.
Griffith....................................................... 54
Letter, dated July 14, 2011, from Robert E. Cleaves, President
and CEO, Biomass Power Association, to committee and
subcommittee leadership, submitted by Mr. Griffith............. 56
Letter, dated July 1, 2011, from Alexander Toeldte, President and
CEO, Boise, Inc., to committee and subcommittee leadership,
submitted by Mr. Griffith...................................... 58
Statement, dated June 22, 2011, of Business Roundtable, submitted
by Mr. Griffith................................................ 59
Letter, dated July 8, 2011, from R. Bruce Josten, Executive Vice
President, Government Affairs, Chamber of Commerce of the
United States of America, to committee leadership, submitted by
Mr. Griffith................................................... 61
Letter, dated July 7, 2011, from Audrae Erickson, President, Corn
Refiners Association, to committee and subcommittee leadership,
submitted by Mr. Griffith...................................... 62
Letter, dated July 20, 2011, from Robert D. Bessette, President,
Council of Industrial Boiler Owners, to committee and
subcommittee leadership, submitted by Mr. Griffith............. 64
Letter, dated August 5, 2011, from Thomas S. Howard, Vice
President, Government Relations, Domtar, to committee and
subcommittee leadership, submitted by Mr. Griffith............. 66
Letter, dated July 5, 2011, from Florida State Council,
International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, to
committee and subcommittee leadership, submitted by Mr.
Griffith....................................................... 68
Letter, dated July 1, 2011, from Jose F. Alvarez, Executive Vice
President, Operations, and General Manager, Sugar Cane Growers
Cooperative of Florida, on behalf of the Florida Sugar Industry
and the sugarcane processors in Texas and Hawaii, to committee
and subcommittee leadership, submitted by Mr. Griffith......... 70
Letter, dated June 30, 2011, from Paul Cicio, President,
Industrial Energy Consumers of America, to committee and
subcommittee leadership, submitted by Mr. Griffith............. 72
Statement, dated August 29, 2011, of Edwin D. Hill, International
President, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers,
submitted by Mr. Griffith...................................... 74
Letter, dated July 14, 2011, from Ann Wrobleski, Vice President,
Global Government Relations, International Paper, to commmittee
and subcommittee leadership, submitted by Mr. Griffith......... 75
Letter, dated July 13, 2011, from Mike Blosser, Vice President,
Environment, Health and Safety, Louisiana-Pacific Corporation,
to committee and subcommittee leadership, submitted by Mr.
Griffith....................................................... 76
Letter, dated July 7, 2011, from Dirk J. Krouskop, Vice
President, Safety, Health and Environment, MeadWestvaco
Corporation, to Mr. Upton, submitted by Mr. Griffith........... 78
Letter, dated July 13, 2011, from Paul A. Yost, Vice President,
Energy and Resources Policy, National Association of
Manufacturers, submitted by Mr. Griffith....................... 79
Letter, dated July 11, 2011, from Raymond J. Poupore, Executive
Vice President, National Construction Alliance II, to Mr.
Griffith, submitted by Mr. Griffith............................ 81
Letter, dated July 6, 2011, from Susan Eckerly, Senior Vice
President, Public Policy, National Federation of Independent
Business, to committee and subcommittee leadership, submitted
by Mr. Griffith................................................ 83
Letter, dated July 11, 2011, from Thomas A. Hammer, President,
National Oilseed Processors Association, to committee and
subcommittee leadership, submitted by Mr. Griffith............. 85
Letter, dated July 15, 2011, from Bruce J. Parker, CEO and
President, National Solid Wastes Management Association, to
committee and subcommittee leadership, submitted by Mr.
Griffith....................................................... 87
Letter, dated June 30, 2011, from Daniel Moss, Senior Manager,
Government Relations, Society of Chemical Manufacturers and
Affiliates, to committee and subcommittee leadership, submitted
by Mr. Griffith................................................ 89
Letter, dated August 3, 2011, from Lewis F. Gossett, President
and CEO, South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance, to committee
and subcommittee leadership, submitted by Mr. Griffith......... 91
Letter, dated July 18, 2011, from Richard A. (Tony) Bennett,
Chairman, Texas Forest Industries Council, to committee and
subcommittee leadership, submitted by Mr. Griffith............. 93
Letter, dated July 15, 2011, from Joseph J. Croce, Director of
Environmental Health, Safety and Security, Virginia
Manufacturers Association, to committee and subcommittee
leadership, submitted by Mr. Griffith.......................... 95
Letter, dated July 26, 2011, from Jeffrey G. Landin, President,
Wisconsin Paper Council, to committee and subcommittee
leadership, submitted by Mr. Griffith.......................... 97
Study, dated September 2011, titled ``Economic Impact of Pending
Air Regulations on the U.S. Pulp and Paper Industry,'' by the
American Forest & Paper Association, submitted by Mr. Griffith. 101
Letter, dated May 6, 2011, from Virginia Aulin, Vice President,
Corporate Affairs, Boise, Inc., to Mr. Walden, submitted by Mr.
Walden......................................................... 158
Letter, dated July 15, 2011, from Joe Gonyea III, Timber Products
Company, to Mr. Walden, submitted by Mr. Walden................ 159
Letter, dated July 18, 2011, from Grady Mulbery, Vice President,
Composite Manufacturing, Roseburg Forest Products, to Mr.
Walden, submitted by Mr. Walden................................ 161
Analysis, ``Overview Impact of Existing and Proposed Regulatory
Standards on Domestic Dement Capacity,'' dated January 2011, by
the Portland Cement Association, submitted by Mr. Sullivan..... 271
H.R. 2250, THE EPA REGULATORY RELIEF ACT OF 2011, AND H.R. 2681, THE
CEMENT SECTOR REGULATORY RELIEF ACT OF 2011
----------
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2011
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Energy and Power,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:34 a.m., in
room 2322 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ed
Whitfield (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Whitfield, Sullivan,
Shimkus, Walden, Terry, Burgess, Bilbray, Scalise, McMorris
Rodgers, Olson, McKinley, Gardner, Pompeo, Griffith, Barton,
Rush, Inslee, Castor, Dingell, Markey, Green, Doyle, and Waxman
(ex officio).
Staff present: Charlotte Baker, Press Secretary; Maryam
Brown, Chief Counsel, Energy and Power; Allison Busbee,
Legislative Clerk; Cory Hicks, Policy Coordinator, Energy and
Power; Heidi King, Chief Economist; Ben Lieberman, Counsel,
Energy and Power; Mary Neumayr, Senior Energy Counsel,
Oversight/Energy; Chris Sarley, Policy Coordinator, Environment
and Economy; Peter Spencer, Professional Staff Member,
Oversight; Alison Cassady, Democratic Senior Professional Staff
Member; Greg Dotson, Democratic Energy and Environment Staff
Director; Caitlin Haberman, Democratic Policy Analyst; and
Alexandra Teitz, Democratic Senior Counsel, Energy and
Environment.
Mr. Whitfield. I would like to call this hearing to order
this morning. This is a hearing on two pieces of legislation:
H.R. 2681, the Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act of 2011, and
H.R. 2250, the EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ED WHITFIELD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
Mr. Whitfield. I would like to commend my colleagues, Mr.
Sullivan, who is also the vice chair of this subcommittee, and
he is sponsoring the cement bill, and then Mr. Morgan Griffith
of Virginia is sponsoring the boiler bill, and I want to thank
them for their work on these two pieces of legislation, and of
course, we are pleased that Representatives Ross and
Butterfield from the full committee are joining as cosponsors
on this legislation, and we look forward to working with them
as we move forward.
Now, some people have characterized these pieces of
legislation as regulatory rollbacks, and I would say quite the
contrary. Both the cement and the boiler bills allow, and in
fact require, that new emissions controls be implemented, but
they replace unrealistic targets and timetables with achievable
ones, and we all know that the EPA was acting under duress, a
court order, and had to finalize these rules much sooner than
they had intended to do, and we do not believe they had
adequate time to consider all aspects of the impact of these
regulations.
I would also like to say that tonight President Obama is
going to be talking to us, and we know that high on his agenda,
he is looking at ways to create jobs in America, and we just
came back from our August work period, and it was very clear
out in the country that one of the reasons jobs are not being
created in America today is because of uncertainty, and
uncertainty is coming from three sources: number one, the
health care bill, of which 8,700 pages of regulations have
already been written but it doesn't go into effect until 2014,
so no one really knows what impact that is going to have on
companies; number two, the regulations relating to the
financial industry, the increase of capital requirements has
made it more difficult to obtain loans; and then number three,
this EPA has been so aggressive. I could read the litany of
regulations but there is great uncertainty out there about
these regulations. We know they are costly. We know they are
costing jobs, and all of this is creating obstacles for our
opportunities to produce jobs for America, and so that is what
this is all about, and so I look forward to the testimony of
our witnesses.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Whitfield follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Whitfield. At this time I would like to yield my time
to Mr. Barton.
Mr. Barton. How much time do I have, Mr. Chairman? Is that
2 minutes? Am I supposed to yield to Mr. Sullivan? OK.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE BARTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Well, thank you for holding the hearing today on these two
issues. I support both bills. I am glad we have our Deputy
Administrator from the EPA here. She is a very knowledgeable
person and has interacted in a positive manner with the
committee and the subcommittee, and we appreciate her being
here again today.
I do think, though, that these bills are necessary. I do
think that the EPA has issued a plethora of regulations,
whether intended or not, that have the actual effect of
reducing jobs and preventing jobs from being created in the
American economy. That is not to say that there might not be
some good that would come out of implementation of these
regulations, but I think it is yet to be determined that that
good would offset the negative immediate cost in terms of
economic decline and loss of jobs.
So I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and I
certainly look forward to hearing Ms. McCarthy's testimony.
With that, I yield the balance of my time to Mr. Sullivan.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Barton follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN SULLIVAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA
Mr. Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Barton. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Whitfield, thank you for holding this important
hearing today. Both the EPA Regulatory Relief Act and the
Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act of 2011 seek to do what we
need most, and that is to put a stop to the overly burdensome
regulations that destroy jobs. Instead of a cut-your-nose-off-
to-spite-your-face approach, these bills will allow for rules
that are both technically and economically achievable.
Specifically, I introduced the Cement MACT legislation to
prevent U.S. cement plant shutdowns, which directly result in
job loss. The President is talking about jobs tonight, and I
want to be clear: This bill is jobs. If the EPA rules go into
effect, nearly 20,000 jobs will be lost due to plant closures
and inflated construction costs. EPA's current rules threaten
to shut down 20 percent of the Nation's cement manufacturing
plants in the next 2 years, sending thousands of jobs
permanently overseas and driving up cement and construction
costs across the country.
Cement is the backbone for the construction of our Nation's
buildings, roads, bridges, tunnels and critical water and
wastewater treatment infrastructure. For both of these bills,
our goal is to ensure effective regulation.
I have four letters I would like to introduce to this
committee, and they are from the International Brotherhood of
Boilermakers, Iron Ship Building and Blacksmith Forgers and
Helpers, the National Association of Manufacturers, 25 Members
of the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and I
would like to submit these four letters in support of the
Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act for the record.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you.
At this time I recognize the ranking member of the full
committee, the gentleman from California, Mr. Waxman, for his
opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY A. WAXMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Cancer, birth defects, brain damage--we have long known
that toxic air pollutants such as mercury, arsenic, dioxin,
lead, and PCBs can cause these serious health effects.
So when Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1970, we
included section 112 to address the public health threat posed
by hazardous air pollutants. EPA was required to regulate
substances that even at low levels of exposure cause cancer,
reproductive disorders, neurological effects, or other serious
illnesses.
Unfortunately, over the next 20 years, it became clear that
the 1970 law was not working. Out of the scores of known toxic
air pollutants, only eight pollutants were listed as hazardous
and only seven were regulated. In 1986, industry reported that
more than 70 percent of pollution sources were using no
pollution controls.
In 1990, we fixed section 112 on a bipartisan basis to
deliver the public health protection the American people
wanted. The new program was designed to make EPA's job simpler.
Instead of requiring laborious pollutant-by-pollutant risk
assessments, Congress listed 187 toxic air pollutants and
directed EPA to set standards for categories of sources. The
standards have to require use of the maximum achievable control
technology. For existing sources, this means that the emission
standard has to be at least as clean as the average emissions
levels achieved by the best performing 12 percent of similar
sources.
This approach has worked well. EPA will testify today that
industrial emissions of carcinogens and other highly toxic
chemicals have been reduced by 1.7 million tons each year
through actions taken by more than 170 industries. EPA has
reduced pollution from dozens of industrial sectors, from boat
manufacturing to fabric printing, from lead smelters to
pesticide manufacturing.
But a few large source categories still have not been
required to control toxic air pollution due to delays and
litigation. These include utilities, industrial boilers and
cement plants. EPA's efforts to finally reduce toxic air
pollution from these sources are long, long overdue.
The bills we consider today would block and indefinitely
delay EPA's efforts to make good on a 40-year-old promise to
the American people that toxic air pollutants will be
controlled. They would also rewrite the MACT standards once
again, this time to weaken the protections and set up new
hurdles for EPA rules. We are told that these bills simply give
EPA the time they requested to get the rules right. That is
nonsense.
EPA asked the court to allow them until April 2012 to issue
the boiler rules. The boiler bill nullifies the existing rules
and prohibits EPA from issuing new rules before March 2013 or
later, assuming enactment this year. The bill also allows an
indefinite delay after that by eliminating the Clean Air Act
deadlines for rulemaking and setting no new deadlines. The
cement bill contains the same nullification of existing rules,
prohibition on rulemaking, and indefinite delay of new rules,
even though the rules are already final and in effect, and EPA
never asked for additional time for those rules. On top of
these delays, the bills would delay air quality improvements
for at least 5 years after any rules were issued and
potentially far longer. In fact there is no limit in the bill
for how long sources may have to comply. That means that
infants and children in our communities will continue to be
exposed to mercury and carcinogens from these facilities until
2018 or later.
And we are told that these bills provide direction and
support for EPA to add flexibility and make the rules
achievable. In fact, the language is ambiguous, and an argument
could be made that section 5 of the bills overrides the
existing criteria for setting air toxic standards. If so, those
changes are dramatic. Instead of setting numeric emissions
limits, EPA could be required to set only work practice
standards, and EPA might be prohibited from setting a standard
if it couldn't be met by every existing source, even if all of
the better-performing similar sources were meeting it. At a
minimum, these changes guarantee substantial additional
uncertainty and litigation, which benefits only the lawyers.
Forty years ago, Congress determined that we must control
toxic air pollution to protect Americans from cancer,
neurological effects and birth defects. Today, EPA is working
to finally implement that directive for some of the largest
uncontrolled sources of mercury and other toxic air pollution.
These bills would stop those efforts, allowing Americans to
continue to breathe toxics for years or decades. That would be
shameful.
I hear my Republican colleagues say jobs, jobs, jobs. Let
me repeat: birth defects, cancer, neurological diseases, unborn
babies that will be killed from mercury, newly born babies that
will be poisoned by these toxic air pollutants. If that is the
legacy the Republicans want, it is a legacy I want no part of.
Yield back my time.
Mr. Whitfield. At this time I recognize the gentleman from
Virginia, Mr. Griffith, for a 5-minute opening statement.
Mr. Griffith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to
yield 1 minute of my time to the gentlelady from Washington,
Ms. McMorris Rodgers.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, A
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
Ms. McMorris Rodgers. Thank you for yielding.
Like my colleagues, I have spent the last 5 weeks holding
town halls, roundtable discussions, talking with small business
owners, farmers, manufacturers, technology companies, and my
take away is, people are quite concerned that our country is
headed in the wrong direction, and whether I was up in Colville
or down in Clarkston, the message is clear: the Federal
Government is making it harder to create jobs in America. The
frustration and uncertainty caused by the Federal Government's
regulatory overreach is smothering any possible economic
recovery.
According to a study conducted by the Council of Industrial
Boiler Owners, if left final, every billion dollars, $1 billion
spent on mandatory upgrades to comply with the boiler MACT
rules puts 16,000 jobs at risk. The full cost of these rules
alone could be $14.5 billion. That is 224,000 jobs at risk.
In eastern Washington, one of the key employers, Ponderay
Newsprint, will be forced to spend $8 million. That is money
that they won't spend hiring new workers.
I thank the chairman for moving forward to these bills and
look forward to the testimony.
Mr. Griffith. Claiming back my time, Mr. Chairman, I would
also yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Olson.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PETE OLSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Mr. Olson. I thank my colleague, and thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for holding this hearing to discuss two important
pieces of legislation that would help rein in the Environmental
Protection Agency that is out of control and out of touch with
reality.
The EPA continues to move at full speed ahead with their
politically motivated agenda to eliminate affordable and
reliable fuel for our Nation's energy portfolio. The overly
burdensome regulations that we will discuss today truly reveal
this Administration's disregard for our jobs crisis. Left
unchecked, these EPA regulations will result in more businesses
closing their doors and even more American jobs shipped
overseas.
This is why I am an original cosponsor of one of the bills
before us, H.R. 2250, the EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011.
This bill would give EPA the time that they requested to
correct the seriously flawed boiler MACT rules and keep
American jobs here at home.
I thank my colleague for the time and yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Olson follows:]
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OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Mr. Griffith. Claiming back my time, Mr. Chairman, I would
like to introduce into the record the following letters in
support of H.R. 2250, the EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011,
and I have my copy here but I believe staff has a copy for you,
Mr. Chairman, and if I might, Mr. Chairman, go over those
letters. We have a list of 31 different letters in the packet.
The first one is the National Association of Manufacturers,
which has 292 signatories from different industry groups, the
American Chemistry Council, the American Forest and Paper
Association--these are separate letters I am going over now--
the American Forest and Paper Association, American Wood
Council, Americans for Prosperity, American Home Furnishing
Alliance, American Municipal Power Inc., Ohio Municipal
Electric Association, Association of American Railroads,
Biomass Power Association, Boise Inc. a Business Roundtable
statement on the introduction of the bill, Chamber of Commerce,
Corn Refiners Association, Council of Industrial Boiler Owners,
Domtar, the Florida State Council, the Florida Sugar Industry,
Industrial Energy Consumers of America, the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, International Paper,
Louisiana Pacific Corporation, MeadWestvaco Corporation,
National Association of Manufacturers, National Construction
Alliance, National Federation of Independent Businesses,
National Oilseed Processors Association, National Solid Wastes
Management Association, Society of Chemical Manufacturers and
Affiliates, South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance, Texas Forest
Industries Council, the Virginia Manufacturers Association and
the Wisconsin Paper Council.
Mr. Chairman, may those be introduced into the record?
Mr. Whitfield. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Griffith. Further, Mr. Chairman, I would like to
introduce into the record a September 2011 study entitled ``The
Economic Impact of Pending Air Regulations on the U.S. Pulp and
Paper Industry.'' May that be introduced into the record, Mr.
Chairman?
Mr. Whitfield. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Griffith. Mr. Chairman, all of these groups are
concerned because of jobs. There is no question about that. And
in fact, the study that I just put in shows that a threat that
the bills if not enacted, boiler MACT threatens 20,000 jobs, 18
percent of the industry and roughly 36 pulp and paper mills. As
you know, my district includes pulp and paper mills, chemical
processors. We have employees who work at cement factories.
These are extremely important bills. The EPA has gotten to
a point where they are killing jobs, whether they mean to or
not. They may not see that as a concern, but to the American
people, it is a great concern.
In regard to the health concerns, Mr. Chairman, we are not
unsympathetic to health concerns but we would like to see
evidence that actually shows that these regulations would in
fact, not extrapolated theories or models, but would in fact
cause the problems that the previous gentleman referenced, and
then there is the concern that I am always raising and in fact
had a little amendment in that many of my colleagues on the
other side agreed to that would actually ask for a study of
what the impacts are of the pollution coming from overseas in
the air stream to the United States of America and in part
because we have put so many regulations on our businesses, many
of those jobs have moved to countries where the regulations are
nowhere near what we have.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the time.
Mr. Whitfield. Mr. Rush is on his way here. His plane was
delayed, and when he arrives, we will give him an opportunity
to make an opening statement, but at this time I would like to
proceed with the panel.
