Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. Chair, I rise in support of my amendment to H.R. 3354. The purpose of my amendment is to prohibit use of funds made available by this act to implement, administer, and enforce the EPA's National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone rule, which was originally published on October 26, 2015.
This rule will make the standards more stringent in other places, in the State of Wisconsin, up and down Lake Michigan, including counties such as Sheboygan County. As you make these standards more stringent--first of all, it makes no sense because they don't take in the fact that there are areas like mine in which the ozone is coming from outside my district.
For example, Sheboygan County, whatever they do, I don't think they could ever meet those standards because there is so much ozone coming up from the Chicago area. But there is an effect to these standards as
well.
The standards make it more difficult for industry along Lake Michigan to operate, to comply with the standards, putting us at a competitive disadvantage not only with other parts around the country, but a competitive disadvantage compared to other areas around the world with much more pollution than we have. Right now our ozone is much less than it was when I was a child. Quite frankly, when I was a child, nobody complained anyway.
Another thing about these ozone standards, it is something that people who are looking out for that not particularly wealthy people should pay attention to. When you aren't meeting the standards, it creates a situation in which your owners of automobiles have to have their cars tested every year. And sometimes these cars have to go through very expensive repairs to meet the standards.
Now, there are people who are going to think that is no big deal because they are maybe wealthy Congressmen and they need to buy a car every 3 or 4 years and they don't have a problem. But if you are somebody who has a 10- or 15-year-old car, maybe you can only afford to spend $500, $1,000 on a car, and then once a year you have to get the car tested. You flunk the test and you have to put $1,000 or $1,500
into it. No wonder we have some people in this country who can't get ahead as long as the environmental extremists are running the EPA.
So, in any event, I think it would be good if we don't spend any more money implementing this new rule. Give the EPA more time to reconsider this rule and come up with something a little bit more reasonable.
Mr. Chairman, I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source