Making Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2010

Floor Speech

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Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I feel honored that I was on the floor and able to hear the chairman of the Appropriations Committee reflect on his own service and also compare the differences between World War II and the experience of our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen, and marines in the current conflicts.

My own father is a World War II veteran who was wounded twice in the Battle of the Bulge. The second time he was wounded was when he was waiting to be evacuated. I can relate slightly, from the experience of my own father, to what we just heard from the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee. I cannot imagine being so badly wounded and waiting for 9 hours to be evacuated.

It is a good reminder to all of us, as we engage in the day-to-day debates and arguments and, at times, contentiousness, that we have true heroes in our midst. Certainly, the Senator from Hawaii is one of those. I thank him for his service--his lifelong service. It was an honor to be on the floor and to hear him talk about it because, like many of our World War II veterans, he does not talk about it very often.

I wanted to say that before beginning my remarks.

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Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, this is a modified version of an amendment I offered yesterday. I am joined by Senators Alexander, Inhofe, Bond, Voinovich, Snowe, Begich, Gregg, Brown of Massachusetts, Murkowski, Coburn, Thune, and Corker in supporting this amendment.

On April 22, the EPA's new lead paint rule went into effect. As I explained to my colleagues yesterday, unfortunately the EPA completely botched the implementation of this important rule. This rule is intended to make sure that lead-based paint is removed safely from our homes and, thus, it requires those involved in house renovations to participate in a training course in the proper removal of lead-based paint, and then be certified.

Unfortunately, the EPA did not plan well for the implementation of this new rule. Across our country, it did not have in place the necessary trainers and classes so that individuals could be trained to comply with this new rule.

What our amendment would do is to delay the fines that would apply in cases of violations of this new rule until September 30. Indeed, it would prohibit the EPA from imposing these fines, which are as high as $37,500 per day per violation for violating this rule.

I want to make clear that I support efforts to rid our homes of toxic lead-based paint in a safe manner. But it is simply not fair to impose these burdensome, onerous fines on contractors who have been unable to get the EPA-provided training because the EPA did such a lousy job in planning for implementation of this new rule.

In my State, for example, as of last week, we have only three EPA trainers to certify contractors for the entire State. As a result, only about 10 percent of the State's contractors have been certified. Hundreds of home renovators have had their names on waiting lists, some for as long as 2 months, but they simply cannot get the necessary training, and that is through no fault of their own.

I note that my amendment has been endorsed by the National Federation of Independent Business, our Nation's leading small business advocacy organization. It has been endorsed by the Window & Door Manufacturers Association and the National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association.

These groups have endorsed it because they are hearing from their members of the tremendous burden and the tremendous fines that their members are potentially at risk of receiving through no fault of their own.

As the NFIB pointed out in its letter, the new EPA lead rule applies to virtually anyone who is involved in home renovations involving lead-based paint. That includes painters, plumbers, window and door installers, carpenters, electricians, and other specialists. Its reach is very broad.

What we found throughout the country is the EPA completely underestimated the number of people who would have to be trained. They also seem to be operating under the false assumption that contractors either do new construction or renovation. Madam President, I don't know about your State, but that is not true in my State. In my State, the home renovators do all sorts of work, particularly in this economy.

This imposes a tremendous burden on those of us who represent large rural States. In my State, most of the courses were held in the southern part of the State, requiring painters and other contractors to travel hundreds of miles to get the training they need. There are three States where EPA does not have any certified trainers available.

This is a commonsense amendment attempting to put some sense in the decisionmaking at the EPA by extending, until the end of this fiscal year, the time for compliance.

I want to make clear that I believe we should try to proceed with the removal of lead-based paint and that we need strict safety standards. But it does not make sense to impose huge fines on contractors who are unable to get the required training, the mandatory classes because the EPA did not have the trainers in place before putting the rule into effect.

In my State, the building industry is still struggling, and for a lot of individuals who are involved in the building industry, their only work is to do home renovations.

My State also has an old housing stock, one of the oldest in the Nation. Ironically, this new rule may result in not having anyone who is qualified to remove lead-based paint from homes because of the way this rule has been implemented.

I talked at some length about this issue yesterday. I am not going to repeat what I said yesterday. But let me point out that a lot of the contractors in my State who are struggling already financially do not earn in a whole year the $37,500 they can be fined for one violation by the EPA. It is simply unfair that these heavy fines can be imposed when it is the EPA's fault that the classes have not been made more readily available.

All I am attempting to do is to provide the EPA with more time to increase the number of certified trainers. This is a matter of fairness.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the endorsement letters from the NFIB, from the National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association, and from the Window & Door Manufacturers Association.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD,

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague and friend from Tennessee for his comments and his support. We have been working on this since we first began discussing it during the appropriations markup, and he has illustrated what truly can be a devastating impact of this rule. It could prevent the renovations, the cleanup, the reconstruction work from going forward in his State. In his State even more than most States, the impact could truly be devastating. It is serious everywhere but truly devastating in Tennessee.

I have also commented to my colleague from Tennessee how proud he must be of the residents of his State. You hardly have heard of any complaints from Tennessee even though this has truly been a devastating flood. I sometimes worry that perhaps because they are trying to help one another, they are not getting enough attention in the press or from Congress. Fortunately, they have a very fine advocate in Senator Alexander and Senator Corker, and they are continuing to look out for them by cosponsoring this amendment.

I thank the Senator for his support.

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