On our first panel, we have the Honorable Gina McCarthy,
who is the Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and
Radiation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Ms. McCarthy,
we welcome you here today. I would like to say that John
Shimkus and I do appreciate your taking time to have a
conference call with us relating to some specific problems of
the Prairie State plant, and we thank you for working with us
on that important project.
Now, I would also point out something else to you. On
Wednesday, August 24, over 2 weeks ago, we talked to EPA about
this hearing today, and you all had plenty of advance notice
about this hearing. We also accommodated the request that EPA
would be the sole witness on the first panel of this hearing.
The two pieces of legislation that we are considering today are
a mere 15 pages total so there is not that much to prepare for,
and our committee has expressed, requested and required that
witnesses' testimony be submitted 2 working days in advance of
the hearing to give us an opportunity to review it completely
and make these hearings more meaningful, and we received your
testimony last night at 7:00, and this really is not
acceptable. It does not allow us the time to prepare, and I
hope that you would talk to your staff or whoever is
responsible for this to make sure in the future when we have
these hearings that we are able to get the testimony at least 2
days in advance.
So at this time, Ms. McCarthy, I would like to recognize
you for your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF REGINA MCCARTHY, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE
OF AIR AND RADIATION, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Ms. McCarthy. Thank you, Chairman Whitfield.
First of all, you are more than welcome for the work on
Prairie State. Thank you, and thank Congressman Shimkus for
bringing that to my attention. It worked out very well, I think
for the environment and the company, so thank you so much.
And let me apologize for the tardiness of my testimony.
Regardless of who is responsible, it is my responsibility to
see that we meet the needs of the committee, and I will take--
my personal attention will go to that in the future, so I
apologize for that.
So Chairman Whitfield and members of the subcommittee,
first of all, thank you for inviting me here to testify. The
Administration has major concerns with these two bills. They
are a clear attempt to roll back public health protections of
the kind that have been in place as part of the Clean Air Act
for decades. For 40 years, the Clean Air Act has made steady
progress in reducing air pollution. In the last year alone,
programs established since 1990 are estimated to have reduced
premature mortality risks equivalent to saving over 160,000
lives. They have also enhanced productivity by preventing 13
million lost workdays and kept kids healthy and in school,
avoiding 3.2 million lost school days.
History has shown repeatedly that we can clean up
pollution, create jobs and grow our economy. Since 1970, key
air pollutants have decreased more than 60 percent while our
economy has grown by over 200 percent. Every dollar we spend
cleaning up the air has given us over $30 in benefits.
EPA standards to limit air toxic emissions from boilers,
incinerators and cement kilns continue that success story.
Today's bills, which directly attack the core of the Clean Air
Act, raise a number of serious issues. Most importantly they
would indefinitely delay the important health benefits from
national limits of air toxics, toxic pollution including
mercury, which can result in damage to developing nervous
systems of unborn babies and young children, impairing
children's ability to think and to learn. These bills do not
simply give EPA more time to finalize more rules. Rather, they
would prohibit EPA from finalizing replacement rules prior to
at least as early as March 2013 at best. It would prohibit EPA
from requiring compliance until at least 5 years after the
rules are finalized and it would fail to set any new deadlines
for either EPA action or for compliance. Combined, these
provisions make it clear that the authors have no time in mind
for when these delayed public health benefits would be
delivered to American families.
Just to be clear, the timeline in the boiler bill is not
what EPA told the court we needed. We asked for an April 2012
deadline, not a prohibition on finalizing standards prior to
March 2013. We are currently reconsidering the boiler standards
for major sources. We have stayed those standards. We have used
the administrative process to do that. We intend to finalize
the reconsideration process by the end of April 2012.
Both the boiler and cement bills would indefinitely delay
important public health protections and would create minimum
delays lasting at least 3 years for the boiler standards and
almost 5 years for the cement standards. As a result, combined,
even minimum delays in these bills would cause tens of
thousands of additional premature deaths, tens of thousands of
additional heart attacks, and hundreds of thousands of
additional asthma attacks that would be avoided under the
existing boiler and cement standards that we have either
promulgated or will promulgate in the very near future.
We also have serious concerns with section 5 of each of
these bills. The language is unclear but we certainly
anticipate that some in industry would argue that this section
would substantially weaken the act by overriding the current
provisions for setting minimum MACT standards. So the mere
assertion that EPA regulations are job killers should not
justify sacrificing these significant public health benefits.
Some studies have found that the Clean Air Act actually
increased the size of the U.S. economy because of lower demand
for health care and a healthier, more productive workforce.
Another study found a small net gain in jobs due to additional
environmental spending in the four industries studied. EPA
standards under the Clean Air Act will encourage investments in
labor-intensive upgrades that can put current unemployed
Americans back to work.
These standards at issue today will provide public health
benefits without imposing hardship on American economy or
jeopardizing American job creation. It is terrifically
misleading to say that implementation of the Clean Air Act
costs jobs. It does not. Families should never have to choose
between a job and healthy air. They are entitled to both. And
as the President recently said, the Administration would
continue to vigorously oppose efforts to weaken EPA's authority
under the Clean Air Act or dismantle the progress we have made.
I look forward to taking your questions, and thank you for
the opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Ms. McCarthy follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Ms. McCarthy.
Of these five rules, of course EPA itself went to the
courts and asked for additional time for three of them, and all
this legislation does, it gives you 15 months to re-propose and
finalize these rules, so it is not like we are saying never
implement them.
But let me ask you a question. In your time at EPA, has
there ever been a time when a proposed regulation that the cost
exceeded the benefits that you are aware of?
Ms. McCarthy. In hindsight, I do not know of one, no. And
you asked me about the exact cost, the cost as it is born out?
Mr. Whitfield. Yes, and as far as you know, you are not
aware of one?
Ms. McCarthy. The bills that I am familiar with have proven
to be much less expensive than anticipated and the benefits
have been significant.
Mr. Whitfield. Now, you made the comment that these
regulations do not cost jobs, and I maybe missed part of it,
but even your own estimate on the cement rule says that it will
cost up to 1,500 jobs.
Ms. McCarthy. Well, let me clarify the job numbers because
what we see is that because of the sensitivities of the
modeling, we both project that there could be some losses and
some gains but we look for the central estimate of what we
actually anticipate will be the end result.
Mr. Whitfield. How do you calculate the cost of a job lost?
Ms. McCarthy. There are actually peer-reviewed models and
standards that we use and we go through the interagency process
to ensure----
Mr. Whitfield. Do you know what the----
Ms. McCarthy [continuing]. With the executive----
Mr. Whitfield. Do you know what the figure is?
Ms. McCarthy. I do not know, actually.
Mr. Whitfield. Do you consider the cost of lost health
benefits created by job loss?
Ms. McCarthy. I do not know the answer to that question.
What I do know, Mr. Chairman, is we do a complete regulatory
impact analysis that looks at direct economic impacts in the
immediate future. In the immediate past, this Administration
has really stepped up in terms of doing additional job
analysis.
Mr. Whitfield. Would you all sit down with us and go over
with us the models that you use and the process that you use in
determining cost and benefits?
Ms. McCarthy. I will. All of the processes that we use are
peer-reviewed. They are open to the public. They have been
identified by the Administration as those that are most
appropriate, and they are available to everyone to take a look
at.
Mr. Whitfield. Now, when you make these comments that we
are going to prevent 18,110 cases of asthma in the future, that
really sounds pretty subjective to me, and to most people. So I
think there are some legitimate concerns here about cost-
benefit analysis and particularly when you have said yourself
since you have been at EPA, the costs have never exceeded the
benefits.
On the boiler MACT, for example, the industry itself says
that it is going to be $14.4 billion in new costs, that there
are at risk 224,000 jobs. On the cement, they say capital costs
$3.4 billion plus 4 billion additional capital costs for the
incinerator rule, threaten shutdown of 18 plants by 2013 and
four additional plants by 2015. The two rules combined directly
threaten up to 4,000 jobs by 2015 and indirectly 12,000 jobs.
And all the literature that I have ever read talks about when
people lose jobs, it has an impact on the health care of them
and their families, and as far as I know, EPA has never
considered the cost of additional health care required because
someone loses a job, and I don't understand how that is
possible, why that is not a legitimate cost.
Now, I know that in California and Oregon under this new
cement rule, EPA has recognized that two of these plants cannot
meet the new cement MACT standards even with the most state-of-
the-art pollution controls, and because of the type of
limestone in those areas, and I know that EPA has been asked to
create a subcategory for these two plants so that the rules are
at least technically achievable, and EPA has refused. Now, why
would EPA refuse to create a subcategory for these two plants
that cannot in any way meet the standards?
Ms. McCarthy. Mr. Whitfield, I am happy to spend as much
time as you would like to go through the modeling that we do
and the analysis we do for costs as well as benefits, but I
think it is appropriate to talk about both costs and benefits
and to look at whether or not the benefits far exceed the
costs, which in these rules they do.
Secondly, in terms of the Portland Cement, there were a
couple of facilities that we actually worked with and we
continue to work with closely. We have identified that there
are significant opportunities for early reductions of mercury
for those technologies with currently available technologies,
and they are now working with us in terms of what other
technology advances may be available to them so that we can
ensure that they will be in compliance and we can make sure
that that rule for them becomes achievable. So we are working
with those two companies. There are many reasons why we look at
subcategorization but the Clean Air Act does limit our ability
to look at subcategorization and it does in order to make sure
that we are advancing the right technologies moving forward
where we are dealing with the most toxic pollution that we have
and the impacts associated.
Mr. Whitfield. I would just make one comment. My time is
expired. But you have talked about mercury, Mr. Waxman has
talked about mercury, and it is my understanding the benefits
of the reduction in mercury was not even included in the
benefits. The benefits come from the reduction of particulate
matter.
Ms. McCarthy. The benefits would--the benefits to mercury
were not calculated. The benefits to particulate matter so
outweighed the costs that it wasn't worth the effort, frankly.
Mr. Whitfield. OK. Mr. Rush, sorry your plane was late. We
are delighted you are here. Would you like to give your opening
statement now?
Mr. Rush. Yes, Mr. Chairman, since the line of questioning
that you were traveling I kind of don't necessarily agree with,
so I think I will give my opening statement. I want to thank
you for your indulgence, and I want to thank you for allowing
me to have the opening statement and my questions.
Mr. Whitfield. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
OPENING STATEMENT OF BOBBY L. RUSH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Mr. Rush. Mr. Chairman, today we are holding a hearing on
two bills, H.R. 2250, the so-called EPA Regulatory Relief Act
of 2011, and H.R. 2681, the Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act
of 2011.
Mr. Chairman, in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments,
Congress directed the EPA to take a technologically based
approach to reduce hazardous air pollutants, or HAPs, which are
pollutants known or suspected of causing cancer and other
serious health effects such as reproductive and birth defects,
neurological effects and adverse environmental impacts. For
example, mercury is a hazardous air pollutant of particular
concern because it is emitted into the air and then deposited
into bodies of water where it contaminates fish and other
aquatic life. Research shows that pregnant and nursing women,
women who may become pregnant and young children who eat large
amounts of fish that is mercury-contaminated are especially at
risk because mercury damages the developing brain and reduces
IQ and the ability to learn.
In order to address the entire suite of hazardous air
toxins relatively quickly and using readily available
technology, Section 112 of the Clean Air Act requires EPA to
develop regulations for distinct source categories such as
power plants and cement kiln that set specific emission limits
based on emission levels already being achieved by other
facilities. These regulations, or MACT standards, require that
for existing sources, the emission standard must be at least as
stringent as the average emissions achieved by the best
performing 12 percent of sources in that source category.
As I understand it, the rules targeted by these two pieces
of legislation are already years behind of when they were
supposed to have been finalized, but yet these two bills, H.R.
2250 and H.R. 2681, would further delay these rules and push
action on them further down the road even to the point of
indefinitely. Besides postponing issuance and implementation of
these rules indefinitely, these two bills would also undermine
EPA's authority to require application of the best performing
emissions control technology while also weakening the more
stringent monitoring, reporting and pollution control
requirements required in the Clean Air Act under Section 129.
Mr. Chairman, for many constituents paying attention to the
action of this committee and this Congress, it will appear that
the intent of these two pieces of legislation is not really to
delay these rules but to kill them off altogether to the
benefit of some in the industry and to the detriment of the
American public as a whole. So Mr. Chairman, I am waiting to
hear some testimony from all the panelists today because as of
yet, it is still unclear why Congress should force the EPA once
again to halt or delay implementation of rules that would
protect the public health when everyone including industry
knows that these regulations were coming down the pike for
almost a decade now.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening statement, and I
will now have my 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Whitfield. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Rush. Ms. McCarthy, thank you so very much for being
here once again. You have a really tough job before this
subcommittee, and I empathize with you. You have been a regular
here on the witness panel for many hearings, and your expertise
and your honesty with this subcommittee is commendable.
There seems to be a misinformation campaign going on around
precisely when these rules were scheduled to be issued and
implemented and when EPA actually promulgated them. For the
record, can you clear up this issue once and for all and
provide a timeline for when EPA was initially scheduled to act
on these rules by law and when EPA actually did issue these
rules. Were there regulations issued in secret so as to
surprise industry in order to knock them off guard, knock them
off their game and then you come in, the EPA, as a thief in the
night with a bunch of rules and regulations that would have
detrimentally affected industry, or did EPA take into account
any of the input from industry concerning costs or other
factors before reissuing these new rules?
Ms. McCarthy. I am happy to clarify. I always appreciate
the respect with which we work with one another, so it is my
honor to be here and answer these questions.
I would just clarify that the Administration actually
promulgated the rules associated with Portland Cement in August
of 2010. That means we can enjoy significant reductions in
toxic pollution as early as August of 2013. Now, this rule
would delay those benefits for a minimum of 5 years. It will
push out both the timeline. It would actually vacate those
rules, require us to propose them, set a timeline far in
advance that is almost close to the compliance timeline for
when we might actually promulgate those rules, and there is no
sense of what the compliance timeline might be for those. In
terms of the boiler MACT rules and the incinerator rules, those
rules were finalized in February of 2011. The agency took the
unusual administrative step to actually stay those rules. We
announced that in May. We are on target to re-propose those
rules in October and finalize them in April, April of 2012, so
we are going to enjoy the reductions in toxic pollution from
those rules as early as 2015. Again, this bill, these bills
would push that benefit and those benefits out to at least 3
more years and so there is no question that this is not the
bill or the timeline that EPA was seeking or asked for or is
welcoming.
Mr. Rush. So was industry made aware, were they at the
table or did you do this in a backroom with no input from
industry?
Ms. McCarthy. Unfortunately, these are a series of rules
that were tried before and brought to court. They are rules
that have been long overdue. The 1990 Clean Air Act expected
them to be done in 2000, and here we are in 2011 continuing to
debate just the timeline. And so I would--these went through
normal public comment and notice. We have had considerable
discussion. The boiler MACT rules will go through another
public notice and comment process but we can get these done,
and we can get these done without any assistance needed from
the legislature using the administrative process.
Mr. Rush. So these bills that are before this committee
right now, these bills would not in any way assist the EPA or
the American public in terms of having a set of standards that
both industry and the EPA agree on and that will benefit the
American public in terms of having known standard. Is that
correct?
Ms. McCarthy. That is correct. We are on target to deliver
substantial public health benefits with the Portland Cement
rule that's already been finalized. It would vacate that rule
entirely. We are on target to finalize the boiler rule after
public comment next year, early next year in April. We did not
ask for this. We do not need this. It is in the administrative
process. We are continuing to use administrative remedies to
address any concerns associated with these rules. And also, the
significant concern that the rule doesn't just deal with
timing, it does deal with substance. It raises concern about
what the standards are that we are supposed to achieve, the
compliance timelines associated with that. It raises
significant uncertainty about whether or not we can move this
forward and what standards would need to be applied.
Mr. Rush. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance
of my time.
Mr. Whitfield. As this time I recognize the gentleman from
Texas for 5 minutes for questioning, Mr. Barton.
Mr. Barton. Thank you.
Madam Administrator, in your written testimony you
acknowledge some report that specifically mentions pulp and
paper, refining, iron and steel and plastic in this report or
study shows that they can't find any significant change in
employment because of increased spending on environmental
issues. Have you driven through Ohio or Pennsylvania recently?
Ms. McCarthy. Actually, I have, yes.
Mr. Barton. Is there any community you went through that
you didn't see a plant that had been shut down?
Ms. McCarthy. I can't say that I traveled the roads that
you are talking about but there is no question that there has
been significant challenges----
Mr. Barton. So you did----
Ms. McCarthy [continuing]. In the manufacturing sector.
Mr. Barton. You saw plants that were shut down?
Ms. McCarthy. The question is whether or not they are
attributable to environmental regulations or to economic issues
in general.
Mr. Barton. Of the industries that are mentioned
specifically in your testimony, pulp and paper, refining, iron
and steel and plastic, are there any of those industries that
employment is up as, say, compared to 20 years ago?
Ms. McCarthy. I don't know that answer.
Mr. Barton. Oh, you do know the answer. The answer is no.
Would you have your staff look at employment, let us say, base
case 1990? Do you want to go back to 1970 and compare it to
2010 and provide that for the committee? Because in every one
of those instances, and you know this, employment is not only
down, it is significantly down, and you know that. You are too
smart of a person. So to sit here and tell this subcommittee
that we can do all these great things in the environment and
not have an impact on the employment, my good friend here, Mr.
Walden from Oregon, just told me that the pulp and paper
industry in his State is about 90 percent gone, 90 percent.
One of the rules that we are looking at is cement. I have
got three cements plants in my Congressional district. I just
met with one of the companies during the August break. Their
business is 40 percent down, 40 percent. They are shutting one
kiln, and this is just one company. The cement rules that would
be implemented if we don't move these bills cost more to
implement than the entire profit of the entire industry, and
you don't think that is going to have an impact on jobs?
Now, on the other hand, the health benefits, my good
friend, Mr. Waxman, talked about all the potential negative
impacts of mercury and some of these other pollutants, and
those are real. Mercury is a poison. Mercury is a pollutant.
But because of all the things that we have done over the past
40 years, the number of birth defects because of mercury is, I
would think, significantly down. Now, I don't know that but
that is my assumption. Do you know how many birth defects in
the last 10 years have been as a consequence of mercury? Are
there any facts on that?
Ms. McCarthy. I certainly could get back to you,
Congressman, but what we tend to look at is what the status of
the industry is now and what impact our rule might have on that
industry moving forward.
Mr. Barton. And I want to stipulate that I think you and
Mrs. Jackson are people of good character and integrity and you
are doing the best job that you can in your agency, but over
and over and over again we get these not really science-based
facts to justify these rules, and if we have a problem with
mercury, it would show up in birth defects and premature deaths
and you could go to the medical records and prove it and
justify it, but that is not the case. These are all
probabilistic models of what might happen, not what is
happening. Do you understand what I am--you know, we need--
there is not a member on either side of the aisle of this
committee or this subcommittee, if we have a problem, we will
address it, but let us at least be able to actually identify
the health problem and because of the successes in the Clean
Air Act and other environmental bills in the past, we don't
have--those numbers are not there.
And my time is expired by 40 seconds.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you.
At this time I will recognize the gentleman from
California, Mr. Waxman, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. McCarthy, if your regulations were not science-based,
would they stand up in court for 1 minute?
Ms. McCarthy. No.
Mr. Waxman. You must base your regulations on the science,
and you have to get your figures on the impacts based on a
peer-review process. Is that correct?
Ms. McCarthy. That is correct.
Mr. Waxman. Now, let me just say to you and everybody else
on this committee, the statements I have heard members make and
the numbers they have thrown out have not been scrutinized by
anybody except they have been given to the members by the
industry or they made them up out of whole cloth. I would like
to see some of those figures scrutinized carefully.
But Mr. Barton talked about all these plants that are now
closed. Your regulations have not even gone into effect. They
are closed because of the recession. They are closed because
of, my Republican colleagues insist, the deficit, which we
inherited for the most part from the Bush Administration. We
also inherited the recession from the Bush Administration. Our
country is struggling, and to say that the environmental rules
are responsible, how could that be if these rules have not yet
been in effect? Can you explain that to me?
