Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act of 2011

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. KEATING. Mr. Chairman, this bill gives the impression that we're going to deal with this issue in 5 years. If you look at the bill carefully, you will find out, Mr. Chair, that indeed what it could postpone is the effect of this amendment forever. In fact, in terms of pollution, in terms of toxins, this is the equivalent of the ``pollution road to nowhere'' where there's no ending in sight, none that will ever be reached, and it's just nothing but a guise for the people to think they're doing something within the 5-year timeframe.

Now, my amendment would allow the 5 years, but it would be a maximum of 5 years before the source has to be implemented and the appropriate changes are met in terms of emissions.

Now, what else would this amendment do? This amendment would save 10,000 related deaths, avert 6,000 heart attacks, avoid nearly 70,000 asthma attacks, and the pollution reductions required in this rule would cut mercury emissions from cement kilns by over 90 percent.

As all of us know, Mr. Chairman, mercury is a poisonous substance that affects the ability of infants and children to learn and to think. It also results in birth defects and cognitive disabilities. Cement kilns emit lead and arsenic which cause cancer and damage the nervous system.

Now let's line up the costs and benefits. The costs--birth defects, cognitive disabilities, cancer, heart attacks, asthma, and attacks on the nervous system--are on one side of the ledger. On the other side of the ledger are marginal savings by the companies for not doing what they really should be doing in terms of keeping people safe.

Now let's add up the cost of that versus the cost of all those ailments, all those things that affect young people and that will affect taxpayers funding this for decades to come, a multiple of whatever savings is there for the industries that are in question.

So I hope this amendment passes. I think what this attempts to do is say let's cut through the guile. If you mean 5 years, you mean 5 years. And so we should be in agreement on this if that is indeed the case. And I hope this amendment gets the support from my colleagues that believe 5 years is a reasonable time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. KEATING. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I would just say this: When you talk about certainty, the only thing that is certain about this bill is there's no end to it. So if you call certainty meaning there's no timeframe that can ever be reached for certain, then I don't understand the paradox.

And when you're talking about the cost to the EPA and the marginal cost that might be there to the industry in terms of savings, that pales in comparison--by multiples--to the cost that taxpayers are going to have to pay for the cognitive disabilities, the birth defects of infants and young children that will be borne, in most cases, by the taxpayer because we're not making these industries do what they're supposed to do.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source