Making Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2010--Continued

Floor Speech

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Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I left an important markup of the Senate Armed Services Committee because it was my understanding the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer, wished to debate an amendment I have pending before this body and she wanted to do so at either 3:30 or 3:45. It is now almost a quarter after 4, and I am told the schedule of the Senator from California has changed. I am very eager, having spent considerable time waiting for her on the Senate floor, to return to the markup. So I am going to give my comments now and try to anticipate the arguments my colleague from California, Senator Boxer, will be making in opposition to the amendment I have offered. It is a little difficult to do it that way, but having waited for some time now, I do need to return to the committee's markup.

My bipartisan amendment is a common sense approach to protecting both jobs and children's health, and it has to do with the new regulation the EPA has put into effect as of April 22 that requires mandatory training for anyone who is involved in disturbing or removing lead-based paint.

Let me say I support the intention of this rule. In fact, along with my colleague from Rhode Island, Senator Reed, I have done a great deal of work to try to reduce the exposure of our children to lead-based paint. He and I held joint hearings in Rhode Island and Maine because both of our States have housing stocks that are older than the national average and, thus, have considerable lead-based paints. So I understand how important this issue is, and I support the rule.

Unfortunately, the EPA has completely botched the implementation of this rule because of its inexcusably poor planning, and it did not ensure there was an adequate number of trainers to provide the required classes to ensure that contractors understand the requirements of the new rule.

That is why it is probably not surprising that there is a long list of cosponsors of my amendment. They include Senators ALEXANDER, INHOFE, BOND, VOINOVICH, SNOWE, BEGICH, GREGG, MURKOWSKI, COBURN, THUNE, CORKER, BROWN of Massachusetts, HUTCHISON, ENZI and BARRASSO, and I appreciate them joining me as cosponsors of this amendment.

What my amendment would do is prohibit the EPA from using funds in this bill to levy fines against contractors under its new lead paint rule through September 30.

Based on what I have seen in Maine, I believe the lion's share of contractors are awaiting EPA's training classes. Unfortunately, while they wait for EPA to deliver this training, they are at risk of being fined up to $37,500 per day, per violation. While I support EPA's rule because we must continue our efforts to safely rid toxic, lead-based paint from our homes, it is simply not fair to put these contractors at risk of these enormous fines when it is EPA's fault that these contractors have not been able to get the training that is required under the new rule.

The fact is there are not enough trainers in place to certify the contractors. Let me give my colleagues an example. In three States--Louisiana, South Dakota, and Wyoming--there are no trainers available. How is that fair? In my State, as of last week, there were only three EPA trainers for the entire State to certify contractors, and as a result just a little more than 10 percent of the State's contractors have been certified.

Well, what does that mean? That means individuals will be affected, not just big contractors. It is your neighborhood painters; plumbers are affected; window replacement and door replacement specialists. It affects a wide variety of individuals involved in home renovations. They are all affected. They can't get the courses. So that means they can't do these jobs. Here is the ironic result. The ironic and tragic result is that lead-based paint remains in these homes. It can't be removed because the contractors aren't certified to remove it. So that is the irony--the delay of the removal of lead-based paint.

In a State such as Tennessee that has just undergone enormous flooding and is going to require extensive renovation and reconstruction, it is going to bring a lot of that work to a halt because for all of Tennessee there are only three EPA-certified trainers. In a State such as Alaska--think how vast Alaska is--there are only three certified trainers as well. In Hawaii, there are two. In Iowa, there is only one for the whole State. In the Presiding Officer's State of New Hampshire, there are only three--again, not nearly enough.

The rule carries a big penalty for contractors who do not get trained. If contractors who perform work in homes built before 1978 are not EPA certified, they face fines of up to $37,500 per violation, per day. Well, in your State and my State, that is more than many of these painters make in a year--in a year. And how unfair it is that it is the EPA's fault that in many cases these contractors are not certified. They are not certified because they simply cannot get the courses.

Let me give my colleagues another example of the EPA's total mishandling of the planning for this rule. The EPA estimated that it only needed to train 1,400 people in my State--1,400 people. In fact, there are more than 20,000 individuals in the State of Maine who require training. The EPA assumes they are part of large firms and that only one person at each firm needs to be certified. That is just not how it works. In my State--indeed, I bet in most rural States--contractors are often one or two people in a shop. They aren't these big firms. The person who did work on my home replacing the windows just a couple of years ago--and I am glad he did it then before this new rule went into effect--works either alone or with one or two other people to assist him. That is very typical.