Ms. McCarthy. In fact, Congressman, for the rules that we
are talking about today for mercury, there is no national
standard in these sectors. These are the largest sources of
mercury emissions from stationary facilities and yet there are
no national standards to date. So I don't think you can
attribute standards in the future that this bill would make
potentially way in the future for the closures that you are
seeing today.
Mr. Waxman. Well, Mr. Barton said that the cost of
compliance would be more than the entire profit of the whole
industry. I don't know where he got that figure, but do you
have any idea of that could be accurate?
Ms. McCarthy. I can give you the figures by sector of what
we believe the costs are associated with this bill. The costs
for the----
Mr. Waxman. Well, if you gave us those costs, would that
wipe out the profits that the industries have and they would
all have to close as a result?
Ms. McCarthy. In our assessment, we do not believe there
would be broad closures as a result of any of these rules. We
believe there would be job growth. We believe that they are
manageable, that they are cost-effective and the technology is
available to be installed.
Mr. Waxman. Mr. Barton just said, well, we have done a lot
of things to lower birth defects because of mercury, and he
asked you whether that is accurate or not. Now, whether it is
accurate or not, it sounds like we are ready to celebrate fewer
birth defects, not trying to reduce birth defects even more. I
don't ask that as a question, I just ask it as a statement of
incredulity.
Proponents of these bills suggest they are simply giving
the EPA the time it requested to get the rules right and
provide some additional flexibilities to reduce the burdens. I
would like to get your views on this. Could you explain what
the boiler bill that has been introduced does to the timing of
the boiler rules that you are proposing?
Ms. McCarthy. Yes, the timing of these rules in terms of
the boiler rules, as I indicated, we intend to finalize them in
April. That means they will be in effect and we will be
achieving these reductions in 3 years. This rule would at the
very earliest only allow us to finalize those rules almost a
full year later, which would delay compliance considerably, and
these rules would also call into question and add uncertainty
about how we establish the standards for these rules, and in
fact, it would take away any timeline for compliance.
Mr. Waxman. In fact, the bill eliminates any deadline for
action, allowing indefinite delay. That is fundamentally
different from requesting a specific limited extension of time.
But this is not all the bills do. Section 5 of both bills may
complete change the criteria Congress established in 1990 for
how EPA must set limits for air toxics. I say ``may'' because
the language appears to be ambiguous.
Ms. McCarthy, what is the legal effect of this language in
EPA's view?
Ms. McCarthy. Well, we are clearly concerned that it would
raise legal uncertainty. We are concerned that industry would
argue that these provisions modify or supersede existing Clean
Air Act provisions that have governed these toxic standards
since 1990. In particular, we anticipate that industry would
argue that EPA would be required to set standards below the
current MACT floor and to use a different process for setting
that standard, one that identifies the least burden option. I
don't even know who that burden would be assessed for. Would it
be the regulated industry or the breathing public.
Mr. Waxman. In the case of the bill, it says require the
least burdensome regulations including work practice standards.
Current law allows work practice standards only if the
Administrator decides a numeric emissions is not feasible.
Maybe you can help us to make heads and tail of this. If the
new language does not trump the current law, would it have any
effect? In other words, in the boiler rule, is there a
situation where you can determine a numeric standard wasn't
feasible but still refuse to work practice standards?
Ms. McCarthy. No. In fact, between proposal and final, we
made a determination on the basis of comments that there were
boilers where limits were not feasibly achieved and we have
gone to work practice standards.
Mr. Waxman. And if it does trump the current law, would EPA
be able to set numeric emissions limits for any pollutants from
any boilers?
Ms. McCarthy. It is unclear.
Mr. Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Whitfield. At this time I recognize the gentleman from
Oklahoma, Mr. Sullivan, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. McCarthy, I disagree with your statement, with your
testimony that H.R. 2681 halts Clean Air Act achievements. H.R.
2681 does not halt regulation of cement facilities. It does
take the policy position that EPA is regulating too much, too
fast and that we need commonsense rules that protect our
communities including the jobs they depend upon. The cement
sector has expressed major concerns with the workability and
the timeline for implementing EPA's recent cement MACT and
related rules affecting cement kilns. Would you agree there are
legitimate concerns about technical aspects of the cement
sector rules?
Ms. McCarthy. I would agree that concerns have been
expressed but I believe that the final rule is appropriate and
necessary and can be achieved.
Mr. Sullivan. Would you agree there are legitimate concerns
with the compliance timeline for implementing the rules?
Ms. McCarthy. I believe that a number of concerns have been
expressed, but again, I believe the timelines can be achieved.
Mr. Sullivan. EPA stayed the major source boiler MACT and
the CISWI rule. Why have you not also stayed the cement MACT
rule as well, given it is so intertwined with the CISWI rule?
Ms. McCarthy. The Portland Cement rule was finalized
earlier. We do not believe that there was significant concern
raised about any of the standards or how do achieve those that
would warrant a stay unlike the boiler rule and the CISWI rule
where we identified that there was significant changes between
proposal and final that deserve to have additional public
notice and comment. So that is why we have stayed those rules
in order to achieve that notice and comment process and to
finalize those expeditiously. That was not the case with
Portland Cement and it is highly unusual for the agency to stay
a rule, and clearly there was no reason to do that for Portland
Cement.
Mr. Sullivan. How could you not have at least concerns when
you are going to shut down 18 plants, though? Why couldn't
you----
Ms. McCarthy. I am not exactly sure where those numbers are
coming from. I do believe in our economic analysis we indicated
that the industry itself was facing low demand for its
products, that there was significant challenges associated with
that. We certainly in no way attributed closures of 18
facilities to these rules.
Mr. Sullivan. EPA's cement MACT rule published in September
2010 affects 158 cement kilns located at cement plants
throughout the United States. How many of those cement kilns
currently meet the emission limits and other requirements
established by this rule? Are there any?
Ms. McCarthy. As far I know, there are new facilities being
constructed that will achieve those standards but at this point
I do not believe there is a single facility that is meeting the
standards, most notably because most of them have not been
under national standards and they have not voluntarily decided
to achieve these types of reductions.
Mr. Sullivan. Does the Administration have any concerns
about the potential importing of cement as a result of forcing
the idling or permanent shuttering of U.S. cement plants? The
President has stated that new infrastructure projects, roads
and bridges, will be a big part of his jobs package. Together
with EPA's cement rules, are we supposed to build those roads
and bridges with Chinese cement? Did you know that China
already makes 28 times more cement than the United States?
Ms. McCarthy. We actually did look at this issue when we
developed our economic analysis, and it is in the records. We
are clearly concerned about the health of U.S. industry. There
is no question about that. We did not believe that this rule
would have a significant impact in terms of the amount of
imported cement that would be coming into this country as a
result of compliance.
Mr. Sullivan. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Whitfield. At this time I would like to recognize the
gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Dingell, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Dingell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask unanimous
consent to insert into the record my opening statement, which I
think everybody will find enlightening, well written,
entertaining, and I believe, valuable from the point of
information.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you for providing it to us.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dingell follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Dingell. I find myself, Mr. Chairman, somewhat
distressed here. I have heard general conclusions from the
witness but I have heard nothing in the way of hard statements
that relate to what it is this committee needs to know and
justification for the legislation, and I have not heard any
clear statements from the committee or its members about
exactly what is the situation with regard to the impact of this
legislation or the EPA's action with regard to the rules, and
Madam Administrator, I find that to be somewhat distressing. So
I will be submitting to you a letter shortly in which I hope we
will get some better details on this. For example, are you able
to make the categorical statement that none of these plants
being closed are being closed because of the action of EPA? Yes
or no.
Ms. McCarthy. I apologize. I think I would indicate that we
have in the record our economic analysis that looks at these
issues. Because of the sensitivity of that, it will have
different impacts--
Mr. Dingell. Simplify my problem by telling me yes, that
these will be closed because of the action of EPA, or no, they
will not be closed because of the action of EPA. That is a
fairly simple conclusion and I hope that you would be able to
just give me yes or no on the matter.
Ms. McCarthy. Well, we don't believe that there will be
significant closures as a result. I cannot indicate whether it
will impact a single closure.
Mr. Dingell. You are under the law permitted to choose
amongst the alternatives. You may not take action on the basis
of cost alone. But once the question of the most effective way
of addressing this from the scientific and health standpoint
has been reached, you are then permitted to choose that rule or
rather that approach which costs the least and which is most
helpful in terms of the industry. Isn't that so? Yes or no.
Ms. McCarthy. Yes.
Mr. Dingell. Now, having said this, have you done that?
Ms. McCarthy. Yes.
Mr. Dingell. Where is it stated in the rule, if you please?
Submit that for the record to us. And I ask unanimous consent,
Mr. Chairman, that the record be kept open so we can get that
information.
Mr. Whitfield. Without objection.
Mr. Dingell. Now, I know that our economy has grown over
200 percent since the Clean Air Act of 1970, and key pollutants
have been reduced by 60 percent. I regard that as a good thing,
and it is an example that we can count on the law to do both of
the things that the Congress wanted when we wrote the original
legislation. Now, we find that these things cause us
considerable problems with regard to business certainty. I note
that nobody seems to know about the certainty about how these
rules are going to be enacted. Has the EPA given thought to
establishing the certainty that business needs to accomplish
its purposes? Yes or no.
Ms. McCarthy. Yes.
Mr. Dingell. All right. Now, am I correct that H.R. 2250
would vacate the area source rules and require EPA to reissue
them? Yes or no.
Ms. McCarthy. Yes.
Mr. Dingell. Area source boilers are smaller boilers such
as ones at hospitals and other institutional and commercial
facilities. What is it that they would have to do under this
rule? I would like to have that submitted for the record in a
clear statement, and I ask unanimous consent that the record
stay open for that purpose, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Whitfield. Without objection.
Mr. Dingell. Now, I also understand that some area sources
have complained that they will not be able to meet the tune-up
requirement by the deadline in your legislation, or rather in
your regulation, and asked you to reconsider the deadline. Are
you reconsidering the deadline? Yes or no.
Ms. McCarthy. We are considering that comment and that
petition, yes.
Mr. Dingell. How soon will you come to a conclusion on that
particular point?
Ms. McCarthy. Well, we are clearly trying to do that very
shortly.
Mr. Dingell. It is very clear that if industry cannot meet
the requirements, that you should consider this most seriously.
Is that not so?
Ms. McCarthy. Yes, and we will be considering it in the
proposed rule, taking comment and----
Mr. Dingell. Do you have the ability to move the deadline
back as a result of the reconsideration process? Yes or no.
Ms. McCarthy. Yes.
Mr. Dingell. And you would make the clear statement that
you would not rule out that action? Is that correct?
Ms. McCarthy. No--that is correct. Sorry.
Mr. Dingell. Now, in the testimony, he submitted, Mr.
Rubright states several times that the regulation is
unsustainable. Is that statement correct or not?
Ms. McCarthy. No.
Mr. Dingell. Should this legislation pass, what do you
think the timetable should be to issue final rules regarding
these industries?
Ms. McCarthy. The timetable that is in the Clean Air Act
and the timetable that we have agreed to and that we are on.
Mr. Dingell. Now, you indicated you think that the
regulation is unsustainable. Why do you make that statement? Or
rather that the regulation is sustainable. Why do you make that
statement?
Ms. McCarthy. Because we have done a complete cost-benefit
analysis. We have done the same health-based benefits
assessment as we have always done, and we believe that the
technology is in place. We have looked at the most cost-
effective alternatives to achieve the best benefits that we
can.
Mr. Dingell. Have you considered his particular concerns
and the points that he makes or is this a statement with regard
to general findings by the agency?
Ms. McCarthy. Both.
Mr. Dingell. OK. Now, one last question. Should this
legislation pass, what do you think the timetable should be to
issue the final rules regarding these industries? If you will
give us a quick answer on that and then a more detailed answer
for the record, please.
Ms. McCarthy. The bill does not establish a timetable. It
sets a time before which we cannot issue a rule.
Mr. Dingell. What do you suggest should be done with regard
to that particular matter?
Ms. McCarthy. I think we should continue with the rules
under the Clean Air Act as it currently exists.
Mr. Dingell. Mr. Chairman, you have been most courteous.
Thank you.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you.
At this time I recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr.
Shimkus, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate
Assistant Administrator McCarthy. We have had a good working
relationship on some issues, and I think a lot of the issue is
time and being able to get people to move in a direction. I
think the concern with a lot of these is, and I will do it
based upon the numbers, and really it kind of follows up on
what Mr. Dingell was talking about, is there will be no time
and this will be a major change.
You made a statement on the proposed health benefits. If
all the major boilers stopped operating, if all the area source
boilers were shut down, if we stopped waste incineration, based
upon your opening statement, the proposed health benefits from
the shutting down of these would go up. Is that correct?
Ms. McCarthy. Mr. Shimkus, it is not intention to shut----
Mr. Shimkus. No, I am just--I mean--but that is true based
upon the opening statement. If we shut down every boiler----
Ms. McCarthy. It is true that if----
Mr. Shimkus [continuing]. That your----
Ms. McCarthy [continuing]. There is no pollution, then----
Mr. Shimkus. Your proposed health benefits----
Ms. McCarthy [continuing]. Would go away.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you. And these are your numbers. There
are major source boilers, 13,840 major source boilers. Is that
correct?
Ms. McCarthy. That is right.
Mr. Shimkus. Do you have an estimation of how many of these
boilers will meet your proposed rules as we think they will
come out?
Ms. McCarthy. Actually, there are boilers in a variety of
categories that already meet all of these standards.
Mr. Shimkus. I have been told that there are 31 so that
13,809 major source boilers would not comply.
Ms. McCarthy. The only thing I would remind you, Mr.
Shimkus, is, we are in a reconsideration process. That rule
will be re-proposed in October----
Mr. Shimkus. So would it go up to--would there be 800 then
or maybe 1,000 of the 13,000?
Ms. McCarthy. As you know, we established the standards
because it deals with toxic pollution to try to----
Mr. Shimkus. You understand my point that I am making----
Ms. McCarthy [continuing]. Look at the best performing and
bring the others up.
Mr. Shimkus. OK. You understand the point----
Ms. McCarthy. I do.
Mr. Shimkus [continuing]. That I am making that of the area
source boilers, you estimate there are 187,000 boilers. We
can't get an idea, even industry has no idea based upon what we
envision the proposed rules would be that a single one would
meet the standard.
Ms. McCarthy. On the area source boilers?
Mr. Shimkus. Right.
Ms. McCarthy. The vast majority of those have no emission
standards. They have work practice standards. Most boilers out
in commercial and hospital settings actually are natural gas
and are governed by this. Of the remainder, unless it is a
large coal facility, it----
Mr. Shimkus. No, I am talking about, you know, just the
area source boilers. Let us go to the----
Ms. McCarthy. It just needs to do a tune-up every 2 years.
Mr. Shimkus. Let us go to the incinerators. You estimate 88
incinerators from your numbers, and do you know the percentage
that probably meet the standard?
Ms. McCarthy. Three currently meet all standards that I am
aware of.
Mr. Shimkus. So 85 do not?
Ms. McCarthy. Eighty-five would have to make changes in
their facilities----
Mr. Shimkus. And those changes would be a capital expense
outlay, and that kind of follows into this whole debate about
your job calculations, because part of your job calculation is
retrofitting these facilities. Retrofitting jobs, are they
short term, 6 months, 12 months? How long is a major operating
facility those jobs remain? I mean, they remain for decades. So
that is long-term consideration of the length of that.
My time is rapidly clicking away, and I want to make sure I
raise this issue on the science-based debate. We have had this
in my subcommittee hearing, Mr. Chairman, and that the courts
give deference to the Federal Government when there is a court
case over any other advocacy in the court case, and the
standard of proof is very high and it is arbitrary and
capricious. So for my colleagues here, part of this debate on
reform would be a debate on judicial reform in the courts to
give the complainants equal standing as the Federal Government
when they have litigation. Currently now, the courts assume
that the Federal Government is correct and so the plaintiffs
have a higher burden, and I think that is one of the major
reforms that has to be done. I yield back my time.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you.
At this time I recognize the gentlelady from Florida, Ms.
Castor, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Castor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Ms. McCarthy.
Ms. McCarthy. Good morning.
Ms. Castor. I think I would like to start by saying how
proud I am to live in a country that for decades has protected
the air that all Americans breathe, for decades. And I remember
very well as a youngster in the 1970s the improvement in air
quality in my hometown in Florida. I remember smoggy mornings
early in the 1970s, especially during these hot summer months
where the air was just stifling and we weren't getting much of
a breeze off of the Gulf of Mexico, and the air stunk, but over
the years it improved. It got a lot better. And the health of
the community improved. And then in 1990, the Congress came
back based upon science and everything they had learned and
adopted Clean Air Act Amendments, and that was over 20 years
ago and those Clean Air Act Amendments required EPA to
establish emission standards for particular sources, and
Congress said to the EPA back in 1990, OK, you have 10 years to
adopt standards for these particular sources, so that is by the
year 2000, right? Eleven years ago. And they gave them a few
years after the adoption of those regulations for these
particular sources to have some basic standards. But it took
EPA many years. EPA first targeted these particular sources,
adopted some standards for boilers in 2004. It got caught up in
court challenges, and pursuant to a court-ordered deadline EPA
finalized rules for industrial, commercial and institutional
boilers and other particular sources of air pollution in
February of this year.
This has a long history, and I think it is time to bring it
in for a landing rather than continuing to delay it. The
Congress gave very clear direction in 1990, and we have been
grappling with this. We understand now the science involving
the public health when you clean the air and the impact on our
families.
So I am very concerned that the bills at issue today appear
to be hazardous to the health of the Nation and our economy
because they delay vital health protections and they create
great uncertainty for everyone. So let us look at H.R. 2250
which indefinitely delays the rules to reduce toxic air
pollution. Based upon the evidence, the rules if finalized as
scheduled would provide tremendous health benefits to Americans
by cutting emissions of pollutants linked to a range of serious
health effects, developmental disabilities in children, asthma,
cancer. EPA estimates that these rules will avoid more than
2,600 premature deaths, 4,100 heart attacks and 42,000 asthma
attacks every year. I don't know about you all but this is an
epidemic in our country, the rates of asthma and heart disease,
and people, we are all part of the solution. And I don't think
we can turn a blind eye to this evidence.
Ms. McCarthy, after the years that EPA has been gathering
evidence from all corners, from industry, how would nullifying
these rules now affect the public health in your opinion?
Ms. McCarthy. It would leave incredible public health
benefits on the table, benefits that are significantly
important to American families, and it would do so in clear
recognition that for every dollar we spend on these rules, we
are going to get $10 to $24 in benefits for people in terms of
better health for them and for individuals and their families.
There is no reason for it. We have administrative processes
that we are going through. We are following the same notice and
comment process that Congress intended. We should be allowed to
proceed with these rules and to get the public health benefits
as delayed as they are finally deliver them for the American
family.
Ms. Castor. And the statutory deadline originally that the
Congress directed in 1990 was 2000.
Ms. McCarthy. It was, and I will tell you it would be
inexcusable to not deliver these knowing the health benefits,
knowing the impacts associated with these toxic pollutants and
knowing that we can do this cost-effectively and actually at
the same time increase jobs. These are not job-killing bills.
These are bills that will require investments that will put
people back to work and that will grow the economy.
Ms. Castor. Thank you very much.
Mr. Whitfield. The gentleman from Oregon is recognized for
5 minutes, Mr. Walden.
Mr. Walden. I thank the chairman very much and I welcome
our witness today. I want to make a couple of comments.
First of all, I would say up front that one of the two
cement plants that your regulations put great burdens on is in
my district, Durkee, Oregon, so I would like you to submit for
the committee within a week or so these specific health issues
that you have identified relating to mercury poisoning, asthma
and all as it relates to Oregon specifically, because you must
have them broken down by region, I would assume, or by county.
Ms. McCarthy. We certainly look at exposures around
facilities.
Mr. Walden. So if you could provide those, it would be most
helpful. I have got a chart here somewhere that shows the
percent of mercury deposition that originates outside the
United States, and I believe that your own data indicate that
most of this comes from China or foreign sources, most of the
mercury coming into the United States. Is that accurate?
Ms. McCarthy. It also is emitted by us and comes back at
us.
Mr. Walden. Indeed. Now, you said in your testimony or in
response to a question that there have been no mercury control
MACT standards for mercury?
