North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Chair, the manager's amendment to H.R. 8 already includes a provision which would hand over management of vast swaths of U.S. public lands to private corporations and other utility providers under the guise of preventing forest fires.
This provision was inserted in the dead of night, and the full House won't get to vote on it. This is a terrible way to treat our public lands.
As if this weren't enough, this amendment would go even further, allowing electric utilities to clear-cut a football field-length swath of national forest adjacent to transmission rights-of-way.
It would also shift liability for fire damage caused by transmission infrastructure from the utilities to the American taxpayers, and that is just not right.
The Forest Service and the BLM are already working with utilities to improve right-of-way maintenance, and both agencies testified before the Natural Resources Committee that prior agency approval is not necessary for emergency vegetation maintenance work.
Mr. Huffman offered a commonsense amendment at markup which would have required proactive planning by utilities in coordination with land managers to identify and address potential fire threats, but every Republican voted against it. Instead, they are supporting legislation which would lead to less responsible stewardship of the American people's forests.
According to the National Interagency Fire Center, power lines were responsible for causing only 0.03 percent of forest fires in past 5 years.
Madam Chair, if Republicans were serious about preventing and fighting forest fires, they would work with us to adequately fund the Forest Service and fix the problem of fire borrowing, which last year burned up 52 percent of the agency's budget.
But this isn't about solving a problem. This is about control. It is regrettable that House Republicans seek to give away the people's land to private interests. It is outrageous that this would happen.
Madam Chair, I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment which would require EPA to satisfy within 30 days certain regulatory requirements included in three executive orders in two sections of the U.S. Code. This amendment is a solution in search of a problem.
EPA, in carrying out its responsibilities to write regulations as required by various statutes--for example, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act--already complies with the EPA's specific responsibilities included in the three executive orders and two sections cited in this amendment.
I say ``EPA'' specifically because some of these laws and executive orders impose ongoing obligations on these agencies and place responsibility on parties other than the EPA--for example, the Vice President and the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the Office of Management and Budget. In such cases, it will not be possible for EPA to ``ensure that the requirements of subsection (b) are satisfied,'' as the amendment requires.
In addition, some matters, such as the publication of the Regulatory Flexibility Agenda in the Federal Register, as cited in section 602 of title 5 of the U.S. Code, are handled by the General Services Administration on behalf of other Federal agencies and are therefore similarly outside of the EPA's control.
Moreover, Madam Chair, this amendment has the potential to lead to confusion in the future because it requires the EPA also to satisfy requirements in any successor executive orders that may establish requirements applicable to the uniform reporting of regulatory and deregulatory agendas.
What happens if these successor executive orders are not consistent with the current ones? Then we have a situation where EPA is forced to comply with competing executive orders, leading to unnecessary confusion.
Let's avoid this possibility by defeating this amendment.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Chair, let me just say that this process with the EPA is very transparent, they do consider costs, and I disagree with the gentleman.
I urge opposition to this amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment, which would require the Department of Energy and the Department of Commerce to conduct a study on the legal and regulatory provisions that delay or prohibit the export of natural energy resources.
This is another example, Madam Chair, of an amendment in search of a problem. The majority is, once again, making hyperbolic claims about the Federal Government blocking energy exports, but this is simply not true.
To cite the example of LNG exports, the Department of Energy currently conducts a public interest review of all applications to export LNG to a country without a free trade agreement with the United States. The DOE has established a record of acting expeditiously, and it has acted on all applications that have completed the NEPA process. To date, the DOE has approved nine final authorizations on seven projects. So, to imply there is a barrier in this case is simply not true.
Further, any so-called barrier usually has a specific purpose: for example, taking the time to ensure that public health is protected, that safety and environmental concerns are adequately evaluated, that the export of our natural resources is actually in the national interest, and that consumers are not adversely impacted.
Finally, the amendment doesn't define ``barrier.'' So would other agencies' regulations, promulgated under other statutory authority, constitute a barrier? I am also not sure that the DOE and the Department of Commerce even have the appropriate expertise to assess these barriers.
For these reasons, Madam Chair, I oppose this amendment as its being an unnecessary and vaguely defined study, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Chair, this amendment will delay the implementation of the EPA's important standards for residential wood heaters--finalized in February 2015--that will help improve air quality, especially in communities where people burn wood for heat.
The EPA updated these standards because the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to set new source performance standards for categories of stationary sources of pollution that cause or significantly contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare, and the law requires the EPA to review these standards every 8 years.
