Expire Act of 2014 -- Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, in a moment I intend to propound a unanimous consent request that it be in order for me to offer my amendment No. 3002 to S. 2262, but I will speak for just a moment if I might about it.
I think it is unfortunate that we are here in the Senate with Senate Democrats continuing to block Republican amendments that would approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, stop the administration's war on affordable energy, and expand liquid natural gas exports to our allies overseas.
My amendment No. 3002 is on the list of commonsense amendments that should be voted on as part of the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill.
As with almost all of the President's energy policies, the EPA's anticipated ground level ozone regulations would do serious damage to our economy and to working Americans. In fact, this regulation is expected to be the most expensive in the EPA's history.
In 2010 the EPA proposed lowering the permitted ground level ozone levels from 75 parts per billion to 60 to 70 parts per billion. The energy industry estimate suggests that lowering the ground level ozone concentration to 60 parts per billion would cost businesses more than $1 trillion a year between 2020 and 2030--$1 trillion a year. Job losses as a result of this measure would total a staggering $7.3 million by the year 2020, devastating entire industries, especially U.S. manufacturing industries.
Even by the EPA's own estimates--this is the EPA's own estimate--this regulation could cost up to $90 billion per year--far outpacing the cost of any EPA regulations we have ever seen before. My own State of South Dakota would lose tens of thousands of jobs in manufacturing, natural resources, mining, and construction. In fact, the cost of this regulation is so great that when the EPA first proposed lower levels in 2010, the White House delayed the regulation until after the President's reelection.
My amendment No. 3002 would stop the administration's upcoming proposal on ground level ozone which is anticipated to be proposed and put out by December of this year. It is a very straightforward amendment. First, it would require the EPA to consider the cost and feasibility of new ozone regulations. It might surprise many Americans to know that the EPA isn't even allowed to consider costs when setting these new regulations. My amendment would fix that.
Additionally, my amendment would force the EPA to focus on the worst areas for smog before dramatically expanding this regulation to the rest of the country. There are 221 counties across 27 States in this country that don't meet the current standard of 75 parts per billion. This chart shows the areas of the country and, as we can see, they are heavily populated, more urban areas of the country.
It makes sense to me that we ought to focus on these urban areas before expanding ozone regulations to areas such as western South Dakota where we clearly don't have a smog problem. Under my amendment, 85 percent of these counties would have to achieve full compliance with the existing standard before the EPA could move forward with a lower level that dramatically expands the reach of ozone regulations.
So this is what it looks like today. These are the 200 some counties that are not in compliance, and my amendment would require 85 percent of those to be in compliance before we could expand the map to where it would look like this, referring to my chart. This is what the proposal would do. Now, look at how much of the United States is covered by that expanded map. The provision in the Clean Air Act was enacted in the 1970s to address smog in downtown L.A., not background ozone levels in western South Dakota.
We should continue to focus on the worst areas for ground level ozone before dramatically expanding those regulations to rural areas of the country.
I hope the majority will stop blocking votes on this and other job-creating amendments that are offered by Republican Members. Senator Reid has blocked all but nine rollcall votes on Republican amendments since last July. That is one a month. One Republican amendment, on average, a month has been voted on here in the Senate over the last nine months. By contrast, the House Democrats--the minority in the House--have gotten votes on 125 amendments over the same period--12 times the number of amendments that have been allowed Republicans here in the Senate.
A number of my colleagues have been to the floor, and we heard from the Senator from Alaska, Ms. Murkowski. Senator Barrasso has an LNG export amendment that I think is very relevant to this debate and very important to this country to both our energy security and national security interests. I am going to continue to ask that the majority provide a chance for Republicans to participate in this debate by allowing a vote on my amendment and the many others that are pertinent to the economy of this country, to creating jobs in this country, to providing energy independence for this country, to providing energy security for this country, and to making sure we don't get crazy regulations that subject areas of western South Dakota to smog regulations that were designed for downtown L.A. That is a fairly straightforward, simple, commonsense suggestion, and it is what my amendment would accomplish.
UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--S. 2262
So I see we have a Democratic Senator on the floor who would, I expect, object to this request.
I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for me to offer my amendment No. 3002 to S. 2262.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. DURBIN. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. THUNE. Thank you, Mr. President. I regret that. I think it is unfortunate. I know there are many others of my colleagues on this side who have amendments they would like to have votes on and to have an opportunity to debate. It is the first time we have debated an energy bill since 2007. It is of fundamental importance to this country on so many levels.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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