Ms. McCarthy. I said national standards. That is correct.
Mr. Walden. Right, and that nobody had really invested
ahead of those standards.
Ms. McCarthy. No, I indicated that for the most part the
investments weren't sufficient to get compliance with the
standards that we have.
Mr. Walden. So in the case of Ash Grove in my district in
Durkee, they have spent about, I think it is $20 million. They
have reduced their emissions by 90 percent, and my
information--correct me if I am wrong--is there a more advanced
technology they can use than what they are using today with the
carbon injection system?
Ms. McCarthy. Actually, they have been very responsive to
the needs of the State and working with them and----
Mr. Walden. No, they would have met the State standards. It
is your new Federal standards that is causing them the problem
is my understanding.
Ms. McCarthy. We are working with them on that, yes.
Mr. Walden. So my question, though, is yet to be answered.
Is there an achievable control technology available today that
is better than the one they are implementing?
Ms. McCarthy. I do not know, but they are working on that.
Mr. Walden. Now, I want to know from you because you are
writing the rules. Because the rules in the Clean Air Act talk
about achievable control technology, right? And in the
committee report in 1990 in the Clean Air Act Amendments, the
House report itself on page 328 of part 1 stated, ``The
committee expects MACT to be meaningful so that MACT will
require substantial reductions in emissions from uncontrolled
levels. However, MACT is not intended to require unsafe control
measures or to drive sources to the brink of shutdown.'' So I
guess the question is, if you have got two plants because the
mercury levels in the limestone next to them exceed these
standards you are setting, you may be driving them to the brink
of shutdown. I mean, they have reduced 90 percent, but under
your rules proposed, it would be 98.4 percent.
Ms. McCarthy. The facility that you are talking about has
made substantial investments in technologies----
Mr. Walden. Yes, they have.
Ms. McCarthy [continuing]. To achieve these mercury
reductions. They are continuing to do that.
Mr. Walden. I understand that.
Ms. McCarthy. I have ever reason to believe that the Clean
Air Act in this instance will behave exactly as history has
shown us, which is to drive new technologies into the market
and to successfully achieve----
Mr. Walden. And today there is no technology superior to
what they are using, is there?
Ms. McCarthy. There are technologies that will achieve
these. The challenge, as you know----
Mr. Walden. To the 98.4 percent?
Ms. McCarthy. The challenge, as you know, for this
particular facility is the limestone quarry that they are using
and the mercury content there.
Mr. Walden. And I believe also in the conference committee
report from the 1990 Clean Air Act, it talked about
substituting orinol, and it said, ``The substitution of cleaner
ore stocks was not in any event a feasible basis on which to
set emission standards where metallic impurity levels are
variable and unpredictable both from mine to mine and within
specific ore deposits.'' So there was a recognition, as I
understand it, in the Clean Air Act about different ore levels
in different places.
Here is the deal. You know, we are going to listen to the
President tonight, and as Americans, we are all concerned about
losing jobs. I represent a very rural district that is
suffering enormously from Federal regulation, whether it is on
our Federal forest and the 90 percent reduction in Federal
forestlands that by the way are burning--we can get into that
whole discussion and what that does to health quality--or
whether it is this boiler MACT standard. I have got three
letters, Mr. Chairman, that I would like to submit into the
record from----
Mr. Whitfield. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Walden. And these are about the uncertainty that is out
there in the marketplace over your boiler MACT standards. While
you may have some improvements, these companies in my district
are saying we continue to have major ongoing concerns regarding
achievability, affordable and lack of accounting for
variability within our operations for newly released rule.
Boise Cascade in this case, Boise will need to spend millions
of dollars in new investments for multiple control technologies
which can conflict with other existing control technologies.
There is also an issue they raise about how they use every bit
of the wood stream back into their facilities, which we used to
applaud them for doing, no waste, and apparently in some of the
other rules that are coming out of your agency, they now would
have to treat some of that resin that they now burn in their
boilers as solid waste and put it in landfills and replace that
with fossil fuels. I mean, this is why--and I understand unless
you are out there you don't get this, this is why a lot of
Americans are not investing in their own companies because
there is such uncertainty in the marketplace over all these
rules and regulations, and I hear it every day I am out in my
district, and my time is expired.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Mr. Walden.
At this time I recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Green, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. McCarthy, good to see you again.
Ms. McCarthy. You too as well.
Mr. Green. Like my colleague, Joe Barton, we appreciate
your working with us on a lot of issues. Obviously sometimes we
don't get to the end result that each of us can agree to.
In the boiler MACT rule, you make a change in the
definition of waste because the courts found in 2000 the
definition was not strict enough. This change has meant that
some traditional fuels in many of these plants are now
classified as waste and now the facilities in a regulatory
sense become commercial industrial solid waste incinerators. I
have a couple questions.
Are you sympathetic to the argument from the cement
companies they are in a bind because they are being forced to
comply with the new NESHAP rule but then might end up being
regulated as a commercial industrial solid waste incinerator,
then some of their compliance investment would be for nothing
and they will have to completely start over. It seems like that
would be an economic waste, and to me, it seems they are really
in a bind for the planning side. How would you work with them
on this and given the massive job losses in the sector they
really can't afford to apply for permits for one designation
and then take these costs and then turn around and have to
start over?
Ms. McCarthy. We are actually working with these companies
right now. The rule has been finalized and they are making
investment decisions and we are more than willing to sit down.
The good news is that the incinerator rule, they can either
decide to be regulated as a cement facility or they can decide
to burn solid waste, which would allow them to be regulated and
require them to be regulated under the incinerator rule.
Mr. Green. So they have a choice to make which one they
come under?
Ms. McCarthy. They do, and depending upon what they want to
do, they make that choice themselves and we allow that, but the
good news is that any technology investment they might make if
they decide to be regulated under the Portland Cement rule is
the same type of technology that they would have to put in
place to be regulated under the incinerator rule. The main
difference is that they would have to look at developing much
more explicit monitoring requirements and doing things
differently for that purpose under CISWI, which is an area that
we are looking at under our reconsideration and that will
clarify itself.
Mr. Green. One of my concerns is that some of these plants,
they burn tires, they burn construction debris, and
particularly with tires because of instead of having them on
the side of the road people dump, we can actually have a
beneficial use, and so that is part of my concern.
A couple of people on the second panel will talk about they
cannot design, install and commission emission controls under
existing coal-fired boilers within 3 years. They claim this is
particularly true because third-party resources with the
expertise to design and install these controls will be in high
demand as multiple boiler rules are being implemented in a
short time by both the industry and electric utility
industries. Do you share that concern, that there may not be
the available technology to get there in 3 years?
Ms. McCarthy. We have certainly looked at it. Let me hit
the solid waste issue very briefly for you, Mr. Green. We know
that concerns have been raised. We are working and we have
developed guidance to address the tire issue so that we
eliminate any uncertainty and clarify those rules.
In terms of the coal-fired boilers, each one gets 3 years
with the opportunity if there are technology problems to go to
4 years. We also know that there is fuel switching that is
often done to achieve compliance because many of these coal
boilers switch between biomass and coal, and it is a very
effective strategy to achieve some of these compliance limits.
So we are more than happy to work to ensure that compliance is
achieved in a timely way.
Mr. Green. Todd Elliott from Celanese Corporation is here
to testify on the second panel. In his testimony, he talks at
length about some of their boilers at the Narrows, Virginia,
facility. I don't have Narrows, Virginia, but I do have
Celanese plants in our district. These boilers are identified
by the EPA as top-performing units and used to set the proposed
regulatory standards for hydrochloric acid and mercury
emissions yet not even one of these top-performing units will
meet the emissions standards for both mercury and hydrochloric
simultaneously without installing costly emission controls. How
is it they can be a top performer and yet not meet these new
standards on a consistent level?
Ms. McCarthy. Well, we know that that is an issue that has
been raised to us. We have gathered more data. We are going
through the reconsideration process and we fully believe that
we will be able to assess that data and come up with standards
that are meaningful and achievable.
Mr. Green. Hopefully we will come to an agreement on some
of our other issues.
My last question is, we have a plant that in addition to
burning natural gas burns refinery fuel gas, petrochemical
processed fuel gas in their boilers and process heaters. In
both these cases, their blends of methane, propane and butane
are clean-burning fuels. Does EPA does intend to exempt both
refinery and petrochemical processed fuel gases from the
numerical standards similar to natural gas?
Ms. McCarthy. Yes, we did establish a process for that. We
heard loud and clear during the comment period that we
shouldn't be segregating refinery gas any differently if it is
as clean as natural gas. We have set a process to look at that.
We are also looking at that again in the reconsideration
process. So I feel very confident that we can come to a good
understanding on that issue and have a very clear, well-defined
process so that there is certainty in the business community,
and I do believe that most of the refinery gas will most likely
be required to do work practice standards as opposed to an
emissions limit.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Whitfield. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Louisiana, Mr. Scalise, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Scalise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you
having this hearing. I am proud to support the legislation that
we are discussing today, and Ms. McCarthy, I appreciate you
coming as well. I spent the last 5 weeks, as I am sure all my
colleagues have, going throughout my district meeting with
small business owners, middle-class families talking about the
challenges that they are facing and things that we can do in
Congress to get the economy back on track, to create jobs, and
I have got to tell you, there was one recurring theme that came
across with every single small business I met with, and they
said the primary impediment to creating jobs today for them are
the regulations coming out of this Administration, and EPA was
at the top of the list of agencies that are bombarding them
with regulations that have nothing to do with safety or
improving the quality of life but in fact seem to be going
through, I think, an extreme agenda of carrying out what is an
agenda for some at the agency but is flying in the face of
things that they want to do in creating jobs and investing. I
mean, there is money on the sidelines. Anybody that follows
markets today, that follows what is happening throughout our
country will tell you there is trillions of dollars on the
sidelines that could be invested right now at creating jobs,
and the job creators, those people that have that money to
invest, are telling us that it is the regulations coming out of
agencies like EPA that are holding them back and so, you know,
when you give your testimony, and I have listened to some of
your testimony about the ability that you think your agency has
to create jobs by coming out with regulations, you know, maybe
you are living in a parallel universe to the one I am living
in, but when I talk to people--and, you know, you gave a
statement saying for every dollar in new rules that you then
give back $24 in health benefits, for example, with the
regulations you are proposing. You are saying that the rules
that will require investment, these rules that you are coming
out with will require investments that will create jobs and put
people back to work.
You know, first of all, tell me, when you make rules, do
you all really look and think that the rules you are making are
going to create jobs?
Ms. McCarthy. That is not their primary but we----
Mr. Scalise. But do you----
Ms. McCarthy [continuing]. Certainly look at the economic
impacts of our rules----
Mr. Scalise. Because you have given some testimony----
Ms. McCarthy [continuing]. Looking at jobs.
Mr. Scalise. So, for example, I think you had testimony
that for every million or million and a half dollars a business
spends to comply with rules, you said that creates a job?
Ms. McCarthy. I certainly--I did not say that and I don't
think I have submitted testimony to that effect.
Mr. Scalise. I think that was your testimony, and I will go
back and look, and----
Ms. McCarthy. Maybe in the past, and that certainly does
not sound unachievable. Oh, that is one of the studies that we
use as a basis for our economic analysis. It indicates that.
Mr. Scalise. So what does it indicate, if you can give me
the exact indication, because I read that in one of your
statements.
Ms. McCarthy. I think it indicates that for every million
dollars expended on control equipment. We find that increased
environmental spending generally does not cause a significant
change in employment, and this is referencing a Morgan Stearns
study that has been peer reviewed, and the scientific
literature says our average across all four industries is a net
gain of 1.5 jobs per $1 million in additional environmental
spending.
Mr. Scalise. So basically what you are saying is, if you
force a company to spend another million dollars complying with
some rule that you come up with, Congress didn't pass it but
you all came with a rule, you are acknowledging that that is
forcing businesses to spend money. So if you say a business is
forced to spend a million dollars to comply with your rule,
according to your metrics, that creates one and a half jobs. Is
that one and a half jobs at your agency?
Ms. McCarthy. I certainly don't want to give the impression
that EPA is in the business to create jobs. What we----
Mr. Scalise. You are definitely not.
Ms. McCarthy. We are in the business----
Mr. Scalise. From everybody I have talked to, you are in
the business of putting people out of work right now.
Ms. McCarthy. No, we are in the business of actually--the
Clean Air Act, its intent is to protect public health.
Mr. Scalise. Well, let me ask you this----
Ms. McCarthy. As a result of that, money gets spent and
jobs get--yes.
Mr. Scalise. And jobs get what?
Ms. McCarthy. Jobs grow.
Mr. Scalise. Again, maybe a parallel universe we are living
in, but when you think jobs grow because of these regulations,
I can show you small business after small business that can't
grow jobs because of your regulations directly related to your
regulations, not nebulous.
And now we will get into the health issue because one of
the things we hear and it was talked about in opening
statements and yours as well is, you know, this has got to be
done for health reasons. Let me bring you to a decision the
President just made on the Ozone National Ambient Air Quality
Standards where the President even acknowledged that EPA's
regulations and specifically as it related just a couple days
ago to ozone actually shouldn't go forward and asked you all to
pull back. I would like to get your opinion, what is your
reaction to the President saying your smog ruling is not a good
move to make and asked you all to pull that back.
Ms. McCarthy. The President issued a statement and it
should speak for itself.
Mr. Scalise. But you are the agency that is tasked with
that rule. I mean, what is your opinion on it?
Ms. McCarthy. Once again, the President made the decision
and he asked the agency to pull back that rule, and clearly the
agency will and we will work very aggressively on the next
review, which is what he asked us to do, the most current
science, and we will move forward in 2013 to look----
Mr. Scalise. Hopefully you all take that approach with
these other rules that are costing jobs.
I yield back. Thanks.
Ms. McCarthy. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Virginia, Mr. Griffith, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Griffith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am a little concerned. Earlier today you said that you
all are going through public comment and you didn't need any
help with the legislature, and I am just curious about that
statement. Did you really mean that?
Ms. McCarthy. Well, what I meant was there an indication or
an inference that this legislation was in response to a need
that EPA expressed, and it is not.
Mr. Griffith. So you understand that it is in fact the
legislature's job that all of us, as many have already stated,
it is our job to go out and listen to our constituents and then
we face election each year. You understand that?
Ms. McCarthy. And it is EPA's job to implement the laws
that you enact.
Mr. Griffith. And it is also our job then to review those
laws to determine whether or not we believe it in the best
interest of the United States and if the public believes that
there is something we should do that we should change it which
is why the Founding Fathers gave us a 2-year time and not a
lifetime term. Do you agree with that?
Ms. McCarthy. I would not presume to do your job.
Mr. Griffith. And were you just getting a little testy with
us when you said in Section 5 that you weren't sure who was
being--who the burden was on, whether it was the industries or
whether it was the air-breathing public. Was that just a little
testy comment, or do you really believe that?
Ms. McCarthy. I think I was trying to make a point about
the lack of clarity in that language and the uncertainty that
it would bring to the table and the potential it has to add
uncertainty in the legal world that would preclude us from
moving forward to achieve the benefit, the health benefits that
the Clean Air Act intended.
Mr. Griffith. But you wouldn't acknowledge that the line in
section 5 that says the Administration shall impose the least
burdensome refers back to the beginning of that paragraph where
it says for each regulation promulgated?
Ms. McCarthy. But whose burden should we look at? What we
look at are the health benefits compared with the costs
associated with the implementation of that rule and we maximize
the benefits and we minimize the cost to the extent that we
can.
Mr. Griffith. But you said earlier, and I am just curious
about it, because you said earlier that, you know, you weren't
sure whether that--and the same thing you just said to me--you
weren't sure who that applied to as to the burden and you said
the air-breathing public, and I guess I am questioning that
because the air-breathing public, we breathe out what you all
have determined to be a pollutant, CO2, and I am wondering if
that is some precursor to--I mean, I don't think so, I thought
it was just a testy comment, but now I am getting some of the
same stuff back. Is that a precursor to you all anticipating
regulations on the air-breathing public because this paragraph
clearly only deals with regulations promulgated in relationship
to the Clean Air Act. Are you following me?
Ms. McCarthy. I don't think so, but let me----
Mr. Griffith. OK. Let me state to you then that it looks
very clear to me it applies to regulations that you all--I
don't think there is any question that that paragraph deals
with regulations that you all implement----
Ms. McCarthy. Oh, I think I misinterpreted----
Mr. Griffith [continuing]. In Section 2A in the Clean Air
Act----
Ms. McCarthy [continuing]. Your comment. What I was----
Mr. Griffith [continuing]. And so if you think it applies
to the air-breathing public, you must be getting ready to
regulate it.
Ms. McCarthy. No, no. When the agency interprets burden, is
it the burden to industry to comply or is it the health burdens
associated with the pollution for the breathing public? That
was my point. I apologize if I was indicating that I would be
regulating individuals.
Mr. Griffith. Well, I didn't think you were but then I have
seen strange----
Ms. McCarthy. That is certainly what I intended.
Mr. Griffith [continuing]. Things coming out of the EPA, so
I wasn't certain. That being said, you all don't think that
there are any time problems for these industries? You are
dealing with a number of them. We heard about Oregon and other
places and you don't think there are any time issues. You think
that we should stay, and in your responses to Congressman
Dingell, you indicated that you thought the timelines should
remain exactly the same and go into effect in April
notwithstanding other questions have come up and said there is
a problem here and you say we are working with them. Do you
still think the timeline that you all have laid out is
perfectly reasonable?
Ms. McCarthy. I would tell you that administratively, we
have the tools available to us to address the timeline concerns
and we will certainly be looking at these with three out of the
four rules. We have stayed them ourselves, and we are going
through a reconsideration process. All I am suggesting is----
Mr. Griffith. But I am correct that that reconsideration
process has actually been objected to by certain groups and the
courts. Is that not true?
Ms. McCarthy. That is true.
Mr. Griffith. And so there is a possibility that if the
court rules that your reconsideration was not proper, that we
are stuck with the March 2011 regulations. Isn't that true?
Ms. McCarthy. The agency believes that that the authority
that Congress has afforded EPA allows us to stay the rules in
exactly the way we have done it and that we are not at----
Mr. Griffith. But that is currently in the courts being
thought out, so----
Ms. McCarthy. As is most of our rules, yes.
Mr. Griffith. But we don't have any guarantee unless we do
something that we are not going to get stuck with the March
2011 rules. Isn't that true? Knowing that the courts--that we
can disagree with the courts but sometimes they rule in ways
that we don't anticipate. Isn't that true?
Ms. McCarthy. I do not believe that you are at risk of
having a court tell you that we should be stopping our
reconsideration process and completing it by April of next
year.
Mr. Griffith. But you would agree that any good lawyer has
been wrong at some point in time as to what the courts might
do, would you not?
Ms. McCarthy. I have pointed that out a few times.
Mr. Griffith. I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Whitfield. At this time I recognize the gentleman from
Massachusetts, Mr. Markey, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
Forty-nine years ago in September of 1962, President
Kennedy issued an urgent call to the Nation to be bold. He said
that we shall send to the moon 240,000 miles away from the
control station in Houston a giant rocket more than 300 feet
tall, the length of a football field, made of new metal alloys,
some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing
heat and stresses several times more than have ever been
experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the
finest watch, and we did it, and we did it less than 7 years
after that speech.
Today we are holding a hearing on Republican legislation
that essentially exempts the cement industry and industrial
boiler sector from having to install existing technologies.
Nothing has to be invented at all to remove mercury and other
toxics from their smokestacks because evidently the can-do
Nation that sent a man to the moon in under 10 years just can't
do it when it comes to cleaning up air pollution using
commercially available technologies that already are on the
shelf today.
Now, shortly after the 1996 Telecommunications Act was
passed out of this committee, it became the law. We were
transformed as a Nation from a black rotary dial phone Nation
to a BlackBerry and iPad nation. This committee say we can do
it, but can we install the best available technologies in
cement kilns to reduce the amount of mercury poisoning in
children's brains? No, that is just too hard. We can't find
anyone smart enough to figure it out. Instead of installing
commercially available technology on cement kilns, cement
plants, we will just install a Portland cement shoe on the EPA
and throw it in the river, and if the EPA doesn't die from
drowning, the mercury will definitely kill it.
