Stop the Student Loan Interest Rate Hike Act of 2012--Motion to Proceed--Continued

Floor Speech

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EPA RULES AND REGULATIONS

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I would like to spend a little time today talking about what has become known across the country as the Obama economy. This administration, after nearly 4 years, has failed to get this country and to get our economy moving again. Even worse, as I look at it, this administration seems to be taking steps that appear to be methodically and deliberately sabotaging certain parts of our Nation's economy. They are doing this in sectors of the economy that, apparently, to me, they just don't like. And they are doing it by issuing thousands and thousands of pages of redtape on the very people in this country who have successfully created jobs for Americans in the past.

This administration has finalized 1,330 rules that have been deemed economically significant. They have proposed over 1,300 additional economically significant rules. So what does this mean, the words ``economically significant''? Well, those are rules that have an annual impact on the economy of $100 million or more.

Fifty-seven coal-fired powerplants have already announced their closure because of the cumulative effect of these rules on just this one industry. The EPA is proposing regulations on whole sectors of the economy, whether it is issuing new storm water regulations for existing buildings to requiring costly Clean Water Act permits. They are doing this for ditches on family farms.

Thousands of American jobs have already been lost, and others are on the chopping block due to these rules. These are not new laws that have been passed but are rules coming from this administration. Each time the EPA claims the benefits of the rules vastly outweigh the costs. The costs are real in terms of real dollars to the economy, but the benefits are unknown. The administration claims the benefits are in so-called ``saved future health care costs.'' That is how they define it, ``saved future health care costs.''

The EPA and this administration have a history of understating the costs and of overstating, in my opinion, the benefits. The EPA's math on the benefits and the costs of their rules is not even close to being accurate. This has been verified in testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, on which I serve as a member.

The EPA rules that set new burdensome limits on emission of pollutants, such as carbon dioxide, mercury, and sulfur dioxide, can have serious costs to plants and factories that then have to update their facilities with costly equipment or simply close to be under the new standard, and these are new standards--not the old standards but new standards.

Those reductions yield few quantifiable benefits to the economy. That is not me saying that, it is the EPA's own models. They admit the reductions yield very few quantifiable benefits to the economy. The costs are usually significant to the businesses in terms of actual expenses, as well as to the public in terms of people looking for jobs and in terms of jobs that are lost.

The EPA knows no one would buy into their rules with such high pricetags. So in order to inflate the so-called ``benefits'' of their rules, the EPA says: As a result of having less emissions from plants and factories, there must also be reductions in particulate matter, or dust, at the same time. They then make the inaccurate conclusion that reductions in dust will somehow yield billions of dollars in health benefits because folks will have healthier lungs and visit the doctor fewer times.

These reductions in dust are often in areas where the dust level today is already well within public health safety standards that are set by the EPA. So the folks aren't actually getting sick in those areas anyway. So if people aren't already getting sick in the areas where the EPA is trying to regulate the air, then how is it they can claim they are going to save billions of dollars in fewer visits to the hospital by reducing dust levels even further than today's safe levels?

What we know now is the EPA is cooking the books. At the same time, they are missing the real public health threat they, themselves, the EPA, is making worse; that is, the public health threat from high unemployment. I recently released a report entitled ``Red Tape Making Americans Sick--A New Report on the Health Impacts of High Unemployment.'' Let me repeat that: ``Red Tape Making Americans Sick--A New Report on the Health Impacts of High Unemployment. Studies Show EPA Rules Cost Americans Their Jobs and Their Health.''

This is a report submitted by the Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety by the minority subcommittee staff.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the Key Findings and Recommendations and the Executive Summary of this report.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, this is a comprehensive report, and it contains expert testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee from the best scientific medical research, from institutions such as Johns Hopkins, Yale University, and others. This key medical research and testimony on the impact of unemployment on public health is irrefutable.

The report concludes that high unemployment increases the likelihood of hospital visits, illnesses, and of premature death in communities. That is high unemployment; high unemployment raises health care costs, raising further questions about the claimed health savings of the EPA's regulations. High unemployment also hurts children's health and family well-being.

