Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We are now debating on a very real piece of legislation that solves an imaginary problem. The Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act purports to address the fictitious threat that the Environmental Protection Agency is out to destroy the family farm and countless jobs by regulating the dust emitted by tractors and other farming equipment.

Never mind that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has committed to leaving the 1987 standard for large soot particles unchanged; and never mind that EPA Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy essentially told the Energy and Commerce Committee that EPA was about as likely to regulate fairy dust as it was to regulate farm dust.

While hiding behind its stated purpose of addressing the made-up threat of utter ruin to the family farm, this bill inflicts very real harm. That is because it also blocks EPA from setting standards for the dirty soot that gets spewed out of massive mines and smelters and refineries and some chemical plants. It becomes, in fact, the congressional version of Never Never Land--where the Republicans' answer to the question "when can we remove the poisons from the air that we breathe?'' is "never.''

In the play "Peter Pan,'' Tinker Bell drinks poison that is intended to kill Peter. She begins to die, but Peter Pan implores those in the audience to just clap their hands if they really do believe in fairies, and then maybe, just maybe, Tinker Bell won't die. All small children in the audience then clap so hard their hands sting, and Tinker Bell rises magically back to life.

With this bill, the Republicans are engaging in the very same sort of fantasy. If we just believe EPA has launched a war on jobs, then it must be so, and we must stop it. If we just believe that EPA officials are lying about their secret, nonexistent plans to destroy the livelihood of every farmer in America, then it must be so, and we must stop it. If we just believe that eviscerating every environmental law on the books will not lead to the real deaths of thousands of Americans each and every year, then it must be so.

The Republican lost boys and girls are telling America that the only way to revive the jobs fairy is to kill EPA. To pretend that the deaths, the cancers and other illnesses that the Republican plan will cause are imaginary, or a mere nuisance, really is the stuff of fairy tales.

Let's get back to reality and solve real problems in this country. Vote "no'' on this very dangerous bill.

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Mr. MARKEY. I yield myself 2 minutes.

In this legislation, the Republican majority exempts all so-called nuisance dust from the protective air quality standards for coarse particle or soot pollution under the Clean Air Act.

Republicans have defined "nuisance dust'' to include particulate matter that is generated from "earth moving or other activities that are typically conducted in rural areas.'' This legislation's broad definition means a bill which is supposed to be all about tractors and farms is actually about barring EPA from regulating the toxic soot that comes out of mines, smelters, chemical plants. And that's because all of these materials come from earth moving, natural materials, or activities that take place in rural areas.

Now, I don't know about the majority, but when most people hear the word "nuisance'' they think of things like honking horns, telemarketers, and buzzing flies. They don't think of poison. By preventing EPA from regulating the toxic soot spewing out of mining operations, smelters, chemical facilities, and construction sites, Republicans have apparently decided that poisonous chemicals such as arsenic, lead, and mercury are mere nuisances.

This false advertising is not a total surprise. We have heard from Republican witnesses in the past who, in defense of the most polluting industries, have unwillingly offered up the absurd. In fact, in the last Congress, at a hearing I chaired, the Republican witness said he would be happy to sprinkle arsenic-laced coal ash on his cereal.

It turns out that the Republican witness is not alone in his suggestion to use arsenic as a dietary supplement. Arsenic, which is a major component of mining activities, was famously used to poison and kill a number of prominent people throughout history, including Napoleon, King George III, and the Emperor of China.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

In the 19th century, mercury, another common mining waste, was used as a cure-all for toothaches and other ailments. It turns out that the mercury is also highly toxic. It causes severe impacts on the brain and, throughout history, has been identified as the poison behind many other notable illnesses and deaths in the history of our planet.

By defining nuisance dust this way, the Republicans are, essentially, providing the mining industry with the holiday gift of pollution. Instead of gold and frankincense and myrrh, the Republicans are bearing gifts of arsenic and lead and mercury for every family in our country.

My amendment simply states that so-called nuisance dust doesn't include poisonous arsenic or other heavy metals that are hazardous to human health, because cancer is not a nuisance. The development of a child's brain is not a nuisance. Yet the Republicans would treat these conditions as a nuisance rather than as medical catastrophes for the families of America.

So let's be clear what this bill is all about. This is another attempt by the Republicans to protect Big Coal by creating another loophole to avoid the Clean Air Act so that families don't have to worry that their children are inhaling these dangerous materials, the arsenic, the lead, the mercury that they are petrified are going to have a negative long-term impact on their children's development.

That's what this is all about, bottom line. And the coal industry is saying "no.'' The Republicans are using the guise of some farm dust cloud of confusion to mask what they're really trying to do, which is to allow the coal industry to continue to send this lead, this mercury, this arsenic up into the air and into the lungs of children across our country, especially those that are so young that we know it has an impact on their development, especially of their brain.

So I urge an "aye'' vote on this amendment, and I don't think there can be a more important amendment that we're going to vote upon in this Congress.

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