Ms. McCarthy, 2 months ago the House considered a bill to
ban compact fluorescent light bulbs. During debate on that
bill, we were repeatedly told by the Republicans that the
mercury vapors from those light bulbs is dangerous, and even
that ``exposing our citizens to the harmful effects of the
mercury contained in CFL light bulbs is likely to pose a hazard
for years to come.''
Now, the cement rule that we are debating here today alone
would reduce mercury emissions, which the Republicans really
care about, by 16,600 pounds per year. Now, there are three 3
milligrams of mercury in one compact fluorescent light bulb,
almost seven-millionths of a pound. So the cement rule will
eliminate the same amount of mercury in 1 year as banning two
and a half billion compact fluorescent light bulbs.
Ms. McCarthy, what is the greater public health threat, the
tons of mercury coming out of cement kilns that are being sent
right up into the atmosphere or light bulbs?
Ms. McCarthy. Based on the information provided, it is
clear that it is cement.
Mr. Markey. Cement. Well, I am glad that the Republicans
can hear that. Cement is a greater threat because we have heard
so much concern about light bulbs from them this year and
mercury.
Now, we have been told that all these bills do is to give
EPA an extra 15 months to study and refine its proposals
though, of course, that is on top of the 20 years it has been
since Congress told the EPA to set these standards in the first
place. Now, EPA asked the courts for an extra 15 months to
refine its boiler regulations. Did EPA also ask for an
additional 15 months to refine its cement regulations?
Ms. McCarthy. No.
Mr. Markey. Now, isn't it true that these bills actually
remove any deadline for finalizing the rules?
Ms. McCarthy. Yes.
Mr. Markey. Do you agree that if the EPA for some reason
chose not to finalize them for years, it would be virtually
impossible to force the EPA to act?
Ms. McCarthy. It would be unclear how.
Mr. Markey. Now, the way I understand this part of the
Clean Air Act, EPA basically grades on a curve. To get an A,
you just have to do what the other A students do by installing
the same commercially available technologies that the cleaner
facilities have. Is that not right?
Ms. McCarthy. Yes.
Mr. Markey. So no one has to invent anything new in order
to comply with the rule?
Ms. McCarthy. This is existing equipment that can achieve
these standards.
Mr. Markey. I thank the chairman.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you.
At this time I recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Olson, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Olson. I thank the chair, and first of all, as a member
who represents the Johnson Space Center, I appreciate my
colleague from Massachusetts with his comments about human
spaceflight and the Johnson Space Center, and for all of you
out there, that is an example of bipartisanship on Capitol
Hill, so thank you for those comments.
Assistant Administrator McCarthy, great to see you again,
and thank you so much for coming here today. I appreciate your
willingness to testify, and I appreciate your apology about the
tardiness of your written testimony for the committee members,
but my point is, and my only comment about that is, apologizing
to me is important but you should apologize to the people of
Texas 22, the people I represent. They have got many, many
questions about what EPA is doing there and how it is impacting
their business, and because we got this testimony in a tardy
manner, I am not doing the best job I can representing them, so
I appreciate your apology and your commitment to making sure
this never, ever happens again. And that is all I have to say
about that, as Forrest Gump would say.
But I do have other things I want to say, and I am
concerned that the EPA did not do their homework when they
determined the maximum achievable control technology floor, and
as I understand it and as we are going to hear in the panel
after you, in many cases these standards are not achievable by
real-world boilers. The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments require
the EPA to promulgate technology-based emission standards but
it allows for the possible supplementation of health-based
standards. In your opening statement, and this is a rough
quote, you said that every American is entitled to healthy air
and a job. The committee agrees with that, but there has to be
some balance, and again, the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990
recognize that. Technology-based is the primary one balanced in
some cases with supplementation by health-based standards. And
so my question for you is, is there enough data out there to
supplement health-based standards over technology-based
standards for the hazardous air pollution sources?
Ms. McCarthy. There is not enough information for us to
make the decision under the law that using a health-based
emissions limit would be sufficiently protective with an
adequate margin of safety.
Mr. Olson. OK. So if there is not enough data, how does the
EPA determine and monetize the health benefits, positive health
benefits that can be attributed to the boiler MACT rule?
Ms. McCarthy. I think it is a bit of apples and oranges. A
health-based emissions limit is something that would be
proposed to us to take a look at that would identify risks
associated with a health standard as opposed to technology
being installed. We can clearly and have assessed the health
benefits the same way the prior Administration did. We assess
the health benefits associated with our rule, taking a look at
what technologies are available and how those rules could be
achieved using that technology. A health-based emissions limit
wouldn't establish a limit. It would simply say everything is
OK at this facility if you manage it in a particular way. We
did not certainly feel that with toxic pollutants that we could
do anything other than have a complete assessment as to whether
or not that health-based limit would actually achieve the kind
of health protections that are required under the Clean Air
Act, and we simply didn't have that information to make that
judgment.
Mr. Dingell. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Olson. I have got a couple more questions and I will
yield back the remainder of my time, but one more question
following up on that. So you said there isn't enough data to
determine and monetize the health benefits that can be
attributed to the boiler MACT rule. Just following up on my
colleague from Virginia's comments about foreign sources. As
you know, Texas is a border State. I mean, one-half of the
southern border is the great State of Texas, 1,200 miles, and I
am very concerned that many of the emissions that are coming
across the border standards that our businesses in Texas are
being held to the Clean Air Act standards, and you say that
there is not enough data to supplement the health standards yet
we are promulgating standards. Why can't we determine some sort
of health standard for the emissions coming from foreign
sources? Why do our businesses in the great State of Texas have
to be penalized because they are being required the emissions
that are somehow coming across the border, they are going to be
in the line of fire. How come we can't separate that out and
give them some sort of credit so we can keep the business right
here in America?
Ms. McCarthy. We actually do have a wealth of information
and it is part of the public disclosure associated with this
rule and others on what type of pollution is coming in from
other parts of the world and we do not challenge our facilities
to account for that or to reduce that but we do account for
their own emissions and we do look at what technologies are
available that are cost-effective that will achieve significant
public health improvement.
Mr. Olson. Well, just in summary, I will tell you that
every time I go back home, the businesses back there,
particularly the petrochemical businesses on the Port of
Houston, feel like they are required to carry these emissions
coming from foreign sources. It is unfair. It kills American
jobs.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Dingell. Will the gentleman yield to me?
Mr. Olson. I will yield, sir, but I have got a zero zero
zero on the clock.
Mr. Dingell. Madam Administrator, you are giving me in your
comments to my colleagues the impression that you are going to
come forward with decisions on rules, which you will put in
place before the questions associated with those rules have
been fully answered and before you can assure us that you are
not going to have to run out very shortly and initiate a new
set of rules. It strikes me that if that is the case, you are
creating a serious problem both in terms of the administration
of the law and politically for the agency. Can you assure me
that you are not doing that and that when you conclude these
rules that you will have then a rule which will be settled so
that business can make the decisions and so that they will not
have to run out and make new investments to satisfy a
subsequent enactment of a new rule which will be made after the
first rule has been completed?
Ms. McCarthy. Mr. Dingell, perhaps I wasn't as clear in
what I was speaking about. When I was talking about the health-
based emissions limit, which is I think what you are talking
about, I believed that we were talking about the cement rule,
which has actually been finalized, and the fact that in that
rule we did tee up comment and we solicited comment on whether
or not we could do a health-based emissions limit, and we asked
for the data necessary to ensure that an emissions limit could
be established that was lower than a technology limit, a
technology-based limit that would be sufficiently protective. I
was not speaking to the rules that are going to be
reconsidered.
Mr. Dingell. You have given me no comfort, Madam
Administrator. I am driven to the conclusion that you are
telling me that when you have completed this, there is a
probability that you will initiate new efforts to come forward
with a new rule under perhaps different sections of the Clean
Air Act. I regard that as being an extraordinarily unwise
action by the agency in several parts.
Mr. Whitfield. The gentleman from West Virginia, Mr.
McKinley, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am trying to grasp all this, and I appreciate your coming
back in. We have had some interesting discussions here in this
committee with you. Go back to the issue that we brought up a
minute ago about 1962. I certainly wouldn't take offense to
that because it is something taken out of context. We weren't
in the middle or the tail end of a recession in 1962, were we?
Ms. McCarthy. I don't remember.
Mr. McKinley. But we were someplace, you and I. but that
was a different time, and I don't think anyone is saying that
there is not a can-do ability, but right now we have 9.1
percent unemployment. We just got announced last month that
there were no job increases whatsoever across America. So our
businesses are trying to make some decisions. They know they
can replace the boilers. If he is correct that they are on the
shelf, for right now I will accept that. I am not sure I am
going to completely buy that but I will accept that premise.
But they have to make a decision. They have to make a decision
right now in this economy. And over the break, I had an
opportunity to visit two lumber producers in West Virginia, and
both of them pleaded with me to give us time, more time. They
have gone to--they are talking to the banks. First they are
saying we meet some standards now, we are not polluting under
the old standard, we are meeting some standards, we are meeting
Clean Air Act, we are meeting the EPA standards, we are meeting
those standards, and for someone to tighten the bolt right now
in this economy is threatening them because there is already
one other major manufacturer in West Virginia lumber that went
out of business due to this economy.
We are hearing because of Dodd-Frank, some of the banks are
not as anxious to loan money to the lumber industry now in this
economy because it is a risky loan in this economy so there is
some reservation for that. So they are asking us--the one
company was $6 million, they have already got an estimate to
make this replacement, and they are trying--how do I make this
choice because their own analysis has said if they do make this
investment, the likelihood of their company surviving over a
period of time won't be. They know it is marginal right now.
They have lost money for the last 2 years, and to go out and
borrow $6 million more puts 600 people at risk, 600 people.
So I am asking you, if you had--if you were sitting in that
boardroom and you know that your company has lost money the
last numbers of years, but yet the EPA is saying we want you to
buy something off the shelf and put it in place and it is going
to cost you $6 million and you probably are going to lose your
600 jobs, what do you do? What would you do under that--what is
wrong with their business decision to ask for a delay until
this economy gets a little stronger and they can be more
competitive? What is the matter with that?
Ms. McCarthy. Mr. McKinley, I will tell you that EPA is
certainly not oblivious to the economic challenges that we are
all facing. If you look at the rules and the way in which we
are evaluating our rules, we are doing a better job every rule
to try to understand the economics----
Mr. McKinley. What does he do in that boardroom?
Ms. McCarthy [continuing]. To try to understand the jobs.
Mr. McKinley. Ms. McCarthy, you have to make a decision
because you are breathing down his neck.
Ms. McCarthy. We have successfully through the 40-year
history of the Clean Air Act found a way to grow the economy
with significant----
Mr. McKinley. Oh, you all said that. You said that before.
You came in here and you said yourself that the EPA has
actually created jobs and you said it here again today, and I
am still waiting. I asked you then back in February if you
could provide that information of how the EPA regulations
create jobs, and I still don't have it. This is now September
and I still haven't received that report of how your
regulations create jobs. You said it here today. You said you
are expecting job growth if the EPA standards were put into
effect.
Ms. McCarthy. That is correct.
Mr. McKinley. What are we talking about? Construction jobs
that last for 6 months but then put the 600 people out of work
in my district? That doesn't work. I don't understand where you
are going but you haven't still answered my initial--if you
were in the boardroom, what would you do? Put your company
under or would you let the people go?
Ms. McCarthy. I firmly believe that we need to meet our
economic challenges in a way that continues to grow the
economy. That is my belief and I think we have done it and I
think we can continue to do that.
Mr. Whitfield. The gentleman from California, Mr. Bilbray,
is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Bilbray. Thank you.
Ms. McCarthy, how many years have you served at the local
level administering the Clean Air Act?
Ms. McCarthy. I served--well, I don't know whether I could
say I administered the Clean Air Act but I worked at the local
level for 11 years.
Mr. Bilbray. OK. You know, I was one of the few people on
this side of the aisle to support Mr. Markey's position on the
light bulb issue but let me tell you something, after 16 years
as a local administrator with the best scientists in the world
in California, which you would admit that California----
Ms. McCarthy. They are good, but I came from Massachusetts.
Mr. Bilbray. That is why you adopt our fuel standards and
supported our action to eliminate the ethanol-methanol mandate.
Ms. McCarthy. Fair point.
Mr. Bilbray. But my point being, I was a little taken aback
that somebody in your position did not take the opportunity to
point out to Mr. Markey that to compare ambient air and indoor
air exposures is really inappropriate, especially with the
challenges we have seen. And can we clarify the fact that there
are major challenges in indoor air and we shouldn't be mixing
those two up and giving the impression that somehow from the
health risk point of view it is all the same?
Ms. McCarthy. They are very different exposures.
Mr. Bilbray. Thank you. I am very concerned about that
because of science.
Now, my biggest concern, as I look at things like the solid
waste emissions regs where a company has to address the
emissions for that day, but if you take the same waste and you
put it off and bury it, those emissions have to be mitigated
per day for the next 60 to 70 years, but there is no penalty
for the fact that you are basically sending the emissions off
to your grandchildren. It is almost like the regulations
encourage people to do the environmentally irresponsible thing
because on paper it looks good for that 24-hour period but in
fact, in a lifecycle, you are actually having a cumulative
impact and those emissions are going to be pollutant. It is
that kind of regulation as an air regulator that I am just
outraged that we are not brave enough to stand up and talk
about and the environmental community activists and regulatory
have walked away from it.
I would ask you, what State has been more aggressive at
moving regulatory oversight and mandates than the State of
California when it has come to clean air?
Ms. McCarthy. I would say that California has been very
aggressive. It's air pollution challenges have been quite
extreme.
Mr. Bilbray. OK. And I will say this as somebody who had
the privilege of doing that. I think people on my side of the
aisle are in denial of the health challenges of environmental
risk, but I have got to tell you something, when you stand up
and give us the same line that California has been using for
decades, that this will be great for business, we have gone
from being the powerhouse in this country and the world, the
California economy, to a 12 percent unemployment to the fact
that you do not manufacture almost anything in California
anymore, when we have gotten to the point where our scientists
who are developing green fuel technology have to leave the
State because they cannot get the permits or the ability
financially to be able to produce it in the State. I just think
that we are really in denial if you really think that
California is wealthier, more prosperous and that the green
technology is penciled out so much that it is now an example of
the huge benefits of regulatory mandates actually helping the
economy in the long run, and I just ask you to consider the
fact that for those of us that don't have the cement
manufacturing in my district--I don't. We are importing it from
Mexico, the components for concrete. We don't talk about the
mobile sources. And my question to you is this. Is there a
consideration of the increased mobile sources if these plants
break down? Because why not produce it in Kampichi and ship the
cement up the river into these areas?
Ms. McCarthy. There has not been a full lifecycle
assessment of this, no.
Mr. Bilbray. I bring up, we found out that by not doing a
full lifecycle on things like ethanol, we realized we grossly
underestimated the environmental impact because we did not do
the full cycle. Don't you agree that there was a mistake made
there?
Ms. McCarthy. The only thing I would point out to you is
that I think the comparison with California, looking at its
National Ambient Air Quality challenges, and compare that to
technology-based solutions that will drive toxic pollution down
is not exactly an equal comparison.
Mr. Bilbray. The equal comparison is the fact, though, that
the projections of an economic boon from the enforcement of
environmental regs was grossly overstated in California and
historically has been overstated in the United States, and I
will bring it up again: the great selling point of fuel
additives that have been told by scientists in the 1990s that
the Federal Government is making a mistake about, we continue
to this day to follow that failed policy with the environmental
damage and the economic damage caused by it, and we don't
reverse it. My concern is not that we try new things or we make
mistakes but when we try new things and make mistakes, we don't
go back and correct it. It has been how many years since we put
a clean fuel mandate out that everybody knows was a failure.
Ms. McCarthy. We are moving forward with these rules
because the Clean Air Act requires it. We are long delayed.
There are significant public health benefits but we clearly
look at the economy and ensure that we are doing it as cost-
effectively as we can and to assess the impacts.
Mr. Bilbray. And I think you are denying the economic
impact as much as you damn the other side for denying the
environmental impact.
Mr. Whitfield. At this time the chair recognizes the
gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Gardner, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gardner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Madam
Administrator for being here today.
A couple of questions. I appreciate your support that you
give in your testimony for meeting deadlines and the importance
of deadlines in the Clean Air Act, but I am concerned that not
all deadlines are equal in the eyes of the EPA. The Clean Air
Act has an express 1-year deadline for taking final agency
action on PSD permits. However, when you look at drilling in
offshore Alaska, some of these permits continue to languish for
5 years. They have prevented us from accessing billions of
barrels of oil that could make a long-term dent in gasoline
prices in the United States. Why does the EPA pick and choose
statutory deadlines that it feels to abide by?
Ms. McCarthy. We actually try very hard to meet the
statutory deadlines, and the 1-year deadline is one that we are
doing everything we can to achieve. There are certainly
challenges with ensuring that we get complete information so
that the application can be assessed and we can move that
forward. We work very hard with applicants to expedite
permitting as much as possible.
Mr. Gardner. Do you think some deadlines have more
importance than other deadlines?
Ms. McCarthy. I think that the law treats them all equally
and I think we are equally obligated to do them.
Mr. Gardner. But the EPA hasn't followed the law.
Ms. McCarthy. We do our best to do that, to meet every
deadline in the statute. Do we always succeed? Absolutely not.
Mr. Gardner. Two months prior to announcing the boiler MACT
rules, the EPA sought a 15-month extension to re-propose three
of the rules. Do you believe it is accurate to assume that the
EPA needed an extension because the rules needed more work?
Ms. McCarthy. The rules actually changed significantly from
proposal to final. We felt that they were legally vulnerable
without entertaining more public comment and process associated
with those changes.
Mr. Gardner. So it needed more work?
Ms. McCarthy. Say it again.
Mr. Gardner. So it needed more work?
Ms. McCarthy. It needed more public comment.
Mr. Gardner. But just public comment, not more--oK.
Ms. McCarthy. We are certainly opening up to more work
because we solicited additional comment, and with more data, we
will take a look at it.
Mr. Gardner. In your statement, you stated in your
statement that it is terrifically misleading to say that
enforcement of the Clean Air Act costs jobs. Have you ever had
a manufacturing facility tell you personally that it simply
cannot comply with all the regulations coming out of the EPA?
Ms. McCarthy. Many times.
Mr. Gardner. Your testimony says that for every $1 million
spent in environmental spending to comply with environmental
rules, it creates 1.5 jobs. According to the forest products
industry, $7 billion it will cost to comply with the boiler
MACT rule. Are you then saying that that will create 10,500
jobs?
Ms. McCarthy. No, I am not, and I am also not indicating
that----
Mr. Gardner. Why would you----
Ms. McCarthy [continuing]. I agree--I was actually quoting
a study that looked at specific industry sectors, and that----
Mr. Gardner. But you must agree with it if you put it in
the statement.
Ms. McCarthy. I agree that that literature has been peer-
reviewed and it is sound science, yes.
Mr. Gardner. So then for every $1 million in spending,
the----
Ms. McCarthy. In those four sectors is what that----
Mr. Gardner. And the paper and pulp industry, I believe, is
one of the four sectors so you are saying that $7 billion----
Ms. McCarthy. I am not indicating at all that I believe the
numbers that industry has indicated it associated with the cost
of these rules. These major source boilers will in no way is
estimated using scientific peer-reviewed methods to cost
anywhere near that figure.
Mr. Gardner. Do you believe that these regulations
altogether will put a number of operations out of business?
Ms. McCarthy. I believe that there will be choices made by
industry on how they will comply.
Mr. Gardner. Including whether they stay in business or
not?
Ms. McCarthy. That is going to be their choice looking at a
variety of factors, perhaps least of which is compliance with
these regulations.
Mr. Gardner. So the EPA's own number on boiler cost was $5
billion, so that is just a little bit less than----
Ms. McCarthy. No, actually the boiler cost was a little
less than $2 billion.
Mr. Gardner. That is the information I have was $5 billion
from the EPA.
Ms. McCarthy. That was actually the proposal. We have cut
that in half using flexibilities under the law and looking at
new data.
Mr. Gardner. So later we are going to hear the president
and CEO of Lehigh Hanson talking about a loss of 4,000 jobs. Do
you believe that business owners are being disingenuous when
they tell us that it is going to cost them 4,000 jobs?