There is an assumption by the EPA that contractors specialize, that they only do renovations in old homes or they do new home construction. That isn't true at all, particularly not in this economic environment where the housing industry has been so hurt and depressed. The contractors in my State are hustling to do whatever they can in order to get work and to put food on their table. They work in mixed communities with both older and newer homes. It is simply not fair to require them to give up working in older homes, particularly in a State such as mine which has some of the oldest housing in the Nation.

Here is another assertion by the EPA. The EPA asserts that they did plenty of outreach and that contractors should have known they needed to get training before April 22. Clearly, the EPA did not adequately target its outreach campaign. Writing to Home Depot doesn't do it. That is not sufficient outreach. In fact, the classes were all offered in the southern part of my State, very far from people in Aroostook County in northern Maine, for example, where it could be a 5 or 6-hour drive in order to get the necessary training. When we begged the EPA for more trainers and more help, it took them 7 weeks to even respond with some ideas for getting more trainers in Maine, and even then their proposal showed a complete lack of understanding of the geography of the State and the number of people who would need to be trained.

It also was frustrating because they offered some very expensive classes. EPA, for example, offered a class for $200 in Waterville for people living in Aroostook County. That is almost 5 hours away. So not only were they going to be required to pay $200 for the course, but also they would miss 2 days of work traveling back and forth. That is inexcusable, and that is the kind of insensitivity out of Washington that makes people so alienated from government right now. It is exactly why people are so frustrated.

The EPA will point out the dangers of lead poisoning, and I could not agree more that lead poisoning is a terrible problem and that we have to do all we can to protect our children. But poor implementation of this rule serves no one well, and in fact, as I pointed out, it means lead paint is going to remain in homes that otherwise would have been remediated or mitigated.

This rule is very strict. If you disturb just 6 square feet of paint, then you have to comply with the new rule. So it doesn't just apply to a large contractor doing an extensive renovation; it is going to apply if you are a

carpenter replacing one window in a home or if you are a plumber who is helping to put in a new bathroom where there is lead paint or if you are a painter who is painting a new room or an old room in a house. So it has very wide application.

How the EPA so misjudged the number of people who would require training is beyond me. This is so frustrating because it did not need to happen this way and cause such hardship for our small business men and women who are struggling if they are in the construction business right now.

That is why my amendment--a bipartisan amendment with considerable support--has been endorsed by the National Federation of Independent Business, our Nation's largest small business advocacy organization. In fact, the NFIB will consider a vote in favor of my amendment as an NFIB key vote for this Congress. I want to make sure my colleagues recognize that.

I wish to read a portion of the letter from NFIB. Again, as NFIB points out:

The new EPA lead rule applies to virtually any industry affecting home renovation including: Painters, plumbers, window and door installers, carpenters, electricians, and similar specialists ..... NFIB appreciates the intent of the law ..... However, we continue to be concerned that the tight enforcement deadline unfairly punishes contractors who have not been able to become accredited through no fault of their own.

That is the point. In my State, there are literally hundreds of contractors who are on waiting lists to get convenient classes, and some of them have been on these class waiting lists for as long as 2 months. So this is a real problem, and the high penalty for noncompliance is simply unfair.

I would point out that this is the peak construction season, particularly in Northern States such as ours, I say to the Presiding Officer. We can't bring everything to a grinding halt because the EPA did such poor planning in rolling out this new rule.

I also wish to point out that the amendment has been endorsed by the Retail Lumber Dealers Association and by the Window and Door Manufacturers Association. It is endorsed by the National Home Builders Association. It is endorsed by a number of groups representing small businesses involved in the renovation of homes.

Again--because I can just imagine what is going to come about later when my colleague from California, Senator Boxer, comes to the floor--this is not about repealing this rule. This is about giving more time for the training, the mandatory classes to take place before the EPA steps in and wallops these small businesses, these self-employed painters and carpenters and window installers and plumbers, with huge fines that could put them out of business simply because they have not been able to get the mandatory training due to the EPA's poor implementation of this new rule.

I hope my colleagues will support this amendment. It is a modest, commonsense solution to a problem created here in Washington by officials who are simply out of touch with what is going on in home renovation businesses. I hope my colleagues will support it. All it is doing is giving us a few more months to get people trained. I think that it is reasonable. I ask for my colleagues' support.

Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask that I be notified when I have 30 seconds remaining, which I am going to yield to the Senator from Tennessee.

Mr. President, the Senator from California has misrepresented what my amendment would do. It does not repeal or change the requirement that EPA has for people to be trained before they remove lead-based paint. But the fact is, the EPA rolled out this new proposal, this new requirement, without having the training courses available. It is not fair to slap huge fines on contractors when it is the EPA's fault the classes have not been available. So this amendment just delays those fines until September 30 to allow more time.

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