The EPA issued the first NSPS for residential wood heaters in 1988. The Agency amended the standards once in 1998 to prohibit the sale of wood heaters to consumers if the manufacturer had used an invalid test to obtain EPA certification that the heater met NSPS requirements. The 1998 amendments did not change the emission limits in the original rule. This means the standards for wood heaters have not been updated in nearly 30 years.
The EPA's standards reflect significant outreach to the public and interested stakeholders, including consultation with State, local, and tribal governments and a Small Business Advocacy Review Panel.
The new standards will provide tremendous health benefits by cutting harmful air pollution, including particle pollution, carbon monoxide, and air toxics. Particle pollution causes a range of adverse health effects, including asthma, heart attacks, and stroke.
The EPA estimates that the benefits of these standards will be up to $7.6 billion annually. Put another way, for every dollar spent to manufacture cleaner wood heaters, we will see up to $165 in health benefits. So blocking this rule is fiscally irresponsible.
Some may claim that this rule will require people who use wood heaters to replace the models they currently use, but this standard applies only to the new manufacturing of wood heaters. It does not require people to replace the heaters they have already purchased. Let me repeat that. The EPA is not going into anyone's home and forcing one to replace a heater one currently has. The final rule also has a gradual 5-year phase-in to allow manufacturers time to adapt.
If this amendment were to become law and if the EPA is unable to implement these standards, manufacturers will be able to continue producing outdated wood heaters that pose risks to our air quality and to our health.
The EPA's rule is a reasonable one that is long overdue. It has important benefits, and it should be allowed to be implemented; so I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank my colleague from Texas for coming up with such a great program for young people. Listening to her and her sense of optimism about the future, I think that is what we need to encourage with our young people. I was so pleased to see that the chairman of our committee also supports it.
I would like to lend my support and urge the amendment's adoption.
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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, despite original efforts to pass a bipartisan bill to address some of our energy infrastructure needs, H.R. 8 has become an attempt by the Republican Party to create backward-facing legislation that replaces many good provisions with legislation that would continue to reward polluters and contribute to our climate change issue.
In yesterday's debate on the CRAs, we heard time and again that climate change is not a priority for Republicans because they are more concerned with the economy and jobs.
Unlike the rhetoric that they would have us believe, a good economy and sound environmental policies are not mutually exclusive. We have actually experienced a boost in the economy under the Clean Air Act.
However, climate change is having a real effect on our communities, from more frequent extreme weather events, like Hurricane Sandy, to the extreme drought in California, to the floods experienced in Florida. The emotional and economic tolls of these events have been great and will continue to increase the longer this Congress ignores these pressing issues.
Mr. Chairman, we cannot continue to ignore climate change and disseminate misinformation. We are putting ourselves on a track towards irreparable damage.
Climate change and energy are inexorably linked. Each are a facet of the other. Energy is the source of 84 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and any energy bill has a large impact on the direction of energy investment.
To that end, it is critical that legislation that is focused on developing U.S. energy policy move the country on the right path by helping to reduce carbon pollution, not to increase it. It is imperative that U.S. energy policy promote clean forms of energy and help make all energy use more efficient.
A necessary step to understanding its potential impact on emissions is to have the energy bill scored before it is enacted, and my amendment would do just that. The energy bill would be submitted to the Energy Information Administration, who would determine the overall short- and long-term impacts of the bill on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions: the Climate Pollution Score. The bill should not be enacted until such an analysis is complete.
Mr. Chairman, we know that the higher levels of greenhouse gases will continue to perturb our climate and impact public health. The responsible choice is to ensure that we are not contributing to the problem.
As Members of this Congress, it is our responsibility to protect the interests of Americans, which includes protecting Americans from the devastating effects of climate change while we still can. This amendment will allow us to do just that by giving us necessary information to analyze the effects of this legislation.
So I strongly urge my colleagues to vote to protect Americans by voting for this amendment.
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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
The score that I am asking for that would be done by the Energy Information Administration would not indefinitely delay the bill. They have the ability to do the scoring.
This is an independent agency within the Energy Department that was created on a bipartisan basis. It is nonpartisan. It collects energy data for the United States. And once the score was attributed, the bill could move forward.
But the point is we need to know what the impact is going to be on the environment, on air pollution, and on climate change.
I think that my concern, of course, is that this legislation was scored negatively, and that is the reason why I think we need to have a score. It is certainly not going to delay the bill indefinitely, as was suggested by the chairman.
I urge a vote in favor of this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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