Ms. McCarthy. I don't want to attribute motive to anything.
All I can tell you is under the history of the Clean Air Act,
industry has significantly overstated anticipated costs and
they have not come to be.
Mr. Gardner. In your testimony, I counted the number of
times where you say things like ``in contrast to doomsday
predictions, history has shown again and again that we can
clean up pollution, create jobs and grow the economy. Economic
analysis suggests the economy is billions of dollars larger
today.'' Let us see. ``Some would have us believe that job
killing describes EPA's regulations. It is terrifically
misleading. Investments in labor-intensive upgrades that can
put current unemployed or underemployed Americans back to work
as a result of environmental regulations. Jobs also come from
building and installing pollution control equipment.'' Let us
see. ``Contrary to claims that EPA's agenda will have negative
economic consequences, regulations yield important economic
benefits.'' Let us see. It goes on. You say, ``Moreover, the
standards will provide these benefits without imposing hardship
on America's economy or jeopardizing American job creation.''
Late last month, President Obama withdrew the ozone
standards. He said, ``I have continued to underscore the
importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory
uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to
recover.'' Mr. Sunstein's letter to your agency said, ``The
President has directed me to continue to work closely with
executive agencies to minimize regulatory costs and burdens.''
Is he wrong then? Your testimony talks about creating jobs
through environmental regulations. Was the President wrong in
making that----
Mr. Rush. Regular order, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Whitfield. The gentleman's time has expired. Did you
want to respond?
Ms. McCarthy. No, the President made a sound decision and
the agency is following it.
Mr. Gardner. A sound decision? He made a sound decision?
Mr. Whitfield. At this time we will conclude the questions
for the first panel, and Ms. McCarthy, we appreciate your being
here today. As you remember, many of the members had questions
and further comments that they would ask the EPA to respond to,
so we look forward to your getting back to us with that
information and our staffs will be working with you all to make
sure that all of that is taken care of. So thank you very much.
Ms. McCarthy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Whitfield. At this time I would like to call up the
second panel. On the second panel today, we have Mr. Daniel
Harrington, who is the President and CEO of Lehigh Hanson
Incorporated. We have Mr. James Rubright, who is the Chairman
and CEO of RockTenn Company. We have Dr. Paul Gilman, who is
the Chief Sustainability Officer and Senior Vice President,
Covanta Energy Corporation. We have Mr. John Walke, who is the
Clean Air Director and Senior Attorney for the Natural
Resources Defense Council. We have Mr. Eric Schaeffer, who is
the Executive Director for the Environmental Integrity Project.
We have Dr. Peter Valberg, who is the Principal in
Environmental Health at Gradient Corporation, and we have Mr.
Todd Elliott, General Manager, Acetate Celanese Corporation.
So thank all of you for being here today. We appreciate
your patience, and we look forward to your testimony. Each one
of you will be given 5 minutes for an opening statement, and
then we will have our questions at that point.
So Mr. Harrington, we will call on you for your 5-minute
opening statement. Thank you.
STATEMENTS OF DANIEL M. HARRINGTON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, LEHIGH
HANSON, INC.; JAMES A. RUBRIGHT, CEO, ROCK-TENN COMPANY; PAUL
GILMAN, PH.D., CHIEF SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER, COVANTA ENERGY
CORPORATION; JOHN D. WALKE, CLEAN AIR DIRECTOR AND SENIOR
ATTORNEY, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL; ERIC SCHAEFFER,
DIRECTOR, ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRITY PROJECT; PETER A. VALBERG,
PH.D., PRINCIPAL, GRADIENT CORPORATION; AND TODD ELLIOTT,
GENERAL MANAGER, ACETATE, CELANESE CORPORATION
STATEMENT OF DANIEL M. HARRINGTON
Mr. Harrington. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am Dan
Harrington. I am the President and CEO for Lehigh Hanson, and
we are one of the United States' largest suppliers of heavy
building materials to the construction industry. Our products
include cement, brick precast pipe, ready-mixed concrete, sand
and gravel, stone, and many other building materials. We have
500 operations in 34 States and we employ about 10,000 people
in the United States. Also, I am presently the Chairman of the
Government Affairs Council of the Portland Cement Association,
and our association represents 97 percent of the U.S. cement
manufacturing capacity. We have nearly 100 plants in 36 States
and distribution facilities in all 50 States. We also employ
approximately 13,000 employees. I am here today to express
strong support for H.R. 2681, the Cement Sector Regulatory
Relief Act of 2011.
The current recession has been too long and too deep, and
it has left the cement industry in its weakest economic
conditions since the 1930s. Domestic demand for cement has
dropped by more than 35 percent in the past 4 years, and we
have shed over 4,000 job in the United States. Although 13,000
well-paying cement manufacturing jobs remain, and their average
compensation of $75,000 a year, there are three EPA rules in
particular which could force the loss of an additional 4,000
jobs, as you heard a second ago. Specifically, the National
Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants rule, or
NESHAP, for the Portland cement industry, the commercial and
industrial solid waste incinerator, CISWI, rule, and finally,
the agency's change in the definition of solid waste.
In the face of all the economic uncertainty that faces our
great Nation, the industry welcomes the introduction of H.R.
2681. It will mitigate regulatory uncertainty and place these
rules on a more reasonable schedule. Second, it will enable our
industry to continue to make capital investments in the United
States that will preserve jobs. It will also give us time to
resolve the differences with the EPA on individual compliance
levels which will result in regulations that are fair, balanced
and, most importantly, achievable. Moreover, it will provide
the time necessary for the economy to recover to a point where
the industry is able to invest in plant upgrades and cost
reductions again.
Earlier this year, the Portland Cement Association
completed an analysis of the economic and environmental impacts
of several final and proposed EPA rules, including those
addressed by H.R. 2681. The study concluded that one rule alone
would impose a $3.4 billion capital investment on an industry
that generated $6.5 billion in revenues in 2010. Now, the EPA
did its own cost analysis, and their statistics show that it
would require a $2.2 billion capital investment. So whether it
is $2.2 billion or $3.4 billion, it is significant capital
investment, and no one has addressed operating cost increases
due to the new equipment, which will be plus 5 to 10 percent
over our current cost structure just to operate our plants in
the future.
Also as you have heard, 18 of our plants could close, and
although the EPA downplays the consequence of job loss, these
job losses, the realities are that these jobs will not be
readily absorbed in the communities where most plants are
located. Therefore, the multiplier effect takes place in our
communities where contractors, service employers, raw material
suppliers who feed our cement plants with goods and services
and consultants no longer will have employment either to
support the towns and villages where our cement plants are
located. The agency also does not account for the impact of
these closures outside the cement sector. Disruptions to the
availability of supplies will have adverse impacts on our
construction sector, which, as you know, has an unemployment
rate of nearly 20 percent. If the economy rebounds, a decrease
in domestic production will require an increase in imported
cement, probably up to as high as 50 percent by the year 2025.
All of that cement will be coming in from offshore sites from
around the world.
Two other rules, the so-called CISWI and related definition
of solid waste, would force an additional four plant closures
and add another $2 billion in compliance costs by 2015.
Ironically, these also actually undermine the rulemaking that
is in place for NESHAP and cause conflict in the two standards
for us to choose which way to go or how to invest.
The basic elements of the Cement Regulatory Relief Act, a
re-proposal of the rules followed by an extension of the
compliance deadline, provide a win-win opportunity for American
workers and for the environment. This bipartisan bill is also
consistent with the President's Executive Order issued earlier
this year calling for reasonable regulations.
I thank you for this opportunity to testify, and I welcome
any questions as we go through the day. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Harrington follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Mr. Harrington.
Mr. Rubright, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JAMES A. RUBRIGHT
Mr. Rubright. Thank you, Chairman Whitfield, Ranking Member
Rush and members of the subcommittee. My name is Jim Rubright
and I am the CEO of RockTenn, and I am testifying today on
behalf of the American Forest and Paper Association and
RockTenn. RockTenn is one of America's largest manufacturers of
corrugated and paperboard packaging and recycling solutions. We
operate 245 manufacturing facilities and we employ 26,000
people, well over 22,000 of whom are in the United States. I am
here today to express support of RockTenn and the other AF&PA
member companies for H.R. 2250.
We need the additional time and certainty provided by the
bill for many reasons. The EPA needs the time provided in this
bill to write a boiler MACT rule that is achievable, affordable
and based on sound science. Our companies need the time to
develop compliance strategies which don't exist today in full
and to implement the massive capital expenditure programs that
will be required to comply with the rule and to do so once and
to do so with certainty. Our country needs and deserves this
bill in order to mitigate the adverse impact of boiler MACT and
the related rulemakings on job growth and economic recovery.
Please let me explain. First, a jobs study produced by the
AF&PA by Fisher International finds that the boiler MACT
regulations will result in significant job losses within the
forest products industry. Specifically, the Fisher study
concludes that the boiler MACT rules impose on top of the other
pending regulations that will impact the forest products
industry will put over 20,000 direct jobs only in the pulp and
paper sector at risk. That is about 18 percent of the pulp and
paper industry's total workforce. Adding the impact on
suppliers and downstream spending manufacturing income puts the
total number of jobs at risk at 87,000 jobs. When the boiler
MACT rules are combined with other pending Air Act rules, and I
have included an exhibit that shows 20 rules that we face over
the next few years, the jobs at risk rise to 38,000 direct pulp
and paper jobs and 161,000 total jobs.
The economic consequences of these rules will be felt most
keenly in communities that cannot afford further job losses.
Most of our mills are located in rural communities where there
are few alternatives for employees who see their mills close,
and since 1990, in answer to one of the questions that was
asked earlier, 221 mills have closed in the United States,
costing 150,000 jobs. We need Congress's help to avoid this
outcome.
I would also ask you to bear in mind that RockTenn and its
predecessors through mergers has already wasted $80 million
trying to comply with the 2004 boiler MACT rule that was
eventually vacated by the courts just 3 months before the
compliance deadline.
Let me cite the positive things that the bill does to help
our companies. This bill will go a long way to see that the EPA
has adequate additional time to promulgate a boiler MACT rule
that is based on sound science. Earlier this year, as you know,
the EPA was driven by court-imposed deadlines to issue a final
boiler rule it knew was flawed. By giving the EPA time it needs
to properly address this complex scientific and technological
issues associated with boiler MACT to free us from the risk of
litigation imposing an earlier effective date of that act, H.R.
2250 will actually help avoid further delays, reduce the
uncertainty which is going to follow from the certain
litigation that will follow the adoption of the final rule and
therefore reduce the risk to us of further wasted capital
expenditures.
The EPA's non-hazardous secondary material rules, which is
a companion to the boiler MACT rule, will make biomass and
other alternative fuels commonly used for energy in the pulp
and paper industry subject to regulation as a solid waste.
Please remember, our virgin mills generate about 70 percent of
their total energy requirements from biomass recovered in our
paper making. Classifying a part of this biomass as waste will
dramatically increase the cost of compliance with these
unnecessary burdens, likely resulting in the closure of many
mills and causing many others to switch from biofuels to fossil
fuels. The 3-year compliance period is too short and will again
force our member companies to make substantial capital
expenditures inefficiently and based on our current best
guesses of what the final rules will provide. We estimate the
boiler MACT will cost our industry $7 billion in capital, 200
for RockTenn alone, and our annual operating costs will
increase by $31 million. Based on the rule the EPA is
considering, our suppliers can't even assure us that this or
any amount of capital will make us fully compliant. We don't
have the excess capital lying around to have a replay of the
2004 boiler MACT rule fiasco. We need this bill to avoid this
terrible result.
Finally, we need this bill to make sure that the EPA's stay
of the boiler MACT rule remains intact and is not reversed
prematurely through court actions.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I thank you
for offering this bill.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rubright follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you.
Dr. Gilman, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF PAUL GILMAN
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. I speak to
you today as an employee of Covanta Energy, which is one of he
Nation's largest biomass-to-electricity producers. I also speak
to you as a former Assistant Administrator of the EPA for
Research and Science Advisor for the agency.
We currently operate biomass facilities that will be
affected by these MACTs. The fuel is largely agricultural and
forestry residue, making us one of the more sustainable uses of
biomass. Currently, we are walking an economic tightrope for
those facilities. Two are in standby mode because we are having
to balance high fuel prices with low power revenues. One of our
facilities has been operating on an intermittent basis this
year.
As a company that operates under the Clean Air Act, we
believe it is key to our being viewed as a good neighbor in our
community, so we support it and we support its goals, but we do
believe the EPA had a right to ask the courts for more time. We
think the EPA had it right when they asked for more
information, more data for the boiler and CISWI MACT rules. Not
only did the paucity of data lead to some illogical outcomes in
the regulatory process, it also meant that natural variation
from boiler to boiler wasn't properly considered, and even sort
of the breakdown of different technologies for comparison
purposes wasn't done. Not only those things, but the method
used by the agency to derive the emissions standard is
seriously flawed. What they did was take pollutants on an
individual basis and look at them across the various
facilities, find the best emissions achievement and set that as
a standard and then repeat the process. So the emissions
standards were set really on a pollutant-by-pollutant basis as
opposed to a facility-by-facility basis. This answers the
question that Mr. Markey had as to why is it that achievable,
currently existing technologies can't be used. It is because
this pollutant-by-pollutant process has been undertaken as
opposed to the plant-by-plant. It is like asking the Olympic
decathlon champion to not only win the championship but then
beat each of the individual athletes in the 10 individual
contests to be beaten as well by that decathlete.
The agency also applied some statistical treatment for the
data that is really detrimental to our being able to achieve
compliance under the standards. So for example, in evaluating
the data, it set its emission levels what we call 99 percent
cutoff point. What that does for commercial industry solid
waste incinerator is mean that a typical one with two units is
likely in every single year to have a 20 percent probability
that they are going to fail one of the emission standards. Now,
I can just tell you, that is not the way to be a good neighbor
and that is not a way for me to keep my job if that is how I
perform for my company. So it truly is achievable and it is not
something that I think the agency would be pleased in the final
outcome of.
There are a set of issues that this bill would address in
the question of the definitions of waste. One of the elements
that is not under reconsideration by the agency and therefore
can't be addressed in this process, Mr. Green and the gentleman
from Oregon also spoke to these questions, we have facilities,
biomass facilities in the Central Valley of California that
will be made into incinerators by the rules because traditional
fuels like stumps from orchards and construction and demolition
debris would be reclassified as waste. What will be the outcome
of that? We will send those C&D wastes off to landfills. It is
actually something I was talking with the senior NRDC staffer
about doing the exact opposite of just a week ago and we will
leave the stumps in the fields for the farmers to burn. That is
why the California Air Resources Board actually opined to the
agency that it thought it was on the wrong track for these MACT
rules, and I will submit their comments for your record and my
statement at that point, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gilman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you very much, Dr. Gilman.
Mr. Walke, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JOHN D. WALKE
Mr. Walke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee for the opportunity to testify today. My name is
John Walke and I am Clean Air Director and Senior Attorney for
the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The two bills that are the subject of today's hearing
weaken the Clean Air Act drastically to authorize the
indefinite delay of toxic air pollution standards for
incinerators, industrial boilers and cement plants. Worse,
these bills rewrite the Clean Air Act and overturn multiple
Federal court decisions to eviscerate strong toxic pollution
standards that under current law must be applied to control
dangerous toxic emissions from these facilities. Industrial
boilers and cement plants are some of the largest emitters of
mercury and scores of other toxic pollutions that are still
failing to comply with basic Clean Air Act requirements for
toxic pollution over 2 decades after adoption of the 1990
Amendments. That is not responsible public policy.
Were these standards to be delayed by even a single year by
these two bills, the potential magnitude of extreme health
consequences would be as follows: up to 9,000 premature deaths,
5,500 nonfatal heart attacks, 58,000 asthma attacks and 440,000
days when people must miss work or school due to respiratory
illness. Yet H.R. 2250 blocks mercury and air toxic standards
for a minimum of 3.5 years, causing an additional 22,750
premature deaths, 14,000 nonfatal heart attacks and 143,000
asthma attacks beyond what current law will prevent.
By the same token, H.R. 2681 blocks mercury and air toxic
safeguards for a minimum of nearly 5 years, causing an
additional 11,250 premature deaths, 6,750 nonfatal heart
attacks and 76,500 asthma attacks beyond what current law will
prevent. EPA estimates that the value of the health benefits
associated with the boiler standards and incinerators are
between $22 billion to $54 billion compared with industry
compliance costs estimated at only $1.4 billion. EPA has found
the benefits of the cements standards to be as high as $18
billion annually with benefits significantly outweighing costs
by a margin of up to 19 to 1. Let me emphasize in the strongest
possible terms that these bills are not mere ``15-month delays
of the rules as EPA itself has requested'' as some have cast
this legislation.
First, the bills embody the complete evisceration of the
substantive statutory standards for achieving reductions in
toxic air pollution. The final sections of both bills eliminate
the most protective legal standard for reducing toxic air
pollution that has been in the Clean Air Act for nearly 21
years. The two bills replace this with the absolute least
protective measure even mentioned in the law. It is not
defensible policy and represents overreaching beyond the
representations of the bills' timing features. This single
provision in both bills would have the effect of exempting
incinerators, industrial boilers and cement plants from maximum
reductions in toxic air pollution emissions in contrast to
almost every other major industrial source of toxic air
pollution in the Nation. Second, the bill eliminates any
statutory deadlines for EPA to reissue standards to protect
Americans. Both steps are unprecedented in this committee or in
any other legislation introduced in Congress, to my knowledge.
I hope you will not vote for these bills, but if members
have already decided to do so, I respectfully appeal to your
sense of honesty and decency to do at least this: please
explain clearly to your constituents, to the church
congregations in your districts, to all Americans, why you are
voting to actively eliminate protections for children and the
unborn against industrial mercury pollution and brain
poisoning. Especially those among you that are on record for
protecting children and the unborn in other contexts, please
explain why there is a double standard where it is acceptable
to actively dismantle existing protections for children and the
unborn against industrial mercury pollution.
In closing, I urge you not to weaken the Clean Air Act so
profoundly and cause so much preventable premature deaths,
asthma attacks and mercury poisoning. I welcome any questions
about my testimony, especially regarding any disagreements
about factual or legal characterizations concerning the two
bills. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Walke follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Mr. Walke.
Mr. Schaeffer, you are recognized for 5 minutes for an
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF ERIC SCHAEFFER
Mr. Schaeffer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee for the opportunity to testify. I am Eric Schaeffer,
Director of the Environmental Integrity Project, an
organization dedicated to improving enforcement of our
environmental laws. I support the testimony of my colleague,
John Walke, who has spent so many years fighting for the Clean
Air Act.
My own comments can be summarized as follows. As has been
explained I think a number of times, the proposed legislation
would do much more than delay standards for 15 months. They
would prohibit EPA from setting any standards in less than 5
years after enactment of the legislation. They would authorize
EPA to delay those standards indefinitely as in never,
virtually do eliminate the deadlines, and they also change the
basis for setting the standards, and those changes use language
that the industry hopes will give them softer standards. These
were arguments made in court that were rejected. The bill would
give industry a second bite of the apple and change the way
standards themselves are set, so this is not a short-term
extension to deal with an economic emergency, it is a
fundamental change to the law. I do not question the right of
Congress to do that. It is absolutely the prerogative of the
legislature. I just think it is important to be clear about
what the bills would do.
I also, to the extent--a suggestion has been made that the
decisions reflect a rogue or runaway agency. I think that is
unfair. The regulations that have been attacked in this hearing
were generated by EPA after EPA first went to court to try to
give industry in the last Administration much of what they
wanted. Those earlier decisions were rejected by the D.C.
Circuit Court of Appeals. They were rejected by judges
appointed by President Reagan and by President George H.W.
Bush, so this is not a sort of wild tear that EPA is on, this
is an attempt to respond to decisions that have come down over
the last decade made by pretty conservative jurists. Again,
Congress has the right to respond to those by changing the law.
I just think it is unfair to say that the EPA is somehow off
the reservation by doing what the courts have in fact required
them to do.