On June 15, 2011, Dr. Harvey Brenner of Johns Hopkins University testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Here is what he said:

The unemployment rate is well established as a risk factor for elevated illness and mortality rates in epidemiological studies performed since the early 1980s.

So this has been a well-known fact now for over 30 years. Continuing the quote:

In addition to influences on mental disorder, suicide and alcohol abuse and alcoholism, unemployment is also an important risk factor in cardiovascular disease and overall decreases in life expectancy.

I speak as a physician, someone who has practiced medicine in Wyoming, taking care of Wyoming families for a quarter of a century, and I can assure you this is perfectly in keeping with my experience in my years of practicing medicine.

Yale researcher Dr. William T. Gallo's paper on the impact of late-career job loss reports:

Results suggest that the true costs of late career unemployment exceed financial deprivation, and include substantial health consequences.

``Substantial health consequences.'' He goes on to say:

Physicians who treat individuals who lose jobs as they near retirement should consider the loss of employment a potential risk factor for adverse vascular health changes.

What does that mean? Well, it means a stroke, high blood pressure, or heart disease. These are all major killers, major things that result in disability and long-term health problems, increasing the cost of care.

Let's look now at the impact of joblessness on children. The National Center for Health Statistics concluded:

Children in poor families were four times as likely to be in fair or poor health as children in families that were not poor.

I have seen firsthand how economic challenges affect Americans' health and their quality of life. In my medical opinion, this country faces a worsening health threat from unemployment, with well over 30 months of unemployment rates over 8 percent.

I have urged the EPA to seriously consider the impacts of these rules and the new rules they continue to come out with and how they have a bad impact on families--on pregnant women, on children, on the elderly. The EPA has not looked at the serious health impacts their rules result in. The EPA continues to hide behind computer models--not real people--that churn out inflated, fictitious so-called ``benefits of health.''

The time to get serious about public health is now. In fact, there was a USA Today article published Monday of last week, and I brought a copy along because it was very disturbing. On the front page of USA Today, Monday, April 30, 2012, the police are tying domestic violence to the economy. The headline reads: ``Domestic violence rises in sluggish economy, police report.'' The article states:

Police are encountering more domestic violence related to the sluggish economy, a national survey of law enforcement agencies finds.

These are law enforcement agencies across the country, their national survey. The article quotes Camden, NJ, police chief Scott Thompson, who stated it is ``impossible'' to separate the economy from the domestic turmoil in the city where unemployment is 19 percent. Camden police chief Scott Thompson went on to say:

When stresses in the home increase because of unemployment and other hardships, domestic violence increases. We see it on the street.

So these types of reports of increased domestic violence due to unemployment are not just being reported in Camden, NJ.

The article cites Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Washington-based law enforcement think tank, who expressed serious concerns with the rising violence. He said:

You are dealing with households in which people have lost jobs or are in fear of losing their jobs. This is an added stress that can push people to the breaking point.

I agree. It is certainly what I saw as well in my days of medical training and medical practice.

The health crisis from unemployment under this administration is getting worse.

On May 4, 2012, the Christian Science Monitor, in their article on the unemployment rate, said:

While the economy added 115,000 net jobs in April, some 350,000 Americans gave up looking for work.

So for every one new job that was added, three people gave up looking for work. That has the effect of reducing the unemployment rate because, by the Federal Government's way of calculating it, those people no longer count as part of the labor force. As a result, the share of Americans who are part of the labor force--either working or actively looking for work--has reached a 30-year low. You can add those numbers and look at those and say ``350,000 people'' and put that to the list of folks who are now at risk for serious health impacts due to the Obama economy.

If we want to make Americans healthy, we need to get Americans back to work. We need to get the EPA out of the business of making folks unemployed across this country. Each new job is a job that will put food on the table for struggling families and help keep medical costs under control. New jobs will keep thousands of Americans out of the doctor's office and on the playground. Creating jobs will keep those nearing retirement from paying for more prescription drugs so they can spend more time and money on their grandchildren. Creating jobs will ensure that the next generation will be healthier than the last.

Let's work together to improve public health by reducing this administration's redtape that is putting so many Americans out of work. The health and happiness of the American people depends upon it.

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

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