Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to offer amendment No. 1660, the EPA Regulatory Relief Act, to the highway reauthorization bill. I am very pleased to have Senator Alexander, Senator Pryor, Senator Toomey, Senator Landrieu, and Senator McCaskill joining me as cosponsors of this amendment.

Last year I introduced the EPA Regulatory Relief Act (S. 1392) to provide the Environmental Protection Agency with the time the Agency itself said it needed to rewrite the proposed Boiler MACT rules to better serve the public interest and to protect vulnerable manufacturing jobs. That legislation had the support of 41 of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and a nearly identical bill passed the House of Representatives with bipartisan support this fall.

The EPA Regulatory Relief Act is straightforward. It will help ensure that the final Boiler MACT regulations will be achievable and affordable and that manufacturers will have adequate time to bring their facilities into compliance, thus preserving jobs. We hear over and over again that the top priority of the Senate should be to create an environment where jobs are created and preserved. Well, this amendment is all about saving jobs.

Since the EPA proposed these new Boiler MACT regulations in April of 2010, there has been widespread bipartisan concern over the cost of the implementation and potential job losses. It has been our shared goal to ensure that the final rules crafted by the EPA protect public health and the environment, while preventing the loss of thousands of jobs we can ill afford to lose. Enactment of this legislation is necessary to protect and to grow America's manufacturing workforce. This is all about jobs.

We have urged the EPA to set emission standards based on real-world capabilities of the best performing boilers currently available. After all, that is what Boiler MACT is supposed to be all about. Unfortunately, the EPA did not begin its rulemaking with that goal in mind, and the consequences are so serious. The forest products industry is the lifeblood of many small, rural communities in my State of Maine and many others; therefore, I am alarmed by a study commissioned by the American Forest and Paper Association which found that implementing the EPA rules as originally drafted could cause 36 pulp and paper mills around the country to close, putting more than 20,000 Americans out of work. That is 18 percent of the workforce in just this one manufacturing sector.

Mr. President, you may have heard that the EPA has revised its rules, and it has. But despite these revisions, the Boiler MACT rules remain an issue of great concern to manufacturers across the country and to many of my constituents. With the reconsideration process, the EPA has taken some initial steps, but they are not even close to sufficient. The Agency's reproposed rules still do not address the serious and real threat to factories and mills that will be most directly affected. The revised rules are still estimated to cost billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. Regions across this Nation already struggling with the decline in manufacturing would be the hardest hit. Furthermore, a recent court ruling has created even more uncertainty and confusion, and it has increased the pressure on EPA to just rush through these rules without careful consideration.

Legislative action is needed to ensure achievable and affordable rules, to allow adequate compliance time, and to reduce the risk to industries posed by the pending litigation, which has created so much uncertainty that manufacturers are telling me they are putting any job expansions on hold. Enactment of the EPA Regulatory Relief Act remains the best way to provide the time the EPA says it needs to develop and implement Boiler MACT rules that will deliver the intended benefits to public health and our environment without devastating our economy. There is no need for a choice--it is not the environment versus jobs. With carefully crafted regulations, we can protect the environment and preserve jobs.

There are several factors that reinforce the continuing need for this legislation.

First, the overall capital cost to manufacturers of the Boiler MACT rules remains a staggering $14 billion and threatens more than 200,000 critically needed, good jobs. Think about that. The revised rules have an estimated cost of $14 billion, and 200,000 jobs would be lost.

Second, following the January 9 court decision that overturned the EPA's stay of the March 2011 rules--and this was a stay that the EPA, to its credit, requested but unfortunately was denied--businesses are facing serious and ongoing legal and regulatory uncertainty.

Third, the revised rules still do not allow companies adequate time to comply with the new standards and install the required equipment.

Fourth, important biomass materials are still not listed as fuels. That makes no sense at all. We are trying to reduce the use of fossil fuels. We should be encouraging the use of biomass in boilers. In fact, the Department of Energy is doing just that while the EPA is doing the opposite through these rules. It makes no sense to force mills to use fossil fuels while landfilling renewable biomass material. That makes no sense whatsoever.

Finally, the EPA's current schedule for finalizing the rules is inadequate for fully analyzing the comments and data that will be received during the comment period. The EPA recognizes that, and that is why it asked for this stay.

So I would ask of my colleagues, do not be deceived by the EPA's hollow promises that somehow, some way, everything will be fixed and that we don't need this legislation. The fact is that the EPA regulations are a moving target. Who knows what they ultimately will propose? Some of the materials of the biomass boilers are still being considered as solid waste and treated as an incinerator with far more costly and onerous regulations, but then again, this is the same EPA that initially proposed that we no longer treat biomass and wood as carbon neutral, overturning years of treating wood as carbon neutral. That makes no sense either. Under tremendous pressure, the EPA finally backed off on that for 3 years, but we don't know what is going to happen.

Let me say that the EPA does perform some vital functions in helping to protect public health by ensuring that the air we breathe is clean and the water we drink is safe. I have opposed many attempts to delay or overturn EPA regulations, but we need to make sure that as EPA issues new regulations, it does not create so many roadblocks to economic growth that it discourages private investment, which is the key to maintaining and creating jobs. We need to make sure the EPA both protects the environment and protects our economy and does not impose billions of dollars of new costs on manufacturers, leading to an estimated loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in manufacturing at a time when our economy can least afford it and when there are alternatives.

I am not saying there should not be Boiler MACT regulations. I am saying we need more time for the EPA to get it right, to work with the industry, to get real-life emission standards. I am saying we need more time for compliance so that we are not imposing these huge costs at a time when our manufacturers are struggling and thus jeopardizing jobs.

A coalition of 380 companies and organizations--I don't think I have ever offered an amendment with more support. And this has so many companies so upset about what this is going to do to the much needed jobs they are providing. There are 380 companies and organizations, including the National Federation of Independent Business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the American Forest and Paper Association, and those are just a few of the 380 companies and organizations that have called for passage of my amendment. The members of this coalition are committed to working with the EPA, to being good stewards and supporting the development and implementation of achievable Boiler MACT rules, not rules that don't classify biomass, that force people to use fossil fuels instead of biomass. How is that good for our environment? It is essential that the EPA produce final rules that are guided by the same commitment.

The EPA is making progress in reducing the costs and coming up with a more practical approach to the Boiler MACT rules, but we have no idea where they are going to end up. They are a moving target, and we have had promises not fulfilled by the EPA before.

I believe we can achieve the health benefits we all desire. And I know we are going to hear on the floor that somehow I am trying to harm children or delay health benefits, and that is not true. I am trying to allow the time the EPA says it needs to get this right. We can achieve health benefits we desire without putting thousands of people out of work and stifling the economic recovery. The bipartisan dilemma that is before us will help ensure that result, and I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this commonsense amendment to preserve jobs and strengthen our environmental protections.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, this is a very modest bipartisan amendment. It simply gives the EPA more time to get these regulations right, and our struggling manufacturers will get more time to comply with them. It is a false choice to say that this is the environment versus the economy. We can have both.

If this amendment is not adopted and the current regulations go into effect, the estimates are that they will cost manufacturers $14 billion to comply, and we will lose 200,000 manufacturing jobs at a time when we can least afford it. All we are asking is for more time to get these regulations right.

I urge support for the amendment, and I yield the floor.

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