Perhaps most importantly, I want to call into question this
idea that if we relax standards and allow, you know, mercury
emissions to stay the same or even increase, allow toxic
emissions to increase, somehow that will be a significant force
in reviving manufacturing, creating jobs, keying the economic
recovery and conversely if we don't do that we are going to
hemorrhage jobs, you know, lose manufacturing competitiveness,
see a flood of imports, threaten the economic recovery. I think
the effects are much, much more complicated than that. There
big, big macroeconomic forces at work. If you look at the
cement kiln in particular using statistics from the U.S.
Geological Service, who carries these numbers in their minerals
yearbook and updates them every year, in the early 1990s we
produced about 75,000 tons of cement with 18,000 workers. That
production rose about 30 percent by 2006 to nearly 100,000
tons. What happened to payroll? Ten percent of the employment
in the industry was cut, the point being that the manufacturers
did fine, employees not well. Jobs were cut at those plants.
Second, the industry has suggested that somehow these rules
would drive the price of cement up and that will threaten the
economic recovery. I just want to point out that the price rose
about 50 percent at the beginning of the decade over a several-
year period. It didn't seem to have any impact on the
construction boon, so I would treat that claim skeptically.
Clearly, manufacturing has declined at these plants and so has
employment over the last few years but imports have declined
even faster, so this idea that imports are going to come
rushing in where production is constrained is not borne out by
the facts. I am just trying to make the point that the bottom-
line problem is lack of demand. Until the demand recovers,
until the housing market recovers, this industry will not, and
the rules have little to do with that.
I just want to close by saying that while this bill gives
certainty to the industry that they won't have to do anything
for at least 5 years and maybe never, it provides no certainty
to people who live around these plants that something will be
done about toxic emissions. I have not heard that concern
expressed today at the hearing. I hope you will give it careful
consideration.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Schaeffer follows:]
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Mr. Whitfield. Dr. Valberg, you are recognized for 5
minutes for an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF PETER A. VALBERG
Mr. Valberg. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and
members of the subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me to
testify this morning. I am Peter Valberg, Principal at
Gradient, an environmental consulting firm in Boston. I have
worked for many years in public health and human health risk
assessment. I have been a faculty member at the Harvard School
of Public Health and I was a member of a National Academy of
Sciences panel that worked on evaluating public health benefits
of air pollution regulations.
At the outset, let us remind ourselves that by every public
health measure from infant mortality to life expectancy, we are
healthier today and exposed to fewer hazards than every before.
Our present-day air is much cleaner than it was years ago
thanks to EPA, and our air quality is among the best in the
world.
I am here today to address the method by which EPA uses in
their projection of benefits from reductions in outdoor air
particulate levels, called PM 2.5, or ambient PM 2.5. The
dollar value of EPA's calculated benefits is dominated by
promised reductions in deaths that EPA assumes to be caused by
breathing PM in our ambient air. Asthma is also monetized by
EPA as an ambient air concern.
In understanding health hazards, the solidity of our
scientific knowledge like the solidity of a three-legged stool
is supported by three legs of evidence. One leg is
observational studies or epidemiology, another leg is
experimental studies with lab animals, and the third leg is an
understanding of biological mechanism. If any leg is weak or
missing, the reliability of our knowledge is compromised.
EPA uses the observational studies that examine statistics
on two factors which in small part seem to go up and down
together. These studies correlate changes in mortality, either
temporally on a day-by-day basis or geographically on a city-
by-city basis with differences in ambient PM from day to day or
from locale to locale. Statistical associations are indeed
reported, and EPA assumes PM mortality associations are 100
percent caused by outdoor PM no matter what the PM levels you
may breathe in your own home, car or workplace.
My points are, one, the mortality evidence doesn't add up;
two, most of our PM exposure is not from outdoor air; three,
the PM statistical studies cannot identify cause; and four,
outdoor PM is recognized as a minor, not a major cause of
asthma.
The evidence doesn't add up. Lab experiments have carefully
examined both human volunteers and animals breathing airborne
dust at PM levels hundreds of times greater than in outdoor air
without evidence of sudden death or life-threatening effects.
Moreover, we have studied the chemicals that constitute the
particles in outdoor air, and no one has found a constituent
that is lethal when breathed at levels we encounter outdoors.
Remember that the basic science of poisons, toxicology, has
shown that the dose makes the poison.
Where do people get exposed to airborne dust? The majority
of our time is spent indoors. Homes, restaurants, malls have
high levels of PM from cleaning, cooking, baking and frying.
When you clean out your attic or basement, you are breathing
much higher PM levels than outdoors. We are exposed to high
levels of PM when mowing lawns, raking leaves, enjoying a
fireplace. Yet in spite of these vastly larger PM exposures, we
have no case reports of people who died because of the dust
they inhaled while cleaning or barbecuing. We can identify who
died from car accidents, food poisoning, firearms and
infections, but out of the tens of thousands of deaths that EPA
attributes to breathing PM outdoors, we can't pinpoint anyone
who died from inhaling ambient PM.
The models require intricate statistical manipulations. The
computer models require many assumptions and adjustments. The
results you get depend on the model you use, how you set it up
and how many different tests you run. You need to correct for
many non-PM pollutants as well as non-pollutant factors that
may confound those PM mortality associations. It is not clear
that all confounders have been taken into account, and mere
associations cannot establish causality. For example, increased
heat stroke deaths are correlated with increased ice cream
sales but none of us would suggest that ice cream sales cause
heat stroke. In fact, there are many examples where spurious
associations have been observed and dismissed.
Finally, on asthma, medical researchers recognize that
respiratory infections, mildew, dust, dust mites, pet dander
and stress each play a far greater role in asthma than
pollutants in ambient air. Among urban neighborhoods sharing
the same outdoor air, both childhood and adult asthma vary
considerably by location, and doctors investigating these
patterns point to risk factors such as obesity, ethnicity, age
of housing stock, neighborhood violence. Most importantly, over
past decades, asthma has gone up during the very same time
period that levels of all air pollutants outdoors have markedly
gone down. This is opposite to what you would expect if outdoor
PM caused asthma.
Finally, taken together, there are major questions about
EPA's calculations of lives saved by small PM reductions in our
outdoor air. Most importantly, neither animal toxicology or
human clinical data validate these statistical associations
from the observational epidemiology. How can it be that lower
levels of exposure to outdoor PM are killing large numbers of
people when our everyday exposures to higher levels of PM are
not?
Thank you. Thank you very much for this opportunity and I
look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Valberg follows:]
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Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Dr. Valberg.
Mr. Elliott, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF TODD ELLIOTT
Mr. Elliott. Thank you, Chairman Whitfield, Ranking Member
Rush and members of the subcommittee for allowing me this
opportunity to testify before the subcommittee on a topic of
substantial importance to my company and to the manufacturing
sector. Again, my name is Todd Elliott. I represent the
Celanese Corporation, where I have worked in a variety of
positions for over 23 years.
Celanese is a Dallas, Texas-based chemical company with a
worldwide presence and a workforce of more than 7,250
employees. I am the General Manager of our global acetate
business. Our acetate fibers plant in Narrows, Virginia, has
been in operation since 1939 and is the largest employer in
Giles County. The facility currently employs more than 550
skilled workers and an additional 400 contractors. The acetate
facility in Narrows, Virginia, operates seven coal-fired
boilers today and six boilers and furnaces that burn natural
gas. The site is impacted by the cumulative and costly impacts
of the boiler MACT and other State and Federal air quality
regulations.
While we fully intend to comply with this regulation, it is
very important for Congress and the EPA to understand that we
compete in a global marketplace. If our costs become too high,
we must look at other options, other alternatives, or otherwise
we can no longer compete effectively in the marketplace.
A recent study conducted by the Council of Industrial
Boiler Owners suggested that the boiler MACT regulation could
impact almost a quarter-million jobs nationwide and cost our
country more than $14 billion. We respectfully encourage you to
promote cost-effective regulations that help create a U.S.
manufacturing renaissance that preserves jobs our Nation so
badly needs.
My remarks today will focus on two key ways in which H.R.
2250 addresses industry's concern with the boiler MACT and
directs EPA to develop requirements that are more reasonable
but still will achieve the objectives of the rule. First, the
compliance deadline of the boiler MACT should be extended to 5
years. The current rule essentially requires boilers and
process heaters at major facilities to comply with stringent
new air emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants within
3 years. Our engineering studies concluded that we will need to
add emissions controls to our existing coal-fired boilers or
convert those boilers to natural gas. Either alternative would
require a very significant capital investment and time
investment and could necessitate an extended plant outage while
changes are implemented. The 3-year compliance window is too
short a time to design, to install and commission the required
controls or to convert to natural gas, particularly because the
third-party resources with the necessary expertise will be in
high demand as thousands of boilers would require modifications
at the same time.
At present, our Virginia facility has an existing natural
gas line. However, this is too small as designed to deliver
enough gas to meet anticipated demand if we convert to natural
gas. Prior to operating new natural gas boilers, we would need
to secure new gas sourcing, pipeline delivery contracts, design
and permit and construct a new pipeline. This would be
particularly difficult for a facility like ours which is
located in a rural and mountainous area and would take at least
3 years to install. Once natural gas is available to the
facility, it could take another year to transition from coal to
gas and to avoid a complete facility shutdown and the
associated lost production and revenue. Extending the boiler
MACT compliance deadline from 3 to 5 years as proposed in H.R.
2250 would help ensure that Celanese and the manufacturing
sector can achieve compliance.
Second, the emissions standards must be achievable in
practice. The current rule does not consider whether multiple
emissions standards are achievable realistically and
concurrently nor does it adequately address the variability of
fuel supply or the real-world challenges of compliance with
multiple standards at the same time. Under current
requirements, compliance with these standards becomes an
either/or exercise as it is often impossible to source a fuel
that enables a manufacturer to meet all emissions standards at
once. For example, we have been able to identify coals that
meet either the hydrochloric acid or mercury emissions
standards but not both. In addition, variations in the
constituents of coal from the same mine or the same seam can
further undermine efforts to meet stringent and inflexible
standards.
In summary, we support H.R. 2250 for the following reasons.
It extends the compliance deadline to 5 years, which provides
industry with enough time to identify and implement appropriate
and economically viable compliance strategies and control
operations, and it requires the EPA to take a more reasoned
approach that emissions standards must be capable of being met
in practice concurrently and on a variety of fuels before they
are implemented.
So on behalf of Celanese and our Narrows, Virginia,
facility, thank you for the opportunity to provide these
comments.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Elliott follows:]
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Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Mr. Elliott, and thank all of you
for your testimony. I will recognize myself for 5 minutes of
questions.
All of you heard the testimony of Ms. McCarthy, and I would
ask each one of you, is there anything in her testimony that
you particularly would like to make some comment about? Dr.
Valberg?
Mr. Valberg. Yes. Well, I think that I want to just
emphasize that I think EPA has done a very good job in cleaning
up the air and so on and I am very much in favor of regulations
that reduce air pollution. However, I think the problem is the
monetization method. I mean, saying that these deaths are
occurring as a consequence of small changes in outdoor air when
in fact if you go to the medical community, we all have
diseases that we get, all of us are going to die and so on, it
is that monetization that I think is flawed and needs to
include more of the scientific evidence besides just the
statistical associations.
Mr. Whitfield. Have you ever made those arguments with EPA
that you question the way they calculate these benefits?
Mr. Valberg. Yes, I have. I have testified before EPA on
some of the Clean Air Science Advisory Committee meetings that
they have had together with EPA staff, and I think that they
have become quite enamored of the statistical associations.
Mr. Whitfield. And how widespread is the concern about the
community that you are involved with on the validity of the EPA
studies?
Mr. Valberg. Well, the statistical associations are just a
correlation between numbers, so I don't know that there is
necessarily a question about is the statistics being done
wrong. I think if you look at the original studies by the
authors themselves, you will see in the beginning that they say
the hypothesis is that there is a causal effect between ambient
particulate and mortality, and they all treat it in the
original literature as a hypothesis that is being tested. I
think what EPA has moved these associations to is into this
regulatory arena where they are using them as reliable.
Mr. Whitfield. But if there is no causal connection, that
would really invalidate their claims of benefits, wouldn't it?
Mr. Valberg. Yes, it would
Mr. Whitfield. And that is a major issue, and I read your
biography and you are a real expert in this area, and you have
genuine concerns about that. Is that correct?
Mr. Valberg. I think that the toxicology of the ambient air
needs to be given more weight and that in fact our exposure to
almost anything is dominated by other sources at school, at
work, at home and so on, and ambient air needs to be as clean
as possible. We in fact open the windows when we want to clean
out the air in our offices or in our homes. But I think that
attributing these hundreds of thousands of deaths to outdoor
air is only supported by the statistical association.
Mr. Whitfield. Well, you know, I think that is a very
important point because we have had many hearings on these
environmental issues and every time the representatives of the
EPA will immediately run to the health benefits that you are
going to prevent this thousand deaths, you are going to prevent
premature deaths, you are going to prevent this many cases of
asthma, you are going to prevent all of these things and yet
from your testimony the very basis of a lack of causal effect
would basically invalidate all the benefits that they are
really depending upon.
Mr. Valberg. Exactly, and in fact, there are some recent
papers that refer to taking panels of people where you take
them into the clinical setting, expose them to 100 or 200
micrograms per cubic meter, see if you see any kinds of
effects, and then you also look at people in the ambient
environment where the concentrations are 10 to 20 micrograms
per cubic meter, you still see the associations in the ambient
environment but it is an effect that is occurring for other
reasons besides the particulate matter itself because those
people in the laboratory did not show the effects.
Mr. Whitfield. You know, another concern that many of us
have is that we have a very weak economy right now. We are
trying to stimulate that economy, and while it is true that
these boiler MACT and cement have not caused weakening of the
economy, I have here a list of 13 new rules and regulations
that EPA is coming out with, and the cumulative impact of that,
it seems to me would definitely have an impact on our ability
to create jobs. We are not arguing that it caused the loss of
jobs but we are making the argument that at this particular
time it creates obstacles in our ability to create new jobs.
Would you agree with that, Mr. Harrington?
Mr. Harrington. Yes, I certainly would. I definitely agree
with that, that from my standpoint, back to your original
question, there are two areas that we would disagree. First of
all, MACT is not available across our sector. There are no
proven engineering technical solutions to achieve the NESHAP
standards. That is point one.
Point two is, there is absolutely not going to be job
growth due to NESHAP or CISWI, absolutely not, not sustainable.
There will be--there might be a short-term change to a bunch of
consultants or a bunch of laboratories who will do some tests
as we begin our permit and the process that we always follow to
comply and to do better than we possibly can hope to do but at
the end of all that transfer moving around, there will be less
plants, period.
Mr. Whitfield. Mr. Rush, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Rush. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Walke and Mr. Schaeffer, Dr. Valberg made some pretty
controversial conclusions there. What do you have to say, each
one of you? How do you respond to some of his assertions?
Mr. Walke. Mr. Rush, I would be happy after the hearing to
submit numerous, dozens upon dozens of peer-reviewed statements
showing effects, associations between particulate matter and
premature mortality that contradict the testimony of Dr.
Valberg. There are National Academy of Science studies that
contradict it. The Clean Air Science Advisory Committee peer-
review process and reports contradict those views. Those views
are controversial because they are outlier views within the
clean air scientific community. They were not accepted by the
Bush Administration. They were not accepted by the Clean Air
Science Advisory Council. They were not accepted by the Health
Effects Institute reexamination of those associations. And I
think it is important that that copious record of peer-reviewed
studies be included in the record, and we could also invite Dr.
Valberg to include studies since there wasn't a single one
cited in his testimony that I saw.
Mr. Rush. Mr. Schaeffer?
Mr. Schaeffer. If I could briefly provide some context for
the particulate matter decision-making at EPA. The science that
EPA is proceeding from, again with an epidemiological study
looking at particulate levels in 26 cities and comparing that
to especially premature mortality and screening out the
confounding factors that Dr. Valberg raised--diet, income, the
other things that can step in and interfere with trying to
establish a relationship between pollution and disease--the
benefits in EPA's rulemaking you actually see in the hundreds
of millions of dollars, those come from avoiding premature
deaths. We can argue about what a life is worth, and I don't
know if Dr. Valberg wants to go there, but those premature
mortalities occur over a long period of time. You can't put
somebody in a room and gas them with particulate matter in 15
minutes or even a day and draw any conclusions from that. The
point is the long-term exposure.
Congress ordered EPA to get those epidemiological studies
peer reviewed. The agency went to the Health Effects Institute
at the end of the last decade, late 1990s. The Health Effects
Institute did an exhaustive review of the PM science, concluded
it was solid, that is, that the link between PM exposure,
particulate exposure, mortality was very strong. The Bush
Administration looked at the same issue in 2005, did an
exhaustive review, reached the same conclusions.
So to suggest that this is something that is being done
with a pocket calculator or the confounding factors aren't
being considered or that you can, you know, put a balloon over
somebody's head and fill it with particulate matter or that
because nobody has, you know, died from sitting in front of a
fireplace, that means fine particles aren't a problem,
honestly, those are outlandish statements. They are completely
inconsistent with decades of science, not just a recent
decision. You know, I challenge the witnesses to produce peer-
reviewed studies that show that, and we will certainly provide
you with the data that EPA has gathered under three
Administrations to establish that very strong connection
between fine particles, not big chunky particles from
barbecuing steak, fine particles, and death.
Mr. Rush. I just want to really remind the committee that
the Bush Administration did draft a report that was finalized
by the Obama Administration, and it is called the Integrated
Science Assessment for Particulate Matter, and this report
evaluated the scientific literature on human health effects
associated with exposure to particulate matter. It was based on
dozens of peer-reviewed studies. It had more than 50 authors
and contributors and literally scores of peer reviewers, and
this report was also subject to extensive external review and
commentary, and this scientific effort provides the basis for
EPA's analysis of the effects of particulate matter. Were you
referring to this report?
Mr. Walke. Yes, Mr. Rush. It is dated 2009. I would be
happy to submit it to the record, and it finds ``there is a
causal relationship between PM-2.5 and mortality both for
short-term and long-term exposures.'' That is in an EPA report
dated 2009, but as you said, it reaffirms studies that were
undertaken first under the Bush Administration.
Mr. Rush. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Whitfield. Mr. Sullivan, you are recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was going to see
if Dr. Valberg would like to comment on what was just said.
Mr. Valberg. Yes, I would. I think the associations that
are reported by the statistics are indeed out there but I think
that there are a lot of problems with those associations even
beyond the fact that they are not reflected in laboratory
experiments and even in clinical experiments. I think that the
actual associations are after all on a day-by-day basis. The
so-called time series studies look at day-by-day changes in
particulate levels and look at day-by-day changes in mortality
so they are looking at short-term things, and when you try to
take that hypothesis to the laboratory, you can't validate it.
The associations themselves have peculiar characteristics
such as the steepness of the association. In other words, what
kind of increment do you get with a given increment of
particulate matter actually gets steeper as the air
concentrations get cleaner. In other words, as particulate
levels go down, this is reported time and time again in these
associations, and this goes contrary to what you would expect
on a toxicological basis. The association should in fact get
stronger as the air gets dirtier and so that as you get the
higher levels, then you are getting a larger effect because the
dose makes the poison.
So I think I don't disagree that there are many
associations out there and in fact the very reporting of such
associations in such a variety of diverse circumstances where
the actual chemical composition of the particulate is quite
different in a way is also something that actually does more to
undermine their plausibility than to support it.
Mr. Sullivan. Thank you.
And this next question is for Mr. Rubright, Dr. Gilman and
Mr. Elliott. EPA has maintained that boiler MACT rules will
result in a net gain of jobs. Do you agree with the EPA that
the net effect of EPA's boiler MACT rules as written will be to
gain jobs in the United States?
Mr. Rubright. Thank you for asking that question because we
observe the jobs that will be created are temporary jobs
associated with the installation and capital. The jobs that
will be eliminated with the closure of facilities are permanent
losses. So the net change is dramatically worse.
Mr. Gilman. My observation would be, as they were
promulgated, they won't have that effect. Our eight plants are
sort of a microcosm of that. I would like to think that a
dialog between yourselves and the agency would do, as has
happened so many times in the Clean Air Act, result in a path
forward that indeed could have least impact on jobs and provide
for a cleaner environment as well.
Mr. Sullivan. Mr. Elliott?
