Responsibly and Professionally Invigorating Development Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chair, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 348, the Responsibly and Professionally Invigorating Development Act, or the RAPID Act. But if I had my druthers, I would change it to
the ``Responsibly and Professionally Invigorating Diversion Act,'' or RAPID Act.

I would say that it is a diversion because we have got important work to do in this Chamber, Mr. Chair. Everybody knows that we are approaching the end of the fiscal year. It will be here in 6 short
days.

During this whole month of September--we are at September 24 today--we have had a total of 8 legislative days during this month, knowing that we are coming up to the end of the fiscal year and we need to pass
a spending bill to keep the government open and operating. We have been knowing this.

We spent 6 weeks in August, from July to September, a total of about 6 weeks at home lounging while the Nation's business in Washington, D.C., went undone. We have spent a total of 8 legislative days out of
the 24 days in September doing everything other than addressing the looming issue, which is the coming, or impending, government shutdown.

Now, we are here today. We just took one vote. This is the first legislative day of this week. We have got one business day left. The first legislative day, after hearing from the Pope, we have just had
our last vote for the day. It was our one and only vote for the day,
and it was to rename a post office.

We are coming up on the government shutdown, and what are we dealing with? Instead of dealing with the Nation's finances, we are dealing with this RAPID Act, which, as I said, is a diversion from the real
duty that we need to be taking care of today.

H.R. 348, the RAPID Act, is a misguided attempt to sow widespread confusion and delay in the review and permitting process under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.

For over 40 years, the approval process for projects under NEPA has saved time, money, and protected the environment, which the Pope spoke of our need to protect today. In fact, since NEPA was enacted, the U.S.
economy has not contracted. It has actually tripled in size from just over $5 trillion to more than $16 trillion.

Among other things, NEPA requires agencies to prepare a detailed environmental review for proposals relating to ``major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.'' NEPA's
purpose is to provide a framework for wide-ranging input from all
affected interests when a Federal agency conducts an environmental
review of a proposed project.

H.R. 348, the so-called RAPID Act, upends this review process in
three ways:

First, H.R. 348 carves out a separate environmental review process for construction projects. Currently, NEPA applies to a broad range of Federal projects, including hunting permits, land management plans, military base realignment and closure activities, and treaties. In contrast, H.R. 348 only applies to a subset of these Federal projects, creating more regulatory complexity in the permitting system, not less.

Second, section (c) of the RAPID Act allows any project sponsor to prepare an environmental document in lieu of such analysis by the lead agency. It is not difficult to imagine the shortcomings of allowing corporations, which seek to maximize shareholder value, to sit in the driver's seat on environmental policy. In fact, that is why we have such environmental degradation today.

During a legislative hearing on H.R. 348, Amit Narang, a regulatory policy advocate for Public Citizen, compared section (c) to ``asking big banks to determine the costs and benefits of new Wall Street reform rules, or big energy companies to determine the costs and benefits of new climate change or air pollution measures.''

The inherent conflict of interest built into this section reveals the bill's clear design to allow project sponsors to manipulate the NEPA permit approval process to the greatest extent possible. It is clear that not only does this Republican bill task the fox with guarding the henhouse, it would also have him install the chicken wire as well.

Finally, under section (i) of H.R. 348, if an agency fails to meet the unrealistic deadlines mandated by H.R. 348, the bill would automatically green-light a Federal construction project, regardless of whether or not the agency has thoroughly reviewed the project's risks.

Even if I were to set aside these concerns, it is difficult for me to look past the complete lack of empirical data supporting the premise of the RAPID Act, which is that agency compliance with NEPA is the cause
of delays in approving permits.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service reported in 2012 that project approval delays based on environmental requirements are not caused by NEPA, but ``are more often tied to local/State and project specific factors, primarily local/State agency priorities, project funding levels, local opposition to a project, project complexity, or late changes in project scope.''

Similarly, Dinah Bear, who served as the general counsel for the White House Council on Environmental Quality which oversees NEPA's implementation, for over 20 years under both Republican and Democratic
administrations, testified in the 112th Congress that most delays in the environmental review process are not the result of NEPA, but due to other factors entirely unrelated to NEPA.

In other words, the RAPID Act does nothing to address the lack of adequate funds allocated to Federal construction projects or State-based barriers to the timely completion of construction projects, which
are two of the most common delays and have nothing to do with regulatory permits under NEPA.

So, therefore, I urge my colleagues to oppose this misguided legislation.

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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, my friend, Chairman Goodlatte, bemoaned the fact that, over the last 64 straight months of job growth under the Obama administration, wages have remained stagnant.

That is true except for the wages of the top 10 percent, and specifically the top 1 percent, which have gone through the roof despite what he calls overregulation.

We continue to have the problem of income disparity that Pope Francis mentioned today. It is unrelated to this issue of regulations which are there to protect people. They, in fact, protect people and they protect
our environment.

We have had a speaker today come in and talk about a dredging project that was delayed because of NEPA, but, actually, the truth of the matter is that that project was delayed due to lack of funding. Funding
for the project was only authorized last year.

While the Republicans in Congress sit around and talk about how much the regulatory agencies study and study and study, what we do in Congress is simply ignore the funding needs for infrastructure in this
country, which is what that dredging project was all about.

I have got a project down in Georgia, the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, which was estimated to cost $652 million to complete.

But prior to the passage of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act last year, the Federal Government had only provided $1.28 million--$1.28 million--less than 1 percent.

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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, let's take it back to the year 2011 with the Ryan Budget Control Act, which imposed sequestration on the Federal Government, cutting both defense and nondefense spending 10
percent across the board.

We can't have it both ways. If we are not going to fund, we have to
admit that that is the reason these projects are not getting done.

Don't blame it on NEPA.

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