Mr. Elliott. We would agree and echo the comments of the
other panelists that we think about capital investment in
various categories. We think about EHSA, or environmental
health and safety capital, maintenance of business capital,
revenue generation capital. We would categorize this capital as
non-discretionary and it would be in a different league. So
perhaps jobs on a temporary basis for engineering consultancy
and potentially jobs outside of the United States.
Mr. Sullivan. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for the record an
analysis referenced by Mr. Harrington, which was prepared by
Portland Cement Association regarding the impacts of EPA's
rules on the cement sector.
Mr. Whitfield. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
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Mr. Sullivan. Mr. Harrington, you have testified that EPA's
recent rules affecting the cement sector could force the
closure of 18 out of nearly 100 U.S. cement plants, or 20
percent of the U.S. cement production capacity. Where are most
of these cement plants located? Are they like in small towns,
rural areas?
Mr. Harrington. Yes, they are mostly in small towns in
rural areas, and they are sprinkled throughout the United
States. I mean, there is one in upper California. There might
be one in Ohio. There could be one in upper New York State.
There could be one in Illinois. So they are spread throughout
the United States. They are always in small rural areas, as Mr.
Rubright said, and it is a company town. It is not quite like
it was in the 1930s and 1940s but that is sort of the
environment that our plants are in.
Mr. Sullivan. Will the employees at these facilities be
likely to find new work elsewhere in their communities?
Mr. Harrington. Anything is possible, and of course, we
would like that to be the case, but the opportunities are very
limited because they are high-wage jobs. Most of our employees
are represented by collective bargaining agreement so they are
union employees and they are well paid. They are highly skilled
and they are very specialized for the plants and the equipment
that we run, so just transferring that job knowledge is
difficult. So it will be devastating to those communities.
The other thing that we lose, and I am sorry to keep
rambling here, but there are a series of small businesspeople
and large industry that service our plants--contractors,
engineers--sorry.
Mr. Whitfield. No, go ahead.
Mr. Harrington. Contractors, engineers, local wall material
suppliers who may not be employees of our plant but who exist--
Pennsylvania, for sure--who exist because of our plants.
Mr. Sullivan. Also----
Mr. Whitfield. Your time is expired.
Mr. Doyle, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Doyle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our
witnesses today. I think it is important that we have a well-
informed debate on these regulations with inputs from all
sides.
As many of you know, I represent Pittsburgh, which is in
Allegheny County in southwestern Pennsylvania. Allegheny County
is home to manufacturing industry, chemical industry, steel
industry, energy industry and much, much more, and like all of
you, many of these companies have voiced concerns to me with
some of the regulations coming out of the Environmental
Protection Agency. Most specifically, I have heard a great deal
about the boiler MACT rules that we are discussing today.
But let me first give you a little background on Allegheny
County. Last year, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette ran a series of
air pollution effects in the region called Mapping Mortality.
In it, they told us in Allegheny County air pollutants are
generated by 32 industries and utilities classified by the
county health department as major sources because they emit or
have the potential to emit 25 tons or more a year of a criteria
pollutant, or 10 times or more of hazardous air pollution. The
Post Gazette article went further to detail in Allegheny County
and research mortality rates not only in our county but in the
13 counties surrounding Allegheny County in and around
Pittsburgh. This is what they found: that in all 14 counties
that have heart disease, all 14 counties have heart disease
mortality rates exceeding the national average. Twelve of the
14 counties have respiratory disease mortality rates exceeding
the national average. Three of the 14 counties have lung cancer
mortality rates exceeding the national average, and 13 of 14
have a combined mortality rate for all three diseases in excess
of the combined national expected rates for the three.
So as you can see, I have cause to take these regulations
very seriously. I recognize that the boiler MACT rule issued in
February wasn't perfect. I know that the industries in
southwestern Pennsylvania are providing good-paying jobs for my
constituents. But the mortality rates due to heart, respiratory
and lung disease can't be ignored. For me and my constituents,
the issue is not a political football that we should toss
around in Washington. This is real and it is a matter of life
and death.
So I just have one question for Mr. Rubright, Mr. Gilman
and Mr. Elliott. The Clean Air Act already gives you 3 years to
comply with the possibility of a fourth year. If you can't do
it in three, you can petition your State. I don't think the
folks in my district believe that it should take 5 years or, in
the case of this bill, 5 years being the minimum and we don't
know what the maximum would be, to deal with reining in some of
these pollutants, and I understand there are specific issues
with the final rule and I think they need to be worked out, and
I am for doing that, for EPA, sitting with you and working out
these issues sufficiently when they re-propose the final 15
months.
My question is, once that is done, would you be willing to
accept a deadline within the Clean Air Act of 3 to 4 years?
Mr. Rubright. I would like to--there are a couple of
things. First, relative to your indication of the health risks,
please understand that particulate matter is already regulated
under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, and nine of
the 10 virgin mills that we operate are currently in attainment
zones and yet they are being regulated under a statute that
wasn't intended to regulate particulate matter as a health risk
as a particulate matter without regard to whether they are in
an attainment zone or a non-attainment zone. So it is a rule
that really is inapplicable in many respects to the current
environment.
Mr. Doyle. My question is, once they do this re-proposing
of the rules and address some of these concerns, do you need
more than 4 years to comply?
Mr. Rubright. Well, certainly. I have already indicated we
wasted $80 million to comply with the rule that was rescinded.
You heard Ms. McCarthy testify that she doesn't know of a
cement plan that can comply with the rules today. We know that
2 percent of the pulp and paper mills today can comply with the
standards that apply. Now, my understanding of the act is that
maximum achievable control technology is what 12 percent of the
existing mills can comply with. So do you think there is going
to be litigation of this rule? I think this rule is going to be
litigated and I think Ms. McCarthy's testimony is going to be
admitted in that litigation. So we are going to have some
period of time where again we are going to be required to spend
money on a rule which is in litigation.
So apart from the fact that our best technological people
are telling me we can't do it in 3 years, I certainly know I am
going to be doing in advance of the resolution of this rule. So
think it just doesn't make any sense to spend money that in the
face of----
Mr. Doyle. Do you think it should be addressed at all? Do
you think there is a health concern and that the concern over
health warrants your company doing something to reduce these
pollutants?
Mr. Rubright. Please understand, where we understand that
there is an identifiable health risk, we do everything we can
today. What I am saying to you is, there is nothing we know we
can do to comply with these rules, but I also have indicated
that I think there is a scientific debate with respect to
specific effects of particulate emissions of our plants in
rural attainment areas.
Mr. Doyle. Dr. Gilman?
Mr. Gilman. I would say yes if one of those things that
isn't part of the reconsideration process now because the
agency feels constrained by prior judicial decisions, that is,
the pollutant-by-pollutant approach versus the plant-by-plant
approach. That is what makes these unachievable. That is what
introduces a technological barrier to implementing achievable
standards.
Mr. Doyle. Mr. Chairman, you have been generous with my
time. I appreciate it.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you.
We have two votes on the floor and we only have like a
minute left, Morgan, and I know some other members want to ask
questions, so you all might as well just spend the day with us.
So if you wouldn't mind, we will recess. We only have two
votes, and the time is expired on the first one, so we will
back, I would say in about 15 minutes, and we will reconvene
and finish up the questions at that time. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Whitfield. I am going to now recognize the gentleman
from Virginia, Mr. Griffith, for his 5 minutes of questions and
then when you all come in we will go to you.
Mr. Griffith. Thank you all very much for your patience
with us. Sometimes we have to run off and cast votes, and I
appreciate you all waiting.
I do want to say that this is important legislation. Both
pieces are extremely important to my district. I don't want to
underestimate it but I also have to point out that in the
hearings that we had earlier this year and the hearings that we
have now, we have had testimony from people who employ folks in
Giles County. Thank you, Mr. Elliott, as the largest employer
in that county, which is in the 9th district of Virginia, which
I am very proud to represent. We have had testimony from Titan
America, which is a Roanoke cement facility, employs people who
live in the 9th district of Virginia. We have had testimony
from MeadWestVaco at their Covington facility, which employs
people in the 9th district of Virginia. And we had testimony
earlier today from Mr. Rubright of RockTenn, which employs
people in the Martinsville area, which include people in the
9th district of Virginia.
So when folks say to me, you know, why do you get worked up
about this and why do you charge in on some of these things,
all I can say is that a lot of these folks didn't actually come
from the 9th district of Virginia but they represent jobs in
the 9th district of Virginia and they represent people who work
there and people who are in the areas where we have double-
digit unemployment and, you know, I came off this break doing
the Labor Day parade in Covington, which is sponsored by the
union there, and last year they had the parade route lined with
signs about fixing boiler MACT, so amongst all the political
signs were, you know, we have got to fix boiler MACT, and so I
am trying to do what my constituents want and what I think my
constituents need in order to create jobs not only in the
United States of America but in particular in the 9th district
of Virginia, and I think that that is what the boiler MACT
does, that is what the cement MACT bill that we have before us
today for testimony.
So, you know, I understand all of you want to be careful in
the health side of it but when you face extensive unemployment
in the regions that I have just mentioned and already have had
announced lost jobs from other rules of the EPA in Giles County
in particular and in Russell County within the 9th district of
Virginia within the last 2 or 3 months, these are serious
matters.
And so I would ask you, Mr. Elliott, in regard to jobs, if
you don't have the 5 years to comply--and you touched on it in
your statement some about the fact that you don't have a big
enough gas line to flip over to natural gas and you have a big
river beside your facility as well. Exactly, you know, do you
need the 5 years or is there a significant potential that those
jobs because of costs may go elsewhere?
Mr. Elliott. Well, I think all business management is
tasked with continuous evaluation of options, you know, what
are the best cases for growing and protecting our business, so
we always look at alternatives, whether that is alternatives
for our facilities in the United States or throughout the
world. We like to focus on timelines. I know that is important.
But that is part of the issue here. There was a lot of
testimony about flexibility around fuel source, at least I
talked about the unknown questions still or answers with
respect to fuel source, fuel variability. That is very specific
to coal. So we still--we are operating several coal-fired
boilers today so we want to resolve whether we can sort out
whether we can use certain coals to meet certain standards, so
that is going to take some time. So I am happy to get into the
specifics once we hear back from the EPA exactly how we will
resolve that.
That then sets the stage one way or the other whether we
then have to look at Plan B. Plan B might be installation of
natural gas boilers. That is yet another exercise, another
engineering effort to then go into the work that would require
a 30-odd-mile natural gas line through the mountains of
Virginia ultimately. So that is another phase of work that
requires engineering, requires estimates and timing and right-
of-ways and factors in as well.
Then we get to the ultimate question which I think is where
you are going, Mr. Griffith, and that is then what do you do,
and really depends on the certainty around those choices, the
costs and capital associated with those, the resulting
operating costs of those decisions.
Mr. Griffith. My time is running out, so let me cut to the
chase.
Mr. Elliott. Yes.
Mr. Griffith. If you only get the 3 years, is it not true
that you are more likely to have to make a decision to reduce
jobs in Giles County than if you have the 5 years proposed in
the bill?
Mr. Elliott. Yes, I am not sure we could address the
regulation as written within the time----
Mr. Griffith. As written, you might have no choice but to
move those jobs somewhere else no matter the longstanding
commitment to Giles County which exceeds, what, 79 years?
Mr. Elliott. Or significantly scale back operations, change
operations, look at a footprint alteration.
Mr. Griffith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Whitfield. At this time I will recognize Mr. Olson from
Texas for 5 minutes.
Mr. Olson. I thank the chairman, and I have just got a
couple of questions I just would like to pose to all the
panelists, and a lot of this was targeted to Mr. Rubright, and
of course he had to leave, but I have some concerns. Again,
thank you guys for coming.
Just to let you guys know where I am coming from, my dad
spent his entire working career in the forest and paper
industry, so I have seen, I know as Mr. Rubright said, that the
industry has gone through some, quote, unquote in his
testimony, trying economic times, and I have seen it firsthand.
My father worked for a large paper company, Champion Papers.
They had a mill there on the Houston ship channel. He worked
for the longest part of his career at anyone place over a
decade, and that facility no longer exists because it couldn't
compete in the global market. Lots of reasons for that. But
again, when I see the fact that they have lost thousands of
jobs, they have this blank spot there along the Houston ship
channel that is not being used to create jobs and turn our
economy around, I get concerned. I get concerned that some of
the regulations and that this Administration is pushing this
Environmental Protection Agency, they are hurting our economy
right here and inhibiting the growth of job creation that we
were seeking to have.
My question for all of you guys, are there any boilers in
your facilities that in your experience are capable of
complying with the boiler MACT standard issued by EPA in March
of 2011? Anybody out there can hit the target right now? I will
start at the end. Mr. Elliott?
Mr. Elliott. I think it was acknowledged earlier, Mr. Green
asked the question. In some cases we were actually identified
by the EPA as having some of the top-performing units around
that help set of the regulatory standards for hydrochloric acid
and mercury. However, even our best performing boilers can't
meet both simultaneously.
Mr. Olson. But that was Mr. Green's point. You guys are the
best performers and yet you can't hit the standards?
Mr. Elliott. Yes, simultaneously.
Mr. Olson. Dr. Valberg?
Mr. Valberg. I would concede any type to the actual people
who run the facilities.
Mr. Olson. Well said. I do that a lot of times myself.
Mr. Schaeffer?
Mr. Schaeffer. I think you are addressing the question to
companies that are operating boilers, so I will----
Mr. Olson. Well, in your experience in the industry--I
mean, you are obviously an expert witness. You are here to
testify before this committee, so are you aware of any boiler
out there that can comply with the standards right now?
Mr. Schaeffer. Well, I went through the particulate matter
standards, which are the surrogate for toxic metals, and it
looked like an awful lot of facilities were currently meeting
the standard. I haven't gone through all the limits to check
that.
Mr. Olson. OK. Mr. Walke?
Mr. Walke. EPA has identified boilers that can meet the
standards, and I will be happy to get that information to
supplement the record. Natural gas boilers under the standards
for major sources and area sources can easily meet the
standards. They are simple tune-up requirements, really, not
emission limits, and so we can supplement the record with that
information as well.
Mr. Olson. That side comment there, that makes my argument
for why we need to increase natural gas production here in this
country. EPA is trying to thwart that, at least having some
study done on hydraulic fracturing, the process that has
basically revolutionized the gas resource we have in this
country. I mean, that is a great, great point that you made,
Mr. Walke.
Dr. Gilman?
Mr. Gilman. The agency is on the right track for the
smaller boilers, the area source boilers. It is the large
boilers and the problem goes back to this, you don't get to
just pass one emissions standard, you have to pass them all,
and you have to be the best at all, and none of our
facilities--if we put in the best technology available today, I
can't guarantee to my management that we will meet the
standard. So as long as we are evaluating these emissions
standards on this pollutant-by-pollutant basis rather than
looking for the overall performance of the plant, we won't make
it.
Mr. Olson. That sounds like an issue we are having with the
EPA in terms of flexible permitting process for our refineries
and our power plants. We are basically--our system in Texas had
five different regulated sources, emission sources. We could be
over in one but we had to be significantly under in the other
four so that the combination was what really matters and
unfortunately EPA has taken that from us, and it sounds like
that would be something very beneficial to you, Dr. Gilman,
some system like that.
Mr. Harrington, down at the end, last but certainly not
least, sir.
Mr. Harrington. I really can't comment on the boilers but I
can comment on the cement, and there is not one plant in the
United States that meets the NESHAP regulation because of the,
as Dr. Gilman pointed out, the four specific elements. We might
be good in one, bad on another, not too good here, good over
there, and it varies from coast to coast from the top of the
border to the bottom of the border across the United States.
Mr. Olson. So a flexible permitting system like we had in
Texas would address your concerns as well?
Mr. Harrington. It would be a great help.
Mr. Olson. And again, it has been demonstrably cleaner air
since the system has been in process 15 years, and again, last
year the EPA took it over from us.
I have run out of time. I thank the chair. Yield back.
Mr. Whitfield. Mr. Green, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Walke, in your testimony you write that it is important
to recognize the EPA always has set maximum achievable control
technology standards on this very same pollutant-by-pollutant
basis for the over 100 MACT standards it has set under each
Administration since adoption in the 1990 Amendments. You go on
to say that the plain language of the Clean Air Act compels the
EPA pollutant-by-pollutant approach and industries' contorted
arguments that have not succeeded in court or appeals to
different Administrations should not be embraced by Congress to
produce dramatically weaker emissions standards. But how do you
reasonably do a pollutant-by-pollutant approach without ending
up with what has been termed a Franken plant, a plant that even
with some of the top performers like Mr. Elliott's in Virginia
are not in compliance?
Mr. Walke. Well, you do it with pollution control measures
that are able to successfully meet all the limits as has been
the case in those 100-plus standards including for oil
refineries and chemical plants in Texas, Mr. Green, and, you
know, this argument just strikes me as kind of a straw man
since it is never been one even taken seriously by, you know,
three Bush Administration terms or two Clinton Administration
terms because those standards were all able to be met without
resulting in the apocalyptic consequences that people are
claiming.
Mr. Green. Well, some of your colleagues on the panel talk
about they cannot design, install and commission emissions
controls on their existing coal-fired boilers within 3 years.
They claim that it is particularly true because third-party
resources with expertise to design and install these controls
will be in high demand as multiple boiler rules are being
implemented in a short-term period of time by both the industry
and electric utility industries. Do you share that concern?
Mr. Walke. Well, that is a very different concern, and if
there are concerns about the ability to install the controls
within 3 years, the Clean Air Act provides an additional year,
an fourth year for that happen.
I would like to note in responding to a question that Mr.
Whitfield asked earlier of the panelists, EPA is slated to
finalize this boiler stands in April of 2012. If you listen
carefully to what Ms. McCarthy said, it is within their power
to extend the compliance deadlines to start 3 years from that
period with an additional fourth year for this additional
period of controls that I just mentioned. So we are already
looking at 2016 under the Clean Air Act, which is exactly 5
years from now, from 2011. The Clean Air Act has the
flexibilities and the administrative tools necessary to allow
EPA to give sufficient time to comply with these standards, and
I think we should let that responsible process work.
Mr. Green. Mr. Harrington, some of my cement companies have
talked about how the subcategorization of the fuels is the crux
of the issue for their industry and that EPA should have used
better discretion here. Do you agree with this statement, and
if so, can you elaborate?
Mr. Harrington. It is very much a plant-by-plant decision
and issue. We do agree with subcategorization. A lot of the
issue still comes back to uncertainty--will it be accepted,
will it not be, is there a positive dialog where real, true
information is passed back and forth and is accepted. So we can
have dialog and we can propose different things and there is
always politeness and a spirited and professional discussion
but then we go back and then things don't happen. So we
continue to look at the clock and look at the calendar and
understand what the regulations are and have to go back and
plan for our fuel sources, for our capital investment needs,
even how we operate our kilns. So I do agree with that issue.
Mr. Green. Mr. Elliott, in your testimony you say that
making it cost prohibitive to burn alternative fuels, the
current rule would force industry to pay excessive prices for
natural gas will curtail production. I know that natural gas is
the cheapest it has been for decades almost now and can you
elaborate on that?
Mr. Elliott. Well, this is a particular note around
curtailment, and we would like it to be more clear ultimately
in the regulation that if, for example, a plant like ours
converts to natural gas, if we have to curtail for residential
heating or something like that, that we would have the
wherewithal to convert temporarily to a backup fuel like fuel
oil, for example, and that we would not then have to meet
specific regulation standards for that particular source of
fuel. So it is a very specific point around curtailment and
flexibility on a temporary basis to have that flex fuel option,
and I think that is probably fairly common with industrial
boiler operators.
Mr. Green. Well, I would hope we have enough natural gas
now that has been developed that we wouldn't have to worry
about curtailment, particular in fuel oil, because I know that
is also another issue on the East Coast.
Mr. Elliott. It is just not crystal clear at this point
that that flexibility exists.
Mr. Green. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, and I see no one else, so I want
to thank all of you for taking time and giving us your expert
opinions on these pieces of legislation. We look forward to
working with all of you as we consider whether or not we are
going to move forward with them.
With that, we will terminate today's hearing, and we will
have 10 days for any member to submit additional material and
questions.
So thank you all very much for being with us today and we
appreciate your patience.
[Whereupon, at 2:22 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
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